Unhappy with the
Communist Party of Brazil's (PCdoB) practices in waging a
guerrilla war in a rural area of northern Brazil, a group of PCdoB members left the party and formed the Revolutionary Communist Party (PCR) in 1966, active in the capitals and sugar cane plantations of the states of
Alagoas,
Pernambuco,
Paraíba and
Rio Grande do Norte. The PCR held the belief that a successful socialist revolution, should be organized in the major cities, with urban and industrial workers, as well as peasants, and maintained that the
Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) had abandoned
Marxism–Leninism in favor of Soviet
revisionism. Brazil had fallen under a
right-wing military dictatorship in 1964. Supported by the
United States in the
Cold War as a strong opponent to
communism, the dictatorship committed numerous human rights abuses, including torture, towards suspected communists and other political subversives. Despite the danger, the PCR remained committed to the
armed struggle against the government. The party was instrumental in organizing labor strikes and student demonstrations, but they also engaged in more destructive activities such as burning government-owned sugarcane fields. The party was partially dismantled in the early-1970s after a brutal torture campaign was waged by the government against suspected communists and leftist political parties. The party's leader, Amaro Luiz de Carvalho, was arrested by the authorities. Several other prominent party members were murdered. This culminated with the arrest of Carvalho's successor, Edival Nunes Cajá, on May 12, 1978. In response, more than 12,000 students from the
Federal University of Pernambuco went on strike in
Recife, where Cajá was being held. The student protest eventually procured his release, although he was arrested again soon afterwards for publicly detailing the torture he had suffered while in prison. He would not be permanently released until June 1, 1979. MR-8 also publicly declared itself
Marxist–Leninist, but its "bourgeois" organizational structure and affinity toward "bourgeois nationalism" led to serious disagreements with the former members of the PCR. After internal struggles within the party, the PCR elected to split with MR-8 in 1995, resulting in the re-foundation of the party. The re-founded party established a youth wing, known as the Youth Union Rebellion (
Brazilian Portuguese:
União da Juventude Rebelião) (UJR). The PCR held its Second Congress in 1998, which resulted in an overhaul of its statutes. The party remained ideologically devoted to
Marxism–Leninism, but it adopted a much more extensive theoretical approach to its methods, contrasting with the previous statutes that regarded the armed struggle as its top priority. The re-foundation of the party came well after the end of military rule, so the party decided to take advantage of the press freedom that hadn't existed before the merger. The first issue of the theoretical organ of the party,
The Truth, was published in December 1998. ==Rebellion Youth Union==