Introduction

A striking feature in the history of Brazilian education in the 1930s is the presence of educators gathered in associations. At that time, sociability territories, such as associations, were created with the aim of establish militancy spaces capable of influencing the course of the country’s political and cultural life. This is because, just as education occupied a strategic place in that period’s national reconstruction proposals, a representative part of the intellectuals engaged in political and ideological struggles transited by the fields of education, even occupying directive positions in public education.

Taking these aspects into account, the article analyzes the engagement of educators who were willing to face problems of education and culture, beyond the institutional limits of the school and the pedagogical and instrumental aspects of education, getting involved in the struggles for national reconstruction through associativism. From stories on periodicals, the performance of the Club de Cultura Moderna, an anti-fascist association, was taken as a reference. The examination of the sources, in their correlation with the cultural, political and social conditions of the period, made it possible to follow the process of formation of the association in interdependence with the sensitivities and solidarities operative in the constitution of that association’s forms of intervention in the public debate.

Associative Experience as Figuration: contributions to the analysis of the Club de Cultura Moderna

When examining theoretical perspectives dedicated to supporting the analysis of the democratic benefits of associations, Lígia Helena ^{Hahn Lüchmann (2014)} points out that the importance of associations for democracy is largely revealed by the opportunity for individuals to take part in political decisions and collective judgments in favor of the common good in a more egalitarian way.

Certainly, as the author explains, different types of associations have different democratic effects or similar effects for different reasons. This is because the conceptions of democracy that support them can be varied, as well as the interests, conflicts and power relations within the associative field itself. In addition, some associations organize themselves with very modest purposes in relation to democratic presuppositions. Others can promote hatred, discrimination and violence. For all these reasons, capturing the plurality of the associative phenomenon implies identifying the ambiguities and limits of this field of social action. It implies “[…] adding to the dimension of the agents, such as their objectives and the greater or lesser capacity for articulation, the configuration of cultural, economic, political and social conditions”, qualifying these characteristics and relationships (^{Lüchmann, 2014}, p. 173).

Seeking to capture elements of the complexity that involve associative experiences, as indicated above, in achieving the objective that guides this work, it is possible to consider the Club de Cultura Moderna as a space of interdependent human relations, called figuration, as expressed in the sociology of Norbert Elias.

For the author, the set of human figurations constitutes what we call society and it is within the figurations that the formation of thoughts and ways of acting, the circulation of projects, as well as the fermentation and production of new ideas and behaviors take place. The functioning of a figuration contains levels of interdependence and integration that are operated by reticular forces expressed as much by practical, scientific or ideological knowledge as by affections, unforeseen events, chance and even by unconscious adhesions and refractions. Hence, in the process of knowledge development, the acceptance of certain ideas is the result of the permanent tension between distanced and involved ways of dealing with the surrounding thought in a given society and in a given historical period. In these terms, the structure of human ideas and behavior is “[…] primarily determined by the structure of human groups […] and not by the ‘objects’ of consciousness or by consciousness itself, let us call it ‘logic’, ‘reason’ or whatever” (^{Elias, 2008a}, p. 516)¹.

In the multi-referenced process that involves the formation of ideas and behaviors, Elias also draws attention to the individual’s functional situation in a given figuration. As the different forms of human relationships coexist simultaneously, people are part of different figurations and occupy different positions in these figurations. As the functional division and the place of each individual in the functional division becomes more complex, the figurations become more complex. In this dynamic, there are differences in the distribution of power between social groups that, although based on an unstable balance, reveal differences in group cohesion and integration capable of putting an idea into circulation or making it inconvenient. This is because, according to the author, it is at the base of human relationships that the groups’ incessant attempts to reach or maintain a high position among their peers are situated. In these attempts, the mode of action and the degree of exclusion in the chances of power may vary, but it is precisely in situations where inequality begins to shift in favor of social groups with less power that the tensions and conflicts between the groups become more intense. (^{Elias, 1998}; ^2008b).

Such a paradox is interdependently inscribed in another. According to the author, in totalitarian or dictatorial regimes, founded on the principles of obedience and discipline and where opportunities for political socialization are repressed and conflicts are managed from above, through orders, the individuals’ self-restraint demands and their belonging groups are diminished. On the other hand, in democratic regimes, whose central authorities have limited opportunities for power, are less oppressive and also less strong, the demands that societies make on the strength and stability of self-restraint of their individual members and their various groups are much broader. As a result, in democratic regimes, where the demands for self-control of people and social groups are much greater, the opportunities for social change are greater, as are the possibilities for confrontations (^{Elias, 2008b}).

The greatest opportunities for change and conflict in democratic regimes relate to increasingly simplified democratic power games (^{Elias, 2008b}). In this type of game, although there is interdependence between the groups that are part of the first layer (such as organizations, associations, movements) and the groups that belong to the secondary level (representatives, delegates, leaders, governments, courts, monopoly elites, etc.), the members of the secondary groups are those who have a monopoly on access to the game, participate directly in power struggles and have the greatest reserves of power opportunity. As first-tier groups increase their vigilance and constrain towards second-tier groups, the strength of the former grows, power differentials diminish, and inequalities are reduced, while tensions and conflicts tend to increase.

Therefore, as in any other social space, individuals gathered in associations, when engaging in public debate, fight for the preservation of distinction, prestige and recognition in relation to others. Considering that associations are spaces for the promotion of ideas, for mobilization in favor of certain causes, for the formation of public opinion, for contestation and pressure on the established powers, it is necessary to understand them, therefore, as places of enunciation submitted to mechanisms of internal containment and external coercion at varying levels of interdependence and integration. As a result, ideas, defenses and projects put into circulation carry specific tensions and conflicts capable of validating, banishing or making people forget behaviors and forms of knowledge due to differentials in the distribution of power across social groups.

In this controlled struggle between individuals, the ability to promote and perpetuate cohesion among the members of a group plays a key role. To this end, a set of strategies are activated by the established group with the purpose of reserving social positions with the potential for higher power to its members and excluding members of other groups from these positions. An established group builds for itself an image of us loaded with dissipated values as the biggest and best in relation to the values of the outsider group. They feed the belief in their superiority and close ranks to preserve this condition, using the symbolic, material and legal apparatus at their disposal to inhibit, shame, censor, humiliate and stigmatize the outsider group. It can be instituted silently, hidden in the daily life of group relationships, or it can take on declared forms of conflict. What matters for the established group is to maintain the unencumbered image of us that is superiorly distinct from the negative reputation of others (^{Elias; Scotson, 2000}).

But even if the balance of forces is favorable to established groups, expressions of protest are not suppressed due to the unstable logic on which the power balance is based. Thus, in the Eliasian proposition, where there is functional interdependence, the relational character of power in terms of balance will always point to the relative strength of people and groups.

Considering the aspects highlighted by ^{Lüchmann (2014)} in conducting studies interested in capturing the complexity of the associative phenomenon and Elias’ propositions about the structuring logic of power games, it turns out that to understand the engagement of educators involved in the struggles for national reconstruction through associativism, the notion of figuration works both as a concept and as an analytical category. Methodologically, this means identifying and pursuing the reticular forces, the social pressures that acted on the Club de Cultura Moderna; situating the association in relation to its time and in interdependence with other groups and social figures of the time; observing their leeway, in view of their relative power due to the mutual interdependencies that unite people and their human groups to one another. In other words, it means observing the dynamics of organization and functioning of a figuration. Thus, the idea of figuration integrates the conceptual and methodological apparatus that supports Elias’s theory of civilizing processes and lends itself to the examination of the processes operating in the formation and development of ideas and behaviors in a given time and society.

Considering the use of period prints as sources, and considering that, for this work, some newspapers and editions of Revista Movimento, an organ of the Club de Cultura Moderna, were mobilized, the perspective of analysis of the associative experience as figuration adds to issues related to the use of magazines and newspapers as documents for writing the history of education.

Periodicals of this type do not constitute repositories of the truth because they report the facts very close to the time when they happened. Beyond its apparent meaning, its production is always an expression of ongoing power relations in a given context. They are the result of choices, interests, selections and intentional (or not) ways of recording the contents of reality. This does not mean, however, that they should be conceived purely as ideological vehicles created exclusively for the purpose of obscuring reality. Hence, due to their partiality, their examination allows capturing the possible verisimilitude in relation to reality (^{Campos, 2012}).

Despite the specificities that characterize newspapers and magazines, in this work the sources used were assumed as documents in their monumental dimension. They do not record the unbiased testimony of a past. On the contrary, they act as agents of history by participating in disputes for consensus around the validation or rejection of ideas, proposals and projects (^{Le Goff, 1990}; ^{Luca, 2008}).

The specific case of Revista Movimento and its comparison with some newspapers in circulation in Rio de Janeiro allowed us to follow the lines that structure the debates put on the agenda in the dispute for society projects for the Brazilian republic. Within this dispute, the political debate stamped on its pages aimed much more to have an effect on the reader than to properly inform or explain something in a logical and rational way.

Thus, to capture the dynamics of the power games in which the Club de Cultura Moderna was involved, the management of the sources was carried out based on postulates of documentary research.

‘For Culture and Freedom’: the Club de Cultura Moderna and anti-fascism

According to ^{Libânea Nacif Xavier (2019)}, contexts of political openness or moments of tendency towards state repression influence the emergence of collective actions within civil society when they are recognized as opportunities to rehearse changes, experiment with alliances, conquer rights. However, the recognition of these opportunities is “[…] dependent on the ability of the actors and their leaders to identify the events that indicate a possible opportunity” (^{Xavier, 2019}, p. 11).

It is possible to consider the emergence of the anti-fascism struggles of the 1930s as an example of the recognition of a possible opportunity for change by some segments of Brazilian society of that period. It so happens that, at the international level, ideologies come into dispute in Europe, opposing fascism to liberalism and communism. According to ^{Eric Hobsbawm (1987)}, Hitler’s action made visible what Italian fascism, “an international expression of the right”, had announced, since “[…] it refused the entire legacy of the 18th century Enlightenment and, along with it, all the regimes born of the American and French Revolutions, no less than those born of the Russian Revolution”. This refusal was, according to the author, immediately dramatized by “[…] the abolition of the constitutional and democratic regime, by the concentration camps, by the burning of books, by the expulsion or mass emigration of political dissidents and Jews, including the cream of German intellectual life” (^{Hobsbawm, 1987}, p. 265).

In these terms, the fascist threat, which meant the certainty of war, became a danger for everyone and thereby placed liberals and communists against the same enemy. Although such affinity did not imply an ideological convergence, it was about building a broad anti-fascist alliance through resistance. And although the anti-fascism movement had taken on broader proportions than communism, they were very close. This is because, according to Hobsbawm, the communists were precursors of the action aimed at building an anti-fascist alliance and also played a guiding role in the concrete struggle. Even though in public “[…] people insisted, above all, on the more limited – democratic and defensive – aspects of anti-fascism, […] most intellectuals, including the radical elements, did not proclaim the existence of incompatibility between anti-fascism and revolution” (^{Hobsbawm, 1987}, p. 266; 270).

Furthermore, the crisis of capitalism, led by the depression of 1929-33, generated mass unemployment, suffering and hunger while the Soviet Union seemed immune to the consequences of the global catastrophe. Liberalism was at stake and Russian impermeability seemed an alternative. In this way, as Hobsbawm claims, the contrast between the collapse of capitalist economies and socialist planned industrialization became the driving force that sparked the interest of some intellectuals in Marxism. In turn, Hitler’s triumph, a political consequence of the crisis of capitalism, among other causes, rallied an even greater number of intellectuals to anti-fascism, given, including, the expulsion and mass emigration of this segment of society from fascist countries.

As with segments of the intelligentsia, many scholars and researchers, even in the natural sciences, mobilized by anti-fascist goals were also attracted to Marxism. As an alternative to mechanistic materialism, anti-fascist scientists enthusiastically welcomed dialectical materialism. They assessed that the mechanical models of science had become incompatible with scientific progress. They argued that mechanistic materialism isolated the object of experimentation from its context, emphasized the fragmentation of knowledge fields, made the understanding of phenomena reductionist, and was incapable of explaining the contradictions and inconsistencies of science. “It was necessary to integrate into a living reality phenomena that the conventional scientific method separated. […] They perceived in Marxism a broad and integrated approach to the universe and everything it contains”. Thus, when entering the discussions of some circles of anti-fascist scientists, some contributions of Marxism to science favored the approach between anti-fascism and communism (^{Hobsbawm, 1987}, p. 292-293).

Meanwhile, the Brazilian republic reached the 1930s dominated by contrasts and inequalities. Rural values prevailed over expanding industrial and urban values. In the political sector, coronelismo prevailed. In the economy, based mainly on coffee farming, ruralism delayed the overcoming of an agro-export economy. The broad immigration process that took place in the First Republic boosted urbanization and industrialization as well as favored and gave visibility to an organization of society based on a dichotomous model of social stratification more oriented by a class society (^{Nagle, 2009}).

After the 1930 Revolution, two great antagonistic political forces, represented by communists and integralists, emerged and gathered around themselves representatives of different segments of social, cultural and political life in the anti-liberal struggle. In the analysis of ^{Rodrigo Patto Sá Motta (2002)}, the emergence of these forces occurred because the climate was conducive to making communism attractive to those who wanted to find alternative paths to the liberal model, considered bankrupt. Furthermore, the author also states that the public manifestation of adherence to the Marxism-Leninism and the proletariat cause of the, made by Luiz Carlos Prestes, influenced groups that had him as a great popular leader.

To the growth of communism corresponded the expansion and strengthening of the Brazilian Integralist Action (AIB); a fascist-oriented national movement, founded in 1932 by Plinio Salgado². It would not be long before the National Liberation Alliance (ANL)³ appeared on the scene. So, while the crisis of liberal values served to attract a growing number of supporters to communism, it also fermented the adhesion or support of different social groups to integralism.

In the context of ideological effervescence and social unrest of the period, several associations of educators and intellectuals were already in operation or were founded in the 1930s with the purpose of instituting spaces of militancy capable of influencing the course of political and cultural life in the country. In this way, the possibilities of remodeling the political-social order were widely debated at the Club de Cultura Moderna, an association that brought together members of various anti-fascist tendencies, founded in 1934 with the objectives of “[…] bringing knowledge to the masses, eager for instruction and raising the cultural level of the population”. As stated in the Correio da Manhã newspaper⁴,

The Club de Cultura Moderna was founded in this capital by a group of intellectuals, whose deliberative council, elected at the first meeting, is as follows: Júlio Porto Carreiro, Edgar Roquette Pinto, Phebus Gicovate, Oscar Tenório, Miguel Costa Filho, Hannemann Guimarães, Affonso Várzea, Ignácio Azevedo Amaral, Mario Magalhães, Roberto Lyra, Aloísio Costallat, José Carneiro Ayrosa, Luiz Frederico Carpenter, Annibal Machado, Maria Werneck, Santa Rosa, Josias Reis, José de Queiroz Lima, Martins Castello, Mecenas Dourado, Flavio Poppe, José Foure, Valério Konder, Jorge Amado, Nazareth Prado, Judith Gouvêa, Medeiros Lima, Modestino Kanto.. Substitutes: Zenaide Andrea, Leandro Ratisbone, Paschoal Lemme, Barreto Leite Filho, Benjamin Soares Cabello, Edmundo Moniz, Oswaldo Ribeiro, Nise Silveira, Jayme Grabois, Evandro Lima e Silva

(^{Foi…, 1934}, p. 07).

Despite their varied composition, ^{Ângela Meirelles de Oliveira (2013)} states that organizations, such as the Club de Cultura Moderna itself, were created under the inspiration of the French movements to combat fascism – the Amsterdam-Pleyel Movement, of 1932; the Committee for the Vigilance of Anti-Fascist Intellectuals (CVIA), of 1934, and the Congresses of Writers for the Defense of Culture, of 1935. According to the author, although these movements were, to some extent, under the coordination of the Communist International, the defense of culture functioned as an element capable of agglutinating people of different affiliations because “[…] it presented a character of counterpropaganda against authoritarianism and fascism and, at the same time, an opportunity to transform the country’s artistic and cultural universe” (^{Oliveira, 2013}, p. 75).

Six months after the club was founded, Revista Movimento began to circulate. Under the direction of Miguel Costa Filho (1911-1985)⁵, the magazine had only 4 issues (May, June, September and October 1935). Its short duration coincides with the strong repression that fell on government opponents after the 1935 Communist Revolt. With the installation of the New State, in 1937, when many of its members had been arrested, the club itself was extinguished.

With a simple graphic design and black and white illustrations spread over 24 pages per issue, Alba Oficinas Gráficas was responsible for the composition and printing of Movimento. Although without information on print run, it could be purchased through an annual subscription or separately, and had very few commercial advertisements.

Through articles on cinema, theater, literature, poems, short stories, book reviews, transcription of conferences, reports on the ANL, advertising of works that dealt with fascism, capitalism and socialism, dissemination of festivals and exhibitions, as well as the activities of the Club de Cultura Moderna, that association was fighting the threat of annihilation of freedom and national cultural heritage, led by the rise of fascism and Nazism in Europe and the integralist movement in Brazil. A synthetic expression of the motivations behind the action of the Club de Cultura Moderna was the launch of the manifesto in favor of culture and freedom, published by the A Manhã newspaper, one of the main organs of dissemination of the program and activities of the ANL, as a reaction to its closure decreed the day before⁶. The manifest said:

The cultural development of our country has always encountered insurmountable obstacles on the part of imperialism and large estates, interested in keeping our population at a low level of culture. With the aim of submitting it, more easily, to the vile, these two reactionary forces have always opposed the freedom of culture and its diffusion among the popular mass. The intellectuals of the country, scientists, writers, journalists and artists, who did not want to transform themselves into instruments of oppression, when they wanted to chant hymns or scientifically justify the exploitation to which the population was victim, found themselves thrown on the sidelines by those who monopolized the press, publishing houses, theaters and scientific institutions. At the present time, great threats appear on the horizons of our country. It is being prepared in our country, in the manner of the brutal and bloodthirsty regimes of Hitler and Mussolini, which strained and destroyed all freedoms and culture itself, burning priceless works, incarcerating, killing and expelling independent scientists, writers and artists, a wave of terror and fascism, which intends to liquidate, to completely annihilate our rudimentary achievements in the field of free and popular culture. Here too, a bonfire is being prepared to burn our best works, which describe the suffering of the popular masses and are a living protest against the oppression of our people. Here, too, a terrible threat looms over sincere intellectuals who make common cause with the people. The Club de Cultura Moderna, which declared, at the memorable meeting on the 4th, that it was ready for culture and freedom and for that very reason would adhere to the National Liberation Alliance, an organization that at that moment embodies the aspirations of all strata of our population, comes to raise a warning cry to all intellectuals in Brazil. SCIENTISTS, WRITERS, ARTISTS AND JOURNALISTS! DO NOT ALLOW THE DARK THREAT INTO REALITY! DON’T LET THEM ANNIHILATE OUR FREEDOM AND OUR CULTURAL HERITAGE! CLOSE RANKS, ALONGSIDE THE WHOLE POPULATION, AGAINST OPPRESSION AND AGAINST THE TERROR THAT THREATENS US! The Executive Committee

(^{Pela…, 1935}, p. 2).

In addition to the manifesto highlighted above, the activities of the Club de Cultura Moderna were quite diverse. The courses promoted by the association were composed of themes related to political economy, economic geography, national literature, scientific education and the history of social struggles in Brazil. Spearheaded by the study of political economy issues “which represent the scientific bases of the social revolution”, these courses were to form the framework for the later foundation, by the Club itself, of a popular university. A commission, composed of Edgar Sussekind de Mendonça, Armanda Álvaro Alberto, Joaquim Ribeiro, Valério Konder and Judith Gouvea, was even constituted with the purpose of drawing up its teaching plans and statute (^{Movimento, 1935}, p. 23).

The social art exhibitions and artistic festivals promoted by the Club were guided by the presentation of works that portrayed human, urban and rural work, their sufferings, miseries, struggles and aspirations. Art, by this axis, should reveal social reality and, as such, configure itself in scientific research data, just like statistics and surveys. As they defended the idea that access to culture would act in favor of the social transformations required by socialism, they considered that it would be necessary to extend it to the working masses. In this sense, the social spirit of art would consist in “[…] establishing premises for the revolution”; that is, “[…] in discovering behind the knowledge of the contradictory reality the paths of development of revolutionary transformation” (^{Movimento, 1935}, p. 24).

This engaged art also illustrated the pages of Movimento. Committed to denouncing class society, poems, drawings, short stories, reviews and cartoons are mixed with the journal’s articles. In this same spirit, of the four editions of Movimento, two of them (September and October) featured works signed by Di Cavalcanti, an artist affiliated to the Communist Party of Brazil (PCB) and also involved with the expansion of the left-wing artistic movement in the country, on their covers. In the case of the first edition of Movimento, the cover is illustrated by the work of Santa Rosa, a visual artist who, in the 1930s, worked as an assistant to Cândido Portinari, a Brazilian communist painter whose work presents traces of identity with socialist ideas. Regarding the second edition, due to the conditions of preservation of the source, it was not possible to identify the signature of the illustration. Anyway, as in the other editions, the foreground is occupied by the figure of the manual worker, from the countryside and the city. Likewise, within the magazine’s editions, the human work theme is predominant in the repertoire of drawings and illustrations.

Often made a subject of the Movement, social art also aimed to oppose the mystical spirit and religious faith. This spirit, considered distant from reality, would accentuate individualistic thinking to the detriment of the formation of collective thinking. In fact, the club’s combative tone in relation to religion has permeated the Movement’s pages since its launch. In the field of education, it used the experience of the Soviet Union to guide the debate on religious education. This is still seen as a problem of mental hygiene, an obstacle to collectivism and the development of a realistic point of view of life. As a result, “[…] a cardinal aspect to be fought” (^{Movimento, 1935}, p. 07).

In addition to propaganda to combat religious education, with regard to schooling, the Club de Cultura Moderna endeavored to specifically publicize the development of the Soviet Union. The instruction of the worker would be intertwined with the development of class consciousness as a basis for the construction of socialism. It did not receive the same attention as social art, but in all editions of Revista Movimento, there are references or articles about that country’s actions in the field of education. Such actions included in their purposes the extinction of illiteracy; the expansion of the network of public libraries, radio broadcasters, clubs, houses of culture, reading rooms, kindergartens, day care centers; the increase in enrollments and teaching staff; the universalization of polytechnic instruction; the adequacy of materials and installations; distribution of scholarships; among others.

Of the conferences promoted by the club, there is, in the pages of Movimento, one given by Henri Wallon. A well-known French psychologist in Brazilian education, Wallon was a scientific personality with outstanding political activity. According to ^{Mauro Ceruti (1987)}, in addition to referring to the assumptions of dialectical materialism in the development of his research, Wallon participated in the CVIA, was a leader of the National University Front in the anti-Nazi struggle and a member of the French Communist Party⁷. As recorded by Movimento Magazine, at the conference Psicologia e Organizção do Trabalho, Wallon criticized the application of Taylorist principles in capitalist countries and the consequences of technical rationalization for the proletariat (^{Movimento, 1935}, p. 23-24).

The Club de Cultura Moderna also supported the holding of other events, such as the 1st Congress of Student, Proletarian and Popular Youth in Brazil. As an expression of the tension and conflict of the period, the support for the congress resulted in reprisals for that association. The police even prevented Edgar Sussekind de Mendonça from meeting with students at the Socialist Party of Brazil headquarters for a preparatory activity for the congress. On that occasion, Sussekind de Mendonça was searched and questioned by the police. The students and workers who were to participate in the meeting were beaten and took refuge in the ANL headquarters⁸. In a note following the news of the incident, the Club de Cultura Moderna recorded its protest, accusing the “ […) arbitrary act of violence towards that initiative to raise young people’s material and cultural level (^{A Polícia…, 1935} p. 3).

By the terms indicated, the Club de Cultura Moderna was a collective organization of a political nature, of an emancipatory character, in defense of culture and freedom. In the scope of its activities, to the same extent that it fought the evils of religion and integralism, it presented the socialist project of society as the path to the triumph of reason, science and the progress of the Brazilian republic. In short, Movimento fulfilled the function of publicizing the actions of the Club de Cultura Moderna in the task of promoting the ANL program. Although closed after the government triggered the National Security Law against the ANL, its short existence is also an example of how an outsider group can launch itself against established groups, straining the balance of power distribution.

Paschoal Lemme, Armanda Álvaro Alberto and Edgar Sussekind de Mendonça: elective affinities, educational militancy and political engagement

The creation of the Club de Cultura Moderna also coincides with the period in which a representative part of educators and intellectuals were involved in the political discussion concerning the need to effectively make education public and the establishment of the school in the New School precepts⁹. From 1934, this debate radicalized the divergences between the two main ideological positions in confrontation in the educational field, due to the inclusion of religious education in the text of the Federal Constitution, with optional attendance, in public schools. On the one hand, the supporters of the public, unified, compulsory, free and secular school, and on the other, the current directed by the Catholic Church.

Within this association, there were educators such as Paschoal Lemme (1904-1997), Armanda Álvaro Alberto (1892-1974), Edgar Sussekind de Mendonça (1896-1958). In addition to militants in the Brazilian Education Association (ABE) acting, including as signatories of the Manifesto of the Pioneers of New Education and as collaborators in the educational reforms of the Federal District, in the administrations of Fernando de Azevedo and Anísio Teixeira, other solidarities also contributed to structure their sensibilities, defenses and engagement in the anti-fascist struggle.

In the course of the social process, the appreciation of egalitarian values, democracy, freedom of thought and the principles of modern pedagogy were constituting statements that composed Paschoal Lemme’s republican ideals. He grew up in a family environment with a spiritist orientation; which meant, at that time, to have been educated under the order of reason and science to the detriment of religious precept. In his professional life, he was a defender of public, democratic and secular schools. Identified with Marxist ideas, he came to recognize the existence of an intimate relationship between social inequalities and educational inequalities. When approaching communist militancy, he definitively assumed the conviction that any emancipatory aspiration could not dissociate education from the broader social order (^{Lemme, 2004}).

Armanda Álvaro Alberto, married to Edgar Sussekind de Mendonça, was, like her husband, sympathetic to the Communist Party. According to ^{Ana Chrystina Venancio Mignot (2010)}, “[…] her and Edgar’s Marxist stance was public”. In addition to founding the Escola Proletária do Meriti, in 1921, the educator participated in the creation of the ABE, in 1924. In the 1930s, she founded and presided over the União Feminina do Brasil, acting in the struggle for women’s rights. He intensified his political action from 1934 onwards, fought against Integralism, forming part of the Anti-Fascist Front and joining the ANL. “In 1961, at ABE, she received a tribute from Paschoal Lemme, consecrating her as the ‘Brazilian Montessori’ on the occasion of her school’S 40th anniversary” (^{Mignot, 2010}, p. 161).

Alongside Armanda Álvaro Alberto, Sussekind de Mendonça was an important collaborator in the foundation of the Escola Proletária de Meriti. His opposition to religious teaching in schools earned him much criticism, including physical aggression, such as the one that occurred in 1934, on the occasion of the VI National Conference on Education, held in Ceará. In addition to having directed the Club de Cultura Moderna, among other numerous activities carried out in the education field, Sussekind de Mendonça collaborated with Paschoal Lemme in holding night courses for workers affiliated to the Labor Union (^{Vidal, 2002}).

The friendship and support relationships between Paschoal Lemme, Edgar Sussekind de Mendonça and Armanda Álvaro Alberto, developed during the pedagogical renewal movement, were sealed in the context of the anti-fascist struggle. They shared ideas and positions within the scope of political militancy in line with the left. They also maintained an affinity with regard to the social identity of anti-fascist intellectuals. Coming from the bourgeoisie, they represented the small portion of Brazilians who had access to education at a time when illiteracy affected a large part of the population. According to ^{Hobsbawm (1987)}, they were, in general, from social groups whose higher education for their children was taken as a presupposition. In the case of intellectual women, these “[…] were on the left almost by definition, since the right was hostile to women’s emancipation and because, in general, families willing to give their daughters an intellectual education belonged to the liberal or ‘progressive’ wing of the bourgeoisie”. He also says that in social groups such as the Jews, the ancestry of Sussekind de Mendonça, “[…] among whom there was a strong tradition of love for studies and a direct experience of discrimination”, the number of left-wing intellectuals was higher than the average leftist intellectuals of other origins (^{Hobsbawm, 1987}, p. 275).

Together, these three anti-fascist educators and intellectuals were also committed to defending the precepts of modern pedagogy and the education of the masses. In addition, Paschoal Lemme and Armanda Álvaro’s relations with spiritism and Sussekind de Mendonça’s Jewish ancestry may have contributed to strengthening the bonds of solidarity between them. In this sense, they shared a common enemy: the clergy. On the one hand, because, according to ^{Clarice Nunes (2001)}, the pedagogical renewal movement made the issue of religious education one of the most serious divergences evidenced by the implementation of the New School ideals in the Federal District. On the other hand, because Jews and Spiritists, sympathetic to scientific precepts and opposed to State religion and superstition, also defended public and secular education.

Certainly, the fact that the three were arrested by the National Security Court, in the context of the unfolding of the Communist Revolt, was no accident. Paschoal Lemme, Edgar Sussekind de Mendonça and Armanda Álvaro Alberto worked with the Marxist left at a time when communism was being strongly opposed by the government, integralists and Catholics. Seen as a threat to order, to the basic foundations of Catholicism, to tradition and to the national state, communism had its image widely associated with the idea of betrayal, disease, barbarism, chaos. An example of anti-communist propaganda was the association of Jews with communism. About this association, Everardo Backeuser (1879-1951), an important Catholic leader of the period and active in the struggles for control of the educational field by the Church, said in the Jornal Diário Carioca¹⁰:

Well, communism, by its own declarations and by its practice in Russia, is a party that is not on an equal footing with any other. Inscribing in its program the principle that, as the victor, it will crush all other opinions, preventing them, it transfers itself outside the field of liberalism, it proclaims itself an outlaw. As an outlaw, it must be treated accordingly. So does Hitler. And he did very well. […] Hitler, in Berlin, is the wall of traditional Civilization against Lenin’s bloody utopia. Hitler is sacrificing himself in the Welfare of the Universe holocaust. […] The Jewish incident is already explained. Jews have been the main agents of communism. Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg were Jews. The Soviet government is of Jews, as Jews were the leftist elements that ruled, in the first years, the German Republic

(^{Backeuser, 1933}).

Different social groups took part in this anti-communist campaign, mingling under the arguments in defense of Catholicism, nationalism and liberalism, for which “[…] the famous integralist motto ‘God, Fatherland and Family’ constitutes an interesting reference, because it represented the junction of different anti-communist emphases”. But, as well highlighted by ^{Motta (2002)}, the “deformed and grotesque” representation used by anti-communists to discredit their enemies did not result only from political calculation and conscious manipulation. “Overwhelmed by fear and/or hatred, in addition to the religious and ideological influences inscribed in their convictions, the anti-communists seemed to believe in the terrifying images disseminated about the red peril”. On the other hand, “[…] at least in part, anti-communist representations were inspired by fragments of reality, notably with regard to events in the Soviet Union” (^{Motta, 2002}, p. 45; 88).

In 1935, with the inauguration of Francisco Campos in the Directorate of Public Instruction of the Federal District, replacing ^{Anísio Teixeira, Nunes (2001)} states that the municipal government was dominated by Catholics. According to the author, Alceu Amoroso Lima, canon Olímpio de Mello, and Father Hélder Câmara were some of the representatives of the Catholic Church who began to appear in the educational scene, assuming directive positions.

As early as 1937, the press, exemplified here by Jornal do Brasil¹¹, reported on the action of Francisco Campos, then Minister of Justice, aiming to prevent the infiltration of communism in schools. For this action, the collections of school libraries should be inventoried in order to “[…] purge all works whose direct or indirect purpose is the propaganda of communist ideas or contrary to the formation of a strong national mentality”. Furthermore, the “[…] school day should begin with short but incisive lectures against communist ideas” (^{Recrudesce…, 1937}, p. 08).

In this way, Francisco Campos’ alliance with the Church, woven since the early thirties, was consolidated at the national level. According to Maria Célia Marcondes de ^{Moraes (1992)}, Francisco Campos’ commitment to religious education in public schools would have other consequences. It would contribute to achieving the instrumental goals of joining the New State. In addition, Francisco Campos considered the importance of religious values as an integral and essential part of education because he shared with the Catholic group in the repudiation of liberal principles and communism.

Years later, in 1945, with the end of the New State, the climate created by the political opening allowed Paschoal Lemme to express, through the press linked to the Communist Party of Brazil (PCB), his convictions about the importance of associations and the role of teachers in this work.

And an apolitical educator would, at that time, not only be an anachronism, but a true crime against the people. Therefore, teachers should assume their true role as leaders of the community in which they work, putting themselves at the forefront of the people, guiding them in their campaigns, in their most felt demands, bringing parents together in associations, clubs, committees, enlightening them, educating them to actively participate in local political life, in choosing the true representatives to legislative assemblies and executive positions. In doing so, contributing to the country’s general progress, they are fighting for more and better education, which constitutes their immediate technical task

(^{Lemme, 1946}, p. 3).

In these terms, the educators’ engagement in the struggles for national reconstruction through associative experiences, such as the Club de Cultura Moderna, made it possible to observe the fluid borders between religion, politics and education, as well as some of the affinities that act in the production of solidarities that contributed to the promotion of the involvement of Lemme, Armanda and Sussekind de Mendonça in the defense of certain causes.

Final considerations

In the exercise of republican democracy, associations mobilize social fronts to confront organized forms of power, activate the circulation of ideas and function as places of sociability. From this perspective, it was possible to analyze the educators’ engagement in the struggles for national reconstruction, apprehending the cultural, political and social conditions of the period and their correlations with the motivations mobilized around the foundation of the Club de Cultura Moderna in interdependence with the sensibilities and solidarities operating in the constitution of its forms of intervention in the public debate in favor of certain causes. It was also possible to capture some elements of the ideological and symbolic apparatus used to promote and perpetuate cohesion between the individuals gathered in that association. In the same way, it made it possible to achieve some of the strategies and resources used by the government, by Catholic leaders and by Integralists to preserve their social positions and potential for higher power in relation to the communists.

In this tense process of validating ideas, the balance of power distribution tipped to the side that considered the activities of the Club de Cultura Moderna inconvenient and considered as dissonant the socialist project of society for the Brazilian republic defended by the educators and intellectuals gathered in that association. At the same time, its dynamics seem to corroborate the idea that, in a democracy, the strength of less powerful cohesive groups lies in the possibility of reducing inequalities through incessant surveillance and the increase of constraints addressed to groups with greater power.

Such dynamics are thus revealing of the relative strength of interdependent groups. Within the framework of the law, the Club de Cultura Moderna stirred and promoted ideas, mobilized social fronts and brought together educators and intellectuals, and made use of the media to defame and contest. While it acted as a vector of ways of thinking, the effectiveness of its actions was, at the same time, dependent on its own ability to make prevail, in terms of power balance, the values cultivated within the organization and these over the values disseminated in the scope of the other figurations involved in that competition.