The debate between communists and trotskyists on the 1930 Revolution in Brazil

This article sets out to analyze the debate that took place in the 1920s and 1930s between communists and Trotskyists about the meaning of the 1930 Revolution in Brazil. It would be possible to analyze the various political shades of opinion that interpreted the 1930 Revolution by the way in which they sought to include the people in the political game. Seen with horror, as in the conservative view, or seen with admiration, as in the progressive view, the people became, from that mo-ment on, the real watershed with whom those who ventured into the political arena would have to come to terms. The Trotskyists saw popular participation as stimulated by the elites in their struggle for power. On the other hand, the PCB view tended to see popular participation as fundamental, ei-ther because it produced a reactionary backlash, or because it realized that the masses were really on the boil and were fol-lowing their own paths, which forced sectors of the ruling class to alter their previously stipulated course. The conclu-sion of the debate among Brazilian Marxists shows that both communists and Trotskyists considered the 1930 Revolution to be a watershed, seen as the movement that put an end to an era and opened the doors to "modernity" in Brazil, with its main cause and effect being the irruption of the popular masses as a fundamental political agent.