Carlos Marighella - Biography

Biography

Marighella was born in Salvador, Bahia, to Italian immigrant Augusto Marighella and Afro-Brazilian Maria Rita do Nascimento. His father was a blue collar worker originally from Emilia, while his mother was a descendent of African slaves, brought from Sudan (Hausa blacks). He spent his young life at a house in Rua do Desterro, at the Baixa do Sapateiro neighbourhood, where he would graduate from primary and secondary education. In 1934, he left the Polytechnic School of Bahia, where he was pursuing a degree in civil engineering, in order to become an active member of the Brazilian Communist Party (Partido Comunista Brasileiro - PCB). He then moved to Rio de Janeiro to work in the restructuring of PCB.

Marighella was first arrested in 1932, after he wrote a poem criticizing the administration of Bahia intervenor Juracy Magalhães. On May 1, 1936, during the Getúlio Vargas dictatorship, he was once again arrested for subversion. He was tortured by the political police led by Filinto Müller, now considered the "patron of torturers" in Brazil. He remained in jail for a year. He was released by "macedada" (the measure which freed political prisoners without pressing charges against them). After his release, he once again entered clandestinity, along with all members of PCB. He was recaptured in 1939, being once again tortured. He is not released until 1945, when an amnesty during the democratization process of the country benefited all political prisoners.

The following year, Marighella was elected constituent federal deputy by the Bahian branch of PCB, but he lost his office in 1948, under the new proscription of the party. Back in clandestinity, he occupied several offices in the leadership of the party. Invited by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Marighella visited China between 1953 and 1954 in order to learn more about the Chinese Communist Revolution. In May 1964, after the military coup, he was shot and arrested by agents of the Department of Social and Political Order (Departamento de Ordem Política e Social - DOPS), the political police, at a movie theater in Rio. He was released in the following year by a court order. In 1966, he wrote The Brazilian Crisis, opting for the armed struggle against the military dictatorship. Later that year, he renounced to his office in the national leadership of PCB.

On August 1967, he participated at the 1st Conference of Latin American Solidarity in Havana, contradicting what his party had determined. In Havana, he wrote Some Questions About the Guerrillas in Brazil, dedicated to the memory of Che Guevara and made public by Jornal do Brasil on September 5, 1968. That same year he was expelled from PCB, and founded the Ação Libertadora Nacional (ALN) on February 1968. In September 1969, ALN members kidnapped the U.S. ambassador Charles Burke Elbrick in a coordinated move with the Revolutionary Movement 8th October (Movimento Revolucionário 8 de Outubro — MR-8).

After a series of successful robberies and kidnappings, the police force was determined to eliminate him. He was shot by police at an ambush at 8pm on November 4, 1969 at 800 Alameda Casa Branca, São Paulo. This ambush was organized by a policeman Sérgio Paranhos Fleury, known for his work inside DOPS.