Carlos Marighella

Carlos Marighella (Brazilian Portuguese: [ˈkaʁluz ˌmaɾiˈɡɛlɐ]; 5 December 1911 – 4 November 1969) was a Brazilian politician, writer, and Marxist–Leninist militant. Critical of nonviolent resistance to the Brazilian military dictatorship, he founded the Ação Libertadora Nacional, a Marxist–Leninist urban guerrilla group, which was responsible for a series of bank robberies and high-profile kidnappings. He was killed by police in 1969 in an ambush. Marighella's most famous contribution to revolutionary literature was the Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla.

Biography

Marighella was born in Salvador, Bahia, to Italian immigrant Augusto Marighella and Afro-Brazilian Maria Rita do Nascimento. His father was a blue-collar worker originally from Emilia, while his mother was a descendant of enslaved Africans, brought from the Sudan (Hausa blacks). He spent his young life at a house in Rua do Desterro, at the Baixa do Sapateiro neighbourhood, where he would graduate from primary and secondary education. In 1934, he left the Polytechnic School of Bahia, where he was pursuing a degree in civil engineering, in order to become an active member of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB). He then moved to Rio de Janeiro to work in the restructuring of PCB.

Son of an Italian Roman Catholic father and a mother of African Muslim background, Carlos was raised in a Catholic household, eventually becoming atheist in his early 20s.