A key figure in Vietnam’s independence from France and the war in which the United States was defeated, Ho Chi Mihn was forced to stay in Brazil for several months. It was here that the communist leader was fascinated by the story of a black man from the northeast who is little remembered in national historiography.
José Leandro da Silva was an active union leader during the Naval Strike that took place in Rio de Janeiro in the early 1920s.
The man known as Pernambuco was shot by police while trying to provoke a strike in a city port and threw agents overboard. The sailor survived and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
The story of Pernambuco’s victory in Justice was told in a text by Ho Chi Minh. Class SolidarityThat the Vietnamese leader emphasized the brotherhood between people and talked about racism.
He recounts that after a series of protests in the country, a new trial was opened in which Pernambuco was acquitted.
“The decision was met with a flood of applause. And the black striker José fell into the arms of his friends and defenders, the white workers’ delegates. Despite the multitude of colors, there are only two races in the world. The universe. : that of the explorers and the exploited. And there is only one true brotherhood: the proletarian brotherhood”, he wrote about Ho José Leandro da Silva.
Strike inside a ship
The beginning of the 20th century was a period of great conflicts in social relations in Brazil. The arrival of foreigners to replace slave labor on farms and later in the cities also brought new political ideas to the country, which changed labor relations at the time.
Professor Silvio Gallo said, “These foreigners come to Brazil with the experience of a socialist movement and they find a place here to develop this business. So much so that the repressive forces of the Brazilian State will say that the movement is not Brazilian.” Doctor at Unicamp (Campinas State University).
In this context, the workers on one of the ships of Lloyd Brasileiro Shipping Company stationed in Rio de Janeiro decided to go on strike in 1921 to improve the living conditions on board. Hamilton Santos, a PhD student in history at the UFRJ, says they are tired of enduring a “slave regime” on ships.
In February the ship workers’ strike strengthened and spread. “Many workers from the Cantareira Company quit their jobs and declared themselves in solidarity with the movement”, it is reported. night leaf.
The Brazilian government offered maximum force to the police to contain the strikers. sent the warship piaui to intimidate movement.
José Leandro da Silva was a cabin attendant – responsible for cleaning cabins and common areas on ships.
turmoil in social movements
On March 4, 1921, he tried to persuade other sailors to cease activities. Pernambuco clashed, throwing one of the police officers who tried to stop him into the sea. While defending himself, he injured others with a knife.
According to the text written by Ho Chi Minh, the striker was beaten by other agents and was seriously injured by about 17 bullets in his body.
Despite his injuries, Pernambuco survived and was arrested. News of the incident made headlines across the country, bolstering the police and discrediting José Leandro.
“cabin boy [José Leandro] presented as a threatening figure of the harmonious social order. [Ele era representado como uma figura] brutish, unrestrained, with a force of violence superior to that of agents of state repression,” says Hamilton Santos.
Pernambuco was sentenced to 30 years for what happened. However, the striker’s condemnation caused turmoil among the social movements.
Various efforts were made to raise money to pay lawyers, and nearly three years after the incident, the Federal Supreme Court (STF) awarded José Leandro a habeas corpus.
A new trial was scheduled shortly after, in the Court of Jury, in which Pernambuco was acquitted by the Justice in 1924. Celebrated on the streets as a result of social movements.
Ho Chi Minh in Brazil
There are no official data or historical records, but biographers say Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969) was probably in Brazil in 1912.
The name still Nguyen Tac Thanh (Ho Chi Minh means “enlightening” and was adopted years later), the leader of Vietnam’s unification and wars against France and the United States, he saw the social conflicts of a society up close. a country still breathing the air of a long period of slavery and affected by the new winds of social discord at the turn of the 20th century.
Image: Getty Images
Ho was working as a galley boy on a French ship called Admiral Tréville at the time. He fell ill during a trip to South America and was left by the crew in Brazil to treat an illness not mentioned by historians.
In about three months of waiting for the ship to pass again, Ho survived by working as a kitchen assistant at a restaurant in a hotel in Lapa.
“Ho Chi Minh lived in a hostel in Santa Teresa, worked in Lapa, and heard from the ship that would allow him to continue his voyage, constantly going to the port of Rio,” said Brazilian diplomatic envoy Ariel Seleme. He studied in Hanoi and Ho’s transit through Brazil.
However, there is no record of any meeting between Ho and Pernambuco, even if they visited the same places in Rio de Janeiro at the same time.
According to experts heard by BBC News Brasil, it is likely that Ho Chi Minh learned about the mobilization of workers in favor of José Leandro through Astrojildo Pereira, co-founder of the PCB (Communist Party of Brazil).
Ho and Pereira met in Moscow in 1924 to discuss the revolutionary movement.
“The Ho Chi Minh article was published in 1924, right after the successful conclusion. [de José Leandro] and on the occasion of Ho’s meeting with Astrojildo Pereira in the Soviet Union, because the Brazilians were there to make the PCB official. They’re probably the people who get the news about what happened in Brazil. “At the time, Ho was publishing chronicles about the struggle of workers around the world, and he published this about Rio’s sailors,” said historian Rafael Galante.
According to Ho Chi Minh’s French biographer Pierre Brocheux, the Vietnamese leader’s travels, including to Brazil, shaped his personality.
“Ho Chi Minh traveled the world not as a tourist, but as a sailor and explorer. Therefore, he observed the world and people closely, but also established open and friendly relations. He behaved like that, not only with workers, but also with intellectuals and artists,” said Brocheux.
“After his travels he became not an extremist but a pragmatist with a clearer vision of things and people. Therefore, he was convinced that socialism was the future of humanity, but he also said ‘it should be there to build socialism. Become socialist,'” he added.
artistic intervention
Plastic artist Pedro Rajão plans to portray the figure of José Leandro through art in the city – more specifically, on a wall near Arcos da Lapa where both José Leandro and Ho Chi Minh are located.
Rajão leads the Negro Muro project, which aims to honor historic black characters in Rio through artistic interventions.
“José Leandro is a completely unknown black figure with a cinematographic history. I wanted to pay my respects to Pernambuco, where Ho Chi Minh also appears as a leading and influential person,” he said.
source: Noticias
