Toxic-Subversion: Anti-Communism and Prohibitionism in the Construction of the “Internal Enemy” during Brazil’s Military Dictatorship — L. H. S. Brandão (2019)
BLUF
Master’s dissertation submitted to the Graduate Program in History at the University of Brasília (UnB), 2019. The work demonstrates that the Brazilian military regime operationalized the concept of “toxic-subversion” — identified in SNI (National Intelligence Service) training manuals — to fuse Cold War anti-communist imagery with prohibitionist drug discourse, constructing surveillance and classification criteria for the “internal enemy” that outlasted the dictatorship and persist in Brazil’s contemporary repressive structures.
Bibliographic Record
| Field | Data |
|---|---|
| Title (PT) | Tóxico-subversão: anticomunismo e proibicionismo na construção do “inimigo interno” durante a Ditadura Militar no Brasil |
| Author | Luiz Henrique Santos Brandão |
| Advisor | Daniel Barbosa Andrade de Faria |
| Program | Graduate Program in History — UnB |
| Department | Department of History (ICH HIS) |
| Institution | Universidade de Brasília, Institute of Human Sciences |
| Defense | 16 July 2019 |
| Repository publication | 3 April 2020 |
| Pages | 120 |
| URI | http://repositorio.unb.br/handle/10482/37332 |
Central Argument
The dissertation identifies the operative concept of “toxic-subversion” in primary sources from the military regime’s intelligence apparatus and demonstrates that this articulation was not accidental rhetoric — it was the discursive structure that enabled the Brazilian state to:
- Fuse two threat imaginaries — the “communist” and the “trafficker” — into a single category of internal enemy
- Legitimize political repression through public health and family morality discourse
- Geographically expand the target of the repressive apparatus: from political organizations to universities and urban peripheries
The articulation has structural origins in the United States in the Cold War context and was exported to Brazil via security apparatus formation channels — positioning it as a vector of North American doctrinal influence over Brazilian internal security doctrine.
Thematic Axes
1. The National Campaign Against Narcotics (1970–1973)
The primary operative instrument of the Médici government. The campaign promoted the thesis that “national unity” under military command was the only response capable of simultaneously “purging” the drug epidemic and communist infiltration. The slogan concentrated both internal threats — political and moral — within a single narrative frame.
2. Moral Anti-Communism: Drugs, Sexuality, and the Family
The moral updating of anti-communism in the 1970s incorporated the narrative that drug use was a deliberate strategy of the international communist movement to corrupt Brazilian youth. Repressive archives associate drug addiction with sexual promiscuity and family destruction — linking prohibitionist frameworks for demonizing drugs with internal security doctrine.
Convergence of matrices:
- North American prohibitionism (morality, racialization)
- National Security Doctrine anti-communism
- Brazilian Catholic conservatism
- Reaction to “May 1968” and the cultural revolution
3. Genealogy of the Contemporary Internal Enemy
The dissertation’s central argument is genealogical: the “internal enemy” classification criteria produced by this articulation did not end in 1985. The discursive and operative categories survived in Brazilian institutional structures, identifiable in post-transition and contemporary repressive practices — particularly in how the state treats drug users in urban peripheries.
Primary Sources
- SNI training manuals (operative concept “toxic-subversion”)
- Military regime intelligence apparatus operational documentation (Médici government, 1969–1974)
- National Campaign Against Narcotics documentation
- Press archive of the period (Folha de S.Paulo)
Repositories
Vault Cross-Links
- Brasil — central state actor
- SNI — Serviço Nacional de Informações — primary source; analyzed intelligence apparatus
- Anticomunismo — central discursive axis
- Doutrina de Segurança Nacional — doctrinal framework
- Guerra Fria — Influência na América Latina — origin context of the toxic-subversion articulation
- Ditadura Militar Brasileira (1964–1985) — central historical period
- Tóxico-subversão — Brandão (2019) — PT-BR reference note (vault-internal)
Strategic Implications
Assessment (High): The prohibitionism–anti-communism articulation as a vector for constructing the internal enemy is a recurrent mechanism in authoritarian regimes — not exclusive to Brazil. Structural variants are identifiable in the Argentine, Chilean, and Uruguayan military regimes of the same period.
Assessment (Medium): The persistence of discursive categories in post-transition repressive structures indicates that analysis of contemporary Brazilian public security practices requires genealogical mapping of these concepts.
Assessment (High): The pattern of U.S. → Brazil doctrinal export via security apparatus channels is structurally analogous to other cognitive influence vectors documented in the vault — specifically 21 Information & Cognitive Warfare and the NSO-Group-Pegasus-Surveillance-Export-SYNTHESIS investigation.
Gap: The dissertation covers the Médici government (1969–1974). Analysis of the Geisel–Figueiredo period (1974–1985) and institutional continuities into the New Republic remains an open research front.
Sources
- UnB Institutional Repository — Fact, High
- OASISBR / IBICT — Fact, High
- eduCapes / CAPES — Fact, High