Portal:Communism/Selected biography/51

Luís Carlos Prestes (3 January 1898 – 7 March 1990) was one of the organizers of the 1920s tenente revolts and the Communist opposition to the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas in Brazil.

Prestes, also known as the "Knight of Hope", helped organize the failed tenente revolts of 1922, an uprising of the largely middle class officer corps and poor conscripted servicemen against the agrarian oligarchies that dominated Brazil's Old Republic (1889–1930). Prestes was sick with typhoid fever and was unable to fight on the day of the revolt. From 1924, Prestes was one of the leaders of the insurrectionist movement, leading the Coluna Prestes (Prestes' Column) on a 25,000 km (15,534 mi) march through the Brazilian countryside. The march did not aim to defeat the enemy forces of the Federal government, but rather to ensure the column's survival and to continue threatening the enemy.