Raul Bassi
Because it is so directly dominated by US imperialism, it's in Latin America that the struggle against global neoliberalism has developed to the maximum. The dismal failure of neoliberal policies across the continent has left country after country in economic and social crisis.
In Brazil, the reaction against the neoliberal policies of the 1990s took the shape of massive mobilisations and ongoing land seizures by the MST (Landless Peasant Movement), continuous strike waves — symbolised most of all by a courageous fight of the truck drivers and the defeat of the Plan Real (a scheme to impose monetarist policies disguised as a currency reform).
While these struggles strengthened the position of the working class and rural poor and weakened that of the traditional elites and their parties, they did not amount to an active offensive against the rule of the rich. Popular desire for change was overwhelmingly channelled into trying to get an electoral victory of the Workers Party (PT) and its leader Luis Ignacio da Silva (Lula). It produced the overwhelming victory of Lula in the January 2003 presidential election.
So now, more than a year later, what have been the consequences of Lula's 2003 win? How has the Lula government performed? What has been the response of the mass of Brazilian people to its performance?
2003 in Brazil
In February, the first political crisis for the PT government blew up. It involved the use of money from illegal gambling and organised crime to support PT candidates. The person in the centre of this scandal was PT ex-president, Jose Dirceu, Lula's right-hand person, minister and strong man in the government.
This scandal followed cuts to superannuation of public servants and the expulsion from the PT of four MPs ("the radicals") who had refused to support this measure. The public sector superannuation changes were the same that the previous president, right-winger Fernando Henrique Cardoso, had been unable to implement in two terms as incumbent. Hence the saying: one year of Lula equals eight years of Cardoso.
The 2003 victory of the PT was the result of two influences: the crisis of neoliberal policies and the identification of the PT as the only force capable of achieving necessary change; and the agreement of the majority of the PT with those sectors of the Brazilian ruling elite that were ready to support a Lula government if their interests were safeguarded.
It was on this basis that Lula won the 2003 election — in alliance with ruling-class sectors and without strong mass mobilisation.
As a result, Lula's is the most stable Brazilian government in decades, based on 80% control of parliament and the support of 11 out of 15 parties. Opposition has been very small and restricted to the left. It is expressed by the four radical MPs expelled from the PT, by some breakaway groups from other left parties including the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) and to a degree by the left MPs still inside the PT.
What explains this turn of events? How did a party that was born from the mass union struggles of the 1980s end up behaving just like all the traditional parties of corrupt Brazilian politics, parties the PT never tired of denouncing? A quick review of 2003 in Brazil helps set the scene.
Firstly, the economy shrank by 0.2%, and with it the country's endemic unemployment got worse. In Sao Paulo, the most industrialised state, almost 20% of the active population remained unemployed, while 90% of the jobs created were casual or part-time. The average wage fell by over 10%.
Land reform largely remained on paper, even with a minister, Miguel Rossetto, from the left of the PT being in charge. In 2003, only 13,000 families received land, of the 100,000 who were promised it in the first year of government. Paramilitary rural gangs formed by the big landowners to counter the MST killed more than 70 activists, almost the double the figure for 2002. MST leaders were held without charge for months on end.
The government's anti-hunger plan Fome Zero (Zero Hunger) also remained largely propaganda, with only $US130 million of the $800 million budgeted actually spent. Investment in schools, hospitals, housing, energy, roads and ports was restrained, not only compromising future productivity growth, but worsening already failing public services.
None of this was due to lack of government funds: the national budget surplus was actually higher than that demanded by the International Monetary Fund.
At the same time, the payment of the interest burden on the foreign debt took up an enormous 9.5% of GDP: yet just two months of this repayment would completely fund Brazil's equivalent of Medicare.
The Lula government's opposition to the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas has been mainly rhetorical. It has been trying to moderate the anti-imperialist course of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, while in Bolivia it has sought to bring about an understanding between the country's insurrectionary coco farmers and workers and its government.
Representing Brazilian business
The Lula government's foreign policy is driven by the interests of Brazilian exporters. This is what most leads Lula into disputes with the US. Brazil's is a dependent economy specialising in primary production and resources. Sectors of its ruling class are looking to defend and diversify the country's internal markets as well as pushing for greater access to world, especially US, markets.
At the same time, in a world economy where the demand for primary products has generally been growing less than manufacturing, services and finance, the Brazilian economy faces a constant threat of stagnation, and hence of its public and private debt burden growing inexorably. As a result the Lula government's main effort in economic policy has been to ensure the solvency of the country and its capacity to repay debt.
However, to achieve this it is forced to recycle public debt in the form of new issues of high-interest government bonds, making financial speculation the most lucrative business in Brazil today. High interest rates are also what makes the government obsessive about building its budget surplus — even if that means lower investment and less spending on social programs for the most needy.
The other main source of the budget surplus has been cuts in national funding to the country's states and councils. For example, in 2003 Rio Grande do Sul, the second biggest state in Brazil, received US$ 600 million from the national government in Brasilia, but had to repay $700 million.
This dependency on rural exports also helps explain Lula's lack of action on land reform. It is obviously tricky for a government that needs all the output and support it can get from agribusiness to support land occupations or facilitate the access of poor farmers to new lands that might be more profitably exploited by big landowners.
From workers' party to capitalist government
How could a party built in the fight against ruthless dictatorship and based on the best of working class organisation and self-sacrifice suffer such a quick transformation?
Clearly the seeds of degeneration were sown some time ago. In his book A Vision for the Left Brazilian writer Roberto Robaina explains the process as a combination of three elements.
The first has been the PT's overwhelming focus on elections. The main activity of the party has been devoted towards achieving growth and influence at election time, with thousands of councillors, hundreds of majors, and dozens of MPs, senators and state governors getting elected. With this success has come lots of positions in government, and a new social status for election winners within the party.
It was a mistake to believe that it is possible to constantly build a party with a radical, anti-capitalist program without big confrontations and struggles. The process of electoral gain has given the party an interest in reducing social conflict so it can "get on with the business of governing" in those areas where it has achieved power.
The PT was born in Sao Paulo, site of the most modern and dynamic industries in Brazil. This has given rise to an incipient "labour aristocracy" — weak but with a much higher standard of living than the vast majority and predisposed to link its own advancement to the success of the industries in which it operates.
The neoliberal offensive begun in the early 1990s has also caused problems. This produced strong deindustrialisation and a wave of privatisations, all reflected in the trade unions losing many members. At the same time, a part of the union leadership with ties to the PT "graduated" from trade unionism to becoming directors of workers' superannuation funds. These also invested in the newly privatised enterprises, so that their directors in effect became co-owners in collaboration with big corporate interests.
With its 2003 victory the PT became government, and "put the cherry on the cake" of this process of practical abandonment of all that was anti-capitalist and genuinely alternative in its program. The Lula government's accord with the dominant classes is transforming the PT into another social-democratic party.
The struggle for the political alternative
In Latin America, with its deep continent-wide economic crisis, the space for concession is minimal. Moreover, the vast mass of Brazil's workers and poor still view the PT as their party.
Yet, while the majority still view Lula as their man engaged in a long and cunning war of manouevre against powerful enemies, each shift of the PT to the right has spurred sections of the party's social base to abandon it. The attack on public servants' superannuation provoked the first wave of workers, intellectuals and young people to break from the PT — on the grounds that it was not defending its historical program. At the same time, the perception grows that the PT is similar to the other parties, and that Lula "has changed" since he took over government.
In the countryside the MST is responding to government inertia with action. While still nominally supporting the government, the MST is maintaining its land of occupations, 333 in 2003 alone. This has already made the government pay more attention to land reform. In February the government granted 60,000 hectares of unproductive land as a first instalment, more than all land made available in the whole 2003.
In this context the challenge to build a left socialist opposition, a genuine political representation for Brazil's working people, is now on. This is critically important because a failure of the PT could be seen as a failure of all socialist forces.
Equally clearly, an alternative socialist project has to build a bridge with the workers breaking with the PT. This is not a short-term project, nor will it take place in a simple way.
Against easy progress is the fact that the socialist left is weak and its links with the mass of people insignificant. In its favour stands the long accumulated experience with the PT, and the ever-pressing need for the working people to have their own political representation.
Nor should the existence of the radical MPs Luciana Genro, Baba, Joao Fuentes and Heloise Helena be underestimated. In particular, Senator Helena is now considered to be the personification of the fighting past of the PT. This is especially so now that Lula has publicly admitted that he never was a person of the left.
The four "radicals" are at the centre of the movement for a new left party in Brazil. Whether this manages to develop a strong social base (and whether it eventually links up with the left opposition still fighting inside the PT) will certainly determine the destiny of the struggle for an alternative to Lula's capitalist regime.
[Raul Bassi is a national co-convenor of the Socialist Alliance.]
From Green Left Weekly, June 2, 2004.
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