Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Lyndolpho Silva was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on November 25, 1924. In 1942 he became involved with the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB), but did not join the party until 1947. In 1954, he founded and directed the Brazilian Rural Workers' and Peasants' Union (União dos Lavradores e Trabalhadores Agrícolas do Brasil, ULTAB-Brazil). In 1963, ULTAB was renamed the Agriculture Workers' National Confederation (Confereraçao Nacional dos Trabalhadores na Agricoltura, CONTAG) by the PCB, and Lyndolpho became its first president. He was responsible for the approval, in 1963, of the Rural Worker Statute, which regulated rural labor relations. On March 15, 1964, Lyndolpho called a public meeting at the Central do Brasil train station in Rio de Janeiro at which the Brazilian president, João Goulart, delivered a speech. At that gathering Lyndolpho called for the implementation of basic reforms, democratic freedom for unions, and the extension of voting rights to illiterate people and soldiers. After the military seized power in 1964, Lyndolpho was deposed from the CONTAG presidency and in 1967 his political rights were abrogated by the Second Institutional Act (AI2). He went into exile in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in 1973, where he joined the Rural Workers' International Union. In August 1979 he returned to Brazil to work with the PCB, which had been declared illegal during the military ... log in or subscribe to read full text