The peasant unions just before the coup d’état

Abstract

This article analyses the peasants’ fight in the Northeast just before 1964 coup d’ état. From the late 1950s on, rural workers increasingly structure themselves into unions in the Northeast. The Peasant Unions founded by the Communist Party in the second half of the 1940s, gain a new force with the support of the socialist congressman Francisco Julião. Their organization gets a national and even international impact mainly after the Revolution in Cuba. On the other hand, the Church feeling threatened by losing its hegemony over the peasants is challenged toassume a position of support to the peasants’ fight.