Esquerda Marxista, the IMT in Brazil, recently held its national congress where, among other things, they discussed and approved the need for a new orientation to reach the advanced layers of the working class and youth. Here we present a brief account of what the Central Committee presented to the congress.
The National Conference of the Esquerda Marxista (Marxist Left) is being held on 20 and 21 of April. Plenary area meetings for the election of delegates have been taking place in different states of the country to discuss the political report presented by the Central Committee (CC) of the organisation.
This conference is taking place in a unique political situation in Brazil and the world, one that requires a deepening of our analysis and the adoption of new tactics to intervene in the class struggle. This is the meaning of the report submitted by the CC, and we touch on the key question in this article.
What characterises the current political situation is the crisis facing capitalism, which brings with it the instability of all governments dedicated to saving the system. In every corner of the world, especially since 2011, we have seen the explosion of mass mobilisations of youth and workers. The Arab Spring, the Occupy movement and large demonstrations against racism and police violence in the US, the Indignados movement and general strikes in Spain, as in Portugal, Italy, France, Britain etc. In Greece, there have been more than 30 general strikes since 2008. This is the expression of the world proletariat’s willingness to fight the attacks, and conquer better conditions, against the oppression and exploitation of capitalism.
However, from all this we must draw some conclusions, as proposed by the Central Committee's report. The first is that these big demonstrations have not been finding an expression within the traditional parties of the working class, as happened in the past. Left currents are not arising within these organisations; on the contrary, these parties have remained ossified and in most cases have even been moving further to the right with virtually all the tendencies within them involved in this process, and for this reason they have been severing their ties with the living forces of society.
The second conclusion, which follows from the first, is that the working class is seeking to reorganise through new independent working class expressions. The most obvious in this last period was the growth and the victory of SYRIZA in Greece and the rise of PODEMOS in Spain. Even with the shortcomings and vacillations of the leaderships of these parties, the fact is that they managed to drag behind them significant layers of the masses, with a left leaning discourse, given the political bankruptcy of the traditional parties of the class.
This political situation sweeping the world found an expression in Brazil in the June 2013 mass movement, followed by the beginning of mass strikes in 2014 and was eventually reflected in the 2014 elections.
At the same time, given the submission and cowardice of the PT leadership, the most reactionary sections of the ruling class feel free to carry out their attacks against the party and on the whole of the labour movement. The president is threatened with assassination by Bolsonaro [a right-wing MP] and the party does nothing about it. The PT's offices are targeted and searched by the police. Not to mention the farce of the "trial of the monthly allowances” [the mensalao case] with leaders condemned without any proof and without any significant reaction on the part of the party leadership.
The party is unable to rally the ranks onto the streets because of the very policy it applies. The leadership of the PT spreads confusion and allows the right wing to reorganise by carrying out class-collaborationist policies.
However, the working class is not cornered or defeated, on the contrary, it is willing to fight. That is what the strike of the workers at Volkswagen, Mercedes and General Motors, the strike of the Paraná teachers, of the street cleaners and different strikes that are continuing this year throughout the country reveal.
Dilma Rousseff and the PT leadership carry out post-electoral swindling and the government moves further to the right. Facing a string of mobilisations of the petty bourgeoisie and the middle classes, led by Rede Globo, the government aligns itself even more with big capital.
Lula, in a plenary party meeting in São Paulo, on March 31, defended Rousseff and her policy of “austerity adjustments” stating with pride that in 2003 "I made a bigger adjustment than this." Anyone who was expecting some fightback in this plenary, cannot be but frustrated. There were no voices raised against decrees 664 and 665, which are liquidating trade union and social security rights, not even on the part of the President of the CUT, who had formally taken position against these measures.
It is necessary to acknowledge that the most advanced left-wing layers have abandoned the PT and the process of the party's break with its social base, the working class, has deepened further. The youth withdrew from the party long ago. The government is sinking and the party is trying to manoeuvre with false perspectives, political reforms, fronts for reform, broad fronts like in Uruguay, etc.
The fact is that the leadership is destroying the party and there is no significant or real reaction within the PT. None. It is like a politically moribund body.
In these conditions, the CC of Esquerda Marxista has decided to propose to the National Conference the exit of our tendency from the PT. The best militants of the working class and the youth are now outside. The PT has taken the path of the Greek PASOK and the French Socialist Party, among others. There is nothing else to be done there. This change in orientation opens the possibility of a step forward in the building of the Marxist Left and has been welcomed with much enthusiasm by members and supporters.
As an immediate perspective, we present the proposal of the building of a Left Front, as a means of intervening in the class struggle against the attacks of the government and the bosses. The demands we are proposing are seeking to join groups, organisations, movements and activists who remain faithful to the class struggle and the struggle for socialism.
Such a front has nothing to do with the rotten institutions propped up by the PT, but seeks the unity of workers and youth fighting for a new world free of capitalist oppression, a socialist world. Join us in this fight!
Original in Portuguese