Cristiano Cordeiro

a communist from the state of Pernambuco and the formation of “modern Brazil”

Abstract

This paper aims to explain the formation of the Communist Party of Brazil from the perspective of the country’s process of modernization, considering the industrialization and the making of the Brazilian working class. The central point is the contribution given by Cristiano Cordeiro, one of the party’s founders. He was born in Recife (PE) and participated in the party’s first official meeting, which was held in Niterói (RJ). The methodology is based on oral history, highlighting Cristiano Cordeiro’s testemonies which were recorded in 1982 and today are stored in Fundação Joaquim Nabuco archives. It was also used as a research source the book A década 20 em Pernambuco, published in 1972. E.P. Thompson, Paul Thompson, Helena de Lorenzo and Wilma da Costa, Marcelo Matos, and Antonio Gramsci provide the theoretical guidelines to substantiate the chosen methodological path. The intention, above all, is to contribute to discussions on modernism and revolution in the 1920s, a time full of transformations concerning the organization of workers and other social and political aspects. The Communist Party of Brazil and its members acted as major players in a very rich moment of Brazilian history. It is our intention to contribute and stimulate researches to ask about the foundation of the Communist Party of Brazil as an important source of Brazilian modernization.