On April 1, 1964, a coup organized by the Brazilian ruling classes
spread, for decades, a violent repression against unions, popular
movements and political organizations; the regime closed in on a
military dictatorship that lasted 21 years, supported by the national
and international bourgeoisie. ---- Every year, left-wing political
organizations mark the memory of resistance to the coup and
dictatorship, but it is necessary to go beyond memory as a flag of
agitation and analyze this process, to extract lessons from it that can
serve the time gift. Far from "wanting to dwell on the past", as Lula
recently said, making this recovery 60 years later is an important task
in the face of attacks on the basic rights of the oppressed classes, the
coup and the advance of the extreme right.
Unlike liberal analyses, which insist on the thesis that "Brazilian
society" desired the coup and dictatorship (due to a supposed
authoritarian "essence") or that there was an imbalance in the bourgeois
democratic system, our assessment must imply a classist analysis and,
from this, define a consistent political line.
THE REASONS FOR THE MILITARY COUP
The military coup must be understood as a result of the exhaustion of
the populist political system and a response by the dominant classes to
the nationalist-reformist bloc represented by João Goulart. This bloc
had a nationalist and populist political line, as well as a political
perspective of class conciliation. In this populist political system,
set up since the 1940s, during the Vargas government, the action of the
working class should be limited to demanding small political and
economic gains and their organizations (unions, associations, etc.)
should act in a manner supervised by the State. The role of the working
class, for populism, would be to make demands within the order, without
any revolutionary proposal and subordinating its demands to the limits
of bourgeois governability.
The background to this perspective was the supposed possibility (which
some left-wing organizations still promote today) of carrying out
structural changes that would benefit the oppressed classes through
peaceful action, institutional dispute and conciliation with the
national bourgeoisie, in a more independent line. to imperialism and
foreign capital. This was the position of this national-reformist bloc,
represented at the time by Jango, labor organizations, unions and
political associations that were betting on the line of class conciliation.
However, under the context of peripheral capitalism in the pre-64
period, the Brazilian dominant classes, dependent on multinational
capital and subordinated to imperialism, would never admit that the
oppressed classes continued to receive small specific conquests. With
the growing class mobilization of urban and rural unions in the early
1960s, the Brazilian bourgeoisie, associated with other sectors of the
dominant classes, began to agitate the possibility of a military coup,
which would defeat the national-reformist bloc and put end to the
populist political system.
The instrument of military coups had been used by imperialism,
especially since the 1950s, as an "anti-communist" solution aimed at
maintaining or deepening imperialist domination on the American
continent. The military coup was then prepared by two coup institutions,
the Institute for Research and Social Studies (IPES) and the Brazilian
Institute for Democratic Action (IBAD); with the participation of
businesspeople from national and multinational companies, military
personnel, journalists, technocrats and intellectuals, these
organizations began to wage an intense coup campaign, with the support
and financial resources of North American imperialism.
Its immediate objective was to overthrow the João Goulart government,
strengthen the agitation of the extreme right (financing the Marchas da
Família com Deus pela Liberdade) and defeat the national-reformist bloc
and its policy of class conciliation. In the medium and long term, the
aim was to consolidate the presence of external capital in the Brazilian
economy, reinforce submission to imperialism and destroy any prospects
for social mobilization.
THE COUP AND THE MILITARY DICTATORSHIP
The military dictatorship was instituted as a way of defeating populism,
stopping the possibility of basic reforms that would benefit sectors of
the oppressed classes and establishing an extreme right-wing government,
subordinated to imperialism and preventing any types of classist social
organization and mobilization.
The dictatorship flattened wages, reduced purchasing power, silenced
class mobilization and increased banking, land and income concentration
in the country.
A process of widespread violence, with kidnappings, torture, arrests and
murders was carried out by the Armed Forces and their partners from the
ruling classes. Unions, left-wing organizations, popular movements,
indigenous people, peasants and any sectors that took a stand against
the logic of the military regime were persecuted. It is estimated that
1,654 peasants and more than 4 thousand indigenous people were killed or
disappeared, between the military dictatorship and the Sarney government
(1985-1989). The repression did not even spare children - sons and
daughters of those who dared to organize and fight against the
barbarities of the dictatorship.
Like other leftist currents, anarchists also suffered the action of
repression, with the invasion of their social spaces, being victims of
arrests and prosecutions for their political action in the student movement.
Valorous comrades resisted the dictatorship with weapons in their hands
and/or in their class entities and, despite the strong repression
suffered, their example allowed popular resistance to continue, wearing
down the regime and preparing the democratic opening.
LESSONS FOR THE PRESENT TIME
The democratic opening provided amnesty to coup plotters and torturers,
while guaranteeing a renewed social pact of the New Republic. A renewed
system of domination, which took off the uniform of dictatorship and put
on the civilian clothes of bourgeois democracy. In this pact, social
demands and demands were channeled into institutions, despite the fact
that even during the military dictatorship, in the 1980s, numerous
demonstrations, looting of supermarkets and popular marches against the
increase in the cost of living toured the country.
One of the implicit agreements of this social pact was to guarantee that
popular movements would not radicalize towards the left and that they
would submit to the strict limits of bourgeois democracy and republican
institutions. On the other hand, it was necessary to guarantee the
process of bourgeois overaccumulation and the maintenance of the
privileges of the dressed and uniformed caste. It was also necessary to
guarantee, through elections, the moderation of popular demands and
their movements, as well as a controlled process of alternation in
control of the state apparatus. The moderation of popular and labor
demands, as well as the control of social movements, fell mainly to the
Workers' Party (PT) with its formation in the late 1970s and
consolidating its control over the movements when it ascended to state
power in 2002 - a moment in which that the policy of class conciliation
through the PT program is explicit, and the stagnation of struggles.
However, in 2013/14, two elements of this pact were broken. The first
were the demonstrations of June 2013, the destruction of private
property and methods of direct action - at least in large urban cities -
also brought diffuse elements of political consciousness (taken
advantage of on the left and right), showing that the PT could not
control these movements and no political force could concretely channel
it. The second is Dilma's reelection in 2014. If the alternation of
power had already been broken in previous electoral elections,
maintaining a fourth PT term seemed unacceptable to a sector of the
dominant classes. Despite having benefited the banking system and not
threatening any structural element of Brazilian capitalism, the PT's
small gains and specific policies of weak distributivism seemed
unacceptable in a recessive stage of capitalism and in the face of a
political continuity that was beginning to be questioned.
Part of the sectors of the ruling classes embarked on yet another coup
action using the instruments of Operation Lava Jato, channeling diffuse
dissatisfaction and a growing organized right-wing movement, more
visible from 2015 onwards, resulting in the legal-parliamentary coup of
2016.
Six decades after the military coup, we still live in a context of a
renewed pact and class conciliation, with the Lula-Alckmin government's
attempt to "pacify" the country, "reconstruct" part of what was
destroyed by the Temer and Bolsonaro governments, and promote small
social reforms in agreement with part of the national bourgeoisie. This
political line is currently hegemonic in many unions, social movements
and left-wing political currents, even dragging sectors that are more
critical of Lulism to act as satellites in this new round of
conciliation. By this logic, the PT would once again pacify the social
conflicts expressed on the right and left, while governing based on a
"social consensus" - today, shattered.
DO NOT REPEAT THE MISTAKES OF THE PAST... NOT ONE STEP BACK!
The reformist attempt at yet another class pact puts all the chips on
the institutional dispute and bourgeois governance. And due to the
intrinsic logic of reformism, it always leaves social organization and
action in the background or, even in its even more backward versions,
condemns it. As an example of this backward action, the Lula-Alckmin
government determined, this year, not to hold events commemorating the
60th anniversary of the military coup.
Even with the decision of a sector of the bourgeoisie and the STF to
rebuild this consensus, specifically punishing the coup plotters of
January 2023, and to resume bourgeois democratic normality, we know that
this social pact has been divided and can no longer be resumed in its
entirety. .
The uniformed party remains organized and active in the country,
associated with the most reactionary political forces of Brazilian
capitalism and articulated with sectors of our country's ruling class.
Any attempts at conciliation will end up disarming our class in the face
of the political confrontation that is being postponed. Our bet must be
not only to immediately punish the coup plotters and dismantle their
proto-fascist organizations, but to strengthen a revolutionary
perspective in rural and urban movements, today hegemonized by the logic
of conciliation.
While our enemies arm themselves, propose the tightening of the regime
and permanent mobilization under their reactionary banners, the large
left-wing organizations and social movements continue to trust in the
STF, in judiciality and bourgeois governance. We need to return to a
political perspective that defends the rights of the working class and
advances the perspective of self-managed popular power.
In the 60th anniversary of the 1964 military coup, our political line
must be firmly positioned with three short and medium term banners.
These flags do not exhaust popular demands, but they are conditions for
us to overcome the coup and pave the way for the advancement of other
struggles:
· Dismantle the privileges of the military in Brazil, end the military
police and repressive police actions in the outskirts!
· Conviction of the torturers, murderers and financiers of the military
dictatorship, reparation for the victims and construction of memory
centers of the period!
· Immediate punishment of financiers and senior political and military
leaders responsible for crimes committed during the years of the
Bolsonaro government!
Neither Forgetfulness nor Forgiveness, Dictatorship Never Again!
For the Social Revolution and Libertarian Socialism!
Libertarian Socialist Organization (OSL), March 28, 2024.
https://socialismolibertario.net/2024/03/28/nem-esquecimento-nem-perdao-60-anos-depois-o-golpe-militar-reverbera-no-brasil/
_________________________________________
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
spread, for decades, a violent repression against unions, popular
movements and political organizations; the regime closed in on a
military dictatorship that lasted 21 years, supported by the national
and international bourgeoisie. ---- Every year, left-wing political
organizations mark the memory of resistance to the coup and
dictatorship, but it is necessary to go beyond memory as a flag of
agitation and analyze this process, to extract lessons from it that can
serve the time gift. Far from "wanting to dwell on the past", as Lula
recently said, making this recovery 60 years later is an important task
in the face of attacks on the basic rights of the oppressed classes, the
coup and the advance of the extreme right.
Unlike liberal analyses, which insist on the thesis that "Brazilian
society" desired the coup and dictatorship (due to a supposed
authoritarian "essence") or that there was an imbalance in the bourgeois
democratic system, our assessment must imply a classist analysis and,
from this, define a consistent political line.
THE REASONS FOR THE MILITARY COUP
The military coup must be understood as a result of the exhaustion of
the populist political system and a response by the dominant classes to
the nationalist-reformist bloc represented by João Goulart. This bloc
had a nationalist and populist political line, as well as a political
perspective of class conciliation. In this populist political system,
set up since the 1940s, during the Vargas government, the action of the
working class should be limited to demanding small political and
economic gains and their organizations (unions, associations, etc.)
should act in a manner supervised by the State. The role of the working
class, for populism, would be to make demands within the order, without
any revolutionary proposal and subordinating its demands to the limits
of bourgeois governability.
The background to this perspective was the supposed possibility (which
some left-wing organizations still promote today) of carrying out
structural changes that would benefit the oppressed classes through
peaceful action, institutional dispute and conciliation with the
national bourgeoisie, in a more independent line. to imperialism and
foreign capital. This was the position of this national-reformist bloc,
represented at the time by Jango, labor organizations, unions and
political associations that were betting on the line of class conciliation.
However, under the context of peripheral capitalism in the pre-64
period, the Brazilian dominant classes, dependent on multinational
capital and subordinated to imperialism, would never admit that the
oppressed classes continued to receive small specific conquests. With
the growing class mobilization of urban and rural unions in the early
1960s, the Brazilian bourgeoisie, associated with other sectors of the
dominant classes, began to agitate the possibility of a military coup,
which would defeat the national-reformist bloc and put end to the
populist political system.
The instrument of military coups had been used by imperialism,
especially since the 1950s, as an "anti-communist" solution aimed at
maintaining or deepening imperialist domination on the American
continent. The military coup was then prepared by two coup institutions,
the Institute for Research and Social Studies (IPES) and the Brazilian
Institute for Democratic Action (IBAD); with the participation of
businesspeople from national and multinational companies, military
personnel, journalists, technocrats and intellectuals, these
organizations began to wage an intense coup campaign, with the support
and financial resources of North American imperialism.
Its immediate objective was to overthrow the João Goulart government,
strengthen the agitation of the extreme right (financing the Marchas da
Família com Deus pela Liberdade) and defeat the national-reformist bloc
and its policy of class conciliation. In the medium and long term, the
aim was to consolidate the presence of external capital in the Brazilian
economy, reinforce submission to imperialism and destroy any prospects
for social mobilization.
THE COUP AND THE MILITARY DICTATORSHIP
The military dictatorship was instituted as a way of defeating populism,
stopping the possibility of basic reforms that would benefit sectors of
the oppressed classes and establishing an extreme right-wing government,
subordinated to imperialism and preventing any types of classist social
organization and mobilization.
The dictatorship flattened wages, reduced purchasing power, silenced
class mobilization and increased banking, land and income concentration
in the country.
A process of widespread violence, with kidnappings, torture, arrests and
murders was carried out by the Armed Forces and their partners from the
ruling classes. Unions, left-wing organizations, popular movements,
indigenous people, peasants and any sectors that took a stand against
the logic of the military regime were persecuted. It is estimated that
1,654 peasants and more than 4 thousand indigenous people were killed or
disappeared, between the military dictatorship and the Sarney government
(1985-1989). The repression did not even spare children - sons and
daughters of those who dared to organize and fight against the
barbarities of the dictatorship.
Like other leftist currents, anarchists also suffered the action of
repression, with the invasion of their social spaces, being victims of
arrests and prosecutions for their political action in the student movement.
Valorous comrades resisted the dictatorship with weapons in their hands
and/or in their class entities and, despite the strong repression
suffered, their example allowed popular resistance to continue, wearing
down the regime and preparing the democratic opening.
LESSONS FOR THE PRESENT TIME
The democratic opening provided amnesty to coup plotters and torturers,
while guaranteeing a renewed social pact of the New Republic. A renewed
system of domination, which took off the uniform of dictatorship and put
on the civilian clothes of bourgeois democracy. In this pact, social
demands and demands were channeled into institutions, despite the fact
that even during the military dictatorship, in the 1980s, numerous
demonstrations, looting of supermarkets and popular marches against the
increase in the cost of living toured the country.
One of the implicit agreements of this social pact was to guarantee that
popular movements would not radicalize towards the left and that they
would submit to the strict limits of bourgeois democracy and republican
institutions. On the other hand, it was necessary to guarantee the
process of bourgeois overaccumulation and the maintenance of the
privileges of the dressed and uniformed caste. It was also necessary to
guarantee, through elections, the moderation of popular demands and
their movements, as well as a controlled process of alternation in
control of the state apparatus. The moderation of popular and labor
demands, as well as the control of social movements, fell mainly to the
Workers' Party (PT) with its formation in the late 1970s and
consolidating its control over the movements when it ascended to state
power in 2002 - a moment in which that the policy of class conciliation
through the PT program is explicit, and the stagnation of struggles.
However, in 2013/14, two elements of this pact were broken. The first
were the demonstrations of June 2013, the destruction of private
property and methods of direct action - at least in large urban cities -
also brought diffuse elements of political consciousness (taken
advantage of on the left and right), showing that the PT could not
control these movements and no political force could concretely channel
it. The second is Dilma's reelection in 2014. If the alternation of
power had already been broken in previous electoral elections,
maintaining a fourth PT term seemed unacceptable to a sector of the
dominant classes. Despite having benefited the banking system and not
threatening any structural element of Brazilian capitalism, the PT's
small gains and specific policies of weak distributivism seemed
unacceptable in a recessive stage of capitalism and in the face of a
political continuity that was beginning to be questioned.
Part of the sectors of the ruling classes embarked on yet another coup
action using the instruments of Operation Lava Jato, channeling diffuse
dissatisfaction and a growing organized right-wing movement, more
visible from 2015 onwards, resulting in the legal-parliamentary coup of
2016.
Six decades after the military coup, we still live in a context of a
renewed pact and class conciliation, with the Lula-Alckmin government's
attempt to "pacify" the country, "reconstruct" part of what was
destroyed by the Temer and Bolsonaro governments, and promote small
social reforms in agreement with part of the national bourgeoisie. This
political line is currently hegemonic in many unions, social movements
and left-wing political currents, even dragging sectors that are more
critical of Lulism to act as satellites in this new round of
conciliation. By this logic, the PT would once again pacify the social
conflicts expressed on the right and left, while governing based on a
"social consensus" - today, shattered.
DO NOT REPEAT THE MISTAKES OF THE PAST... NOT ONE STEP BACK!
The reformist attempt at yet another class pact puts all the chips on
the institutional dispute and bourgeois governance. And due to the
intrinsic logic of reformism, it always leaves social organization and
action in the background or, even in its even more backward versions,
condemns it. As an example of this backward action, the Lula-Alckmin
government determined, this year, not to hold events commemorating the
60th anniversary of the military coup.
Even with the decision of a sector of the bourgeoisie and the STF to
rebuild this consensus, specifically punishing the coup plotters of
January 2023, and to resume bourgeois democratic normality, we know that
this social pact has been divided and can no longer be resumed in its
entirety. .
The uniformed party remains organized and active in the country,
associated with the most reactionary political forces of Brazilian
capitalism and articulated with sectors of our country's ruling class.
Any attempts at conciliation will end up disarming our class in the face
of the political confrontation that is being postponed. Our bet must be
not only to immediately punish the coup plotters and dismantle their
proto-fascist organizations, but to strengthen a revolutionary
perspective in rural and urban movements, today hegemonized by the logic
of conciliation.
While our enemies arm themselves, propose the tightening of the regime
and permanent mobilization under their reactionary banners, the large
left-wing organizations and social movements continue to trust in the
STF, in judiciality and bourgeois governance. We need to return to a
political perspective that defends the rights of the working class and
advances the perspective of self-managed popular power.
In the 60th anniversary of the 1964 military coup, our political line
must be firmly positioned with three short and medium term banners.
These flags do not exhaust popular demands, but they are conditions for
us to overcome the coup and pave the way for the advancement of other
struggles:
· Dismantle the privileges of the military in Brazil, end the military
police and repressive police actions in the outskirts!
· Conviction of the torturers, murderers and financiers of the military
dictatorship, reparation for the victims and construction of memory
centers of the period!
· Immediate punishment of financiers and senior political and military
leaders responsible for crimes committed during the years of the
Bolsonaro government!
Neither Forgetfulness nor Forgiveness, Dictatorship Never Again!
For the Social Revolution and Libertarian Socialism!
Libertarian Socialist Organization (OSL), March 28, 2024.
https://socialismolibertario.net/2024/03/28/nem-esquecimento-nem-perdao-60-anos-depois-o-golpe-militar-reverbera-no-brasil/
_________________________________________
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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