Who was Luís Carlos Prestes?
Luís Carlos Prestes was born in 1898 in Porto Alegre and rose as an army captain in the rebel lieutenants' movement. His Column marched about 25,000 km through thirteen states between 1924 and 1927 and ended in exile in Bolivia. In Argentina he studied Marxism and, after years in Moscow, joined the Brazilian Communist Party in 1934 and was elected to the Comintern executive committee. He was honorary president of the National Liberation Alliance in the failed 1935 uprising and spent nine years in prison. Elected senator in 1945, he led the party until 1980 and died in Rio de Janeiro in 1990.
Political views
- Led the rebel Column through 13 states from December 1924 to February 1927 hoping to spark an uprising against the Old Republic. The mass revolt never came.Source: sites.usp.br
- Studied Marxism in exile in Argentina, moved to the Soviet Union in 1931 and worked as an engineer while studying Marxism-Leninism.Source: marxists.org
- Joined the Brazilian Communist Party in 1934 and won a seat on the executive committee of the Communist International.Source: sites.usp.br
- Was honorary president of the National Liberation Alliance when the communist-led uprising began on 23 November 1935. It was crushed in Rio de Janeiro four days later.Source: sites.usp.br
- Served as party General Secretary from 1943 to 1980, and in 1946 took a Senate seat for the Federal District and signed the 1946 Constitution.Source: marxists.org
- A critical review says the party under him believed in a stage-by-stage bourgeois-democratic revolution and a progressive national bourgeoisie, and that he accepted isolation inside the party almost passively.Source: fpabramo.org.br
Legacy
Admirers see Prestes as a revolutionary whose Column became a living myth against the oligarchic Old Republic, and as a man who endured nine years of prison and long exile for his cause. His partner Olga Benario was deported to Nazi Germany and executed in 1942. Critics note that he followed the Moscow line for decades and that the 1935 uprising he fronted failed within days. A left critic also charges that the party's stagist strategy sidelined the working class, and that he never fully confronted Stalinism. He broke with the party leadership around 1980 and died in 1990.