Brazil: Social-Bonapartism of the Lockdown Left in Practice

 

How the leaderships of the trade unions, PT, PCdoB, the pseudo-Trotskyist PSTU and PSOL sabotage the struggle against the Bolsonaro government

 

By Michael Pröbsting, International Secretary of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 10 June 2020, www.thecommunists.net

 

 

 

All over the world millions of workers and youth are marching on the streets against racism and police brutality. As the RCIT has elaborated in various documents, this is a historic turning point, a moment of liberation. After months of counterrevolutionary lockdown rules imposed by the ruling class under the cover of the COVID-19 pandemic, the masses are breaking down the bans of public assemblies. [1]

 

These mass protests are based on spontaneous popular mobilizations. Since months, most parties of the opportunist left – social democrats, Stalinists, left populists, pseudo-Trotskyists, etc. – support the Lockdown imposed by the ruling class around the globe. This Lockdown Left has refused to call for mobilizations on the streets despite the fact that the workers and oppressed face the worst attacks since World War II (economic slump, explosive rise of unemployment, vast expansion of police and surveillance state, etc.). [2]

 

Instead of calling the people to struggle, the Lockdown Left joined the chorus of many capitalist governments and told the masses to “Stay at Home!” They pathetically excused such betrayal by referring to the COVID-19 pandemic. Underlying this argument is the reactionary idea that the oppressed should stop fighting in times of pandemics and that the ruling class with its expanding bonapartist state apparatus would be best suited to fight such a pandemic. [3]

 

In contrast, the RCIT has denounced such capitulation of the reformist and centrist left from the beginning. We explained that COVID-19 is neither the first nor the last pandemic in the past decades. Humanity has experienced such pandemics several times which have claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people every year (severe Influenza epidemics, HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, not to speak about the millions of people who die every year because of heart disease, nicotine or alcohol). Such pandemics must be fought with a health program (expansion of public health sector under workers and popular control, free mass texting etc.) and, ultimately, the overthrow of capitalism as the system responsible for many of these diseases. We also explained that the ruling class is using the COVID-19 pandemic as a cover for deflecting the masses’ attention from the economic slump and, at the same, to legitimize the expansion of the bonapartist state apparatus. [4] Under no circumstances must a progressive organization support bourgeois state repression and draconic lockdown measures – even if they are supposedly health measures – directed against the people. [5]

 

Finally, and most importantly, it is criminal to call the masses to stay at home when, at the same time, the bosses throw millions of workers on the streets, when the masses starve because of the lockdown, when the ruling classes vastly expand the police and surveillance state! A pandemic can not justify in any way a voluntarily disarmament and capitulation by the left in face of such massive economic and anti-democratic attacks! This is why the RCIT called from the very first moment that the workers and popular organizations must fight against these attacks instead of supporting the reactionary Lockdown. [6]

 

 

 

Cowardly “Left”

 

 

 

Today we see a particularly striking example of such a betrayal in Brazil. Like in many other countries, the workers and oppressed have spontaneously started to fight against reactionary offensive. Initiated by anti-fascist football fans and grassroots organizations in late May, the protests against the extreme right-wing Bolsonaro governments have spread since then. This demonstrates the willingness of the masses to fight against the reactionary attacks. It also underlines that the masses – like in many countries all over the world – don’t accept the reactionary bans of mass assemblies and demonstrations which the ruling class has imposed under the cover of the COVID-19 crisis. [7]

 

However, most parties of the Brazilian reformist and centrist left refuse to support these mobilizations! The trade union federations CUT and CTB, as well as the parties that control them – the social democratic PT and the Stalinist PCdoB – voted not to participate in any street activities. They claim that such demonstrations might provoke the Bolsonaro government to take dictatorial measures. This shows once more the policy of cowardice and capitulation of the reformist leaderships which refuse to fight against the reactionary offensive.

 

The position of these reformist parties is particularly cynical given the fact that for the majority of the proletariat staying home and working via “home office” is no option. They have to go to factories, transport service etc. It is particularly noteworthy that in states where the PT and the PCdoB are in government – like in Maranhão, Ceará, Bahia, or Rio Grande do Norte – shops, malls etc. are allowed to open. So while the workers have to continue doing their jobs, they should not – according to these parties – enter the streets in order to protest.

 

But such betrayal is not limited to the reformist leaderships. Like in many other countries around the world, the self-proclaimed Trostykist left in Brazil opportunistically adapts to the reformist leadership. At a meeting of the leadership of CONLUTAS – the trade union centre of the radical left – on 5 June, the vast majority refused to call for mass mobilizations. A resolution proposed by the Movimiento Revolucionario Socialista (MRS) which called for support of such mobilizations was defeated by 22 votes to 2. The only other leader who voted for this resolution, in addition to the MRS, was the delegate of the Corrente Socialista dos Trabalhadores (the Brazil section of the UIT-CI which works as a minority current within the PSOL). The PSTU – which dominates the leadership of CONLUTAS and which is also the mother section of the international current LIT-CI – as well as all other currents of the PSOL opposed a call for mobilizations. [8]

 

So when the masses entered the streets nevertheless, despite the failure of the reformist and centrist left to mobilize, the PSTU leaders tried to jump the bandwagon by sending some members to attend demonstrations with flags.

 

This sad example of cowardice demonstrates once more the reactionary character of the Lockdown Left. Despite all the pompous phrases of “socialism”, “Marxism” and even “Trotskyism”, they capitulate to the bourgeoisie and the reformist bureaucracy and refrain from calling for mass struggles. Covering behind supposedly health reasons, these leftists in fact support the reactionary bonapartist lockdown measures which ban the people from marching on the streets. As a result, the cowardly left stays home while, at the same time, the extreme right-wing supporters of Bolsonaro calling for a military coup demonstrate on the streets! [9]

 

We repeat that such a counter-revolutionary stance of large sectors of the so-called left underlines once more the urgent need to build an authentic revolutionary party – nationally and internationally. The RCIT calls revolutionary activists in Brazil and globally to unite on the basis of a program of struggle against the current reactionary offensive of the bourgeoisie. Such a program implies a clear and intransigent demarcation of forms of social-bonapartism. Marxism and Lockdown Left are diametrically opposed! [10]