Brazilian Anti-Communism and the ‘Front’: Women, Trade Unionists and Journalists in Action (1953-1960)

Abstract

This article intends to answer how cultural interactions of Brazilian women, unionists and journalists, within the scope of transnational organizations under Soviet primacy, influenced perceptions in the National Security Section of Itamaraty (SSN-MRE) and in their contacts with the National Security Council (CSN), in addition to discussing the domestic impact of these perceptions. The theoretical-methodological approach gives centrality to the historical-descriptive narrative as an explanatory axis in dialogue with primary sources found at Itamaraty archives. The results connect historiographic currents that analyze the construction of Brazilian anti-communism (especially military) with Soviet internationalism in the Third World, and with bilateral relations between Brazil and the USSR. This article contributes by analyzing the conjuncture that enabled to create the Information Coordinating Board (JCI), which became an institutional seal for contacts between the SSN-MRE and the CSN. This system became more important after the 1964 coup.