Jones Manoel

Jones Manoel da Silva (born c. 1990, Recife, Pernambuco) is a Brazilian historian, Marxist intellectual, popular educator, and political activist. He holds a bachelor's degree in History and a master's degree in Social Work, both from the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE), and was enrolled as a doctoral student in Social Work at the Universidade Federal de Alagoas (UFAL) as of late 2024.^[1:1] He became widely known through his YouTube channel Farol Brasil and as a regular columnist for Boitempo Editorial, one of Brazil's principal Marxist publishers.

A longtime member of the Partido Comunista Brasileiro (PCB), he was expelled from it in 2023 following an internal dispute over the party's political direction.^[2:1] He subsequently joined the faction that established the Partido Comunista Brasileiro Revolucionário (PCBR), which was formally consolidated in June 2024.^[3:1] In March 2026, the Partido Socialismo e Liberdade (PSOL) approved his democratic affiliation, enabling him to stand as a pre-candidate for federal deputy for Pernambuco in the 2026 elections.^[4:1] The PCBR, which lacked electoral registration, had supported this arrangement as a means for him to run.^[5:1]

Early life and education

Jones Manoel da Silva grew up in Recife in working-class circumstances; in his 2018 master's dissertation he credits his mother, referred to as Dona Elza, with raising him and his sister alone and instilling values he describes as foundational to his political outlook.^[6:1] He completed secondary school at Escola Brigadeiro Eduardo Gomes between 2006 and 2009. He enrolled in the History (Licenciatura) course at UFPE in 2011, graduating in 2015.^[1:1]

He joined the PCB's youth wing, the União da Juventude Comunista (UJC), in November 2013 — while still an undergraduate — describing the organization as the place where he learned Marxist theory and the practice of revolutionary politics.^[6:1]

Between 2016 and 2018 he completed a master's degree in Social Work at UFPE's Programa de Pós-Graduação em Serviço Social (PPGSS), supported by a CNPq scholarship. His dissertation, Em busca da revolução brasileira: um estudo crítico sobre a estratégia socialista na obra de Carlos Nelson Coutinho (In search of the Brazilian revolution: a critical study of the socialist strategy in the work of Carlos Nelson Coutinho), examined the political thought of the Marxist intellectual Carlos Nelson Coutinho, focusing on his formulations on the Brazilian state, democracy, and the relationship between reform and revolution.^[6] He subsequently began doctoral studies in Social Work at UFAL, where his Lattes CV records him as supervising a doctoral thesis on race, labor superexploitation, and the Brazilian dependent capitalist state.^[1:1]

Intellectual and media work

Jones Manoel operates the YouTube channel Farol Brasil, through which he produces content on Marxist theory, Brazilian and international politics, history, and the Black liberation movement. As of August 2025 the channel had over one million followers on Instagram alone.^[7:1] He has been a regular columnist for the Blog da Boitempo, the online platform of Boitempo Editorial, where his articles have covered topics including race and Marxism, the history of socialist experiments, Brazilian revolutionary strategy, and anti-colonialism. He has also written for Revista Opera, Le Monde Diplomatique Brasil, and LavraPalavra.

As an editor and organizer, he co-edited several anthologies, including Revolução Africana: Uma antologia do pensamento marxista (2019, with Gabriel Landi Fazzio) and Raça, Classe e Revolução: a Luta Pelo Poder Popular nos Estados Unidos (2020, also with Fazzio), both published by Autonomia Literária. He also organized a Brazilian edition of Domenico Losurdo's Colonialismo e luta anticolonial (2020, Boitempo).^[1]

In January 2020, the musician Caetano Veloso published a piece in Mídia NINJA describing Jones Manoel as a Marxist thinker who had shifted his own political thinking, bringing significant national attention to him.^[8] The two subsequently gave a joint interview that was listed on Jones Manoel's Lattes CV.

Political activity

PCB membership and expulsion

Jones Manoel was a member of the PCB from 2013 and rose to positions in the party's state leadership in Pernambuco and its national Central Committee. In 2021 he announced a pre-candidacy for the governorship of Pernambuco on the PCB ticket.^[9] He was officially nominated by the PCB as its candidate for governor of Pernambuco in the 2022 elections.^[10:1] He received 33,931 votes — placing sixth among ten candidates — having campaigned with R$50,000 raised exclusively from individual donors, without access to electoral party fund resources or inclusion in televised debates.^[10:1]

In July 2023 the PCB's Central Committee expelled Jones Manoel along with four other members: Ana Karen, Gabriel Landi, Gabriel Lazzari, and Ivan Pinheiro, a former Secretary-General of the party.^[2:1] The PCB cited violations of democratic centralism, including bringing internal party disputes into public social media forums. Jones Manoel disputed this characterization, arguing that a majority faction led by Sofia Manzano and Mauro Iasi had suppressed legitimate programmatic criticism and was carrying out a purge to consolidate control.^[2:1] The Pernambuco state secretary of the PCB, Roberto Arrais, confirmed the expulsion to the press, stating that the party does not permit internal factions.^[10]

PCBR and the 2024 congress

Following the expulsion, Jones Manoel and others initially sought to challenge the PCB leadership by convening a XVII Extraordinary Congress under the banner of the Reconstrução Revolucionária (Revolutionary Reconstruction) tendency. When that effort did not result in a return to the party, the expelled militants proceeded to constitute an independent organization. The Partido Comunista Brasileiro Revolucionário (PCBR) was formally consolidated at its XVII Extraordinary Congress in June 2024, with Gabriel Lazzari as Secretary-General.^[3:1] The PCBR positions itself as the continuation of the PCB's revolutionary tradition and identifies with Marxism-Leninism.

2026 federal deputy candidacy

In late 2025, PSOL deputy Sâmia Bomfim personally invited Jones Manoel to join the PSOL and consider running for federal deputy, identifying him as a potential candidate who could help the party elect its first representative from the Northeast of Brazil.^[11] Negotiations between Jones Manoel and the PSOL proceeded through early 2026. CartaCapital reported in January 2026 that he was negotiating the affiliation while still a member of the PCBR, and that the reason for seeking a PSOL affiliation — rather than running under his own party — was that the PCBR had no electoral registration.^[5:1]

On March 27, 2026, the PSOL National Executive approved his filiação democrática (democratic affiliation) by unanimous vote.^[4:1] The move was articulated in the background by Ivan Moraes, PSOL's pre-candidate for governor of Pernambuco, as part of the party's strategy to strengthen its proportional slate in the state.^[4:1] His formal registration as a party member was expected to be formalized at a political event in subsequent weeks.

Threats and harassment

In August 2025, Jones Manoel reported receiving death threats and extortion demands from a group claiming to be an international neo-Nazi organization.^[12:1] A second wave of threats arrived in October 2025, this time sent through the institutional email address of a government employee in Paraíba; the message demanded R$250,000 via Pix and threatened harm to his family members.^[12:1] Jones Manoel reported publicly that authorities at the federal and state level had failed to respond effectively. The federal Ministério Público redirected the case on jurisdictional grounds, and the Pernambuco state government did not respond to his complaints.^[12]

On August 6, 2025, Meta removed his Instagram and Facebook accounts without providing an explanation or avenue for appeal.^[7:1] At the time of the removal he had just surpassed one million Instagram followers and was averaging approximately 25,000 new followers per day following the viral spread of a video debate. Jones Manoel stated that he believed the removal had a political motivation, citing the timing relative to his audience growth and his recent public criticisms of Donald Trump and the major technology platforms.^[7:1]

Selected publications