“Those who don’t know who they’re up against can’t win”
Chinese folk wisdom
“If you’re at a poker table and you don’t know who the sucker is, it’s because you’re the sucker”
Brazilian folk wisdom
1 Although Brazil is less poor and ignorant than it was forty years ago, it is no less unjust. The historical balance is devastating. Social inequality has decreased, but very little has changed. Everything is dramatically slow. Worse still, what doesn’t move forward, moves backwards. The Lulista leadership allowed itself to be taken hostage by Operação Lava Jato (Operation Car Wash), demoralized large sections of the working class and youth and handed the exasperated middle classes (due to accusations of corruption, inflation in services, tax increases, etc.) into the hands of the power of Paulista avenue (the headquarters of large banks and corporations), paving the way for an ultra-reactionary Temer government. And then Temer delivered it into the hands of the extreme right and Bolsonaro. This is not what a generation fought so hard for. Between 1978 and 1989, Lula won the trust of the vast majority of the working class and popular vanguard. Lula’s prominence was an expression of the social greatness of the Brazilian proletariat and, paradoxically, of its simplicity or political innocence. A young and poorly educated working class, recently displaced from the miserable confines of the poorest regions, with no previous experience of trade union struggle, no tradition of independent political organization, but concentrated in large metropolitan regions from north to south and, in the most organized sectors, with an indomitable willingness to fight. The reformist illusion that it would be possible to change society without a major conflict, without a break with the ruling class, was the majority view and the “Lula there” strategy cradled the expectations of a generation. This historical experience has not yet been overcome. But the Lula III government cannot benefit from the atypical situation of twenty years ago. There are many differences. The main one is that there is an extreme right-wing current led by neo-fascists who want to return to power.
Good economic indicators won’t be enough. There is a relentless and uninterrupted ideological dispute.
2 The Lula government’s project is to take advantage of the international context of relative economic recovery, after the impact of the pandemic, with the hope that it will remain energized, again by China. It aims to maintain a pact with the bourgeois fraction that supported him in the 2022 runoff against Bolsonaro and integrated the Ministry, the governability in Congress with the Centrão, to guarantee the continuity of growth and the realization of reforms. In his first year in office, the PEC da Transição (Proposed Constitutional Amendment) allowed for growth of close to 3% and a 12% increase in labor income, the expansion of the Bolsa Família program, which in 13 of the 27 states benefits more people than workers with a formal contract, the recovery of the minimum wage, the restructuring of IBAMA and FUNAI, the new Pé de Meia program for high school students, the recovery of the National Vaccination Plan, the support of public banks for Desenrola, which favors families in debt, the expansion of access to credit with the fall in interest rates, the expansion of 100 more units of Federal Institutes, as well as other initiatives that benefit the masses. It aims to keep GDP growth above 3% in 2024, while keeping inflation under 5%, insisting on a gradual fiscal adjustment, betting on an increase in foreign and domestic private investment through the fiscal framework that replaced the Spending Ceiling. In short, a bet on “weak” reformism, but with a slow and continuous improvement in living conditions and the guarantee of preserving democracy. However, in Brazil, while it is true that even small reforms change the lives of millions, it is also true that it is not possible to win elections without the support of the majority of the working class. Good economic indicators won’t be enough. There is a relentless and uninterrupted ideological dispute. Lulism retains the confidence of the poorest, but Bolsonarism has made inroads among the “well-off” workers who earn above two minimum wages, and is accumulating forces in the “culture war” with the support of the neo-Pentecostal churches. The people are divided and the outcome of 2026 is unpredictable.
3 The strategy essentially repeats the project that was built after the electoral victory of 2002, and enabled the victories of 2006, 2010, 2014 and, dangerously, 2022.The premises that support it rest on three calculations.The first is a bet that the danger of a new conspiracy, like the one that resulted in the institutional coup that overthrew the Dilma Rousseff government, has been ruled out for the time being.The second is the assessment that Bolsonaro’s ineligibility makes the possibility of a Bolsonaro heir winning in 2026, with Lula as a candidate, unlikely.The third is the prediction that the bourgeois division over the need to preserve the democratic-electoral regime is irreversible and that in 2026, the capitalist fraction that expresses itself through Geraldo Alckmin and Simone Tebet, will once again defend Lula, because it is not willing to run the risk of a second presidency of the extreme right. The three calculations have more than a “grain of truth”, but they seriously disregard the terrible risks posed. They forget the lessons of the 2016 coup against Dilma Rousseff. The most important are five: (a) the first is the underestimation of the neo-fascist current – the most catastrophic mistake of the last seven years – its audacity, its social and cultural implantation, its willingness to fight head-on, the confidence in Bolsonaro’s political leadership, therefore, the resilience of the far-right’s social support that reveals that the dispute is not only reduced to the perception of improvements in living conditions, because it also has at its root a fierce political-ideological and even cultural struggle of reactionary worldview; (b) the second is the fantasy that it is possible to maintain “cold” governability indefinitely, and the idealization of the Broad Front, believing that the bourgeois leaders incorporated into the ministry will maintain loyalty, forgetting the role of Michel Temer and exaggerating the confidence in the stability of the government that rests on agreements with the Centrão in the National Congress, forgetting the danger of threat by unacceptable blackmail; (c) the third is the personal underestimation of Bolsonaro as leader of the opposition and pre-candidate, even when he is ineligible, because, if necessary, they can replace him with someone else – Tarcísio, Michelle, or even another “character” – trusting that the ability to transfer votes remains possible; (d) The fourth is the devaluation of the emergence of popular demands, of blacks, women, LGBTs, environmentalists and culture, a mistake that was fatal for Peronism in Argentina, because confidence in the continuity of economic growth, a condition of the turbo-charging of progressive reforms, could be frustrated, because the fiscal framework limits the role of public investment and the international scenario of commodity demand could change; (e) the fifth is Trump’s election in the US, which has generated a global catalyzing effect, also in Brazil, and far-right victories in the next European elections, as well as a worsening of conflicts in the international system with China.
4 How can we explain the strength of the far right? Marxism should not be strictly about economic determinism. But economics matters. Something structural has changed in the last ten years. Between 2013 and 2023 we had the first regressive decade since the end of the Second World War: (a) during the thirty “golden years” Europe and Japan rebuilt their infrastructures and carried out the reforms that guaranteed full employment and concessions to the working class, and the Brazilian economy benefited as the first address for US investments in the periphery; (b) in the eighties came the “mini boom” with Reagan, and Brazil plunged into social crisis, but did not stop growing; (c) in the 1990s, the “mini boom” with Clinton, which allowed the stabilization of the Brazilian currency and the liberal-democratic regime, also made possible by the end of the USSR; (d) in the first decade of the 21st century, a “mini boom” with George W. Bush, and Brazil accumulating reserves of hundreds of billions of dollars, due to the exceptional appreciation of commodities driven by Chinese growth, only comparable to the reversal of exchange relations during the world wars. But the second decade of the 21st century saw stagnation for the first time in history. Nothing like this has ever happened in Brazil. Brexit and Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro and Javier Milei are the electoral expression of a strategy to save US leadership in the world. A fraction of the bourgeoisie, on a global scale, dissatisfied with neoliberal gradualism, has turned to a hyper-liberal shock strategy of destroying rights: it advocates “Latin Americanization” in the central countries, and “Asianization” in Latin America in order to level production costs down with China. It wants to impose a historic defeat that guarantees stable regimes for a generation. But the far right doesn’t just embrace an economic strategy to maintain its leadership in the world market. It is not just a political alignment with the US in the international system of states. The neo-fascist current has internal heterogeneities, different programmatic emphases, country by country, but it has a common ideological core. They embrace a worldview: exalted nationalism, sexist misogyny, white supremacist racism, pathological homophobia, climate denialism, the militarization of security, anti-intellectualism, contempt for culture and art, distrust of science. This clash is not possible without restricting democratic freedoms and even destroying political freedoms. The far right has an appetite for power and aspires to subvert the liberal-democratic regime. It is not pursuing a “copy” of the Nazi totalitarianism of the 1930s. But it does aspire to authoritarian regimes. It admires Erdogan in Turkey, Bukele in El Salvador and Duterte in the Philippines. They can only be stopped with a lot of struggle.
The far right is growing as a reaction to the crisis of 2008/09, which condemned Western capitalism, including Brazil, to a decade of stagnation, while China grew. Its program is neoliberalism with a “43 degree fever”, unconditional alignment with Trump in the US and an authoritarian regime nostalgic for the military dictatorship
5 A far-right social-political movement led by a neo-fascist leadership has been built through relentless denunciations. The neo-fascists have a narrative. They claim that there are too many rights for workers. Jair Bolsonaro coined the threat: “jobs or rights?” What is threatened by the far right are all the small but valuable social conquests since the end of the dictatorship. The conquests of all social movements, popular, housing or women’s, black or cultural, student or trade union, peasant or LGBT, environmentalist or indigenous. Bolsonarism is not a reaction to the danger of a revolution, nor does it respond to a project to dispute power in the international system of states, as Nazifascism was in Europe in the 1920s, after the victory of the October Revolution. There is no remote danger of a revolution in Brazil. The neo-fascists have gained a mass base, because a fraction of the bourgeoisie has radicalized and is leading an offensive against the workers, supported by a majority of the middle class, dragging in popular sectors and defending the need for a shock of “savage” capitalism. The far right is growing as a reaction to the crisis of 2008/09, which condemned Western capitalism, including Brazil, to a decade of stagnation, while China grew. Its program is neoliberalism with a “43 degree fever”, unconditional alignment with Trump in the US and an authoritarian regime nostalgic for the military dictatorship. The neo-fascist bet is to impose a historic defeat by annulling progressive social reforms: social assistance that protects 50 million people from extreme poverty, through Bolsa Família; access to Social Security for 38 million elderly people; universalization of free public health care through the SUS; universalization of public schools until the end of secondary education and expansion of public universities with quotas for blacks and indigenous people; raising the minimum wage above inflation, etc.
6 All nations have their distinctions, originalities, greatness and misery. Brazil, although dependent, is the country with the largest economy on the periphery of capitalism, is continental in size and stretches from the Amazon to the Pampa, accounts for half of South America’s population, just over half of its people are black, and has a sympathetic international image, built up in the second half of the 20th century by the natural beauty of the tropics, carnival and soccer. But perhaps the three political peculiarities are: (a) the absurdly immense degree of social inequality that persists almost intact; (b) the historical capacity of the ruling class to seek solutions to social and political conflicts through negotiated compromises; (c) the existence of a gigantic working class and one of the most influential left-wing parties in the world. The country has historically suffered from imperialist domination. It was a Portuguese colony for three centuries, a British semi-colony for another hundred years and, since the middle of the 20th century, an area of North American influence. But Brazil’s “exceptionality” is the result of these “endogenous particularities”, and produces a paradox: the disconcerting slowness of any social transformation that reduces the terrible injustice that oppresses the people. What has prevailed in Brazil over many generations has been transitions from above, or compromises between bourgeois fractions. Conflicts within the ruling class are resolved by conchavos, long and detailed negotiations with mutual concessions. We don’t know of a civil war, except locally in Rio Grande do Sul a hundred years ago and, for a few months, during the São Paulo uprising of 1932. The only rupture was an exception: the military coup of 1964. But Brazil has been a pioneering “laboratory” of history over the last ten years. After all, in 2018, Bolsonaro, a neo-fascist military leader, won the presidential elections, after thirteen years of governments led by the PT, the largest left-wing party to emerge at the end of the 20th century, while Lula was in prison. Why? Had it not been for this exceptional outcome, Bolsonaro would have lost re-election in 2022 to Lula, rehearsed a military coup, been ruled ineligible by the courts in 2023, but is threatening to run in the next presidential elections in 2026, with extremely high popularity ratings, in an unpredictable scenario. There are many reasons for this “exceptionality”.
7 There are objective and subjective factors that help to understand this outcome. It’s a paradox, because chronic social inequality in the country that has the highest GDP and at the same time, proportionally, the largest and most concentrated working class in the peripheral world, gigantic urban centers, more than 20 cities with a million people, should drive a very high level of social tension. It is social struggles that bring about change, through reforms or revolution. But this is not the case. Brazil was the world champion of strikes in the 1980s, alongside South Africa. But not anymore. All of Brazil’s main neighbors – Argentina (2001/02), Venezuela (2002), Chile (2019), as well as Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia – have experienced pre-revolutionary situations this century. Brazil did not. What succeeded in Brazil was the experience of Lulism. The PT has won five of the six presidential elections since 2002. It took an “institutional” overthrow of the Dilma Rousseff government to pave the way for the election of a neo-fascist like Bolsonaro. However, it wasn’t a “cold” coup. The mobilizations between 2015/16 brought millions onto the streets to support the impeachment and boosted a powerful far-right, with its influence intact to this day. They precipitated a reactionary situation, inverting the social correlation of forces in a lasting way, despite Lula’s victory in 2022, by a narrow margin. And it could get worse by 2026. In the country’s main city, a histrionic neo-fascist bozo, Pablo Marçal, has just won a leadership position of the far-right current in 2024, in dizzying momentum. Confirming that the danger is real and immediate. And that no one can underestimate the threat of their return to national power.
8 Different hypotheses have emerged to explain the paradox. Two are the most important and have a “grain of truth”: (a) the ultra-objectivist theory refers essentially to the strength of the bourgeoisie; (b) the ultra-subjectivist theory refers symmetrically to the fragility of popular consciousness. But this path is circular and therefore insufficient. The gigantic wealth and power of the Brazilian bourgeoisie, combined with its extreme reactionary attitude, which can only be compared with its strategic intelligence, played a major role in containing social pressure for change. The subjective weakness of a very heterogeneous working class also explains the limits of its capacity for self-organization and unity, and the astonishing political patience and reluctant illusions in concerted solutions. But we mustn’t forget the presence of a third factor. The role of the middle classes. Brazil’s middle class has always been smaller than Argentina’s by comparison. But it is, as in all urbanized countries, the social cushion that offers stability to bourgeois domination. The middle class traditionally includes the highest sectors of the salaried working world who have risen through the ranks of education and share a middle-class way of life. In Brazil, there are no blacks in the ruling class and very few in the middle class. The country is racially fractured and whiteness enjoys a privileged status. That matters.
9 Today’s Brazil has changed qualitatively compared to the late 1970s, on a different scale from neighboring countries. Throughout this historical cycle there have been many oscillations in the relations of forces between the classes, some favorable, others unfavorable for the workers and their allies. But not once did a revolutionary situation open up. Here is an outline of the period up to Lula’s first election. What should interest us is that whenever the possibility of a rupture existed, it was circumvented: (a) we had a rise in proletarian and student struggles between 1978/81, followed by fragile stabilization after the defeat of the ABC strike in 1981 until the end of 1983, when the failure of Delfim Neto’s “Asian” plan to boost exports through currency devaluation caused inflation to soar without recovering growth; (b) in 1984 a new wave of mobilization infected the nation with the Diretas Já campaign, which sealed the end of the military dictatorship, but the Figueiredo government did not fall; (c) a new stabilization between 1985/86 with the inauguration of Tancredo/Sarney and the Cruzado Plan, and a new peak of popular mobilizations against overinflation, which culminated in the electoral campaign that took Lula to the second round in 1989; (d) a new brief stabilization, with the expectations generated by the Collor Plan, and a new wave from May 1992 onwards, boosted by unemployment and now hyperinflation, which culminated in the campaign for “Fora Collor” (Out with Collor); (e) a much more lasting stabilization with the inauguration of Itamar and the Real Plan, an unfavourable turn towards a defensive situation after the defeat of the oil workers’ strike in 1995; (f) resistance struggles between 1995 and 1999, and a resumption of the capacity for mobilization, which grew in August of that year with the demonstration of the 100,000 for “Fora FHC” (Out Fernando Henrique Cardoso), interrupted by the expectation of the PT and CUT leadership that a victory in the 2002 elections would require a policy of alliances, which would not be possible in a context of social radicalization. The military dictatorship ended in 1985, but it didn’t fall. The first president elected in 1989 was overthrown by impeachment in 1992, but there were no early elections. The first woman was elected president by a left-wing party, Dilma Rousseff was overthrown in 2016 and Lula was imprisoned, but the PT was not outlawed. The neo-fascist Bolsonaro came to power by election and plunged the nation into a historic regression in the face of the pandemic, but he was not overthrown by impeachment. All the transitions were cushioned by negotiations.
10 In the meantime, there was a sudden and unforeseen social “explosion” in June 2013. But it was nothing like the overthrow of De La Rua in Argentina in 2001/2002. Social stabilization prevailed throughout the ten years of Lula and Dilma’s governments, between 2003 and June 2013, while economic growth prevailed, at around 4% per year, and a strengthened social security network was consolidated. Until a “volcanic” wave of popular protests erupted, bringing millions to the streets, in a process that was interrupted in the first half of 2014, before Dilma Rousseff was re-elected. The most important thing was the very unfavourable reversal of the situation with the giant reactionary mobilizations of the middle class inspired by the Lava Jato corruption allegations, between March 2015 and March 2016, when a few million offered support for the legal-parliamentary coup that overthrew Dilma Rousseff. It seemed that the historical cycle was over. But it wasn’t. Brazil is slow. This cycle was the last phase of the late but accelerated transformation of agrarian Brazil into an urban society; the transition from military dictatorship to a democratic-electoral regime; and the history of the genesis, rise and apogee of the influence of petismo, later transfigured into lulismo, over the workers; the ruling class has managed, “by leaps and bounds”, to avoid the opening of a revolutionary situation in Brazil like those experienced in Argentina, Venezuela and Bolivia, although, more than once, situations have opened up that could have evolved in this direction, but were interrupted.
11 A historical perspective can help us understand. The election in 2002 of a working class president in a semi-peripheral capitalist country like Brazil was an atypical event. From the point of view of the bourgeoisie, it was an anomaly, but not a surprise. The PT no longer worried the ruling class as it had in 1989. A review of the thirteen years of PT governments seems irrefutable: Brazilian capitalism was never threatened by the PT governments. But that didn’t stop the entire ruling class from uniting in 2016 to overthrow Dilma Rousseff with outlandish accusations. This political operation, a conspiracy led by Vice President Michel Temer, reveals something of strategic importance about the Brazilian ruling class. The PT governments were governments of class collaboration. They favored some progressive reforms, such as reducing unemployment, increasing the minimum wage, the Bolsa Família, and the expansion of universities and federal institutes. But they benefited the richest above all, keeping the liberal macroeconomic tripod intact until 2011: the guarantee of a primary surplus of over 3% of GDP, a floating exchange rate of around R$2.00 per dollar and the goal of controlling inflation to below 6.5% per year. The silence of the bourgeois opposition and the undisguised public support of bankers, industrialists, landowners and foreign investors, while the external situation was favorable, should come as no surprise. When the impact of the international crisis that began in 2008 hit in 2011/12, the unconditional support of the ruling class collapsed. There was no hesitation after the defeat of Aécio Neves in 2014. They went for the coup. Lava Jato’s denunciation of “petrolão” was just an instrumental banner. The “serpent’s egg” of neo-fascism was already there.
Anti-establishment radicalization is far-right. But this extremism is not neutral, it is reactionary. The attraction of the anti-establishment hysteria of the extreme right cannot be disputed by the left in Brazil. There is no symmetrical space available for an antisystemic left-wing discourse
12 The demonstration led by Jair Bolsonaro on Paulista avenue on September 7, 2024, was yet another demonstration of the strength of neo-fascism. It wasn’t a fiasco. Nor was it a stumble. Something close to fifty thousand people confirmed their presence over the course of three hours, under a scorching sun, shouting their demand for amnesty for the coup plotters and the impeachment of Alexandre de Moraes. They also cheered Pablo Marçal, who was carried by the crowd. Marxism is revolutionary realism. To diminish the impact of the radicalization of the extreme right, the most constant and fatal error of the majority of the Brazilian left, both among the most moderate and the most radical, since 2016, would be obtuse. The argument that one should neither underestimate nor overestimate is an “elegant” but escapist formula. “Escapism” is a denialist solution. A state of denial is a defensive attitude to avoid facing an immense danger head-on. It only serves to waste time, feeding the self-deception that one would be “gaining” time. There is a mass audience for “against everything that is there”. Anti-establishment radicalization is far-right. But this extremism is not neutral, it is reactionary. The attraction of the anti-establishment hysteria of the extreme right cannot be disputed by the left in Brazil. There is no symmetrical space available for an antisystemic left-wing discourse. An anti-systemic discourse would be to go into opposition to the Lula III government. The “litmus test” is that the organizations that radicalized their agitation against Lula are invisible. There is no such space, because the social balance of forces has been inverted. We are in an ultra-defensive situation in which workers’ confidence in their organizations, and in their own capacity to fight, is very low. Expectations have collapsed. In the most conscious and combative sectors of the working class, apprehension prevails. We are in an unfavorable balance of power. We are not facing a social and political polarization. Polarization only exists when the two main camps – capital and labour – have more or less similar forces. Brazil is fragmented, but the illusion that Lula’s electoral victory, by two million votes over 120 million valid votes, would be a portrait of an equivalence of social positions of strength is a fantasy of desire. We are on the defensive and therefore left-wing unity in the struggles, including electoral unity, is indispensable.
Left-wing unity should not be used to silence fair criticism of unnecessary vacillations, bad agreements, wrong decisions or inexcusable capitulations, but the central enemy is neo-fascism
13 The moderate left went into crisis all over the world in the face of the far-right offensive: Labour, the Portuguese and French PS, PSoe, Pasok and even Syriza, PT and Peronism, but it was a partial and transitory process of experience, and it has recovered. The masses protect themselves with the tools at their disposal. The left of the left can take its place. But it doesn’t have to go back to propagandism. It can demonstrate that it is a useful instrument of struggle within United Front spaces, if it accompanies, with revolutionary patience, the real movement of resistance to neo-fascism. Left-wing unity should not be used to silence fair criticism of unnecessary vacillations, bad agreements, wrong decisions or inexcusable capitulations, but the central enemy is neo-fascism. A strategy of left-wing opposition to the Lula government is dangerously misguided and sterile. Lula’s electoral victory in 2022 was huge, precisely because the reality is much worse than could be concluded from the result of the polls. An outcome that, incidentally, was only possible because a bourgeois dissent supported him. There are many factors that explain why the situation is reactionary. Among them, the historic defeat of capitalist restoration between 1989/91 defines the stage because there is no longer a reference of utopian alternative like socialism was for three generations. Productive restructuring gradually imposed an accumulation of defeats and also divisions in the working class. The governments led by the PT between 2003 and 2016 are not innocent, due to a strategy of class collaboration that limited changes to such minimalist reforms that mass mobilization was not possible to defend Dilma Rousseff when the time came for impeachment. The accumulated defeats count. Our enemies are on the offensive. It’s not sensible to argue that Jair Bolsonaro’s electoral defeat would not have been possible without Lula. Let’s remember that the slate was “Lula paz e amor” (Lula peace and love) against the Gabinete do ódio (Cabinet of hate) and embraced by Geraldo Alckmin. It was only possible to win with ultra-moderate tactics. This evidence should guide us when realistically assessing the political balance of power.
14 The Lula government has already completed two years in office, but the country is still fragmented. This confirms that, although the balance of power is politically better because Lula is in office, the social balance of power has not yet reversed: (a) the various opinion polls confirm that approximately half the population approves of the government and half disapproves, with small variations. The variations in the long series remain around the margins of error. There are discrepancies between support for Lula, 47.4% against 45.9%, and the 40% who say they disapprove of the government (in January, this figure was 39%). Those who approve are 38% (a drop of 4 percentage points compared to the previous survey), while more than 18% rate the administration as regular. (b) the government’s performance so far has failed to diminish the influence of the extreme right, which maintains an audience of around a third of the population1. (c) The socio-cultural divide remains the same. Bolsonarism retains greater influence in the middle classes earning above two minimum wages, in the southeast and south, and among evangelicals2. Lulism is more influential among the poorer majority, at the extremes of education, among the less educated, among those with higher education, among Catholics and in the Northeast3. In short, there are few qualitative changes. But this picture does not lead to reassuring conclusions. The government is no stronger, even though the abysmal contrast is evident when compared to the Bolsonaro government. After a year in office, the fluctuations in support or rejection are small, but there is a more pronounced downward bias in 2024. Shifts of this kind are never monocausal. There are always many factors affecting the consciousness of tens of millions in such an unequal country. It shouldn’t surprise us that, by far, the worst results are concentrated among those earning more than three times the minimum wage, with average schooling, older men and those from the Southeast to the South, and evangelicals. In other words, Bolsonaro’s electorate. The Bolsonaro trap returned to the streets demanding amnesty like a neo-fascist avalanche. A trap that posed a challenge. Why? Because there is a possibility that Bolsonaro will be arrested in 2025.
15 The path of political struggle is winding and even labyrinthine, full of curves, ups and downs, never a straight line. The majority of the PT leadership hoped that the exasperation and fatigue of the far-right government would be enough for Lula to defeat it in 2022. They bet on slow patience. It won, but it was close. The Lula government is now betting that good management, which responds to at least some of the people’s urgent needs through “deliveries” or government achievements, will be enough to win in 2026. Bolsonaro will not act like this: a quietist tactic of waiting. Bolsonarism is a current of combat. The far right knows the “pathology” of its social base. Such an unequal society is preserved because those with material and social privileges fight furiously to defend them. It knows the arrogance of the new bourgeois generation at the head of agribusiness, which has accumulated socio-cultural grudges against the more cosmopolitan world of the big cities, which despises them as macho brutes and global warming deniers. It knows the arrogance of a section of the middle classes poisoned by racist, homophobic hatred and the loss of social prestige. They know the anti-intellectual distrust fed by neo-Pentecostal church-companies. Without very serious changes in life experience – rising wages, decent jobs, quality education, a stronger SUS, access to home ownership – it is not possible to divide this social base. Defeating Bolsonarism requires a willingness to fight, the ability to maneuver tactically, the audacity to turn, the courage to stratagem, the willingness to confront, constancy and restraint to gain time, and then a new turn and measurement of forces. But so far, the government has essentially made concessions. It has bet on “pacification”. Hardly ever a step forward, and then many steps back. Have we learned nothing from the defeat of Peronism in Argentina and Kamala Harris in the USA?
16 There are many on the left who describe this evolution as a tendency towards polarization. The formula is attractive. But dangerously misleading, because the two poles in the class struggle do not occupy equivalent positions. In the reactionary camp, the most radical are in charge. In the left-wing camp, the most moderate are in charge. The extreme right has “devoured” the influence of the traditional center-right parties (MDB, PSDB, União Brasil), but the Lula government is not a left-wing government, since it accepted a pact with the liberal faction led by Tebet/Alckmin; In situations of stability of the liberal-democratic regime, the majority of the population is politically situated in the center of the political spectrum, supporting the center-right or the center-left, which alternate in the management of the state. This has been the case since the end of the dictatorship, with three center-right governments and then four PT governments. This was the key to the longest period, thirty years (1986/2016) of stability in the liberal democratic regime. This stage, which was a hypothesis that Marxism considered unlikely in peripheral countries, but became possible after the end of the USSR, is over. One of the left’s greatest difficulties is admitting that it is over. But what happened next cannot be explained by polarization. Polarization happens when the extremes become stronger. This is not what we have been experiencing in Brazil since 2016. Since the institutional coup, as an effect of the inversion of the social relationship of forces, only the extreme right has “hardened”, exerting a pressure of “gravity” like a dragnet of the historical influence of reactionaries. Unilateral drag is not polarization. Asymmetrical polarization is more elegant, but it’s still disproportionate. On the left, positions are maintained and there is no radicalization. On the contrary, the Lula government is moving towards the center, renouncing any mobilization, expanding the coalition with right-wing parties so as not to be threatened in Congress. Therefore, a tension with the allies that preserve governability is enough to make the threat of neo-fascism and its project of Bonapartist subversion of the regime a real danger.
17 The key to the analysis is that the left is on the defensive. Many factors explain the perplexity, reduced expectations and insecurity in the left’s social base. The authority of Lula’s leadership is great. But there is fear and discouragement in the labor and trade union movement after years of setbacks and defeats. On the contrary, the willingness to fight is not high among the people on the left. It’s not very different in the popular social movements. The capacity to mobilize, since the 2022 electoral campaign, is small. This is explained by the division in the popular classes. Studying more does not guarantee upward social mobility. The lives of middle-class workers with more schooling and a slightly higher income, most of whom are of Euro-descent, are stagnating with a bias towards impoverishment, and resentment is building up towards those who benefit from cash transfer programs. Young men feel threatened by the advance of feminist struggles. LGBTphobia has increased among the most conservative sectors, as a result of the ideological dispute and cultural war waged by the evangelical churches. Neo-fascists exploit exalted nationalism and denounce environmental movements that defend the Amazon as instruments of a conspiracy. The divisions have paralyzing consequences. Activism has transferred responsibility for the trial of the coup plotters, starting with Bolsonaro, to Alexandre de Moraes. But it would be unfair not to highlight the role of the government and Lula himself in demobilization. The vanguard is looking for a point of support that favors a more advanced political solution. Of all the compromises since the inauguration, and there have been many, none has been more serious than the attitude towards the Armed Forces. Even after the complicity with the coup became clear. The decision not to take the opportunity of the 60th anniversary of the 1964 military coup for a mass political education and mobilization initiative was demoralizing. The worst mistake the left could make would be to undervalue the impact of this counter-offensive by the neo-fascists. If they are not stopped, they will advance.
18 The challenge of thinking about where we are going is only possible if we are clear about where we have come from and what history has taught us. Since 2016, when the social balance of power changed structurally, five lessons have been fundamental: (a) after the narrow victory against Aécio Neves in 2014, the bet on “governability” with a fraction of the ruling class, through the appointment of Joaquim Levy, failed and the institutional coup of 2016, supported by giant reactionary mobilizations, was fulminant, and the bet that the Supreme Courts would not legitimize the institutional coup via the National Congress also failed; (b) the accumulation of uninterrupted defeats until 2022, the demoralization of the Lava Jato operation, Lula’s imprisonment, the labor reform, Bolsonaro’s election, yet another pension reform, the humanitarian catastrophe during the pandemic, a new wave of fires in the Amazon and Cerrado, left sequels, still not reversed, in the morale of the working class and in the mood of left-wing militancy; (c) diminishing the danger of the far right was an unforgivable mistake, because neo-fascism is a mass social-political-cultural movement, with an international dimension, which has swept almost half of the country, at the ballot box, but also in the militancy on the streets, so it is not just an electoral current, and it has already proven that Bolsonaro can transfer votes; (d) a complex analysis of Bolsonaro’s electoral defeat in 2022 must consider many factors, but lucidity requires recognizing that Lula’s individual role was qualitative; (e) Lula’s victory changed the political relationship of forces, but was not enough to reverse the social relationship of forces.
19 But this picture is insufficient for an assessment of the discrepancies in the social and political balance of power. There are three fundamental issues to consider: (a) the capacity for political initiative is not exhausted in the “professional” institutional political struggle in the instances of power, and Bolsonarism maintains a much greater social shock force in the streets than Lulism; (b) in polls and elections, everyone has equal weight, but in the social and political struggle, what prevails is the defense of the interests of the most organized classes and fractions of classes, and the left having strength in the majority of the poorest semi-proletariat, among youth, blacks and women is not the same as Bolsonarism having strength in agribusiness, in the middle layers of landowners, in wage earners between 5 and 10 minimum wages, and in the evangelical churches, or having a lot of strength in the Northeast is not the same as being a majority in the Southeast and South; (c) the largest “battalions” of the organized working class, which is concentrated among those who have a formal contract, in the private sector and state-owned companies or in the civil service, continues to be divided, because the extreme right has gained an audience. When we analyze the situation, it’s important to remember that the class struggle is not reduced to a struggle between capital and labor. Neither capital nor labor are homogeneous classes; class fractions have to be taken into account: the bourgeoisie has several wings with their own interests (agrarian, industrial, financial), although they are very concentrated. The world of work has different realities: proletariat, semi-proletariat, wage earners with or without contracts, from the South or the Northeast. And the middle classes are very important: the petty bourgeoisie, the new urban middle class. The class struggle doesn’t only take place within the “structure” of economic and social life. It also develops in the superstructure of the state, in the form of clashes between the institutions of power. Government, Legislature, Justice, Armed Forces. There is an ongoing conflict between the Supreme Courts and the Army and, to a large extent, against Congress. It would be a serious mistake to underestimate these clashes. Just as there is a section of the moderate left that exaggerates the significance of the duels in the “heights” that are aggrandized by the bourgeois commercial media, there is a section of the radical left that devalues the significance of the political struggle between representatives of fractions of the ruling class that takes place in the institutional theater. This is the role of the liberal-democratic regime: to allow differences to be expressed and resolved publicly. The Lula government’s bet on “cold” governability, without having to mobilize a social base of support, is based on this division, and responds to the calculation that a “venezualization” must be avoided at all costs. The Chamber of Deputies, under Lira’s leadership, has won a larger share of the budget than most of the ministries. However, those who place undue trust in the outcome of these disputes are mistaken. Bolsonaro’s fate does not depend solely on a “technical” trial. He is heading for a legal defeat, but he can survive politically as long as 40% of the population believes he is being persecuted. After January 8, 2023, the central political question has been whether or not Bolsonaro and the generals will be convicted and imprisoned.
20 A Marxist analysis must start by studying the changes in the economic situation. Since the beginning of Lula’s mandate, the three most important variables have been: (a) the confirmation that foreign capital inflows have continued to be high and have guaranteed a reduction in the balance of payments deficit, confirming the positive expectations of international investors; (b) the trade surplus has broken historic records, raising the level of reserves, as well as tax collection4; (c) the preservation of the growth that had been going on since the end of the pandemic has caused unemployment to fall faster, wages to rise and inflation to fall, all positive indicators. But not enough to reduce the far-right’s audience among higher-educated wage earners, from the Southeast and South who earn between 3 and 5 minimum wages, therefore, without overcoming the divisions in the working class. There is a question of method when we evaluate the fluctuations in the economic situation: not everything can be explained by the economy. What are the consequences of what is happening in the world and especially in the countries that have the most impact on the Brazilian situation, such as Trump’s victory in the USA, the election of Milei Argentina, and the vertiginous rise of the extreme right in Portugal? They must have raised the morale of Bolsonarism. What were the implications of the daily news of Israel’s massacre of the Gaza Strip and Lula’s denunciation of genocide? Sympathy for the Palestinian cause seems to have increased among Lula supporters, but support for Zionism has also grown among Bolsonaro supporters. We’ve also had the impact of the biggest dengue epidemic in history, the arson attacks in the Cerrado and the Amazon, and the rise in femicides. What was the national repercussion of the São Paulo PM’s criminal operation in Baixada Santista? Or the escape of Comando Vermelho (Brazilian criminal organization) leaders from a maximum security prison? Just as important, what has been the repercussion of the “deliveries” of the Lula government, the Planalto’s big bet?
21 At the end of 2024, the fate of the coalition government led by Lula remains uncertain. But the indeterminate formula that “anything can happen” is unreasonable. Although the government is facing a crossroads, some calculation of probabilities is possible. After the failure of the January 8, 2023 uprising and the siege of the hard core of Bolsonaro, including the top military brass, a new insurrectionary attempt would be unthinkable. The far right has decided to reposition itself to contest the elections in 2026. The electoral calendar sets the context. There are three major scenarios, roughly speaking, facing Brazil, but for the time being, a prognosis is still impossible. The government could arrive in 2026 with sufficient approval, as Lula did in 2006 and 2010, and win re-election. The government could arrive in 2026 as Dilma Rousseff did in 2014, and the outcome will be unpredictable. Finally, the left could arrive in 2026 very worn out and highly rejected, as was the situation with Haddad’s candidacy in 2018, and the far-right opposition could be favored. Of course, you always have to remember the Forrest Gump factor: “shit happens”. There is chance, the accidental, the random. And two years is a long time. Tomorrow may not be a smooth continuation of yesterday. It is not possible to anticipate the changes in the world situation between now and 2026, the fluctuations in the economic situation, the twists and turns of the ideological and cultural disputes, the transformations in the moods of the classes and class fractions, the stratagems, the trickery, the scandals, the maneuvers, the twists and turns of the parties and leaders, and to master all the variables. That said, the most likely outcome is that the electoral calendar will continue. Within this framework, the first scenario is the possibility of Lula’s re-election. The second is the possibility of an electoral victory for Bolsonaro. The third is the most disconcerting, because it is unpredictable. What if neither Bolsonaro nor Lula, or either of them, can run? If, eventually and unfortunately, Lula is unable to run, the most likely candidate would be Haddad. It’s no secret that his popularity is qualitatively lower than that of Lula.
22 Finally, when we think about the future, we are faced with the problem of the role of individuals in history. The three scenarios outlined – Lula’s favoritism, a hotly contested election or the favoritism of the far-right opposition – depend on so many factors that it is not possible to calculate probabilities in advance. A Marxist analysis must not lose its sense of proportion. Leaders represent social forces. But it would be an unforgivable superficiality to diminish Bolsonaro’s leading role: his presence makes a difference. Would the far right have become a political, social and cultural movement with mass influence, even without Bolsonaro, after 2016? This is a counterfactual, but the most likely hypothesis is yes. Neo-fascism is an international current. The simultaneous strength of Donald Trump in the US, Marine Le Pen in France, Giorgia Meloni in Italy, Santiago Abascal in Spain, André Ventura in Portugal and Javier Milei in Argentina cannot be explained away as coincidence. The objective conditions have pushed a fraction of the ruling class to embrace a liberal strategy of frontal shock. But the concrete form that neo-fascism took depended a lot on Bolsonaro’s charisma. Bolsonaro is crude, rough, intemperate, but he’s not an idiot. An imbecile doesn’t get elected to the presidency in a complex country like Brazil. Bolsonaro doesn’t have much education or repertoire, but he’s smart, cunning, cunning, cunning. No energetic person could achieve the position of leadership that he still enjoys today, after so many accusations: disregard for the risks to the lives of millions, personal appropriation of presidential jewels, military coup plot, etc. The key to explaining his role is the disconcerting charisma that drives passionate identification. He united the representation of the interests of the bourgeois fraction of agribusiness, deniers of global warming, with the resentment of the military and the police; the resentment of the middle classes with the popular distrust manipulated by the neo-Pentecostal corporate churches; the reactionary nostalgia for the military dictatorship with sexism, racism and homophobia. He didn’t need Milei’s shaggy hair and anarcho-capitalist anti-caste rhetoric, nor Trump’s xenophobic national-imperialism, nor Le Pen’s Islamophobic rage. If he were to be convicted and imprisoned, his authority would diminish. This should be the center of the left’s tactics: no amnesty, punishment for all the coup plotters, jail for Bolsonaro.
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