BIGGEST RALLY IN HISTORY OF BRAZIL
In Havana on February 21, Francisco Julido said that a "prerevolutionary situation" has Opened in Brazil. [See World Outlook February 28,
That his observation may have been an accurate one was indicated by the rally held in Rio de Janeiro March 13 Most observers, said Irenee Guimaraes, special correspondent of the Paris Le Monde, believed "it would go down in history as the most imposing mass demonstration ever held in Brazil up to now.”
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Some 200,000 persons, mostly workers, came hundreds of miles from all over Brazil to the rally sponsored by the trade unions,
The polarization of class forces is indicated by the fact that Carlos Lacerda, the reactionary governor of Guanabara, banned the meeting. It was protected from the governor's forces by 5,000 federal troops armed with rifles and machine guns and backed by tanks,
The meeting was addressed from a balcony by President Jodo Goulart, who is moving to the left in order to keep control of the popular forces, Goulart told the huge crowd that this very day he md Signed a decree expropriating all privately. held uncultivated land on a six-mile strip on either side of all highways, railways and waterways in the country. [only an estimated 2.8 per cent of private holdings will be affected,] These strips will go to landless peasants,
Goulart said he had also signed a decree expropriating the seven remaining privately owned oil refineries, and that before the day was out he would sign an "urban reform" law regulating rents.
The crowd roared its approval of the measures, Goulart admitted, however, that these were only token steps, To get a genuine agrarim reform, he said, it would be necessary to change the Constitution,
Warming up, Goulart demanded reform of the banking system and the right of the illiterate to vote, He attacked the church hierarchy, and he said that “if blood should ever flow in the struggle now being conducted for the reform of institutions, the responsibility will fall on the reactionary minorities who seek to defend certain impermissible privileges by any means,"
[Point was given to these words when March 15 dispatches reported that Adhemar de Barros, governor of Sao Paulo state, said that he would use his 40,000 police to block any land seizures by federal authorities, Big landholders all over Brazil were reported threatening to fire on any peasants who may interpret the federal measures as a& signal to move ahead and take the land,
Goulart's brother-in-law Lionel Brizzola ceritered his speech at the rally against the federal congress, which is dominated almost completely by representatives of Brazilts feudalistic landholding oligarchy. He called for a Constituent Assembly and the establishment of a "truly democratic" government. The crowd responded with roars, "Close the parliament!"
Some people, said Le Mondets correspondent, stressed the odd resemblance of the rally of workers to "the big meetings of Mr. Fidel Castro,"
‘Perhaps it would be an exaggeration," he concluded, "to say that this Friday March 13 marked the rise of the curtain on the first act of the Brazilian revolution, but it was certainly the prelude."
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