The Tiradentes Revolutionary Movement (MRT) was a clandestine political group linked to the Peasant Leagues and disbanded in 1962. Under the influence of the Cuban Revolution, and together with members of the Leagues, it aimed at a socialist revolution with peasant bases in Brazil. Eight guerrilla bases were created in the country, among which the one in Dianópolis, Goiás (now Rio da Conceição, Tocantins) was discovered at the end of 1962.
In the beginning of the 1960s, the Leagues had radicalized their positions, both the right and part of the Brazilian left saw in the countryside the possibility of a revolution, and the Cuban experience led to the questioning of the theses of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB), which did not accept armed struggle. With the training of militants and possible financing by Cuba, the guerrilla camps were established at the end of 1961. Francisco Julião, the best known representative of the Leagues, did not have direct participation in the guerrilla war, with Clodomir Santos de Morais as its main leader, but historians debate whether Julião had indirect responsibility.
The militants spent a year in the camps, dispersed throughout the regions of Brazil, but there was little effective military preparation due to internal disputes and lack of resources. The security agencies monitored the movement and the Army, supported by the Goias government, dismantled the Dianópolis device at the end of 1962. During this same period Clodomir de Morais was arrested and documents linking Cuba to the guerrilla movement were found in the wreckage of Varig Flight 810, which crashed in Peru. The guerrilla project, that was already weak, thus reached failure.
Despite its small size, the guerrilla attempt made repercussions in the national press, was taken seriously by authorities in the United States, and contributed to the decline of the Peasant Leagues. The MRT is notable as a precursor, still in the democratic period, of the armed struggle against the Brazilian military dictatorship, with one of its organizations, founded in 1969, adopting the same name.
Motivations The Peasant Leagues of the 1960s had radiated from the Pernambuco Planters' Agricultural and Livestock Society (SAPPP) of 1955. Organizing thousands of rural workers, they reached their peak under the government of João Goulart, present in 13 Brazilian states. The movement was heterogeneous and "an important actor in the debates on agrarian reform and the Brazilian revolution". The lawyer Francisco Julião, called to defend the SAPPP, became an important representative of the Leagues. At first legalistic in character, they defended agrarian reform within the institutions, through political and judicial action. From 1960 to 1961, this gave way to "agrarian reform by law or by force" and their documents acquired a socialist and revolutionary content. The term "by force", not necessarily excluding "by law", could mean immediate change of the social structure, armed revolution, or collective action through marches, strikes, and land invasions. It existed in a context in which violence was already present in conflicts between peasants and large landowners.
This change occurred due to the influence of the Cuban Revolution, including the visit of Francisco Julião and other figures to Cuba, and, in part due to the different interpretation of Cuban events, the divergence of the Communist Party and its branch in the countryside, the Union of Farmers and Agricultural Workers of Brazil (ULTAB). Cuba was a reference for having had a revolution focused on agrarian reform, occurring in a country, like Brazil, with an "agrarian-exporting society based on latifundium, monoculture and pre-capitalist labor relations in the countryside. His experience opened the way for criticism of the orthodoxy of Latin American Communist Parties, for whom the revolution would have a first bourgeois-democratic stage, without the need for armed struggle, and the peasants would not play a central role. Francisco Julião, unlike the PCB, believed in a revolution initially based in the countryside, immediately socialist and without revolutionary participation of the bourgeoisie. For the Leagues, the role of political vanguard would fall not to a communist party, but to a guerrilla organization, around which the masses would rally.
The direct contact between the Leagues and the Communist Party was made by communists led by Clodomir de Morais, known as the "anti-party" group, which disagreed with the PCB's direction. Clodomir was expelled from the party in 1962 for his participation in the guerrilla project with the Leagues, which came to the attention of the PCB through informants in the Army.
According to Clodomir, the Leagues embraced the guerrilla war for more defensive than offensive reasons: the supply of weapons to the landowners by the governor of São Paulo Adhemar de Barros and the possibilities of an American invasion, with the precedent of the Bay of Pigs invasion, or of an attempted coup d'état, as was already occurring frequently in the country.
It was not only within the Leagues that the rural man was seen as a possible armed revolutionary. So also thought a small part of the Brazilian left, inspired by Maoism and Guevarism, and the right, for whom this radicalization justified the 1964 coup d'état as a defense of legality. The United States government also thought of this possibility, especially in the Northeast, where the Leagues were concentrated, and directed the Alliance for Progress funds to the region. The CIA, situating a Brazilian revolution in the international context, evaluated that Cuba was favorable, but the Soviet Union was opposed.
The inspiration in the Cuban Revolution came not from the peasants – who were largely illiterate, did not see themselves as participants in the Cold War, and were focused on disputes over land and better working conditions – but from Francisco Julião, the Communist Party, and other figures on the left. Still, even among sectors of the Leagues not involved in the military there was a certain degree of sympathy for the guerrilla project.
Foundation Created in Ouro Preto on 21 April 1962, by Francisco Julião, the MRT was a political organism of the Peasant Leagues, but with a broader base of support than the countryside. Its members were intellectuals and journalists initially engaged in publicizing Julião's work, and then in the guerrilla nuclei, whose founding dated back to the end of the previous year. However, the Movement is also cited as having been organized in 1961.
Leadership Francisco Julião was the main leader of the Leagues and seen by both the left and the coup plotters' right, "not for nothing", as a possible leader of an armed peasant revolt. However, he did not participate in the implementation of the guerrilla bases and did not even know where they were; this lack of knowledge about their location is confirmed by Clodomir de Morais. Fidel Castro suggested the division of the Leagues into military, political and mass sectors, in hierarchical order. They would be respectively commanded by Adauto Freire da Cruz, Clodomir de Morais and Francisco Julião. Thus, Clodomir, not Julião was the figure involved in the guerrilla war. The military and mass sectors diverged. Julião criticized the pro-guerrilla faction of the Leagues, which in turn did not accept participation in elections, a path already taken by him when he was elected deputy in the 1962 elections. In their testimonies, Julião and Clodomir criticize each other regarding the directions of the Peasant Leagues.
According to Julião in his later writings, he was against the guerrilla war from the beginning and has no responsibility for its preparation. This has already been questioned, as the organization of the camps would not have been possible without his connivance and he spoke in defense of revolutionary solutions, outside the institutions, thus worrying his political enemies and the security agencies. This radicalism, however, may have been only rhetorical and represented the voice of the movement and not his personal opinions.
Support base
Within the country The MRT would serve to connect the Peasant Leagues to the urban environment and to the radical left – Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB), Workers' Policy (Polop), and part of the student movement -, attracting students and intellectuals. They soon became associated with the guerrilla scheme of the Leagues. Among those involved were Wanderley Guilherme dos Santos and Alípio de Freitas. According to Clodomir, the MRT consisted of a "small group of asphalt intellectuals that artificially tried to infiltrate the guerrilla scheme and assault the Leagues' military devices". Alípio de Freitas, on the other hand, defines its social base as that of the Leagues themselves. The penetration obtained among students was minimal.
According to Clodomir, there would be local recruitment and those recruited for guerrilla training were "housewives, fishermen, tailors, miners, students, workers, but the majority were peasants". In the case of Dianópolis, he states that the nucleus was supported by the population, including the freemasons from Barreiras, Natividade and Rio da Conceição, composed of merchants and landowners. Adauto Monteiro da Silva, a member of the Dianópolis device, points out that the recruits were not local residents and there was no intention to train them. The involvement of the freemasons is denied by Hagaús Araújo, a politician from the region. According to him, the local population was attracted by the social services and was unaware of the real intentions of the guerrillas, who were young dreamers and unprepared. For his brother, who worked as a dentist for the Leagues, the residents later accused of involvement had no ideological motives and neither adhered to the revolutionary proposal.
Besides the Cuban issue, the financing of the guerrilla came, according to Clodomir, from the bourgeoisie and landowners revolted by "the coup tendencies that had manifested themselves since the death of Getúlio Vargas" and "the intervention of American imperialism in our economy". Among them, he cites D. Maria Prestes Maia, wife of Prestes Maia, mayor of São Paulo, Duque Estrada, of the Socialist Party of São Paulo, and sectors of São Paulo industry.
Relationship with Cuba Cuba's support through training of Quadros is known for sure, while funding is more controversial. Still in 1961, under the government of Jânio Quadros, the Cubans showed willingness to train Brazilian guerrillas, and Francisco Julião asked about it while in Cuba. Clodomir and the other military leaders, 12 in all, received training in Cuba between 28 July and 20 August 1961, so that they could transmit this knowledge to other militants in camps in Brazil. However, this course took place under improvised conditions and disappointed Clodomir, as it was purely military and did not teach survival. Some militants made subsequent training visits. The Department of Political and Social Order (DOPS) of Rio de Janeiro knew in May 1962 of the sending of Leagues militants to train in Cuba.