By Alternativa Socialista/PSOL – ISL Brazil
The Fora Bolsonaro demonstrations which were more intense last year isolated his corrupt and genocidal gang, but they did not succeed in imposing their downfall through the streets. The objective factors were ripe in every aspect, but they were not enough, as in most cases, to move the masses against an unsustainable situation of absolute misery, hunger, unemployment, inflation and violence and to destabilize the ruling classes. The rotten pact between the most visceral bourgeois sector of the regime, the Centrão, with Bolsonaro’s government, storming the ministerial portfolios, is one of the factors that explain the artificial permanence of the government today. But it is not the only one, nor the main one.
The postulation of Lula, with broad influence, as a pre-candidate for the Presidency of the Republic, intentionally at the moment when the vanguard demonstrations against Bolsonaro gained muscle last year, combined with the demobilizing support of the PT/CUT via the Fora Bolsonaro Campaign, undoubtedly expressed the most conservative side of the subjective factor. In the face of the uncertainty in the streets, the memory of a possible more “prosperous” government of Lula – who ended his second term in 2010 with 87% acceptance in a survey, 95% in the Northeast region – weighs.
The majority is not indifferent to material interests. Even with Lulismo and petismo in a general dynamic of crisis, with different oscillations, the current conditions of misery, added to the progressive absence in the subjective factor, the existence of a consistent organization with influence, push the majority of the population to cling to the memory of the recent economic stability of the first two mandates of the petista government cycle. It is understandable that we increasingly hear “nobody can stand Bolsonaro anymore, but Lula is coming”, but it is not acceptable for an organization that claims to be socialist to lower its program to the immediate prevailing consciousness, completely abandoning the patient education of the masses. The next cycle of PT government, increasingly evident, will not repeat the same dynamics of the first. The economic and political conditions in the post-2008 world, in post-2013 Brazil, the polarization in the class struggle and the crisis of the political regime, will not favor a quick solution of the problems with a government of “national reconstruction”.
Bloco PSOL of Todas las Lutas to the Right
If it is true that Lula’s candidacy fulfills today a conservative role of the subjective element, it is also true that the servility of the majority leadership of the PSOL buries the historical commitment of the party with popular aspirations and prioritizes its own interests. Juliano Medeiros, president of the PSOL and linked to Primavera, affirms that “Alckmin does not necessarily make a left front impossible” and Guilherme Boulos abandoned (at Lula’s request) the pre-candidacy for the government of the state of São Paulo, approved in the most democratic instance of the PSOL, the 7th National Congress, and handed it over to Fernando Haddad (PT) with the promise of future support for the municipality. This shows that the interest is not limited to supporting the bourgeois candidacy of the popular front, under the name of “Left Front”, but to be part of the future government.
If Primavera and Revolução Solidária signal their intention to definitely get on board a possible Lula government, the Resistance, in the division of tasks of the PTL (PSOL of All the Routes), fulfills the function of systematizing servility to Lula/PT with the excuse of following the consciousness of the masses. For the Resistance and its mentor, Valerio Arcary, any political movement of the PSOL will hinder Lula’s electoral victory. In this logic, the ideal is for the PSOL to make the minimum moves -without excluding, of course, the eagerness to expand dependence on the bourgeois parliament. The political cynicism of the Resistance expresses itself, and will continue to express itself, in stages: “left” front with Lula → rejection of a possible Lula-Alckmin formula → acceptance of the Lula-Alckmin formula, but with a “left” program → acceptance of the bourgeois popular front as it comes, with the PSOL expressing “its” program. On the other hand, the apathetic Insurgencia (section of the Unified Secretariat) limits itself to reporting on the classist meaning of Lula’s candidacy and government, without pointing out in a single line what are the tasks of the PSOL against broad fronting.
From all this, the only obvious conclusion is that the PSOL Bloc of All the Lutas-PTL (Primavera, Revolución Solidaria, Resistencia, Insurgencia y Subverta), the majority leadership, is throwing away the founding program of the PSOL. Not satisfied with the participation of the PSOL in the bourgeois popular front, it also overthrew the 7th National Congress of the PSOL, which took place last year, and all other instances, to close its party federation agreement with the REDE, a petty-bourgeois party, with a bourgeois program and financed by the Setubal family, owner of the Itau bank.
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The possible concretion of the Federation of the party with REDE supposes a qualitative programmatic change of the PSOL. Unlike the coalitions, which the PSOL also makes absurd coalitions with bourgeois parties in states and municipalities, the Federation results in having a common program for a period of at least 4 years, with coexistence and common national, state and municipal agreement. What kind of minimum program is possible with a party of “green” capitalism financed by the parasitic-speculative sector? Contrary to the stated cynicism that this will be a positive pressure on the “left” sectors of REDE, the Federation will tragically push the PSOL to the right.
We have no illusions about what the PSOL is, with its own programmatic limitations, without a revolutionary north, but to deliver this important experience of the left in recent years, a reference of the vanguard that came out against endless attacks, into the hands of the material adaptation to the bourgeois regime, means delaying, and not accelerating, the process of reorganization and referencing of the militant vanguard and of our class. We are not purists, the crisis of Petism has not led to a revolutionary party, it has led to a broad party, with the same limitations, but in a more accelerated process of degeneration. But the PSOL continues to be a reference. It is necessary to fight so that all this does not collapse into a new and deep discredit; on the contrary, with the experience and radicalization, it must advance towards another form of organization, with a consistent revolutionary north.
A call to the Left Opposition and to the MES
Is all fair? For the majority leadership all is fair. To stop the series of attacks by the unprincipled bloc of the majority leadership, it is urgent that the Left Opposition, which represents 44% of the delegates at the 7th National Congress of the PSOL, unify the struggles in defense of the foundational program of the party. For this, it is necessary to review the political line, without zigzagging as the comrades of the MES mistakenly do, oscillating from the correct defense of the militant pre-candidacy of Glauber Braga to the indecision of the support to the Federation with REDE. It is not possible to group the Left Opposition voting the same policy as the PTL Bloc. It is necessary to strengthen the PSOL on the left and to put in place a pole of attraction for those who are becoming disillusioned with the turn to the right of the leadership. For this, our political and programmatic firmness is fundamental. We must affirm and defend an anti-capitalist, feminist and ecosocialist program of the PSOL, opposed to the process of refoundation of the PTL Bloc. Negotiating an intermediate solution, the Federation, means losing radicalism and legitimacy in the vanguard that we intend to organize.
We of Alternativa Socialista, members of the Radical Left Movement (AS, LS, SOB, PSOL pela Base, LRP, GAS), call on the comrades of the MES, Fortalecer, CST, APS, Comuna, LSR, Alicerce, Centralidade do Trabalho, Revolução Brasileira, to close ranks in defense of the PSOL:
- To the last consequences for the own candidacy of the Socialist Left Front with the PSOL (or 44% of the PSOL), PSTU, UP, PCB and socialist/classist organizations.
- Against the Political Federation with REDE. The Federation is the end of the PSOL as we know it today.
- Launch socialist pre-candidatures for state governments.
We will go to the last consequences against liquidationism and the PSOL majority bloc of Todas as Lutas!