We publish content from the OSL's internal resolution regarding the
trial of former President Jair Bolsonaro for attempted coup d'état,
which will take place in the coming days. Rather than echoing calls for
conviction, we seek to analyze the true role of justice, the dispute
between factions of the ruling classes, and the need for the oppressed
classes to struggle, without any illusions about the institutions of the
state and capital. ---- 1. The superficial polarization in the Brazilian
political scene and the structural reorganization of Brazilian capitalism
The political scene remains marked by a superficial polarization between
Lulism and Bolsonarism. This dichotomy, reproduced especially by the
bourgeois media, obscures the structural elements of capitalism's class
domination in Brazil. An example of this is the coverage of the recent
Supreme Federal Court (STF) decision to charge Bolsonaro and his allies
with attempted coup d'état, which, despite being widely discussed, fails
to reveal that the episode is part of a movement to reorganize factions
of the ruling classes. This measure, far from representing an act of
justice, serves rather as a tool to restore the limits of liberal
democracy, shaken by the military and the far-right in general, who have
broken with the traditional bourgeois pact. In other words, it is an
attempt, from the outset, to be illusory for the working class, as it
reduces the true polarization (ruling classes vs. oppressed classes) by
reinforcing the bourgeois institutional framework, while continuing to
prioritize the neoliberal project.
The denunciation of Operation "Green-Yellow Dagger"-with plans to
assassinate Lula, Alckmin, and Alexandre de Moraes-confirms the
coup-like nature of Bolsonarism. However, it is essential to question
the belated and selective actions of the Attorney General's Office (PGR)
and the Federal Police (PF), as well as to understand why these agencies
did not act similarly at other times. During the Bolsonaro
administration, crimes such as the murderous handling of the pandemic
were treated with significant institutional complicity. The change in
stance only reinforces that this is an intra-bourgeois dispute, not one
of effective justice or a possible rupture with the current
authoritarian model. Proof of this is the current administration's
complete unwillingness to remove Bolsonaro-supporting military personnel
from strategic positions, such as the Institutional Security Office
(GSI) and the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (ABIN). One of those
indicted for the coup, Lieutenant Colonel André Luis Cruz Correia,
provided Lula's personal security. If the most basic ethical principles
were considered with any priority, Bolsonaro and his accomplices would
have at least been convicted after the COVID Parliamentary Inquiry
Commission (CPI).
2. The Supreme Federal Court (STF) and the Political Function of
Bourgeois Institutions
The Supreme Federal Court (STF), as a legal apparatus of the bourgeois
order, acts in accordance with the interests of the ruling classes, not
out of a commitment to abstract democratic values. The history of
Brazil's so-called "redemocratization" is marked by the impunity of
torturers and the continuation of the repressive apparatus of the
military dictatorship. The punishment of Bolsonaro and the military is,
therefore, an exception that proves the rule: it only occurs because
their autocratic project has exceeded the limits of tolerable stability
for the bourgeois regime, especially through the systematic attack on
the Supreme Federal Court (STF), one of the pillars of class society. It
is not irrelevant that the military is being held in the dock for an
attempted coup for the first time in Brazilian history, but this cannot
be confirmed without due criticism.
Let us return to the example of the Covid Parliamentary Commission of
Inquiry (CPI), which is quite illustrative: the scandal was hushed up,
and no concrete accountability was given. The true objective of the
judiciary is to preserve the structures of capitalism-statism and
operate to keep the pillars of class domination intact. The current
movement is moving toward a possible recomposition between sectors of
the judiciary, the government, and the Armed Forces, to seal a new pact
of conciliation without real ruptures with systemic injustice and the
authoritarianism rooted in the institutions.
3. Fiscal Adjustment and Continued Exploitation
While the far-right is being tried in the Supreme Federal Court (STF),
the Lula-Alckmin administration is deepening fiscal austerity measures,
cutting social investments, and preserving the interests of
agribusiness, banks, and large corporations. State violence continues to
operate in peripheral territories with the same brutality as in the
Bolsonaro era, whether under right-wing or center-left governments. The
official narrative of "defending democracy" ignores that this democracy
is, in essence, a dictatorship of capital.
The pact with the Centrão and sectors of the business community shows
that the electoral defeat of Bolsonarism did not imply the defeat of its
economic base or its political agenda.
Liberal. The silence of institutional political forces in the face of
these agreements reveals the weakening of progressive mediation within
the regime.
4. Liberal 'Antifascists' and the Continuity of Authoritarianism
Bolsonaro's arrest may represent a momentary defeat for the far-right,
but it does not eliminate its material bases: agribusiness, the
reactionary business community, the militarized police, and a
significant portion of the Armed Forces remain intact. The "antifascism"
propagated by sectors of the media and the legal elite is limited to
judicial spectacle and the defense of institutional order.
At the same time, the repression of strikes, occupations, and popular
protests remains active. The broad-front approach promoted by the
Lula-Alckmin administration prevents any structural confrontation with
authoritarianism-which will continue to operate as long as the
conditions of its reproduction (poverty, racism, patriarchy,
militarization) are not addressed. The same government that was elected
on the "anti-fascist" agenda is confronting social and union movements
(such as the strikes at the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and
Statistics), the INSS (National Institute of Social Security), and
federal universities and institutes). Since its electoral victory in
2002, the Workers' Party (PT) project has positioned itself as a brake
on the autonomy of popular struggles and, especially, on the workers'
historical method: direct action. Therefore, any left-wing analysis must
be clear that the justice system is not neutral and has class-based
political and economic interests in its decisions. Whether or not
Bolsonaro should be imprisoned is not merely a technical issue;
technical issues are used to validate a decision that was deliberated in
advance by important sectors of the ruling classes.
A recurring argument among progressive sectors is that punishing
far-right coup plotters would set a dangerous precedent for the future
criminalization of the left. While this concern alone reveals the
repressive nature of the State and capitalism, it inverts the logic of
political struggle: it is not the punishment of the far right that paves
the way for the repression of popular movements, but rather the very
selective and class-based functioning of justice under capitalism that
represses social struggle. The judicial and police apparatus does not
need a "precedent" to attack strikers, occupations, combative unions, or
housing movements-these are already historical targets of repression
even under progressive governments. Justice does not operate with legal
impartiality, but is an expression of the balance of power between
classes. Therefore, it is not the formal coherence of judgments that
guarantees or threatens democratic rights, but the level of organization
and resistance of the working class. The people will be criminalized
whenever they challenge the interests of the ruling classes-with or
without "precedent." The central task is not to fear repression and thus
absolve class enemies, so as not to create legal precedents, but to
organize to confront it with solidarity and unity of action.
5. Bourgeois Justice, Imperialism, and the Correlation of Forces
Further complementing this situation, another example is the use of the
50% tariff increase imposed by Donald Trump on Brazilian products,
albeit partially adjusted, and the retaliation against Supreme Court
justices leading Bolsonaro's trial, through the Magnitsky Act. Both
measures are another clear demonstration that so-called "justice" or
"legality" never operates neutrally, but as an instrument of power. Just
as the Supreme Court uses technical and legal arguments to validate
decisions that correspond to a readjustment of the internal interests of
the ruling classes, Trump mobilizes commercial and legal measures to
give legal form to a political and economic attack that expresses the
strategic interests of US imperialism. Technique, therefore, is merely a
disguise for the real political struggle.
Therefore, it is not about justice or institutional balance, but about
the correlation of forces. Bolsonaro's trial by the Supreme Federal
Court and Trump's imperialist offensive are part of the same logic in
which the ruling classes, both internal and external, use the legal and
political apparatus to guarantee (or expand) their domination. The
illusion of impartiality serves only to mask the class interests behind
every judicial or tariff decision. Understanding this is essential so
that the working class does not place its trust in institutions that,
whether in Brasília or Washington, act as arms of capital against the
people.
6. Build political and class independence through self-managed popular power
The independence of the oppressed classes in struggle is the only way to
consistently confront systemic injustices and neoliberalism. Trusting in
bourgeois justice or state institutions is a path to demobilization and
defeat. The fight against the far right cannot be limited to demanding
the arrest of its leaders-it is necessary to attack the entire system
that produced it.
It is essential to strengthen concrete and independent struggles:
against wage squeezes, the destruction of public services, state
violence, and the precariousness of work, etc. A truly class-based left
needs to build organizational alternatives based on direct action,
grassroots democracy, and autonomy from the governments and institutions
of the ruling classes. Only with our historical principles of
organization can we articulate a truly anti-fascist struggle and fight
for social justice.
7. Immediate and strategic tasks of the working class
To intervene in the current situation without falling into the traps of
institutionalism or bourgeois moralism, we propose:
Advocate for the punishment of Bolsonaro, the military, and the business
leaders involved not only in the attempted coup, but also with an
emphasis on holding them accountable for the crimes of the pandemic.
Always emphasizing that this process is an internal dispute within the
ruling classes, with no decision-making power on the part of the
oppressed classes over the course of this episode.
Denounce the selective and anti-popular nature of bourgeois justice,
exposing its function of preserving the interests of the elites.
Reject trust in the regime's institutions as a path to popular
emancipation. Justice is not possible under the tutelage of capital.
Articulate economic and social struggles with a direct critique of the
political and economic system, denouncing the limits of the Lula-Alckmin
administration.
Emphasize that justice will only be achieved after building spaces for
independent organization, with a territorial, union, student, and
popular base, that resist co-optation and act from the perspective of
self-managed popular power.
Bolsonaro's arrest momentarily alters the balance of power, improving
the conditions for progress in working-class organization, but it does
not break the authoritarian hegemony and does not address any structural
problems in our society. The current democracy remains controlled by a
class bloc that manages exploitation, represses revolt, and co-opts
resistance. True justice-the kind that can transform lives-will come
from the independent and organized action of the working class, breaking
with all forms of capitalist domination.
https://socialismolibertario.net/2025/09/01/prisao-para-bolsonaro/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
trial of former President Jair Bolsonaro for attempted coup d'état,
which will take place in the coming days. Rather than echoing calls for
conviction, we seek to analyze the true role of justice, the dispute
between factions of the ruling classes, and the need for the oppressed
classes to struggle, without any illusions about the institutions of the
state and capital. ---- 1. The superficial polarization in the Brazilian
political scene and the structural reorganization of Brazilian capitalism
The political scene remains marked by a superficial polarization between
Lulism and Bolsonarism. This dichotomy, reproduced especially by the
bourgeois media, obscures the structural elements of capitalism's class
domination in Brazil. An example of this is the coverage of the recent
Supreme Federal Court (STF) decision to charge Bolsonaro and his allies
with attempted coup d'état, which, despite being widely discussed, fails
to reveal that the episode is part of a movement to reorganize factions
of the ruling classes. This measure, far from representing an act of
justice, serves rather as a tool to restore the limits of liberal
democracy, shaken by the military and the far-right in general, who have
broken with the traditional bourgeois pact. In other words, it is an
attempt, from the outset, to be illusory for the working class, as it
reduces the true polarization (ruling classes vs. oppressed classes) by
reinforcing the bourgeois institutional framework, while continuing to
prioritize the neoliberal project.
The denunciation of Operation "Green-Yellow Dagger"-with plans to
assassinate Lula, Alckmin, and Alexandre de Moraes-confirms the
coup-like nature of Bolsonarism. However, it is essential to question
the belated and selective actions of the Attorney General's Office (PGR)
and the Federal Police (PF), as well as to understand why these agencies
did not act similarly at other times. During the Bolsonaro
administration, crimes such as the murderous handling of the pandemic
were treated with significant institutional complicity. The change in
stance only reinforces that this is an intra-bourgeois dispute, not one
of effective justice or a possible rupture with the current
authoritarian model. Proof of this is the current administration's
complete unwillingness to remove Bolsonaro-supporting military personnel
from strategic positions, such as the Institutional Security Office
(GSI) and the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (ABIN). One of those
indicted for the coup, Lieutenant Colonel André Luis Cruz Correia,
provided Lula's personal security. If the most basic ethical principles
were considered with any priority, Bolsonaro and his accomplices would
have at least been convicted after the COVID Parliamentary Inquiry
Commission (CPI).
2. The Supreme Federal Court (STF) and the Political Function of
Bourgeois Institutions
The Supreme Federal Court (STF), as a legal apparatus of the bourgeois
order, acts in accordance with the interests of the ruling classes, not
out of a commitment to abstract democratic values. The history of
Brazil's so-called "redemocratization" is marked by the impunity of
torturers and the continuation of the repressive apparatus of the
military dictatorship. The punishment of Bolsonaro and the military is,
therefore, an exception that proves the rule: it only occurs because
their autocratic project has exceeded the limits of tolerable stability
for the bourgeois regime, especially through the systematic attack on
the Supreme Federal Court (STF), one of the pillars of class society. It
is not irrelevant that the military is being held in the dock for an
attempted coup for the first time in Brazilian history, but this cannot
be confirmed without due criticism.
Let us return to the example of the Covid Parliamentary Commission of
Inquiry (CPI), which is quite illustrative: the scandal was hushed up,
and no concrete accountability was given. The true objective of the
judiciary is to preserve the structures of capitalism-statism and
operate to keep the pillars of class domination intact. The current
movement is moving toward a possible recomposition between sectors of
the judiciary, the government, and the Armed Forces, to seal a new pact
of conciliation without real ruptures with systemic injustice and the
authoritarianism rooted in the institutions.
3. Fiscal Adjustment and Continued Exploitation
While the far-right is being tried in the Supreme Federal Court (STF),
the Lula-Alckmin administration is deepening fiscal austerity measures,
cutting social investments, and preserving the interests of
agribusiness, banks, and large corporations. State violence continues to
operate in peripheral territories with the same brutality as in the
Bolsonaro era, whether under right-wing or center-left governments. The
official narrative of "defending democracy" ignores that this democracy
is, in essence, a dictatorship of capital.
The pact with the Centrão and sectors of the business community shows
that the electoral defeat of Bolsonarism did not imply the defeat of its
economic base or its political agenda.
Liberal. The silence of institutional political forces in the face of
these agreements reveals the weakening of progressive mediation within
the regime.
4. Liberal 'Antifascists' and the Continuity of Authoritarianism
Bolsonaro's arrest may represent a momentary defeat for the far-right,
but it does not eliminate its material bases: agribusiness, the
reactionary business community, the militarized police, and a
significant portion of the Armed Forces remain intact. The "antifascism"
propagated by sectors of the media and the legal elite is limited to
judicial spectacle and the defense of institutional order.
At the same time, the repression of strikes, occupations, and popular
protests remains active. The broad-front approach promoted by the
Lula-Alckmin administration prevents any structural confrontation with
authoritarianism-which will continue to operate as long as the
conditions of its reproduction (poverty, racism, patriarchy,
militarization) are not addressed. The same government that was elected
on the "anti-fascist" agenda is confronting social and union movements
(such as the strikes at the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and
Statistics), the INSS (National Institute of Social Security), and
federal universities and institutes). Since its electoral victory in
2002, the Workers' Party (PT) project has positioned itself as a brake
on the autonomy of popular struggles and, especially, on the workers'
historical method: direct action. Therefore, any left-wing analysis must
be clear that the justice system is not neutral and has class-based
political and economic interests in its decisions. Whether or not
Bolsonaro should be imprisoned is not merely a technical issue;
technical issues are used to validate a decision that was deliberated in
advance by important sectors of the ruling classes.
A recurring argument among progressive sectors is that punishing
far-right coup plotters would set a dangerous precedent for the future
criminalization of the left. While this concern alone reveals the
repressive nature of the State and capitalism, it inverts the logic of
political struggle: it is not the punishment of the far right that paves
the way for the repression of popular movements, but rather the very
selective and class-based functioning of justice under capitalism that
represses social struggle. The judicial and police apparatus does not
need a "precedent" to attack strikers, occupations, combative unions, or
housing movements-these are already historical targets of repression
even under progressive governments. Justice does not operate with legal
impartiality, but is an expression of the balance of power between
classes. Therefore, it is not the formal coherence of judgments that
guarantees or threatens democratic rights, but the level of organization
and resistance of the working class. The people will be criminalized
whenever they challenge the interests of the ruling classes-with or
without "precedent." The central task is not to fear repression and thus
absolve class enemies, so as not to create legal precedents, but to
organize to confront it with solidarity and unity of action.
5. Bourgeois Justice, Imperialism, and the Correlation of Forces
Further complementing this situation, another example is the use of the
50% tariff increase imposed by Donald Trump on Brazilian products,
albeit partially adjusted, and the retaliation against Supreme Court
justices leading Bolsonaro's trial, through the Magnitsky Act. Both
measures are another clear demonstration that so-called "justice" or
"legality" never operates neutrally, but as an instrument of power. Just
as the Supreme Court uses technical and legal arguments to validate
decisions that correspond to a readjustment of the internal interests of
the ruling classes, Trump mobilizes commercial and legal measures to
give legal form to a political and economic attack that expresses the
strategic interests of US imperialism. Technique, therefore, is merely a
disguise for the real political struggle.
Therefore, it is not about justice or institutional balance, but about
the correlation of forces. Bolsonaro's trial by the Supreme Federal
Court and Trump's imperialist offensive are part of the same logic in
which the ruling classes, both internal and external, use the legal and
political apparatus to guarantee (or expand) their domination. The
illusion of impartiality serves only to mask the class interests behind
every judicial or tariff decision. Understanding this is essential so
that the working class does not place its trust in institutions that,
whether in Brasília or Washington, act as arms of capital against the
people.
6. Build political and class independence through self-managed popular power
The independence of the oppressed classes in struggle is the only way to
consistently confront systemic injustices and neoliberalism. Trusting in
bourgeois justice or state institutions is a path to demobilization and
defeat. The fight against the far right cannot be limited to demanding
the arrest of its leaders-it is necessary to attack the entire system
that produced it.
It is essential to strengthen concrete and independent struggles:
against wage squeezes, the destruction of public services, state
violence, and the precariousness of work, etc. A truly class-based left
needs to build organizational alternatives based on direct action,
grassroots democracy, and autonomy from the governments and institutions
of the ruling classes. Only with our historical principles of
organization can we articulate a truly anti-fascist struggle and fight
for social justice.
7. Immediate and strategic tasks of the working class
To intervene in the current situation without falling into the traps of
institutionalism or bourgeois moralism, we propose:
Advocate for the punishment of Bolsonaro, the military, and the business
leaders involved not only in the attempted coup, but also with an
emphasis on holding them accountable for the crimes of the pandemic.
Always emphasizing that this process is an internal dispute within the
ruling classes, with no decision-making power on the part of the
oppressed classes over the course of this episode.
Denounce the selective and anti-popular nature of bourgeois justice,
exposing its function of preserving the interests of the elites.
Reject trust in the regime's institutions as a path to popular
emancipation. Justice is not possible under the tutelage of capital.
Articulate economic and social struggles with a direct critique of the
political and economic system, denouncing the limits of the Lula-Alckmin
administration.
Emphasize that justice will only be achieved after building spaces for
independent organization, with a territorial, union, student, and
popular base, that resist co-optation and act from the perspective of
self-managed popular power.
Bolsonaro's arrest momentarily alters the balance of power, improving
the conditions for progress in working-class organization, but it does
not break the authoritarian hegemony and does not address any structural
problems in our society. The current democracy remains controlled by a
class bloc that manages exploitation, represses revolt, and co-opts
resistance. True justice-the kind that can transform lives-will come
from the independent and organized action of the working class, breaking
with all forms of capitalist domination.
https://socialismolibertario.net/2025/09/01/prisao-para-bolsonaro/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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