Brasil! Parar a Copa! Romper com a Frente Popular!

É a grande luta dos trabalhadores contra a crise capitalista no Brasil!

Abaixo a frente popular do PSTU etc. com o PT e a burguesia!

Construir conselhos de trabalhadores e autodefesas para defender a classe das forças do Estado!

Pela Greve Geral para unir o proletariado e lutar por um Governo Operário e Camponês!

Desde a abertura da nova crise mundial em 2007, o Brasil sofreu um duro golpe no seu crescimento econômico, compartilhado por todos os outros BRICS, menos a China e a Rùssia, que são potências imperialistas ascendentes, que estão transformando os outros BRICS em semicolônias. DIante da crise, os trabalhadores começam a lutar para não pagá-la com a perda dos seus salários e demissões em massa. Todos os trabalhadores começam a ver a necessidade da união, mas como ela vai acontecer? Com medo dos trabalhadores se unirem pela base, os partidos reformistas e centristas e os burocratas de esquerda nos sindicatos lidam com a nova militância e a exigência de unidade com uma estratégia de contenção, a "tática de unidade de ação", que significa unidade com a burocracia dominante. Mas eles não esperavam que um movimento de massas fosse se levantar contra a Copa do Mundo, no coração do plano do imperialismo e do regime de frente popular do PT para fazer os trabalhadores brasileiros pagarem pela crise capitalista global!

Os burocratas tentam prender os trabalhadores à frente popular com a "tática de unidade de ação".

O PSOL demonstrou há muito tempo a sua capitulação ao governo de frente popular, com a sua unidade com a burocracia sindical, e com os partidos burgueses nas eleições. A unidade do PSTU com a burocracia começou há 6 anos atrás, no sindicato dos professores do Rio Grande do Sul, através da estratégia de contenção da "tática de unidade de ação". Ela foi implementada em várias eleições sindicais em todo o país. As experiências com essa tática estão mostrando que ela serve pra fortalecer a burocracia e promover a versão PSTU do governo de frente popular.

O PSTU foi mais além com a "tática de unidade de ação" com a burocracia e estendeu essa tática a uma frente nacional nos sindicatos, o Espaço de Unidade de Ação. Essa frente popular nacional foi formada há 2 anos atrás, e ganhou apoio em várias atividades e encontros, incluindo o que levantou a palavra de ordem contra a Copa, "Na Copa vai ter luta". A direção do PSTU alegou que essa tática era importante para unir a esquerda. Apesar do nome, não se trata de unidade para uma ação específica, e sim uma frente popular organizada onde os grupos compartilham um programa de reformas comum, prendendo os trabalhadores à CUT e ao PT.

 A "esquerda" marxista no Brasil, como em todo lugar, continua muito fragmentada, mas não vê problema em se unir debaixo das bandeiras da CUT. Por exemplo, na educação, enquanto o governo aplicava o seu plano de privatização, o PNE (Plano Nacional de Educação), os professores estavam em greve em todos os Estados do país e lutar em escala nacional era uma necessidade reconhecida por todos. Mas a burocracia não chamou a unificação das greves. A CUT terminou chamando uma greve a favor do PNE, então os trabalhadores ficaram presos novamente na "tática de unidade de ação", aplicada pela esquerda da frente popular.

Quanto mais a luta de classes se intensificava no período, mais a burocracia traidora de esquerda tentava prendê-la à frente popular da CUT e do PT. Essa tática, iniciada pelo PSTU no movimento sindical, levou a uma frente eleitoral com o partido governista PCdoB nas eleições burguesas de 2012, na cidade de Belém. Agora o MES/PSOL entrou na central sindical CSP-CONLUTAS para promover o Espaço de Unidade de Ação.

A Copa do Mundo: um plano do imperialismo e da burguesia nacional para fazer os trabalhadores pagarem pela crise

A Copa levou a luta de classes a um auge. Ela aprofundou as contradições de classe no Brasil, já que os patrões a usaram para resolver a crise com violência, fazendo investimentos em serviços de infraestrutura que não vão durar depois dela e, ao mesmo tempo, esmagando a resistência da classe trabalhadora ao ataques aos seus bairros, seus direitos básicos e suas vidas.

Nenhuma organização resolveu adotar a palavra de ordem das massas como eixo de intervenção no movimento. A CST/PSOL (UIT) defende uma greve geral para parar a Copa, "Não vai ter Copa", mas por dentro do Espaço de Unidade de Ação, na extrema esquerda da frente popular. A maioria da burocracia de esquerda levantou a palavra de ordem "Na Copa vai ter luta", contra as massas que falam "Não vai ter Copa".

Isso prova que as massas estão muito à frente dos burocratas de esquerda que lutam agora para conter o ascenso. Afirma que lutar "na Copa" significa atividade sem objetivo que não aponta nenhuma tarefa concreta para os trabalhadores. Significa derrota para os trabalhadores, num momento em que a Copa expressa tudo de podre e destrutivo no capitalismo em crise. Mas a luta para parar a Copa já está acontecendo, e toda a classe está se manifestando por essa reivindicação. A nossa tarefa é levantar essa bandeira e aprofundá-la politicamente.

A luta contra a Copa do Mundo é parte do ascenso global dos trabalhadores para não pagarem pela crise dos patrões

Se somando aos levantes mundiais no novo período de crises, apareceu o movimento de massas contra a Copa do Mundo, em junho passado, no Brasil. Antes, houve sinais de uma situação transitória: greves de professores e da construção civil em todo o país, greve dos portuários e petroleiros, luta dos sem-tetos, o levante dos bombeiros do Rio de Janeiro etc. No começo de 2013, o movimento da juventude contra o aumento das tarifas do transporte público cresceu , até a Copa das Confederações, que viu um grande aumento das manifestações de rua. As redes sociais foram a chave para construir as manifestações. O levante foi uma surpresa para todos, ninguém estava preparado. A palavra de ordem "Não vai ter Copa" veio espontaneamente do movimento de massas. Nenhuma organização propôs a palavra de ordem ao movimento.  

Depos da manifestação nacional em 20 de julho, veio um chamado à Greve Geral em 1° de julho. A burocracia sindical rapidamente se unificou para dizer que a greve geral foi chamada pela "direita" e por "fascistas", e que só ela poderia chamar uma greve geral. As centrais sindicais, CSP Conlutas (controlada pelo PSTU) e Intersindical (controlada pelo PSOL) fizeram "unidade de ação" com a CUT (controlada pelo governo/PT), e com outras centrais patronais e burguesas (FS, UGT, Nova central etc), e boicotaram a greve geral, chamando um "Dia Nacional de Luta" em 11 de julho. A greve geral de 1° de julho não aconteceu. Mas, no dia 11, as massas deixaram a burocracia sozinha fazendo as suas falsas manifestações, e fizeram uma greve geral. O Rio Grande do Sul parou completamente. Muitas cidades do país pararam. Depois do levante de junho, o movimento sempre cresceu. Sem-tetos, jovens, moradores das favelas, o proletariado, os professores e os motoristas de ônibus começaram greves. As greves dos professores e garis do Rio de Janeiro e dos motoristas de ônibus de Porto Alegre provaram aos trabalhadores brasileiros que as maiores conquistas foram ganhas contra a política da burocracia sindical.

No mês anterior à Copa do Mundo, estamos vivendo uma onda de greves, e o movimento "Não vai ter Copa" está crescendo

Para o movimento popular, que está à frente da maioria dos protestos, a palavra de ordem "não vai ter  Copa" reflete as necessidades das pessoas que estão perdendo suas casas e sendo excluídos por causa da Copa. Para o movimento operário, há indignação e raiva crescentes porque os bilhões de reais gastos na Copa do Mundo vão para os bolsos dos ricos, enquanto as condições de vida e trabalho só pioram. O movimento de massas crescente não vai se limitar à Copa, mas também vai criar muito protesto popular nas próximas eleições. Por exemplo, jovens radicalizados como a FIP, que surgiu nas manifestações do Rio de Janeiro em junho passado, levantaram a bandeira, "Não vai ter Copa nem eleição!"

A burocracia de esquerda é obrigada a aderir ao "Não vai ter Copa", propondo, em vez da agitação das massas, palavras de ordem que desviam a luta contra a Copa. "Copa pra quem?", "Se não tiver direitos, não vai ter Copa", "Na Copa vai ter luta" etc. É tanta a pressão vinda de baixo que a burocracia de esquerda, no seu Espaço de Unidade de Ação, será forçada a chamar uma greve geral, mas já mostrou que vai tentar contê-la.

A burocracia já está se preparando para isso. A CSP Conlutas (PSTU), no Espaço de Unidade de Ação com a "esquerda" da CUT (CUT Pode Mais) fez um encontro nacional para discutir a copa. Como dissemos, eles são contra a palavra de ordem das massas, "Não vai ter Copa', e chamam por "Na Copa vai ter luta", para lutar contra as "injustiças" da Copa. Eles querem uma Copa limpa sem ataques aos trabalhadores e sem corrupção! Eles alegam que a palavra de ordem das massas é muito radical. Mas ela veio do movimento de massas e expressa claramente as suas necessidades. Nenhuma organização ou programa pôde levantar essa palavra de ordem, porque sabem que não podem controlar um movimento assim dentro da frente popular. Agora, querem enfraquecer e conter as lutas para legislarem para reformar as "injustiças" nas próximas eleições!

Preparar a Greve Geral!

Temos que levantar a palavra de ordem das massas e politizá-la. A greve geral é o caminho para unir os trabalhadores com o movimento popular e a juventude. Ela deve ser ligada ao não pagamento da dívida externa e da dívida da Copa. Ela deve se unir com as greves nas indústrias, setor automobilístico, educação, construção etc. Uma greve geral contra a Copa pode ser o meio para unir todas as lutas isoladas. A greve geral é o caminho para unir a classe trabalhadora no caminho para a revolução socialista. Ela torna possível levantar reivindicações que vão permitir que os trabalhadores se unam e se organizem para expropriar, ou seja, tomar de volta, a propriedade capitalista, expropriada de gerações de trabalhadores e camponeses explorados.

Nas greves atuais já se debate a greve geral. A UIT-QI foi a primeira organização a chamar a greve geral. Até as organizações ligadas ao governo foram obrigadas a aderir ao movimento "Não vai ter Copa", como o MST, apesar do governo ter criado o movimento "Vai ter Copa!" Somente organizações centristas como o PCO, que cobrem o PT pela esquerda, não aderiram ao movimento "Não vai ter Copa". Infelizmente, os que chamam a unificação das greves atuais e lutam por uma greve geral não baseiam essa unidade em parar a Copa, e sim na palavra de ordem reformista "Na Copa vai ter luta", para continuarem assim a operar dentro do Espaço de Unidade de Ação da burocracia de esquerda, e não romperem com a frente popular.

É por isso que isolar as greves do movimento para parar a Copa só ajuda a união da frente popular! Por exemplo, a campanha da CCR (Corrente Comunista Revolucionária) na APEOESP chama todos os professores a se unirem numa greve geral, mas ignora a luta contra a Copa, que pode estender essa unidade a toda a classe trabalhadora e tornar possível uma greve geral. Já se ouvem nas fileiras dos que estão em greve, e são muitos, gritos de "Não vai ter Copa!" e ameaças ao governo. Da mesma forma, a FLTI (Fração Leninista-Trotskista Internacional), chamando a unidade de todas as lutas, se foca na indústria automobilística, e ignora o movimento de massas contra a Copa, que é a chave para unir toda a classe trabalhadora em uma greve geral.

O movimento contra a Copa é o que une os trabalhadores ao movimento popular e à juventude, contra a maior expressão da aliança do governo de frente popular com as grandes empresas e o imperialismo - a Copa do Mundo! O objetivo da "esquerda burocrática" é desviar as massas para "lutas" sem sentido que não vão a lugar nenhum a não ser as próximas eleições, onde ela vai instalar a sua frente popular nos sindicatos como uma frente popular com o governo e o PT. Os revolucionários têm o dever de expor as alas esquerdas da frente popular e substituir os seus dirigentes traidores por um partido e um programa capazes de abrir caminho para a revolução socialista!

Parar a Copa do Mundo!

Romper com a Frente Popular!

Não pagamento da dívida externa! Não pagar a dívida da Copa!

Salário mínimo vital, educação, saúde, moradia e previdência social gratuitas!

Abaixo a frente popular do PSTU com a CUT e o governo do PT!

Unir todos os trabalhadores e camponeses em luta numa conferência nacional para preparar a greve geral!

Construir conselhos e autodefesas operárias!

Por um partido revolucionário de massas e pelo programa revolucionário!

Por um novo Partido Mundial da Revolução Socialista!

Expropriar todas as propriedades imperialistas e capitalistas nacionais!

Instituir o controle operário da produção. Por um plano nacional de produção para as necessidades, e não para o lucro!

Por um Governo Operário e Camponês e pelos Estados Unidos Socialistas das Américas!

Escrito por um simpatizante brasileiro da LCC

Thailand: Defeat the Coup d’etat! Polemic and Program - A Response to the RCIT

 

The RCIT analysis of the pro-Thaksin government overthrown by the Thai military invests bourgeois democracy with real democracy it never had and this is methodologically of one piece with their previous errors.

The RCIT (Revolutionary Communist Internationalist Tendency) never tires of displaying their semi-Cliffite understanding of the actual democratic content of bourgeois parliamentary democracy. Everywhere they invest elected governments with a democratic legitimacy. It is no accident that they have never been able to bring themselves to criticize the Workers Power (L5I) position of support for Yeltsin in 1991. In Yeltsin they saw the promise of greater democratic rights and opportunities for self organization of the working class, completely misunderstanding the true obtaining situation as a contest between two capitalist restorationist forces for the leadership of the counter-revolution against all survivals of the October revolution.

More recently we have seen the RCIT invest the Mursi government of Egypt with a similar democratic legitimacy based on a popular vote. That this election was a set up and that the real power was the deep state that has ruled Egypt at all times since 1952 makes no impression on our Viennese semi-Cliffites. The reassertion of direct control by the Egyptian Army high command (SCAF) was for the RCIT a military coup of the character of the Greek Colonels of 1967 or the Pinochet coup of 1973. The RCIT initially called for a Untied Front with the Muslim Brotherhood in defense of the Mursi government. Shortening their jib after this gaffe, they still continued to call for the restoration of the Mursi government claiming it was democratically elected and called for a united front to accomplish this restoration, and failing that called for a constituent assembly to assemble democratic forces to fight the “coup.”

The May 20^th coup by the commanders of the Thai army is indeed a military coup by any classical criteria. Nevertheless, we are not champions of the kind of “democratic elections” that bring pro-Thaksin Pheu Thai party politicians to power, anymore than elections that lead to Democratic Party governments. It is not permissible for socialists to call upon the workers to shed their own blood for the defense or the restoration of any of these “democratically elected” governments!   You cannot pass off any such call as a Leninist United Front tactic. This has nothing to do with Lenin and everything to do with Menshevism, Kautskyism and even Stalinism. We reject the agency of alien class forces and institutions as the necessary precondition for entry of the masses onto the revolutionary road.

It is non-dialectical and it is schematic in the extreme to keep repeating this idea that the workers movement must pass through a stage of bourgeois parlimentarism when concrete conditions show that the bourgeoisie has no especial confidence in or patience for bourgeois parlimentarism. Not only will they not fight for it themselves, but in the general world crisis of capitalism they find “democracy” unnecessarily expensive and dispense with it at their earliest opportunity. Trotsky in 1938 thought bourgeois democracy might prove too expensive even for the bourgeoisie of the U.S.A. In the concrete circumstance of the masses own discontent with the Thaksin dynasty to call for the restoration of the status-quo ante is to pronounce a retreat in a revolutionary advance.

To make this criticism does not mean we reject correct slogans which are easy enough to raise. In this case where a real military coup d’état has taken place it is correct to organize a revolutionary constituent assembly for the defense and extension of real democratic rights and based in the real organizations of the working class and the peasant masses.

The coup shows that bourgeois democracy demobilizes the workers while the ruling class factions do deals over their heads. The interests of workers are to fight for workers democracy by mobilizing for a Revolutionary Constituent Assembly (RCA) and Workers and Peasant Government.

Still we wonder why the RCIT raises a special slogan for the establishment of a republic? What would the class character of such a republic be? And what does the establishment of a republic have to do with the permanent revolution the world has seen many dictatorships that have been republics. The whole history of the west is littered with them. Connelly’s program for a workers republic in Ireland and the Socialist Republics of the USSR were qualitatively different than any republic established by capitalists.   The five republics of French history have solved none of the problems of humankind’s future existence. So this is not an idle question for us. We wonder while reading the RCIT’s program how many stages the workers must endure before they can establish their own state.

In place of this call for an abstract republic we suggest that what is needed right now are military blocs with anti-coup d’état forces to defeat the coup. We say this with the understanding that it is only the socialist revolution that will suppress the power not only of the army command but of those who organized the coup and for whom the army works at all times. Until bourgeois power is suppressed by socialist revolution another military coup is always possible as demonstrated in the modern history of Thailand. What are required above all are the organization of worker and peasant councils and militia and a convening of their delegates in a Revolutionary Constituent Assembly and an indefinite general strike to pull the economic rug out from under the military coup.

• Defeat the reactionary coup d’état! Prepare for mass demonstrations and an indefinite general strike!
• Organize workers and peasants councils.
• Form up soldiers councils elect your own officers and abolish the authority of the army command and the constitutional court!
• For a Revolutionary Constitutional Assembly controlled by armed, mass organizations of the workers and peasants!
• Repudiate the reactionary constitution! Publish all secret treaties. The Thaksin government has a worldwide reputation for corruption; open the government’s books.
• For the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of a workers’ and peasants’ republic!
• Expropriate big business and nationalize the banks! Place large industrial and service enterprises under workers’ control! Nationalize the media under workers’ control!
• Expropriate the big landowners and distribute the land to the poor peasants!
• Unconditional support for the right of national self-determination for the Muslim people of Patani in the south of Thailand
• For a Workers’ and Peasants’ Government!
• For a Federation of Socialist Republics in South-East Asia!
• For a World Party of Socialism!

Statement of the LCC 052214

How the Right Wing BJP Could Secure Unprecedented Victory?

Modi mobbed

Extreme right wing, hindu supremacist Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), is voted to power, ousting the Congress-led UPA-II Government under Manmohan Singh, that ruled for a decade. While BJP alone secured 282 seats in run up to Lok Sabha, Congress got squeezed to 44 seats.

 

The spectacular victory of BJP, has come on the wave of widespread dissatisfaction and unrest against the misrule of Congress led government, that was marred by massive corruption, soaring prices, raging inflation, and vast unemployment.
 

Congress, hitherto the chief party of Indian big business, was trapped between the pressing need to put in place the most rudimentary welfare schemes in rural employment and food guarantees, on the one hand, while on the other, the dictates of the capitalist market that demanded dismantling of all such schemes, wiping out all social spending. Result was a double discrediting of the Government. As meagre spending, clubbed with corruption and pilferages, failed to bring the promised results, masses of workers and toilers turned against the Congress regime.  Alongside, the corporate gradually dissociated itself from Congress Government, leaning more and more on the right wing BJP, as in its estimation, the Congress regime failed to put the economic reforms in place, at desired pace. Large sections of big business, thus, mobilized their support behind the BJP.

Conscious of the explosive consequences of rule in the hands of fascists, the ruling big bourgeois, in its quest to arrest the fall of its economy that has set in after the 2010 currency crisis in India, is dragged behind the BJP. As the economy has since continued to shrink, dispelling the foreign investment, international credit rating agencies have recently issued ultimatum to the government, commanding it to ‘do or die’. 

The claims of corporate media, as to a 'sunami' in favour of Modi, are however, a blatant lie, as despite of an apparent parliamentary majority, BJP could get only a 31% share of popular vote, while its NDA allies added 7% more to it. This is the lowest share of vote, that any winning party has got, till date. Equally false are the claims that vote in favour of BJP is the vote for agenda of "economic reforms". On the contrary, the vote is against all 'reforms' that had been pushed by the ousted Congress regime. BJP could capture even this much vote, only as it succeeded in masquerading as an opposition to the rule and policies of Congress, while hiding its real agenda of pushing through the 'economic reforms' at far higher pace than ever.

Victory of BJP has come by 'default' against the anti-people policies, crushing failures and misrule of the Congress Government and the shameful complicity of Stalinist left with it.

Needless to say that Congress led UPA governments, have done their best to serve the interests of big business, including a massive drive for dismantling the public sector, withdrawing subsidies, and ending price controls over most essential commodities like diesel. However, the constraints of bourgeois-democracy to dupe the masses through keeping in some semblance of a welfare state amidst rabid reforms, ‘reforms with a human face’ as they put it, has prevented the UPA from daring to take to the harshest anti-people decisions.

In estimation of Indian big business and foreign investors, only a right-wing authoritarian government under the BJP can accomplish the tasks that Congress could not perform. These include, complete wiping out of social spending and taxing the working and toiling people even more, to shift the burden of all economic crisis upon their shoulders.

Ironically, the big-business succeeded in channelling the anger of the masses against its own regime and its own policies, to induce a push, towards the right, bringing the arch communal BJP to power.  

BJP is the political front of most rabid communal formation, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), that is ferociously hostile to working class and socialism, and is modelled on the patterns of Fascist black shirts under Mussolini in Italy. It holds its traditional social base among most backward sections of petty traders and small businessmen and ropes in most conservative elements in bureaucracy, security agencies, police and army, that are deeply inimical to working class and poors. It is flanked by equally communal Shiv Sena and MNS in Maharahstra, Akalis in Punjab and ethno-linguistic AIADMK in Tamilnadu, and TDP and TRS in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana respectively.

Rise of the BJP to power, is direct, first and foremost result of the shameful failure of the Stalinist left, which has failed the entire working class, behind it. Fascists could have and really have rode to power, only on the back of this failure of working class, to put challenge to the misrule of big bourgeoisie.

The left under Stalinists, instead of leading an opposition to the anti-people regime of Congress-led UPA, remained adhered to it and kept the working class completely dormant, inert and sterile. For decades, stalinist parties continued to support and sustain the minority governments under Congress. Even when the most reactionary neo-liberal policies were being put in motion since 1991, by the Narsimha Rao government, trashing even residues of ‘congress socialism’, public assets were being sold off to corporates at throw away prices, Stalinists stood support to this party of the big-bourgeois, on false slogans of democracy and secularism.

BJP led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had come to power in 1998, due to the pro-investor thrust of Congress government since 1991, supported by Stalinists. But Stalinists drew no lessons and again supported the minority UPA-1 in 2004, assisting in resolving the political and constitutional crisis of the bourgeoisie. They continued the support till in June 2008, they were kicked out of the alliance on the nuclear issue. Still refusing to draw any lessons, they continued to lend support to the government of UPA-II formed in 2009 general elections, by holding back any opposition from the working class to the policies and actions of bourgeois government. More recently, Stalinists had been sending feelers for an alliance with Samajwadi Party (SP) of Mulayam Singh, while SP has been associated with the communal riots in Mujaffarnagar, hand in gloves with the BJP, to communally polarize the people in vote banks. It is worth to mention that similarly, CPI (Maoist) was instrumental in bringing the right-wing Trinamool Congress (TMC) under Mamata Banerjee to power in last assembly elections in West Bengal.

The state governments, that were led by Stalinists, in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura, were platforms for implementation of the same neo-liberal and pro-investor policies, that were implemented by other governments including the right-wing governments. The government under Stalinist left-front in West Bengal was discredited for deploying the most rabid means through concerted police-goon violence against poor peasants, in Singur and Nandigram regions, while forcibly seizing farm-lands for big capitalists like Tatas. Tatas, were among the chief funders for recent election campaign of BJP.

Workers and toilers have again and again voted for Stalinists in expectation that these bearers of red flag would lead them in opposition to capitalism,  but Stalinists have betrayed them everytime, by delivering them, bound hand and foot, to the leaders and parties of capitalists.

Out of total 67 years, since the Indian bourgeois came to power in 1947, Congress had led the bourgeois governments at the centre for 54 years. In all these years, Stalinists had stood support to the regime, open or tacit and have assisted these governments to employ the most reactionary measures for loot and plunder of working class and toilers.

This political strategy of Stalinists, is, in turn, guided by the false Menshevik policy of Stalin and Mao, who argued that in democratic stage of revolution, working class has to ally with the bourgeoisie. For Stalinists, it is the democratic revolution in India, going on for decades, that underscores the need of an alliance between parties of workers and capitalists. Due to their misunderstanding of revolution in general and the democratic revolution in particular, Stalinists keep adhered to the parties of bourgeois, one after the other, chiefly to the Congress, the central party of the big Indian bourgeoisie. Through this adherence, Stalinists keep the working class tied to the political regime of bourgeois, and prevent it from taking to independent road, from rising in opposition to the class dictatorship of the bourgeoisie under the guise of democracy.

In this, four major parties of Stalinists and Maoists- CPI, CPM, CPI ML Liberation and the CPI (Maoist) share the essentially same perception and program, despite superficial differences among themselves, which remain of no more than archival importance in face of their rooting in the same politics of democracy extricated from socialist revolution, acceptance of alliances with bourgeois parties, and finally denial of proletarian dictatorship as the starting point for revolution.

As Stalinist-Maoist parties ally with the parties of Indian bourgeois, the hopes of the workers, toilers and rural and urban poors, get dampened and the ready vacuum is created instantly for manipulations by the ruling bourgeois to push the political swing towards more and more right.

Despite a strong anti-incumbency wave in the offing against the Congress-led regime, the Stalinist left front, instead of leading the working class and toilers behind it against the misrule of Congress, continued to look out for alliances with regional bourgeois parties like AIADMK, TDP, SP, RJD etc. into a third front, while these parties were engaged in bargaining between the chief bourgeois alliances of UPA and NDA.

Stalinists got total 11 seats in Lok Sabha in 2014 , i.e. half of the seats they secured in 2009. In 2009, they could secure half of what they secured in 2004. In 2014, the largest party of Stalinists, CPIM, failed to secure its official recognition as a national party.

Despite all demagogy in the name of the working class, Stalinists and Maoists, both have no faith in the strength and potential of the working class and their whole politics is centered around collaborations with sections of the bourgeoisie. Their fate is bound up with sections of bourgeois, its leaders and parties.

All other factors, like colossal propaganda campaign funded by big capitalists, role of corporate media etc. are of secondary importance in bringing BJP to power. The primary factor is the role of Stalinists in failing the working class, that has created an instant space for rise of fascists.

Without much effort, one would see, that in the face of a fascist advance, not only the Stalinists, but other bourgeois and petty-bourgeois formations of liberals, reformists and ambedkarites, proved themselves of no real worth at all. Even put together, they could not have prevented the fascists from taking to power. The truth, however, remains, that all these petty-bourgeois tendencies find themselves more in proximity and in agreement with fascists, than the revolutionary working class. They play dubious role in dividing the working and toiling people on the lines of caste, community, nationality, language, regional and ethnic identities.

Fascists have risen to power, albeit, by misinterpreting their real agenda to the masses, fanning wild hopes of millions for better living conditions, employment, curbing of corruption and crime, expansion of economy etc. However, in the settings of a full blown economic crisis under way on national and international arena and the self-contradictory nature of their agenda, that calls for far more social spending than ever before on the one hand and complete wiping out of last remnants of the welfare state on the other, the farcical agenda and false promises would blow up, very soon.

Despite its initial strivings to strike a balance between the two, the new government would soon find this balancing impossible, and would be forced to lean furiously against the aspirations of masses. Within no time this government would expose itself as a battering ram in the hands of corporates, imposing their savage agenda of most intense exploitation and violence against the people. The government, breaching all promises it had made to woo the voters, would fall back to old fundamentalist agenda of BJP- abolition of Article 370 of the Constitution that gives privileged status to Kashmir, Construction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya, and above all ouster of Bangladeshi migrants. It is also bound to trigger some sort of conflict with neighbouring countries, as the BJP had been long-time critique of Congress governments for going soft on Pakistan and China.

The hindu communal and fascist colouration of the BJP government, is bound to come in direct conflict, sooner than later, not only with religious minorities like muslims and Christians, but also with national, regional and ethnic minorities, apart from the working class and poors. This, in turn, would set off a whole series of social explosions, coupled with widest ever resistance, to its policies on economic and political front, bringing the mass of workers and toilers in direct conflict with the right wing government of big-bourgeois, and may have devastating consequences for it.

However, on this radical turn in history, the working class, the only class capable of rescuing the humanity from the clutches of capitalism decaying into fascism, remains on the fringes, fragmented and demoralized, due to decades of dominance of Stalinism over it. Bound up closely and subordinated to the sections of bourgeois through its leaders and parties, by the Stalinists, the working class has lost the last shreds of political class consciousness.

In order to push the political swing towards left, i.e, towards a proletarian revolution, working class has to strive, above all, for its class independence from all influence of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie. However, the present opportunist leadership of labour movement, the Stalinists and Maoists, would never permit this to happen. Therefore, purging of the old and emergence of the new leadership in the movement of working class, armed with a program oriented towards the October revolution, is the foremost requisite for a proletarian revolution. Only such leadership, organized into a party, can lead the working class to triumph over capitalism.

-Rajesh Tyagi/ 19.5.2014

Reblogged from http://workersocialist.blogspot.co.nz/2014/05/how-right-wing-bjp-could-secure.html

Also check these articles:

http://workersocialist.blogspot.in/2009/05/india-general-elections-lead-to.html

http://workersocialist.blogspot.in/2012/04/20th-party-congress-of-stalinist-cpm.html

Brazil! Stop the World Cup! Break the Popular Front!

This is the workers big fight against the capitalist crisis in Brazil!

Down with the popular front of the PSTU etc. with the PT and the bourgeoisie!

Build Working class councils and militias to defend the class from the state forces!

For the General Strike to unite the proletariat and to fight for a Workers and Peasants Government!

Since the opening of the new world crisis in 2007 Brazil experienced a big hit to its economic growth shared by all the other BRICS except China and Russia which are rising imperialist powers and making the other BRICS semi-colonies. Facing the crisis the workers began to fight against paying for the crisis with loss of their wages and mass sackings. All workers began to see the need for unity, but how would that happen? Fearing that workers would unite from below, the reformist and centrist left parties and left bureaucrats in the unions met the new militancy and the demand for unity with a strategy of containment, the “tactical unity of action” which means unity with the ruling bureaucracy. But they did not expect that a mass movement would rise up against the World Cup, at the very heart of the plan of the imperialists and Workers’ Party (PT) popular front regime to make the Brazilian workers and peasants pay for the global capitalist crisis!

The bureaucrats try to trap workers into the popular front “Tactical unity of action”

The PSOL (Party of Socialism and Liberation) has long demonstrated their capitulation to the popular front government with their unity with the ruling bureaucracy in the unions and bourgeois parties in the elections. The PSTU (United Socialist Workers Party) unity with the ruling bureaucracy began 6 years ago in the teachers union of Rio Grande do Sul, through the “Tactical Unity of Action” strategy of containment. It was implemented in several union elections across the country. The experiences of this tactic are showing that it serves to strengthen the bureaucracy and promotes the PSTU version of the popular front government.

The PSTU went further with the “Tactical unity of action” with the ruling bureaucracy and extended this tactic for a national front in the unions, the “space of unity of action” (“espaço de unidade de ação”). This national popular front was formed 2 years ago and has won support in several workshops and meetings, including that which raised the demand against the Cup “In the Cup, we will be fighting” (“Na copa, vai te Luta”). The leadership of PSTU argued that this tactic was important to unite the left. Despite the name, this is not unity for a specific action, but rather an organised popular front where the groups shared a common program of reforms tying workers to the CUT and PT.

The Marxist ‘left’ in Brazil, as everywhere, remains very fragmented, but they see no problem in uniting behind the flags of CUT (Federation of Workers Unions). For example, in education, while the government applied its privatisation plan, the PNE (The National Education Plan), teachers were striking in almost every state of the country and taking the fight nationwide was a need perceived by all. But the bureaucracy failed to call for the unification of strikes. The CUT ended up calling a strike for the PNE, so the workers were trapped again in the “tactical unity of action” sponsored by the left of the popular front.

As the class struggle intensified over this period, the more did the treacherous left bureaucracy try to trap it in the popular front behind the CUT and the PT. This tactic begun by the PSTU in the union movement, eventually led to an electoral front with the ruling party, Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) in bourgeois elections in 2012 in the city of Belem. Now the MES-PSOL (Movimento esquerda socialista) has joined the left union federation CSP CONLUTAS to promote the “space for unity of action.”

The World Cup: a plan by imperialism and the national bourgeoisie to make the workers pay for the crisis

The World Cup brought the class struggle to a head. The Cup has deepened the class contradictions in Brazil as the bosses use the Cup to violently resolve the crisis by pouring investments into here-today-gone-tomorrow infrastructure jobs for some while smashing down working class resistance to attacks on their neighbourhoods, their basic rights and their lives.

No organisation could bring itself to fight for the slogan of the masses as the main slogan of the movement in action. The UIT–(PSOL/CST) (Unidade Internacional de losTrabajadores) supports a general strike to stop the cup, “Nao vai ter copa” (We will not have the Cup), but from inside the “space for unity of action” where it is on the extreme left of the popular front. Most of the left bureaucracy raised the slogan “In the cup, we will be fighting” against the masses demand “We will not have the cup”.

This proves that the masses are far ahead of the left bureaucrats who now struggle to contain the uprising. It affirms that fighting “in the cup” means aimless activity that leaves workers with no concrete tasks. It means defeat for workers when the World Cup expresses all that is rotten and destructive about capitalism in crisis. But the fight to stop the cup is already happening and the whole class is demonstrating its support for this demand. Our task is to raise this slogan and to make it politically profound.

Fighting the World Cup is part of the global workers uprising against paying for the bosses’ crisis

Joining in the world uprisings in the new period of crisis, the mass movement appeared against the World Cup in Brazil last June.  Before it, there were some signs of the transitional situation:  teacher, construction workers strikes all over the country, port, oil workers’ strike, homeless struggle, the Rio de Janeiro firefighters’ uprising, etc. In early 2013, the youth movement against rising fares for public transportation grew into the “Copa das confederacoes” (FIFA confederations cup) which saw a big surge of street demonstrations. The social media was the key to building the demonstrations. The uprising was a surprise to everybody, and nobody was prepared for it.  The slogan “Nao vai ter copa” came spontaneously from the mass movement. No organisation gave the slogan to the movement. 

After the national demonstration on June 20th came a call for a General strike on July 1^st. The union bureaucracy quickly united to say that this general strike was called by the “right” and “fascists” and only they could call a general strike. The central unions, CSP Conlutas (controlled by the PSTU) and Intersindical (controlled by PSOL) “united in action” with CUT (controlled by the government/PT), and other unions linked to the employers and the bourgeois (FS, UGT, Nova central, etc), boycotted the general strike, calling for a “National day of struggle” on July 11^th. The general strike on July 1^st didn’t happen. But on the 11^th, the masses left the bureaucracy alone to stage its fake manifestations and made a general strike. Rio Grande do Sul was completely stopped. Many cities in the country stopped. After the June uprising the movement just grew. Homeless, youth, poor people from “favelas”, proletariat, teachers, and bus drivers began strikes. The strikes of Rio de Janeiro teachers and street-sweepers, and Porto Alegre bus drivers proved to Brazilian workers that the main gains have been won against the policies of the union bureaucracy.

In the month before the World Cup we are experiencing a wave of strikes and the “Nao vai ter copa” movement is growing

For the popular movement, which is taking the lead in most protests, the slogan “there will be no cup” reflects the needs of the people who are losing their homes and being suppressed because of the Cup. For the labour movement there is rising indignation and anger as the R$billions spent on the World Cup go into the pockets of the rich while toilers conditions of life and work only worsen. The growing mass movement will not be limited to the Cup but will also create a lot of popular protest in the upcoming elections. For example, radicalised youth like the self-proclaimed FIP (Independent Popular Front) that emerged in the Rio de Janeiro demonstrations last June (2013), raised the slogan, “there will be no cup or election!”

The left bureaucracy is forced to join the “there will be no Cup” movement, proposing instead of the masses agitation, slogans that have no tasks for the class and divert the fight away from the Cup. “Cup for who?”, “if we have no rights there will be no Cup”, “in the world cup we will fight”, etc. Such is the pressure from below that the left bureaucracy, in its “space for united action,” will be forced to call a general strike, but they have already shown that they will try to contain it.

The bureaucracy is already preparing to do so. The CSP Conlutas (PSTU) in “space for unity in action” with the “left” of the CUT (CUT Pode Mais) has had a national meeting to discuss the World Cup. As we have said, they oppose the masses’ slogan “nao vai ter copa” and call for “Na copa, vai ter luta” (In the world cup, will be fight) to fight against the “injustices” of the World Cup. They want a clean Cup without attacks on workers and with no corruption! They argue that the masses slogan is too crude. But the slogan came from the masses’ movement and expresses clearly their needs. No organisation or program could raise this slogan because it knows it cannot control such a movement inside the popular front. Now it wants to weaken and contain it in a struggle to legislate for reform of the ‘injustices’ in the next elections!

Prepare for a General Strike!

We must raise the masses’ slogan and politicise it. The general strike is the way to unite the workers with the popular movement and the youth. It should be linked to repudiating the national debt and the debt for the Cup. It should be united with the strikes in industry, auto, education, construction, etc. A general strike against the Cup can be the means to unite all the isolated struggles. The general strike is the way to unite the working class on the road to socialist revolution. It makes possible raising transitional demands which will allow workers to unite and organise to expropriate i.e. take back capitalist property, expropriated from generations of exploited workers and peasants.

Within the currents strikes, the general strike is already being debated. The IWU-FI (UIT Unidad internacional de los trabajadores) is the first organization that has called for a general strike. Even the organizations linked with the government have been obligated to adhere to the “nao vai ter copa” movement, like the MST, despite the government having created the “Vai ter copa” movement! Only centrist organizations like PCO (Partido da Causa Oparária) which acts as a left cover for the PT have not adhered to the “nao vai ter copa” movement. Unfortunately, those who call for the current strikes to be united and fight for a general strike do not base this unity on stopping the Cup “nao vai ter copa” but on the reformists’ slogan “in the cup, we will fight,” so they continue to operate in the left bureaucratic “space for unity of action” and do not break from the popular front.

This is why isolating the strikes from the movement to stop the Cup serves only the unity of the popular front! For example, the campaign of the CCR (Revolutionary Communist Current) in the teachers union in Sao Paulo calls for all the teachers to unite for a general strike, but ignores the fight against the cup that can extend this unity to the whole working class and make a general strike possible. Already the ranks of all those who are on strike, and there are many, shout “we will not have the cup” and threaten the government. Similarly, the FLTI (International Leninist-Trotskyist Fraction), calling for unity of all struggles, focuses on the auto industry, and ignores the mass movement against the Cup as the key to uniting the whole working class behind a general strike.

The movement against the Cup is what unites workers to the popular movement and the youth, against the highest expression of the alliance of the popular front government with big business and imperialism – that is the World Cup! The purpose of the “bureaucratic left” is to divert the masses into aimless “fights” that go nowhere except into the upcoming elections, where they will install their popular front in the unions as a popular front with the government and PT. Revolutionaries have a duty to expose the left wings of the popular front and replace their treacherous leaders with a Party and Program capable of leading the way to socialist revolution!

Stop the World Cup!

Break from the Popular Front!
Repudiate the national debt! Repudiate the Cup Debt!
For a living wage, free education, health, housing and social security!
Down with the popular front of the PSTU with the CUT and PT government!
Unite all the workers and peasants in struggle in a national conference to prepare for a general strike!
Build working class councils and self-defence militias!
For a mass Revolutionary Party and Revolutionary Program!
For a New World Party of Socialist Revolution!
Expropriate all imperialist and national capitalist property!
Institute workers control of the means of production. For a national plan of production for need not profit!
For a Workers’ and Peasants’ Government and a Socialist United States of the 

Americas!

By  Brazilian LCC sympathizer