The huge demonstrations of 29 May and 19 June have had an impact on the national situation and paved the way for the defeat of Bolsonaro. Despite the risks arising from the pandemic, hundreds of thousands of people courageously took to the streets across the country. They took to the streets in anger and indignation, to turn ‘luto em luta’ (grief into struggle). They took to the streets because they know that we cannot wait until 2022 to remove the militiaman from power. They took to the streets to connect with the sentiment of the majority of the population, who reject this genocidal government. They took to the streets to raise the banners of the people’s most heartfelt demands: vaccine in the arm, food on the plate, and ‘Fora Bolsonaro!’ (Bolsonaro Out!)
The 19 June (19J) demonstrations mobilized around 750,000 people in over 400 cities, along with symbolic demonstrations in several other countries. They were greater than the 29 May (29M) demonstrations in terms of both the number of cities represented and people taking part. The demonstrations last Saturday had a strong youth presence, but the old guard, the generation of 1968, was also present in large numbers. There were students, but also many workers from different sectors. There were residents of middle-class neighborhoods, but also many from the sprawling outer urban ‘periferia’. There were many people organized in movements, fronts, leftist parties, and unions, but also many who had no direct political links. The demonstrations also received more coverage from the traditional media. However, 19J did have a smaller reach across social media when compared to 29M, which benefited from the effect of surprise.
Unity of the left is fundamental
The most significant effect of 19J consists in the fact that it took advantage of the window of opportunity opened on 29 May to place the mass struggle for ‘Fora Bolsonaro!’ on the national stage. The success of the demonstrations would not have been possible without, on the one hand, the existence of the social majority that has formed against Bolsonaro through the tragic experience of the pandemic, and on the other, the existence of a United Front of the left and the social movements around the ‘Fora Bolsonaro’ campaign. Without this broad unity in struggle, demonstrations of this strength and impact would not have been possible.
After many years, the left has for the first time carried out an offensive movement in the class struggle. The far-right government has not yet been defeated, but it is weakened and cornered. The capacity for social mobilization of ‘Bolsonarismo’ is, at this moment, smaller than that of the left. Bolsonaro is in a minority in society and on the streets. However, he still preserves positions of strength, including the support of around 25% of the population, the ‘centrão’ center parties in Congress, and sectors of the military and business circles. With this support, the government stays on its feet and continues to push its liberal agenda of privatization and the dismantling of public services, examples being the privatization of electricity provider Eletrobrás and the progress of administrative reform in Congress. But Bolsonaro is on the defensive in Brazil and is very isolated internationally. In addition to the strength in the streets demonstrated on 19J, there is the new evidence brought to light by the COVID Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI), like the multi-billion reais deal to purchase India’s Covaxin vaccine and the astronomical profits earned by producers of the so-called “COVID Kit” (which includes Chloroquine and Ivermectin, drugs which have no proven effect on COVID-19), that may drop serious corruption scandals right into the government’s lap.
For their part, the parties of the traditional bourgeois right – the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), Democrats (DEM), and the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB) – continue to be in political crisis, lack any presence in the street demonstrations, and are very badly positioned in the presidential polls. They sit on the fence, maintain their support for the neoliberal policies of Paulo Guedes, and up to this moment, do not call for Bolsonaro’s impeachment. It is therefore up to the left to lead the fight for the overthrow of Bolsonaro.
Three steps to building the offensive
The first task is to build new street demonstrations that are bigger than 19J and to draw new layers of the working class, layers that have not yet gone to the demonstrations but are sympathetic to the movement, into the struggle. To gain the strength required to bring Bolsonaro down, the movement in the streets will need to take a qualitative leap, and if at all possible bring millions to the demonstrations. Only then will Congress, dominated by the center-right, feel pressured to begin the impeachment process.
In this respect, the ‘Fora Bolsonaro’ campaign has scheduled a new round of national demonstrations for 24 July. Until then, the building of these demonstrations from the ground up, and with the broadest democracy, must be intensified, and new sectors must be convinced to join the struggle. The organizing of plenary and assembly meetings, leafleting and patient dialogue with the working class and the youth are all essential.
The second task is to preserve and improve upon the unity of the left. No attempt to divide the United Front assembled in the ‘Fora Bolsonaro’ campaign must be accepted. Each organization within this united front has its political autonomy and freedom of criticism guaranteed, but its unity in struggle must be preserved. Minority sectors such as Popular Unity (UP), the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB), and the Socialist Left Movement (MES), a Party of Socialism and Freedom (PSOL) tendency led by Luciana Genro, have formed the ‘Povo Na Rua’ (People in the Street) initiative. This initiative, with its false political accusations, promotion of parallel calls to action, and threats to hold separate demonstrations, is a dangerous nod to divisionism. This harmful and irresponsible attempt to damage the unity of the left must be defeated.
The third task is to advance the strategy and program of the left. Of course, there is the need for the fight to bring down Bolsonaro to have the necessary breadth, which means inviting all sectors that claim to be in opposition to the government, even the right-wing ones, to join the ‘Fora Bolsonaro’ demonstrations. At the same time, it is just as necessary to establish a strategy that aims to form a left-wing government, one without any alliance with the bourgeoisie, and one that makes structural changes in the favor of working people.
The recent moves by Lula of the Workers’ Party (PT) to build broad alliances with sectors of the ruling class, with the 2022 elections in mind, is a wrong and already traveled path. Let us recall that Michel Temer was Dilma Rousseff’s vice-president. We are in favor of unity in action with all those who want to bring down Bolsonaro, whether they are from the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), or the right-libertarian Free Brazil Movement (MBL). But the formation of governing alliances with them is another thing. The invoice for these agreements is always paid with the renunciation of the fundamental transformations that the country needs. Is it worth getting into government only to abandon the program of the left, because of alliances with the right?
For all these reasons, the PSOL fights for a left front in the struggles and the elections, one without any alliance with the right, in order to defeat Bolsonaro and establish a government of the working class and the poor, one with an anti-capitalist program that revokes the legacy of the coup, creates jobs, ends hunger and misery, puts an end to the genocide of black people, preserves the environment, and transforms the country with education, health, and sovereign economic development.
This article is an English translation of “Organizar a ofensiva para derrotar Bolsonaro”, [https://esquerdaonline.com.
Translation: Bobby Sparks
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