ABSTRACT
The resistance to military dictatorship (1964-1985) and the prolonged transition to democracy in Brazil provide an instructive case study of the assimilation of guerrillas into a peaceful political process. Brazil suffered only a small fraction of the violence experienced in Chile, Argentina, El Salvador, and Guatemala during the Cold War, and although thousands of people supported its guerrilla movement, the actual combatants numbered only about 800 (Gaspari 2002). But Brazil’s immensity, booming economy, and geopolitical significance made it a leader in the region and an example for people on both the left and right. The US-backed coup of 1964 inaugurated a new wave of authoritarianism in Latin America, and the struggle between the security forces and the guerrillas became a defining characteristic of the period, mainly because the military institutionalized torture and therefore made repression a major political issue. During and after the democratic transition former guerrillas and their followers collaborated with the Roman Catholic Church in radical but non-violent pastoral programs in favor of minorities, the landless, and the poor; participated in one of the world’s largest and most diverse grass roots movements; helped found the Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, or PT); and worked in PT leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s five presidential campaigns and two administrations (2003-2011). Since 1985 Brazil’s elections have been free, void of fraud, and highly competitive. As of mid-2008 Lula’s two chiefs of staff had belonged to guerrilla organizations, and a considerable number of political appointees had been political prisoners, exiles, members of guerrilla or other clandestine organizations, and/or persecuted by the military regime. Of 28 initial cabinet members, 18 had opposed the military regime, 14 belonged to clandestine organizations, seven were political prisoners, and seven were exiles (D’Araujo 2007). Former guerrillas have thus played an important part in the consolidation of Brazilian democracy, although the country’s stark inequalities, violence, and other difficulties lead many to question the nature and quality of that
democracy. Brazil’s revolutionaries attained this role by mainstreaming into the political system.
