BRAZIL: REBELLION BURNS STAGES

BRAZIL: REBELLION BURNS STAGES

The mobilizations in Brazil began on June 6, with two thousand demonstrators in the center of SAo Paulo against the rise of fares of transport in that city. The repression, ordered by the State Government (on right) and supported by the municipal government (PT), was too much violent. Two weeks later, demonstrators in all the capitals and major cities of the country, had exceeded two million, (one million in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday20). The rise of fare was retired and is now almost an anecdote. Several other capitals and cities which had announced increases in transport also withdrew them, without involving the explicit statement of a claim in this regard. The Paulista Government’s announcement by removing the rise fare, which sought to empty streets, was celebrated in the streets as a great victory. Own MPL (Movimento Passe Livre), convener initial, withdrew the so-called mobilization. It was, however, as if nothing: Friday 21, more than two million were in Brazilian streets. Several capitals were literally paralyzed. The village and Brazilian workers have begun a historic mobilization.

The fight against the rise of fares became a mobilization against the entire political regime. Youth went to streets with demands on transportation, health, education, against repression, against the Government and against the corruption of the ruling party and the opposition. The President (Dilma Rousseff) was whistled so loud at the opening of the Confederations Cup, and then shut her mouth for two weeks. The political regime was in a catatonic state. The police (military, federal, states, civil, etc., all the impressive repressive apparatus mounted under the dictatorship), was ordered to observe and intervene only in the case of depredations. Just at Friday 21 Dilma opened her mouth, announcing that the pre-salt oil royalties (underwater oil that the PT Government privatized) will be devoted to education (without saying how, of course). She summoned a meeting of governors and some mayors, the majority representatives of the most rotten, repressive and corrupt right, to organize a response of the regime as a whole. A shot that it may backfire her.

The main union confederations (CUT-PT, For a Sindical, CGT), the pro-Government students federation (UNE), accompanied by the usual chorus of NGOs and “progres” entities of all colors, issued a statement just two weeks after demonstrations and street fighting. After the usual progressive talk, proposed “the urgency of the realization of a national meeting, which wraps to States Governments, the mayors of major cities, and the representatives of all social movements (…) that meeting, is the only way to find outlets to cope with the serious urban crisis“. The MST (Movement of the Landless) also signed this coalition of all Brazilian political reaction order to contain popular rebellion.

In the middle of the demonstrations appeared, as expected, looters criminals (infiltrated by police provocateurs, the P2), fascist groups and some others identified as “no party”. Some, allies to neo-Nazi skinheads, harassed left-wing parties (PSTU, PSOL, PCB). The weekend (22-23) held a meeting to discuss how to combat these groups. Young people from the poorest outskirts, black or mulatto most, already are organizing them to break the heads of these tiny racist skinheads groups. The “no party”, which sing the national anthem and sport Brazilian flags, are another thing; they are a symptom of the collapse of the social and political organization of Brazil, after ten years of rule by popular front – the alliance of the PT and their trade union confederation (CUT) with the PMDB and the evangelical right.

The Brazilian rebellion is not still a mobilization of class; it is the first episode of what’s coming. It naked the filthy prostration of the labor union centrals bureaucracy (the CUT in the first place). The CONLUTAS, small classist union central (directed by the PSTU), has called for demonstrations this Thursday (27). Some of their unions (ANDES – university teachers), for example, called since the beginning to move together with the young people of the MPL. The proposal of a national plenary of workers and young people struggling to organize the fight begins to break through. Teachers from federal universities conducted last year a huge general strike of several weeks.

The left from the regime quickly came out to denounce a coup plot: protesters would be “useful idiots”. Own MPL yielded to those pressures. Several demonstrations were carried out (in Brasilia, for example) after their conveners suspend them. Brazilian “liberals” are now in the excellent company of Turkish premier Tayyip Erdogan, who also denounced an international conspiracy against his Government and that of Brazil. Imperialism would have plotted to overthrow their allies; it is what they will say in the United States when the mobilization against the abuses of Obama begins.

International mobilizations in solidarity with Brazil are impressive, by the number of cities that are carried out, and by the solidarity of the local population. Brazil it is not facing a dictatorship, nor to a right-wing government, but to the Government of the world-wide symbol of the “progressive” left and compensatory social programs, which the capital of the world presents with compliments terms. The political clarification which this fight produces has international reach.

The Brazilian bourgeoisie has begun to discuss the urgency of a political reform, and even the possibility of a constituent assembly; recognizes in this way that we are not facing a temporary revolt. The revolutionary left only can forge itself giving an overall response to all the political problems posed, not only accompanying the popular rebellion. In Brazil we are witnessing another onslaught of masses, in the historical context of the collapse of capitalism, to break the world imperialist chain links and inaugurate a final stage of the World Socialist Revolution.

Osvaldo Coggiola (in: Prensa Obrera, PO Argentine)