 Army confronts striking workers at Volta Redonda’s CSN steel plant, November 1988. "No to privatization! For workers control of production." |
Articles From
 Brazil |
| Organize Workers Defense
Committees to Defend the Favelas, Protests and
Social Movements Brazil: No to the World Cup of Repression! On the 50th anniversary of the civilian/military coup that overthrew the government of Jango Goulanrt and began 21 years of bloody military dictatorship, of torture, of disappearances, of epression against the working people and poor, several of the favelas of Rio de Janeiro were subjected to occupation. This outright war against the most impoverished neighborhoods is intimately linked to the preparations for the World Cup of soccer, beginning on June 12, when the local, state and federal governments, and the bourgeoisie of Brazil as a whole, want to put the “Marvelous City” (nickname for Rio de Janeiro) on display. Contrary to the claims of many reformist leftists, this escalation of repression is not fascism but bourgeois democracy, which was born bathed in the blood of blacks, indigenous peoples and the poor. The Comitê de Luta Classista (Class Struggle Committee) and the Liga Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil (Fourth Internationalist League of Brazil) call on the entire workers movement to mobilize its forces against the bourgeoisie’s World Cup of Repression. In April, the state-wide unions of teachers (SEPE-RJ) and health workers (SINDSPREV-RJ) approved motions put forward by the CLC calling to “Drive out the pro-imperialist occupation troops from Haiti, the favelas and social movements” and to build workers defense committees to unite the favela with the factory and the protests in the streets. Brazil: No to the World Cup of Repression! (May 2014) |
| Millions in the
Streets Against Bourgeois Governments of the
Popular Front and the Right Hot Winter in Brazil: Mobilize Workers Power! Organize a General Strike! Transform the protests into a working-class revolt pointing to a struggle for power Form self-defense committees based on the power of the workers movement Push for councils of workers and working-class neighborhoods! Forge a revolutionary workers party! The goal: international socialist revolution! For nearly three weeks, huge, explosive mobilizations against the policies of capitalist governments have shaken Brazil. Beginning with protests against a 20-cent increase on bus fares in São Paolo, the movement broadened rapidly to include issues of corruption, preparations for the World Cup and the Olympics, the sharp increase in the cost of living and above all, police violence. From the north of Brazil to the south, seats of government were besieged. Eventually, the bourgeoisie came to realize that it would have to retreat and the governments of key states and cities withdrew the fare increases. But at the same time, the bourgeois right-wing is trying to capitalize on the protests. The main task s to mobilize the workers movement in order to give proletarian leadership to the protests and organize a general strike, forming bodies for working-class struggle against the governments of the ruling class. Hot Winter in Brazil: Mobilize Workers Power! Organize a General Strike! (25 June 2013) Quality Education Is Not a Commodity But Everyone's Right Teachers in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Stop Work to Stop High-Stakes Test On June 27 and 28, teachers in Rio de Janeiro are stopping work for an unusual purpose: to boycott a high-stakes test, the SAERJ. This "Education Evaluation System of the State of Rio de Janeiro has nothing whatsoever to do with a scientific diagnosis of the pedagogical development of the students. It is an arm of the enemy in the capitalist offensive to privatize public education. The bourgeois politicians seek to link the wages of educators to the "product," as if education were a commodity purchased on the market rather than a fundamental democratic right of working people and the entire population. The work stoppage called by the SEPE after previous efforts to boycott the SAERJ is a beginning. The combative Mexican teachers have taken resistance to another level in calling strikes to stop these phony evaluations." And because it is an offensive of imperialism, of capitalism in its phase of decay, of systematic destruction of past gains, the reformist trade-unionism of the past no longer works – what's required is a revolutionary international response. Teachers in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Stop Work to Stop High-Stakes Test (19 July 2012) The Boom of the Lula-Dilma Government Paralyzes the Popular Front Left Brazil Prepares for Militarized Olympics By Repressing the Poor and Working People The year 2011 around the world was one of explosive popular uprisings, of workers' struggles, of rebellions by students and youth in general. The bourgeois media present Brazil as an exceptional case. The government of Lula and his successor Dilma Rousseff has made use of the raw materials boom to dish out a few crumbs to the poor, using its welfare programs to reduce extreme poverty. They are silent about the fact that they have only managed to raise the poorest to the level of a brutal "normal" poverty; and that these welfare programs are financed by slashing health care and pension programs. As part of the preparations for the 2014 World Cup (soccer) and the 2016 Olympics, the government has sent the military police after residents of favelas (slums) in eviction operations. At the beginning of 2012, the military police called a "strike." Most of the left scandalously supported this mutiny in the armed fist of the bourgeoisie. In a situation of great social volatility more than ever a leadership is required that can go beyond the merely "democratic" bourgeois program, to intervene in events with a program aiming at international socialist revolution. Brazil Prepares for Militarized Olympics By Repressing the Poor and Working People (May 2012) All Honor to Our Comrade Marília, A Communist and Poet of Struggle< Sadly, comrade Marília Costa Machado died today, 15 February 2012. It was an irreparable loss of a communist comrade who during her career of 30 years as an educator was always in the vanguard of the teachers of the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Marília had been a director of the SEPE teachers union and as a writer she published two books of poems. In 1997 she was named Muse of Poetry of the city of Rio de Janeiro, notably for her poems against the military dictatorship. As a member of the Liga Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil (Fourth Internationalist League of Brazil) and the Comité de Luta Classista (Class Struggle Committee), her internationalism placed her in the forefront of the campaign to free Mumia Abu Jamal. All Honor to Our Comrade Marília, A Communist and Poet of Struggle (February 2012) Poems and Photos of Comrade Marília Machado [in Portuguese] (February 2012) Mobilize the Power of the Working Class to Defeat the Militarized Popular Front Brazil: Reformists Tail After “Strike” By Militarized Firemen in Rio de Janeiro In June, the firemen of the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro launched what was advertised as a “strike” for higher salaries. In fact it was a mutiny by an armed force of state repression seeking to tie its pay and raise its military prestige to that of elite units of the state police. Unlike in many countries where firemen are part of thecivil administration, in Brazil they are auxiliary military forces who play an important role in repression, particularly of the poor black population of the favelas and morros (hillside slum areas). In addition to participating in military/police occupations of the poor bairros, many firemen lead milícias, death squads which terorize these areas. The main reformist tendencies to the left of the governing Workers Party ostentatiously supported the action of the militarized firemen, while smaller centrist groups called for “demilitarization” and even disarming of the Corps. Both spread democratic illusions in repressive forces which are the backbone of the capitalist state, and must be swept away by workers revolution. The Liga Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil and the Comitê de Luta Classista trade-union tendency fought against linking an ongoing Rio teachers strike to the movement of the firemen. Demanding the ouster of any and all police – “the armed fist of the bourgeoisie” from the unions, the LQB made history in 1996 by doing this in the municipal workers union of the steel city of Volta Redonda. Brazil: Reformists Tail After “Strike” By Militarized Firemen in Rio de Janeiro (30 June 2011) LQB Says: Workers Solidarity, Yes! Military Occupation, No! The Liga Quarta Internacionalista do Brasil, section of the League for the Fourth International, has published a special issue of its newspaper Vanguarda Oper?ria devoted to Haiti and the LQB's fight for the expulsion of the Brazilian expeditionary force commanding the U.N. troops occupying the Caribbean island nation on behalf of U.S. imperialism. In the introduction (translated here) to this collection of articles, the LQB notes that “ left-wing”” bourgeois Latin American governments headed by Lula in Brazil, Morales in Bolivia and Correa in Ecuador have been collaborating with imperialism as its flunkeys and “capit?es de mato” (slave catchers), in repressing the combative Haitian population. LQB Says: Workers Solidarity, Yes! Military Occupation, No! (26 January 2010) |
| Brazilian
Teachers Strike Again for Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal For a second time, the teachers union of the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro, SEPE-RJ, set an important example in calling a strike this past May 7 in defense of public education and demanding freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal. The SEPE has fought for Mumia’s freedom since 1999, when at the initiative of the Liga Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil (LQB) and its affiliated Class Struggle Committee (CLC) the teachers union called the first-ever labor action for Mumia. During a two-hour work stoppage, events were held at schools around the state to publicize Mumia’s case and denounce the racist death penalty. The next day, dock workers in the United States shut down all West Coast ports for ten hours demanding freedom for Jamal. In the face of the worsening legal situation for Jamal, whose appeal for a new trial was rejected by the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals, the SEPE voted to again stop work, calling on other unions to join it in demanding freedom for Jamal. A special issue of the union newspaper on Mumia was put out for the strike recounting the facts of his case and the SEPE’s 1999 work stoppage for his freedom. Brazilian Teachers Strike Again for Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal (May 2008) |
| “Comrade
President” Capitalizes on the Confidence
of Washington and Wall Street Brazil: Lula vs. Alckmin, Candidates of Capital Against the Workers On October 1, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva fell short of a majority of the votes on the first round of Brazil’s presidential election. The accumulation of scandals cut into his support from the middle class of São Paulo. For the second round, Lula fell back on his base among the poor of the Northeast, which had benefitted from government welfare programs. But the key was support from Wall Street and top Brazilian capitalists, who made bundles of money under the government led by Lula’s Workers Party (PT). Now that he has been re-elected it will be war on the gains of the working class. The Liga Quarta-Internacionalista declared that there was no choice for the workers between Lula’s bourgeois popular front and the rightist candidate Geraldo Alckmin, or the candidate of the “Left Front,” Heloísa Helena. The “ Catholic socialist” and pseudo-Trotskyist often attacked Lula from the right, opposing women’s right to abortion and denouncing peasants for invading Congress to demand agrarian reform. Unlike the rest of the Brazilian left, the LQB has consistently opposed voting for any candidates of a popular front. Brazil: Lula vs. Alckmin, Candidates of Capital Against the Workers (October 2006) |
| Permanent Crisis
of the Popular Front Lula Against the Workers – Forge a Revolutionary Workers Party! A wave of disgust is spreading across Latin America. The “lost decade” of the 1980s caused by the “foreign debt bomb” was followed by another ten years of regimes which applied the prescriptions of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, deepening hunger and poverty throughout the continent. This gave rise to so-called “center-left” governments in several countries, installed after populist election campaigns denouncing “neo-liberalism.” First among them is the popular front headed by President Luiz Início Lula da Silva in Brazil. Yet these regimes soon turned out to be loyal servants of their imperialist masters in Washington. In Brazil, the Lula government was shaken by a series of scandals of monthly payoffs to legislators in “opposition” parties to get their votes and revelations of large-scale corruption in the Workers Party (PT). Yet far from mounting a revolutionary opposition to Lula’s bourgeois government, the left “opposition” (which overwhelmingly supported Lula, openly or in 2002) fell in behind the right-wing scandal-mongers, while calling for a slightly more left version of today’s PT. Lula Against the Workers – Forge a Revolutionary Workers Party! (May 2006) |
| LQB Spokesman Cerezo Fired for
Leading Resistance Brazilian Steel Company Assault on Six-Hour Day On April 14 Brazilian bosses dealt a blow to the working class, ramming through a vote to end the six-hour day at CSN, Latin America’s largest steel plant. The six-hour day was won in the 1988 steel strike, when the workers of Volta Redonda refused to back down in the face of the army’s occupation of the plant and murder of three strikers. Barely an hour after the polls closed, as vote counting was underway, CSN bosses peremptorily fired our comrade Cerezo from the plant for his leading role in the fight to defend the six-hour day. Brazil Steel Company Assault on 6-Hour Day (23 April 2000) |
| Military
Scandal Reveals Army Death List Targeted Brazilian Worker Militants Revelations in the Brazilian press have brought to light that in the 1990 strike at Volta Redonda's CSN steel plant, the army had prepared a list of seven workers, “individuals who stand out for their radical positions,” who were slated for “capture and neutralization.” This was a death list. The year before, the same officers ordered and carried out the bombing of the memorial to the three workers killed in the 1988 strike. Prominent among the strike leaders to be “immediately neutralized” was Cerezo, spokesman of the Liga Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil. Fired as a result of the 1990 strike, he won his job back recently after a ten-year fight, only to be fired again for leading resistance to elimination of the six-hour day. In an interview with The Internationalist, Cerezo recounts the lessons of the 1990 strike and the central fight against the capitalist state. Army Death List Targeted Worker Militants (23 April 2000) |
| Brazilian
Workers Mobilize for Freedom for Mumia
Abu-Jamal Over the last month Brazilian workers have undertaken a series of strikes and demonstrations that have begun to translate calls for freedom for death row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal into labor action. A November 10 work stoppage by the CUT labor federation of the state of Rio de Janeiro made freedom for the renowned U.S. black journalist one of its demands. On November 22, a labor-centered march in Rio for the "Day of Black Conscioiusness" also raised the call to free Mumia as one of its key demands, as did a strike by bank workers two days later. On December 7, Rio teachers struck for half a day, including among their demands freedom for Jamal. This shows the potential to mobilize powerful working-class action to free Mumia and block the capitalist state murder machinery. Brazilian Workers Mobilize for Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal (9 December 1999) |
| Brazil Teachers to Stop Work for Mumia Abu-Jamal (March 1999) |
| Class Struggle Against "Police Unionism" in Brazil (March 1999) |
| Workers
in Brazil's Steel City Demand: "Freedom Now
for Mumia Abu-Jamal!" (November 1988) |
| Brazil
Elections: Against Cardoso/IMF Onslaught,
Fight for Workers Revolution!
(30 September 1998) |
| ICL Seeks to Sabotage Defense of Brazilian Trotskyist Workers (30 January 1998) |
| New Repression Against Brazilian Trotskyists (September 1997) |
| ICL Takes Slander Campaign to Brazilian Labor Congress (1 September 1997) |
| WV's Frenzied Slanders Can't Hide ICL Leaders' Brazil Betrayal (25 July 1997) |
| IG: ICL Leaders Escalate Smear Campaign Against Brazilian Militants (29 June 1997) |
| LQB: Once Again on the ICL's Campaign of Defamation (24 June 1997) |
| Brazil: Class Struggle in Volta Redonda: "Cops, Courts Out of the Unions!" (July 1996) |
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