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Disunity and Discontent: A Study of Peasant Political Movements in Brazil*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Shepard Forman
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Extract

Peasant movements in Brazil are not a recent phenomenon but have recurred throughout the history of this essentially agrarian nation. The earliest manifestations of peasant discontent were pre-political movements of both a religious and a secular nature. They were primarily local expressions of immediate felt needs, temporary outbursts against misery and oppression. They were largely atomistic movements, confined in time and space, and characterized by a lack of unity and effective communication. More important, they were most often led by social deviants who were generally incapable of expressing realistic social goals which had appeal beyond the local group.

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Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , May 1971 , pp. 3 - 24
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1971

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References

1 Hobsbawm, E. J., Primitive Rebels (New York, 1959)Google Scholar. For an introduction to pre-political movements in Brazil, see Facó, Rui, Cangaceiros e Fanáticos (Rio de Janeiro, 1965)Google Scholar, de Queiroz, M. I. Pereira, O Messianismo no Brasil e no Mundo (São Paulo, 1965)Google Scholar, and de Queiroz, Mauricio Vinhas, Messianismo e conflito social (Rio de Janeiro, 1966).Google Scholar

2 Wagley, Charles, ‘The Brazilian Revolution: Social Change since 1930’, in Adams, Richard N. et al. , Social Change in Latin America Today (New York, 1960), p. 207Google Scholar, and CIDA, Posse e Uso da Terra e Desenvolvimento Socio-econômico do Setor Agrícola—Brasil (Washington, D.C., 1966), p. 13.Google Scholar

3 In The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Boston, 1966), Barrington Moore has done an exceptional comparative study of the role of commercialization in agriculture in transforming agrarian societies into modern industrial states based on either democratic capitalism, or fascism, or communism. Moore rejects the traditional explanations regarding peasant political participation in revolutionary movements and concentrates instead on the ways in which peasantry and dominant landholding classes adapted themselves to economie changes in rural areas.

4 Instituto Brasileiro de Reforma Agrária (IBRA), Relatório, 1967, p. vi.

5 IBRA, Relatório, 1967, p. 36, estimates that there are approximately 3–8 million properties in Brazil with a total of some 350 million hectares. This represents only about 40 per cent of the Brazilian land mass, while less than 20 per cent of the total land mass is being effectively utilized in agriculture.

6 Frank, Andre Gunder, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America (New York, 1967), p. 249.Google Scholar

7 There can be no empirically validated absolute degree of misery below which a peasantry will cease to be resigned. Degrees of misery and oppression are relative to the kinds of superordinate-subordinate relationships in which they are embedded.

8 An understanding of the mass political movement which developed in Brazil after 1940 cannot be gleaned from descriptions of traditional or static agrarian Systems, especially since the movement was nurtured on the extreme tensions resulting from socio-economic changes within an expanding capitalist System. Forman, Shepard and Riegelhaupt, Joyce F., ‘Bodo was never Brazilian: Economic Integration and Agricultural Development’, Journal of Economic History (Spring 1970).Google Scholar

9 For a discussion of political ‘coronelismo’ in rural Brazil, see Leal, Victor Nunes, Coro-nelismo, enxada e voto (Rio de Janeiro, 1949)Google Scholar. Other accounts of political life in rural areas can be found in Santos, Adilson Portela, ‘Evolução da vida política no município de Picos, Piauí’, Revista Brasileira de Estudos Políticos, 10 (1961), 160–83Google Scholar; Paulson, Beldon, ‘Local Political Patterns in Northeast Brazil’, Land Tenure Center Research Paper, no. 12 (Madison, 1964)Google Scholar; Harris, Marvin, Town and Country in Brazil (New York, 1956).Google Scholar

10 A common explanation for the failure of the peasant leagues to make inroads in the state of Alagoas is that the plantation owners are resident there and that the patrão System prevails. Yet, the fact that Alagoan history is replete with social banditry and that Alagoans swelled the ranks of the religious pilgrims to Juàzeiro renders such an explanation less tenable. I would suggest that the failure of the peasant leagues to make headway in Alagoas reflects the attenuated development of the internal marketing System in that state as compared with others. Church-sponsored rural unions did make some inroads among the rural proletariat in the northernmost part of the state.

11 I cannot agree with Oberg that the peasant in Brazil is ‘an economic zero … for he sells little and he buys little’. Oberg, Kalerno, ‘The Marginal Peasant in Brazil’, American Anthropologist (1967), pp. 1417–27Google Scholar. Brazilian peasants are an integral part of national patterns of food production and consumption. Their produce feeds a nation and their labor produces its wealth. See Wolf, Eric, ‘Reflections on Peasant Revolutions’, paper presented at the Carnegie Seminar on Political and Administrative Development, Indiana University, 3 04 1967Google Scholar, on the way in which the backward and advanced sectors of traditional economies are articulated in symbiotic fashion.

12 See Frank, Andre Gunder, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America, for an interesting discussion of the capitalist development/underdevelopment syndrome in Brazil and the myth of feudalism in Brazilian agriculture.Google Scholar

13 For a fruitful discussion of the peasant movement in Brazil as a reflexion of the mass appeal of ‘new guard’ politics, see Leeds, Anthony, ‘Brazil and the Myth of Francisco Julião’, in Meier, Joseph and Weatherhead, Richard (eds.), Politics of Change in Latin America (New York, 1964)Google Scholar. Leeds contends that the movement merely substitutes new patrons for the old. Another discussion of the paternalistic aspect of the movement can be found in Galjart, Benno, ‘Class and “Following” in Rural Brazil’, América Latina, 7, No. 3 (1964), 3–24Google Scholar, and a reply by Huizer, Gerrit, ‘Some notes on Community Development and Rural Social Research’, América Latina, 8, No. 3 (1965), 128–44Google Scholar. Refutation of this position can be found in Obregón, Aníbal Quijano, ‘Contemporary Peasant Movements’, in Lipset, Seymour Martin and Solari, Aldo (eds.), Elites in Latin America (New York, 1967), p. 329 ffGoogle Scholar. For a complete account of national political events in Brazil since 1930, see Skidmore, Thomas E., Politics in Brazil: 1930–1964 (New York, 1967).Google Scholar

14 Furtado, Celso, Diagnosis of the Brazilian Crisis (Berkeley, 1965).Google Scholar

15 CIDA, p. 336; de Andrade, Manuel Correia, A Terra e o Homem no Nordeste (Rio de Janeiro, 1963), p. 246.Google Scholar

16 Forman, Shepard and Riegelhaupt, Joyce F., ‘Market Place and Marketing System: Toward a Theory of Peasant Economic Integration’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 12, No. 12 (1970).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 High food prices benefit the intermediary rather than the producer and attract commercial elites to the market place. From 1950 to 1960, prices to consumers went up 16 times compared with 13 for the producer, reflecting the monopolization of internal marketing for foodstuffs in Brazil. Price incentives thereby lead large landholders to speculate on the land rather than to incrcase production of foodstuffs. CIDA, pp. 33–4. See ‘O problema do abastecimento alimentar’, Desenvolvimento e Conjuntura, Ano 8, No. 12 (December 1964), 79–125, for a discussion of the commercialization of the internal marketing System in Brazil.

18 Furtado, , Diagnosis, pp. 148–9.Google Scholar

19 CIDA, pp. 106–7. According to a recent study, price of land in Brazil is not high in relation to income and capital invested, but it is still prohibitive to small property owners and landless rural workers. CIDA, p. II. The same study indicates that large landholdings dominate the production of goods destined for the internal market, such as rice and corn. Other crops, such as cacao, were often witness to the violent replacement of smallholdings by large ones.

20 According to Prado, Caio Jr, ‘The Agrarian Question in Brazil’, Studies on the Left, 4, No. 4, 83Google Scholar, ‘Commercial-type exploitation characteristic of all the principal sectors of Brazilian farming and livestock raising … always tends to expand and absorb most of the profitable lands, eliminating independent workers, landowners or not, as well as their sub-sistence plots. Consequently, the living conditions of the rural working population worsened; their reward, either wages or a share of the main crop, is always less than the relative price of the kinds of necessities which the workers are obliged to buy in the market—generally an exploitative market due to the very conditions created by the process of large-scale production.’

21 CIDA, p. 308.

22 Wagley, , ‘The Brazilian Revolution’, p. 189Google Scholar; Smith, T. Lynn, Brazil: People and Institutions (rev. ed., Baton Rouge, La., 1963), pp. 593–601Google Scholar. Urban population grew from 31.2% in 1940 to 45% in 1960. CIDA, p. 61. Rural population grew at a much lower rate.

23 Furtado, , Diagnosis, p. 162.Google Scholar

24 A law of rural unionization was passed as early as 1903 but only 13 unions resulted from this legislation. Price, Robert, ‘Rural Unionization in Brazil’, Land Tenure Center Research Paper, No. 14 (Madison, 1964)Google Scholar. Moreover, these unions had little meaning with regard to the formulation of demands since they grouped employers and employees together in the same associations. Wilkie, Mary W., ‘A Report of Rural Syndicates in Pernambuco’, Land Tenure Center (mimeo) (Madison, 1964)Google Scholar. See Marcondes, J. V. Freitas, ‘First Brazilian Legislation Relating to Rural Labor Unions: A Sociological Study’, The Latin American Mono-graph Series, No. 20 (Gainesville, Fla., 1962)Google Scholar, for a discussion of rural labor legislation in Brazil. Price, , ‘Rural Unionization’Google Scholar, offers the most complete account of rural labor legislation and unionization.

25 For reports on several of these state and national conventions, see Silva, Manoel, ‘I Congresso dos trabalhadores rurais do Paraná’, Revista Brasiliense, 33, 56–62Google Scholar; Vera, Nestor, ‘O II Congresso Camponês em Maringá’, Revista Brasiliense, 37, 62–5Google Scholar; Vera, Nestor, ‘O Congresso Camponês em Belo Horizonte’, Revista Brasiliense, 39, 94–9Google Scholar; ‘I Congresso Nacional dos Lavradores e Trabalhadores Agrícolas; Daclaração sobre o caráter da reforma agrária, Belo Horizonte, Nov. 17’, Estudos Sociais, 3, No. 12, 433–7.

26 Brazil, , do Trabalho, Ministério, ‘Sindicalização rural’, Portaria ministerial, No. 335–A (1962).Google Scholar

27 ‘A situação social da agricultura em 1963’, Desenvolvimento e Conjuntura, Ano 8, No. 2 (February 1964), 33–4. The National Confederation was made up of 10 federations with 270 unions, but 33 more federations with 557 unions were waiting for recognition at the time. SUPRA (1963), p. 17. Huizer, Gerrit, in ‘Some Notes on Community development and Rural Social Research’, América Latina, 8, No. 3 (1965), 129Google Scholar, says that the Confederation includes 29 federations from 19 states and 743 rural unions. In addition, there were an inestimable number of peasants who were obviously sympathetic but feared to join the movement.

28 This breakdown corresponds substantially to a recent typology of peasant political movements in Latin America elaborated by Obregón, , ‘Contemporary Peasant Movements’Google Scholar. Noting that his classification might be lacking in empirical underpinnings, he proceeds to treat the peasant leagues in Brazil as a monolithic organization, including them in all three categories of peasant movements (p. 308). We have already noted that the peasant leagues are definitely not a monolithic organization and that the name is best treated as a generic rather than a specific referent for the movement as a whole.

29 Regional and even sub-regional ecological conditions in Brazil have historically given rise to a variety of land tenure patterns and different productive arrangements. Attempts to classify Latin American peasantry according to types can be found in Wagley, Charles and Harris, Marvin, ‘A typology of Latin American Subcultures’, American Anthropologist, 57 (1955), 428–51Google Scholar; Wolf, Eric, ‘Types of Latin American Peasantry’, American Anthropologist', 57 (1955), 452–71Google Scholar; Adams, Richard N., ‘Rural Labor’, in Johnson, John J. (ed.), Continuity and Change in Latin America (Stanford, 1964), pp. 49–78Google Scholar, Wagley, , Introduction to Brazil, p. 166Google Scholar, attempts to refine these earlier typologies for Brazil.

30 Julião, Francisco, Que São as Ligas Camponesas? (Rio de Janeiro, 1962), p. IIGoogle Scholar. Julião's typology bears some resemblance to Lenin's although the latter is not cited in Julião's basic treatise on the peasant leagues.

31 Ibid., p. 53.

32 Julião believed the landed peasant to be more effective than the rural proletariat because under Brazilian law his rights fell under the civil code, exempting him from the rigid bureaucracy of the Labor Ministry, because he could pay for legal defense with the fruits of his labor, and because he could take the offensive in a struggle by occupying land and withholding rents and shares. Que São as Ligas Camponesas?, pp. 58–62. Judicial procecdings proved ineffective in protecting the rights of salaried workers who lacked the financial resources for legal defense and the minimal economic conditions necessary to resist the landowners. Ibid., pp. 56–7. Furthermore, while the relationship between salaried worker and employer is essentially economic since it is based on a wage, the relationship between peasant and landowner concerns itself with rights and thus assumes a political character from the beginning. Ibid., p. 64. Nevertheless, Julião also appealed to rural salaried workers to join unions, although he recognized a fundamental difference between urban and rural workers and believed that the model for urban trade unionism could not simply be trans-planted in the countryside. Ibid., pp. 46–7.

33 Callado, Antonio, Os Industriais da Sêca e os ‘Galileus’ de Pernambuco (Rio de Janeiro, 1960), p. 35Google Scholar; Harding, Timothy, ‘Revolution Tomorrow: The Failure of the Left in Brazil’, Studies on the Left, 4, No. 4 (1964), 47Google Scholar. It has been noted that one of the prime incentives to the consolidation of landholdings throughout Brazil is the growing market for cattle. CIDA, p. 24; Schattan, Salomão, ‘Estrutura econômica da agricultura paulista’, Revista Brasiliense, 37 (1961), 75.Google Scholar

34 Some additional references on the peasant leagues of Julião not cited elsewhere in this paper are Barreto, Leda, Julião, Nordeste, Revolução (Rio de Janeiro, 1963)Google Scholar; Callado, Antonio, ‘Les Ligues Paysannes’, Les Temps Modernes, 23 (1967)Google Scholar; da Fonseca, Gondim, Assim Falou Julião (São Paulo, 1962)Google Scholar; Julião, Francisco, Escucha campesino (Montevideo, 1962)Google Scholar; Julião, Francisco, ‘Brazil, A Christian Country’, in Fuentes, Carlos (ed.), Whither Latin America? (New York, 1963)Google Scholar; Sodré, Novais, Quem é Francisco Julião (São Paulo, 1963).Google Scholar

35 Carneiro, , quoted in CIDA, p. 338Google Scholar. João Pedro Teixeira was shot and killed on 2 April 1962, and the new owner of the plantation on which he lived was implicated in the crime. A large manifestation was organized in the state capital on 1 May 1962 to honor him.

36 Furtado, , Diagnosis, pp. 148–9.Google Scholar

37 Borges, Fragman Carlos, ‘O movimento camponês no nordeste’, Estudos Sociais, 14, No. 15 (1962), 255.Google Scholar

38 Julião's letter to the peasant, Que São as Ligas Camponesas?, p. 69 ff., was rendered into popular song and sung in the countryside. de Carvalho, Rafael, Carta de Alforria do Camponês (1962)Google Scholar. For a description of an actual league meeting and the content of the message carried to the peasants by the league organizers, see Forman, Shepard, ‘Os sinos de São José dobraram em Surubim’, Cadernos Brasileiros, 5 (1963), 48–54.Google Scholar

39 Obregón, , ‘Contemporary Peasant Movements’, p. 21Google Scholar, contends correctly that the confederation of peasant ‘bands’ in Brazil grew out of strength in the countryside. However, there is no doubt that the movement was organized by urban elites. Carneiro tells us that the organizers of the league in Sapé were not peasants but workers with union experience in the cities, although the movement later came to be run almost exclusively by the peasants themselves. CIDA, p. 338.

40 Julião, , Que São as Ligas Camponesas?, pp. 46–7.Google Scholar

41 Labor legislation in Brazil was always concerned primarily with the urban worker. Marcondes, J. V. Freitas, ‘Social Legislation in Brazil’, in Smith, T. Lynn and Marchant, Alexander (eds.), Brazil: Portrait of Half a Continent (New York, 1951), p. 399Google Scholar. The unionization of rural workers was inevitably to bear the mark of Vargas's syndicalist state. The rigid hierarchical organizations of territorially based non-competing unions into state federations, and a national confederation of rural workers subordinated to the Ministry of Labor, placed control over the unions in the hands of the government bureaucracy.

42 The student organizers of the peasant leagues insisted that the only connection between the leagues and the Brazilian Socialist Party was Francisco Julião himself.

43 Andrade, , A Terra, pp. 250–2.Google Scholar

44 There is an indication that, once in exile from Brazil, Julião's position became more radical. In a statement from Mexico, he wrote: ‘We believe that you cannot win the peasant masses from the top down, from the city to the country. You must live with the peasants, undergo the same problems they meet every day, fight with them as one of them.’ Interview with Iturralde, Alfonso Bortaire, CIF Reports, 5, No. 21 (1 11 1966), 167Google Scholar. Translated from Comunidad, 1, No. 3 (Sptember 1966).

45 Callado, , Os Industriais and Les Ligues PaysannesGoogle Scholar; Horowitz, Irving Louis, Revolution in Brazil (New York, 1964).Google Scholar

46 Callado, , Les Ligues PaysannesGoogle Scholar, contends that Julião was willing to use violent means, but in an interview with league organizers in 1963 I was told that Julião believed in the possibility of peaceful revolution.

47 Leeds, , ‘Brazil and the Myth of Francisco Julião’, p. 196.Google Scholar

48 Horowitz, , Revolution in Brazil, p. 21Google Scholar, attempts to show Julião's humble origins. Yet, there can be no doubt that he is a member of the national elite.

49 Julião, , Que São as Ligas Camponesas?, p. 67.Google Scholar

50 Ibid. Julião noted that there were about 40 million peasants in Brazil and only about five million salaried workers (p. 67). In the 1958 elections for state assembly, he polled 3,216 votes while in the 1962 election for the federal chamber of deputies he won an easy victory with 16,200 votes. Price, , ‘Rural Unionization’, pp. 42–3Google Scholar. According to Andrade, , A Terra, p. 250Google Scholar, there were some 30–35,000 league members in the state of Pernambuco in 1963 and some 80,000 in the North-east. Wilkie, , ‘A Report of Rural Syndication’, p. 7Google Scholar, estimates some 40,000 members in 1964 in Pernambuco.

51 Borges, , ‘O movimento camponês no nordeste’, p. 259.Google Scholar

52 Julião eventually broke with the leader of the Paraíba league at Sapé, Assis Lemos, because of a political question which arose between the two. Lemos criticized Julião's violent stand, but the real issue seems to have been the control over the League. CIDA, pp. 330–40. Part of the attraction was certainly the strength of the Sapé league which boasted some 10,000 members with some 40,000 in the state at large. CIDA, p. 341.

53 Callado, , ‘Les Ligues Paysannes’Google Scholar; Price, , ‘Rural Unionization’, p. 45.Google Scholar

54 A good deal has been said about Communist Party infiltration in the peasant movement. While the Communist Party would certainly like to take credit for the movement (Borges, , ‘O movimento camponês no nordeste’, p. 260Google Scholar), and their influence cannot be denied in some areas, it would be blatantly wrong to classify the independent peasant associations generally as Communist.

55 Obviously the Communist orientation to rural salaried workers was a reflection of their bias towards an urban proletarian revolution. They criticized Julião for making the workers' movement an appendage of the peasant movement and excluding the Communist Party from a role in the direction of the movement. Ibid., p. 259.

56 These first peasant leagues died out when the Brazilian Communist Party was declared illegal in 1947. However, the communist activity in rural areas began again in 1962. Ibid., p. 253. In 1954, the Communist Party founded ULTAB—the Union of Agricultural Laborers and Rural Workers of Brazil—which is active in the states of São Paulo and Ceará. In São Paulo it is aligned with the Agrarian Front, a radical Catholic Group. Price, Robert, ‘The Brazilian Land Reform Statute’, Land Tenure Center Research Paper No. 15 (Madison, Wisconsin, 1965), p. 8.Google Scholar

57 Borges, , ‘O movimento camponês no nordeste’, p. 259.Google Scholar

58 Borges claims that from an organizational point of view the weakest leagues werc in Pernambuco. Ibid., p. 257.

59 The principal influence of the Communist Party in Pernambuco seems to have been in the largest labor unions of the sugar cane zone, where they were better organized than the Church. Price, , ‘Rural Unionization’, pp. 51–2Google Scholar. The Church, the Communist Party, and the peasant leagues sometimes appear to have been in competition in the same area. However, it would seem as though they were appealing to different population segments (rural categories) within that area. Further research into the precise composition of the membership of various peasant unions and leagues is necessary.

60 The Communist Party might well have feared another crackdown since one had shut down an earlier movement in 1945–6 and also in Paraná in 1951. Silva, , ‘I Congresso’, pp. 56–7Google Scholar. Celso Furtado said after the 1964 military coup d'état that the communists also criticized Goulart for moving too fast for fear that he might provoke the military into action (personal communication). Skidmore, , Politics in Brazil: 1930–1964, p. 225Google Scholar, notes that ‘The Brazilian Communist Party was working to force a more nationalist and democratie government within the existing structure’.

61 The rural unions actually had their origin in the state of Rio Grande do Norte in 1949 when Bishop Dom Eugenio Sales founded die Rural Assistance Service. In 1963, there were 48 rural unions in the state with a total of 48,000 members. Price, , ‘Rural Unionization’, p. 49Google Scholar. According to Wilkie, , ‘A Report of Rural Syndicales’, p. 7, 61 out of 62Google Scholar rural unions in the Pernambucan Federation which claims some 200,000 members are Church-sponsored. Martins, Araguaya Feitosa, ‘Alguns aspectos da inquietação trabalhista no campo’, Revista Brasiliense, 59 (1962), 136–7Google Scholar, reports tremendous growth in the movement in São Paulo between 1961–2. See also Martins, Toipa, ‘Proletariado e inquietação rural’, Revista Brasiliense, 42 (1962), 62–81.Google Scholar

62 For a statement of the mixture of social, religious and economic goals of Church-sponsored rural unions in São Paulo state, see de São Paulo, Frei Celso, Os Cristãos e o sindicato na cidade e no campo (São Paulo, 1963)Google Scholar, and Martins, Feitosa, ‘Alguns aspectos’Google Scholar. Dumoulin, Diana, ‘The Rural Labor Movement in Brazil’, the Land Tenure Cerner (Madison, 1965), p. 16Google Scholar, notes that the primary stress of the unions in Rio Grande do Norte was on basic education, agricultural extension, and the development of good citizenship. Their interest in processing land disputes was so slight that they only employed one lawyer. A further statement of the goals of the movement and ils non-political nature can be found in Calazans, Julieta, Syndical Primer for the Rural Worker in Rio Grande do Norte (Natal, 1961).Google Scholar

63 In 1943, the Consolidation of Labor Laws extended to rural workers the minimum wage, the right to annual vacations, regulation of the labor contract, provisions regarding the pay-ment of salaries and the right to prior notification of termination of the labor contract, Price, , ‘Rural Unionization’, pp. 7–8Google Scholar. The serious problem is to see that such legislation is made effective in the countryside.

64 In the same interview, Padre Melo sharply criticized Bishop Dom Helder and Padre Paulo Crespo, spokesman for the Church-sponsored Rural Orientation Service of Pernambuco (SORPE), for their policy of directing rural unionism from above, working primarily with the leaders of the movement and not with the peasants themselves. See Crespo, Pe. Paulo, ‘O problema camponês no nordest e brasileiro’, Síntese, 17 (1963), 55–66Google Scholar, and Mitchell, Fanny, ‘Padre Crespo and Padre Melo: Two Approaches to Reform’, Institute of Current World Affairs Letter, FM-17 (9 11 1967)Google Scholar, for further insights into the different positions of these two men. Everywhere the rural unions have attempted to train local leaders. Wilkie, , ‘A Report of rural syndicales’, p. 8Google Scholar; Martins, Feitosa, ‘Alguns aspectos’, p. 139Google Scholar. However, Wilkie notes the continuing importance of outside leadership among the rural unions in Pernambuco and that the Federations' administrative assessor even recommended candidates for the President and Council at the time of elections. Ibid., p. 10.

65 These salary increases had a substantial effect in stimulating activity in rural market places in the state.

66 Furtado, , Diagnosis, p. 138.Google Scholar

67 This distinction was used by Lenin who believed that the middle peasant would be swept away in the capitalist economy leaving the extreme groups of rural proletariat and capitalist farmers. Lenin, V. I., ‘The Differentiation of the Peasantry’, Collected Works, 2 (Moscow, 1960), 181Google Scholar. Lenin also notes that the market is a key factor in the ability of the small farm to compete with the highly capitalized farm. Lenin, V. I., ‘New Economic Developments in Peasant Life’, Collected Worlks, 1 (Moscow, 1960), 37Google Scholar. For an application of this typology to rural São Paulo state, see Vinhas, Moisés, Operários e camponeses na Revolução Brasileira (São Paulo, 1963)Google Scholar. From a strictly empirical perspective this typology might be considered insufficient. In reality, these rural types are constandy intermixed, so that one man may be an owner, renter, sharecropper, employee and wage earner at the same time on different agricultural properties. de Souza, João G., ‘Some Aspects of Land Tenure in Brazil’. Parsons, Kenneth T., Penn, Raymond J., Raup, Philip E. (eds.), Land Tenure (Madison, 1956), p. 289Google Scholar, found six different types of renters in the São Francisco Valley and three different types in São Paulo State. CIDA, pp. 192 ff., offers a description of the variety of peasant types in rural Brazil. There are also regional variations.

68 Wolf, , ‘Reflections on Peasant Revolutions’, pp. 8–9Google Scholar. I would like to suggest that it is the local middleman who is being forced out of the internal marketing System by commercial elites and who shares common goals with the peasant whose tenure on the land is being threatened. Years of tension between peasant fishermen and local elites in the county of Coruripe, Alagoas, in Northeast Brazil, broke into armed conflict when policemen tried to force them to sell their fish to consumers direcdy on the beach at lower prices. the village women, led by a fishhawker, attacked and killed eight policemen, thereby ensuring their right to sell in the local market. Forman, Shepard, The Raft fishermen: Tradition and Change in the Brazilian Peasant Economy (Indiana University Press, 1970).Google Scholar

69 According to Harding, , ‘Revolution Tomorrow’, p. 36Google Scholar, ‘Combative peasant organizations appear not in vital coffee, cocoa, sugar and cattle sectors, but where paternalism had broken down and the conflict was most intense between peasant and landowner: in marginal fazendas that were hard-pressed to compete with more modernized commercial sectors in agriculture; and in frontier areas and land near cities, where, because of the rise in land values, speculators and commercial farmers were moving in to grab land from squatters who had cleared and farmed the land.’

70 Price, , ‘Rural Unionization’, pp. 54–5, states that by 1963 the communist-oriented ULTAB group had acquired control of the National Confederation of Rural Workers.Google Scholar

71 Vera, , ‘O congresso camponês em Belo Horizonte’, pp. 94–5Google Scholar. For the content of this Declaration, see ‘I Congresso (1961)’, Estudos Sociais, 12, No. 3 (April 1962), 433–7.

72 The manifesto of the meeting in Natal called for a radical reform based on the expropriation of land payable in government bonds over a long term and calculated on the declared tax value of the property. Additional demands included voting rights for illiterates, establishment of co-operatives and price guarantees for production and warehousing, long-term credit arrangements, and the extension of social security benefits to ail rural workers. I Convenção Brasiliera de Sindicatos Rurais, Mensagem-Conclusões (15–20 July 1963).

73 Silva, , ‘I congresso dos trabalhadores’, p. 61.Google Scholar

74 Vera, , ‘O II congresso camponês’, pp. 63–4.Google Scholar

75 CIDA, p. 234.

76 Wagley, Charles, An Introduction to Brazil (New York, 1963), pp. 91–2Google Scholar; Frank, Andre Gunder, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America, pp. 198, 231.Google Scholar

77 From 1946 to 1960 only six rural unions received the recognition of the Ministry of Labor. Marcondes, Freitas, ‘Social Legislation in Brazil’, p. 54Google Scholar. Under the government of João Goulart, 266 rural unions were recognized. SUPRA, p. 18. While it is obvious that formal recognition of the unions depended on the receptivity of national political leaders, the movement was evidently well under way prior to Goulart's taking office. He by no means creatcd the demands of peasantry, but capitalized on them when they became highly audible.

78 Price, , ‘Rural Unionization’, p. 12.Google Scholar

79 The Rural Labor Statute was essentially a complement to the Consolidation of Labor Laws of 1943. Price, , ‘Rural Unionization’, pp. 7–8Google Scholar. It has a long history in Brazilian congres-sional committees, having originated in a bill sent to Congress by President Getúlio Vargas as early as 1954. Ibid., pp. 9–10. Ferrai, Fernando, in Estravos da Terra (Pôrto Alegre, 1963)Google Scholar, recounts the legislative events surrounding the presentation of the bill. For conditions leading up to, and an explanation of, the Rural Labor Statute, see Campanhole, Adriano, Legislação do Trabalhador Rural e Estatuto da Terra (São Paulo, 1963)Google Scholar, and Vianna, Segadas, O estatuto do trabalhador rural e sua aplicação (São Paulo, 1963).Google Scholar

80 Prado, Caio Jr, ‘O estatuto do trabalhador rural’, Revista Brasiliense, 47 (1963), 1–13.Google Scholar

81 Price, , ‘Rural Unionization’, p. 16Google Scholar; Marcondes, J. V. Freitas, ‘O estatuto do trabalhador rural e o problema da terra’, Cadernos Brasileiros, 4 (1963), 55–9Google Scholar; Prado, Caio Jr, ‘O estatuto do trabalhador rural’, p. 3Google Scholar. Similar criticism has been levied against the earlier Consolidation of Labor Laws. CIDA, pp. 329 ff.

82 Goulart simultaneously called for the nationalization of all privately owned oil refineries.

83 Wilkie, , ‘A Report of Rural Syndicales’, p. 6.Google Scholar

84 This association came to be known as the National Confederation of Agriculture after the Rural Labor Statute was passed in 1966. It has been held that the movement was a weak organization. At the end of 1961 there were 1,711 such associations with 240,120 members mostly in the south, east and northeast. ‘A situação social da agricultura em 1963’, Desenvolvimento e Conjuntura, p. 33.

85 Padre Melo's rural union in Cabo, Pernambuco, was left untouched because, according to the priest, ‘the military is afraid of his longue’. In 1966 the movement returned to clerical leadership, but the government maintains strict control. The weakening of the rural unions is evidenced by the tact that collections from rural workers for the unions fell considerably. In 1964–6, 1,691 patrons collected union contributions from their workers, while in 1966–7 only 555 collections were made. Ibid.

86 Cantanhede, César, ‘Palestra proferida na Escola Superior de Guerra’, Instituto Brasileiro de Reforma Agrãria (Rio de Janeiro, 1967), p. 7.Google Scholar

87 Skidmore, , Politics in Brazil, p. 318Google Scholar, notes that ample protection was provided for the landowners, including guarantees against currency depreciation for the holders of government bonds. Perhaps the most significant aspect of the agrarian reform bill was the beginning of IBRA's cadastral survey in 1965.

88 Cantanhede, , ‘Palestra proferida na Escola Superior de Guerra’, p. 12.Google Scholar

89 SORPE.

90 Cantanhede, , ‘Palestra proferida na Escola Superior de Guerra’, p. 8.Google Scholar

91 CIDA, p. 104.

92 Reported in Jornal do Comércio (13 August 1967), p. 13. Recife.

93 Significantly, the Federation of Rural Unions in Pernambuco, originally made up almost exclusively of rural workers, was reported to have split after 1964 into threc federations, one of wage earners, one of sharecroppers and fixed tenants, and one of smallholders who are not employees.