Forty years ago, Brazilian workers, students, and oppressed communities toppled a brutal military dictatorship that had been in power since 1964. Imprisonment, disappearances, and extra-judicial killings defined life in Brazil at this time.

A key part of that opposition to authoritarianism in Brazil was the 1985 sit-down strike of the Sindicato dos Metalúrgicos de São José dos Campos at General Motors. Revolutionary socialists in the leadership of the strike drew on inspiration from the dynamic sit-down strikes of the “Big Three” in the Detroit auto industry in the 1930s and ’40s. These revolutionaries also raised the political question around the fight for democratic rights denied by the dictatorship. At the same time students and social movement activists leveraged the strike in order to build popular support against the government.

What can we learn from the experiences of socialists in Brazil and their struggle against dictatorship? Is it possible to turn the struggle for democratic rights into a fight for working-class power?

Hear from participants in this important struggle.

• Luiz Carlos Prates (Mancha) was a participant in the 1985 sit-down strike in Sao Jose dos Campos. He is on the National Executive Secretariat of the 2 million-member union federation CSP–Conlutas. As an auto worker at General Motors, he was dismissed by the company in 2022 for union activity. He is also a longtime militant of the PSTU in Brazil.
• Mariucha Fontana was active in the broader social and political struggles against the dictatorship. She is the editor of the newspaper Opinão Socialista and is in the leadership of the Partido Socialista dos Trabalhadores Unificado and the International Workers League.