I Declare Myself a Marxist-Leninist
Manoel Lisboa, future founding member of PCR (Partido Comunista Revolucionário), was arrested at twenty-one years of age, just one year and four months into Brazil's 1964 military dictatorship, on charges of subversive activities. Below is his testimony to the police:
Throughout the world, the oppressed peoples are awakening to their liberation. The twentieth century has been illuminated by the flash of new ideas in the consciousness of the popular masses, thus determining a titanic struggle between the old that is dying and the new that is emerging. Therefore, from this fundamental contradiction—the motive force of History, a contradiction that cannot disappear, for it is an objective condition and, as such, lies outside our consciousness and does not depend on us—movements and regimes appear and disappear, and no one can halt the implacable march of historical determinism.
Several regimes have disappeared and given way to others which, at that moment, possessed more favourable real conditions, more in keeping with the structural reality upon which they rested. Thus has come about the disappearance and appearance of the regimes through which the earth has already passed: the Primitive Commune, the Slave System, Feudalism, Capitalism and Socialism. With all of them, this same process occurred, and it will fatally occur with Socialism as well, although its manner of being will change somewhat.
It is noted that this whole "tangle" of transformations takes place without our being able to prevent it from happening. Is it then a mysterious, divine force that governs this? No! We know that when the relations of production and the character of the productive forces no longer harmonise, when they no longer complete each other, such a transformation is inevitable. There is no sicrano nor beltrano(Tom, Dick and Harry) who can prevent it!
All those who, during their time, understood, analysed and took a position alongside the new regime that "invisibly" sprouted from the rotting structures of the old regime were vilified, and few were those who had their historical place recognised at that moment.
So, does the entire historical process obey determinism, and does man have no role whatsoever in this process? No! To say such an absurdity is the same as trying to cover the sun with a sieve. Man takes an active and decisive role in social questions, but this only happens when the material conditions of society (the objective condition mentioned earlier) awaken him to the understanding of the historical process and of what his role in it is. This we call subjective conditions.
The awakening of human consciousness to social problems, to the problem of millions of exploited people, is a feeling that unleashes in each person a series of transformations for the better and a more correct conduct of personal life. But can a single man, without connection to his fellow men, bring about transformations? Experience shows that he cannot. The troglodytes already reached this conclusion in their battle against nature, and the man of today, formed by the evolution of thousands of years and with such vast experience, could not and cannot contest it; and even if he wished to, he would not succeed, for he is the product of the union of two others. Hence the undeniable need for unity. But on what bases should such a fact occur? True unity arises from the similarity of ideas, from similar thought, from the same opinions about life. Thus, then, exploiters unite with exploiters, and the exploited unite with the exploited. From the clash of interests between both arise organisations with the purpose of defending the aspirations and yearnings they represent. As long as there are oppressed and oppressors, as long as there are slaves and masters, there will be organisations and parties. Only when exploitation totally ceases can one stop thinking about these groupings of people, gathered around that interest. This is the origin of party organisations.
From the convergence of these objective and subjective conditions will emerge a movement capable of putting an end to the ills of Brazilian society—or any other that finds itself at the same stage as ours.
After this brief outline of my thinking on social questions, which serves as a testimony and clarification of my positions, I declare myself a Marxist-Leninist and a member of the Communist Party of Brazil.
My awakening to social questions appeared when I was seventeen years old. I began these studies as I observed the errors committed by the administration of the governments of that time. At the same time, my curiosity was aroused for Marxism, due to the clamour always made around Socialism as being a danger. On the other hand, the advance of socialist ideas in the world today is a fairly well-proven fact. The books that spoke of the aforementioned subject filled all the bookshops. In this way, it was easy to obtain Marxist material. As I became acquainted with the content of these works, I related it to everyday facts and came to the conclusion that there was nothing dangerous or terrible there, but rather a profound and well-made analysis of the economic-social facts through which man had passed up to that date.
I continued my studies and, at nineteen, I considered myself a Marxist-Leninist. I became aware of the divergences within the socialist camp and of the appearance of revisionism.
In 1964, I was indicted for selling books and magazines in a small bookshop. I presented myself in January of this year; I was released after 15 days in prison. I began to prepare to take a university entrance exam, possibly for Economics. I then thought of forming a study group in some organisation in order to enlighten those who had not yet awakened to social problems. But this did not get very far, and of the newspaper we put out with great sacrifice, only one issue came out. We lacked all the conditions to operate, especially financial ones—where to get money? Thus everything went backwards, until I was arrested on 12 August 1965.
Recife, 16 August 1965