Memories of ‘Little Moscow’ (1943–64) : Study of a public housing experiment for industrial workers in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Abstract

This article will address some questions on working-class culture and politics based on the case-study of a working-class community named 'Little Moscow'. This community, located in Realengo, a suburb of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, reached its peak between I943 and I964, and gained its name as a result of left-wing militancy on a public housing estate. This resulted from the sympathy for or participation of some of the tenants in the Brazilian Communist party Partido Comunista Brasileiro PCB. The presence of the PCB went beyond the militancy of some of the tenants on the estate during electoral campaigns and was also felt in the cultural and educational institutions created by them. Apart from activism in the community, some tenants were also militant in the unions in their respective workplaces. Located in a suburb west of the city of Rio de Janeiro, the Realengo housing estate was the first experiment in public housing organized by the Brazilian state. This policy was made possible through the Institute for Retirement and Social Welfare of Industrial Workers IAPI (Instituto de Aposentadorias e Pensoes dos Industriarios). It was the first time in Brazilian history that the state responded with a policy to the ever-growing housing problems of the working class. The central question this article will try to answer is the following: how can one explain the co-existence within the Realengo estate of two apparently contradictory realities: the IAPI's conservative 'social engineering' project and the existence, at the same time, of a militant community with links with the Communist party? The issue is how the working-class group that came to live on the estate was able to transform their initial position as 'needy' workers, recipients of a 'social engineering' policy, into a community so politically active that it gained the name of 'Little Moscow'? This article will try to trace the elements of conflict, subordination, resistance and incorporation in the relationship between the community and the IAPI. The empirical evidence for this study was based on two different sources. The first was oral history research among the surviving community made up of older informants, aged between sixty-four and eighty-three years. The historical reconstruction from the foundation of the community in I943 until its crisis and decharacterization in I964 was