By Alternativa Socialista / PSOL – ISL Brazil
Even with little preparation time, the 3rd of July confirmed the expansion of “Fora Bolsonaro” in the capitals, in many cities of the country and abroad. There are three issues that we highlight initially: the conciliatory bureaucracy, which had planned for a rally more than a month away, was caught by surprise; the will and the expansion of the vanguard shows the face of the struggle against this corrupt and genocidal government; we are in a new peak of the chronic crisis of Bolsonaro’s government, now with activated streets.
The scandal of the bribery scheme for the purchase of vaccines, denounced in the Senate Congressional Investigation Committee for Covid at the end of June, highlighted another obvious characteristic of Bolsonaro’s government. In addition to being genocidal, responsible for thousands of deaths, millions of infected people, and dissemination of Covid-19 variants, it is also corrupt. One of Bolsonaro’s main banners for his electoral victory in 2018, the “struggle against corruption”, is crumbling. But we are left with the fundamental task: to tear down the entire government.
July 3: the conciliatory bureaucracy was caught by surprise
There is no doubt that the bureaucracy was taken by surprise. The same bureaucracy that practically ignored the first call of 29M and tried to reposition itself on July 19 was surprised by the conjunctural dynamics and had to reposition itself. After 19J, the leaderships agreed among themselves on July 24 (24J) as the next date in the calendar of struggle. A maneuver with a time lag of more than a month and aimed at taming the streets.
The most feverish defenders sentenced that the 24J was the most responsible and that another previous date would be “ultra-leftism”. It only took a few days, mainly after the discovery of the vaccine bribery scheme, for the bureaucracy and the feverish to realize that the ground could collapse and that a readjustment was necessary. The answer came on July 3. On the one hand, the attempt of domestication by the main leaderships; on the other hand, the will of the vanguard – the youth is the main actor at this moment.
Anger against Bolsonaro increases
With each popularity poll, the popular discredit against the government increases – dishonest, false, incompetent, unprepared, authoritarian and unintelligent are evaluations that the majority of the population makes about the president. It is true that this discredit has not yet translated into massive demonstrations, but it is also true that the dynamic of anger against Bolsonaro is on the rise. Brazil is going through one of the worst moments in a long time: millions of unemployed and precarious people; thousands of deaths due to Covid-19; continuous increase in the cost of living with the disintegration of the purchasing power of the minimum wage; increase in poverty and extreme poverty. The response attempted by the government is the same ultra-liberal recipe of Paulo Guedes with privatizations and anti worker reforms, but the population believes less and less that this will solve their immediate needs.
At the same time, electoral polls for 2022 show an advantage for Lula over Bolsonaro. Some even point to his likely victory in the first round. Lula/PT’s concern at this point is that Bolsonaro will dehydrate at the end of his term, which could guarantee him victory. The PT is calling for Bolsonaro’s impeachment, but the truth is that this route is detrimental to Lula’s plans for an emerging “national unification” government. Impeachment, even if it is a bourgeois institutional option, causes trauma to the regime. Moreover, we are talking about the possibility of two impeachments in a row. This trauma can increase the doubts about the fate of the next government and the stability of the already fractured regime. The bourgeois apparatus will use this option as a last resort and the bureaucracy serves today and may serve tomorrow as another shock absorber of the crisis.
On the other hand, the Congressional Investigation Committee for Covid in the Senate, even if it intensifies the governmental crisis, has as its limited objective to isolate Bolsonaro and turn him into a puppet. At the same time that a part of the bourgeois parliamentarians and parties, presented as “democratic”, show all the rottenness of the sewer that is this genocidal and corrupt government, they unify and even lead the ultraliberal agenda of implementation of the unpopular reforms and privatizations. Lira, Pacheco and the STF are responsible for the permanence of Bolsonaro’s government.
What orientation then?
We believe that all possible weight should be given to 13J and 24J. The dispute that occurs today over what should be the “main” date diseducates and demobilizes the vanguard. At this moment, all spaces are essential for the construction of the struggle. The opportunity we are living demands decision, there is no room for hesitation or hegemonism. The accentuation of the chronic crisis of Bolsonaro’s government will not be long in coming. Either the mobilizations will expand, or they may gradually go into decline. That is to say, all the efforts of the organizations must be gambled now.
In all this, the PSOL, the party we built, has a fundamental task: to call for total unity, to take a concrete step by building the class and anti-capitalist front to dispute the consciousness of our class and to break away from the PT. The majority leadership (PSOL bloc of all struggles), with an impressionist and opportunist policy, emphasizes the line of being an appendix of the PT. The PSOL has the obligation at this moment to present its own radical program for the way out of the crisis with class independence. This is the objective that we also have in the construction of the pre-candidacy for the Presidency of the Republic of comrade Glauber Braga, who put his name forward in defense of an anti-capitalist, radical and independent program that dialogues with the need to broaden the unity of the left in which the right disguised as “center” does not enter.
Alternativa Socialista and the Radical Left Movement of PSOL believe that the General Strike is the weapon to overthrow the entire Bolsonaro government. For this, it is necessary that the main organizations, like the Fora Bolsonaro Campaign, the Frente Povo na Rua, the Frente Brasil Popular and Povo Sem Medo, the CUT, the CTB, the CSP-Conlutas, the MST, the MTST, the UNE unite in a national calendar of mobilizations and immediately activate the workplaces, the movements for housing and land, the spaces of the student movement and the youth to build the General Strike. Without this, the fall of Bolsonaro is further away.
The need of the working class and the majority of the people is for Bolsonaro’s government to go now, not in 2022. Let’s build on 13J, 24J and the following ones!