The Struggles of Socialists Professors at the National Faculty of Law (1920-1930)

Abstract

How was the pioneering left-wing environment at the National Faculty of Law (FND) formed, which included marxist intellectuals, and how did some of the jurists who drafted labor laws before and after the 1930 Revolution act politically and professionally? These are some of the questions we aim to answer in this work. Although this article can be described as a social history of ideas, there are broad underlying debates, such as, for example, freedom of professorship, repression of teachers, labor legislation, the Lei de Segurança Nacional, academic and political disputes, anti-communism, etc. We hope to be able to form a portrait of this forgotten, but important, environment formed in the Federal District (RJ) from the 1920s onwards. We also aim to rescue little-known figures, but of great importance in the history of workers defense in our country. To do this, we made use of a detailed study of the primary sources produced by these teachers.

Keywords:
Worker’s rights; socialism history; Vargas Era; the 1935’s communist uprising; freedom of professorship