35 - Assalto ao Poder (2002)

MEMORIAL FOR THE SOLDIERS DEAD IN 1935
Three years after the war between São Paulo...
and Getúlio Vargas' Provisional Government...
new hero candidates were getting ready for new battles.
They were idealists and audacious.
Obsessed and imprudent.
Sectarian and impetuous.
Civilian and military heroes...
dangerous and harmless.
All searching for new accomplishments.
''HEIST OF POWER''
PART 1 PRELUDE
ln late November 1935...
members of the Communist Party of Brazil...
led three military rises...
with the intention of overthrowing Getúlio Vargas government.
One rise happened in Natal.
Another one in Recife.
And the last one in Rio de Janeiro.
All failed in a matter of days...
or even in a few hours.
Such boldness, however, had a price for the military and civilians...
who participated in the insurrection.
Many rebels were brutally tortured...
and even sympathizers of the Communist Party...
not involved in the rise...
ended up in jail.
Using the rebellion as an excuse...
Getúlio Vargas'government...
came up with the National Committee for Communism Repression...
and also a special court to judge political crimes.
Getúlio's authoritarian climb...
culminated on the establishment of Estado Novo, in 1937.
Despite the promptness with which they had been shot down...
the rises of 1935...
started to occupy an important place...
in the political imagination of both winners and losers.
OPENING OF THE MEMORIAL FOR THE SOLDIERS DEAD IN 1935
With an obvious intent to depreciate the rise...
the winners called it ''intentona''...
an old pejorative word...
to try and distinguish the 1935 insurrection...
from the lieutenants' upheavals in 1922...
1924 and 1930.
''lntentona'', according to the dictionary...
means: ''mad attempt and unreasonable rebellion''.
The winners spread around the tale that, during the uprising in Rio...
soldiers from the 3rd lnfantry Regiment...
had been cowardly murdered by the rebels in their sleep.
There is no historical source...
to corroborate such fact. CIearIy, it is faIse.
HISTORIAN However, such faIse affirmation
has wideIy contributed...
to spreading the idea of treason...
the idea that communism couId turn peopIe...
into traitors of their own comrades, of their own kind...
and, occasionaIIy, of their own famiIies.
The 1935 RevoIution...
not so much by its BoIshevik content...
SOCIOLOGIST it is satanized...
in BraziI's poIiticaI cuIture because of the rupture threat it represents.
There has never been a rupture in BraziIian history...
not even in 1922, or 1989...
or 1946, or 1964!
And not even in 1985! We have survived the conciIiations.
Therefore, everything that has to do with rupture is incredibIy feared.
FORWARD!
''OCTOBER''
ln October 191 7, when they took power in Russia...
the Bolshevik Party leaders knew...
that the success of the Soviet Revolution...
still depended on the victory of other revolutions in Europe...
and in the rest of the world.
That goal caused the creation of, in 1919...
the Communist lnternational, with head offices in Moscow.
Conceived by Lenin, the Communist lnternational...
was going to be the general staff of the world revolution.
GRIGORI ZINOVIEV - PRESIDENT OF COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL
BERLIN - 1919 But, after all...
the world revolution, never happened.
After the failure of the German Communist Party, in 1919...
the revolution ceased to be the order of the day.
In fact, the Third InternationaI gives up...
on the fuII force revoIution after 1919.
The revoIutionary attempts are exceptions...
to the ruIe of an otherwise non-revoIutionary poIicy.
That's why our...
communist revoIution in BraziI, in 1935...
sounds so shocking.
Because it is out of synch, out of temporaIity...
with the Third InternationaI poIicy.
It's more an accident than a strategic decision.
When the Communist Party was founded in Brazil...
the taking of power in other countries...
was no longer a priority for the Soviet Union.
Founded in March 1922...
the Communist Party of Brazil had only 4 months of legal operations.
The martial law imposed in July by president Arthur Bernardes...
condemned its members to clandestinity.
FOUNDERS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY
Octávio Brandão was one of the first militants of the Party...
FORMER ANARCHIST MILITANT and its more representative scholar...
during that period.
One day, AstrojiIdo comes to the drugstore...
and I showed him the book I was writing...
''BIue-CoIIar Russia'', about the revoIution in Russia.
One of the pages read: ''I have the gIory to beIong...
to the worId army of the Communist InternationaI.''
AstrojiIdo Iaughed out Ioud, and gave me a subscription to sign.
MOSCOW - 1922 Accepted as a member...
of the Communist lnternational in November 1922...
4TH CONGRESS OF THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL
the Communist Party of Brazil...
started to be a section of that organization which coordinated...
and controlled the operations of the international communist movement...
according to the interests of the Soviet state.
The year of 1922, however...
was not marked down in the Brazilian political memory...
as the year when Communism arrived in Brazil.
Until this day...
1922 is remembered for being the year of the lieutenants'rebellion.
On the early morning of July 5th...
young officers and privates rebelled against the government.
The Copacabana Fort, in Rio de Janeiro...
rised up...
and was bombed by the loyal forces of president Arthur Bernardes.
After their refusal to surrender...
the heroic rebels paraded down Avenida Atlântica...
to meet the government troops.
Only two lieutenants survived the shooting:
Eduardo Gomes and Antônio Siqueira Campos.
São Paulo, July 1924.
A new insurrection shakes the military bases.
The rebellion is put to rest...
but the desire to keep fighting created a military front...
that would be historically known as the Prestes Column.
l was like a peace judge.
Every compIaint, every...
ARMY CAPTAIN IN 1924 probIem they had...
or anything they needed, they came and taIked to me.
And the CoIumn received my name because, everywhere we went...
if a civiIian or a IocaI...
came to compIain or ask for something...
the soIdier wouId teII them ''Go taIk to CoIoneI Prestes''.
So everybody wouId come Iook for me, and my name got famous...
and that's why the CoIumn received my name.
ln April 1925...
Luiz Carlos Prestes took over the Higher State command...
of the Column headed by Major Miguel Costa.
The Column walked along 1 5,534 miles through 13 states...
in the attempt of taking down Arthur Bernardes'government.
Federal forces battled the rebels for almost two years.
When the Column march reached an end...
Arthur Bernardes had already been replaced as president...
through elections.
Prestes sought refuge in Bolivia, even though he hadn't lost.
A new national hero was born.
My generation, peopIe born between 1910 and 1912...
LIEUTENANT IN 1935 in this century...
and aIso the Iater generations...
from the 1920's or 1930's...
those are generations for whom...
Prestes was a Iegendary figure, you know?
The Knight of Hope.
So, we, as kids, were rooting for the CoIumn...
despite our poIiticaI unawareness.
But we worshipped that young commander.
During his exile, the Knight of Hope...
read, for the first time, books by Lenin and Marx...
sent by Astrojildo Pereira...
one of the founders of the Communist Party of Brazil.
ln Buenos Ayres...
Prestes stayed in touch with the South-American Secretariat...
of the Communist lnternational...
and he released a manifest...
in tune with the lnternational's positions...
as soon as he broke relations with the lieutenants...
who participated in the conspiracy against Washington Luis'government.
The true revolution Brazil was in need for, according to Prestes...
wasn't the 1930 one...
but a ''national insurrection of all workers''...
against the ''great lords of land and imperialism''.
1930 REVOLUTION'S HIGH COMMAND Something that...
unexpectedly contributed...
to Prestes'political project was the 1930 Revolution.
Before breaking relations with the lieutenants...
the Knight of Hope had received from Getúlio Vargas...
a sum equivalent to 2 million reais in today's currency...
to buy guns.
After the rupture...
whatever was left of that money was used by Prestes...
to finance the activities...
of the Communist lnternational in South America.
With that money, he couldn't buy me and make me change positions.
My position was chosen.
So I kept the money and my position. I said:
''This money wiII be invested in the revoIution.'' And I reaIIy...
gave it to Communist InternationaI's South-American Secretariat.
ln September 1931, Prestes left for Moscow.
Back then, Russia was implementing...
the first five-year industrialization plan...
and the collectivization of agricultural production.
The project of building Socialism in one single country...
had substituted the idea of world revolution.
l went to work at the Soviet Union...
as a foreign engineer. I took my mother and my sisters with me...
and I Ieft for the Soviet Union.
That's when the most important part...
of my Iife in Latin America ended.
On this testimony, recorded in 1983...
at the age of 85...
Luiz Carlos Prestes seems to want to keep the memory...
of the glory times of the Column and forget the battles...
that happened after his triumph in the 1930 Revolution...
when he became a commander without troops.
Prestes Ieft for the Soviet Union with that intention in mind...
JOURNALIST to make his own revoIution...
the one he thought was true...
after refusing to participate in the armed movement of 1930...
that raised GetúIio Vargas to power.
Brazil was preparing to go back to a constitutional regime...
at the moment that the effects...
of the 1929 economic crisis were fading.
That's when there was an increase in the commercial relationships...
and in the investments of the United States and Germany.
lt was the Germans...
who had invested and founded the traditional Casa Alemã...
which competed for São Paulo's shoppers with Mappin Stores...
which belonged to the English.
lt had also come from Germany the investment for VASP...
when the company started to operate.
The planes that went from São Paulo to Rio were German...
just like the Zeppelin...
used as a marketing device for the German industrial pride...
and for Nazism.
The Zeppelin seduced naive souls...
and others not so naive...
like Armando de Salles Oliveira's.
The governor of São Paulo...
couldn't disguise his love for the cradle of Nazism and Fascism.
We think of ItaIy, Germany, PortugaI...
and their powerfuI...
GOVERNOR OF SÃO PAULO marketing methods...
through which we can take to the furthest corners of the country...
words of unity and faith concerning our fIag.
Let's copy from such remarkabIe nations...
their patriotic praise...
their seIfIess spirit, their organizationaI force...
their renewaI abiIity.
However, we shaII preserve our skin.
We shaII remain BraziIian.
ln May 1933...
3.5º/ of the population voted.
For the first time in Brazil...
the vote was private, and women were allowed to vote.
The final count reveals the great victorious:
the chief of the Provisional Goverment, Getúlio Vargas...
had secured his power to decide over the Constitution...
that would be implemented in November 1933.
NATIONAL CONSTITUTIONAL ASSEMBLY 1933 TO 1934
However, victory was not complete.
ln many important states...
the oligarchies defeated in 1930 were raised to power again...
and created a mood of agitation in most parts of the country.
JULY 20th, 1934
Elected by the Constitutional Assembly...
Getúlio Vargas made it clear in his inauguration...
that he wasn't happy with the Constitution of a few days earlier.
The new Constitution consecrated liberal and democratic principles...
strengthened the states and limited the president's political functions.
l promise to keep and loyally obey the Federal Constitution...
to promote Brazil's welfare...
to observe its laws...
to support its unity, integrity and independence.
Such protocol vows...
could not stop Vargas to say to a friend:
''l believe l'll be the first reviewer of the Constitution.''
From the government's point of view...
HISTORIAN or from the point of view of the...
miIitary around GetúIio Vargas...
or from the point of view of the integraIists...
the 1934 Constitution was seen suspiciousIy...
because of its configuration...
being Iess centraIizing, non-authoritarian...
and that was the desire of the currents.
To Getúlio Vargas...
the new Constitution ''fragmented and diluted authority...
proclamed indiscipline...
and mistook the attributions of the powers of the Republic.''
The Minister of War, Góis Monteiro, even said that...
''bending to the people's sovereignity...
is the fate of suicidal nations.''
The Constitution was weIcomed by the masses...
in an indifferent way, Iet's say...
as it normaIIy happens, speciaIIy in a country Iike BraziI.
To the great masses, speciaIIy in the 30's...
the existence or non-existence of a constitutionaI modeI...
was not the main issue. It was even seen with...
a certain indifference.
But democracy wasn't unpopular only within the government ranks.
ln October 1932...
the Brazilian lntegralist Action was founded...
headed by Plinio Salgado.
lnfluenced by the ltalian fascism...
the integralism considered itself...
as a nationalist movement to defend order...
discipline and patriotic traditions.
lt was against oligarchies...
and it intended to fight against liberalism, socialism...
and international capitalism.
ln late 1934...
the integralism claimed to have 180,000 members...
in offices all over the country.
Most of its members were anti-Semite...
and many of them participated in combat groups...
that organized punitive expeditions.
OCTOBER 3rd, 1934
lrineu keeps passing his competitors...
one by one.
Despite the heroic ambitions of integralists and communists...
it was out of the political arena that other hero wannabes...
were risking their lives...
and charming the crowds.
The Gávea Circuit, in Rio de Janeiro, was so dangerous...
that it was nicknamed ''Devil's Trampoline''.
The ll GP of Rio...
revealed a Brazilian hero to the world:
lrineu Corrêa.
ln a time when ltalians and Germans...
fought for hegemony on the race tracks...
lrineu Corrêa...
won the race with a little car made by the Ford.
The following year, right on the first lap...
the Brazilian champion lost control of his car...
hit a tree...
fell into a canal and died.
The integralists were counting on the empathy of the government...
and the Armed Forces.
Even so...
they managed to elect just one national representative...
in the elections for the Federal Assembly...
and the State Assemblies.
OCTOBER 14th, 1934
The campaign was filled with street conflicts.
A week before the election...
anti-fascist groups...
used bullets to break up an integralist concentration...
at Praça da Sé, in São Paulo.
ln the shooting, 6 people died and 42 were wounded.
The growing political radicalization led Getúlio...
to send to the Congress...
the bill for Homeland Security...
or the ''Monster Law'', as it was called.
lndividual rights expressed on the 1934 Constitution...
faced their final days.
To fight against the Monster Law and integralism...
politicians, independent workers and military people...
got together to create, in March 1935...
an anti-fascist front...
called National Liberating Alliance.
We were very inspired...
by the poIiticaI experience accumuIated back then...
LIEUTENANT IN 1935 with the various...
bIows of hope that came...
from the CoIumn, from the promises of the CoIumn and the AIIiance.
And aIso...
we aIso had disappointments. The desire for a new...
The desire for changes, for soIutions to our worst issues.
Headed by the Navy commander Hercolino Cascardo...
a revolutionary lieutenant back in 1930...
the Alliance entered the Brazilian political scene...
with a big rally held at João Caetano Theater...
downtown Rio de Janeiro.
During the ceremony...
a young Law student called Carlos Lacerda...
who was a member of the Communist Youth...
recommended Luiz Carlos Prestes...
for the Alliance's honorary president.
And the Knight of Hope was immediately elected.
Some of the oId victorious Iieutenants...
after 1930...
HISTORIAN had been re-accepted in the Army...
quickIy promoted and...
they feIt rewarded...
and they had Ieft their rebeI intentions...
back in 1930.
Others...
became poIiticians...
and that was very tempting at that moment.
They became interveners...
and onIy Iater they went back to the Army.
But with a poIiticaIIy reforming attitude...
not a revoIutionary one.
And, finaIIy, there was a third group...
which was extremeIy infIuenced by Prestes...
by his radicaIism.
With his subscription to the Communist Party...
that Iast group moved to the Ieft...
maybe even inside the Army...
but it distinctIy moved to the Ieft.
That's the group that joined the AIIiance...
and that's the group that participated in the 1935 rebeIIion.
MOSCOW
Since August 1934...
Prestes had belonged to the Communist Party of Brazil...
which only accepted him under the orders of the lnternational.
I was finaIIy considered a member of the Party...
under the orders of the 3rd InternationaI, which, back then...
was the boss of aII parties.
They gave the order, and on August 1st, 1934...
the ''CIasse Operária'', the Party's newspaper...
pubIished my subscription into the Party.
Prestes was still in Moscow...
when the Soviet Revolution celebrated 1 7 years.
lts 10th anniversary had been celebrated in 1927...
with the movie ''October''.
ln 1934...
it was celebrated with ''Tchapáiev''.
''October'' was an epic about collective heroism.
''Tchapáiev'' was an epic about individual heroism.
A Red Army commander during the Civil War...
Tchapáiev...
became a model of courage and leadership to the Russians...
and also to the hero wannabes from other countries.
December 29th, 1934.
After 3 years in the Soviet Union...
Luiz Carlos Prestes starts his trip back to Brazil.
December 31st, 1934.
Getúlio Vargas writes to the Brazilian ambassador in the USA...
Oswaldo Aranha...
saying that the year 1935...
had started with ''an atmosphere of doubt and fear''.
APRIL 1 1th, 1935
Prestes arrived in Brazil on the week that Armando de Salles Oliveira...
was inaugurated as governor of São Paulo.
A few days earlier...
the Congress and Getúlio Vargas had approved...
the Homeland Security Law, or the ''Monster Law''.
The country had gone back to a regime of exception...
concentrating power on the hands of the president.
Armando Salles had taken over the defense of the Monster Law...
and the strengthening of the president's powers.
At his inauguration ceremony, the governor was accompanied...
by one of the authors of the Monster Law...
Vicente Rao, from São Paulo...
Getúlio Vargas'Justice Minister.
The elites were straightening themselves up...
while the power coup was being planned in the backstage.
In Rio de Janeiro, they had aIready instaIIed...
the Communist InternationaI's Latin-American Secretariat...
with its main offices in Montevideo.
But because the situation in BraziI was so serious...
it got transferred to Rio.
Prestes didn't come to Brazil all alone...
nor did he use his real identity.
A fake passport had turned him into a Portuguese citizen.
Playing his wife, a German revolutionary woman...
Olga Benário...
an agent from the Soviet army espionage service.
Besides being an lnternational's agent, she was a military agent...
an agent from the miIitary inteIIigence service.
WRITER My book reveaIed that she was...
That she had gone under miIitary training...
she fIew airpIanes, she rid horses...
she faked documents, she couId shoot short and Iong-range guns...
she spoke 5 Ianguages, I mean...
she was a typicaI Comintern's agent from the 1930's.
MOSCOW
Since the early 1920's...
the lnternational had been spreading agents all over the world.
From 1931 on...
the agents sent by lnternational...
started to politically instruct the Communist Party of Brazil...
and to organize courses to form new managers.
In this case, Prestes, ManuiIsky...
JOURNALIST who was InternationaI's main man...
and probabIy...
two or three high-rank managers...
from the Red Army Espionage Service...
thought it was possibIe to repeat the pIan...
that had been used in China.
When Prestes and Olga arrived...
other illegal immigrant couples were already acting in Rio.
Arthur Ewert and Elise Saborowski were German...
just like Johann Degraf and Helena Krüger.
Rodolfo Ghioldi and Carmen Guelfaia were from Argentina.
Pavel and Sofia Stuchevski were Soviet.
Arthur Ewert had an American passport...
under the name Harry Berger.
Stutchevski became Leon Jules Valet, a Belgian.
Johann Degraf adopted the alias Franz Gruber.
The American Victor Allen Baron joined the group later.
ln total...
there were 1 1 people in charge of giving political assistance...
teaching sabotage techniques...
providing paramilitary training...
and establishing direct radio communication with Moscow.
While that group started its activities in Brazil...
the Communist lnternational was adopting the official policy...
BERLIN of creating popular...
anti-fascist fronts...
to face the threat of Nazism.
Following such guideline...
Prestes announced he was joining the National Liberating Alliance.
The more prominent group inside the AIIiance...
HISTORIAN was the one of...
the Ieft-wing Iieutenants...
who had been fighting since 1922...
and feIt betrayed and disiIIusioned with the 1930 RevoIution.
The Communist Party had practicaIIy no infIuence...
in the creation of the NationaI Liberating AIIiance.
The Homeland National Law...
that had been sanctioned by Getúlio...
5 days after the creation of the Alliance...
did not stop the Alliance from quickly growing.
lts members reached the number of 70,000...
with a great number of military people among them.
On the part of the NationaI Liberating AIIiance...
of the officiaI management of the AIIiance...
it was an anti-fascist fight, a democratic fight...
an anti-imperiaIist fight, against Iarge Iand estates...
but with no path to reach power...
to organize a government.
On the contrary, they insisted on saying they were not a party.
May 7th, 1935.
Among the rumors of a military coup...
a new Minister of War is nominated by Getúlio.
The replacement for Góis Monteiro was General João Gomes...
a former commander of the Government Forces...
during the operations against the Prestes Column in the Northeast.
BUENOS AYRES After the military wing is appeased...
MAY 22nd, 1935 Getúlio Vargas goes to...
Buenos Ayres with his family...
on board of the steel-armored ship São Paulo.
He goes there to sign a trade treaty with Argentina...
and participate in the negotiation phase...
of the Chaco War armistice.
Upon his return to Brazil, the political tension had increased.
ln June 9th, a worker dies and dozens of people are injured...
in a conflict between integralists and members of Alliance in Petrópolis.
To Getúlio, the National Liberating Alliance...
was nothing but a front for the Communist Party.
João Gomes, the Minister of War, saw the ideas of the Alliance...
contrary to law and order.
Other generals stated that the Alliance was sent gold from Moscow.
Such criticism was a feast for the integralists...
who already had a precious ally in the government:
Colonel Newton Cavalcanti...
chief of the President's Military House.
JUNE 30th, 1935
As a body culture enthusiast...
Colonel Newton Cavalcanti...
put his best efforts in the organization of this parade...
which happened in the afternoon of the last Sunday of June 1935...
at Avenida Beira-Mar.
5 days after the Great Athletic Parade...
Prestes would give away...
a reason for the government to shut down the Alliance.
Following the instructions of the Communist lnternational...
Prestes calls upon the masses...
''for the moment of the coup''...
and demands ''all power for the Alliance''.
Read by Carlos Lacerda...
the manifest catches the Alliance group by surprise...
since they had been defending the 1934 Constitution.
On the following week, Getúlio orders the shut down of the Alliance.
A little before that, Prestes had written a prophetic letter...
to his former colleague from the Column, Miguel Costa.
On the letter, he said:
''The National Liberating Alliance...
is an organization that can't be easily exterminated.
As soon as the government renders it illegal...
its managers will continue their work in the shadows.''
The end of the Alliance was already expected...
but the lack of reaction caught everybody by surprise.
The only protest was a 5,000 people march, in São Paulo...
lead by historian Caio Prado Jr.
The summon for the people to arm themselves...
made days later by the Communist Party was also fruitless.
When GetúIio stated the cIosing of the NationaI Liberating AIIiance...
HISTORIAN the communists...
took over the AIIiance...
and gave an insurrectionaI course to it...
without taIking to the AIIiance management, who didn't want that.
They were against the rise of the fascism in the worId.
The Central Committee of the Communist Party...
was convinced that country was living a pre-revolutionary crisis.
Antonio Maciel Bonfim, alias Miranda...
general-secretary of the party since July 1934...
even said the government was retreating...
while the Armed Forces and the police...
were fraternizing with the communists.
Prestes, while still at the Soviet Union...
had described the Northeast as a ''slave and feudal economy''...
and its local rebels as ''peasant warriors...
who counted with the empathy of the people''.
The task of the communists, according to Prestes...
was to lead the rebels...
in a great movement against feudalism and imperialism.
Despite its iIIegaIity, the AIIiance centers continued to grow...
they continued to be deveIoped...
and the Communist Party was getting ready for insurrection.
Once the National Liberating Alliance was closed...
Prestes contacts his old military friends...
and proposes to revive the Column...
which is now ''multiplied and oriented''.
Miguel Costa criticizes Prestes...
for having ordered...
''all power to the Alliance''...
without having initiated insurrection immediately after.
MigueI Costa...
WRITER found it preposterous...
that they intended to transform a mass movement...
into a revoIutionary and armed movement...
and he advises Prestes many times that it was the equivaIent...
of putting a chiId in front of an eIephant.
MOSCOW
7th COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS
On the 6th corner of the worId...
in an irreconciIabIe revoIutionary fight...
Marxism, the great expression of sociaIist work and thought...
has acquired, under the hand of Lenin and StaIin...
worId history character.
ln August 1935, in the 7th Congress in Moscow...
Prestes was elected member of the lnternational's Executive Committee.
We wouId not be Marxists...
revoIutionary Leninists worthy discipIes of Marx, EngeIs...
Lenin and StaIin if we didn't manage to accompIish our historicaI mission:
erase fascism from the face of the Earth...
and, with it, capitaIism.
Still during the 7th Congress...
the National Liberating Alliance...
was mentioned as an example of the official policy of popular fronts.
But the Alliance had already been shut down...
and things were taking a different course in Brazil.
The general-secretary of the Communist Party said the country...
was marching ''with big steps towards the decisive fight...
for the fall of the national treason government.''
l watched meetings where they discussed the situation in Brazil...
in 1935.
''There's no viabIe condition for armed insurrection.''
''So we have to cross...'' I said, ''No!''
The AIIiance had been shut down. That was after June or JuIy.
I said, ''The AIIiance was shut down.
We have to reorganize the AIIiance under a new name...
and go back to advertising agitation and the education...
of miIIions of peopIe.''
''For how Iong?'' I said, ''I don't know how Iong.''
So they guaranteed to the InternationaI that...
Fernando Lacerda guaranteed that victory was in our pocket...
that the name of Prestes wouId be enough to raise miIIions of peopIe.
AUGUST 25th, 1935
Brazil, however, seemed to be years away from such projects.
And the Armed Forces were even more distant and calm.
During the celebrations of the Soldier's Day...
Getúlio and João Gomes...
delivered the Military Order of Merit for the first time.
On the same day, a pamphlet was distributed at the military GQs...
by a Communist Party cell...
reporting the ''hypocrisy of Soldier's Day''...
motivating the troops to not exercise in the early morning...
and to mess with the Orphean chant ''until it is gone''...
but such orders were fruitless.
SEPTEMBER 7th, 1935
Great but vain expectations fell on the Armed Forces shoulders...
who were seen as allies in the ''fight for freedom and democracy.''
The Alliance newspaper ''A Manhã''...
saw the army as a popular institution...
formed by the sons of the people...
who had always refused the role of ''king of the hill''.
October 10th, 1935.
Luiz Carlos Prestes writes to Miguel Costa:
''Objective conditions indicate that, all of a sudden...
we may be facing events of such high importance...
that we may be forced to order...
a power take-over.''
Communists and alliancists were convinced...
that the revolution was bound to happen. lt was just a matter of time.
Armed battIe had aIways been the tactic of the Communist Party.
Even if they had eIectoraI tactics here or there...
back then, nobody beIieved they couId rise to power...
without armed battIe.
Therefore, aII the Communist Party meetings...
aII the orders they gave...
aIways assumed there wouId be an armed battIe.
Prestes lived with Olga Benário in lpanema...
and sometimes they would even go to the beach.
Arthur Ewert and Elise were their neighbors.
Twice a week, at Ewert's house...
the small group would get together at night, with Ghioldi...
and the party's general-secretary, Antonio Maciel Bonfim, or Miranda.
AIthough OIga had been formaIIy sent...
to be Prestes personaI bodyguard...
and she was actuaIIy quaIified for that...
the impression we get is that nobody had any...
precise information about it...
but her roIe was a IittIe wider than that...
because she interferes, she participates in the meetings...
she gets surprised with the Iack of readiness of BraziIian communists.
On October 1 7th, 1935...
Arthur Ewert sent a wire to Moscow saying...
that they ''might be forced to act''.
The reduction of military effectives initiated by Getúlio's government...
caused the dismissal of soldiers, corporals and sergeants...
and weakened the support system of the communists in the Armed Forces.
On the wire, Ewert asked for the urgent wiring of...
the equivalent to 2 million and 600,000 reais.
''What do you need so much money for?.''...
asked an astonished Chen Shao-Yu...
known as Van Min, head of the Latin-American Secretariat...
of the Communist lnternational.
On the same telegram...
Van Min asked that someone should be sent to Moscow...
to give a report about the situation in Brazil.
OCTOBER 26th, 1935 While these messages...
were coming and going, the government was apparently calm.
Obeying his power rites...
Getúlio attended, along with the Minister of Education and Health...
Gustavo Capanema...
the opening of Hospital Estácio de Sá.
What happened in BraziI was a Secret Service operation...
organized by the Soviet poIice...
and by the Red Army...
through their miIitary espionage department.
A proof of that is the professionaI history of those invoIved.
CertainIy, the management of Communist InternationaI...
was wrongIy Ied by information sent from BraziI.
BasicaIIy, the information was sent to them...
and particuIarIy to Dimitri ManuiIsky, Comintern's secretary...
by Miranda, generaI-secretary of the BraziIian Communist Party.
The Communist InternationaI didn't determine...
nor had a prominent roIe...
nor insisted or suggested the 1935 armed movement.
In my opinion...
that's extensiveIy proved by documentation.
What the InternationaI did, since the BraziIian communists stated...
that the revoIutionary situation in BraziI...
was promisingIy progressing...
was to heIp in a poIiticaI sense...
and send haIf a dozen peopIe here...
who by the way, had a bad reputation in Moscow.
And they aIso sent financiaI support...
to especiaIIy support Prestes and his group.
PART 2 - UPHEAVALS
November 1935 was a very hot month in Rio de Janeiro.
The city was boiling...
but its routine wasn't altered.
Nothing seemed to indicate that a revolution was on the making.
The only visible sign of people's dissatisfaction...
was seen in the South Side...
when the beach-goers were forbidden to leave the beach shirtless.
For the police...
walking around shirtless was indecent exposure.
NOVEMBER 3rd, 1935 Like every year...
on the first Sunday of November...
thousands of believers climbed the steps...
of Nossa Senhora da Penha church...
closing one of the most popular religious festivities in Brazil.
Still in November...
an international hero was forced to land in Araruama...
NOVEMBER 18th, 1935 in Rio de Janeiro's coast.
After completing the fastest crossing of the Atlantic in History...
flying from Dakar to Natal...
Rio Grande do Norte, in 13 hours...
a leak left the plane of the fearless New-Zealand aviator...
Jean Batten with no fuel on her way to Rio de Janeiro.
The Air Force rescued Jean Batten on the beach...
and she was able to finally fly to Campo dos Afonsos base...
the same base which...
10 days later...
would be the stage for the communist upheaval in Rio de Janeiro.
ln November...
we were summoned by the Northeastern secretary...
for a meeting.
Just us, the secretariat, which was composed...
In the regionaI committee, there were nine...
and in the secretariat, there were three.
So, we were summoned by the Northeastern secretary, just us.
And on that meeting we were toId...
that the revoIution was on the verge of happening...
that it was bound to happen at any moment...
and that in NataI...
there was a probIem with the privates...
who were being threatened with dismissaI.
The biggest supporters of the Party and the AIIiance...
were at the 21st Hunters BattaIion.
So the order had been given, and NataI shouId not reIinquish its guns.
ObviousIy, that was a shock to us.
Not reIinquish your guns...
meant confIict.
With only 40,000 people...
Natal was already considered one of the 4 strategic spots in the world...
because it was the closest place in America to Europe and Africa.
Since the election of governor Rafael Fernandes...
Rio Grande do Norte's capital was dominated by politics.
ln November 1935...
the situation got worse...
after the Army started to dismiss its privates...
corporals and sergeants.
The Army aIso removed...
MEMBER OF THE RED EMERGENC Y SERVICE
individuaIs who had been doing mandatory miIitary service.
When it was over, these guys decided not to Ieave...
so the number of...
''needy'' privates got bigger...
and they were everywhere. For them, whatever happened...
was fine.
lt was corporal Giocondo Dias who informed...
his colleagues at the local Communist Party office...
that the 21st Hunters Battalion...
was in war because of the dismissals.
The upheaval, according to him, was imminent.
So opportunity wasn't lost...
they decided to tell the Party to take up arms.
I was Iiving at Ribeira.
What happens was that...
when it aII started...
I was reading some biIIboards...
put on the CathoIic newspaper ''A Ordem''.
That's when I started to hear some gunshots...
so I caIIed my wife and said, ''Let's go. They're shooting''.
Unaware of what was happening in Natal on November 23rd...
the Communist Party got together in Rio...
and Luiz Carlos Prestes became a member of the Central Committee...
after the suggestion of Arthur Ewert and Rodolfo Ghioldi.
The Iast CentraI Committee meeting was in mid-November.
I couIdn't participate in it because Miranda, the Party's secretary...
thought it wasn't safe...
for me to be at the meeting...
but comrade RodoIfo GhioIdi participated and was enthusiastic.
They had decided to prepare the Party for the revoIution.
The news of the insurrection in Natal...
arrived in Recife on Saturday, November 23rd...
a few hours after it was initiated.
When informed of what was going on...
the Northeastern Secretariat of the Communist Party...
scheduled the upheaval in Recife for the next morning.
The movement was scheduIed to begin on the morning of Sunday, the 24th.
HISTORIAN But Góis said:
''That's impossibIe.
If it was to be started by the miIitary bases...
Sunday is their day-off. There is very IittIe contingent on caII.
The soIdiers were home, having fun...
the officers were on their day-off.
There's nobody at the bases.''
And Ciro MeireIIes said: ''I agree. It's not appropriate.''
I was contacted at home...
by a member of the RegionaI Committee...
who had been contacted by the Northeastern Secretary...
who had toId him to find me...
and give the order to the Party.
Now: on a Sunday, at 10 A.M...
I shouId mobiIize the Party...
send everybody to certain pIaces...
give them a certain password...
and send them out to get guns.
Once more, the Party was going to do the revoIution on its own.
The upheaval started at the Military Village, in Socorro...
1 1 miles away from downtown.
The rebels faced a tough resistance before taking over the base.
When they managed to control the situation...
they gave guns out to civilians, and a platoon marched around Recife.
The leaders of the movement in Socorro...
didn't think of disconnecting the base's teIephone Iines...
which connected them with Recife.
So the officers who had Iocked themseIves...
inside the command room of the base...
started to teIephone to the entire city.
They toId the other bases and the Security offices...
that there was a movement going on...
in Socorro.
On the way to downtown...
the tower of Nossa Sra. da Paz church was an excellent strategic point.
After asking for the priest's permission...
and promising not to destroy anything...
two machine guns were installed at the tower...
from where the rebels controlled the Paz square for 38 hours.
The Party had toId Gregório...
that as soon as he initiated the movement...
as soon as he gave the sign...
as soon as he initiated the movement at the base...
he wouId have the support of 300 Iongshoremen...
who had organized themseIves to participate in the movement.
No Iongshoreman turned up.
So the movement was initiated randomIy.
I heard about it, as did the entire Pernambuco society...
just Iike any other news...
with no fundaments whatsoever.
''Some shooting happened here in Recife.
And it seems that there's a rebeIIion starting in Socorro.''
Nobody knew anything, there was no participation of the peopIe.
Besides the 21st Hunters Battalion...
the rebels quickly occupied, in Natal...
the governor's office, the Navy School...
the airport and some other public departments.
The city jail was taken over, and 68 inmates were released.
The most important group...
of civiIians who invaded the base was composed...
POLITICAL SCIENTIST of Iongshoremen.
The president of the most important union here in NataI...
invaded the base. He was in the Communist Party...
and so was the vice-president. It was a very expressive Ieadership.
In fact, most of the indicted peopIe were Iongshoremen.
And they invaded the base in a conscious way.
The only resistance focuses...
were the cavalry base and the Military Police base.
Surrounded and under heavy shooting...
they resisted until there was no more ammunition.
At 2 P.M. on Sunday, November 24th...
police officers tried to escape through the back of their base.
Only one of them was able to run away...
swimming across the Potengi river.
The other one was hit by a series of shots...
and had to have his left arm amputated.
Within 19 hours, the insurrection was victorious.
The rebels took over Natal...
and formed the Popular Revolutionary Committee...
composed by public servers...
military men and a shoemaker...
all of whom belonged to the board of directors of the Communist Party.
They improvised based on the victory of the movement.
''Let's organize and see what we can do.''
Some city occupation pIans were made...
for the occupation of strategic pIaces...
and some battIe coIumns were sent to the countryside.
But onIy if aII the other states joined the rebeIIion.
Those coIumns were to enhance the numbers...
in a nationaI upheavaI.
When the insurrection started in Natal...
governor Rafael Fernandes, along with the chief of police...
was watching a graduation ceremony in this theater.
The ceremony was interrupted by the shots...
but the rebels didn't think of arresting the governor...
who, unaware of the events...
had time to hide out in a friend's house.
There's no doubt that the people...
in a more generaI context...
it...
it had some expectations. They didn't know what was going to happen...
they weren't sure if it was going to work...
they were wondering.
Prestes was caught by surprise by the news of the rebellion in Natal...
on Sunday night, November 24th.
The movement couId have happened here on the night of the 25th...
that is, two days earIier.
But we couIdn't find the Party's secretary...
and I didn't want to be responsibIe...
for starting the movement in Rio without the consent...
of the Party's board of directors, its generaI-secretary...
and the executive board of the CentraI Committee.
By that time...
the federal government had troops of the 1st Military Region on stand-by...
and had arrested 1 50 people in Rio de Janeiro...
including communists and former members of the Alliance.
Only after they had been arrested, they heard a guard say...
that ''the reds were making a revolution in the North''.
From November 23rd through the 27th...
Natal lived the thrill of a Brazilian revolution...
with the printing of the 1st edition of an official newspaper...
''A Liberdade'', which wasn't released.
As an omen for the rebels that something wasn't going well...
the only advertisement published to occupy space...
was of the anti-acid Sal de Frutas Eno...
indicated for stomach indisposition.
Since governor Rafael Fernandes had been overthrown...
the Revolutionary Committee reduced the streetcar fares...
to gain the support of the people.
Besides ammunition and food...
the Committee managed to get money.
The vaults of Budget Control and Bank of Brazil were opened.
The equivalent to current 7 million reais...
were taken to the head office of the revolutionary government.
On Monday morning, November 25th...
the rebels were still fighting at Paz Square, in Recife.
100 people had died in combat, most of them civilians.
Surrounded...
the rebel forces were told government reinforcements were on their way.
After a bomb threat, the church tower was abandoned...
and the rebels retreated to the countryside...
where they surrendered or were taken into custody.
The officers were treated with respect.
Privates, corporals, sergeants and civilians thought to be communists...
were brutally tortured.
HISTORIAN I worked at the AssembIy...
with a coIoneI...
who had been a poIice Iieutenant at the time.
He said: ''PauIo, back then...
the order we got was...
not to take any prisoners, and execute everybody.
We wouId teII them to run, and shoot their backs.''
They didn't take any prisoners.
They got aII those workers and say:
''You're free. You can go.''
And, when they turned their backs...
they'd shoot them with a machine gun or a rifIe.
They kiIIed dozens or hundreds of peopIe Iike that.
Monday, November 25th.
The upheavals in the Northeast...
cover the pages of American newspapers.
ln the afternoon, when Prestes go to...
Rodofo Ghioldi's house to meet with Arthur Ewert and Miranda...
the entire country is under siege...
which had been approved by the Congress for 30 days.
The Party decides to start a new wave of rebellions...
to support the upheavals in Natal and Recife.
Prestes writes orders for the military units in Rio...
and summons former comrades of the Column.
I sent out main orders...
but some of them were apprehended by the poIice.
Some are weII known...
particuIarIy the ones for the 3rd Infantry Regiment...
whose revoIutionary Ieader was AgiIdo Barata...
and a Iarge number of officers who foIIowed him.
As for the other bases in the MiIitary ViIIage...
I aIso sent out orders for Captain Trifino Corrêa...
who was at the regiment in São João deI Rey...
but those were apprehended on the way. My messenger...
was arrested aIong the way, and Trifino didn't get the orders.
On the night of November 26th...
only 3 days after taking over Natal...
the Revolutionary Committee decided to leave the city.
The defeat of the rebel column...
that had left for the countryside...
and the news of the unsuccessful upheaval in Recife...
were the main reasons for their escape.
LEADERS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE WERE ARRESTED
After gaining back his power, governor Rafael Fernandes...
seized the retaliation wave to persecute political enemies...
who hadn't participated in the upheaval.
One of them was future president Café Filho.
The first insurrection had already been stopped in the Northeast...
when the first spark of rebellion was lit in the federal capital.
Nothing went right, from the get-go.
With the arrest of Prestes'messengers...
only the units in the Military Village...
Realengo, Campo dos Afonsos and the 3rd lnfantry Regiment...
were warned about the upheaval.
The commander caIIed aII the captains...
FORMER 2nd-LIEUTENANT and toId us that an upheavaI...
was happening and that we shouId be carefuI.
He asked, ''Are you invoIved in this?''
''No, absoIuteIy. I've just started my career.''
I was 2nd Iieutenant, an aspiring officer, who had graduated in '33.
''How am I to be invoIved in a revoIution?''
On November 26th, we stiII didn't know what was going to happen.
FORMER 2nd-LIEUTENANT On the afternoon of the 26th...
we received Prestes'...
orders...
to start the insurrection the next morning.
Therefore, it was aII very badIy set up...
because we weren't expecting it so soon...
for the revoIution to happen.
I knew an upheavaI was under preparation...
but neither I nor anybody knew it was going to be on that day.
I knew it the moment Leivas toId me he had gotten the order...
to start the insurrection.
We assumed position in a bastion behind the base...
where we opened fire against Casa da Ordem...
against the command's head office.
We cut the connection between the command and the rest of the regiment.
Since he was the brother of Getúlio Vargas'secretary...
Francisco Leivas Otero was considered an officer...
above any suspicion by the regiment commander.
That's what enabled Leivas Otero to initiate the upheaval.
The movement had been announced the day before...
with a precise time to start.
So we had to start a movement...
with the huge disadvantage...
of it not being a surprise.
Johann de Graaf, better known as Franz Grueber...
was sent to Brazil by the Communist lnternational...
with Helena Kruger, his wife.
She was Prestes and Olga's driver.
He taught about bomb manufacturing and sabotage techniques...
to Party militants.
He's suspected to be the government's main informant...
about the 1935 insurrection.
Franz Gruber, or PauI Gruber, or Johnny de Graaf...
WRITER no matter what name he used...
was a spy, there's no doubt about that.
There is no doubt about that.
I have documentation to prove that he had been sued...
in HitIer's Germany...
for communist miIitance...
and I aIso have documentation to prove that he received money...
from the United States...
possibIy sent by the Foreign Office...
the InteIIigence Service, the British Secret Service...
to the United States, and Iater sent to him.
The upheaval at Praia Vermelha had the goal of...
taking over the base of the 3rd lnfantry Regiment...
and allocate battalions to the Navy Arsenal...
the Military Police and the Special Police.
One detachment was supposed to take over Palácio Guanabara...
and another should take Palácio do Catete...
where Getúlio would be overthrown and arrested.
Only one part of that plan was realized.
There was incredible resistance inside the base.
We fought untiI 5 in the morning.
The movement started at 2:30...
and we onIy managed to take the base at 5 in the morning.
There was combat, shots everywhere.
When they finally managed to take the 3rd Regiment over...
the rebels were cornered...
with the ocean on their backs...
and the troops of General Dutra blocking their only exit by land.
Government artillery grenades...
soon started to burn the base.
Amidst the fire, a soldier said it was unlikely...
that even a mere tick could manage to escape.
On the 3rd Regiment, nobody was sIeeping.
That's a preposterous Iie.
Yes, officers were kiIIed in there.
Officers who didn't beIong to the 3rd Regiment.
Those died on Avenida Pasteur.
They were not welcomed by flowers, they were welcomed by bullets...
because we started to shoot.
And when you shoot aimIessIy, you want to hit someone.
So the officers who died...
who are represented at the memoriaI...
died at Avenida Pasteur, attacking us.
So, neither were they sIeeping...
nor were they in the 3rd Regiment.
By daylight of November 27th...
the situation of the rebels at Campo dos Afonsos was unbearable.
Anticipation of the upheaval at Praia Vermelha...
gave the command time to get ready...
and reinforce its defense.
There came a time when it was impossible to go on...
because we were being hunted down.
I had to attack the regiment through the back...
because it was impossibIe to do it through the front.
As I got up to command a maneuver...
I got shot right on my groin.
It came out here, on my Ieft Ieg.
So I started to Iimp...
and I reIinquished command to a sergeant and said: ''Attack there''.
And I retreated because I was Iosing bIood...
and I was weak.
So I went towards the...
MiIitary SchooI of Aviation, where my car was parked.
And even after I got in the car, I Ioaded it up...
with rockets for the pIanes that shouId...
bomb the enemy troops.
When the rebels tried to take flight...
they discovered that the fuel had been drained out of the planes.
No one remembered to check that small detail.
Once they were attacked by the Military Village...
all the rebels could do was run.
Rightfully fueled...
the planes of the 1st Aviation Regiment...
that should have lifted-off to support the 3rd Regiment...
ended up by striking the upheaval with a merciful stroke.
After one hour of bombing...
the Praia Vermelha base was destroyed.
There was no way of resisting.
The rebels finally surrendered around noon...
and were escorted along Avenida Pasteur.
This photograph... I'm right here.
This photograph...
was taken at the end. We had surrendered...
FORMER 2nd LIEUTENANT everything was over...
and we were facing the regiment.
There was no shooting, anything.
We were taken into custody.
We decided to get together and show we were united...
so we couId defend ourseIves...
from the individuaIs who wanted to execute us right then and there.
I'm sure they had received the order to execute us.
Among us, there were soIdiers...
privates, sergeants and aII that...
who hadn't participated in it, but who were being arrested with us.
We aII got together...
in order to show that we had not been defeated.
That's how I feeI about it.
I never taIked to anyone about this...
but we tried to...
show that we were not afraid...
that we were the same ones who had consciousIy executed the upheavaI...
aIthough everybody thought it had been a ''intentona'', you know?
The insurrection had already been defeated...
when a wire transmission came from Moscow...
with an answer from the Communist lnternational...
to Arthur Ewert's telegram...
which had informed that they ''might be forced to act''...
and insisted on the wiring of money.
The lnternational answered to its envoys in Brazil...
that they should decide when to act.
As for the money...
they confirmed the wiring of...
the equivalent to one million and 300,000 reais...
half of what had been asked.
The more curious and enigmatic thing...
in expIaining the 1935 RevoIution...
HISTORIAN is preciseIy the fact...
that the Communist Party,
using its autonomy...
was abIe to convince the Communist InternationaI...
which got invoIved and even commanded the task...
that there was a concrete possibiIity of victory...
in such an adventurous enterprise.
As the 1935 RevoIution, in my opinion...
there is no doubt about it:
SOCIOLOGIST the main responsibiIity is ours.
The BraziIians have to be accountabIe for it.
The BraziIians sent wrong information to Moscow...
exaggerated about the revoIutionary dissatisfaction...
and the BraziIians made aII the decisions, here and in Moscow.
The curious thing is that the rebeIIion...
though injected...
with Marxism and the infIuence of the Communist Party...
in its nature, it kept the same characteristics...
of the miIitary rebeIIions after 1930. In other words...
they were Iimited to the miIitary bases...
and they were aII about conquering power inside the miIitary bases.
After that, they tried to conquer and overthrow the government.
The upheavaIs in Rio de Janeiro and in Recife...
were typicaI miIitary base coups.
HISTORIAN The upheavaI in NataI...
started as that...
but due to huge popuIar cooperation...
it acquired different features in comparison to the other movements.
It was abIe to mobiIize.
The communists were abIe to mobiIize the peopIe...
because they gave away money on the streets...
they gave away food, heavy piIIage happened...
but there was no poIiticaI organization...
no ideoIogicaI foundation...
to add some weight to the RevoIutionary Joint of NataI...
so that their more generous intentions couId have counted.
So much so that they took over NataI with extreme ease...
and Ieft NataI with extreme ease.
The popular revolution announced by Prestes...
in reality, was never on the verge of happening.
There were no empathetic manifestations...
no strikes...
no sabotage or field battles.
Nothing that nurtured Brazilian communists' expectations...
came true.
Once more, the great victorious was...
Getúlio Vargas.
On the 60th anniversary of the 1935 RevoIution...
SOCIOLOGIST it's good to make cIear...
that aII the generosity...
aII the truthfuI dedication...
of those who participated in the rebeIIions...
Historians cannot become...
prosecutors...
just because other rebeIs performed simiIar actions...
to those of the rebeIs of 1935, who reached the government...
and aImost became nationaI heroes.
On this place at the Guanabara Bay...
it's still possible to see the remainders of the hull of a ship...
that a storm sunk in January 1959.
Named D.Pedro l...
it was more than a retired ship, it was a historical hollow.
ln 1935, it was claimed by the Justice Department...
to be used as a political prison.
Soon it was clear that one ship wasn't enough...
for the thousands of prisoners taken by the government...
between November 1935...
and early 1936.
Sócrates Gonçalves, Leivas Otero and José Gutman...
ended up going to Fernando de Noronha.
But most of the prisoners had not participated...
let alone been previously aware of the military insurrection.
''MEMOIRS OF PRISON'' Many politicians, artists...
writers and intellectuals...
were caught in the government wave of wrath...
and sent to jail.
Among them, Graciliano Ramos...
who, years later, transformed his memoirs of prison...
into a classic of Brazilian literature.
Scientific torture in BraziI...
started to be appIied...
after 1935 and during Estado Novo.
In other words, the repression was...
totaIIy incompatibIe...
with the threat experienced in 1935.
The 1935 RevoIution was an excuse...
for the BraziIian authoritarianism to impose itseIf...
against BraziIian society.
The head of the repression was a former rebel lieutenant...
who in 1935 was Getúlio's chief of police:
Filinto Müller.
He was accused of desertion and kicked out of the Column...
upon the request of Prestes in 1925.
After 10 years...
it was time to settle scores with the Knight of Hope.
Anti-communist hysteria had embraced the country.
The siege was prolonged and reached the level of state of war...
giving exceptional power to Getúlio Vargas.
1 5 days after the upheavals...
the Congress approved changes in the Monster Law...
which would make it even more repressive.
Constitutional rights were suspended...
military people could have their titles removed...
public servers lost their stability...
and control over the press increased.
lnformation obtained with the torture of members of the Communist Party...
caused the government to persecute the envoys of the lnternational.
By the end of December...
with the help of the Gestapo and the British Secret Service...
the police arrive at number 33 on Rua Paul Redfern, in lpanema.
That was the house of Arthur Ewert and Elise Saborowski.
Taken to the Special Police base, downtown Rio de Janeiro...
Ewert was kept under custody underneath a set of stairs...
in the dark, without a bed or a chair to sit on.
He was heavily tortured...
to the point of going crazy and being transferred to a Judicial Asylum.
Elise, after being barbarically tortured...
was deported to Germany...
and died at Ravensbrück concentration camp.
Johann de Graaf and Helena Krüger...
were released after being under custody for a few days.
They were able to easily get...
exit visas and leave the country.
Pavel and Sofia Stuchevski...
were arrested and put under watched freedom.
Months later, they managed to fool the police and leave the country.
After being arrested when trying to escape to Argentina with his wife...
Rodolpho Ghioldi, without suffering any torture...
gave precious information to the police...
even about Olga, who was unknown until then.
Rodolpho and Carmen Ghioldi served their sentence...
and ended up being deported during World War ll.
ln January 1936, it was Victor Allen Baron's turn to be arrested.
He died in prison two months later.
Official cause: suicide.
Prestes and Olga Benário were the last ones of that group...
of envoys of the Communist lnternational to be arrested.
Taken into custody on March 5th...
they were sent down different paths.
Prestes was taken to the Special Police...
where he stayed, in an incommunicable state...
forbidden to read and write.
Olga, who was pregnant...
was deported to Nazi Germany.
lnside the Gestapo's female prison in Berlin...
Olga gave birth to a girl named Anita Leocádia.
On the same day Prestes and Olga were arrested...
the newspaper ''Pravda'' published in Moscow an interview with Stalin:
''We never had any intention to promote world revolution.
That's a misunderstanding'', said Stalin.
''ls it a tragic misunderstanding?'', asked the reporter.
''No'', Stalin answered.
''lt's a comic misunderstanding. Better yet, tragicomic.''
Prestes was condemned to 16 years and 8 months of jail time...
and got 30 more years of sentence for his participation...
before he was arrested, in the murder of Elza Fernandes...
the wife of the Party's general-secretary, Miranda.
The death of Elza was the most famous file destruction...
in the history of the Communist Party of Brazil.
lnstigated by Prestes...
the board of the Party decided to kill its so-called traitor.
Elza was strangled by Francisco Natividade Lira...
known as ''Fat Head'', a militant of the Party since the 1920's.
What the Communist Party did to EIza Fernandes...
is not different from what GetúIio Vargas and FiIinto MüIIer...
did to OIga Benário.
WRITER Deep down, these facts represent...
the two sides of intoIerance...
and, in the case of the young woman, EIza Fernandes...
the party acted on a suspicion...
the mere suspicion that she was a cop, a snitch...
and I'm convinced that she wasn't.
She was a 1 7-year-oId teenager who was bIinded by the fact...
that she was the wife of the Communist Party's generaI-secretary.
She did stupid things inside and outside the prison...
and she was executed in a brutaI way after the express orders...
of the Party's board of directors and some other high-rank members.
Besides the National Committee for Communism Repression...
formed in January 1936...
the National Security Court was created in September...
as a Military Justice organ to try political crimes.
The last phase of this authoritarian rampage came the following year.
On November 10th, 1937...
claiming to protect the country against another communist coup...
forged by an integralist officer in the Higher State of the Army...
Getúlio establishes the Estado Novo's dictatorship.
When political competition threatens to develop into civil war...
it's a sign that the constitutional regime...
has lost its practical value and was simply substituted by abstraction.
What many people feared to happen if the communists came to power...
ended up happening with the support of those who had defeated them.
July 1 5th, 1945.
This Sunday, at 3 P.M...
Luiz Carlos Prestes will lead a big rally...
at Pacaembu Stadium, in São Paulo.
Having received amnesty by the hands of Getúlio Vargas...
Prestes has been free since April...
after spending 9 years in prison.
Also attending the rally...
Prestes old comrade in the Column...
Miguel Costa.
The Knight of Hope...
is now the general-secretary of the Communist Party...
which, since 1943...
has defended the politics of national unity, with Getúlio's support.
By declaring war against Germany...
and establishing diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union...
Getúlio had conquered the support of the communists...
on behalf of the fight against the Nazi-Fascism.
Prestes himself, from jail...
had defended a national union around the government...
so that ''a lawful and orderly transition...
towards a constitutional country'' could happen.
After the rally...
when returning to Rio...
Prestes heard the news about Olga Benário's death.
She had been executed in the gas chamber...
of a psychiatric hospital in Bernburg, Germany...
in 1942.
On the letter she left for Anita and Prestes...
Olga wrote:
''l fought for what was fair, good, and for the best in this world.''
What seemed impossible was finally happening:
Getúlio and Prestes were together on the same stage.
Both of them supported the candidate to vice-governor of São Paulo.
Getúlio had been elected senator of Rio Grande do Sul.
Prestes, running with the Communist Party...
had been the senator in Rio with the largest number of votes.
By late November 1947...
the Communist Party was illegal again...
as a victim of the Cold War and the legacy of hatred...
which would escalate during the military dictatorship of 1964.
The military have never forgotten the 1935 upheaval...
which is remembered every year with all the pump and circumstance...
beside the memorial inaugurated in 1940...
by Getúlio Vargas'government...
to honor the 22 soldiers who died fighting for the government...
during the insurrection.
lt's always appropriate to recall the treason imposed...
against Brazil's sovereignity in 1935.
President Castello Branco...
and the highest authorities of the Republic...
pay reverence to the ones who fell defending freedom...
and man's fundamental rights...
which the communist fury tried to destroy.
But the nation survived thanks to...
The official ceremony for the ones dead in 1935...
acquired a new dimension in 1968...
when the memorial was transferred from São João Batista cemetery...
to Praia Vermelha...
the place where the upheaval occurred.
NOVEMBER 27th, 2001
From 1985 on, with the end of the military regime...
the ceremonies have been more sober, almost invisible...
without the presence of the President...
and no coverage from the press.
But not even the fall of the Berlin Wall and of the Soviet Union...
managed to soothe the anti-communist feeling...
still celebrated within our military bases.
To prove that...
this was published in the monthly bulletin of the Military Club...
in November 1995:
''The wake of the implosion of international communism...
which was sponsored by the late USSR...
still hasn't reached the ears of Brazilian communists.
Some are hiding out in the high ranks of the government...
and outside the government...
left-wing intellectuals...
hide their sharp claws and try...
with beautiful speeches and demagogical measures...
to apply the same rules that guided the cold-blooded murderers...
who cowardly killed their comrades in their sleep.''
60 years after the upheaval...
some still believed, against all evidence...
that military men had been cowardly killed by the rebels...
and that international communism was, in 1995...
''hiding out in the high ranks of the government.''
Anti-communist paranoia cannot put memories to rest...
it nourishes old differences...
and tries to bring back ghosts of the past.
What has prevailed in Brazil since the end of the military regime...
is democratic elections...
not coups of power.
TO ALUIZIO SOARES LEITE FILHO -
A FRIEND WHO LOVED BOOKS AND MOVIES
IN MEMORIAM
OUR THANKS TO THOSE WHO RECORDED AND PRESERVED...
THE IMAGES USED IN THIS DOCUMENTARY.
OCTÁVIO BRANDÃO'S TESTIMONY WAS RECORDED BY ADRIAN COOPER...
LAURO ESCOREL, MICHAEL HALL AND PAULO SÉRGIO PINHEIRO...
IN FEBRUARY 1977 AND APRIL 1978.
IT WAS EDITED BY LAURO ESCOREL IN 1996.
LUIZ CARLOS PRESTES' TESTIMONY...
WAS RECORDED BY NELSON P. DOS SANTOS...
JOSÉ GUERRA AND FRANK JUSTO ACKER IN JANUARY 1983.
SÓCRATES GONÇALVES DA SILVA'S TESTIMONY WAS RECORDED BY...
JOÃO QUARTIM DE MORAES AT UNICAMP ON APRIL 8th, 1988.
SÃO PAULO'S RALLY FOR LUIZ CARLOS PRESTES
WE ALSO THANK THOSE WHO HAVE GIVEN THEIR TESTIMONY: