Statement of the Chilean Communist Party (Proletarian Action) on Brazil

CCP (PA) is a member of the anti-revisionist ICMLPO and a party with deep roots in the working class and student movements in Chile.

DISCONTENT IN BRAZIL
Eduardo Artes
First Secretary of the Chilean Communist Party (Proletarian Action)
PC (AP)
June 21, 2013
General Aspects
The media shows us large demonstrations, bonfires and confrontations in Brazil. These are caused by the popular discontent; rejecting announced increases in public transport fares — the effects of capitalist politics in its neoliberal version.
President Dilma, Lula’s successor, says “the voices of the street and its social rights must be heard”. Certainly, there is a popular groundswell. The masses demand satisfaction, and important sectors have taken to the streets. Now, we need to think about what is happening there, about what capitalism’s salaried analysts are comparing to the so-called “Arab Spring.” A “Spring” that at the end of the day becomes a dark, pro-imperialist Winter.
From the more credible sources, it is clear that reactionary and even openly fascist sectors are making great efforts to derail the popular unrest and its demands, mobilizing under the “flag of Brazil”, singing the Brazilian anthem, shouting “proud to be Brazilian”,” away with the Cuban doctors, “no to corruption and vandalism “,and ” bring back the military. ” Fascist groups have attacked Left and Communist organizations, have beaten many of their members, destroyed their flags and signs. All to the cry of: “Without a party, without a party”.
The PCR, the Bandeira Vermelha Collective, the PCO, PSTV, PC do B, PT and other organizations which have participated in the mass demonstrations, openly confront, and are attacked by, fascist gangs. The latter, relying on the absence of revolutionary politics in the masses, try to channel the demonstrations into supporting an overtly fascist regime.
How is such a situation possible?
First, we need to bear in mind that the Dilma regime, like that of Lula before it, has at best been liberal. It has administered the state to the benefit of capitalism, indeed of neo-liberalism. There has been the development of a certain ‘national bourgeoisie’ with imperialist aspirations, and therefore degrees of contradiction and dispute with U.S. imperialism.
Being complicit with and political supporters of the regime, self-styled left organizations such as the PT and PC do B, have lost their ties with the masses, allowing the ideological and political disorientation of the same, distancing themselves from the goal of achieving a better society, SOCIALISM. This is one of the greatest blows suffered by the popular movement, as it strikes at working class and popular thought, presenting a negative image of the left and of communism, making them “responsible” for the negative social effects of shifting bourgeois administration s, which, incidentally has left room for reactionaries and fascists to be presented as an “alternative” way to overcome the deep existing social contradictions.
Reformist policies and practices, in abandoning the revolutionary and progressive ideology of Communism, are responsible not only in Brazil but throughout the capitalist world, for the disorientation of the masses, and for fascist resurgence, arrogance and impudence. How else can we explain that, with everything the fascist military dictatorship of Pinochet did, today we are governed by its supporters? What will happen in Chile with Bachet in La Moneda, supported by the so-called “left”; with the PS , PPD and PC, administering the capitalist state while the masses are asking for their rights and making their demands?
The Communist Position and a Call
First of all from Chile, from its Communists, which is to say the Chilean Communist Party (Proletarian Action) PC (AP), we express our solidarity with the struggle and popular demands of the Brazilian people, with the important efforts of healthy communists forces to place them on a progressive path, to prevent their being exploited by the fascists. Secondly, we make an urgent appeal to those calling themselves communists and progressives in Brazil who are part of the capitalist management of the State, to rectify themselves and to take the independent working class and popular political position demanded by the masses, and to abandon all petty bourgeois illusions about “humanizing” capitalism. Thirdly, and in the case of our country, to learn the lessons of this case, working to strengthen the People’s Revolutionary Democratic alternative, making it visible in the eyes of the majority of the people. To prevent that the opportunism of the PS and PC leadership towards Bachelet’s neoliberal project and its self-styled “new majority” damage the credibility of the revolutionary SOCIALIST road, an opportunism which would cloud popular political understanding and pave the way for a fascist military coup.

What is the nature of the "middle class" in Brazil? Here in America, the term "middle class" is used in popular discourse to refer to the employed, non-homeless working class on the low end as well as the petit-bourgeoisie and the highly educated like lawyers, most engineers, and "white-collar" high paid workers on the high end. Below this is the homeless and the people on welfare, and above it is the elite. Obviously this is not a Marxist conception of class.

My impression of Brazil is that the so-called middle class is the same strata of the petit-bourgeoisie that have supported reaction in the past (like against Goulart) combined with a new strata of working class Brazilians who have benefited from social democratic reforms, credit, and increased access to education. As opposed to those stuck in the favelas. Brazil is supposed to be one of the countries where millions have been lifted from poverty in the last ten years.

Is this essentially the "Labor Aristocracy" that MLs in the 20th century spoke of?