Luís Carlos Prestes

Luís Carlos Prestes (January 3, 1898 – March 7, 1990) was a Brazilian revolutionary and politician who served as the general-secretary of the Brazilian Communist Party from 1943 to 1980 and a senator for the Federal District from 1946 to 1948. One of the leading communists in Brazil, Prestes has been regarded by many as one of Brazil's most charismatic yet tragic figures for his leadership of the 1924 tenentist revolt and his subsequent work with the Brazilian communist movement. The 1924 expedition earned Prestes the nickname The Knight of Hope.

Beginning in 1924, as a young army officer, Prestes was a leading figure in an abortive military revolt. After its failure, he led a band of rebel troops, known as the Prestes Column, on a three-year, 14,000-mile trek through the remote Brazilian interior in a futile attempt to stir peasant opposition to the Government. Eventually, the rebels went into exile in Bolivia. Although the effort failed, he became a romantic hero.

He went on to become general-secretary of the Brazilian Communist Party, which advocated ending payments on the national debt, nationalization of foreign-owned companies, and land reform. Imprisoned after a violent uprising in 1935 and sentenced to 30 years in prison for ordering the execution of the teenager Elza Fernandes, he was released after World War II and later served briefly as a senator. He was the communist opposition throughout the Vargas Era in Brazil.

In the 1980s, Prestes accused the Brazilian Communist Party of abandoning Marxist-Leninist philosophy. He was removed from the leadership in 1980 and expelled in 1984. He campaigned for Leonel Brizola, a center-left candidate, in the 1989 presidential election, won by Fernando Collor de Mello.