The Brazilian crisis | |
|---|---|
| Written in | 1966 |
| Source | https://www.marxists.org/portugues/marighella/1966/mes/crise.htm |
The causes of defeat and the prospects for the situation
The coup of April 1 came and became victorious, without the anti-coupist forces, and among them the communists, being able to put up any resistance. The only organized mass resistance against the coup was the general strike, even then unable to proceed, due to the general unpreparedness.
It is worth remembering that, with the resignation of Jânio, in 1961, we were taken by perplexity and we recognized that we were not prepared to face the events. We were warned, then, that new government crises would arise and that, in this case, we should act differently, doing everything so that, by then, we would have overcome our unpreparedness.
This was not the case with the deposition of the Jango government, at the time of the April coup. That is, we are still unprepared. The developing democratic process was paralyzed, and we entered a phase of retreat.
The lack of resistance to the coup was thus due to our unpreparedness. Political and above all ideological unpreparedness. Unpreparedness of the communists as well as of the entire anti-coupist area. This became evident during the April Revolution and in the following days, when there was no longer any response or directive for action from the leaderships, without any exception.
As for the communists, resistance became impossible because our policy - in essence - was being made dependent on government policy. That is, under the dependence of the leadership of the bourgeoisie, or better, of the sector of the bourgeoisie that occupied power. Such a position contributed to break the authority and to annul our strength, both necessary when it comes to influencing the single front, to lead it to consolidation, to paralyze the vacillating areas and to exercise a clear ideological role before the most radical sectors of the petty bourgeoisie.
When the leadership of the proletariat subordinates itself to the leadership of the bourgeoisie or identifies itself with it, the application of the revolutionary line inevitably deviates to the left and to the right. For in this case, the ideological ballast, the only resource capable of preventing the deviation of the course of the revolution, is missing.
The underestimation of the right-wing danger in the Brazilian political panorama was the result of the tailisim and illusion in government. It was believed that the bourgeoisie would follow the path of peaceful reforms under the pressure of the mass movement, and that the right would not rise. And that if this happened, the bourgeoisie would take the initiative in resisting and fighting the coup plotters.
There were countless times when we repeated that the unleashing of a right-wing coup would be civil war in the country, or that we would respond to the violence of the coup plotters with the violence of the masses. Since the words did not match the facts, this means that we were not prepared. We were confident that the government would resist. We didn't even insist on denouncing the right-wing coup. We failed to call the masses to vigilance and warn them of the possibility of resistance.
The lack of vigilance and the class illusion subsist exactly when the leadership leaves aside the establishment of a Marxist tactical plan and does not take into account the obligatory principle of retreat. Marxism-Leninism is entirely averse to the conception that in the mass struggle everything is about moving forward. Thus, when activating the political line in support of the reforms advocated by the sector of the ruling bourgeoisie, it was not enough to point out the successes achieved by the masses. At the same time, it was necessary to alert and organize them to the possibility of a retreat of the bourgeoisie, a capitulation to the right wing or the unleashing of a military coup - always the order of the day when the mass movement grows to the point of threatening power or bringing democracy to a change of quality.
The error that manifested itself was, therefore, an ideological error, which can be translated as the loss of the class sense of the revolutionary struggle of the Brazilian people. Such error, projected in historical dimension in our activity, is reflected in different and sometimes contradictory political and tactical manifestations of communists throughout the Brazilian political life.
It is impossible to escape the characterization of an evident and traditional ideological error in the Brazilian communist leadership.
The lack of ideological conditions in the Marxist leadership led to a political line that was likely to succeed ending in defeat.
With the same sense of lack of ideological substance came the false thesis of the "new tactics of imperialism." According to this thesis, US imperialism would not be interested in coups and dictatorship. The coup of April 1, inspired and promoted by the United States with support from its internal agents and Brazilian military fascism, invalidated this theory, whose main result was to leave us unprepared and perplexed in the face of the coup from the right.
An erroneous appreciation of the role of the armed forces led us to illusions in the government's military apparatus, an apparatus with a nationalist ideological basis, and that for this very reason, not being under the ideological influence of the proletariat, would never be mobilized to decide in favor of the masses any situation that could lead them to threaten the privileges of the ruling classes.
The repeated calls for a political general strike - without the support of the peasantry and without recourse to insurrection - signified a tactical error in the face of contemporary Marxism. The error was all the more evident insofar as our work within the proletariat developed with a clear characteristic of summit work and was in practice confined to state enterprises.
A basic flaw was the weakness of the peasant movement. The lack of decision to give priority to work in the countryside is responsible for this basic flaw, which has now become chronic. Without mobilization of the countryside it is impossible for the revolution to advance.
The Marxist leadership also failed to understand the objective character of the process of radicalization of some sectors of the petty bourgeoisie, which - together with other errors - contributed to our not having any decisive influence among sailors, sergeants, and other radical forces, thus making it impossible to achieve unity of action within the single front, of which we were also a part.
False leadership methods, the underestimation of collective leadership, the leadership's lack of ideological unity are other factors that led to the defeat we suffered.
Now we are faced with a new situation. Instead of a government of the bourgeoisie, fighting for reforms in its own way, within a climate of freedoms, we have a military takeover dictatorship, within a climate where democratic freedoms have been suppressed.
Our tactics cannot be the same as in the previous situation, when the mass movement was on the rise. Now the march of democracy has been interrupted, we have entered a phase of retreat. Even though the Brazilian problems continue to be structural reforms, we can only solve them by defeating the dictatorship and ensuring the restoration of democratic liberties. Our fundamental tactical objective - in order to achieve structural reforms and continue the struggle until a later victory for socialism - is to replace the present government with one that secures liberties and makes an opening for progress.
The government for which we fight now can only be the one resulting from the anti-dictatorship single front, which is the kind of single front possible today. Striving for such a single front to become a reality, we maintain - as before - the necessity of our alliance with the national bourgeoisie, taking into account not only everything that brings us closer to it, when it comes to common objectives in defense of national interests, but also everything that separates us from it in questions of class, tactics, methods, ideology, programs.
The main form of struggle in the present period is the struggle of mass resistance with its thousand and one particularities. And the party must be the head of the popular opposition, so that we are not left in the wake of the bourgeois opposition, which, as everything indicates, will seek to go ahead, trying to drag us in its rear. We cannot abandon the struggle for the leadership of the popular opposition, which would be an unforgivable abdication in the face of the dispute for hegemony in the destiny of the Brazilian people. We must, therefore, be firm fighters of the resistance, tireless in the fight against the dictatorship.
An erroneous appreciation of the role of the armed forces led us to illusions in the government's military apparatus, an apparatus with a nationalist ideological basis, and that for this very reason, not being under the ideological influence of the proletariat, would never be mobilized to decide in favor of the masses any situation that could lead them to threaten the privileges of the ruling classes.
The repeated calls for a political general strike - without the support of the peasantry and without recourse to insurrection - signified a tactical error in the face of contemporary Marxism. The error was all the more evident insofar as our work within the proletariat developed with a clear characteristic of summit work and was in practice confined to state enterprises.
A basic flaw was the weakness of the peasant movement. The lack of decision to give priority to work in the countryside is responsible for this basic flaw, which has now become chronic. Without mobilization of the countryside it is impossible for the revolution to advance.
The Marxist leadership also failed to understand the objective character of the process of radicalization of some sectors of the petty bourgeoisie, which - together with other errors - contributed to our not having any decisive influence among sailors, sergeants, and other radical forces, thus making it impossible to achieve unity of action within the single front, of which we were also a part.
False leadership methods, the underestimation of collective leadership, the leadership's lack of ideological unity are other factors that led to the defeat we suffered.
Now we are faced with a new situation. Instead of a government of the bourgeoisie, fighting for reforms in its own way, within a climate of freedoms, we have a military takeover dictatorship, within a climate where democratic freedoms have been suppressed.
Our tactics cannot be the same as in the previous situation, when the mass movement was on the rise. Now the march of democracy has been interrupted, we have entered a phase of retreat. Even though the Brazilian problems continue to be structural reforms, we can only solve them by defeating the dictatorship and ensuring the restoration of democratic liberties. Our fundamental tactical objective - in order to achieve structural reforms and continue the struggle until a later victory for socialism - is to replace the present government with one that secures liberties and makes an opening for progress.
The government for which we fight now can only be the one resulting from the anti-dictatorship single front, which is the kind of single front possible today. Striving for such a single front to become a reality, we maintain - as before - the necessity of our alliance with the national bourgeoisie, taking into account not only everything that brings us closer to it, when it comes to common objectives in defense of national interests, but also everything that separates us from it in questions of class, tactics, methods, ideology, programs.
The main form of struggle in the present period is the struggle of mass resistance with its thousand and one particularities. And the party must be the head of the popular opposition, so that we are not left in the wake of the bourgeois opposition, which, as everything indicates, will seek to go ahead, trying to drag us in its rear. We cannot abandon the struggle for the leadership of the popular opposition, which would be an unforgivable abdication in the face of the dispute for hegemony in the destiny of the Brazilian people. We must, therefore, be firm fighters of the resistance, tireless in the fight against the dictatorship.
Many other tactical elements have to be changed in the new situation. The mass movement - for whose changing quality we must continue to fight - can no longer aim, in the present conditions, at putting pressure on the government, as if its purpose were to change the policy and composition of the dictatorship. The objective of the mass movement is to defeat the dictatorship, to replace it with another government.
The elections also have a different character. Their objectives are not for us the same as those of the elections in the period before the coup. It is not about electing nationalists as before, when democratic freedoms were in force, and by this means achieve a change in the correlation of forces.
It is about making efforts to agglutinate the forces that oppose the dictatorship and contribute to lead it to defeat by reducing its political and social base. If none of this is possible through elections - as the dictatorship calls them - our duty is to denounce it to the masses, even if we do not refuse to use the minimum legal possibilities.
The party must stop being a kind of appendix of the parties of the bourgeoisie, to be able to drag the proletariat and the popular masses. Our appearance alongside candidates committed to the coup and the dictatorship demoralizes us with the masses, and helps to justify the electoral farce. What we cannot do is help the institutionalization of the dictatorship by capitulating to the violence and threats of the coup plotters or allowing ourselves to be deceived by their maneuvers.
For the dictatorship, elections represent a means to institutionalize the coup. With the suppression of direct elections and the curtailment of the people's right to elect their representatives, the establishment of ineligibility, the dissolution of political parties, and many other coercive measures, elections have become a farce.
The inauguration of those elected is a concession of the dictatorial government. Those who won or will win an electoral victory in opposition to the dictatorship will be allowed nothing more than the tutelage of a military super-government, freely chosen by the Executive and its Minister of War. This further abolishes the autonomy of the states and municipalities, and the appointment of government secretaries and other authorities is no longer a function of the elected officials, but of the NIS and the National Security Council, organs through which the military power operates.
Backed by powers such as no president in Brazil has ever had, in the style of that L'Etat c'est moi with which Louis XIV of France established the principle of absolute monarchy, the current President of the Republic, through indirect elections, will seek to guarantee a military person as his successor.
Despite the implacable action of the dictatorship, progressively crushing by force the escape valves of the legal means of resistance, the year 1966 is expected to be full of political tensions, due to the struggle for presidential succession.
Nothing indicates an end to political instability, a reflection of the chronic crisis of structure. Political instability continues to characterize the country's situation. The tendency is for class contradictions to worsen.
Institutional Act number 2, and the other complementary acts, indicate that the dictatorship cannot stop at the precipice. Crises of government, the outbreak of new coups, the decree of siege, border conflicts, and many other events, reflecting political unrest, naturally await the Brazilian people.
These results can occur as a consequence of the disastrous economic-financial policy of the government, the concordats, unemployment, high prices, submission to the International Monetary Fund, the anti-worker policy, the policy of surrender and submission to the United States and, in parallel, the growth of the mass struggles.
Another predictable factor of worsening of the Brazilian crisis is the aggressiveness of Yankee imperialism, which is increasing unceasingly. The most recent example was the resolution of the US House of Representatives, determining the US military invasion in any country that the so-called colossus of the North considers threatened by communism. Here the word communism is just a substitute for the peoples' national liberation movement.
Such an example would not suffice, and it would be sufficient to add the invasion of Santo Domingo and the Vietnam War. Brazilian troops are already taking part in the military intervention in Santo Domingo, which, side by side with the hated American "marines", are helping to massacre the brave Dominican people fighting for their freedom.
The antipathy with which the Latin American peoples view Brazil, as a result of their vassalage to the aggressive action of the American imperialists, will not fail to produce its effects among our people, and will lead to an increase of popular opposition to the Brazilian dictatorship.
It is not impossible that in the face of a disadvantageous situation for the current dictatorship in Brazil, or in case it is threatened by the masses to be overthrown, the United States will come to the rescue of the dictatorial government - that serves as a support to them - and in favor of the Brazilian ruling classes, initiating reprisals against the people and the nation, and even occupying parts of our territory, such as the Northeast. They will do nothing but continue the economic, political and military aggression already underway in our country.
It would be unforgivable if the popular and nationalist forces would again be taken by surprise by the events to come. For Brazilian revolutionaries there is no other perspective but to prepare for the struggle.