URBAN TRANSPORT AND POPULAR

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VIOLENCE: THE CASE OF BRAZIL*
I
BEGINNING IN 1974 BRAZIL'S LARGEST INDUSTRIAL CITIES, RIO DE
Janeiro and S5o Paulo, were swept by a series of riots directed at the
suburban railways. The riots were not only a sign of the growing dis-
content of the urban poor with their living conditions, but also a
consequence of their loss since the military coup of 1964 of any ade-
quate means of political expression. The purpose of this paper is to
attempt to trace the immediate causes of the riots, and to indicate their
political significance both for the government in power and for the
participants themselves.
The first of the trains was set on fire and partially destroyed in July
1974. There had been earlier outbreaks of popular violence against
public transport, but these had been localized and quickly suppressed.
The July 1974 riot, however, was not to be simply one more isolated
instance of popular unrest. It was merely the first of a wave of popular
protests against transport conditions in the rapidly expanding indus-
trial centres of Brazil.
The following analysis of events is based on newspaper reports. 1
Both the wealth of information available and the candour of the
reporting are striking if one considers Brazil's present political situa-
tion. That such a conservative newspaper as O Estado de Sao Paulo
should have so widely publicized the lamentable state of public trans-
port must, however, be attributed in part to its own running campaign
against the government's interference with the principles of free
enterprise. The disastrous performance record of the state-owned
Federal Railway Company provided the newspaper with a welcome
pretext to express its dissatisfaction with the government's economic
policy.
As the riots recurred, a new term was coined: quebra-quebra
("break-break"). The riots were not the result of fare increases. The
cause was always linked to the frequent delays of the suburban trains,
the incessant breakdowns, and the occasional fatal accident which
* An earlier version of this article was published as Jose Alvaro Moises and Verena
Martinez-Alier [Stolcke], "A revolta dos suburbanos ou 'Patrio, o trem atrasou' ", in
Jose AJvaro Moises et a!., Contradifda urbanas e movimentos socials (Rio de Janeiro,
1977). PP- I3-63-
1
The three newspapers on which this study is based are O Estado de Sdo Paulo, the
Jornal da Tarde (which belongs to the same group), and the Jornal do Brasil of Rio de
Janeiro.
 URBAN TRANSPORT AND POPULAR VIOLENCE IN BRAZIL 175

turned every trip into a nightmare. All of the riots occurred early in
the morning, when any disruption to the service might, by delaying
arrival at work, threaten these predominantly working-class pas-
sengers with loss of job, and thus of livelihood.2
In some European countries action groups have emerged in recent

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years in response to the deterioration in the quality of urban living or
as a reaction to increases in the cost of basic services. These new forms
of political participation have as a rule been, if not actually founded,
certainly quickly taken over and controlled by parties of the left,
but only very exceptionally have they assumed a violent character.
Usually those involved have been driven to protest by what they felt
was a threat of some kind or other to their way of life.3
In Brazil the living conditions of the suburban population have
been consistently poor since the beginnings of industrial expansion.
The geographical concentration of production in a few cities, and
the consequent development of sprawling suburbs from the 1930s
onwards to accommodate the rapidly expanding labour force, created
a growing need for public services, but this need was only partially and
inadequately met by the city authorities and the government. In 1975
no less than 80 per cent of the houses on the outskirts of S3o Paulo still
lacked proper drainage, and 54 per cent had no reliable water-supply.
In addition more than two-thirds of the streets were not surfaced;
between 70 and 80 per cent lacked public lighting; and houses built on
about five thousand illegal developments were located on twenty-six
thousand "officially non-existent" streets.4 The situation in Rio de
2
The poor state of suburban transport in the principal cities of Brazil was, of
course, nothing new. The song hit of the 1941 carnival was about hardships inflicted
on the suburban population by this very problem:
Patrfo, o trem atrasou . . . Boss, the train was late . . .
Por Uso estou chegando agora That's why I am getting here now
Trago aqui 0 memorando da Central Here is the Central's certificate
O trem atrasou meia hora The train was half an hour late
O senhor nSo tern razao You have no right
Para memandarembora! To dismiss me!
O senhor tenha paciencia You must have patience
E preciso compreender You must understand
Sempre fui obediente I've always been obedient
Umatrasoemuitojusto One delay is justified
Quando ha explicacSo If there is reason
Sou chefe de famflia I'm the head of a family
Preciso o pao I need the bread
N3o me diga n3o. Don't say no.
The samba was by Amir Vilarinho, Estanislau da Silva and Paquito. It was re-
corded for the 1941 carnival by Roberto Silva. For further references, see Edigar de
Alencar, O carnaval carioca alravis da musica, 2nd edn. (Rio de Janeiro, 1965).
' Jeannine Verdet-Leroux, "Les conditions de transport: objet de mobilisation",
Sociologie du travail (July-Sept. 1974), pp. 225-46; Eddy Cherki and Michel Wie-
voirka, "Luttes sociales en Italic", La temps moderna (June 1975), pp. 1793-1831;
(Nov. 1976), pp. 635-73.
4
L. Kowanck, A logica da desordem", in C. P. F. de Camargo, F. H. Cardoso et
al., Sdo Paulo, /Q75: crescimento e pobreza (S80 Paulo, 1976), pp. 33-6.
176 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 86

Janeiro was basically no different. Rapid urban growth not only

created an urgent demand for such basic services as water, drainage,
public and domestic lighting, but in particular, because of the con-
siderable distances between home and work, for a system of public

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transport that was fast, efficient and reliable.
The total lack of some public services and the unreliable state of
others goes a long way towards explaining the growing discontent of
the suburban population. But these conditions alone do not tell us why
the protests erupted in 1974 rather than at any other time, nor why
they were focused specifically on the problem of public transport. Nor
are they in themselves any sufficient reason for the spontaneous, un-
organized, sustained and violent nature of the riots. There had, as we
have said, been earlier transport riots — for instance, in SSo Paulo in
1947 and in Rio de Janeiro in 1959 — but there had been nothing to
compare with the wave of riots that began in 1974.*
It could be argued, following the classic examples of "spontaneous
eruptions" of the urban crowd, that there comes a point when the
labouring poor feel that the only way to improve their lot is by means
of open rebellion. In 1974 real wages in Brazil reached their lowest
point since 1964.6 The decline in purchasing power must certainly
have contributed to the creation of a favourable climate for revolt,
though it still does not explain why public transport should have
become the specific target of the riots. For such an explanation we

3
In 1947, shortly after the election of Adhemar de Barros as governor of the state
of SSo Paulo, the city of SSo Paulo was the scene of a violent riot directed against
buses and trams, and caused by a fare increase. It was a time of intense popular
unrest, because of a sharp increase in the cost of living coupled with a tough wage-
restraint policy. Yet there was relative political freedom. The object of the attack was
the municipal administration, which was blamed for the fare increase. In 1959, at a
lime of growing political activity, another riot occurred in Niteroi in the state of
Guanabara. This time the target was the Companhia Cantarcira, the owner of the
ferry linking Niteroi with Rio de Janeiro, which was out of action because of a strike
by company employees. A crowd of between thirty and forty thousand people
destroyed the ferry station, the owners' residences, a restaurant, two ferry boats, a
shipyard, a police car, and a jeep. The rioters sided with the strikers. E. Oliveira
Nunes, Multiddo violenta, (I.U.P.E.R.J., Rio de Janeiro, 1975), mimeo, p. 8.
* The Departmento Intersindical de Estadistica e Estudos Socio-Econdmicos of
SSo Paulo (hereafter D.I.E.E.S.E.) undertook an analysis of the trend of real wages
for eighty-one categories of wage-earners in the country as a whole (of whom, how-
ever, 74 per cent were in SSo Paulo), as negotiated in July of each year through the
official unions. Figures obtained for the modal real wage for the period 1964-75 were
as follows:
1964/5 IOO 1970/1 82
1965/6 90 1971/2 80
1966/7 73 1972/3 79
1967/8 74 '973/4 7'
1968/9 72 1974/5 73
1969/70 75
D.I.E.E.S.E., 10 anos de politico salaried (SSo Paulo, 1975), p. 64.
 URBAN TRANSPORT AND POPULAR VIOLENCE IN BRAZIL 177

must look at the actual conditions of urban transport and the ways in
which these affected the suburban population's living conditions.
Expenditure on transport on average took up less than i o per cent
of the budget of a working-class family, with 39 per cent being spent
on food and 23 5 per cent on housing.7 Money was not the main

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problem, and the principal grievances were not associated with fare in-
creases. The central issue was the fact that the increasingly unreliable
state of public transport threatened the working population with loss
of wages, unemployment, even death — that is, it might actually de-
prive the passengers who depended upon it (predominantly wage- or
salary-earners) of the very basis of their survival.*
The suburban railways of Rio de Janeiro and SSo Paulo are owned
by the state and run by the federal government, not by regional or city
authorities. The Federal Railway Company, formerly the Central do
Brasil, serves over ninety stations in the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro, and
in 1973 carried about 700,000 passengers a day in 715 trains; 9 in 1975
the suburban trains of SSo Paulo carried about 900,000 passengers a
day. 10
In spite of their importance to the functioning and development of
these two cities, the state of the suburban railways has continuously
deteriorated over the years.11 Despite a growing demand for transport
the total number of trains has actually declined. And there are con-
tinual breakdowns. In 1974 there were 1,720 train stoppages on the
Central do Brasil because of some failure or other, 12 and a breakdown
at any point on the line often meant the disruption of the entire
7
D.I.E.E.S.E., Familia assalariada: padrdo e cuito de vida (Estudos socio-econo-
micos, ii, S3o Paulo, 1974).
* The employment pattern of Nova Iguacu in the Baixada Fluminense, Rio de
Janeiro, was broadly representative of the fourteen towns and thirty-nine villages
that made up the principal lower-class suburbs of that city. The town it twenty-two
miles away from the centre of Rio, and had almost a million inhabitants, but only
fourteen thousand of them had managed to find employment locally. The majority of
the residents worked in Rio de Janeiro. According to a recent survey 80 per cent of
these workers were employed either in the building sector or in other industries in Rio.
Jl. da Tarde, 10 July 1974.
The statistics of the Federal Railway Company indicate that of the passengers
using the central line of the Central do Brasil, which serves the suburbs of Rio, 53 per
cent were labourers, 36 per cent shop assistants, 7 per cent soldiers or civil servants,
with 4 per cent in middle-class occupations. Of those using the auxiliary line 42 per
cent were labourers, 38 per cent shop assistants, 12 per cent soldiers or civil servants,
and 8 per cent members of the middle class. Jl. do Brasil, 27 July 1975.
• Eitado de Sdo Paulo, 7 Dec. 1973.
"> Kowarick, "A ldgka da desordem".
11
In the words of an employee of the Federal Railway Company, "the trains are in-
adequate for the number of passengers who depend upon them. In the past ten years
the 116 trains [of the lines serving Rio de Janeiro] have been cut to 92, while the
number of passengers has increased during the same period by 400 per cent. Trains
carry people hanging on to the outside and even travelling on the roofs. Each train has
a capacity of 1,500 but usually carries around 5,000": Jl. da Tarde, 16 Oct. 1974.
" Estado de Sdo Paulo, 23 May 1975.
178 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 86

network. It is, of course, an old story. The suburban railways of Rio de

Janeiro were built in 1923; they have not been overhauled since 1943,
and then only partially." Every year derailments and collisions have
taken their toll of dead and injured. Not least among these have been
the frequent accidents to the so-called pingentes, passengers who,

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either for lack of money or of room inside the carriages, or both, travel
on the outside of the coaches in order to get to work on time.
What were the reasons for this deplorable situation? As O Estado de
Sao Paulo stated in June 1975 after one of the riots: "In Brazil the
railways . . . are the responsibility of the ministry of transport, and
during the last administration 87 per cent of the ministry's budget
went on roads, while railways were forced to share with port auth-
orities the remaining 13 per cent". 14 Significantly, while public trans-
port stagnated, the number of cars in SSo Paulo rose from 120,000 in
i960 to almost a million in 1974.
What was the effect on production and productivity of the loss of
working hours caused by the lamentable state of public transport?
General attrition of the working population would only be recognized
as a problem by management if the satisfactory operation of industry
was seen to be affected.15 But the nature of the labour-market and the
fact that the majority of the workers were unskilled allowed for easy
replacement within the labour force. Individual hardship was ignored.
The overall situation thus allowed employers to remain largely in-
sensitive to the transport problem. Instead of exerting pressure on
government to effect an improvement in public transport, they simply
penalized those of their workers who had to depend on the railways,
either by deducting money for time lost or by outright dismissal. In the
words of one passenger: "what makes us wreck the trains and stations
are the constant delays, because most of us know that if we are not at
work on time we lose our pay for the day and for Sunday". 16
Some employers no longer accepted the "delay certificates" issued
by the railway company, while others practised a policy of selective
employment. As one employer warned: "if things continue in this way
it will no longer be possible to employ people from Maua, Riberio
Pires and the other suburbs which rely on the trains" 17 — a somewhat
impractical attitude, one might think, as the bulk of the labour force
lived in precisely suburbs such as these, and as private transport by car
was not at the time economically viable for the majority of Brazilian
urban workers. Moreover stoppage of pay or outright dismissal were
13
Jl. da Tarde, 16 Oct. 1974. The signalling system was over forty years old: Jl. do
Brasii, 27 July 1975. In 1975 the Federal Railway Company had a total of 819
carriages, of which 408 (or 50 per cent) were under repair: Jl.daTarde, 18 July 1975.
14
Estado de Sao Paulo, 26 June 1975.
15
Kowarick, op. etc, p. 35.
li
Jl. do Brasii, 27 July 1975.
" Jl. da Tarde, 27 Jan. 1976.
 URBAN TRANSPORT AND POPULAR VIOLENCE IN BRAZIL 179

also counter-productive, since it was in pan exactly this sort of reprisal

which fuelled the anger of the workers. As one passenger complained:
things are allowed to go so far, and then the people explode. They give vent to their
fury. When you get to work in the morning you have to tell your boss: "I am late
because the train broke down". The next day you get there and you say: "I am late

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because the train wa« delayed". The next day . . . and so on. Do you think the boss
will go on believing you, or that he can be bothered with your train?"
A significant percentage of the passengers travelled as clandestinos,
that is, without paying their fares. In 1975 the proportion of clan-
destinos was estimated at around 27 5 per cent," and this, of course,
further aggravated the railway company's difficulties in improving
the service. Also the low wages of the vast majority of the passengers
made it practically impossible for the company to set realistic rail
fares. Por many of the passengers even the single fare of 60 centavos
was too high: "Nobody risks his life for fun . . . Many times I have run
along the track to reach the platform [bypassing the ticket barrier]
because I did not have 60 centavos for the fare", said one of the
passengers who invariably travelled on the outside of the train. 20
Moreover overcrowding of the platforms during the rush-hours
encouraged many passengers to wait for the train outside the station
and they were then able to bypass the ticket barriers. An alternative
means of transport was the bus, but it cost 4-70 cruzeiros a day as
compared to the return rail fare of 1 2 0 cruzeiros, so it was not a
realistic alternative: "What can we do? This is the 60 centavo train,
the train of the poor". 21 Any additional expense, however small,
would have strained the family budget. The situation of one particu-
lar worker, reported in O Estado de Sdo Paulo after two riots had
occurred on the same day in July 1975, was probably representative of
a significant number of passengers. His income was 900 cruzeiros a
month:
each day he leaves home at 5.30 a.m., taking the train at 6.15 a.m. to be at work by
8.00 a.m. He takes 5.00 cruzeiros with him, 1 -20 cruzeiros for his train fare and
the rest for cigarettes. For his main meal of the day he has a handful of rice and
beans and once a week some meat. In his pocket he carefully keeps his working
register, for without it he could be picked up by the police. If he were to take the bus

"Ibid., 22 Jan. 1976.

'• Jl. do Brasil, 27 July 1975.
20
Ibid. Passengers were also tempted to travel as pingentes by the small amounts of
time that they might gain upon their arrival: "The pingente runs a considerable risk
but he has one advantage over the other passengers — getting off the train and out of
the station before everybody else. He thus gains precious seconds, which may mean
the difference between catching or miwing a bus, keeping or being fired from bis job":
Jl. da Tarde, 30 May 1974. Pingentes were liable to a fine and, if they could not pay it,
might be arrested; in 1973, 1,175 pingentes were arrested in this way: ibid., 30 May
1974. In case of accidents, and in order to avoid having to pay any indemnities that
might otherwise be due to relatives, the company usually tried to put the blame on the
passengers: "pingentes are an ill-bred lot; what they need is educating!": Estado de
Sdo Paulo, 31 May 1974.
"Jl. da Tarde, 11 July 1975.
l80 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 8 6

he would have to pay 4-70 cruzeiros for the return trip. And if he spent more than
5-00 cruzeiros in a day "the children wouldn't eat".
In the circumstances the display board at the D. Pedro II station in
Rio de Janeiro which told the passengers, already tired after a day's
work and dreading the return journey, "Go home quietly. The Central

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do Brasil wishes you a good journey. Do not risk your life travelling as
a pingente", must have seemed like a bad joke. Travelling on these
overcrowded, dilapidated trains may not only have lost them their
jobs; for many it also involved risking their lives. In 1973 a pingente
was involved in an accident on average every five days or so.23 There
was a high tension electricity post next to the tracks at Engenho de
Dentro station; after Brazil first won the World Cup in 1958, it was
christened "Bellini" after the team's goalkeeper, because it so effect-
ively prevented the pingentes from travelling on the outside of the
carriages.24
The dangers involved in travelling on these trains deeply affect the
psychological outlook of the passengers. As one of them confessed:
I work all day thinking: "in four hours I have to take the train . . . in three hours I
have to take the t r a i n . . . I have to take the train"; even my friends make fun of me:
"hey, Jonas, thinking o f the train again?". I startle and say, "ah, the train", and
decide not to think ofit; but I look at the clock, and it begins again: "in two hours I
have to take the train"; even when I a m resting at work I dream of the train. 2 3

In the six years from 1970 to 1976 the average amount of time spent
on travel to and from work increased by about 30 per cent. Passengers
living on the periphery of the towns spent as much as three to four
hours every day travelling.26 Moreover a large part of the labour force
attempted to make up for the decline in real wages by regularly work-
ing overtime.27 The passengers that crammed the station every morn-
ing thus faced each new day exhausted. The struggle for a place on the
train, and the journey itself, often standing the whole way, only served
to exasperate them even further.
Another reason why popular unrest should have been directed
specifically against their means of transport may be the "collective"
nature of travel, This not only offered favourable conditions for joint
action without the need for any prior organization, but by contrast
with, for instance, collective action in the factories (which was
banned) the daily crowding of the station platforms and the trains
gave a measure of anonymity and therefore a degree of impunity.

22
Estado de Sdo Paulo, 10 July 1975.
23
Jl. do Brasil, 2 June 1974.
24
Estado de Sdo Paulo, 2 June 1974.
" Jl. da Tarde, 11 July 1975.
24
Kowarick, "A logka da detordem", p. 33.
"Jl. do Brasil, 27 July 1975.
 URBAN TRANSPORT AND POPULAR VIOLENCE IN BRAZIL l8l

II
The continuous erosion of purchasing power and the steady deter-
ioration of public transport were reason enough in themselves for the
people to riot. Indeed in view of the general conditions in which they

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lived and worked it is perhaps surprising that they did not riot more
often. The systematic nature of political repression since 1964 and the
power and ubiquity of the police forces — even the Federal Railway
Company had its own police force — made any sort of organized
movement almost impossible. The massive strikes in Osasco in Slo
Paulo and Contagem in Minas Gerais in 1968 were violently sup-
pressed, and were followed by state intervention in the unions. The
Movimento Intersindical Anti-Arrocho (Anti-Wage-Freeze Move-
ment) that got under way during the government of Costa e Silva,
though never challenging the officially established limits for collective
bargaining, was declared illegal by the federal government.21 While
the permanent display and use of force may have deterred many from
openly manifesting their discontent, repression may itself have gener-
ated direct popular action. The riots were not simply a response to eco-
nomic hardship. They were also the product of a political system
which blocked all legitimate outlets for dissent.
Since 1964 the Brazilian working class has lacked independent
organizations for social and political representation through which it
can express its grievances in an organized manner. The labour unions
are firmly under state control. Moreover SSo Paulo, Rio de Janeiro
and the other state capitals have been deprived of their political
autonomy, with their mayors (and also, more recently, state gover-
nors) thereafter being nominated by the president. In 1965 all politi-
cal parties were banned, being replaced by a two-party system: the
Alianza Renovadora National (A.R.E.N.A.), the official government
party, and the Movimento Democratico Brasileiro (M.D.B.), an
official opposition. Popular participation in the electoral process was
restricted to the election of municipal councillors and state and federal
deputies and senators, but even these elections were strictly controlled.
The federal elections of November 1974 were preceded by a period
of relative political freedom. It can thus be plausibly argued that this
provided the opportunity for some degree of mobilization by the work-
ing classes, however basic the actual level of organization. In this sort
of political climate people might have managed to shed some of their
fears and ventured to express their discontent openly. However, the
wave of riots which began in Sio Paulo in January 1974 took place at
a time of renewed repression, when several federal deputies had been
dismissed from Parliament on the grounds of being affiliated to parties
a
For an analysis of the Osasco and Contagem strikes, see F. C. Weffort, Partid-
pagdo e conflito industrial: Contagem e Osasco, 1968 (Cadernos Cebrap, no. 5, SSo
Paulo, 1972).
182 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 8 6

which had been banned, and even the political activities of the official
opposition party were openly suppressed.
In short, while the material conditions of wage-earners steadily
deteriorated during these years, periods of relative political toleration

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alternated with periods of harsh repression. The lack of organization
and the spontaneous and violent character of the various transport
riots must be viewed within their particular political contexts. How-
ever, this still does not explain the actual timing of the riots, which
took place in both political contexts.
E. J. Hobsbawm has suggested that in any industrial society urban
crowd activity and movements such as these riots tend to be super-
seded by the more typical modern labour movements, because of the
emergence of an industrial working class and the increasingly efficient
nature of the apparatus of public order. "Only outside Western
Europe can the ordinary citizen of large towns still be expected to have
experience of the pre-industrial riot and the pre-industrial mob". 29
However, though we are concerned here with a non-European
country, the settings for the riots are, of course, the largest indus-
trial centres in South America. Moreover it is well known that the
"apparatus of public order" is particularly well developed in Brazil. It
is also clear that a large proportion of those involved in the transport
riots belonged to the industrial proletariat. Yet still the riots occurred.
This hardly bears out Hobsbawm's point. We would, therefore, like to
put forward the hypothesis that in those industrial societies where
autocratic political regimes have assumed power and suppress popular
discontent, spontaneous riots may tend to occur once again. In a con-
text where political rights have been reduced to a minimum, riots are
after all one of the few possible forms of popular political expression.
Viewed from this perspective they are not pre-political but eminent-
ly political. Only on the surface do the riots appear "irrational",
"anarchic" though inevitable reactions to hardship. Their sponta-
neity and violence are the consequence of the working class's formal
exclusion from politics. The people reacted in the way that they did,
not out of any historically determined political backwardness, but
because, in the circumstances in which they found themselves, this
was the only means available to them to make themselves heard. After
all, the almost total exclusion of the masses from the political process is
precisely the consequence of their latent political potential.
Repression succeeded in temporarily stifling the riots, but it did not
put an end to them. It may be that it was precisely the absence of
leaders and the lack of organization that made the suppression of the
riots so difficult.
The suburban populations of Rio de Janeiro and SSo Paulo could in
n
E. J. Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels (Manchester, 1959), p. n o .
 URBAN TRANSPORT AND POPULAR VIOLENCE IN BRAZIL 183

theory have opted for some other, more peaceful, form of protest, such
as occurred in Barcelona in 1951 when a massive boycott of trams was
staged in response to a fare increase. Trams were the principal means
of public transport in Barcelona at the time. For days on end the

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people of Barcelona walked to work, until the authorities withdrew
the increase. The boycott was preceded by the distribution of pamph-
lets, drawn up by university students and then copied by hand by the
general public for further circulation. During the boycott hundreds
of tram windows were broken, though no tramcars were actually
destroyed. There was no organization, properly speaking. It seems to
have been the culmination of a long suppressed frustration, in the dim,
protracted aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. Resentment at the
political centralism of Madrid also played a part, inducing even
middle-class Catalans to join the protest. Significantly the successful
boycott was followed by a one-day general strike.30
A boycott of the type carried out in Barcelona was not, however, a
viable option for the people of either Rio de Janeiro or Slo Paulo. In
the first place there are specific topographical reasons which make
walking to work virtually impossible in either of the latter cities.
Secondly, withdrawal of a fare increase is a very limited and well-
defined objective. The action required of the authorities is quite
straightforward; it merely requires an administrative decision. But the
suburban populations of S2o Paulo and Rio de Janeiro were not react-
ing to specific impositions of this sort. When passengers rioted they
were venting long pent-up feelings of frustration and anger at the
general conditions of transport, the improvement of which was a much
more complex and drawn-out matter. Also, because of the extent of
the railway networks of these two cities any effective boycott of the
trains would have required considerable organization. Yet it should be
stressed once again that it was the difficulty of organizing rather than
any basic inability to do so which was the reason for the spontaneous
nature and apparently random violence of the riots.
If we compare these transport riots with the food riots of eighteenth-
century England analysed by E. P. Thompson 31 a further aspect
stands out. As one of the passengers warned after the devastation of
Engenheiro Trinidade station in S3o Paulo in 1976: "now everything
is calm. It is in the mornings that this becomes a madhouse. Tomorrow
the people will take the train again and then we wijl see whether or not
they now understand what toe want; if they do not take any action we

30
The strike was called to demand a wage increase. The earlier victory probably
encouraged the workers to take further action, but this time the reaction of the
authorities was drastic and decisive. Felix Fanes, La vaga de tramvies del 795/: una
crdnica de Barcelona (Barcelona, 1977).
11
E. P. Thompson, "The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth
Century", Past and Present, no. 50 (Feb. 1971), pp. 76-136.
 184 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 8 6
32
will start another fire". Who are they} By contrast with eighteenth-
century food riots the suburban populations of Rio de Janeiro and Sao
Paulo did not riot in order to defend traditional prerogatives — after
all, public transport had been in a shocking state for a very long time

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— but rather against one of the several manifestations of a growing
exploitation. The suburban railways were owned and run by the
federal government. The legitimacy of the passengers' protests derived
from the feeling that the state should, but did not, provide the basic
services essential to their livelihood. Their hostility was directed not at
subordinate or intermediate agencies, but in the final analysis at the
state itself. In so far as the idea of a paternalistic state lingered on (a
remnant of the pre-1964 populist mass politics), such recourse to riot-
ing pointed to the crumbling of this idea. Being under direct attack,
the state had to react. Faith in a paternalistic state was further eroded
by the repressive action taken by the police and military to suppress
the riots. The riots constituted a "delegitimization" of established
authority and had distinct political implications and consequences.
The choice of target was not random. The riots were caused by a
collective feeling of distress, the result of the participants' identical
situation as members of the labour force, and finally the people
demanded recognition of their grievances by the state.

HI
The most difficult problem is to reconstruct the crowd's own atti-
tudes and expectations. It is possible to obtain some idea of these by
analysing the actual course of events.
In October 1974 one of the early-morning rush-hour trains broke
down and stopped between the stations of Augusto Vasconcelos and
Santlssimo (in the Baixada Fluminense, Rio de Janeiro). A crowd of
about three thousand passengers, "exasperated by the interminable
delays", set three carriages on fire and stoned another twelve. This
was only the beginning. Passengers on a second train, "forced to stop
at a barricade thrown up on another line by the passengers on the first
train" (presumably to obtain alternative transport), joined the riot.
Armed with "tufts of dried grass, wooden benches and some railway
sleepers they joined in the burning of the three carriages". According
to some of the onlookers it was like "a real war". The riot only ended
after the arrival of a squad of railway police. The driver of the first
train was also attacked.33 Something of the spirit of the crowd is
" Jl. da Tarde, 22 Jan. 1976. Our italics.
33
Ibid., 11 Oct. 1976. On the same day workers living in the satellite towns of
Brasilia partially destroyed forty buses. The authorities had attempted to introduce a
three-tier bus system with differential fares. As a result the more expensive buses
passed by empty while the cheaper ones were overcrowded and did not stop. The
Brasilia police put an end to the riot, but the authorities were forced to abandon the
new system. Ibid., 11 Oct. 1974.
 URBAN TRANSPORT AND POPULAR VIOLENCE IN BRAZIL 185

revealed by the solidarity of the passengers of the second train with

those of the first. Although the former were in effect prevented by the
latter from continuing their journey, they nevertheless immediately
joined the riot.
In the following year, 1975, transport riots became both more fre-

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quent and more extensive. Around the middle of the year, within the
space of a single month, there were no fewer than six qtiebra-quebras,
five in Rio de Janeiro and one in SSo Paulo. All of them were triggered
by breakdowns and delays or were the direct result of accidents. O
Estado de Sdo Paulo reported that "the collision of an overcrowded
passenger train with another train, standing in the station of Deodoro
— on account of a failure to operate a manual signalling lever —
caused one death, seriously injured the engine-driver . . . and also in-
jured over 200 of the 1,800 passengers". The accident was followed by
the total destruction of the station and also the traffic-control cabin.
The railman in charge and his three assistants quickly disappeared
from the scene to escape the popular fury. Army forces from the
nearby Vila Militar together with military police soon made their
appearance "in order to prevent further rioting".34 The railway police
were apparently unable to control the situation alone and it was feared
that the riot might spread. It was, of course, significant that part of the
attack was directed at the traffic-control cabin from which the signal
lever was operated.35 During this riot the destruction was methodical
and to a purpose. Although, according to the press, the crowd was
"panic-stricken" it did not in fact simply destroy everything blindly,
but acted as though it had a specific target. The resources of the state
in the form of its forces of repression, the army and the military police,
were mobilized.
The choice of targets, therefore, was not random. Action was not
blind. But were the actions of the rioters perhaps in the final analysis
simply an end in themselves, a kind of ritual of redress lacking any
clear notion of the social forces behind the conditions against which
they were rebelling? Perhaps the riots were basically symbolic, even
though their consequences might go much further. Lacking the means
and the power to reach directly those ultimately responsible for public
transport, the state itself, the crowd manifested its rage by destroying
such things as were immediately to hand: the trains and the stations.
In one of the riots in 1976 the rioters at the station of Engenheiro

M
Estado de Sdo Paulo, 23 May 1975.
" The semi-automatic traffic-control system was one of the main reasons for train
breakdowns and accidents. Only in Duque de Caxias and Belfort Roxo in Rio de
Janeiro (the scene of the riot) and in Mogi das Cruzes in Sio Paulo (after the derail-
ment of a "student train" in 1972 which caused the deaths of twenty-four students,
most of them from the local middle class) were more reliable electronic control
systems installed. Ibid., 23 May 1975.
186 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 8 6

Trinidade, outraged by the death of some pingentes, not only set fire to
the station, but also tore down the station clock (which was running
six hours late at the time), stamped on it and broke it in pieces.36
Similarly a few days later, at Maua station in Sao Paulo, rioters
damaged the display board that gave the times of the trains. 37 The

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employees of the Federal Railway Company seemed well aware that
these actions were symbolic. After the devastation of Vila Roseli sta-
tion in Rio de Janeiro one employee reported that "he immediately
took off his company cap, tie and jacket so that he would not be recog-
nized as an employee of the Central. By doing so he was able to witness
everything that went on". 38
Over and above such symbolic destruction the passengers them-
selves defined the target of their action quite explicitly: "I only hope
that God will bless the men of government and enlighten them so that
they will understand the situation of the poor", sighed a woman
passenger, infuriated by the state of public transport. 39 In political
circles it was fully appreciated that the riots had an ulterior motive
and meaning. As a candidate of A.R.E.N.A. for the municipal elec-
tions of 1976 remarked: "the people vote for the opposition because
they think that the government is to blame for the delays". 40 One of
the passengers recalled the time of Getiilio Vargas when, he asserted,
the president would have dismissed those responsible for the accident
within twenty-four hours. 41 Even though immediate blame might lie
with the railway company, it was thus assumed to be the function of
the state to ensure that the company satisfied the public's needs. This
explains one aspect of the rioting that seemed incomprehensible to the
head of the regional department of the Federal Railway Company
when he exclaimed: "they destroy their own means of transport. I
cannot understand it!".42 The logic of events seemed to be that only
such radical action as the destruction of public property as a demons-
tration of the latent or potential power of the crowd would move the
authorities to take any action.
How then did the state react to these incidents, either indirectly,
through its intermediate agencies, or directly? The Federal Railway
Company often attempted to explain away the various accidents as the
result of "possible human error" and, whenever anyone was injured,
as a consequence of the irresponsible stoning of the trains. The pin-
gentes were said to be typical of "the youth of today, constantly seek-
ing some form of self-affirmation and obsessed with the prospect of
** Ibid., 22 Jan. 1976.
" Ibid., 27 Jan. 1976.
"Ibid., 23 July 1975.
"Jl. do Brasil, 27 July 1975.
40
Estado de Sdo Paulo, 27 Jan. 1976.
«>Ibid.
"Jl. do Brasil, 25 June 1975.
 URBAN TRANSPORT AND POPULAR VIOLENCE IN BRAZIL 187
43
excitement and adventure"; they thus had only themselves to blame
if they were killed. In this way the railway company tried to divert
attention from its own responsibility for the delays and the accidents.
Besides, by explaining away the accidents in the way they did, the
authorities could deny that the riots constituted any sort of legitimate

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collective response.
A month after the train collision in 1975 and the subsequent riot,
there was another incident, this time caused by the delay of an early-
morning train. Olinda station in Rio de Janeiro was destroyed, the
traffic-control cabin burned down and the communications system
damaged. Showing considerable foresight, "the passengers cut the
telephone wires connecting Olinda with the D. Pedro II station, thus
preventing the railman from calling for help". Then they "left for
Nildpolis station . . . and destroyed everything there". Passengers
waiting at another station on the line and equally affected by the delay
also threatened disruption. Notwithstanding the precautions taken by
the rioters, military police accompanied by railway police and the
army quickly appeared at Nildpolis, this time armed with machine-
guns. Twelve people were arrested, "all of them workers". The news-
papers did not print any statements by those arrested, but did publish
the view of the head of the regional security department of the Federal
Railway Company that the riot was due to the presence in the crowd of
"bad elements . . . who incite the generally peaceful passengers".44
On other occasions it was so-called "subversive elements" that were
responsible. Were it not for these agitators, the authorities argued, the
passengers would go peacefully on their way. It is an old trick. By
denying the working class the ability to perceive its own situation and

45
Ettado de Sdo Paulo, 7 Dec. 1973. The railway company spokesman who
expressed thit opinion was probably referring to what was popularly called the
"roleta ferroviaria", a test of courage demanded by the Clube dos Pingentes (a kind of
youth organization) as an initiation requirement: "Originally the test was that the
candidate should leave the train by one of the carriage windows, climb across the roof,
and re-enter the carriage through a window on the opposite side, all while the train
was in motion. Later on [and presumably as applications for membership increased!]
the test became more elaborate and more dangerous. The candidate had to leave the
carriage through one of the windows, climb across the roof, descend on the other side,
pass under the train and re-enter the carriage through the window from which he had
started, all with the train in motion": Etiado de Sdo Paulo, 2 June 1974. That living
conditions of the sort experienced by the urban poor should generate violence directed
against themselves as well as others is, of course, nothing new. It is also present in the
actual riots, though certainly not their cause. If the trains were not overcrowded in
the first place there would be no pingentes, and therefore no such tendency to
violence. There is no comparison, it seems to us, between the behaviour of the
pingentes in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo and that of the football fans who vandalize
trains in Britain. In the former case we are dealing in the main with sober citizens
going to work in the very early morning or returning home exhausted after a hard
day's work.
** Estado de Sdo Paulo, 5 June 1975.
 188 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 8 6

to respond collectively to it, the political implications of the riots were

minimized. As one of the passengers put it:
neither cattle nor horses travel in the sort of conditions that we do . . . cows need
space; otherwise they would gore each other. As far as I know, 3 5 0 , 0 0 0 people use
this line. Can it be possible that they deserve no respect at all? I am already

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ashamed of getting to work late. And then they say that we are ignorant, that we
are savagetr5
The alleged presence of "subversive elements" also served to justify
the intervention of the police and the military, and the arrests. If the
authorities had ever publicly admitted the "legitimate" character of
the riots, then military and police intervention would have been
difficult to justify, and the demand for a more efficient transport
system would become all the more compelling. But as long as the riots
could be passed off as the work of "bad elements", "savages" and
"subversives", police and military could always be used to re-establish
"order". 4 *
The events of 1975 reached their peak with the simultaneous
destruction of no less than nine of the stations of the Baixada Flu-
minense in Rio de Janeiro. Once again the immediate cause of the riot
was the total disruption of the Sta. Cruz and Japeri lines during the
morning rush-hour. The riots occurred only twenty-four hours after
two other stations in the same area, Morro Agudo and Tomas Coelho,
had been destroyed for precisely the same reason.47
It is the familiar picture. But a new element now appeared. The
crowd became increasingly reckless. The first two squads of military
police to make their appearance at Tomas Coelho were driven back
with stones, and two of the police were injured. As a result security
measures were intensified: "All stations in the vicinity of the Vila
Militar were occupied by paratroopers, and military police and mem-
bers of the railway company's security service occupied all strategic
points on the Sta. Cruz line, controlling access to the stations".4* The
crowd was dispersed with the use of truncheons. The president of
the Federal Railway Company, General Milton Goncalves, declared
that "the only short-term measure now possible is the strengthening
of security, since nothing can be done to improve the transport
*' Jl. da Tarde, 22 Jan. 1976.
** The secretary of security for the state of S3o Paulo maintained that "the action
of the crowd is like a stampede. The one who actually starts the stampede is often far
removed from the rest of the herd. Those responsible are clearly disruptive elements;
some of them might even have subversive tendencies": ibid., 27 Jan. 1976. However,
statements by both passengers and police deny that this is the case. One passenger said
it was the first time that he had heard the word "agitator", and asked: "Are agitators
people who simply protest, or those who follow them?": Eitado de Sdo Paulo, 28 Jan.
1976. Another pointedly remarked: "they talk of subversion. There is no subversion;
pingentes do not know what subversion is; some of them even think it is some kind of
food": ibid., 4 Feb. 1976.
47
Estado de Sdo Paulo, 10 July 1975.
-Ibid.
 URBAN TRANSPORT AND POPULAR VIOLENCE IN BRAZIL 189

service".49 As we have already noted, however, this escalation of

repression did not prevent another nine stations being destroyed a
mere twenty-four hours later.50
The climax was reached the following week with a derailment near
Magno station, on the same stretch of line, leaving 14 dead and 370 in-

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jured: "the police are out in force, together with railway and military
police, and also the fire brigade, air force and army. Further devasta-
tion of trains and stations was feared but could now be prevented
thanks to the extensive security measures now in operation". 51
This time the federal government itself was prompted to act, prob-
ably not so much as a result of this particular riot but because of the
possibility of further incidents, given the general climate of violence.
President Geisel cancelled a trip to Alagoas and rushed instead to the
Federal Railway Company's headquarters in Rio. The ineffectiveness
of the various subordinate government agencies to resolve the trans-
port problem and the appearance of the president in person, not only
to show his concern about the situation but to take action, reflect the
degree of power centralization in the country. This monopoly of power
by the executive naturally served to strengthen the tendency of the
working classes to blame the state for the condition of public trans-
port. Also, by such direct intervention, the federal government
effectively countenanced the political potential of such mass demons-
trations. Although according to some authorities the riots should not
have become "a matter for the police",52 significantly the president
summoned not only the minister of transport, the president of the
Federal Railway Company and the governor, but also called in the
minister of justice and the commanders of the First Army and the First
Naval Districts.53 What was involved was not merely a straight-
forward administrative issue but a serious security problem. The
"people" had at last succeeded in making themselves heard. President
Geisel declared: "I want immediate measures. The 'people' want im-
mediate solutions". 54
The crowds thus rioted against the conditions of public transport in
the hope of persuading the state to take the necessary measures. In a
sense, therefore, their actions were aimed at reform. But one should
also look at the way that actual participation in the riots might have
affected the perception that the masses had of themselves. Collective
"Ibid.
50
Ibid., 11 July 1975. The nations were Deodoro, Austin, Anchieta, Mesquita,
Olinda, Queimados, Nova Iguacu, Morro Agudo and Nilopolis, some of them the
scene of earlier riots. The stations were occupied by the army, military police and
security agents of the railway company who, however, were still unable to prevent
riots at stations next to the Vila Militar.
51
Jl. da Tarde, 19 July 1975.
51
Archives of the weekly journal Movimento. The report was censored.
" Jl. da Tarde, 19 July 1975.
"Ibid.
190 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 8 6

action of this type clearly goes a long way towards shaping the masses'
awareness of their potential strength. The numbers involved in each of
the incidents ranged from between three and five thousand. Only a
small fraction of these actually took part in the work of destruction,
but these few were supported by the wider consensus of the crowd as to

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the legitimacy of their actions.Moreover there was a clear "demons-
tration effect" at work. As one passenger in Sao Paulo put it: "The
rule now is to set fire to things, because the present situation is simply
unbearable". 33 He was referring to the events in Rio the previous year.
Unable to offer any quick and effective solution to the transport
problem, the only alternative left to the authorities was repression.
The passenger just quoted was arrested shortly afterwards with seven
of his "comrades" because, as a station employee later explained, "the
situation was becoming more and more tense and a riot liable to start
from one hour to the next, just as it had in all the other places". 36 Each
new incident reinforced the future potential for revolt. The actions of
a single passenger, perhaps one who happened to be more daring or ex-
asperated than the rest, might be enough to spark off the riot. As one
participant in the Maua riot explained after his arrest: "I got to the
station when the riot was already well under way. Sympathetic to
what was going on I joined the crowd, shouting quebra-quebra ...
people outside the station also joined in". 37 Another, arrested under
similar circumstances, described his own experience as follows:
At 5.00 a.m. I went to the station to catch the train to Pirituba where I worked . . .
while waiting for the train I went to the bar for a drink . . . when I came back the
riot was already under way . . . I saw a mulatto of medium height tearing down a
telephone and kicking it, and decided to imitate him ... then I was arrested.3*
There seemed to be no prearranged plan, but similarity of living and
working conditions generated a common purpose: "let us see whether
or not they have understood what we want". 39 Despite the daily
struggle for a place on the trains, "when it actually comes to getting on
the train . . . the passengers help each other. They all know one
another, at least by sight", declared another passenger, "we at least
know who belongs to us". 60
In 1976 S5o Paulo became the principal scene of the riots. The
various security measures implemented in Rio de Janeiro, together
with government promises to improve the suburban transport system,
appear to have discouraged passengers from taking any further action
there. 61 But in the first six months of 1976 SIo Paulo was the setting
33
Estado de Sdo Paulo, 2% Jan. 1976.
Ibid
"Jl. da Tarde, 27 Jan. 1976.
31
Archive* of the weekly journal Movimento. Our italics. This report was also
censored.
"Jl. da Tarde, 22 Jan. 1976. Our italics.
"Ibid.
61
Estado de Sdo Paulo, 1 Aug. 1975.
 URBAN TRANSPORT AND POPULAR VIOLENCE IN BRAZIL 191

for no fewer than ten riots. The first of these occurred at Engenheiro
Trinidade:
the train was overcrowded. As it neared the station thepingentes holding on to the
carriage doors began to be knocked off. It was just after 6.00 a . m . . . . There were
about two thousand passengers on the platform and these immediately began to

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riot; they threw the railmcn out of the station, broke up the benches and station
fittings, and set fire to the ticket-office. When it was all over the number of injured
was thirty-four.'2
The train had been routed into the station on an auxiliary track and as
a result there was only a narrow gap between the train carriages and a
station building next to the track. The pingentes had been unaware of
this. According to one railway employee: "there were no pingentes left
at the doors of the carriages when the train stopped in the station; first
I heard screams: 'look, our comrades are dead, and you do nothing
about it' . . . " . " A woman explained later: "the pingentes fell off the
train on to the track; other passengers reacted with a mixture of
sorrow and rage; then they destroyed and set fire to everything".
Before actually starting the riot, however, the crowd nevertheless still
took the time to carry the injured to a safe place. Only after two squads
of the fire brigade and ten squads of police had arrived was "order"
finally re-established. Even the national flag flying above the station
had been torn down.64 It was an explosive demonstration of passenger
solidarity.
Five days after the incident at Engenheiro Trinidade, passengers at
Maua station also rioted. Again the police appeared. Two rioters were
arrested, this time being taken to the D.O.P.S., the headquarters of
the political police. It was alleged that money had been stolen from the
ticket-office in the course of the riot. The secretary of security for S5o
Paulo appeared on television that same evening with the warning:
it should be made clear that in time of social disturbance looting may be punished
by execution . . . so far we have taken measures which are essentially only preven-
tive in nature. We have occupied some of the stations, and we have tried, and are
still trying, to discover the people responsible, communist sympathizers, who go
around trying to take advantage of the suffering masses. You have no reason to fear
us . . . "
The new president of the Federal Railway Company, Colonel Stanley
Fortes Batista, perhaps more realistically, made public an emergency
plan for the improvement of Slo Paulo's suburban transport system.6*
Universidade de Sao Paulo Jose Alvaro Moisis
Universidade Estadual de Campinas Verena Stolcke

"Jl. da Tarde, 22 Jan. 1976.

" Eitado de Sdo Paulo, 22 Jan. 1976.
**JI. da Tarde, 22 Jan. 1976.
65
Speech on the T.V. programme "Gazeta" in Sao Paulo, published in Movi-
mento, 2 Feb. 1976.
«J7. da Tarde, 27 Jan. 1976.
192 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 8 6

POSTSCRIPT
The first draft of this article was completed in June 1976. Since that
time the state of suburban transport in Rio de Janeiro and S80 Paulo
has changed very little.67 Delays, breakdowns and accidents continue
as before. The elaborate measures for ensuring public order have not

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succeeded in preventing renewed outbreaks of violence, and transport
riots have become practically endemic in the two cities since 1974. For
this reason the analysis presented in this paper has to be open-ended.
Riots are an important aspect of the growing political tensions in
Brazil. Any effective improvement not only in public transport but to
public services generally would require nothing less than the refor-
mulation of the government's economic priorities and this seems un-
likely for the time being. Some modification of the present political
system to allow greater popular participation in the processes of
government, which would contribute to the easing of these tensions,
seems equally unlikely, though political reform along these lines is
being urged with growing insistence by different sectors of society.
It is doubtful whether political liberalism on its own, without any
corresponding improvement in living standards, would have the de-
sired effect of neutralizing popular discontent. As regards the trans-
port problem, the only possible solutions for the time being appear to
be stopgap measures and the tightening of "security". The following
statement is perhaps revealing. O Estado de Sdo Paulo reported in
June 1977 that the design of a new subway line to serve the low-
income suburbs of S3o Paulo "has been especially adapted to meet the
particular characteristics of the passengers who will use it . . . The
carriages have been reinforced against the inevitable vandalism that
will occur, since these passengers have a lower standard of living and
less education than those who travel on the other lines". 68

*7 The emergency measures implemented by the Federal Railway Company in

1976 succeeded in reducing "the average delays [in the Baixada Fluminense] from
thirty minutes to ten minutes; 70 per cent of the total of 612 trains are now in opera-
tion, compared with only 52 per cent last year". However, over this same period "the
average number of passengers per month has increased from 8-5 million to 12 mil-
lion". Estado de Sdo Paulo, 15 June 1976.
**Ibid., 7 June 1977.