Dados is one of the most widely-read social sciences journals in Latin America. Created in 1966, it publishes innovative works, originating from academic research, by Brazilian and foreign authors. Edited by IESP-UERJ, it aims to reconcile scientific rigor and academic excellence with an emphasis on public debate based on the analysis of substantive issues of society and politics.
Dados n. 22 Rio de Janeiro 1979
Abstract
The ill-treatment and torture practiced by the State's means of organized violence throughout the history of the Republic in Brazil have always tended to be interpreted as the result of a structural distortion. This article is aimed at demonstrating, through an examination of those practices which the police apparatus directs toward the working classes, that rather than representing a distortion, such practices are in fact a deliberate policy in the control of the subordinate classes. Torture, ill-treatment, and all illegal repression contribute to preserve the hegemony of the dominant classes and assure the illusory participation of some social groups (such as the middle classes) in the gains of the political organization which is based on these instruments. This study attempts to reconstitute the fearful continuity of the illegal practices of the State's means of organized violence in relation to the working classes from the time of the First Republic. This reconstitution is effected principally through an examination of texts produced by the State apparatus (police chiefs' and diplomats' reports), by entrepreneurs (company circulars), and by workers (correspondence, working-class press). Beyond overt repression, ah attempt is made to examine the possibilities of articulation of the State's means of organized violence with other instruments of social control, such as labour legislation. In short, a comparison is carried out between these illegal practices during periods of limited democracy and those of authoritarianism. The uncoupling of "normal" repression and "political" repression in democratic periods is examined, revealing the Jack of an effective democratization which permeates the police apparatus. The examination of authoritarianism demonstrates that which is habitually dissimulated in the democratic phases - the eminently political character and function of the repression of the working classes in Brazilian society.
Violência do Estado e Classes Populares
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