Stalin and Kim Jong-un have their admirers in Brazil

In a recent interview, legendary Brazilian songwriter Caetano Veloso sparked controversy by claiming he had abandoned what he called “vague liberalism” and “anti-communism.” Caetano, who was arrested and forced into exile by Brazil’s military dictatorship in 1969, attributed this “ideological evolution” to a discussion with “a young man from Pernambuco named Jones Manoel.”

“He quoted an Italian author, called Domenico Losurdo, who wrote a counterfactual history of liberalism and has a book on the modern views of liberalism critique,” said Caetano.

Jones Manoel is a young historian, YouTuber, podcaster, author of books on Marxism, and an affiliate of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB), one of the few ideologically driven political parties in Brazil. After Caetano’s declarations, Mr. Manoel was incessantly sought out to give interviews, in which he spoke of his own “evolution” in the last decade, from an informed youth who “ignored the existence of Fidel Castro,” to a history professor with a gift for convincing his interlocutors of his views.

Mr. Manoel, along with Domenico Losurdo, casts the Soviet Union in a positive light on several aspects and — controversially — relativizes the role of Josef Stalin, who, throughout his time as the head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, oversaw millions of deaths. Both men acknowledge Stalin’s crimes, but see his era of government as including several important advances.

As a result, Mr. Manoel — who was born poor in the city of Recife — has become a target for academics, many from the left, for “providing ammunition” to Brazil’s right-wing which has gained ground with hysterical messages of a “communist threat” in the country. Due to receiving threats online,...