View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Scholarworks@GVSU Grand Valley State University ScholarWorks@GVSU Peer Reviewed Articles History Department 5-2006 Keeping Communism Down on the Farm: The Brazilian Rural Labor Movement during the Cold War Cliff Welch Grand Valley State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/hst_articles Part of the History Commons ScholarWorks Citation Welch, Cliff, "Keeping Communism Down on the Farm: The Brazilian Rural Labor Movement during the Cold War" (2006). Peer Reviewed Articles. 4. https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/hst_articles/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the History Department at ScholarWorks@GVSU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Peer Reviewed Articles by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@GVSU. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. 287337.qxd 3/23/2006 10:23 PM Page 28 Keeping Communism Down on the Farm The Brazilian Rural Labor Movement during the Cold War by Cliff Welch Drawing on primary and secondary sources, this article discusses the durability of communist ideology in rural Brazil during the second half of the twentieth century. It analyzes the theme in two major periods: the Populist Republic (1945–1964) and the Military Regime (1964–1985). Concluding with a discussion of the first years of the New Republic, it argues that the politi- cal mobilization of Brazilian peasants defied the geopolitical logic of the era, which dictated the elimination of communist thought by the conclusion of the cold war. Keywords: Partido Comunista Brasileiro (PCB), labor unions, rural social move- ments, Brazil, history, post–World War II, Movimento dos Sem-Terra (MST) Whenever they acted openly, the communists of Brazil could almost always count on a stern response from authorities, and in this environment they rose like the phoenix.