State of the Brazilian Left

[Nolan]

Does anyone have any info on organizations working there now?

[stella2010]

it needs WORK

[Lyev]

A brief overview of the CWI in Brazil, from late Feb this year:
Brazil
This was the first school following the unification of the former Brazilian section of the CWI, Socialismo Revolucionario, with the former CLS (Socialist Liberty Collective) to form the LSR (Liberdade, Socialismo e Revolucao - CWI in Brazil).

Members had travelled from all over Brazil - Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Campinas, Goas, Porte Allegre and other important areas - to participate in the lively debates and discussions at the school.

In Brazil workers' struggles and the crisis of capitalism are in a different phase to the situation in Bolivia and Venezuela. Although attacks have taken place against the working class, Brazil has not yet been severely affected by the world economic crisis. In part, this is because deregulation of the banking system has not been carried through, which helps to protect its financial system from the full impact of the financial crisis. However, this will not continue indefinitely and new shocks in the world economy will have a greater impact.

The debate featured the important struggle inside P-SOL, the broad left party formed in 2004, for a left-wing presidential candidate and the formation of a United Left Front for the elections later this year. This has been a crucial battle inside P-SOL, in which the CWI in LSR has played a crucial role. It is increasingly likely that Plenio, a left potential candidate, will now be selected by P-SOL.

The election will not be easy for the left. Brazil's relatively strong economy has allowed Lula, the president and leader of the pro-big business Workers Party, to grant limited concessions to some of the most oppressed. Although these have been combined with some neoliberal policies they have resulted in approval ratings of 83% for Lula. His chosen successor, Dilma Rouseff, is gaining in the polls and could beat the traditional right-wing capitalist candidate.

This makes the need for a clearly socialist left campaign even more important. At the same time, other important developments, such as the formation of a new trade union centre later this year, are also taking place. These developments are of crucial importance in preparing the left activists in Brazil for the battles which will develop after the election and with the onset of a new economic crisis.Here's a little something I found on how the IMT there is doing, from December '09:
Brazil: Marxist Left elected to the National Leadership of the PT (http://www.marxist.com/brazil-marxist-left-elected-to-national-leadership-pt.htm)

The Marxist Left of the PT (Esquerda Marxista) stood in the PT’s internal elections, winning a sizeable vote, much increased on previous elections, winning a position on the national leadership and taking the ideas of revolutionary socialism to every corner of the party.

The slate “Turn to the left – Back to socialism” received 3,407 votes in all states of Brazil in the internal elections within the Workers’ Party (PT) and therefore will be part of the newly elected National Leadership of the PT.

This represents an important victory for a slate which was based on rank and file support for a policy of explaining the need for the PT to break with the ruling class and its parties, and that the party should go back to the struggle for socialism which inspired its founding.

This result was possible because of our activities, our firm policies, without sectarianism, promoting fraternal and revolutionary discussion, concentrating in discussing politics, without shrill denunciations and without adapting to the party apparatus.

We discussed the need to struggle for socialism; we explained that the rank and file members must be heard and that they should decide. That the party has no owners and that internal democracy is a key and necessary part of the struggle for socialism.

The campaign was very good and showed that socialism still has a great number of defenders within the PT. Esquerda Marxista [the Marxist Left in the PT] invites all comrades who voted for us and supported the campaign, to join us and collaborate with us to continue this struggle. We will now bring this battle to the National Congress of the PT on February 18, 2010.

Let’s remind ourselves of the words of the Communist Manifesto: “workers have nothing to lose, and a world to win”.

We will continue the struggle!There's also the Brazilian Communist Party who are one of the oldest political parties still active in the country, they've been around since about 1920 I think. They're just standard Marxist-Leninist I think. There's also the Communist Party of Brazil who are Hoxhaist. They have 13 seats in the chamber of deputies and I think 2 in the senate, as far as I can remember. Actually we do have a Brazilian comrade around called BrazilianTrotskyist or something like that, who you might wanna PM.

[Crux]

Just a note, the Hoxhaist CP are also in coalition with Lula's government.
There's also the PSTU, the Brazilian section of the LIT. From what I can discern they seem pretty large, they also helped set up a radical trade union confederation called Conlutas, in which the LSR (CWI in Brazil) intervene, especially in trying to get a merger between it and Intersindical, the other radical trade union confederation controlled by P-SOL.