National Liberation Alliance (Brazil)

The National Liberation Alliance was created in March 1935 in Rio de Janeiro during the rise of the democratic movement in response to the attack of Getulio Vargas’s government on workers' rights. The goal of the alliance was the overthrow of the Vargas dictatorship and the transfer of power to a popular revolutionary government ^[1] . The PLA Manifesto was publicly read by the young Communist activist Carlos Lacerda (later a right-wing anti-communist politician).

The nucleus of the PLA was formed by the Unitarian Confederation of Trade Unions of Brazil. In addition to it, the alliance included groups of military ( tenentists ), peasant unions, as well as progressive youth, women's and anti-fascist organizations. Across the country, more than 1,500 NOA cells were created, which operated among workers , peasants , students , civil servants, soldiers and sailors . In total, the National Liberation Alliance united about 1.5 million supporters.

Leadership positions in the PLA were occupied by the Communists from the Brazilian Communist Party and leftist tenants. In April 1935, Luis Carlos Prestes was elected honorary chairman of the alliance. The Seventh Comintern Congress assessed the creation of the PLA as the beginning of the development of a single anti-imperialist front in Brazil.

On July 5, 1935, the Manifesto of the National Liberation Alliance was published, which proclaimed the program of the PLA ^[1] :

• refusal to repay foreign debts;
• annulment of antinational treaties with imperialist powers;
• nationalization of large enterprises;
• the introduction of an eight-hour working day and social security , an increase in wages ;
• the fight against slave and feudal working conditions;
• the return to the Indians of their ancestral territories;
• proclamation of democratic freedoms, separation of church and state;
• fight against any imperialist war.

In addition, the PLA program envisaged progressive changes in agriculture , the prohibition of fascist organizations, and the creation of a popular revolutionary government. This program was supported by the general public.

Fearing further strengthening of the National Liberation Alliance, on July 11, 1935, the Brazilian government issued a special decree banning its activities. Grassroots organizations of the alliance were subjected to defeat. After that, the cells of the PLA went into hiding and began to prepare an armed uprising.

Armed speeches organized by the PLA broke out in November 1935 in the cities of Niteroi , Recife , Natal and Rio de Janeiro . However, the government, declaring a state of siege in Brazil, quickly suppressed all the hotbeds of the uprising. PLA and OPF activists, including Prestes, were arrested. Part of the rebels went to rural areas, trying to find support among the peasantry, but this was not possible, and the movement stalled ^[1] .

• National Liberation Alliance in the encyclopedic reference book "Latin America".