When he was assigned by the federal government to fight rebel lieutenant troops in the interior of Paraná, in September 1924, the then general did not like the mission, which he would later consider the most difficult of his entire life.
Expelled from São Paulo by government troops in the wake of the opposition to President Arthur Bernardes and the oligarchy of the “coffee with milk policy”, those in Paraná would soon join the revolutionary arm of Rio Grande do Sul commanded by Luís Carlos Prestes, forming the .
“Fighting brothers! What a painful contingency for someone, like me, who had always lived with the dream of deserving the name of peacemaker”, declared Rondon, in a statement recorded in the book “Rondon Contas Sua Vida”, by Esther de Viveiros.
The brothers that the expeditionary defender of indigenous peoples refers to are Brazilians in general, but in particular his Army colleagues. Because the rebels were young officers who led the tenentismo and Coluna Prestes. These, in turn, wanted to overthrow the government, but, like Rondon, preferably without killing their comrades.
“Rondon’s idea was to stand there stalling, wear down the enemy’s morale, and let them run out of supplies until they surrendered”, reports historian Elonir José Savian, Army reserve major and author of “Legality and Revolution: Rondon Combate Tenentistas nos Sertões do Paraná (1924/1925)”, publicado pela Biblioteca do Exército.
The government then sent two other generals to achieve some success in the campaign that preceded the Column. In fact, says Savian, neither the rebels nor the government wanted to fight.
“Some were friends with each other. They stayed in the trenches shooting up, talking and fooling around. The revolutionaries wanted the loyalists to join. And the loyalists wanted to delay until the revolutionaries gave up.”
The fact is that there were fights, some of them bloody, between the rebels led by the military and the official military (as well as colonels’ gunmen across the country).
After repeated attempts to take power, starting with the uprising at Copacabana Fort, the lieutenants arrived there with the so-called Revolution of 1930. Many members of the movement, including Coluna Prestes, rose along with them, but also military leaders who fought them, como Góis Monteiro –principal garantidor do novo governo na caserna.
Then an occasional union occurred. “From 1930 onwards, there was an attempt to put an end to dissent within the Army. Then, the Prestes Column began to be officially forgotten”, notes Savian.
Biographer of the leader (“Luís Carlos Prestes, Um Revolucionário Entre Dois Mundos”, Companhia das Letras), historian Daniel Aarão Reis, retired full professor at UFF (Universidade Federal Fluminense), states that, in the memory of the Army, lieutenantism had ” ups and downs.”
[pelas baixas patentes] [Eurico Gaspar]
In line with the motto coined by Góis Monteiro that politics in the Army would give way to Army politics, adds Aarão Reis, it was not possible to celebrate a movement of indiscipline and questioning of high military commands.
“Later, however, with a nostalgic streak, tenentismo would be remembered by its protagonists as a positive movement, concerned with national sovereignty, respect for electoral results and honesty in dealing with public money.”
President of the Institute of Geography and Military History of Brazil, Army Reserve General Marcio Tadeu Bergo expresses this positive aura about the movement that is still in force among uniformed personnel, highlighting that the lieutenants were “young idealists, seeking improvements and updates in Brazil’s structures “.
“They had ideals and, in the thinking of the time, they believed that changes could be implemented by force. They fought corruption, fraudulent elections, illiteracy, they fought for the secret vote, for infrastructure, income distribution. An advanced ideology, with measures necessary for a country late.”
The conversion of Prestes into the country’s greatest communist leader would change the concept of the Column among members of the Army and ruin the image of the once admired officer.
Unlike other leaders of the march, such as Juarez Távora and Cordeiro de Farias – still celebrated in the barracks today –, Prestes “will fall into disgrace and be disgraced in the history of the Army. Like Lamarca, both considered traitors”, says Savian.
[equivalente hoje à Polícia Militar]
Prestes was the rebellion’s chief of staff and its great strategist.
“The low-ranking officers, lieutenants and captains developed a certain veneration for Prestes and the Coluna. In part and, for some time, they were responsible for the name Coluna Prestes, erasing Miguel Costa, as he did not take well to a Public Force officer commanding oficiais do Exército”, relata Aarão Reis.
Later, adds the historian, it was up to the communists to silence Miguel Costa’s name.
“Costa aderiu ao Partido Socialista. Os comunistas não aceitariam que um chefe comunista tivesse sido dirigido por um socialista oficial da Força Pública. Assim, e por diferentes motivos, oficiais do Exército e comunistas se dariam as mãos para silenciar sobre o papel de Miguel Costa .”
In the book “Introduction to Brazilian Military History”, by Durland Puppin de Faria, adopted by Aman (Academia Militar das Agulhas Negras, the main training school for Army officers), which reserves complimentary words for lieutenantship, there is, on the other hand, mention simplista e nada gloriosa à grande marcha.
“The Costa-Prestes Column”, writes the author, sought to “raise the population against the federal government. Without success and after many skirmishes with legalist forces, its members went into exile in Paraguay and Bolivia”.
When asked to comment on the current image of the Prestes Column and the tenentismo in the corporation, the Army reported that “there is no institutional position on the issues”.
