I get his (mild) attacks on Bolsonaro make him look better, but he's not done any actual fucking reforms. At all. All he did during his first government was create some means tested welfare programs and keep public funding going, all while not combatting the bourgeoisie's interests. Which in turn, left ample time for fascism to grow, he even funded some of the exponents of it like Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (evangelical cult that is much like US prosperity gospel). Not to mention shooting incarceration rates sky high by kicking off the war on drugs by law in 2006 and invading Haiti on behalf of the UN in 2004
His ministries are all commanded by neolibs, and even far right União Brasil in communications and tourism.
His main deed as of this year has been pushing new fiscal policy for the government which will deepen the already horrible one that was put in by Temer. It even has penalties for "overspending" like forbidding the government from creating new public jobs and such!
Fucking interest in loans is the actual highest in the world at 13.25%! (~9% per year accounting for inflation)
Just because a government doesn't outright support the public sanctions on Cuba, China and the DPRK it doesn't make it a fucking ally, hell, many European countries do the same and I don't see y'all praising it.
Lula is not moving Brazil any, and I mean any, closer to liberation. This job is up for the communists, nominally the Brazilian Communist Party (which is at the moment undergoing a split due to a complacent and persecutory petit-bourgeois central committee that doesn't want to oppose Lula but that's beside the point)
Every time I see Lula praise here one of my neurons explodes with anger
Edit FYI: I am actually organized in the youth of the Brazilian Communist Party. If y'all want any more info just ask (ofc nothing confidential)
I think a lot of people here are missing important information on how Brazil works to understand what OP is talking about.
I think looking from the outside, on what types of issues that Lula sides with in international politics, it may appear that he is a left reformist like Evo Morales or Hugo Chavez. That’s not true. Lula is safely to the right of Morales, Chavez and the Kirchners in Argentina. In the so called “pink-wave” of Latin America left governments in the early 2000s, Lula was easily the more right-leaning one. On the current so-called “second pink-wave” I think only Boric in Chile is more right wing than Lula.
You might also think that his party is some kind of umbrella left-party that congregates a diversity of leftists movements from communists to socdems. That used to be more or less true in the 90s, but it’s far from true today. And although it’s been the dominant party on the brazilian left since the late 90s, PT was never a hegemonic left party. There always were and still are significant left-leaning forces that are outside its sphere of influence. I’ll talk a little bit more about that. And it needs to be said: PT slowly and repeatedly purged itself from communists and even radical reformists.
Or even worse, it might appear to you that his party has more or less free rein to establish policies in his government. That’s waaaaay farther from reality than you might think. And to get to that I need to explain the Brazilian party system.
For an US audience accustomed to a two-party system, or even to Europeans accustomed to a few-parties systems, Brazil will seem crazy. Our party system is very fragmented. And I mean VERY fragmented. As of June 2023 we have 30 political parties with adequate registration in our electoral system. Out of those 20 have elected members in parliament and 26 have elected members in any level of our federative system.
Just so you could see how weird our party system is, for lack of one we have TWO explicitly Marxist-Leninist parties registered (PCB, the oldest party in our system, who used to be the dominant force in the left in the 50s and 60s, and UP). We have two trotskyist parties (PSTU and PCO), two socialist parties that are not revolutionary although there are a few (very few) revolutionary marxists in their ranks (PCdoB and PSOL), and a bunch of center-left parties (PT, PSB, PDT, REDE, and others I’m probably forgetting about).
Out of this circumstance there’s a very important result: no party can govern Brazil without wide ranging alliances. Period. I’m not saying typical alliances you have in parliamentary regimes in Europe, where you have one dominant force allying itself with two or maybe three smaller junior partners. No. The coalition that elected Lula in 2002 had 5 parties in the first round and 14 parties in the runoff round. Last year Lula was elected by a coalition of 10 parties in the first round and 16 parties officially supporting him in the runoff.
That may look like he had ample support, right? Yeah, maybe. This also means that it’s a lot of interests to balance. So although his party is the dominant force in the coalition, the others are not small junior partners. They are crucial. Some of them have almost the same number of members of congress than the main party. That dilutes a lot how dominant the main party is when implementing policies. That actually reduced a lot the power of Bolsonaro to make our lives even more miserable to be honest. But it also shackles any real attempt at reform.
But it is worse than even that. You have to understand also that electoral coalitions are not the same as government coalitions in Brazil. Even after winning an election you might have to negotiate and coax other parties to join forces with you in government. And that leads to all kinds of aberrations.
For example. There’s a party called União Brasil. It mainly stems, through a complex history that I’m not going to bore you with, from the main situationist party in our former ultra-right civic-military dictatorship (1964 - 1985). União Brasil is a decidedly neoliberal right-leaning party, which defends the interests of the bourgeoisie, agribusiness, banks, and so on. It was a merge of two parties, one of which was the one through which Bolsonaro was first elected in 2018 (the former PSL). So, you would imagine this would be naturally an opposition party, right? Fully against Lula, right? And you would be right. But you would also be surprised to know that Lula has nominated a couple ministers indicated by this party in order to get support in crucial laws it needed to pass.
You see? There’s a concept in Brazilian politics called the “Centrão” (something like “the big center”) which is basically right-leaning forces that dominate legislative politics. It’s a amorphous “non-ideological” force (translation: right-wing, corrupt, aligned with bourgeois interests) that keep the government from deviating to much from what’s good for business for our national bourgeoisie. It holds every government hostage, even Bolsonaro’s.
So, what you truly have in Lula’s government is not even a socdem reformist government. It’s a lefty-like coalition of neoliberal interests that dress itself in red and put star badges on their suits, that need to cater to a wide base of interests that include left parties but also very right-wing parties, who WILL NOT advance even the most basic reforms that are in the interest of the working classes. Don't expect land reforms, don't expect anything that will hurt bank's profits, don't expect him to side with traditional populations or indigenous interests against companies, don't expect him to fight against increasing the age of retirement, etc, etc.
What you may expect from him as a leftist:
- better policies on combating deforestation;
- policies that try to expand jobs and reduce cost of living for workers;
- policies to try to reduce the number of people that owe money to the banks (WITHOUT reducing banks profits);
- policies that try to reduce taxes for working class people.
That's mainly it. Those are good things and I'll definitely get behind them. But they are extremely limited. That's not even reformist. That's simply being a competent manager of the neoliberal order. That's it. That's Lula: a competent manager of the neoliberal order.
Let me be clear: it’s better than Bolsonaro. Of course it is.But that’s a very low bar. Hell, Boris Fucking Johnson is better than Bolsonaro. I would fucking take any Republican from the early 2000s over Bolsonaro. Give me fucking Mitt Romney, you get it? You have to dig really low to find something comparable to Bolsonaro.
I voted for Lula in the runoff rounds, so did any self-respecting marxist in Brazil. You know why? Because it’s better to live in a liberal bourgeois democracy and keep fighting than to live in a military dictatorship and risk being arrested and killed. Because it’s better to have left-leaning neoliberal minister steering our economy to a direction where people can at least eat than to see the country sink even lower into abject poverty. I’d rather have a somewhat farcical liberal in government that is sensitive enough to value that people can afford to eat and have a roof than a proto-fascist death-cult that caused hundreds of thousands of deaths in the pandemic, was leading an exponentially increasing number of Brazilians to food insecurity and openly intended to destroy even bourgeois electoral democracy.
So yeah. I voted for Lula, I celebrated his victory and I even have some sympathy for the man. But I wholeheartedly agree with OP. His government is not our ally, folks. You have to understand that. His government is the continuation of neoliberal policies, with the bare minimum concessions so that people can afford to eat. Is that better than neoliberal policies WITHOUT those concessions? OF COURSE!!! But that is not in our political field. It’s not even “oh, he is limited reformist socdem that is not going to go far enough”, you understand? It’s even less than that!!!
That's a fantastic write up and I have nothing else to say except for: valeu camarada! I had never thought about how specific our political landscape is compared to what people are used to on the internet.
This picture will scare Yankees (Red is the government).
ShowWe also have some 33 federal ministries but only 6 of those are held by PT party members, if that serves to illustrate it some more. Even the current vice-president was "neutral" on the 2018 election that got us Bolsonaro.
Thanks! I still had a lot to write about the current left parties landscape but I got a bit lazy. Maybe another day!
I have no skin in the game regarding this current debate so I’ll keep my own opinions to myself for now.
However, you mentioning Brazil’s multi-party system did pique my interest because something similar happens here.
It didn’t occur to me that for most USians having more than 2 relevant parties really is an abnormality.
I am not Brazilian but I am quite skeptical of Lula myself. He thinks he can rapidly increase agricultural production without any deforestation. He wants his cake and to eat it too if you ask me.
Also he is basically militarizing the forest. Armed federal agents are carrying out operations on Indigenous lands, ostensibly to "help" Tribes against squatter and artison miners, but with no indication of respect for sovereignty. It makes me wildly nervous. They have their justifications and that is all they need. They don't couch it in genocidal rhetoric but what is the difference at the end at of the day? I'm not sure there is a government on earth I trust to stop the tribe killings.
Especially when everyone either must worship the market or is directly threatened by it.
I tell you what though, I usually keep it to myself because there might be some international benifit to his policy but honestly there is a lot of bleak shit that signals to me it's all very status quo. I can't help but ask what kind of word this will build.
The absolute best thing about this board is the insight from intelligent and devoted comrades around the world. I greatly appreciate your perspective on this as a westerner, and I am eager to learn more about Brazilian politics. The fog of war in media here makes it difficult to understand the reality on the ground and often times very complex political situations in very diverse countries like Brazil are approached in reductionist ways due to this, and I of course include myself in this.
I’m sure many here would love to know more about your experiences and thoughts on the political landscape of the country, so thank you for your great contribution !
I get your point, but I think that what's more worth in this cases with such leaders, I'm from Argentina, so we have something very similar here with the Peronists, is that their national policies are trash, but they tend to have relatively good international policies and that's what's more pressing at this time with the geopolitical events that are taking place. Of course a Lula or a Kirchner will never truly do something that should be done under a socialist revolution, but I also think the conditions are not met for some real movement to be done in any of these countries, we have been fucked by fascist regimes and neoliberal propaganda and the working class is highly unorganized and politically apathetic. Furthermore, meaningful policies by left wing liberal governments such as these cannot go too far because they risk being intervened by the West, and it is better to have some stability while the empire collapses.
I think in this cases what happens is that we give critical support, we have ideological disagreements with governments such as the ones in Syria, Iran, Russia, etc, but critical support is necessary because in those cases they accomplish a revolutionary role by opposing liberalism, even though indeed their ideologies are reactionary. Lula represents the national bourgeoisie of Brazil, but they are, in the global affairs, playing a revolutionary role by opposing the West, but of course they shouldn't be considered true comrades. Given the economical and geopolitical condition globally, what we should strive for first is the collapse of the empire and the construction of a multi polar world, without a power such as the US pushing its rules based order real revolutionary movements can be built and emancipation achieved, but at least from my understanding (from my country and yours) that is something that cannot happen right now and it is better to strive for some economic stability.
Lula represents the national bourgeoisie of Brazil, but they are, in the global affairs, playing a revolutionary role by opposing the West,
The national bourgeoisie in the global south is subservient to imperialist capital and has no revolutionary potential, this is a read any serious communist party has. Also, he does not oppose liberalism at all, he is liberalism. Domestic policy is hardly better than Biden and he's not nearly as combative a Kirchner/Fernandez
that is something that cannot happen right now and it is better to strive for some economic stability.
That is a straight up anti-revolutionary reading but go off
Communists should unequivocally oppose Lula and push for radical and mass means, because he doesn't do any of that. In fact his purpose is to disorganize our class
Edit: ofc this doesn't mean letting the fascists defeat him either. Making the proletariat more class conscious will only make our life easier, and to do that we must stand against Lula's neoliberal policies
The national bourgeoisie in the global south is subservient to imperialist capital and has no revolutionary potential, this is a read any serious communist party has. Also, he does not oppose liberalism at all, he is liberalism. Domestic policy is hardly better than Biden and he’s not nearly as combative a Kirchner/Fernandez
It is subservient and opposes it at the same time, but you cannot make any movement against the national bourgeoisie if the international bourgeoisie has so much hold in the country. The revolutionary potential it has is its opposition to the West, when it comes to the national level, they of course are reactionaries, but as I mentioned, I my opinion, given the current climate crisis, what we should strive for is the collapse of the West first, that will give space for more revolutionary movements to take place. Right now, there's no way a true combative process could take place without it diverging into something worse by outside influence. I know he is a liberal, that does not mean there can't be two factions of the same force where one's opposition to the other could be of benefit to the working class. I don't know if by Fernandez you mean Cristina or Alberto, but Alberto is the biggest lackey Peronism has produced, Cristina was indeed pretty based all in all.
That is a straight up anti-revolutionary reading but go off
Communists should unequivocally oppose Lula and push for radical and mass means, because he doesn’t do any of that. In fact his purpose is to disorganize our class
Edit: ofc this doesn’t mean letting the fascists defeat him either. Making the proletariat more class conscious will only make our life easier, and to do that we must stand against Lula’s neoliberal policies
I understand that, but at the moment I don't think producing that is feasible, and I think the working class can benefit more with having Lula on power than by having a failed socialist revolution followed by a fascist instalment by the West. The only thing I'm saying is we should wait for the West's collapse, which I don't think will take much longer, and in the meanwhile educate the classes, organize and be in a better position for the time where a revolution can indeed happen. It doesn't matter how much we want for something to actually happen if it is materially impossible, and trying to achieve it while these conditions are not met is what Mao or Deng called "leftist adventurism."
We don't want to take arms and do guerrilla war right now for fucks sake
A communist party should strive first and foremost to organize the proletariat and create conditions for a revolution, you don't get that by supporting a neoliberal government filled with banker money in its pockets (often from global conglomerates like Santander)
You are complacent. Revolution cannot be build by neoliberal governments, only by organized worker's struggle, and these governments only demobilize the working class, any serious reading of Brazilian history will show you that Lula's government almost decimated union activity and other struggles
Well, I didn't understand exactly what did you mean by not supporting him. The only thing I'm saying is I'd rather have him than Bolsonaro. I never aid revolution can be built by neoliberal governments, only that having them can achieve more things in international geopolitics than a Bolsonaro could.
Brazilian here.
Of course a Lula or a Kirchner will never truly do something that should be done under a socialist revolution
I think it's important to point out that Lula's government is a coalition of forces that are overwhelmingly to the right of the Kirchner or even Alberto Fernández.
If it's not possible right now then we ought to work towards making it possible. Increasing economic stability can be a part of that but only a part.
Of course, I didn't say that's the only thing we should do, and precisely while we wait the masses need to be organized, educated and radicalised.
He's really been sounding more and more like a Brazilian Bernie Sanders; which... Coming from me, that may as well be invective. Bout how on the money am I there?
Except that there is one crucial difference between Lula and Bernie which is that Lula is not an imperialist. That makes all the difference and why despite his lackluster domestic policies he is infinitely more valuable and more aligned with us than Bernie is.
Another difference is that he also commands the leadership of the party and gets elected, while Bernie is just happy to kneel to the Democrats and do the occasional speech to his fans. They're not that similar in practice and I do have a bit of critical support for the PT, but that doesn't mean I endorse them, or electoralism for that matter. They're a bourgeois social-democratic party with all the liberalisms you can expect, but at least they aren't actively telling their followers to kill communists, and voting costs nothing. (you actually pay a fine equivalent to 1 dollar if you don't vote lmao)
You could just vote communist instead, there's a second round if things are this close for president/governor
And I usually do, yeah. The critical support only goes for when fascists and (more rightwing) liberals go outright slanderous against them. Dilma-Temer-Bolsonaro sequence was quite horrible and I think a big part of it (besides intelligence agencies and capitalist interference) was that we allowed right-wingers into our movements against them and suddenly they co-opted everything and suddenly it was all about "liberty" and "fighting communism" with way more financial support than communists could counter. The criticism/support balance is usually incredibly hard to find with social-democrats, and most often it's by design to make themselves seem like the "One True Effective Left Party."
But voting is hardly enough, which is why I'm patiently waiting for the restructuring from the PCB (that has been long overdue in my opinion) and for things to calm down there to try and get organised through them too.
Edit: for instance, the Unidade Popular party and PCB have this nasty habit of allying (more like submit) themselves with PSOL which is hardly much better than PT themselves. PSOL is not even that big of a party, there's no reason communists should play the junior role to the junior left-liberals.
Fully agreed there and we're opposing this tailism with PSOL within PCB. The split currently going down is also about that. Have the manifesto of the fraction that defends the continuation of the revolutionary reconstruction of the party: https://emdefesadocomunismo.com.br/manifesto-em-defesa-da-reconstrucao-revolucionaria-do-pcb/
Unidade Popular is just hopeless unfortunately. They're not even a political party, just a front for a hoxhaist (as such dogmatic) one, PCR that is causing all sorts of trouble to actually organizing folks (fraud in union/student union elections, etc.)
Yeah, PCR has some weird talk:action ratio and I even started a conspiracy theory in my head that they're a CIA thing because their youth branch has a weird name that looks like somebody badly translated an English name and I couldn't find information about a single person that is part of it.
I'm probably jumping at shadows, but if it walks like a fed and quacks like a fed...
Brazilian Here.
I would say that on foreign policy Lula is safely to the left of Bernie, but on domestic economic policies he is probably a bit right of Bernie. His current economic policy is thoroughly neoliberal.
sorry not with fascists of Brazil who cleared way the Amazon forest and who inflicted harm to indigenous people of Brazil . For me Lula is far better than Modi/Bolsenaro/Erdogan like figures.
"Actually, Joe Biden is good because Trump is bad!"
Yeah, make your lesser evil vote but don't pretend like you're doing a communism with it.
So what you're saying is it's either slow burn neoliberalism (which will only make fascism grow) or fast neoliberalism (+fascism) got ya
We build an alternative from the proletariat for the proletariat on the daily, not in fucking elections. We are communists, our goal is revolution!
Jesus fuck y'all. This is supposed to be a Communist board not social-liberal/socDem central.
You are just a random fool on internet.
That seems uncalled for
I never at all in this thread proposed immediate protracted people's war, and I obviously don't.
I support organizing the workers and raising their class consciousness so when the time comes they take up arms
Fuck you
Mate I'm in the fucking Brazilian Communist Party, fuck orf
MST is NOT revolutionary at all, at least not since like two decades ago. They do good work but they're not a revolutionary org and remain glued to Lula's neoliberal ass
Of course he is. But that bar is incredibly ridiculously low.
If you're a Marxist championing for the actual interests of the working class Lula and his government is an incredibly limited perspective of true change.
It's hard to even call him left-reformist, because he isn't even presenting any reform policy. His government is an alliance of liberal forces in the center-left and right, pushing neoliberal agendas with a sprinkle of "social sensitivity". The best he can do is boosting a few timid redistributive programs. But it doesn't come even close to be a left-reformist government like Gustavo Petro on Colombia, for example.
I'm a Brazilian. If you're not Brazilian you can't even imagine how fucking relieving it was to vote Bolsonaro out last year. And yes, I voted for Lula, campaigned for him on the runoff, and was super happy when he won.
But I only did that because I'd rather be a left-wing militant on a liberal bourgeois democracy than in the fascist military dictatorship that Bolsonaro was planning to implement. It doesn't mean Lula has my support for his policies AT ALL.
Yes, I will support him against a literal fascist. I will vote for him and even blast his campaign song on my stereo for my neighbors to hear.
But don't expect me to not point at him and criticize when he implements policies that benefit the banks and media conglomerates. When he defends legislation that will entrench an austerity fiscal policy that is impoverishing our country and shackling the government's own hands, making it impossible to invest enough to get us out of the hole liberals dug for us.
Don't expect me to be satisfied and happy with Lula in power. I'm only happy with a true Brazilian workers government, by workers for workers, after our very own Brazilian Revolution.
He is a major figure for BRICS and was there at the founding. Not sure if he was entirely his idea or not but he deserves a lot of credit for its creation and resurgence.
Yeah, to my understanding he was basically the lynch pin to the whole thing. He was under enormous pressure to not recognize China as a world market and to side with the west in placing world pollution blames on China and he rejected all that pressure and moved ahead with BRIC (at the time South Africa wasn't included).
Could be wrong but that was my understanding.