Textos
FORGS & CEPS
Federação Operária do Rio Grande do Sul
Dados
Letter from Marques da Costa to IWA
1924, Rio de Janeiro, May 8th.
Dear Comrade D. Abad de Santillán:
The fact that our comrade Domingos
Passos (Assistant Secretary of the
Workers Federation of Rio de Janeiro)
shows me today your last letter, which
referred to the Second Congress of the
IWA and incites us to take part in this
important international event, has made
me decide to write you these lines, that
I want to mark the beginning of an
exchange of correspondence as
constant as spontaneous and therefore
helpful to our relations and work of
revolutionary advertising.
I know you long, through chronicles and
brilliant articles that you sent to La
Protesta, that I read constantly for more
than three years, and when I knew that
you had been was elected member of
the Secretariat of the AIT, I got joyful
and waited immediately to be able to
enter into direct relations with the
Secretariat, to expedite the completion
of the work we had started against the
few Bolshevik elements that since 1922
began to undermine the old Federation
of Workers of Rio de Janeiro. My
duties, however, they had never given
to me - and this has been since eight
long years! - Stop and maintain
relationships with all of those whose
contact I would not ever get away from!
I have done, however, what I could
achieve.
Today, FORJ is the most categorical
statement of the revolutionary spirit -
and characteristically libertarian
tendencies of the workers of Brazil! The
divisive campaign of false communists
CEPS - FORGS
Centro de Estudos e Pesquisa Social
Number 1 – English Version
hadn’t had any worth. The decisive
attitude of the Union of Workers in Civil
Construction, courageously seconded
by the Alliance of Workers in Calçados,
General Union of Workers in Hotels
Restaurants and Similar, UG
Metalworkers' unions and other
syndicates were the shot to death in the
centralized and dictatorial claims of the
moscowized.
Maintaining the revolutionary integrity of
the syndicalism, since the first to the
third Workers Congress (1906-1913-
1920) was interpreted and practiced in
Brazil, according to the conception the
anarchists have about it, the FORJ was
obviously intended to be the exponent
that today is the revolutionary
organization of workers of here.
Now it’s being draw, in the syndicalist
horizon that had been darkened of
heavy lead clouds, as a new dawn. And
if we can achieve, as desired, the two
things that we will vote with body and
soul, we’ll soon be able to complete
victory of our ideals, that we hope to
see prevail on all the campaigns of
defeatism and demoralization of the
stipend by Moscow. These initiatives, in
which success depends of the
immediate revival of our languid CGT
are:
1) a conference Intersyndical - or
perhaps regional - with representation
of the revolutionary syndicates of the
Rio de Janeiro (Distrito Federal) and
the State of Rio, the State of São
Paulo, the State of Minas Gerais and
the State of Espírito Santo;
2) the representation of revolutionary
syndicates of Brazil (and we count as
you count with the ones of the State of
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Rio Grande do Sul and others, such as
Pará, Amazonas, etc..) In the second
Congress of the International
Association of Workers, and as a
complement of these initiatives: the
achievement of our fourth national
congress.
Everything depends on the will and
energy of the anarchist elements that,
despite the indifference of the masses
and crapulism of the traitors, that hadn’t
left their place to the "flies" of capitalism
and opportunism. And I have the safer
hopes we will succeed. We'll see ...
I would finish this letter (?) When
occurred the idea of sending you some
copies of "A Pátria", where I work as
editor-worker. And I will send you these
copies.
You will see in them, the "Seção
Trabalhista," what goes through this
brasiliensis land ...
The workers organization hasn’t,
unfortunately, been able to maintain its
newspaper “A Voz do Povo”, which I
don’t know if you ever come to read, it
was a journal that provided great
service to the advertising and
revolutionary organization, but it died,
fell disastrously in the hands of those
types that later had to flee miserably to
the ranks of Russian communism,
leading to divisionism within the
aforementioned Federation of Workers.
When he abandoned this organization,
under the conditions that I mentioned in
the above lines, the Union of Workers
in Civil Construction - to which I belong
- founded a weekly newspaper – O
Trabalho - which was forbidden to be
published after seized by police in state
of siege (which lasted 18 long months
of terrible persecution!) - the closing of
gold of the government of Epitácio
Pessoa, against whom was the military
uprising of July 22nd. [sic].
Founded the FORJ, when everything
seemed to show that the country was
going into a period of peace, politics
and a less reactionary government, it
was the Civil Construction which
suggested the idea to publish O
Trabalho under the auspices of the
Federation and as an organ of the
Workers Federation Rio de Janeiro. We
CEPS - FORGS
didn’t have, however, what we needed:
workshops. We appealed, therefore, to
the bourgeois press.
Everything was ready to publish our
newspaper in the winds of advertising,
when a new obstacle appeared. One of
the most monstrous projects of law
against the freedom of thought had
been torn out of the archives of the
Senate: the law of the press. It was
discussed and voted on quickly, we just
were able to publish the fifth issue - first
of the new phase - which was the last
glimmer of a hope that illuminated the
great effort that dissipated.
I will send you also a collection of O
Trabalho.
Now, fortunately, our stubbornness, our
intransigence, our tenacity, not to say
our invincible will and activity, seem to
have created a new environment, new
hope ...
It has been in the "Seção Trabalhista"
of A Pátria that our work has been
performed. In it I have published, since
sixteen months that I am here (without
leaving my profession, which is
carpenter), I have made all our
publications, making all our campaigns.
A Pátria that I have - that we have the
anarchists of Rio de Janeiro - made all
the advertising of the IWA. So I ask you
to send, addressed to my name of the
Press Service of IWA circulars,
bulletins, etc... Etc.., I ask you with
remittances a copy.
And it is just for now.
Believe me comrade and right friend.
Marques da Costa
My address:
Marques da Costa
31 - Rua Chile - 31
(Editorial staff of A Pátria)
Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
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Handwritten letter from Marques da

Costa to Abad de Santillan. Brazil,
1924. Rio de Janeiro, May 8th, 9 p.
Archive Abad de Santillan,
Korrespondenz, 1924. (IISG).

Adolfo Marques da Costa

".... he was one of the leaders of the

Union of Workers in Civil Construction,
in Rio de Janeiro. He collaborated in
the newspaper A Plebe; he was editor
of O Trabalho and other newspapers.
He was born in Portugal, was arrested
with other militants on July, 7th 1924
and deported to Lisbon. “

in
Pinheiro, Paulo Sérgio.
Michael M. Hall
A Classe Operária no Brasil
1889 - 1930 documents
Volume 1 – O Movimento Operário
São Paulo: Editora Alfa - Omega, 1981.

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