Carlos Marighella

Who was Carlos Marighella?

Carlos Marighella was a Brazilian Marxist revolutionary and writer.

Marighella's most famous contribution to guerrilla literature was the Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla, consisting of advice on how to disrupt and overthrow an authoritarian regime aiming at revolution. Written shortly before his death late 1969 in São Paulo, Minimanual was first published in North America by The Berkeley Tribe in California in July 1970 in an English edition. Marighella also wrote For the Liberation of Brazil. The theories laid out in both books have greatly influenced contemporary ideological activism. Unlike Che Guevara, who proposed guerrilla activity in the countryside, Marighela's theories on urban guerrilla warfare envisaged cities as the source of rebellion. As an advocate of urban guerrilla warfare as means to neutralize and defeat political institutions in order to effect radical social change, Marighella's work was the latest tome in the small library of revolutionary political literature in the 20th century.