Some preliminary considerations about the role of Luiz Carlos Prestes at the head of the PCB in the period 1945 to 1956/58

Abstract

In this article, preliminary considerations are made about the role played by Luiz Carlos Prestes as leader of the PCB (Brazilian Communist Party) during the period 1945 to 1956/58. Some distorted versions about L. C. Prestes and the PCB, present in the historiography, are analyzed. The assumption that Prestes, when accepted in the PCB, would have brought to the communist ranks a militaristic vision of history and of the political processes is questioned. The polemic about the PCB and the labor movement during the "democratization" period is reviewed. The relations of the PCB with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (PCUS) arc discussed, and the crisis of the communist movement in 1956/ 57 is approached. The Prestes "myth" is analyzed.