By Verónica O’Kelly – Alternativa Socialista/PSOL – ISL Brazil
Last Saturday May 15, different currents of the radical left of the PSOL held a seminar of debate and political elaboration. The objective was to strengthen an anti-capitalist left pole in the party. The result was a successful event and the beginning of an important tool for radical left militancy inside and outside the PSOL: the Radical Left Movement.
The Radical Left Movement was born with the objective of organizing all the currents and activists of the anti-capitalist left that are part of the PSOL, to form a pole of unity and common action with a greater degree of organizational structure. Most of the currents that have decided to advance in building the Movement have come from the Radical Left Bloc. We understood that that temporary and specific unity to act together in Congress or in some specific event, is insufficient. So we decided to take an organic step and build a tool with common organizations, a national coordination with representation of all tendencies and thus in all states.
The tendencies that launched the Movement are: Alternativa Socialista (AS), Grupo de Ação Socialista (GAS), Liberdade e Revolução Popular (LRP), Luta Socialista (LS), Princípios Revolucionários da Ideologia Socialista (PRIS), PSOL Pela Base and Socialismo ou Barbárie (SoB).
We are tendencies that come from different trajectories and we have differences. The Radical Left Movement will be a confluence of political diversity. That is why the tendencies that will build it do not lose our independence and identity. The differences will be channeled by the coordination and nucleus committees with the aim of building our political action together, whenever possible. When there is no agreement, divergent positions will continue to be expressed by each tendency with total freedom.
It is worth highlighting the position of the CST (UIT-CI), a current that is part of the Radical Left Bloc, but which has not joined the construction of the Radical Left Movement. Differences with comrades have been coming up from before. For example in the debates before and during the municipal elections, or right now in the pre-congress of the PSOL where they decided to present a Thesis alone, outside the Radical Left Bloc.
The Radical Left Movement and the PSOL
The process of the PSOL´s assimilation to PTism and to the class conciliation project of the majority leadership has been causing disappointment in many comrades. Boulos, Freixo and the current majority leadership openly campaign for their popular front policy. They meet with Lula and with right-wing parties hoisting the Broad Front line against “fascism.”
The Glauber Braga Presidential Pre-Candidate Manifesto stands against that leadership and orientation, signed by a broad unity of currents, public figures and independent PSOL activists. The Manifesto reflects the opposition of a large part of the membership to the liquidationism of those who capitulate to the project of class conciliation, and is ultimately reduced to the debate of presenting the party’s own candidacy for next year´s presidential elections. An independent candidacy, with a left-wing program based in the struggles, are the axes and the objective of the manifesto that has the current national deputy Glauber Braga as its main figure, and that Alternativa Socialista signed ogether with the other tendencies that build the Radical Left Movement, as well as the MES, Fortalecer, Comuna and CST, among others.
The radical left composes and promotes this Manifesto, because it represents an important framework of broad and diverse unity within the PSOL to confront the policy of assimilation to the PT by the leadership. But we also see that political and programmatic limitations arise with currents that are oscillating and often centrist, which cede space to the leadership. We understand that these are not times of hesitation, they are times of open dispute against the sector that wants to destroy the founding principles of the PSOL. Only in this way will we have the opportunity to avoid a new disappointment and disillusionment of large sectors with the PT and Lula.
The tendencies that defend the independent and socialist program have the challenge of organizing the radical left in a movement that is superior to a temporary tactical alliance. Strengthening organic ties to strike together with the same fist, the Radical Left Movement begins a journey, it rises as a tool for all those who know that capitalism is a decadent system with no future, for all those who are fighting for the only real way out, socialism. Here they have an invitation to join.
Here we share the common text of the organizations that build the Radical Left Movement:
THE FIRST STEP HAS BEEN TAKEN
By: National Coordination of the Radical Left Movement
On May 15, the National Seminar took place that formalized the creation of the RADICAL LEFT MOVEMENT. Convened by the organizations Alternativa Socialista (AS), Grupo de Ação Socialista (GAS), Liberdade e Revolução Popular (LRP), Luta Socialista (LS), Princípios Revolucionários da Ideologia Socialista (PRIS), PSOL Pela Base and Socialismo ou Barbárie (SoB ). Comrades from the organization Socialismo ou Barbárie (SoB) and the International Socialist League (ISL) sent international greetings to the seminar.
The seminar was inaugurated paying tribute to the more than 420,000 murdered people, victims of the Covid-19 pandemic and the capitalist system; mostly, working men and women, the poor and from the peripheries. We also dedicate the event to the resistance of the Palestinian people against Israel’s attacks, to the rebellious Colombian people fighting against the fiscal adjustment of President Iván Duque, and to the resistance of the people of the Jacarezinho (RJ) community and all the people that live in communities, favelas, occupations and neighborhoods throughout the country, facing all forms of violence.
Several organizations and groups of the PSOL were invited to the act: the Coletivo Esperançar of state deputy (SP) Carlos Giannazi and councilor (SP) Celso Giannazi; Nova Praxis, Avança, Proposta, Transição, Politizados o PSOL and the Centralidade do Trabalho. We have the greetings of Maria Lúcia Farorelli, of the Public Debt Citizen Hearing (ACD), of comrade Paulo Pedrini, of the historic and militant Pastoral Obrera Metropolitana de São Paulo (PO), of Professor Marinalva Oliveira (former president of Andes-SN), Professor Plinio de Arruda Sampaio Junior and the federal deputy and PSOL pre-candidate for the Presidency of the Republic, Glauber Braga.
In the morning the current situation was discussed, based on the contributions presented by the convening organizations. In the afternoon, the current situation of the PSOL was discussed, as well as the need to organize the fight against the “party re-founding project,” which is being defended and implemented, without any discussion among the rank-and-file, by the majority leadership (Bloco PSOL de Todas as Lutas). They want to end the radicalism with which the PSOL was founded and, above all, commit the party to support the class conciliation project defended by Lula / PT for the 2022 elections.
In addition to supporting the candidacy of Glauber Braga, the following resolutions, among others, were approved: organization of the fight for FORA BOLSONARO / MOURÃO now in 2021, the demand for vaccines for all, the fight for the basic income of 1 minimum wage, creation of a broad front of emergency of employment and fight against poverty, immediate suspension of the payment of the public debt and audit of the public debt since the military dictatorship, with citizen participation, end of austerity and lay-offs, fight against unemployment and the dismantling of state public services; annulment of all reforms that take away rights (CE 95, pension and labor reform), uncompromising guarantee of the rights of women, the elderly, Blacks, netive people, quilombolas, riverside residents, peasants and the LGBTQIA + population, against PEC 32 (administrative counter-reform).
The political resolution and the resolution on the organization and operation of the RADICAL LEFT MOVEMENT were unanimously approved by those present.
Now the great task is to organize the radical left movement in all the states of the country, actively participate in the struggles and mobilizations against the government and the capitalist system, and organize our participation in the next PSOL congress.
Forward with the Movement of the Radical Left!