Felipe Corrêa, Rafael Viana da Silva, Kauan Willian dos Santos. “Anarchism and Social Movements in Brazil (1903–2013)”
Felipe Corrêa, Rafael Viana da Silva, Kauan Willian dos Santos. “Anarchism and Social Movements in Brazil (1903–2013)”
In this text, the authors discuss anarchism and social movements in Brazil, using a broad approach that seeks to capture the major aspects that marked the long 110-year period between 1903 and 2013. The text is divided into five parts, both temporal and thematic. The first two – one on revolutionary unionism and the other on educational and cultural initiatives – address the golden period of anarchism in the country, the First Republic, when anarchists, in a context of republican development, rapid industrialization and large immigration, were hegemonic in the union movement and in the educational-cultural movement of the working class. The third part discusses anarchist work in education, culture and unionism during the Vargas Era and the Redemocratization. This was a period of crisis for revolutionary syndicalism and anarchism, which, at a time of economic development and between periods of dictatorship (1937-1945) and political openness (1946-1964), anarchists continued to develop, albeit in decline, activities more or less linked to the field of social movements. The fourth part addresses the times of military dictatorship, a period of greater crisis and less activity (semi-clandestine) for anarchists, who suffered from repression, authoritarianism and nationalism of the military, but kept the flame of their ideals alive, resuming their activities as the reactionary storm lost strength. The fifth part discusses the reopening of the New Republic, a period of resurgence and national reorganization of anarchism, which gained strength mainly from the 1990s onwards in a context marked by neoliberalism. Since then, some social movements have been created by anarchists and several of them have counted on their participation, either as a majority or minority, depending on the moment.
* This text was originally published as a chapter in: BETTINE, Marco (org.). Social Change and Political Participation: conflicts, transformations, utopias. São Paulo: Edições do Programa Pós-grado em Social Change e Participação Política (EACH-USP), 2020.
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