The emergence of Brazilian section of the International Communist 1917-1928

Abstract

Dario Canale's book, The emergence of the Brazilian section of the Communist International 1917-1928, should be hailed as an important contribution to the history of the Communist Party of Brazil (PCB). In addition to the vast bibliography on the subject, Canale consulted a large number of workers' newspapers and practically all documents about the PCB and the IC available in archives at the time. Valuable in the book are the problems that Canale raises. From his position as a researcher and at the same time as a communist militant, he is able to understand in depth the history of left-wing militancy. Canale shows, for example, how the labor and union movement acted in this period, deeply divided between two currents: a reformist and a revolutionary, highlighting that the reformist, “yellow” current was always the absolute majority of the movement (p.74). It also indicates that even the so-called socialist and/or workers' parties were a variant of reformism, much more an expression “of radical republican sectors of the petty bourgeoisie who looked to the workers for their electoral parishes” (p.82).