"Another world is possible"
* Brazil
EPRESENTATIVE democracy, born out of the class struggle and _ending up as the paradigm of the western capitalist countries, is in terminal crisis. It has lost all substance and today those who see in this system a political form capable of representing in effective manner the true interests of the people are few. This crisis is aggravated further with the ideological triumph of neoliberalism and the total capitulation of social democracy parallel to the crisis of all forms of welfare state. In fact, representative democracy is increasingly transformed into pure ritual, with a growing tendency to abstention among citizens in relation to politics in general.
On the other hand the collapse of the bureaucratic regimes in Eastern Europe — it is abusive and incorrect to call these regimes "actually existing socialism" — has contributed, in another way, to undermining the credibility of socialism.
### Collapse of Stalinism
The collapse of Stalinism, however, has provided proof of the theses of Marxist critiques on the incompatibility of the authoritarian single party system with socialism. The catastrophe of the bureaucratic regimes has liquidated the last big mass CPs, like the Italian and the French. Thus, if the working classes were for some years anaesthetized by their traditional "social-democratic and 'Communist leaderships they have remained for some years entirely demobilized and inactive, no longer constituting a real opposition to a triumphant neoliberalism on the ideological level. The contestatory struggles were to be found in movements around women's, ethnic, ecological or sexual orientation issues. It is only now, after the defeat, that the working class has begun to move again, as shown by the historic strike movements in 1995 in France and the recent demonstrations in Seattle and Washington.
This rebirth of the working class will for struggle has the indisputable advantage of being freed from the tutelage of the old leaderships, and it can only be the indication of a new period of conscious class struggle — because if neoliberalism has triumphed ideologically, from the econom12 International Viewpoint #325 November 2000
THE city of Porto Alegre in the south of Brazil has become an inspiring symbol of resistance to neoliberal globalization. This article, originally written for the dossier on the legacy of Leon Trotsky in our previous issue, examines the practice of direct democracy in
Porto Alegre.
### LUIS PILLA VARES* ic and social point of view it has become a nightmare for the broad masses and the excluded.
Moreover, the struggle has continued. In South Korea, Mexico with the Zapatistas and Brazil with the Movement of Landless Workers (MST) and the Workers' Party (PT).
It is in relation to this latter that I will write, focusing particularly on the experience of the municipality of Porto Alegre from 1989 to this day, and the government of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, one of the most important of the country, where the PT won the elections of 1998, bringing Olívio Dutra into office as governor. The PT was born in the industrial region of São Paulo, known as ABC, in the course of the historic workers' struggles against the military dictatorship during the second half of the 1970s. These struggles led to the foundation of the Workers' Party in 1980.
### Decline and crisis
As the mayor of Porto Alegre, Raul Pont, says: "we were born in a conjuncture of decline and crisis of the military regime of 1964. The authoritarianism of the dictatorship and its bipartite political system was no longer compatible with rapid industrial development and the numerous social actors that the industrial miracle had engendered. The immense urban agglomerations, the big concentrations of factories and universities revealed the ripening of Brazilian capitalism and the clear stratification which flowed from it. The PT was the political expression of this new conjuncture. It was involved in the big strikes at the end of the 1970s and its principal cadres led the trade union struggles of this period."
Thus, the PT was born through the critical experience of the history of the Brazilian and international left, but also through a direct link with the practice of the class struggle. It appeared as a secular party, towards which ideologically distinct tendencies converged, like various Marxist tendencies, syndicalist currents and Christian socialist forces founded on liberation theology. It amounted then to a "party of a new type", ", without precedent in the history of the political organizations of the working class.
### Different vision
The PT was then determined to present a different vision of power, in a time of revolutionary ebb. The unifying politicalideological principle of the party, as contemporary as it was, was nonetheless found in the programme of the First International and in the tradition of the critical Marxists like Rosa, Trotsky and Gramsci: "the emancipation of the working class will be the act of the workers themselves" or it will not be, and the concept of socialism is inseparable from the broadest political democracy.
Thus, in their own internal practice, the PT applied in their everyday militant practice these two inseparable and fundamental criteria for the creation of a new society. More: it had the certainty that this would only be possible through a permanent dialogue with society and that it could only become viable with the creation of a "popular public sphere". Thus, in 1989, came the idea of the Participatory Budget for the management of the first democratic-popular municipality of Porto Alegre.
Today, eleven years later, the population sees the Participatory Budget as a gain, despite the heated opposition of bourgeois and populist politicians. Now these latter no longer have the means to oppose the new reality, but they wish to empty the Participatory Budget of content by proposing the most diverse forms of institutionalization', intended to straitjacket Brazil's first popular autonomous assembly. They know that the Participatory Budget eliminates all the bases of their traditional clientelist policy which fragments and atomizes
the masses, reproducing the political submission characteristic of capitalist soci-
Another world is possible, Porto Alegre, January 2001
Beyond the material realizations of the
THE choice of Porto Alegre and Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil) as venue for the World three popular administrations in Porto
Social Forum in January 2001 is linked to the experiences of social struggle, of popu-
Alegre, it is certain that it is the lar participation, of democratic affirmation and neoliberal resistance. The meeting is
Participatory Budget which has guaranteed supported by trade union, peasant, local, religious, and human rights organizations in the victories of the PT and its left allies at
Brazil and by the popular governments of the city of Porto Alegre and the state of Rio successive elections in the capital of Rio
Grande, victories which have now been extended to the whole state. With the
With other social and political movements around the world, the participants in the
Participatory Budget the masses felt they
World Social Forum will show their will to oppose capitalist globalization at the very were in charge of their destiny, deciding on moment when in Davos (Switzerland) the rulers, millionaires and multinationals will which works to undertake and the alloca- meet to cultivate the dogma of the "single thought" and generalize the formulae which
It amounts in truth to a new stage of lead to death, poverty and social exclusion.
Brazilian political and social history. A
The thematic axes of the World Social Forum already proposed are:
beginning with an obviously revolutionary content, for it modifies substantially the relationship between the masses with the state. The budget ceases to be the work of
How can we construct a system of production of goods and services for all?
specialists and technicians alone, becom-
What kind of international trade do we want?
ing instead a collective and popular deci-
What financial system is necessary to ensure equality and development?
sion. According to Ubiratan de Souza:
How can we guarantee the many functions of the land?
*The main strength of the Participatory
Budget is the democratization of the relation of the state with the society. This sphere" where the decisions reverse the priorities, giving another direction to the
Political and ethical power in the new society
According to Cristovão Veil, who has studied it, the Participatory Budget as it is What are the fundamentals of democracy and of a new power?
practiced every year in Porto Alegre is a
How can we democratize world power?
tool for the creation of a strategic project What is the future of the nation state?
of democracy, capable of projecting How can we resolve conflicts and build peace?
utopia. More: it is an institutional instrument of the masses for the enlarged formu- All information on the World Social Forum can be found at http://www.forumsociallation of the socialization of politics, the socialization of power (the sharing of state authority) and the advent of a progressive
Movements and organizations interested in participated and collaborating in its prepaconstruction of micro- and macro-structures leading to a strategy of hegemony towards a post-capitalist self-managed society. The Participatory Budget deprivatises and renders public the budget of the eties.
tion of budgetary resources.
Grande do Sul.
The production of wealth
Access to wealth and vital needs
Brazil * experience breaks with the traditional
How can we translate scientific development into human development?
vision of politics, where the citizens limit
How can we guarantee the public character of goods common to humanity and stop their political participation to the act of them being transformed into commodities?
voting, and the elected governments can do
How can we promote the distribution of wealth and assure a dignified life for all?
what they want, through technocratic, pop-
How can we establish a social control over the surrounding environment?
ulist and clientelist policies. The citizen ceases to be a simple adjunct of traditional
The affirmation of civil society and public spaces politics to become an active protagonist of public management.'
How can we reinforce the capacity for action of civil societies and the construction of
Popular public sphere
How can we ensure the right to information and the democratization of the means of
We find ourselves then faced to a new centre of decision, constituted by the deep-
How can we ensure the right to identity and diversity?
est layers of society. It is a "popular public
How can we guarantee cultural identities and protect artistic creation from commodipublic policies of the municipality.
a public space?
communication?
fication?
mundial.org.br/ ration can contact:
Esm2001@uol.com.br
International Viewpoint #325 November 2000 13
* Brazil state, the simple existence of an autonomous popular council with an internal democracy, a priori, guarantees the public character of state resources. Such is the most significant content of the Participatory Budget. It amounts in reality to a radical rupture with the institutional, bourgeois policy. The masses determine themselves the destination of budgetary resources. In other words, the budget ceases to be a mystery, an area for specialists and becomes a public subject in the full sense of the term.
### Ethics into politics
Beyond this, it introduces ethics into everyday politics: as the mayor of Porto Alegre, Raul Pont, says, "this experience of participatory democracy has shown that the transparent management of resources is the best fashion of avoiding corruption and the bad use of public money. The popular participation has rendered possible an effi- Porto Alegre viewed from the air cient public expenditure with results in works and actions. In Porto Alegre, today, citizens know and decide on public affairs public and thus transform themselves increasingly into subjects of their own future."
Rosa Luxemburg said that the masses learn to govern by governing. Such was also the idea at the centre of the soviets during the October Revolution: in Porto Alegre many cooks take decisions on the Budget and Lenin's classical phrase takes a concrete content without the least suspicion of demagogy. Nonetheless, it is necessary to be clear and the Participatory Budget is only a beginning. The transformation/reconstruction of a new state should extend itself through all the spheres of administration. Moreover this is happening, as for example in education in Porto Alegre where teachers, employees, pupils and parents of pupils decide on the allocation of resources. The example is gratifying for often enough numerous schools forget their particularities and unite themselves around a unique project. The other unquestionable advance is the city's Congress, where all citizens can discuss, debate and project the content of Porto Alegre.
This 3rd such Congress, held this year, has a particular importance because it must plan the town's priorities for the beginning of the third millennium, furnishing the materials and propositions for the elaboration, next year, of a Plan of Government. 14 International Viewpoint #325 November 2000
Democratic practice in Porto Alegre consolidates itself thus, by incorporating the active citizens who assume directly a part of the public municipal power.
Yet, we must be fully conscious that this revolutionary process takes place in a context of heated class struggle. The bourgeois politicians know perfectly well that giving a real content to democracy puts an end to the privileges, to clientelism and, in the last analysis, to the power of Capital over the whole of society. It amounts then to a class struggle and, consequently, to a political struggle which unfolds over a long period.
### Hegemony
It is in this context that the Gramscian concept of hegemony takes on an impressive concrete dimension. We in the south of Brazil, counter-current of neoliberalism, are in the process of showing in everyday life that History is not over and that another road is possible and viable. In this struggle for hegemony, we have no illusion: we know that the institutional dispute for hegemony combines with the struggle of social movements social, the struggle of the MST, the trade unions, the movements of unemployed, the struggle for human rights and with the ecological, women's, ethnic and cultural movements.
At the base of all this is the clear and assumed consciousness that we struggle, here in Brazil, for the renovation and refoundation of a radically democratic socialism, according to its own original discourse, that of the League of the Just, the League of Communists, the First International, the Paris Commune, the soviets of the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917; the socialism of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Rosa, Trotsky, Mariátegui, Che Guevara. Finally, the only socialism possible, that where the masses exercise self-determination. We know that we are only beginning. We know also that, beyond the flows and counterflows of the class struggle, we also confront the "professional dangers of power"
And, at the end of the account, Porto Alegre and Rio Grande del Sur are not lost islands in an immense neoliberal ocean. Our victory will influence, and at the same time will depend on the other struggles in Latin America and in the rest of the world. Struggles which, happily, have resumed and begun to take on strength. We have the advantage of having buried definitively determinism and fatalism. We know that the future is not given and that only the struggle, 'in other words subjectivity and will, can change the course of History. Never has the challenge thrown down by Rosa Luxembourg — "Socialism or barbarism!" _ been so current. The world has never been so close to the last clause of that alternative. But our political experience, allied to others, shows that another road for humanity is possible. * * Luis Pilla Vares is a member of the Socialist Democracy tendency of the Brazilian Workers' Party.