JOSÉ RODRIGUES VIEIRA NETTO: INTELECTUAL ORGÂNICO, PROFESSOR BRILHANTE, ADVOGADO PERSEGUIDO, CIDADÃO SEM DIREITOS (1945-1973)

Abstract

This thesis aimed at analyzing the trajectory of José Rodrigues Vieira Netto, privileging the explanation of his action in the organization of the social and educational project of communist character as well as his work mobilizing the society for the fight defending this ethical-political proposal. The analytical process aims at understanding Vieira Netto’s qualification from his family inheritance, emphasizing a view on his school education and his university graduation; discussing his projection and the context of his professional activity as a professor, lawyer and public prosecutor; characterizing his main activism fields, highlighting the Liberal Alliance, the Brazilian Communist Party and the Legislative Assembly of the State of Parana, as well as the consequences of this activism with the restriction of his rights and persecution; and, finally, discussing Vieira Netto’s social and educational project in close relation to the Brazilian Communist Party’s educational project, privileging an analysis of the social and educational view present in his actions and productions. The analyses comprise the period from 1945 and 1973, including the moment Vieira Netto’s joined the Brazilian Communist Party (1945) and the year he died (1973). This thesis integrates the Intellectual History, in a movement to understand the subjects called intellectuals due to their posture and action when facing social issues, mainly, when they adopted positions of defence of the so-called universal rights such as justice, truth and democracy. Regarding our analysis, we chose Antonio Gramsci’s theory, mainly the concept of organic intellectual – culture organizer – who is a determining political agent, since his work is not exhausted in the production of scientific, artistic or philosophical knowledge, but is extended, mainly to the duty of the organizing function, which is characteristic of the social and political fights. This thesis is also supported by sources found in the minutes of the Federal University of Parana, the archives of the Political and Social Order Agency in Parana, the archives of the digital platform ‘Brasil: Nunca Mais’ (Brazil: Never More), interviews, and memoir books to explain how Vieira Netto worked to systematize a social project of human education, as well as to mobilize the working class to engage the fight for this project. Our view defends that Vieira Netto acted as an organic intellectual in the construction of the communist social and educational program in Parana, since he was a professor, lawyer and public prosecutor, member of the Liberal Alliance, an activist in PCB (Brazilian Communist Party) becoming a State deputy and acting in social movements. This activism had consequences, since from 1945 to 1973 he was booked and constantly monitored, despite having been acquitted in the processes that he had faced during the military dictatorship. His rights as a politician were also restricted in 1948, but his mandate as a State deputy was symbolically restored in 2013. However, even having been a victim of the ideological control, persecutions, imprisonment and law suits, he kept his theoretical approach and his praxis, acting as a culture organizer and in the fight defending the social and human educational project.