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 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 1st.
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 11th. The general strike on July 1st didn’t happen. But on the 11th,
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
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