Brazil: down with the coup government!

Brazil: down with the coup government!
Fight Temer’s attacks, no support for the PT or its satellites!

Originally published in Portuguese in June 2016

At the dawn of May 12, Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff (Workers Party, PT) was temporarily removed from office and will now be judged by the Senate under the authority of the Supreme Court, her conviction being almost certain. The fate of the country is increasingly conducted by the Judiciary’s “black-cloaked ministers”, who receive exorbitant incomes and are not accountable to anyone, since they have not even been elected by the population. It is very clear that the articulated action of the Supreme Courts, the Federal Police and the Public Ministry has taken increasingly authoritarian traits. This judicial coup must be stopped: we cannot let it be consolidated through the reaffirmation of  the Supreme Court and co.’s superpowers!

The new de facto government of Michel Temer (Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, PMDB) has already made its intentions very clear: to make the working class pay for the capitalist crisis. Surely Rousseff and the PT were already fulfilling the same role. Soon after the 2014 election’s second round, she signed she would rule with the same neoliberal program as Aécio Neves / PSDB (Brazilian Social Democracy Party). Therefore, Revolutionary Regroupment is against the class-colaborationist attempt to turn the mobilizations against Temer into a campaign for the return of Rousseff to power. Due to a number of factors, the PT was not being capable of implementing attacks on the scale and speed required by the big capitalists. Temer and his PSDB and DEM (Democrats) allies immediately started making huge cuts in social programs, the budget for public education and public health, and intend to privatize absolutely everything they can, which may include charging for access to the public health system. It is worth remembering that Rousseff, by proposing and then sanctioning the “Anti-terror” Law, guaranteed legal instruments to massacre any serious attempt of resistance by the workers and the oppressed. Faced with this scenario, it is urgent to organize the struggles against Temer’s attacks, but with no support for the PT and its satellites!

We need a national united front to defeat the attacks!

For several months, while Rousseff was still in office, the PT did all it could to prevent a real popular mobilization against the impeachment and that could threaten the austerity measures of its own government. The CUT and the CTB (union federations led by bureaucrats loyal to Rousseff’s government) did not organize any political strike of the working class. The “Popular Brazil Front” – built by the PT, PCdoB (Communist Party of Brazil) and other pro-Rousseff forces, despite having organized big street demos, did it in a way that prevented any criticism against Rousseff’s austerity measures, restricting them to acritical rallies, many of which were actually musical concerts with pro-PT artists. The “Fearless People Front” – led by the MTST (Homeless Workers’ Movement) was integrated by large sectors of the PSOL (Socialism and Freedom Party); and not only its reformist leadership, the Unidade Socialista, but also groups on its “left bloc” such as USec’s Insurgência and the CWI/LSR. They organized some street demos against the impeachment, while also raising criticisms towards Rousseff’s government. But they quickly became reduced to an appendix of the “Popular Brazil Front”, with the leaders of the Fearless People Front putting aside any criticism of the PT during the common activities they organized. There were a few progressive initiatives like the “Socialist Left Front” (in Rio de Janeiro), but it has become a propaganda bloc, consisting of meetings among left groups which revolve around programmatic discussions, instead of mobilizing the working class for struggle against the impeachment and the austerity measures. What is necessary at the present moment is a united front of struggles, capable of uniting the working class and the radical youth around the slogans Defeat Temer’s attacks! Defend our jobs, wages, labor and social rights!

Reject “democratic” capitalist solutions! For a revolutionary workers’ government!

In this critical moment, the bourgeois “democratic” illusions that certain left groups have spread are not admissible – such as the proposals for “General Elections” (PSTU/IWL; MES/Movimento; LSR/CWI) or for a “Constituent Assembly” (MRT/Left Voice/Trotskyist Fraction; Esquerda Marxista/IMT). It is simply not possible to make use of the bourgeois elections to transform society in the interests of working people. Neither a Constituent Assembly on a capitalist basis would be able to make the structural changes necessary for workers. The political perspective that should be defended by revolutionaries during the struggles against Temer’s attacks is that of a revolutionary worker’s government, in order to clearly differentiate themselves from the reactionary “anti-corruption” mobilizations, the utopian class-collaboration project of the PT and the illusions that the workers’ problems can be solved within the limits of capitalism.

Revolutionary Regroupment strives to build a revolutionary party that fight for the following demands:

– No more lay-offs! For the reduction of working hours without loss of pay, allowing the return of laid-off workers and the creation of jobs for the unemployed. The capitalists are the ones who must pay for the crisis of their system!

– Put a halt to the effects of growing inflation! We demand immediate raise of wages according to the rise of prices and also a minimum wage that meets the basic needs of the working family, currently calculated at R$ 3,725!

– Down with the Outsourcing Bill! For the integration of outsourced workers to the regular staff of the companies to which they provide work, with full rights and wage equality! Against sexism and racism, fight for equal pay for equal work!

– Down with the reform of Social Security and the cuts on the budget of social programs! Tax the big fortunes to fund social security, housing, transportation and education!

– No more oil auctions and the destruction of Brazil’s state-owned oil company Petrobras! For the full re-nationalization of Petrobras and the expropriation without compensation and under workers’ control of the foreign oil companies!

– Down with religious interference on women’s rights! For the legalization of abortion, with the guarantee of free and safe procedure by the public health system!

– Down with the ‘super authority’ of the Judiciary! For the right of the people to elect the judges and other positions of responsibility! No more privileges for the corrupt political caste: that all elected members of parliament receive only the average wage of a worker!

– Land for those who want to live and work on it! Expropriation of the land and estate of large capitalist owners for the benefit of the population!

– Down with Rousseff’s Anti-terror Law! For the dissolution of the Military Police and other repressive forces! To protest is not a crime! For the right to self-defense! Drop all charges against those who fight the injustices of capitalism! Immediate freedom to Rafael Braga, homeless black worker imprisoned during the 2013 mass protests!

See also:

Statement on Brazil
Fight against the impeachment! Fight Dilma’s government and its austerity measures!
April 2016