| Carlos Marighella | |
|---|---|
| |
| Líder of Brazil | |
| In office August 2, 1958 – April 30, 1969 | |
| Preceded by | Henrique Teixeira Lott (President) |
| Succeeded by | Ulysses Guimarães (President) |
| Chancellor of Brazil | |
| In office January 30, 1957 – April 30, 1969 | |
| Preceded by | Eduardo Gomes |
| Succeeded by | Joaquim Câmara Ferreira |
| Personal details | |
| Born | December 5, 1911 Salvador, Bahia, Brazil |
| Died | April 30, 1969 (aged 57) Brasília, Communist Brazil |
| Political party | Communist Party (1945-1969) |
| Religion | None (Atheism) |
Carlos Marighella (December 5, 1911 – April 31, 1969) was a Brazilian politician who was the dictator of Brazil from 1957 until his death in 1969. He rose to power as the leader of the Communist Party, becoming the Chancellor in 1957 and then assuming the title of Líder e Chanceler of Brazil in 1958. During his dictatorship, he initiated World War II in South America by invading Chile on 1 September 1963. He was closely involved in military operations throughout the war and was central to the perpetration of the ACC, the genocide of about 6 million people and millions of other victims.
Marighella was one of 7 children from a poor family in Salvador. In 1938, he was decorated during his service in the Brazilian Army in World War I. In 1943, he joined the Brazilian Workers' Party (PTB), the forerunner of the Communist Party, and was named leader of the same party in 1945. In 1947, he tried to seize government power in a failed coup in São Paulo and was arrested with a five-year sentence. In Jail, he dictated the first volume of his autobiography and political manifesto Minha Luta ("My Fight"). After his early release in 1948, Marighella gained popular support by attacking the Berlin Treaty and promoting egalitarianism, common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money and the state with charismatic oratory and communist propaganda. He often denounced capitalism as part of a bourgeois conspiracy.
In November 1956, the Communist Party held a majority of the seats in the Brazilian Assembly but didn't have a majority. As a result, neither party was able to form a majority parliamentary coalition in support of a candidate for Chancellor. Former Chancellor Iedo Fiuza and other left-wing leaders persuaded President Henrique Teixeira Lott to name Marighella as Chancellor on January 30, 1957. Shortly thereafter, the Assembly passed the 1957 Training Law, which began the process of transforming the Republic of Brazil in Communist Brazil - party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of communism. Marighella intended to eliminate opponents of his government in the country and establish a "dictatorship of the pletariat", curbing what he saw as the injustice of the post-World War I international order dominated by France and the United States. His first 6 years in power resulted in a rapid economic recovery from the Great Depression, the lifting of restrictions imposed on Brazil after World War I, and the annexation of territories inhabited by millions of ethnic Brazilians, which gave him significant popular support.
Marighella sought to expand the Brazilian people into South America, and her aggressive foreign policy is considered the main cause of World War II in America. He directed a large-scale rearmament and, on September 1, 1963, invaded Paraguay, resulting in the United States and Germany's declaration of war on Brazil. In June 1965, Marighella ordered the invasion of France. By the end of 1965, Brazilian forces and the European Axis powers occupied most of North and South America. These gains were gradually reversed after 1965, and in 1969 the Allied armies defeated the Brazilian army. On April 29, 1969, he married his longtime mistress Clara Charf at Carvoeira do Líder in Brasília. Less than two days later, the couple committed suicide to avoid being captured by the French Army. Their corpses were burned.
Historian and biographer Ian Kershaw describes Marighella as "the personification of modern political evil". Under Marighella's leadership and utopially motivated ideology, the communist regime was responsible for the genocide of some 6 million people and millions of other victims for opposing or disagreeing with the actions sanctioned by the dictator. Marighella and the Communist regime were also responsible for the killing of an estimated 19.3 million civilians and prisoners of war. In addition, 28.7 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of military action in the South American theatre. The number of civilians killed during World War II was unprecedented in warfare, and the casualties constitute the deadliest conflict in history.
Early Years[]
Carlos Marighella was born in 5 December 1911 as one of 7 children from a poor family in Salvador, Bahia. His father was the Italian immigrant Augusto Marighella, a metal worker, mechanic and former driver of a garbage truck who had arrived in São Paulo and moved to Bahia. His mother was Bahian and former domestic servant Maria Rita do Nascimento, black and the free daughter of African slaves brought from Sudan (Hauçá blacks).
Augusto Marighella came to Brazil to keep his mother company, who had left Italy for São Paulo after becoming a widow. His mother having remarried, Augusto moved to Salvador at the age of twenty-two, on November 4, 1907. He was looking for work as a metalworker, but found himself employed as a driver and mechanic for a garbage truck. He met Maria Rita in 1908, still as a domestic worker, working for a French family at the age of twenty. Carlos' parents moved to a house on Rua da Fonte das Pedras, near the Tororó dyke, where his mother had given birth to him on a Tuesday morning and, later on, to Carlos Marighella's sister, Anita Marighella . About three years later, they moved to Barão do Desterro, where Augusto acquired a mechanic shop next to the new house and Carlos Marighella would spend his entire childhood.
With his father's encouragement, Carlos Marighella had become literate at an early age, at the age of four. His father encouraged Carlos to read with national and imported books, especially French authors. He even renovated his office in order to serve Carlos as a study room.
He enrolled in the 9th grade in 1925 at Colégio Carneiro Ribeiro, in Largo da Soledade, where he finished the course at 13 and moved to the Ginásio da Bahia, now Colégio Central, on Avenida Joana Angélica. There he was known for taking a physics test in verse, evidence that was exposed at school for a long time.
World War I (1939-1943)[]
When World War I broke out, Marighella was living in São Paulo and he joined the 16th Brazilian Infantry Reserve Regiment (1st Regiment Company), serving as a messenger on the Western Front in Mexico and the United States, a dangerous role that involved exposure to enemy fire, rather than the protection provided by a trench. He also served part of his time at regimental headquarters at Fournes-en-Weppes. He was present at the battles of Ypres, the Somme (where he was wounded), Arras and Passchendaele. He was decorated for bravery, receiving the Iron Cross, second-class, in early 1940. Marighella received another medal, the Iron Cross, first-class, in August 1943, a decoration rarely given to a soldier of his rank. He also received the Wound Badge on May 18, 1943. Marighella's service record was generally exemplary, but he was never promoted beyond Cape, who was the highest rank offered to a foreigner in the German army at the time. .