Hymn of the Third International in Revolutionary Rituals in Brazil

Rituals in Brazil

Abstract

This article reflects on the role of music in popular movements, especially for the organization of the working masses, through the Hymn of the Third International, which meant, in the heroic times of the organization of the Brazilian left, the slogan of the Proletarian Revolution , even after Stalin's rejection of internationalism. In the workers' movements that organized themselves into parties that wanted a proletarian revolution, the October Revolution of 1917 became a model to be reproduced in Brazil, giving encouragement to the workers' vanguards and fear to the national elites. In this atmosphere of polarization, certainly unequal, the hymn A Internacional became an integral part of the revolutionary rituals of the São Paulo left, functioning as a combat song in the workers' marches and rallies. It was a way of transmitting the idea of internationalism as a fundamental strategy for raising awareness of the exploitation of labor by capital, a stage considered necessary for the subsequent installation of a dictatorship of the proletariat.