A plea from the new, and relatively isolated, Brazilian Communist Party as it faced severe repression from its inauguration.

‘A Cry for Help from the Brazilian Communists’ by El Encerrado from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 3 No. 72. November 22, 1923.

Although it is but two years since the young Brazilian Communist Party was called into existence by several small groups of active comrades, scattered throughout the mighty land of Brazil, it has already for over a year been condemned to an almost entirely illegal existence.

In July 1922, when an insurgent movement organized by the so-called “liberal” elements with whom the CP of Brazil has not joined forces, proved a failure, the Epitacio government–one of the most reactionary and anti-proletarian governments which Brazil has ever known–imposed a state of siege upon the country, and began a systematic campaign of agitation against its opponents. It began with the Communists.

Despite the paucity of their numbers, our Brazilian comrades represent the sole organized party in the whole country. They have to carry on a constant struggle with the anarchists, who unfortunately permit themselves to be influenced all too frequently by the anti-revolutionary agitation of their co-anarchists in Europe and the United States. Another disadvantage suffered by our comrades is the fact of their living scattered all over a country in which communication is extremely difficult, and where quite three months is required to get from one end of the country to the other. To this must further be added that the material upon which they have to work consists for the most part of immigrants, the majority of whom are possessed of but one wish: to accumulate wealth with the utmost possible rapidity and then to leave the country again, and that they are confronted by a young, brutal, and inflexible capitalism, accustomed to overrule all resistance.

The police have already on several occasions confiscated the printing equipment, the records, the bookselling establishment, and the funds of the CP of Brazil. Many comrades have been incarcerated for weeks, and even months, in the prisons, without any reason being given for their arrest, and without any hope of release. We need only name a few of these: Peres, a brush-maker, Joaquin Silva, carpenter, the proletarian writer Brandac, already imprisoned for the second time; Canellas, the delegate to the 4. World Congress at Moscow; further José Marcillo, Thereza Escobar, Everado Dias, and Astrojeldo Pereira, who entered energetic protest against the war in 1914, from a class war standpoint, and again in 1917 against the participation of Brazil in the world crime. In March 1918 Pereira published a pamphlet with reference to the Brest-Litivsk peace treaty, in which he predicted the overthrow of German militarism beneath the blows of the Bolsheviki.

A trade union which raised a protest against this persecution was suppressed by the authorities. Police officials in high positions declare openly that the mere avowal of Communism suffices to justify the sharpest persecution.

A new enactment has been issued gagging the trade union organizations. The members of trade unions are now only permitted to meet together under the supervision of a police official, and any discussion of questions lying beyond their narrowest professional interests is strictly prohibited.

This reign of rampant reaction is supported by the church and the Catholic press. The present president of the state of Brazil, Bernardes, stands for the inquisitorial Catholicism of the state of Minas Geraes, and the bourgeois reaction of the state of Sao Paulo.

Our imprisoned comrades are in danger of deportation to the convict station of Aere, situated immediately on the equator.

The Brazilian Communists call upon the comrades in all countries to spread abroad the knowledge of these facts, and to send telegrams of sharpest protest to State President Bernardes in Rio de Janeiro, and to the Brazilian embassies of their own countries, against the incarceration and transportation of our comrades.

At least the world has now the opportunity of seeing what Brazilian democracy is in reality.

International Press Correspondence, widely known as”Inprecorr” was published by the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) regularly in German and English, occasionally in many other languages, beginning in 1921 and lasting in English until 1938. Inprecorr’s role was to supply translated articles to the English-speaking press of the International from the Comintern’s different sections, as well as news and statements from the ECCI. Many ‘Daily Worker’ and ‘Communist’ articles originated in Inprecorr, and it also published articles by American comrades for use in other countries. It was published at least weekly, and often thrice weekly.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/inprecor/1923/v03n72[48]-nov-22-1923-Inprecor-yxr.pdf