Brazil and the debate in the Workers Party.
The results of the November 1982 elections ended up giving cause for satisfaction in a lot of quarters. (1) The bourgeois liberal opposition could rejoice because it won a clear victory in terms of the number of votes it got. Moreover, it gained control of the governments of the country's most important states (with the exception of Rio Grande do Sul and
Pernambuco).
The regime, on the other hand, could take comfort in the fact that it had avoided the electoral rout it so much feared, and thus retained the means for designating the next president in 1985.
What is more, despite the electoral defeat of the government party, the
Democratic and Social Party (PDS), the gained an appearance of legitimacy that it very much needed at a time when it had to face difficult international
In fact, with a foreign debt now exceeding 90 billion dollars, of which nearly one fifth is in short-term credits, and with its foreign currency reserves ishing, the Brazilian government had to recognize that it was in a situation of insolvency and turn to the International
Monetary Fund to negotiate new credits the International Monetary Fund, Furious crowds among its elected representatives, and a rescheduling of payments on its debt. In the press, this unavoidable move by the chairman of the Brazilian central bank, Carlos Langoni, was portrayed as national humiliation.
In December 1982, the IMF granted a whiff of oxygen and a respite for Brazilian finance. The most cynical, or the most frank, of the Brazilian bankers did
Many bones about saying that their American colleagues scarcely any choice. Given the volume of the debt to American banks, a financial crash in Brazil would threaten to set off a chain reaction, to say nothing of the political repercussions in the region.
In exchange for its concessions, the IMF put on pressure to get the regime to reconsider the system of semiannual wage adjustments and to tighten up on public spending. State expenditures were immediately cut by 20 percent. Thus, in early January 1983, the government announced that it was suspending indefinitely the construction of the Iguape I and II nuclear reactors on the coast near Sao Paulo. The wage adjustment system became the target of several aimed at imposing an outright wage
Several state governments arbitrarily set the annual wage increases for public fect immediately of increasing the cost of service on the debt, which had been 12.5 billion dollars. The economics bosses, on the other hand, estimated that there would be a trade surplus of 6 billion dollars in the current year instead of 1 billion last year.
Nonetheless, by March and April, it was becoming clear that the steps taken were insufficient and that the government would have to go back into negotiations with the representatives of imperialist
For the first time, President Joao Baptista Figuereido admitted publicly that the perspective for this year is a 3 to 4 percent recession. In March the inflation rate was 10 percent and created fears that the annual inflation rate would exceed 150 percent. What is more, an official of the Brazilian Institute for Economic and Statistic Analysis presented a scarcely optimistic outlook for the Brazilian financial situation.
"Supposing that we achieve a 6 billion dollar trade surplus this year, we will need 15 billion dollars in credits to meet the obligations falling due. But as only 11 billion are assured...If the missing 4 billion are made up by revolving credits, we will find ourselves facing the same problem next year." (2)
But, in the first quarter of 1983, the foreign trade surplus was only half what it would have to be to reach the 6 billion dollar surplus for the year that the Brazilians are counting on.
At the very time when the failure of the measures taken at the beginning of the year started to become clear, the rebellions of unemployed people in the Santo Amaro neighborhood in Sao Paulo in early April started ringing alarm bells for the government.
According to a poll taken in the first quarter of the year among the bosses Paulo lost close to 4 percent of its industrial jobs in that period of time and 19 percent in the last 27 months.
In order to promote exports, average per capita beef consumption was cut from 17 kilos per year to 12. And finally the withdrawal of subsidies from cer-
The November 14, 1982 Brazilian elections which won only about a dozen state governorships, while the governorships of the more important states fell opposition parties, the PMDB and the PDT. As
PT, it got relatively modest scores, a national average of 3 percent, except in Sao 2. Le Monde, May 3, 1983.
tain agricultural products (such as cereals and sugar) is going to lead to an increase in the price of bread.
So, the government and the governors of the big states are living in dread of a social explosion. For the moment, they are putting through more and more little the famous "pacotes," on a week to week basis trying to meet the demands of the creditors without driving the mass movement to desperation. But there is less and less room for maneuvering.
In this situation, it only took a few months for the bourgeois opposition parties, which head such state governments as Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and Minas Gerais, to show their true face.
When President Figuereido appealed for a national truce in March, they all fell into line. The Brazilian Labor Party (PTB), led by Iveta Vargas, daughter of the former dictator Getulio Vargas; and by former president Janio Quadros, went
The state of Sao Paulo alone has a public debt of 4 billion dollars. Paulo, as in Rio, the promises of social the election campaign, the promises to create jobs, are being put on the long finger, while the governors of these states - Franco Montoro and Leonel Brizola - are working hand in glove with the big employers organizations. In Sao Paulo, Montor sent the cops
Only the Workers Party (PT), in conformity with its basic options, firmly rejected the proposal for a truce made by Figureido, just as it refused (although this was not without hesitations on the part of some of its deputies) to participate in the "opposition" governments in Rio and Sao Paulo.
This offensive has come, mainly, from certain PT deputies who are tempted by the idea of coalition with the bourgeois parties and participation in the «opposittion" state governments, especially in Rio.
This operation is reflected in the proposal that in the future votes at PT congresses should be calculated not on the basis of the number of members but of votes won in elections! When you realize how much the electoral system promotes patronage relationships and how unequal the means of the candidates are, it is such a proposal would put the PT into the mould of the organic law decreed by the dictatorship to control the political parties.
This attempt seems, however, to have been stopped by quarters - from the activist base of the
TRABALHO, TERRA so far as to make an open parliamentary pact with the PDS.
With the 13 TB deputies providing the margin, this coalition has a majority seats out of a total of 479, as E LIBERDADE! against 231 for the opposition as a whole.
The PMDB, the main liberal opposition party, ducked its head and put the wraps on its demand for direct election of the president. Tancredo Neves, one of its main leaders and governor of the state of Minas Gerais, talked about the imperative needs of dealing with the crisis: crisis today is graver than the one in 1964 [when the dictatorship was established]. In 1964, there was a crisis of government and not of the system. There were economic problems. But we did not have the sort of international context filled with apprehension that we do today."
Brizola himself, who, on the eve of his election as governor of Rio, was being portrayed as a wild-eyed trouble maker, declared after a meeting with Figureido: "The important thing now is not to look for differences but to look for what can
Brizola's party, the Democratic Labor Party (PDT), voted with the PDS in Rio Grande do Sul and concluded a national
This was not without ulambitions and is favored in the polls, but he thinks it would be premature to make his move in the 1985 presidential elec-
So, he has proposed prolonging Figuereido's mandate by two years (until
In exchange for that, he wants direct election of the president at that time on the basis of universal suffrage.
If the form and date of the election is not changed, the next president will be chosen in 1985 by the vote of an electoral college, which would assure an automatic majority for the PDS, unless this organization goes into such a deep crisis that it starts to break up, which cannot
More concretely than the conciliation at the top, the policy of the opposition parties in the states they govern is unmasking them in the eyes of the workers.
The PT was formed during an upsurge of the mass movement, based on the big workers in 1979 and 1980 in the Sao Paulo suburbs. momentum enabled it to win legal status in 1981 and to build its membership to more than 300,000. At that point, it went directly into an election campaign without having been able to consolidate itself as an activists party nor to root it-
The November 1982 election results put an end to this period of euphoria. Outside its birthplace, the state of Sao Paulo, where it got 10 percent of the vote, the PT remained a small party. The disappointment did not fail to have an
In certain states where the party was least well established, it has practically disappeared. Even in Sao Paulo, the local units have had problems in funetioning, and the congresses held in recent months have indicated a general difficulty in assembling a quorum for the meetings preparatory to these congresses. Only roughly half the local units were
There is an obvious danger that the PT may be reduced to the currents and activists already organized in the far-left groups and lose its mass character. While this threat is real, it has been used mainly as a pretext in the recent period for an offensive by the moderate right in the party, which is aiming to transform the PT into a mere parliamentary machine.
'Jobs, Land and Liberty' (DR) party, which made its feelings known the congresses in the big states such as Sao Paulo, Rio, and Minas Gerais; and from the historic leading nucleus of the PT, trade union leaders such as the chairand the general secretary, Jaco Bittar.
At a meeting of the national leadership of the party on April 16, "Lula" said, in
"Our party cannot be content to trail after the church and the trade-union movement and wave its colorful banners in demonstrations. We have to reach directly into the masses, without any intermediaries and organize and lead the struggles. We have to organize nuclei in the neighborhoods and in the various categories of workers. We also need to put forward our own proposals for action and get out of the role of bystander that we have fallen into at the moment."
This reaction against a parliamentarist drift has been reflected in real steps forward in organizing the party's trade-union activity around the perspective of a general strike against the government's measures. A circular from the party secretariat reminding the elected representatives of their obligations with respect to discipline raised ("Lula" explains his view of it in the following interview). author, Jaco Bittar, denounced in bourgeois press as a Stalinist. the PT managed, despite the temptations of some of its elected representatives, to
pulled a slate of designates out of his hat, who had been backed behind the scenes by the PT national leadership against the will of the local majority. Since the January 4 operation, the conflict has not died down, and Gilson was again outvoted in the recent local congress of the
The second sign was the launching in early June of a manifesto signed by 113 PT personalities from Sao Paulo, including "Lula," Djalma Bom (a federal deputy), Irma Passoni (a state deputy), and Gilson. This manifesto had the merit of reaffirming the fidelity of the PT to its origins and its program ("Jobs, Land, and Liberty"). (3)
The statement also confimed the decision that the party is to be an activist party, a fighting party, and a class party, and thereby rebuffed parliamentarist temptations. But it made a dangerous equation between the "individualist behavior" of some deputies and activists who "subordinate themselves to parallel leaderships and give priority to propagating their own political proposals over those of the party."
This was not the most convincing accusation coming from leaders who often
PARTIDO DOS TRABALHADORES maintain its independence from the bourgeois "opposition" governments.
However, in the course of this healthy defense of the party's original principles, the leading nucleus tended to elevate itself into a faction above the battle. Certain signs give cause for concern that a trends in the PT could lead to a restriction of democratic life inside the party to the disadvantage of the left currents that have helped actively to build it.
The first such sign was the heavy-handed operation of the national leaderdevrimci sosyalist
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8 ship in the municipality of Diademe. Winning control of the government in this working-class city of 300,000 inhabitants was the PT's major electoral
What is more, the PT leadership in Diademe was known to be combative and radical, in the image of the new mayor, Gilson Luis Correia de Menezes, an engineering worker who pledged to organize a broad network of people's concils to support the new municipal con-
When it came time to name the new municipal executive, however, Gilson
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function themselves as an informal network, parallel to the elected leading bodies, and who backed an operation running roughshod over the regular local
But this manifesto indicates, nonetheless, the desire to consolidate a leadership nucleus differentiated on the right from the deputies who are making googoo eyes at Brizola and on its left from the politically more clearly defined revolutionary currents on the local and national levels.
The weakness of this organizational operation lies precisely in its lack of political perspectives. While it reaffirms the past gains of the PT, the manifesto is notable for the weaknesses of the proposals it offers.
However, once you go deeper than the combinations at the top to real choices in action, you find the active force of the whole body of components that make up the richness and vitality of the PT. The unfolding of the PT congresses in every state tend to show that it would be difficult to divert this force by any kind of an apparatus operation, as long as the party remains rooted in mass mobilization, in the unions, and in the fightback against the government's measures.
In fact, under the impact of the crisis, unemployment, and the attempts to freeze wages, the process of recomposition is continuing in the unions, and a strong campaign is taking form against the various moves to impose wage freezes. It is by remaining faithful to its origins that the PT will be able to gather new forces and move on to a higher stage in building a party of the working class. for The November 19t2 elections. This was the electoral platform of the PT
It has since become the programmatic reference point for the PT.
that our strike did not get broader sup- are not for import controls at all, if I remember right, and the same is true of the small groups.
So, we left out the question of import regulation, since including it would have made it impossible to act together."
Program for