[Kamil]

The roots of organized labor in Brazil as in most other Latin American countries, lies in the often forgotten realm of anarcho-syndicalism. Brought to life with the flood of immigrants around the turn of the century, Brazilian labor grew in the industrial cities along the coast. This radical movement which grew with the anarchist passion of Southern European immigrants and fanned by the repression of both church and state was the single largest force behind Brazilian labor for the first twenty-five years of its development. While the movement suffered harshly under the Vargas regime it retained its original strength but on a much smaller scale. Anarcho-syndicalists were still deeply involved in Brazilian labor until the nineteen thirties when worker-controlled labor suffered a slow death and the government took control of organized labor.
Brazil underwent the full spectrum of development in its organized labor, from advocating worker control and anarchist organizing to authoritative and government controlled. This paper will show the influence that anarcho-syndicalism had on the growth of the Brazilian labor movement and how it was the most dominating force in Brazilian labor during the first quarter of the century of its formation until labor's decline in 1937.

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