Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (Brazil)

The Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (Brazilian Portuguese: Movimento Nacionalista Revolucionário) (MNR) was an organization of Brazilians who opposed the military dictatorship, basically made up of soldiers impeached by the governments of the new regime that intended to defeat them by resorting to armed struggle. Initially influenced by Leonel Brizola who initially had support from Fidel Castro, the organization maintained its leadership in its beginnings in the city of Montevideo, Uruguay. With many disqualified ex-soldiers in its ranks, and some of its members having undergone military training in Cuba, the MNR would be inspired by Che Guevara's Foquism to establish a rural guerrilla focus in Brazil in 1966, first near Criciúma and later in the limits of the Caparaó National Park. Even though it was not the first organization to carry out an armed action against the military government, it would be the first to have a forceful action recognized by the press at the time, capable of reaching public opinion at a national level, when its members were arrested by the Military Police of Minas Gerais at Serra do Caparaó in 1967. Therefore, for a long time it was believed that they would be the first guerrilla focus against the military regime. His attempt to establish a guerrilla focus in the Caparaó National Park region was destroyed before it even began. The arrest effectively resulted in the end of the organization, which did not prevent some of its members from later joining other organizations fighting the military regime such as POLOP or VPR.