24

Oct

10:18pm
Guilherme Brendt Brazil
Some brief comments about Brazil's current political situation

Some brief comments about Brazil's current political situation

Guilherme Brendt Brazil//10:18pm, Oct 24th '21

This article doesn’t intend to be a long and profound analysis in Brazil's political situation, but a short informative to introduce the main aspects, in a recent perspective, about Brazilian class struggle. It is a work, yet to be done, to translate, for most of them are just in Portuguese, or even produce deeper issues in English which approaches historical, social and economic topics about Brazilian reality. That being said, let’s move on.

We’re getting near the end of Bolsonaro’s third year of government. The next elections are planned to happen in October 2022. For several Social Democrats, mainly the Workers Party (PT), that month will be the end of Bolsonaro, for it’s triumph, Lula, is free and has all its political rights restored. So for a lot of them, it’s just a matter of time. Although, it's not quite sure of what will be left to govern after Bolsonaro is gone, if he’ll be gone.

Since 2015, since the second Dilma’s government, the bourgeoisie has declared an open war against the Brazilian working class. The coup in 2016 which deposed Dilma, without resistance, was a criminal action in order to accelerate the bourgeois offensive. All the social achievements conquered from the last two decades are been completely obliterated, the working class living conditions are the worst in the last 30 years, unemployment and informality are reaching absurd levels including, together, more than 50 million of workers, famine is a reality in small to huge cities, the main state-owned companies are been privatized and Brazilian’s State capacity to organize, boost the economy and provide social rights is dismantled. If that wasn’t enough, the pandemic has a death toll of 600 thousand people. Basically, through strength and the bourgeois institutions, like the parliament and the Federal Court of Justice, the bourgeoisie is implementing several economic reforms in order to establish the most violent and brutal neoliberal domain inside Brazil. The fascism of Bolsonaro and its closer allies, alongside with the military and the Liberalism of the Bourgeoisie are good friends.

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One should wonder, where are the working class organizations, then? Since the end of the Military-Bourgeois Dictatorship in 1985, Social Democracy has been the hegemonic line of thought inside left-wing organizations in Brazil. Marxism-Leninism nowadays is growing, but communists are far from being the most influential group inside the Brazilian working class. If it is true that Workers Party (PT) is still the biggest and most influential left-wing organization inside working class and Trade-unions, therefore they are the main responsibles for so many defeats in recent years. Social Democracy's influence in the workers movement, along with all the neoliberal reforms during the 90’s and 2000’s, are responsible for diffusing the working class capacity to put up a fight against all this chaotic scenario we’re living in. We’re talking about a long historical process of abandoning Marxism, abandoning Class Independence, and believing that it was possible to create a ‘humanized’ capitalism inside Brazil, where the interests of the Bourgeoisie and the Working Class could be the same.

The social democratic perspective, believing that the Brazilian State was a neutral tool to be controlled, therefore focusing all political action inside and for the institutions, disarmed the Working Class organizations in this long historical process. Nothing more distant from a Marxist analysis of the State. In other words, social democrats said: “Why should we bother organizing and educating the Working Class to fight for their rights? We must teach them to vote for the right people! And when we have the majority inside the Parliament, change will come!”. The most vital evidence of this disorganization was in 2016’s coup, when the Working Class didn’t move a single toe to defend Dilma’s government. Not a single spark of resistance was ignited. And yet, they believed that in the election of 2018 they would ‘restore democracy’ inside Brazil.

So the answer for the question is that the Working Class is partially disorganized, weakened and disarmed by social democrat’s influence. For the most part, the worker's movement does not attend to its agenda and interests, and it’s not mobilized for national issues, for all the main bourgeois reforms passed in the parliament in the last years and no big resistance was faced. The last General Strike happened in April’s 28th of 2017, was a huge demonstration of the Brazilian working class, but nowadays only the communists talk about the vital role that another General Strike would have inside Brazil. Most left-wing organizations are focused on next year's election.

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Since May, thanks to Brazilian communists and socialists, we've been having huge demonstrations against Bolsonaro throughout the country. More than 6 National Days were called, and the answer was hundreds of cities with thousands of people on the streets claiming Bolsonaro’s end. But yet, the social movement is not strong enough to defeat and depose the fascist. To the communists, the mobilization shouldn’t end in demonstrations on the streets, they are important, but we must advance in reorganizing the Brazilian Working Class in order to prepare for a General Strike. The Bourgeoisie only understands when we mess with its profit and stop the circulation and production of commodities.

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The Social Democracy, mainly Workers Party (PT), have no intention to attend or organize a General Strike in Brazil. They are more worried, and in their perspective they are the most benefit, about deteriorating Bolsonaro’s public opinion at the same time they proclaim and promote Lula as a candidate for running in the next elections. Again, why should they bother educating and organizing the working class, when they can only point out who they should vote for?

Lula is ready to promote another social pact between the Bourgeoisie and the Working Class, he is already meeting all his old allies from the 2002 election, all old allies who stabbed in the back the Workers Party (PT) in 2016 coup, he doesn’t speak about the current mobilizations in the country, he barely talks about all the anti-people reforms approved in the last years, not even pointing out his intention to reverse all the bourgeois offensive. Nothing stands, but the sentence ‘making Brazil happy again’, which points to a significant and structural change to Brazil in PT propaganda.

And what about the communists, then?

The Brazilian communist movement is reorganizing itself, and fortunately, Marxism-Leninism is a growing perspective inside Brazil, mainly in the youth. Before the pandemic, before Bolsonaro, in public demonstrations, the communists from the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) were not a significant force. But nowadays, in the current demonstrations, they are not a despicable factor. Alongside another socialist organization, Popular Unity (UP).

But yet, despite the growing numbers, they lack influence inside the workers movement, trade-unions movement, and this influence has yet to be built. And basically, these are the main tasks for the Brazilian communists: Strengthen the Party through Marxism-Leninism and Class Independence, grow its influence inside the workers movement and finally: organize, organize and organize.

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