INTRODUCTION TO BRAZIL FEATURE
General strike
BRAZIL was supposed to preside over a short transitional period allowing the time necessary to put the constitution into operation and call new, direct presidential elections.
But now Sarney is taking a different tack. He announced that he would remain In office until 1990. At the same time, he came out against the constitution that is being drafted, which provides for a notable reduction of the president's powers in favor of parliament. Already the army, the essential element in the country's political life, has let it be known that it was supporting Sarney on this matter.
THE NOVEMBER 1986 elections were undoubtedly a triumph for the Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (PMDB), the main component of the ruling alliance. At the same time, they were a personal victory for the president, José Sarney.
T HE REFORMIST left parties
that supported the government, especially the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB, pro-Soviet) and the Communist Party of Brazil (PC do B, pro-Albanian), paid dearly for this policy. They were left with very thin pickings indeed.
The Democratic Labour Party (PDT), dominated by the charismatic Leonel Brizola was weakened but maintained its general position. On the other hand, the Workers' Party (PT) gained from its class-struggle policy, increasing its strength considerably.?
However, the adoption of the Cruzado Plan Il a few days after the elections was to destroy the president's popularity and unleash a wave of angry workers' strikes.?
From January to May 1987, more than 530 strikes were registered, 11 of which were national strikes of whole categories of workers. For example, in March, the army went in with tanks to occupy the oil refineries, whose workers were on strike. Moreover, the navy intervened against the merchant fleet, which had been on strike for three weeks.
The starting point for all these social struggles, which were accompanied by violent riots in the country's main urban centers, was wage demands. In a few months, workers' buying power dropped by 30% to 37%, depending on the various categories.
The minimum wage, received by 42% of Brazilian workers (62% in the Northeast), is the lowest in the country's entire history. Today, It stands at 2,200 cruzados ($1=48 cruzados on the legal market and 60 on the black market). But basic living expenses are estimated at 16,000 cruzados a month. 18 tuted in con by teenewinalae mini- The draconian economic plan instiInternational Viewpoint• October 12, 1987 ster, Luis Carlos Bresser Pereira, is making the situation still worse.
The Bresser plan marked the end of the "unorthodox" measures represented by Sarney's much-vaunted Cruzado Plan I and a return to the IMF's fold. It meant strict application of the IMF's "recommendations" in order to put the economy "in order" and choke off inflation, which would have reached 1,000% a year if the tempo of the first six months continued. Its measures included devaluation, priority for exports (to pay the foreign debt interest amounting to $108,000 million), cutbacks in public spending (except on the army) and "true" prices (a 50% increase in transport fares in June). This was to be accompanied by a partial, extremely flexible, price freeze and a very strict wage freeze, as well as abolition of compensation if inflation rose above 20%.
Promises of social justice and agrarian reform
For wage earners, the Bresser plan meant a new nose-dive in buying power. From February 1986 (Cruzado I) to the end of July 1987, workers' real wages dropped by 45%!
In the election campaign, Sarney presented himself as "the president of the poor," promising independence from the IMF, social justice and agrarian reform. Today he is discredited and the target of all the demonstrations, where social demands are combined with calls for direct elections.
The PMDB itself campaigned in 198384 for universal suffrage in the presidential elections. At the end of the day, it was an electoral college that chose Tancredo Neves, who died shortly after his election, to be succeeded by Sarney. This administration
On the other hand, a crisis has developed within the PMDB on this question. A wing of the party, known as the PMDB Left, joined with Brizola's PDT to launch a campaign for direct elections (direitas ja!), well aware that this slogan is as popular as Sarney is unpopular. According to a poll carried out in August by the magazine Exame, 60% of Brazilians favor universal suffrage for the 1988 presidential elections, if
In this context, the PT's launching of Iniacio Da Silva, "Lula," as the PT's candidate for the presidential elections is cutting the ground out from under the feet of the bourgeois or reformist opposition to Sarney. These forces were projecting a broad front for direitas ja!, possibly around Brizola.
On August 20, the United Confederation of Workers (CUT), which supports the PT, and the General Confederation of Labor (CGT, reformist), called a general strike against the Bresser plan. The action was uneven from city to city and from industry to industry. Unlike Argentina, or even Chile, there is no tradition of general strikes in Brazil. What is more, a large part of the CGT, which was forced to call for the strike under pressure from the CUT, did everything possible to keep this action from being successful.
Brazil remains today in a socially explosive and politically unstable situation. In this context, the PT bears an enormous responsibility, both as a polItical party and as a force in the CUT.
The following documents are from Em Tempo, the paper of the revolutionary Marxist current in the PT. They were published in the framework of preparations for the national congress of the PT that is coming up in December. They take up the main questions under debate in the PT today. * 1. Although it has links with the Socialist Intemational, the PDT is a bourgeois party. It is very much tied to the big landowners in the Rio Grande Do Sul region. 2. See "Austerity follows November elections," IV 112, January 26, 1987. 3. The Cruzado Plan I was set in motion in February 1986. On this question, see "Stabilization plan fails," in TV 118, April 20, 1987.
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challenges Bresser plan