A caminho da Terra Prometida socialista. Um estudo sobre o discurso e a acção dos manipuladores de tabaco de Lisboa (sécs. XIX-XX)

The Lisbon tobacco workers were particularly active in the socialist movement in the beginning of the 1870’s. They were integrated in the Fraternidade Operária (“Workers Fraternity”) an organization with links to the International. However there followed a period of disbelieve in the possibility of getting to the “Promised Land” of socialism through the strategy defined by their leaders. However, socialism remained the unifying discourse of the tobacco workers, i.e., the ideal that united and mobilized these workers to the struggle for a better world. In general, this ideology as expressed by these workers can be identified with the reformist current of the International, but it was somehow elaborated and adapted to the particular conditions of the Portuguese tobacco workers.