On 4-5 November, the national congress of the Brazilian section of the IMT took place. The congress was tasked with evaluating the development of the organisation, the developing political situation, and the success of the “are you a communist?” campaign. In light of this, the organisation decided to change its name. Previously Esquerda Marxista (Marxist Left), the Brazilian section of the IMT is now called the Internationalist Communist Organisation!
In addition to changing the name, the delegates present also unanimously decided to end the organisation's participation in the PSOL (Socialism and Freedom Party). This party, which once attracted a wide range of young people by presenting itself as a left-wing alternative to the PT, has made leaps in recent years in its adaptation to the bourgeois order. It has deepened its reformist political line, and created electoral alliances with sectors of the bourgeoisie, culminating in its integration into the Lula government of national unity. Remaining in the PSOL became an obstacle to the growth of the revolutionary organisation.
This congress was preceded, on 2-3 November, by the National Cadre School and the Rally Against Imperialist Wars – Ukraine and Palestine. This event had approximately 200 participants and was jointly called by Marxist Left and PCB-RR (Brazilian Communist Party – Revolutionary Reconstruction), an organisation formed by those expelled in a bureaucratic manner by the majority of the PCB leadership.
The National Cadre School had two sections, covering two very current topics: “Marxism and war”, and “the historical role of Stalinism and attempts to rehabilitate Stalin today”.
The four days of political discussion reflected – through the quality of the debate and the number of participants – the strength of communist ideas. In total, around 130 people participated in the School and Congress, including delegates, cadres and guests from different regions of the country. Also present were comrade Jorge Martín, from the international secretariat of the IMT, and Alex Spice, a Canadian comrade who works in the Argentine section of the IMT. IMT general secretary Alan Woods sent a video greeting.
At the opening of the Cadre School and Congress, Gabriel Landi and Gabriel Lazzari, representing the PCB-RR, as well as Juliana Curvelo and Alex da Mata, activists of the Socialist Left Movement (MES), were present as guests. Antônio Battisti, an important and historic civil servant union leader in the State of Santa Catarina, sent a video greeting. We also received a fraternal video greeting from comrade Ivan Pinheiro (see below).
Ivan Pinheiro is a historic leader of the Brazilian Communist Party, leading the resistance against the dissolution of the PCB in the ‘90s and its transformation into a bourgeois party. Recently, he was one of those expelled by the majority of the PCB leadership, starting, together with other activists who were victims of the purge, the reorganisation work with the PCB-RR.
The Eighth Congress of the Marxist Left marks a turning point in the Brazilian section of the international. The growth of the organisation in recent months (an increase of 68 percent in the number of members since the beginning of the year), the greater numbers of youth, and the proletarian spirit of the congress are examples of the successful struggle that the communists are carrying out. These are struggles to build a revolutionary party and the revolutionary international capable of bringing the working class to power and building a new society free from the horrors of capitalism.
Long live the IMT!
Long live the Internationalist Communist Organisation!
Workers of the world, unite!
Long live the Internationalist Communist Organisation! / Image: Bruna Heser
Greeting from Ivan Pinheiro (PCB-RR) to the Eight National Congress of the Marxist Left (now the Internationalist Communist Organisation)
Comrades,
On behalf of the National Movement in Defense of the Revolutionary Reconstruction of the Communist Party of Brazil (CPB-RR), I come to greet the members of the Marxist Left and thank you for the honourable invitation to speak at the opening of its Eight National Congress, formalised in a bilateral meeting that we had the privilege of holding with the national leadership of this organisation, last August, shortly after the recent split of the CPB – caused by an anti-Leninist faction – with the purge of hundreds of militants from the party's ranks, because we diverged from the opportunist line of the Central Committee and called for the holding of an extraordinary and unitary Congress, to democratically debate tactical, strategic, organisational and ideological issues.
They prevented us from expressing our disagreements internally and now they try to censor us publicly, taking down our social media and asking the state institution that registers trademarks and patents (INPI) the ownership of the acronym UJC [União da Juventude Comunista, Union of Communist Youth] that, in a largely majority way, not only joined, but drives the revolutionary reconstruction of the CPB. We have seen this sad story before, when Roberto Freire tried to register in the same INPI and in the TSE [Tribunal superior electoral; the electoral tribunal oversees the "integrity of the elections"] the acronym and the name of the CPB as properties of the deceased PPS [Popular Socialist Party]!
One of the positive consequences of this crisis was our reunion with the Marxist Left and other revolutionary organisations with which, until 2016, we sought to build an anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist front in Brazil. During this period, in one of our joint meetings, we had the presence of Alan Woods, General Secretary of The International Marxist Tendency (IMT), with whom I had the honour of communicating with recently.
Our presence at the opening of this Congress was only possible because we have recently perceived affinities on decisive issues, such as combating illusions in reforms that “humanise” capitalism and in this way pave the way for socialism, within the framework of bourgeois democracy, the ideal instrument that the ruling classes use to exercise their hegemony, while it is not threatened by the proletariat.
Between reform and revolution, stand firmly with the latter!
We also perceive our similarities around the timeliness of Lenin's legacy and the need to dedicate ourselves to proletarian internationalism, dialogue, rapprochement and unity of action of the revolutionary communist parties worldwide. Especially at a time when the systemic crisis of capitalism and the inter-imperialist contradictions are simultaneously worsening, resulting in regional wars that can turn into a world war of devastating proportions. On the other hand, they provide fertile ground for the emergence of mass movements that raise proletarian insurgencies in several countries, but which will only have some possibility of success if they find in them a revolutionary vanguard capable of leading them to victory.
The Rally Against Imperialist Wars promoted on Thursday (11/02), at the opening of its Eight National Congress, in which we are honoured to have participated, played an important role in this regard.
I would like to remind you that the initiative of the comrades to call this rally took place at a time when there were no signs that the unequal conflict of more than 75 years between Palestinians and Israelis would reach the dramatic stage it has reached today [Note: the comrades organised the rally originally on the topic of the war in Ukraine. By the time the rally took place, the conflict in Gaza had escalated, and the agenda was changed].
Zionism, supported and sustained above all by US imperialism, is trying to impose a final solution to the conflict through terrorism, that is, the murder and mass expulsion of the Palestinian people from their own homeland, where they cannot live in peace!
We are on the eve of the expansion of this cowardly and asymmetrical war, against a people who don’t even have a regular army to defend themselves. The hatred of Zionism that spreads throughout the world, as we see in demonstrations in practically every country, drives many governments, including Latin America (except, among others, the Lula government), to stand in solidarity with the Palestinians.
For this genocide, Israel will pay a very high price to secure its future, which is now uncertain. Not only because of the world's revulsion and condemnation, but because the hatred of Zionism and the elevation of the political consciousness of the new generations of Palestinians and their closest neighbours will make it a nightmare to maintain the occupation, apartheid and the state of Israel itself, not least because their peaceful coexistence, side by side, with a Palestinian state proves impossible.
When, in August, the Marxist Left invited us to share in this rally against the imperialist war, there were already plenty of reasons to carry this initiative forward.
The inter-imperialist war that is taking place in Ukraine is now overshadowed by this monstrous Zionist barbarity. But it will probably continue beyond an eventual provisional solution to the genocide in Gaza. Especially because the consequences of the confrontation in Ukraine are much more impactful in the fight for hegemony over the world capitalist mode of production. This is pitting the imperialist bloc led by the United States, with Europe always in tow, against that led by China, which has Russia as its most powerful ally, in economic and especially military terms.
The latter two countries signed, shortly before the beginning of the war in Ukraine, an unprecedented “alliance without limits” and now work in partnership for the massive export of capital throughout Africa.
The roadmap now sets a priority for the expansion of the so-called ‘Silk Road’, where China enters with capital, and Russia with the weapons and military forces of the so-called “Wagner Group”, to fight for influence on the African continent, which can become the stage for another inter-imperialist conflict: a new mass grave for proletarians.
The CPB-RR and the Marxist Left share the opinion that in a war between two capitalist countries, such as Ukraine and Russia, the communists do not choose one of the bourgeoisies to support.
Instead of colluding with the reciprocal murder between the proletarians on both sides, they call on them to turn against their own bourgeoisies, who use them as cannon fodder to seize markets, territories, natural wealth, routes of distribution of goods and cheaper labour.
Long live the socialist revolution!
Long live proletarian internationalism!