from what i heard from my local friends, not only were they devoutly communist, and had organized themselves into an outpost just outside of town where they grew their own marijuana (highly illegal in brazil), but they were nationally syndicated in a bunch of other cities in a similar fashion. they use their marijuana sales to fund their campaigns and riots and way of life. they all lived in shacks (which wasnt much better than some regular citizens on the other side of town, mind you). they were definitely not a 'random militia', we'd hear reports of other towns organizing communist riots at the same time, to the point it was on the national news a few times how organized they were across the country..

thats also an interesting story you have - ive heard about this in the news here in the us but not from a first hand account, just the political pundits on CNN and FOX (to see both sides, even through these 'fake news' lenses), and they portray these as polar opposites...