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SMALL FARMER AND RURAL WORKER
PRESSURE GROUPS IN BRAZIL

By
NEALE JOHN PEARSON

A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE COUNCIL OF

THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

IN PABTLVL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
December, 1967

PREFACE

Organized pressure groups play an exceedingly important role

in the functioning of a political system. Numerous writers have

suggested the need of making studies of pressure groups and a

few interesting studies have appeared, but very little is really

David B. Truman, The Governmental Process (Twelfth Printing;
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962), pp. k7-5^ and 403-52U; Joseph La
Palombara, Interest Groups in Italian Politics (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 196^), pp. 13-1^ and 255-258; Harold Eckstein,
Pressure Group Politics (Stanford: Stanford University Press, I960),
esp. pp. 7*39 and 151-161; Joseph La Palombara, "The Utility and
Limitations of Interest Group Theory in Non-American Field Situa-
tion," Jouxnal_ol_PolItJ.cs., Vol. XXil (February, I960), pp. 29-^9;
and Roy Macridis, "Interest Groups in Comparative Analysis," Journal
of Politics. Vol. XXIII (February, 1961), pp. 25-^5.

George I. Blanksten, "Political Groups in Latin America,"
American Political Science Review, Vol. LI! I (March, 1959), p. 122;
Gabriel A. Almond, "A Comparative Study of Interest Groups and the
Political Process," American Political Science Review, Vol. XLI
(March, 1958), pp. 270-282; Henry W. Ehrmann, Interest Groups on Four
Continents (University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa., 1964);
GlSucio Ary Scares, "Interesse Politico, Conflito e PressSes e
Abstencao Eleitoral," Revista de Direito Publico e Ciencia Polftica,
Vol. IV (January, I96I), pp. 58-82; George I. Blanksten, "The Politics
of Latin America," in The Politics of Developing Areas, Gabriel Almond
and James Coleman (ed.) (Pr i nceton: Princeton University Press, I96O),
pp. 455-529; and Merle Kling, "The State of Research in Latin America:
Political Science," in Social Science Research in Latin America,
Charles Wagley (ed.) (New York, N.Y. : Columbia University Press, 1964),
pp. 168-213.

Merle Kling, A Mexican Interest Group in Action (New York,
N.Y.: Prentice Hall, I96I), Frank R. Brandenburg, "Organized
Business in Mexico," Inter-American Economic Affairs. Vol. XII
(Winter, 1958), pp. 26-50; Manoel Cardozo, "The Brazilian Church
and the New Left," Journal of Inter-American Studies (July, 1964),
pp. 313-323; Leonard D. Therry, "Dominant Power Components in the
Brazilian University Student Movement Prior to April, 1964,"
Journal of Inter-American Studies (January, 1965) , pp. 27-48.

I I I

known about the activities of pressure groups in general in Latin Amer-
ica and even less is known about small farmer and rural worker organ-
izations, it is especially important to study agricultural pressure
groups in Brazil because

1. 50-60 per cent of the population is rural, and

2. It is a large and complex country with groups ranging from
the Amazon Indians who are still at the level of the Stone or Bronze
age to the urban inhabitants of Sao Paulo who live in the age of the
electronic computer.

Of course it must be remembered that interest groups analysis
Is neither an exclusive nor a complete method of evaluating the deci-
sion-making process. Nevertheless, case studies do provide concrete
data upon which further generalizations can be constructed which may
buttress or qualify existing hypotheses. It is upon this premise
that this study has been undertaken.

Among the earliest were John Powell, "Preliminary Report on
the Federaci6n Campesina de Venezuela, Origins, Leadership and Role
in Agrarian Reform Programs" (Madison: University of Wisconsin,
Land Tenure Center, 196^) (mimeographed); Richard Patch, "Bolivia,
United States' Assistance in a Revolutionary Setting," in Richard
Adams, et al . , Social Change in Latin America (New York: Vintage
Books, Random House, I960), pp. IO8-I76, which discusses the
participation of peasant groups in the post-1952 Revolutionary
period, especially in Agrarian Reform; and Henry Landsberger and
Fernando Canitrot, Iqlesia, clase media y el movimiento sindical
campes I no (Santiago: Universidad de Chile, Faculty of Economics)
(mimeographed); Neale J. Pearson, "The Confederacion Nacional
Campesina de Guatemala (CNCG) and Peasant Unionism in Guatemala,
19^+4," unpublished Master's Thesis, Georgetown University, ]SSk,
and "Latin American Peasant Pressure Groups and the Modernization
Process," Journal of International Affairs, Vol. XX (I966), No. 2,
pp. 309-317; and Anibal Q.uijano, "Contemporary Peasant Movements,"
El ites in Latin America (New York: Oxford University Press, 196?),
pp. 301-3^0.

The only descriptive and theoretical analysis of recent peasant

Ten Years of Agitation and Change
in Brazil, tiie Army, large landowners, bankers, industrial-
ists, merchants, and the Roman Catholic Church were the principal
pressure groups active in the political life of the Portuguese
colony and nation until the twentieth century. Since World War I,
organized urban workers have exercised some influence through their
trade unions (si ndicatos) . In the past thirty-five years, co-
operatives of small farmers in the South have sometimes found means
of protecting or advancing their interests at the local and state
level, but organized groups of peasants^ have been important at the
national level only in the last decade.

Peasants and their problems first became an important subject
of interest to the general public in Brazil after a series of articles

movements in Brazil is that of the Dutch Sociologist Benno Galjart,
"Class and 'Following' in Rural Brazil." America Latina (Rio de
Janeiro), July-September, 1964, p. 3-

For the beginnings of the Brazilian labor movement see the
following books by Robert Alexander, Communism in Latin America (New
Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1957). Chapter
Vll, and Chapters on Brazil in Labor Relations in Argentina.
Brazil and Chile (New York: McGraw Hill, 1 962) , and Organized
Labor in Latin America (Studies in Contemporary Latin America)
(New York: The Free Press, 1965), Chapter Vl.

There is no standard definition of peasant for Latin America

or any other part of the world. This writer accepts a part of Eric
R. Wolf's definition that they are any kind of "rural cultivator"
of low status who works on the land with his hands and has some
consciousness of the regional or national economic and political
order in which he lives. The definition does not cover those who
practice si ash-and-burn agriculture and who would most closely fit
the folk or kinship community on a fold-urban community continuum.
The definition also does not pre-judge that peasant surpluses are
necessarily transferred to a dominant group of rulers. Wolf's
concept, as expressed in Peasants (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey:
Prentice Hall, 1966), pp. 3"^, includes not only owners but also
tenants, landless laborers, share-croppers, serfs, etc.

was published in the late 1950's about Francisco Juliao Arruda de
Paula, a hitherto obscure Pernambuco Alternate State Deputy, who
helped organize Peasant Leagues in the Northeast. Juliao, who
had switched from the Republican Party (PR) to the Brazilian
Socialist Party (PSB) , combined a moralistic indignation about
legitimate grievances of Pernambuco peasants with an astute percep-
tion of the propaganda value of his real and alleged connections
with various world leaders, including Pope John XXIII and Mao Tse-
tung. This was the time when Fidel Castro made his great impact
on Latin America, and United States officials worried about another
radical revolutionary taking over in a much larger country than Cuba.
Most of the articles on Juliao and the Peasant Leagues were polemical
or laudatory in the extreme; only a small number of academicians and
even fewer journalists tried to find out more about Juliao's back-
ground and place in the context of traditional Brazilian politics. ^

Juliao first gained nationwide attention in a series of
articles by Antonio Callado in Correio da Manha (Rio de Janeiro),
September 10-23, 1959, which were collected in a book, Os Industrials
da Seca e os Ga1 ileus de Pernambuco (Rio de Janeiro: Editora
Civiliza9ao Brasileira, I96O).

Further controversy in the Brazilian Congress and the news
media led to the publication of an article "A Revolu9ao das Enxadaj,"
Manchete (Rio de Janeiro), No. 398, December, 1959, pp. 84-86, which
publicized the funeral of Antonio de Paula, "first martyr of the
peasant leagues" without mentioning his kinship relationship to
Jul iao.

First significant mention In the United States Press came In
an article by Tad Szulc, "Brazil's Poverty Breeding Unrest," New
York Times (October 31, I960), p. 1.

^"Now There's Another 'Castro' to Worry U.S.," U.S. News and
World Report (March 13, 1961), pp. 53-5^, and "Fidel Front Organizes
Impoverished Peasants," Life (June 2, I96I), pp. 82-88, are typical.

^One of the few writers to understand the "manufactured crises"

In short, little scholarly attention was paid to the Peasant Leagues
phenomenon although a great deal of literature was published.

At the same time, other politicians, and even plantation owners
began to organize sindicatos and other organizations. The politicians
organized the peasants as springboards for political advancement.
The clergymen, in reaction to the demagoguery of many politicians,
organized the peasants to alleviate their misery. And the large
plantation owners and sugar mill operators organized the peasants
to inhibit the growth of organized peasant interest groups making
demands upon themselves. These groups seldom received or sought
the publicity given Juliao and the Peasant Leagues. In all of these
groups, there were personal and ideological differences between
actual and potential leaders over policies and tactics. It is also
essential to view the growth and actions of peasant pressure groups
in a context in which techniques varied from state to state and
region to region. There were few monolithic patterns of behavior.

The emergence of the new groups was accompanied by violence and
extra-legal activities. But in the Brazilian context, it is

or "emergencies" of Northeast politics was Stefan H. Robock, "Fact
and Fancy in Northeast Brazil," The Progressive. Vol. XXVII, No. k
(April, 1963), pp. 37-^0, and Brazil's Developing Northeast (Wash-
ington: The Brookings Institution, 1963).

Anthony Leeds, "Brazil and the Myth of Francisco Juliao," in
Politics of Change in Latin America. Joseph Maier and R. W. Weather-
head (eds.) (New York: Frederick Praeger, 196^), p. 164, is one of
the few articles which note Juliao's origins as a member of the
landed gentry in Pernambuco, although a "somewhat aberrant and
individualistic but, not properly speaking, dissident faction of it."

' James L. Payne, "Peru, the Politics of Structured Violence,"
Journal of Politics. Vol. XXVII, No. 2 (May, 1 965) , pp. 362-37^, and
Labor and Politics in Pern (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965),
pp. viii-ix and 3~26, offers a model in the use of structured violence

vi I

impractical to view politics and peasant-landowner relations in many
areas of the country in a constitutional framework, for constitu-
tionalism, equal access to decision-makers for all groups, and the

rule of law were not the model patterns of interaction. Violence

or power capabilities in the form of strikes, armed invasions of

plantations, destruction of bridges or telephone systems, assassina-
tion of a farm administrator or peasant — or fabricated reports of
such i nci dents--are not aberrations or anomic behavior-^ in the
Brazilian scene but are "normal" in a purely descriptive sense.

parallel to that of the traditional areas of the Northeast and West
Central parts of Brazil.

Albert 0. Hirschman, jQurpeys Toward Progress (Studies of
Economic Pol i cv-Maki ng in Latin America) (New York: Twentieth
Century Fund, 1963). p. 229. notes that the mechanisms for com-
manding attention of policy makers differ greatly from one society
to another. For example, if the principal mechanism is the demon-
stration of discontent by violence, then it is clear that a great
many problems which affect individual members of society will not
be dealt with simply because they do not lend themselves to the
staging of violent protest. "Once it has become clear that policy
makers are responsive to threats of violence in one particular
area, such threats will be delivered with increasing frequency"
when it appears that "the State will only help those who make trouble."

The term "power-capability" is taken from Charles W, Anderson,

Political and Economic Change in Latin America (Princeton, New Jersey:
D. Van Nostrand, 1967). PP- 90-91. Anderson's sections on political
systems, the decision-making process and the administrative process
Sre based primarily on the Spanish-speaking countries but much of what
he says is valid for Brazil.

■^La Palombara, Interest Groups in Italian Politics, pp. 82-83,
notes: "With rare exceptions even the desperate peasants who forcibly
occupy land, or the workers who refuse to leave factories, tack such
anomic action because of the leadership provided by more than one
[outside] group,"

"Sindicato do crime ainda existe em todo o Nordeste," Jornal
do Brasi 1 (April 6, 1965); "Q.uestao de banditismo e atavica," and
"Como, onde e porque se morre em Alagoas," Jorna! do Brasi 1 (April

vi I i

They have happened frequently and they are politically significant.
Traditionally, politics in Brazil were conducted by an upper class
which maintained control and preserved the traditional social order
through a heavy reliance on conciliation, co-optation of new economic
and social groups, and paternalism. Peasants, isolated from the
centers of decision-making, saw no real reason to involve them-
selves in politics. Elections had no ideological meaning for them.
On the other hand, voting for the candidates of a "political boss"
(chefe pol ft ico or coronel) meant not only political protection from
bandits or hired gunmen (cangacei ros) in the isolated interior where

7, 1965. The articles discuss "political banditry" in the Northeast,
especially Alagoas, and its relationship with the assassination of Luis
Augusto Castro Silva, State Secretary of Public Security, and an at-
tempt on the life of State Deputy Robson Mendes in March, I965.
Other shootings also mari<ed the July-September 19^5 campaign for
Governor.

Bonifacio Fortes, "Contri bui 930 ^ histdria polftica do Sergipe
(1933-1954)," Revista Brasileira de Estudos Polfticos. No. 8 (April,
i960), pp. 86-133 J indicates that all elections In Sergipe between
1950-1960 were held under Army supervision because of the violence
accompanying previous elections.

Violence as a "legitimate technique" of pressure group activity
is found in many societies. In the United States, for example,
violence has been present in the labor movement and the civil rights
movement. See James W, Vander Zanden, "The Klan Revival," Amer I can
Journal of Sociology. Vol. LXV (March, I960), pp. 456-462. In mid-
1967, H. Rap Brown coined the phrase "violence is as American as
cherry pie."

James W. Rowe , "The 'Revolution' and the 'System': Notes on

Brazilian Politics," AUFS Reports, East Coast South America Series,
Vol. XII, No. 3 (Brazil), May, I966, p. 7, Indicates the term "o
sistema" was popularized by scholarly journalist Oliveros Ferreira
of 0 Estado de Sao Paulo to describe the remarkable stability of
social structures, informal political institutions, and attitudinal
patterns, and the "joint action by the elites ... to maintain
control and preserve "social peace.'" This concept of "system" is
not to be confused with the concepts of general systems analysis as
used in the behavioral sciences.

the influence of the central or state government was minimal, but it
also meant jobs and opportunity to rent land or to sell crops to the
men who dominated commerce in the region. The political emergence
of peasant groups after 1955 brought about some changes in many of
the traditional or transitional political sub-systems of Brazil.
The ]S6k Revolution apparently ended the "normal" political processes
I and activity of many leading politicians, including Juscelino Ku-
bitschel<, Joao Belchior Marques Goulart, J^nio Q.uadros, Leonel Bri-
zola, and Francisco Jul iao de Arruda Paula. However, many peasant
groups continued to function even though many political leaders were
removed from the system.

Jean Blondel , As Condi9oes da VIda Poirtica No Estado da
Parafba (Rio de Janeiro: Funda<;ao Getulio Vargas, 1957), PP. 37"
72, is an excellent discussion of the social, economic, and polit-
ical conditions of not only the state of Paraiba but also of the
Northeast interior where balloting was seldom secret. Marcos Vlnl-
cius \l\]a(^a and Roberto Cavalcanti de Albuquerque, Coronel , Coron^ I s
(Rio de Janeiro: Ediqoes Tempo Braslleiro, 1965) is a sympathetic
portrait of four Pernambuco twentieth century "bosses" who were
both sources of law and judges of proper social conduct: Francisco
"Chico" Romao of Serrlta; Jose Albllio de Albuquerque Avila of Bom
Conselho; Francisco "Chico" Heracl io de Rego of Limoeiro; and
Veremundo Soares of Salgueiro.

^Gabriel Almond, "Comparative Political Systems," Journal of
Politics, Vol. XVI 11, No. 3 (August, 1956), pp. 391-^09; Gabriel
Almond and James S, Coleman, The Politics of the Developing Areas
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, I960), pp. 5^0-5^1, and
Edward C. Banfleld, The Moral Basis of a Backward Society (Glencoe,
Illinois: The Free Press, 1958), pp. 85-104, and Max P. Millll<in
and Donald L. M. Blackmer (eds.), The Epiernjng Nations. Their
Growth and United States Policy (Boston: Little, Brown and Company,
1961), pp. 21-26 and 84-90, have been used to create a set of typo-
logies for eleven Brazilian states and Municlplos with Pernambuco
and Rio Grande do Sul which are contained in the appendix.

7^:

Goals and Hypotheses

This study attempts to do the following:

First, place the pre-1955 social, economic, and political system
in context, especially in the ways it affected large landowners, small
farmers, rural workers, renters, and other groups.

Second, identify some of the participants and groups responsible
for a change in the outputs of the national political system and the
state sub-systems insofar as they affected peasants and other groups
with whom they interacted.

This will be done by case studies of the Ligas Camponesas.
Sindicatos of Small Farmers and Rural Workers, and Cooperatives of
Small Farmers in several states to show the relative importance
of population distribution, education, social infrastructure,
leadership availability and style, organizational structure, and
the reaction of other individuals, groups, and institutions to
peasant pressure groups.

In doing this, the validity of several major hypotheses will
be tested:

1. The recently organized activity of peasants is a mixture
of traditional Brazilian means of seeking relief or protection and of
techniques used by pressure groups in all modern societies.

Traditionally, Brazilian peasants have followed those leaders who
provided them with protection and benefits of different types. The
newer peasant pressure groups also have learned to use radio, television,
newspapers and other mass communication media to influence decision
makers.

2. The greater availability of highways, railways, and other
forms of communication within a given region and with other regions
encourages and supports the formation of peasant pressure groups or
other political groups using the peasants as a base or springboard
for their own political or social advancement.

3. Although cooperatives and other associations may originally
have been formed for non-political ends, a principal reason for their
continued existence and/or growth is their ability to resort to polit-
ical action.

k. Peasant pressure groups have survived and functioned in
communities with a social infra-structure containing organized formal
and informal groups and not survived or functioned in those communities
and regions without these groups.

Formal groups include Church organizations, school boards, and
agricultural associations. Informal groups include such institutions
as the mut i rao (cooperative work exchange similar to the barn-raising
or corn-husking bees found in the United States).

5. Leadership of peasant pressure groups will come from outside
the ranks of the peasantry in less-modernized states or regions although
these leaders may have rural origins. in modernized or modernizing
regions, leadership of such groups will be made up of both peasants

'William Kornhauser, The Politics of Mass Society (Glencoe,
Illinois: The Free Press, 1959). and Seymour M. Lipset, Pol i t ical
Man, the Social Bases of Politics. Anchor Book Edition (Garden City:
Doubleday and Company, 1963), Chapter 11, are especially relevant
for their discussion of the roles of intermediate or voluntary
groups in contributing to more pluralistic and less authoritarian
or totalitarian societies.

xii

and other persons of higher status and education. One important corol-
lary is that the nature and origin of these groups will greatly determine
the recruitment of middle and lower level leaders from among the
peasantry or urban middle classes.

In those groups organized by the communists or urban politicians,
few or no peasants will determine policy; in those groups organized by
the Church, priests, ministers, and laymen will play important roles
in making pol icy.

6. A comprehensive radical or reformist ideology for these peasant
groups will be created by urban intellectuals and not the peasants. The
specific goals and grievances of peasants themselves will not normally

be a part of the comprehensive ideology brought in by outsiders although
these goals and grievances may be included later at a certain stage of
the organizational process.

A radical or revolutionary ideology is one which calls for the
abolition of the social and property structures of society. A reform-
ist ideology seeks changes in the social, economic, and political
structure or society but without abolishing the existing political or
legal system.

7. A peasant pressure group is revolutionary or reform-minded
depending on (a) the motives of the outsiders who ally themselves with
peasants; (b) the conditions under which the help of outsiders is
rendered; and (c) the style and integration of the political sub-system
under which a peasant group operates, in other words, it is necessary
to examine the perceptions of important decision makers and influentials

XI I I

in the sub-system and the access given newly emerging political and
social groups by decision makers.

Methodology

In order to examine the structures and functions of small farmer
and rural worker groups, and the development of such structures and
functions, the writer reviewed the available published literature at
the libraries of the University of Florida, the Inter-American Regional
Labor Organization (ORIT) in Mexico, and the Inter-American College of
Agriculture and Social Sciences at Turrialba, Costa Rica. He then
conducted brief periods of field research on peasant groups in Mexico,
Costa Rica, Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina prior to pursuing nine months
of field research in Brazil. In conducting this study, he sought to
examine the variables mentioned in the original guiding hypotheses plus
other variables and influences which developed in the course of this
study, and which are discussed in the concluding chapter.

The writer sought to identify those factors which were important
to the survival and effectiveness of these pressure groups. In particular,
the writer based many of his research techniques on the previous work
on interest groups and intermediate voluntary groups by David Truman,
Joseph La Palombara, Gabriel Almond, Robert Alexander, Willian Kornhauser,

Henry A, Landsberger, "The Labor Elite: Is it Revolutionary?" in
Lipset and Solari, op. ci t. . pp. 268-269, notes the "organized pressure
through economic and/or political channels" of a large sector of society
to "improve its living and working conditions" for the first time, "in
itself constitutes a revolution." See also Lipset, Pol i t ical Man, pp.
77~90, for his discussion of the "ways in which different societies
handle the crisis of the 'entry into politics' of new social groups."

XIV

and Seymour Lipset, which have been referred to above. In addition,

the writer utilized the lessons learned in studying monolithic local

1 2

power elites in the work of Floyd Hunter, the work by Robert Dahl

on pluralistic power structures in which specialized groups influenced
local government decisions and activities in specific issue areas, and
the work by Gladys Kammerer, John DeGrove, Alfred Clubok, and Charles
Ferris-' on competitive cliques in Florida cities. A mimeographed
interview schedule was developed with structured closed end and un-
structured open ended questions in order to gather background data on
the political influentials and problems involved in this study. This
formal interview schedule was discarded, however, because of the general
reluctance of Brazilians to respond to written questionnaires. Instead,
other techniques were used to gain interviewee confidence and to elicit
the information for which the interview schedule originally was
designed (see pp. 275~278) . Over the course of time, information was
sought on the age, education, birthplace, religion, occupational history,
organizational experiences, and power relationships.

The writer determined fairly early in his research that the federal
system of Brazilian government might be an important contributing factor
in determining the relative importance of different variables in dif-
ferent settings. He therefore decided to select a few sample states

Floyd Hunter, Community Power Structure (Garden City: Anchor
Books, Doubleday and Company, 1963).

2
Robert A. Dahl , Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American

City (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961).

■^Gladys M. Kammerer, et al . . City Managers in Politics (University
Monographs in the Social Sciences, No. 13) (Gainesville: University of
Florida Press, 1962).

and munici pios in each region and also to spend as much time as possible
in rural areas because of the great quantity of published material in
Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo on political conditions and "peasant
groups" in Pernambuco and the relative lack of material on other states
such as Rio Grande do Norte, ParanS, Sao Paulo, and Rio Grande do Sul.
Several municipios were selected in six states on the basis of their
similar and differing characteristics such as area, population, colon-
ization and/or settlement processes, ethnic, religious, and economic
make-up, literacy, and the existence or absence of functioning pressure
groups and political parties. Although the writer was not able to fol-
low his original schedule of travel for various reasons, he utilized
hist ime as fol lows :

Rio Grande do Sul (three months, principally in Porto Alegre,

Caxias do Sul, Gramado, Nova Petr6polis, Santa Cruz do Sul,

Vencincio Aires, Santa Marfa, and Lajeado)
Sao Paulo (one month, principally in Sao Paulo, JabotTcabal ,

and Bragan9a Paulista)
Guanabara and the State of Rio de Janeiro (one month)
Bahia (one week at a meeting of the National Executive Council

of Catholic Agrarian Youth (JAC) at Itaparfca Island, plus

three days in nearby Salvador)
Pernambuco (two months, principally in Recife, Jaboatao, Vitoria

de Santo Antao, Bom Jardim, Cabo, Palmares, and Afogados de

Ingazeira
Parafba (two weeks, principally in Joao Pessoa)

Alagoas (ten days, principally in Colonia Pindorama, near Penedo)
Rio Grande do Norte (ten days, principally in Natal and Sao

Paulo Potengf)

The writer sought to determine political party and pressure group
power structures and relations with other power holders by interviewing
formal power holders and knowledgeables In si ndicatos . federations, co-
operatives, political parties, churches, newspapers. Ministries, Army
Headquarters, landowner associations, universities, urban trade unions.

XVI

and the catalytic organizations such as SAR, SORPE, and FAG, and by at-
tempting to identify the major participants in certain selected critical
decisions. (The names of these influentials and knowledgeables are
listed in the bibliography.) The writer also collected information on
several elections in order to make possible correlations between voting
and pressure group behavior. After his return to the United States,
a reading of James L. Payne's Labor and Politics in Peru and several
Brazilian novels helped give the writer a conceptual framework in which
to place the role of the structured violence he had observed in many
parts of Brazil. And finally he prepared numerous tables, maps, and
charts, many of which are contained in this study in order to test the
validity of the hypotheses in this study.

All interviews were conducted by the writer in Portuguese or
Japanese with the exception of several interviews with Americans in
English and several German" speaking persons in Rio Grande do Sul in
which Emiliano Lemberger was of help in interpreting answers to
questions.

All translations are by the author unless otherwise stated.

Special Acknowledgments
This study could not have been made without the help of many small
farmers, rural laborers, sharecroppers, priests, ministers, professors,
students, lawyers, and agricultural extension agents who shared their
knowledge, experience, and, on occasion, homes with the writer. The
following were especially helpful.

1. Dr. JosI Arthur Rios, Director of the Sociedade de Pesquisas
e Planejamento and the instituto de Estudos para o Desenvolvimento Social

xvi i

e Economico, Rio de Janeiro, his secretary Dona Candida, and office as- I
sistant, Senhor Damiao, who allowed the writer to use their office in .
Rio de Janeiro. Dr. Rios, a former Visiting Professor of Sociology

at the University of Florida, was most helpful in providing contacts ;

1
1
with many informants who were valuable sources of information.

2. Dr. Jos^ Vicente Freitas Marcondes, Superintendent of the j
Institute Cultural do Trabalho (Labor Culture Institute or I CT) of Sao |
Paulo, another former Visiting Professor of Sociology at the University j
of Florida, who allowed the use of the ICT's facilities and provided

data on urban and rural labor leaders taking I CT courses. Dr. Freitas ;

Marcondes also was of great help in providing information on the j

development of Brazilian labor and social legislation. j

3. Dona Lucia de S5 Barreto, special assistant to Padre Paulo
Crespo, whose cheer and knowledge of the intricacies of the peasant !
movement in the Northeast are truly remarkable.

k. Sam Shapiro and Jack Lieboff, Assistant Labor Attaches in

the United States Embassy in Rio de Janeiro and in the Consulate '

General of Sao Paulo. <

5. John Snyder, regional representative of the Postal, Telegraph, \

and Telephone Workers International in Rio de Janeiro, who gave the

writer access to newspaper articles on peasant and labor organizations

collected by the Lux-Jornal clipping service. The members of his

staff, Donas Regina, Alicia and Delia Montesinos were/almost) most cooperative,

l^o-t

XVI I I

6. Timothy Hogan, Northeast Brazil representative of the
Cooperative League of the United States in I963-I965, who permitted
the writer to use his newspaper file on the Northeast.

7. Arthur Lopez, Northeast Brazil representative of the
American Institute of Free Labor Development in 196^-1965, for
the use of his offices and files in Recife.

8. Miss Cynthia Hewitt, a graduate student at the institute
of Latin American Affairs, Columbia University, who spent the
summer of I965 doing research in Pernambuco and who accompanied
the writer on several delightful trips into the backlands.

9. My mother, Mrs. Bastiana J. Pearson.

10. The Veterans Administration which helped with a loan in
the fall of 1965.

11. Dr. Harry Kantor, Professor of Political Science at the
University of Florida, whose "friendly persistence and harassment"

to finish this project is highly appreciated by the writer and his wife,

12. My wife Jeanette (Jaye) and Mrs. Celia Lescano for the many
hours spent typing the draft and manuscript.

Although many persons were helpful in supplying facts and inter-
pretat ions^al 1 the conclusions and opinions in this study are my own.

XIX

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

PREFACE iii

LIST OF TABLES xxi i

LIST OF FIGURES xxv

GLOSSARY OF ABBREVIATIONS FOR INTEREST GROUPS, GOVERNMENT

AGENCIES, AND POLITICAL PARTIES IN BRAZIL xxTx

GLOSSARY OF FOREIGN TERMS AND PHRASES xxxiii

CHAPTER

I. AGRICULTURE AND AGRICULTURAL LABOR IN ITS HISTORI-
CAL, ECONOMI C , AND SOCIAL SETTING IN BRAZIL ... 1

II. THE POLITICAL SYSTEM WITHIN WHICH RURAL PRESSURE

GROUPS FUNCTION 45

III. THE BIG LANDOWNER PRESSURE GROUPS AND NON-AGRI-
CULTURAL FORCES AFFECTING AGRICULTURAL AND
PEASANT POLICIES 62

IV. THE LIGAS CAMPONESAS AS A PRESSURE GROUP

89 t^

V. THE IMPACT OF THE CHURCH-SPONSORED LITERACY MOVEMENTS

AND PRESSURE GROUPS IN THE NORTH AND NORTHEAST . ]kk

VI. CHANGES IN THE POLITICAL PARTICIPATION OF SMALL

FARMERS AND RURAL WORKERS IN THE SOUTH 204

VII. ORGANIZATION AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE NATIONAL,
STATE, AND LOCAL LEADERSHIP OF BRAZILIAN
PEASANT GROUPS 263

Vm. CONCLUSIONS 297

APPENDIX

1. MANIFESTO OF THE MOVEMENT OF LANDLESS AGRICULTORS

(MASTER), APRIL, I960 3^0

TABLE OF CONTENTS (cont.)

APPENDIX Page

2. STATUTES OF THE "MOVEMENT OP LANDLESS AGRI CULTORS ,"

APRIL, i960 3k2

3. THE DIRECTORY OF OFFICERS OF THE CONFEDERATION OF

AGRICULTURAL WORKERS (CONTAG) ELECTED APRIL 14,

1965, RiO DE JANEIRO, GUANABARA, BRAS I L 3^5

BIBLIOGRAPHY 3^7

XXI

LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

1. NUMBER AND AREA OF FARM ESTABLISHMENTS ACCORDING TO

SIZE - 1950 8

2. DISTRIBUTION OF TRACTORS AND PLOWS ACCORDING TO PRE-

LIMINARY RESULTS, AGRICULTURAL CENSUS, SEPTEMBER 1,
I960, SELECTED STATES 9

3. PRICES OF SELECTED CONSUMER GOODS IN REPRESENTATIVE

COMPANY STORES, PUBLIC MARKETS, AND A PEASANT CO-
OPERATIVE, PERNAMBUCO, JULY, 1965 18

k. DIFFERENCES IN WAGES PAID VARIOUS TYPES OF WORKERS AND

LEGAL MINIMUM WAGES, FOR SPECIFIED STATES, 1957 . . 19

5. MEMBERSHIP IN VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS, 1959 26

6. INDICATORS OF FUNCTIONAL LITERACY AND POLITICAL

DEVELOPMENT IN BRAZIL EXPRESSED IN NEWSPAPER CIRCU-
LATION AND HOSPITAL AVAILABILITY, 1959 29

7. A COMPARISON OF SCHOOL FACILITIES, TEACHERS, AND DAILY

ATTENDANCE IN RIO GRANDE DO SUL MUNI CI PI OS DE SANTA
CRUZ DO SUL AND VENANCIO AIRES WITH THE PERNAMBUCO
MUNICIPIO OF JABOATAO, SELECTED YEARS, 1938-1964 . 33

8. NATIONAL ORIGINS OF MEMBERS OF THE STATE ASSEMBLIES

AND FEDERAL DEPUTIES, SELECTED BRAZILIAN STATES,

1963-1965, COMPARED TO IMMIGRATION TO BRAZIL,

1884-1957 (PERCENTAGES) 36

9. SUGAR ENGENHOS WITH SLAVES IN I88I, AND RURAL SINDI-

CATOS IN CEARA, DECEMBER, 1 963 191

10. PLURALITIES FOR PTB CANDIDATES FOR STATE AND FEDERAL

DEPUTY COMPARED TO MUNICIPIOS WITH MASTER GROUPS,
OCTOBER 7, 1962 222

11. DISTRIBUTION OF MASTER GROUPS IN RIO GRANDE DO SUL, BY

SIZE OF MUNICIPIO AND SIZE OF FARM ESTABLISHMENTS,
1961-1964 224

XXI I

LIST OF TABLES (cont.)

Table Page ;

12. DELEGATES TO THE SECOND (JULY, 1963) AND THIRD (JANUARY |

1965) FAG CONGRESSES, BY DIOCESE, MUNICIPIO, AND !

SECTION 231 I

■ i

13. OCCUPATIONS OF DELEGATES TO THIRD FAG CONGRESS, PORTO I

ALEGRE, JANUARY 15-17. 1965 235

14. SINDICATO ORGANIZATION IN RIO GRANDE DO SUL BY THE FAG J

AND MASTER, I96I-I965 237 i

15. ACTIVELY ORGANIZED OR FUNCTIONING FAG AND MASTER GROUPS j

BY MUNICIPIOS ACCORDING TO THE SIZE OF FARM ESTAB-
LISHMENTS, 1961-1964 238

16. SUCCESS OF THE FAG AND MASTER IN ORGANIZING RURAL SiN-

DICATOS WHICH WERE FUNCTIONING IN APRIL, I965, BY

MUNICIPIO, ACCORDING TO THE SIZE OF FARM ESTABLISH- i

MENTS 239 \

17. THE CHRONOLOGICAL ORGANIZATION OF RURAL SINDICATOS BY i

THE WORKERS' CIRCLE (CO) MOVEMENT IN SAO PAULO, I

1961-1962 252 i

18. RECOGNIZED AND UNRECOGNIZED RURAL SINDICATOS, I963- '

1965 257 i

19. BACKGROUND CHARACTERISTICS OF DELEGATES TO THE FIRST I

PEASANT CONGRESS, BELO HORIZONTE, NOVEMBER, I96I, !

AND INFLUENTIALS IN THREE SOUTHERN AND THREE NORTH- i

EASTERN STATES, NOVEMBER 1964-AUGUST 1 965 279

20. BACKGROUND CHARACTERISTICS OF DELEGATES TO THE FIRST I

PEASANT CONGRESS, BELO HORIZONTE, NOVEMBER, I96I, !

AND RURAL WORKER LEADERS I N I CT TRAINING COURSES IN I

SAO PAULO (1963-1965) AND RECIFE, PERNAMBUCO (MARCH I

22-APRIL 15, 1965) 282 I

21. PERCEPTIONS OF THE DIFFICULTIES FACED BY PEASANT

(HOMEM DO CAMPO) AMONG DELEGATES TO THE FIRST RURAL • .

WORKERS CONGRESS, NOVEMBER, 1962 318

22. CATEGORIES OF IMPORTANCE OF THE DIFFICULTIES FACED BY j

THE PEASANT AS PERCEIVED BY DELEGATES TO THE FIRST
RURAL WORKERS CONGRESS, NOVEMBER, 1962, BY RELA-
TIONSHIP TO THEIR LAND HOLDINGS OR OCCUPATION ... 319

XXi I I

LIST OF TABLES (cont.)

Table Page

23, CATEGORIES OF IMPORTANCE OF THE DIFFICULTIES FACED BY
THE PEASANT AS PERCEIVED BY DELEGATES TO THE FIRST
RURAL WORKERS CONGRESS, NOVEMBER, I962, BY REGION
FROM WHICH THE DELEGATES CAME, IN PERCENTAGES ... 320

2k. PERCEPTIONS OF WHAT COULD BE DONE TO TRANSFORM THE

COUNTRYSIDE BY DELEGATES TO THE FIRST RURAL WORKERS

CONGRESS, NOVEMBER, 1962, BY OCCUPATIONAL CATEGORY

AND PERCENTAGES 321

25. PEASANT SINDICATOS IN SELECTED STATES BY SIZE OF MUNI-

ciPios, 1965 336

26. RECOGNITION OF PEASANT SINDICATOS BY LABOR MINISTERS

DURING THE GOULART REGIME, SEPTEMBER 8, I96I-

DECEMBER 31, 1963 337

JCXl V

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page

1. Political Map of Brazil, showing places visited in

this study, 1964-1965- xl i

2. A "temporary" one year old hut of squatters, Colonia

Pindorama, near Penedo, Alagoas, July 14, I965 .... 12

3. A "traditional" sugar plantation between Macei6 and Pe-

nedo, Alagoas, July, 1965. On the left, a chapel;
in the center, the Casa Grande; on the right, the sugar
mill; and scattered about are other smaller buildings
housing workers or livestock 12

4. Engenho Bento Velho, Municipio of Vitoria de Santo

Antao, Pernambuco, near the paved highway between

Recife and Vitoria de Santo Antao. Engenho Galileia

is about one-half mile to the right over a dirt road.

An administrator manages Bento Velho for Usina

Bui hoes 13

5. A "barracao" or "company store" operated by a Senhor de

Engenho on the dirt highway between Goiana and Tambe,
Pernambuco. Second from the left is Joao Jordao da
Silva, Treasurer of the Federation of Rural Workers of
the State of Pernambuco, July 2, 1965 13

6. The homes of sugar plantation workers lining one of the

roads leading out of Ribeirio Preto, Pernambuco, July

19, 1965 14

7. One of several barracks-style homes for the families of

workers, Engenho Gallo, District of Xexeu, Municipio
of Agua Preta, Pernambuco, July 10, I965. The En-
genho belongs to the family of Senator Francisco
Pessoa de Queiroz, also a major stockholder in Jornal
do Comercio, a radio station, and two television
stations 14

8. The town house of a traditional cattle rancher (estan-

ciejro) . Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul , February 27, 1967 31

9. From left to right: the rural school -and -home of Ladyr

Rech, President of the FAG Regional Department, a
neighborhood or community recreation center under
construction, Fazenda Souza zone. District of Ana

XXV

LIST OF FIGURES (cont.)

Figure Page

Rech, Municipio of Caxias do Sul , Rio Grande do

Sul, February 7, 1965 31

10. Widespread property distribution (95 per cent or

more of farm properties are less than 100 hectares)
leads to a greater distribution of medical and
public health facilities, Rio Grande do Sul, I960 39

11. Francisco Juliao addressing a meeting at Engenho

Galilela, Vitoria de Santo Antao, Pernambuco . , 96

12. An example of Juliao's use of Fidel Castro as a

Symbol. Photograph of a political rally in
Recife, Pernambuco, following the unsuccessful
Bay of Pigs Invasion in I96I, The portrait of
the Cuban leader is by Abelardo da Mora, a
"Revolutionary artist." 98

13. The Casa Grande, Engenho Gallleia, Municipio of

Vitoria de Santo Antao, Pernambuco, July 7> 1965.
Members of the first Peasant League converted the
house into a school, teachers did not want to com-
mute to or live In the countryside to teach
peasants 102

]k. I Looking down from the porch of the Casa Grande-
school, Engenho Galilela, toward the hills In which
the Engenho is located. Patches of sugar cane and
bananas may be seen in the background 102

15. "Politically Inspired Invasions or Not?" Pictures

of squatters In the Munlcipios of Itagual and
Duque de Caxias, State of Rio de Janeiro (August-
September, 1961) 112

16. Location of Peasant SIndicatos in Rio Grande do

Norte, 1965 122

17. Location of Peasant Leagues In Paraiba, 1960-1964 . 127

18. Location of Peasant Leagues in Pernambuco, 1960-1964 135

19. Bishop Dom Francisco Mezquita and four organizers of

the SORPE-sponsored Slndicato and Cooperative of
Rural Workers of Palmares, Pernambuco, once
Brazil's biggest peasant sIndicato--covering 32

XXVI

LIST OF FIGURES (cont.)

Figure Page j

municipios — and controlled by Gregorio Bezerra, ]

a Communist, from 1962-196^. The picture was j

taken July 29, 1965 1^5 \

20. Rural workers waiting to receive spaghetti and i

dried milk from the Food for Peace program ]

sponsored jointly by SORPE, USAID, and the AFL-

CIO, Sindicato of Rural Workers, Vitoria de

Santo Antao, June, 19^5 1^5 j

21. The Municipal Plaza on Market Day, Bom Jardim,

Pernambuco, July 23, 1965, following a mild |

rain storm. Peasant League organizer and Deputy

Francisco Juliao was born in this municipio . . 1^6 j

22. Pedro de Silva, President of the Sindicato and Co- !

operative of Rural Workers, Bom Jardim, Pernam-
buco, addressing members to discuss formation of
the cooperative sponsored by SORPE, July 23,
1965. Other officers are seated behind Silva . 1^6

23. Members of the Cooperative of Rural Workers of Bom ,

Jardim, Pernambuco, listening to a talk on Co-
operative principles and organization, July 23, i
1965. The meeting is being held in a private ;
school for girls operated by Roman Catholic nuns 1^7

2^. Acacio Fernandes dos Santos, Treasurer and Tociyuki
Takaki , Secretary, of the Federation of Rural

Workers of the State of Rio de Janeiro, visit j

squatters in the Municipio of Mage, April 9, .j

1965. The truck in the background belongs to one \

of the Japanese-Brazilian squatters who has a highly i

productive plot of land on property reportedly
claimed by Fazendas Americanas, a Sao Paulo business
firm 147 '

25. One of the principal streets of Punto dos Carvalhos,

15 miles south of Recife on the road to Cabo, • -

August, 1965. On the left is the Sindicato of 1

Rural Workers and a nurse (in white), employed
by the Sindicato to treat the illnesses of members 1^8

26. Members of the Sindicato of Punto dos Carvalhos enjoy j

showing off some of the dental equipment purchased ]

with Imposto Sindical funds, August 1965. Fourth j

XXV i i' '

LIST OF FIGURES (cont.)

Figure Page

from the left is one of several university

students helping Padre Antonio Mello administer

the sindicato 1^8

27. Groups Struggling to Control Pernambuco Peasant Sin-

dicatos, 1963-1964 167

28. Location of Peasant Sindicatos in Eastern Parafba . , I86

29. Location of Peasant Sindicatos in CearS 188

30. Small farmer proprietors, members of a "hunting" or

"shooting club" parade through the streets of Nova
Petropolis, Rio Grande do Sul , celebrating the
100th anniversary of its founding, September 7.
1858. In 1902, Padre Teodoro Amstadt of the nearby
village of Linha Imperial founded the first Credit
Cooperative in Brazil for small farmers 259

31. Home and family of Zulmiro Boff, President of the Sin-

dicato of Small Farmers, Caxias do Sul, Rio Grande

do Sul, April 22, 1965. In the background to the

left is a grape arbor from which he earns his

living 259

32. Delegates to the Third Congress of the Frente Agrario

Gaucho (fag), the Pontifical Catholic University,

Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, January 18, 1 965 285

j<xv I 1 I

GLOSSARY OF ABBREVIATIONS FOR INTEREST
GROUPS, GOVERNMENT AGENCIES, AND
POLITICAL PARTIES IN BRAZIL

A9ao Popular - Popular Action, a Catholic Action group of the 1960's.

ARENA - National Renovating Alliance or Alian9a Renovadora Nacional
Note-The pro-government political party organized from the
top down in late 1965 out of members from the previously
existing political parties which were abolished by Institu-
tional Act No. 2 of October 2, 1965. See MDB also.

CLT - The Consolidated Work Laws or Consolida^ao das Leis do Trabalho,
promulgated by the government of Getulio Vargas as Decree-law
5,^52 of May 1, 19^3. which is still the basic labor code or law
of Brazi 1 .

CRB - Brazilian Rural Confederation or Confedera^ao Rural Brasileira,
the organization at the apex of the pyramid of rural landowner
groups in Brazil; below it are the Rural Federations (Federacoes
Rurais) of the individual states which consist of the Rural As-
sociations in one or more Municipios.

CONTAG - The Confederation of Agricultural Workers or Confedera9ao
de Trabal hadores na Agricultura, formed December I963.

DRT - Regional Labor Delegate or Delegacy; the DRT is the Chief Re-
presentative of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare in
each State or a group of States.

FAG - Gaucho Agrarian Front or Frente Agraria Gaucho; the Interest
group sponsored by Catholic church leaders in Rio Grande do
Sul.

FARBA - The Rural Federation of the state of Bahia.

FARESP - The Rural Federatio of Sao Paulo

FARSUP - The Rural Federation of Rio Grande do Sul

lAA - The Sugar and Alcohol institute or Instituto do A9ucar e Alcool,

a government autarchy or agency designed to regulate the production
and sale of sugar and alcoholic products produced from sugar.

I BRA - The Brazilian Institute of Agrarian Reform or Instituto Bra-
si lei ro de Reforma Agraria, organized from the SUPRA and several
other agrarian reform and development agencies in 1964.

XXI X

IGRA - The Gaucho Agrarian Reform Institute or instituto Gaucho de
Reforma Agraria, established in I960 by the state government
of Rio Grande do Sul.

IRGA - The Rice Growers Association of Rio Grande do Sul or Instituto
Rio Grandense de Arroz, a producers interest group.

JAC - Catholic Rural (Agrarian) Youth or Juventude Agraria Catolica,
the arm of Catholic Action among rural youth.

JUC - Catholic University Youth, the arm of Catholic Action among
University students.

MASTER - Movement of Landless Agricultural Laborers or Movimento dos
Agricultores Sem Terra in Rio Grande do Sul.

MDB - Brazilian Democratic Movement or Movimento Democratico Brasileiro,
the opposition political party formed in late 1965 when
previously existing political parties were abolished.

MRT - Movimento Trabalhista Renovador. Renovating Workers Movement or
Movimento Trabalhista Renovador, the political party founded by
Fernando Ferrari of Rio Grande do Sul, when he broke with PTB
leader Joao Belchor Goulart.

MTR - Movimento Tiradente Revol ucionar io. Revolutionary Tiradente

Movement or Movimento Tiradentes Revol ucionar io, an urban polit-
ical movement founded by Francisco Juliao in I96I.

MEB - Basic Education Movement or Movimento de Educacao de Base, a
Catholic Church-sponsored and Brazilian Government financed
organization involved in literacy campaigns and leadership
training.

MTPS - The Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare.

PCB - The Brazilian Communist Party which split in late 1961, over the
Sino-Soviet dispute and the Cuban Revolution. This group is pro-
Moscow and led by Luiz Carlos Prestes, a man with considerable
prestige due his leadership of the famous insurrectionary
"Prestes Column" in the interior of Brazil in the 1920's after
he and a group of fellow junior officers (tenentes) attempted
a coup d'ltat.

PCdoB - The Communist Party of Brazil, the Peking-oriented faction of
the Communist Party led by Joao Amazonas, Pedro Pomar, and Mau-
ricio Gabrois, all of whom had been downgraded for being
"Stalinists" after the Twentieth Congress of the Russian Com-
munist Party.

XXX

PDC - Christian Democratic Party — of minor importance nationally but
important in several states, including Sao Paulo, ParanS, and
Rio Grande do Sul .

PR - The Republican Party, an unimportant minor party with an electoral
apparatus "for rent."

PRP - Party of Popular Representation, a far-right party of some
importance because of its ideological coherence.

PSB - Brazilian Socialist Party or Partido Socialista Brasileiro, a
minor party which had its roots in the UDN and PTB but was
personal i St i c and interested in patronage, not ideological co-
herence and discipline.

PSD - Social Democratic Party or Partido Social Democratico, one of
Brazil's three major parties from 19^5 to 1965, created out of
a coalition of traditional rural oligarchs, state-machine
politicians, bureaucrats from the Estado Novo period, and a
smattering of industrial nouveaux riches.

PTB - Brazilian Labor Party, or Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro, one
of Brazil's three major parties, 19^5"1965, based on a coali-
tion of Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare bureaucrats,
middle-class trade union leaders, large ranchers from the
South such as Joao Goulart and Leonel Brizola, and sugar
interests in the Northeast and Sao Paulo, represented by people
like JosI Ermirio de Morals.

SRB - Brazilian Rural Society or Sociedade Rural Brasileira, a civil
association which aggregates Brazil's largest landowners,
important coffee and cotton exporters, and livestock producers.
It does not have any constituent bodies in the several states
or municipios. Its headquarters is Sao Paulo.

SUDENE - The Northeast Development Agency or Super intendencia do
Desenvol vimento do Nordeste.

SUPRA - The Super i ntendency of Agrarian Reform or Super i ntendenci a de
Reforma Agraria, organized in 19^3 out of the National Insti-
tute for Immigration and Colonization (INIC), the Rural Social
Service (SSR) and several other previously existing rural
development or welfare agencies. It was re-organized into the
I BRA in 196^ after the April 1964 change of government.

UBES - The Brazilian Secondary Student Union or Uniao Brasileira de
Estudantes Secondaries, the organization at the apex of the
puramid of secondary student organizations.

XXXI

ULTAB - The Brazilian Union of Agricultural Laborers and Workers or
Uniao dos Lavradores e Trabal hadores Agricolas do Brasil, a
PCB-domi nated organization of peasants, functioning principally
in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo states from 195^ to April 1964,
It is now defunct .

UDN - National Democratic Union, one of Brazil's three major parties,
1945-1965. originally an anti-Vargas "united front" of urban
middle class, professionals, banking interests, moralists, intel-
lectual liberals and moderates, and a part of the traditional
agricultural interests in the North and Northeast. It also had
some clergymen and labor leaders in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

UNE - National Student Union or Unlao Nacional de Estudantes, the apex
organization of the pyramid of Brazilian University students,
composed of representatives of State Federations or Unions,
which, in turn, were made up of representatives in each School
or College (Faculdade) forming part of a University.

XXX i i

GLOSSARY OF FOREIGN TERMS AND PHRASES

(The definitions and explanations given are those which have a direct
relation to matters treated in the text. Some of the words and phrases
have other connotations as well, but no attempt has been made to in-
clude them. if a word does not have a general public meaning, the
definition used is from a glossary of terms given in Smith, Brazi 1 ,
pp. 626-640.)

Agregado — in colonial times a free man of low social status who placed
himself under the protection of the master of the casa grande or
the mansion that formed the seat of a large estate, thus becoming
one of his "men" or retainers; used now in parts of Brazil as a
designation for an agricultural laborer who lives on the estate
(see Engenho, Fazenda, and Usina).

Agreste — the name used in northeastern Brazil to designate the zone
which lies between the well -watered coastal plain (mata or varzea)
and the semi-arid interior (sertao or backlands); much of it is
hilly, rocky, and covered by scattered, scrubby timber or spiny
vegetation known as cat i nqa.

Assoc! a^ao--associat i on, the name used for various organized groups,
who may or may not be formally inscribed in the Civil Registry
in accordance with Brazilian Law which prescribes such registra-
tion in order for a group to be recognized by public officials.

caboclo — name first applied to domesticated Indians, later used to
designate a crossbreed of white-Indian stock, and now generally
used to mean any lower-class rural person, often with connota-
tions of ignorance such as "hay seed" or "hillbilly," (see caipira)

cacha9a--a low-grade rum made from the juice of sugar cane or molasses.

caipira — the man or woman who lives outside of an urban community, who
lacks education or social graces, who does not dress well or present
a good appearance in public. It is a widely used term for lower
class, rural Brazilians along with caboclo.

Camara — Council or Chamber, generally used to describe the legislative
council in the municipio made up of vereadores, councilmen; also
used to describe Chamber of Commerce (Camara de Comercio).

cambao--the obligation imposed on sharecroppers, tenants, and resident
workers (moradores) to work gratuitously or at lower than the
normal wage one or more days per week, or per month, in order to
cultivate a plot of land for oneself; it may also allow an
individual and his family to occupy a dwelling on the plot of
land. It is a term used mostly in the Northeast.

XXXI I I

campanha — the name used in southern Brazil to designate the plains of
Rio Grande do Sul , running from the Atlantic Ocean into Uruguay
and Argentina. It is principally a region of cattle ranches and
rice plantations near rivers.

campones — peasant, a rural inhabitant, generally with connotations of
low status.

capanga-cangacei ro--terms used for the bad men or bandits of the North-
east; it is also used for hired guard or gunmen who have been hired
for the purpose of intimidating or killing one or more people.

casa grande — the big house or mansion that forms the seat of a large

landed estate (see engenho, fazenda, estancia, and usina). On very
old estates, there was also a senzal a (slave quarters) and engenho.

colonia--a name used to describe a settlement of small farmers in South
Brazil, the workers' village on a fazenda in central Brazil, or the
region settled by small farmers in south Brazil.

colono — a small farmer in south Brazil; a laborer who obligates him-
self to work on a one-year contract in the care and obligatory
harvest of a certain number of coffee trees or of a certain area
of cotton or of other crops such as sugar cane, rice, and beans
in Sao Paulo.

Coronel — col onel , a political boss in a municipio or region of a state;
it is often used synonymously for a large landowner who is active
in politics or who has political connections similar to the
Kentucky Colonel or Tennessee Major.

Cruzeiro — the unit of exchange in Brazil.

Dom — a religious honorific given generally to Bishops and Archbishops
of the Brazilian Catholic Church.

Di spos i t i vo--the name given to the military security arrangements
upon which any government depends.

engenho — an old-fashioned sugar mill; also used to designate the
entire sugar plantation.

erva-mate (yerba mate) — Ilex paraguariensi s, the leaves of a tree of
low to medium height which grows in the south and from which
tea, sometimes called Paraguayan tea, is made.

Estado Novo — the "new state" established by President Getulio Vargas
in 1937 and which was terminated in 1945. it was modelled in
part on the Corporate State of Italy during the regime of Benito
Mussol in! .

XXXI v

estancia — the comTion designation for the large cattle ranch of Rio
Grande do Sul or any large landed estate of that state, Uruguay,
and Argentina; similar in origins and social arrangements to the
fazenda or hacienda.

fazenda--a large estate; the equivalent of hacienda in Mexico, Colom-
bia, and Peru.

fazendeiro — the owner-operator of a large landed estate.

feira — public market; the weekly fair of a neighborhood or region
where people gather to buy, sell, and exchange goods, services,
animals, and entertainment.

foice--the hook or cutting blade attached to a long wooden handle and
generally used for cutting sugar cane or fruit from trees.

foreiro — synonym for morador or resident worker on a landed estate
who generally has to pay foro (a type of rent or cambao) similar
to cambao or pay in kind for the privilege of cultivating or
working a piece of land.

fornecedor — sugar-cane producers who lack milling facilities and must
sell their sugar cane to a sugar usina.

gaucho — a native of Rio Grande do Sul.

hectare — a metric measure equal to 10,000 square meters or 2.471
acres.

imposto Sindi cal --the Union Tax imposed on all wage- and salary-
earners (established by the Estado Novo at one day's pay per
year) for supporting an officially arranged system of sindicatos,
federations and confederations.

interventoi — The chief executive of a state, municipio, government
agency or Sindicato appointed by the President as his direct
agent. During the Vargas period, all states were governed by
such appointees, although the appointee in Minas Gerais, an
exception, was known as "Governor."

I rma,o — a religious brother or clergyman belonging to an order.

jagunco--name applied to the gunmen or the bad men of the Sertao
or backlands (see also capanga and cangaceiro).

latifundio — a latifundium, or a large landed estate giving employment
to over 12 workers and much of which may not be farmed at present
levels of technology, often held for speculation or status, and
whose workers may be under -employed or unemployed significant
portions of time during the year.

XXXV

ligas camponesas — peasant leagues, the peasant organizations general-
ly associated with Francisco Juliao de Arruda de Paula of Pernam-
buco but sometimes the title assumed by a traditional landov^ning
coronal for himself and his peasant following in the 1960-196^
period; originally it was given to the abortive attempt of the
Communist Party (PCB) to organize peasant groups in 19U0-1945.

mata — the well -watered coastal plain of Northeast Brazil which is used
principally for growing sugar-cane; in Paraiba, it is called the
varzea,

meieiro--an agricultural laborer who receives one-half of the crop in
lieu of wages, or a farm tenant/sharecropper who pays one-half of
his product crop as rent. A sharecropper who paid one-third of
his product would be known as a tercel ro.

mineiro — a native of Minas Gerais.

minifundio — a farm of a size inadequate to give full, year-round em-
ployment at present levels of technology and resources to two
people. Generally this writer considers thirty hectares (seventy-
two acres) or less as being the upper level of which a single head
of household would move from minifundio category to family-farm
status, although a small farm of twenty hectares which was well-
irrigated and close to a market center might give its owner a
reasonably good level of living.

moradoi — a squatter who stops where he pleases and clears the land
in order to plant subsistence crops such as corn, beans, and
mandioca; also used in Northeast Brazil to designate a resident
worker who cultivates a plot of land in return for a share of
the product or a wage.

municipio — an administrative subdivision of the state comparable to
the county in the United States which consists of a both urban
and rural areas. A city is the seat (sede) of the municipio.
Cities as such have no separate legal or political status as in
the United States. Its executive head is a Prefeito (prefect)
and its legislative body is a Camara de Vereadores (chamber of
council men).

nordestino — a native of northeastern Brazil.

opera'rios — skilled workers, generally found in a factory but also
including such workers as railroad men.

"0 sistema" — "the system," a term not to be confused with the concepts
of general systems analysis used in the behavioral sciences, but
denoting the several elites which have dominated Brazilian polit-
ical machinery during several successive governments and their
patterns of joint action to maintain control and preserve "social

XXXV i

peace" through heavy reliance on conciliation, paternalism, and
anticipation of the demands of new individuals or groups seek-
ing admittance into the decision-making processes of various
levels of government.

padre — priest

panel inha — the kinship or informal social structure which generally
consists of a large landowner, a customs official, an insurance
man, a lawyer or two, businessmen, an accountant, a municipio
vereador, a state or federal deputy, and a banker with his
bank. Each one mutually needs the services of the others in order
to overcome various complications of the legal, political, or
economic "system" or "sub-system" in which they find themselves.

passeata — a name used for a parade by which its organizer hopes to

impress political office- or power-holders and the general public
with his power-capabilities, be it in terms of worker, peasant,
or student followers, or any combination of people, trucks,
weapons, and so forth.

pau-a-pique--a type of construction in which poles are place on end,
sometimes with reeds or other shrubber intertwined horizontally
and with adobe covering, used to make the walls of the poorest
huts, generally constructed by moradores or posseiros (squatters).

pelego — a name derived from the sheepskin used by cowboys and horse-
men in south Brazil but which is generally used to describe cor-
rupt sindicato or union leaders who are more dependent on the
government than on their own worker or laborer following for
their position and status.

populismo — A term used in Latin America to describe a political

position which connotes an interest in and defense of the common
people, their sufferings, desires, and so forth, as opposed to
support of minority interests or oligarchies.

Pref ei to--the administrative or executive head of a municipio whose
equivalent in the United States is Mayor and Prefect in France;
he is generally elected to the office although state governors
and the President may appoint them in special circumstances in-
cluding intervention by the state or federal government.

rapadura--a brown sugar from which none of the molasses has been
extracted made by the old-fashioned sugar engenhos; equivalent
to the Spanish-amer lean panela.

Reconcavo — designation for the fertile coastal region embracing most
of seventeen municipios surrounding the city of Salvador, Bahia.

XXXV i i

relatorio — report or annual message of a government agency or office.

ro^a — a small, burned-over patch of ground in the midst of a forest
or scrub land in which are planted subsistence crops such as
corn, beans, and mandioca.

secretaria — a department in state government. For example, the
Secretaria de agricultura is the equivalent of department or
office of agriculture in a North American state government.

sede — seat, the city in which the government of a municipio is located.

senhor de engenho — traditionally, the aristocratic master of a sugar
plantation and the casa grande which forms its nucleus.

senzala — the slave quarters generally found on a large landed estate
in the past, often near the casa grande, and at the present time,
often furnishing the dwelling space for resident workers or
1 aborers.

sertanejo — the common man who lives in the sertao of northeast Brazil.

sertao — (plural, sertoes) — the great northeastern interior, a semi-
arid area, covered with sparse, spiny vegetation, and sparsely
populated. Occasionally, it is cut by a temporary stream and
infrequently by a large river such as the Sao Francisco, which
provide water for a narrow band of farms along its edge. The
setting for Euclides da Cunha's great Brazilian classic Os
Sertoes . which has been translated into English as Rebel 1 ion in
the Backlands.

sindicato — an association of employers, workers, or professions which

performs interest group functions similar to a trade union or profes-
sional association in the United States, e.g., American Farm
Bureau Federation, American Dairy Association, National Agricultural
Workers Union, United Automobile Workers, Fraternal Order of Police,
National Education Association, and American Medical Association.
Brazilian law, influenced by the Corporate State ideas of Italy
under Mussolini, limits these groups to one per occupation, branch
or endeavor, or category per municipio or group of municipios in a
region. Two or more sindicatos of employers or employees or
doctors, for example, cannot function in the same municipio.
Sindicatos form the lowest level of a pyramid-like officially
sponsored arrangement above which are found federations at the
state level and confederations at the national level. All of
these groups have to be officially approved or recognized by one
or more relevant Ministries of the Federal government in order
to function legally. Financially, this officially sponsored
arrangement of organizations is supported by the imposto Sindical
although sindicatos may levy additional dues on their members.

XXXV I I I

sitiante — a small farmer, the proprietor of a sitio or plot of land;
in Northeast Brazil, it is sometimes used to describe a squatter.

tarefa — task; used widely as a measure of land or to describe the
obligatory amount of work to be performed by a rural laborer for
a given salary or wage.

trabal ho--work or labor; the phrase, "Trabalho e para cachorro e negro"
(Manual labor is for the dog and the Negro) describes traditional
upper- and middle-class Brazilian attitudes towards peasants or
anyone who works with his hands.

usina — the modern sugar refinery and plantation; in the Northeast, the
machinery of such a sugar refinery, however, may be forty years old.

vaquei ro — cowboy.

varzea — the present flood plain of a river; in particular, it is used
to describe the low coastal plain of Paraiba in northeast Brazil.

XXXIX

Figure 1. — Political Map of Brazil, showing places visited
in this study, 1964-1965

c \-^=s u R>'Ki A mVc u I a n a/ \

'^ (-INETH, OUIANAI I L.^ ,/ 51 Geo

ATLANTIC

OCEAN

rERN«N0O DC
NO*ONHA I.
tt'«l->| ■
•OCAS •TOlt

BRAZIL Political Map

Name* of cities over 1,000,000 are capllallzed

Nallonal caoHals Brnsilia

Other capitals Natal

■^^^^" Provincial Boundarlet ■ — ^^ — Railroad*

0 M 100 JV> MO *00 MOK.I*!

0 100 no 400 too too HXt-ntlm

xli

CHAPTER I

AGRICULTURE AND AGRICULTURAL LABOR IN
ITS HISTORICAL, ECONOMIC, AND
SOCIAL SETTING IN BRAZIL

I ntroduction
In Brazil, the institutions of government, by and large, have
been used to defend and advance the interests of an elite whose power
was based on the ownership of large amounts of land. Beginning as
an essentially agricultural country, Brazil developed in the past
fifty years a mixed industrial and agricultural economy. As this
took place the upper class agricultural and professional elites
admitted industrialists and financial leaders into the decision-
making process at the national level and a middle class came to
exert a strong influence in several states and many local governments

Among the writers who discuss the power of this landed elite
are Anyda Marchant, "Politics, Government and Law," in Brazi 1 ;
Portrait of Half a Continent. T. Lynn Smith and Alexander Marchant
(eds.) (New York: Dryden Press, 1951), pp. 359-362. James W. Rowe
"The 'Revolution' and the 'System': Notes on Brazilian Politics,"
AUFS Reports. East Coast South America Series, Vol. XII, Nos. 3-5
(Brazil), esp. pp. 6-1^ of Part I, "Seeds of the 'System.'"

2
See Robert Alexander's Chapters on Brazil in Labor Relations in

Argentina, Brazil, and Chile (New York: McGraw Hill, 1962) ; Organized

Labor in Latin America (New York: The Free Press, 1965), and Prophets

of the Revolution (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1962); Frank

Bonilla, "A National Ideology for Development," in Expectant Peoples.

Nationalism and Development. K. H. Silvert (ed.) (New York: Random

House, 1965), pp. 232-264; and Harry W. Hutchinson, "Cultural Change

in Brazil: An Analytical Model," Journal of Inter-American Studies

(July, ]sek), pp. 303-313.

in the South. The country has undergone a spectacular series of
changes in formal governmental structures since the 1930's at the
national level from dictatorship to elected president, to parlia-
mentary government, to an elected president once again, and then to

a quasi -dictatorship which utilizes the forms of democratic govern-

2
ment to mask mi 1 itary control .

Whatever the form of government, the low status agricultural
groups generally did not exercise any influence of power within
the political system. This was due to their lack of education, isola-
tion from and poor communication with the centers of economic and
political influence and because the country's traditional system of
man-land relations put the peasant in a subordinate and dependent
situation. At the local level, peasant cooperatives have been important
for about forty-five years in the South where there was colonization
of several regions by small farmers or where conditions were such
that an "agricultural ladder" to provide upward mobility for peasant

For a consideration of the role of the middle class in Brazil,
see Charles Wagley, "The Brazilian Revolution: Social Change since
1930," in Social Change in Latin America, Richard Adams, et a1. (eds.)
(New York: Vintage Books, Random House, 1 96O) , p. 223; L. C. Bressner
Pereira, "The Rise of the Middle Class and Middle Management in Brazil,"
i n Revolution in Brazil, Politics and Society in a Developing Nation,
I rv ing Louis Horowitz (ed.) (New York: e] P. Dutton and Company, TsGk) ,
pp. l},2-2h2, and J. V, Freitas Marcondes, "Social Legislation in Brazil,"
in Brazil: Portrait of Half a Continent. T. Lynn Smith and Alexander
Marchant (eds) .

2
Kenneth F. Johnson, "Causal Factors in Latin American Political

I nstabi 1 ity," Western Political Q.uarterly, XVII, No. 3 (September,
196^), pp. ^32-446, considers that the maldistribution of land owner-
ship, entrepreneurial deficiencies, urbanization, and over-populat ion
contribute to this political instability but "do not necessarily tell
us when it can be expected to occur."

laborers to become members of a rural small proprietor middle class was
established. But their influence was a limited one.

During the 1950's, the low status agricultural population,
especially in the Northeast, finally began to be organized. To under-
stand how this change came about and how new contenders for power
developed, claiming to represent the agricultural low-status groups,
it is necessary to review the following: the origins, myths, and
reality of the latifundio or large landed estate, the systematic
attempts to drain as much income and energy as possible from peasants,
the effects of nineteenth century immigrant colonization, and the
socio-economic changes and pressures in rural areas since the 1930's.

Origins of the Large Estate and Latifundio
The systems of landownershi p and control established by the
Portuguese in Brazil represented a sharp break with the traditional
small -farm agricultural pattern of Portugal. From the beginning,
land was given in large grants called sesmaria or appropriated by

"adventurers from the lower and even the upper segments of the

nobility who migrated in order to restore depleted fortunes."

For the most part, ordinary citizens (homens do povo) or "plebeians"
came only in later years, after the discovery of gold and diamonds

The best treatments of the origins and effects of concentrated
landholding patterns in Brazil are T. Lynn Smith, Brazi 1 : People and
i nst i tut ions (rev. ed.; Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
Press, 1963), pp. 2^5-246; and 1 nter -American Committee for Agri-
cultural Development (CIDA), Land Tenure Conditions and Socio-Economi c
Development of the Agricultural Sector, Brazil (Washington, D,C.:
Pan American Union, General Secretariat, Organization of American
States, 1966), passim.

Smith, OP. ci t. . p. 319» is paraphrased and quoted for this first

paragraph.

and the country's economic development made a place for small manufactur-
ing and trading enterprises. In addition, as Oliveira Vianna points out,
lands were granted only to persons who could convince the authorities
that they were frouj "good" families and had the slaves, finances and
other requisites to develop sugar plantations, mills, and cattle ranches,
in no other Latin American country have such huge blocks of land been
owned by such a small group of people who dominated agriculture in
almost every part of the country, regardless of climate or major type

of land use. Many of the largest properties were acquired illegally

or fraudulently. Two major types of irregularities have continued to

the present time, not only in the old sugar or cacao regions of the
Northeast but also in the new frontier regions of Parana, Mato Grosso,
Goias, and the Federal District of Brasilia:

1. After federal or state agencies announce plans to colonize
"public lands," private individuals appear claiming title

to all or parts of this land, whereupon these newly discovered
"owners" are given a concession of land or their "private
title" is recognized and the land is purchased by the federal
or state government concerned. The Northeast Development
Agency (SUDENE) has been victimized frequently by this practice
as have the state governments of Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande
do Sul .

2. Once public lands are settled and land values rise, speculators
on adjacent properties move their boundary lines or discover
that their "titles" cover part of or all of the cleared or

Ibid., citing, Oliveira Vianna, "0 Povo Brasileiro e sua
Evolu9ao," Recenseamento do Brasil, 1920, Vol. I (Rio de Janeiro,
1922) , pp. 28^-285.

'^Graciliano Ramos, Sao Bernardo (Seventh edition; Sao Paulo:
Livraria Martins Editora, 1961), pp. 41-50; and Jorge Amado, Gabr iela.
Clove and Cinnamon, trans. James L. Taylor and William L. Grossman
(Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Crest Book, 1964), pp. 68-
82, are two famous Brazilian novels which deal with, among other things,
the use of violence to acquire and protect land in Alagoas and Bahia,
respectively.

cultivated lands. In many cases, the speculators used hired
gunmen to eject the colonist. This practice has taken place
frequently in the 1960's in Paran^, Mato Grosso, Goi^s, and
the new Federal District of Brasilia.'

Throughout Brazil's history, many of Brazil's leading families
have obtained land in this fashion or fought off attempts by rivals to
acquire their land. Throughout Brazil's history, the names Albuquerque
de Barros, Bezerra, Cavalcanti, Mello, Maranhao, Queiroz, Lima, Coelho,
Wanderley, Monteiro, Oliveira, Pessoa, Bulhoes, Magalhaes, Cabral ,
Campos, Borges, Lina, Coutinho, and Guimaraes appear over and over
again. Throughout Brazil's history, indigo, sugar, cotton, coffee,
cacao, lumber, and livestock have been produced for export on a large
scale in response to the demands of foreign markets.

In addition, two other points need emphasis: (1) the Catholic
Church never acquired the large amounts of land which have made it
famous elsewhere in Latin America, and (2) a system of small farms
or "shelter belt," protecting the plantations from the natives, as in
the case of the United States, never developed in the hinterland.^

Even before its independence in 1822, Brazil was a nation with
a high concentration of landownership, much unused land, a backward
agriculture, and "many poor families wandering from place to place,
following the favor and caprice of landowners and always lacking the

kiDA, op. cit.. pp. 15-16.

Smith, op. ci t . . p. 322, points out that a royal letter of

February 23, 1711, stipulated that no "concessions of land in the
State of Brazil" shall pass "by any title to the dominion of Religions,"
quoting Joaquim da Silva Rocha, Historia da Colonizapao do Brasil, Vol. I
(Rio de Janeiro, 1918 and 1919) , p. 158.

•'Smith, op. cit.. p. 320.

means of obtaining some ground on which they could mai<e a permanent
establ i shment."

There was little sub-division of the old concessions anywhere.
The proprietors of the interior surrounded themselves with a popula-
tion of sharecroppi ng tenants, renters, and squatters living in
"almost feudal" relationships to a few fazendei ros , "at whose nod they
are subservient and bowed, in order not to be ejected from their

miserable ranches [thatched huts] where they live and from the ropa or

2
enqenho where they work to gain their daily bread."

Except in the South, where a program of colonization was started

in the nineteenth century, Brazil entered the post World War 11 period

as a nation in which the landed estate with large amounts of unused

land or latifundia ruled supreme.-^ Few changes appear to be occurring

in the size of Brazilian farms except in the very largest estates of

100,000 hectares (247,000 acres) or more which increased in number

from 37 in 19^0 to 60 in 1950. The concentration of land in a

Ibid. , p. 324, quoting a statement by Gon9alves Chaves in Ruy
Cirne Lima, Terras Devolutas (Porto Alegre, 1935). PP. 33~44.

2 -
Joao Cardoso de Menezes e Souza , Theses sobre Colonizagao no

Brasi 1 (Rio de Janeiro, 1875), p. 309, quoted in Smith, Brazi 1 , p. 300.

^As noted in the Glossary of terms, estates generally over 500
hectares (1,200 acres) fall into this category.

Smith, op. cit . , pp. 336-337, indicates these large establish-
ments were found as follows in 1950 in the following states: Acre (16);
Amazonas-Rio Branco (4); Para-Amapa (7); Bahia (3); Paran^ (2); Mato
Grosso-Guapore (l6); Maranhao (l); Piauf (4), Santa Catarina (l), and
Goi^s (2).

Unfortunately, the census does not indicate the names of the
owners of these tracts. In addition, Joao Goulart's acquisition of
many large tracts of land in several states while President was not a
significant departure from the traditional Brazilian phenomenon of

relatively small number of families is shown by the 1950 census In
which only 14.6 per cent of all farm establishments occupied 83.4
per cent of all the land in farms; conversely 85.4 per cent of all
farms establishments — those less than 100 hectares — occupied only
16.8 per cent of all the land in farms. (See Table 1.)

The importance of low wage agricultural labor in several states
with large amounts of unused land is seen in data on the distribution
of tractors and plows in ten states. The more advanced states of the
South have mechanized much of their agricultural regions in contrast
to the North and Northeast. (See Table 2.)

Although some subdivision of land through inheritance or tax
pressures is occurring in Minas Gerais, Sao Paulo, Rio Grande do
Sul , and the Northeast, it is important to remember: '

individuals trying to buy up land in different municipios or states
for status, tax, or investment purposes.

Not every source agrees that the maldistribution of land in
Brazil has had bad effects. W. H. Nicholls and Ruy Miller Paiva,
"The Structure and Productivity of Brazilian Agriculture," Journal
of Farm Economics , Vol. XLVI I , No. 2 (May 1956), p. 361, affirm that
"Brazil owes a substantial debt to those large landowners who are
active in settling, developing and improving the nation's agricultural
resources." They argue that the higher labor productivity of the larger
farms is "probably a net social advantage so long as Brazil is so short
of adequate farm job opportunities." Of course, similar claims were
made by the supporters of the slave system in the United States as a
reason for maintaining the slaveowners' dominant position of power.

CiDA, op. ci t . , p. 83, is among the sources which note that the
absence of or limitations of available statistics make it extremely
difficult to compare the productivity and levels of living possible
from a ten-hectare farm in a valley near Rio de Janeiro or SSo Paulo
with a latifundio of over 500 hectares or 12,000 acres in Rio Grande
do Sul or Minas Gerais. in any case, in this writer's opinion, the
absence and limitations of agricultural statistics are a reflection
of the satisfaction of the landed elite with the existing distribution
and productivity of land. '

TABLE 1

NUMBER AND AREA OF FARM ESTABLISHMENTS
ACCORDING TO SIZE - 1950^

Size of Holding
in hectares

Number of Establishments

Per Cent

Total of Total

Area of Establishments

Total Per Cent

hectares of Total

Less than 10

10 to 99

100 to 999

1 ,000 to 9,999

10,000 and more

Undeclared

710.93^

34.5

3,025,372

1.3

1,052,557

50.9

35.562,747

15.3

268,159

13.0

75,520,717

32.5

31,017

1.5

73,093,482

31.5

1,611

45,008,788

19.4

364

0.0
100.0

— —

2,064,642

232,211 ,106

100.0

^Source of data: Manuel Diegues Junior, Populacgo e Propriedade da
Terra no Brasil (Washington, D. C. : Uniao Pan-
Americana, Secretaria Geral , 0rgani2a9ao dos Estados
Americanos, 1959), p. 253.

TABLE 2

DISTRIBUTION OF TRACTORS AND PLOWS ACCORDING TO
PRELIMINARY RESULTS, AGRICULTURAL CENSUS
SEPTEMBER 1, I96O, SELECTED STATES^

Agricultural Work Steel

State Force Tractors Plows

Maranhao 928,801 41 118*^

Piaui 355,187 59 1,403

Rio Grande do Norte 296,494 246 304

Pernambuco 879,844 (1950)^ 142 (1950)'= 3,902 (1950)*^

Minas Gerais 2,076,829 5,024 93,040

Rio de Janeiro 240,853 1,469 12,314

Sao Paulo 1,683,038 28,101 286,580

Parana' 1,276,854 4,996 82,324

Rio Grande do Sul 1 ,071 ,404 (1950) — 312,001 (1950)

Goias 492,745 1,299 6,388

Mato Grosso 184,340 997 5,386

Federal District 2,385 7 23
of Brasi 1 ia

^Compiled from "Censo Agr i col a-1 96O, Resultados Prel iminares V Re-
vista Brasileira dos Municipios (Rio de Janeiro: IBGE, Conselho Nacional
de Estatistica) , Ano XVI (July-December, I963), pp. 168-192, and Smith,
OP. cit . . pp. 331 and 387.

In 1950, the Sixth Agricultural Census found I8O plows in Ma-
ranhao, an increase over the seventy-one found in 1940. The writer has
no information on the decline in number of plows unless the preliminary
statistics gathered by the 1 96O Agricultural Census were inadequate.

The IBGE had not published data on Pernambuco, but the
writer thought it would be useful to present Smith's 1950 statistics
which show the low rate of mechanization in the Northeast, the reliance
on hoe culture, and dependence on fire or slash and burn agriculture in
many regions.

•^Smith, op. cit.. p. 331.

The mere subdivision of a large fazenda among the numerous progeny
of a deceased owner does not result automatically in the change
from a system of large-scale agricultural exploitation to a well-
rounded system of small farming. ... On the contrary, such a
manner of subdivision is likely merely to mean that each heir
receives insufficient land to enable him successfully to carry
on the type and scale of agricultural enterprises with which he
is familiar, to live in the manner that he feels is the right of
a member of his family and social class, and to carry on the type
of rural life that he considers to be the mainstay of the nation.

Moreover, the lack of a system of primogeniture which keeps
property intact and passes it on to a single heir as in England or the
United States, makes it difficult for the many owners or donos of a
single property to agree on how it should be managed, much less
improvements made.

in the coastal sugar regions, the introduction of more modern
processes and of twentieth century machinery has reduced the status
of many senhores de engenho to that of suppliers (fornecedores) of cane
to the sugar mills (us inas) who used their greater financial power to
buy up sugar, cotton, and coffee land in order to lessen their depend-
ence upon the fornecedores. The giant sugar mill corporations, with
an absentee ownership, took over the land and many of the functions of
the former sugar landed aristocracy, which at least lived on the land
and maintained a paternalistic relation in many cases with its slaves
and free workers living on the estate.

In the twentieth century, the introduction of modern machinery
and processes has reduced the status of many senhores de engenho in

Smith, OP. cit . . p. 338. Italics mine.

I bid. . Smith notes on p. 3^1 that "it is not unusual to find
an estate whose ownership is vested in hundreds of persons represent-
ing as many as five generations. And even this is not the extreme."

the coastal Northeast to that of suppliers (fornecedores) of cane to
the giant sugar mills (usinas) operated by absentee owners. The
usinas have used their greater financial power to take over much of
the land and social functions of this landed aristocracy which lived
on the land in many cases and maintained a paternalistic relationship
with its slaves or free workers.

The Myth and Reality of the "Ideal -type" Fazenda
The most sympathetic description of the traditional Brazilian
estate known as the engenho. fazenda . or estancia (as it was known
in the South) is that of Gilberto Freyre who called it the "most
stable type of civilization . . . found in Hispanic America." In
its ideal form, the fazenda was a large agricultural establishment

See Smith, op. cit. . pp. 3O6-308, for a description of this
process including quotations from A. P, Figueiredo, editor of the
Recife newspaper, 0 Progresso. in 1846.

^Harry W. Hutchinson, Village and Plantation Life in North-
eastern Brazil (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1 957) . PP.
7-8, found "a maximum of family traditions and paternalism" in the
ownership and operation of many usinas in the Recftncavo region north-
west of Salvador, Bahia.

3
The writer observed this process taking place in the municipios

of Guariba, Jaboticabal, and Jardinopol i s , Sao Paulo, in visits to

regions northwest of the state capital of Sao Paulo on November 28-29>

See also CIDA, op. cit . . pp. 518-519, which notes that over 46
per cent of the total sugar cane harvest in Pernambuco came from land
owned by the mills. Almost all of the remaining cane was raised by
2,870 who were contracted by nearby mills to process their cane. An
additional portion of sugar cane is still processed into rapadura
(brown sugar cakes) by ox-driven or bagasse-powered steam engines for
distribution to the inhabitants of the Sertao.

Gilberto Freyre, The Masters and the Slaves (Abridged Edition),
trans, from the Portuguese by Samuel Putnam (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1964), p. 7.

Figure 2.— A "temporary" one year old hut of squatters, Colonia Pindo-
rama, near Penedo, Alagoas, July ]k, I965.

Figure 3. "A "traditional" sugar plantation between Maceio and Penedo,
Alagoas, July, I965. On the left, a chapel; in the center,
the Casa Grande; on the right, the sugar mill; and scattered
about are other smaller buildings housing workers or livestock.

Figure ^.--Engenho Bento Velho, Municipio of Vitoria de Santo Antao, Per-
nambuco, near the paved highway between Recife and Vitoria de
Santo Antao. Engenho Galileia is about one-half mile to the
right over a dirt road. An administrator manages Bento Velho
for Usina Bui hoes.

Figure 5. — A "barracao" or "company store" operated by a Senhor de Engenho
on the dirt highway between Goiana and Tambe, Pernambuco.
Second from the left is Joao Jordao da Silva, Treasurer of the
Federation of Rural Workers of the State of Pernambuco, July 2,
1965.

Figure 6. --The homes of sugar plantation workers lining one of the roads
leading out of Ribeirao Preto, Pernambuco, July 19, 1965.

Figure 7. ""One of several barracks-style homes for the families of workers,
Engenho Gallo, District of Xexeu, Municipio of Agua Preta, Per-
nambuco, July 10, 1965. The Engenho belongs to the family of
Senator Francisco Pessoa de Queiroz, also a major stockholder
in Jornal do Comercio. a radio station, and two television
stations.

inhabited by the owner, his family, and a number of more or less

fixed tenants or wage laborers who were allowed to cultivate a piece

of the land and repaid the owner in a variety of ways. The f azenda

was:

A locality group; isolated, to a greater or a lesser degree from
similar groups by the bad roads, the lack of other means of com-
munication and the sheer extension of the lands. Often such a
locality group had its own service-providing sector: a shop, a
school, a chapel, and in some cases even an incipient armed force.

In order to meet their own need for an adequate and dependable

supply of labor, latifundio and plantation owners often entered into

arrangements with nomadic squatters who were permitted to clear and

work land on the fringes of the latifundio as a means of substantiating

or extending the owner's control over a piece of ground. In their

everyday relationships with tenants, laborers, and squatters, the

plantation owners astutely adjusted the terms of employment or land

use to meet their own needs and to protect themselves against the rights

or claims of peasants against the land or against the landowner.

Peasants were deliberately kept disoriented so that they would not

threaten the existing land structure.

The Systematic Attempts to Drain as Much income
and Energy as Possible from Peasants

Large monetary returns from inherited landed properties were and

still are possible because of the unlimited supplies of labor and land.

Galjart, op. ci t. . pp. 4-5.

"Squatting" as a phenomenon is related to many of the politically

inspired reports of "invasions" of plantations, cattle ranches, and other
rural properties in the 1960's — a phenomenon which is dealt with in
several later chapters^

This is because agriculture was extensive and not intensive. Many of
the lati fundi stas did not seek to increase the yield per acre but
sought to get by with as little managerial or capital investment as
possible. Their earnings were often channelled into commerce and
industry where the returns on cash investment have been traditionally
much higher than in agriculture. In turn, savings or profits from
commercial and industrial enterpri ses--which improved the credit
position of the estate owner--would often be used to purchase new

land when it was available as a hedge against inflation and to improve

total farm returns, thus increasing their wealth and prestige.

The large landowners also received an income from peasants who
borrowed money, patronized landowner -owned stores, or sold their agri-
cultural produce to the landowner. Peasants were considered good
borrowers, customers, and "sellers," because high interest rates, high
prices, and high rentals could be levied against them and they could
be forced to work off any debts they owed. Many estates have been so
large that a peasant could not buy such essentials as coffee, salt, or

CIDA, op. ci t. , pp. 565~567, is an extensive discussion of the
"economic double life" of the large estates.

This writer discovered many large landowners in Rio Grande do

Sul , Sao Paulo, Pernambuco, and Rio Grande do Norte, who lamented the
lack of rural credit facilities and complained of the bureaucratic
"red tape" necessary for agricultural credit. On the other hand, the
writer found that these men generally did not invest agricultural
loans, whether from private or state banks and agencies in their
agricultural enterprises but in urban housing, commercial ventures, or
in short-term or long-range business ventures in South Brazil if they
were Northeastern landowner-merchants. In an interview July 9, 1965»
Cid Sampaio, sugar industrialist, landowner, and former Governor of
Pernambuco, asked this writer if Americans would invest in a local
agricultural enterprise if they could obtain higher rates of return
by investing funds in a business in other parts of the United States.'

clothing anywhere except in the stores (barracoesl operated by the land-
owners or their administrators. In other cases, landowners inhibited
their peasants from using nearby public markets (fei ras) by paying them
in script (vales) which could be redeemed only in the barracoes. The
vales shown below for 200 and 500 cruzeiros (11^ and 27^ respectively,
in July 1965) were issued to laborers on the Engenho Gallo, part of
the Santa Terezina Sugar Mill, Xexeu District, Municipio of Agua Preta,

Pernambuco, which belongs to the family of Senator and communications

2
media owner Francisco Pessoa de Queiroz.

r-'

nossa Casa Uiz oi! Fillais

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Table 3 illustrates the prices of selected consumer goods in
representative stores in Pernambuco in July 1965 when rural worker
salaries in the sugar zone ranged between 1,000 and 1,730 cruzeiros
per day (U.S.$ .55-. 90). Table k illustrates the effect of deductions

On July 10, 1965, this writer talked with nine male heads of
family in a group of 25 persons at the Engenho barracks in which these
people lived. Five could read and write their names; only one could
write anything more. Thirteen men and boys worked the previous week
for 1,100 cruzeiros (60^) per day if the tasks assigned were considered
fulfilled by the plantation administrator. Many individuals on the
Engenho were paid only 550 cruzeiros (or approximately 30^) per day.

2
Senator Pessoa de Q.ueiroz also owns the Nossa Senhora de Carmo

Sugar Mill in Amaraj i Municipio, two radio stations, a television

station, and is principal stockholder of two newspapers in Recife.

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for rent and non-payment of minimum wages in eight different states
in 1957. This extra exploitation further irritated many peasants and
their leaders in the last decade when peasants began to organize
peasant s indi catos and cooperatives.

The Concentration of Property Ownership
and Political Activism in a Small
Number of Fami 1 ies

The ownership and management of Brazilian business enterprises

has been dominated by family enterprises, the philosophy of the

"robber baron," a paucity of real joint-stock companies, a heavy

degree of economic concentration,-^ and a disproportionate amount of

industrial development in the state of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and

a few areas around the state capital of P6rto Alegre, Belo Horizonte,

Salvador, and Recife.

Alexander, Labor Relations, pp. 45-48.

^W, Paul Strassman, "The Industrialist," in Continuity and
Change in Latin America. John J. Johnson (ed.) (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1964), p. 174,

Anthony Leeds, "Brazilian Careers and Social Structure: A
Case History and Model," in Contemporary Cultures and Societies of
Latin America, Dwight B. Heath and Richard N. Adams (eds.) . (New York:
Random House, 1965). pp. 379~401 , describes the kinship and other
informal social links such as the cabide de emprego and panel inha found
in developing areas of Brazil.

Alexander, op. ci t. . pp. 48-50; Strassman, op. ci t . , pp. 168-174.

^Mauricio Vintras de Queiroz, "Os Grupos Economicos no Brasil,"
Revista do Institute de Ciencias Socials da Universidade do Brasi!
(July-December 1962), pp. 157-169; the state of Sao Paulo accounts for
over 65 per cent of Brazilian industrial production.

4
Rio Grande do Sul has developed a rather diversified industrial

base in many small landholding regions of the state.

John J. Johnson, "I ntroduct ion," in Johnson, op. ci t. , p. 52, and
Robert Alexander, op. cit . , pp. 52-54.

To some extent, the reluctance of Luso-Brazi 1 ian families to save
and invest in industry accounts for the dominance of immigrant or first
generation ownership of industry in the southern states.

Native investment capital has historically reacted against
industrial development. Safer and less risky investments in land
or housing have been preferred. Large landholders seldom invested
in industry, other than those types which processed agricultural
crops, such as sugar, coffee, and cocoa. In Pernambuco, it was
discovered that at least 29 of 46 sugar mills functioning in 1965
were landowner family-operated corporations.

Moreover, unlike Sao Paulo and other modernizing areas of Latin
America where new industrial or business groups formed the bases of

new political groups, the new business sectors of the Northeast

2
continue to be dominated by the old landowning elite. As a con-
sequence, the "old traditional families" have monopolized the decision-
making processes of these sub-systems. In Pernambuco, for example,
the 29 inter-related families controlling forty-six usinas each had
a family member or close relative in the State Assembly and the Federal
Congress in the I96O-I965 period. At the Municipio level, local
Prefeitos and/or Councils seldom opposed the large landowners in those
few instances in which these men did not belong to the kinship or
clientele structure of the usineiro or f azendei ro.

Merle Kling, "Toward a Theory of Power and Political Instability
in Latin America," Western Political Quarterly. Vol. IX, No. 1 (March
1966), pp. 33-34.

The generous fiscal incentives offered by Article 3^-18 of the
SUDENE law brought in approximately $200 million in private Brazilian funds
between I96I-I965, which will undoubtedly introduce new political
ideas and structures in time.

The Effects of 19th Century Colonization
In the nineteenth century, private companies and federal and
state governments attempted to establish communities of small independent
farmers in Pernambuco, Bahia, Sergipe, Sao Paulo, ParanS, Santa Cata-
rina, and Rio Grande do Sul. Large properties were sub-divided,

families placed on farm plots, and aid and supervision extended in many

2
cases. In the Northeastern states, most of these projects failed. In

the South, more success was achieved and a new agricultural civilization

based on small farms was created in the thinly populated regions which

had produced hides, dried meat, and timber. As a result, the principal

regions of small family proprietors include:

1. The Colony (a col onia) . a zone west and north of Porto
Alegre, and two municjpios around Pelotas, in Rio Grande
do Sul .

2. The plateau west of Curitiba, ParanS.

3. The Itajai and Tubarao Valleys of Santa Catarina.
h. Western Sao Paulo.

5. The so-called "Triangulo Mineiro" of Southwest Minas Gerais.

Zempati Ando, Pioneirismo e Cooperat i vi smo (Sab Paulo: Funda9ao
Escola de Sociologia e Polftica de Sao Paulo, I96I), is a good descrip-
tion of the history of Japanese colonization in Brazil in general and
of the Japanese who formed the Cotia Cooperative in April, 1927, in
particular.

In the Municipio of Tambos , to the east of Porto Alegre, RGS, the
German colonists have undergone a process of degeneration (cabocl i 23930)
whereby their cultural level is much more akin to that of lower class
Luso-Brazi 1 ians of the Northeast. Writer's notes.

2 ''

Carlos Alberto de Medina, "A Estrutura Agraria Brasileira:

Caracterfst icas e Tendencies, " America Latina (January-March, 196^), pp.
71-90, contains data on Espfritu Santo, where several German colonies

These regions are significant not only in terms of a more diver-
sified agriculture, increased production of foodstuffs and fibers for
processing into other products such as shoes and textiles, but also
for the creation of a rural and small town middle class which helped
bring about economic and political change.

The communities founded by German, Italian, Polish, Dutch, or
Japanese small farmers differ very much from the Luso-Brazi 1 ian com-
munities described by Gilbert© Freyre and others. The former are much
more articulate, integrated, capable, and willing to enter into joint
action on behalf of the community. If one notes the existence of
tension in their relationships at election time these tensions have
little effect on other social relationships.^

In fact, many small farmers in the Colonia region around Caxias
do Sul northwest of Porto Alegre (in which average farm size is 18,7
hectares or ^^.9 acres)^ refer to themselves as "colonos" or "colonists"

in the nineteenth century degenerated within the lifetime of the col-
onists; Ernst Wagemann, "A Coloniza^ao Alema no Estado do Esplrito
Santo" (tradu9ao de Reginaldo Santana) , IBGE-Rio de Janeiro, 19^9.

Emi 1 io Wi 1 lems , "Brazi 1 ," in The Positive Contributions by
Immigrants , A Symposium prepared for UNESCO by the International
Sociological Association and the International Economic Association
(Second Impression; Paris: UNESCO, I960), p. 13^.

^CIDA, op. cit., pp. 5^6-5^7.

^Land distribution and farm sizes for the seven geographic regions
of Rio Grande do Sul may be found in Comissao Especial de Reforma Aqra-
ria, Bases e Diretrizes para Um Programa Estadual de Reforma Agraria
(Porto Alegre: Instituto Gaucho de Reforma Agraria, 1 9^3) . Table I I on
unnumbered page facing p. 11-3.

and not as peasants (camponeses) because of their relatively iiigh
levels of well-being and status.

in contrast to thie absenteeism of the large landowners found
in much of Brazil, many writers have observed that the immigrants
in the small farm regions and their Brazilian-born offspring did
not acquire land only as an investment opportunity or as a source
of prestige (although there is a clear consciousness of the status
that ownership implies). Rather, land was "acquired fundamentally
and principally as a means of livelihood" by people who wanted to
remain associated with the neighborhood in which they grew up even
if this is not always possible for the younger members of a family
for whom the community may offer little or no employment because land
and job resources have become scarce.

A visitor to one of the areas inhabited by small farmers is
almost always surprised by the large number of voluntary cultural
groups and religious organizations which function there. The following.

Various small farmers with only 15~20 hectares of land in the
geographic zones known as the Encosta inferior Nordeste, Encbsta Su-
perior Nordeste, and Alto Uruguai , emphasized this fact to this
writer in his discussions with them in 1965.

The writer does not know if this self-concept of being a "co-
lono" and not a "campones" has always existed in this region or if
the self-concept was developed as an outgrowth of the publicity given
the Peasant Leagues of the Northeast and a desire on the part of many
Gaucho small farmers not to associate themselves with the Juliao-
inspired groups.

CIDA, op. ci t. , p. 5^7, discusses the problem of out-migration
in the Santa Cruz region of Rio Grande do Sul where 95 per cent of
farm properties are less than 100 hectares and the average farm size
is 65.9 hectares.

with their German, Portuguese, or Japanese names, were encountered

by thi s wr I ter :

Dramatic societies (Theatervereine) , bowling clubs (kegelklubs or
clubes de boche) , rifle clubs or hunting societies (Schutsenve-
reine or Clubes de Tiradores), Choral societies (Gesangverei ne) ;
dance circles or dance halls (Tanskranschen or Saloes de dan^as) ,
school societies (schulevereine or sociedades de padres), young
men's associations (seinendan or clubes de jovens), cooperatives
(cooperati vas and among the Japanese, mutual -help associations
or kumi) ,

In April 1965. while staying at the combined rural school and

home of Ladyr Rech, President of the Gaucho Agrarian Front or FAG for

the Diocese of Caxias do Sul , this writer participated in the following

series of events on a Sunday:

Attended the second of two morning masses in the village Church
of Fazenda Souza.

Attended a meeting of local small farmers to discuss contribu-
tions to the Social Security Fund created by the Rural Worker
Statute but which the Federal Government was reluctant to
establish — in effect, forcing government to act by making
deposits in local banks to the Social Security Fund of the
Rural Worker Statute.

Visited the stables and gardens of the Catholic Seminary for
Boys operated in the Village of Fazenda Souza.

Gave a lecture on the United States to about fifty boys who
attend the Seminary.

Attended a Soccer match between the Seminary Team and a team
from another village in the Municipio of Caxias do Sul.

Table 5 lists several types of voluntary associations by states

in Brazil for 1959. With the exception of Bahia, Minas Gerais, and

Ceara, voluntary-group activity is much higher per capita and per mu-

nici pio in the southern states where there was foreign colonization.

Willems, op. ci t . . p. 13^. also discusses this phenomenon.

On the other hand, the writer never found such a wide range of

activities tn a Northeast vfllage or town.

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Bahia's literary tradition undoubtedly contributes to the large number
of literary societies in that state, especially in the I 1 1 heus-l tabuna
regions of which Jorge Amado has written. Minas Gerais and Ceara have
a long religious tradition — that of southern Ceara having been supported
by the many religious groups created by followers of Padre Cicero in
his memory. The Rural Associations, the principal formally organized
pressure groups of large landowners in most Brazilian states, are
discussed in greater detail in Chapter III.

Since there was no public school system to speak of in the early
days of colonization in the nineteenth century, the German and
Italian immigrants organized their own schools, whose quality was
gradually improved through "summer school" teacher training courses
of the "People's Unioh' (Volksverein or Uniao Popula^ in Novo Hamburgo,

Rio Grande do Sul , and other areas colonized by Germans, Italians,

Slavs, and Japanese. In addition, teachers frequently were sent to

Europe or Japan for additional training or brought over to teach from
the motherl and--the local community paying all or a sizeable proportion
of their salaries and living expenses. The consequences of this
peasant interest in schools is reflected in the high level of literacy,
large number of small town newspapers, and large number of hospitals
in the South in 1959- (See Table 6.)

Jos6 Fabio Barbosa da Silva, "Organizacao Social de Juazeiro
e Tensoes entre Litoral e Interior," Sociologia. Vol. XXIV, No. 3
(September, 1962), pp. 190-191.

Willems, op. cit. . pp. 13^-137, discusses the impact of the

two World Wars, the differing values of Luso-Brazi 1 i an majorities,
and state and federal legislation designed to bring schools, co-
operatives and religious and recreational associations under Brazilian
control.

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Figure 8. —The town house of a traditional cattle rancher (estanciero) .
Pelotas, Rio Grande do Su) , February 27. 1967.

Figure 9. "From left to right: the rural school -and-home of Ladyr Rech,
President of the FAG Regional Department, a neighborhood
chapel, and a neighborhood or community recreation center
under construction, Fazenda Souza zone. District of Ana Rech,
Municipio of Caxias do Sul , Rio Grande do Sul , February 7>
1965.

Table 7 compares the population and school facilities of two
German-Brazilian muni ci pips in Rio Grande do Sul (Santa Cruz — which is a
commercial and industrial centei — and Venancio Aires--which is
predominantly rural) with Jaboatao — an industrial and sugar-producing
Luso-Brazi 1 ian municipio — outside of Recife, Pernambuco.

This table supports a subjective judgment that the school systems
in the small farm regions of Rio Grande do Sul are much larger for the
area and population than the school systems in Pernambuco; rural
children in Rio Grande do Sul appear to have a much greater chance
to go to school than do rural children in Pernambuco.

The Role of Immigrant Groups in Political Change
In Brazil, no politically organized body of immigrants or "polit-
ical minorities" have ever actually competed for power with existing
parties. European and Japanese immigrants who came to Brazil did
not establish political parties, programs, or ideologies as did
Italian immigrants to Argentina who helped found the Radical and
Socialist Parties in the late l800's. Nevertheless, historical
experience and the economic need for stability for those immigrants
engaged in agriculture, business, and industry taught these settlers
that revolutions and political unrest meant property confiscation,
destruction of crops and livestock, plunder, and bloodshed. The grow-
ing participation and influence on the Brazilian-born population of
recent European extraction, particularly on the municipio and state

The writer is referring to groups which would correspond to the
Irish-American, Slavic Democrat, or German Republican Clubs so pro-
minent in the United States.

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level, has helped other Brazilians to change some of the traditional
political patterns. in particular, the political monopoly of the
old family oligarchies was destroyed and fraud and armed force are
rarely used in the South although still quite common in the Northeast.

The Effects of Colonization on
Legislative Representation

One would presume that one indication of the assimilation of

recent groups into Brazilian society would be the appearance of non-

Luso or non-Portuguese names in the State Assemblies or the Federal

Congress— respecial ly in view of the oft-repeated statement that

"Brazil is a racial democracy." However, when one examines the names

and background of legislators in the states of Pernambuco, Rio Grande

do Sul , and S^o Paulo — one finds a differential treatment accorded

these groups. With one possible exception, the 83 State Deputies

Willems, op. ci t. , p. 139. notes that peasants of German, Italian,
and Polish origin established armed militias in the southern states
during the "revolutionary" campaigns of 1924-1925 which protected the
"colonia" of Rio Grande do Sul and other regions from the various
armed groups in the region, including those of Luis Carlos Prestes.
In recent years, the parades of "hunting" or "shooting" clubs to
celebrate the anniversaries of various communities are a reminder to
the communities themselves and to state and national leaders of the
capacity of these small farmers to defend themselves.

2
Gilberto Freyre has been the greatest exponent of this lyrical

view of the assimilation of many ethnic strains. See for example, his

"Perspective of Brazil," Atlantic Monthly (February, 1956), pp. 8-12,

in which he notes the case of Lauro Muller, born in Santa Catarina,

who "became one of the most astute and influential politicians in

Brazil" , . . "David Campista, the Brazilian son of a German Jew . . .

who became the Minister of Finance."

A more cautious appraisal is rendered by Charles Wagley (ed.).

Race and Class in Rural Brazil (Paris: UNESCO, 1952), esp. pp. 7-8,

]kO-\kk, and 15^-155.

^By and large, students of Brazilian politics, Brazilian or
foreign, have not made behavioral studies of the ethnic, occupational,

and 2k Federal Deputies from Pernambuco in I962-I965 were of Luso-
Brazilian origins. On the other hand, a substantial proportion of
the state and federal deputies from Rio Grande do Sul and Sao Paulo
were of non-Portuguese or non-Luso ancestry. The data are shown in
Table 8. Unfortunately, there is little occupational data to construct
a Table showing differences in the economic strata represented. Never-
theless, one would be safe in presuming that the large number of small
farmers of German, Italian, and Japanese descent in the southern
states would have access to these state and federal deputies because
these deputies were elected on the basis of votes from smal I -farmi ng
regions.

Moreover, the writer thinks a significantly different political
style is indicated by the fact that all Gaucho Municipio Councils
which this writer visited met weekly, in contrast to the Councils in
Pernambuco which seldom met more than four or five times a year in
196^-1965 with two exceptions. In three Gaucho municipios — Caxias
do Sul, Santana do Livramento, and Venancio Aires, the Council
frequently met twice a week to discuss municipio. state, and national
affai rs.

educational, and political backgrounds of council, deputies, senators,
and autonomous agency similar to that of David R. Matthews, U.S.
Senators and Their World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, i960), or John R. Wahlke and Heinz Eulau (eds.), Legi slat ive
Behavior (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1959).

Although the West European and Japanese migration to the North-
east has been small, the genetic contributions of Northwest Europeans
can be observed in the faces of the rural workers of VitSria de Santo
Antao, Pernambuco, shown in Figure 20, p. 1^5.

TABLE 8

NATIONAL ORIGINS OF MEMBERS OF STATE ASSEMBLIES
AND FEDERAL DEPUTIES, SELECTED BRAZILIAN STATES
1963-1965, COMPARED TO IMMIGRATION TO
BRAZIL, I88i+-1957 (PERCENTAGES) 2

67o

1 00%

50%

59%

39%

6it%

30.6%

r/o

—

20%

15%

25%

31.7%

—

18%

25%

k.QJo

—

4.0%^

—

10%

—

.8%^^

—

,.,15%,

JSk

... ,^1

28,.^%^

1 007o

1 00%

99%

1 00%

100.0%

National Pernambuco Sao Paulo Rio Grande Immigration

Origin of do Sul 1884-1957

Deputy or State Fed. State Fed. State Fed. (4,765,113)'^

Ancestors (n=85) (n=24) (n = 119) (n-54) (n-79) (n-28)

Portuguese
1 tal i an
German
Japanese
Middle East
Mixed or

Indeterminate
Total

^National origins of members of the State Assemblies were determined
from voting lists and other data obtained by the writer in the Electoral
Tribunals of each state in 1965.

Smith, Brazi 1 , p. 126. Unfortunately, there are no statistics on
the foreign immigration to each state.

^One of these Deputies, Diogenese Gabriel Wanderley, is the scion of
a wealthy landowning family whose Dutch ancestors married into Pernambuco
families during the brief period of the Dutch conquest. The other non-
Luso name represented was that of Aureo Howard Bradley, whose family
origins are not known.

This 0.8% is derived from the 37,^39 Syrian and Lebanese immigrants
who have gone to Brazil. Several thousand other immigrants have come from
Iran, Iraq, and Egypt, but precise figures are not available and it is
necessary to recognize that border changes in the Middle East in the past
eighty years make the task of assigning national origins more difficult.

®This 28.9% of the immigrant population is made up of persons from
more than thirty countries, the largest contribution being 657.744
persons from Spain or I3.8 per cent.

A Model of Differentia] Output of Funds for
Medical Facilities and Land Distribution

In order to determine if there might be a correlation between the
distribution of property in a state and the allocation of public funds
for a public purpose, this writer combined available data on land
distribution by municipios with data for the numbers and types of
medical facilities in Rio Grande do Sul to make Map in-Fig. 10. An examin-
tion will show that municipios with 95 per cent or more farm hold-
ings less than 100 hectares (2^7 acres) have significantly higher
quantities of health facilities than the Campanha zone along the
Uruguayan frontier in which 15 per cent or less of farm holdings are
less than 100 hectares. In fact, the three geographic zones with
small farm holdings had more hospital beds in I960 (9,116) than each
of the states of the North, Northeast, East, and Central West, except
for Pernambuco, Bahia, and Espfrito Santo--which would also lag behind
if it were not for the hospital facilities in their state capitals.

If one compares the state and municipal government structure of
Rio Grande do Sul and Sao Paulo with Pernambuco, one not only finds
greater outlays for education and health services, but also govern-
ments which have formally created Departments of Labor and Cooperative

Based on a comparison of the totals listed on Rg. 10 with data
appearing in Anu^rio Estatlstico, 1961, pp. 302-303.

Only one municipio wi th 95 per cent or more of its properties
less than 100 hectares — Candelaria to the west of Santa Cruz do Sul —
had a strong politician who dominated politics in recent years. in
Candelaria, "Coronel" Albino Lenz, named first Intendente by Governor
Getulio Vargas in 1925. won re-election for the third time on the
ticket of the PSD on October 7. 1962. in this municipio, the south-
west portion covers part of the Central Depression plain and is made
up of a few very large cattle ranches and rice plantations. .

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Development Agencies within the state government — frequently headed
by persons of non-Luso origin. in 1965f for example, Benedito Ma-
tarazo, son of the Italian immigrant who built up one of South
America's largest industrial empires, succeeded Antonio Morimoto,
son of a Japanese immigrant farmer as Secretary of Labor in Sao
Paulo. In Pernambuco, on the other hand, although Miguel Arraes
(1962-1964) was the first Governor to assign an Assistant Secretary
to keep him informed about 1 abor -management problems, no formal state
office with responsibility for matters dealing with urban or rural
workers exists in this or any Northeast state.

Socio-Economic Pressures and Changes since the 1930's
Until recently, a majority of Brazil's population was made up of
peasants who worked the land in a variety of land tenure and labor-
management systems ranging from "squatting" to highly productive
family and commercial farms similar to those encountered in Northwest
Europe, the United States, or Japan. In the past, there were advantages
for a peasant who lived on a fazenda rather than in a neighboring vil-
lage or town in terms of his opportunity to win the confidence of an
influential landowner and thus rise on the social scale. But this
Ideal -type relationship was not always ideal nor was it a relation-
ship based on law.

This writer interviewed several peasant si ndicato leaders in
Pernambuco who previously had been administrators but. al legedly were
fired for transmitting complaints from tenants or day laborers to the
plantation owner. If a f azendei ro lost a court case over non-observance
of minimum wage or social welfare legislation, his administrator was
seldom penal ized--after all, he was only doing his job as the fazen-
deiro perceived it.

Since 1930, when Getdlio Vargas came to power, a series of changes
have taken place which may be summarized as follows:

1. Many landowners have left the fazendas and estancias for
nearby towns, the state capitals, and the big cities, leaving admin-
istrators in charge of the land or their small agricultural processing
operations. The administrators are peasants themselves, psycholo-
gically unequipped to assume the protective roles of the owners, and
have only a limited power to make decisions which cost money.

2. The increasing industrialization of many parts of the country,
bringing about higher wage levels in factory areas plus the establish-
ment of labor and welfare legislation, which were resisted by the land-
owners, attracted many peasants away from rural areas. Seasonal and
permanent migration to the industrial or harvesting areas in other
parts of the country was often encouraged by the landowners or ad-
ministrators who did not want the burdens of under -employed tenants;
this further weakened the traditional paternalistic bonds between the
peasants and the landowners who may spend a "rustic weekend"at the

old Casa Grande but whose families no longer want to live there full-
time.

3. Putting workers on a straight-wage basis meant a change in
their spatial distribution. From being spread over the plantation,
they were agglomerated in hamlet-like settlements alongside the roads.

In the Northeast, a great amount of sugar cane is harvested by
migratory workers from the Sertao; in Rio Grande do Sul , rice is
harvested by unemployed cowboys dismissed from cattle or sheep round-
ups or wool -shearing jobs or migratory sharecroppers from densely
populated parts of the state. Unfortunately, statistical data is
unavailable on this phenomenon which has its counter-parts in the
United States.

This, as Furtado remarks, made for easier communication among them,
for the rapid spread of ideas and what has come to be called the
''revolution of rising expectations."

k. The individualism of landowners inhibited the formation of
cooperatives or regulatory groups to benefit all producers and not just
the financially strongest.

5. Although farm prices rose much more slowly in recent years
than the index of consumer prices for agricultural products, many
producers are also middlemen and earn an important part of their income
as merchants. Insistence on a flexible minimum-price policy for
producers would force landowners who are also middlemen to pay increased
prices for agricultural products to other landowners, something which
they are not yet willing to do, in part because this would reduce their
profit margins and, in part also, because it would affect their ability
to compete in foreign markets with other overseas suppliers of the

same products.^

6. Landowners, under the influence of the Corporate State ideas
propagated by Vargas, organized themselves into pyramid structures

of Rural Associations, Federation^ and Confederations which were to

See Juarez R. B. Lopes, "Some Basic Developments in Brazilian
Politics and Society," in New Perspectives of Brazil. Eric N, Bakla-
noff (ed.) (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1966), pp. 68-
75, for an excellent discussion of the "progressive dissolution of the
patrimonial order."

Galjart, op. ci t . , p. 11, citing Julian M. Chacel , Pre^os e

Custos Na Aqricultura Brasileira (Mimeographed) (Rio de Janeiro:
Centro Latino Americano de Pesquisas em Ciencias Social^, pp. 3"^.

A Rural , journal of the Brazilian Rural Society or SRB, Sao Paulo,
June, 1964, pp. 34~36, contains advertisements for warehouse and export
firms In Santos and Sao Paulo whose owners are also substantial land-
owners and SRB officers.

work with a series of autarchies or inst i tutos . similar to the Com-
modity Credit Corporation in the United States, in an attempt to ease
the problems of excess supply and inadequate consumption of sugar, rice,
peanuts, wheat, cotton, beans, and yerba mate. The Institutes which
exist outside the regular channels of the Ministries and Departments,
are headed by boards or cabinets of government and producer represen-
tatives, and are often financed by a tax on these products or a

government subsidy.

7. While the institutes promised to buy crops at a fixed minimum
price or to finance the harvest or marketing of crops, the minimum
prices have been subjected to manipulation by powerful commercial
groups—which some landowners belong to — and by uncontrolled inflation.
Moreover, in some cases such as sugar, if the Institutes do not pay
upon delivery, the sugar mills may pay the independent plantation sup-
pliers (fornecedores) only after the expenses of the mills have been

■3
paid. Independent planters therefore find it difficult to remain

Phyllis Peterson, "Brazil, Institutionalized Confusion," in
Political Systems of Latin America, Martin Needier (ed.) (Princeton:
D. Van Nostrand Company, I96U), pp. ^92-493.

La Palombara, op. ci t . . pp. 252-348, offers parallel cl ientel a
and parentela relationships for Italian bureaucrats and agricultural-
industrial interest groups.

^In Florida, for example, the Governor appoints a Citrus Com-
mission made up of members who represent various facets of the
industry to regulate its marketing and quality standards, contract
advertising, i nter alia, whose work is supported by a tax on each
crate of citrus shipped out of the state.

■^Interviews with Francisco FalcSo and Benjamin de Moraes Ca-
valcanti, and meetings of the Sociedade Auxiliadora da Agricultura
de Pernambuco and the Associa^ao de Fornecedores de A9ucar, Recife,
August 9, 1965.

financially independent unless they have commercial or banking links
through an informal panel i nha or kinship network.

In the face of these pressures, many landowners have reacted
violently to demands for improved arrangements from their peasant
tenants, employees, or the allies of peasant groups.

Given this violence, it is necessary to examine in the next
chapter the political and institutional structures in which land-
owner pressure groups function and in which peasant pressure groups
and their allies were to develop.

See Leeds, op . c i t . , pp. 383-384, and 393 "^01 , for a theoretical
model of the panel inhas which generally consist of one or more land-
owners, a customs official, an insurance man, a lawyer or two, business-
men, an accountant, a municipio vereador . state or federal deputy, a
banker, and hopefully, a middle- or upper level official in one of the
Institutos regulating the marketing of an agricultural crop produced in
the area.

CHAPTER I I

THE POLITICAL SYSTEM WITHIN WHICH
RURAL PRESSURE GROUPS FUNCTION

I ntroduct ion
As noted in Chapter I, Brazilian elites have developed a "system"
of conciliation and paternalism that persisted even with the introduc-
tion of the federal principle of government because disciplined polit-
ical parties with a continuing commitment to principles or ideology
never developed. Because the parties did not aggregate interests,
many strong interest groups financed candidates for office who were
friendly to their interest in the National Congress, State Assemblies,

and the agricultural Institutes whose principal task was to obtain

2
subsidies and protection for these groups.

Brazil never had a tradition of liberalism in the Lockean or
Spencerian/Darwi nian sense. Even when the governmental machinery
was weak, the state pursued an "interventionist" or mercantilist tradi-
tion in economic matters, uninhibited by laissez faire dogma. In James

Theodore Wyckoff, "Brazilian Political Parties," South Atlantic,
Quarterly, Vol. LVI (June, 1957), PP. 281-298; Peterson, op. cit. . pp.
463-509; Themistocles Cavalcanti and Reisky Dubnic, Comportamento
Elei toral no Brasi 1 (Rio de Janeiro: FundacSo Getiilio Vargas, 1964).

Peterson, op. cit.. p. 493; William W. Pierson and Federico G,
Gil, Governments of Latin America (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1957).
p. 358.

S. Rowe's words, "the characteristic tendency of private interests in

Brazil has not been to resist the state but to seek its favors."'

Getulio Vargas linked old and contemporary Brazil through his

ability to conciliate the growing industrial interests without a major

struggle with the landowners, while at the same time accommodating the

new urban labor force and not having a major confrontation with

industry. In Rowe's words.

These accommodations, accomplished without political parties or the
free social process involving autonomous interest groups, depended
on the state's role, not as a mere arbiter, but as an active
participant in the affairs of each class. Paternalism was
ingeniously transplanted from the countryside to urban, middle-
class, and industrial activities . . . The swelling ranks of
urban labor were presented with a ready-made union organization,
copied from Italian Corporate State legislation of 1926 which
was created and controlled by the Ministry of Labor. Organiza-
tionally weak but financially powerful by virtue of a mandatory
union tax levied on all workers, the unions did not serve as col-
lective bargaining agents but as social welfare agencies, brokers
in the patron-client relationship established between government
and worker. 2

In the post 19^5 period, a formal structure of representative

democracy was revived and improved to some extent but nothing was

done to modify the social structure or the balance between agricultural

Rowe, "The 'Revolution' and the 'System,'" Part I, p. 8.

Alexander, Labor Relations in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile,
pp. 43-M+ blames the lack of a sense of social responsibility among
the population on attitudes inherited from the past of a paternal-
istic 1 arge-landholdi ng system; Vargas governed Brazil as if it were
one big plantation and blocked social reform and change as much as he
stimulated it through economic development.

Marvin Harris, Town and Country in Brazil (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1956), notes the population of Minas Velhas, in
Bahia, looked upon the Federal or State governments as a "Boss of
super proportions" whose task is "to give a push for progress" (0.
Governo tern que dar impulse) rather than local government assisting
local agriculture and industry, health, and education.

Rowe, "The 'Revolution' and the 'System,'" Part 11, pp. 3"^.

and industrial interests. Key features of the "system" remained intact.

Among the most important was the [Consolidated Work Laws or CLT of
19^3]. It provided not only a code of working conditions similar
to that found in industrializing countries eight-hour day, minimum
wage . . . and social security institutes for several categories
of workers, but also . . .a parallel structure of employer and
employee organizations — a pyramid rising from si ndicatos [unions
or associations] at the local level and state federations to an
apex of national confederations, all linked to the Ministry of
Labor. '

Although the presidency of Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira
(1956-1960) was characterized by an industrial expansion and economic
growth that temporarily obscured reliance on the "system's" impedi-
ments to rational modernization, no basic re-arrangements of political

forces or unsettling ventures into agrarian reform or widespread

2
public education were undertaken. In order to gain support for his

Brasilia project, Kubitschek coddled industry in the South and of-
fered a new development agency, SUDENE, to the Northeast, originally
viewed by many politicians and observers as little more than a vast
new gravy train of public works for private individuals to supplement
the contruction projects of DNOCS."^ In implementing his development
program, Kubitschek preferred to work outside the regular bureaucracy
and party channels, creating new autarchies and administrative agencies
thus avoiding the immobilism of the "system" without confronting it.

Rowe, op. ci t . , pp. 4-5.

For example. Article I66 of the 19^6 Constitution indicates
"primary schooling is obligatory and shall be administered only in
the national language ... is free to all; the official schooling
beyond primary schooling, shall be free to whoever proves lack or in*
sufficiency of means."

^Robock, Brazil's Developing Northeast, is probably the best
surce of information on the origins and history of these agencies.

^owe, op. cit.. p. 12.

Following the spectacular resignation of his successor, Janio
de Silva Quadros, in August, 196l, the eventual assumption of the
Presidency by JoSo Belchior Marques Goulart ushered in a period of
recurrent crises and conspiracies which lasted until the April Revolu-
tion of 1964. There was much talk and some legislation and presiden-
tial decrees, yet the problems inherited from previous regimes — in-
flation, wage demands, agrarian pressures, commitments assumed under
the Alliance for Progress and trade def ici ts--were greater than
before. The "system" came under serious and sustained pressure both
from internal contradictions and external attack by various groups.

On the left especially, several radical student movements, Castro
supporters, the PCB and PC do B factions of the Communist Party, and
independent nationalist revolutionaries altered their subordinate
relationships with Goulart 's Brazilian Labor Party (PTB) which had
been part of the "system." While each had tried to use the other for
its own ends prior to Goulart 's assumption of the presidency, these
militants increased their bargaining power almost to that of an
"equal" whether "inside" the "system" as PTB Labor Ministry bureau-
crats or "outside" through the defiant organization of strikes and
disorders which Goulart did not want. At the same time, various
radical and moderate reformist peasant groups began to act independently
of Goulart and the "system."

in examining the political system and sub-systems in which land-
owner interest groups function and in which peasant pressure groups

Rowe, OP . c i t . . pp. 14-15.

were to develop, it is necessary to examine the following in greater
detail to supplement what has already been said above: (l) the
traditional politics of the municipios , (2) the effect of the federal
structure on decision-making; (3) the structure and functions of the
Ministry of Labor, and {k) the nature of rural labor legislation.

The Traditional Politics of the Rural Municipio
Locally the muni ci pio corresponds to the county in the United
States but, unlike the county in the United States, the Brazilian
county seat (sede) and other cities within a munici pio, have no
separate corporate existence. Political life, prior to the assump-
tion of power by Vargas in 1930, was based on a series of alliances
and conflicts between big landowners, each with his following of
peasants, laborers, and cowboys who frequently voted irrespective of
ideology, programs, or laws restricting the voting to those who could
read and write. Occasionally, a few families came to dominate a
State so thoroughly that their influence lingers on today.

Relations between the government and the local political boss
(chefe pol i tico) were based on compromise. If the boss supported the

Smith . op. cit . , pp. 569"582, and Blondel , op. ci t . , pp. 57~72,
discuss the bases of these alliance and enmities on kinship clans, real
or imagined affronts, and competition for power and land. Blondel, pp.
73-100, discusses the differing techniques used to register illiterate
voters, electoral fraud, and election costs to chefes pol Ft i cos in the
late ig^O's.

"A Campanha Eleitoral de 1958 no Piauf," Revista Brasileira de
Estudos Pol fticos, No. 6 (April, I960), pp. 33-3^, points out all bTTt
one of 32 members of the State Assembly in Piauf were linked by family
or political ties to the great landed proprietors of the state,
especially the Pires Ferreira.

winning party at the federal or state level, he could expect to in-
fluence (1) the appointment of people to the federal or state admin-
istrative posts in the muni ci pio, e.g., police, revenue officials,
judges, and teachers; (2) the construction of a road, bridge, or other
public works which increased the value of his property or that of his
friends; (3) the allocation of agricultural credit; and (k) the
maintenance of the status quo.

A change in the status quo most frequently came if other land-
owner-bosses were linked to the dominant state or national government
coalitions or if groups of peasants and laborers gathered around
charismatic leaders such as Antonio Conselheiro of Os Sertges fame
or Padre Cicero of southern Cear6 who promised and delivered better-
ment of their lot. If the latter groups reached a certain size, set-
tled somewhere and cultivated the land, they sometimes became a nuisance
to the landowners in the region because they not only made potential
labor scarce but because they also withdrew it from their former em-
ployers, in this case, landowners or bosses would attempt to influence
the state or federal government to disperse or liquidate these groups.
Therefore it was important to be on good terms with the dominant bosses
of a region or a state if one's own power position was threatened by
competing landowners or aspiring landowner-bosses. Padre Cicero, un-
like Antonio Conselheiro, was never molested by government troops
because he already had intimate personal connections with the govern-
ment of the state and because he was a very powerful local boss and

Euclides da Cunha, Rebellion in the Backlands, trans. Samuel
Putnam (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 19^), is an
English-language translation of this story.

landowner in his own right who did not threaten the dominance 6f other
bosses in other parts of Ceara, Piauf, or Pernambuco.

The Effect of the Federal Structure
on Decision-Making

Interest group theorists writing of the tactics of influence in

the governmental process have recognized, at least implicitly, the

importance of localization and expansion strategies when they speai<

of locating, developing, and improving "access"; Truman writes:

Access to one or more key points of decision in the government
. . . becomes the facilitating intermediate objective of polit-
ical interest groups . . . and includes efforts to exclude
competing groups from equivalent access or to set up new deci-
sion points access to whatever institution of government we
observe interest groups operating, the common feature of all
their efforts is the attempt to achieve effective access to points
of decision.

And even though David Easton indicates that systems theory as-
sumes that "the producers of outputs are unified and undifferentiated,"
he recognizes the possibility that a federal system or one with
"plural authorities" increase "significantly the probability of hetero-
geneity of outputs."

Galjart, op. cit. . p. 8, and Barbosa da Silva, op. ci t . . pp. l8l-
19^.

Vila^a and Albuquerque, op. ci t . . pp. 62-63, discuss the 1911
Alliance of the Coroneis by which "possible reciprocal invasions of the
redoubts" by different Northeastern bosses was ended because of the
work of Coronel Floro Bartolomeu and Padre Cicero,

Truman, op. cit. . p. 26^.

^David Easton, A Systems Analysis of Political Life (New York:
John Wiley and Sons, 1965), pp. ^52-453.

On p. 119. Easton indicated that demands "may move from and
through one of these subsystems to another, depending on the demand's
particular career," although he does not define what he meant by

The federal structure of Brazil offers many opportunities for
contestants in economic and political conflict to realize their goals
even though the formal structure has changed several times in the
last thirty-five years. With respect to the behavior of actos in
rural conflicts since 1955» it appears useful to posit the following
model :

1. Losers in a political conflict fought on one level are not
content to accept negative decisions if there is a pos-
sibility of becoming winners or of losing less by expanding
a conflict to a higher level of government.'

2. Winners make every effort to localize a conflict at a level
where their advantage is maximized, even though they may
continue to be winners as the conflict expands, i.e.,
expansion is a calculated risk which they do notwish to
assume, and

3. Where one chooses to articulate interests and make demands
in a hierarchy of governmental authority can make a dif-
ference in the outcome of a conflict.^

Thus, landowners, agricultural -industrial i sts , and rural s i ndicato
leaders sought to have controversies resolved at the level of authori-
tative decision-making which they perceived as most favorable to their

"subsystem" in this instance.

Louis H. Masotti, "Intergovernmental Relations and the Social-
ization of Conflict: interest Articulation in the Politics of Educa-
tion," a paper deliverd at the 1967 Midwest Conference of Political
Scientists, Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana, April 28, 1967,
p. 15, footnote 15, notes that Easton's examples of "subsystem" or
"demands" are confusing.

E. E. Schattschneider , The Semi sovereign People (New York:
Holt, Rinehart & Winston, I960), p. 3, argues that the most important
strategy of politics is concerned with who gets involved and who makes
decisions. On pp. 67-68, he states "he who determines what politics is
about runs the country, because the definitions of the alternatives is
the choice of conflicts and the choice of conflicts allocates power."

Adapted from Masotti, op. ci t . . p. 6.

own preferences. Rural si ndicato leaders are unable to mobilize as
many factors of power such as attitudes, violence, bureaucratic
expertise, time, and money, as landowners. Therefore they have tended
to seek outside help from the DRT or President of the Republic much
more frequently than the landowners or sugar industrialists who make
efforts to maintain the existing favorable power ration. There is
nothing inherently good or bad about the particular level at which a
conflict is fought or resolved: it depends on whether the participants
are willing to accept decisions at that level, what their chances are
for getting more favorable treatment or fewer losses at another level,

and what resources are available to various participants to either

expand or localize a conflict.

Interest Group Activities and Administrative
Decision-Making

Pressure groups have multiple formal access points to admin-
istrative agencies plus innumerable informal access points through

3
kinship, panel inha . and clientele links. Landowner pressure groups

'For a discussion of the process and forms of conflict resolu-
tion or accommodation, see Joseph S, Vandiver, "Accommodation, As-
similation, and Acculturation," in Rural Sociology, Alvin L. Bertrand
(ed.) (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1958) , pp. 320-333.

See Masotti, op. ci t . , p. 6.

Peterson, op. cit . . p. ^93, suggests that "most groups make
their demands directly upon the administrative branch of government
rather than channeling them through the political party system and
the legislature."

Norman Blume, "Contemporary Brazilian Pressure Groups; A Case
Study," paper presented to the Ohio Association of Economists and
Political Scientists, Worthington, Ohio, April 1967. unnumbered pp.
12-13» found the following in a 1956 organizational chart of the
Brazilian government: 12 Ministries; 24 organs not ministries but

5t*

such as the SRB, CRB, and crop associations have used various ap-
proaches with the Ministries or Institutes dealing with agricultural
or rural concerns, e.g., Ministries of Agriculture, Labor, or Finance,
the Sugar and Alcohol or the Rice Institute, and the Bank of Brazil.
A preferred method of pressure groups is to place their members on
the work groups that develop proposed legislation (projetos de leis).
With a shortage of qualified people knowledgeable in the subject
matter, access to these working groups is not difficult for interest
groups with technical knowledge. Later, they attempt to place
members or family relatives in the key power centers within an agency,
especially around the Minister or President of an Institute. If at
all possible, the pressure groups direct themselves to the Minister
for it is he who is the chief "signal caller" for the major plays or
policies of an agency. Reasons for this are two-fold:

1. Brazilian bureaucrats are by tradition reluctant to accept
responsibility, and,

2. The policies of the Minister of Institute President control
the promotional and career patterns of the civil servant
within an agency. ^

The preferred technique is personal contact. Access is facili-
tated if the political views of the group and the minister are similar.

responsible to the President; 6 national corporations such as Petro-
bras; k8 autarchies, k of which are directly under the President; 20
mixed public-private economic entities which are directly responsible
to the President, k foundations, and 9 mixed agencies designed to
facilitate international agreements.

John Rood and Frank Sherwood, "The 'Workhorse' Group in Brazil-
ian Administration," Perspectives of Brazilian Publ ic Administ rat ion.
Vol. I, the Comparative Series in Brazilian School of Public Administra-
tion, Getdlio Vargas Foundation, Rio de Janeiro, and The School of Public
Administration, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, June,
1963, pp. 47-56.

Ibid. . and Blume, op. cit.. p. 13.

but access isdso managed by inviting the minister to a luncheon meet-
ing of the group leadership, to be the major speaker before a meeting
of the general membership, to be a panel discussant at a conference
sponsored by the group, or to be one of the lecturers in courses given
by or sponsored jointly by the group. In the more traditional areas
of the country, pressure is also brought upon a minister or one of his
subordinates by a demonstration (passeata) . which also involves a risk
that group posture can be undermined if the demonstration is not big
enough. The Congressional friends of an agency are cultivated over
a period of time, beginning with some form of informal social contact
if no kinship or panel inha links are available. Once a friendship is
started, through the years it is solidified, reinforced, and enlarged
as an agency performs sundry types of favors for a Congressman and
vice versa including Congressional help for administrators in dif-
f iculty.

The Ministry of Labor and Labor Disputes
Labor -management disputes have been the responsibility of the
Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare created by Vargas as his first
act in office on November 23, 1930. The Ministry is organized into
a series of departments which deal with the legal and technical aspects

'siume, op. cit . . pp. 13-1^.

Peterson, op. ci t . . p. ^93 1 notes "groups do from time to time
come to the Congress to demonstrate, but this is a rather sporadic
type of pressure." Actually, the technique, al beit sporadic, is also
used at the State Assembly and Municipio level.

^Blume, OP . c i t . . p. 16.

of management -labor conflicts and has a series of Regional Delegates
for each or a group of states. It is among the largest of the fourteen
ministries because of its control over the Social Welfare funds created
by the Vargas regime. Although probably not created as a presiden-
tial agency for the settling of political disputes as opposed to labor
disputes, it also has come to perform this function, and to become a

desirable prize because of the numerous patronage possibilities for

members of the coalitions supporting a winning President.

The Regional Delegates operate in a changing political framework
and have to be attuned to the dominant political configurations of a
given moment. Although a labor movement has existed for many years,
collective bargaining has not been institutionalized in Brazil as it
has in the United States or even in Peru. The Regional Delegates,
or DRT's, in theory function to promote harmonious worker-management
relations but in practice their activities in the rural sector have
developed only since the organization of rural s indicates in the 1960's.
The Ministry and the DRT's prefer to avoid as much direct responsibility
as possible not only because of the political feedback which could

Anuario Estat"! st ico. 1961. p. 4l7, indicates ^0,609 persons oc-
cupied positions in Institutes and autarquias controlled by the MTPS
out of a total 87,^10 persons working for such autarquias in the federal
government.

^Rowe, "The 'Revolution' and the 'System,'" Part 11, p. 5,
criticizes the "right of the Ministry to approve — and even to make-
appointments of union leaders, leading to an aristocracy of pel egos
(union leaders more dependent on the government than pn their own
labor fol lowi ng) ."

•^1 bid. . and Alexander, Labor Relations in Argentina, Brazil,
and Chile. For a comparison, see Payne, Labor and Politics in Peru,
pp. 56-75, which discusses the highly centralized Peruvian system.

endanger their career and promotional possibilities, but also because
of the limited resources of the DRT's who fear the burden of the
Ministry's work.

Urban or rural worker interest groups cannot function without

formal recognition by the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare (MIPS).

This gives the Minister or his DRT considerable power in regulating
s i ndi cato pol icies and leadership composition. Although the Ministry's
role is highly political, most DRT's and upper echelon Labor Ministry
officials like to maintain a fiction that objective criteria and not
political criteria are the bases for decisions in an agricultural or
industrial conflict. If a dispute involves wage demands, officials
present their decisions as based on a rise in the cost of living over
a recent period of time and the "real needs" of the workers. However,
since not all workers receive the benefits of these decisions or their
enforcement, this reasoning is flimsy indeed.

Although collective bargaining was common in some urban labor-
management situations, collective bargaining was not common in conflicts
involving rural sugar, coffee, or cacao workers until 19^3 when the
Rural Worker Statute was promulgated.

Interviews with Haroldo Veloso Furtado, DRT, Recife, June 4,
1965 and Amadeus Barreto, DRT, Salvador da Bahia, May 19, 1965. Barreto
has been DRT in Bahia for more than five years because of his friend-
ship with Juracy Magalhaes, former Interventor, Governor, and federal
Minister — as well as UDN party leader.

Alexander, Organized Labor in Latin America, p.. 72, and Freitas
Marcondes, "Social Legislation in Brazil," pp. 382-399.

Rural Labor Legislation
The gradual extinction of slavery which culminated in 1888 with
the freeing of the slaves by the Lei Aurea (Golden Law) and their sub-
sequent flight from agriculture, created an acute need for new rural
workers and sources of food commodities. These two needs gave rise to
the current of immigration of the last one hundred years. Most of the
laws affecting rural labor were ineffectual or not respected until the
Consolidated Work Laws (Consol idacao das Leis do Trabalho or CLT) were
promulgated on May 1, 19^+3. Although Vargas excluded rural workers
and small family farmers from most Estado Novo legislation under a
bargain with large landowner leaders, certain CLT provisions are
expressly applicable to rural workers: minimum wage legislation was
extended to rural areas (Article 76-129); the right to annual vaca-
tions (Article 129-1^7); the right to prior notice of dismissal or
termination of a labor contract (Articles 487"^9l); and payment in
kind was modestly regulated by Article 506. Nevertheless, many

)
J. V. Freitas Marcondes, First Brazilian Legislation Relating

to Rural Labor Unions (Gainesville: School of Inter-American Studies,
University of Florida, June, 1962), discusses Decree 979 of January 6,
1903, and Decree 6,532 of June 20, 1907.

See also Robert E. Price, "Rural Unionization in Brazil" (Madison;
University of Wisconsin, The Land Tenure Center, August 1964) (Mimeo-
graphed), pp. 3"12, for a chronological description of such legisla-
tion.

2
Note the similarity in the United States. See Robert D.

Tomasek, "The Migrant Problem and Pressure Group Politics," Journal

of Politics, Vol. XXIII, No. 2 (May, 1961), pp. 302-303, who

indicates that the American Farm Bureau Federation joined with the

National Grange and specialized farm groups to prevent application

of social security and social welfare legislation to migrant domestic

and Mexican labor. In fact, even in 1 967, most migratory farm

laborers are not covered by the provisions of minimum wage or social

security legislation.

observers have acidly criticized the Ministry of Labor and the social
security institutes for not enforcing these provisions in many cases.

Although the CLT and other legislation brought short-run benefits
to the 1,500,000 organized workers in a labor force of about 25 mil-
lion persons, the overwhelming mass of rural and urban workers* were

not represented in the national government or by trade unions of one

2
type or another.

In early February 195^» JoSo Belchior Marques Goulart, then

Minister of Labor, promulgated a decree (No. 7038) to establish

rural sindicatos which met with heavy opposition from the CRB, As

Mary Wilkie points out:

They sent a memorandum on the matter to the National Security
Council stating among other things 'that apart from political
reasons there is nothing to justify rural syndicalism' . . .
'the rural proletariat is not sufficiently mature to under-
stand the political rights that Minister Joao Goulart wants
to grant them' and 'the Minister of Labour's action is
imprudent. ''

Facing opposition also from substantial portions of the military of-
ficer corps and the middle class because of a proposal to raise the
minimum wage 100 per cent from 1,200 cruzeiros to 2,^00 cruzeiros per
month, Goulart resigned on February 22, 195^.

Price, op. ci t . . pp. 7"8, and Rowe, "The 'Revolution' and the
'System, '" Part II, p. 5.

Rowe , op. cit. , p . 5 .

■^Mary Wilkie, "A Report on Rural Sindicates in Pernambuco," Rio
de Janeiro, Centro Lat i noamericano de Pesquisas em Ciencias Sociais,
April ]SSk (mimeographed).

Goulart was appointed in June, 1953. Both he and War Minister
Santo Cardoso resigned after manifestations of dissent from middle-
level officers and university graduates especially who felt their
status threatened by Goulart 's wage proposals. Some officers also
felt Goulart was making preparations to stage a coup which would continue

Nevertheless, a few groups of small farmers and rural laborers
managed to gain recognition over the next decade. The biggest
advance came with the Rural Worker Statute or ETR of 1963-

The Rural Worker Statute of March 2, 1963
On March 2, 1963, Congress passed Law 4,212, the first legisla-
tion specifically applicable to peasants, which some persons called

the Ferrari Law after the Gaucho Deputy who had pressed many years

2
for legislation to benefit rural laborers and small farmers. Its

content and structure resemble the CLT and other urban worker legisla-
tion but it specifically provided rural laborers, sharecroppers, and
tenants with the following:

1. Weekly rest period (paid Sundays) which was not applicable,
however, to sharecroppers (Article k2) .

2. Paid vacations (Articles 43-48).

3. Advance notice of dismissal and compensation based on the
period of time worked (Articles 90-94),

4. Individual Work Contracts were formalized in a work book
(Carteira Professional Rural) which would register wages

Vargas in office under a type of regime similar to that of Juan Per6n
in Argentina. See Skidmore, op. cit . . pp. 122-142, for an excellent
discussion of events which ultimately led to the suicide of Vargas on
August 24, 1954.

In 1955, Belmonte, Bahia; in 1956, Barreiros, Pernambuco; and
in 1957 a joint sindicato of small cacao farmers in ilheus and Ita-
buna, Bahia. See Price, "Rural Unionization in Brazil," p. 60, and
SUPRA, "Sindicatos Rurai s-Rel acao No. 1," Rio de Janeiro: Departa-
mento de Promo9ao e Organizacio Rural, September 1, 1963.

2
J. V. Freitas Marcondes, "0 Estatuto do Trabalhador Rural,"

Cuadernos Brasileiros. No. 4 (July-August, 1963), pp. 55-59, discusses

many provisions of the ETR, noting inter al ia that Ferrari's original

1951 bill contained only 64 articles in contrast to the I83 articles

in the final version passed in I963.

and other facts relating to tlie rights and obligations of
their holders. (Articles 2, 11-21, 29-38.)

The CLT and ETR could have played an important role in improving
peasant working and living conditions but their corporate state founda-
tion, which presumes an economic system only of employers and employees,
emphasizes wages, omits land tenure questions, and fails to include the
large number of small independent family proprietors, tenants, and
sharecroppers who control a small plot of land. In this respect, the
CLT and ETR helped a further "proletar izat i on of rural labor" and
demonstrates a satisfaction with existing patterns of land distribution.

Given the nature of the administrative and political structures
of Brazil, it is also necessary in the next chapter to examine the
principal landowner organizations and the non-agricultural forces
against which peasant groups had to contend.

'CIDA, OP. cit.. pp. 329-332.

CHAPTER I I I

THE BIG LANDOWNER PRESSURE GROUPS AND
NON-AGRICULTURAL FORCES AFFECTING
AGRICULTURAL AND PEASANT POLICIES

Given the nature of the administrative and political structure
in which peasant pressure groups would have to operate, it is neces-
sary to examine the principal landowner organizations and the non-
agricultural forces which attempted to modify not only existing rural
wage arrangements but also existing land tenure arrangements.

The two most important big landowner organizations are the
Brazilian Rural Confederation or CRB and its often more powerful
parallel civil counterpart, the Brazilian Rural Society (Sociedade
Rural Brasileira or SRB) .

The SRB and CRB have played an important role in determining
agricultural policy, especially in the selection of high officials
for the Ministry of Agriculture, and state Secretaries of Agriculture
in S'ao Paulo, Minas Gerais, Parana, and probably several other states.
Briefly put, there is a close clientele relationship between the
administrative agencies of the government and these two interest groups.
In effect they are the natural expression and representatives of the

Alexander, Labor Relations in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile,
p. 7> argues that often the parallel civil counterparts of management
or employer groups are often more powerful than the occupational Sin-
dicatos or their Federations. He, however, does not examine the SRB,
CRB, or other agricultural interest groups.

rural sector and thus the natural target or reference point of'these
agencies. Pressure from the SRB has contributed to the high turn- ' •

over of Ministers of Agriculture. In the past 100 years there have

2
been more than 100.

The most important non-agricultural forces affecting agricultural

and peasant policy in the past fifteen years has been the Brazilian

Communist and Socialist parties, several university and secondary school

1 La Palombara, Italian Interest Groups in Italian Politics, pp.
262-263, indicates Italian economic and industrial groups provide the
Ministries "with special studies, memoranda, a mass of data which is
useful, even essential in the making of policy" and "one might pos-
sibly view the various branches of Italian publ-ic administration as
the feudal holdings of the various major groups of the society." Al-
though no similar studies of the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture have
been published, it is this writer's feeling that a similar relationship
exists between the SRB-CRB and the Ministry of Agriculture at the na-
tional level and the various Federations at the state level although
in Rio Grande do Sul and Sao Paulo, the Gaucho Agrarian Front (FAG) and
the Cooperative Cotia, respectively, also influence state agricultural
and cooperative policy.

The U.S. is not immune to some of the characteristics and problems
of Brazil: Robert D. Tomasek, "The Migrant Problem and Pressure Group
Politics," op. ci t . , notes the owners of farms employing migrant labor
"often live in cities and regard their property more as a business than
as a way of life" (pp. 295-296), and "the Department of Agriculture is
more receptive to the concern of the richer than the poorer farmers"
(p. 307).

2
The exact number, now misplaced, was given to this writer in

July, 1965, by the Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station of

the Ministry in Rio Grande do Norte. Nevertheless, since April 1,

1964, there have been five Ministers in the period of three years:

Oscar Thompson Filho (SRB member from Sao Paulc^; Hugo Almeida Leme

(also a SRB member) named on June 17. 1964; Ney Brage, outgoing

Governor of Parana, October, I965 to mid I966; and Ivo Arzua Pereira,

named by incoming President Costa e Silva, on March 16, I967.

student groups, and the Roman Catholic Church. Each of these will
be briefly discussed.

The Brazilian Rural Society or SRB

Founded in 1919. the SRB is probably the wealthiest, best-organ-
ized, most powerful, and most conservative organization of landowners
in Brazil. It occupies a position in Brazil somewhat similar to the
Rural Society (Sociedad Rural) or Jockey Club of Argentina, although
the SRB's l6th floor offices in a downtown Sao Paulo office building
are less plush than the two-story former mansion occupied by the Rural
Society in downtown Buenos Aires.

The SRB publishes a monthly magazine, A Rural . now in its 42nd
year of publication, which is distributed only to its members and not
sold to the general public. The magazine carries notices of SRB
meetings, declarations of policy, and statements or descriptions of

groups friendly to the SRB or its policies, specialized sections on

agricultural and livestock development, and a women's section.

The principal public demands of the SRB contained in A Rural
and the press"^ are greater aid for agriculture through increased
federal expenditures for the Ministry of Agriculture, removal of
foreign exchange controls on coffee exporters who receive only about

There is a great lack of published material on all these
groups. Cardozo, op. ci t . , and Therry, op. ci t . , for example, are
the only useful analytical materials on the Church and student groups
respectively.

"^Based on a survey by this writer of all issues of A Rural for
1963-1964.

Ibid. , a survey of newspapers purchased in Brazil, and the

Lux-Jornal clipping service for 1 963-1965.

65
^0 cents for every dollar they earn, and opposition to agrarian

reform, rural wage increases, and social welfare legislation.

The SRB apparently had more difficulty in arranging audiences
with President JdSo Goulart than with President Castelo Branco.^ On
the other hand, the SRB has made no secret of its sharp differences
with Castelo Branco over agrarian reform and rural worker legislation.

The SRB, like many American pressure groups, publishes the
votes of Federal Senators and Deputies on contemporary legislation — ad-
ding the following paragraph, for example, to the names of those
voting against a Constitutional Amendment providing for compensa-
tion in bonds and not cash for expropriated land in conjunction with
the Estatuto da Terra or Land Statute of 1965:

The Senhores Parlamentarians who voted against the amendment, on
the first reading (or discussion), demonstrated absolute attitudes
of coherence, and. therefore, merit the consideration of the
Brazi 1 ian people.^

A Rural and newspaper articles, however, do not discuss some
of the stratagems used by coffee producers and exporters to avoid
this compulsory tax of sixty cents which include falsification of
export invoices and the purchase of agricultural machinery in barter
arrangements.

"Audien9a do Sr. Presidente da Republica A.S.R.B.," A Rural .
July, 1964, p. 5, is a statement by President Almeida Prado on the
occasion of an interview with the President.

•^"Reaf i rmada na SRB a Posicao da Classe Agrfcola no Tocante a
Reforma Agraria," op. ci t . , p. lo; "A SRB apela ao Marechal Castelo
Branco para que preserve a filosofia da revo1u9ao, a tranqui 1 idade e
o bem-estar do povoj' A Rural , June, 1964, p. 5; and "A I legal idade
dentro da Legal idade da Emenda Const itucional ao Estatuto da Terra,"
A Rural , November, 1964, pp. 8-9, are typical statements of SRB
positions.

^"A llegalidade dentro da Legal idade." A Rural . November, 1964,
p. 8.

The Brazilian Rural Confederation or CRB
The Rural Association had their origins in the late 1930's in
several voluntary associations of landowners. Legal status — and a
measure of governmental control was granted these groups by Decree-
Laws 7,4^9 of April and 8,127 of October Zk, 19^5--the latter
establishing federal subsidies for these groups. The legislation
initially aimed at improving rural life through improved agricultural
extension services and investment of capital and other resources by
state and municipio governments in rural areas. Because Rural Asso-
ciations were not created in most of the country, the original intent
of these laws was never fulfilled. For example, in 1951, there were
only 150 Rural Associations and only three Rural Federations (Minas
Gerais, Rio Grande do Sul , and S^o Paulo). Joao Cleofas, a Pernam-
buco sugar mill owner and politician named Minister of Agriculture in
1951, helped organize over 500 new Rural Associations and Federations
in a majority of the states through the use of federal subsidies to
pay portions of the salaries of Association or Federation officials
or to purchase agricultural implements, insecticides, and fertilizers
for re-sale at cost plus a small markup.^ Nevertheless, if Cleofas'

Joao Cleofas, Reforma Aqraria no Brasil (Collection of a series-
of speeches and articles by the former Minister of Agriculture) (Re-
cife: Instituto Joaquim Nabuco de Pesquisas Socials, I96O), p. k.

^Ibid., pp. i+3-44.

■^See Jornal dos Municipios (Porto Alegre) , April 27, 1965, for
a list of Federal Government budgetary expenditures for six Rio
Grande do Sul Municipios which includes Rural Associations in Bom
Jesus, Bom Retiro do Sul, Caxias do Sul, and Cacapava do Sul.

hopes of improving rural life were genuine and not wishful, federal
subsidies to the CRB, Federations, Rural Associations, and muni ci pio
governments generally have not been used for rural development out-
side of the muni cipio sede but have been used as instruments of polit-
ical patronage for the Minister inter-acting with Prefei tos . Senators,
and Federal and State deputies. For example, all but two of nine
Rural Associations visited in Rio Grande do Sul (5), Sao Paulo (1),
Pernambuco (2), and Rio Grande do Norte (l), were nothing more than
business establishments selling implements, insecticide, seed,
fertilizer and other goods at slightly lower prices than nearby private
commercial firms. In several other munici pios , the Associations visited
were little more than paper organizations or instruments used to mobilize
votes for a munici pio political boss.

in Chapter I, the low rate of voluntary association membership
outside of the South was illustrated. There are three reasons for the
low number of organized rural groups. First, there is the apathy of
many landowners who fail to perceive that a voluntary functional group
may be a useful means to defend or advance their own individual
interest. Second, this low rate of association reflects the use of
informal links with decision-mai<ers -in the state and national capitals.
Finally, many landowners are aware of the lack of a sense of public-
mindedness or group mindedness by association leaders who use their

Table shows 4,318 members in the Rural Association of Gua-
nabara in 1959. Considering the fact that Guanabara has little or
no farm land outside greater Rio de Janeiro, one can only conclude
that many of these members must be absentee landowners from other
states whose association membership was held in the then capital city.

] 2

positions to improve their own financial, social, or political status.

A decision not to join, therefore, may be quite rational.

The various state Rural Federations are paralleled by civil groups
which do not come under direct government control or influence. The
Rural Federation of Pernambuco (FARPE) , for example, has the Pernam-
buco Cane Suppliers Association (Fornecedores) and an Agricultural
Welfare Society (Sociedade Auxiliadora da Agricultura) and the S^o
Paulo FARESP has parallel Federations of coffee growers and livestock
producers. These societies join the Federations in pyramiding re-
sources and influence on governors, legislators, the President, and
administrative agencies on issues of subsidies, agrarian reform
legislation, differential rates of foreign exchange for agricultural
exports, and the nomination of technicians or officials for federal i
and state agricultural positions.

The large landowners then have had various means to influence
government decision-makers. In the past, they also had the support,
of the Roman Catholic Church in upholding a neo-feudal i st i c concept
of a two-class society.-^ In the next section, the changing role of

Ultima Hora (Sao Paulo), May 5, 1965. p. 7:1~2, carries an
article on charges by FARESP President, Luiz Emanuel Bianchi that one
Gil Ferreira de Araujo, President of a "phantom rural association" and
Director of a "commercial firm in which the FARESP was a minority stock-
holder" had been dismissed from the FARESP because he "prejudiced the
elevated status . , . which the organization enjoyed in economic, so-
cial, and political circles."

For example, in 1965, in translating for the Alliance for Prog-
ress projects of three Rural Associations in smal 1 -holding munici pios in
Rio Grande do Sul , this writer observed that two of the projects would
be used as political weapons at the Munici pio level even if the project
had merit in itself and would benefit most small farmers in the municipio.

■^Louveira tambem i contra o Estatuto da Terra," A Gazeta (Sao

the Catholic Church will be discussed.

The Brazilian Catholic Church's
Changing Role in Political Life

The Roman Catholic Church apparently has not played as important

a political role in Brazil as it has played in other Latin American

countries. in the traditional society described by Gilbert© Freyre,

the large landowner dominated everything, including the Church.

Paulo), January 19, 1965, p. 15, is an excellent example of how FARESP
leaders pyramided their resources.

Nearly 200 landowners of Louveira at the Ninth Grape Festival
issued a manifesto asking Brazilian agrarian legislation to conform
to principles of a book Reforma Agraria, Questao de Consciencia and
the "Declaration of Morro Alto," while seeking a fundamental cRange
of the Land Statute promulgated by the Castelo Branco government in
November, 1964.

The list of signers was headed by Luiz Emmanuel Bianchi, President
of the FARESP who also "applauded the attitudes of the Brazilian Society
for Defense of Traditions, Family, and Property" and called on Brazil-
ian to "use the means which the Constitution confer to limit the dis-
astrous effects of the Land Statute and to prepare conditions of a
fundamental reform of the law."

The document was to be channelled to Professor Plinio Correa de
Oliveira, President of the National Directory of the Society— who
incidentally was one of the four writers of Reforma Agraria, whose
principal author was the very conservative Archbishop of Dimantina,
Minas Gerais, Dom Geraldo de Proen9a Sigaud, a publication which will
be discussed in the section on the Church.

' For general works see Roger Bastide, "Religion and the Church
in Brazil," in Smith and Marchant , op. ci t . , pp. 33^-355; Frank
Bonilla, "A Franciscan Bishopric in the Amazon, Some Contemporary
Problems of Brazilian Catholicism," AUFS Reports, East Coast South
America Series, Vol. XIII, No. 5 (Brazi I ) , who feel s the "union of
Church and State proved to be catastrophic for the Church," although
the Church is also a "solidly entrenched national institution with
ramifications into every sphere of life;" and Fran9ois Houtart and Emile
Pin, The Church and the Latin American Revolution, trans, from the ,
French by Gilbert Barth (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1965), esp. pp.
145-163.

^Freyre, op. cit.. pp. 7 and 13.

Although no studies have been made of the ramifications and exten-
sions of Church power into secular affairs, many informal links have
existed through the years between religious, economic, and govern-
mental power, as is perhaps inevitable in a country in which an
overwhelming majority shared the same faith.

Many rural areas are without a priest. Rural parishes are
larger in terms of population and geographic size than the city or
national average. For example, in 1956, the number of inhabitants
per rural parish was 14,000, while it was 11,800 in city parishes.
Moreover, with the exception of the South, almost all of the 51.1 per
cent of persons going into the priesthood from rural areas and small

towns of less than 10,000 came from the families of large landowners;

2
only 5.9 per cent came from the families of salaried rural laborers.

in many parts of the Northeast and Sao Paulo, the landowner still

determines whether or not a priest says mass in a chapel on a f azenda

or enqenho. The priest-landowner-politician such as Padre Cicero,

Houtart and Pin, op. ci t . . p. I5I.

Ibid. , pp. 148-1^9; unfortunately no publishing data are given

for these figures which were based on a study of Seminarians in Columbia
and Brazi 1 .

3
Interview with Dom Acacio Rodriguez Alves, Bishop of Palmares,

Pernambuco, July k, I965, in which he noted that his diocese, when it
was created in 1962, had only three jeeps to cover 21 munici pios. In
comparison, the Rural Sindicato dominated by the Communists had three
also for its work. One of his first tasks, therefore, was to organize
a campaign to "motorize the clergy," that is, to buy jeeps and other,
vehicles so that they could attend to their religious and other duties.

Frequently in mid-1965, this writer observed priests being car-
ried by a Senhor do Engenho to mass on an Engenho or Usina in Pernambuco.

k
Barbosa da Silva, op. cit.

Vila^a and Albuquerque, Coronel , Coroneis , pp. 62-63, indicates

is still active, althougii tinere are no statistics or studies to show
the extent or types of political participation. Sermons from the

pulpit of opposition to a candidate or a policy do occur and make

an impact.

The Church is one of the few institutions in Brazil which has a
network of representatives throughout the country. It is also the only
institution which penetrates other key sectors of the population such

the importance of Padre Cicero in bringing together the Pernambuco
Corone'is to sign the Pact of Cariri of 1911 by which they agreed to
stop invading one another's redoubts of control. On p. 65, they relate
the story of Padre Vicente Alexander of Petrol ina, Pernambuco, who lost
a political battle with Chico Romao in Sitio dos Moreira, a district of
the Municipio of Serrita. The Padre would not have been able to act
politically there if he did not have relatives who were also landowners.

In the 1960's, one could find priests in several State Assemblies,
the Federal Chamber of Deputies, and Senate, and in the leadership of
various state parties. For example, Padre Antonio Viera of Juazeiro,
Ceara', was one of the two MDB candidates for Federal Senator in 1 966
while Padre Calazans (formerly a member of Adhemar de Barros PSB) sought
election under the MCB banner also. In Rio Grande do Norte, Monsenhor
Walfredo Gurgel of a politically important landowning family in the
Sertao Municipio of Caico was a Federal Senator until 1965 when he
defeated Dinarte Mariz, a traditional Coronel , for the Governorship
of Rio Grande do Norte. In Pernambuco, Monsenhor Arruda Camara was a
Federal Deputy between 1962 and I965 and President of the Christian
Democratic Party organization in the State until that party was
abolished along with all other parties. Monsenhor Arruda Camara then
joined the government's ARENA party.

In i960. Cardinal Don Jaime de Barros Camara of Sao Paulo urged
voters not to support Joao Goulart who was "allegedly a Communist."
In 1962, the clergy helped form coalitions In Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro,
and Pernambuco against candidates whom it considered were too close to
the Communist Party line, including Leonel Brizola, running for Federal
Deputy in Rio de Janeiro, and Miguel Arraes, running for Governor in
Pernambuco.

See Cavalcanti and Dubnic, Comportamentn Eleitoral no Brasil for
1962, passim.

as the armed forces, business, landowners, urban labor, students, and
peasants.

Whatever its past record, several sectors of the Church, during
the 1950's, cast off a traditional conservatism in political and
social action^ to provide ideological and organizational underpinnings
for groups which sought to modernize Brazilian society through reform
or revolution — the latter meaning overthrow of the existing economic,
political, and social order.

Timothy Harding, "An Analysis of Brazil's Third Labor Congress,"
HAR, Vol. Xill, No. 8 (October, I960), pp. 567-572, indicates the fol-
lowing labor groups had a "Catholic" orientation: Movimento Renovador
Sindical (Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo); MovimentacSo de 0rienta9ao
Sindicalista (Guanabara, Rio Grande do Sul , Minas Gerais, and Sao Paulo),
Frente Nacional de Trabal hadores (Sao Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul, Rio
Grande do Norte, and Sergipe).

in 1931, Catholic Leaders in Rio Grande do Sul organized the
first Workers' Circle (Circulo Operario) . Largely a confessional
organization which conducted catechism classes and sponsored consumer
and credit cooperatives among urban workers, the Circles were later
organized in other states. A National Confederation of Catholic
Workers (CNCO) was created in 1950 which transformed itself in July,
196^, into the Brazilian Confederation of Catholic Workers or CBTC.
Early in the 1960's, the CNCO began organizing trade union leader-
ship classes as well as rural s i ndi catos. Manual do Circulo Operario
(3a Edicao; Rio de Janeiro: Confedera93o Nacional de Operarios Cato-
licos, 1963), pp. 29-^0, discusses the history of the CNCO to 1 962
when it claimed 408 circles in I6 state federations and 435,000 members.

"Os Cristaos e o Sindicato na Cidade e no Campo (Sao Paulo:
Edi9ao Saraiva, 1964), is a good example of the literature published
by the reformist Federation of Workers' Circles of Sao Paulo under the
direction of its adviser, Frei Celso Maria, OFM, a Capuchin monk.

Although there is some correlation between changing attitudes

towards the Church's involvement In political and social action and
attitudes towards liturgical and organizational changes within the
Church, one must not equate the two.

^Thomas E. Skidmore, Pol itics in Brazi 1 . 1930-1964 (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1 967) , pp. 217-284, et passim is an excellent
discussion of the various left-wing groups active in the post World
War II period.

One sector, commonly called the Catholic Left or Catholic Action
has been quite active in the last ten years. Like Catholic groups in
other Latin American countries, it was a hearty consumer of European
ideas and practices, especially in the universities which imported,
adapted, and propagated many of the ideas of Jacques Mauritain, and
Fathers L. L. Lebret , Emmanuel Mounier, and Taeilhard de Chardim. in

For a general discussion of the European roots from which the
Brazilian Catholics absorbed much in the way of philosophy and tech-
niques, see Dante L. Seimener, "Two Types of Recent Christian Polit-
ical Thought." Journal of Politics. Vol. XXi, No. 3 (August, 1959),
pp. ^55-^86; Samuel H. Barnes, 'The Politics of French Christian Labor,"
Journal of Pol itics. Vol. XXI, No. 1 (February, 1959), pp. 105-122;
and John T. Marcus, "Social Catholicism in Postwar France," South
Atlantic quarterly. Vol. LVI , pp. 299-313.

See Tad Szulc, "Communists, Socialists, and Christian Democrats,"
The Annals, Vol. CCCLX, July 1965, pp. 99-109, for a discussion of
Christian Democratic parties in Latin America.

Manoel Cardoso, "The Brazilian Church and the New Left ," op.
ci t . , pp. 313"323, places considerable emphasis on Friar Carlos Jo-
sephat and the polemical weekly-newspaper Bras i 1 , Urgente.' ; Therry,
"Power Components in the Brazilian Student Movement," op. ci t . , pp.
32-33, and the magazine A^ao Catolica Brasileira (Rio de Janeiro)
which began publication in early 1962. Josephat was also associated
with an Agrarian Front of which little is known.

■^Some of these publications include: L. J. Lebret, Pr i nci pios
para a Agao (Principles for Action), Suicidio ou Sobrevi vencia do
Oci dente? (Suicide or Survival of the Western Wor Id?), publ i shed
in Sao Paulo by Duas Cidades, I96O; and Dimensoes de Caridade (Dimen-
sions of Charity), no publishing data available; Emmanuel Mounier:
Personal i smo; Sombras de Medo Sobre o Seculo XX (Clouds or Shadows
of Fear over the Twentieth Century)^ and Introdugao ao Exi stenci al 1 smo
(introduction to Exi stencial i sm) .

Yves Lacosta, Os Paises Subdesenvo! vi dos (The Underdeveloped
Countries) (Sao Paulo: DIfusao Europeia do Livro, Colecao Saber
Atual, 1961).

Theilhard Chardin, 0 Fenomeno Humano (The Human Phenomenon).

Jacques Maritain, Chr i st i ani smo e Democracia (Christianity and
Democracy); Humanismo integral (integral or Full Humanism), and Rumos
de Educagao (Educational Trends).

Frei or Padre Cardonnel (he was called both) and Padre Henrique
Vaz published a book Chr i st iani smo Hole (Rio de Janeiro: Editors
Uni versi taria, I962), which was the subject of much controversy. According

addition, a liberal French Dominican, Friar Cardonnel , was very well
received by many student audiences while lecturing for eight months
in Brazil in I96I. A prominent Brazilian Jesuit Intellectual, Father
Henrique Vaz , popularized progressive Catholic thought with articles
on Christianity and Marxism. The general trend was toward Mounier's
acceptance of collaboration with all political currents, including
communism, in order to affect social justice.

Padre Alipio de Freitas, a native of Portugal who first settled
in Maranhao in 1958, and later was active in Joao Pessoa, Parafba, in

1 963 » reportedly went so far in condemning capitalism and calling for

a change of the structure of society in his writing and speeches that

his right to celebrate the mass and perform other religious functions

■3
was taken away by his Bishop.

to some reports, Frei Cardonnel was called home by his superiors be-
cause he and the book were exploited so much by Brazilian communists.

Leonard D. Therry, op. ci t . , pp. 32-33.

2
Padre Alipio de Freitas, "Adesao ao evanelho obriga as pos i -

9oes revol ucionar i as" (Adhesion to the Gospel obliges revolutionary

positions), 0 Metropol i tano (June 16, 1962), p. 6.

Another extreme left-wing priest. Padre Francisco Laje Pessoa,

often appeared on the platform with Juliio before peasant groups.

"Palavras aos camponeses" (Words to the Peasants), 0 Metropol i tano,

(November 11, I96I), p. 5, is reportedly the text of a speech Laje

made to the First National Peasant Congress, Belo Horizonte, November

11, 1961.

3
1 nterview wi th Padre Luiz Ferracine, Sociedade Brasileira de

Cultura, Sao Paulo, August 18, I965.

Cardoso, op. ci t . , p. 318, says that the religious "faculties"

of Freitas in the Archdiocese of Rio de Janeiro were suspended but

does not explain what he means by "faculties."

Padre Bernardo Bastos Avila, founder of the Institute of 'Polit-
ical and Social Studies of the Catholic University (PUC) of Rio de
Janeiro, was the reformist voice of the center. He attacked equally
liberal capitalism, neo-capi tal i sm, and communism as proposed solu-
tions for Brazil's problems.

Traditional conservative elements within the Church did not
remain silent. Dom Geraldo de Proenca Sigaud, Archbishop of Diaman-
tina, Minas Gerais, Bishop Antonio de Castro Myer of Campos, Rio de

Janeiro, were joined in I960 by two prominent laymen in writing a

2
book highly critical of agrarian reform proposals and issued The

Declaration of Morro Alto in November, 196^, criticizing the Rural

Land Statute promulgated by the Castello Branco government:

Catholics are not able to receive land eventually expropriated
by public powers without grave transgression of Christian
morality. And if they accept this land, they will be in the
moral condition of persons receiving stolen goods and not able
to receive the Sacraments of Confession and of the Eucharist or
the Sacrament of the Sick without resolving to restore the
[stolen] goods to their legitimate owners.^

Padre Fernando Bastos Avila, "Realidade Brasileira," Painel

Brasi leiro (Rio de Janeiro), Ano IV, No. 38 (July 1962), pp. 5-10.

Two important articles by the reformist Rio de Janeiro and
Recife Archbishop Helder Camara are "The Program of a Bishop of the
Church," GIF Reports (Cuernavaca, Mexico, Inter-cultural Center of
Documentation-CrDOCT, April 16-30, 1964, pp. 3-4, and "Brazilian
Bishop's Emergency Plan," same issue, p. 5, which quotes part of
the 1962 Plan of Emergency of the General Assembly of Brazilian
Bishops.

Dom Geraldo de Proen9a Sigaud, Antonio de Castro Mayer, Plinio

Correa de Oliveira, and Luiz Mendon9a de Freitas, Reforma Agraria,
Questao de Consci^ncia (Sao Paulo: Edit6ra Vera Cruz, 1 96O) .

■3

Reforma artingira o pais em crise de consci€'ncia," Folha de

Sao Paulo. 2a Ed i 9510, November 9, 1964.

The factionalism within the Catholic Church over its "proper"
role in society was reflected in the political activities of many
university and secondary student groups.

University and Secondary Student Groups
Secondary and university students have been important pressure
groups because of the relatively small size of the trained elite which
has governed the country in the past. Student leaders often asserted
to this writer that the national student movement has exercised "a
decisive influence on national politics" and cite incidents ranging
from independence in 1888 to their role in popular protests against
President Goulart's proposed state of siege of October, I963. Not
all students are political activists but the 36-6O per cent who have
an interest in political questions frequently articulate positions
for the rest who are apolitical or apathetic. One often finds some
of the most well-informed and militant individuals among these
students and their professors.

Student groups, especially those affiliated with the Catholic
Left and the National Student Union (UNE) often were far more in-
fluenced by politicians and government officials than these politicians

For general works on University students in politics, see
John P. Harrison, "The Confrontation with the Political University,"
The Annals, Vol. CCCXXXIV (March, I96I), pp. 7^-83; Silvert, op.
ci t . , and Therry, op. ci t . For a more specific work on Brazilian
University students and Octavio lanni, "0 Jovem Radi cal ," Revi sta
Brasileira de Ciencias Socials, Vol. II, No. 2 (July, 1962) , pp. 121-142.

L. Ronald Scheman, "The Brazilian Law Students: Background,

Habits, Attitudes," Journal of Inter-American Studies, July, 1963,
p. 3^9. found 36 per cent of the law students sampled participating
in politics; 59 per cent did not.

Pesquisa sobre o comportamento poli^tico dos estudantes da

and government officials were influenced by students. Nevertheless,
many students and their organizations were especially important in
the 1960's because they advocated reform and revolution. Students
became leaders in Peasant Leagues, peasant s indicatos , the Federal
government's Agrarian Reform Agency (suPRA) , and the Basic Education
Movement (MEB) . Students were also active in the political organiza-
tions of such persons as Governor Miguel Arraes de Alencar, Leonel
Brizola, Carlos Lacerda, and Adhemar de Barros. The UNE formed part
of the so-called Popular Mobilization Front (Frente de Moviliza^ao
Popular or FMP).-^ Control of these organizations therefore provided

Faculdade nacional de filosofia (Rio de Janeiro: Universidade do
Brasil, Faculdade do Filosofia, 1963), cited by Therry, op. ci t . ,
p. 29. found 59 per cent of the students of the Philosophy School
expressing an interest that student organizations participate in
political questions.

Sonia Seganfreddo, UNE. Instrumento de Subversao (Rio de Janeiro:
Edi9bes GRD, I963), is one of the more critical books about UNE since
its founding in 1937-

^Two examples may suffice. (l) In early I96I, Pernambuco uni-
versity students invited the mother of Ernesto "Che" Guevara to ad-
dress them in Recife. When the Dean of the Law School banned the
meeting, riots ensued, and troops were sent in to restore order.
Shortly thereafter. Law students at the University of Sao Paulo,
2,000 miles further south, supported their colleagues at Recife by
breaking street lights and dumping garbage cans. See Karl M. Schmitt
and David D. Burke, Evolution or Chaos, Dynamics of Latin American
Government and Politics (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1 963) , p.
173. (2) Pastor Paulo Evers, founder and Director of the Ginasio Bom
Pastor, Linha Brasil, Nova Petropolis, RGS, intercepted mail from UNE
to student leaders of his school which urged them to "denounce prin-
cipals and teachers and to subvert academic discipline." Interview
January 6, I965.

UNE officers were also active on the editorial staffs of numerous
periodicals and published a weekly newspaper, Movimento in Rio de
Janei ro.

■3
Other groups in the FMP were the National Parliamentary Front

of FPN and the General Labor Command or CGT, an official and non-legal

opportunities for patronage, income, and a springboard for further
personal or group ambitions.

The activist students of the left in the late 1950's and early
1960's believed that the techniques for development of Brazil existed
but that the political parties and government refused to implement the
corrective measures suggested by the analyses of what was "wrong" in
the social and economic structure. In Timothy Harding's words,
students felt they were "the brains of the masses" and this entitled
them to "make a revolution for the rest of the population."^

national labor central organized by PTB, Communist, and some former
pro-Quadros labor leaders in late I96I. Also represented in FMP ral-
lies or meetings were the non-commissioned officers (Sargentos) and a
Women's Front (Frente Feminina).

See Therry, op. ci t . , p. 30.

Timothy Harding, "Revolution Tomorrow; The Failure of the Left
in Brazil," Studies on the Left, Vol. IV, No. k (Fall, 196^+), pp. kk
and 52, and Victor Rico Galan, a Mexican Leftist labor leader and
intellectual, "The Brazilian Crisis," Monthly Review, Vol. XV, No. 12
(April, 1964), pp. 657*674, interviewed several FMP participants among
whom the best known probably was Leonel Brizola. Galan felt FMP
strength was "still limited at present."

See Frederick Pike, "The Catholic Church and Modernization in
Peru and Chile," Journal of International Affairs, Vol. XX, No. 2
(1966), pp. 272-288, for several incisive passages about priests and
laymen in those countries whose naivete and rudimentary knowledge of
economics have led them to advocate Utopian and irresponsible solu-
tions to complex and enormous socio-economic problems which may under-
mine the long-term effectiveness of the Church's position in those
countries.

Harding, op. ci t . , p. 51.

Important to all the student or youth groups of a reformist or
radical nature was a vague concept, conscient i zac3o which was defined
by different groups in a variety of ways ranging from a rational and
planned pol i t i cizat ion of the rural or urban masses to others who
used it in the sense of a "planned revolution of rising expectations."
The former meaning was still used in 1965 by leadership training
programs of groups associating with JAC and the rural worker sindi ca-
tos of the Northeast.

See Therry, op. cit.. p. 35, for further discussion of this
concept.

Prior to the April, 1964, Revolution, two student groups strug-
gled for control of the secondary and university student organiza-
tions: Catholic University Youth (Juventude Uni vers i tar i a Catolica
or JUC) and Popular Action (A9S0 Popular or AP) . Three outside
Marxist groups also sought to capture the student groups: the Moscow-
oriented faction of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) , the Revolu-
tionary Tiradentes Movement (Movimento Revolucionario Tiradentes or
MRT formed by Francisco Jul iao) , and Workers' Politics (Polftica
Operaria or POLOP) .^

Conservative student groups apparently were never able to or-
ganize themselves nationally.-^

There was a hierarchy of student groups. Each Faculdade
(autonomous School or College) had an Academic Directorate (Diretorio
Academico) or Council; these were united in State Student Unions which
were in turn united at the national level by the National Student
Union (Uniao Nacional de Estudantes or UNE) .

Since April, 1964, this structure was changed in an attempt by
the Castelo Branco government to reduce student political activity.
It is difficult to determine whether the revised structure brought
about by the Lei Suplicy (named after Education Minister Suplicy La-
cerda) will have lasting effects or be modified by the Costa e Silva
regime.

Victor Rico Galan, op. ci t. , interviewed Luis Carlos Prestes
who claimed "the Communist Party has great influence" in UNE; Galan,
however, did not interview UNE or any other student leaders.

■J

-^Leonard Gross, op. cit . , pp. 117-119, interviewed two students

who were members of the Front of Democratic Youth (Frente da Juventude

Democrat i ca) ; in this writer's opinion the Frente had little influence

and little organization outside of Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paulo. One

of these students, an economist named Eduardo de Carvalho, said "a

majority of Brazilian students really want a 'third solution,' not

capitalism or communism ... we must think of new ways of arranging

the economic system. There are not just two systems. Somehow, we

should find a way of combining both and creating a new economic system.'

See also Gerald Clark, The Coming Explosion in Latin America (New York:

David McKay, 1962), pp. 48-54, for interviews with three conservative

students at PUC, Rio de Janeiro, and Aldo Arrantes, the UNE president

from July 1961-July' 1962, who called himself a "socialist."

.80

JUC was founded in 1951 as a confessional group with the mis-
sion of "instilling the teachings and doctrine of the Church into

university youth." Theoretically, JUC was forbidden to participate

directly in university politics. In reality, however, JUC at one time
was a central factor in university politics. The united front or
Grupsfo. formed with Communists in the late 1950's, successfully controlled
UNE and most of the state Student Unions and Student Councils (Direto-
rios Academicos) or other governing bodies in each college (Faculdade)
or school .^

AP was formed after a series of meetings in I96O-I96I by several
JUC militants who wanted to be independent of Church control, and to

This writer also has seen a source giving 1937 as the founding
date; the discrepancy probably involves a decline and re-organization
in 1951.

^For a discussion of JUC and its worker counterpart, JOC, in
France, see Barnes, op. cit » , pp. IO6-IO7, and Marcus, op. ci t . , pp.
304-310. A worker-priest movement never developed in Brazil similar
to that in France although a close approximation is the Frente Na-
cional do Trabalho e A^ao Catdlica of Sao Paulo. The Frente had
various religious brothers, sisters, laymen lawyers, and university
students working in factories and the countryside. Its principal
spokesman has been a Sao Paulo lawyer Mario Carvalho de Jesus. Two
of its publications are D. Alfred Ancel, Bishop of Lyon, France, Para
Compreender a Mental idade Operaria (Sao Paulo: Edit6ra Preludio ,
Ltda. , 1 961 ) and A Primazia do Trabalho sobre 0 Capital (The Primacy
of Work over Capital) (no author or publisher given for this booklet
which was published in 1962).

In addition to reading Papal Encyclicals such as Mater et Magistra,
Rerum Novarum, and Pacem em Terris, JUC members also read works by the
former SUDENE Director and Minister of Planning, Celso Furtado, such as
A Pre-Revol ucao Brasileira (Rio de Janeiro: Fondo de Cultura, I962) and
"Brazil: What Kind of a Revolution?" Foreign Affairs. Vol. XLI , No. 3
(April, 1963), pp. 526-535.

■5

•'Therry, op. cit. . p. 33-

A parallel Christian Democratic Youth (JDC) group was created
within the Christian Democratic Party or PDC in the 1960's. JDC
claimed 10,000 members in I963.

assume JUC's role of cooperation with Communist groups in controlling
UNE and the state Student Unions. AP spokesmen explained that this
alliance was necessary if the "progressive forces" were to marshal!
the necessary strength to overcome those in power.

Some spokesmen described the alliance as "only an ephemeral
and tactical pact of convenience" and affirmed their awareness that
the Communist Party had its own interests in such an alliance; they
further affirmed their plan to sever the united front at an opportune
moment, "either shortly before or after taking power." The weakest
point in the AP position, as Therry points out, is they did not seem
to have thought beyond the taking of power, while one may be sure

that the PCB had considered with great care what to do after the revolu-

t ion.

JUC and AP members in SUPRA and MEB programs helped organize
peasant sindicatos in Bahia and the Northeast.^ AP members also
combined with the Communi st-domi nated Union of Agricultural Laborers
and Workers or ULTAB to defend the candidates of the Church-sponsored
si ndicatos in the elections for the first Executive Council (Direto-
ria) of the National Confederation of Agricultural Workers or CONTAG
in December, 1963.

Therry, op. cit . , pp. 37~38.

•Ibid.

•^Relatorio Anual do Movimento de Educayao de Base. 1962. and Ary
Guimaraes, "Notas Previas sobre 0 Sindical iza^ao na Bahia," typed
manuscript, 1965, pp. 2-3.

Therry, op. ci t . . pp. 38-39, and information on the roakeup of
members of the Diretorio contained in this writer's files. The differences

AP collaboration with the Communists brought a reaction from

the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops in 1963- At that time

the Bishops directed a letter to Dom Candido Padim, the head of Catholic

Action in Brazil and Ecclesiastical Assistant of the JUC organization,

calling on Catholic Action to "free itself from the incompatibility

of certain ideological currents in vogue among the lay society":

In the concrete circumstance in which we live the militants and
Catholic organizations should not enter into a united front (frente
unica) with movements which arise from Marxist or liberal capitalist
Ideology. In receiving support [from them] there should be the
greatest prudence, in order to avoid serving the infiltration of their
purposes and tactics. Regarding random collaboration of persons in
transitory circumstances, we will bear in mind the principles of
Pacem in Terris. In vital and personal tactical positions, good
preparation (boa forma9ao) and adequate Information on the part of
our militants becomes indispensable in order not to compromise on
questions of principle on the pretext of conquering power.'

Nevertheless, this council did not deter AP leaders from their

course. After the April 1964 Revolution, Catholic Action and Popular

Action were drastically re-organized and moderate to conservative

elements began working in Pernambuco, Sao Paulo, and other states to
offset the influence of left-wing groups in the student movement.^

between the Circulos Operarios groups, headed by Jose Rotta of Sao Paulo,
and AP-oriented groups in the Northeast, were still present in the April,
1965, elections for the Directorate of the CONTAG.

Jornal do Brasi 1 (December 28, 1963), quoted by Therry, op. ci t . ,
p. ko.

A similar tone was expressed by the moderate reformist Arch-
bishop of Porto Alegre, Dom Vicente Scherer, in "Progressi smo In-
admi ssai vel ," pastoral letter published in Correio do Povo (Porto Ale-
gre), July 6, 1965, and Diario de Pernambuco (August 10, 1965), p. 4.

2 ~ ~

For example, see A Decisao (Sao Paulo), Special Edition,

August 16, 1965> which recommends candidates in 35 different Faculdades,
Escolas, and other university bodies in the Sao Paulo area. On p. 2, is
contained an editorial which says the following inter-alia: "We are
Brazilians. We are young and we believe we can pioneer (desbravar) our

At the present time, the Church remains divided over the utility of
collaborating with the Communists, Socialists, and "progressives.'.'
Nevertheless, the newer Catholic Action groups in Brazil have not ap-
proached the degree of organization, cohesion of ideology, or influence
of their counterparts in Italy or France.'

PCB Activities in the Student Sector
The Brazilian Communist and Socialist Parties are no exception
to the statement that Brazilian political parties depended more on per-
sona] i smo and patronage than on issues and party discipline. In spite
of Marxian doctrines, their penetration of organized labor and the
working classes was minimal with some exceptions. Throughout the
years the party has been split into several groups and was most affected

own roads, without the tutelage of anyone, whomever it might be: Peking,
Washington, Moscow, or Paris." On p. 8, or the last page, it prints a
number of slogans and warnings in orange and black colors: "University
Student, Don't Enter into Games, Stop, Look, Listen; The Vote is Your
Great Weapon against the 'Owners' of the University Students Don't be
Guided by Someone Else (Nao Seja Teleguiado) . "

La Palombara, op. cit. , pp. 291, 315-339, 40U-41 1 , and Barnes,
op. ci t . , discuss the influence of Catholic Action groups in the
government and political parties of Italy and France, respectively.

^Robert Alexander, Communism in Latin America, p. 93. Alexander's
chapter on Brazil, pp. 93-133. is the best work available in English
on the PCB as of 195^.

Vami reh Chacon, Historia das Ideias Socialistas no Brasil (Rio
de Janeiro: Editora Civil iza9ao Brasileira, 1965) i s a hi story of
socialist ideas on Brazilian thought from Its "historic roots" in the
Equal itarianum of the Conspiracy of the Tailors (Al f aiates) in 1798
through its first formal discussion by Joaquim Piabuco and Antonio Pe-
dro Figueiredo in the late l840's to 1963. There is no real discus-
sion of Marxist or Socialist in the trade union movement or political
parties. For example, "Marxism continues in Brazil as a catalytic
agent above all urban, in spite of the tentative efforts of the PC to
carry it to the countryside and not withstanding the activities of
socialist such as Francisco Juliao" (p. 337) is the only mention of
Juliao or PC activities in the 1960's.

by factionalism in 1961 when a Peking-oriented group (PC do B) broke
away from the Moscow-oriented groups which followed Luiz Carlos
Prestes, ostensibly over the Sino-Soviet Dispute but equally over
the Cuban Revolution.

Aided by widespread apathy and lack of opposition, the PCB
obtained control of the National Student Union or UNE during World

War II and maintained this control until democratic forces regained

2
control in 1952. Democrats controlled the principal state student

unions, the UNE, and Brazilian Union of Secondary Students (UBES)

until 1956 when the Communists captured control of UNE. JUC-af f i 1 iated

students took over between 1959"196l and AP-af fi 1 iated students

controlled UNE from 1961-1964.-^ Since I965, the student federations

have been reorganized in an attempt to make their control by any

politically-affiliated or Cathol ic Action group impossible.

^Leonard Gross, "How Red is Brazil," Look (May 21, 1963), p.
113, notes the following:

"The Communists' greatest strength is in labor unions. Of five
federations, they dominate three-industrial workers, bank workers and
river, maritime, and air transport workers. ... In 19^0, the party
had 200,000 members. By the 1950's membership dwindled to 6,000 fol-
lowing a court-order ban on Communists running for office. Today,
Communists number 35>000 in a country of 7^,000,000 . . ." See also
"President Joao Goulart and Brazil, "The Antioch Review, XXIII, No. 3
(Fall, 1963), pp. 313-330.

^Therry, op. cit . , p. 46.

-^Harding, op. cit., pp. 51-52, says UNE was controlled "by a
coalition of Communists and Popular Action (A9ao Popular or AP) , a
left-wing Catholic group." AP's humanistic leftist position was
considered by Harding to be "the most radical of any Christian
Democrat movement in Latin Amer i ca/ind_/was encouraged by Christian
Democrat Paulo de Tarso/i PDC Federal Deputy and some.times Minister
of Education, and Prefeito of Brasilia in the 1960's/ and the small
group of priests that work with peasants and slum dwellers."

A third Marxist-oriented group which is of interest for this study
is the revolutionary group known as Politica Operaria (Workers Politics
or Policy or POLOP) after an irregular periodical of that name which
began publishing in I96I. This small group of young people, who
formerly belonged to the PTB, the PSB, the PCB, and independent
Marxists published several valuable articles on peasant groups and four
of its members participated in a romantic venture in Pernambuco in
1963 which led to the death of two of them.

Communist Party Actions in the Rural Sector
In 195^, the PCB founded the Union of Agricultural Laborers and
Workers or ULTAB in the hopes of increasing its influence among the
rural laboring class. its leaders, Lindolfo Silva and Nestor Vera,
two factory workers, worked closely with the Ministry of Labor and
SUPRA in 1963, leaving the bulk of their organizational work to Jose
Portela Alves, a Rio de Janeiro naval factory worker, who headed the
Sao Paulo Federation of Agricultural Workers. ^ In the 1960's ULTAB
also worked closely with an Agrarian Front (Frente Agraria) headed
by a radical Cathol i c priest , Friar Carlos Josephat , who directed

Harding, op. ci t. , p. 52.

Callado, Tempo de Arraes , pp. 104-108.

^Robert Price, op. ci t . , p. 58, notes that the Federation held
"a convention in 1963, attended by 221 delegates and 69 directors of
rural unions" which "approved resolutions in favor of a constitutional
amendment which would enable the federal government to issue bonds
for land expropriation, the transfer of the rural land tax from the
county to the federal government, a limitation on the concession of
public lands to 500 hectares, and the legal regulation of rental
contracts," citing Folha de Sao Paulo (September 9, 1963).

the polemical journal Brasi 1 , Urgente.'

Nevertheless, the PCB never devoted much energy to peasant
s indi catos. ^ During the "First National Congress of Agricultural
Laborers and Workers," in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, November
15-18, 1961, Lindolfo Silva, ULTAB president, advocated a two-stage
revolution for Brazil: first, all "progressive forces" needed to
join together in a nationalist united front "to throw out imperialist
influences," the second stage would have a specifically "socialist
character" although he never explained what this meant. This view
differed greatly from other radical and revolutionary Marxist and
Catholics attending the Congress. Francisco Juliao spoke for these
persons who felt "the revolutionary process" was "an overall phenomenon
[which] uses the different contradictions of Brazilian society to
propel itself" into a situation like Cuba "where an ant i -imperi al i st

' Padre or Friar Carlos Josephat appeared at several peasant
Congresses to make fiery speeches denouncing the Brazilian agrarian
and political structure. The absence of information about the
Agrarian Front's activities probably indicates that Josephat was a
much better public speaker than an organizer of groups which needed
bureaucratic structure and local leadership to function.

Lloyd A. Free, Some international Implications of the Political
Psycholoiqy of Brazilians (2d printing; Princeton: The Institute for
International Social Research, September, 19^^), pp. ^5"^6, discovered
only 8 per cent of the rural public expressed the opinion that Com-
munists would work for the best interests of Brazil. In addition, 5^
per cent of the rural public "didn't know," and "37 per cent expressed
the opinion the Communists would work for Russia and Communism,"! In
contrast, 53 per cent of the urban public expressed an opinion the
Communists would work for the interests of Russia and Communism, while
36 per cent didn't know. Overall, if there was "a danger zone, it
lies with the lower groups in the big cities." Hence, the PCB and
ULTAB may have been allocating their resources in a reasonably
rational manner.

■^As duas faces do congresso campones," 0 Metropol i tano (November
25. 1961), p. 8.

struggle has to unfold immediately" into an effort of socialist
construction. These two elements act as inter-dependent forces."
In effect, there was division among the left which was to continue
through the April 1964 Revolution.

The Socialist Party in the Rural Sector
The Brazilian Socialist Party was never a European or Argentine

Socialist-type party with ideological and leadership roots in the

2
working or peasant class. PSB candidates won in most cases because

they were traditional landowner-politicians with peasant following-^

or i ndustr i al i sts wi th funds and personal followings. And once in

office as Governors, Federal Deputies, or State Deputies, PSB members

or PSB-supported officials were never responsible for any significant
social welfare or other legislation nor for enforcement of existing

' Ibid.

^Peterson, op. ci t . , pp. 84-87, discusses the origins of the
party in 1945"1 946 as a spl i t of UDN members. Its principal leaders
through the years were Francisco Mangabeira of Bahia, his son Joao,
Hermes Lima, a labor lawyer from Sao Paulo, Osorio Borba, and Mario
Pedroso.

Antonio Callado, Os Industrials da Seca, p. 36, characterizes
the PSB as a "party of cultured people, intelligent but without the
slightest idea of what to do politically with itself." From a
doctrinal point of view, all possible causes had already been taken
by the PCB, the PTB, and UDN.

The Mangabeiras fall in this category. In Pernambuco, Barbosa

Lima Sob'rinho ran on the PSB ticket in 1947 with the aid of the
Northeast's most famous colonels, Chico Romao of Serrita and Chico
Heracl io de Rigo of Limoeiro. See Vilaga and Albuquerque, Coronel .

Corons^is,, p. 1 1 1 .

See Fortes, "Contr i bui cao a Historia politica de Sergipe,"
p. 102, for data on Sergipe author-industrialist Orlando Viera
Dantas, a UDN-lef t-wi ng leader whom the PSB nominated as candidate
for Governor and Federal Senator in 1947.

legislation in favor of urban workers or peasants; rather they were
interested in patronage for their followers.

Summary

Of the various pressure groups active in rural areas in the
1950's and 1960's, it can be seen that the large landowners had
greater unity and better organization than any of the other groups.
The overall weai<ness of radical Church, university, and Marxist-
oriented groups manifested itself March 31 "April 1, 196^, when their
leaders could not compose their longstanding personal and ideological
differences to resist the civilian and military groups which wished
to overthrow the Goulart government.

The reader may thus have a greater appreciation of the obstacles
facing anyone or any group which wished to organize a peasant pressure
group.

^HAR, Vol. XVI (March, 1963), p. 82, indicates Joao Mangabeira
resigned as Minister of Justice and Francisco Mangabeira, his son,
resigned as President of Petrobras following rumors of corruption
and malfeasance in the Petrobras organization.

CHAPTER IV
THE LI GAS CAMPONESAS AS A PRESSURE GROUP

I nt roduct ion

Agrarian reform was a topic of general concern to rev/ Brazilians
until the 1960's because the subject, until then, had been ignored
except by a fev; scholars and political activists. However, in the
late 1950's, interest in agrarian reform was aroused by the activities
of Francisco Juliao and the Peasant Leagues.

in the Northeast, peasants tradi t i.onal 1 y had followed those
leaders who secured benefits for them; the Ligas grev; because Juliao
and other leaders secured specific benefits for their followers. But
because the organization was dependent on Juliao's personal leadership
and did not develop any other leaders — except in ParaTba — viho could
assume responsibility, Juliao lost control of the movement he unleashed.^

in order to understand the growth and impact of the Peasant
Leagues as a pressure group, it is necessary to include the following:

^ Jos^ Artur Rios, "lntrodu9ao," Recomendacoes sobre Reforma Agra-
r i a (Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Brasileiro de Acao Democrat ica, 1 96I ) ,
pp, xii-xiii, discusses the history of agrarian reform proposals in
Brazil. Smith, Agrarian Reform, Chapter VI, is a translation of Rios'
work.

See John F. Santos, "A Psychologist Reflects on Brazil," In
Baklanoff, op. ci t . , pp. 259~260, for comments which include, inter-
al i a , "the lack of interest of many urban Brazilians in knowing more
about their own country, especially the interior. They are fascinated
by the people but are fearful and suspicious of them . . . The rural
areas . . . represent another world of realities and values, another
way of life which should best remain in the past, to be talked about
but not experienced."

^For a discussion of the Importance of controlling the "scope"

(l) the political background and appeal of Juliao; (2) establishment
of the first Liga at Engenho Galileia, Municipio of Vitoria de Santo
Antao; (3) the personal I st i c nature of many of the Northeast Ligas;
{k) the myths and realities of peasant "invasions," and (5) the
impact of the Ligas on intranational and international politics.

Francisco Juliao's Family and
Political Background

Francisco Juliao de Arruda Paula rose rapidly to national at-
tention in 1959-1961. There was nothing particularly unique in his
rapid rise to promi nence--ther well knov;n Brazilian politicians such
as Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira, Janio Q.uadro ca Silva, Leonel
Brizola, and Joao Belchior Marques Goulart had similar meteoric rises
to power. Juliao was a member of a landowning family with at least
two medium-sized properties in the Municipio of Bom Jardim as a
source of income, vjho differed little from other well-known landovming

and "contagiousness" of conflict as a determinant of who gets involved
and who makes decisions in politics, see E. E. Schadtschnei der , The
Semi -Soverei gn People, pp. 3j 20, and 67"68.

'All went from councilman upv-jard without losing an election:
Kubitschek from councilman to Prefeito of Belo Horizonte to State
Governor of Minas Gerais to President; Q.uadros from Councilman to
Prefeito of Sao Paulo to State Governor to Federal Deputy in Parana
to President; Brizola from councilman to Prefeito of Porto Alegre to
Governor to Federal Deputy for Guanabara (greater Rio de Janeiro);
Goulart from Prefeito of Uruguaina, RGS, to Minister of Labor (1952-
195^) > and Vice President in 195b and I960.

The Arruda de Paulo owned two old-fashioned sugar plantations

called Cova de 0n9a and Esperanca, They were not, hovjever, very active
in Municipio religious, business, social, and political life. See
Mario Souto Mai or and Moacir Souto Mai or, Roteiro de Bom Jardim
(Limoeiro; Pernambuco: Antonio Vilaca, 1 95^) for an i nterest i ng ac-
count of the Municipio and its leading pg-gonal i t ies since the first

politicians from Bom Jardim such as Oswaldo Lima Filho, Sylvio da
Motta Silveira, Manuel Gon9alves Souto Maior, and Francisco "Chico'
Heraclio de Rego. However, Jul iao discovered how to successfully
sway peasant groups, university and secondary students, urban
workers, and journalists through the use of demagogic appeals fil-
led with imagery and the "radical" symbolism associated with the
names of Karl Marx,^ Fidel Castro,-^ Mao Tse-tung, and other world

Church was established there in 1757. Of several hundred persons
mentioned only two appear related to the Arruda de Paulo family prior
to 195^; Hel iodoro Gon9alves de Arruda, a leader in the St. Vincent
de Paul religious society in the early 1900's and Jose Severino de
Paula Filho, one of fifteen merchants in 195^. Francisco Jul i^o is
not mentioned at all as a prominent personality.

Irving Louis Horowitz, Revolution in Brazil (New York: E. P.
Dutton, 1964), p. 21, is in error in stating that Jul iao "was born
of a family of small tenant farmers, with an earning power that was
slightly better than average."

I ma

'Oswaldo Lima Filho, a PTB Federal Deputy was Minister of Agri
culture for President Goulart in 1963; Lima Filho's son, Oswaldo Lii
Neto, was elected Prefeito in October, 1962.

Sylvio da Motta Silveira, PSD leader and Prefeito 1951-195^,
was an old-style aristocratic coronel of the style written about by
Gilberto Freyre or \l'\]a(^a and Albuquerque, Coronel, Coronals, although
not as well known as Heraclio Rego, whose power and economic base was
in the neighboring municipio of Limoeiro.

Souto Maior was a two-time PSD Prefeito, one of whose two sons
Moacyr ran unsuccessfully for State Deputy in October, 1962, on the
ticket with Joao Cleofas.

Jul iao apparently was no different than the above men in at-
tempting to buy votes with gifts of shoes, shirts, beer, rum (cachaca)
and using trucks and automobiles to transport rural voters to town at
election time.

Gerald Clark, The Coming Explosion in Latin America (New York:
David McKay Company, 1962) , pp. 20b-297 , interviewed Antonio Call ado who
doubted that Jul iao ever had read a "book on Lenin or even Marx."
Call ado added "He is no fool, of course. He reads papers and knows what
is going on in Russia and Cuba. But 1 am sure it doesn't bother him if
a North American newspaperman pays a visit and rushes away labelling
him a 'Communist.' The publicity only builds him up."

^Lloyd A. Free, Some International Implications of the Political

figures to transform himself from a typical politician with a limited

1 2

peasant following responding to traditional appeals and techniques

Psychology of Brazilians, pp. 50-51, found Castro was least known in
rural areas (only 6 per cent were able to identify him compared to 50
per cent in cities over 500,000) and less wel 1 -regarded in rural
areas than in any other population area (2.7 on a scale ranging from
zero at the bottom to ten at the top; 4.3 in cities over 500,000,
lower than any other prominent leader on the list).

The use of the Castro image thus may have had a negative effect
among the rural masses as well as large landowners although it probably
pleased many leftist nationalists.

Juliao's vote-gathering ability is listed below:

1945-As a Republican Party (PR) candidate for Federal Deputy, he
received approximately 500 votes in losing.

1947-As a PR candidate for State Deputy, he received about 400
votes in losing.

195 -As a Socialist Party (PSB) candidate for State Deputy, he
received about 400 votes which, under the peculiarities of the state's
proportional representation system, was enough to make him an Alternate
(Suplente) Deputy for the PSB.

1958-As a PSB candidate for State Deputy, he gained 3,216 votes
and was named State President of the PSB shortly thereafter.

1962-As a PSB candidate for Federal Deputy supporting part of the
PTB and the PCB in the Basic Civic Alliance (Alianca de Base Civica or
ABC) to elect Miguel Arraes Governor against JoSo Cleofas, candidate of
the PSD and UDN in the Democratic Popular Front (Frente Popular Demo-
cratico or FPD), Jul iao received 16,266 votes, second to Waldemar Luiz
Alvarez who was the principal ABC candidate (l6,266 votes).

Callado, Os industrials, pp. 113-121, Leda Barreto, Jul I^o, Nor-

deste, Revolu<;ao, pp. 76-77, and JuliSo, Que Son las Ligas Campeslnas?,
pp. 34-43, describe in part how Liga meetings were conducted, especially
giving credit to the troubadors of the Northeast (violeiros or canta-
dores) for making the Ligas and Jul iao well known.

The NET television program, "Brazil, The Troubled Land" (I963) is
one of several television documentaries which also showed the troubadors
participating in Liga meetings.

Nevertheless, this writer seriously doubts that the songs and
verses of the troubadors increased the political activism of Northeast
peasants although the songs may have increased the number of peasants
seeking favors from Jul iao and the Ligas. in a similar vein, this
author was the object of verses by troubadors in the I ndependenci a
Plaza, Recife, and in the interior muni ci plo of Lajedo, Pernambuco.
However, the author seriously doubts that his presence had much impact
on local political activity although It may have contributed something
to political folk-lore just as the songs of Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, or
the cartoon strips "Little Orphan Annie," "Li'l Abner," and "Dick Tracy."

into a charismatic leader with an urban base responding to modern
publicity and propaganda techniques.

Many of Juliao's speeches and writings were ambiguous and vague
even on the topic of agrarian reform. On one occasion, he told a
sympathetic writer, "I am a radical but not a sectarian," who responds

In October, 1962, Juliao founded a newspaper, Liga, in Rio de
Janeiro. In mid-1963-, he founded two new political movements, the
Urban Leagues (Ligas urbanas) and the Revolutionary Tiradentes Move-
ment (Movimento Revolucionar io Tiradentes or MRT) . The alleged goal
of the Ligas Urbanas was to force rents down, provided more "popular
housing" — probably meaning more housing for the poor, and "organiza-
tion of the poor in Rio de Janeiro" so that they could "defend their
own interests." The MRT was an organization designed to recruit
university students to administer the peasant and urban ligas and to
build a bloc of voters in other than the Northeast. Leadership of
both these groups also depended on Juliao.

For a discussion of the MRT, see Leonard D. Therry, "Dominant
Power Components in the Brazilian University Student Movement Prior
to April , 1964," p. 32.

Horowitz, op. ci t. , p. 21 , is a typical example of writers In
the United States who presumed Juliao was a long-term Socialist.
Horowitz states that Juliao suffered "electoral defeats In 19^5 and
again in 1950," finally succeeding "in 195^ and also in 1958 in gain-
ing sufficient electoral support from the literate elements" in Re-
cife "and the surrounding provinces (sic.) to be elected to the
Brazi 1 Ian Congress.

Mario Souto Maior told this writer that some people suggest that
Juliao switched to the Socialist Party In order to get votes from the
railroad, textile, and sugar mill workers in Jaboatao, called "Moscou-
zlnho" (Little Moscow) by many Pernambucans . Juliao himself has never
discussed his earlier Republican Party candidacies.

Even at the First National Congress of Peasants (or Agricultural

Laborers and Workers) In Belo Horlzonte, November 15~17, 1961, Juliao
never specified what "radical agrarian reform" really meant. See "As
duas faces do congress© campones," 0 Metropol i tano (November 25, 1961),
p. 8, for a discussion of Juliao's speech.

A copy of the "Declaration of Belo Horlzonte" listing twelve
measures which would contribute to the "realization of agrarian
reform" is contained in Juliao, Q.ue Son las Ligas Campeslnas?, pp.
95~97. Surprisingly, Juliao's speech to the Congress is not contained
In this Spanish-language publication. This writer does not know If the
Belo Horlzonte Declaration is contained In the Portuguese-original; it
is not contained in the collections of Horowitz or any other writer.

9^*

and appeals to the "mysticism of the peasant." in fact, he would have
been more accurate had he stated that he appealed to the "ignorance of
the peasant."

Juliao's speeches seldom appealed to the intellect. He used
simple language, parables, references to Jesus Christ and various world
leaders, denunciations of the United States and the large landowners, and
encouraged the peasants to have a sense of dignity and importance. In
addition, Juliao's speeches in the State Assembly, the legal defense
work of Peasant League offices in Recife and JoSo Pessoa, Paraiba, the
news of the expropriation of Engenho Galileia, and his handouts of
clothing and medicine, all attracted numbers of peasants and other
persons who wanted to associate themselves with a man who might become
a great political leader in the future and thus appeared to offer
greater opportunities for political advancement to his associates
than any other Northeastern political leader. By 1 96O the Ligas Cam-
ponesas had gone beyond the "takeoff stage" and were in a self-
sustaining spiral of growth: for the greater the number of persons
flocking to Juliao's banner, the greater the number of legal cases
to present to the courts, and then the greater the number of hand-
outs which led to a greater number of persons flocking to his banner,
and so forth.

One of his most widely quoted speeches or writings is entitled
"The Charter of Liberation of the Peasant," published in April, I96I,

Leda Barreto, Juliao, Nordeste, Revo1u9ao (Rio de Janeiro:
Editora Civil iza9ao Brasileira, 1963), p. 55.

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which contains many of the therr,es used by Juliao after he became a

"peasant leader":

You and your brothers make up almost all of Brazil. It is you
who l<ill [sic] our hunger. And you die of hunger. it is you who
clothe us. And you live in rags. You give the soldier to defend
the fatherland. And the fatherland forgets you. You give the
hired killer to serve the latifundio. And the hired killer ter-
rorizes you. You give alms to the Church. And the Church asks
you for resignation in the name of Christ'. But Christ was a
rebel. And for that reason he ascended the cross. And like
Christ and the good St. Francis of Italy, 1 also stand by your
side. And two who are still alive, Mao Tse-tung of China and
Fidel Castro of Cuba. All of them were victorious because they
were with you and you with them.

The latifundio is cruel. it shields itself vjith the police and
hired killers. It elects your worst enemies. And to vi\n your
votes, it uses two formulas: violence and guile (astuci a) . The
latifundio provokes fear in you with violence and deceives you
with cunning. Violence is the hired killer and the police. It
is the threat to drive you from the land. To destroy your hor.
To uproot the crops you have planted in the fields. To kill you
with hunger. To call you a Communist and to tell you that God
will punish you. As though there could be a greater punishment
than that you already are living under, chained to the latifun-
dio. in the name of a liberty that is not your liberty. And
of a God that is not your God.

And the greatest cunning is to treat you as a godfather (compadre)
To enter your house gentle as a lamb, with claws concealed, with
poison hidden. And to offer you a flask of medicine. And a car

Francisco Jul iao, Q.ue Son las Ligas Campesinas?, pp. 75-77 and
8k. The original reportedly appeared as "A Alforria do Campones,"
0 Semanario (Rio de Janeiro), No. 253, April, 1961. Probably the best
translation into English of the Portuguese original which is difficult
to obtain is that by Frank Bonilla in "Rural Reform in Brazi 1 ," AUFS
Reports , East Coast South America Series, Vol. Vill, No. k (October,
ISol) , pp. 8 and 10.

Horowitz, op. ci t . , pp. 46-52, contains a translation of the
"Charter" under the title "letter from Recife," however, several
words are translated differently by Danielle Salti than by this writer
or the Bonilla text, i.e., capanga (hired killer, gunmen, or body-
guard) is translated in the Horowitz text variously as "sheriff" or
caoanqa.

Another speech which gained a great deal of publicity for
Jul iao is one made to a university student gathering in Ouro Preto,
MInas Gerais. It appears as "Brazil, A Christian Country?" in Leo
Huberman and Paul Sweazy (eds.) , V/hither Latin America (New York:

Monthly Review Press, 1963), pp. 108-110*.

100

to take your wife to the hospital. And a little money as a loan.
Or a note for credit at the company store (barracao) . And to
catch you unaware at election time to say, 'Compadre , get your
ballot ready. if my candidate wins, things will change.' And
if they change, they change for the v,'orse.

What kind of democracy is this that watches your assassina-
tion in cold blood as a spectator, that sees your blood soaking
into the soil you conquered with your axe and does not come to
your aid? That democracy is not yet yours. it- belongs to the
gunman. How many rivers of bVood have to run through this im-
mense Brazil before democracy realizes that no gunman's claim
ought to prevail over your title vjhich is your ov-Jn life? The
law depends on your union because Democracy depends on your
union. It is necessary that you unrte, then as cement unites
a wall so that Democracy feel your force and the law is made in
your favor.

We therefore should not find it particularly unusual for a

plantation with the symbolic name of Galileia to attract Juliao's

interest.

Enqenho Galileia, Home of the First Lioa
As indicated in the Preface, few people have studied the growth
and impact of the Ligas with objectivity or in the context of North-
east politics. To appreciate the impact of the Ligas Camponesas, one
must know something about the growth of the first Liga at Engenho
Galileia, which many people claim to know but which few people have
actual 1 y vis i ted.

'Antonio Callado, Os Industrials da Se*ca, pp. 33~^^ and Tempo
de Arraes , pp. 39~6l , and Correia Andrade, A Terra e o Homen no Nor-
deste, pp. 241-251, are the principal sources for much or the material

on the first Liga. Callado, however, is not specific about the
dates of many events.

Juliao, Q.ue Son las Ligas Campesinas?, pp. 23-29j briefly discusses
the Gal i 1 ei a Liga.

This writer visited the Engenho and Its peasant sindicato June
14 and July k, 19o5> and the Municipio of Vitoria de Santo MntSo on
four other occasions.

101

Engenho Gali]eia occupied 500 hectares (about 1,200 acres) of

rocky and hilly land in a municipio which straddles the Mata and

Agreste zones of Pernambuco. The family of Oscar BeltrSo de Arruda

(possibly a far-removed relative of Francisco Jul iao de Arruda Paula)

owned the engenho on which approximately 1^0 families lived in 195^-

1955. In 1965> at least four other engenhos in the municipios were

owned by sons or close relatives of Senhor Beltrao:'

Engenho Amparo - Abelardo Beltrao
Engenho Solidade - Abelardo Beltrao
Engenho Brasil - Antonio Bacelar de Arruda
Engenho Cachoerinha - Jaime Beltrao

The Beltrao family had not lived in the Casa Grande for many

years after it stopped producing sugar cane in competition with the

us inas in the 1930's. Instead, it rented small plots of five to

fifteen acres to truck farmers who produced cassava flour (f ar i nha
de Mandioca) . vegetables and bananas. Normally, one of the family
members collected the heavy rents which had gone up from 220 cruzeiros
to 1,700 cruzeiros in 1955 (approximately $22.00 per month) from
Jose Francisco de Souza, the Fei tor (Administrator) of the Engenho
since 1922. When the increased rent bore heavily on the moradores .

'From a list of sixty two engenhos and their owners that the
author compiled from files of the Sindicato of Rural Workers, Vitoria,
June \k, 1965.

^Correia Andrade, op. ci t . , p. 243, indicates "the high prices
of sugar and the construction of highways resulted in an increase of
the potential output of the sugar factories." One consequence was
the eviction of tenants in some regions who had grown coffee or fruits
by owners who wanted to increase their sugar plantings.

^This writer does not know if sugar prices continued at a high
level in the early 1950's or if the Beltrao's tried to increase sugar

102

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103

Jos^ Francisco de Souza led them into organizing a mutual benefit so-
ciety to protect those members viho became ill or lagged on the rent
(f oro) payment. A lawyer vjho specialized In the organization of
mutual benefit burial societies to purchase coffins and bury the dead
formalized the group's aspirations into an organization with the some-
what pompous title of the Agricultural and Livestock Society of Per-
nambuco)-^ — a Brazilian equivalent of the Benevolent and Protective
Orders of Elks, or Moose, In the United States,

plantings by evicting the tenants through increased rents. Gs
I ndustr I ai s , p. 3^.

Callado does not indicate a year or date when the rent was 220
cruzeiros per month. For example, in July 19^7, the free market rate
was 22 cruzeiros per U. S. dollar, 32 per U. S. dollar in July 1950,
and 5^ cruzeiros per U. S. dollar in January, 195^.

"A Revolu9ao de Enxada," Manchete, No. 398, December 5, 1959,
pp. 84-86, indicates peasants uere paying 1,700 cruzeiros per month
to rent land as f ore i ros along with one day of camb'So. At 1959 ex-
change rates (I7O-I89 cruzeiros per U, S. dollar), this means from
$8.00-11 .20).

Callado, op. cit., does not discuss the intermediary role of
this lawyer. Other writers also have ignored this man's role ap-
parently accepting Callado's description of events that the Galii^ia
foreiros went directly to Jul iao for help.

Because of the nature of the conversations with Gallli^ia f o-
rel ros , the lawyer's name v;as not given or noted in the notes this
writer made on his trips to the engenho.

Callado, Os Industrials da Sfeca, p. k] , lists several of these
mutual benefit societies (mortuari as) : Amor e Trabalho (Love and
Viork) , Obreiros do Bern (Workers for Good) and the Sociedade Mortuaria
(Burial Society). All three functioned when this writer visited Vl-
toria in mId-1965. Monthly contributions were 100 cruzeiros (US$ .06)
contrasted to the 10 cruzeiros (US$ .02) of I96O. One of the organ-
izations had a sign above the door which read as follows; "Leave
Pol i tics Outsldei"

^Clark, op. cit., pp. 203-204 and Josue de Castro, Death In the
Northeast (New York: Random House, 1 966), pp. 7~21 , attribute ihe
organization of the first Liga at Gallleia to one Joao Firmlnio.
However, this writer never heard this name mentioned in Vitoria de
Santo Antao nor does It appear in any of the literature on the LIgas
with which this writer Is familiar. De Castro, who v^/^ote this book

Although the aging Oscar de Arruda Beltrao thought the idea was
a good one and agreed to become Honorary President, his son Joao Bel-
trao opposed creation of the organization and asked the police to
evict the moradores . The police refused, whereupon Beltrao sought a
formal eviction notice from a Victoria judge "to modernize the
property by converting It into a cattle ranch." The tenants' lawyer
then guided them to Francisco Juliao in November-December 195^.
Jul iao, who had just been elected an Alternate PSB State Deputy in
the Pernambuco State Assembly, accepted the case. On January 1,
1955, he changed the legal status of the Galileia mutual society to
that of a Society for Philanthropic Ends (Sociedade para Fins Bene-
ficentes) with headquarters in Recife but with the ability to create
branches or delegacies in other parts of the state.

Nothing further developed in the legal case for four years but
Juliao was to propel the incident Into statewide and national fame.
One of the immediate actions contributing to this fame was an at-
tempt to label the Galilee groups as a "Communist-inspired attempt"
to resurrect the abortive attempts to organize peasant leagues in

in Geneva, Switzerland, may in fact have used Clark as one of his
sources in addition to Antonio Callado's articles vjhich were
gathered together in Os I ndustri al s da Sgca and Tempo de Arraes in
which the name of Jos^ Francisco de Souza is mentioned. De Castro's
long-distance writing is weak on several other historical grounds,
for example, when he states that "Juliao turned to politics and was
elected a deputy to the Pernambuco State Assembly" after he began
the "legal struggle to keep the peasants from being driven out of
Galilea" (p. 17).

Several writers including Rubens Rodrigues dos Santos "A
Sudene e a Revolucao Nordest i na ," 0 Estado de Sao Paulo (Separata),
April 28-May 7, 1963, p. 6:2, say the Beltrao tamiiy went to court
and the peasants to Juliao in I960. In fact, events began as far
back as 195^.

105

19^0-19^5. In addition, Governor and General Osv;aldo Cordeiro de
Farias ordered State Police to arrest Juliao In Vitoria"^ and to
carry him to Recife where he was released after news of the first
arrest in many years of an Alternate State Deputy leaked out.

Juliao, op. ci t . , p. 28, and Leda Barreto, op. ci t . , p. 110,
briefly discuss this phenomenon although differing on the dates v^;hen
this occurred during the 19^0's, Juliao saying that these "organiza-
tions were founded in 19^5."

General Cordeiro de Farias first gained public attention as a

member of the Tenentes Revolt in 1924 with Luiz Carlos Prestes. In
1936 or 1937, Cordeiro de Farias was appointed by GetJlio Vargas as
I nterventor-Governor of Rio Grande do Sul. in this position, he later
engendered feelings of indignation from German, itelian, and other non-
Luso-Braz i 1 i ans over the destruction by state police of foreign
cultural enterprises including schools, churches and libraries, as well
as organizing a system of spies to report on people who spoke German,
Italian or other languages in public or their homes. To many Luso-
Brazilians, these foreign groups were a "cultural cyst" vjhich needed
to be destroyed. The "nationalization of culture" in Brazil is
analogous to the treatment of Nissei on the West Coast of the United
States in 1941-1944. in the 1960's, the General was a "hard-line"
anti -Communi St , unsympathetic to any social reform measures.

■^Carrying out the arrest was Captain Jesus Jardim, apparently
one of the more important police officials engaged in harassing
politicians in disfavor with Cordeiro de Farias. Vilaca and Albu-
querque, Coronel , Coron^i s , p. 127, note that Captain Jardim vjas also
sent to Limoeiro between 1952-1954 to depose Colonel Francisco He-
raclio de Rego. Vilac^a originally was one of three m.en whom the
Governor depended upon to aid Jardim in the conspiracy v-jh i ch ultimately
fai led.

Juliao was a member of a delegation led by Janio Quadros who
went to Cuba in the midst of his campaign for the Brazilian presidency
and "left the impression he was sympathetic to Fidel's socialist
experiment, although he protested, the misuse which he claimed the
Cuban regime made of his public statements," See Skidm.ore, op. cit.,
p. 191. Jul i ao, op. cit., p. 43, says nothing about Q.uadros"' i mpres-
sions but states that the trip "contributed to further the bonds of
solidarity between the Peasant Leagues of the Northeast and that
sister people." ,

106

Juliao further cultivated the image of a "radical peasant leader" by
visiting the Soviet Union in 1957* Cuba in March I960 and May I96I--
after Fidel Castro carr.e to pov;er--' and Communist China.

After the incident vMith the police, Juliao established branches
or del eqacias of the Liga Camponesa in several nuni ci pios in the
coastal zone which contributed votes to the 1958 victory of progres-
sive sugar industrialist Cid Sampaio over Jarb^s Maranhao, the candidate

of General Cordeiro de Farias.

Final events surrounding the expropriation of the Galileia
plantation and the two others in the immediate vicinity show a
remarkable similarity to the traditional Brazilian phenomenon of
politically inspired "invasions" and a high degree of collusion or
curious coincidence of events involving Juliao, Sampaio and other
landowners.

"Cuba to Train Latins," New York Times (May 12, I96I) , p. o:k,
is an inaccurately titled article about JulEao's visit to May Day
activities in Havana following the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion.
While Castro reportedly invited Juliao to send groups of peasants to
Cuba for training, there is no evidence that any Northeastern peasants
received such training although various peasants accompanied Juliao
and other Brazilian politicians on brief guided tours of the Island.

Juliao, op. ci t . , p. ky , notes the Ligas supported the candidacy
of Samipaio who, "once in power, turned against them and against the
people, conspiring with General Cordeiro de Farias during the strike of
Pernambuco university students In April, 196lj and with Carlos Lacerda,
Governor of Guanabara, in the pol 1 1 1 cai -mi 1 I tary crisis of August of
the same year, when Janio Quadros abandoned the Presidency of the
Republ I c."

Sampaio won a majority of the vote in thirteen coastal muni ci -
plos In which there was LIga activity between 1956 and 1 96O while
Jarbas Maranhao won a majority In only four of these muni ci ol os . On
the other hand, in the interior where there were no Ligas, Sampaio
won only thirty two mun i ci pi os com.pared to fifty municioios won by
Maranhao. Unfortunately, the absence of published materia] on the
establishment of Liga groups in these munici pios undercuts to a
degree the high correlation between Liga activity and the vote for
Sampaio.

107

In January, 1959> Juliao staged a rally (passeata) in front of
the State Assembly with 3,000 peasants who were brought from the
Juliao family properties of Cova de On9a and Esperan9a in Bom Jardim
and from Liga branches at Limao (near Jaboatao) and Miroeira (near
Olinda and Paulista, just north of Recife), After a series of
speeches, the crowd marched across the river to the Governor's Palace
for another rally which several deputies and Governor Sampaio ad-
dressed. Later that night, after the President of the Assembly,
Antonio Alves, convoked several extraordinary sessions to consider
expropriation bills, the Assembly passed a Decree-Law which Governor
Sampaio signed. Sampaio said that he had been informed that the
Vitoria judge was going to order the eviction of the Galileia
peasants; Sampaio was not prepared to use force to remove the peasants
or additional "agitators" whom Juliao or others had encouraged to
"squat" on the Galileia property.-' Governor Sampaio stated that he

Callado, Os industrials, pp. 132-135, and Jul iao. op. ci t . .
p. 27, discuss the rally as if it were a spontaneous event. On the
other hand, Callado, Os I ndustr iai s , p. 49, indicates that Juliao
"brought" 600 peasants to Recife on May Day 1956, and, in 1958,
Juliao "brought 3,000" peasants to the city for the First Congress
of Foreiros and Rural Proprietors, one of whose events was a "march
on the Legislative Assembly where there was a session dedicated to
Agrarian Reform." Hence, it is not out of the real of probability
to consider this latter meeting as a "practice run" or a meeting whose
organizational experience could be utilized for a meeting to "push"
expropriation of the Galileia property.

In the light of Juliao's remarks in Q.ue Son las Ligas Campe-

si nas?, cited in footnote 2, p. 106 about the Liga's relationship to
Sampaio, it would hardly appear as if Sampaio's signature of this
bill constituted a "betrayal of the Ligas, although Sampaio may have
turned against the Ligas or, more properly, Juliao, later.

3
Interview with Cid Sampaio, Usina Ropadinho, Pernambuco, July

9, 1965, and "As Ligas camponesas e os pianos de reforma agraria,"

108
organized a State Land Sales and Colonization Company (Companhia de Revenda
e Coloniza9ao or CRC) to "relieve some of the population and political pres-
sures" in the coastal region of the state as well as to increase agricul-
tural productivity and diversification. In surveying the 500 hectare Ga-
lillia property, the CRC discovered the impossibility of dividing it into
10 hectare plots for each of its original 146 families. The CRC therefore
bought two nearby plantations, Engenhos Barra and Terra Preta, which covered
an additional 530 hectares. These two plantations were also over-crowded
with 256 families. Consequently, a model cooperative with only fifty fami-
lies was established on these two plantations and the Galillia plantation

left in the hands of its inhabitants who, as of mid-1965, had no title to

2
their land but who also did not pay rent to anyone. In this sense their

organized group activity was beneficial although little additional govern-

3
ment assistance has been rendered.

0 Metropol i tano. September 23, 1961, pp. 2 and 8, indicate Juliao resisted

attempts of the Sampaio colonization agency, the CRC, to split up the Ga-

lillia group--an attempt which, if successful, would destroy much of the
symbolism of the Galil^ia group.

Interview with SampSio, July 9, 1965-

Interview with JosI Francisco de Souza, Engenho Galileia, July k,
1965.

■^The Galileia peasants converted the Beltrao "Big House" into a
school with two classrooms and housing for a teacher and his family.
However, no teacher wished to live there. Three female primary school
teachers who hitherto commuted to the Engenho to teach no longer came
because one of their members who owned a jeep became "ill" in March,
1965. The other two members refused to make the trip which could be
made by bus and a one-mile hike. In fact, it appears that women school
teachers are most reluctant to teach in rural areas in Pernambuco
especially if there are few opportunities to meet eligible bachelors
of high status. City schools offer better teaching facilities, higher
status, and greater opportunities for marriage.

In June, 1965, Jose Francisco de Souza and others showed this writer
an electric generator which was used to power lights in the school at
night and which reportedly had been given them by "President Kennedy."
On the other hand, this writer read a newspaper report that military
officers claimed they found the

In the 1959~1960 period, several persons and groups benefitted
from the activity at Engenho Galil^ia: (l) the resident peasants
gained land and protection fro.Ti Governor Sampaio; (2) Juliao and
other agrarian reformers or revolutionaries gained a symbol to
manipulate; (3) Sampaio assured himself of continued support from
Juliao and the Ligas; and the Beltrao family and the ov^ners and
peasants of the Barra and Terra Pr^ta plantations v/ere rewarded
In differing fashion by the state treasury.

The final events surrounding the expropriation of the three
plantations are not unrelated to a traditional Brazilian phenomenon
of politically inspired "invasions," by vjhich landov^ners arrange to
have their f azendas Invaded in hopes that the state or the federal
government will expropriate all or part of the property on behalf of
the "invaders" or for some other use. In fact, landowners may even
arrange to have the land of political opponents "invaded" and at-
tempt to persuade the state or federal government to expropriate
the land In what is In effect a punitive action against one's op-
ponents— a phenomenon which will be discussed in detail later in
this chapter.

generator and a radio transmitter there in April, 19^^, after occupy-
ing the Engenho when they heard reports about "armed guerillas"
being trained there. The actual truth of the matter may never be
known.

This writer was unable to satisfactorily determine the owner-
ship of the Barra and Terra Pr€^a properties or the amount of money
paid them or the Beltrao family for these properties.

^Galjart, op. cit., p. 19, discusses this phenomenon in the
1960's in the state of Rio de Janeiro.

110

Although Juliao sometimes urged his follov-;ers to resort to "inva-
sion" of state-owned properties or was accused of inciting peasants to
take over the land which they cultivated — his political opponents also
used the technique against him. In one particular case, Ney Maranhao,
a PTB Federal Deputy for the past fifteen years, was elected Prefeito

f Moreno Municipio in 1959 vnth Liga support. However, once Juliao
began tall<ing about "Radical Agrarian Reform" in terms of the ex-
propriation of privately owned fazenda property, Maranhao broke with
Juliao. Maranhao loaded landless peasants Into a truck and sent
them to the Fazenda Espera property of the Arruda de Paula family In
Bom Jardim, telling them:

The head of the Peasant Leagues ought to set a good example by
distributing land of his own family which was unfarmed at the
t ime.

Like those he had been attacking, JulI'So also called the police

and took legal steps to prevent "outsider" peasants from occupying

hi s fami ly land.

The Myth and Reality of Peasant
League-Inspired "Invasions"

As noted briefly above the expropriation of the Galllfeia

property showed a remarkable similarity to a traditional Brazilian

phenomenon of politically inspired "invasions."

Nathan S. Haverstock, "Brazil's Hungry Millions," Saturday
Evening Post (October 28, 19^2), p. 78, says "Juliao lost face when
opposition leaders organized a peasant league to take over Juliao's
own estate outside ... of Recife" but does not identify the
"leaders" or the "estate."

Mario Souto Maior confirmed Maranhao's role in the Espera
"invasion" in a letter to this writer, December 1, lSo5.

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113

In view of the many accusations that the Ligas Camponesas in-
cited peasants in many states to "invade" sugar plantations,' burn

2
the cane fields, or destroy crops' and livestock, it is necessary to

examine five traditional types of "invasions" vJith political overtones

i n Brazi 1 i an hi story: '

1. Landowners who want to sell their fazendas or part of their
properties but cannot obtain a favorable cash price or other
terms on the open market, arrange to have them invaded in hopes
that the state or federal government will expropriate all or
part of the property on behalf of the "invaders" or for some
other use.

2. Competing politicians may arrange to have the land of their
political opponents "invaded" in an attempt to destroy, v;eaken,
or intimate them or their followers not only through squatter
"invasions" harassment of tenants but also through attempts to
persuade the state or federal government to expropriate the land
in a further punitive action.-^

Correia Andrade, oo. cit.. p. 250, notes that throughout "the
years, notices appear of fire which devour hundreds and, at times,
thousands of tons of cane, causing damages to the proprietors [of these
fields] since "burned sugar cane" has to be grouped within tv'/o or three
days and the sugar mills discount [about] 10 per cent of the value of
the cane" [when it is burned]. It ought to be pointed out that many
times the fires are provoked by sparks from the [Northeast ] Railv;ay or
the sugar mill railroads or that many times the cane cutters themselves
without any political motives set fire to a portion of cane in order
to obtain a greater production; frequently, the proprietor or the
sugar mill owner orders cane set on fire . . . in order to speed up
the processing of his cane since the speeding up more than compensates
him for the 10 per cent discount because it shortens the harvest
period" in which he has to hire caneutters and pay for other harvest
costs without any income.

^Correia Andrade, op. ci t . . pp. 250-251, charges Pi ar i o de
Pernambuco (Recife) with printing stories about fires being set by
incendiaries dropped from airplanes or by arsonists in articles on
December 21 and 28, 1961, and January I6-I8, 1962, which were either
fi.-.asy or failed to link the Peasant Leagues with these fires.

One example was the Rio de Janeiro, "invasion" of the Fazenda
Tocaia in the Municipio of Magi^, by a man viho either had been the
Prefect of Duque de Caxias (Jornal do Bras i 1 , June 8, I963) or had

Competing rural bosses may engage in the above behavior at
election time in an attempt to persuade or intimidate voters
in a given direction. On other occasions, the mere act of
sending political lieutenants into a given municipio in an
attempt to weaken the hold of a dominant poTTtTcal Figure
may be labeled an "invasion." Francisco JuliSo's electoral
conflicts with Coronel Francisco "Chico" Heraclio de Rego
of Limoeiro fall into this category.'

Organized efforts of a group of peasants who v-;Ished to defend
themselves against outside land speculators or persons dis-
covering or claiming "title" to cultivated or cleared crop
lands, who sometimes received orders and support from urban
industrial unions and pol i t i ci ans . 2

been beaten as a candidate for the Prefecture (Jornal do Bras i 1 ,
February 21, 1964). One of this man's political adversaries organ-
ized an invasion of his land in October, 1963 ("Invasoes no Estado
do Rio de Janeiro," 0 Estado de Sao Paulo, October 8, 1963, P- 5) ■
A local judge, Nicolau May, Jr., ordered the police to expel
the "invaders" on February 19, 1964. Then a representative of the
Sindicato of Railway Workers in Duque de Caxias took the "invaders"
to the Superintendent of SUPRA and threatened a strike of the rail-
ways if the case were not solved to his satisfaction. Shortly there-
after. President Goulart expropriated the fazenda by Presidential
decree (Jornal do Bras i 1 , February 29, 1964), cited in Galjart,
"Class and 'Following' in Rural Brazil," p. 19). A Federal Deputy
who was instrumental in organizing an "invasion" of the National Motor
Factory in June, 1963, stopped a railway strike immediately after the
change of government in April, 1964, vjhich seems to establish an
intimate connection between at least the Deputy and the President of
the Railvjay Workers Sindicato.

Vilaca and Albuquerque, op. cit., p. 134.
Blondel, op. cit., pp. 27~2b, di scusses how different candidates
of the same party divide up the interior of a state to avoid competi-
tion between themselves for the votes of that municipio.

"Lavradores de Jacarepagua interrompem servi90 com a noticia
de reforma agraria," Jornal do Bras i 1 (October 23, 1965), p. 5:7~8,
related that laborers of the Fazenda Reitiro in a rural area of Guana-
bara went on a short sit-down strike because of the low pay or high
rents charged by landed proprietors. They said it was useless to
protest because the "proprietors were men of prestige, better known
as Coronel than by their own names." The Regional Administrator said
the best solution would be for Governor Carlos Lacerda to issue a
decree expropriating the land rather than to wait for the agrarian
reform bureaucracy of the Federal Government. An accompanying article
"Decreto e ideia infeliz" indicated the Guanabara State Government was
not happy about the idea. Owners of the lands in question were not
speci f i ed.

115

5. Fabricated charges by landowners and sugar mill operators vi'no
had differences with peasants over non-payment of salaries,
the 13th month bonus, or the norms of work to be performed.
When peasant laborers or sharecroppers called upon the land-
owner, his administrator, or went on strike, the landowner
called this action an "invasion."

All five types of "invasions" are traditional means of political
action not only in Brazil but also in Bolivia, Guatemala, and Peru
when large landov;ners seek to maintain an instability of rural property
and land tenure relations because this benefits those v;ho rule by force
and power and not by law.l

Francisco Juliao and the Peasant Leagues participated in the first
three types of "invasions" as can be seen in the events surrounding the
expropriation of the Engenho Galileia and Juliao's struggles to estab-
lish electoral bases in municipios dominated by other political figures.

The fourth type has its examples in the defensive efforts in
the 1960's of pioneer-squatters in GoiSs, Rio de Janeiro, Guanabara,
Minas Gerais, and Espfrito Santo, and the new Federal District of
Brasilia, where rural gansters (qr i lei ros) often in collusion with

the police, falsely claimed title to land in order to extort rent or

portions of the crops raised by squatters.

However, by 1963-1964, many of the "invasions" which carried the
label or banner of the "peasant league" or a "rural laborer associa-
tion," were actually attempts by politicians or speculating landowners

^Pearson, "Latin American Peasant Pressure Groups," pp. 310-311.

^Frank Bonilla, "Rural Reform in Brazil," AUFS Reports, Vol.
Vll I , No. 4, East Coast South America Series (October, \3o]) , p. 7,
although noting the formation of defensive groups called Associacoes
de Lavradores in all these states, gives specific data only for those
groups formed in the state of Rio de Janeiro.

to influence state governments or SUPRA to expropriate a fazenda or

plantation property. In nearly all the cases v;h i ch occurred in

12 '3

Mines Gerais, Pernambuco, the st^te of Rio de Janeiro, and Rio

"Minas Condenada a Pagar I nden izaciones por Deixar Invadir
Terrenos part icul ares ," 0 Globo (Rio de 'Janeiro), February 6, 1965,
p. 6; a Belo Horizonte court decreed that the State of Minas Gerais
pay the equivalent of U.S.$ 60,000 to the Fayal and Lanha companies,
who had suffered damages to eucalyptus trees in September, .1963, as
the result of "disturbances" of a political and social order fomented
by "extremii sts" whose acts were stimulated by the omission and indif-
ference of state authorities. Controlling stockholder in the tv;o
firms was Deputy Antonio Luciano Pereira Filho.

Interviews with Dr. Moacyr de Brito Freitas, President or the
Fabrica Peixe, and Padre JosI Maria, Pesqueira, Pernambuco, July 20,
1965, and

"Camponeses de Pesqueira Ocupam Terras da UniSo e Discutem com
Autor i dades ," Ultima Hora (Recife), November 2, 1S63, indicates sixty
peasants participated in the action and the process of events was
being closely followed by Deputado Gilberto Azevedo. Azevedo, a Bank
Workers Sindicato Leader in Recife, was involved in an "invasion" in
Barrel ros. See next chapter.

■^"Invasions" in Rio de Janeiro which received press coverage
included the following:

1. HAR, XIV, No. 2 (February, 1962), p. 1136: Ligas Campone-
ses, headed by Spanish-born agronomist Mariano Besler, were organizing
squatters near Cachoeira de Macacu, some 50 miles from Rio de Janeiro.
This writer could find no further evidence of this movement.

2. Juan de Onis, "Peasants Seize Brazilian Lands ," NewYork
Times (June 23, 1963), p. 28, and "Brazilian Pledges Reform to 1 ,000
who took Estates," New York Times (June 25, 1963), p. 5:^, discuss
the attempted expulsion from lands adjoining the National Motor
Factory in Duque de Caxias by armed squatters and slum dwellers from
lands claimed by the Factory and Land Developmient Companies. The
second article indicates complicity of the Petrobras Oil Workers Union
in raiding an arms store and a meeting of the squatters on June 16 at
the Metal Workers headquarters in Duque de Caxias.

3. "invasoes no Estado do Rio de Janeiro," 0 Estado de ScO
Paul o (Sao Paulo) (OESP) , October 8, 1963, p. 5, is an account of the
"invasion" of Fazenda Tocala, Municipio of Mag^.

4. "Art icul adores de Invasoes Presos Ontem," OESP (February
26, 1964), p. 24:6-7- Leader of an "invasion" in Vila 1 nhami rim,
Municipio of Nova lgua9u, was Simplfcio Rodriguez. No further reporting,

5. ''uondim," OESP, March 4, 1964, p. 32, discusses a meeting of
230 Fazendeiros in which they declared they were disposed "to take up
arms in defending property from Invasions occurring in Municipio of

117

Grande do Sul , there was a similarity of behavior. Urban slum
dwellers, urban unemployed, their wives and children and perhaps a
few legitimate peasants were brought in; thatch and adobe shacks
were constructed within a day's time; statements were made to the press

Barra do Pirai" by "agitators" of the Federal Agrarian Reform Agency,
SUPRA, No further reporting.

6. "Invadiram a Fazenda," Vi sao (Rio de Janeiro), April 12, 196^,
p. 16, indicated some "600 peasants from Sao Fidel is and other nearby
muni dpi OS Invaded lands of Fazenda do I mb^ , property of the State of
Rio in the past week, firing shots at Police Delegate ivo Barroso Gra9a
and gravely ^^/oundIng investigator Carlos Morals." The invasion had
been prepared for a month by Joao Batista, an official of the Rio de
Janeiro Electric Company (Empresa Fluminse de Energia Electrlca).

After Governor Badger Silveiro ordered the police to "act
against the invaders energetically without violence" [llc.-_] , the
police expelled the invaders who vjanted promises that the occupied
lands would be given them latei promises which were not given.

1 "Sao Franci SCO Vi r^ 'FarV/est,' " Ultima Hora (P(?rto Al egre) ,
August 6, 1963, p. 3, discusses invasion of a property, "Mato das
Flores," Municipio of Sio Francisco, belonging to Jo'io Kieffer, who,
in retaliation, hired eight gunmen (Jaguncos) to expel them. The
squatters were in close com.muni cat i on with Euzebio Franca, Secretary
of (MASTER and a SUPRA official at the same tim.e.

2 ''

Padre Antonio da Costa Carvalho, an Executive official of the

state agricultural agency and a long-term adviser to the Federation
of Workers Circles of Rio de Janeiro, indicated that 222 "invaders"
of five fazendas included twenty-two vjomen, thirty-eight men who
owned land elsewhere, and forty-nine others \^/hose principal occupa-
tion was not farming or agricultural. (See Galjart, op. cl t. , p. 19).
On March k, 1964, Jorna] do Bras i 1 published an article which pointed
out that 72 persons who had not participated In the original "Inva-
sions" were working as sharecroppers or laborers on plots given the
original invaders.

Galjart, "Turnover of Farmers in a Land Settlement Scheme,"
America Latina, Ano 8, No. 2 (Apr i-1 -June , I965), pp. 48-65, surveys
a colonization project In Santa Cruz, S&o Paulo, 70 kilometers from
Rio de Janeiro. No more than 5-10 per cent of the original colonists
were left. Plots given to Luso-Brazi 1 i ans had changed hands five or
six times since the project was begun in the 1930's because colonists
vjanted to move to the big city and become, in effect, absentee land-
owners collecting rents. Only Japanese Brazilians, whose value system
supports fixed residence on the land, had a high tenure rate.

118

about "violently resisting" any attempts at expulsion, and arrange-
ments made for a visit of solidarity by workers from nearby industrial
or rai 1 road s indicatos. Actual armed resistance by these "peasants"
was extremely rare. In every case for which this writer could obtain
additional data, the "peasants" left without firing a shot when it
appeared that the police really meant to expel them. In the light
of the first three "traditional invasion techniques," it appears the
"invasions" probably did not originate among a group of desperate
peasants although peasants may have been used as actors in the drama.
Rather, in nearly all of these incidents, the "invasion" was planned
and controlled from a higher lever.

The Personal i sti c Organization of the Ligas
The sparse evidence about the internal organization and organ-
izational techniques of Juliao and the Ligas is an appropriate com-
mentary on the shallow nature of the Liga organization which depended
solely on Juliao for important policy decisions. On one occasion,
Juliao told his every-sympathet i c chronicler, Antonio Callado: "Mr.

Especially active in the pre-April 196^ period were the Sindi-
catos of Metal Workers, Oil Workers, and Railway Workers of Duque de
Caxias. See Item 2 of fn. 3, p. 114 and fn. 2, p. 116 for specific cases.
In another case, Galjart, "Class and 'Following' in Rural Brazil,"
pp. 19~20, found that on one occasion seventy workers used a company bus
to visit a recently invaded fazenda which an institution of charity had
rented from the federal government.

"Chineses Presos Exerciam Espionagem," 0 Estado de Sao Paulo

(May 10, \SGk) , p. 5, includes a statement by one of nine Communist
Chinese arrested for espionage after the April Revolution that "Those
responsible for the peasant movement in Pernambuco are politically back-
ward. Francisco Juliao has a fear of becoming a mere staff member. [His]
work ... is very important but he does not pay attention to organiza-
tion."

119

Callado, agitation is beautifully easy (uma__bej_eza) . Organizing is
the difficult thing." And to Gerald Clark, Juliao admitted the
following in 1962: "The movement . . . has grown in a disorderly

manner. It is only now that we are endeavoring to set up some kind

of records. We are not even certain of the exact number of members."

In the beginning agitation and meetings were easy. In a region
where political campaigns were among the few free public entertain-
ments, crowds would always gather to hear a speech. But action
beyond this was often limited. Juliao's organization founded a
state headquarters in Recife which had loose ties with groups in
Paraiba and Macei6, Alagoas, but only minimal ties with the Ligas
in Rio Grande do Norte, Maranhao, Piauf, Rio de Janeiro, CearS, and
GoiSs. In all of these states, except Parafba and possibly GoiSs,
it appears that the Liga was nothing more than the peasant follow-
ing of a local landowner-politician, operating in traditional ways,
who, for the moment, labelled his group a Peasant League. Another
indication of the minimal collaboration between these groups is
shown by the lack of information about the Executive Council of the
Federation of Peasant Leagues, whose membership, a group of little-

Callado, Tempo de Arraes , p. 58.

^Clark, op. cit. , p. 209.

•^Callado, op. cit . , p. 58, and Correia Andrade, op. ci t . , p. 2^5-

Clark, op. ci t . , p. 206, credits Juliao with forty-nine North-
east Leagues and 40,000 members in I960; by 1962, Clark states there
were over 100 leagues with 80,000 active followers. However, Mary
Wilkie, op. ci t . , p. 7, credits the Ligas with 40,000 members in
Pernambuco alone in 1963. Horowitz, op. cit., p. 22 says that "by
May, 1958, Juliao's Leagues could claim 3 |000 hard-core followers,
who represented perhaps 50,000 peasants. By I96O the figure rose to

120

known persons listed below, was revealed only in March, 1S6^;

Adauto Rodriguez da Silva - President, Liga (later Sindicato)
of Trabal hadores Agricolas, Goiana, Pernambuco.

Clodomiro Montes - no additional information available.

Luis Antonio Gabriel de Paula - Cousin of Francisco Jullao
and brother of the "first rr.artyr of the Li gas," Antonio
de Paula.

Luis Serafim - "Mentor" of the Ligas Urbanas of Pernambuco and
leader of an "invasion" of the Engenhd Serra, Vitoria de
Santo Antao, February 22, 19d4.

Professora Maria Celeste - Public School Teacher In Vitoria de
Santo Antao.

Oligaria Guintino - No information available (NIA)

Mariano Sales - NIA

Gulcl 1 lo Car ico - NIA

Januarlo VIcencia - NIA

_ The Non-existent Peasant Leagues of
Rio Grande do Norte

The Roman Catholic Church pre-empted much of the possible clientele

of the Jullao organization in Rio Grande do Norte as early as 19^9 when

Dom Eugenic Sales de Araujo, then a priest, began organizing community

development groups in Natal which later served as the basis for the

organization of Rural SIndicatos in the 1960's. in addition, two

prom.Inent landowning politicians also co-opted possible Liga mem.bers

between 8,000-10,000 activists, who probably represented flve^to ten
times their number."

The figures are meaningless In many respects because the Ligas
as a whole, the Federation, or its Council, seldom acted as a unified
body.

Neither Jullao nor Liga, the newspaper founded in October, 19o2,
ever said much about the Federat I on -or Council's activities.

"Instalou-se Federacao das Ligas Eloglando Clima de Liberdade
em Pernambuco," AHora (Recife), March 21, 1964.

■a

(3
(/)

■u

05
O

122

123'

for their own political followings. In one astute move, Federal Deputy
Odilon Ribeiro Coutinho (UDN-Parai ba) avoided possible "invasion" of
his sugar plantations in Rio Grande do Norte by promising Jos^ Ro-
driguez, President of the Federation of Rural V/orkers of Rio CVande
do Norte land for distribution to peasants. However, this v/riter
can find no evidence the wealthy Ribeiro Coutinhos ever distributed
land to anyone, other than in the traditional sharecroppi ng arrange-
ments. In another case, Theodorico Bezerra, elected Vice Governor of
Rio Grande do Norte in I960, sponsored the creation of his ov;n "Liga
Camponesa" in 1963 through a brother or close relative, Deputy Flo-
riano Bezerra, in order to further the former's campaign for Governor
in 1965. In fact, the Bezerras were able to influence the State As-
sembly to give a subsidy of one million cruzeiros to Floriano Bezerra

for this organization.' If Walmlr Targino and other Deputies in the

State Assembly opposed the creation of a Liga, it was also an opposi-
tion to the use of state funds by the Bezerras for their own tradi-
tional political organizat ion.3

"Nordeste; Convencao contra o Latifundio," Brasil, Urgentei
(April 28, 1963) , p. 15.'

"Liga Potiguar Canha Subsidio: Um Milhao," Diario da Moite.

(Recife), November 23, 1963.

Diario da Nolte (Recife), November 26, 1 963 .

The writer vjrote several informants in Natal about this matter
after returning to the United States but he has had no response to
this query. in 1964, Bezerra or his local cohorts painted many signs
on walls on the Parai ba-Natal highway proclaiming his candidacy for
Governor in 1965.

Moreover, in "Nordeste: Conven9ao contra o Latifundio." Brasi 1 .
UrqenteJ (April 28, I963), p. 15, JosI Rodriguez, President of the
Federation of Rural Worl<ers of Rio Grande do Norte, said "Vice Governor
Theodorico Bezerra, PSD President ... is the greatest 1 at i f undiar i o"
of the state.

Land Speculators and Squatters in Goias
In GoiSs, the construction of Brasilia drove up tlie value of
land in several nearby muni ci pios , including Anapolis and Formosa.
Specul ators, wi th the aid of their ov;n riflemen and state police,
moved in to seize land settled and worked by squatter-pioneers.
if the squatters could prove legal rights to the land--always a
costly process in any society but especially for squatters — they might
retain it. However, in many cases, they viere often removed if they
could not prove a legal right to be on the land or if the speculators
were in collusion with local judges. in Formiosa, small farm.ers ap-
parently formed a defensive organization vjhich some persons called
a "Liga" and which later became the basis for a large cooperative.
On the other hand, in 1962, Peter T. White, a staff member of the
National Geographic Magazine vjrote about a "Peasant League leader,"
Jos^ Porfirio, who headed a "peasant league". of hundreds of families

on more than a million acres of public land for which they'had no

2
title in the Serra Dorado region. Porfirio and the Leagues were

seeking support from Governor Mauro Borges to resist the encroach-
ments of speculators and their hired gunmen (qr i 1 ei ros) .

Harding, op. ci t . , pp. kS-kS , discusses the phenomenon in
Brasilia in general and Formosa in particular. The writer was informed
by a former North American missionary who founded a school to give
agricultural and other training in a rural area near Anapolis that such
"invasions" and manipulations of title were common in the thirty years
he lived in the Anapolis region betv-/een the late 1920's and 1962.

Peter T. White, "Brazil, Oba.'" National Geographic Magazine,
CXXll (September, 1962), pp. 31^-318.

125

However, after piecing together several otiier newspaper and
magazine articles, it appears that Porfirio was a State Deputy engaged
in disputes with other landowner politicians seeking to stake out
claims on public lands in several mun i ci pios . In short, JosI
Porfirio was a traditional landowner-politician v;ho attracted
squatters to his banner because he could offer them protection and
benefits while also manipulating the modern symbols of the Juliao
organization.

The Liqas Camponesas of Parafba
In Paratba, two families have dominated the land-holding and
political structures of the coastal zone for the past fifteen years:
first, the Ribeiro Coutinhos who owned at least 30,000 hectares of
land, five of the eight sugar mills in the state, three of the four
sugar mills in Rio Grande do Norte, and an estate in Alagoas, and.

'The New York Times (February 18, 1964), carried an article
about a "Cuba-trained" State Deputy Jose Porfirio whose 30,000-
member Peasant Leagues voted to seize all "unused" land in several
muni ci pios. Porfirio reportedly backed down when Governor Borges
v^yarned he would send troops to prevent land seizures.

HAR, Vol. XV (February, lSo3), p. 1164, cited 0 Cruzeiro, n.d.,
as the source for a police story about a raid on a secluded farm near
Dianopolis, Goias, about 300 miles north of Brasilia, which was al-
legedly the site of a guerilla training camp complete with small arms,
machine guns, and ammunition. 0 Cruzeiro was said by HAR to have
reported that twenty-six men had arrived in the region to distribute
10 million cruzeiros to peasants and to attempt to teach them Com-
munist ideology and guerilla tactics. However, after Cecil Borer,
the Chief of the government's Political Police (DOPS) in Rio de Janeiro,
failed to present any further information or witnesses or even the
date of events, anotiner Rio de Janeiro weekly voiced its suspicions
about the truth of the police story.

Callado, Tempo de Arraes, pp. 14, 65, and 67.
Luiz Ribeiro Coutinho, elected a State Deputy in Alagoas several
times in the 1950's was one of the fiercest landowner-politicians op-
posing the creation of the Pindorama Cooperative near Penedo. On

second, the Lundgrens who owned plantations in Paraiba, Pernarr.buco,
Rio Grande do Norte, and the large textile mill, Casas Pernambucanas .

In June, I965, the author drove vjest from Joao Pessoa, the
state capital, through the fertile flat plain covering the rnun i cipi os
of Santa Rita, Cruz do Espfrito Santo, Sape, and Marf--rriuch of which
was planted in sugar cane, pineapple, and tobacco ov;ned by the
Ribeiro Coutinho's, The first Liga in this region was established on
January 10, 1959, in Sap^ by Joao Pedro Teixeira, an illiterate but
intelligent peasant who learned about the Ligas Camponesas while
working in Pernambuco. The professed initial aim of the Liga group
was to prevent tenant rents from rising too steeply and to abolish

various occasions, Ribeiro Coutinho employees tried to cut down trees
on the Cooperative lands or to encroach on its boundaries and in one
case, assassinated a Cooperative employee March 5, 19^0. For a
history of the development of this tract by RenI Berthoiet, a former
Sv-Jiss labor organizer, see "A Lesson Learned," Newsvjeek (January 13,
1 964) .

Callado, op. cit. , p. 65. Mario Affonso Carneiro wrote an
extensive report on SAPE for the Latin Am.erican Center for Research
in the Social Sciences (CLAPSC) , Rio de Janeiro, 1963, vjhich is quoted
extensively in CiDA, Land Tenure Conditions, pp. 97~98, 310-322, pas-
s im, but he does not identify the Ribeiro Coutinho, Lundgren, Veloso
Borges, Frantz, Pessoa Q.ueiroz, and Bezerra de Melo fam.ily holdings
but discusses them variously as X, Y, U, M, and so forth.

Blondel, As Condi96es da Vida PoHtica no Estado da Para'fba,
used Stat i st i cs'~tor the 19^5-1931 period but Ts still va I i d tor any
study of politics in the 1960's. The influence of the Ribeiro
Coutinho's was obvious in the 1940's; that of the Lundgren's is less
obvious because Blondel uses no names and this writer does not know
if the Lundgren's owned only or both of the textile mills in Rio Tinto
and Santa Rita.

■^Ihe reader will remember that the increase in sugar prices
after Vyorld War 1! influenced many Northeast landov.'ners to raise
rents in miany areas or cut down fruit trees in order to expel their
tenants and plant sugarcane.

•:^^^;^

"■ryM

:;:,'04^r>;" •■•>;■);; ;,P I V. I SAO ADMINISTRATl VA; v,;^;-i; ;- •
,#^ •;::'>' ;.-■••: ;.:-Vf/:-::'^ ESTADO DA • • •'••■■•V'"

SituGfdo vigente em 1''IX'1960

Figure 1 7. ""Locat ion of Peasant Leagues in Parafba, 1960-1964.

128

cambao, the obligation imposed on sharecroppers, tenants, and resident
vyorkers (moradores) to work oratuitously or at lov.-er than a normal wage
one or more days per week, or per month.

The Ligas established themselves in coastal and agreste rrun i ci -
pi OS , not only because of their ability to find and develop leaders
of local origin but because these leaders were able to render goods
and services, including protection of a type similar to those furnished
by traditional 1 andov^/ner-pol i t i ci ans. The principal difference was
that the peasants were no longer placed in a serf-like relation to
their protector. For example, the first President of the Sape Liga
was ihe owner of a 50 hectare (123.5 acres) farm but the principal

'Correia Andrade, A Terra e o Homem, p. 251, cited a bloody
conflict in early 1962 on the Miriri Plantation, owned by a man
with 15,000 hectares of land. "The majority of the resident workers
(moradores) gave one day of cambso per week as rental for a plot of
land of a half hectare. Informed that one day of cambao per week vjas
equivalent to fifty-two days per year and that at prevailing salaries
this corresponded to 6,240 cruzeiros per year, a sum which in tV'^o
years was the same as the value of the land which they worked . . .
The residents requested the right to pay the rent in cash and to
eliminate cambao. The owner did not accept the proposal and threatened
to expel the moradores who were affiliated with the Ligas. On March 17,
I9S2, the divergencies between the residents and guards of the 'Co-
rone 1 ' resul ted in a f i ght in whi ch iwo capangas were ki 1 1 ed by the
sickle and/or cane knife (fo^Lss) , one administrator was hurt; one
guard disappeared with a bullet in his thigh and two workers vjere
killed by .38 [calibre] shots."

Five of these muni ci pios were created after 1955, snd one,
Itapororoca, v\/as a district of Mamanguape until somiS time betv;een
1960-19&^. Curiously, in the 19^5-1950 period, vjhen Biondel studied
the political life of Paral'ba, all eleven of the original municipios
were dominated by either a UDN boss (4), a PSD chefe (4), or di vi ded
fairly evenly between the tv;o parties. Only in Guarabira and Santa
Rita was a third party, the PTB, important. Further west, with one
or two exceptions, tv^o or more families, rather than one family,
disputed municipio politics. Hence, politics was a little more open
and less subject to the whim of one or two individuals.

organizational activity appears to have been carried on by Pedro
Teixei ra vjho arranged to bring a dentist, a doctor, and ambulance
services to Sape peasants.

Tlie Ligas also had some success in abolishing cambao although
it is impossible to find out the extent to which this was accomplished
because of the numerous civil suits instituted by peasants and land-
owners.^ in any case many of these conflicts e'scalated Into violence;
many peasants were intimidated and attempts made to kill Liga leaders-^
Pedro Teixei ra, Pedro Fazendeiro, and State Deputies Jose Jofily and
Agronomy Professor Assis Lemos of Areia, who was elected to the State
Assembly in October, 1962.

^ Ibid.

^Ibid., pp. 318-319, indicates thirty to fifty claims were
pending In the Judicial Registry of Sap6 in 1963-

•^ I bid. , pp. 31^~315. Unfortunately, Carneiro gives no dates.
Therefore, one Is not able to determine, for example, whether Assis
Lemos was "attacked by 1 ati fundi stas and their capangas" in the
early stages of his assistance to the Ligas, in the 1962 campaign,
or after his election as a State Deputy.

One of Carneiros informants indicates "U.j' the prefect of ita-
baiana and "the greatest political hope of Parafba," was "assassinated
two months ago [no date] by a nephew of one of the 'Y's.'" However,
Carneiro also indicates on the same page that one of the 'Y's obtained
the most votes of any of the candidates for the State Assembly and,
therefore, it seems reasonable to assume that the assassination in-
volved much more than the organization of a Peasant League in Itaba-
iana or neighboring Pilar Municipio.

"Sapl, lebran9a sangrenta de uma epoca de sobressal tos ," Jornal
do Brasil (April 7, I965), p. 22, column 8, indicates that Pedro Fa-
zendeiro and Joao Alfredo were found dead September 9, 196^, on the
highway between Campina Grande, Parafba, and Caruaru, Pernambuco, two
days after they had been released from prison.

Jul lao, op. cit . , p. 44, says Pedro Fazendeiro was ambushed and
shot twice in the leg after returning from Cuba, which he visited
with Jul lao in May, I96I.

130

The Sape Liga drew attention v;hen Teixeira v;as murdered April
2, 1961, by local policemen dressed as covjboys and acting under
orders from local and regional landowner-politicians including the
Ribeiro Coutinhos and Agnelo Veioso Borges. However, it also ap-
pears that Teixeira's f ather-i n-1 av-J had been trying to eliminate
him for several years as well as trying to expel him from the family
property on which the Teixeiras lived. As Galjart points out,
"although most sources mention only the political motives behind
the murder, it seems probable that personal motives also played a

part." I he widow, Elisabete Teixeira, refused to live a "respectable

■J
life" with her father, became President of the Sapfe Liga Council,

and ran for State Deputy in October, I962.

Prior to the elections, however, President Joao Goulart went
to Joao Pessoa, Parafba, for the formal reason of addressing a polit-
ical rally sponsored by the Parafba Ligas. On this occasion, he
proposed to Juliao that the Liga groups be converted into rural

Callado, 1 empo de Arraes, p. 67, and CIDA, op. ci t« , p. 313-

Galjart, op. ci t . , p. 14.

Callado, Tempo de Arraes , pp. 66-67, indicates that Teixeira's
father-in-law had been trying to persuade his daughter Elisabete to
rid herself of Joao Pedro for twenty years on grounds the latter was
a "communist." She refused. Finally, the father sold the plot of
land to a Sap€ merchant and Vereador, Antonio Vitor. Callado quotes
Elisabete as saying the final ambush was planned in her father's home.

Carneiro, CIDA, op. cit . , pp. 312-313, does not mention this
family conflict but says the ambush was instigated by landowners Y
and M.

•^Galjart, op. ci t . , p. 14, indicates the new board contained
three "non-agrarian labourers" while Carneiro, CIDA, op. cit . , p.
313 > says the new Council was composed of "10 members , all resident
vjorkers on farms."

131

sindicatos which v;ould be recognized by the Ministry of Labor.
Juliao refused, recognizing this arrangement would be a threat t
his influence because of the past manipulation of Sindicato Tax
funds and elections by the Ministry and Goulart — although it might
give individual Ligas greater bargaining povjer at the local level.
In the October, 1962, elections, Assis Lemos won over a thousand votes
in Sap^, soundly defeating Elisabete Teixeira who was Juliao's can-
didate and received only about 70 votes. In particular, the foil
Ing federal services with their patronage possibilities ware esta
lished in the Sap^ region with the assistance of Assis Lemos:-^ seven
medical clinics, each of which had seven doctors, four nurses, fiv
drivers, one clerk, two servants, an ambulance, a jeep, and free
drugs; ten stores of the federal Food and Welfare Service (SAPS)
which sell selected basic commodities such as rice and beans at a
very low cost; an Agency or branch of the Bank of Brazil which made

ow-

JO-

"Goulart Urges Unionization of Brazil Paraiba Peasant
Leagues," New York Times (July 30, 1962), p. 3:1.

Antonio Callado, Tempo de Arraes, p. 60, says Juliao felt
Goulart was trying to make him a "pelego" or "hired Henchman."
Juliao refused and said Goulart stirred up the Roman Catholic Church,
the Communist Party, the Brazilian institute of Democratic Action
(IBAD), and Governor Cid Sampaio to work against him — which is an
inaccurate presentation of the facts and the chronology of events.
In mid-1963, Julia'o's Pernambuco Ligas were given money by SUPRA
and Governor Arraes to combat Church-sponsored Sindicatos in igarassu
and Goiana.

2
Even more interesting was the fact that Odilon Ribeiro Cou-

tinho, scion of the dominant landov/ning family, received over 2,000

votes in the muni ci pi o.

^Carneiro (CiDA, op. ci t. , p. 312) was told by one informant
that these services v;ere provided by an Emergency Plan of the Ministry
of Agriculture, vjhich allocated 308 million cruzeiros to the /egion
in which the Parafba Ligas existed.

132

it easier for renters and sharecroppers to obtain agricultural
credit; and ten tractors for rent to. small proprietors. In addition,
the Sape Lica also rendered short-tertn financial assistance to several
hundred members for personal needs such as funeral expenses.

It is possible that these benefits ware not the direct result

of Assis Lemos ' activities but were due to an entirely different

2
set of circumstances; nevertheless, Assis Lemos appeared able to

render many of the traditional services of the old "coronel" or
protector of the peasants. Although the reader may have his own
opinion about the value of the services provided by Assis Lemos compared
to the possible greater benefits accruing to a wel 1 -organized bureau-
cratic Liga with its own peasant leadership, it seem.s that Sapl and
other Parafba peasants were much more interested in the possible im-
mediate material benefits a candidate could dispense rather than the
long-range organizational plans or promises about agrarian reform that
involved violence directed at the large landowners.

CIDA, op. ci t . , p. 318, indicates the nev'j branch bank performed
a variety of lending and other services costing 362,810 cruzeiros.

Galjart, op. ci t . . p. 15, raises the interesting question of

"how a state deputy could obtain so many federal favours."

See Seymour M. Lipset, Pol it i ca] Man , pp. 115-120, for his

observations on lower class attitudes which emphasize the "concrete
and the immediate"; on pp. 12-122, Lipset discusses those conditions
which predispose lower-class individuals "tov;ards support of extrem-
ist movements," including "millennial appeals."

Carneiro, op. ci t . . p. 31^, was told by one ip-*^ormant that
"Juliao wanted to m.ake political capital out of the ...^. cer [of Joao
Pedro] and used the widow to that.end; [Juliao] speaks only about
violence, about 'land reform by law or violence,' but then leaves
the workers in the lurch."

Galjart, op. ci t . , p. 15, emphasizes Senhora Teixeira preached

133

After the 1964 Revolution, the services of the Sapfe and other
Paraiba Ligas disappeared. In Sap^, and several other mun i ci pios .
Church-sponsored sindicatos, first organized in 1962, have never
been able to compete vilth the Ligas from a welfare point of viev/,
and have never had the political connections of the Liga group.

The Types of Peasants Who Joined the Ligas
Although one might think that the Peasant Leagues vjouid have
attempted to recruit every type of peasant, Juliao himself said that
the renter, sharecropper, squatter, and cowboy were in a better condi-
tion to be organized "against the latifundio" than the salaried worker

because of the greater economic security of the former in pursuing a

strike or other types of legal action. Salaried v;orkers could be

fired much more readily and had no real means of legally protecting
themselves from eviction.

In plotting the location of functioning Ligas, one finds that
the Ligas did not follow Juliao's articulated criteria but were able
to establish themselves only in the coastal and agreste zones of
Pernambuco and Paraiba where tenant farmers and resident workers

violence after her husband's death but makes no mention of Juliao's
possible advocacy of violence in this situation.

Based on conversations in Sape with Parafba Rural Worker
leaders, Sindicato leaders, and a Peace Corps volunteer, June 19,
1965.

Carneiro, CIDA, op. ci t . , p. 315, was told by one informant
that "the Vicar of Sapl was obliged to leave because he was opposed,
in some instances, to the owners. He was labelled a communist. They
threw a paving stone into the church,"

^Juliao, Que Son las Liaas Camoes i nas? , p, 43.

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135

136

predominated. The Ligas made practically no impact in the areas

2 3

where sisal production or sugar factories dominated agriculture.

Ironically, the Church-sponsored sindicatos have had their greatest

success in the sugar-producing plantation regions, especially in

Pernambuco, because of their ability to use the labor tax to employ

lawyers and other professionals. In fact, the moderate-to-conservatlve

Brazilian Institute for Democratic Action (IBAD) reportedly accused

the Ligas in 1961 of "carefully avoiding hurting the interests of the

large property owners and inciting the rural masses against areas of

'Carneiro, CIDA, op. ci t . , p. 316, indicates that a majority
of the membership in theSape region were owners with 6-12 hectares
of land, although a great number of members were tenants, resident
workers (moradores) , and day laborers who commuted from town to the
fields.

^"La Civil izacion Dorada," 0 Cruzei ro (Spanish-language Edition),
May 16, 1965, pp. 29"35» describes the introduction, growth, and pro-
minence of sisal in semi-arid parts of Paratba, Ceara, Maranhao, and
Rio Grande do Norte. Only one of the six Paraiba muni ci pi os mentioned
in the article, Areia, had a Liga or Church-sponsored sindicatos, al-
though the industry employs about 200,000 workers and is Brazil's
third most important source of foreign exchange, the Northeast being
the world's number one producer. Although workers and tenant farmers
alike have little production under the law, the provision of continuing
employment as opposed to the seasonal cycles of sugar may be a clue to
why few sisal workers have been organized.

-^Another possible instance of collusion between sugar-mill
operators and Liga officials, or Juliao himself — is indicated by the
absence of functioning Ligas in Southwest Pernambuco around Palmares
and Barreiros. In Barreiros, a rural worker, Moacir Pedro da Silva,
was given a charter by the Ministry of Labor in 1956; Usina Trapiche
paid da Silva to guarantee it peaceful labor relations--a condition
which continued after da Silva affiliated his organization with the
Ligas until 1963, when fights broke out over control of the Slndicato--
a matter which is discussed In greater detail in Chapter V. See CaTTa-
do, Tempo de Arraes , p. 98, and Hewitt, op. cit . , p. 21.

137

low productivity and decadent management." Moreover, the Ligas
made practically no impact in the Sertao. In part, this was due
to the opposition of the traditional coron^is of the cotton and cattle
culture of the regioriand in part to the dependence of the Ligas on
lawyers and university students in the state capitals of Recife and
Joao Pessoa. In the latter case, their range of activity was
restricted to the distance they could travel by jeep or car to and
from these state capitals in one day's time. In Pernambuco, this
radius of activity extended west to Caruaru (three hours), north to
Goiana (two hours on the road to Joao Pessoa) , and northwest to

'Correia Andrade, op. ci t. , p. 324, cites Fernando Bastos
Avila, A Reforma Agraria; a Lei e o Piano em Recomenda^des sobre a
Reforma Agraria, p. 217, as the source for this statement. However,
this writer cannot find the citation in the I BAD report Bastos de
Avila refers to.

^The one exception was a Liga group in Buique, Pernambuco,
created by a politically minded cattleman who had connections with
the PCB according to three different sources. However, this group
apparently did little more than deliver votes for its leader at
election time and, on one occasion, furnished members to participate in
an "invasion" of a Ministry of Agriculture Fazenda in Pesqueira.
Conversations with Padre Jose Maria, Dr. Moacyr de Brito Freitas,
President of the Fabrica Peixe, Pesqueira, Pernambuco, July 20, 1965,
and a former Peace Corps member who served in the Buique region,
August, 1965.

^Vilaqa and Albuquerque, op. ci t . , p. 121, contains a lengthy
quotation by Juliao's long-term political opponent Francisco "Chico"
Heraclio do Rego which includes inter alia the following: "The
Peasant League is a shameful thing for Brazil. 1 consider it the
greatest source of banditry. It lives to spread disorder, i ntranqui 1 i ty,
and terror."

Juliao, Que Son las Ligas Campeslnas?, p. 30, names Djaci
Magalhaes, Jonas de Souza, Costa Pereira, Fagundes de Menezes, and
Mario Cavalcanti as the most distinguished of the lawyers who aided
the Ligas.

138

Orobo (three hours on the road to Campina Grande). In Para'ba, Ligas

were established only in those municipios which had direct daily bus

2
or train service to Joao Pessoa.

Juliao's reluctance to create a bureaucratic structure v;ith

decision-making powers at the local or state level further weakened

the ability of the Northeast Ligas to bargain on behalf of their

members once he was elected to the Federal Chamber of Deputies, in

October, 1962. Travelling more and more to Rio de Janeiro or Brasilia-

which offered new worlds to conquer from an agitational or publicity

point of view — he was less able or willing to guide the strategy and

tactics of these groups. In addition, once Assis Lemos was elected

a PSB State Deputy in Paraiba, on the same day, Juliao's influence in

that state declined even further.

Shepard L, Forman, "Las Campanas de San Jose de Surubim,"
Cuadernos (Paris), January, 1964, pp. 37-46, is the account of a
visit to the municipio adjoining Orobo by a Liga team made up of a
law student, architecture student, a young doctor, and two drivers.
The Liga team met vociferous opposition in the town of Surubfm, led
by Parish Priest Jonas, who called Forman (then a Columbia University
graduate student), a "Russian" and "Cuban Communist."

Based on this writer's observation of the location of Paraiba

Liga groups and bus and train schedules in Recife and Joao Pessoa.

Blondel , op. ci t . , pp. I65-I68, presents tables of percentages
of voting for party candidates in 1945, 194?, and 1950. The Tables
show PCB groups existed in the eleven mun i ci pi os in which the Ligas
were to organize in the 1955-1964 period. In 1950, the PSB had a fol-
lowing in these' muni ci pios plus twenty-one of the other twenty-five
municipios existing in the state. By I960, the PSB following in
Paraiba was strong enough to elect three of the forty Deputies in the
State Assembly (Anuario Estattstico, I96I, p. 459).

Nevertheless, the absence of electoral data by Municipios after
1950 makes it difficult to establish any valid correlations between
these phenomena.

^Carneiro, in CIDA, op. cit., p. 312, indicates he was told by
one informant that "Juliao's men who come from Pernambuco stay here

139

While the Parafba Ligas reportedly acted independently to create
their own statutes at the municipio level to meet differing local
conditions, the Pernambuco Ligas apparently followed or were guided
by the one Constitution or Statute which Juliao had made up in 1955
when he changed the Gal i Ilia Mutual Benefit Society into a statewide

Society of Philanthropic Ends, On the other hand, the absence of

2
material on the statutes and by-laws of the various Ligas leads this

writer to believe that written statutes were seldom used as Liga

guidelines. Rather, Juliao himself or his assistants made the decision

about organizational structure, personnel selection, and Liga policy.

Only in Parafba did the individual delegacies apparently have any

freedom to act independently of the organization in the state capital.

The Apogee and Decline of Ju1i5o and the Ligas
This high point of Juliao's career from a national standpoint
probably came November 15~17, 1961, at the First National Peasant

awhile, but do not leave a great impression,"

"A Sudene e A Revolu9ao Nordestina," 0 Estado de Sao Paulo, a coT
lection of reprinted newspaper articles for April 28-May 7, 1963, p. 6,
indicates that Assis Lemos followed a "line directed by Luis Carlos
Prestes, diverging from that of Juliao."

'CIDA, OP. cit. , p. 312.

2
The only published statutes of a Peasant League uncovered by

this writer are those for the State of Rio de Janeiro which are

included as Appendix C of the Uruguayan Spanish-language version of

Que Son las Liqas Campesinas?. pp. 98-104. Effective power is placed

by these Statutes in a Deliberative Council and a President who were

to be elected by a General Assembly of the membership once every two

years by a quorum of at least one-tenth of the dues-paying members.

However, the absence of data on the Rio de Janeiro Peasant Leagues

is a probable indication that the Statutes had little meaning and

that General Assemblies were never held.

\ko

Congress (Congresso Naciona] de Camponeses) which was sponsored by
Juliao's organization, the Communi st -control led ULTAB, and the Ministry
of Labor. Attracting many other politicians and even a few non-
political large landowners, Juliao emerged as a national figure whose
position of a one-stage "global" revolution Including a vaguely defined
"radical agrarian reform" appealed to many people, especially radical
urban students. On the other hand, the Moscow-oriented faction of
the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) and its ULTAB leader Lindolfo
Silva called for a two-stage revolutionary process, the first of which
emphasized the need for a united front of progressive student, labor,
and peasant groups as well as the "national bourgeoisie" (burgesia)
with whom it was possible to work out a satisfactory program of agrarian
reform. Even vaguer was Silva's call for a second stage of "socializa-
tion."

Juliao threatened to send 50,000 peasants to Brasilia to sit on
the steps of the Congress until an agrarian reform bill was passed--a
new version of an earlier 1959 threat to send an equal number of

See "As duas faces do Congresso campones," 0 Metropol i tano,
November 25, 1961. p. 8, and "No Congresso de camponeses o assunto
e reforma agraria." 0 Metropol i tano. November 11, 1961, p. 4, in v;hich
Jose Tiago Cintra said Janio Q.uadros, while President, had suggested
the theme of Agrarian Reform for the proposed Congress and that the
government would help finance it.

The Congress is dealt with in greater detail in Chapter Vli .

Ibid, and Timothy Harding, "Revolution Tomorrow," p. kS, who

says "Juliao emerged as the national peasant leader."

0 Metropol i tano never really spells out Juliao's agrarian
reform proposals while Harding said Juliao called for "immediate
expropriation of large properties" but did not define what was "large."

1^1

peasants to Recife to protest the rural situation in the Northeast.

However, he never carried out either threat; in all probability because

the threats were a bargaining maneuver, because he did not have that

many peasants in the Ligas, and because he could not muster the public

or private funds necessary to transport that many peasants to Recife

or Bras ilia.

Juliao's unwillingness or lack of desire to create a bureaucratic

structure or organize self-sustaining sindicatos among the peasants

further weakened the ability of the Pernambuco Ligas to bargain on

behalf of their members. Nevertheless, Juliao was useful to the Norh-

east and to the Brazilian government in its dealings with the United

States.^ On July 21, 1961, for example. Time magazine unwittingly

reinforced the impression Juliao had sought to create of being a

"social revolutionary":

President Janio Q.uadros has told his Cabinet that unless Brazil
embarks on revolutionary reforms, some day, on some unknown hill-
top, some unknown Fidel Castro will rise up to plague Brazil. A
Brazilian would-be Castro has already appeared. Francisco Juliao,
a Socialist State Deputy ... To fight Juliao and the peasant
leagues, Janio Quadros is backing Celso Furtado and his plan for
which Furtado went to Washington last week. He was at home with
John Kennedy's New Frontiersmen.-^

1 '

Antonio Callado, Os Industrials da S^ca, p. h9, said that such

a march would also be a "demagogic demonstration of force." JulTao

never indicated why he did not carry out this threat.

^Victor Alba, Alliance without Allies, pp. 31"32, discusses the
support the demagoguery and political rhetoric of persons such as
Juliao gave "the oligarchy": "It is as if the bullet had been fired
from the breech. The United States wanted to convince the oligarchies
of the need of social reforms out of fear of Castroism, and now it is
the oligarchies that are convincing the United States to give them
money for phony and hypothetical reforms.

^"Brasil ." Time. July 21, 1961, p. 27.

142

Summary

Juscelino Kubitschek, Janio Q.uadros, Cid Sampaio, Miguel Arraes,
and Joao Goulart are astute politicians who apparently permitted
Juliao to go quite far in developing the Peasant Leagues as a polit-
ical propaganda and voter-mobilizing force. They could use him for
what they perceived as their own interests in dealing with other
Brazilian pressure groups and in their relationships with the United
States and international lending agencies. If Juliao had not made
his wel 1 -publ icized international trips to the Communist bloc countries—
which any Brazilian government could have prevented; if Juliao had not
made frequent references to international symbols such as Fidel Castro
and Mao Tse-tung, it is doubtful that the Northeast and SUDENE would
have received as large an amount of funds.

Juliao and the Ligas controlled the "conflict situation" before
the entrance of other politicians, priests, and government institutions
such as the DRT's and SUPRA. By late 1 963 and early 1964, Juliao and
the Ligas controlled only a few groups of peasants. They had failed
to control the "contagiousness" and "scope of conflict."

When it became apparent in mid-1962 that the Church-sponsored
rural sindicatos would survive, the Ligas, Communists, Governor Miguel
Arraes, and President Goulart perceived the advantages of the
priests' program. Sindicatos, legally recognized by the government and

1
Arraes appeared much more willing than the Ministry of Labor to

support the Ligas during the first year of his administration. Although
the Brazilian Army immediately after the Revolution proved that Arraes
sent over 80 million cruzeiros to the Liga headquarters of Adauto
Rodriguez in Goiana, it is clear that Jul iio never accepted the author-
ity of Arcaes and, on occasion, the Ligas turned against the Governor.

143

thus subject to controls, v;ere much more useful tools than the un-
structured Ligas of Juliao. By the end of 1S62, JuliSo instructed
his followers in the Northeast to infiltrate the Sindicatos in an
attempt to replace their leadership with Liga members. In mid-
1 363 ) the Goulart government established SUPRA in an attempt to
control the Church-sponsored group's. By late 1 9^3 > much of the
countryside was in upheaval as various groups struggled with one
another to organize rural workers, sharecroppers, tenants, and small
proprietors. At this point, we turn to an analysis and description
of the Church-sponsored groups of the North and Northeast.

Interviews with Lucia Sa Barreto, Treasurer of SORPt, Recife,
Pernambuco, June 11 and August 9, 1965.

CHAPTER V

THE IMPACT OF THE CHURCH-SPONSORED LITERACY
MOVEMENTS AND PRESSURE GROUPS IN THE
NORTH AND NORTHEAST

I ntroduct ion
As the Peasant Leagues began to get publicity and grow in
numbers, various groups aspired to lead the peasants and competed
with one another to organize s i ndicatos. Of these groups, the
Catholic Church, which began its activity with rural literacy
programs, the Communists, state and federal government officiab, and
large landowners and sugar industrialists were the most important.
The competition became so keen that some groups set up non-existent
"paper" s i ndi catos in order to control the federations which the
Church first sponsored.

Although the CLT, ETR, and Ministry of Labor regulations provide
a series of legal steps which must be complied with by a group seeking
recognition as a s i nd i cato. Church-groups, Communists, and government
officials on the scene often created fictitious groups using real and
false names of individual peasants as members and officers which the
organizers forwarded to the DRT and the Ministry of Labor. This
writer is not aware of the exact methods used within the bureaucracy
to insure the recognition of groups which existed solely on paper
while the Ministry denied recognition to legitimate groups at the same
time. Suffice it to say that the practice existed.

For example, "Unions Compete in Rural Brazil," New York Times
(April 30, 1963), p. 5:3, notes the complaints of Catholic groups in
Pernambuco and Rio Grande do Norte "about delays in the certification
of their unions": "Governo fecha os sjndicatos do peleguismo," Tr i buna
da impreq^.a (RJ) . March 30, 1965, notes that the Ministry of Labor
considered 2,381 sindicatos and federations (recognized prior to
April, 1964), as phantom or paper organizations.

1^5

Figure 19. --Bishop Dom Francisco Mezquite and four organizers of the

SORPE-sponsored Sindicato and Cooperative of Rural Workers
of Palmares, Pernambuco, once Brazil's biggest peasant
sindicato — covering 32 municipios — and controlled by
Gregorio Bezerra, a Communist, from 1962-1964. The
picture was taken July 29, 1965.

Figure 20. — Rural workers waiting to receive spaghetti and dried milk
from the Food for Peace program sponsored jointly by SORPE,
USAID, and the AFL-CIO, Sindicato of Rural Workers, Vitoria de
Santo Antao, June, I965.

146

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Figure 23. — Members of the Cooperative of Rural Workers of Bom Jardim, Per-
nambuco, listening to a talk on Cooperative principles and
organization, July 23, 1965. The meeting is being held in a
private school for girls operated by Roman Catholic nuns.

Figure 24. — Acacio Fernandes dos Santos, Treasurer and Tociyuki Takaki ,
Secretary, of the Federation of Rural Workers of the State
of Rio de Janeiro, visit squatters in the Municipio of Mage,
April 9, 1965. The truck in the background belongs to one of
the Japanese-Brazilian squatters who has a highly productive
plot of land on property reportedly claimed by Fazendas
Americanas, a Sao Paulo business firm.

148

Figure 25. — One of the principal streets of Punto dos Carvalhos, 15 miles
south of Recife on the road to Cabo, August, 1S65- On the
left is the Sindicato of Rural Workers and a nurse (in white)
employed by the Sindicato to treat the illnesses of members.

Figure 26. — Members of the Sindicato of Punto dos Carvalhos enjoy showing
off some of the dental equipment purchased with Imposto Sindi-
Cal funds, August 1965. Fourth from the left is one of several
university students helping Padre Antonio Mello administer the
sindicato.

149

For an understanding of how the peasant movement developed in
the Northeast, the history of these movements in Rio Grande do Norte
and Pernambuco is the most important, because the organizations and
ideology developed in these states established models followed by many
of the groups in other states seeking to organize the peasants.

in addition, it is necessary to describe (l) the Basic Educa-
tion Movement (MEB) , which organized literacy programs and some of
whose workers attempted to influence peasants to overturn the
Brazilian social structure; (2) the current balance of forces in Per-
nambuco in which the politically structured use of violence by
peasant groups has become a highly effective weapon; (3) brief case
histories of the peasant movement in other North and Northeast
states; and (4) the material benefits of organized peasant groups
which perform an additional function of controlling peasant attitudes
by limiting the cross-pressures which landowners historically applied.

The Rural Assistance Service (SAR) of Natal
In 1949, Dom Eugenio de Araujo Sales was appointed head of the
Catholic Action program of the Archdiocese of Natal, Rio Grande do
Norte. Shortly thereafter, SAR was established as a community-
institution-building organization to organize literacy-training
programs, maternity centers, dental clinics, ambulances, first aid
services, cooperatives, and clubs for women and young people. In

Father Eugene Col lard, "In Natal, a Young Bishop Mobilizes
His People Against Misery," Translation of an article which was first
published in Dimanche (A Belgian Catholic weekly), June 2h, 1962, and
reprinted in SAR Informative Bulletin, Publication No. 6, August,
1962, pp. 10-11.

150
195^> Sales was consecrated Assistant Bishop and assumed supervision
of the Diocese because the Archbishop was ill. Bishop Sales then
extended the SAR program to the two other dioceses in the state, Caic6
and Mossor6. Among the most important agencies established to carry
on this community institution -building was the Rural Education Broad-
casting Station, popularly known as "Radio Rural."

The goal of "Radio Rural" was two-fold: (l) to teach peasants
to read and write, and (2) to give them agriculture, economic, polit-
ical, and religious training which would "promote the individual human
being." in order that the radio might serve as a school monitors
traveled to bring small groups of people to the one-channel radio
receivers which were distributed in isolated farm homes, rural vil-
lages, and even the slum areas of Natal. Later, regional study
meetings brought the monitors together to compare experiences, renew
their enthusiasm, and inform the Natal leadership of problems en-
countered at the local level. After that, SAR developed "leadership
training programs" for the natural leaders discovered by the "Rural
Radio" schools or by local priests.

The Basic Education Program of MEB
The SAR literacy program was so successful that President Janio
Q.uadros promulgated Decree Law 50/371 on March 21, 1961, to authorize
federal subsidies for a similar program by the National Conference of
Bishops in under-developed regions of North, Northeast, and West
Central Brazil. This new nation-wide program, known as the Basic

'Boletim da Acao Catolica Bras i 1 ei ra (Rio de Janeiro), June,
1962, p. 17.

Albert 0. Hirschman, Journeys Toward Progress: Studies of

15)
Education Movement or MEB, also incorporated UNESCO experiences in Asia
and Africa, and the Radio Schools of the Popular Central Action (Accion
Cultural Popular) program in Colombia, headed by Padre J. Salcedo of
Sutatenza. '

MEB-style programs were established in the dioceses of Bragan9a, ParS
Crato, Sobral , Limoeiro, and Fortaleza, CearS; Penedo, Alagoas; and, on a
statewide basis, in Parafba, Pernambuco, Sergipe, Bahia, GoiSs, Mato Grosso
and Minas Gerais. While some Bishops or program leaders obtained free
radio time from private Church-owned radio stations, many programs depended
on federal budgetary support for salaries, literature, and radio time,

MEB programs taught people not only how to read and write but also
gave them instruction in personal hygiene, public sanitation and basic
instruction in farming and the crafts. The program also sought to transmit
a sense of dignity to and respect for the peasants who worked in the fields.
MEB programs sought to change peasant acceptance of the dominant value
systems of the type found by Marvin Harris in his study of Minas Velhas,
a town near Brumado, centra] Bahia:

Economic Pol i cy-Maki ng in Latin America (New York: Twentieth Century
Fund, 1963), p. 85, discusses the First and Second Conferences of Bishops
of the Northeast in 1956 and 1959. respectively, which received the sanction
of President Kubitschek to undertake several community development projects
in coordination with the Sao Francisco Valley Commission (CVSF) , the Na-
tional Public Works Department to Combat Drought (DNOCS) , SUDENE,

Ibid. , p . 1 5 .

Skidmore, op. ci t . , pp. 406-407, interviewed Paulo Freire in

Cuernavaca, Mexico, January 4, I966, who said that there were four
separate literacy campaigns underway in 1963: (l) the Paulo Freire
groups; (2) the Church groups; (3) federal Ministry of Education programs;
and (4) MEB, a "program partially sponsored by the Ministry of Education
and staffed by volunteers who only began working in late 1963."

This writer heard no mention of the Paulo Freire groups in Rio
Grande do Norte. in addition, there was no separation of MEB and
Church-group literacy programs in Rio Grande do Norte or Pernambuco.
Moreover, it appears that some MEB groups were functioning in late I962.

152

While the townsman looks upon all manual labor as degrading,
farming involves the greatest loss of status — much more than the
manual labor of a blacksmith. The artisans of Minas Velhas
habitually think of their vjork as involving more skill and
brains than the sheer brawn and animal muscle thought to be suf-
ficient for work in the fields.'

MEB and Church-sponsored leadership training programs repeatedly
emphasized the peasant's right to demand more from the political and
economic system than he had been getting.

In July, 1962, the Central Commission of the National Confedera-
tion of Bishops stated:

No one disregards the clamor of the masses, martyrized by the
specter of hunger, . . . This is less serious than men who con-
form to misery, remaining passive. No, because of the aggrava-
tion of the many . . . crises ... in the country, of the facility
of communications and of the spreading of ideas and of the grow-
ing organization of the classes, if the poor of the cities and of
the countryside do not begin to become conscious of the true
causes of their condition, above all to understand their participa-
tion in institutional life and their own society, they will never
be freed from the ignominious state they live in.

MEB created little dissension or controversy among the tradi-
tional power-holders of the Northeast. However, by mid-1963, MEB

3
teaching methods, devised by Recife University Professor Paulo Freire,

Marvin Harris, Town and Country in Brazil, pp. 9^-95.

"Subversion Through Catholic Education," CIF Reports, April I6-
30, 196^, p. 2.

This article is reportedly an English translation of the text of
an article which was to appear in the April, 1964 edition of 0 Cruze i ro.
Brazil's largest picture magazine, but was not published because of the
Revolution. The article discusses the MEB program, the booklet Viver i
Lutar (mis-translated as Live and Strive), and Bishop Tavora's letters
to Governor Carlos Lacerda on the confiscation of the booklets by the
Guanabara government, February 20, 1964.

^Callado, Tempo de Arraes , p. 28, explains the method. "The
Paulo Freire method has as an objective to suddenly reveal the world
to man. Instead of starting with [letters] as a basic unit toward a
vocabulary, the illiterate absorbs entire words, these then are separated

153

and a new classroom booklet Viver ^ Lutar, came under attack. The
booklet not only taught illiterates such traditional words as "house"
and "school," but also such concepts as "struggle" (luta), "community,"
"justice," "liberty," and "exploitation of Brazil by foreigners."
Many local monitor-teachers began to irritate dominant status quo
elements by emphasizing that such phrases as "a complete change is

necessary in Brazil" meant a need to overthrow the existing social,

2
economic, and political structures of society.

into syllables and finally into letters. In this system, . . .
exists something like the Peasant League: guarantee first the land
and then later we are going to divide it into parcels (iotes) .

With drawings and with entire words, the illiterate . . . learns
to divide the world into that of nature and that of culture. A left-
ist existentialist Catholic, of the Gabriel Marcel group, Paulo Freire
not only teaches the peasant to read. As everyone in Pernambuco is
indoctrinating the backwoods ruffian (cabra) . he uses the fastest
possible means, explosive words of great socio-political connotation.
With the folder of illustrations (1 etrume) ... he seeks to locate
the illiterate in the social struggle that the illiterate does not
know about, that what ought to be given to the man that learns the
Idea of learning to read is learning to struggle to improve life."

MEB, Viver i Lutar (2a Livro de Leitura Para Adultos), Outubro
1963, was the second of several books used by MEB monitors. The first
book. Saber Para Viver (Knowledge to Live), never aroused any contro-
versy, probably because It had less political content.

HAR, XV, February, 1963, p. 1164, indicates USAID probably gave
financial assistance for the first MEB booklet and the Paulo Freire
method: "Education Minister Ribeiro, with the help of Sarah Guds-
chinsky and Dale W. Kietsman of the Summer Institute of Linguistics
of Santa Ana, California, prepared a primer for the adult literacy
campaign. Ribeiro had k million copies published in December, 1962,
along with a teacher's manual."

This writer does not know if Bishop Jose Tavora of Sergipe,
head of the MEB program, knew Viver I Lutar was being used In this
way In some local programs. Paulo Freire was warned by several rural
soclol ogl sts--whom this writer knows—that his program was being
taken over by people with different goals than himself or Bishop
Tavares. Freire reportedly said that he did not believe such a
thing could happen.

154

Although many democrats or liberals could justify the need for
a change of values among illiterates, many of the dominant conservative
elements — and even some peasants — considered the booklet was "sub-
versive" to the existing social order. Support for this view comes
ironically from an article reportedly destined for publication in
the April, 1964 0 Cruzeiro maqqzine — which was not published there — '
which said:

The Christian is between two fires. As with Christ, there were
those who sought a pretext for condemning him: "Pilate then
said to the priests and to the multitude: this man is guilty
of no crime." They insisted, however, saying: "He is stirring
up the people, teaching throughout Judea and beginning from
Gal ilea even to this place." (Luke 25:4-5).

One should ask again: What is the meaning of "subversion"?

Maybe for some it is the social doctrine of the Church: Mater
et Magi stra appi ied to concrete situations and carried to its
ultimate conclusions.

Thus the church is subversive; the MEB is subversive; and above
all, the Message of the Gospel, announced over 20 centuries ago,
continues to be subversive. ^

The lessons which follow from Viver I Lutar illustrate the kind
of material being propagated by the literacy program. Lesson 1 begins
with the following verse on the left-hand page accompanying a photo-
graph :

One Army Intelligence Officer in Fourth Army Headquarters, Re-
cife, Pernambuco, told this writer in August, 1965, that the contents
of Viver I Lutar themselves justified the April, 1964, Revolution.

One Sao Paulo peasant who visited Sergipe in late 1964 told this
writer in early 1965 that many peasants in Sergipe felt the MEB "orienta-
tion was so violent . . . that rural workers were skeptical over
[the utility] of joining a s i ndicato."

^"Subversion through Catholic Education," CI F Reports . p. 2.

155

I live and struggle (or fight)

Pedro lives and struggles.

The people live and struggle.

I, Pedro, and the People, we live.

I, Pedro, and the People, struggle.

We struggle to 1 i ve.

To live is to struggle.

TO LIVE IS TO STRUGGLE.^

The concept of group organization is introduced in Lesson 21 with

a photograph of a group of men pulling in a boat or a net on the sea-

shore and with a lesson about a "friend" or "companion" (companhei ro)

founding a sindicato. The final verse is one similar to those found

in trade unions around the world:

"The Strength of a Sindicato is Its Unity"
(A Uniao Faz a For9a do Sindicato)

which also might be translated:

3
"in Unity is Strength"

Lesson 27 discusses the attempt of "Xavier, Pedro and their
comrades seeking to organize the people" in order tcipart icipate
in the government." The photograph used is that of the first Peasant
League at Engenho Galileia although this fact is not cited in the text,

Lesson 33 > the final lesson, closes with phrases about the need
to "struggle for a change":

Viver i Lutar. p . 2 .

^Companhei ro has no good English translation. A closer transla-
tion is "comrade" without the connotation of its being used by a Com-
munist Party member.

^Viver g Lutar. p. ^2.

^Ibid.. p. 54.

156

Compnnhel ros .'

Whoever came this far cannot turn back.

We know we are right.

We have to walk forward.

God wants our struggle.

What ought we to do?

Continue forward. i

Continue until we bring about a change.'

The final photograph in the booklet Is one of Francisco Jullao

and some of his followers reportedly on their way to the "funeral

mass of the first peasant martyr" in the Northeast, a photograph which

first appeared nationally in a Decembei; 195^ Manchete article. These

facts are not mentioned in the MEB booklet. in this writer's opinion,

most Brazilians familiar with politics would have recognized the

picture. One therefore should not be surprised that MEB was considered

an important target of the military and civilian power-contenders

participating in the 1964 Revolution.

ibid., p. 63.

^"Brazil Cleanup Turns to Church," New York Tines (April 23,
1964), p. 12:1, Indicates that Juan de Onis wrote that the military
cleanup campaign "reached into A9ao Catolica which focused on lay and
worker activities."

Governor Carlos Lacerda assailed Most Reverend Helder Pessoa
Camara, Archbishop of Olinda and Recife and Secretary of the Brazilian
National Conference of Bishops as a "reformer who cultivates misery
like heads of lettuce".'

"Several newspapers urged military Investigators to look Into
Communist Infiltration In the Acao Cato'l i ca organization." in Recife,
"the Archdiocese suspended MEB programs aimed at rural poor and
f ami 1 ies."

Archbishop Camara was scheduled to meet with President Castelo
Branco Friday, April 24, I963, to discuss relations between the Church
and Military In the Northeast. Presumably the two men, who knew one
another when Castelo Branco was commander of the Fourth Army in the
Northeast, did hold the meeting. From time to time In the next year
and a half, there was friction between Dom Helder and "hard-line"
ant I -communist military officers.

157

The Rural Sindicato Program of SAR
The success of the educational campaign stimulated SAR in I960
to begin a campaign to organize rural workers, sharecroppers, rent-
ers, and small farmers into cooperatives and professional associations
because of the difficulties of gaining recognition for peasant
5 i ndi catos. On November 15. I960, the first Rural Workers Associa-
tion (Associa9ao de Trabalhadores Rurais) was founded in the Municipio
of Serra Caiada, about an hour's drive southwest of Natal, where share-
croppers grew long-stape cotton for SANBRA (Northeastern Cotton

Company), the American textile firm of Coats and Clark, and local

2
cotton ginners, and cowboys watched beef cattle. In the next two

Jul ieta Calazans, "Cartilha Sindicato do Trabalhador Rural,"
Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Edi9ao do Service de Assistencia Rural,
1961 , p. k.

Francisco de Castro Neves, Quadros' first Labor Minister,
reportedly told Bishop Eugenio Sales in 1961 that the Ministry could
not recognize the Church-sponsored groups as si ndi catos because it
would then have to recognize Communi st -sponsored peasant s i ndicatos —
which of course was not true considering the past political use of
si ndicato recognition by various Ministers of Labor. Interview with
Dom Eugenio Sales, Salvador, Bahia, April 20, 196^.

2
The writer heard different reports about the ownership and

management of SANBRA and Coasts & Clark. Some churchmen thought

SANBRA was wholly Ameri can -owned ; others told the writer it had a

mixed Argentine-Brazilian-English ownership. In any case, both

companies had a "poor image" in the Northeast, buying cotton at low

prices and shipping it to gins and cotton seed mills in Recife and

Natal and then shipping cottonseed oil and cake back at what local

farmers considered unjustly high prices. Several Coats & Clark gin

managers in the Northeast are Englishmen — which probably accounts

for less ant i -Ameri can i sm being directed toward that company.

Anderson-Clayton, considered by many as the world's largest

cotton broker is not as visible in Rio Grande do Norte as in ParaTba

or Pernambuco. It is called a truste (trust) in many parts of the

Northeast. Wesley McCune, Who's Behind Our Farm Policy? (New York:

Frederick A. Praeger, 1956), pp. 123-124, and passim, discusses the

influence of Anderson-Clayton and Coats £■ Clark in U.S. agricultural

policy. McCune said Anderson-Clayton controlled 33 subsidiary companies

which owned 369 cotton gins as well as factories making margarine,

soap, and textiles.

158

years, associations were founded in every municipio of the Archdiocese
of Natal on an inter-municipal basis, taking advantage of the SAR and
MEB radio school structure. On May 13, 1962, anniversary of the
abolition of slavery in Brazil, seven of these associations with

jurisdiction over thirty-nine municipios were granted recognition

2
by Labor Minister Andre Franco Montoro at the First Rural Workers

Congress at Itabuna, Bahia.-^ Twelve more sindicatos with jurisdic-
tion in thirteen municipios were also recognized in the next year
and a half. Outside of the Diocese of Natal, however, landowner
opposition and reluctance on the part of many priests and laypeople
to work on organizational teams hindered the establishment of si ndi -
catos in other than Caico and Mossoro, Municipios in which two
Bishops were located.^

SAR's ideological contributions were first published in a mimeo-
graphed document, "The First Primer of the Rural Worker" (Cart i 1 ha

"Carta de Principios e alavan9a de camponeses para Reforma
Agraria," Jornal do Brasi 1 (May 18, 1962), p. k, indicated five
sindicatos were also recognized in Ceara; five in Pernambuco, and
one in Sergipe, covering five muni ci pios.

^Franco Montoro, a Sao Paulo Christian Democrat, was Minister
from September 9, 1961, to June 29, 1962. It probably is not coin-
cidental that he resigned from office after recognizing eight Workers
Circle-sponsored s i ndi catos in Sao Paulo on June 25.

3
Itabuna and nearby llheus also had symbolic value as the loca-
tion of one of the earliest peasant si ndicatos recognized in Brazil,
a Rural Employees Sindicato recognized October k, 1957-

Even in the Diocese of Natal, there was priestly opposition:
"Nordeste: Conven9ao Contra o Latifundio," Bras i 1 , Urqente.' (April
28, 1963), p. 15> Jose Rodriguez, President of the Federation of
Rural Workers of Rio Grande do Norte, said Padre Emerson Nogueiros
of Santa Cruz fought the peasant organization "because he wanted to
control everything in the Municipio."

159

Sindica] do Trabalhador Rural) written by Dr. Julieta Calazans, one of
the driving forces behind the SAR program. Goals and methods were not
always separated in the Cart i 1 ha pub) i cat ion which stressed the fol-
lowing three goals for peasant si ndi catos :

1. Teach and help the rural worker to obtain his rights as a
person and a worker.

2. Work for the application of laws that bring benefits to the
lives of the rural worker and for change of the laws that do
not fit the rural area at the present time.

3. Work for agrarian reform.'

Sindicatos were urged to use the following "methods":

1. Work for the common good and never for the benefit of only
one person.

2. Work for a change through education and never through class
struggle.

3. Work in an organized form with other groups.

h. A program of revindications ought to be established.

5. Look at the whole man and be idealistic.

6. A person should be free to join and not obliged to do so.
We should remember, for example, that in Russia every
worker is obliged to associate himself and to pay dues to a
si ndi cat o whether he wishes to do so or not. This is

mi staken.

7. The Sindicato is a professional association, not a political
one.

8. The direction of the Sindicato ought to be by persons of the
class itself. There are many Sindicatos in Brazil directed
by persons who have never worked, nor have the intention of
working in a profession/or trade/.

Dom Eugenio Sales and Dr. Calazans wanted to create a movement

which was dedicated to serving the best interests of their state and

Brazil, and not one caught up in the ideological battles between the

United States and the Soviet Union. Leadership training courses

l"Cartilha Sindlcal," p. 5.
Ibid. , p . 6 .

•3

•^ I bid. . pp. 9-10. Although SAR was often accused of spreading
socialist or communist doctrine, the Cartilha specifically said "Com-
munism cannot bring improvements to man, because it does away with
liberty, generates hate and vengeance, and is against God."

160

were organized and used material critical of the "neo-liberal capital-
ism" of the United States and Soviet Communism. Peasants were taught
that they should run the Sindicatos and learn from their own mistakes
and successes.

SAR attracted many young and middle-aged practicing Catholic
laymen, from small towns and Natal to fill its organizing teams and
staff. However, the SAR organization was highly dependent on Dom
Eugenio for important policy decisions; when he was "promoted" away
from Natal to become Apostolic Administrator of Salvador, Bahia, in
September, 1964, SAR lost much of its ability to attract financing,
personnel, and political support. His successor as Archbishop of
Natal, Dom NIvaldo Montes, apparently had different ideas about the
proper role of SAR and the Church in social action programs. Never-
theless, in 1965, many of the sixty-five peasant s I ndl catos in three

■5
federations'^ were functioning reasonably well in the state's political

Sales' "promotion" took him away from political enemies in
Rio Grande do Norte, while also enabling the Church to use his talents
in attempting to establish similar programs in Salvador whose Arch-
bishop also had been ailing for some years and unable to devote much
attention to his work.

"Ajuda AlemS," Vi sao (Rio de Janeiro), January k, 1963, pp. 15"
16, says that Sales obtained a US$ 10,000 loan from Mi ser i or , a fund of
the West German Catholic Bishops, to be paid off in ten years without
interest. He also had obtained donations from German Catholics of
300,000 marks, and 200,000 marks to help re-finance the re-equipment
of the Radio Rural Schools, and 100,000 marks to help unionization in
the Northeast. In addition, the Secretariat of the West German
Christian Democratic Trade Union Federation donated US$ 5.000.

In January, I965, the Rural Workers Federation had nineteen
recognized sindicatos and thirty-one waiting legal status; the
Autonomous Workers Federation had one recognized sindicato and seven
waiting; and The Small Proprietors Federation was composed of seven
s I ndl catos . none of which had been recognized. Sindicato officers in

161

context to obtain benefits as well as protect the members despite a

■ ^ f 1

variety or pressures.

Formation of Church-sponsored
Sindicatos in Pernambuco

The history of the Rural Sindicato movement in Pernambuco dif-
fered greatly from that of Rio Grande do Norte. The Ligas never made

an impact in Rio Grande do Norte because of the work of SAR; popula-
tion density was three times greater in Pernambuco, and the sugar
industry dominated many thousands of square miles of coastal land
compared to the few valley regions in which sugar was grown in Rio
Grande do Norte. Moreover, the Pernambuco region was much more

the state serve without pay in contrast to Pernambuco, where many s i n-
dicatos are paid the minimum monthly wage out of s i ndi cato dues checked
off rural worker wages. In Rio Grande do Norte, dues were 100 cruze i ros
(about eight cents) per month in 1965; hence many leaders are genuine
ideal i sts.

"Paz Aqui, Luta la," Vi slio (January 24, 1964), p. 13. reported
that "the first successful rural strike" In the history of the state
by forty rural workers in Parnamirim, southwest of Natal, achieved the
abolition of a cambao. share -cropping arrangement and doubled their
wages from 250-500 cruzeiros (US$ .25 to US$ .50) per day.

After the April, 1964, Revolution, President Castelo Branco
told Bishop Sales that the Church's work in the rural areas prevented
the Ligas or Communists from establishing a foothold there. Interview
with Dom Eugenio Sales, May 19, 1965-

Perhaps due to the influence of Dom Eugenio Sales and perhaps
due to the fact that Rio Grande do Norte never experienced the cut-
throat competition for land that Pernambuco underwent, the four sugar
mills in the state did not dominate the plantations, the dwellings of
sugar mill workers were made of bricks and with tile roofs, tiled
floors, and plumbing. In addition, workers were entitled to a piece
of land where they could plant whatever crops they wished, which meant
they could do much more than most Pernambuco, Alagoas, or Paraiba
sugar mill workers to supplement their diets with fruit and vegetable
of their own.

162

industrialized and had a highly developed transportation and communi-
cations network compared to the meager transportation system of the
state further north. A peasant s indicato movement should therefore
have had a different history.

Initiative for the organization of peasant s i ndicatos in Pernam-
buco came from the Catholic Agrarian Youth (JAC) and several young
priests who were impressed by SAR's work in Rio Grande do Norte. ^ Pa-
dre Paulo Crespo, Vicar of the industrial and agricultural muni ci pio

~ 2

of Jaboatao, expressed their feeling in a Resume of the movement:

Petty politicians (po1 i ticoides) without any sense of social
responsibility were seeking to exploit the phenomenon of the
peasant leagues for personal advantage and not to solve the
problems of the suffering peasant. Like sugar cane caught
between the rollers of a mill, they were caught between the
pol 1 1 i coides of the epoch.

On July 26, 1961, twenty-five priests from six dioceses and the

Bishop-elect of the Sertao diocese of Afogados de Ingazeira appeared

~ 3
in JaboatBo. No representatives came from the southern sugar zone

around Palmares, in part through the lack of encouragement from the

Bishop of Garanhuns, and in part because of the close ties of priests

to senhores de engenhos and us i nei ros of the region.

Mary Wilkie, "A Report on Rural Syndicates," pp. 7-8, attributes
initiative to JAC members and the Bishop of Recife who appointed four
priests to the mission of training "parish priests in syndical as-
sistance and looking for peasants capable of leading syndicates." The
Church in Recife is headed by an Archbishop, not a Bishop.

"Pequeno Resumo do Movimento Sindical Rural em Pernambuco" (Re-
cife, Pernambuco: SORPE, October 1, 1964), p. 1.

-"Printed "Relatorio da Semana de Estudos, sobre a situacpao de
nosso camponis," issued by Padre Paulo Crespo, Secretario do Encontro,
July 29, 1961.

163

After representatives from the federal government's Rural Social
Service (SSR)J ANCAR,^ and DAC, and SAR discussed their work, the
participants discussed three alternative programs:

1. Mutual assistance societies, which would offer medical and
dental services, food and clothing.

2. Church-sponsored Peasant Leagues to compete with those led
by Jul iao.-^

3. Peasant si ndicatos which would be legally organized.

The third alternative was accepted because it did not have the
disadvantages of the first alternative which offered "only a temporary
palliative and was no real solution" to the peasant problems, or the

"Relatorio da Semana de Estudos," The bills to create the SSR
were introduced by Minister of Agriculture Joao Cleofas in 1951 but
not passed by the Brazilian Congress until September 23, 1955, when
the SSR was established by Law 2,6l3. Control rested in the Ministry,
the CRB, and the state Federa9oes de Associa^oes Rurais. Initially it
was to improve health, recreation, basic education, and home economics
in the rural sector. It has remained a weak institution of the
Brazilian government. See Joao Cleofas, Reforma Agraria no Brasil, pp.
^9~52, for a discussion of its early history.

ANCAR or the Northeastern Credit and Rural Assistance Associa-
tion was established in Pernambuco, June 1, 1953, on the basis of
American agricultural extension programs. See Piano Diretor Q.uin-
quenal (Rio de Janeiro: Associacao Brasileira de Credito a Assistencia
Rural, December I96O), for a discussion of the ANCAR program in the
Northeast states.

^"Northeast Ant i -Communi st Activities," HAR, Vol. XVI, No. k
(June, 1963), p. 406, is a typical example of Brazilian and North
American confusion of SORPE-sponsored groups with Juliao's groups.
HAR cites Correio da Manha (Rio de Janeiro) in an article on "Father
Antonio da Costa Melo, Vicar of Cabo, Pernambuco, and founder of the
Liga Crista de Campesinos." [sic^]

Horowitz, op. cit., pp. 2^-27, briefly mentions "Catholic Peasant
Leagues" and "communi st -dominated Leagues in ULTAB" offering "direct
competition" to the leadership of Juliao. Unfortunately, Horowitz
never examined either the Church-sponsored groups or the ULTAB groups
to any degree in his chapters on "the Ideology of Peasant revolution"
and "The Practice and Preaching of Revolution" in his book.

]Gk

second alternative because many peasants would not be able to distin-
guish between the Church-sponsored and other peasant leagues.

In the next several weeks, Padre Crespo, Padre Antonio de Melo,
Miss Lucia Sa Barreto, and Dr. Djalmo Augusto de Melo, a former
candidate for the priesthood and now inactive businessman, organized
the Pernambuco Rural Orientation Service (Servi90 de Orienta^ao Rural
de Pernambuco or SORPE) to create rural sindicatos and cooperatives.

Following the SAR example, SORPE established organizational
teams in each diocese and leadership training courses in parish
churches or schools. The subject matter included the following materials
which were presented at a very simple level for the many semi -1 i terate
or poorly educated peasants attending the courses:

Man's Dignity - which often started out with a discussion of why

men were different than animals.
Church Social Doctrine - including quotations at a simple level

from Mater et Magistra and Rerum Novarum.

"Pequeno resumo do Movimento Slndical Rural em Pernambuco,"
p. 1 .

"Servi90 de Orienta^ao Rural de Pernambuco, Ato Const i tut ivo"

(Recife, Pernambuco, August 5, 1961) (hectographed) .

John Gunther, Inside South America (New York: Harper £• Row,
1966, pp. 92-95, is one of the few articles on SORPE activities in
English-language publications other than an occasional reference in
HAR. Gunther includes brief interviews with Padres Melo and Crespo
and makes several references to the peasant groups organized by Dom
Eugenio Sales in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Gunther, however,
indicates that these Catholic groups were not only in competition
with groups led by Juliao, Governor Arraes, President Goulart's
"union" [sic], and no fewer than three different Communist unions--
Chinese, Trotskyist, and Kremlin," but also among themselves in
"representing the peasants in theory and asking for their support,
in Pernambuco and the surrounding states." Unfortunately, Gunther
is in error on several points, especially with respect to the "compe-
tition" between the several Catholic groups in Pernambuco.

165

Brazi 1 ian History

Brazilian Labor and Rural Legislation
Labor-Management Relations

Comparative Political Philosophies — including discussions of
"Capitalism," "Neo-liberal Capitalism," and "Communism."
Sindicato Organization and Leadership
Cooperatives - their philosophy, organization, and benefits.

Mary Wilkie quoted one peasant who said:

I was a catequist for twenty years when Pope John's Mater et
Maqistra appeared. The priest told me about syndicates and 1
went on a course for leaders. The priests then explained syn-
dicalism in basic terms, stating that the law permitted the
organization of occupational groups to promote their profes-
sional and class interests, that the syndicate would provide the
way for pressing for the application of the law and demanding justice,
and that the syndicate in upholding the rights of the peasants
would promote social peace and harmony as opposed to class war. The
peasants readily accepted the ideals of syndicalism; as one leader
said, "We didn't know what a syndicate was before the priest told
us, but when he told us about i t , we knew that was what we wanted."'

SORPE encountered political obstacles to recognition similar to

those faced by SAR. However, on May 13, 19^2, five Pernambuco Rural

Worker groups were given legal status by Labor Minister Franco Montoro

at the Itabuna Congress. For the rest of 1962, only one more Per-

nambuco group was recognized. By this time, Brazilian politicians

and peasant leaders were engaged actively in campaigning for the

'Mary Wilkie, op. ci t . . p. 8.

^"Carta de Principios," Jornal do Brasi I (May 18, 1962), listed
these si ndicatos as (1) Lajedo, Canhotinho, Jurema, and S3o Bento do
Una; (25 Bom Jardim (Juliao's home base), Joao Alfredo, and Orobo;
(3) Caruaru, Santa Cruz, and Riacho das Almas; (4) Vitoria de Santo
Antao--home of the first Peasant League; and (5) Timbauba. i

^SUPRA, "Sindicatos Rurais, Relagao No. 1" (December 31, 1963),
pp. 5-9, includes the Rural Workers Sindicato at Palmeirinha, which
was recognized September Zk, 1962. After the Itabuna Congress, only
five Parafba Rural Workers and one Bahia cocoa cultivators sindicato
were recognized in the Northeast states during the rest of the year. 1

October elections which would name not only all state and federal
deputies but most muni clplo of f i ces and Governors in Ceara, Per-
nambuco, ParanS, Rio Grande do Sul , and Sffo Paulo.

The Struggle for Control of Rural Sindicatos
After his election as Governor in 1962, Miguel Arraes de Alencar
joined President Goulart, the two factions of the Communist Party, and

the Peasant Leagues, in a tacit if not formal agreement to destroy

2
SORPE's influence in the Pernambuco sindicatos. Their tactics in-
cluded discriminatory police treatment, invasions or assaults upon
SORPE-sponsored sindicato offices, manipulated announcements in the
communications media, and attempted manipulation of sindicato leader-
ship and finances by the Regional Labor Delegate (DRT) and the
Ministry of Labor.

Padre Melo actively supported Recife Prefeito Miguel Arraes
de Alencar, a cousin of Cid Sampaio. Padre Crespo was not active
in the campaign although supporting Arraes as a better candidate than
Joao Cleofas, the traditional candidate of the traditional political
forces in the state.

2
Governor Arraes was one of the first populist politicians to

capture a Governorship in the Northeast. He undoubtedly consolidated

his position with the masses in his support for higher minimum wage

regulations and with the nationalists In his termination of USAID

contracts. Nevertheless, while consistently backing the PCB urban

and rural labor leaders, he also consistently hindered the efforts

of the reformist Church-affiliated leaders such as Melo and Crespo

who originally supported him in his 1962 campaign for Governor. See

Skidmore, op. ci t . , pp. 275~282, and k]8, for an excellent discussion

of Arraes' attempt to build up a presidential following for 1965-

■3

Unions Compete in Rural Brazil," New York Times (April 30,
1963), p. 5:3. notes the complaints of Catholic groups in Pernambuco
and Rio Grande do Norte "about delays In the certification of their
unions" by the Federal Government despite statements by Labor Minister
Almino Afonso, a leftist nationalist, who declared rural unionization
to be "of greatest urgency."

Labor Minister Afonso signed recognition papers for fifty-three

167

Figure 27.--Groups Struggling to Control Pernambiico Peasant Sindicatos, 1963-196^^.

63>

SORPE-Affi Hated Federation

Federation, Captured by PCB,
Recaptured by Federation

Palmares, Affiliated with
PCB

PCB (Russian Faction)

Trotskyites

Federation, Captured by PC do B (Chinese Faction)

Barreiros, Company Union,
Peasant League, Captured
by PCB, Recaptured by
Peasant League, inter-
vened by DRT.

168

Three of the most important munici pics in which those conflicts
took place were Palmares, first organized by a PCB Deputy; Jaboatao,
first organized by SORPE but taken over in late 1963 by a coalition
of Liga, Arraes, and Chinese-wing Communist elements; and Barreiros,
originally a company-type union which was ultimately taken over by
the Regional Labor Delegate after several months of conflict between
its Liga-leaning head and Communist elements.

The Palmares Case
Palmares is the commercial and transportation center of the
Southwest Pernambuco and Northern Alagoas sugar region. In January,
1963, Greg6rio Bezerra, a former Communist Federal Deputy, and a

small group were given a Charter by the Ministry of Labor covering

2
twenty-one Pernambuco municipios. Bezerra established his influence

in the region by bargaining for increased wage or other monetary

benefits with the sugar mills and by furnishing medical, dental,

rural si ndicatos during his tenure from January 23-June 7. 1963. Five
Pernambuco rural sindicatos were certified on April 26, 1963: Cabo,
Jaboatio, Moreno, Q.uipap5, and Sao Louren90 — all strong SORPE-groups .
Probable reasons for the complaints was Ministry refusal to recognize
Federations which Northeastern Church leaders had formed because three
recognized Federations could form a National Confederation — which most
likely would not be controlled by the Federal Government or Goulart,
but by these Church leaders,

'Callado, Tempo de Arraes, pp. 75"76, indicates that Bezerra was
active in the PCB since 1935 and a Deputy in 19^7 when Getulio Vargas
proscribed Communist Party candidates although not preventing the
Party from otherwise being active in the campaign.

The reader will remember that SAR and SORPE had established

precedents for this practice when they created professional associa-
tions on an inter-municipal basis.

169

ambulance, and legal aid services to peasants at the Palmares head-
quarters— most of which were paid for by the Sindicato Tax (imposto
Si nd i cal) deducted from wages by the sugar mill operators and turned
over to Bezerra by the DRT, Enoch Saraiva,

Bezerra was aware of the importance of publicity and in-
doctrination of the peasants. On one occasion, Antonio Callado
recorded the following speech by Bezerra to a group of peasants "in
the fields":

You now have two families; that of yourselves and of the col-
lective family, that is the Sindicato. Your own family merits
from you that which it always merited. But in order to aid
your own family, it is necessary to think about the family of
the Sindicato, that is an organization that can improve your
lives, arrange for better salaries and will not let the
proprietor throw you out in the street. The Sindicato Is the
political family, that which gives force to you-all. [He also
spoke about the class struggle.]

Take notice of that which is good for you and ruinous
(ruim) for the sugar mill owner. The minimum wage Is good
for you, isn't it? But look how it costs the usineiro to
agree to it. A brute strike was necessary to increase the
salary, now wasn't it? The increase is good for you and
ruinous for the sugar mill owner.

in mid-1963, newly appointed Bishop Francisco Mezquita of Palmares

began organizing SORPE leadership and indoctrination courses in the

fringe muni ci pios controlled by Bezerra. Although several new s I n-

dicatos were granted recognition by the Ministry of Labor, the SORPE-

affiliated groups were never able to undermine Bezerra's control of

the Palmares Sindicato or control of the Sindicato taxes which were

JosS Pereira da Silva, one of Padre Melo's post-April 1964
interventors , told this writer that Bezerra's group received about
ten million cruzeiros (approx. US$ 10,000 in January, 1964, exchange
rates), which were used for the purchase of jeeps and other equipment
through the imposto Sindical fund.

Callado, Tempo de Arraes . p. 77«

170

collected by the DRT in the outlying munici pics until after the
April, 1964, Revolution.

The Struggle for Jaboatao

In Jaboatao itself. Communists affiliated with the Chinese wing
of the Brazilian Communist Party (PC do B) were given control of the
Sindicato after a four-month battle and the assistance of the DRT Enoch
Sariva Mendes, Arraes' Assistant Secretary (for Labor Affairs) Fausto
de Nascimento, who was a Communist, and Juliao's Liga organization.

Jaboatao, although it is a heavily industrialized municipio
with railroad shops, textile, and paper mills, also has a sugar
industry employing 20,000 rural inhabitants. Because of its
proximity to Recife, it has always been a ready source of demonstrators
who could be transported in an hour's time by train, bus, or truck
into Recife. Three sugar mills (Bulhdes, Jaboatao, and Muribeca)
occupied 10, 05^ hectares or 62.25 per cent of the farm land; an-
other eighteen engenhos between 100-300 hectares occupied 4,357
hectares or 26.98 per cent of the farm land of the muni cipio.

Not only was Jaboatao the seat of Padre Crespo's parish church,
it was also the scene of a muni ci pio election scheduled for October,
1963, in which the Prefeito and several Vereadors--who v;ere Llga-
supporters — were running for re-election. Si ndi cato politics became
involved in municipio and state politics. In the summer of 1 963 ,
Jos^ Evangel ista Nepomuceno, a former Secretary of the Crespo

J. M. da Rosa e Silva Neto, Subsidlos Para o Estudo do Problema
AqrSrio em Pernambuco (Recife: Commissao de Desenvol vimento Economico
de Pernambuco, 1963), p. 28.

171

Sindicato and a Liga member, sought to take over control of the Ja-
boatao organization. The DRT, Enoch Saraiva, allowed Evangel ista Ne-
pomuceno to collect the Imposto Sindical from the sugar factories.
In August, Clovis Campelo (Pernambuco PCB Secretary), Luiz Serafim
(head of the Liga Urbana) , Joaquim Ferreira, JosI Rais, some rail-
road workers, and students conducted a series of almost daily pre-
election and anti-Crespo rallies. Crespo's requests for an investiga-
tion by the DRT were refused along with requests for police protection
of the Sindicato against assaults by street gangs. On August 26, the
DRT intervened, removed the Directory headed by Joao Batista and
placed a DRT official in charge of sindicato business. A District
judge declared DRT intervention illegal, whereupon additional
demonstrations and counter-demonstrations between supporters of
Evangel ista Nepomuceno and Bat i sta-Crespo filled the streets of
Jaboatao. In protest against DRT and Arraes support for PCB or Liga
infiltration of the leadership of other sugar zone Sindicatos, Crespo's

supporters mobilized 150 trucks of peasants from the sugar zone for

3
a parade into Recife on September 2. State Police turned them away

at the city limits. Nevertheless, some 2,000 persons continued on

Juliao, Q.ue Son las Liqas Campesinas?, p. 30, cites Joaquim
Camilo, JosI Evangel ista, and JosI Cacador as being among the out-
standing peasant leaders who emerged from Liga Delegacies in Jaboatao
and "Cova da 0n9a." It is therefore possible that JosI Evangel ista
Nepomuceno had worked for Juliao on the "Cova da On9a" property in
Bom Jardim prior to living in Jaboatao; in any case. Evangel ista was
active in Liga activity as early as 1962.

' Pequeno Re sumo," p. 3.

^"Agricul tores em Marcha Pacffica sobre o Recife," Diario de
Pernambuco (September 3» 1963).

172

foot several miles into the city for a rally against Saraiva and Arraes,
Archbishop Coelho and Padre Melo defended Crespo over radio and
television. When Municipio elections were held several days later,
the Liga-Arraes and PCB-supported candidates lost. Nevertheless,
the city continued In turmoil with loudspeakers shouting propaganda
and insults back and forth until November when new Sindicato elections
were held. On the eve of the election, Padre Crespo withdrew his
slate, anticipating defeat and conceding victory to the PCB-Arraes
forces. Shortly thereafter, the DRT also intervened in Cabo,
eliminating Padre Melo's influence and appointing the President of the

local Peasant League as President of a Junta to govern the Sindicato

3
for the immediate future.

The Barrel ros Case
In 1956j a rural day laborer, Moacir Pedro da Silva, was given
a Union Charter by the Ministry of Labor to organize a Sindicato in
Barrel ros, in the Southern coastal zone. In turn, he was given
money by one or more of four Usi nas to guarantee peaceful labor
relations in the region:

Padre Melo attacked Arraes as a "man dominated by hate, who
does nothing else but hate" and said that the state authorities in-
tended to eliminate the influence of the Church in rural unions. See
Price, op. ci t. . p. 53, and 0 Estado de Sao Paulo (September 7, 1963)-

^Interview with Lucia Sa Barreto, Recife, June 11, 1965-

■^Price, 03. cl t . . p. 53. and Liga (February 19, 1964).

L
Callado, Tempo de Arraes , p. 98, indicates the need for a more

detailed study but reports that "Usina Trapiche gave money and a jeep

to the Liga," and that Santana "who hitherto [had been] Jullao and the

Usina's man began to accentuate his own personal leadership."

Hewitt, op. ci t . , p. 23, indicates da Silva was being paid 5,000

cruzeiros per month before Santana invaded the Sindicato.

173

Central Barreiros owned by the Bezerra de Melo Family

Usina Cucau owned by the family of Armando Q.ueiroz Monteiro--
PSD-PSP Federal Deputy, third-place candidate for Governor
in 1952, and a boss of the Agreste Municipio of Lajedo with
Francisco "Chico" Heracl io of Limoeiro.

Usina Santo Amaro - Ownership unknown

Usina Trapiche - Ownership unknown

In the summer of 1 963 , Julio Santana da Silva, a former Liga
Camponesa leader broke with Francisco Juliao and Usina Trapiche.
On July 7> 1963, he organized a meeting of a reported 5,000 sugar-
workers who literally threw Moacir Pedro da Silva out of the Sindicato
office on grounds he had been elected illegally a few days before.

A three-man junta, Manoel Tito (Barreiros), Jos^ Domingues
(Serinhaem), and Santana (now "representing the Municipio of Rio
Formoso") , appointed itself to guide Sindicato affairs until the
DRT could arrange new elections.

On July 13, a state police officer arrested Santana and took
him to Recife. When a strike of a reported 25,000 sugar workers
broke out the next day In the Barreiros region, the Arraes govern-
ment released Santana — explaining he had been brought to Recife
"for consultation purposes." Santana let the strike run on for five
more days until July 20, when an agreement was signed by Santana,
Enoch Saraiva, Rlldo Souto Maior (legal adviser of the Ligas

Callado, op. ci t . , pp. 98-100, describes Santana as a "profes-
sional adventurer" or "first-class anarchist" who "would have had the
greatest success back in the old days of few roads and lots of caa-
tinga." He apparently presented a bizarre image as a "peasant
leader": wearing khaki trousers and shirts, Japanese sunglasses,
and an inevitable three fountain pens In a shirt pocket.

^"Coluna Sindical," Ultima Hora (Recife), July 22, I963.

174

Camponeses) . ' and Gilberto Azevedo (a state deputy, bankworker leader,

and owner of ^+6,000 acres of land in Rio Grande do Norte).

However, Santana's control over the organization was not
permanent. Three months later, about October 3, Moacir Pedro da
Silva organized another group of 8,000 sugar workers from the three

municipjos who then assaulted and bodily threw Santana and his

3
cohorts out of the Barrel ros headquarters.

This victory was also short-lived.

On October 5, Santana, in an official DRT jeep, led a force of

300 which once again assaulted the Barreiros sindicato offices and

i+
"plundered its furniture and strongbox."

In turn, on October 11, Santana was arrested by Lt. Nelson

Lucena of the State Police, and placed in the Recife Detention House.

Lucena then proceeded to Barreiros where he and his driver were captured

'"Greve de Sol idar iedade a Campones Durou Horas ," Jornal do
Comercio (Recife), July 21, 1963.

Victor Alba, Alliance without Allies, p. 32, quotes Bolet i n

of the SOCI (Caracas, Venezuela), July 7. 1963, as the source for the
following: "The Communist fsic ] Deputy Gilberto Azevedo admitted in
the Recife Legislative Assembly that he is the owner of ^6,000 acres
of land in Rio Grande do Norte, where he also owns extensive salt
mines. Azevedo was accused by several Deputies of increasing the
valuation of his lands in order to sell them more advantageously.
He apparently plans the sale of his land to avoid the political embar-
rassment of being called a 1 at if undi sta."

"Barreiros sob o Dominio da Subversao," Diario de Pernambuco
(October 8, 1963), p. 1, photograph caption,

"Camponeses Protestam contra Santana," Diario de Pernambuco
(October 8, 1963), p. 1, photograph caption.

"Central Sindical dos Trabal hadores Rurais de Pernambuco,"
Ultima Hora (Recife), October 11, i$6Z, indicates a denunciation
by a newly formed CSTR of "gunmen at the service of Deputado Fran-
cisco Juliao and Usina Trapiche who cowardly assassinated peasant
Sever i no Amaro of Engenho Rosario, Serinhaem.

175

In the middle of the night by a "student," JosI (Joca) Zeferino da
Silva, and a "peasant," Ant'onio Joaquim de Medeiros — alias "Chapeau
de Couro" a notorious bandit-gunman. The lieutenant escaped in
his underwear, an exchange of shots took place, several of the

"peasants" and "students" inside the Sindicato office were wounded

and finally surrendered.

On the following day, DRT Saraiva intervened in all three
s indicato branches in the region while Juliao's Peasant League was
issuing an ironical protest over alleged DRT "violence" in ap-
prehending Santana.-^

SUPRA, the DRT, and the PCB Collaborate to
Move on the Rural Workers Federation

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Labor, SUPRA, and Governor Arraes,

helped PCB and Liga members take over SORPE-organized sindi catos

in Igarassu and Goiana, north of Recife. With Palmares, Barreiros,

and Jaboatao also under his control in September, the DRT Enoch

Saraiva could manipulate sindicatos with a total of about 60,000

of the 96,500 unionized workers of the coastal sugar zone in an

attempt to replace the leadership of the Federation of Rural Workers

Call ado, Tempo de Arraes. p. 108.

^ibid.

^Ultima Hora (Recife), October 15, 1963.

Governor Arraes furnished Adauto Rodriguez of Goiana with at
least 80 million cruzeiros to do this task. interview with Army
Intelligence Officer in Recife and Goiana, Pernambuco, August, I965,
who saw Rodriguez's name on the receipt and observed his activities
in the 1964-1965 period. See also Hewitt, op. cit . , p. 2h.

176

which SORPE had organized in late 1962 or early 1963 with a Labor
Council of Workers (Conselho Sindical dos Trabal hadores or CONSINTRA).
CONSINTRA officers issued public statements designed to discredit the
Church-sponsored groups while also trying to show — at least in the
communications media — that it could represent the peasants better
than anyone else, i.e., SORPE. A typical statement was a September
11, 1963 "Official Notice" denouncing the "crooked and ant i -patriot i c
employer classes" for their hostility toward Governor Arraes and the
DRT who were seeking to "bring about a respect for the law by every-
one — rich and poor alike."

In turn, although SORPE and the Federation did not mention CON-
SINTRA always by name, they denounced "agitators, professional
vagrants (bandernei ros) and armed assailants" who were seeking to

'"SUPRA e Ministerio do Trabalho Vao Sindical izar 17 Milhoes
de Camponeses." Ultima Hora (Recife), August 19, 1963. A budget of
150 million cruzeiros had been allocated for the initial stages of
the work to be carried on by the National Commission of Rural Syndi-
calization made up of technicians of the Ministry of Labor, SUPRA,
the Ministry of Agriculture, and sindicato leaders belonging to the CGT,

2
"Clelio Lemos visitou Fed. dos Trabal hadores Rurais," Diario

de Pernambuco (August 24, I963).

Clelio Lemos, Director of the Department of Rural Promotion
and Organization of SUPRA paid a call on the Federation prior to a
meeting on the following Tuesday, August 27, in which the CONSINTRA
would choose two persons to coordinate a campaign of organization
of Rural Sindicatos. The article's tone indicated that the Federa-
tion would not participate and that Lemos' visit was a courtesy call.

"Pe. Crespo repele ingenercia do Consintra na Sind. Rural,"
Diario de Pernambuco. and "Coluna Sindical," Ultima Hora (Recife),
August 14, 1963, contained statements by Padre Crespo that "the
peasant ought to be led by peasants themselves and that "city workers
could never find means of integrating themselves into the dynamics of
agrarian problems." His opening phrase reportedly was a trenchant
"Basta de pelegosJ" ("Enough of hired henchmen.'").

•^"Nota Oficial," Jornal do Comercio (Recife), September 11, 1963.

"throw peasant against peasant" and to take over SORPE-sponsored
si ndi catos. If public authorities did not take "proper measures"
against the "invasions" of these non-peasant "outsiders," Federation
affiliated sindicatos would counter violence "in the manner in which
they were provoked."

CONSINTRA faded from the scene as did a short-lived successor,
the Labor Central of Rural Workers (Central Sindical dos Trabal hadores
Rurais or CSTR).^ By December 1963, it was apparent that the SORPE-
sponsored peasant sindicatos and their Federation could not be defeated
or undermined by the traditional methods the DRT's and the Ministry
of Labor were using to break up or control trade unions. At this
point, then, the DRT issued an administrative order (Portar ia)
which divided the Federation of Rural Workers into three Federations
based on the types of workers different Sindicatos were supposed to
represent: Small Proprietors, Sharecroppers (Trabal hadores Autono-
mos Rurais), and Rural Workers — using the argument that three federa-
tions could represent the peasants better than one could.

"Manifesto dos Trabalhadores Rurais de Pernambuco," Diario
de Pernambuco (October 10, 1963).

^"Central Sindical dos Trabalhadores Rurais de Pernambuco,"
Ul t ima Mora (Recife) .

"Aprovados 30 Mil hoes para que Secretaria Atue na Zona da Mata,"
Jornal do Comercio (Recife), November, 19^3 (clipping does not indicate
day), notes that Arraes Secretary for labor affairs, Fausto de Nas-
cimento, was allocated 30 Million cruzeiros to help the CSTR organize
rural workers in the sugar zone.

See also "Um Grande Passo na Organiza9ao do Movimento Campon^s,"
Frente Oper^ria (Rio de Janeiro), November 14, 1963.

^In addition to the "Invasions" and denunciations In the press,
the DRT also refused to deliver the Federations' share of the Imposto
Sindical deducted from rural worker wages as long as the Federation
was under SORPE-inf luence.

178

shortly before this event, the SORPE-sponsored Federation organized
a successful three-day strike of a reported 90 per cent of the rural
workers in the sugar zone on November 18, 1 963 — the first massive
strike of rural workers or peasants in contemporary Pernambuco
history. In the first collective contract ever signed between peasants
and leaders of the Sugar Mill Operators and Plantation Owners Associa-
tions, wages were to be increased 80 per cent, a thirteenth month
bonus paid at the end of the year, work norms were standardized,
strikers were not to be penalized, and were to be paid for the
period of the strike. The agreement ultimately would mean increased
funds through the checkoff system for whomever controlled the Federa-
t ion.

In effect, therefore, creation of three new federations did
several things: (1) it reduced the influence of the non-communist
Church-affiliated peasant groups in the new DRT -dominated Rural Workers
Federation; (2) the sindicato leaders of the Agreste and Sertao, in
turn, could not count on the bargaining and financial support by new

Hewitt, op. ci t . . pp. 30-31, and "Coluna Sindical," Ultima
Hora (Recife) , November 2k, 1 963 , discuss the strike and the un-
precedented collective contract. In addition. Lawyer Rioldo Souto
Maior, counsel of the Ligas and a self-styled promoter of a Federa-
tion of Sugar Workers for Pernambuco, Alagoas, and Paralba, felt the
strike was "going to unite the peasants" for a long period of time.
While the strike had this effect temporarily, it failed to create
a strong sense of unity among both Pernambuco peasants and their
leaders who were deeply divided over ideological and policy objectives.

Sugar Industry and Plantation Ov;ners (Fornecedores) leaders
signed the agreement with the understanding that their compliance
depended upon the agreement of the Sugar and Alcohol Institute (lAA)
to raise the price of sugar. The price of sugar was raised, in
fact, shortly thereafter.

179

Rural Workers Federation leaders who were not disposed to help SORPE-
affiliated sharecropper and small proprietor groups; and (3) the
non-communist peasant groups could not control Pernambuco participation
in the selection of leaders for the National Confederation of Agri-
cultural Workers or CONTAG which was to be formed December 20, 1963,

2
In Rio de Janei ro.

In early ]3Sk, little more of importance took place other than
a series of wildcat strikes on individual plantations over non-pay-
ment of the thirteenth month bonus for 1963. These strikers were
paid after the owners were paid by the lAA for sugar purchases which
it reportedly had not sold.

Si ndi catos in the Agreste and Sertao were dependent principal-
ly on the individual contributions of their members who were mostly
renters, tenant farmers, sharecroppers, of small independent farmers
and did not have a steady income or disposition to contribute dues;
the si ndi catos in the coastal zone, on the other hand, could count
on a guaranteed income each month through the automatic checkoff of
the Imposto Sindical by owners and administrators of the large sugar
plantations and sugar mills.

Negotiations began among various peasant federations in

October, 19^3, for the positions of leadership in the CONTAG.
In return for his "election" as first vice president of CONTAG,
Manoel Goncalo Ferreira, President of the Federation and a Popular
Action (AP) member, agreed to "modify" the directorate of the Per-
nambuco Federation, making Antonio Guedes, the Communist President
of the Igarassu sindicato, First Vice President of the Federation and
JosI Eduardo de Lima Filho of Palmares, Secretary of the Federation.
As Hewitt, op. ci t. . p. 28, points out, Ferreira was not able to
carry out his promise to the Communists. Padre Crespo, who was al-
ways reluctant to collaborate with the Communists, denounced the
proposed bargain to the Presidents of the Sindicatos in the Federa-
tion, who subsequently refused to accept the commitment made by
Ferrei ra.

1 80

, The Multiple-Purposes Served by Real
and Fabricated Incidents of Violence

In both May' and October, 1963, Pernambuco plantation owners
and sugar mill operators presented petitions of protest to Governor
Arraes and President Goulart, respectively, asking them to take ap-
propriate action against peasant leaders whom they alleged were
fomenting labor indiscipline, disharmony, class tension, and jeopard-
izing the future of the agricultural -i ndustrial economy of the state.
Both petitions had the objective of (l) convincing public opinion
that peasant leaders were acting irresponsibly and in a "subversive"
fashion; (2) convincing the federal government that it ought to grant
higher sugar prices and process applications for loans in the Bank
of Brazil which were temporarily frozen until the producers could
show that they would be used for agricultural and not other commercial
or industrial ventures; and (3) embarrassing Arraes in the eyes of many

Wayne S. Smith, an American Foreign Service Officer assigned
to the Consulate General, Recife, In 1963, gave this writer a copy of
the May, 1963, letter. In New York, September 5, 1965.

2
"Produtores Acusam Arraes de proteger os agitadores," 0 Estado

de Sao Paulo (October 23, 1963), and Price, op. cit., pp. 53~5^.

Callado, Tempo de Arraes , pp. 90-92, says he discussed the

complete police file of cases registered from February to October,
1963, with Fausto de Nascimento, the Assistant Secretary of Governor
Arraes, Callado said:

"Some of the typical conclusions of police Investigations"
which he presented Included different interpretation of two of the
incidents reported by the fornecedores and the sugar industry plus
nine other "invasions" or incidents which were not included in the
petitions. "That which the usi nas cal led 'invasion' of the property
by peasants is, In general, a meeting of the Syndicate that at times
presents its complaint to the proprietor ... or a pacific strike
due to the fact that the Usina was not paying its employees accord-
ing to the organized and accepted schedule."

181

supporters that he would not or could not protect them against the
large landowners, their administrators, and political allies.

This writer placed the twenty-one Incidents listed in the May,
1963j petition plus ten others reported between January, 19^3, and
April, 1964, on a map of the state and found they clustered in ten
municipios in two definite areas: (l) between Jaboatao and Vltoria
de Santo Antao — on the central highway due west of Recife; and (2)
in a region composed of Goiana, Tamb^, and Igarassu Municipios north
of Recife. There were no incidents in the Barrel ros or Palmares
sugar zones which were controlled by the DRT and the Communists
respectively. With the exception of Tamb^ , where a small self-
styled group of Trotskyite romantics functioned briefly, Cid Sam-
paio and Arraes won a majority of the vote in these ten muni ci pios
in 1958 and 1962, respectively. in almost every case where this
writer could determine ownership of a plantation or sugar mill,
the owners were quite active in state and federal politics. For
example, the following politicians and their known I965 agricultural
properties are listed with an asterisk if their property was reported
as being "invaded" in 1963 or 1964:

Antonio Martins do Albuquerque, a former Federal Senator-Usi nas
Jaboatao" and Bui hoes

Alarico Bezerra, a former State Secretary of Public Security-
Engenho Serra

' Call ado. Tempo de Arraes. pp. 104-106, and Frente Opergria
(September 1 and I6, 1963), discuss this group, one of whose
leaders, a Sao Paulo printing trade worker, Paulo Roberto Pinto,
was killed in an ambush organized by Oscar Veloso and others on
Engenho Oriente.

182

Armando Q.ueiroz Monteiro, a PSD Federal Deputy In the late 1950's
third-ranking candidate for Governor in 1962 — Usinas Cucau"
and Aripibabe, and the Minister of Agriculture in 1961 or
I962J

JosI Lopes Siqueira, a former Deputy - Usinas Dom Jesus'-' Estre-
liana"" and Cachoeira.2

In seventeen out of the thirty-one cases, the Fornecedor or
Usineiro had not reported the incident to the local or the state
police, or pursued any further course of action- In eleven cases,
the workers went on strike because the employer had not paid back
wages or the thirteenth month salary bonus; in three cases they
were on strike to have their wages raised from 500 cruzeiros per
day (about $ .60 In late I963) to 600 or 700 cruzeiros (U.S.$ .70-
.75 in late I963). In two cases, plantation owners or their admin-
istrators attempted to drive away tenants by allowing cattle and
horses to pasture In cultivated fields; when the peasants tried
to remove the animals, the owners cried that the peasants were
trying to "slaughter the animals." A March 11 Incident on the Usina
Jaboatao Involving dismissal of a field foreman ("substitution for
administrative reasons") was reported on two different Usina Planta-
tions; In one Instance, a letter of Inquiry on the matter from the
President of the SIndicato was re-Interpreted by the authors of the
letters as "direct interference in plantation management."

Q.ueIroz Monteiro also known as Armando Monteiro Fllho was
elected to the Federal Senate in October, 1966, after replacing
MDB Incumbent Senator Barros de Carvalho who died In September, 1966.

Callado, op. cl t . . pp. 91 "92, discusses the killing by Lopes

Siqueira and several gunmen of at least five unarmed Usina Estreliana
peasants who had gone to him to ask for payment of the thirteenth
month bonus for 1962.

183

In some cases it is quite probable that rural workers met
plantation owners or their administrators with their sugar scythes
(f oi ces) in hand in order to give an appearance of determination and —
since all of the reported cases took place during the harvest season —
of their willingness to work. But prior to examining the post-April,
1964, structured use of violence in Pernambuco and the Northeast, it
is useful to examine briefly the rural si ndicato movements in Alagoas,
Parafba, Ceara, Maranhao, and Piaut.

The Rural Sindicato Movement in Alagoas
In Alagoas, a Rural Orientation Service (Servi90 de Orienta9ao
Rural de Alagoas or SORAL) was established by Archbishop Dom Adelmo
Machado on the SAR and SORPE models. Leadership and literacy training
and sindicato organization courses were sponsored on much the same
basis as in Pernambuco and Rio Grande do Norte. Although SORAL had
considerable success in organizing thirty-eight rural sindicatos —
compared to four PCB-organized rural groups — only two SORAL sindi-
catos were given recognition by the Ministry of Labor prior to the
April 1964 Revolution — one in Rio Largo, recognized August 27, 1963,
and one in the state capital of Macei6, recognized September 11,
1963. One Federation of Rural Workers of approximately thirty
sindicatos was formed in sugar and rice producing municipios along
the coast; however, the Federation of sharecroppers and renters in
the Agreste region around Palmeira dos Indios has been inactive since
the Revolution. Neither was recognized by the Ministry of Labor as
of August, 1965.

^These forty-two sindicatos covered seventy-one of the 102 muni
cipios In the state.

184

SORAL also tried to organize cooperatives among the peasants
but most of these attempts were failures because of political inter-
ference from large landowners who perceived threats to their com-
mercial and political dominance.'

Unlike the situation in Pernambuco, the DRT, Milton Loureiro,
and the SUPRA Delegate, Dr. Jose Clovis de Andrade, were apparently
much friendlier to the interest of the Rural Landowner Federation

(FORAL) headed by "Major" Alba and the Sugar Mill Operators Associa-

2
tion than to the peasant si ndicatos or SORAL.

Several small strikes were organized against landowners who did

not observe the minimum wage or the thirteenth month bonus provisions

of the CLT or ETR but no massive strike or collective contract was

signed although wage levels were lower and the lAA paid the same price

to Alagoas sugar producers as it did to those in Pernambuco.^

"A Lesson Learned," Newsweek (January 13, 1964), p. 37, dis-
cusses the harassment of Colonia Pindorama, near Penedo, organized
by Swiss-born Rene Bertholet and aided by Penedo Bishop Jose Ter-
ceiro de Souza who was influential with Governor Luiz Cavalcanti, a
long-term political opponent of Luis Ribeiro Coutinho who sought to
take over the colonization project.

A PC do B view of the Alagoas situation in "Governo Ibadiano
de Alagoas Impede a Si ndi cal iza9ao," Classe Operaria (November 1,
1963), charged Governor Cavalcanti with impeding rural unions.

interview with a Priest in Maceld, Alagoas, July I6, 1965,
who was closely associated with the sindicato and cooperative move-
ment in the state.

Major Alba in fact helped organize several company-type
sindicatos of sugar mill and plantation workers which have remained
under his control. JosI Benedito, named Interventor in the Federa-
tion of Rural Workers, is considered by some Alagoas and outside
peasant leaders as a "loafer" who has been told to "leave things as
they are.

^Ibid.

181

The Parai'ba Rural Sindicato Movement
The Church-sponsored peasant sindicato movement in Parafba also
had a different history than any of the other Northeast states dis-
cussed up to this point for several reasons:

1. The Church in the coastal zone was under the direction of
an aged and ailing Archbishop who was not as committed to the idea
of the Church's being involved in social or political action as
Archbishop Coelho of Recife, Pernambuco, nor the Bishops of Campina
Grande (Agreste) and Cajazeiras (Sertao) of Paraiba who strongly
supported the JAC and MEB rural s i nd i cato/cooperat i ve programs in their
dioceses. in fact, a catalytic organizing institution similar to
SAR, SORPE, or SORAL, was never created; the Workers' Circle movement
being about the only coordinating institution available for priests
and laymen in the state.

2. The social infrastructure of the state was underdeveloped.
Peasant sindi cato leaders wanted to carry out programs with as little
outside financial, organization, or priestly help as possible but did
not have the religious fraternities (cof radias) . rural schoolteachers,
or other organized groups to draw upon as a source of peasant or small

town middle-class leadership.^

^The Bishop of Patos in the Agreste-Sertao region was not
interested in any of these programs.

Interviews with several JAC leaders from Paraiba at Ita-
parica, Bahia, May 15-19, 1965, and with Sindicato and Federation
leaders in Joao Pessoa, June 3, 19-20, failed to turn up one instance
of someone who lived in a rural area with a rural primary school, a
rural recreation or soccer club, a cof radia. or even the voluntary
cooperative activities of rural persons known as "mutiral" or "de
junta" whereby peasants built houses or did farm work on a reciprocal
basi s.

186

^-'m^^'^"b

E610NAL
3:A>S:5ll;iffi D 1 V I S A 0 A D M I N I ST R AT 1 VA ;",;M|^.

ESTADO DA
Situofflo vigente em 1'-IX'1960

,...> -.

Figure 28- --Locat ion of Peasant Sindicatos in Eastern Parafba,

187

3. The Peasant Leagues associated with Assis Lemos were relatively
successful in providing various benefits to many peasants who might
have joined the Church-sponsored s 1 ndi catos for material reasons.

in 1962 alone, eight si ndi catos , covering twenty-three muni -
ci pios in the Agreste and one s i nd i cato in the deep sert3o covering
two municipios were recognized by the Ministry of Labor. In 1963
and early 196^, not one additional rural si ndicato in ParaTba was
given legal status — a probable indication that Assis Lemos and his
Peasant League groups, as well as landowner groups were successful in
opposing the application of Church-sponsored groups at the state DRT
and Ministry of Labor levels. With the exception of Marl, which
lies partially in the coastal zone, not one rural si ndi cato was
recognized in the coastal or Mata zone of Paraiba prior to I965.

R u r a ISIndi c a tos in Ceara

in i960, Ceara had more Rural Associations, more Religious As-
sociations, more schools supported by the munici pio government than
any other state in North or Northeast Brazil. It also had more
voluntary associations and secondary or middle schools than any other

'supra, "Sindicatos Rurais, Rela9ao Organizada por Oton Monteiro
de Deus," pp. 2-3-

The success of three sindicatos (1965) and one cooperative in
the deep Sertao is apparently due to the dynamic leadership of a
parish priest in Catolet da Rocha, also the seat of a diocese.

Although Sindicatos were organized In Sape, Santa Rita, Alagoa
Grande, and Mamanguape In 1962, they did not gain recognition until
after the April, 1964, Revolution. In Mamanguape, there was al-
legedly a collusion between the Liga and sugar mills in the Munlcipio
to keep out a peasant s Indi cato sponsored by a local priest (conversa-
tions with Federation leaders and a DRT employee, Joao Pessoa, June
19, 1965).

188

\\ ; '■■■:.l

DIVISAO REGIONAL

;.;1(1 WVISAO ADMINISTRATIVA
ESTADO DO

9ltM»M<rtg«nla tm r-IX-SeO

1 1- < .-r . t .t.<.«--.;|:<

Figure 29. --Locat i on of Peasant Sindicatos in CearS.

18^

state in the region except Pernambuco. The Municipio of Crato in
the South, in I960, for example, had 231 primary schools (9,570
pupils), twelve middle schools (1,842 students and 171 teachers),
and two University Branches (19^ students and kj professors), for
its 29,308 urban and 30,156 rural inhabitants. Its economy was a
diversified one of industry, livestock, and agriculture — 1963 agri-
cultural production was valued at U.S.$ 600,000, being divided among
bananas (22 per cent), mandioca flour (17 per cent), cotton (12 per
cent), sugar (9 per cent), oranges (7 per cent), rice (6 per cent),
and others (27 per cent). There was also a relatively strong Workers
Circle movement in several regions on which a peasant movement could
be built. In short, the state had a social and educational infra-
structure which offered opportunities for local leadership to develop
among rural and small town inhabitants.

In 1961, the Archbishop of Fortaleza and the Bishops of Crato
and Iguatu agreed to sponsor MEB, JAC, and other rural development
programs. By May 13, 1962, two s i ndicatos covering twelve municipios
were recognized at the historic Itabuna Congress; two weeks later,

three more si ndicatos covering fourteen other municipios were also

3
recognized.

"Crato, Cear5," a pamphlet issued by the I BGE-Consel ho Nacional
de Estatistica, March, 1 965 , p. 13-

Ibid. . p. 6. Agriculture was not highly developed: in I960,
the agricultural work force of 9>l67 persons owned only six tractors
and twelve steel plows,'

^"Carta de Principles," Jornal do Brasil (May I8, 1962), p. k.

A Federation of Sharecroppers and Small Farmers (FALTAC) was
formed December 17, 1963, by twenty-two s indicatos. In February,

1964, the CearS Federation reportedly counted upon 25,000 members

... 2
I n s ixty mun i ci pios.

The reader will notice on Figure 29 that the overwhelming

majority of Ceara' si ndicatos are located in the Crate or Cariri

region in the South. Although there Is insufficient published material

to indicate the attitudes of plantation or cattle owners, the DRT,-^

or the Governor, there is an interesting correlation between the

absence of Sindicatos in 1964 and a high density of nineteenth

century slave-owning sugar plantations with many slaves, few of which

were located in the southern Cariri region. (See Table 9.)

"ATO," December 17, 1963, signed by representatives of twenty
one sindicatos, shown this writer by Luis Ernani Torres, Executive
Secretary of the CONTAG, August 19,, 1965. Torres was a former Workers
Circle Instructor from South Ceara.

2
Price, op. ci t . , p. Sk, indicates FALTAC leaders merged their

organization with the ULTAB organization but gives no dates or specifics.

However, during the CONTAG elections of December, 1963, Jose Leandro

Bezerra da Costa was named Second Vice President of the CONTAG. It Is

quite possible that Bezerra da Costa and Lindolfo Silva bargained

among themselves to bring about FALTAC entry into ULTAB in return for

Bezerra da Costa's election to the CONTAG directory.

"Padre Crespo em Fortaleza," 0 Estado (Fortaleza), July 10,

1965, and "Prepara^ao de Operarlos para o SIndicalismo Autentico,"

Unl tar lo (Fortaleza), September 20, 1964, Indicate that Padre Crespo

and Torres were visiting the state to select persons for leadership

training courses and to establish links with SORPE and the CNCO.

Price, op. ci t . , p. 64, cites Jornal do Brasll (February 25,
1964), as the source for a statement by the DRT that there was little
opposition to the s Indicate movement from large landowners because
"we [the DRT] direct our protests at a legal level.

On the other hand, an individual who has discussed sindicato
matters closely with Ceara Individuals told this writer that there
was little activity at the state level since 1964, but that most of
the organizational work was taking place in the Crato and iguatu
region.

191

TABLE 9

SUGAR ENGENHOS WITH SLAVES IN I88I AND RURAL
SINDICATOS IN CEARA, DECEMBER 1963

Engenhos per Municipios in Municipios Per Cent

Municipio (1881)'

Muni ci pios

i n

Munici pios

1963 with

same

with Peasant

Names as in

1881

Sindicatos
1963''

0-99 10 5 50

100-199 13 3 23

200-299 ^ GO

3OO-399C 2 1 50

400-499 0 0 0

Over 500"^ 4 2 SO

33 11 33

^Djacir Menezes, 0 Outre Nordeste, Formacao Social do Nordeste
(Rio de Janeiro: LIvraria Jose Olympic Editora, 1937), PP- 144-145,
indicates there were 24,463 slaves on 7,436 engenhos in the state in
1881. In 1851 there were 28,546 slaves, but no indication of the number
of engenhos owning slaves.

"Ato," December 17, 1963, signed by representatives of twenty-
one Municipios forming the FALTAC, shown this writer by Luis Ernani
Torres, Rio de Janeiro, August 19, 1965-

^Crato, one of the two municipios in this grouft had 363 engenhos
with 644 slaves in I88I or 1.7 slaves per engenho compared to the state
wide average of 3-3 slaves per engenho.

Milagres, one of the four Municipios in this group had 645
engenhos with only 463 slaves, or .7 slaves per engenho, compared to
the statewide average of 3.3 slaves per engenho.

192

Rural Sindicatos in Maranhao and Piauf
Few favorable conditions for the formation of rural s 1 ndicatos
have existed in these two large states whose political sub-systems
have been dominated by a few, old landowning families. Although
the Archbishops in both states have supported the rural development
programs of MEB, JAC, and SUDENE, both states also have been among
the most needy in terms of priests available to staff parishes — in
fact, the southern halves of both states have been organized into Mis-
sionary Prelacies, administrative units directly responsible to Rome,

3
without any Bishops.

Although many sindicatos of rural workers, autonomous workers,

and small proprietors were created in both states before April 196^,

most of them were created only on paper or had no continuing life

If
after the initial organizational meetings.

Interviews with Vicente Costa of Sao Vicente Fereira and Sao
Joao Batista, Maranhao, and Sebastiao Aloe Nepomuceno, Amarante,
Piauf, at the JAC Council Meeting, Itaperica, Bahia, May 15-16,
1965; also Edson Vigal , newspaperman from Sao Luis, Maranhao, in
Sao Paulo, November 27, 1964.

"A Campanha Eleitoral de 1958 no Piauf," Revista Brasileira
de Estudos Politicos, No. 8 (April, I96O), pp. 33-3^, notes only one
member of the State Assembly — a stevedore active in a Sindicato and
the PTB--was not linked by family or political ties to the great
landed proprietors.

Dom Avelar Brandao of Teresina, PiauT, formerly Bishop at
Petrol ina, Pernambuco for ten years, was one of the more active
Bishops pushing rural development and change.

^Frank Bonilla, "A Franciscan Bishopric in the Amazon," is a good
discussion of the Prelacy of Santarem which extends over 210,000 square
miles in neighboring Para State, as well as the staffing problems of
the 30 Prelacies in Brazil.

4
For example, of the forty-five rural sindicatos reportedly

organized in Maranhao prior to April, 1964, forty-two were abolished

in early 1965; in Piaui, fifty-four of the eighty-seven peasant

195

Effects of the Revolution on Northeast
Peasant Sindicatos

The fall of the Goulart Government was the signal for countless
reprisals by landowners and sugar mill operators against peasants and
their allies who participated in the peasant movement prior to April,
1964. in Pernambuco and Alagoas, landowners ignored collective
bargaining contracts. In many states, peasant leaders and MEB lit-
eracy workers were arrested, expelled from their land or jobs, some-

times killed, and otherwise harassed by landowners who circulated

3
"black lists" of peasant activists. In Alagoas, Archbishop Dom

Adelmo Machado reduced his interest in the Soral program. In Paraiba,
a majority of the priests at the municipio level decided to act only
in an indirect advisory capacity and to avoid acting in direct leader-
ship roles. In Pernambuco and Rio Grande do Norte, on the other hand,
several Bishops and priests spoke out in defense of the peasant movement.

sindicatos "organized" had their recognition papers cancelled. See
"Governo fecho os sindicatos de peleguismo," Tribuna da Imprensa (Rio
de Janeiro), March 30, 1965.

Professor Assis Lemos was fired from his position in the Faculty
of Economic Science at Areia.

"Sap$, lembran9a sangrenta de uma epoca de sobreasal tos ," Jornal
do Brasl 1 (April 7, 1965), p. 22, indicates that Sape peasant leaders
Pedro Fazendeiro (Secretary) and Joao Alberto (Orator) were found
dead and mutilated September 9, 1965, on the highway between Campina
Grande, Paraiba, and Caruaru, Pernambuco, two days after being
reportedly released from prison by military authorities.

3|n Alagoas, Sugar Mill Operators labelled the President of the
Federation of Sharecroppers (Trabal hadores Autonomos) as a "Communist"
and attempted to pursue him wherever he went.

In Paraiba, the parish priest of Pirirituba fled to Joao Pessoa
in peasant clothing to escape landowner retaliation for his support
of the Church-affiliated sindicato.

19!f

O Slt-JDiCATO DA INDXJSTRL?. DO AQXJCAIi, KO ESTADO DE PERNAM-
BUCO, a ASSOCIAgAO DOS FORNECEDORES DE CANA DE PERN/>JvIBUCO,
a So'ciEDADE AUXILIADOKA DE AGRICULTURA DS PERNA^r3UCO e
a SINDICATO DOS EMPREGADORES NA LAVOURA DE CANA DE PERNAM-
BUCO, em face do momento historico de tamanha reievancia que atravessa o
BiasU, e pi-incipaimente Pernambuco, sentem-se no dever de dirigir aos indus-
triais do agucar, fornensdores de cana e dos demais asricultores do Estado, ex-
pressando o pensamento dessas entidades de classe, qual seja a ficl obssrvancia
das tabelas que foram antsriorraente elaboradas no Palaoio do Governo e o
ac5rdo salarial homologado na Delegacia do Trabalho, na presenca do ex-Mi-
nistro Amauri Silva, em data de 20 de novembro de 1963, bem como os acordos
particulares que alguns estabeleceram, inclusive o integral c-oniprimento dos
novos niveis salariais decretadcs em 24 de fevareiro p. passado.

SoUcitam ainda de seus associados o ma:dmo de compreensao para que
nao haia a menor duvida d^ que nos prevalecamos deste angustioso momento
da vida brasileira para exteriorizar recalques ou sentimentos menos nobrss, co-
laborando, assim, com as iutoridades hoje constituidas.

Apeiam oara todos trabalhadores e empregadores da lavoura ea:. geral
para que cumpram suas obrigagoes dentro de um clima de ordem e respeito a
fim de que as relacoes entre patroes e empregados sejam mantidaa de acordo
cord 0 espirito da Lei.

As entidades signatdrias da presente estao dispostas a manter os memo-
res entendimentos com os orgaos sindicais dos trabalhadores legalmente cons-
tiluidos e reconhecidos, e que. dirigidos por seus autenticos representantes pos-
sibilitem urn verdadeiro clima de paz. harmonia e trabalho em nosso Ss.ado.

RECIFE, 3 de abrii de 1964.

SiNDICATO DA IND^STICIA DO AgtJCAS NO ESTABO DE PERNAMSBCO

Kenato Brito Bczerra fie Melo — Presidente
S0CIED4DE ACXiLIABOSA DA AGKiCULTUBA DE PERNAMBUCO

Ernesto Goii?alves Peveira Lima. — Presidente
ASSOCL'v.gAO DOS FORNECEDOKES DE CANA BS PERNAIVIBUCO

Francisco Falcao — Presidente
SINDICAXO DOS EJIPRSGADOBES NA LAVOURA DE CANA DE PERNAftlBUCO

Francisco Falcao — Presidente

195

In all of these states, the top personnel of the Regional Labor
Delegacies of the Ministry of Labor were changed; most of the new
DRT's were not only more friendly to the large landowner interest
groups, but also assumed an attitude of hostility to many of the
Church-sponsored groups which had been non-communist all along.
More important, however, was the decision of Fourth Army officers
to enter into a much greater and continuous involvement in peasant-
landowner relations. This role began immediately on April 1 and
April 3, 196^, when Fourth Army Officers circulated statements that

rural sindicatos were not to be closed and were to be allowed to

2
function normally. However, these and other statements about the

continued validity of the Pernambuco collective contract of November

3
1963, were not always heeded by local landowners or officials who

"Brazil Cleanup Turns to Church," New York Times (April 23, ■
1 96A-) , p. 12:1, is one of the first newspaper articles describing
the increased attention military officers were to pay to Catholic
Action, MEB, and peasant sindicato activities.

^"Nota Oficial," Diario de Pernambuco (April I, 196^), and
"Nota Oficial," April 3, 1964, distributed in leaflet form throughout
the state, signed by Renato Brito Bezerra de Melo, President of the
Sugar Mill Operators Sindicato; Ernesto Gon9alves Pereira Lima,
President of the Agricultural Auxiliary Aid Society; Francisco
Falcao, President of the Sugar Plantation Owners Association and the
Sindicato of Sugar Cane Employers, which is included on the next page.

•'"Cumprir a Lei Sera Grande," Jornal do Comercio (Recife), June
21, \SSk, notes that Colonel Antonio Bandeira, head of the intelligence
Section of the Fourth Army, issued a statement that the Fourth Army,
now headed by General Antonio Carlos Muraci "understood the seriousness
of Pernambuco's social problems and recommended observance of existing
legal and social legislation with respect to sindicatos and rural
workers." Muracy was a member of the "Sorbonne Group of Technocrats"
described by Rowe in "Revolution or Counter-revolution in Brazil,"
while his predecessor Justino Alves Bastos had been a member of the
"Gorilla" or "hard-line" ant i -communi st group suspicious of all
social reforms.

196

sought a return to the status quo ante 1955 and the rule of the power-
ful as opposed to a rule of law.

In Pernambuco, Alagoas, and other states, there were changes in
the leadership of the Federations as Popular Action or MEB-af f i 1 i ated

leaders resigned their position and non-communist members of the

Directories assumed their offices. In Pernambuco, Padre Antonio Melo

assumed an unofficial position as advisor to the DRT, recommending
various university students, engenho administrators, and peasants who
were his followers to assume the leadership of approximately one-third
of the sindicatos in the sugar zone.-^ There were no interventions in
the aqreste or sertao of any North or Northeast states so far as this
writer knows.

In Pernambuco, which has been the focal point of rural unrest
in the North and Northeast since 1955, a rather institutionalized
process of peasant-landowner relations appears to have developed since
the April 196^ intervention by the Military. Demands may be generated
by either the peasants, the landowners, or the leaders of both groups,
e.g., payment of back wages, improved housing, arbitrary changes in

In August, 1965, this writer visited a Fourth Army Officer in
Goiana who had just arrested and jailed a local landowner for shoot-
ing a peasant who had complained about the former's attempt to re-
impose pre-1964 work norms on his plantation.

"Trabal hadores Rurais Tem Nova Diretoria e Tra9am Alguns
Pianos," Jornal do Comercio (May 13, 1964).

■^Interview with the DRT Haroldo Furtado Veloso, Recife,
Pernambuco, June k, 1965.

Although Brazilian labor law calls for elections after 90 days
of intervention, many sindicatos in the sugar zone did not elect new
officers until the last quarter of 1965 — more than a year and a half
1 ater.

197

land tenure arrangements, or non-payment of the thirteenth month
bonus. In some cases, the articulated demand may not be the real

demand that the group is interested in but rather a convenient start-

ing point. Both sides then attempt to bring in munici pio or state

3
authorities, Church officials, and associ at ional interest groups

into the conflict. In such conflicts, the Pernmabuco, Rio Grande do

On June 29, 1965, this writer attended a testimonial dinner for
Padre Melo in Cabo, Pernambuco, in which a group of Sindicato leaders
led by Amaro Jose Bandeira, I nterventor-Pres i dent of the -Governi ng
Junta of Palmares threatened to call a strike even before the sugar
harvest had begun in order to force compliance with the November,
196^+, collective contract, especially the provisions governing payment
of the thirteenth month wage for 196^, which was still not paid in
many areas as well as the provisions governing work norms in the
fields. Differences developed between Padre Crespo and Melo over the
utility of such a strike at a time when many thousands of rural workers
were out of work.

"Padre: Usineiros do Nordeste Preparam Greve de Operarios,"
Ultima Hora (Rio de Janeiro), August 20, 19^5, contains a statement
by Padre Crespo that fifty-six sugar mills in the Northeast were en-
couraging their workers to strike in order to pressure the Federal
Government to continue subsidizing the industry — a plan which had
the support of the DRT, State Governor Paulo Guerra — a landowner him-
self, and Padre Melo. Hitherto, the Castelo Branco government said
it was going to refuse to continue agricultural loans to those sugar
plantation owners or sugar mills who diverted these loans to other
business enterprises or to pay off debts incurred by their other
business enterprises.

^In August, 1965, Recife newspapers gave considerable coverage
to the visit of Archbishop Dom Geraldo de Proen9a Sigaud of Diaman-
tina, Minas Gerais (co-Author of Reforma AgrSrIa, Questao de Con-
cPencia) to tomato and fruit grower-industrialist Moacyr de Brito
Freitas in Pesqueira. Practically no coverage was given to conflicts
over prices paid for tomatoes by the Fabrica Peixe and the support
of local Priest Jos$ Marfa for the Sindicato of Small Farmers. In
addition, newspaper accounts, which this writer saw, did not indicate
that the local Bishop or Padre Jos^ Marfa were included among those
attending a special luncheon or dinner held in the Archbishop's name by
Freitas or that the visiting Archbishop even called upon the local
Bishop.'

Norte, and Ceara Rural Worker Federations appear to have an obvious
advantage over the Parafba and Alagoas Federations: the latter are
hampered by their ideological insistence on keeping sindicato and
federation control in the hands of peasants and not sharing it with
priests. The peasant federations attempt to influence the DRT to
issue an order in favor of the member, the si ndicato. or the class
in general. The landowners, if they cannot localize a conflict, at-
tempt to bring in one of the autonomous Institutos or a friendly Ministry
wi th whom they have a c1 ientela or parentel a re 1 at ion, general ly Agri-
culture, industry and Commerce, or the Bank of Brazil. Of course,
while this is going on, both groups have tried to establish and
maintain friendly clientele relationships with other federal agencies,
state departments, communications media, state and federal deputies,
and local or regional military commanders.

if violence or work stoppages by the rural workers seem unlikely,
the DRT will issue a modest resolution or order (portari a) , which
awards them much less than they wanted which is probably close to
what the landowners were willing to grant. if violence seems most
likely and on a wide-scale through a region-wide strike vote over
non-payment of the thirteenth month bonus or some other legally
required benefit, the DRT will issue an order which awards the

On August 8, 1965, workers in eight Municipios under Padre
Melo's influence voted 14, 066 to twenty-four to strike to resolve '
the issue of minimum wage and thirteenth month payments; however,
workers in nine other municipios either did not vote in favor of
a strike or in fact refused to show up in large enough numbers so
that a quorum could be considered to have appeared. "Falta de duorum
Pode Adiar Greve no Campo," Diario da Noite (Recife), August 10,
1965, and "Nove Sindicatos Rurais Mao Tlveram Q.uorum para deflagar
Greve," Jornal do Comercio (August 10, I965), indicated the strike

199
rural workers through the Federation a much more substantial increase
than they thought they probably would get and one which the landowners
or sugar mills are willing to grant if they can obtain higher minimum
prices for their crops, easier bank financing, or greater government
purchases of their products. If, however, either side has been able
to bring in other power-contenders through the use of plantation-
owned or Church-owned radio stations, newspapers, or other communica-
tions media,' the side which gains the least advantage by the expan-
sion of the conflict will try to bring in the President or his close

2
advisers. In the meanwhile, peripheral threats of law suits or actual

cases are filed against various participants. If serious social

vote of the Sindicatos in favor of a strike, but published no totals
for those sindicatos in which a quorum was lacking.

'Senator Pessoa de Q.ueiroz's position as principal stockholder
in Jornal do Comercio, two radio stations, and a television station
obviously gives the large landowners and sugar mill operators an edge
over the peasant federations of the Northeast, in issues affecting
just these two interests. Diario da Manha was the principal organ
of the Fornecedores. Diario de Pernambuco supported the landowners
and sugar industrialists, but also gave space to Padres Crespo or
Melo who always provided suitable phrases good for headlines.

During the week of June 9. '965, Amaro JosI Bandeira, Inter-
ventor-Pres ident of Palmares, presented the "plight of the Pernambuco
peasants" in an interview with President Castelo Branco. One or two
Recife newspapers also reported that Bandeira had also reported on the
"plight of the sugar industry," emphasizing its need for Banco do
Brasil Toans and an increase in sugar prices.'

"1 nterpel a9ao Judicial da DRT na Justi9a contra Padre Crespo,"
Jornal do Comercio (September 12, 1965). indicates a threat by the
DRT Furtado Veloso he would bring a libel suit against Padre Crespo,
who was calling for free elections in rural sindicatos to remove the
interventors named by various DRT's and also trying to influence the DRT
Furtado Veloso to release funds to the Federation which Sindicatos had
collected under the Impbsto Sindical.

"Delegado do Trabalho interpela Padre Crespo sobre acussacbes ,"
Jornal do Comercio (September 17. 1965). indicates Furtado Veloso had
retained Boris Trinidade, one of the Northeast's best criminal law-
yers, to take a deposition with respect to statements by Crespo that
the DRT ought to resign if he felt he did not have the authority to

5ome

200

disruption is threatened as in early ISGk, November ]9Gk, or August-
September 1965, Army Commanders will also call in the leaders of
the contending groups and give participants a maximum period in which
to resolve their difficulties. If the principal participants and
their allies cannot resolve these differences, then the military com-
manders or the President, with their advisers, will establish the
general guidelines and perhaps even particular details of a general
agreement which will be signed in public with the presence of S(
high dignitary such as the Minister of Labor or the President.

order the elections or turn the funds over to the Federation. In
the long run, nothing came of these threats.

Various Pernambuco Sindicato presidents told this writer
that Colonel Antonio Bandeira asked them to come in at least once
a month to inform him of the socio-political situation in their
Muni cl pio.

In October, 1965, President Castelo Branco discussed the agri-
cultural situation of the Northeast with several prominent planta-
tion and sugar mill owners. When one us I nei ro protested that he could
not compete with producers in ParanS and Sao Paulo, Castelo Branco is
reported to have broken in abruptly and demanded why the us I nei ro
didn't sell one of his usinas and use the money to rationalize the
operations of the remainder and thus produce sugar more efficiently.
There was no recorded answer from the usinei ro--and no mills have
been sold in the last three years.

2
"Sussekind Convoca As Pressas Haroldo, Padre Melo e Federa^ao

Rural," Jornal do Comercio (Recife), September I6, 1965, Indicates

that Labor Minister Sussekind asked DRT Furtado Veloso, Padre Melo,

and Rural Worker Federation leaders to come to Rio de Janeiro to

discuss a means of avoiding a strike during the September sugar cane

harvest.

"Sussekind Descre em Greve Rural, DIz Q,ue Acordo i Bom e A^ucar
Nao Subira," DIario de Pernambuco (September 25, 1965), and "Aproxima-
930 dos Sindicatos com a Federal Rural, DRT Patrocina," DIario de
Pernambuco (September 28, 1965), describe the new collective
contract which was signed in President Castelo Branco's presence in
Recife, September 25, 1965.

Probably the most Important aspect of this contract was a recog-
nition by the large landowners and sugar mills of their obligation to
provide land to each worker with more than one year's employment in
their service for the production of subsistence crops and livestock
near their residence.

201

Violence is used in differing amounts by all of the principal
actors without any sense of guilt, although leaders will attempt to
justify to their own followers the use of violence through exclusive,
partisan communications channels or to publicly "protest the immoral
use of violence" by their opponents.

Peasant Sindicato Use of Welfare Service
to influence Peasant Attitudes

in the case of the peasant sindicatos of Pernambuco and Rio
Grande do Norte, their ability to operate and staff their own consumer-
cooperatives ( a species of grocery and drug store), medical and dental
clinics, jeep or ambulance services for pregnant wives and the sick,
and the ability to i nvoi<e religious participation with its overtones
of divine sanctions— obviously provides many peasants with needed
welfare services but it also enables the leaders to maintain a
greater degree of control over the attitude formations and loyal-
ties of members. In Parafba and Alagoas, landowners are much more
able to control the flow of information to peasant renters, tenants,
and day laborers because the Peasant Federation and its member s in-
dicatos are not able to provide the material or welfare benefits

' See Truman, op. ci t. . pp. 157-178 and 203-217, and Seymour
Lipset, op, ci t. . pp. 83-90 and 203-217. for theoretical models and
discussion of the problems of group cohesion, cross-pressures and
attitude formations in political conflict.

See Payne, op. ci t . , p, 368, for his comments on the links
of the Aprista and other Peruvian parties with labor, students, and
professional groups, especially the role of party newspapers.

La Palombara, op. ci t . . pp. 173-198, discusses the flow of
information to members of Italian interest groups and clientele but
does not discuss cross-pressures on attitude formation possibly be-
cause of the ideological cleavages of so many groups who are not
predisposed to engage in bargaining compromise.

202

provided by the landowners or by the Pernambuco and Rio Grande do
Norte peasant groups. in this situation, the attitudes of the DRT's
in Alagoas, Parafba, and Rio Grande do Norte are quite understandable.
The social and political pressures on them to develop clientele rela-
tionships with the Peasant Federations are much weaker than those of
the Rural Federations or Federations of Sugar and Tobacco Growers and
individual plantation or us i nei ro-pol i t i cians. in addition, the DRT
has numerous urban labor management problems for which he has
clientele relationships — and therefore, it is a positive advantage
for him not to be involved in rural conflicts which are much more
difficult to influence for the reasons discussed in Chapter 11,
especially the lack of communication and enforcement facilities.

Summary
in the North and Northeast, where there is a population surplus,
severe unemployment for many peasants between agricultural harvests,
and under -employment for most peasants, economic strikes would, in
most cases, be undermined by the use of strike-breakers or replace-
ments as happened in Pernambuco in 1963~1964. To demand that Brazilian

A typical tactic of landowners, including Moacyr de Brito
Freitas, is to dismiss any of their rural workers or tenants who are
known to participate in rural sindicatos or their consumer cooperatives,
On July 20, 196 , this writer met with the President of the Rural Work-
ers Sindicato in Pesqueira and arranged to visit his small farm in the
country later in the afternoon. The only other persons present were
Miss Cynthia Hewitt and three tenant farmers or sharecroppers who came
into the Sindicato offices toward the end of our conversation to report
on some difficulties with Freitas and other landowners. Within two
hours, while this writer and Miss Hewitt were having lunch with
Freitas, he casually remarked he knew i was going to visit the farm
of the Sindicato president in the afternoon.

203

peasants use only collective bargaining and lobbying techniques and to
refrain from the several tactics of violence — when their employers or
landowners are not similarly restrained and command much larger finan-
cial resources — is tantamount to urging dissolution of the peasant
movements in the regions. Higher wages, lower consumer prices, work
norms which are easier to complete, and greater peasant participation
in policy-making are found in Pernambuco and not in neighboring
Alagoas or Paraiba because Pernambuco peasant groups have success-
fully mobilized pressure at various points in the hierarchy of govern-
mental processes to achieve these goals. Until peasant sindicatos or
Federations in other states in the region are able to organize a power-
capability similar to that of Pernambuco — irrespective of the structure
by which this is done — they will receive fewer benefits from the
political and economic sub-systems of the region.

The next chapter will examine the Southern states, including
the varied use of violence and other techniques of access.

CHAPTER Vi

CHANGES IN THE POLITICAL PARTICIPATION OF

SMALL FARMERS AND RURAL WORKERS
IN THE SOUTH

l-ntroduct ion
In Chapter II, this writer suggested that the structure and func-
tioning of the political sub-systems of such Southern states as Rio
Grande do Sul , Paran^, and Sao Paulo, developed differently from the
Northeast and statistical material was given to show the different
outputs of these sub-systems in higher rates of literacy, newspaper
circulation, and availability of hospital beds per citizen. (See
Table 6.) It was suggested the different outputs resulted from the
different colonization processes of the South from the North and
Northeast and the development and maintenance of a complex rural social
infra-structure that Included numerous organized voluntary groups.
(See Table 5.) in fact, although one finds municipios and regions in
the South in which "traditional families" dominate politics and

"Bodas de Ouro," A Folha (Rio Pardo, Rio Grande do Sui) (early),
February, 1965, p. ^, notes that "Coronel" Jose Saldanha Ferreira and
his wife would celebrate their 50th v/edding anniversary on February 11,
1965, in the residence of the "late Coronel Dario Lopes de Almeida,"
in which they had been married and vias still the residence of his des-
cendants. "Saldanha Ferreira, a fazendeiro in the Municipio, belongs
to a traditional family and has long been active in the political,
social, and economic life of the Municipio. For the last twenty
years, he has occupied the Presidency of the Rural Association, with
only two interruptions."

Rio Pardo is a Municipio of 1 arge-l andhol di ngs to the sou:h of
Santa Cruz in which cattle and rice are the principal crops.

204

205

violence is still found, there are also regions v;here a small family
farmer or rural middle class plays an important role in rural and
small town life. In fact, to reverse Banfield's description of the
implications of a society of amoral familists,3 this writer found
many public-spirited citizens who vjould act as follows:

1. Individuals will further the interests of the group and the
community even if it is not to their private advantage to do
so other than in terms of status approval by their peers or
religious authorities.

2. It is not considered abnormal or improper for a private citizen
to take a serious interest in a public problem.

3- Some office holders, professional, and educated people, have a
sense of mission or calling and do not regard their special
position or training as a weapon to be used against others for
private advantage.'^

'Sao Francisco VirS 'Far West,' Ultima Hora (August 6, 1963), p.
3, is the account of the invasion of the property of Mato das Flores,
Municipio of Sao Francisco, Rio Grande do Sul , by a group of squatters
apparently acting in collusion with the MASTER organization of Leonel
Brizola and the SUPRA government agency.

JosI Rotta, President of the CONTAG and the Rural Workers Federa-
tion of Sao Paulo, showed this writer in an interview May 8, 1365, a
newspaper clipping from the December 21, 1964, Sao Paulo edition of
Ultima Hora, which reported on the shooting of peasants, in Aracatuba,
Sao Paulo, by gunmen who worked for a fazendelro.

2
As noted In Chapter 1, It was often difficult to find a rural

lower class separate from a rural middle class in the small farming

regions of Rio Grande do Sul, where small farmers owning from five

to ten hectares (ten-twenty-five acres), referred to themselves as

"colonos" and not as peasants (camponeses) . Although their farms might

be no larger than the farms of "peasants" in the Northeast, the Gaucho

farms generally provided a much higher level of living for the "colono"

and ni s f ami ly.

^Banfield, op. cit . . pp. 85-104.

Ibid., pp. 91-92, contrasted the schoolteachers of Montegrano,
Italy, who took no interest In the extra-curricular lives of village
children to teachers from northern Italy who were described in phrases
similar to ihose encountered by this writer In'the German-Italian
regions of Rio Grande do Sul: "During the summer vacation, a teacher

206.

h. Individuals in small rural villages or neighborhoods v/i 1 ] not
refuse to follow the leadership of an outsider or member in
outlining a course of action out of distrust that they may be
doing this only for his private advantage; they may in fact
presume he is motivated by a sense of public service or service
to the group.

5. it is not always assumed that whoever holds pov/er or public
office is self-serving and corrupt.

6. Despite the willingness of many voters to sell' their votes,
there are strong and stable political machines v/hich also have
to concern themselves vjith consistent programs in order to
obtain and retain votes and support.

7. Although some local "chefes politicos" or "cabos eleitorais"
will sell their services to the highest bidder, they will not
always change sides nor shift the votes they control or in-
fluence from election to election.

Whereas In the traditional regions of Brazil, including the Cam-
panha (or Pampa) region of southern Rio Grande do Sul), power-holders
seek to maintain a climate of uncertainty over land title and property
lim.its, in the small -farm regions of The Colony or South, one finds
muni ci pi OS in which legal titles and property demarcations are well
defined, where the protection of the laws accruing to the large land-
owner is also granted to small owners, farm workers, and their neigh-
bors regardless of their social and economic status.

In particular, although conflicts for control of muni ci p" o and
state governments have been intense in the last decade, it Is useful
to remember that:

, . . m.ay hold informal classes. He will take the children on a hike
into the country . . . The teacher is a part of the children's lives
out of school as well as in."

Smith, Brazi 1 , pp. 273"2S2, discusses the high degree o' per-
fection In land surveys and titles achieved In the South.

207

opposing forces are not. always disposed to employ violent rnsthods
to influence an incumbent of a political office.

politically structured violence is not. always a highly effective
weapon for those groups or inc! i duals which can employ it.

civilian groups are not disposed to accept military intervention
in agricultural and industrial politics vnth minor exceptions
such as military commander seeking an audience for l civilian
agricultural interest group, because of his connections v;ith
the two military man who have occupied the presidency in the
last three years.

This chapter will discuss the following: (1) the clientele
relationships, population pressure, and MASTER and FAG movements in
Rio Grande do Sul ; (2) the Cotia Cooperative of Sao Paulo, one of
several cooperatives which are principally a marketing organization
but which also perform an occasional pressure group function; (3) the
rural sindicato movements of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and ParanS,
created by different Roman Catholic and Communist groups, and (4) the
changing nature of the agricultural and political scene which creates
a need for bureaucratic expertise among peasant pressure groups.

This chapter v«;i 1 1 focus more on Rio Grande do Sul than the other
states because it offered the best model of small proprietor group
activity and because more published data were available.

The Clientela Relationships betv/een Gaucho
Agricultural Groups, the State
Government, and Federal Authorities

In Rio Grande do Sul, local agricultural producer groups have

exerted sufficient pressures over the last forty years on the State

and Federal governments to establish "institutos" to regulate the

pricing and marketing of meat, rice, Yerba Mate, wheat, tobacco, and

208

peaches. The larger ranchers and landov-mers have probably ^er^T.^ued
more from the clientele relationships set up betv/een Institutos, As-
sociations, and Sindicatos of producers of the crops although small
family farmers have participated in the organizations regulating Yeroa
Mate and peaches, I he institutes and the State Agriculture Depart-
ment have established experimental farms in different parts of the states
to improve the quality and productivity of crops. These generally
are directed by professional agronomists who recognize the political
climate in which they have to work in recruiting staff, obtaining

budgets, publishing the results of their work, and distributing new

3
varieties of plants and animals. Several State institutes publish

'Surprisingly enough, the small farmers in the region around
Caxias do Sul who produce a great quantity of grapes and wines have
not sought the creation of an Institute but have preferred to work
through Cooperatives and lobbying with State and Federal Deputies
with whom small farmer, cooperative, and Diocese religious leaders
have a close clientele-relationship.

"Acta_^de Fundacao Arrozeiro do Rio Grande do Sul," Lavoura

Arrozei ro (Porto Alegre: Instituto Rio Grandense do Arroz) , Ano
XVlli, No. 212 (November, 196^), reproduces the original Ato under
which the Syndicate Arrozeiro do Rio Grande do Sul was founded
June 12, 1926. Of twenty-two founding companies and individuals,
seven had Luso-Brazi 1 i an names, fourteen had German names, and
one — Carlos Salim — was of Middle Eastern origin.

^Based on discussions by this writer with Agronomists and
other officials in Experiment Stations in Caxias do Sul, Pelotas,
Santa Cruz do Sul, and ASCAR extension agents in Santa Cruz do
Sul and Rio Pardo.

209

slick paper journals which inform members of technical developments
and crop production in Brazil and the world, and channel communica-
tions to Federal and State authorities and their own mem.bership.

Population Pressures and the
Land Tenure System

Nevertheless, despite a relatively high level of living and in-
come, there was a heavy population pressure on the land in the small
farming regions which led to further sub-division of farms and an
exodus of people to the cities and other, states such as Santa Cata-

rina and ParanS, where the process of cutting down the forest and

2
establishing new colonias was re-enacted. However, population pres-
sure was probably worse in the small cities and ranches of the plains
regions of the Campanha and the Central Depression where there was
none of the industry found in the Colonia region to absorb excess
1 abor.

A process of heavy sub-dividing of small farm properties less
than 20 hectares, accompanied by an increasing acreage of establish-
ments over 10,000 hectares in size, took place between 1950-1960.

Lavoura Arrozei ra , first published in 19^7) is a prime example.
Its November, 1964, issue included articles on Agrarian Reform in
Latin America, the Application of Lime to Rice production, Financing
of Dams, Countries with high costs of rice production; the Harvest
and imports of Rice by Japan; Prices in Diverse Markets, and an
Exposition of Programs (Mot i vos) directed September 30, 1964, to
Federal Authorities.

Smith, Brazi 1 . pp. 144-198, discusses internal migration;

pp. 183-194 contain a series of tables and maps on population ex-
changes between the several states.

■'Comissao Especial de Reforma Agra'ria: Bases e Diretrizes Para
Urn Proqrama Estadual de Reforma Agraria, Tables V and Vl, located
between pp. 11-6 and il-?. The Commission was established February

210

In i960, 0.83 per cent of the landowners with tracts over 1,000
hectares (2,479 acres) owned 36.31 per cent of the land in the state;
7.27 per cent of the proprietors, with farms over 100 hectares in
size, owned 67. 61 per cent of all land. On the other hand, 92.71
per cent of all farms were less than 100 hectares in size and covered
only 32.59 per cent of the land.'

Although the I960 census data are not completely clear on the
numbers of heads of families and persons dependent on farming alone
for their living, Governor Brizola, in the publication Reforma
Aqraria, Uma Realidade. said 242,313 families were landless or pos-
sessed an insignificant amount of land. The much more objective
Con^i ssao study estimated a total of 34-2,167 heads of rural households
did not have plots of 30 hectares (84 acres) or more which it felt
was the minimum necessary for an adequate level of income and living

given the nature of the levels of technology; therefore they could

3
be considered as living in needy or poverty-stricken circumstances.

23, 1963, and is the basic and most objective source for data on land
tenure and farm population both by region and Municipio in the state.

Ibid. ,' Tables I and ii located between pp. 11-2 and 11-3.

A more drastic contrast was painted by Instituto Gaucho de Refor-
ma Agra'ria, Reforma AgraVia, Uma Realidade no Rio Grande do Sul (Porto
Alegre) , Oficinas Graficas da SIPA, 1962, unnumbered, pp. 3-4, which
states "only 1 .83% of the rural proprietors of the^state detain . . .
an area equivalent to 47.97% of its surface . . . Medium sized prop-
erties between 50 and 500 hectares that proportion reasonable condi-
tions of life, cover only 28.03% of the rural area and are distributed
only among 12.99% of the number of plots."

This writer prefers a cutoff point at 100 hectares or 247 acres
as the bottom level for medium-sized properties.

IGRA, op. cit . . unnumbered, p. 4.

-^Comissao Especial, Bases e Pi retr izes . Tables XI -XV, located
between pp. LL-12 and 11-13, and pp. 11-24 and 11-25.

211

This group was made up of an estimated 63,360 Fieads of household who
were employees or day laborers (empregados) in a variety of forms, an
estimated 85,028 landless heads of household v;ho rented, sharecropped
or worked farm land in some other fashion, and an estimated I8l,6l8
families with some land but less than 30 hectares of their own. The
Commission also estimated that at least 18,000 new persons would
join the agricultural labor force each year who would have little
or no access to land and thus be forced to emigrate to other occupa-
tions, other states, or increase the pressure on those already un-
employed or under -employed.

In the late 1940's, a small group of sociologists, agricultural
extension agents, Uniao Popular leaders, and small farm-region polit-
icians such as Wolfram Metzler, Fernando Ferrari, and Alfredo Hoff-
man, began to discuss the necessity of reformulating the state
agrarian structure to bring about a greater agricultural productivity.
Although several bills were introduced into the State Assembly, little
further action was taken. The MASTER movement began within this context,

The Movement of the Agricultural Landless'
or MASTER (19S8-1963)

in the late 1 950 's--ei ther 1958 or 1959 since no one was really

certain in 196^-1965 — a small group of twenty-thirty families of

1
interview with Padre Joao Sehnem, Provincial Head of the Je-
suits and_^ one of the founders of the cooperative movement of Uniao
Popular^ Porto Alegre, February, 1965; see also Dr. Wolfram Metzler, ^
Retten Wir Unsere Kolonien (Salvemos Nossas Col oni as) (Porto Alegre:
Edicoes "A Nacao," 1953), which is a condensation in German of
twenty articles published in 1952 in the German-language supple-
ments of the Porto Alegre weekly, A Nacao. by a distinguished Agron-
omist and PR state deputy.

212

landless day-laborers squatted on land, vvhose title v/as in dispute,
some 70 kilometers from the city of Encruzilhada do Sul in a place
which was described by one priest as "the end of the world.' In
November, 1959, Milton Soares Rodriguez, Police Chief (Del eaado) in
the heavily German city of Santa Cruz do Sul during the Vargas
period, was elected Prefeito of Encruzilhada. Soarez Rodriguez ap-
parently protected the squatters and informed Federal Deputy Rui
Ramos and Governor Leonel Brizola of the possible political benefits
as well as the political problems raised by "squatting incidents."

Brizola took advantage of the Encruzilhada movement in three
principal ways: »

1. He dismissed PRP State Deputy Alberto Hoffman as Secretary
of Agriculture and appointed a fellow PTB Deputy, Joao
Caruso^

Much of this discussion of the origins of MASTER is based on
an interview with Padre Arno Klein, Secretary to the Bishop, Santa
Cruz do Sul, February 21, 1965, and Padre Ignacio Eidt, Parish Priest,
Linha Arlindo, Municlpio of Venancio Aires, February I6, 1965- Klein
was a Parish Priest In Encruzilhada In 19^1 and 1953-1959; Eidt visited
Encruzilhada in 1 9^0 or I96I while Soares was still Prefeito,

The IGRA publication, Reforma Aqriria, Uma Realldade. unnumbered,
pp. ^-6 implies the "Assoclaaoes dos Agricultores Sem Terra" were first
organized in the municlpio of SarandT with a photograph of a man In
straw hat holding on (or pushing into the ground) a banner which says
"dueremos Terra." (We want land.)

In addition, although Brizola often spoke about the Popular
Mobilization Front (FMP) , after his October 19^2 election as a Guana-
bara Federal Deputy, he did not speak of the MASTER movement to visit-
ing journalists such as Victor Rico Galan, op. cit., pp. 672-67^, al-
though discussing his speeches "to the people via Radio Malnrinque
Velga, his own radio station," "one of the most widely listened to
stations In Brazi 1 ."

-^Interview with Deputy Alfredo Hoffman, State Assembly, Porto
Alegre, February 12, 1965.

Hoffman was a fifth generation German-Brazilian whose family
moved west in succeeding generations: his great-grandfather being

213

2. In April, I960, in Porto Alegre, Deputy Rui Ramos issued

a Manifesto — "To the Rio Grande Agricultors and the People
in General" — and Statutes for a Movement of the Landless
Agricultors (Movimento dos Agricultores Sem Terra or
MASTER),!

3. On November ]k, 1961, Governor Brizola issued Decree 12,812
which established the Gaucho Agrarian Reform Institute
(instituto Gaucho de Reforma Agraria or IGRA) out of several
existing agencies working in the rural sector.

Several parts of the IGRA statute are similar to the MASTER Mani

festo and Statutes drafted by Rui Ramos:

Article 2. IGRA will have the following fundamental objectives:

a) Study and suggest projects, initiatives, bases and directives
for an agrarian policy to the Government of the State . . .
with the objective of improving the socio-economic conditions
of the rural population, the establ i shm.ent of a climate of
social justice in the rural interior, and especially with
respect to the use and property ownership of land.

b) Promoting access to land and to the property of agricultors
without land-sharecroppers, renters, and rural salaried
worl<ers--and of the marginal population which has left the
countryside.

c) Promote the organization of colonial nuclei and agricultural
communities, within which modern techniques of colonization
and production will be found;

e) Promoting the legalization of lands occupied by small agri-
cultors, which contributed to the formation of minifundio;

f) Combat all form of exploitations of rural work, defending the
producer and production; stimulating productivity and the
valorization of the country man by all means of protection
(amparo) and assistance;

born in Picada Cafe (Ncjva Petropolis); his grandfather in Taquara; and
his father in Ijuf. The farms in all of these regions average seven
hectares (15 acres) per farm.

1 *

"Aos Agricultores Riograndenses e Ao Povo em Geral ," Porto

Alegre, April 19, I960, a photostatic copy of which is in this writer's
possession. Padre Arno Klein thinks the Manifesto may have been Is-
sued in 1959; however, so little has been written about the MASTER
movement that this writer cannot be sure of the dates.

2]k

h) I ncent ivat ing the creation and organization of technical
agricultural schools, centers of training and formation of
ski 1 led craftsmen. '

In general, the MASTER Manifesto and Its Statuses are reason-
able: the only exceptions are Articles which allowed (l) persons
with non-farm occupations into the membership and — presumably--the
leadership of the organization, and (2) provided for establishment

of the MASTER headquarters in the state capital or Porto Alegre. The

2
latter fact assured the control from the top down by Ramos and

3
Governor Brizola rather than by the membership or local politicians

such as Milton Soares Rodrtguez, who may have wanted to improve the
living conditions of these peasants, but who no longer controlled
the organization.

Although there is little published material about the MASTER
organization,, its methods of operations, or how it functioned to
solve local grievances, there are data which indicate that it was
an instrument by which both Brizola ana Goulart acquired land and
votes for themselves. While clamoring for land reform for the land-
less, Brizola and Goulart used the traditional technique of the

Photostatic copy of "Decreto No. 12,812, de 1^ de Novembro de
1961," in the possession of this writer. Translation by the writer.
The complete texts of these two documents are included as Appendices
1 and 2.

^Ramos was a Methodist Minister in Alegrete, a cattle-ranching
muni ci pi o near the Argentine border, until Getulio Vargas asked for
his help in the latter's political comeback In 1950. Ramos' ability
to win votes through the skillful use of religious and political im-
agery contributed to his departure from thr: ministry to full-time
political work. His political career was cut short oy deotii in 1962
or 1963.

■3

-^There is little published data in English or Portuguese about

the early political career of Leor.el Bri:^ola. Skidmor.-:, op. ci t . . pp.

230-231, 280-283, et passim, and Victor Kico Galan, "T;.e Brazilian

Crisis," pp. (jdk-ojk, although orief, are among the better sources In

English for data on Brizola's career as Governor and Federal Deputy.

215

"invasion" of state land or private land whose title and/or bound-
aries were in dispute to increase their'own 1 andhol d i ngs . The pattern
of tactics included the loading of men, women, and children into
state-owned or rented trucks which hauled them to a site. It was
especially important to have women and children with the invaders:

IGRA, Reforma Agraria, unnumbered p. 14, has a photograph of
a crowd of perhaps one hundred people on a dirt road in a forested
area alongside of which several tents had been placed; in the baci<-
ground several sedan automobiles and trucks are parked. The caption
reads: "The open highways crossing the countryside carry a new notion
of his rights to the agricultor and awakened in him the anxieties of
a better life. They began to experiment (encetar) . uniting one to
the other, in a long march on unproductive lat if undios ."

The next three pages had photographs, probably of the same
group, in a rally "at the foot of the flag of the State , , and the
Cross of Christ," "raising an appeal [first] to God (o Senhor) and
secondly to Governor Brizola who heard their appeal" and "personally
informed himself of their anxieties of the indigent rural population,
directing himself to the encampments raised by the agricultores with-
out land."

On the next page he announced the constitution of a "team of
technicians to study (equacionar) the problems."

Several unnumbered pages later after having given the first
"brightness (bn_l_ho) of hope," the IGRA book shows a sketch of the
site of Fazenda Pangar^, 119 kilometers southeast of Porto Alegre,
which the Governor "personally destined for the solution of the
problem" through the installation of an agricultural community of
the "landless," one thousand acres of his own Fazenda Pangare."

However, neither the IGRA nor the Comissao publications indi-
cate Governor Brizola's sale of this land to the state. This v/riter
does not know if the land originally was his or whether he acted as
an agent for someone else. In any case, the IGRA publication wished
to give an impression that the Governor "gave his own lands" to
start a program of agrarian reform in the state.

After eighteen pages of photographs and captions dedicated to
the Banhado do Colegio occupation and colonization, the IGRA publi-
cation returns to Fazenda Pangar^, in which twenty small buildings
similar to family houses and two larger buildings, similar to a
school or workshed are shown, with a caption that reads "Bacopari :
A place situated on the Fazenda Pangar^, part of the property of
Governor Leonel Brizola. The chief of the Gaucho Government gave
the contribution of his family to the plan of social and economic
redemption of the rural milieu (meio."

An additional three pages are devoted to his "personal .interest"
in the "landless" of Fazenda Pangare and his "personal delivery of

216

If only men vjere brought in, the police would have no trouble
removing them or shooting them dov;n; however, if there are suf-
ficient numbers of mothers with babies in their arms, police
and soldiers find it difficult to do anything, nor will the land-
owners on whose land they are encamped. They don't want anyone
[i.e., women and children] to get hurt. There never was a situa-
tion of men only; women and children were always there.

Invasions were stimulated in municiplos with both large and

small landholdi ngs , including the following:

BagI - Urban marginal people led by a woman lav/yer. Dona Elide,
squatted on land of Ministry of Agriculture Experiment
Stat Ion.

Cachoeira do Sul - no data available.

CamaquS - lands belonging to the state or with title in dispute
from a region drained by the state, com..Tionly known as
Banhado do Colegio.

Casa Povo - no data available.

Nonoai - Fazenda Sarandl , which belonged to an Uruguayan family,
and whose forested properties Brizola and Goulart wished
to exploit.

Passo Fundo - no data available.

Soledad - no data available.

Sab Francisco - Fazenda Mato das Flores owned by Jo'^o Kieffer
May-June, 1963.

Torres - Fazenda belonging to Moises Velinho who lived in
Porto Alegre in December, 1963.

The "invasion" of Fazenda Sarandi in Nonoaf Municipio illustrates

the techniques of punishing political or economic competitors while

titles of the 'landless'"; 20 of its 2k pages are devoted to Banhado
do Colegio and three to the Colonia of Itapoa, near P5rto Alegre,
another alleged IGRA project, about which this writer could find no
date and which the Comissao publication does not discuss in its ^
breakdown of 1964 IGRA activities.

Interview wi th Padre Eidt, February 16, 1965.

217

also benefitting oneself at the same time. Brizola and Vice President
Goulart offered to buy or exchange other properties with its Uruguayan
owners in order to exploit its timber resources. When the owners
refused, the Prefeito of Nonoai, Jair de Moura Calistos — a follower
of Bri2ola--led several groups of persons on to the land in muni -
cipio-owned or rented trucks. Some of the squatters stayed; most
left; nevertheless, Governor Brizola obtained some of the land
which he, in turn, sold to the IGRA in 19^2 when several thousand
hectares of land were expropriated for !GRA colonization projects.

In the past, Camaqua Municipio, south of Porto Alegre, con- ■ ^
tained an area of 29~30,000 hectares which was periodically rendered
useless to agriculture by flooding from nearby rivers or Inadequate
drainage, although cattle could sometimes pasture on the land. in

1951, the state of Rio Grande do Sul started a series of drainage

and reclamation projects in the area which included one property

Interviews with an IGRA agronomist in February and April 1965.

Comissao Especial, Bases e Diretrizes. pp. \\I-2S and l\/-27,
indicate that 62 lots of about 25 hectares each and I6 plots of 250
hectares each had been laid out by 1963 for colonization. In addi-
tion, 97 lots in an adjoining State Forest Reserve also had been
organized into what was called the Joa~o Carruso Nucleus.

"Selecao dos 'sem terra' para 0 Banhado e Sarandi vai coma9ar,"
Diar io de Not ici as (Porto Alegre), March 25, 1965, indicates by (
implication that no one had been selected to colonize the Sarandi
plots although colonization had been scheduled for February 1965-

•3

-'This writer is not able to determine what political pressures

were behind the reclamation project in the first place. The only

published matter on the project other than newspaper clippings is a

brief mention In the Comissao Especial report, p. lV-27, and IGRA

Reforma Agraria. Uma Realidade. publication, passim.

218

known as Banhado do Colegio, site of a former Convent. Titles and
boundary limits of many surrounding landowners were often vague enough
to permit them to extend their fences and claims onto the lands

drained by the reclamation project. When construction was nearly

2
finished during the Governorship of Brizola, Odilon Silveira G. , a

barber and political ally of Brizola in the city of Camaqua, organ-
ized a Sindicato of Agricultores whose members proceeded to encamp
periodically on the Banhado do Colegio site and--after several days
of occupation — ride back to the nearby city in state or mu n i c i p i o -
owned trucks."^

Finally, on June 27> 1962, a formal IGRA project was estab-
lished on 3,000 hectares in Banhado do Colegio with the presence of
several hundred persons and IGRA authorities. In late February, 1965,

Among the persons "buying land" or titles from others claiming
1 andownership in the region were the Sul Arroz rice firm owned by
heirs of Nestor Moura Jardim, the Santana, Corbetta, and Kroeft
fami 1 ies.

"IGRA Colonizara Glebas do Banhado," Ultima Hora (Porto Alegre),
August 6, 1963> p. 3, names Espaminonda Silveira as "leader" of "one
hundred Banhado do Colegio agricultores" who visited the newspaper to
protest against statements that Brizola's measures "were nothing
more than a hoax (embuste) . "

•^Interviews with IGRA Agronomists and Manager of the project,
Banhado do Colegio, Camaqua, February 25*26, 1965.

In addition, following the "invasions," JUC groups from the
PUC Catholic University and the State University in P«>rto Alegre
went to Banhado do Colegio to render first aid and medical assistance
to the "squatters."

IGRA, Reforms Agraria, Uma Realidade_, unnumbered, pp. 39-^7.
However, Eng. Agronomo Artigas, in charge of the IGRA project in
Camqua, told this writer that the State, still does not have
complete title to the land on which the project is located. Because
it does not have title, it has not paid for the land.

219

13^ families were in possession of 20-50 hectare plots of land in
the area — including Odilon Silvelra G. and other squatters who
continued to live in Camaqua but who had sub-leased their plots to
other persons or had shown little aptitude themselves for farming
whi le there.

Shortly after the Sarandf "invasion," the Federation of Rural
Associations (FARSUL) let it be known that it was organizing a
campaign to defend its members against further invasions; there were
rumors of arms being collected in 1962 and 1963 but the extent of these
preparations is not known, especially among the big estancieros
(cattle ranchers), who always have maintained supplies or arms and
ammunition.

Governor Brizola then countered on March 10, 1962, v;ith an
"Appeal to the Great Landed Proprietors'' that, "inspired by the
principles of Christian Fraternity," they offer for sale to IGRA
blocks of land "satisfactory for the cultivation of rice, with pay-
ment by the agriculturalists settled there under a minimum plan of

2
ten years at modest interest." Landowners could participate in

the selection of up to half the future occupants of the lots. In

Visit by this writer to Banhado do Colegio, CamaquS, with
the Director of the Site, Eng. Agronomo Artigas, and Eng. Agronomo ^
Paulo Rabellq of the IGRA staff in Porto Alegre, February 27, 1965-

"Selecao dos 'Sem Terra' Para o Banhado e Sarandi vai come9ar,"
Diario de Noticias (March 25, 1965), indi cated that about fifty
persons "settled" on the land were not going to be allowed to remain.
Arms reportedly were collected and prepared for use but the extent is
unknown.

Photostatic copy of the "Apelo" in this writer's possession
which was also published in Correio do Povo (April 3, 1962).

220

turn, under a proposal first suggested by Nestor Moura Jardim, a
wealthy cattle rancher and rice grov;er (Sul Arroz, S.A.) of Guaiba, the
FARSUL suggested that its members make 10% of their lands available
to IGRA for purchase.

Under this plan, Governor Brizola was one of the first to sell
10 per cent of a farm property when he sold land on Fazenda Sarand'
and 1,000 hectares (2,^70 acres) from, Fazenda Pangare, 119 kilometers
southeast of Porto Alegre. There is no published data on IGRA purchases
from any FARSUL members. In any case, the FARSUL offer was quietly
dropped after the April, 196^, Revolution.

Although there are little published data on the links between
MASTER and PTB party factions headed by Brizola and Goulart,' sta-
tistics for the October, 1962, election show PTB candidates for

1
interview with Emiliano Limberger, Nova Petropolis, Rio Grande

do Sul, January 26, 1965. Moura Jardim reportedly began as a peao or

day-laborer and through hard work and good fortune, ended his life

with 3>000 persons working for him on several ranches and textile firms,

Jardim's social philosophy but not this land-grant proposal is

contained in a small booklet: Funda^ao da Paz Social (Porto Alegre:

privately printed, January, 196^).

Interview with Padre Klein, February 21, 1965- Comissao Espe-
cial Bases e Diretrizes. p. \\l-27 , does not discuss the manner of
sale; IGRA, Rgfnrma Agrariaj unnumbered p. 25, at passim, implies
Brizola gave tl^ land to IGRA.

Alba, Alliance without Allies, p. 32, notes that "Goulart an-
nounced in 1962 that he would give 10 per cent of his holdings to
the agrarian-reform program" and Brizola "said that he would also
donate one of his estates to be divided up among the peasants."

3 ~

Leda Barreto, Juliao. Nordeste, Revducao^ p. 8k, claims

that "the tactics of peasant struggles are directed by the MASTER
. . . which is also linked to the PC [Communist Party]" but she
presents no evidence to support such a statement nor can this
writer find any evidence to support such a statement. Galan, op.
ci t . . p. 673, quotes Brizola on "the errors committed by the Com-
munist Party and Juliao." •

221

state and federal deputy won pluralities in fifty-four of fifty-seven
municipios (93-9^ per cent) in which MASTER was reported active at
one time or another between I96I and 1964, compared to lower per-
centages of pluralities for PTB candidates (66-67 per cent) in the
100 municipios in which there was no reported MASTER activity in the
1961-1964 period. (See Table 10.)

Another link appears in three reported organizational attempts
for which this writer has data. A Brizola aide tried to arrange for
a Municipio PTB Chief to organize a Churrasco or Barbecue; at the
Churrasco speakers promised land, tractors, and other benefits to
those who would return for later meetings. However, in two of these
cases, nothing further developed and the groups remained an organ-
ization only on paper. ^

Moreover, once Brizola was elected a Federal Deputy for Guana-
bara (greater Rio de Janeiro), in October, 1962, the MASTER organiza-
tion apparently had little secondary leadership to take over in his
absence, especially after the death of Ruy Ramos in late 1962 or
early I963. In June, I963, MASTER groups in the Municipio of Sao
Francisco worked closely with SUPRA officials in organizing several
"invasions." However, this writer does not have enough information
to be able to comment in greater detail on the probable clientele
relationship or inter-locking leadership of MASTER and SUPRA in the state.

Price, op. ci t . . p. 62, said MASTER was "reported to be active
in at least ten muni ci pios in mid-1962."

Open meetings were held only once in Caxias do Sul and Rio
Pardo. An attempt was made to hold a meeting in Venancio Aires but
It failed despite the fact that a Goulart cousin, Salvador Stein
Goulart, was PTB Chief and Prefeito from I962-I967.

3lnterview with Emiliano Limberger, February 26, I965.

222

TABLE 10

PLURALITIES FOR PTB CANDIDATES FOR STATE AND FEDERAL
DEPUTY COMPARED TO MUNICIPIOS WITH MASTER GROUPS,
OCTOBER 7, 1962

Municiplos with
Plural ity for PTB
Federal Deputies

Municipios with
Plural ity for PTB
State Deputies

Municipios with MASTER
Activity (1961-1964 )
n - 57

3k7o

93%

Municipios without MASTER
Activity (1961-1964)
n - 100

67%

66%

Source: Compiled from statistics for candidates in Rio Grande do Sul
Departamento Estadual de Estatistica, Estat i'st i cal Eleitoral
EleicSes Realizadas em 1962. PSrto Alegre, 1962.

223

A probable indication that MASTER leaders aimed at recruiting
individuals with few social ties to a community — cowboys, landless
workers, migrant workers, and squatters — rather than individuals
with community ties — small farmers, renters, and sharecroppers — is
probably supported by the fact that forty-four of the fifty-seven
muni ci pios (77 per cent) in which MASTEf^ activity was reported were
over 1,000 square kilometers in size while twelve of the sixteen
municipios (75 per cent) in which there was MASTER activity had very
large farm holdings — more than 35 per cent of all farm properties
were more than 250 acres in size. In contrast, MASTER groups were
reported active in only eleven of the eighty-seven municipios (12
per cent) with very small farm holdings — 95 per cent or more of
farm properties were less than 250 acres. The small farm holding
municipios with MASTER activity represented thus only 7 per cent of
the total number of municipios in the state. (See Table 11.)

The Gaucho Agrarian Front (FAG) and Rural
Sindicatos in Rio Grande do Sul

While MASTER never really paid any attention to developing the

leadership potential of its members, the Roman Catholic-sponsored

Gaucho Agrarian Front (FAG) was strongly committed to leadership

training and participation of the membership in the decision-making

process. The initial planning for the FAG took place in December,

1961, after several Roman Catholic clergymen and laymen felt it

was necessary to create an organization for the "forgotten, abandoned

or exploited agriculturalists" of the state, as well as to combat

"Frente Agraria Gaucha, Principals Datas Historicas," n.d.,
typed manuscript in this writer's possession.

22^

TABLE

DISTRIBUTION OF MASTER GROUPS IN RIO GRANDE DO SUL
BY SIZE OF MUNICIPIO AND SIZE OF FARM ESTABLISHMENTS

1961-1964^

Size in Square
Ki lometers

Number of
Muni ci pios
in
State

Percent
wi th
MASTER-
Groups

Percent of the

Municipios

with

95% of Farms

less than

100 hectares

Percent of the
Muni cipi OS

wi th
More than
35% of Farms
Larger than
100 hectares

0-99

—

100-199

—

200-299

14%

—

300-399

13%

—

400-499

20%

—

500-999

20%

—

1 ,000-4

999

58%

18%

10%

Over 5,C

)00
)tal s

72%

—

72%

State Tc

150'^

38%

75%

Compiled from data on Distribution and Size of Farm Establishments in
IGRA, Bases E Pi retrizes , Table XI, between pp. 11-12 and 11-13, and
from data on distribution of farm establishments according to the
area covered in Municipios included in a booklet, Contribuicao ao
Zoneamento Aqrtcola. do Rio Grande do Sul (Porto Alegre: ASCAR,
Divisao de informacao Rural, 1964, unnumbered p. 5-

Seven additional muni ci pi os were created between I96I and 1965-
Although the writer does not have data on the new mun i ci pi os . this does
not materially affect the applicability of the data to the muni ci pios
which existed in I960 on which farm size and distribution is based.

225

Brizola, whom they felt was more interested in demagoguery than
agrarian development. On January 9, 19^2, a group met to drav/
up the Statutes of the FAG and established eleven Regional Depart-
ments to carry on a program modelled after that of SAR and SORPE.
On February 12, 19^2, the Statutes were published in the Diar io
Oficial of the state government.

Sevei7al small farmers, seminar discussion, FAG Third State
Congress, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul , January 15~l6, I965.

Earlier, in 1958, various priests were given leave by their
Bishops to organize a Christian Democratic Party to combat PTB at-
tacks on the Church.

"Frente Agraria Gaucha, Estatutos," Chapter IV, indicates
the founders were:

Arno Schilling, married, lawyer for the State Savings Association,

Archbishop Vicente Scherer, single, of Parto Alegre

Ruy Cirne Lima, Lawyer, from Porto Alegre, Secretary of Economics

for Governor Meneghetti in 1963
Salvador Canelas Sobrinho, married, farmer, resident of Glorinha,

Municipio of Cai
Miss Dionisia Brod, Farm woman, resident of Arroie do Meio
Auxiliary Bishop Edmundo Luiz Kuns, aide to Archbishop Scherer
Miss Renita Graeff, farm woman from Arroio de Meio
Jos^ Eli Rocha de Souza, single,, farmer in Barro Vermel ho,

Municipio of Gravatai
Miss Oliva de Asambuja Sampaio, of Porto Alegre
Fernando Costa Gama, married, agronomist of Porto Alegre
JosI Mariano Beck, married, lawyer from Porto Alegre
Ary Burger, married, economist from Porto Alegre
Egydio Michaelsen, married, FARSUL lawyer from Parto Alegre,

who was active in PTB and ran second to Meneghetti in

October, 1962, Gubernatorial election
Werter Faria, married, lawyer from Porto Alegre
Aloysio A. Kunsler, married, merchant from Porto Alegre
Galeno Vellinho de Lacerda, married, professor in Porto Alegre
Loris JosI Isatto, married, economist from Porto Alegre.

226

Power was vested by the statutes in a sel f -perpetuat i ng Executive
Council (Conselho Deliberative) of seven members:

1. Jose Ary Grebler, a young farmer from Bom Principio, Muni-
cipio of Cai , active in JAC, who later became President of
the Federation of Rural Workers

2. Miss iloni Seibel, a young woman active in JAC also from
Bom Principio

3. Fernando Costa Gama, an Agronomist from Porto Alegre

h. Jose Mariano Beck, a lawyer, university professor, and PTB
candidate for Prefeito of Porto Alegre in 1965

5. Ary Burger, an Economist active in the PDC who was named
President of the State Economic Savings Association (Caixa
Economica Estatal)

6. Werter Faria, Porto Alegre lawyer and University professor

7. Auxiliary Bishop Edmundo Luiz Kunz of Perto Alegre, aide to
Archbishop Vicente Scherer on social action matters.

•

The FAG, like SAR and SORPE, mixed ideology and organizational
techniques in rapidly building a strong structure in the small land-
holding regions of the state. The following is taken from Article
1 of the FAG Statutes :2 /

The FAG is a civil Association without economic purposes . . .
with offices in Porto Alegre . . . that proposes to improve,
develop, and diffuse the spirit of solidarity and christian
social doctrine which both country and city men may realize
in action. 3

Sole Paragraph: Specific finalities of the FAG are:

a. The promotion of investigations and studies about the
agrarian question in the state and nation.

b. The foundation and maintenance of schools and permanent
or periodic courses, and the realization of congresses,
seminars, and conferences for the formation of rural
leaders and the basic education of the farmer (agri cul tor)
and the rural worker.

'Article h, Statutes.

^Capitulo 1, Estatutos, FAG.

■^A Bishop active in starting JAC in Brazil and the FAG told this
writer in April 1965 that "We don't think in terms of a class struggle
or changing the structure of society — and our structure is different
from that of the Northeast. Many CONTAG people, including President

227

c. The protection (amparo) and stimulus of sindlcatos 5nd any
other kind of association of farmers, owners of small
properties (detentores) , and of rural vjorkers, as well as
groups of economic initiatives, among them, those of a co-
operative nature and the promotion of an assistance and
cultural nature (ordem assistencial e cultural).

Roman Catholic doctrine on "human solidarity" as opposed to a

doctrine of "class warfare" is shown, for example, in the following

excerpts from the official FAG newspaper, 0 Arado. printed after the

FAG-sponsored Second State Congress of Rural Workers in August, 1963:

1. The FAG unites, awakens, educates and supports the Christians
who desire to . . . construct a new rural world incarnating
the message of Christianity.

2. The FAG realized an extraordinary work of pol i t i ci zat ion
since its method of action (Seeing, Judging, and Acting)
aids the farmer to be conscious of his dignity and of the
problems that impede him from realizing it.

3. The FAG channels the march of the farmers for a comtiuni-
tarian ci vi 1 ization 'of the rural world adapted to the
Gaucho reality since: the action that it executes is a
communitarian group action on common problems and its
action is an action of free persons who determine it by
themselves (se autodeterminam) and not a collective action
pre-determined and imposed by outside forces on the group.'

The FAG was able to build a widespread organization suing the

2
cooperative network and spirit fostered by the Unigo Popular and

JosI Rotta of Sao Paulo and Northeast leaders don't like us because
of this."

'JFAG e Seu Metodo de Agir," 0 Arado (Official Organ of the
FAG) (Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul), No. k (August, 1963), p. 5.

The FAG was most successful in the Dioceses encompassing the
small land-holding regions of the state. Although Dom Augusto Petro,
Bishop of Vacaria, established a Regional Coordinator for his Diocese,
the Coordinator had a great deal of trouble, in establishing FAG neclei
and Sindicatos in the diocese, principally because of the large land-
holdings in the Diocese and lack of a complex social infra-structure
providing local leadership training opportunities.

228

the Roman Catholic and Lutheran church structures. Policy action was
not dependent on the Porto Alegre leadership, although regional
(Diocese) and Sectional (Munici pic) leaders generally kept the capital
city leadership informed of developments.

It is appropriate to look at the FAG leadership and structure
from the top down, because the organization was built this way.

in Porto Alegre, the FAG was headed by President Arno Schilling,
a Catholic University (PUC) professor; State Deputy Adolfo Puggini,
publicity chief; Jose Ary Grebler, a former JAC activist, and Miguel
Dario, a Marist brother, who shared administrative and unionization
responsi bi 1 i ties.-^

Regional Departments were created in nine Dioceses in January,
1962, with a priest and layman in charge, a five-member Executive

The Uniao Popular was the World War II transformation of the
Volksverein established on February 26, 1912, on the basis of an
earlier Sociedade of Agricultores Rio Grandenses which was founded
in 1900 in Feliz, Rio Grande do Sul , among German-Brazilians in the
southern states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, and Paran^.
For a good summary of its activities see Anuario Agrfcola da Unilo
Popular, Vol. I , 1965.

The Brazilian Cooperative Movement had its beginning when
Padre Theodore Amstad founded the first Caixa Rural in the village
of Linha Imperial, Nova Petropolis, November 23, 1902. By 1965,
the Rural Savings Associations of the Rai ffei sen-type federated in
a Central Cooperative of Rural Savings Association (Caixas Rural)
numbered fifty-seven in Rio Grande do Sul and five in Santa Catarina,
with nearly 55)000 associates. See "Monumento de Sol idariedade Num
Mundo de Egoismo e Ambi9oes," Anuario Agrfcola da UniSo Popular,
1965, pp. 17-20. ■■

In 19o4-1965, the FAG published a monthly newspaper and
produced several weekly radio programs.

3|n addition. Dr. Doris Mueller, an architect, and Loris Jose
Isatto, helped Grebler and Dario frequently. After the April 1964
Revolution, isatto was named Secretary of Labor by Governor Meneghetti

229

Council, and five-member Board of Consultants who were to maintain
liaison with the work in each m j n i c 1 p i o . Sectional Departments,
created in February, 1962, were headed by a President and a three-
member Deliberative Council. All of these groups were made up of
laymen, although occasionally a parish priest was made a Council
member.

From April to July numerous meetings were held and Sindicatos
of Rural Workers or Small Farmers organized in many regions. On
July 24-25, the First Rural Workers Congress was held in the
Catholic University (PUC) in Rio Grande do Sul , on the 25th, fourteen

Sindicato Charters were given to FAC groups in different parts of the

2
state, principally in the Caxias do Sul region. Organizational work

of FAG nuclei, sections and Sindicatos continued with rural unioniza-

tion and leadership training courses for Regional and Sectional

3
leaders in a Viamao Seminary. in turn, participants held courses

in their own regions and at the mu n i c i p i o level. ^ By July, 1963, the

'For example, the Caxias do Sul Regional Department organized
sixty-eight Sectional Departments in twelve muni ci pi os in March-
April , 1962.

Paulo Lacerda was the Minister of Labor signing the Charters

although he had been removed by President Goulart and replaced by
the PSB labor lawyer Hermes Lima on July I6, 1962.

FAG, "Principals Data Historicas," p. 2.

Speakers are not listed and the writer did not know about the
training sessions until after his departure from Brazil.

^i bid. For example, on February 15-17, 1963, the Department of
Caxias do Sul gave a rural leadership training course in the Murlaldo
School in the Ana Rech District of the Municipio of Caxias do Sul for
forty-five persons; on April 3~5, it gave a course for 105 persons in
the Carvaggio District of the Municipio of Garibaldi. Source: "Re-
latorio das Atividades do Departamento de Caxias do Sul" (typed
manuscript), December, 1963.

230

FAG structure Included organizations in 93 municipios — a number which
declined slightly after the 1964 Revolution. See Table 12.

The regional and municipio organizations varied as the follow-
ing examples, taken from the writer's notes, will shov;:

The FAG Regional Department for Caxias do Sul supervises the
work of 12 Sindlcatos of Small Farmers (Proprietaries), 13 Sln-
dicatos of Rural Workers (Trabal hadores Rurals), and 70 Sectional
Departments and Nuclei or cell groups which are found among the
524 rural communities in the Diocese of Caxias do Sul.'

Two rural schoolteachers and an accounting student are full-
time workers in the offices which the FAG and the Sindlcatos of
Small Farmers and Rural Workers share In ground floor offices of
the Cathedral. Heading the office is Ladyr Rech, a rural school-
teacher from Fazenda Souze, a dispersed community in the District
of Anna Rech. Rech, who helped found the PDC In 1958, lost his
first race for Vereador In 1959, but won in 1963- All three men
commute by bus daily from their rural districts to the city.

Both Rech and Walter Bridi were 'on one year leave of absence
because of the influence of Auxiliary Bishop Dom Edmundo Kuntz.
In April, 1965, the State Secretary of Education, a PSD member,
indicated he expected Rech/ and Bridi to return to their teaching
duties at the beginning of the new school year in June, 1965-

Each day, approximately 70 persons came to the office to ask
for advice on problems with local and state officials, to find
out whether or not the FAG had made any progress in securing pay-
ment by the National Commission on Agricultural Insurance for
crop losses incurred in February, 1964,-^ or to register with the
FAG that they were going to sell grapes and other produce at the
annual Grape Festival (Festa da Uva) . in February.^

'Based on visits February 3-7, and April 20-22, 1965-

Based on examination of a Record Book signed by visitors.

•^The FAG was informed in February, 1965, by the Banco do Brasil
that two billion cruzeiros were to be forwarded to its branch in
Caxias do Sul to pay for hail losses.

Previously, farmers had to go through a great deal of paper-
work with the State Revenue Service (Colhetoria Estadual) in order to
obtain permission to sell grapes, wine, and other products, at the
Fest i val .

231

TABLE 12

DELEGATES TO THE SECOND (JULY, I963) AND THIRD (JANUARY, 1 965)
FAG CONGRESSES, BY DIOCESE, MUNI CI PI 0, AND SECTION-'-

Diocese MInicipios Sections Delegates

(Regional Dept.) 1963 1965 1963 1965 1963 1965

Porto Alegre

Caxias do Sul

Vacaria

Passo Fundo

Santa Cruz do Sul

Santa Maria

Frederico Westphalen

Santo Angelo

Pelotas

Bag^ & Uruguaiana"""

Totals 93 83 172 ]kk 528 377

VwV Bage and Uruguaiana are large-landholding regions along the Uruguayan
and Argentine boarders in the Campanha region. There was little small -
farmer colonization. Although Bage sent a Regional Coordinator in I963,
neither diocese sent a representative in 1965, probably because local
bishops had lost interest in further supporting the FAG once Goulart and
Brizola had gone into exile.

Source: Compiled from data included in "Carta de Rei vindicapbes de Acao

Dos Agricultores Gauchos, Ml Congresso Estadual de Trabalhadores
Rurais" (Mimeographed), January 17» 1965, unnumbered pp. 7~8.

130

100

7^-^

—

35;

—

232

The Regional Department of Santa Cruz do Sul has no full-time
employees. The FAG and Sindicatos share office space in a small
building behind the Rural Savings Association (Caixa Rural).-
President of both the Caixa Rural and the FAG is Leopold Mersch,
founder and Dean of the Accounting School, one of the directors
of the Gazeta do Sul newspaper, and a PSD militant. Most of the
fag's work is carried out by Pedro Avelino Junges, a middle-aged
Caixa Rural Accountant and Orlando Scaefer, a young farmer and
President of the Sindicato of Rural Workers. Delegates from the
FAG nuclei and Sindicatos in the Diocese meet the second Monday
of every month in the FAG offices.

The most vexing problems of these small proprietor farms are
(l) delays in the payment of the milk and tobacco they deliver to
the state-operated milk company and privately owned tobacco
companies that sometimes last six to eight months; (2) low clas-
sification of their tobacco leaf by the tobacco comapnies; and
(3) delays in the implementation of rural social welfare measures.

Three examples are probably sufficient to describe different

Municipio groups.

* 2

1. The Sindicato of Venancio Aires has about 1,200 members.

It uses the offices of the Yerva Mate Cooperative which has been
in bankruptcy the past two years. President of the Sindicato is
Otavio Klafke, 58 years old and father of eleven children. Klafke,
an earnest, simple man with only five years of schooling, recognizes
the lack of education of himself and those of his fellow farmers.
Five of his seven sons rent or share-crop his 150 hectare farm,
35 hectares of which are in rice, 50 hectares in pasture, and the
rest in woodlands. Klafke has had difficulty keeping the Sindi-
cato out of partisan politics because of the influence of Willi-
baldo Ertel , Secretary of the Rural Association. Ertel is also
President of the Metzler Rural Technical School Board and a PRP
Cabo Eleitoral. Ertel apparently has used his influence to
speed the admfesion of students whose fathers delivered votes to
him at election time and has also tried to influence the local
Regional Agronomists to help farmers who were friends of his
rather than letting the Agronomists themselves do the selection.

Based on visits February 13"19 and March 21, 1965, and inter-
views with Pedro Avelino Junges, Orlando Schefer, Padre Ignacio Edit,
ASCAR officials, and Annual Reports (Relatorios) of the Sindicato of
Small Rural Proprietors of Santa Cruz do Sul for 1964-1965-

Based on visits February 16 and 21, March Ih-T] , I965, and
interviews with Otavio Klafke, Willibaldo Ertel, Agronomist Robert
Riegel, former Prefeito Alfredo Scherer, Willibaldo Lentz, Osmar
Gutierrez Carvalho, Lauro Diehl, Joao Vargas, Padre ignacio Eidt, and
the Lutheran pastor Wilfred Buchweitz.

233

2. The most influential man in Gramado's FAG and SIndicato
organizations is Gentil Bonato, chief of rural education of the
municipio government and a former rural school teacher in Linha
Nova. The Sindicato meets once a month. In February, 1965, Bo-
nato arranged for four one-year scholarships to the Institute of
Rural Education in Chile for Gramado JAC members. 1 attended
several afternoon and evening meetings with rural community
leaders in private homes and neighborhood recreation centers to
discuss selection and partial financing of their passages. While
1 was there, both FAG and sindicato groups sent telegrams on
local and state problems to President Castelo Branco, Governor
Meneghetti, and several party blocs in Brasilia and Porto Alegre,
the state capital. It appears that FAG and Sindicato pressures
were helpful in obtaining the services of a full-time agronomist
for the municipio to help local farmers and in influencing city
hall (the prefeitura) to begin full-time motorized scraper
maintenance of rural roads rather than leaving their upkeep to
the neighboring inhabitants which was the case in the past.^

3. The Sindicato of Small Farmers of Candelaria held its

first formal meeting as a legally recognized group of February
18, I965> in the Community Hall (Sal ao) of Passo Set©, a dispersed
village community three miles outside of Candelaria. Eighty-seven
persons, including five women, attended the meeting which had
been organized by the Passo Sete Cooperative Manager and a local
rural schoolteacher also active in the MTR. Many persons
considered the Sindicato organization of the Sindicato as a
"revolutionary" development since the Municipio has been dominated
for such a long time by "Colonel" Albino Lenz, a rice grower and
livestock producer. Outside of the cooperative and the rural
school organizations, formal social groups have been few and weak
since the Nationalization of Culture period (1937-19^5) when
German and other non-Portuguese languages were prohibited. About
twenty of the men arrived late, coming on feet or horseback from
as far as 25 miles away after hearing about the meeting over the
Candelaria radio station earlier in the afternoon during a round-
table discussion of farm problems.

Although the writer does not have enough data to prove the

point without a doubt, it appears that the tendency of the FAG and

its rural sindicatos to place increased responsibility in the hands

'Based on visits January 20-27, January 29. February 4, and
interviews with Gentil Bonato, Prefeito Perrini, Padre Luis Manes,
Agronomist Goldschmit, Accountant Bruno Riegel , and various small
farmers, especially Angelo Tomazi , Antonio and Felipe Meinherz.

Based on visits February 18 and 23, 1965.

23k

of small farm proprietors and rural workers was reflected in the
increased number of these occupations among the delegates who at-
tended the Third State Congress in January, 1965, compared to the
occupations of those who reportedly attended previous Congresses.
(See Table 13.)

The rapid growth of the FAG-sponsored organizations set off
a competitive battle in Rio Grande do Sul only partially similar
to the struggle taking place in the Northeast. In both cases, al-
though the Regional DRT played an important role, the competition in
Rio Grande do Sul assumed more of a legal and paper form than the
violent forms employed in Pernambuco. Because many municipios of
small farm holdings had very few rural workers or day laborers, the
FAG used the sons of small farmers to create Sindicatos of Rural
Workers to foil or pre-empt MASTER-SUPRA maneuvers to create Si ndi -
catos with jurisdiction over one or more municipios. In addition,
the MASTER and SUPRA groups were never able to create a structure
as well organized as the FAG structure. In part, the FAG-sponsored

organizations probably counted upon a greater access to state govern*

3
ment officials and state deputies after 1962 than the MASTER-SUPRA

All twenty-four sindicatos recognized by the Ministry of Labor
in 1962 were FAG-sponsored groups. No MASTER or SUPRA groups were
recognized until June, I963.

Interview with Ladyr Rech, Fazenda Souza, Caxias do Sul,

February 7, 1965, who told this writer the DRT was given author-
ity in late 1963 to organize or recognize 100 Rural Sindicatos by
the end of the year, and Interview with Orlando Schaeffer, Santa
Cruz do Sul, February 1, I965.

^Although FAG or Sindicato leaders did not use the term
"access," it would appear that the phenomenon was present in

235

TABLE 13

OCCUPATIONS OF DELEGATES TO THIRD FAG CONGRESS, PORTO
ALEGRE, JANUARY 15-17, 1965

Occupation

Number

Percent

Farmers (Agricultores)

Rural Teachers

Clergymen

Lawyers

Rural Merchants

Rural Industrial ists

State Employees

Municipal Employees

Agronomi sts

Accountants

Bankers

Students

Cooperative Managers
or Employees

275

^4l

5
2
2
1
2
1
12

73
11
k
2
2
2
1
1

377

102%

Source: Compiled from data included in "Carta de Rei vi ndi caoes e De
Acao Dos Agricultures Gauchos , Mi Congresso Estadual de
. Trabahaldores Rurais"( mimeographed) January 17, 1965, un-
numbered pp. 7-8.

236

group, which depended upon Federal Deputy Leonel Brizola's influence
over federal officials to prevent or hinder DRT recognition of the
FAG-organized Sindicatos.

The comparable success of FAG and MASTER groups in organizing
small farmers, sharecroppers, or renters, and day laborers, is shown
in Table 14.

The available data also seem to, indicate that MASTER tried to
organize s i ndi catos in twenty-three of the fifty-seven muni ci pi os
in which it was reported active (UO per cent), while the FAG tried
to organize s indicatos in 78 of the 152 muni ci pios in which it
established a section (51 per cent). Moreover, as noted earlier,
MASTER tended to operate in Municipios with very large landed properties,
especially the southern half of the state where sixteen FAG groups
were ineffectual or could be organized only in municipios with a
resident Bishop- — Bage and Uruguaiana. On the other hand, FAG was
much more successful than MASTER In creating ryral s i ndicatos in the
municipios with small farm holdings. (See Tables 15 and I6.)

observing attendance at the closing session of the July, 1963, Second
FAG Congress which included the following persons.

MTR Deputy Candido Norberto, President of the State Assembly"
Dr. Arnaldo Costa Prieto (PDC) , Secretary of Labor — who in-
cidentally was still holding his post in mid-1965, longer
than any Meneghetti Secretary--a demonstration of his
administrative and political competence.
Dr. Adolfo Fetter, Secretary of Agriculture

Dr. Eno Dias de Castro, Representative of the Porto Alegre Prefeito
An un-named representative of the FARSUL

In January, I965, the FARSUL did not send a representative to the
Third FAG Congress. On the other hand, a colonel representing Third
Army Commander Alves Bastos was present, unlike the situation in 1963,
when no military personnel were present.

'in Table 12, for example, it was emphasized that the Dioceses of
Bage and Uruguaiana sent no delegates to the Second or Third FAG Congress.

237

TABLE 14

SINDICATO ORGANIZATION
AND MASTER, 1961-1965

IN RIO GRANDE DO SUL BY THE FAG

Organizational
Group Functioning
in Municipio

Municipios

Only FAG Groups

Only MASTER Groups

Both FAG and MASTER
Functioned at one
time or another

Neither FAG nor
MASTER

Total in State

Muni ci pi OS
w/Recognized
Rural Sinds.
Dec. 31 , 1963

98
3

17
2

Munici

pios

Munici

pios

w/Si ndi

catos

w/Si ndicatos

Organized

Funct ioni ng

1962-

■1965

Apri

1 1965

Small

Rural

Farmer

Worker

157

Source: Compiled from IGRA Maps for 1962 of FAG Sectional Groups, MASTER
Associations, Rural Sindicatos; SUPRA, "Sindicatos Rural s -Re 1 acao
No. 1, December 31 > 1963," pp. 15-16, Departamento Estadual de
Estatfstica. Estatfstica Eleitoral. 1962 for a listing of Munici-
pios by regions, and Divisao do Trabalho, "Relatorio Geral das
Atividades Da Divisao do Trabalho no Ano de 1964," Porto Alegre,
Secretaria de Estado dos Negocios do Trabalho e Habita9ao,
January 8, I965, unnumbered pp. 7-8 of typed manuscript which
lists functioning Sindicatos in the State in December, 1964, plus
notes taken by this writer.

238

TABLE 15

ACTIVELY ORGANIZED OR FUNCTIONING FAG AND MASTER GROUPS
BY MUNICIPIOS ACCORDING TO THE SIZE OF FARM ESTABLISH. -
MENTS, 1961-1964

Municipios FAG Active MASTER Active Neither

with in Municipio in Municipio Group Active

95% or more of farm

properties less 98% 1^+% 1%

than 100 hectares
(n - 102)

65-94% of farm

properties less 9^% 78% 8%

than 100 hectares
(n - 36)

Less than 65% of

properties less than
100 hectares, or 35%

or more of farm 88% 82% 6%

properties are larger
than 100 hectares
(n - 17)

FAG Sectional Groups in 14 of the 15 Municipios in the Campanha and
Southeast Litoral area were little more than paper organizations;
the FAG group in Uruguaiana was the only group which really functioned
to any degree.

Source: Computed using data aggregated for Table 20 and applied to a
map showing the distribution of farm establishments according
to total area in Rio Grande do Sul muni ci pios . included in
Edmundo Gastal , Contr i bui cao ao Zoneamento Aqricola do Rio
Grande do Sul (Porto Alegre: ASCAR, Divisao de Economia Rural,
1964), unnumbered p. 5.

239

TABLE 16

SUCCESS OF THE FAG AND MASTER IN ORGANIZING RURAL SINDI-
CATOS WHICH WERE FUNCTIONING IN APRIL, I965, BY MUNICIPIO,
ACCORDING TO THE SIZE OF FARM ESTABLISHMENTS

Only FAG

Organiza-

Only

MASTER

Both

Municipios

t ion Act i vi ty

Activity

Active

with

Small

Rural

Smal 1

Rural

Smal 1

Rural

Farmer

Worker

Farmer

Worker''

Farmer

Worker

95% or more of

properties less

than 100 hectares

(n - 102)

65-9^% of

properties less

than 100 hectares

( n - 36)

Less than 65% of
properties less
than 100 hectares;
or 35% or more of
properties are
more than 100
hectares
(n - 17)

Total

240

The FAG effort was much more successful than MASTER in terms of
the lasting effect of creating groups t6 represent the small farmer

or rural worker. The close links between MASTER and Brizola meant

the demise of all but a few MASTER groups after April, 1964.

The Cotia Cooperative, A Case Study of A
Cooperative as An Occasional Pressure Group

Legitimate cooperatives of small farmers have been strongest
in Rio Grande do Sul and Sao Paulo. In the former state, they were
part of the cultural baggage brought over from Germany and Northern
Italy. In Sao Paulo, cooperatives have been organized longest and
most efficiently among Japanese Brazilians who organized themselves
into the Cooperativa Cotia.-'

On December 11, 1921, eighty-three Japanese potato farmers in
the district of Moinho Velho (Old Mill) of the Municipio of Cotia,

In 1963, Brizola began organizing political cell -groups at
the local level (Grupos de Onze) , some of which were armed and some
of which were nothing more than existing PTB groups, in part of an
attempt to build a power-apparatus beyond the confines of Rio Grande
do Sul; see Skidmore, op. cl t . , pp. 281-282. However, this writer
is unable to determine the possible connections between MASTER and
the "Grupos de Onze." A Br izol a-f ounded newspaper, 0 Panfleto (Rio
de Janeiro), March 23, 1964, p. 4, claimed the "Groups of Eleven"
would number 100,000 by June, 1964.

"Audiencias de Castelo Come9am as 16 Moras e Incluem as
Federacoes de Trabal hadores ," Jornal do Dia (Porto Alegre), March
13> 1965, p. 2. The Associa9ao dos Agricultores Sem Terra was to
be given a five-minute audience with President Castelo Branco; the
FAG and its Rural Worker Federation group were given a 15-niinute
audience with the President and Planning Minister Roberto Campos;
Interviews with Ladyr Rech and Emiliano Lemberger, April 7. 1965.

■^Zempati Ando, Pioneirismo e Cooperat i vi smo, passim, is the
best study of this group.

2^1

west of Sao Paulo, organized a Cooperative. Some thirty-two years
later, Cooperativa Cotia is tine largest and most successful coopera-
tive in Brazil with 11,117 members from more than thirty nationalities

in over fifty municipios in Sao Paulo, ParanS, Minas Gerais, and

2
Rio de Janeiro. Leadership is still in the hands of Japanese-
Brazilians, but luso-brasi lei ros,3 German-Brazilians, and italo-
Brazilians also hold positions of responsibility in the organization.
It was probably inevitable that any organization which could show
the following wealth for its members in 1963, would face criticism
and political opposition designed to destroy or weaken it. (See List 1.)

The Cooperative's most difficult time probably occurred in 193^.
Five or six foodbrokers, who sold cooperative potatoes to retailers in
Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, "secretly planned a boycott to force
prices down and brought the vendors to their side." The middlemen
placed ant i -Japanese articles in the newspapers along with articles
that the Cooperative "suspended deliveries in order to raise prices
and refuse to sell to businessmen." Only two years previously, the
State Assembly passed Sao Paulo's first Cooperative Law. The Cotia

Ando. op. cit., pp. 13 "^5.

2
"Cooperativa Agricola de Cotia, Informacoes Gerais, 1963/196^."

Typed manuscript given the writer by the Secretary of the President.

•3

Relatorio da Diretoria. Ano Social 1963/64 (Sao Paulo:
Cooperativa Agricola de Cotia, July 25, 1964), p. Xii: all but one
of nine Directors was a Japanese-Brazilian; the tenth, Jarbas do
Amaral Carvalho, was of Luso-Brazi 1 ian descent.

Ando, OP. cit. . pp. 52-65.

LIST 1

MEMBERSHIP AND ASSETS OF COOPERATIVA COTIA 1963-196^+

Member of: Japanese Birth 6,378

Brazi 1 ian Bi rth ^,282

Others ^S7

Total 11,157

Estimated Number of Persons in Cotia Families 80,937

Estimated Number of family members who work in the

fields or in Cot ia-rel ated activities 30,918

Value of Property owned by Cotia Cooperative Members Cr 228,915.964,600

(US $108 mil 1 ion in
1963 exchange rates)

Area of Property Owned by Members 902, 82^ hectares

Members who rent land from non-members 2,79^

Members who own trucks or Willy Rural Wagons '+,170

Members who own tractors 7.270

Number of Cotia Employees in Offices and

Distribution Facilities in Sio Paulo 1,848

Employees who work at collection points, sales
centers, and experiment stations maintained
by Cotia Cooperative i,011

Source of Data: "Cooperativa Agrfcola de Cotia, Informacoes Gerais 1963/64,"
typed manuscript given this writer by the Secretary to the President,
Sra. Jul ia de I noura.

2^3

conflict soon expanded into an attack on cooperatives in general, so
that the fate of CAC wo^uld probably have repercussions on the State
Cooperative Assistance Department or DAC. The Director issued a
statement that CAC was not holding potatoes off the market; rather,
it was the middlemen who refused to buy them. CAC itself asked
the Japanese Consulate not to intervene in order to avoid the ap-
pearance of an international incident involving Japanese and Luso-
Brazilians. After a week's time, the middlemen capitulated and
asked for an agreement.

In recent years, several Sao Paulo State Deputies have •sought

to restrict the DAC's activities or complained that various co-

2
operatives engaged in improper business procedures --and many co-
operatives are organized simply to avoid payment of certain taxes —
but this is not always the real complaint of these Deputies. Generally,

their targets are the genuine cooperatives such as Cotia, the dairy

3
cooperative of Dutch immigrants at Holambra, Sao Paulo, or the

Ibid. , p. 65.
In addition, the Cooperative disagreed with the Consulate General
over CAC's educational activities; the Consulate General "probably
wished the cooperatives of Japanese origin to educate their children
under the control of the Society for the Diffi4.sion of Education in
Japan." In 1937, CAC leaders announced to enthusiastic applause at
their annual General Assembly, that CAC "could live without the aid
of third parties," and terminated its receipt of assistance from the
Japanese government. Ibid. . pp. 78-79.'

"Cooperativismo," 0 Estado de Sao Paulo (OESP) , April 20, 1965,

p. 4. State Deputy Alfredo Trindade claimed "cooperat i vi sm was being
perverted"; favored with "various advantages, especially of a fiscal
nature, cooperatives instituted true monopolies, imposing prices ac-
cording to their exclusive convenience." As an example, he claimed
the Cotia Cooperative dominated the fruit and vegetable markets.

■^John and Bini Moss, "Holland in Brazil," Ame r i ca s , XI, No. 8

2kk

dairy-wine cooperatives of Gaucho small farmers. Nevertheless,
their opponents encounter two great obstacles in attempting to
curtail cooperative operations: (l) the generally-admitted ef-
ficiency of these cooperatives in delivering low cost vegetables,
fruits, dairy-products, and wine to urban markets; and (2) their
clientele relationships with the DACS and several state deputies.

The Cotia Cooperative's principal public relations medium
is a monthly magazine Coopercot ia . founded in 19^3 and similar to Time

or Vi sao in format. In addition to Cooperative statements of policy

2
on agricultural or related matters, the magazine also carried

3
articles on crop and animal improvement practices, the activities

of youth groups, and women's circles, and other subjects discussed

(August, 1959), pp. 5-8, is a non-political treatment of this co-
operative which had 553 Brazilian and 585 Dutch members in the Muni-
cipio of Mogi Mir in.

FAG, "Principals Datos Historicos," unnumbered p. 3, indicates
that Gaucho small farmers participated in fixing the minimum prices
to be paid for grapes for "the first time in history" in January,
1963. Hitherto, prices had been set by large wine manufacturers,
wholesalers, and the Federal government.

"Burocracia nao deixa batata sair," Coopercot i a (Sao Paulo),
October, 1964, p. 7» and "Alteradas normas de credito," Coopercot ia
(Sio Paulo), October, 1964, pp. 7 and 15. respectively, were typical
editorials criticizing the SUNAB bureaucracy for slowing down or
stopping a potential sale of 100,000 tons of potatoes to the city of
Buenos Aires and an article discussing the activities of the National
Fund for Rural Refinancing and the National Coordinator of Rural
Credit, respectively.

3
"Porco engorda mais com sal na ra9ao," and "Boa cana da melhor

aguardente," Coopercot ia , October, 1964, pp. 11 and 32-34 are typical.

"Alachofra fez muito sucesso," Coopercot ia. December, 1964,
pp. 10-11, discusses events of the First Artichoke Festival of the
Sao Roque region, attended by 30,000 persons, in which an Artichoke
Q,ueen and Princesses of Japanese-ancestry were chosen.

245

in such American farm magazines as Wal lace 's Farmer or Country Gentle-
man.

In summary, these cooperatives function primarily as marketing
organizations but also perform occasional political functions. Co-
tia members are relatively invulnerable to cross pressures from
outside opponents who have little access to the highly developed
social infra-structure of the cooperative.

The Different Rural Sindicatos in Sao Paulo
Rio de Janeiro, and ParanI

Three groups struggled to organize and/or dominate the rural

sindicatos of these three states: ULTAB, the Workers Circles

(Circulos Operarios or CO's) and a third group, functioning only in

Sab Paulo, the National Labor Front (FNT) working in conjunction

2
with an organization called the Paulista Agrarian Front (FAP) .

Some of the same tactics observed in Rio Grande do Sul and

Pernambuco can be observed in these states, nevertheless.

In reviewing back issues of Coopercot ia (1962-1964), this
writer could find no indication that the Cooperative publicly sup-
ported candidates for local, state, or national office. It is
possible that the Japanese Brazilian colony uses the Cotia structure
as a means of aggregating the necessary votes to elect Senate and
Federal Deputies of Japanese descent such as Antonio Morimoto.

Leda Barreto, op. clt . . p. 108, notes that one Jofre Correia

Neto, leader of some "3>000 squatters (possei ros) . who sent a delega-
tion to the Sao Paulo Governor's Palace to ask for welfare assistance
to sustain their expulsions en masse" but implies he was still being
held by police in 1963 — without any further identifying data. "Ferido
o 'Fidel Castro' Paulista," Manchete. No. 384 (August 29, 1959), p.
32, indicates that Jofre Correia Neto was President of the Associa-
tion of Laborers of Santa Fe do Sul, against whom a latifundista Zico
Diniz reportedly organized a plot. However, this writer does not have
any information as to Jofre Correia 's links with the ULTAB or FNT or
whether he was an "independent" operator at the time.

246

their organizational methods were different in some respects because
these three states had a mixture of small farmers and rural workers
different than the "model types" of Rio Grande do Sul and Pernam-
buco, respectively.

ULTAB Efforts

As noted in Chapter II, Communi st-domi nated ULTAB attempts to
organize rural worker groups in 1 95^+ made little impact because of
their dependence on urban worker organizers and their lack of a
bureaucratic or cell structure in rural area which functioned on a
continuing basis.

Although Lindolfo Silva and Nesto "^^va may have spent some time
in the countryside before SUPRA was created in mid-1963, they spent

even less time thereafter and left the more prosaic organizational

2
work to JosI Portela Alves, a Rio de Janeiro naval shipyard worker,

whose organizational impact was limited in the 505 municipios of Sao

Paulo and the sixty-two municipios of Rio de Janeiro, because of the

lack of a structure at the local level. Hence, ULTAB-SUPRA proposals

Leda Barreto, op. ci t . . pp. 110-113, indicates that Communist
Party attempts to send urban workers to the countryside who could
not "identify with the peasants" backfired (f a1 haram) . Peasants had
been inculcated with an image that to be a communist was to be a
"diabolic destroyer of all that was Christian": "the principal pre-
occupation of the communist agitators who went to the countryside was
to recruit peasants for the PC [which organization] then remained
entirely inoperative," and finally, the peasant, "poor as he may be,
is owner of the means of his production, of his tools, such as the
hoe, the scythe . . . and to possess land, to be the proprietor of
his plot is among his most heart-felt aspi rat Ions. x Extinction of
private property is a thesis thaf frightens him as much as the petty
bourgeoisie."

2
Interviews with Personnel of Rio de Janeiro Rural Workers

Federation, April 5, 1965.

Ihl

to Circulo Operario Federation leaders in Sao Paulo in 1963 to unify
their efforts in the rural sector were an attempt to take over the
peasant sindi cato movement from the top down rather than from the
bottom up which was the basic method used in most Pernambuco peasant
sindi cato struggles.

FAP-FNT Efforts
The FNT and FAP were active principally in the RIbeirao Preto
region of Sao Paulo, on the basis of efforts made by Padre Celso
Ibson de Syllos and a Sao Paulo lawyer, Mario Carvalho de Jesus.
This writer has no date for the foundation of the FNT, although the
FAP was organized in early 1962. Both groups felt a "class struggle"
was necessary "to improve the welfare of rural inhabitants"; the
FNT also was opposed to the clergy's participation in Sindicato organ-
Ization although Celso Ibson's work obviously belied this doctrine.
The FAP-FNT groups held leadership training courses in various parts
of the state but were never able to build up a strong organization —
basically because of personal differences between its few leaders and

their lack of personnel; it collapsed soon after the April, 196^,

3
Revolution.

Padre Celso ibson apparently organized meetings in Altinopolis,
Cravinhos, Jardinopol i s , Batatais, and Sales de Oliveira munici pios .
However, apparently the only group successful in obtaining Labor
Ministry recognition, Batatais, was taken over by ULTAB groups work-
ing with the Sao Paulo DRT.

^Celso Ibson's work with ULTAB leaders on occasion brought down
upon his head various denunciations by landowners who charged he was
a "Communist," even after he formally denounced ULTAB and Communist
Party maneuvers in November, 1963.

^Two JAC and Sao Paulo Federation leaders told this writer that

2^+8

Workers Circle (CO) Efforts
In Sao Paulo, Paran^, and Rio de Janeiro, the principal efforts
of moderate to left-of -center sectors of the Church vjere guided by
Workers' Circle Leaders. In Sao Paulo, these were Frei Celso Maria
de Sao Paulo, OFM, and Jos5 Rotta, a former President of the Workers
Circles Federation, who began in early I96I. in Rio de Janeiro, the
leaders were Padre Antonio de Costa Carvalho, SJ, and two small
farmer-renters: Agostinho JosI Neto, active in the Workers Circle
movement of Barra Mansa — a residential area for many of the Volta
Redonda Steelplant workers — and Acacio Fernandes do Santos, a young
man who helped his father establish a Congregational Church and school
in Sao Goncalo. In ParanS, the principal organizers were the Bishop
of Maringa, Dom Jaime Luis Coelho, and a sometime small farmer, JosI
Lazaro Dumont , also active in the Circulos Operarios movement, who
organized a ParanS Agrarian Front (Frente AgraVia Paranaense or FAP)
in 1960.3

Padre Celso Ibson was an opportunist who wished to dominate the rural
organizations he associated with. In addition, a Federation leader
told this writer that Celso Ibson was a "rather shallow thinker in the
matter of rural organization; all he thinks about are strikesand land
division; he does not think about cooperatives, rural credit, and
marketing. Agrarian Reform under the Castelo Branco government is
an un-exciting thing for him."

"Eleita a Nova Diretoria da Federa9ao dos Pequenos Lavradores
Produtores Autonomos do Es'tado do Rio," Democracia e Si ndi cal i smo.
Barra Mansa, Rio de Janeiro, January 31, 1965, p. 6.

Price, op. cit.. pp. 59-60, discusses the Bishop's efforts to
form the ParanS Agrarian Front (FAP),

■3 _

"Frente Agraria Paranaense," Diario da Noi te (Sao Paulo),

August 3. 1965. See also: Manoel Silva, "I Congresso dos
Trabal hadores Rurais do ParanS," Revbta Bras i 1 iense. No. 33
(January-February, 1961), pp. 56-62.

249

The ideological orientation of these groups was much more con-
ciliatory than the radical Catholic groups:

it is appropriate to emphasize that the sindicato cooperates with
the government and other associations for the development of social
sol idarity. He errs who thinks that the sindicato, because it is
a class organ, ought to be an organ of the class struggle. The
defense of the legitimate interests' by legitimate means does not
justify in any fashion ... a class struggle.'

On the critical questions of agrarian reform, the Workers'
Circles at first adopted a moderate position in their first manifesto
by favoring expropriation "provided there is guaranteed just indemni-
fication to the owner, in accordance with the actual value of the

2
land, as prescribed in the Constitution." Later, the CD's became

more specific as to the goals and methods of agrarian reform when

they supported passage of the Land Statute or Estatuto da Terra. On

August 2, 1964, the Sao Paulo Rural Workers Federation issued a

statement saying:

1. We support and call for a truly Democratic and Christian
Agrarian Reform to give better living conditions to man, in the
terms of the Proposed Land State, with the Amendment of the Federal
Constitution in order to pay for expropriation of unproductive
land through public bonds (titulos da divida publica) or stock in
mixed companies. The lands that produce nothing ought to be taxed
heavier than those which are producing to lower the cost of living.
While an agrarian reform I aw i s not yet approved, the Federal
State and local Governments should give (prestar) greater as-
sistance to agriculture, harmonizing their efforts. 1 ncent i vat i ng
the colonization of public lands.

ii. Sindicato leaders energetically protest the action of
those landowners who prefer to plant grass (capim) to transform
their fazendas into pasture, solely to not pay minimum salaries
to their employees. [Sindicato leaders] alert the government of

Os Cristaos e o Sindicato na Cidade e no Campo. pp. 18-19.

Price, op. cit. . p. 56, citing a Manifesto of the Circulo
Opera'rio of Lins, December I96I, p. 1.

250

the Nation against this practice that has as its object the block-
ing ( imped i r) of the improvement of the living conditions of viork-
ers, causing unemployment, misery, and agitation in the rural sector.

The reader will remember that the Ministry of Labor v;as still

not disposed in mid-lS^l to recognize Rural Sindicatos. Therefore,

Workers' Circle (CO) groups operated in the following manner: A

Professional Association of Rural Workers or Autonomous Workers was

established in one muni ci pio in each diocese friendly to the concept

2
of rural unionism. The designation "Autonomous Worker" was used

Federa^a^o dos Trabal hadores na Agricultura do Estado de Sao
Paulo, "Conclusoes Praticas do lo Encontro dos Sindicatos de Trabal -
hadores do Estado de Sao Paulo, de 31 de Julho a 2 de Agosto de 196^"
(mimeographed), p. 3. See also Press Release No. 3, National Conference
of Brazilian Trade Union Leaders, June 5, 19^^ (English-language tras-
lation of a Press Release of a Conference of trade union leaders
sponsored by the National -Confederation of Commercial Workers (CNTG)
in Rio de Janeiro, which was to begin on June 6, 1964, pp. 2-3, for
a statement on Agrarian Reform which Rotta had a hand in drafting; in
addition, the publication discusses profit sharing, the labor court
system, collective bargaining as a means of contributing to a more
democratic trade unionism and 'the socio-economic emancipation of
the Brazilian worker," the right to strike, the Sindicato Tax, trade
union elections, and government welfare plan.

^Although precise data are unavailable on the names of all
those in the hierarchy in Sao Paulo favorable to rural unionization
and a greater distribution of land, this writer compared the Dioceses
In which Rural Sindicatos were formed in the 1961-19^3 period with
the names of eighteen Archbishops and Bishops going to Vatican
Council meetings in September, 1965. Only two of them had spoken
out against Rural Sindicatos: (l) Dom JosI Maurlcio da Rocha of
Bragan9a Paullsta, who also opposed the use of Portuguese in the
liturgy of the mass and banned discussion of several Papal Encyclicals
dealing with labor-management problems, and (2) D. JosI Carlos de
Aguirre of Sorocaba who circulated the book Reforma Agraria, Q.uestao
de Consciencia, by the Conservative Diamantina Archbishop, Dom
Proenca Sigaud; this writer had no information on the views of the
other two. The implications are that Church officials in Rome
favored or invited those Bishops who supported a greater participa-
tion by the Church in the Rural Sindicato movement.

251

in several municipios if ULTAB already had created an organization in
the muni ci pic.

In Rio de Janeiro, all fifteen rural s i ndi catos recognized by
the Ministry of Labor prior to December 31, 19^3, were organised in
municipios with Workers' Circle organizations. In Sao Paulo, nine
out of the first fifteen recognized peasant si ndi catos were organized
in municipios with a Workers' Circle group and four of the six others
were located in a municipio adjoining a CO group. Organizational
and other meetings were generally held on weekends when peasants were
accustomed to coming to the municipio sede for mass, market-day, and
entertainment. (See Table 17.) Principal speakers at the first
meetings apparently included the Diocese Bishop, a local parish
priest, and several of the state CO-af f i 1 i ated leaders indicated
above. Once the movement developed some momentum, newly elected rural
worker leaders would also accompany Rotta, Frei Celso Maria, Padre

Determined by comparing Sindicatos recognized in SUPRA, Si n-
*di catos Rurais, Rela^ao No. 1 , December 31, 1963, pp. 9-10, with
Workers' Circle groups shown on a Map, "Federa^ao dos CIrculos Ope-
rarios Fluminenses, Plan de A9ao no Setor Rural do Estado do Rio de
Janeiro," n.d., given this writer by Padre Carvalho.

'^Gathered by comparing data from Araguaya Feitosa Martins,
"Alguns Aspectos da lnquieta9ao Trabalhista no Campo," Revlsta Bra-
si 1 iense. No. kO (March-April, 1962), pp. 135-139, with a list of
CIrculos Operarios in the State appearing in a pamphlet, "CIrculos
Operarios, Uma 0rganiza9ao Para Defesa Economico-Soci a) , Eleva^ao
Cultura, Promo9ao Profei ssi onal , Progresso Cristao dos Trabal hadores
da CIdade e do Campo, ' ca. 1963, pp. 9-10.

Indicative of the probable moral and political help the CD's
could render is the fact that three of the four Associations which were
not recognized were located in municipios without Worker Circle groups;
the fourth, Campinas, is a large industrial city a short distance from
Sao Paulo, which has its own Bishop and which was the scene of many
conflicts between labor groups of differing ideology prior to April,

252

TABLE 17

THE CHRONOLOGICAL ORGANIZATION OF RURAL ^ I NDl CATOS
BY THE WORKERS' CIRCLE (CO) MOVEMENT IN SAO PAULO,

I961-1962

Date

Muni ci pio

Diocese and/or
Region

Bishop Participating

in Organizational

Ceremony

Aug. 20

Presidente Prudente* Alta Sorocabana

Sep. 17 Saoodoao da Boa Vista Alta Moji ana-
Rio Pardo

Sep. 2k Sao Jose do Rio PretO" Araraquara-

Rio Preto

Oct. 8 Juquia

Oct. ]k Marilia-v

Oct. 29 Lorena-'"^

Nov. 27 LinS"

Dec. 17 Campinas" NR

Jan. 8 Matao

Jan. 12 Guariba

Feb. 11 Chavantes -NR

Feb. 25 Botucatu

Mar. ? Jales -NR

Li toral

Al to Paul ista

Parafba River
Valley

Bauru - Northwest
Part of State

Sao Paulo

Araraquara

Jaboticabal

Pi raju-Botucatu

Paraiba River
Valley

Jose Aquino Pereira
Davi Picao

Lafaiete Libanio;
Jose Joaquim Goncalves

Idilio Scares, Santos

Hugo Bressano de Araujo

Jose Melhado

Henrique Gelain

Paulo de Tarso

Rui Serra, Bi shop of
Sao Carlos

Jose Varani

Henrique Goulard Trindade,
Botucatu

Same as above

Artur ....

253

TABLE 17 (cont.)

Date

Municipio

Diocese and/or
Region

Bishop Participating
in Organizational
Ceremony

Mar. ?
Mar. ?

Ass is*
Itu -NR

Assi s
Sao Paulo

Jose Lazaro Neves

Cardinal Carlos ]
Carmelo de Vascon-
celos of S5o Paulo !

" Indicates CO in Municipio.

NR if Sindicato was not recognized later.

^ The Workers Circke group was planning to organize a Sindicato
of Sharecroppers in March, 1962 in Lorena.

" This writer does not know if this Bishop Paulo de Tarso is the
same Paulo de Tarso who was a leader of the Brazilian Christian
Democratic Party (PDC) in the early I960 or the Paulo de Tarso
who was Prefeito of Brasilia in 1962, or possibly all of these.
In Victor Rico Galan, "The Brazilian Crisis," pp. 668-670,
considered Paulo de Tarso, leader of the PDC as "the natural
leader of a broad movement of the Brazilian Catholic left."

25^

Carvalho, Agostinho JosI Neto, or their aides to additional meetings
in neighboring munici pics in order to bolster the impression that this
was a movement with legitimate peasant roots.

Once six rural sindlcatos were organized, the Rotta-Celso group
formed a Federation of Rural Workers for the State of Sao Paulo on
November 9. 1962. By then, the Federation had a mixed-team of urban
and rural organizers to compete with ULTAB-SUPRA groups. Additional
momentum was achieved through several successful strike actions in

the Guar i ba-Jabot i cabal -Bebedouro sugar region that brought the

2
following benefits to sindicato members:

1. Payment of a minimum wage after February 1, 1962. _ "

2. Payment on the 10th of each month.

3. Registration of workers — a move by the Sindicato to prevent
employer use of worker-replacements.

4. Eight-hour days with overtime payment for more than eight
hours of work in the fields.

5. Payment fqr holidays and delayed vacations,

6. Lodging, light and water would be free. 3

"Sindicatos de Trabal hadores Rurais, Rela^ao Organizada por
Oton Monteiro de Deus," September, 1963, p. 11, indicates kS.

"Democratas Paulistas Lutam Pela Si ndi cal i za^ao Rural," A9a'o
Democrat ica, Ano 3, No. 36 (May, 1962), pp. 6-7, is an 1 BAD inter-
view in which Rotta notes the Federation had founded "13 Si ndi catos
and a hundred delegacies," an indication that many sindicatos had
pot been recognized by November, 1962.

Araguaya Feitosa Martins, np . ri t- . , pp. 139-1^0, indicates

that Rotta and Frei Celso participated in the bargaining for new

wages after a strike broke out in Guariba. In Jaboticabal and

Bebedouro, Bishop JosI Verani of Jaboticabal and Arnaldo Morel 1 i ,

a lawyer for Bianchi and Company, proprietors of Fazenda Anhumas, were the

principal outsiders brought In by Rotta to participate in the bargaining.

-'Existing legislation permitted a 33 per cent discount from
wages for housing, food items, etc., which might be furnished the
rural worker. However, the law never specified the standards of
housing, types and quantities of food, etc., which were to be furnished.
Because these cut heavily Into a family budget, the Federation sought
to have all discounts of this type abolished. The Rural Worker Statute

255

7. Land would be made available at no cost; for planting sub-
s i stence crops .

8. Transportation to a clinic at no cost in case of illness.

9. Medical assistance to be paid by the f azenda.

10. Partial payment of fazenda profits to employees.

11. A Christmas bonus in 1962.

In 1962, at least a dozen strikes by rural workers broke out on
sugar plantations on sugar mills in Sao Paulo, over unknown causes,
although, in Assis Municipio, the strike developed after the dismis-
sal of a worker for joining an Association formed by the Workers'
Circle Group.'

Although the Workers' Circle Groups achieved various specific
benefits for rural workers, both the ULTAB and the radical Christian

•3
reformists or revolutionaries'^ criticized the Worker's Circle Groups

because the latter did not call for or act to overthrow the social
and political systems linked to the economic system.

Functioning and Recognized Peasant Sindicatos
The political and ideological competition between the various
reformist and revolutionary groups in the rural sector led to the

of 1963 permitted employers to discount up to 20 per cent of the
minimum wage of each family member for housing which met "minimum
requirements of health and hygiene" and up to 25 per cent of their
minimum wage for "sufficient and healthful" (sadi a) food — neither
of these qualifications not spelled out (Articles 28-3I).

ibiapaba Martins, "Prol etar iado e lnquieta9ao Rural," Revi sta
Brasi 1 iense. No. h2 (July-August, 1962), p. 73.

^"Convenfao Nacional dos Sindicatos Rurais Pede ao Governo
Reforma da Const itui9ao," Novos Rumos . No. 26 (July 26-August 1,
1963), p. 6, charges the Rotta group "was willing to serve (or
"servile to") lat ifundi stas , especially the sugar-mill operators"
while Rotta himself was a "UDN gorilla."

Ibiapaba Martins . op. cit. . p. 75.

256

creation, of paper sindicatos by the ULTAB, SUPRA, and Church-sponsored
groups who wanted dependable local leaders, bargaining po'wer v;ith
state and federal officials, and exclusion of other groups from regions
they hoped to control. Table 18 shows this competition in terms of
the sindicatos wafting for recognition in September and December,
1963, that included numerous real Church-sponsored groups whose exist-
ence is shown by the close comparison of the totals for recognized
groups and those waiting for recognition with the total number of
peasant groups functioning in August, 1965.

it is most probable that nearly all of the ULTAB, PCB, MASTER
and Liga-inf i 1 trated groups disappeared after the April, 196^,
Revolution, along with some of the Church-sponsored paper s i ndicatos.
Nevertheless, most of the real Church-sponsored si ndicatos . not
recognized prior to Goulart's fall, received Cartas SIndicais from
the Ministry of Labor by the end of I965. In fact, more peasant •
sindicatos were recognized by the Castelo Branco government in 1965
than had been recognized by the Goulart government on December, 1 963 ,
and possibly also by March, 196^ on the eve of the Revolution.

^"As Atividades da 'SUPRA' no Interior de Sao Paulo," Ultima
Hora (Sao Paulo), February I8, 1964, is a public statement by Mario
Donato, SUPRA State Delegate, denying SUPRA's role as an "agitator"
or participant to "extreme measures" in Sao Paulo. "SUPRA's only
role was to act as a catalytic agent and its officials were limited
... to orienting the workers of the land as to the observances of
the customary habits of creating class s I ndicatos."

"Entusiasmo no Campo para Sindi cal izacao," 0 Globo (Rio de
Janeiro), October 1, 1965, indicates that Mrs. Natercla Sllva,
Director General of the National Department of Labor, said 139
new rural si ndicatos had been recognized between July and September
1965 in Pernambuco, Minas Gerals, ParanS, and Sao Paulo.

257

TABLE 18

RECOGNIZED AND UNRECOGNIZED RURAL SINDICATOS
1963-1965

Sindicatos

Funct.

Muni ciplos

Reportedly

Total

ptember

cember

Sinds.

in State

Organized
1962-1964

Paper j^

1963^

Aug.

December

Sinds.

Recog

-Wait

Recog -Wait

1965^

1964^

Alagoas

Amazonas

—

167

Bahia

164

17;

338

Ceara

176

Esp. Santo

—

Goias

179

Guanabara

—

Maranhao

122

Mato Grosso

—

Minas Gerais

102

246

—

718

Para

—

Para'ba

271

149

ParanS

140

250

Pernambuco

65 •

149

Piauf

:-54

—

102

R.G. do Norte

'131

258

TABLE 18 (cont.)

RECOGNIZED AND UNRECOGNIZED RURAL SINDICATOS

1963-1965

Si ndicatos

iptember

December

Funct .

Munici pios

Reportedly

Total

1963'^

1963"^

Si nds.

in State

Organized

Paper

Recog-Wait

Recog'

-Wait

Aug.

December

1962-196^^

Sinds.t'

1965^

1964^

R.G. do Sul

160

277

158

Rio de Janei ro

101

Sta. Catarina

102

—

177

^0 Paulo

188

641

111

505

Sergipe

1 ,604

2,268

211

259

270

555

490

3,719

Sources: a - From a list maintained in Federation of Rural Workers, Sao Paulo.

b - "Governo fecha os sindicatos do peeguismo," Tribune da Imprenta (RJ) ,
March 30, 1965. The National Labor Department of the MTPS considered
2,381 Sindicatos and federations recognized prior to April, 1964,
were 'phantom' or paper entities. Some of these in the state of
Minas Gerais, Rio Grande do Sul and Sao Paulo were urban si ndi catos.
The 2,268 total does not include 39 paper si ndi catos in the
territories of Amapa, Rondonia, and Brasilia.

c - SUPRA, "Sindicatos de Trabal hadores Rurais," September, 1963,
pp. 10-11.

d - SUPRA, Sindicatos Rurais, Relacao No. 1. December 31, 1963, p. 17.

e - Compiled by this writer. In those states with a dash, this writer
was not able to determine the number of rural functioning and
recognized si ndicatos.

259

Figure 30.

Figure 31

-Small farmer proprietors, members of a "hunting" or "shooting
club" parade through the streets of Nova Petropolis, Rio Gran-
de do Sul , celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding
September 7, I858. in 1902, Padre Teodoro Amstadt of the
nearby village of Linha Imperial founded the first Credit
Cooperative in Brazil for small farmers.

■-Home and family of Zulmiro Boff, President of the Sindicato of
Small Farmers, Caxias do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul, April 22,
1965. in the background to the left is a grape arbor from
which he earns his living-

260

Summary

The Differing Techniques of Access
for Southern Peasant Sindlcatos

As has been noted earlier in Chapter II, "access to one or more
key points of decision In the government . . . becomes the facilitating
intermediate objective of political interest groups." In the North
and Northeast, structured violence has been a part of the political
process and achievement of access for many years and will probably
remain so as long as there is a work situation with a large surplus
of unemployed or under-employed workers. While a strike or demonstra-
tion could modify specific negative aspects of the work situation in
the sugar regions of the South, other techniques were needed by the
small farmers, renters, or sharecroppers to influence private and
public decision-makers in the more advanced political and economic
sub-systems of the region. In Rio Grande do Sul , FAG-supported *'

'Truman, op. ci t . . p. 264.

^"Federa^ao de Trabal hadores rurais acusa propr ietar ios ," A_
Folha (Sao Paulo), May 19, 1965, indicates f azendei ros In the Sao
Paulo cotton region of Auriflama seized cotton stocks of share-
croppers as payment for "rent of their homes" because the crop had
not been as good as expected; "Ruricolas de lapeva pedem provldencia
as autoridades ," A Gazeta (Sao Paulo), June 1, 1965, indicates land-
owners in Itapeva., Sao Paulo, were plartting pasture grasses in the
garden plots of agricultural workers despite a 1963 contract to the
contrary.

"Subdelegado de Pollcia Prende Dirigente Sindical no Interior,"
Ultima Mora (Rio de Janeiro), April 16, 1965, charged Messlas Monteiro,
Police Subdelegate In Casimiro de Abreu with imprisoning Ladislau
Rodrlgues, a director of the Federation of Small Farmers of the State
of Rio, and for taking from him the printed forms necessary for the
collection of the Sindicato Tax in that Municlplo. Rodrlgues was
freed almost Immediately after President Jose Agostlnho Neto and
Padre Antonio Carvalho made representations with State Government
officials after word was received by the Federation officials in
this writer's presence.

251.

groups mobilized group pressures to influence state and federal govern-
ment officials to raise the minimum prices paid for peaches, grapes,
and yerba mate. In both that state and Sao Paulo, potato growers
influenced the National Food Supply Board (SUNAB) to purchase*
guaranteed quantities of potatoes to solve over-production and storage
problems.

Sao Paulo was the only Federation with direct access to the

State Assembly through JosS Rotta who was elected an Alternate UDN

2
State Deputy in October, 1962. Nevertheless, the lack of direct

legislative access did not hinder the Church-sponsored groups in
ParanS, Rio Grande do Sul , and Rio de Janeiro. These groups had
access to state and federal government officials because many of
their leaders and members were already involved in municipio and state
politics prior to the formation of the FAG or the Workers' Circle-
sponsored groups. in addition, they developed enough expertise and
skills in the details of the CLT, the Rural Worker Statute, and the
legislation governing SUNAB or the crop-regulating institutos to be
able to deal with the changed political atmosphere of the Castelo
Branco regime.

Although several national congresses of peasants or rural workers
were held during the Goulart administration which various of his Min-
isters attended, this writer has seen no published evidence that Goulart
ever gave audiences to rural worker or small farmer leaders as his suc-
cessor Marshall Castelo Branco did in Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia, or
during trips to various parts of the country.

Rotta was not re-nominated by the ARENA or MDB parties in 1966.
This writer does not know if he or anyone else asked for his nomination
by one of the parties.

262

The next chapter, after some discussion of the events contributing

to the formation of a National Confederation of Rural Workers (CONTAG) ,

j
will discuss how different characteristics of the leadership of peasant \

groups have contributed to the use of different solutions to their j

problems.

CHAPTER VI I

ORGANIZATION AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE

NATIONAL, STATE, AND LOCAL LEADERSHIP

OF BRAZILIAN PEASANT GROUPS

I ntroduct ion
Various attempts have been made to unify the peasant organiza-
tions into a national movement in order to deal with government
agencies, landowner or industrial groups, and to help state and
local peasant groups. The principle of institutional unity or union
monopoly gives considerable internal power to the Minister of Labor
and a national confederation over the subordinate personnel, policies,
and methods of groups at the state federation and municipio level.
The principle of union monopoly which permits only one organization
per occupational group in each municipio or state can be a real

threat to the individual or group which dissents from the policies

2
of the Ministry or a national confederation.

In the 1960's, many groups sought to dominate the national organ-
ization which could be formed under the auspices of the Rural Worker
Statute because this could help determine the personnel and policies

See Lipset, Pol i t i cal Man, pp. 357~397, for a discussion of the
problems of bureaucratization and oligarchy in trade unions, includ-
ing the conflict between democratic unionism and "responsible"
unionism or the "dictatorial" tendencies of union officials that are
a consequence of collective bargaining with management representatives.

2
Price, op. ci t . . pp. 17"20, summarizes the different points of

view on Ministerial recognition, appointment, and dismissal of sindi-

cato, federation, and confederation leaders.

263

26it

of subordinate groups for several years to come. Francisco Juliao,
ULTAB leader Lindolfo Silva, several Ministers of Labor, and several
Church leaders convened Congresses or conventions in an attempt to
create a National Peasant or Rural Workers Confederation. Finally,
in December, 1963, delegates from groups in seven states formed the
Confederation of Agricultural Workers (CONTAG) in Rio de Janeiro
with a leadership dominated by a coalition of Communists and radical
Catholics. In April, 196^, the Ministry of Labor appointed an interim
Governing Junta, dominated by reformist Catholics of the CBTC which,
in turn, gave way in April, 1965, to a group of reformist leaders
headed by Jose Rotta of Sao Paulo.

The creation and maintenance of a national organization of small
farmers and rural workers has been and is likely to continue to be a
highly political matter. This chapter will examine the three conven-
tions which preceded the formation of the CONTAG in December 1963,
leadership characteristics in three Northeastern and three southern
states, the oligarchic tendencies of the CONTAG leadership, and the
problems of cohesion and rebellion within the peasant movement at
the present time.

The Efforts to Create a National
Peasant Confederation

When it became apparent in mid-196l that the Brazilian Church

was going to be successful in organizing peasant sindicatos on a

widespread scale, ULTAB leader Lindolfo Silva and Francisco Juliao

agreed to hold the First National Congress of Agricultural Laborers

and Workers (i Congresso Nacional de Lavradores e Trabal hadores

265

Agricolas) in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, November 15"17. 196l.
One of the aims of the Congress attended by ] ,200 delegates and
subsidized by the Federal Government,^ was unification of the left-
ist and revolutionary groups organizing peasants, rural workers,

3 ~
sharecroppers, and squatters. Juliao, Silva, and others could not

agree on a formula to create a national organization probably because

of their personal and ideological differences over control of such an

organization. Silva propounded a two-stage theory of revolution: in

the first stage, he proposed a unification of all progressive forces

in favor of agrarian reform, extension of urban labor and welfare

legislation to the countryside, federal expropriation of unused land

over 500 hectares (1,235 acres), and the concession of new properties

up to 500 hectares for lifetime use — in effect, maintenance of the

"No Congresso de camponeses o assunto I reforma agraria,"
0 Metropol i tano (November Jl, 1961), p. ^, indicates the Congress
grew out of a meeting in Sao Paulo in 1959> although the participants
in this meeting are not named.

Ibid. . JosI Tiago Cintra, Secretary of the Congress of Peasants

as it apparently was originally to be called, said that Janio Q.uadros,
while President, had suggested the theme of agrarian reform and would
help finance it. Governor Magalhaes Pinto of Minas Gerais viho ap-
parently had promised aid earlier, had not given any aid but was going
to boycott the Congress, probabl\/ because of the crisis of August-
September 1961, which brought Joao Goulart to power. Similarly,
Governors Cid Sampaio of Pernambuco, Carvalho Pinto of Sao Paulo and
Carlos Lacerda of Guanabara refused to attend or help. Governor
Brizola of Rio Grande do Sul promised to pay the cost of MASTER
delegates from Rio Grande do Sul and of some delegates from Sao Paulo.

3cesar Guimaraes, "Congresso Campones 5 alianca de esquerda,"
0 Metropol itano (December 9, 1961), p. 3:1-2.

See Whetten, Guatemal a . pp. 152-173, and Pearson, "The Confe-
deraci6n Nacional Campesina," pp. I5O-I96, for a discussion of the
theoretical possibilities and actual results of what happened in
Guatemala, 1952-195^> when land was distributed for lifetime use to
peasants.

266

capitalist system of land use; in the second stage, a vague, undefined
"socialization" would take place. On the other hand, Juliao called
for a one-stage "global revolution" involving economic nationalism,
nationalization of basic industry, state monopoly of foreign com-
merce, rigorous control of profit remissions abroad, votes for the il-
literates, and defense of the Cuban revolution — all of which would
"contribute," he said, to "an effort of socialist construction,"
In terms of an organization to represent the peasants, Juliao called
for the creation of a Workers Central (Central de Trabal hadores)
which would include urban workers, peasants, and students.

In the end, no compromise could be reached on a concrete organ-
ization and a "pact of peaceful co-existence" was signed between the
two groups which one writer called a "plurality of leftists," whose

divergencies would not hinder their becoming a "social vanguard for

the future."

'"As duas faces do Congresso Campon'fes," 0 Metropol i tano (November
25, 1961), p. 8:1-3, and Harding, op. cit. . pp. 50-51, who said the ULTAB
position was unpopular.

Another important speaker at the Congress was Alternate PTB
Federal Deputy and peasant mobilizer Padre Francisco Lage Pessoa,
who did not address himself to the creation of a national peasant
organization but who soundly denounced the existing agricultural
system and called for its overthrow. See "Palavras aos camponeses,"
0 Metropol i tano (December 16, I96I), p. 3.

2 "

"As duas faces do Congresso Campones," op. cit.

One indication of the disagreement of the Julia, ULTAB, and

other groups is the absence of any references to the formation of

federations, confederations, or other groups larger than the local

sindicato in "The Declaration of Belo Horizonte," which is included

in Juliao, Que Son las Ligas Campesinas?. pp. 89-97.

267

The First Congress of Rural Workers of
the North and Northeast. May 1962

Six months later, reformist Church leaders and Minister of Labor

Andre Franco Montoro sponsored th'e Itabuna Congress which was briefly

discussed in Chapter IV. The Congress called for establishment of a

"National Confederation of Rural Worker Sindicatos" on the basis of

"existing rural federations In union with the sindicatos existing in

other states." Formation of such a confederation by the existing

federations in Bahia, Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Norte, and Sergipe

would have placed control in the reformist laymen and priests of

SORPE, SAR, MEB, and Archbishop Dom Jose Tavares of Arcaju. Because

this threatened their own position, Juliao, Lindolfo Silva (ULTAB) ,

the PCS, and other groups opposed formation of this group until a

later date.

The First Brazilian Convention of
Rural Sindicatos. July 1963

One year later, several hundred delegates from rural sindicatos

in twelve states met for the First Brazilian Convention of Rural

Sindicatos. It was one of the first so-called national conventions

"Carta de Principios I a1avan9a de camponeses," Jornal do
Brasil (May 18, 1962), p. k.

Federation Charters were issued by the Ministry of Labor to
groups in the following states on the dates indicated:

Pernambuco, October 17, 1962

Sergipe, June 11, 1963

ParanS, July 20, I963

Rio Grande do Norte, August ]k, 1 963

Sao Paulo, August 17, 1963

Rural Worker Federations were also recognized between September
and December 1 963 in CearS, Parafba, and Rio de Janeiro, although the
specific dates are not known. In addition, a second Federation in Sao
Paulo was also given legal status but this writer does not know which
of these groups was affiliated with ULTAB, and which was affiliated with
the Workers Circle group. See SUPRA, "Sindicatos Rurais, Rela^^o No. 1 ,"
December 31. 1963, p. 17, for dates of recognition.

268

to publish the names of the individuals and groups organizing a meet-
ing of this nature.

In its final conclusions, the Convention made four demands: (l)
expropriation of unused, abandoned, and badly used land which should
be sold on long-range terms to legitimate peasants who would work the
land; (2) formation of a National Confederation of Agricultural Work-
ers; (3) peasant participation in the staffing of a Rurd Social Wel-
fare institute, and (4) establishment of the Rural Labor Justice
Councils provided for by the Rural Worker Statute.

In addition, the delegates emphatically rejected "individual or
state capitalism" and those who would offer "solutions to Brazilian
problems" based on the experience of "capitalist, socidist or com-
munist countries." They also called for the abolition of cambao and
cond i cao. the sharecroppi ng arrangements by which peasants exchanged
so much labor per week or month in return for the privilege of work-
ing a small plot of land.

Mensaqem-Concl usoes . I Convencao Brasileira de Sindicatos Rurais,
Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, a booklet published in Natal by the Comis-
sao Coordenadora da Convencao, indicated the following formal leaders:
JosI Rodriguez Sobrinho, President of the RGN Federation; Manoel
Qoncalo Ferreira, President of the Pernambuco Federation of Rural
Workers; Joaquim Batista do Nascimento Sobrinho, President of the Ser-
g i pe Rural Workers Federation; Severino Manoel Soares of Pernambuco;
one Sebastiao from Rio Grande do Norte, and Rony Gerardi, one of the
organizers of the FAG Regional Department of Caxias do Sul , Rio Grande
do Sul .

Undoubtedly, informal leaders included Dom Eugenio Sales and
Doctor Jul ieta Calazans who were present also.

The following agencies collaborated to support the convention:
SUPRA, the Ministry of Agriculture, SAR, the Archdiocese of Natal, the
Rio Grande do Norte state government; MEB, the Regional Labor Delegate,
local Army and Navy Commanders, and several schools which probably
furnished meals and lodging to the delegates. Natal merchants were
even thanked for allowing "their windows to be' used for propaganda."

269

This unanimity however did not mask some of the personality or
other clashes between delegates. Sao Paulo and other Southern
states were poorly represented at the convention on its different
committees. Several of these delegates, including Josi Rotta,
issued a manifesto complaining that "extremist ant i -democrat ic students"
and other "outside elements" manipulated "the reins" of the convention
and did not allow peasants to ask questions or make comments on many
of the speeches made to the convention.

Establishment of the CONTAG
Five months later, delegates from twenty-nine federations in nine-
teen states, reportedly representing 7^3 peasant sindicatos (263 of
which were recognized), met in Rio de Janeiro to form the National
Confederation of Agricultural Workers or CONTAG. However, the Natal

reformist groups who called originally for the CONTAG, were out-

3
maneuvered by the Communist ULTAB allied with leftist MEB leaders

L
and Manoel Goncalo Ferreira of Pernambuco, an AP follower. ULTAB

'For example, the Second FAG Congress was meeting at practically
the same time, July 19-21, in Porto Alegre.

^Flyer, "Manifesto dos Trabal hadores Rurais a Na9ao," published
by "A Comissao, representando mais de 200 sindicatos de trabal hadores
rurais do Brasil," Natal, July 1963, given this writer by a Sao Paulo
peasant who attended the Convention.

■^Therry, op. cit . . pp. 38-39. For a PCB view of the elections,
see Novos Rumos . No. 235 (December 27, 1963-January 2, 1964).

in October 1963, Gon9alo Ferreira apparently agreed to modify
the directorate of the Federation of Rural Workers of Pernambuco to
include Antonio Guedes, PCB President of the Igarassu Sindicato as
first Vice President and Jose Eduardo de Lima Filho of Palmares as
Secretary of the Pernambuco Federation in return for Communist and
MEB support of Gon9alo Ferreira as CONTAG First Vice President.

270

leader Lindolfo Silva was elected President along with the following

officers :

Manoel Gon^alo Ferreira, Pernambuco, 1st Vice President
Jos^ Leandro Bezerra da Costa, Ceara, a ULTAB member, 2nd

Vice President
JosI Gomes Navais, Alagoas, 3rd Vice President
Sebastiao Louren90 de Lima, Minas Gerais, Secretary General
JosI Rodrigues do Santos, ParanS, 1st Secretary
Joao de Almeida Cavalcanti, Parafba, 2nd Secretary
Nestor \lera, Sao Paulo, ULTAB Vice President, Treasurer
Manoel Lito Muniz, affiliation unknown, 2nd Treasurer

In an interview published after the election by Liga . Juliao's
newspaper, Silva stated that the CONTAG would "struggle for agrarian
reform . . . participate in the battle for urban housing and banking
reforms at the side of urban workers and the people in general, in
addition to [seeking] extension of the minimum wage, family bonuses,
and the thirteenth month Christmas bonus for the peasants."

Padre Melo and other Church leaders, however, were not dismayed
over Communist control of the CONTAG or Ministry of Labor control of
the Federations through the recognition process. The latter two
groups did not have a "mass" following; therefore, non-communist
groups should continue stressing the importance of building strong

local peasant organizations for the future to meet the needs of the

peasants.-'

"Confederapao Nacional dos Trabal hadores na Agricultura:
Poderoso Instrumento de Luta," Liga (January 8, 1964).

"Confedera9ao Nacional," Liga (January 8, 1964).

"Desconhecer a CONTAG.' Lutar Pel a Organiza^a^o da Central Campo-
nesa Revol ucionaria," Frente Operaria (January 3. |964), was a Trotsky-
ite condemnation of the CONTAG elections as having nothing to do with
the peasant movement. All of these officials were "bureaucrats who for
a long time have never known what a hoe (enxada) was."

^Price, OP. cit.. p. 66, citing 0 Estado de Sao Paulo (February
26, 1964).

271

The 1965 CONTAG Elections

As the reader may have perceived in the previous section, an
active ULTAB and Popular Action (AP) minority controlled the nomina-
tion and electoral machinery of the CONTAG election. Once the
elections were over, ULTAB leaders Silva and \lera dominated CONTAG
policy statements and represented it at various meetings.

However, Silva and Vera were removed by the Ministry of Labor
after the 1964 Revolution and a moderate, reformist Workers Circle
(CBTC) , leadership was named as Interventors in the CONTAG. Thi's
group, in turn, attempted to arrange the internal power hierarchy
to prevent a succession conflict in the elections which were finally
held in April, 1965, by limiting the federations who were to participate
in the election process.

For example, Silva and Vera were CONTAG representatives in a
232-man "peasant delegation" representing Brazil at the Communist-
sponsored Congresso de Unidade SIndical de Trabal hadores de America
Latina, in Brasilia, January 25-28, 1964. The Congress, which,
originally was scheduled for Rio de Janeiro, January 10-12, 1964,
was forced to move to the national capital because of opposition
from Governors Lacerda of Guanabara and Magalhaes Pinto of Minas
Gerais, None of the 230 other "peasant leaders" from 12 states and
Brasilia was nationally known as an important local or state federa-
tion leader although it is possible some were leaders of ULTAB paper
organizat ions.

The CBTC was formed out of the CNCO in an internal re-organ-
ization in July, 1964. The organization was suspended by the Latin
American Confederation of Christian Trade Unionists (CLASC) because
the CNC refused to join CLASC in condemning the Brazilian military
for the ouster of Joao Goulart.

For example, this writer did not encounter any delegates from
Bahia, CearS, Minas Gerais, or Rio Grande do Sul . With respect to
the last group, the telegram inviting them to participate in the
elections did not arrive until April 16 and was delivered while this
writer was talking with Jos^ Ary Grebler in the FAG offices.

272

In a series of meetings in early 1965 with leaders from Parana,
Rio de Janeiro, and one Pernambuco leader working in the National
Labor Department, JosI Retta and Geronimo Silveira, Executive Secretary
of the Sao Paulo Federation of Rural Workers, engaged in cambal acha .
the Brazilian method of distributing Executive Committee positions
in advance, to assure Retta the Presidency even before twenty-five
voting delegates formally met April 12. After two days of bargain-
ing behind closed doors, a single slate (chapa unica) was presented
for formal use on April 1^ — dissenting or aspiring groups theoretically
being allowed to present a slate also. Nevertheless, when the formal
ballots were cast, the R6tta slate was unanimously approved. The
nine regular and three alternate members of the Executive Committee
(Pi retorio) and the three regular and three alternate members of
the Fiscal Council (an auditing body) were divided up among tbe state
federations as follows:

Pernambuco

Rio de Janei ro

Sao Paulo

Paraf ba

Sergipe

Rio Grande do Norte

ParanS

, Although the one slate gave an appearance of unanimity, CBTC and
Workers' Circle leaders present were aware of the factionalism in the
organization and took steps to keep outsiders, including this writer,
away from the premises until after pre-election maneuverings had been
completed. The 1965 election, unlike those of 1963, was given very

A list of the positions and names is included in the Appendix.

273

little publicity in the Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo press and none,
so far as this writer is aware, i n.Pernambuco, Paralba, or Rio
Grande do Norte. The removal several weeks later of at least one
dissident member of the CONTAG Directory was a further step in
the Rotta's attempt to achieve the maximum possible cohesion and
privileges that leadership status might provide in the future. In
any case, Rotta has become the effective national spokesman for
CONTAG and no one else has issued statements for the CONTAG either
through news conferences or published articles in Rio de Janeiro
and Sao Paulo newspapers.

Notes on the Leadership cf Small Farmer and
Rural Worker Groups in Brazil. 1962-1965

As has been noted in the preface, most of the literature on
peasant groups in Brazil has been polemical rather than analytical.
One of the greatest gaps concerns the background characteristics
of the leadership of these organizations. Because the April, 1964,
Revolution removed ULTAB, Communist, Trotskyite, and Liga leaders,
there was little opportunity to gather data concerning the back-
ground characteristics of these leaders other than that which
already has been noted in previous chapters. However, data gathered
by Jose Chasin and a Sao Paulo group which interviewed 90 delegates
to the Belo Horizonte Congress of November, 1961, can be used for

'The dissident was Nobor Bito, a Japanese Brazilian born
October 7> 1938, who was President of the Sindicato of Rural Work-
ers of Presidente Prudentes, Rotta's home town, April ]k, I963, to
April 19, 1965.

some comparative purposes.

In order to determine the individuals who were i nf 1 uent ial • or
knowledgeable about power relationships in existing peasant pressure
groups, more than 200 persons were interviewed who held formal
leadership posts fn the CONTAG state federations, catalytic organiza-
tions such as SAR, SORPE, FAG, CNCO-CBTG, and peasant sindicatos, co-
operatives, government agencies and knowledgeabl es in universities,
landowner groups such as the SRB and Fornecedores Association of
Pernambuco, and international trade union organization representa-
tives.^ Tables 16 and 17 are based on data gathered on 75 formal
and informal influentials in sindicato federation, CONTAG, SAR, SORPE,
Workers Circle, FAG, and CNCO, CBTC organizations in six states: Rio

' Jos^ Chasin, "Contr i bui9ao Para a Analise da Vanguardia
Pol'tica do Campo," Revi sta Bras i 1 iense. No. 44 (November-December,
1962), pp. 102-129. A sample of 120 persons was taken from the
1,036 persons attending the first two days of meetings. However,'
only ninety of the interviews used as a basis for his report which
was composed of data on thirteen delegates each from Pernambuco,
Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, and Sao Paulo; eleven from Goias;
eight from Parana, and five from Rio Grande do Norte. For some
inexplicable reason, Chasin's sample did not include anyone from
Alagoas or Rio Grande do Sul which furnished ten and 34 delegates
respectively.

Chasin, op. ci t. . pp. 103-104, met "enormous resistance" from
many delegates who did not want to be interviewed. One peasant more
than 50 years old reportedly told him: "Why statistics? We don't
want statistics, we want land.'" Chasin felt such an attitude indicated
peasant leaders were developing the "caution and prudence" necessary
to "organized political work." This writer would say that it would
be just as valid to say that such an attitude was a manifestation of
a general peasant reluctance to discuss matters which might cause
difficulties with the police or important politicians-landowners.

The writer was well aware of the problems of determining

"men of power in a community" and influentials from reading Floyd
Hunter, Community Power Structure (Garden City: Anchor Books,
Doubleday and Company, 1963, especially pp. 9~25 and 255~263; Kam-
merer, et al . . op. cit. . pp. 18-26, and Robert Dahl , Who Governs?

275

Grande do Norte (8); Paralba (7); Pernambuco (19); Rio de Janeiro
(7); Sio Paulo (10); and Rio Grande do Sul (24). Background data
on twenty other persons from nine other states were not included
because the data were insufficient to have a representative sample
from these states. Nevertheless, the data gathered on these
twenty additional influentials tends to corroborate the data on
the 75 persons included in the Tables.

The writer originally planned to use a mimeographed interview
schedule with both structured closed-end and unstructured open-ended
questions. However, after his arrival in Brazil, the writer discovered
many formal leaders, influentials, and knowledgeables were reluctant

to submit themselves to detailed interviews involving written

2
questionnaires. He soon perceived that it was impossible to secure

the confidence of interviewees by recording their answers in their

presence. Instead, a variety of techniques were designed to gain

their confidence and to elicit information on power relationships

and historical events. In general, this was done by talking about

Democracy and Power in an American Citv (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1961), pp. 330-343.

Excluded were persons from Alagoas, Cearl, GoiSs, Maranhao,
Minas Gerais, ParanS, PiauT, and Sergipe. However, several persons
were included in the sample who were born in or worked in those
states, e.g., Luis Ernani Torres, Executive Secretary of the CONTAG,
who was born in CearS, and Padre Melo of Cabo, Pernambuco, who was
born in Sergipe.

John F, Santos, "A Psychologist Reflects on Brazil and Brazil-
ians," in Baklanoff, op . c i t . , pp. 239-248, notes "it is somehow dif-
ficult to imagine Brazilians giving [the] kind of highly personal in-
formation to an interviewer, even for purposes of a scientific study"
if that person wanted to make a "Brazilian Kinsey Report," or study
"sin" and "guilt feelings."

276

the writer's own life, especially as a farm worker in the United
States whose summer pay and productivity in raising wheat and other
crops astounded most Brazilians, about his reasons for being in Brazil,
about rural and political conditions in the United States (racism -f
in the South and coronal i smo in Brazil make wonderful analogies),
and by "dropping" the names of other Brazilian political and church
influentials whom I had talked to. Other satisfactory results
resulted from a willingness to eat peasant fare; visit peasant farms
and homes; a willingness to observe and learn from local farm leaders
at public meetings which sometimes resulted in spontaneous demands
for a speech by the writer; after this "rite of passage," questions
could be asked about many matters. In general, most formal leaders
and influentials were sensitive to questions about their political
activities by an outsider from the United States, especially after
"Operation Camelot" was perceived by many Brazilian intellectuals.

Formal leaders, influentials, and ordinary peasant members
were much more receptive to questioning in the South than in the
Northeast. In part, this is probably a result of the great at-
tention paid by foreign journalists and academicians to the Peasant
Leagues and the Northeast which offered more "newsworthy" or
flamboyant stories by virtue of its traditional techniques of
proclaiming a "crisis," "emergency," or "violence" as a means of
gaining recognition from state and national decision-makers.

For example. Padre Paulo Crespo of Jaboatao has been inundated
by American politicians, professors, university students, journalists,
and trade union leaders. When this writer first interviewed him at
Jaboatao May 30, 1965, he refused to answer any questions on SORPE's
activities until after I had spent a month or more in the Pernambuco
countryside and had formulated some opinions and gathered some facts
of my own — a reasonable request on his part and an excellent method
of winnowing out those who would seek to become "instant experts."

Kalman H. Silvert, "American Academic Ethics and Social Research
Abroad," AUFS Reports, West Coast South America Series, Vol. XII, No.
3 (July, 1965), pp. 7-1^. is among the better reports on the immediate
implications exposure of the program and its funding had.

277

students, and journalists as a further attempt by the United States
to impose its will on Brazil and other Latin American nations.

(Questions from the original interview schedule were inter-
spersed in general conversations with individuals when it seemed
appropriate or relevant to the situation at hand. After an inter-
view in a peasant sindicato, federation office, plantation, or sugar
mill, the answers to these questions were written down. In addition,
other inf ormation»on these persons was gathered from books and
periodical s.

Four Pernambuco and seven Sao Paulo peasant leaders who partic-
ipated in training courses for middle-level sindicato leaders at the
Instituto Cultural do Trabalho (ICT) of Sao Paulo, between I963-
1965> were included in the sample. Thirty-seven Pernambuco peasant

Instituto Cultural do Trabalho, Primeiras Atividades, Sao
Paulo, 1965, discusses the origins and work of the Institute which
was a civil society formally registered June 1, 1963, as an entity
to "prepare urban and rural workers, current sindicato leaders."
The ICT was "against government or management (patronal) interference
in sindicato life. Capital and Labor are two powerful forces that
ought not and cannot be in antagonistic camps either in the process
of making ugly faces at one another or in constant challenges
(desaf ios) ." Over the long run, the ICT--under the supervision of
the well-known Brazilian sociologist and labor lawyer, J.V, Freitas
Marcondes — has sought to bring about a greater use of collective
bargaining arrangements.

On the Board of Directors (Conselho Consul tat ivo) of the
ICT are several prominent Sao Paulo labor lawyers such as A,F.
Cesarino Junior and Jos5 Barbosa de Almeida and American labor
officials Serafino Romualdi, George Meany, Joseph A, Byrne, and
John F. Snyder. The AFL-CIO, through the American Institute for
Free Labor Development, has helped significantly in financing ICT
operations.

Courses of the ICT include the following: Brazilian Sindicato
Legislation and Organization; History of Labor Law, Foundations of
Social Law, Si ndicato Admi ni strat ion , Agrarian Reform, the Brazilian
Labor Justice Court System, Capitalism, Socialism and Communist, Co-
operative Philosophy and Organization, Economic Development and Under-
development, Collective Bargaining Techniques and Content.

278
sindicato leaders participating in an ICT-aided training course in Re-
cife, Marcii 22-April 15, 1965, were not included in the select sample
of seventy-five persons, although this group is compared in Table 20
with delegates to the Belo Horizonte Congress and the eleven peasant
leaders participating in the I CT training courses.

The background data used in Tables 19 and 20 are not as complete
as this writer would have liked. On the other hand, it is this
writer's judgment that the data are valid, based on cross-checking
with other informants and sources whenever possible. Many respond-
ents were proud, flattered, or at least pleased that they were picked
for this study which would be for the use of students and "the
people of the United States" but not for the CIA or United States
Embassy.' As indicated in the Preface, this writer was studying
phenomena which, so far as previous studies go, were virgin.

Occupational and Age Experiences
The Presidents and officials of the state federations and SAR-
SORPE-FAG Workers Circle groups have had a wider occupational and

Agronomist Luis Goies Vieira, Supervisor of Courses of the
iCT-Recife, was kind enough to give this writer access to I CT
file cards on these men, August 11, 1965-

Kammerer . et al . . op. ci t . . p. 19 was adapted for the last

two sentences.

279

TABLE 19

BACKGROUND CHARACTERISTICS OF DELEGATES TO THE FIRST
PEASANT CONGRESS, BELO HORIZONTE, NOVEMBER, 1961
AND INFLUENTIALS IN THREE SOUTHERN AND THREE
NORTHEASTERN STATES, NOVEMBER 196^-AUGUST 1965

November

Southern

Northeast

Congress

n-^l*^

n-90^

n-3^

Agr icul tural

Squatters (Poseiros)
Day Laborers
Renters
Sharecroppers
Smal 1 Proprietors
Admini strators
Other Rural

Skil led Blue Col lar

Unski 1 led Blue Col lar

White Collar Sindicato

School Teacher

Col lege Student

Lawyer

Clergyman

Cooperative Official

Government Official -Deputy

Small Town Businessman

Retired Postal Clerk

Other

137o

2%
28

1 00%

12
17
5
7
9
9
17
7
2

TT9%^

9
3

12
6

18
6
6

1 ] 0%'

pTdi"

280
TABLE 19 (cont.)

November
Congress
n-90^

Southern

Northeastern
n-34

AGE

1 00%

BIRTHPLACE
Rural farm

Hamlet-less than 5,000
Small town (6-20,000)
Medium city (21-100,000)
Large City (Over 100,000)
Unknown

LENGTH OF TIME LIVED ON FARM
Never -

Less than 5 years
6-10 years
1 1 -20 years
More than 20 years
Unknown

PARTICIPATION IN PREVIOUS
GROUP ACTIVITY
Mi 1 i tary Service
Recreation Groups

100
1 00%

28%

99%

102%

Under 20

20-2i+

25-29

30-39

itO-49

—

Over 50

1 00%

98%

EDUCATION

1 1 1 iterate

2^-27%

—

Incomplete Prima

iry

■MEB

73-76

35%

5 years Primary

—

Incomplete Secor

idary

Complete Seconds

iry

—

Some Col lege

—

Ful 1 Col lege or

Equivalent

such as Seminar

—

1 02%

56%

32%

—

2.1.

—

102%

12%

281
TABLE 19 (cont.)

November

Southern

Northeastern

Congress

n-90^

n-k]^

n-3k

Church Groups

Roman Cathol ic

Protestant

Atheists

—

Workers Circles

—

Political Parties

—

Peasant Sindicatos

839

Urban Sindicatos

—

Cooperatives

36,

18.,

]3]7o° 224°r l6l7o"

^Jose Chasin, "Contr i buicao Para a Analise da Vanguarda Politica
do Campo," Revista Brasi 1 iense. No. kk, November-December, 1962, pp.
102-129.

"Data on ^1 Southern influentials include 12 Sindicato officials
(29%), 7 who were both Sindicato and Federation officials (17%), and 22
FAG, CO, CNCO-CBTC influentials (53%). By states, they come from Rio de
Janeiro (L&%) , Sao Paulo (24%), and Rio Grande do Sul (59%).

<^Data on 34 Northeastern influentials include ]J Sindicato officials
(50%), 7 who were both Sindicato and Federation officials (15%). and 10
SAR or SORPE influentials (35%). By states, they come from Paratba (20%),
Pernambuco (55%), and Rio Grande do Norte (25%).

Percentages total more than 100% since some persons perform more
than one function or were engaged in more than one activity.

Chasin included data only on illiterates; these figures were
separately for those who could perform arithmetical operations, read,
and write.

'Includes those individuals who live in a city and commute to rural
areas for sindicato or cooperative work as well as those who live in
rural areas and commute to the city to perform sindicato or cooperative
work.

^Chasin's survey indicated 83% belonged to a "class association"
but the meaning of this term is not explained. it is difficult to know
Chasin's meaning since the ETR was not proclaimed until after the
Belo Horizonte Congress, it is also difficult to know the type of groups
which the 52% who said they belonged to for more than five years since
the first Peasant Leagues did not function until 1955 and thus the margin
of error could be considerable.

282

TABLE 20

BACKGROUND CHARACTERISTICS OF DELEGATES TO THE FIRST PEASANT

CONGRESS, BELO HORIZONTE, NOVEMBER, I96I, AND RURAL WORKER

LEADERS IN ICT TRAINING COURSES IN SAO PAULO (I963-I965)

AND RECIFE, PERNAMBUCO (MARCH 22-APRlL 15, 1965)

November

Congress

n-90

ICT

Sao Paulo

Recife

n-11

n-37

AGE

Under 20 years

20-2^+ years

25-29

30-39

40-i+9

Over 50

EDUCATION

1 1 1 i terate

Incomplete Primary-MEB
5 years Primary
Incomplete Secondary
Complete Secondary
Some Col lege or

Advanced Schooling
Unknown or I nexact

—

1 00%

99%

1 02%

24-27%

73-76%

—

18
9

_ _

1 00%

99%

1 00%

LENGTH OF TIME ACTIVE IN RURAL
WORKER SINDICATQ MOVEMENT

Unknown or Inexact
Less than 1 2 months
12-23 months
24-35 months
36-47 months
Over 4 years

1 00%

24%

30%

—

1 00%

CURRENT EMPLOYMENT OR SOURCE
OF INCOME FOR LIVING

Agricultural

Squatter (Poseiro)

13%

283

TABLE 20 (cont.)

November

ICT

Congress

Sao Paulo

Recife

n-90

n-n

n-37

20%

■■>■

57%

—

"■"

36%

—

Day Laborer
Renter

Sharecropper
Smal 1 Proprietor
Dismissed from Work
Other Rural Wori<

Federation white-collar

Sindicato white-collar

Sindicato Officer

Others or Unknown

1 1 0%

I 00%

98%

^Jose Chasin, op. ci t . . pp. 106-122.

''information gathered by this writer from I CT-Sao Paulo files.
^Information gathered by this writer from ICT -Recife files, August
11, 1965.

Q-

•

•^

—

Ll.

—

(Ti

-3

•«

• ^

^—

I-

4-1

-C

>—

■M

O (U

•!->

-a

■^

■M

1/1

•!-»

(U o

r—

-C

p—

+-"

•

CNJ

cf\

285

feMiW

V ■/.<*■■

.„„,rf»«*4»"

r%-

286

educational background than the membership. Participants in the I CT
middle-level training course had a longer history of sindicato
activity than the participants in the Recife training course — a
natural difference in view of the fact that this was only the first
or second leadership training course for all of the Recife partic-
ipants.

The leadership of the Northeast groups is relatively younger--

29 years of age — compared to the leaders of the South — 35 years.

This lower age for the Northeast is a reflection of the roles played
by high school graduates or college students with communications
skills in SAR and SORPE programs. The higher age for the South is
undoubtedly a reflection of the greater longevity in the South and
the wider social and political experiences which seem to be criteria
for sindicato and cooperative leadership selection by the members
or higher-level i nf 1 uent ial s.

A significantly larger number of persons in the South (J 5 or
36 per cent), compared to U or 12 per cent for the Northeast, were

Chasin, op. ci t . . pp. 120-121, found 23 per cent of his sample
of 90 persons had been actively militant in peasant movements from
5-10 years, 9 per cent from 11-15 years, and 20 per cent militant
for more than 20 years. It is hard to believe his figure that 52
per cent had been militant for more than five years — since, before
1956, the first peasant league at Engenho Galileia never really
functioned until that year and Juliao never made an impact on the
Brazilian press until 1959.

Chasin has no breakdown of age for the 39 per cent of his
sample holding office in "class associations," the hk per cent who
said they were only members, and the 17 per cent who belonged to no
"class associations" at all. Unfortunately, as noted previously,
Chasin does not explain the meaning of "class association."

^The median age of delegates to the Belo Horizonte Congress was
between kO and 50 years of age — a rather high -level considering the
low average life span of most Brazilian peasants.

287

active in politics prior to or during their experience as leaders of
influentials in the catalytic FAG/Workers Circle groups. in the
Northeast, the status differentiations between urban and rural clas-
ses and areas undoubtedly contributed to the fact that only one
peasant leader had been a municipal councilman (vereador) — and
this only after he was elected a sindicato president. Similarly,
the status differentiations of the Northeast, including the lack
of social ties between small town professionals and small farm
proprietors, contributed to the absence of small -town businessmen
and one retired postal official who were FAG influentials. However,
the sample may have been too small to say that there were absolutely
no small town businessmen with influence over peasant sindicato
policies in the Northeast.

Educational Background
While twenty to twenty-five per cent of the sampled delegates
to the Belo Horizonte Congress were unable to do arithmetical

Chasin, op. ci t . . p. Ill, found 75 per cent of his Belo Hori
zonte sample were registered to vote, 18 per cent were not, but 7
per cent did not respond. This writer did not ask any questions
about voting behavior; nevertheless, none of those persons in* the
1965 sample said he was unable to vote or participate in politics,
probably because nearly all of them were literate and thus aware
of the relationship between literacy and policy-making.

For example, this writer met one merchant and small land-
owner in Bom Jardim, Pernambuco, who was sympathetic to the SORPE-
sponsored sindicato and cooperative in that town. However, this
writer did not visit Bom Jardim long enough to determine whether
he was influential in policy-making, personnel decisions, or if
his sympathy resulted from a longtime friendship with Dr. Djalmo
de Melo, of the SORPE staff, who had lived in Bom Jardim many
years ago.

288

operations, read or write, the 311 delegates to the FAG Congress and
all seventy-five leaders in the 1965 sample were literates, although
three Northeast sindicato and federation leaders only recently
learned to read and write through MEB-type programs. In the North-
east, the median level of education was between elementary and an
incomplete secondary school level of education; half of the North-
east sample did not have five years of primary schooling. In the
South, the median level of education was much higher: 51 per cent
had completed secondary school or had further education. The seven
Sao Paulo participants in the I CT training courses included in the
sample had a higher level of education than did the four Pernambuco
participants in the I CT courses. Moreover, all but one of the
eleven ICT -course participants had a higher level of education than
all thirty-seven peasant leaders in the ICT -aided Recife courses,
an indication of the relationship of education to advancement in
the sindicatos which need accountants, bookkeepers, and other
persons who can complete government forms.

The Church as a Source of Leadership
Church groups have been an important source of leadership for
peasant groups in both the Northeast and the South. The greater
dependence in the Northeast on priests and lawyers is principally
due to the lack of rural schools, especially rural schools with
male school teachers of a peasant background. In the South, the

Chasin, op. ci t . . p. 113. The rate of illiteracy for wives
was even higher: 51-53 per cent did not know how to do arith-
metical operations or how to read and write.

289

greater diversity of the rural social structure, the greater number
of rural schools, male rural school teachers, and cooperatives,
has meant that these occupational groups have been available as a
source of leadership not only at the municipio but also the
regional and state level. The importance of priests to peasant
groups in the Northeast is indicated by the fact that this writer
found municipios without priests and without sindicatos, municipios
with a priest and no sindicato, but not one peasant sindicato which
did not have a sympathetic parish priest helping the peasant leader-
ship. On the other hand, in the South, several rural worker and
small farmer sindicatos or cooperatives functioned with the apparent
indifference, inattention, or distaste of local priests and pastors.
Finally, David Truman's generalizations about occupants of

managerial positions tending to perpetuate themselves in office or

2
taking advantages of opportunities to benefit themselves appear

valid for Brazil also by the fact that all eleven I CT Sao Paulo

middle-level trainee leaders lived on their sindicato salaries in

contrast to the three out of thirty-seven persons in the Recife

course who had a sindicato salary and the twenty-four or 68 per cent

who had no income other than what they could earn as rural laborers

and who were thus, in a sense, dependent upon large landowners.

Chasin had no priests or schoolteachers in his Belo Horizonte
sample although Padre Alipio de Freitas and several other clergymen
are known to have attended the Congress. The seven non-peasant
delegates interviewed by Chasin included a railroad worker, a painter,
a factory worker (operirio) . a wagon driver or teamster (carrocei ro) .
a market-stall owner, a salt-field worker, and one other person whose
occupation was not declared.

Truman, op, cit . . pp. 143-155.

290

Characteristics and Sources of Group Leadership
On the basis of the data gathered,' the following can be said of
the various leadership elites of the various rural worker, small
farmer, or peasant organization groups organized in Brazil since 1955.

Insofar as there has been a national leadership, it has been
recruited from the urban middle classes, particularly intellectuals
or members of related professions — clergymen, lawyers, politicians,
and school teachers--who also deal in ideas.' Leadership further
down the ladder is recruited increasingly from within the peasantry
and not from outside the peasantry. Insofar as there is a regional
or state leadership, it is a mixture of outside urban middle class
or a local rural middle class leadership — of clergymen, lawyers,
school teachers, and small independent farmers,-^ and rural workers

Exceptions have been the ULTAB leadership of Lindolfo Silva,
Nestor \lera, and Jos^ Pureza, who were urban factory workers when
not working in the field and being supported by the Communist Party;
several persons in Sao Paulo claim Jose Rotta, the Sao Paulo Rural
Worker Federation, and CONTAG President, has never lived on a farm
but came exclusively from a small town, white collar or merchant
background. Rotta himself claims he comes from a family of rural
workers. In any case he had been working in a white collar bureau-
cratic capacity with the Workers' Circle movement for several years
prior to being asked by Frei Celso to hed up the Workers Circle-
sponsored rural workers movement in Sao Paulo.

^Henry Landsberger, "An Approach to the Study of Peasant
Organization in the Course of Socio-Pol i t i cal Development," a paper
presented in a Seminar on Latin American Peasant Movement, New York
State School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University,
Ithaca, New York, December 8-10, 1966, p. 35. theorized that "the
less modernized the society, the lower down the ladder is leadership
recruited from outside the peasantry," e.g., local bourgeoisie,
craftsmen, etc."

Professor Landsberger, op. cit . . p. 37, theorized that "at

levels below the top leadership, particularly in the less modernized
societies, leaders tend still not to be peasants, but tend to be
drawn from local craftsmen, merchants, teachers, etc., though these

291

from sindicatos which had a strong financial base through col-
lection of the Imposto Sindical or union tax.

in the beginning, Francisco Juliao, a landowner-lawyer and
politician, the priests affiliated with SAR, SORPE, and FAG, or
the leaders of the ULTAB and MASTER organizations were not of peasant
origins. As time went on, state federations and the CONTAG brought
small proprietors and rural workers into the hierarchy of the Church-
sponsored groups. Peasants undoubtedly exercise some influence over
policy since the April 196^ Revolution, but the dominant influence
in national policy-making probably comes from such non-peasants as

Jose Rotta, Padre Pedro Velloso of the CBTC, and Frei Celso Maria

of Sao Paulo.

are sometimes of peasant origin." In the case of Brazil, clergymen
need to be included.

The presidents of the Campos, Rio de Janeiro, and Palmares,
Pernambuco, sindicatos have always been important in federation
politics because of their command over sizeable sums of money col-
lected from the sugar plantations and sugar mills in their regions.

Juliao, Que Son las Ligas Camppq i na<;?, p. 61, says that the
Campos Sindicato which had been in existence since 19^6 "united
only 3,000 members despite the fact that there was ... a rural
population greater than 200,000 souls." Julilo perhaps forgot the
tendency of pressure group leaders in many societies to deliberately
discourage greater membership participation in organization affairs
in order to maintain their own control. If the Campos leadership
benefitted from a check-off system for the "Imposto Sindical," it
does not seem unreasonable to assume that the Campos leadership
might be satisfied with only 3,000 members.

Truman, op. ci t . . pp. 146-150, is relevant for his comments
on the influence of group financial structures and personal finan-
cial security on the development and maintenance of an active
minority in the leadership of an interest group.

^Probably because of the distance involved. Archbishop Helder
Camara and Paulo Crespo of Pernambuco are less influential in the
day-to-day decisions of the CONTAG, although they undoubtedly have
some type of veto power over certain types of policy action.

292

The ideologies of the movements and groups organized before
and after the April 1964 Revolution were not formulated by small
farmers, rural workers, sharecroppers, or other types of peasants.
Rather, it is the outsider non-peasant leaders'who created the
ideology of the Peasant Leagues, ULTAB, MASTER, SAR, SORPE, FAG,
and Workers Circle groups — though some of these outside leaders have
roots in the rural areas and the FAG has tried to include the
grievances and proposals of small farmers and rural workers into its
policy-statements and program of inter-action with state and federal
officials.

The higher levels of the structures were dominated by indi-
viduals with greater amounts of education and social experiences than
the general membership. Only the Church-sponsored groups have at-
tempted to improve the educational background and managerial skills
of members and lower-middle level leaders. As noted previously,
there is no indication that the Peasant Leagues, ULTAB, or MASTER
ever established leadership-training courses or that they ever
articulated a need to do so. This, of course, tended to perpetuate
the leadership of an active minority of non-peasants in these
groups.

The ideology of the leaders from superior strata in the various
peasant groups has varied with their own ideological background. The
higher leaders have had greater differences of opinion as to the

'in Bahia, several ex-communist rural workers in the itabuna
cacao region formed the core of the state's federation leaders. See
Price, OP. cit.. pp. 60-61, and CI DA, op. cit.. pp. 326-327, for data
on this group.

293

tactics and ultimate goals than the members themselves, who have not
been so ideologically sensitive.

In terms of occupational background, local peasant leaders in
the Northeast Church-sponsored groups have tended to come from rural
worker groups in the sugar and cacao zones or from small proprietors
and sharecroppers in the agreste or transitional zone. In the
South, the leadership has come from both the small proprietor class
and rural workers on sugar and coffee plantations. In both cases,
leaders have been able to participate in peasant group activity
because their relatively affluent status has given them leisufe
time to participate in s indi cato or federation activities — the
small farmers because of their independent economic status and the
rural workers because the strong financial structures of their sin-

dicatos given them an income while they devote their time to sindi -

3
cato or federation activities.

See Philip E. Converse, "The Nature of Belief Systems in
Mass Publics," in Ideology and Discontent. David E, Apter (ed.)
(Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1 96if) , pp. 206-261.

See Landsberger, op. ci t . . p. 39, for his comments on how
ideological differences can be a cause for "disunity and weak-
ness of peasant movements with some of the outsiders counselling
moderation, other radicalism," a phenomenon which was manifested
in the differences between Juliao and Silva at' the 1961 Belo
Horlzonte Congress.

Truman, op. ci t . , pp. 1^6-150, is relevant for his comments
on the influence group financial structures and personal financial
security have upon the development and maintenance of an active
minority in the leadership of an interest group.

The formal leaders of the Rural Worker and Autonomous Worker

Federations in Bahia, Paraiba, Rio Grande do Norte, Rio de Janeiro,
and Rio Grande do Sul are principally small farmer proprietors. The
principal formal leaders of the ParanS, Pernambuco, and Sao Paulo
Rural Worker Federations are rural workers although there are a few
sharecroppers, renters, and small proprietors.

29^

Upward Mobility and Internal Democracy
The Peasant Leagues, MASTER, and ULTAB all appointed outsiders
to head local organizations or designated persons whom they felt
were natural leaders of existing informal groups. In addition,
Brizola used the structure of his faction of the PTB to build up
MASTER and later, in turn, used MASTER to build up his faction of
the PTB. Elections were never used in these groups in contrast
to the Church-sponsored groups which sought to encourage the forma-
tion and selection of leaders at the local and federation level
from the grassroots up. The Church-sponsored parallel SAR, SORPE,
SORAL, FAG, and Workers Circle groups provided a measure of super-
visory control over leadership recruitment that the other groups
did not have. The ICT and CBTC middle-level leadership training
courses also gave upper strata leaders an opportunity to select
persons of talent to use in the parallel catalytic or supervisory
groups. These formal educational or leadership training programs,
especially in the North and Northeast, offer one of the few chances
for rural workers and small farmers to learn the political skills
of oratory, pari iamentary -procedure, organization, and administra-
tion. To the extent therefore that these leadership training
courses continue to emphasize democratic norms and a commitment to
service on behalf of the group, the greater the possibilities for
selection of leaders with an idealistic commitment as opposed to
the "careerists" or "porkchoppers'^ who see the peasant movement as
an opportunity for upward mobility.

295

Institutional Cohesion and Rebellion
The institutional unity of Brazilian labor legislation reduces
the opportunities for dissenting groups and individuals to assert
that individual leaders do not speak for the general membership in
an authoritative or legitimate fashion. The principal legal op-
portunities for dissidence at the present time come through the
parallel groups such as SAR, SORPE, FAG, and the Workers Circle
Groups and at election time when dissident factions may offer a
slate of candidates for office. On other occasions, dissidents
may refuse to pay their dues if there is no checkoff system in
effect or refuse to vote in a plebiscite called by the leadership
to support a given policy.

it is difficult to measure the negative aspects of "bossism"
in peasant sindicatos and organizations, especially to determine
the extent to which a leader is ipore "sel f -or iented" although
protecting the "general interest" than when he is "selfless" and
promoting the "general interest."

For example, this writer does not know the extent to which
the Catholic Church in the United States, through the Association
of Catholic Trade Unionists and Catholic Labor Schools, acts as a
body to organize dissident Catholic workers to fight the incumbent
leadership of a given union although the writer is aware that
Catholics trained in these church groups often form the active core
of opposition groups. In a similar vein, American and European
trade union leaders belonging to the Methodist church and Social-
ist party have often gained the political skills to fight or oust
an incumbent leadership because of a commitment of clergymen or
party leaders to democratic norms. See for example, A. D. Belden,
George Whitefield the Awakener (London: S. Low, Marston and Company,
1930), pp. 247-251.

•3

"^A good example is the absence of a quorum in at least eight
Pernambuco s indicatos in the strike vote sponsored by Padre Melo and
the DRT Furtado Veloso on August 8, 1965.

296-

SumTiary

The Se] f -Perpetuat i nq Nature of the
Active Minority in Brazilian
Peasant Groups

The current leadership of the CONTAG and state federations has
demonstrated a power-capability in mobilizing substantial numbers of
peasants, be they small proprietors, day laborers, sharecroppers, or
renters. The current leadership has demonstrated a willingness to
abide by the "rules of the Brazilian political game" and not to seek
elimination of other groups from the political process. Presuming
that the Ministry of Labor of the Military government does not inter-
vene in the CONTAG or state federations for other reasons, one could
expect that the active minorities of managers of the federations and
sindicatos will perpetuate their control for spme time into the future.

CHAPTER VIII

CONCLUSIONS

During the past thirty five years Brazil has been undergoing a
series of inter-related economic, social, and political changes. A
society which was basically agricultural has developed into a mixed
industrial and agricultural economy in which differences in the levels
of living and status differentials have widened not. only between the
Northeast and the South, but also between the urban and rural areas,
especially in the North and Northeast. Within this period of time,
the old idealized paternalistic relationship between the large land-
owner and his peasant tenants, sharecroppers, and hired laborers has
broken down.

Landowners and small town industrialists in the more traditional
areas of Brazil find themselves facing a rapidly changing economic
situation. Having enterprises less, modern than those of their counter-
parts in the large cities or small farm-holding regions of the South,
both in the technological and organizational sense, they see their

major advantage — cheap laboi and status positions being taken away

from them. They have reacted by unsystematic and frequently non-
rational means, such as trying to reduce their labor costs by -sub-
stituting lower-wage minors and women for higher-paid adult male
workers, by increasing housing rents or their equivalents in
condi^ao or cambao. by trying to increase labor productivity by speeding

297

298

up the work pace or by increasing work norms. Such reactions on the
part of the employer represent a break with the traditional, pater-
nalistic practices of, concern for the welfare of their workers. This
breakdown has led to greater tensions in worker and tenant-landowner
relationships. In addition, peasants moved off the plantations and
engenhos into nearby hamlets or into shacks lining the highways which
had an unexpected effect of bringing new ideas and an awareness of
federal labor and social welfare legislation. A cumulative circular
process of change was established and behavior and relationships began
to move farther and farther away from the old paternalistic patterns.
The process was apparently irreversible.

In this situation, during the 1950's, the low-status agricultural
population began to be organized into peasant leagues and sindicatos of
various types, the very organization of which had been viewed in the
past by landowners as "subversive" to the old system of "obligations
and loyalties" to the landowner or his administrator and which normally
the landowner, through his relationship to judicial and police officials,
had been able to prevent or suppress. Violence by the landowners attempt-
ing to prevent the organization of these groups only accelerated the
distance between landowners and workers or tenants. The new agri-
cultural groups became quite aware of the inter-relationship of
political and economic power. There was also an increasing awareness
by many politicians, university students, and clergymen of the use-
fulness of these organizations as a springboard from which they
could enter the governing circles of the elite or which could be used
to close the gap between the wealthy and the poor.

299

Although some of the peasant organizations created after 1955
tended to monopolize the publicity given this attempt to integrate
the lower agricultural strata into the political and economic process,
many different kinds of organizations were developed. To sum up, by
196^, the following types of active agricultural worker and small farmer
pressure groups were functioning in Brazil:

1. Church-sponsored sindicatos and cooperatives in many states
which had been organized by catalytfC rural development services (SAR,
SORPE, SORAL, FAP, and FAG):

2. Peasant associations and sindicatos which are sponsored by
indTviduals who belonged to Radical Catholic Action (AC) or Popular
Action (AP) groups working In the MEB rural literacy programs. JAC
and JUG members worked in both this group and the groups listed above
in (1).

3. Peasant Leagues, first popularized by Fraihcisco Juliao, which
developed out of the traditional Brazilian practice of poverty-stricken
peasants following a charismatic leader or local landowner who could
provide them with services and benefits of different kinds. Many of
these organizations in the Northeast had state and local leaders who
were non-peasant politicians, lawyers, or university professors. in
Paraiba, for local reasons, the Peasant Leagues developed a leadership
which appeared to genuinely represent the interests of the membership
while also benefitting personally through election to public office or
by appointment to bureaucratic positions,

4. Peasant Leagues or MASTER Groups which used the rhetoric of
agrarian reform but which functioned as little more than springboards

300

to political advancement and which rendered minimal services and benefits
to their followers. The Peasant Leagues of Rio Grande do Norte and many
of the groups organized in Goias, Minas Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro after
1961-1962 fit into this category as does the MASTER movement of Rio
Grande do Sul taken over by Leonel Brizola.

5. The Communist-dominated groups in Pernambuco and Sao Paulo
which occasionally developed into genuine pressure groups whose leaders
brought increased benefits to their peasant followers. On the other

hand, Gregorio Bezerra also brought in a measure of "union responsibility,"
i.e., an absence of strikes or violence to the Southwest sugar zones in
Pernambuco.

6. A few Trotskyite revolutionary groups which made little impact
outside of isolated attempts to foment social upheaval in Pernambuco.

7. Church-sponsored or DAC-supported cooperatives in Rio Grande
do Sul and Sao Paulo which acted principally as a marketing or consumer-
goods distributing mechanism but which occasionally have performed the
functions of a political pressure group.

Of the seven types described above, the Peasant Leagues sponsored
by Francisco Juliao and Ass is Lemos , the Rural Workers, Sharecropper,
and Small Farmer Sindicatos organized by SAR, SORPE, FAG, and the
Workers Circle groups, the Bezerra-dominated Palmares group, and the
southern cooperatives have been the most successful groups achieving
access to and benefits for their members.

A basic contribution of the peasant movements In Pernambuco,
ParaTba, and Rio Grande do Norte has been admission of these groups
in varying degrees to the decision-making processes governing minimum

301

wages, work norms, and social welfare benefits from which they had been
excluded prior to 1955. Structured violence is a part of the conflict
manipulation or political processes of the North, Northeast, and West
Central Regions; violence will continue without a doubt in these
regions for many years to come until a more integrated rural and rural -
urban society is created. One can presuppose considerable military
intervention in employer -employee relations in the rural sector pend-
ing the organization of peasants in those states into sindicatos,
cooperatives, or other types of pressure groups.

In the traditional regions of the eastern and southern states
(from Bahia south to Rio Grande do Sul and including Minas Gerais)
rural worker and small farmer groups are midpoint in a process of
organizing pressure groups to advance their interests to the extent
achieved by the FAG-supported groups in Rio Grande do Sul or the Cotia
Cooperative in Sao Paulo. Leaders have shown a power-capability in
strike activity, bureaucratic expertise, and mobilizing voters which
has enabled them to move into the political decision-making process.
This does not mean that state federation leaders and influentials are
able to achieve the same benefits as the FAG or Cotia groups, but
rather that they are in a similar position of being able to improve
the living levels and educational opportunities of their members.
In this respect, the legislation governing the operation of these
pressure groups gives power to the Ministry of Labor or the DRT to
veto sindicato elections and to appoint and remove sindicato or
federation officials. Brazilian legislation permits a "one-party"
bureaucracy or oligarchy to recruit officers and employees for

302

organized interest groups at all levels. As LIpset, MIchels, and
Burnham and other students of unions and large-scale organizations
have indicated, there is a need for bureaucratic centralization
because of the centralization of the landowner interest groups. The
Brazilian landowner and government bureaucracies demand "responsible
leadership" as their price for recognition of the peasant pressure
groups. Landowners, the military, and government bureaucrats demand
the elimination of "quickie" or wildcat strikes over grievances, open
jurisdictional or factional fights, and militant demands by a member-
ship in excess of those agreed to by sindicato, federation, or CONTAG
officials which upset the routine of production or profit making. As
in the United States, the insistent cry for "union responsibility" in
Brazil also leads to undemocratic behavior by CONTAG or state leaders
since it is also a demand that the small farmer and rural worker
organizations coerce their members into compliance with contracts,
grievance procedures, or government regulat ions. ■^ Reflecting both
the concerns of the old elite and the "devel opmental i sts" who
perceived stability was necessary to economic and social development,
the military government of Marshal Castelo Branco ruled out the
candidacies of many populist leaders. In fact, many populist leaders
had their political rights suspended for five to ten years. The
limits have narrowed considerably within which opposition by the

Lipset, op. cit., pp. 356-361; Robert MIchels, Political
Parties (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 19^9) and James
Burnham, The Machiavellians (New York: John Day, 1943).

^Lipset, op. cit., p. 361, is paraphrased for this sentence.

303

still formally free press and pol i t i cal -economi c leaders may act.
Although the Castelo Branco government could have abolished political
parties, the Congress, and elections for new sindicato, federation,
and confederation offices, neither that Government nor its successor,
the government of Marshall Costa e Silva has done so but has maintained
some of the outward appearances of democracy and attempted to control
the political process through not very veiled pressures on Congress,
the judiciary, the two new political parties (ARENA and MDB) , and the
formal rural worker and landowner structures. There are enormous

difficulties in doing this for elections without mass agitation in

2
an increasingly urban society are not easy affairs.

Why the need for elections to public and sindicato office?

Among the several possibilities looms the fact .that the civilian and

military participants in the 1964 coup were not completely united.

For example, in June, 1966, Governor Adhemar de Barro of Sao Paulo

was ousted while two months later, in August, Marshal Carlos Amaury

Kruel resigned as commander of the Second Army and joined the MDB

as a candidate for federal deputy from Guanabara. Moreover, the new

governing elite also reflects the dominant economic groups in the

society — a conflict made severe by the ant i -i nf 1 at ionary policy of

'"Dos Estados," Boletim de Noticias (Sao Paulo, Instituto
Cultural doTrabalho), Ano IV, No. 38 (August 196?) , p. 6, indicates
several former I CT students were participating In elections at the
local and state level, including Rotta's Federation of Rural Workers
of the State of Sao Paulo, which means that legal requirements that
bi-annual elections of officers be'held was being observed.

See Juarez B. R. Lopez, In Baklanoff, op. cit., pp. 75"77, for
an excellent discussion of the problem of holding elections in a
period in which the old "patrimonial" structure of Brazil Is disintegrating.

30i+

the Castelo Branco government and a slow-down of the economic develop-
ment process triggered by Kubitschek's "fifty years progress in five."

in this respect, the collective bargaining contracts and services
provided by Sindicatos and Federations in the Northeast have re-estab-
lished the paternalistic welfare services provided by the landowner which
had dissolved under the impact of urbanization and industrialization.
The new welfare relationships are less personal I stIc and more diffuse
than the old relationships which existed in idealized form between
empbyer and employee. The new system of welfare relations is also
irreversible and common to all nations in the industrialization or
modernization process. A major test of the legitimacy and effective-
ness of a political system in this process, as Seymour Lipset has noted,
is the manner by which its major conservative groups handle the entry
of the lower social strata into "economic and political citizenship."
in Brazil, many peasants adopted extremist ideologies when they
discovered how alienated they were from the benefits of modern tech-
nology and participation in the decision-making process. This, in
turn, did not encourage the more established groups to give them access.
In the South, on the other hand, peasants in many areas have been
given "economic" and "political citizenship" through universal suf-
frage, increased educational and medical services, and the right to
form such groups as Cotia and Uniao Popular. Hence, in the South, few
peasant groups were alienated from the system and were thus willing
to be mobilized to overturn the existing social structure or to be
used as a springboard for political ambitions.

The death or ouster of Jose Rotta by the Ministry of Labor would

305

undoubtedly precipitate a crisis in the CONTAG leadership; the death
or ouster of federation leaders would precipitate a crisis of suc-
cession in several states although not in others where the power-
structure is not organized around personal allegiance to Rotta or
some other "leader."

On the other hand, Rotta was- elected through the operation of
the cambalacha process. Presuming that many peasant leaders and
influentlals continue to participate In.CBTC or I CT-sponsored leader-
ship training courses, the more likely is the possibility for the
creation of a common set of values and goals among the leadership at
the municipio and state levels. Hence, if there is a succession
crisis, new leaders may be selected through the cambalacha process
who have a "sense of calling" and thus the more obvious negative
consequences of bureaucratization and oligarchy In the peasant
sindicato structure may be minimized. To the extent that Padre
Crespo, Padre Veloso, Frel Celso of Sao Paul o, .BI shop Dom Edmundo
Kunz, and Archbishop Dom Eugenio Sales and Helder Camara are able
to raise the funds necessary to maintain the CBTC, SORPE, Workers
Circle, and FAG parallel organizations which act to dampen efforts
at "empire building" or "careerism" a more democratic process of
leadership selection and concern for the interests of the peasants
may be maintained.

Especially important in this respect are the middle-level
and upper-level CBTC and i CT training programs which generally attempt
to select students on the basis of merit and not kinship or clientele
relationships as well as to inculcate democratic values and bureau-
cratic expertise. *

306

Hypotheses and Findings

In pursuing his field research, the writer found many of 'his
hypotheses confirmed, others partially confirmed, and others have
been modified.

The first hypothesis suggested was that:

1. The recently organized activity of peasants is a mixture of
traditional Brazilian means of seeking relief or protection and of
techniques used by pressure groups in all modern societies.

Brazilian peasants, accustomed to following a charismatic leader
or local landowner who could provide them with services, protection,
and benefits, had this relationship in mind when they joined the
first Peasant Leagues organized by Francisco Juliao," Pedro Teixeira,
and Assis Lemos , and the literacy, cooperative, and sindicato groups
formed by clergymen or politicians. The rapid growth of these organ-
izations was aided greatly by new means of communication (highways,
radios, newspapers, and television) which spread the word rapidly of
what might be justly called new "messianic movements" designed to
benefit the peasants. The traditional troubadors were useful in re-
interpreting or simplifying the messages brought in by these means
to the peasant followers of the new groups.

The second hypothesis was:

2. The greater availability of highways, railways, and other
forms of communication within a given region and with other regions,
encourages and supports the formation of peasant pressure groups or
Other political groups using the peasant as a base or springboard for
their own political or social advancement.

307

Other forms of communication contributed to the formation of a
relatively modern society in terms of complex social structures. For
this reason, the Rio Grande do Sul and Sao Paulo groups have had a
greater resources of talent available than the Northeast groups. The
southern groups also had to develop an ability to work with crop
marketing, crop insurance, and other regulations which had side-pay-
ments in revealing additional points of access.

In this connection, the peasant groups and the individuals most
likely to participate in peasant organizations are those whose tradi-
tional values have been modified through contact with education, par-
ticipation in a market economy, and a greater interaction with. new
ideas and communication systems within the regions in which they live.
Again, this is relative to the region and state. There are regions,
for example, relatively close to Porto Alegre, where the FAG or MASTER
made absolutely no impact because of the difficulties of transportation
into and within muni ci pios. On the other hand, small farmer and rural
worker leaders in Santa Cruz do Sul, several hundred miles away could
be in daily contact with officials in the state capital because of the
great availability of transportation and communications systems. Like-
wise, in the Northeast, there was a positive correlation in the loca-
tion of Peasant Leagues and the availability of bus^ railroad, or jeep
transportation over all-weather roads.

The third hypothesis was that:

308.

In the case of the Cotia Co-operative and the dairy and v;ine co-
operatives of the South, field research confirmed this hypothesis. In
the case of the Pindorama Cooperative near Penedo, Alagoas, political
action has been necessary to protect it against the political Tnaneuvers
of the Ribeiro Coutinhos who want to tal<e over the developed lands and
fruit processing plant that the cooperative has established.

The fourth hypothesis was:

k. Peasant pressure groups have survived and functioned best
in communities with a social infra-structure containing organized
groups and poorest in those communities or regions without these
groups.

Field research confirmed this hypothesis to a great extent.
Perhaps the most effective and legitimate peasant organizations which
this writer was able to study have been those established in the South
where DAC , Cotia, Uniao Popular, and church leaders organized sindi-
catos and cooperatives in which local leaders rather than outsiders
carry on the day-to-day activities of these organizations. in Pa-
raiba, Assis Lemos probably did a better job than Francisco Juliao
in discovering natural leaders from among the limited number of
peasants with experience in formal groups. In Sape, the case of the
illiterate Pedro Texeira might have been nothing more than a romantic
tale to be told by the troubadors if his wife had been like the 51-53
per cent of the wives of delegates to the November I96I Belo Horizonte
Congress. Instead, Elisabete Teixeira helped her husband with cor-
respondence and organizational activity.

309

The utter lack of a leadership training program and the almost
complete dependence on upper level leaders such as Juliao and Assis
Lemos undermined the ability of the Peasant Leagues to survive once
the Brazilian military moved against them in April, 1964. On the
other hand, the SAR and SORPE-sponsored groups were able to function
despite military and landowner harassment because they had develoJDed
a reservoir of leaders who could take over when Jos^ Rodriguez Sobrinho,
Manuel Gon9alo Ferreira, and others stepped down from office in April,
1964.

The fifth hypothesis was that

5. Leadership of peasant pressure groups will come from outside
the ranks of the peasantry in less-modernized states or regions, al-
though those leaders may have rural origins. Conversely, in modern-
ized or modernizing regions, leadership of such groups will b^ made
up of peasants and other persons of higher status and education. One
important corollary is that the nature and origin of these groups will
greatly determine the recruitment of middle and lower level leaders
from among the peasantry or urban middle classes. In those groups
organized by communists or urban politicians, few or no peasants will
determine policy; in those groups organized by the church-sponsored
groups (SAR, SORPE, SORAL, and state federations), outside leaders —
clergymen, lawyers, students, and a few experts in cooperatives — inter-
acted with peasants to make federation policy.

In Rio Grande do Sul , although livestock pro<;jucers utilize many
modern techniques of cross-breeding, artificial insemination, and
improved pasture grasses, the social relationship governing the

310

employment of cowboys and other workers is still quite traditional.
By and large, it appears that the MASTER organization recruited the
bulk of its leadership from outside the peasantry; in fact, if the
members of MASTER can be said to have had common rural origins, the
"invasions" of public or private lands near cities and towns with a
large in-migrant slum population showed that MASTER was much more a
movement of urban slum elements seeking economic guarantees than a
rural worker movement. Morevoer, MASTER appears to have performed a
much more important function for PTB leader Leonel Brizola as a voter
mobilizing device than as a pressure group representing the shared
interests of its members.

In the FAG organization, lower leadership was recruited from
a variety of sources including small farm proprietors, rural school
teachers, and farm cooperative officials.. At the state level, although
leadership was made up of both peasants and non-peasants, the outsiders
exerted a greater influence in determining and carrying out policy.

The national leadership of the Peasant Leagues was recruited
by Francisco Juliao from the urban middle class or as in Juliao's own
case, from the local rural upper class. The ULTAB's national leaders
Lindolfo Silva and Nestor Vera, although working class in origin,
joined the ranks of the white collar middle class when they became

At the Third FAG Congress, State Deputy Puggina, 1 rmao Miguel
Dario, Professor Schilling, and Rural School teacher Gentil Bonato
were able to determine which committee resolutions were acted upon
by the general membership at the closing business meetings because
of their positions as presiding officers or as a small informal com-
mittee reviewing recommended resolutions.

311

Communist Party bureaucrats charged with organization of the r'ural sector,
for there is no evidence that their salary came from the peasants, but,
instead, it came from the party or, in the first quarter of 196^, from
the CONTAG treasury. The formal national leadership of the church-
sponsored groups is a mixture of white collar middle class persons
(Jose Rotta and Luis Ernani Torre, CONTAG Executive Secretary), and
peasants who range from local rural middle class to lower rural class.
On the other hand, outside influentials such as Padre Veloso of the
CBTC, and Frei Celso Maria and Padre Carvalho of the Workers Circles
are urban middle class intellectuals. To the extent Brazil is a
modernizing society, its peasant leadership is mixed in accord with
the hypothesis. Nevertheless, the lack of accurate statistical
measurements to indicate when a society is modernized, modernizing,
traditional, and so forth, in comparison with other societies make
the hypothesis less accurate in terms of its validity as a predictor
of future leadership sources.

The sixth hypothesis was that:

6. A comprehensive radical or reformist ideology for these
peasant groups will be created by urban intellectuals and not the
peasants themselves. The specific goals and grievances of the
peasants themselves will normally not be a part of the comprehensive
ideology brought in from the outside although their goals and

See Lipset, op. cit., p. 369, and Irving Howe and B. J. Widick,
The DAW and Walter Reuther (New York: Random House, 19^9), p. 257,
for a discussion on the respect workers give to their leaders "for
[their] presumed superior knowledge and greater art iculateness ,"
for [their] comparatively flexible hours and enjoyment of that "great
privilege and mark of social superiority . . • 'white collar' clothes
rather than work clothes.'''

312

grievances may be included later at a certain stage of the org'an-
izationa] process.

Field research confirmed this hypothesis. However, Landsberger 's
work also contributes to a modification of the hypothesis to include
the following corollary:

Granted that at certain stages of modernization, the peasants
own goals and the ideologies in which these goals are set may be
quite profound, yet the goals and ideologies of some of the outside
leaders are often both more extreme and paradoxically less extreme
than the average of the peasantry.

The basic ideas of the first Peasant League at Engenho Gal ilea
and the first MASTER group at Encruzilhada do Sul were simple concepts
designed to meet immediate problems. However, their immediate grievances
and goals led to the creation of two wide-ranging movements whose
leaders developed much more comprehensive ideologies and demands.
Juliao's ideology was probably the simplest, vaguest, and most
syncratic although one might perceive the phrase "radical agrarian
reform" lent itself to a multitude of interpretations including those
peasants and urban intellectuals who interpreted it as meaning an
extreme and wholesale transformation of the landholding patterns of
society. The church groups were much more precise in their ideology
and offered specific solutions to specific problems, e.g., payment of
the thirteenth month bonus or compliance with the minimum wage regula-
tions In a given municipio or state. Outside of the Roman Catholic
revolutionaries in AP and some MEB groups, the church programs did
not suggest wholesale transformation of the existing system of land

313

ownership which was the key grievance of many peasants.

The Communists, who generally emphasize ideology and publish
programs galore in many Latin American societies, never developed
a comprehensive ideology or program to meet Brazilian circumstances.
It seems reasonable to presume that this resulted from PCB depend-
ence on a small group of urban factory workers in ULTAB who "spear-
headed" their rural work and the party's inability to capture the
imagination or enthusiasm of original thinkers with roots in the
peasantry or rural sector. The PCB and PC do B depended on ideas
generated elsewhere (Russia, China, or Cuba) and faced a dilemma in
choosing how, when, and where to allocate their scarce personnel
and resources in a nation whose developed urban industrial base was
much more suitable for agitation and organization in terms of
Leninist-Stalinist theory than was the rural sector. Hence, Lindolfo
Silva, at both the I96I Belo Horizonte Congress and the CONTAG
elections of December, 1963, talked about a national peasant organ-
ization which would unite with the urban students and workers to
speed up national development and solve urban problems as well as
rural ones. His focus never remained solely on, rural problems.
The Brazilian countryside was too big for the Communist Party; there-
fore, it tried to take over the peasant movement from the top down at the
national and selected state levels (Bahia and Ceara) , rather than
from the bottom up, with the exception of Pernambuco where both ap-
proaches were used.

The seventh hypothesis was that:

314

7. A peasant pressure group will be revolutionary or reformist
depending on (a) the motives of the outsiders who allied themselves
with the peasants, (b) the conditions under which the help of outsiders
is rendered, and (c) the style and integration of the political sub-
system under which a peasant group operated, in other words, whether
or not the sub-system is open and other important pressure groups look
upon the organization of the peasant group for the first time as
"legitimate" or "revolutionary" and "subversive."

Field research confirmed this hypothesis to some extent but
it needs to be modified to include (l) the creation of "company
unions," to forestall the development of genuine peasant pressure
groups; (2) the creation of peasant groups as a device to mobilize
voters at election time or to punish political opponents; and (3) the
creation of groups as a means of acquiring land through the tradi-
tional invasion technique. The first type includes the "Peasant League"
of Deputy Odilon Ribeiro Coutinho in Rio Grande do Norte or Major Alva
of the Alagoas Sugar Mill Operators Association. The second type
includes the "Peasant League" of Deputy Floriano Bezerra in Rio
Grande do Norte which obtained a subsidy of one million cruzeiros
from the State Assembly. The third type includes the "peasant
leagues" of State Deputy Jose Porfirio in Goias and the MASTER organ-
ization of Ruy Ramos and Leonel Brizola in Rio Grande do Sul.

The church-sponsored groups headed by Dom Eugenio Sales, Padres
Crespo, Melo, and Carvalho, and Frei Celso of Sao Paulo, rendered help
because it was they who had started these groups. Their reformist
Ideologies undoubtedly slowed down a possible radical course of action

315

by SAR, SORPE, and Workers Circle-sponsored groups. On the other hand,
individual clergymen such as Padre Josephat and Alipio de Freitas were
among the vanguard of the radical revolutionaries calling for massive
social upheaval and change in both urban and rural life. The latter
not only expressed their views as spokesmen for peasant groups but
also as spokesmen for university student groups. Neither the reformist
nor the radical revolutionary priests and laymen in AC or AP represented
a distinct group of peasant allies. Francisco Juliao represented no
particular group of al 1 ies because the landowners, lawyers, deputies,
and professors to whose class or social strata he belonged, were
divided or opposed to him for personal and political reasons. In
Rio Grande do Sul , the absence of great status differentiation between
rural areas and hamlets in the "colony" and towns and cities tended
to slow down any possible radical tendencies by FAG-sponsored groups.
In fact, the small farmers in this region were joined by many small
town businessmen who perceived a community of interest in obtaining
larger storage facilities for fruits, vegetables, and other perish-
ables or in higher minimum prices for tobacco which was competing with
Northeast Brazil, African, or Near Eastern suppliers who employed labor
at wages and living levels much lower than those found in the South.
In addition, the political style of the South, in contrast to the
political style of the North and Northeast was one which supported
voting by the general citizenry and provided a measure of educational
and medical facilities for the rural lower strata which had a cumulative
effect of spurring economic development through the years.

316

In the Northeast, It does not appear that many large plantation
and sugar mill operators perceived that they had a common interest
with their agricultural laborers in raising the minimum prices paid
for sugar, cotton, or other crops which enabled the owners to maintain
their profit levels as agricultural entrepreneurs but which also in-
creased their profits as merchants who also sold food, clothing, and
other household goods. For this reason, this writer is of the opinion
that a change In the attitudes of the operators of the big plantation
and sugar mills of the Northeast has been taking place since 196^
which will cause them to lool< gratefully to the threat of a strike
by agricultural laborers. Landowners are not ready to affirm that they
are In favor of peasant strikes or slow-down tactics, but they have
perceived that these two phenomena do not necessarily hurt them as
landowners but may in fact benefit them In their bargaining with the
lAA or the Bank of Brazil.

Although Francisco Jul i-so, the Communists, MEB, JAC, and many
Catholic groups criticized the judges or police officials who served
the large landowners or 1 at I f undi stas , this writer is not aware that
they proposed abolition of the police or courts. if one presumes
with Marx that the economic structure creates the super-structures of
all Institutions and that, by changing the land-system, a miraculous

See the quotation from Jullao's "Charter of Liberation of the
Peasant," in Chapter iV or of the speech which he delivered April 21,
to a university student gathering at Ouro Preto, MInas Gerais, on the
anniversary of an abortive uprising by Tiradentes against Portugal.
The speech is included by Horowi tZ-.-qp. ci t . . pp. 55-62, as "letter
from Ouro Preto," and as "Brazil, a Christian Country?" in Leo Huber-
man and Paul Sweazy (eds.), Whither Latin America? (New York: Monthly
Review Press, I963), pp. 108-110.

317

change will occur in how the courts and police function, then one can
presume that Juliao and the Radicals also accepted these changes. On

the other hand, "there are many cases of the oppressed adopting the

methods and philosophies of their exploiters" or of politicians

criticizing officials for actions which they too might have performed
had they been in the position of the latter. One therefore needs to
be suspicious of the extent to which all of the so-called "radicals"
were truly radical. Considering the traditional behavior of many
politicians in Brazil and other countries of using different groups
as springboards for their own political advancement, one should not
be too surprised that this phenomenon also occurred in Brazil with
respect to the peasants. *

in the one study — by Chasin — which this writer was able to find
of the categories in which peasants placed their needs, the writer
found differences among the delegates by region and by their rela-
tionship to the land. In any case, it is difficult to perceive that
these "peasant" leaders were revolutionaries. (See Tables 21-2^)

One can see that even among this relatively politicized group
that "lack of land to work" was not the principal grievance by region
although it was the first-ranked grievance of sharecroppers and
squatters. Rather a complex of oppressive and violent actions by
well-to-do landowners was perceived as their principal grievance
along with a lack of sufficient clothing, food, medical attention
and health facilities.

Irving Louis Horowitz, Three Worlds of Development (New York-:
Oxford University Press, 1966), p. 8.

318

TABLE 21

PERCEPTIONS OF THE DIFFICULTIES FACED BY PEASANT (HOMEN DO
CAMPO) AMONG DELEGATES TO THE FIRST RURAL WORKERS CONGRESS,
NOVEMBER, 1962^

Difficulties Mentioned Number of Percent

Persons Citing
n ^ 50

Lack of land to work for those

wanting land to work kj 52

Illness or the lack of medical,

hospital and pharmaceutical aid 45 50

Lack of technical assistance -

implements, seeds, fertilizers 37 4l

Oppression and the lack of juridical

guarantees 31 34

Illiteracy 30 33

Hunger, the lack of clothing, housing 29 32

Lack of credit and financing 25 28

Lack of highways and transport 11 12

Lack of cooperatives and the consequent

exploitation by middlemen 10 11

Lew wages or delay in payment of wages k k

Umproductive Latifundia 2 2

The System of private property 1 1

Source: Compiled and con.puted from Chasin, "Cont r i bu i cSo Para A Analise
Da Vanguarda Polftica do Campo," Revi sta Bras i 1 iense , November-
December, 1962, pp. 102-129.

"Oppression and lack of juridical guarantees" is an abbreviated form of a
series of statements or concepts given by the delegates which included
denunciation of the oppression and violence of wealthy landowners, the
commission of reprisals by government agencies, of the lack of labor laws
in the countryside, and of the struggles to keep small properties
against the activities of hired gunmen (gri 1 ei ros) .

319

TABLE 22

CATEGORIES OF IMPORTANCE OF THE DIFFICULTIES FACED BY THE
PEASANT AS PERCEIVED BY DELEGATES TO THE FIRST RURAL WORKERS
CONGRESS, NOVEMBER, I962, BY RELATIONSHIP TO THEIR LAND
HOLDINGS OR OCCUPATION^

Lack Illness, Lack of Hunger,

of Medical Technical Oppres- lllitera- Lack of
Land Needs Assistance sion cy Clothing

Renters

Wage Laborers

Sharecroppers
(Meei ros)

Proprietors

Squatters
(posei ros)

Source: Chasin,

op.

cit. ,

P-

151.

320

TABLE 23

CATEGORIES OF IMPORTANCE OF THE DIFFICULTIES FACED BY THE
PEASANT AS PERCEIVED BY DELEGATES TO THE FIRST RURAL WORKERS
CONGRESS, NOVEMBER, 1962, BY REGION FROM WHICH THE DELEGATES
CAME^ IN PERCENTAGES

North-Northeast
n - 23

East

South
n - 21

Central -West®

Oppression and lack

of juridical guarantees 43

I 1 1 ness and 1 ack of

medical assistance 30

Hunger, lack of clothing,

housing 48

Lack of land to work for

those who want land 30

Lack of technical condi-
tions or financing to
exploit the soil 26

1 1 1 iteracy 26

100

21
21

19
29

65
53
24

47
29

Chasin, op. ci t . . pp. 117"ll8.

Para, Maranhao, Ceara, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraiba, and Pernambuco.
^ Espiritu Santo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, Guanabara, and Bahia.

Sao Paulo and Parana.
^ Mato Grosso and Goias.

321

TABLE 24

PERCEPTIONS OF WHAT COULD BE DONE TO TRANSFORM THE COUNTRY-
SIDE BY DELEGATES TO THE FIRST RURAL WORKERS CONGRESS,
NOVEMBER, 1962, BY OCCUPATIONAL CATEGORY AND PERCENTAGES^

Renters Wage Share- Proprietors Squatters
n - 16 Laborers Croppers n - 13 n - 12
n - 17

n - 12

Unity of the
Workers in
Countryside

50%

29%

58'

Demands, through
pressures that
needs be attended

Organization in Class
Associations 6

31%

25%

25
33

Seek Peaceful solu-
tion of Problems;
Negotiation with
Owners of land and
if not attended,
force is necessary 13

Making a Revolution 19

Judicial and Legal
Appeals

Debate the Problems
with Others in the
Category 6

Do Not Know

(Direito) 6

6
18

8
46

8
8

Source: Chasin, op. ci t . , p. 125.

322

In late 1964 and early 1965, this writer perceived that rural
worker and small farmer leaders in the South viere concerned not only
with the economic demands related to work norms, wages, housing, and
medical assistance, but also in the case of small proprietors minimum
crop prices, storage facilities, and social securi ty, arrangements.
In 1965, this writer perceived that the economic demands of rural
worker, sharecropper, and small farm opinion leaders in the Northeast
focused on work norms, wages, and housing but also on the dominance
of foreign manufacturers or local political bosses operating cotton
gins, sisal and other agricultural processing plants.

Chasin's survey also found differences among the different groups
at the Belo Horizonte Congress as to what might be done to improve
conditions in the countryside. (See Table 2k.)

In addit ion, ^ three other hypotheses suggested themselves
to the writer after his return from Brazil because of the work done by
Professor Landsberger of Cornell University on Chile and Mexico.

An eighth hypothesis therefore is that:

8. The goals of peasant organizations will touch the non-
economic sectors of society when the institutions performing non-
economic functions are also involved in the economic sector, i.e.
when the church is a landowner. When the economic institutions perform
non-economic functions designed to perpetuate the economic system, I.e.
landowners act as judges, the peasant groups will also focus on the
non-economic institutions as suitable targets.

323

In Brazil, the goals of peasant organizations focussed basically
upon the economic and political institutions which supported the exist-
ing land distribution and land tenure systems. In the North, and North-
east the Peasant Leagues of Juliao and Assis Lemos, the Church-sponsored
groups, and the Communi st-SUPRA groups demanded that illiterates have
the right to vote because these groups understood the correlation be- ■
tween the vote and access to office holders. In the South, voting for
illiterates was not an important issue because most persons were
literate and did vote. In fact, in Rio Grande do Sul and Sao Paulo,
it appears that small farmers were accepted by the political sub-systems
and allocated funds for rural schools and small town medical services.

The ninth hypothesis was that:

9. Peasant organizations may.be organized when changes in
crops, methods of cultivation, and the geographical "center of gravity"
of agriculture is connected with the decline of one agricultural elite,
the rise of others, especially in industry, and the greater incongruity
in the status of the peasant.

In the Northeast, there appears to be a definite correlation
between the attempts of many landowners to increase their sugar plant-
ings in the 1950's, the displacement of peasants from their plots, or
increased rents or conditions under which the land was worked, the
slow growth of industry and the susceptibility of peasants to the
appeals of the Peasant Leagues or the Church groups, Cid Sampaio's
election as Governor of Pernambuco in 1958 appears to have been the
watershed between a traditional state politics (dominated by a coali-
tion of interior cotton and cattle "colonels" with coastal sugar barons)

32k

and a new politics based on competition between (l) a coalition of agro-
industrial groups and urban worker and peasant allies and (2) a coali-
tion of the old style.

in the South, this writer does not know of any great changes in
crops or methods of cultivation which gave rise to the growth of a
small farmer or of a rural worker group.' On the other hand, the geo-
graphical center of coffee growing has moved from the traditional
southern zones of Sao Paulo, Paran^, and Rio de Janeiro to western
Sao Paulo and western ParanS, settled principally by migrants from
the Northeast, Rio Grande do Sul , and Japan. The Japanese and Gauche
homesteaders carried their old patterns of group behavior with them
to the new regions which enabled them to establish a sense of com-
munity much faster than those groups or individuals migrating from
regions with little or no formal social structures.

A leadership resource base was established in school, church,
recreational, and cooperative societies which also contributed to
the formation of small farmer and rural worker sindicatos. Unlike
the more "traditional" zones, a closed society with close kinship
or parentela relationships has not developed in the newer zones
among landowner, school, church, and political leaders. Settlement
of the new regions, per se, did not lead to the formation of sindi-
catos or cooperatives, but the type of settlement, type of settlers,
and the involvement of church leaders combined to support group forma-
tion. On the other hand, this writer does not have enough evidence
on the possible techniques resorted to by landowners in the older
regions to be able to determine if there were attempts similar to

325

those which took place in the Northeast to decrease the cost of labor
or increase the cost of land rentals. The time period in which coffee
growing declined occurred between 1920 and 1930 and thus may have
been too early to be affected by any attempts on the part of the
workers to defend themselves.

10. It will be the better-off sectors of the peasantry who are
more likely to organize, and certainly the most depressed sectors
will be under-represented.

Corollary: Within each group, the better-off individuals, and
certainly not the least well-off persons, will furnish proportionately
the most leadership and activists.

This hypothesis is closely related to Hypothesis 3 regarding
the sources of leadership of the peasantry. And like several other
hypotheses, there are regional variations within Brazil and within
the regions themselves. In the South, the FAG was much more success-
ful in organizing the small farm proprietors than in organizing rural

Pasquale Petrone, "A Regiao de Sao Luis do Paraitinga, Estudo
de Geografia Humana," Revista Brasileira de Geografia, Ano XXI, No.
3 (July-September, 1959), PP. 239-336, is a study of a municipio
about 80 miles due east of Sao Paulo formerly well known for its
coffee production but which has been "in decadence" since 1919~1929,
due first to a frost which killed over a million coffee trees and
then to the world-wide depression of 1929. In 19^3 (p. 291), Carlos
Borges Schmidt, inter-alia, said even the mut i rao (cooperative work
exchange) was "very rare."

326

workers. Nevertheless, the FAC was more successful in organizing both
groups than the MASTER organization which worked with the landless
migrants in the cities and towns who were probably the most disorganized
or non-organized social group.

in the Northeast, it is difficult and probably very subjective to
categorize sugar plantation workers as generally better off than the
small sharecroppers, tenants, or renters of the Agreste and Sertao
zones. in fact, one could probably construct and equally strong case
that the sharecroppers, tenants, and small proprietors of the North-
east were better off than the sugar plantation workers. However, the
sugar workers of Pernambuco are probably, better off than other salaried
Pernambuco or Northeast day laborers because the Communist and SORPE-
sponsored sindicatos successfully established a mass organization,
sense of class unity, and a financial structure which provided the
legal and political expertise necessary in a group struggle. On the
other hand, small proprietor farmers, sharecroppers, and tenant farmers
In Pernambuco have not been as successful in establishing as strong
a sense of class unity or a dues paying habit as these groups in
Paraiba or Rio Grande do Norte. Presumably, the better-off sectors

Schmitt and Burks, Evolution or Chaos, p. 52, is one of several
books which pursue a theme that "Peasant leagues are open to Communist

infiltration because the landless peasant has the greatest potential
for violent and socially disruptive action." In fact, there is litt
evidence that the landless ever joined Juliao's group; rather it was
based principally on sharecroppers, renters, tenants, or small pro-
prietors who also rented or sharecropped land. On a point of logic,
many were "landless," but in reality they were "landed" because they
had "access" to land and this is the most relevant aspect of land
tenure systems. In terms Of groups aggregating the truly "landless"
who had no access to land, the MASTER probably was more significant
but its impact was much less than the Juliao or Assis Lemos groups.

327

of sharecroppers, renters, and small proprietors participated most in
the Northeast Liga or Church-sponsored groups on the basis that these
would be the most literate and most economically well-off and thus
able to afford the leisure time necessary for the leadership tasks of
these groups. Actually, the absence of adequate statistical data on
land-holdings and personal income in Brazil gives one very little
"hard" data on which to substantiate this hypothesis.

in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the small proprietors and renters
who belong to the Cotia Cooperative are probably better off than the
rural workers of many coffee and sugar plantations. The small pro-
prietors and renters in the Cotia and other Southern Cooperatives, are
highly literate and live in a highly-organized social infrastructure
that contributes to social solidarity and a readily available leader-
ship resource pooU to meet "crises" or "equilibrium-disturbing situa-
tions," as David Truman calls them. Moreover, several Japanese-
Brazilian small farm proprietors told this writer, Cotia was more
meaningful in meeting their needs than a sindicato. Considering the
history of governmental manipulation of formally organized groups and
Cotia's success in performing the functions of a political pressure
group, these people are quite rational in their attitudes.

The lack of hard statistical data and surveys on Brazilian
population groups renders meaningless much of the discussion of the
political activism of the "independent" peasant. An analogous situa-
tion might be the controversy surrounding the so-called "independent"
voter in the United States: in recent years, survey data has shown
the so-called "independent" voter not to be the informed voter who
chooses candidates on the basis of their programs and issues; rather,
the "independent" voter is generally the most un-informed, most active,
and least interested in public affairs.

328

A Comparison of Brazil with other
Latin American Countries

The same breakdown in paternalistic relationships between the
large landowners and their peasant tenants can be observed in other
Latin American countries which have moved from a basically agri-
cultural to a mixed agr icul tural -i ndust r i al society. It tooi< place

in Bolivia following the Chaco War and the 1952 Revolution, in Co-

lombia during the past fifteen years known as "la violencia," in

Mexico during the Porfirio Diaz regime and exploded in the Revolution
of 1910-1917, in Guatemala during the Arevalo-Arbenz regime (19^5"
1952), although there was a reaction or partial return to the status
quo during the Castillo Armas regime (195^"1957); and to a degree
in Argentina during the Pecon Years, although the violence often took
place in the cities and not the countryside. In all of these countries,
urban-based politicians, industrialists, and even a few military officers

Richard W. Patch, "Bolivia: U. S, Assistance in a Revolutionary
Setting," in Social Change, Adams, et al. (eds.), esp. pp. 119~128, is
among the best discussions of this change.

Richard S. Weinert, "Violence in Pre-Modern Societies: Rural

Colombia," American Political Science Review, Vol. LX, No. 2 (June,
1966), pp. 3^0-347.

^Oscar Lewis, "Mexico since Cardenas," in Social Change, Adams
et al . (eds.) , pp. 285-3^5.

Richard N. Adams, "Social Change in Guatemala and U. S. Policy,"
in Social Change, Adams et al . (eds.), esp. pp. 231-273, and Pearson,
"The CNCG and Peasant Unionism," passim.

5james W. Rowe , "A Note on Argentina," AUFS Reports, East Coast
South America Series, Vol. XI, No. 3 (June, 1964), esp. pp. 21-23, and
James W. Rowe, "Argentina's Durable Peronists: A Twentieth Anniversary
Note, Part I: Some Preconditions and Achievements," AUFS Reports, East
Coast South America Series, Vol. XII', No. 2 (April, 1 966) , esp. pp. 3-IO.

329

tried to form coalitions which Included low status or middle s'tatus
rural elements that attempt to chip away at the pov;er of the landed
gentry.

Nevertheless, there were differences in Brazil from that vjhich
tool< place in other countries for a variety of cultural and historical
reasons. There was no Brazilian equivalent to the peasant sindicatos
growing up around Jose Rojas of Ucarena, Bolivia. There was no Bra-
zilian equivalent to the Mexican peasant groups which were developed
by Emi llano Zapata. There was no Brazilian equivalent to the peasant
groups created by Premier Fidel Castro in Cuba after 1959 which are
little more than relationships between a new-style landowner boss
furnishing services and benefits to followers a la Peron and not
services and benefits rendered because of pressures exerted by the
peasants themselves.

The deliberate colonization of parts of Northwest Argentina
with family or proprietor farmers has resulted in the creation of
a rural middle class In several provinces, Cordoba, Santa Fe, and
possibly Mendoza. These farmers have created two Important groups
of which little or nothing has been written In English: the
Agrarian Federation (Federacion Agraria) and the San-Cor Cooperative
which have their headquarters in Santa Fe city and Sunchales, Santa
Fe province, respectively. Many of the members of these groups, which
own from 50-250 acres of land, have moved upward by means of an agri-
cultural ladder from their original status as rural workers, share-
croppers, or renters working off passage money from Italy or Turkey.

330

In all of those countries with viable small farmer or rural
worker pressure groups, it appears that the same contributing factors
have been present: (l) groups which are able to mix traditional
means of seel<ing relief with modern propaganda techniques; (2) the
greater availability of highways, telephones, and other communica-
tions networl<s; (3) complex rural social structures with a combina-
tion of formal and informal groups providing a resource pool of local
leaders and a lesser dependence on outside leaders or inf 1 uent ial s ;

(4) an ability to project an image that these groups are reformist--
with the obvious exception that the Zapata and Ucarena groups were
considered "revolutionary" until after the Mexican and Bolivian
revolutions, when they became part of the new governing structures;

(5) changes in crops, methods of cultivation, or the geographical
"center of gravity" of a crop frequently have been the cause for the
growth of peasant groups in Peru and Chile but not in the other
countries mentioned; (6) in all of these countries, the better-off
and more literate sectors of the peasantry have been better able to
organize or furnish the local and middle level leadership necessary
to peasant pressure groups; and (7) the most depressed sectors have
been under-represented and most difficult to organize.

Overall, the process of pressure or interest-group formation
among Brazilian peasants is going to continue although some of the
forms it takes may be different than the forms taken within the past
fifteen years. And finally, many of these organizations which have
little or no internal democracy may contribute Ironically to a greater

331

democracy in the total society because they provide a means of arti-
culating the interests of peasant groups which in the long run might
otherwise seek millenial solutions.

Further Research Needs
It was noted in the Preface that "interest group analysis is
neither an exclusive nor a complete method of evaluating the decision-
making process." It was also noted that "case studies do provide
concrete data upon which further generalizations can be constructed
which may buttress or qualify existing hypotheses." Students of
Brazilian politics or of the peasant and labor movements may be able
to point out exceptions or inaccuracies in different aspects of this

study. Nevertheless, the writer believes that a beginning has been
made with this study in dealing with the many-sided determinants of
specific behavior patterns which is a basic problem of the social
sciences. As Lipset has noted, "the analysis of organizations is
hampered ... by the fact that comparable data are rarely collected
for more than a few cases." It is therefore important for additional
data to be collected on Small Farmer and Rural Worker pressure groups
in order to verify the hypotheses advanced at the beginning of this
study. In particular, the writer feels that the following kinds of
research need to be undertaken in order to fully understand what has
happened in the past ten years and what may happen in the immediate
future.

1. :

Lipset . op. cit. , p. 398.

332

1. Case studies of such states as Minas Gerais and Goias v;hich
would address themselves to at least the following questions, which
this writer was unable to undertake because of a lack of time. V/hy
is it that not one Minas Gerais rural sindicato was recognized as of
December 31. '963, out of the 57 which were reportedly functioning and
seeking recognition? The state was strongly represented at both the
First Rural Workers Congress in Belo Horizonte in November 1962 and
the Congresso de Unidade Sindical in Brasilia in January, 196^. Did

a clientele or parentela relationship exist between Governor Magalhaes
Pinto, the DRT and FARMIG or SRB leaders which effectively prevented
all or most of these groups from being recognized? Or is there
evidence that many or most of these groups were paper or phantom
organizations or voter mobilizing devices?

In Goias, further west, ten sindicatos were recognized as of
December 31 > 1963, and nineteen more were waiting recognition. it
would be useful to investigate the "peasant league" activities in
this newly developing state and the "invasions" of which so little
published data have been forthcoming.

2. Studies of the career patterns and value system of leaders
and influentials at the local and federation levels. For example,
the ownership of property by influentials, the conditions of employ-
ment of agricultural labor by these influentials if they own farm
property, the voting and previous political participation of these
influentials to determine possible differences between their publicly
articulated code of values and their private conduct, the regional
differences, and the differing expectations and perceptions of roles

333

by both members and leaders now that the peasant groups have been
functioning under a relatively constant political system since 1964.

It would be relevant to discover if a relatively similar value
system is shared by federation and CONTAG leaders, especially by the
absence of a federation or confederation to represent the interests
of the small proprietors who employ agricultural labor occasionally
and who may in fact work as salaried laborers during certain periods
of the year when there is little work on their own land or the
economic opportunities are greater for temporary employment elsewhere.
Chasin, for example, found important- di fferences among the delegates
to the 1962 Belo Horizonte Congress on both a regional and occupa-
tional basis; it would be useful to follow his program of questions
as well as adding questions which might determine regional or state
differences on peasant grievances and proposed solutions.

3. Studies of the election statistics at the Municipio level
to determine the possible correlation between peasant group organiza-
tion and the voting for Deputies Francisco Juliao, Assis Lemos , Jose
Rotta, and Adolpho Puggina. in addition, it is interesting to note
that the Paraiba Peasant Leagues were organized onl y in those mu n i -
cipios which Blondel in the late 1940's perceived were dominated by
a "monarchical" or "one-family-dominant" political boss (chefe
pol i ti co) : there were no Peasant League groups in those municipios
which were dominated in the 19^5"! 950 period by two or more families
or in which competition among various groups existed. There may

See Map Vli 1 of Blondel, op. ci t . . p. 65.

33^

therefore be political links between Juliao or Assis Lemos and Paraiba
politicians which none of the published literature or questioning by
this writer was able to find,

k. Additional studies of the ULTAB and MASTER groups to determine
the reasons for their failure to achieve any significant impact at the
municipio level as well as to determine the extent in which these
groups really had a mass following.

5. Additional in loco investigation of the various "invasions"
in the several states to determine if they were related to local
political phenomena or if they were related to state and national
politicians; in addition it would be useful to see how closely they
were related to traditional feuds between particular political families

or clans, ,

6. Additional studies of the landowner pressure groups (SRB,

CRB, Federations, and Rural Associations), military zone and regional
commanders, and DRT officials to determine the existence of cliques
or factions of "defensive modernizers" who may have wished to coopt
peasnat pressure group influentials or of the conservative status quo
members who wished to fight and destroy the new groups seeking admit-
tance into the deci s i on-maki ng process.

7. The relationship of muni ci pio-size and population density
to determine the influence of internal communications structures and
rural social infrastructures. For example, in'Chapter Vl, MASTER had
little success in the small farm holding munici pios compared to the
FAG but had some success in the very large muni cipi os over 5,000

335

square kilometers in size. For example, Table 25 shows variations
among five states discussed in this study which are explicable in part
to the role played by the clergy and to relatively heavy bus and rail-
road transportation networks; nevertheless, size may be important in
some states or size of landholding may be more important, however,
statistics by municipios for each state were not available.

8. The extent to which leadership groups are composed of persons
with a commitment to internal group democracy and service to the group
in general as opposed to the "careerists" or "porkchoppers" who are
active in peasant pressure groups only as a means of improving their
social status. included would be an attempt to determine if some
groups are more careerist-prone than others.

9. Studies of the political and social philosophies of Ministers
of Agriculture, Labor, the Development Agencies (SUDENE or 1 BRA) , and
the President, including content analysis of their speeches, to per-
ceive their understanding and commitment to more modernized societies
and the role of pressure groups within the Brazilian system. For
example, why did Celso Furtado, the gifted economist who headed SUDENE
in 1963-1964, speculate in 'April I963 that "the rural landless" or the
"Peasant Leagues of Francisco Juliao" were "more likely to be the
instruments of violent change than are the labor unions in manufacturing"?
According to Furtado it was obvious that urban unions could see pos-
sibilities for a significant improvement in their own welfare through

a policy of gradualism rather than a policy of violent revolution; on
the other hand, "the rural landless" were confronted with a "rigid.

336

TABLE 25

PEASANT SINDICATOS IN SELECTED STATES BY SIZE OF MUNICIPIOS

1965^

Percent of Municipios with Sindicatos

Size in Square
Ki lometers

Ceara Pernarnbuco

Rio Grande Rio Grande
do Norte do Sul

Sao Paulo

n-132

n-101

n-123

n-150

n-i+64

0-99

50%

1 007o

18%

100-199

337o

200-299

-64

300-399

400-499

100

500-599

1-4,999 ■

Over 5,000

—

24%

64%

37%

49%

18%

Compiled and computed on the basis of data on the size of municipios
gathered during the General Census of September 1, I960, included in
Anuario Estatistico do Brasil. 1961. pp. 31-44, and data collected
by the writer which is included in Table 18.

337

TABLE 26

RECOGNITION OF PEASANT SINDICATOS BY LABOR MINISTERS
DURING THE GOULART REGIME, SEPTEMBER 8, I96I- DECEMBER
31, 1963^

Months

Peasant

Si ndi catos

i n

Sindi catos

Recognized

Office

Recognized

Per Month

Mi ni ster
Pol it ical af f i 1 iat ion
and tenure in office

Andre Franco Montoro
Sao Paulo, PDC
Sep. 8, 1961 -June 29, 1962 9 36 4

Paulo Lacerda

June 29-July 7, 1962 1/2 20 kO

Hermes Lima
PTB left
July 16-Sep. 14, 1962 2 2 2

Joao Pinhei ro Neto

Sep. 17-Dec. 3, 1962 . 2 1/2 22 9

Benjamin Eurico Cruz

Dec. k, 1962-Jan. 22, 1963 11/2 1 1

Almino Monteiro Afonso
PTB radical nationalist
who helped form FNL
Jan. 23-June 17, 1963 5 53 11

Amaury de Oliveira Silva

June 17-Dec. 31, 1963 6 1/2 132 20

Compiled and pomputed from SUPRA, Sindicatos Rurais. Relacao No. 1.

p. 18.

This writer does not have any data on the sindicatos recognized during
the January-March 31, 1964 period in which Silva held office also.

338

resistant class structure, bitterly fighting even minor changes."
it may be true that Furtado was speaking for American consumption or
possibly the statement was a means of obtaining more funds for his
own agency from a possibly Brazilian reluctant Congress influenced
by representatives of the landowning elite? Nevertheless, it appears
that Furtado's analysis of the leadership and policy makeup of various
peasant pressure groups was exceedingly wide on the mark.

10. A study of the recognition policies of the various Ministers
of Labor during the Goulart regime. There is little published explana-
tion for the differential output of recognition of peasant sindicatos
by men who did hold different views about the labor and peasant move-
ments (see Table 26).

11. The extent to which peasant pressure groups have been
instrumental as intermediaries in distributing land under the Estatuto
da Terra or in integrating peasants into the Social Security system

of the nation as envisaged in the Rural Worker Statute and subsequent
legi si at ion?

kelso Furtado, "Brazil, What Kind of Revolution," p. 533.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX 1

Manifesto of the Movement of Landless
Aqricultors (MASTER). Apri 1 I960'

Considering the morose conditions which have befallen the in-
numerable attempts at Agrarian Reform in Brazil, to the point that one
of the highest prelates of the Church in Brazil has affirmed that Brazil
will be the last [or ultimate] country to resolve this problem;2

Considering that the National Army itself, certain of the impor-
tance of rural production for the- Security of the country, proposes^
the creation of a specialized Service with that patriotic finality in
mind;

Considering that, within the best Christian doctrine, the land
ought to belong to* those who directly work it;

Considering that without a vigorous action of the rural masses
from outside to oblige the Powers of the Nation and the Force of Par-
liament to consider the serious nature of the matter, procrastination
will always be the result of those who have joined land interests to
a feudal and capitalist exploitation;

Considering the urgency of the organization of rural multitudes
without land, in order that they awaken and group themselves in an as-
sociation capable of enlightening them and instructing them to defend
their rights [rights which have] always [been] postponed from the
colonial and slavocrat epochs;

Considering that, notwithstanding the fact that human quantities
who two-thirds of the population of the country live on and from the
land are always first in war and its sacrifices and the last in peace
and the consideration of governments;

Translated from photostatic copy of typewritten manuscript
"Aos Agricultores Riograndenses e Ao Povo em Geral," April, I960,'
in this writer's possession.

2
The prelate is not known.

The writer knows nothing of this military proposal.

340

3k]

The dignitaries resolve to found a civil society with the
constitutional objectives of the Statutes that are annexed.

We convoke all of those interested to inscribe themselves in [the
society of MASTER] and to lend it their cooperation and its high
finalities (goals) that, departing from Rio Grande do Sul , it may cover
all of the nation, to overcome, finally, the social drama of the
25,000,000 agricultors without land.

^The names of these dignitaries are not known since there are
no signatures at the bottom of this "Manifesto."

APPENDIX 2

Statutes of the "Movement of Landless
Aqricultors," Apri 1 I960

Art. 1.- With the denomination of "Movlmento dos Agricultores Sem
Terra" (MASTER), remains founded on this date, its head-
quarters (sede) in Porto Alegre and with jurisdiction in
the State of Rio Grande do Sul , a civil society, that will
have the following fundamental objectives:

a.- Combat all forms of exploitation of the rural worker, defend-
ing the producer and production, stimulating the productivity
and valorizing the countryman by all means of protection
(amparo) and of assistance.

b.- Develop the associative and cooperative spirit among the small
agricultors and promote the union and pol i t i cizat ion of rural
populations, in the defense of basic revindications.

c- Struggle (Lutar) for the institution of a type of autonomous
government in rural areas (meios) . elected by the vote of the
peasants and capable of creating among them the spirit of
public initiative and local leadership.

d.- Combatting high prices of rental and agricultural sharecrop-
ping (parcer ia) and promoting the access of the agricultor
without land to the domination of a rural parcel, by financial
purchase, by the concession of public lands, or by the ex-
propriation of improductive and ant i -economi c latifundios.

e.- Promote the organization of colonial nuclei in the proximity
of urban centers of consumption, for the supplying of the
market of work of industrialized zones and to take advantage
of the elements of rural life who have gone into exodus from
rural life.

f.- Organized technical professional schools, industries and

tractor and mechanic centers. In the zones of agro-pastoral
production, with the end of creating work specialization for
the zones of small rural producers.

g.- Combat the high cost and def i ciencies of rural production -
machinery, fertilizers, combustibles, land, taxes (tr i butos) .
transports, communications, $tc.

343

h.- Seek (Pleitear) the democratization of agricultural credit,

domestic (or household) industrialization, and rural electrifi-
cat ion.

i.- Struggle for the institution of the right to vote for the il-
literate voters and for rural military service.

j.- Seek (Plei tear) the gradual reduction of importations of
cereals and other foreign agricultural products and their
substitution by similar national [products].

Art. 2.- All rural productors without land will be admitted as members
of MASTER, of both sexes, without discrimination of race,
religion, or political party.

Sub-par. 1 - Agricultors and livestock breeders who, although proprietors,
accept the principles and objectives of the Entity may also
participate.

Sub-par. 2 - Suburban workers and marginal workers of the cities, who also
have origin in rural districts or dispose of an agricultural
experience and wish (pretendem) to dedicate themselves to the
exploitation of land, may also be admitted.

Sub-par. 3 " Persons who, not being agricultors, are disposed to col-
laborate with the Movement, will also be members, in the quality
of collaborating members, in the criteria of the Directory.

Art. 3." Members, besides their facultative [?] contributions, will

pay a contribution (ioia) of CR$ 100.00 and a monthly dues of
Cr$ 20.00.

Art. 4.- A program of death assistance (auxi 1 io-moto) is instituted

which will pay for a pre-paid telephone call (chamada previa)
of two hundred cruzeiros to the family of ^the deceased member.

Art. 5." MASTER will have a Federal -Delegate [in residence-junto] at
the Federal Government, a State Delegate [resident] with the
Government of the State and as many Delegates and Municipal
Nuclei who are formed in the MCinicipios of the State.

Art. 6.- As soon as possible, the activities of MASTER will be extended

over the nation, for the creation of new entities in the states,
with analogous objectives.

Art. 7-~ MASTER will promote the organization of District Unions of

women, seek to integrate the rural family into the finalities
of the movement, to stimulate sociability and Household
(domestic) industrialization and to mobilize the feminine
element for an effective educational contribution to infants
and rural youth.

3kk

Art. 8.- MASTER will have a duration of indeterminate time and an un-
limited number of members.

Art. 9." The movement V'vi 1 1 be guided by a Directory composed of a
President, two vice presidents, a Secretary, a Treasurer,
and a Consultative Council of five members, elected in as-
sembly for a period of two years, with attributes common to
all societies of this type.

APPENDIX 3

Th.

2 Dii

rectory of Officers of the

Conf ederat I on

Aqr icul tural

Workers

(CONTAG)

Elected Aori 1

, 196s Rio de Janeiro, Guanabara, Brasil

Requl ar

Members

of the Di

i rectory

President - Jose Rotta, President of the Federation of Rural Workers

of the State of Sao Paulo
Secretary - Eucl ides Almeida Nascimento, Secretary of the Federation of

Rural Workers of the State of Pernambuco, from Nazare da

Mata
Joaquim Batista Nascimento (Sobrinho) - President of the Federation of

Rural Workers of Sergipe; Second Vice President at the

Natal Convention
Joao Almeida Cavalcanti - President of the Federation of Rural Workers

of Paraiba; Elected Second Secretary at the December,'

1963 CONTAG Elections; Assistant Secretary at the Natal

Convent ion.
Joao Lazaro Dumont - President of the Federation of Rural Workers of

ParanS
Nobor Bito - Regional Representative of the Federation of Rural Workers

of Sao Paulo; President of the Sindicato of Presidente

Prudentes
Agostinho Jose Neto - President of the Federation of Rural Workers of

the State of Rio de Janeiro
Joaquim Damasceno - President of the Federation of Rural Workers of

the State of Rio Grande do Norte
Antonio Joao de Faria - President of the Sindicato of Campos, Rio de

Janeiro, a sindicato which was recognized in 19^6 and had

approximately 3.000 members in 1965.

Alternate Members of the Directory

Marco Martins da Silva, Pernambuco

Acacio Fernandes dos Santos, Treasurer of the Federation of the State

of Rio de Janeiro
Geraldo Francisco Miquelatti, Parana
Ambrosio I vo Aurel iano, Pernambuco
Jose Martins da Cruz, Rio Grande do Norte
Severino Manoel Soares, President of the Federation of Rural Workers

of Pernambuco; Elected to the CONTAG Directory in I963
Jose Vigita dos Santos, Sergipe
Jose Inovcente, Jaboticabal, Sao Paulo
Joaquim France! ino, Paraiba

345

346

Regular Members of the Fiscal Council (Board of Auditors)

Jose Feliz Neto, Sergipe
Jose Palhares, Rio Grande do Norte

Joao Jordao da Silva, Treasurer of the Federation of Rural Workers of
Pernambuco; President of the Sindicato of \/icen9a

Alternate Members of the Fiscal Council

Severino Cassemiro Alves, Treasurer of the Federation of Paraiba

President of the Sindicato of Alagoa Grande
Osmer de Souza, Tapevi , Sao Paulo
Manoel Justine de Souza, a rural laborer from Nova Igua^u, State of

Rio de Janeiro.

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Uniab Rural , Ano Vli, No. 5, June 1962, publication of the Federation
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Brasil. Super i ntendencia de Polltica Agraria (SUPRA), Departamento
de Promocao e Organizacao Rural, Divisao de Organizafab Rural.
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e Previdencia Social (Rela^ao Organizada por Oton Monteiro de
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Relatorio Anual do Movimento de Educagao de Base, 1962.

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Unpublished Material

"Aos Agricultores Riograndenses e ao Povo em Geral," April, I960

(typewritten manuscript of the Manifesto establishing MASTER).

Agenda Municipal de Estatfstica do IBGE, Venancio Aires, Rio Grande
do Sul, "Relat6rio, Censo Escolar, 196^," December 1964.
(Hectographed.)

366

"Ato," Typewritten copy of Minutes of Meetings which formed Federation
of Sharecroppers and Small Proprietors (FALTAC) , CearS, December
17, 1963.

Blume, Norman. "Contemporary Brazilian Pressure Groups: A Case

Study," Paper read to the Ohio Association of Economists and
Political Scientists, Worthington, Ohio, April, I967.

Conselho Municipal de Clubes k-S , Santa Cruz do Sul, Rio Grande do
Sul . "Ao Programa Companheiros da Alianca do Conselho Muni-
cipal dos Clubes 4-S de Santa Cruz do Sul," I965. (Typewritten.)

Cooperativa Agrfcola de Cotia, "Informacoes Gerais, 1963/1964," Sao
Paulo. (Typewritten.)

'Relat6rio da Diretoria, Ano Social 1963/1964," Sao Paulo,

July 25, 1964. (Printed.)
_. "Suplemento Estatfstico, Ano Social 1963/1964," Sao Paulo,

July 1964. (Printed.)

Crespo, Padre Paulo. "Discurso de Padre Paulo Crespo no dia 15/9/63,
Concentracao de Desagrava Promovida por Paroquia da Cidade de
Pernambuco Juntamente Com Camponeses." (Typewritten.)

"Pequeno Resumo do Movimento Sindical Rural em Pernambuco,"

Recife: SORPE, January 23, 1965. (Typewritten.)

Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciencias e Letras, Departamento de Ciencias
Socials, Movimento Comunitario de Base, "Levantamento dos
Problemas do Municipio," Ijuf, Rio Grande do Sul, October,
1964. (Mimeographed.)

Frente Agraria Gaucha, Departamento Regional, Caxias do Sul, Rio Grande
do Sul. "Relatorio," 1964, January-March, I965. (Typewritten.)

. "Carta de Rei vindicacdes e de Acab dos Agricultores Gauchos,"

ill Congresso Estadual de Trabal hadores Rurais," January 17, 1965.
(Mimeographed.)

. "Estatutos Sociais, Sindicato dos Trabal hadores Rurais do

Municipio," n.d. (Mimeographed Model Statutes for a Sindicato.)

. "Horario dos Trabalhos, 11 Congresso Estadual, 19-21 de

Jul ho de 1963." (Mimeographed.)

. "Horario dos Trabalhos, III Congresso Estadual, 15-17 de

Janeiro de I965," Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul. (Mimeographed.)

. "Principals Datas Historicas," n.d. (Typed manuscript.)

• Estatutos. Porto Alegre, I962. (Printed.)

367

Guimaraes, Ary. "Notas Previas sobre o Si ndi cal Izacao na Bahia,"

unpublished typed manuscript of paper delivered at Seminar at
International Study Center, Washington, D.C., I965.

Hewitt, Cynthia Naegele. "An introduction to the Rural Labor Move-
ment of Pernambuco," unpublished term paper submitted to the
Institute of Latin American Studies, Columbia University,
September, 19£>5.

Landsberger, Henry A. "A Framework for the Study of Peasant Movements,"
unpublished mimeographed paper distributed by the New York Stat(
School of industrial and Labor Relations of Cornell University,
Ithaca, New York, February, I966.

. "An Approach to the Study of Peasant Organization in the

Course of Socio-Pol it ical Development," a paper presented in a
Seminar on Latin American Peasant Movements, New York State
School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University,
Ithaca, New York, December 8-10, I966. (Mimeographed.)

"Manifesto dos Trabalhadores Rurais a Nacao," printed flyer distributed
to Delegates of I Convencao Brasileira de Sindicatos Rurais,
Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, July 19, 1963, and signed by "A
Comissao Representando Mais de 200 Sindicatos de Trabalhadores
Rurais do Brasil."

Masotti, Louis H, "Intergovernmental Relations and the Socialization

of Conflict: Interest Articulation in the Politics of Education,"
a paper prepared for delivery to the I967 Midwest Conference of
Political Scientists, Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana,
April 28, 1967. (Mimeographed.)

"Mensagem-Concl usoes ," I Convencao Brasileira de Sindicatos Rurais (15
a 20 de Julho de 1 963 ,"^Natal , Rio Grande do Norte, Comissao
Coordenadora da Convencao, 1963.

National Conference of Brazilian Trade Union Leaders, Press Release
No. 3, June 5, 1964. (Mimeographed.)

Pearson, Neale J. "The Confederacion Nacional Campesina de Guatemala
(CNCG) and Peasant Unionism in Guatemala, 19^^," unpublished
Master's Thesis, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 1964.

Peterson, Phyllis Jane. "Brazilian Political Parties, Formation,

Organization and Leadership, 1945-1959," Microfilm Version of
unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of Michigan, Ann
Arbor, 1962.

Powell, John. "Preliminary Report on the Federacion Campesina de
Venezuela, Origins, Leadership and Role in Agrarian Reform
Programs," Madison: University of Wisconsin, Land Tenure Center,
1964. (Mimeographed.)

368

Price, Robert E. "Rural Unionization in Brazil," Madison: University

of Wisconsin, The Land Tenure Center, August, 1964. (Mimeographed.)

"Re1at6rio sobre as Atividades do Sindicato dos Pequenos Propr i etar i os
Rurais de Santa Cruz do Sul , July, 1962." (Typewritten.)

"Relat6rio sobre as Atividades do Sindicatos dos Trabal hadores Rurais
de Santa Cruz do Sul," 1964. (Typewritten.)

Saunders, John V. D. "Social Factors In Latin American Modernization,"
Nashville, Tennessee: The Graduate Center for Latin American
Studies, Vanderbilt University, Occasional Paper No. 5, June,
1965. (Printed.)

Servico de Orientacao Rural de Pernambuco (SORPE) . "Situac'ao Econo-
mico-Social da Zona Canaviera de Pernambuco," May 20, 1965-
(Typewritten.)

Wllkie, Mary E. "A Report on Rural Syndicates in Pernambuco," Rio
de Janeiro: Centro Lat i noamer icano de Pesquisas em Ciencias
Socials, April, 1964. (Mimeographed.)

Personal interviews

(Individuals Who Were included in Survey of 75 influentlals
Are Marked With an Asterisk [-])

La^clo Albuquerque, Afogados de ingazeira, Pernambuco, June 25, 1965-

Amaro Telxeira Almeida, President of Rural Workers Sindicato, Ri-
belrao Preto, Pernambuco, June 13, 1965.

Joao Almeida CavalcantI, President, Federation of Rural Workers,
Joao Pessoa, Paraiba, June 3, 19~20, 1965."

Dr. Paulo Almeida, Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul, February 27, 1965.

Salvio P. de Almeida Prado, President of the Brazilian Rural Society
(SRS), Sao Paulo, December 22, 1964.

Severino Casemiro Alves, President, Sindicato of Rural Workers,
Alagoa Grande, in Joao Pessoa, ParaTba, June 3, 19> 1965."

Joao do Amaral , President of Sindicato of Rural Workers, Guarlba,
Sao Paulo, November 30, 1964, August 17, 1965."

Nivaldo Alves de Amorim, Instructor, Federation of Rural Workers,
Recife, Pernambuco.

Agronomist Mario Coelho de Andrade Lima, USAID, NE, Recife, Pernambuco,
June 7, 1965.

369

Jos^ Andrade do Nascimento, Member of FNl Organizational team, PSrto
Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul.

JosI dos Anjos, President of Sindicato of Rural Workers, JaboatS'o,
Pernambuco, May 30 and June 23, 1965."

Francisco Antas, Retired postal employee, FAG office, Santa Maria,
Rio Grande do Sul, March 20, I965."

Padre Deul io Antonini, Military Chaplain, Cruz Alta, Rio Grande do Sul.
January 15~17, 1965, in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul."

Francisco Jos^ Aranha, Fazenda YpS, Bragan9a Paulista, Sao Paulo.

Frel Tarciso Arruda Pontes, Goiana, Pernambuco, August 7. 1965.

Ivo Ambroslo Aureliano, Vice President, Federation of Rural Workers,

Recife, Pernambuco, in Rio de Janeiro, April 5, August 19, I965."

Amaro Jos^ Bandeira, President, Junta, Rural Workers Sindicato, Pal-
mares, Pernambuco, April 20, I965."

Alzlro BenettI, President, JAC Nucleus, Linha Nova, Gramado, Rio
do Sul , January 29, 1965.

Amadeus da Silva Barreto, Regional Labor Delegate, Salvador, Bahia,
May 17, 1965.

Rene Bertholet, Superintendent, PIndorama Cooperative, Alagoas,
July 10, 1965.

Nobor Bito^j^ Regional Delegate, Federation of Rural Workers of the State
of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, April 12, I965."

Zulmiro Boff, President, Sindicato of Small Farmers, Caxias do Sul,
Rio Grande do Sul, April 22, I965."

Gentil Bonato, Director of Rural Education and FAG leader, Gramado,
Rio Grande do Sul, January 19-20, 29-30, I965."

Adalino De Borba, Linha Santo Antonio, Venancio Aires, Rio Grande do
Sul , February 20, I965.

Rev. Jayne Alfredo Borges, Santana do Livramento, Rio Grande do Sul,
March 16, I965.

Padre Bosco, Coordinator, Social Action Programs, Caruaru, Pernambuco,
June 9, 21 , I965."

Prof. Argemiro Jacobo Brum, Ijui, Rio Grande do Sul, in Porto Alegre,
January 17, 1965."

370

Pastor Wilfredo Buchweitz, Ven^cio Aries, Rio Grande do Sul , March
2k, 1965."

Jos5 Bueno da Costa, State Team JAC, Sao Paulo, at Itaparfca, Bahia, May
15, 1965.

Dr. Francisco (Chico) Cabral , PSD Chefe Pol it ico. Sao Paulo Potengf ,
Rio Grande do Norte, August 3, 1965.

Srta. Dr. Julieta Calzans, Servico de Asistencia Rural (SAR) , Natal,
Rio Grande do Norte, June 15, 1965."

Archbishop Dom Helder Camara, Recife, Pernambuco, August 11, 1965."

Heli Cental ice, Employee, Ministry of Labor and Social V^elfare, Joao
Pessoa, Paratba, June 3, 18, 1965."

Padre Antonio da Costa Carvalho, Spiritual Adviser, Federation of
Christian Workers of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Niteroi,
Rio de Janeiro, March 31, 1965."

Prof. Orland M. Carvalho, Universidade de Minas Gerais, in Rio de
Janeiro, March 30, 1965.

Bach. Benjamin de Moraes Cavalcanti, Officer in Sociedade Auxiliadora

da Agriculture and former First Vice President, Federation of

Rural Associations of Pernambuco (FARPE) , Recife, Pernambuco,
August 9, 1965.

Caiu Lins Cavalcanti, President, Sociedade de Recuperacao da Agri-
culture de Pernambuco, Mey 25, 1965.

Frei Celso Merie, Spirituel Adviser, Federation of Circulos Operarios,
Sao Peulo, August 18, I965."

Padre Celso Bestos Cortes, Guarfba, Sao Paulo, November 30, 1964.

Prof. Alto de Costa, Faculdede de Filosofia, Salvador, Bahia, May 19,
1965.

Vicente Costa, JAC Representative in Maranhao, at Itaparica, Bahia,
May 16, 1965.

Padre Peulo Crespo, Jaboatao, Pernambuco, April 1, June 30, July 25,
1965.

Luis Frencilino Demasco, President, Sindicato of Agricultural Workers
of Ipojuca, Camea and Nossa Senhora de 0, in Recife, Pernambuco,
July 22, 1965.

Herbert Dantas, Ceara-Mirim, Rio Grande do Norte, August 1-2, 1965.

371

1 rmao Miguel Darlo, FAG Regional Coordinator, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande
do Sul , January 19, 1965.

Monsignor Federico Didonet, Cathedral, Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul ,
March 23, 1965.

Ronaldo Dietrich, ASCAR Agronomist, Rio Pardo, Rio Grande do Sul,
February 17-18, I965.

Dr. Dellacorte, President, FAG Regional Committee, Santa Maria, Rio
Grande do Sul, March 20, 22, 1965.'''

Lauro Diehl , Member FAG Council, Linha Santo Antonio, Venincio Aires,
Rio Grande do Sul, February 20, I965."

Padre ignacio Eidt, Linha Arlindo, Venancio Aires, Rio Grande do Sul,
February 17, 1965.

Vilibaldo Ertel , Secretary, Rural Association, Venancio Aries, Rio
Grande do Sul, March 24-25, April 25, 1965.

1 rmao Francisco Evans, Santana do Livramento, Rio Grande do Sul,
March I7-I8, I965.

Pastor Paulo Evers, Superintendent, Ginasio Bom Pastor, Linha Brasil,
Nova Petropolis, Rio Grande do Sul, January 26, 28, I965.

Francisco Falcab, President, Associacao dos Fornecedores de Cana de
Pernambuco, Recife, Pernambuco, July 27 and August 9, 1965.

Padre Luis Feracine, Sociedade Brasileira de Cultura, Sao Paulo,
August 18, 1965.

Jose Inacio Ferreira, Sindicato of Agricultural Wori<ers of Ares, Natal,
Rio Grande do Norte, August 4, I965.

Severino Manuel Ferreira, President, Sindicato of Rural Workers, Agua
Preta, Pernambuco, July 10, I965.

Dr. Luis Ferreira, Regional Agronomist, Sao Paulo Potengf, Rio Grande
do Norte, August 3, 1965.

LaScio Figueiredo Pereira, President, Brazilian Confederation of
Christian Worl<ers (CBTC) , December 6, 1964.

Dr. Milton Fonseca Lima, Regional Agronomist, Secretary of Agriculture,
Industry and Commerce, Goiana, Pernambuco, August 7, 1965.

Manoel de Freitas, Instituto Treinamento e Aprendizagem, Glinda,
Pernambuco, June 5, 1965.

372

Dr. Moacyr de Brito Freitas, President, Fabrica Peixe, Pesqueira, Per-
nambuco, July 20, I965.

Prof. J. v. Freitas Marcondes, Institute Cultural do Trabalho, Sao
Paulo, November 2k, 1964, February 20, August 17, 1965.

Ernesto Fujita, Interventoi — President, Federation of Autonomous Agri-
cultural Workers, Sao Paulo, May 8, I965."

Haroldo Veloso Furtado, Regional Labor Delegate, Recife, Pernambuco,
June 4, 1965.

Padre Giordani, Igreja Pelegrino, Caxias do Sul , Rio Grande do Sul ,
April 21, 1965."

Luis Go^s Vieira, Agronomist, Supervisor, ICT-Recife, Pernambuco,
May 21, July 30, August 11, I965.

Daniel Griffin, A Ordem. Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, August 2, k, I965.

Humberto Granja, SORPE, Garanhuns, Pernambuco, June 9, 1965."

Jose Ary Griebler, President, Federation of Rural Workers, Porto

Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, January I7, March 26, April 27~28,
1965.^^

Osmar Gutierrez Carvalho, Linha Santo Antonio, Venancio Aires, Rio
Grande do Sul, February 20, I965.

Pedro Hagetop, Chief, ASCAR Office, Santa Cruz do Sul, Rio Grande
do Sul, February 15, March 21, I965.

Nestor Hamm, former Prefeito, Vera Cruz, Rio Grande do Sul, April
19, 1965.

Deputy Alfredo Hoffman, State Assembly, Porto Alegre, February 12, I965.

Alipio Huffner, Vice Prefeito, Lajeado, Rio Grande do Sul, April 23-24,
1965.

Pedro Avelino Junges, Accountant, Caixa Rural, Santa Cruz do Sul,
February 15, 20, I965.

Otavio Klafke, President of Sindicato of Small Farmers, Venancio Aires,
Rio Grande do Sul, February 17-20, 1965.-"-

Padre Arno Antonio Klein, Secretary to the Bishop, Santa Cruz do
Sul , February 14, I965.

Prof. Protasslo Moreira Knemnitz, Candelaria, Rio Grande do Sul,
February 18, I965."

373

Dr. Carlos Kraft, Agronomist, Rio Grande Tobacco Company, Venancio
Aires, Rio Grande do Sul, April 26, I965.

Dom Edmundo Kunz, Auxiliary Bishop, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul,
February 6, April 28, 1965.'''

Dr. Edson Lucena, Legal Adviser, Federation of Rural Worl<ers, Natal,
Rio Grande do Norte, August k, I965,

Jack Li^of, Assistant Labor Attache, American Consulate General,
Sao Paulo, April 17, August 17, 1965.

Willibaldo Lentz, President FAG Sectional Organization, and Rural
Association Treasurer, March 24-25, 1965."

Guido Lermer, Legal Adviser to Rural Sindicatos, Taquarf Valley
Region, Lajeado, Rio Grande do Sul, April 23-25, 1965.

Emiliano Limberger, School Teacher, MTR Activist, former Vereador
in Santa Cruz do Sul, lawyer in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do
Sul, January 25-26, February 17, 26-27, April 28, I965."

Padre JosI Candida Lira, Instituto de Treinamento e Aprendizagem,
Olinda, Pernambuco, June 7, 1965-

Augusto Locatel 1 i , Regional Delegate, Federico Westphalen, in Porto
Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, January 17, 1965."

Dona Maria Angelina de Paulo Lopes, Aide to the President of the

Cooperativa dos Usineiros, Recife, Pernambuco, July 27, 1965-

Manoel de Lopes Filho, Asistente Sindical, Federation of Rural
Workers, Sao Paulo, November 28, 1964."

Jos^ Cisar Magalhaes, Office Worker, Federation of Rural Workers,
Sao Paulo, April , 1964.-

Padre Vigario Luis Manes, Gramado, Rio Grande do Sul, January 29, 1965.

Itaboraf Martins, Labor Columnist, 0 Estado de Sao Paulo. May 4, I965.

Monsignor Expedito Medeiros, Sao Paulo Potengf, Rio Grande do Norte,
August 3, 1965."

Prof. Laudelino Medeiros, Faculdade de Filosofia, Universidade do

Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, April 27,
1965.

Antonio Meinherz, Treasurer, FAG Nucleus, LInha Avila, Gramado, Rio
Grande do Sul, January 23, 1965."

Zlh

Padre Antonio de Melo Costa, Cabo, Pernambuco, June 29, I965."

Djalmo Augusto de Melo, Coordinator of Cooperative Activities, SORPE,
Recife, Pernambuco, June 10, July ih , and August 8, I965."

Padre Gerardo Augusto de Melo Carpina, Pernambuco, July Ih and
August 8, 1965."

JosI Paulino de Melo, President, Sindicato of Small Farmers and Co-
operativa Mista, Tabi ra, Pernambuco, July 26, I965."

Valdenor Melo Robin, Treasurer, Sindicato of Rural Workers, Ribeirao,
Pernambuco, June 13, 1965."

Dom Francisco Mezquite, Bishop, Afogados de Ingazeira, Pernambuco,
June 25, 1965-"

Euclides Almeida do Nascimento, President, Sindicato of Rural Workers,
Nazar^ da Mata, Pernambuco, April 14, June 8, August 8-9, 1965."

Sebastiao Aloe Nepomuceno, JAC Representative in Terezina, PiauT,
Itaparica, Bahia, May 15, 1965.

Dona Aliete Neri, Riacho das Almas, Pernambuco, June 22, 1965.

Agostinho Jose Neto, Federation of Rural Workers, Niteroi, Rio de
Janeiro, April 5, 10-11, I965."

Josue Neumann, Director, Caixa Rural, Nova Petropolis, Rio Grande do
Sul , January 25, 1965.

Geronimo Oliveira, Executive Secretary, Federation of Rural Workers,
Sao Paulo, November 27-29, 1964.---

Rogel io Luis de Oliveira, Coordinator, Social Action Program, SORPE,
Afogados de Ingazeira, Pernambuco, May 25*26, I965."

Dr. JosI Prieto Pinheiro Passos, Usina Catende, Catende, Pernambuco,
July 10, 1965.

JosI Pereira Da Silva, Secretary, Sindicato of Agricultural Workers,
Palmares, Pernambuco, July 9-10, I965, July 10, I965."

Jos^ Francisco Perrini, Prefeito, Gramado, Rio Grande do Sul, January
19, 1965.

Emi 1 Peter, Agronomist, Papal Volunteers, Natal, Rio Grande do Sul,
August 1 , 1965.

Antonio Pires, JAC Representative in Campinas, Sao Paulo, at Itaparfca,
Bahia, May 15, 1965.

375

Dona Severina Porpina, SAR Cooperative Work, Natal, Rio Grande do Norte,
July 28-29, 1965."

Paulo Brandao Rebel lo. Agronomist, Instituto Gaucho de Reforma Agra'ria,
Pelotas, February 25-27, and Porto Alegre, April 28, I965.

Ladyr Angelo Rech, Fazenda Souza District, Caxias do Sul , Rio Grande
do Sul, February 6-7, April 22, I965."

Bruno Riegel, Accountant, Gramado, Rio Grande do Sul, January 29, 1965.

Dr. Noriberto Riegel, Regional Agronomist, Ven'Sncio Aires, Rio Grande
do Sul, March 2k, April 25, I965.

Srta. Elsa Loss, JAC member in RibeirSfo Preto, SSo Paulo, at Itapa-
r'ca, Bahia, May 15, 1965.

Dr. Jose Artur Rios, Sociedade de Pesquisa e PI anejamento, Rio de
Janeiro, Guanabara, January k, August 19, 1965.

Dr. Jos^ Marano Rocha Filho, Rector, University of Santa Maria, Santa
Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, March 23, I965.

Dom Acacio Rodriguez Alves, Bishop, Palmares, Pernambuco, July 10,
1965."

JosS Rotta, President, Federation of Agricultural Workers of S'ao Paulo,
and President, CONTAG, November 25, 196^, May 8, August 17, 1965.-

Miss Lucia Sa Barreto, SORPE, Recife, Pernambuco, April 1, June 11,
July 2k, August I6, 1965."

Cid Sampaio, Usina Ro^adinho, Catende, Pernambuco, July 10, I965.

Dom Eugenic de Araujo Sales, Apostolic Administrator, Salvador, Bahia,
May 19-20, 1965.-'-

Padre Salomao, Chaplain, Fernao Velho Textile Factory, Macelrf, July 11,
1965.

Dr. Nelson Sampaio, Faculdade de Direito, Universidade de Salvador,
Salvador da Bahia, May 19, 1965.

AcScIo Fernandez dos Santos, Treasurer, Federation of Small Proprietors,
Nlterol, Rio de Janeiro, April 5, 7-8, 1965.

DInaldo Bizarro dos Santos, Recife, Pernambuco, May 25, July 2k, and
August 8, 1965.

Feliciano Satire, President Federation of Autonomous Agricultural
Workers, Recife, Pernambuco, June 7 and August 6, 1965."

376

Orlando Schaefer, President, Sindicato of Rural Workers, Santa Cruz
do Sul , February 15, 1965."

Alfredo Scherer, Former Prefeito, Venancio Aires, Rio Grande do Sul,
February 13 and April 25, 1965.

Padre Arsenio Scmitz, Linha Imperial, Nova Petropolis, Rio Grande do Sul,
January 20-31, February 1, 1965.

Decio Roque Schmidt, Linha Pinhal Alto, Nova Petropolis, Rio Grande do
Sul , January 31 , 1965.

Walter Seeger, Linha Pinhal Alto, Nova Petropolis, Rio Grande do Sul,
January 27-29 and April 29, 1965.-

Padre Joao Sehnem, Provincial Head, the Jesuit Order, and Ecclesiastical
Assistant, Uniao Popular, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul,
February, 1965.

Rubem Antonio Seibt, Prefecture Secretary, hfBva Petropolis, Rio Grande
do Sul, January 25-27, 1965.

Sam Shapiro, Assistant Labor Attache, Rio de Janeiro, Guanabara.

Amoro, Antonija da Silva, Member Jaboatao Rural Workers Sindicato,
Jaboatao, Pernambuco.

Gersino Antonio Silva, SORPE Instructor, Recife, Pernambuco, May 28,
1965.

Joao Jordao da Silva, Treasurer, Federation of Rural Workers, Recife,
Pernambuco, July 1-2, August 10, 1965."

Padre JosI da Silva, Pesqueira, Pernambuco, July 20, 1965."

Jos^ inacio Silva, President, Sindicato of Rural Worker's and Cooperative,
Bom Jardim, Pernambuco, June 10, 12, 1965."

Padre JosI Maria da Silva, Pesqueira, Pernambuco, July 20, 1965."

Manoal dos Santos Silva, President, Sindicato of Rural Workers,
Vitoria de Santo Antao, June 14, I965."

Francisco Damiao da Silva, President, Sindicato of Autonomous Workers,
Pesqueira, Pernambuco, July 19-20, I965."

Eloi Pedro Silva, Treasurer, Cooperative of Rural Workers, Palmares,
Pernambuco, July 9, 20-25, 1965."

JosS Pereira da Silva, Secretary, Sindicato of Rural Workers, Palmares,
Pernambuco, July 9, 20, 25, 1965.-

377

Padre Arsemio Smetzer, Linha Imperial, Nova Petropolis, Rio Grande
do Sul .

John Snyder, Regional Representative, Postal, Telephone, and Telegraph
Workers International, Rio de Janeiro, Guanabara, March 29,
April 2, 1955.

Dr. Jos^ Alberto Sousza, Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, March 20, 1965.

Mario Souto Maior, Bom Jardim, Pernambuco, June 16-17, 1965.

Alonso Nascimento de Souza, President, Sindicato of Rural Workers,
Tambe, Pernambuco, June 1, 1965."

Captain Flavio Jorge Souza, Servico de Embarque, Divisao de Infanteria,
Q.uartel Geral , Recife, Pernambuco, August 10-11, 1965.

JosI Francisco de Souza, Engenho Galileia, Vitoria de Santo Antao,
Pernambuco, July 7, 22, 1965.

Tociyuki Takaki , Secretary of the Federation of Rural Workers of the
State of Rio de Janeiro, April 9, 1965.

Sumiko Tamura, Member JAC State Team, Sao Paulo, at Itaparfca, Bahia,
May 16, 1965.

Luis Alvaro Teixeira, Admi ni stracao Tecnica Contabil Sindical Ltda. ,
Rio de Janeiro, Guanabara, April 10-11, 13, 1965.

Angel ino ThomazzI, President FAG Nucleus, Linha Avila, Gramado, Rio
Grande do Sul, January 20-21, I965."

Luis Ernani Torres da Costa e Silva, Executive Secretary, CONTAG,
April 13, August 13, 1965."

Reynaldo Umann, President, Sindicato of Small Proprietors, Rio Pardo,
Rio Grande do Sul, February 17, 1965."

Padre Pedro Veloso, National Director, Brazilian Confederation of
Circulos Operarios (CNCO) , December 9, 1964."

Padre Orlando Viana, Santana do Livramento, Rio Grande do Sul, March
17, 1965.

Edson Vigal newspaperman, Sao Luiz, Maranhao, in Sao Paulo, November
24, 1964.

Jose Edson Wanderley, Uniao dos Palmares, Alagoas, at Instituto

Treinamento e Aprendizagem, Olinda, Pernambuco, June 5, 1965.

Rev. Arno Wrasse, Nova Petropolis, Rio Grande do Sul, February 2, 1965.

378

Jose Luis Whitman, Picada Cafe, Nova Petropolis, Rio Grande do Sul ,
January 25, 28, 1965-"

Frei Xisto, Goiatuba, Goias, at itapartca, Bahia, May 16, 19^5.

Idorly Zatti, Industrialist, Caxias do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul, February
3, 1965.

Padre Joao Batista Zachin, Editor, A Voz de Bragan^a, Bragan^a Paulista,
Sao Paulo, January 12, 1965.

Dom Benedito Zorzi, Bishop, Caxias do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul, April 22,
1965.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Neale John Pearson was born August 30, 1930, in Akron, Ohio.
He graduated from Lakeland High School in June, 19^8. After re-
ceiving the degree of Bachelor of Arts from Maryville College, Mary-
ville, Tennessee, in May, 1952, he served in the United States Army
for three years. He received a Special Bachelor of Science degree
in Foreign Service from Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., in
August, 1956. while working for a United States Senator as a clerk.
He was a member of the Foreign Service of the United States of America
from August, 1957, until April, 1961, and served as Vice Consul in
Tegucigalpa, Honduras, 1959-1960. He pursued Graduate Studies at
Georgetown University in 1957~1958 and I96I and was awarded the degree
of Master of Science in Foreign Service in June, 1964. He enrolled
in the Graduate School of the University of Florida in February, 1962.
In 1964-1965, he spent a year in Central and South America pursuing
research on the dissertation under a Ful br ight-NDEA Fellowship.

Neale John Pearson has been a member of the faculty of the
Department of Government at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, since
January, I966. He is married to the former Jeanette Shinkle. He
is a member of the American Political Science Association, Southern
Political Science Association, Midwest Conference of Political
Scientists, American Sociological Association, Association of Latin
American Studies, Southeast Conference on Latin American Studies, Pi

Sigma Alpha, and Sigma Delta Pi. He has published articles in several
professional journals and his Master's Thesis for Georgetown University
is being translated for publication by the University of Guatemala.

This dissertation was prepared under the direction of the
chairman of the candidate's supervisory committee, and has been
approved by all members of that committee. It has been submitted
to the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and to the
Graduate Council and accepted in partial fulfillment of the require-
ments for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

December, 1967

^ 'IC'Lifh^

^a=.

Dean, Collegi6/of i^tk and Sciences

Dean, Graduate School

Supervisory Committee;

Chairman

^^J>7t^

i^y^2_2_f^^t!2:^

UfflVfERSITY OF FLORIDA

3 1262 08667 033

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