Bourgeois autocracy and the revolutionary praxis of Florestan Fernandes

Abstract

In a current scenario of escalating authoritarianism in the political context, national and international, the theoretical and political lessons left by Florestan Fernandes are important tools to help to illuminate new and old strategies facing these contemporary challenges. After his academic consecration and in the midst of the compulsory retirement resulting from Institutional Act nº 5 in the middle of Brazilian civil-military dictatorship, Florestan identified in the political processes of his time the need of building a new praxis. Thus, the objective of this article is to rescue the senses of this praxis amid personal and dramatic consequences of the intensification of the bourgeois autocracy, the distension of the dictatorship and the democratic transition, going through the new constraints of the so-called New Republic until 1995, when he died. To this end, was used bibliographical and documentary research that comprised both the theoretical and methodological records of this late period in Florestan's trajectory as well as the experiences of political engagement and the contents of his militant intervention.