Brazil: the Crisis and the Fight Against Reformism

The instability of the bourgeois democratic regime in Brazil has deepened since the impeachment of Dilma in 2016. The Brazilian institutions have their structures eroded on display. Saving democracy, including bourgeois democratic rights, is only possible through the direct struggle of the working class with its traditional methods of struggle. Replacing the direct class struggle with parliament and bourgeois institutions as the PT and the reformist left does, or replacing it with union bureaucracy as do centrist parties like the PSTU, is the historical betrayal of reformism and the main cause of the crisis of revolutionary leadership of the working class.

The traditional right that led to Dilma's impeachment with maneuvers inside the bourgeois democratic regime, claiming that the cause of the crisis was the PT, which would be resolved with its departure, did not see the return to “normality” that was expected in the 2018 elections. The 2018 elections, with Bolsonaro's rise to power as a representative of the extreme right in the country, broke the 25-year polarization between PT and the traditional right represented by the PSDB.

After Dilma's fall, the government of her vice-president Temer was a government on a tightrope for 2.5 years. Its main moments of tension were the leaking of corruption cases carried out by the same Lava Jato (Operation Car Wash investigation) that had overthrown Dilma. Temer faced a truckers strike that paralyzed the country and a general strike called by the union bureaucracy but with workers' support.

Bolsonaro today fails to impose a Bonapartist government, that is, to put himself “above the classes” and “appease” the country. On the contrary, it advances through fascism, relying on the ruined petty bourgeoisie and the most backward elements of the Brazilian bourgeoisie, as shown by the video of the ministerial meeting published in the media. But the meeting also shows that Bolsonaro's radical line is not shared in the government. Most faithful to him are his ministers called by the press the “ideological wing”, the minister of the environment, education, human rights and the economy. Another wing is that of the military ministers and Vice President General Mourão. The “technical wing”, which after Mandetta and Moro left, practically no longer exists.

The Brazilian bourgeoisie is clearly divided and in dispute. The sector linked to the Lava Jato, Globo, the judiciary sector, the congress, Moro, etc., attack Bolsonaro hard. There are daily reports of corruption, actions by the Supreme Court (Federal Supreme Court), Lava Jato and PF (Federal Police) against the president and his children, and attacks on the government in the media. The dissemination of the video of the ministerial meeting is the result of one of these actions.

At the meeting, Bolsonaro, speaking of the economic crisis ahead of him, states it is a "disgrace", predicts a situation of "unemployment, chaos and social disorder" and warns the ministers of "(political) concerns that everyone must have". The minister of education spoke of arresting the ministers of the STF (Supreme Federal Court); the environment minister to take advantage of the media distraction with the pandemic to take steps to facilitate deforestation in the Amazon; Damares, minister of human rights, spoke of arresting governors and mayors; and Guedes, from the economy, of privatizing public banks.

The video was released in an investigation by the Supreme Court (STF) of allegations of Bolsonaro's interference with the Federal Police (PF) made by Moro when he left the government. Bolsonaro's response was to show once and for all that he is in charge of the PF, since days after the video was released, the PF carried out an operation against corruption investigating the governor of RJ (Rio de Janeiro), Witsel, who is part of the right-wing opposition to Bolsonaro. The governor, who was formerly a supporter of Bolsonaro and flew over the favelas by helicopter firing shots at the communities, now went on television to rage against the action of the PF and in defense of “democracy”.

Witsel cannot be our “spokesman” for democracy! Neither the Globo network, nor Moro, Morão, army generals, Maia or Lava-jato and other “democratic” and “progressive” bourgeois sectors! It is not only the Bolsonaro government that is in crisis, it is a crisis of the Brazilian bourgeois democratic regime, of the reactionary 1988 constitution and its institutions. 

We live in a moment of capitalism's terminal crisis, with the intensification of the inter-imperialist dispute between USA and China that leads us to war, and further accelerated by the pandemic. The crisis of the regime in Brazil only exposes the semi-colonial character of the country, which historically has been dependent and oppressed by American imperialism and today is squeezed between the inter-imperialist dispute between the USA and China. As we said in our ILTT (International Leninist-Trotskyist Tendency) statement:

“The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the fragility of Bolsonaro’s ability to rule Brazil in the interests of the US fraction only. He does not have majority support and has backed off much of his radical slash and burn of the welfare system and privatisation of state-owned corporations. But his crazy “little flu” stand on the pandemic has put him offside not only with most people, but with most of the state governors who are imposing lockdowns, and many bourgeois and military figures. This compounded crisis has disqualified Bolsonaro ruling as a Bonaparte, strutting above the classes and claiming to represent the people. Now he is a buffoon whose power has been quietly transferred to the army command which will try to find a new candidate to fill the vacancy for a Bonapartist figurehead.

For the ILTT, the bankruptcy and instability of the Brazilian ruling class is evidence that semi-colonial capitalism cannot solve the terminal crisis of capitalism. Only the revolutionary working class can solve this crisis by overthrowing capitalism and building a socialist world.”

Revolutionaries do not fight for democratic rights by defending this rotten and reactionary regime. The war that we have witnessed between the sectors of the bourgeoisie, with both sides using the state institutions to attack each other, shows that with the current regime the bourgeoisie is unable to contain social and political instability in the face of the greatest economic crisis in history. This explains the growth of Bonapartism and fascism as a necessary method for the bourgeoisie to contain social upheavals and the workers' struggle.

It is already clear that the right-wing opposition headed by Lava Jato, Globo, Moro, STF and sectors of the FFAA (Brazilian Armed Forces) want “Fora Bolsonaro” (Out with Bosonaro). Bolsonaro's impeachment today is openly defended by various sectors of the right, with more than 30 requests filed in the Chamber of Deputies. At a time when the bourgeois democratic regime is barely standing, can the country endure yet another impeachment? Ultimately the issue will be resolved by the military, with whom this bourgeois sector has no problem joining in order to guarantee "stability" and "democracy".

Impeachment is also the defended by most the left, PT, PSOL and PSTU that seem at least to have reached an agreement on “Fora Bolsonaro”. The totality of the left today, from the right wing to the ultra left, debates and writes polemics about the way out of the crisis within the bourgeois democratic regime. What everyone agrees on is that “revolution is not possible”. The debate broadcast over the internet between PSTU, MES and MRT is an example of this.

The PSTU is keen to emphasize that Fora Bolsonaro alone is not enough, Fora Mourão is also necessary, so the solution is “general elections now”. The MRT, which agrees that a revolutionary exit is not possible, says that new elections do not challenge the regime and that the exit should be the Constituent Assembly (AC). These controversies were no different during the crises in the Temer government, in which PSTU opposed the PT over “general elections” while the PT defended elections for president only. The MRT, on the other hand, once again represented the left flank of reformism trying to save the regime with a new AC.

Why should we defend a bourgeois democratic regime that collapses, at a time of greatest economic crisis in history, in the midst of a pandemic, in which imperialisms threaten war and the bourgeoisie has no other choice but to attack the working class harshly to pay the price of the crisis? The working class defends its rights, including bourgeois democratic rights, with its direct struggle, the general strike, occupation, pickets, self-defense and workplace committees.

There has never been a reason for the class to stop “going to the streets”, that is, fighting for their rights. Even more in the face of a huge crisis of capitalism, attacks and withdrawals of rights and the pandemic. A general strike is necessary for workers to take control of measures to fight the pandemic in their hands, deciding who will work, with what security, what will be produced. The bourgeoisie has always been clear that it did not intend to contain the pandemic, but only to delay it so that we die little by little, without promoting chaos in the health system.

The general strike is needed to defend jobs and wages and to preserve rights. It takes organization and class independence, with the formation of local and national workers' committees, occupation of factories and hospitals. Self-defense committees against rising fascism are urgently needed. The reformist left, which is at home and uses the pandemic as an excuse for its betrayal, will soon have to return with its fanfare of “demonstrations”, which in fact has the purpose of containing the struggles, especially at the moment when more demonstrations, protests and the spontaneous resistance of workers increase.

We defend lockdown as a necessary principle to contain the pandemic. But the bourgeoisie “lockdown” is on the one hand to save capitalism itself, and on the other hand to repress and contain the working class. Only workers can guarantee the necessary social isolation to contain the pandemic. That is why the “lockdown now”, without class character, called by the PSTU as a necessary stage, defends the lockdown of the hypocritical bourgeoisie. The world bourgeoisie has understood that repression and authoritarianism is the best way to “fight” the pandemic.

We are seeing the lockdown of the bourgeoisie in countries like India, Kenya and South Africa, in which dozens of workers were killed by the police for “breaking the quarantine” while having to be locked up at home starving! That is why hypocritical, bourgeois and petty bourgeois speeches that the left makes, such as "saving lives before the economy", lead to the support of people like Bolsonaro, who claims to be very concerned that the people have no work. That is why the social isolation necessary to contain the pandemic must be taken into the hands of workers.

The right-wing opposition to Bolsonaro, in the Lava Jato bloc, Globo, STF, etc., are not concerned with containing the pandemic, and the opening of the economy during the increase in cases affirms this. Their concern for the economy is to maintain the profits of the bourgeoisie. Despite the dispute with the government, they support measures to reduce wages, a rescue package for bankers and attack public servants. Much less are they concerned with "democracy".

The Broad Front that PT and organizations like Frente Povo sem Medo participate in alongside center-left bourgeois parties like PDT, PSB to “contain fascism”, is a betrayal. The Popular Front (FP) does not fight fascism, on the contrary, it opens the way for fascism. It serves to contain the direct action of the class and divert the struggle into parliament and the regime, allying itself with sectors of the “democratic” bourgeoisie in a FP, the reformist left divides the class and ends workers' independence, which is the only force capable of containing fascism.

Workers need to break with their opportunistic leaders and union bureaucracy. That is why we need the united front (FU), which brings together the grassroots workers as well as their leadership. The bloc of the union centrals, of which CSP Conlutas is the driving force, is not a FU, because it is based on agreements between unions and political currents, without the participation of the base, which is only called in the days of “demonstrations”. That is, it is a bureaucratic bloc, the result of the opportunistic policy of the PSTU, which replaces the class with union bureaucracy. CUT, Conlutas, Intersindical, must make the FU by mobilizing workers to build workplace and self-defence committees, and the political general strike to defend rights, wages, pandemic control, towards the seizure of power and workers' government.

The PSTU, as a centrist party, is slipping towards ultra leftism. We saw this in Dilma's impeachment process. The PSTU did not fight against the maneuver of the bourgeoisie, stating it would not defend the Popular Front (FP) government. Currents such as the MES (PSOL) openly supported the actions of the bourgeoisie of Lava Jato as a defense of “democracy” and “justice” (bourgeois, of course). Now it defends justice and the PF against "the 2 sides", strengthening security actions and institutions supported by laws such as the Anti-Terrorism Law, which ultimately is used against workers.

The PSTU and many ultra-left currents denied the rise of fascism and the ultra-right and supported impeachment as something "progressive", because the workers were "breaking" with the PT. To deny the rise of fascism to justify that it would not fight against the maneuvers of the right because that would be to support the FP, shows that the ultra-left face does not differ in any way from opportunism when it supports the FP against fascism.

Once again, the struggle against the rise of Bonapartism and Fascism should be carried out by the independent workers with their traditional methods of struggle. And without any support to the PT FP government. The PT administered the bourgeois state, unable to contain the extreme right and fascism itself. A government that made Belo Monte (Hydro Dam), sent troops to Haiti, established military police bases in the slums, allocated billions to banks and contractors and put the price of the crisis on the back of workers, could not be defended. It is true that the workers' discontent with the worsening of the crisis and their living conditions pitted them against the government, not with the methods of the bourgeoisie, but the direct struggle of the class.

The opportunistic aspect of the PSTU did not take long to appear, in the 2nd round of the 2018 elections, it called a vote in the FP against Bolsonaro. While making bureaucratic blocs with the union bureaucracy, substituting for the direct class struggle, the PSTU has a sectarian policy against PT and often PSOL, denying a true FU that gathers the base in front of its leadership. In fact, it becomes a counterrevolutionary element, supporting a bloc with the union bureaucracy as the United Front, and preventing the formation of true FU and direct class action, leaving the workers' movement in the hands of the union bureaucracy!

The global crisis of capitalism is deepening, as is the intensification of the inter-imperialist dispute. The forecast is for a drop of 5.99% of GDP in Brazil this year! The prospect for workers worldwide is one of misery and repression. In Brazil, there were already millions of unemployed, and in the pandemic over 1 million jobs were lost. Our job market is more than 50% informal. They are public health workers scrapped and attacked for decades, no longer guaranteed rights or decent wages, attending to the pandemic without the basics of protective equipment.

From this crisis, the Brazilian semi-colonial bourgeoisie cannot escape except with dictatorship and fascism. Any policy that leads workers to the illusion of the bourgeois democratic regime, that it is possible to “improve” capitalism or reach socialism through parliamentary means, is betrayal.

Workers must unite not only in Brazil, but in the world. The reformist leaderships also promote the division of the world's workers, as shown by their support for “left” governments like Argentina. Hearing the reformist left talk about Argentina and its government, it gives the impression to Brazilian workers that the pandemic in Argentina is paradise! While in the real Argentina, the government puts the people on lockdown, workers suffer from hunger and repression in quarantine, go on strike and are harshly repressed by the police. The reformist left, as well as dividing the class to ally with bourgeois sectors at national level, internationally promote FP with bourgeois governments, dividing the class. Especially in its support for the China / Russia imperialist bloc, supporting it as an alternative to American imperialism.

The left is beating its head to find a way out of the crisis within the democratic regime, saying that "revolution is not possible". We say, there is no possible way out of the bourgeois democratic regime and capitalism. Fascism and military coup threatens us, and the only way out for the working class is the socialist revolution, possible and necessary!

Brazil: Break with the PT and the Popular Front!

The national education strike or more than 1 million on May 15 was the biggest mobilisation against President Bolsonaro's regime since his election. 

The following is translated from our Brazilian comrades of the Grupo de Trabalhadores Revolucionários do Brasil (GTR-BR)

In order to defeat Bolsonaro and fascism, the workers must break with the PT and the Popular Front and defeat the trade union bureaucracy: the example of education and public pensions

It is not possible to combat Bolsonaro, fascism and imperialism, supporting the PT (Workers Party) and the Popular Front. After the workers said NO to the neoliberalism of the FHC (Fernando Henrique Cardoso) government in the 1990s, they elected Lula and the PT in hopes of a better life. The PT spent more than 13 years in power ruling with the bourgeoisie and applying the neoliberal policies of imperialism. Bolsonaro’s victory and the threat of fascism show that the Popular Front is incapable of defending workers’ rights and fighting fascism, on the contrary, it demobilizes and demoralizes the struggle and paves the way for attacks against the working class!

While the commodity sales boom, especially for China, brought a flood of money, and as Lula said: “never before in that country did the bankers make so much money,” the PT was advancing in privatizations, in the dismantling of public services, of forestry, built the notorious Belo Monte hydroelectric plant, implemented education reform, auctioned pre-salt oil, etc., etc.

The financial market crash in 2008 marked the beginning of the biggest capitalist crisis in history. Capitalist crisis means that the bourgeoisie can not maintain its rates of profit and needs to attack the working class hard. These attacks have generated resistance on the part of the workers not to pay the price of the crisis, the Arab spring being the largest to date. However, there is no country in the world today that is not experiencing economic, social and political crises. On the other hand, fascism grows throughout the world as the only way for the bourgeoisie to crush the working class and make it pay the price of the crisis.

In Brazil it was no different, while Lula said that the crisis was a “marolinha”, he made appropriations of billions of reais to save the big companies like JBS (Brazilian meat-processing corporation) and GM. When Dilma assumed the presidency in the second term, the country already suffered with the end of the economic boom of commodities sale and the country went into recession; her government did not resist the crisis. Of the alms and credit that the PT gave to the working class, only the debts remained. The opposition bourgeoisie also did not speak of the global crisis of capitalism and its campaign to overthrow the government declared that the PT was the cause of the crisis.

Now the far right has come to power with their anti-PT discourse, but obviously the economic crisis is not over. On the contrary, the country has a high rate of unemployment and the public accounts do not balance, causing a risk of a crash. Bolsonaro’s populist government, which is rapidly advancing its Bonapartism, is a necessity for the bourgeoisie to crush the working class and ensure that it pays the price of the capitalist crisis. For the workers there is no other way forward than to end illusions in the bourgeois elections and capitalist state, no other way but to step up the independent struggle of the class to destroy capitalism and the construct the workers’ and socialist state.

The Bolsonaro versus Popular Front polarization is a trap for the working class because it puts before it two bourgeois options and eliminates a class independent alternative for the workers.

The neo-liberal reform of education: from FHC to the PT and the current government

In education, the subservience of the PT governments and their bourgeois allies to the plans of the World Bank and imperialism were no different. For decades education has suffered neoliberal attacks with small reforms that have been condensed and legalized in the National Education Plan (NEP). The National Education Plan, which represents imperialism’s plans to transform education into a commodity, was approved in 2014 under the Dilma government. Bolsonaro’s offensive against education and public universities can only be fought if workers are aware that it is necessary to combat all the neoliberal measures of the last years, including those of the PT, which have paved the way for the current attacks.

No doubt education workers have been among the most attacked in recent decades. The scrapping of schools and the precariousness of the teachers is felt by all. Every year education suffers from budget cuts. The education cuts carried out by the current government are the same as the left government made to comply with the Fiscal Responsibility Law or the “fiscal adjustment” Rousseff made in 2015.

It was in the PT governments that pushed the ‘Educational Reform’ the most. The private education college has grown exponentially, possible only with the billion in public money intended for entrepreneurs of the education sector, known as the “school of sharks.” Government programs that finance jobs in private institutions created the world’s largest education company in the world! Lula has created several new federal universities and institutes, which is the biggest rhetorical claim of his government. However, existing public universities continued in the process of scrapping and “reform”, while the new Universidades and Federal Institutes created by PT governments were born into the new system, where the curriculae and funding are geared to meet the private sector’s needs: low cost for school maintenance and the preparation of cheap and qualified labor to supply the markets. The fact is that universities remain an elite space that few have access to and the new universities created by Lula were part of the implementation of educational reforms dictated by the IMF and World Bank established in the NEP.

Bolsonaro has announced the cut of funds of 30% for the public universities. One of the arguments against government attacks is that public universities generate the most research and technology in the country. This is true, but it is important to remember that in recent years these researches are increasingly dependent on external funds, that is, on the foreign companies and multinationals that control and define what will be researched, according to their interests.

Another argument used by the PT government’s naysayers against the current government is the lack of democracy and autonomy in universities, when the chosen elector of the Triple List is not the one that received the most votes in the elections. However, it is worth remembering that before the PT came to power, one of the great promises was to end the Triple List, which includes the three names most referred by the university community, and from which the government chooses one name. During his thirteen years in power, the PT never ended this undemocratic method of choosing the rectors; what it did was to choose the one with the most votes, while the system remained the same!

High school reform is another example of the educational reform demanded by imperialism from semi-colonies like Brazil. It transforms secondary education into vocational education, with the justification that young people leave ready for the job market. This reform removes training and broad knowledge of secondary education and channels the training of young people to specific areas as a way to generate cheap and specialized labor for the market. On the other hand, it benefits private educational institutions, which lower their costs and increase the demand, since the young person who does not get space in the labor market needs to go back to school and retrain. The PT spoke against the reform of high school when this was approved by Temer, but were silent when this same reform of the NEP was approved by their government or when it was implanted in the states by PT governors, as happened in Rio Grande do Sul during the Tarso Genro government.

In universities, the same privatization logic and training of skilled and inexpensive labor for the market is observed. The old, long and comprehensive courses of entire areas of knowledge have been dismembered in several degree programs. Thus, the basic cycle was created, lasting 2 years, where students matriculate in these various courses. After completing the basic cycle, the student has to do two more years of the course he has chosen. For the student who in the old model leaves college with broad training, she or he now comes out enabled to work only in one branch of the area of knowledge chosen. For private initiative, it means that you no longer need to fund a long and comprehensive course, but only the basic cycle, or the specific modules of each course. It also means a greater demand, because every module that the student wants or needs to do, requires them to go back to the educational institution for it, and obviously to pay for it!

Before the arrival of the PT, the trade unions and the National Union of Students (UNE) fought hard against this reform that had already been demanded by the World Bank since the 1990s! In 1998 the federal universities engaged in a 90-day strike against the University Autonomy of FHC, which was nothing more than autonomy to seek financing in the private sector! This practice began with the foundations of private initiative within the universities, which not only has not been reversed, but made great strides with the PT governments.

What about basic education that suffers from the scrapping and immense precariousness of schools!? One of the main focuses is the attack on education workers, which serves both the interest of private Capital and the end of public servants. The “National Education Floor” was the great tool to end the careers of the teaching profession. While the government was promising a salary floor, which was actually the CEILING, the same floor law established the end of teachers’ career plans. The state of São Paulo is one of the most advanced in the privatizing reform of education. There, the teachers already “won” the floor so much defended by the PT and its syndicalists, but they lost their career plans and other benefits. The state is known for the precariousness of teachers, who worked on a temporary contract, with no ties to the government and earn by the hour, true day laborers! With different stages of implementation, this is the reform applied in ALL states and municipalities of the country. In this sector, the presence of the private initiative dates back to the FHC governments and has remained in the Lula and Dilma government. Private-initiative foundations, such as the AirtonSenna Foundation, Bradesco Foundation, etc., elaborate, apply and control pedagogical projects in public schools, taking away the autonomy of teachers in the classroom.

In Rio Grande do Sul, education has suffered the same dismantling for decades. The hardworking servants of education like doormen, lunch servers, etc., were almost all replaced by private initiative workers through outsourcing; there are only the few waiting for retirement. In recent years, the number of teachers hired under the new scheme equals the number of veteran teachers, whose indefinite period contracts are now the government’s target. The government attack advances to the privatization model already implanted in São Paulo. And during all these years of dismantling, the union policy directed by the CUT (Unified Workers’ Central) / PT is to deceive the masses claiming that the Law of the Floor and the NEP were the solution to all problems of education!

The example of Public Pensions

Today, the media, business people and the government are engaged in a massive campaign for the approval of the Pension Reform. They say it’s the only way out of the crisis. Social security is the largest income distribution in the country, which is one of the most unequal in the world! Reform is a requirement of the financial market, as it is from pensions that the country can draw more money to pay its debts to the bankers. Dilma in 2016, during her “fiscal adjustment” spoke of the need for reform. Temer’s “A bridge to the future” program identified pension reform as its main objective. The “democratic” bourgeoisie and its regime of the 1988 constitution were never able to meet the demands of the workers properly at any time. The different governments that operated under the constitution of 1988 have slowly withdrawn all the rights conquered in 1988. Like education reform, pensions have undergone several reforms since the Collor administration, with further reforms under Lula and Dilma.

The reform presented by the Bolsonaro government to Congress foresees the end of the current policy of public pensions replaced with a private capitalization scheme; the new scheme increases the time of service required, the amount of the contributions and includes a reduction of benefits. Several populist measures of the PT governments were instrumental in reaching the proposed reform of today. In the boom period of the international economy and sales of commodities and credit during the Lula government, the campaign of “valorization of the minimum wage” was launched. The untying of the increase for retirees earning more than one minimum wage led to a flattening of wages paid by social security. The pension ceiling had already led many workers to turn to private pension plans to try to keep their salary level in retirement. In practice, the private sector workers retain very little of the rights of the current pension system. The civil servants were targeted by Lula’s pension reform in 2003, but they are the ones who have managed to maintain most of their rights and are now the most threatened by the current reform, which foresees the end of public servants’ pensions for a single pension scheme. It is worth remembering that the public servants, while they were able to maintain their rights, unfortunately lacked solidarity with the workers of the private sector and the defense of their social security system. This balance is fundamental so that public servants can receive support from other workers in the face of the attacks they are suffering from the bourgeoisie and the Bolsonaro government that wants to end public service and advance privatizations.

The media and government say the country will collapse if the reform is not approved. To deceive the population, they compare the expenses of social security with those of health and education, showing that for the latter the expense is much lower. But they do not show that spending on debt repayment for bankers is astronomical. The workers should have no illusions, the money the government intends to take out of pensions will not go to health and education, but to the bankers!

It is not possible to defeat Bolsonaro’s final coup against public services and pensions by defending the PT and the Popular Front as “lesser evil”

Undoubtedly, the reforms of the last decades in education, health and social security follow the logic of privatization: increasingly scrapped, these services will remain public only for the very poor who can not afford to pay, the others will have to look for these services in the capitalist toilet. It is worth remembering that private does not mean quality, because in Brazil we know the poor quality of private schools, universities and health care and that we pay dearly for them!

After Lula’s first election, all workers’ struggle and awareness against the privatization of education project suffered a great setback. The unions and militants began to be integrated into the state institutions and defend this project, giving a “democratic” face through the “National Conference of Education,” a tripartite sphere with businessmen, government and workers, where this project was endorsed. Educational reform was implemented through the co-optation of trade unions and workers’ organizations by the Popular Front.

The capitulation of the Left to the Popular Front is general, as can be seen during the bourgeois elections, when most currents called for voting for the PT against Bolsonaro and Fascism. Even organizations that had stood in opposition to PT governments, such as PSOL (Socialism and Liberty Party) and PSTU (Unified Workers’ Socialist Party) took this position.

PSOL, PSTU and combative unions such as ANDES (National Association of Teachers of Higher Education), who in the past were against the NEP, all denounced the maneuvering of the ‘Law of the Floor’ and tried to unite the struggle of teachers demanding the full rights of contracted teachers who have been in the public service for more than 3 years. Now they have NO policy different from that of the PT and the Popular Front. Instead, they are part of the National Conference on Education and are agents in the application of these neoliberal attacks.

The global crisis of capitalism and the resistance of the working class

The deepening of the crisis shows that the impeachment of Dilma was only the beginning of a great instability of the institutions of the Brazilian bourgeois state. After the fall of the PT and the unpopular Temer government, we went through a stark and growing crisis of the State institutions, with disputes between the powers and within the Bolsonaro government itself, which show that not only the executive power, but the bourgeois democratic regime is not able to carry forward the interests of the bourgeoisie and imperialism. Bolsonaro needs to deepen his bonapartism more and more, putting himself above institutions, with populist and authoritarian measures. Unlike the PT and the reformist left, we say that the fascist methods and military blows of the bourgeoisie remain the same that the impeachment of Dilma was a maneuver of the bourgeoisie to overthrow her government, and that Brazil suffers with a threat of a real coup. The PT narrative helps demobilize, misinform and disarm the working class for this fight.

The global crisis of capitalism demonstrates the destructive character of this system. The decadence of American hegemony and the intensification of the dispute with the imperialist bloc of China/Russia lead the great world powers to another imperialist war. Obviously Bolsonaro has no sovereignty allegiance and has already shown himself to be the doormat of Trump and American imperialism, even willing to go to war to defend imperialist interests, as in the case of neighboring Venezuela. But the PT governments were never “anti-imperialist.” What the PT and the popular front did was to bring the country closer to Chinese and Russian imperialism through the BRICS. For workers, there is no difference in being exploited and paying debt to the IMF or the BRICS bank.

The PT, PCdoB (Communist Party of Brazil) and its allies are traitors to the working class. Contrary to what they claim, the workers and the youth have staged a great resistance. Youth in 2013 in the fight against rising public transport fares mobilized millions who went to the streets asking for health and education, andtoday the PT accuses them of having been a fascist movement! Teachers have for years held strikes in every state and municipality in the country. The need to unify these strikes forced the CUT / CNTE (Teachers Union) to carry out 3-day general strikes in 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2016. All of them serving the trade union bureaucracy to destroy the movement from the inside, controlling and diverting it into illusions in the elections and programs of the PT government. In 2019, in the face of all the Bolsonaro government attacks, the CUT / CNTE was forced to call another general education strike for May 15. The question is: why do the trade union centrals that have been talking about “building the general strike” for years not unify all workers, taking advantage of this moment of the struggle of the education workers? They will certainly answer us: because the general strike against the Pension Reform will be June 16.

We do not sing the chorus with the ultra-leftists and centrists who criticize the trade union centrals over how much “time is needed to build a general strike. For the working class that has listened to the Bureaucratic Block of Trade Union Centers (of which Conlutas is a part) that it is necessary to “build” the General Strike for 30 days, this is not the question. Our critique is the role of bureaucratic misdirections in intervening in the movement to bar it, bureaucratize it, and divert it to the interests of its opportunist parties and its strategies of Popular Front and bourgeois elections. We warn workers that this example shows how opportunist mis-leaderships try to divide the working class. Why can’t other workers make a general strike in defense of education and the specific demands of each sector? Why can’t the General Strike against Social Security Reform unify with the other branches of the movement? We have come to answer those questions: because the PT, CUT and its allies do not want to bar the pension reform, as exposed by their governors and parliamentarians; they want a “better” reform. They want to exhaust the government before the upcoming elections and they fear that the strike movement will get out of their control. These are the reasons why the workers’ reformist leadership does not advocate an INDEFINITE General Strike.

We support and will be part of the general strikes of education and against pension reform. But we warn workers that the strike and movement is in the hands of a union bureaucracy and reformist parties who want to divert our struggles to their interests in elections and in Parliament. We say that a united front (UF) is required among workers and left-wing organizations, including opportunistic ones. We do not ignore the fact that the CUT/PT are the majority leaders of the Brazilian working class. But UF means that they are a part, and not the only leaders; that also the rank and file has its leadership role. That is why we call the Central bloc a bureaucratic front, in which only the leaders decide between four walls the direction of the movement. We regret the fact that CONLUTAS are part of and sustain this bureaucratic bloc and we call on it to break with the union bureaucracy. Only the indefinite general strike, organized and controlled by the rank and file committees and self-defense organs of workers is able to defeat the government, imperialism and put in check the bourgeoisie and capitalism in Brazil!

The strategy of dividing the movement of the working class is also carried out in the international field of class struggle. It is no wonder that social democrats, Stalinists, “RT socialists” and faux Trotskyists when faced with the biggest economic, social and political crisis worldwide, with mass upheavals and openly revolutionary processes such as the Arab Spring and the Syrian revolution, with support for bourgeois regimes, ultimately abandoning the struggle for socialism.. They have not advanced an independent struggle to support and provide class solidarity. The only way out for them is the Popular Front, that is, alliance with “progressive” sectors of the bourgeoisie, supporting dictatorships such as Assad in Syria or Maduro in Venezuela. These opportunistic and reformist directions are said to be “anti-imperialist”, but only when imperialism is American. They are allies of Chinese and Russian imperialism, in a large popular front, taking sides in the inter-imperialist dispute.

Faced with the deep capitalist crisis in which the bourgeoisie needs fascist methods to crush the working class to “solve” its crisis, the growth of fascism in the world shows that only the struggle of the workers and the socialist revolution is capable of defeating fascism. Socialist revolution is required to prevent the recurrence of inter-imperialist wars and to save mankind in the face of the destruction of the environment caused by the capitalist mode of production. For this it is necessary that the workers, leftist currents, militants and activists break with the opportunist leaderships and the Popular Front and advance in the direct struggle of the working class and in the construction of the World Party of the Revolution. 

Health Workers betrayed by "labour" Party

Another year of wage stagnation and dangerous conditions of continued deliberate underfunding of state provided health services. Residents Doctors Association and Midwifes continue to fight while the district health board bosses (DHB) deliberately drag out negotiations (longer than a year of negotiations). 

Members of the Resident Doctors' Association have held four 48-hour strikes so far this year. They are fighting against DHB bosses who want to dictate rosters and extreme shifts. The RDA wants to be able to reject unsafe rosters: Rosters like 10 days on and up to 4 nights in a row. Who would want to be assessed by a doctor in their past day 6 let alone the last hours of that sort of roster?

This government delivers tired doctors to the working people of NZ who need medical services. That is state deliberately funding second class health services to ordinary working class. While the ‘rich enough’ can dip into both public health services and when concerned or dissatisfied access the private specialists. Labour willingly stands by and runs down the public health service which as a by-product is fostering private health providers.

Nurses (NZNO) took repeated strike action and the rank and file repeatedly rejected offers of cost of living increases. However, their leadership sold them only barely repackaged deal, and promises of progress on gender pay equity that could be a decent pay rise. The PSA (Health) also gave in for an equivalent pay deal, below cost of living increases at < 3% per year. Health workforce has been sold pathetic deals by union bureaucracies that are too close to the Labour Party and so demobilise the workforce to stop pressure on a Labour Government.

The labour bureaucracy of the Council of Trade Unions (CTU) was exposed when it failed to support the RDA. Teachers (NZEI & PPTA) and state sector public service association (PSA) voted against basic solidarity. The PSA was even caught out helping the formation of a scab doctor union “SToNZs”, who negotiated a side deal which gave away safe rostering. PSA and NZNO also refuse any deviation from the leaders/bureaucrats who are anti-MERAS. Yes, they compete for members in the health sector, but to also refuse solidarity with workers in struggle such as the Midwives union, is against the wider class interests. That pays into the government and employers’ hands, continuing to underfund health while health sector unions lack solidarity and can be picked off one at a time.

The Labour led government idly sits by and keeps the DHB Budget under screws sticking to a “fiscal cap” – Labour’s self-imposed budget parameters for its efficient running of the capitalist regime. This means all the DHBs have to ration health services and screw down wage bills. There are not enough resources and waitlists are referred back to their GPs to avoid being a real waitlist. Patients in pain or seriously mentally unwell, are more likely to assault health workers. But protection of our health workforce would come with effective treatment and good prevention.

The Labour Party has in effect, abandoned working people and sticks to the capitalists’ limits, now obviously within their own budget responsibility rules, in other words putting profits before working people. It treats the DHBs as private corporations. The government is effectively encouraging DHBs in their anti-worker rostering. We hear DHBs are not employing experienced nurses who are on top RN pay grades if they can get nurses on lower pay grades and save some money. That means less experience on the floor – fewer specialised nurses. Forever training up relatively new nurses is not the rational way to provide good health services.

Health workers also need to treat DHBs as private corporations and demand a living wage by taking strike action building support in the unions and wider working class until they get their demands. Labour will either respond to the pressure by conceding apparent reforms (increasing funding for DHBs) or it will come out as an openly capitalist party doing the bidding of finance capital and sending the army in to replace health workers. (As it did do in the last nurses strikes). And continue subsidising private health providers (many public dollars go to private health operators and profits.  

Either way, it is a united organised working class that is needed to defeat the parties who defend this capitalist regime and to socialise health under workers’ control.

For Fighting Democratic unions under rank and file control!

Socialise Health under Workers Control!

For a Workers Government based on Workers Councils!

RWG (Zimbabwe) Post-Election Statement

 

NO TO ZANU PF DICTATORSHIP! NO TO PASSIVE RESISTANCE!

BUILD RANK AND FILE UNIONS TO CALL FOR A CONGRESS OF WORKERS!

FORWARD TO A GENERAL STRIKE TO CONQUER OUR DEMANDS!

FORM A WORKERS PARTY AND BREAK WITH THE POPULAR FRONT!

The elections held on the 31st resulted in a landslide victory for ZANU PF in the presidential election, a two thirds majority in the Parliament and the regaining of control of most local councils they had lost to the MDC’s.The elections have generally been described by all observers, the parties and the western nations as peaceful but by some as not being free and fair due to instances and accusations of bussing, a shambolic voters role, massive disenfranchisement, double voting, suspicious voting slips and pens among others. In an initial statement the main MDC (referred to as the MDC-T) has rejected the election as a huge farce and met on Saturday to offer a way forward to their members who were becoming restless with some calling for a boycott of parliament and street protests. The other MDC (MDC-N or just MDC) has also rejected the outcome citing massive rigging of the elections by ZANU PF and security agents with the help of Israeli agents but resolved not to boycott the government.

What is clear is that the MDC-T is now desperate to regain confidence from its western imperialist handlers among its members and has resolved to boycott parliament and other state institutions demanding a re-run. In a clear sign of political impotence they have also resolved to present evidence of vote rigging and manipulation to SADC and the AU, the same bodies whose observers endorsed the elections. But most tellingly the MDC-T states it will achieve all its aims through peaceful means. It would have been foolhardy for anyone to expect the MDC-T to go beyond this and call for the mobilisation of the masses into the streets as this will be much difficult to control and may develop beyond the call for a re-run to include radical demands.

As we speak the mood across the country is one of surprise and shock for the masses who had put so much faith in the MDC-T. They are more shocked by its resolution to pursue a useless route. It’s true that to a large extent ZANU PF manipulated the voting system in their favour in order to defend itself against western imperialism and on behalf of Chinese led imperialism, but also critically over the years the MDC-T has lost its original appeal because of its record in office, as well as its initial limited radical tactics. The way it conducted its congress and selection of public office representatives also added to an already gloomy situation for the party. Some have also hinted to the nascent internal struggles and infiltration as additions to a list of factors that have made it possible for ZANU PF to retain its dominance. On the other hand Mugabe based on his pre-election speech and also in order to destroy the opposition, might offer positions to the MDC-T.

The key observer bodies, SADC and AU, have endorsed the elections and the outcome effectively ending their mediation role of over five years and also setting the tone for inevitable albeit grudging acceptance of the results by western countries and the USA which are eager to participate in the diamond industry and also tone down the ZANU PF indigenisation drive despite their recent condemnation of the outcome. That observers known to be funded directly by western states have castigated the manner in which the poll was run and the results will do little to sway the western states resolve to end this disastrous episode that has not boded well for them in terms of regaining dominance ahead of Chinese imperialism.

The key lesson for workers, youths and the poor masses is the inability of reformism to resolve even the basic democratic issues. Firstly, that a hated regime can steal its way to power and yet get away with it shows that real democracy is not compatible with a capitalist system where economic geo-political interests ride above people’s wishes and interests. Secondly and more importantly, this election has and will expose the reformist MDC-T party as a degenerated part in the imperialist game with no intentions and capacity to move beyond electoral,diplomatic,judicial,religious and legal routes in their fight for the rights and interests of the poor masses it claims to represent.

In our pre-election statement we wrote that, “The elections to be held on the 31st of July 2013, though not a fundamental national development, will point to the trajectory to be taken in the implementation of capitalist exploitation and state brutality on the workers and the poor masses. Whichever party wins the elections will without doubt and despite all election rhetoric go full swing to impose massive austerity as demanded by imperialism. The events in Egypt prove that democracy is not enough to cater for the needs of the poor. Workers and the poor should mobilise and organise now to be able to defeat such moves and protect their livelihood and interests”. Both ZANU PF and MDC have been fighting on behalf of their imperialist sponsors to oppress and exploit the masses and resources of this country.

We call on the workers, youths and poor masses to reject the impending ZANU PF dictatorship through independent mobilisation on the basis of genuine workers and poor masses demands as well as active and militant working class methods. International capitalism certainly cannot solve its crisis without proving that bourgeoisie democracy is but a mask for the bourgeoisie dictatorship. Zimbabwe is living proof of the futility of trying to polish the mask on behalf of the dictatorship! We also call on the workers and the poor masses to reject the call for passive resistance and symbolic protests and instead mobilise for a general strike as a key element of revolutionary protests led by independent local organs to avoid betrayal and the hijacking of the struggle by reformist groups bent on squandering the fight of the poor.

• Workers, youths and the poor form action committees to fight the growing and coming attacks on the wages and conditions of the poor and the livelihood of the majority poor! 
• Form rank and file committees in our movements and unions to advance the workers program, lead general and political strike actions and break with the reformist leadership!
• Workers and poor masses break with the MDC and ZANU (PF) through building rank and file unions and a congress of all workers, youths and the poor in struggle that prepares for a general strike!
• Workers form an independent workers party to break the popular front of the MDC and ZANU PF dictatorship and that champions the interests of the workers and the poor masses!
• Jobs for all can only be won by the workers’ conquest of their own economic plan, by sharing the work, by shortening the hours and ending poverty by implementing a sliding scale of prices and wages!
• Provide free quality health care and education for all run by the workers, students, educators, and health care providers themselves!
• The big capitalists and imperialist companies must be made to pay to end the poverty and misery. If they cannot or will not we demand they must open their books expose their business secrets and then to nationalize their assets and put them under workers control!
• For a workers government that defends workers and peasants against the local and foreign capitalists on the basis of the armed people building a workers’ state that implements decisions for the benefit the workers and the poor!
• For an African socialist revolution as part of an international revolution that alone can guarantee a better life for all!
• For a new world party of socialist revolution based on the Transitional Program of 1938 to lead the revolution to end capitalism and open the road to socialism!

REVOLUTIONARY WORKERS GROUP, ZIMBABWE (RWG-ZIM)

rwg.zimbabwe@gmail.com

www.rwgzimbabwe.wordpress.com

06 August 2013, Harare Zimbabwe