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ANALYSIS: VALRIO ARCARY http://socialistworker.org/2016/02/23/the-alternative-to-lulism

The alternative to Lulism

In an article published by Jacobin [1], author and socialist activist Valrio Arcary looks
at the challenges for the left in Brazil as the economic and political crisis deepens.
February 23, 2016
"LOVE IS dead," say disillusioned Brazilian youth. They've lost faith in Brazil's Workers
Party (PT), in their former champion Luis Incio Lula da Silva, and in their government.
The militancy of the country's socialist left is being put to the test this year. The essential
issue is the difficulty of defending the independence of working-class interests facing
two foes: the current incarnation of the PT and its mainstream allies, and the PT's
political opponents, the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) and its right-wing
counterparts.
Some sectors of the right-wing opposition, led by Eduardo Cunha, president of the
Chamber of Deputies, and Acio Neves, the defeated 2014 PSDB presidential candidate,
are rallying to impeach Dilma Rousseff, Brazil's president and the PT's leader. Behind
them are the 2 million people, mostly members of the middle class, who took to the
streets to protest last March [2].
Contributing to the public's disillusionment with Rousseff is the Petrobras corruption
scandal [3]. In October 2014, Petrobras, the Brazilian state-run oil conglomerate, was
found to be funneling money to political parties, including the PT. The scandal has
severely shaken the public's confidence in Rousseff, who ran on a platform of
eliminating corruption.
Political stability in Brazil started to unravel in June 2013, a decade after the birth of
Lulism. Lulism--under which economic prosperity strengthened the public's faith in
government, and large, previously disorganized sectors of the working class gravitated
toward the PT--is fading as the social pact it maintained between workers and the ruling
class disintegrates.
The elections and the 2014 World Cup temporarily relieved the government of public
scrutiny; this year, however, social unrest aimed at the government seems nearly
inevitable as people begin to feel the impacts of austerity. And neither of the clashing
bourgeois political camps is willing to consider any solution to the country's economic
woes but more austerity [4].
---------------The Drive for Impeachment
The powerful Brazilian Social Democracy Party is leading the push for Rousseff's
impeachment. Despite its name, the PSDB is a neoliberal formation that advocates
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right-of-center social and economic policies.

The party alleges that there were illegal donations from large corporations during the
last presidential campaign, as well as illegal manipulation of the 2014 national budget.
In October, Brazilian courts found Rousseff's government violated accounting rules [5]
in that budget. But in order to impeach the president, the National Congress will have to
ratify petitions calling for Rousseff's ouster.
It's unclear whether the opposition can gather the 320 votes needed. It wants to draw
out the impeachment process, as they expect Rousseff's public support to crumble in the
next few months. Even if only a minority in the Congress (hardline PSDB politicians)
supports ousting Rousseff, the allegations have divided public opinion into two camps,
leaving socialists relatively isolated.
The relation of political forces has changed with the strengthening of right-wing
opposition. The right is simultaneously mobilizing the middle class and succumbing to
its pressure. The balance of forces between social classes is changing, too: There is a
bigger division among the bourgeoisie, who are feeling pressure from an economy
experiencing a 3 percent GDP decline this year.
It's becoming clearer that the ruling class is embracing impeachment, with the
Federation of Industries of the State of So Paulo (FIESP) announcing in December its
support for deposing Rousseff. The biggest recession since 1990, with the official
unemployment rate approaching 10 percent and the inflation rate nearing 10 percent,
and another mega-scandal at Petrobras--PT senator Delcdio Amaral was arrested
recently, along with the president of Brazil's most important investment bank, and
police raided Cunha's property looking for evidence of his involvement [6]--have riled
the middle class.
Meanwhile, unusual confrontations between the federal government and the House of
Representatives have signaled that Rousseff could be losing her ability to govern.
The August street demonstrations, though nationwide and massive, looked
demographically identical to the March and April protests. Most of the protesters, who
supported the right-wing opposition, were upper-middle-class, middle-aged white men
with college educations. Though the demonstrations were enormous, the groups on the
New Right and the PSDB haven't found much backing outside this demographic.
It is difficult to argue, then, that Brazil as a whole has moved rightward.
The country, perhaps because of its late industrialization, has been more conservative
on issues of culture (drug use, abortion, the death penalty, gay marriage) than
economics. Yet most people favor a large role for the state in the economy, and
progressive measures such as equal pay for equal work, unemployment compensation,
and publicly funded education, health and transportation.
For three decades, the streets have been occupied primarily by working-class and other
progressive social forces [7]. But something has changed. The March and August
demonstrations gave visibility to an erratic right that had previously been underground
and divided.

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These mass demonstrations managed to move, on a large scale, middle-class people

and, in small numbers, workers (mainly through conservative churches), dragging
behind them the traditional right. And social polarization increased, leaving little room
for the political center that has dominated for much of the last 20 years.
---------------Lulism's Decline
The PT wasn't only the largest party of the Brazilian working class in the 20th century,
but one of the world's most powerful leftist formations. After founding the PT in 1980,
Lula and the leadership built an organization with a few thousand members into a party
with a mass base in just a decade.
In 1982, PT candidates got 10 percent of the vote in a gubernatorial race in the state of
So Paulo and averaged less than 3 percent of the vote nationwide. In 1989, funded
entirely by individual contributions, they nearly won the presidency.
The PT of 2016 is almost unrecognizable, even though, for the most part, its old leaders
remain in power. Over three decades, it has elected thousands of city councilors and
several hundred state and federal deputies, and it is holding the presidency for the
fourth time. The PT is now Brazil's most professional electoral machine, thoroughly
integrated into government institutions and closely associated with some of the
country's most powerful corporations.
The situation worsens for the party when the Rousseff government weakens, as it loses
support in the institutions invested in its political machine. Though it has made
concessions to Brazil's capitalist class through its policy of fiscal adjustment--austerity
measures designed to assuage creditor concerns [8]--Rousseff's standing hasn't
improved.
The PT leadership watched the breakdown in middle-class support in the 2014 elections
with bated breath. More recently, the erosion of support among workers caused the
party to panic: Councilors in working-class cities have announced that they're changing
parties as they seek re-election in 2016, reflecting their constituents' discontent.
The governmental left--mainly the PT and the Communist Party (PCdoB)--remains torn
on what to do about Rousseff, who, with an approval rating of less than 10 percent,
doesn't appear capable of rallying support.
The middle class's new allegiance to the right strengthens the project of replacing
Rousseff with a government that seeks to impose an even more violently reactionary
agenda. But the waning of Lulism [9] in the working class also opens possibilities for the
left.
---------------Dilma's Shock Therapy
Last year, the new Rousseff government abandoned the countercyclical fiscal policies of
2011 and 2012 and engaged in a neoliberal program that the country's capitalists had
been demanding for three years. For the 54 million people that voted for her, the move
was a surprise: It was the same program that she had considered indefensible in the last

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presidential electoral campaign. She even accused her opponent, Acio Neves, of cruelty
when he denied the social consequences of the austerity measures the PSDB had
advocated.
There is a method in this abrupt change, of course. Rousseff has been trying to make in
2015 the same magic trick Lula pulled in 2003--when, in spite of advocating unpopular
public-sector pension reform, he was able to maintain popular support.
Rousseff and the PT share the (overly hopeful) expectation that after at least two years
of monetary austerity and recession, the economy will improve before the next
presidential election in 2018. If that happens, Lula might seek the presidency again,
riding a wave of economic growth, decreased unemployment and wage recovery.
But the situation in the world market in 2015 is not the same as it was in 2003, and
Rousseff is no Lula. The government and the right-wing opposition both support
economic austerity. They agree competitiveness needs to be restored by reducing
production costs, cutting public debt, and stockpiling higher primary surpluses. The
issue behind the political struggle is who would be able to do it.
Rousseff's plan, designed by Joaquim Levy, an orthodox neoliberal economist and board
member at one of the largest private banks in Brazil, involves increasing the basic
interest rate; instituting new taxes, specifically a financial transaction tax; cutting the
public budget for health, education, and housing; devaluing the currency; and
privatizing state companies, among a slew of other measures.
This change in course is based on the idea that the public has moved to the right. Even
many sectors of the left have adopted this assumption. It informs the political tactics of
the PT and the Communist Party leadership, the Unique Workers' Central (CUT) and
the National Students' Union (UNE), the Landless Rural Workers' Movement (MST),
and even the Homeless Workers' Movement (MTST) and parts of the Socialism and
Liberty Party (PSOL), such as the moderate wing led by the party's president, Ivan
Valente.
The argument about the unfavorable relation of forces is used as an excuse for support,
critical as it may be, for the Rousseff program. The demonstrations called by left parties
in response to the right-wing movement, and supported by the majority of the PSOL
and the MTST, were much smaller, even after the PT made an appeal on national
television. The exception was So Paulo, where tens of thousands flocked to the streets
to defend Rousseff's government. (The most combative demonstrators strongly
denounced Levy's economic policy.)
The question is whether, under pressure from the left, Rousseff will move in a more
progressive direction. At the moment, this seems unlikely. At a meeting of pro-Rousseff
groups at the presidential palace, speeches called simultaneously for Cunha's firing and
for Levy's termination (he resigned in December), as if the party's economic policies
were not approved by Rousseff or were not supported by Lula and his majority within
the PT.
The Homeless Workers' Movement, which had previously refused to participate in
pro-government public events and had operated outside of the country's dominant
parties, was represented by Guilherme Boulos at the meeting. That the MTST is now
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attending such gatherings only makes it more difficult to imagine a viable third political
field opposed to both Rousseff and her right-wing opponents.
The Unique Workers Central (CUT) is still the country's strongest labor union, with
1,500 affiliated unions, but it is experiencing a sharp decline and remains controlled by
the PT. It therefore maintains a relationship of strong collaboration with the
government. The National Union of Students (UNE) is a bureaucratized organization
also financed by the government and has had close ties with the Communist Party for
the last 30 years. The Communist Party itself has Maoist roots, but has become
increasingly social-democratic over the past 25 years.
The Landless Rural Workers' Movement is a popular organization that was founded in
the early 1980s amid the struggle for land reform in southern Brazil. It achieved
prominence on a national level due to its capacity to mobilize tens of thousands of
families in the 1990s during the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso
(1994-2002). And it obtained international recognition due to its role in forming the Via
Campesina, the International Peasant Movement.
All these organizations claim the PT administrations are worthy of some level of
support, although they also make public critiques and demands on the government. All
of them believe, to a degree, that defending Rousseff's democratic mandate should be
their main political aim. But with all major left parties on the defensive, trying
desperately to hold onto the presidency, there's little room for the necessary criticisms
of the Rousseff austerity plan.
Some on the Brazilian left argue the point is not to support Rousseff per se, but
democracy itself. But it is not democratic freedoms that are being disputed. Though we
have seen in the streets an extreme right that is nostalgic for dictatorship, protesters
carrying grotesque banners, and statements implying violence, these are the
exceptions--not the rule. What the right-wing opposition is challenging is not the
democratic-electoral political system generally, but the Rousseff government
specifically.
---------------Toward a Left Opposition
If Rousseff remains in power with the help of Vice President Michel Temer and his
centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), the next three years will be a
period of a long recession, sacrifices and an emergency program known as the "Brazil
Agenda."
The Brazil Agenda [10] is a collection of reactionary horrors: a minimum retirement age
for private-sector workers, which means retiring older with lower wages; free rein for
outsourcing; privatization of assets, starting with Petrobras oil reserves and other public
corporations; the selling of navy's coastal lands; and the shielding of private health care
companies. In signaling her openness to the plan, Rousseff has acceded to the PMBD
and Brazilian capital.
The PMDB leadership has begun quietly negotiating with the PSDB over the Brazil
Agenda, indicating an openness to a future coalition with their right-wing opponents
and their waning support for Rousseff. Things are looking quite bad for the president. If
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Rousseff is impeached, Temer would take office in a transitional government with the
participation of the PSDB.
The left opposition to Rousseff's government knows how disastrous it would be to unite
with the right-wing opposition [11] to impeach--but also that it is wrong to back a
pro-austerity government that has lost most of its support among workers and the
youth.
But how this left opposition will take shape is unclear: the Brazilian Workers'
Confederation (COB), the oldest trade union in the country, is as pompous as it is frail.
Its social base and political initiative is so lacking that the Brazilian bourgeoisie had no
difficulty absorbing them into the regime's governability.
Most of the COB's affiliates represent only a fraction of the Brazilian working class--one
of the youngest, most concentrated in the world and much better educated than it was
when the PT was founded. Most of these unions and confederations have been
supporting the government for the last 12 years.
The left opposition is represented primarily by two parties: the PSOL and the Unified
Socialist Workers' Party (PSTU). The PSOL has about 100,000 affiliates and five
representatives in Congress; its presidential candidate garnered roughly 1.6 million
votes.
Founded several decades ago, these organizations were part of the PT until Lula's
election in 2002. They are split into two camps. The reformist Unidade Socialista
(Socialist Unity) has a tiny majority, the president, and the support of the majority of
the members of parliament. The left opposition is mainly of different Trotskyist
traditions. Nevertheless, trying to build a third camp, a left opposition one, was the
purpose of last September's National March called by CSP-Conlutas in So Paulo:
15,000 activists came to affirm an independent camp opposed to both the Rousseff
government and reactionary forces.
There has been a recent surge in militancy, exemplified by the increasing number of
strikes since 2012. Postal workers walked out in September, followed by bank workers
and oil industry workers in October. Secondary and high school teachers went on strike
in several states, and a national professors strike in federal universities lasted over one
hundred days.
So far, this popular unrest has not been enough to make the left opposition a viable
third political camp, as credible as the two groups fighting over Rousseff's presidency.
The weakness of this left is its division. As in the 2014 presidential election, when many
of its most leaders vocally supported Rousseff, the majority of the left opposition-particularly the PSOL majority leadership and the MTST--is still inclined to consider
the government camp the lesser evil.
Brazil needs a credible, powerful left opposition capable of articulating the nuanced
position of resisting impeachment while opposing austerity. Until then, a progressive
alternative to Lulism will remain inchoate.
First published at Jacobin [12].

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[1] https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/02/lulism-lula-rousseff-impeachment-petrobras-cunha-corruption-brazil/
[2] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/15/brazil-protesters-rouseff-impeachment-petrobas
[3] http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30055817
[4] https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/10/dilma-rousseff-impeachment-pt-petrobas-brazil/
[5] http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/08/brazil-rousseff-impeachment-idUSL1N1272R520151008
[6] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-35101785
[7] https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/07/youth-protests-dilma-rousseff-pt/
[8] https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/09/brazil-pt-austerity-dilma-rousseff-petrobas-real/
[9] https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/12/dilma-rousseff-brazil-cunha-temer-calheiros-impeachment-petrobras-lava-jato/
[10] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-congress-program-idUSKCN0QG26520150811
[11] https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/01/brazil-right-wing-veja/
[12] https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/02/lulism-lula-rousseff-impeachment-petrobras-cunha-corruption-brazil/
[13] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0

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