Communists in Brazil, Switzerland and Chile honour Renato Rabelo's legacy

Image via the PCdoB

Renato Rabelo, a stalwart leader of the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) at many difficult points in its history, died on Sunday, February 15, 2026, at 83 after a long battle with cancer. His decades of struggle played an essential role in the evolution of the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) and in Brazil's democratic transition.

Communists in Brazil, Switzerland and Chile have honoured Renato Rabelo's profound and lasting legacy.

Renato Rabelo Leaves Important Legacy to Brazil and the PCdoB

National Executive of the PCdoB

Date: 15/02/2026

The Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) communicates, with immense pain, the death at 83 years of age of Renato Rabelo, one of the most important leaders in its hundred-year history, of which he was president from 2001 to 2015. In the last three years, Renato dedicated himself to caring for his health, without ceasing to contribute to the PCdoB. In the most recent period, he fought tenaciously against the progression of cancer. His heart stopped beating on the morning of this Sunday, February 15, 2026.

At the same time, the PCdoB expresses condolences to his wife, Conceição Leiro Vilan, the esteemed comrade Conchita, his children, André and Nina, other family members and friends. It expresses the feeling of consternation of all communist activists who, in homage to Renato, bow the green and yellow flag of the homeland, intertwined with the red banners of revolution and socialism. And it welcomes in its heart the feelings, the condolences that arrive from the country and abroad and pulse through social networks.

There were more than sixty years of revolutionary activism. Renato was vice-president of the National Union of Students (UNE), facing the fierce repression of the early years of the 1964 military dictatorship. He was already an activist of Popular Action (AP) and was part of the leadership nucleus that led the integration of that organization into the PCdoB, in 1973.

Since then, he has accumulated more than half a century as a prominent leader of the PCdoB's national leadership nucleus, a respected personality in the democratic, patriotic and popular political field and of the entire left. In this long journey, he had a leading role in the struggles and confrontations waged by the nation and the working class.

Exiled in France, in the context of the Lapa Massacre, in 1976, when PCdoB leaders were assassinated, arrested and tortured, he returned to Brazil with the amnesty of 1979. During this period, he lived with João Amazonas, historic ideologue and builder of the PCdoB, and other communist leaders. He then began his trajectory as a theoretical formulator, organizer and leader of the Party.

His respectability was also established on the international stage. He actively participated in debates and elaborations, visited communist, revolutionary and patriotic organizations in various countries, and received, in Brazil, various leaders, strengthening ties of friendship and cooperation, with anti-imperialist struggle as the guiding thread. He dedicated himself, in particular, to strengthening the relations of the PCdoB with socialist countries, notably China, Vietnam and Cuba.

His greatest work is the contribution of ideas and formulations to the Party's theoretical, political and ideological heritage, important theoretical and political contributions that enriched its tactical, strategic and programmatic thinking, as well as the praxis of its construction and action in the arena of class struggle. To this is added a list of communist cadres in relation to whom Renato's role was prominent in training them, whether at the João Amazonas National School, in the Party's structure, or in action fronts, notably in the student movement.

Renato stood out in political struggle – he was one of the articulators, by the PCdoB, together with João Amazonas, of the Popular Brazil Front (PT, PSB, PCdoB) that launched, in 1989, the first and landmark candidacy of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for president of the Republic, a journey that would be victorious with Lula's election in 2002.

Already at the head of the PCdoB, succeeding João Amazonas, Renato elaborated the guidelines for communist participation in coalition governments in capitalism, in view of the invitation to participate, for the first time, in the Ministry of the government of the Republic.

That opening scenario represented an immense challenge, a task that he assumed with his usual dedication, with political wisdom, capacity to dialogue and aggregate, democratic and progressive conviction. He was one of the architects of the political tactics of the Lula and Dilma Rousseff governments, a quality recognized by leaders of the political forces that made up the broad alliances of that period.

At the conclusion of his last term as president of the Party, when he proposed, in 2013, the name of Luciana Santos to succeed him, faced with the coup escalation of the neoliberal right, he took to the field to build a broad democratic front.

On April 1, 2016, Renato assumed the presidency of the Maurício Grabois Foundation, in which he led and participated in important initiatives in the study and confrontation of phenomena that emerged in that turbulent period of the country. Always with the practice of breadth and aggregation of broad forces around democratic resistance, he also left precious theoretical and programmatic contributions to the Foundation. In 2025, he was honored as president of honor of the Foundation, in recognition of his achievements.

President Lula, in presenting Renato's biography, Life, Ideas and Directions, wrote that he was a remarkable man, "one of the most relevant figures in the political history of Brazil." "A man who dedicated his life to the struggle for social justice, equality and national sovereignty, principles that are dear to all of us who believe in a more inclusive and democratic country."

Former president Dilma Rousseff also stated, in the same book, that Renato was "a sweet Bahian with a revolutionary soul, who follows the best of communist tradition, combining action and thought, theory and struggle, committed to national development, the emancipation of the Brazilian people and the construction of socialism."

Renato leaves a rich political, theoretical and ideological production, a magnificent example of life and political activism, a heritage responsible for the enhancement of the PCdoB, for its respectability and for its strength as an organization protagonist in national and international political struggle.

In this moment of deep pain, the PCdoB reaffirms that his legacy strengthens the essence of the Communist Program, the struggle for a sovereign, democratic and socialist Brazil, to which he contributed enormously.

How much achievement of a fruitful life, which will continue to drive the revolutionary journey and inspire new generations of communists!

Reinvigorate, strengthen the PCdoB with the legacy of Renato Rabelo!

São Paulo, February 15, 2026

Nádia Campeão – acting president of the PCdoB

Luciana Santos – licensed president of the PCdoB

National Executive Commission of the PCdoB

In memory of comrade Renato Rabelo: Communist Party (Switzerland)

We received with deep sorrow the news of the passing of Comrade Renato Rabelo: he was not only a historic president of the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB), but also a political and ideological reference point for us, since the line that the PCdoB was able to put forward served as a source of inspiration for comrades in other countries as well, such is the international prestige of PCdoB.

Comrade Renato Rabelo lived a consistent life from the time he served as vice president of the National Union of Students and confronted the military dictatorship. He was also the architect of the guidelines that enabled the participation of communists in coalition governments within a capitalist context: his dialectical approach made it possible to maintain Marxist-Leninist identity and class independence while concretely seeking to shift political balances within a defined national and institutional framework. Renato demonstrated that communists are a party that does not confine itself to propaganda, but can influence reality - including at the institutional level - according to the given balance of forces, and his work was appreciated in the governments of Lula and Dilma.

We fully understand the feeling of sorrow among the Brazilian communist rank and file in the face of this grave loss and express our most heartfelt condolences to his family and to his comrades in struggle. A struggle that Renato always carried forward by uniting the green and yellow flag of the homeland with the red flag of scientific socialism. The Swiss communists, deeply moved, lower their flags in mourning and remember his noble example of dedication to our common cause.

Communist Party of Chile:

Compañera Nádia Campeão Presidenta (i) Partido Comunista de Brasil (PCdoB)

Estimada compañera:

Conmovidos ante la partida del compañero e histórico dirigente del PCdoB Renato Rabelo, inclinamos en su honor nuestras banderas y le enviamos nuestra solidaridad, extensiva por su intermedio a las y los militantes del Partido Comunista y su familia.

El legado del compañero Renato Rabelo al frente de su Partido desde 2001 a 2015, que formó parte de seis décadas de militancia revolucionaria por los derechos de los trabajadores, su labor como dirigente estudiantil de la UNE durante su juventud, su lucha indoblegable bajo la represión militar de 1964 y bajo el exilio en 1976, lo convierten en un referente de quienes dedicaron toda su vida a la lucha por las transformaciones sociales y políticas en todos los terrenos que le deparó la historia, por la democracia y la justicia social para su pueblo y los de América Latina y el Caribe.

Nos sentimos parte de su compromiso internacionalista de solidaridad y hermandad de nuestros pueblos frente al imperialismo, materializados en su convicción democrática en defensa de los intereses populares, plasmada en su contribución a las batallas electorales que llevaron a la Presidencia de la República a Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva en 2002 y posteriormente a Dilma Rousseff.

Ha partido físicamente un compañero de ruta, pero nos queda su legado.

Comité Central Partido Comunista de Chile. Santiago de Chile, 15 de febrero de 2026