WORLD WORLDWIDE BRAZIL News Journal Update - (en) Brazil, UNIPA: 10 years of the popular uprising of June 2013 by the Popular Anarchist Union (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 June 2013 is marked in recent Brazilian history as the year of the biggest

popular uprising in the last 100 years. The largest demonstrations, in absolute
numbers, and in territorial dimension occurred simultaneously in the days of June
2013. ---- Background to the popular revolt ---- The demonstrations began with a
concrete agenda, public transport. Traditionally, public transport mafias
increase fares at the beginning of the year. In that year, 2013, there were
strong demonstrations against the increase in tariffs in Porto Alegre-RS in
March. Goiânia-GO and Natal-RN in May against the increase in fares, with a lot
of police violence in all cities. Repeating demonstrations and clashes from
previous years, Salvador-BA with the Buzu Revolt in 2003; Florianópolis-SC with
the Revolta da Catraca in 2004, in Rio de Janeiro-RJ with a Revolt against the
End of the Free Pass in 2007; in Natal-RN with the Busão Revolt in 2012.

But in 2013 the context for large demonstrations was already formed beyond the
struggles against the increase in public transport fares. There were the "PAC
mega-works", the Lula/PT government's growth acceleration program that created
infrastructure in regions far from large centers, such as the Jirau, Santo
Antônio and Belo Monte hydroelectric plants, the latter the best known for having
been built in lands of the Xingú peoples. The latter was recognized as the cause
of the Ethnocide of peoples who changed their relationships as a result of the
construction of this plant.

In addition to the mega works themselves, labor relations at these construction
sites were degrading. Lunchboxes with spoiled food and dirty mattresses were
offered to workers who often held strong demonstrations against the terrible
working conditions. In these demonstrations, they constantly had to run over the
official union, face police violence and the National Force of Lula/PT and later
Dilma/PT. Therefore, there was already a scenario of aggravation of the
contradiction State x Peoples with the mega-works, being the State directed by
the Workers' Party-PT.

The cities that hosted the 2014 World Cup went through strong structural
arrangements, works in stadiums and in the area of urban mobility. The need to
remove poor populations from the areas where tourists would pass led to a series
of removals, in which city halls and state governments could "sanitize" the
regions with tourists. These evictions led to a series of local struggles for the
right to housing that gained momentum. The Popular Committee for the World Cup, a
national organization that brought together academics and militants from leftist
parties and autonomous activists, also interfered in the struggle against removals.

Finally, in 2012 there were 873 strikes, the highest number of strikes since 1997
according to DIEESE. In 2013, the same DIEESE identified 2,050 strikes. The
highest number of strikes in the entire historical series. Which demonstrates
that the popular uprising of June 2013 was also the result of a process in which
social and political contradictions would point to spontaneous movements of our
class as a form of reaction to conjunctural and structural contradictions. We
have carried out this theoretical analysis since 2003 when UNIPA was formed, and
since then we have worked nationally towards the construction of these movements
that could escape the shackles of the State, union and party bureaucracies. Thus,
we combine a theoretical analysis with a coherent militant practice.[1]

The Legacy of 2013, between PTist narratives of "hybrid war" and concrete reality.

Surveying these data, we observe that the scenario set up with the 2014 World Cup
was a scenario of loss of housing for the affected communities, precarious
working conditions for the workers of the PAC mega-works, loss of land for the
indigenous communities, riverside communities and traditional, rising cost of
living in cities with constant increases in fares, in addition to rising cost of
living.

The repression against those who fight led the Tarso Genro/PT do RS government to
invade the headquarters of the Gaucho Anarchist Federation - FAG twice in June
and October 2013, kidnapping books and computers. And in October, invading homes
of PSOL and PSTU militants, also kidnapping books and computers.

The narratives of degenerate reformism (PT/PCdoB) gained strength after the 2016
parliamentary coup against his government. The rise of Temer/MDB followed by
Bolsonaro/PL led activists and militants close to renewed reformism (PSOL, PCB)
to assess the June 2013 uprising as negative, stating that it was the uprising
that led us to the Bolsonaro/PL government. Nothing poorer in theory and practice.

This is the resentful argument of the PTism for having lost control of the
streets at various times and its apex in 2013. Also the resentment of the
bourgeois order parties that were rejected many times in the streets when
identifying themselves.

That is, the authoritarian reaction of wanting to suppress the participation of
the parties is the proportional and inverse reaction to the work that these
parties have done in recent years to suppress the action of the masses, to
protect and repress this action (the right-wing parties, such as the PSDB , PMDB,
and the reformists as well). That this sentiment is expressed at first in an
authoritative manner is not surprising. Thus, the reformist parties are reaping
what they sowed: authoritarianism. They are now facing the legitimate reaction
that they don't even want to accept the reformist tutelage and the eternal
top-down decisions, so much to the liking of bureaucracies. What generates this
is not anarchism, but the authoritarianism of decades, the bureaucratization and
the betrayals of entities and directions. (Reaping what is sown:
authoritarianism, non-partisanship and anarchism - June 19, 2013)

We understand the authoritarian reaction of the streets against militants of
parties of order, but we defend freedom of organization and propaganda, opposing
authoritarian positions and pointing out where the fight against bureaucracies
can occur

Where should the youth fight the positions of the reformist parties and their
authoritarian nature without using authoritarian weapons, that is, without
turning authoritarianism against authoritarianism? In grassroots assemblies, in
workplaces and in associations and demonstrations. It is not by suppressing the
right to carry flags that authoritarianism and reformist bureaucracy are fought.
But it is by carrying out class-based and combative direct action that this
difference is made. Struggling to maintain power at the base of workers and
students, with the revocability of mandates and collective leadership. Fighting
bureaucracy in workers' and students' congresses, fighting bureaucracy and
authoritarianism in everyday life. (Reaping what is sown: authoritarianism,
non-partisanship and anarchism - June 19, 2013)

Thus, the narrative that the June uprising occurred as a prepared phenomenon of a
Hybrid War against the PT government is a narrative that abstracts internal
contradictions, abstracts class struggle, the concentration of wealth, in this
case, in the hands of businessmen of public transport, the context of State
violence against the people as we have already listed above, that is, it is a
theory that refuses class struggle and materialism as tools to understand a
society based only on geopolitical interests.

The demonstrations in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and other large centers, called
against the increase in bus fares by the Movimento Passe Livre - MPL, soon became
massive due to the brutality of police violence, but also due to the MPL's
decade-long work and the urgency agenda, since the increase in tickets meant an
increase in the cost of living. Especially the 13th of June in São Paulo, which
was a strong and large demonstration against the increase in fares, also convened
by the MPL.

Soon, the manifestations that had a specific agenda, won the society. The
bourgeois media that encouraged repression against demonstrations realized that
repression would not curb the popular fury, thus starting to dispute the agendas,
pushing the agenda against corruption, seeking to differentiate between the
"good" and the "bad" protesters. Something common in a mass movement, to have
several fields in dispute, therefore, it was natural that the right also tried to
dispute the streets. What was not expected is that the left would abandon the
streets.

Shortly after the June 20 demonstration, which brought together 100,000 people,
the MPL announced on June 21 that it would no longer call new demonstrations. The
reason given was that "once the increase was revoked, the initial objective of
the demonstrations was fulfilled. And it makes no sense for us to keep calling
demonstrations against the increase". In practice, the MPL abandoned popular
mobilization, handing over the streets to the right, which took advantage of the
political vacuum left.

Victories of popular mobilization

Despite the PT/PCdoB camp allying with the right and claiming that fighting was
not good, dozens of cities reduced the price of bus tickets in 2013, as a result
of popular mobilization, leaving the teaching that mass struggle bears fruit
immediate.

Between June and July 2013, 104 cities reduced the price of the bus fare[2]. As
of March 25, 2023, there are 75 cities with "zero tariff" in which the population
rides the bus without paying tickets. Of these, 62 implemented the Tarifa Zero
after the June 2013 uprising, as a practical consequence of popular mobilizations.

The Garís strike in Rio de Janeiro between April and May 2014 was a strike with
insurgent characteristics. An insurgency against the city hall and against the
union bureaucracy. A strike that won the society that started to support and give
even more visibility to the struggle of the category. As well as the teachers'
strike in RJ in the same year. The 2013 insurgency reverberated in schools that
were occupied throughout Brazil in 2016 against the High School Reform, being a
clear continuation of 2013 methods. Thus, the June uprising was also pedagogical
for the working class.

Legacy of 2013 for the revolutionaries and peoples of Brazil.

Therefore, the problem is not whether the people can rise up, but whether they
are capable of building an organization that will give them the means to reach a
victorious end - not by a fortuitous victory, but by a prolonged and final
triumph. (Bakunin)

The legacy of June 2013 is fiercely opposed by the right, which understands that
the only political action is carried out by the State. Also by those who want to
control popular mobilizations, by those who do not accept the loss of political
leadership in the midst of the process.

But June's legacy is also a legacy of learning for revolutionary organizations.
The revolt dissipated, largely due to state violence, judicial persecution such
as the case of the 23 in RJ, but also due to the lack of organicity among those
thousands of demonstrators, activists who could make a leap to the pulverized
organization, activist media, new leftist organizations , street collectives,
among others.

In order for the revolt to expand in space and sustain itself over time, instead
of being dissipated by state violence and judicial persecution, it is necessary
that the social contestation, which so animated the fierce protests, be taken to
the daily lives of the people. This is a first task. For this to happen, it is
necessary to make a leap from the mobilization of demonstrators on the street to
the organization of the people in their places of work, study and housing. The
second task is to federalize these local struggles in a progressive way, which
goes from the municipal to the national level, passing through the state and
regional levels. For this to happen, it is necessary to make a leap from localism
to federalism.

Thus, the combative and federalist organization of the people will function as a
booster, maintainer and protector of street mobilizations, preventing their
dispersion by state repression and their co-option by reformism or reactionaryism.

However, building victories for the cause of the people is an arduous process
that implies rebuilding the collective strength of the working class, the
oppressed and the peoples of Brazil in a context of crisis of popular
self-organization.

Anarchists find the solution to this problem in the practice of revolutionary
syndicalism. This is the strategy capable of making the revolt not be episodic
and operated only by combative, but limited street demonstrations. Revolutionary
syndicalism opens up the possibility for revolt to become part of people's daily
lives and boost the collective strength of workers, students, the unemployed,
residents of slums, tenements and outskirts, people from small towns in the
interior and rural settlements, of peoples in indigenous villages, in extractive
reserves and in quilombos from north to south, east to west of this country.

https://uniaoanarquista.wordpress.com/2023/06/14/10-anos-do-levante-popular-de-junho-de-2013/
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