“PENSANDO E REPENSANDO UM MOVIMENTO SOCIAL CONSERVADOR E REFORMISTA”:

a legião cearense do trabalho em perspectiva.

Abstract

This article seeks to analyze interpretations of the Legião Cearense do Trabalho (1931–1937), an organization that for a time dominated the leadership of workers in Ceará, especially in Fortaleza. Initially, as demonstrated, the LCT was treated in several academic works as an accessory theme for understanding the Ação Integralista Brasileira in Ceará and as an elitist organization of pure manipulation and control over workers. It is argued that despite its conservative character, it is not possible to reduce the LCT to an appendix of the history of Integralism, much less to imagine that it was a ruse to deceive the working class. Conceived primarily from the experience of workers, the Legião, which was undoubtedly a movement with a corporatist program, became a driving force for workers' unionization and was called upon and demanded on several occasions by workers to mediate and solve typical problems in the world of work, clashing with the employers.