Revolutionary Movement 8th October
The Revolutionary Movement 8th October (MR8) (in Portuguese: Movimento Revolucionário 8 de Outubro) was a Brazilian terrorist movement, formerly an urban guerrilla group.
History
During the military dictatorship in Brazil, it was formed by Brazilian Communist Party members who disagreed with the party's decision not to take part in the armed resistance against the military government, the so-called Dissidência da Guanabara (DI-GB). The name Movimento Revolucionário 8 de Outubro was taken from another organization, which had been recently destroyed by police repression. As the dictatorship's propaganda boasted about police efficiency in the suppression of "terrorists," the DI-GB started taking actions under the same name, as a way to demoralize the regime. The new organization defined itself as Marxist-Leninist. It was the main force behind the kidnapping of American ambassador Charles Burke Elbrick in 1969, the basis of the film Four Days in September.
In the late 1970s, it conducted a thorough autocriticism for its participation in the armed resistance against the dictatorship. Under the leadership of Daniel Terra, it defined the struggle for "democratic liberties" as the main task for the Brazilian left. As such, it became active inside the MDB, the party of the "allowed opposition," under the leadership of Orestes Quércia. It had an important role in the reawakening of the students' movement in 1976-1977.
However, in 1978, the MR-8 again shifted its policies. It came to believe that the "national issue" was more important than the "democratic issue." It never abandoned the struggle against the dictatorship, but it became increasingly aggressive against other leftist tendencies, particularly the Trotskyists, frequently seen as antinational and supportive of "petty-bourgeois issues" like feminism, environmentalism, and gay rights. Then, the MR-8 became increasingly isolated within the left, prompting alliances among most other tendencies against its provocative actions.
While it had played an important role in the students' movement in 1977, when the working class and unionist movement came again into political play in 1978, the MR-8's role was marginal or even frequently negative. Then, it developed an intense political enmity towards the unionist leadership of the ABC Region, which later gave birth to the Workers' Party. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and other leaders of the party and its union branch, the Central Única dos Trabalhadores, were described as social-democrats,yellow unionists, imperialist agents and accused of dividing the opposition against the dictatorship, the MDB.
With the end of the dictatorship, it was the only significant part of the Brazilian left to remain within the PMDB, the continuation of the MDB. Most other tendencies joined the Workers' Party while the Brazilian Communist Party and the Communist Party of Brazil relaunched themselves as independent political parties. As such, the MR8 is a bit of an oddity in Brazilian politics, as it considers itself "Marxist-Leninist" but is not organized under democratic centralism and operates within a bourgeois centre-to-left political party, in direct contradiction to the Marxist-Leninist tenets of independence from bourgeois organizations.
It maintained a large international profile, and it developed close relations with the government of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. In the late 1990s, it somewhat softened its violent opposition to the other leftist tendencies and became a more moderate socialist group, even supporting Lula's successful run for presidency in 2002 and later his government. At the same time, it increased its nationalist streak.
It publishes a twice-weekly newspaper, Hora do Povo.
Members
Famous members included Fernando Gabeira, Carlos Lamarca, Stuart Angel, and Franklin Martins.
Today
In 2008, it decided that the great changes in Brazil made it time for it to change. On April 21, 2009, it launched the Free Homeland Party (Brazil) (Partido Pátria Livre), which is now registered.[1]