“For the union of the Brazilian proletariat”: the Brazilian Workers Confederation, the syndicalism e the defense of the autonomy of the Brazilian workers during the First Republic.

Abstract

The article analyses the experience of the Brazilian Workers Confederation, the first trade union congress in Brazil, between 1908 and 1915, the first endeavor to form a common identity for the Brazilian workers. The journal of the Confederation, A Voz do Trabalhador (The Voice of the Worker), published news about the workers’ fights from different regions of Brazil and worldwide, and, for the first time in Brazilian working-class history, succeeded in coordinating and promoting information exchange inside the working-class movement. The Confederation was based on Revolutionary Syndicalism ideas, defending the workers autonomy and the union as the space of the guarantee of such autonomy.