MEB under suspicion: the seizure of the booklet Viver é Lutar and the 1964 coup

Abstract

This article addresses the seizure of the booklet Viver é Lutar (To Live is to Fight), produced by the Basic Education Movement (Movimento de Educação de Base – MEB). It analyzes the event in two dimensions: in relation to the national political context, based on journalistic coverage and texts responding to the proceedings initiated by the Department of Political and Social Order (Departamento de Ordem Política e Social – DOPS); and its impact on the daily life of the radio schools, based on a set of letters written by monitors from Pernambuco. As a result, the study expands knowledge about the political tensions and contradictions involving the Movement in the pre–civil-military coup context of 1964, as well as the impacts on its activities with the establishment of the dictatorship.