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Ivan Pinheiro | |
|---|---|
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| Born | March 18th, 1943 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
| Nationality | Brazilian |
| Political orientation | Marxism-Leninism |
| Political party | Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) |
Ivan Martins Pinheiro (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, March 18, 1946), better known as Ivan Pinheiro, is a lawyer, bank worker and Marxist-Leninist. He was General Secretary of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) from 2005 to 2016 and a candidate for the Presidency of Brazil in 2010.
Biography[edit | edit source]
Beginning of political activism[edit | edit source]
Ivan Pinheiro began his political activity as a teenager at Colégio Pedro II, in Rio de Janeiro, where he studied between 1957 and 1963, having been director of the Student Guild under the leadership of colleagues linked to the PCB, with whom he became close. In the context of the polarization that led to the coup of April 1964, Ivan suffered his first arrest in December 1963, in a street confrontation between CPII students and those from the Military College and the Military Police, under the state government of Carlos Lacerda, the main leader of the right-wing opposition to President João Goulart.
Corporate-military dictatorship[edit | edit source]
In 1964, the year of the corporate-military coup, he entered UEG (Guanabara State University, now UERJ) to study law. At the time, he became close to the Guanabara Communist Dissidence, later the 8th October Revolutionary Movement (MR-8). During his studies, he was director of the Luiz Carpenter Academic Center (CALC) and took part in all the demonstrations against the corporate-military dictatorship. Given his career as director of the organization, the headquarters of the Academic Center is currently called "Sala Ivan Martins Pinheiro".
Ivan Pinheiro remained in the MR-8 until the mid-1970s. After the end of the armed struggle against the corporate-military regime, he began to consider his participation in the trade union movement a priority. After leaving the MR-8, he made contact with the underground Brazilian Communist Party, which he joined.
From 1976, he started working at his workplace: Banco do Brasil. When elections were called for the Rio de Janeiro Bank Workers' Union in 1978 by the Ministry of Labor, he ran for the presidency of the union on a PCB slate. The election lasted a year and ten months, due to maneuvers by the Ministry of Labor. The final victory, through an overwhelming vote, consecrated Ivan Pinheiro as one of the country's main union leaders. In 1979, as a result of the Rio de Janeiro bank workers' strike, the corporate-military dictatorship intervened in the union, revoking the board's mandate for three months.
Ivan was one of the main members of the Pro-Unified Workers' Central (CUT) Commission, elected at the 1st CONCLAT in 1981, and head of the delegation of Brazilian trade unionists to the 10th Congress of the World Federation of Trade Unions in Havana.
His career as a PCB leader began in 1982, when the party's 6th National Congress[1] was held. At this event, Ivan and the other participants were arrested after a raid by the Federal Police and charged under the National Security Law. At the congress, which ended in clandestinity in 1983, he was the youngest delegate elected to the party's Central Committee and National Executive Commission
Militancy after the so-called re-democratization[edit | edit source]
In 1986, his candidacy for the governorship of the state of Rio de Janeiro, which had been decided by the party's Regional Conference, was withdrawn by the PCB Central Committee after a month of campaigning, in favor of supporting the MDB candidate, Moreira Franco, even though the vast majority of the party was in favor of his own candidacy. Even though he disagreed with the alliance with the MDB in that election, Ivan Pinheiro carried out the task of running for federal constituent deputy, on a PCB slate of his own, along with Modesto da Silveira, Stepan Nercessian, Paulo Sabóia and other party members. Despite the good vote obtained by the slate, the electoral coefficient was not reached and the PCB did not elect any deputies.
The following year, he led the overwhelming majority of PCB trade unionists in their National Trade Union Conference, imposing on the party leadership the option of the Unified Workers' Central (CUT), to the detriment of the General Workers' Central (CGT).
PCB's split in 1992[edit | edit source]
At the beginning of the 1990s, in the midst of the so-called perestroika and the counter-revolution in the Soviet Union, a serious crisis emerged in the PCB, resulting in a major split in January 1992, when a new party (PPS) was created by the then leaders who wanted to put an end to the PCB. Ivan Pinheiro took over, along with Horácio Macedo and Zuleide Faria de Melo, the leadership of the group that maintained the PCB and began what became known as the Revolutionary Reconstruction of the party founded in 1922.
Candidate for mayor of Rio de Janeiro[edit | edit source]
In 1996, Ivan Pinheiro ran for mayor of Rio de Janeiro on the slogan "A Revolution in Rio". Despite the poor performance at the polls, the campaign was an important milestone for the consolidation of the PCB's political line.
General Secretary of the PCB[edit | edit source]
Following the 13th Congress of the PCB[2], held in March 2005 in Belo Horizonte, after serving on the Central Committee for 23 consecutive years, Ivan Pinheiro was elected General Secretary of the party. This congress marked the PCB's break with the Lula's government, the end of dialogue with the PCdoB, the reorganization of the Union of Communist Youth (UJC) and pointed out a new direction for party strategy, considering the socialist character of the Brazilian revolution and defining the party as Marxist-Leninist. On October 17, 2016, due to health problems, Ivan Pinheiro left the PCB's General Secretariat and was replaced by Edmilson Costa.[3]
During his 11-year term as General Secretary, after the 2005 Congress, the PCB held 2 more National Congresses (2009 and 2014), 3 National Political Conferences (2008, 2011 and 2016) and 4 Congresses of the UJC (2006, 2010, 2012 and 2015), rebuilt itself nationally, reintegrated into the International Communist Movement, alongside revolutionary-oriented parties, dedicated itself to proletarian internationalism and the political training of its militants.
Candidate for federal deputy and president of the republic[edit | edit source]
In the 2006 elections, he was a candidate for federal deputy on the Left Front, an alliance that brought together, in addition to the PCB, the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL) and the Unified Socialist Workers' Party (PSTU), whose presidential candidate was Heloísa Helena. In the second round, the PCB adopted a position of critical support for Lula's re-election, understanding the importance of avoiding the election of Geraldo Alckmin (PSDB).
He was also the Brazilian Communist Party's candidate for the 2010 presidential elections, with Edmilson Costa as his vice-president, with a more organic and ideological discourse, centered on exposing the party's ideology and tactical and strategic objectives. The slate received around 40,000 votes.
Recent struggles and expulsion from the PCB[edit | edit source]
In recent years, Ivan Pinheiro has dedicated himself to researching and recording political memories, to debating the challenges of building the party and the struggle for socialism and to contributing to the regroupment of communist parties with a revolutionary orientation, through initiatives such as the Portuguese edition of the International Communist Review, under the responsibility of ISKRA - Marxist-leninist Studies Association, based in Lisbon, of which he is a member.
During the PCB Crisis of 2023, Ivan Pinheiro was expelled by the majority of the Central Committee, along with other prominent and influential members of the Party Complex, such as Jones Manoel.[4]