The Knight of Hope

João Victor · May 19, 2022

Luís Carlos Prestes was a revolutionary and politician, he was the most hunted communist of the 20th century in south america. Went through 3 exiles. That’s the Knight of Hope.

He was born in Porto Alegre, southernmost of Brazil, on january 3 of 1898. His dad was in the army, and when he was 10yo. With difficulties after his dad death, he was to the military school finishing it in 1919 with a engineer specialization.

Then, we enters into the 1924 revolt(called “Prestes Column”), Prestes, alongside with Miguel Costas, denounced the Brazilian oligarchy and the injustices of the country caused by it and the bad government policies by Artur Bernardes.

Over nearly 3 years, the column marched 25,000 kilometers across thirteen Brazilian states. Ending in 1927, going to Bolivia, self exile decided by them to avoid prisons that the new president, Washington Luís could cause.

While in Bolivia, Prestes worked on road-building, taught his men to read and write and first touched on a marxist work that he knew through Astrojildo Perereira, the secretary-general of the Partido Comunista Brasileiro (Brazilian communist party. PCB), that left some books about the communist work with him. Late in 1928 he went to Argentina work as an engineer, and there he could go through the marxism work and be familiar with the socialism. He said in this time that he didn’t do anything but study it: “I just went to work, then get home and study the marxism, rest and repeat all of it in the other day”

All of it facilitated his conversations with the Rodolfo Ghioldi, a key figure in Argentine communist politics, and Samuel Guralski, who was a representative of the Communist International(C.I) in South America from 1930 through 1934. They opened a chance for his affiliation to the PCB, since PCB refused him once by think that he was a bourgeois revolutionary.

With the 1930 revolution applied and Vargas in the presidency, Prestes went to Porto Alegre to meet Vargas and explain the socialism idea to him, Vargas was really impressed with Preste, But he was nothing less than a conservative leading a bourgeois revolution, and not of the proletariat Prestes viewed it all and got the notion that Brazil needed a socialism revolution to put it on track.

Prestes went to his second exile in 1931 at URSS, where he could work as an engineer and go to a deepest study of communism. The time spent there made him realize that communism was the right path to go through. After 3 years, at 1934 he went back to Brazil to apply the communist revolution. He was accompanied by Olga Benário, an agent of the C.I assigned to provide security for him.

With the confidence of Stalin, Prestes tried to apply the communist revolution in Brazil, But Vargas, with his authoritarian government started suppress the left enemies, led by Prestes. Through violence and terror, Vargas was allied with Brazil's agrarian oligarchies and a fascism sympathizer, during his rule he gave the false impression that he cared about the proletariat. in November 1935 in Rio Grande do Norte, prestes, with the ANL tried an insurrection, but quickly Vargas stopped it. Now Prestes had to hide himself and be upsetted about the failed try of the communist revolution. He went back to Rio de Janeiro and there he was with Olga. At this time they started a relationship and had a daughter, Anita Prestes.

By March 1936, both Prestes and Olga had been arrested, they were found at a little home at Rio de Janeiro. Prestes was sentenced to 16 years of prison. Olga, by the fact that she was German, Vargas sent her to the Nazi Germany, she was pregnant at the time, she could have the baby that years later Prestes’s mother would get her; Olga died at a Gas chamber in 1942.

During the prison, Prestes focused on read a lot of books and be noticed about the news in Brazil, was at this time that he earned the title of general secretary of the PCB. After nine years in prison and the fall of the Vargas government, he entered the amnesty law and was released. In the new elections, he supported Vargas: "Getúlio is very flexible. When it was fashionable to be a fascist, he was a fascist. Now that it is fashionable to be democratic, he will be a democrat." And he added: "the main struggle was against Nazism, the enemy of the world at the time was Nazism”; "And I do politics for the people and I don't think about my personal whims” when asked why he would support the man who "killed" Olga. However, he was elected senator. The people cheered him, and he answered the call of the people.

He could leave some shiny years in Brazil with João Goulart’s presidency, they saw a chance to implement the dreamed communist revolution, but Goulart didn’t show a way to do it since he pleased the right and the left with the cold war in progress. Through this time, the communist party was in fire to choose a philosophy to follow(since Khrushchev exposed Stalin crimes), between Maoists and the Russian militants, Prestes went on to lead the pro-soviet side. Then, PCdoB was created with the Maoists side men, thus creating the crack of the PCB.

1964 has arrived and now he felt deeply sad for this, he was at the top of the dictatorship's most wanted people list, he resisted and stayed at Brazil until 1970, when he went to Moscow with his second with, Maria, and his children. He only returned to Brazil after amnesty for political offenders was granted ten years later. In 1979 he returned to Brazil and he wrote the famous letter that showed his dissatisfaction with PCB, “to legalize they let go of their ideas and communism”. What no one expected happened, Prestes was about to leave the PCB and was no longer the party's general secretary

In his last years of life, he supported Leonel Brizola in the 1989 elections, he believed that Brizola was the solution to a new democratic way for Brazil. Nearly to die, without the PCB money, he was roughly helped by Oscar Niemeyer, who gave a house to him and some monthly money. Prestes died on March 7, of a heat attack in 1990, aged 92yo.

Throughout his life he fought for the people, for a more just and egalitarian Brazil, he encountered many enemies along the way and difficulties. At one point I think he was a Soviet failure in the attempt at revolution, but not his fault at all. But by fate it didn't help him. Prestes was a total legend, the biggest that Brazil and perhaps South America ever had. Your strength and your cause will never be forgotten. They will be forever carried through a beautiful story and legacy he left. I am already doing this. Long live, Luis Carlos Prestes.

Like the samba sung by Grande Rio, everyone will be able to hum: in the wake of these lands... Luiz of ploretariat... warming up the nation... facing opponents... C of courage for dreams... full of P of passion... this is the time... About to happen.... wake up, be born... what inheritance... in the wake of these lands...