Police massacre in Brazil

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On 30 October, the Civil Police of the state of Rio de Janeiro carried out a massacre in two favelas (slum districts where 1.5 million people live in cramped conditions) of this metropolis: 130 people were killed; dozens of corpses were found in a wooded area with their hands tied, shot with a bullet to the back or the nape of the neck, as well as the body of a nineteen-year-old young man who had been beheaded after having his throat cut…

It was a large-scale police operation, “Operação Contenção” (“Operation Containment”), ordered by the state governor Cláudio Castro, a supporter of the far-right former president Bolsonaro, aimed at arresting the leaders of the “Comando Vermelho” (Red Command), a powerful criminal organisation operating in these favelas, where nearly 200,000 people live.

To suppress this group, 2,500 police officers were deployed together with around thirty armoured vehicles, demolition trucks, two helicopters and drones. Residents reported indiscriminate gunfire directed at homes, wounded people left without medical assistance, and dead bodies lying in the streets; they also mentioned house searches carried out without judicial warrants, etc.

The following day, the governor declared that the operation had been a great success, in which only four police officers were killed. Castro further criticised the lack of support from the federal government, which had refused to provide armoured vehicles or authorise military intervention: “This operation has little to do with public security. It is a defensive operation. It is a war that the state [of Rio de Janeiro] should not wage alone. For a war like this, which has nothing to do with urban security, we should have much greater support. At this moment, perhaps even from the armed forces.” (1)

Although he described the operation as “catastrophic”, the acting president Lula responded by reiterating his determination to fight crime firmly and stated that it was necessary for both the federal and state governments to commit themselves to “combating the [criminal] faction and the brutality that exists in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and throughout the country” (2), thereby aligning himself with the rhetoric of the far right. In fact, his government oversaw a military operation in June 2007 in the Amelão favela that resulted in 19 deaths (some of them executions). The brutality to which he referred therefore did not concern the police, which are, however, not much better: according to the official annual report on public security in Brazil, 6,393 people were killed by the police in 2024 (83% Black and 72% under the age of thirty) (3), while police officers enjoy de facto immunity — a sociological study in Rio de Janeiro found that more than 99% of police killings were never the subject of an official investigation (4).

Behind the “war on drugs”, what is actually being carried out are operations aimed at terrorising the proletariat and marginalised masses. These bloody and spectacular operations, directed mainly against petty offenders, are incapable of eliminating crime or organised crime. According to experts, the sources of funding of the “factions”, such as large-scale fuel smuggling and the political networks that support it (5), need to be targeted — something that is not currently on the agenda. In Rio, paramilitary militias composed of firefighters or police officers in active service or retired run a lucrative business providing protection and a range of key services. All these groups have diversified and expanded their activities to include cocaine trafficking, gold smuggling, digital payments, etc. To such an extent that some believe organised crime has become the main sector of the Brazilian economy: between organised crime, which thrives outside the framework of bourgeois law, and criminal capitalism, which is “honest” because it generally operates within that framework — without hesitating to transgress it when the pursuit of profit requires — it is natural that links should exist (6).

The scourge of crime is a product of poverty, unemployment and precariousness; in short, of the miserable conditions in which dispossessed masses of the population live. In order to survive, some find no other solution than to engage in criminal activities. Capitalism cannot eliminate these conditions because it is their source and at the same time feeds on them.

On the contrary, bourgeois power structures use the pretext of the “fight against crime”, the “fight against drugs”, etc., in order — as with the “fight against terrorism” — to justify strengthening their police capacities, both legal and material. The proletariat has no interest in supporting the strengthening of the police, nor in demanding greater and more effective state repression against crime, nor in promoting “law and order”. Any strengthening of the state and its means of repression inevitably turns against it. In fact, the proletariat always represents — potentially — in the eyes of the bourgeoisie the real danger, the real threat to public order.

For this reason, spectacular and bloody operations such as the October one in Rio de Janeiro have an undeniable anti-proletarian character: beyond the indiscriminate killing of inhabitants of proletarian districts, their aim is to demonstrate to the proletarians the unlimited power of the state and its means of repression.

This is not a “war against the favelas” (7), but an episode in the war against the proletarians. The latter will have to respond with class war against capitalism (criminal as well as legal) and the bourgeois state.

(4) https://necvu.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/2012-NECVU_UFRJ_Autos-de-Resistencia-no-Rio-de-Janeiro_Relatorio-Final.pdf

(5) https://www.lemonde.fr/international/ article/ 2025/10/29 /au-bresil-rio-a- connu-l-operation- policiere- la-plus-meurtriere- de-son-histoire_ 6650142_ 3210.html

(6) “Brazil’s criminal economy has emerged from dark corners and is now seeping into boardrooms, financial statements and key supply chains (…)”, see https://theconversation.com/analise-o-crime-organizado-se-tornou-o-maior-negocio-do-brasil-e-sua-mais-seria-ameaca-268554

(7) This formulation is taken up by the Partido Socialismo e Liberdade (a petty-bourgeois left party bringing together Trotskyists and various reformists), which merely directs its criticism at the governor: https://movimentorevista.com.br/ 2025/10/rio-em-guerra-operacao-mais-letal-da-historia-do-estado-expoe-a-politica-de-morte-de-castro/

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