Embat - Libertarian Organization of Catalonia - conducted an interview
with the OSL, in which we were able to better explain our organizationalproposal and the construction of libertarian socialism. We are now
publishing the translation into Portuguese of the second part of the
interview, in which we bring elements of the current situation, history
and the struggles in Brazil. We will also soon publish the third and
final part. The first part can be read here.
PART 2: THE CURRENT SITUATION, HISTORY AND BRAZILIAN STRUGGLES
Between the protests of 2013 and the first year of the PT's return to
government, after the coup and Bolsonaro, at the same time that the CAB
grew until the split, how do you evaluate these last 10 years? What has
changed in Brazilian politics and society?
The last 10 years have resulted in a major change in terms of the
political and social situation in Brazil. In general terms, there have
been, on the one hand, some attempts to move towards a more radical
left, to the left of the Workers' Party (PT), and also the loss of
support and growing moderation of the PT and petismo (a political and
social force linked to the PT). On the other hand, there has been a
considerable radicalization of the right, forming a new extreme right -
Bolsonarismo (a political and social force linked to Jair Bolsonaro).
This process began with the deterioration of the years of the PT
government (2003-2013), characterized by class conciliation, when it
became economically and socially impossible to continue what was called
the "win-win game" (maintaining the profits of those at the top and
providing some improvements for those at the bottom). This exhaustion
has its roots in the international economy, when the effects of the 2008
crisis spread globally and the commodities boom in Brazil began to
weaken. And also in the way the PT government dealt with these effects:
economic policies, political articulations, the press, etc.
The fact is that the period between 2013 and 2016 was marked by great
popular dissatisfaction and, at the same time, by important popular
mobilizations. There was a record number of strikes, a greater
organization of the youth, as well as street protests, occupations, etc.
In many cases, this meant a more radicalized rise of struggles, which
were to the left of the PT and petismo, and managed to maintain a
certain independence in relation to them.
The most important of these mobilizations was in June 2013, when the
Movimento Passe Livre (MPL) in São Paulo, with an autonomist/libertarian
ideological orientation, held protests against the increase in bus,
subway and train fares. The movement was fueled by a growing context of
struggles over transportation, which had been promoted in other
locations (notably in the cities of Porto Alegre, Goiânia, Natal and Rio
de Janeiro). It became widespread and nationalized; it gained great
popular appeal and, in different circumstances, assumed a certain
radical nature.
In different regions, these demonstrations began to be strongly
contested by often opposing political forces. It is true that there was
a presence of various left-wing forces, both the more moderate and the
more radical. But there was also a presence of the right, which at that
time began to frequent the streets (something that had been rare until
then) and which progressively became more radical. A certain spirit of
anti-politics was growing, and also contested by the forces at play on
the left and the right.
This struggle ended victoriously and opened the doors to a new situation
in the country. On the one hand, the years 2014 and 2016, as we have
said, saw significant struggles, such as the protests against the World
Cup (2014), the occupations of high schools and universities
(2015-2016), and countless strikes and mobilizations. But, on the other
hand, this was a fundamental period of stimulus for the right: the coup
against President Dilma Rousseff advanced and became a reality;
Operation Lava Jato, through a process of lawfare , stimulated this
anti-political sentiment in an anti-PT and anti-left sense; a more open
and aggressively neoliberal national policy was promoted by the Michel
Temer government.
In the context of this confrontation, the right wing largely moved
towards the extreme right, in a process of fascist radicalization that
culminated in the election of Bolsonaro in 2018; the left wing saw its
most radicalized projects weakened and, hegemonically, responded by
moving towards the center, (re)grouping around PT and proposing ways of
dialoguing with the center and the center-right.
During the years of Bolsonaro's government (2019-2022), we went through
the COVID-19 pandemic with a denialist government that refused to buy
vaccines and ended up being responsible for a considerable part of the
700,000 deaths we had in Brazil. Furthermore, in economic terms, this
government made significant progress in liberalizing projects, which led
to an increase in poverty and a worsening of workers' living conditions;
in political terms, it encouraged the strengthening of the military's
presence in politics and advanced authoritarian projects, flirting with
coups and exceptional measures; in ideological and moral terms, with
extensive help from evangelical churches (mainly neo-Pentecostal), it
contributed to normalizing neo-fascist absurdities in Brazilian society.
Lula's narrow victory in 2022, the result of a broad front that united
the left and the moderate right, did not change this situation much. At
the moment, the Lula government is trying unsuccessfully to return to
the conciliatory formulas of the early 2000s; it is constantly cornered
by the extreme right and the traditional right ("centrão"), which is
very strong in the national legislature. In social terms, the great
dispute currently taking place is between Bolsonarism (extreme right)
and PTism (center-left, increasingly centered). There is no prospect of
significant changes in economic, political, or cultural terms.
What did you learn from all of this?
In the last 10 years, speaking more specifically about Brazilian
anarchism, there have been moments of ebb and flow. We had some
influence in these processes of struggle (depending on the region,
greater or lesser), but we were nowhere near able to be decisive at the
national level. And much less have a more significant impact on this
Brazilian situation. We can point out some lessons we learned during
this period.
First, it became clear that discontent and popular mobilization do not
necessarily move to the left, much less in a revolutionary and
libertarian direction. In other words, as history also teaches us, in
processes of radicalization of struggle, all forces come into conflict,
including the extreme right. Once again, it is clear that there is no
possibility of betting on spontaneity. The masses will not take to the
streets and automatically build left-wing, revolutionary, libertarian
projects, even if they are encouraged to do so by collectives with these
positions.
Second, the radical, revolutionary left (understanding anarchism as part
of it) needs to have real conditions not only to stimulate popular
mobilizations and revolts, but to give them a precise direction. These
struggles need to be built on a daily basis, and the production of a
libertarian political culture seems to be fundamental to this. When we
talk about anarchism, what happened in Brazil also reinforces our
understanding that, for this construction and this direction in a
libertarian sense, and for the movements and mobilizations that
constantly emerge to be able to point towards a socialist and
libertarian project of transformation, there is no way to give up a
political organization.
For us, this means a united and coherent anarchist party/organization,
with the capacity to influence reality effectively and to concretely
dispute the course of struggles, mobilizations and situations of this
type. An anarchist political organization that is capable of lasting
over time, recording and discussing the accumulated knowledge, and
incorporating it into a coherent and influential political practice. We
maintain that it is this organization that can provide the necessary
responses, not only to situations of this type, but also advance towards
structural transformations of society. It is the anarchist
party/organization - to the extent that it has an influential presence
in the most dynamic sectors of the oppressed classes, as well as an
adequate program and strategic-tactical line - that is able to stimulate
and contribute to the construction of a project of self-managed popular
power.
Third, the risks of the Brazilian left remaining restricted to the
confines of the Workers' Party (PT) have become clear. For decades, the
PT has had broad hegemony on the left in our country, both in political
and social terms. When we look at the historical trajectory of this
party, we see a progressive movement towards bureaucratization,
distancing itself from its bases and a shift towards the center. The PT
emerged in 1980 with a left-wing position, mostly linked to classical
social democracy, although it had the presence of more radical sectors
and a considerable mass popular base (unions, social movements, etc.).
What occurred throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and which became much more
pronounced in the 2000s, was the split of the more left-wing sectors and
a growing movement towards the center. This process involved not only
distancing itself from its bases, but an active effort to undermine old
and new initiatives to articulate and mobilize these bases, in favor of
a bureaucratic and centralized project of power.
Fourth, the need to work on building a new radical left, to the left of
PT, and, as part of it, to challenge its direction in a libertarian
sense. 2013 revealed widespread dissatisfaction among the population
with the situation in Brazil. Note that the response that was
"anti-system", "against everything that is going on" (a phrase often
used by Bolsonaro), was the far right, mobilizing the fascist notion of
"revolution in order". In our assessment, there was (and still is) room
for a radical left to challenge this widespread dissatisfaction. And it
does not seem reasonable to us to combat the neo-fascist far right with
moderation and class conciliation.
Fifth, we have seen progress in this process in the debate on issues of
race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and we consider this to be very
positive. However, we have also noticed that, alongside this process,
there has been a huge growth in the influence of postmodernism and
identity in Brazil, both on the right and on the left, something that we
find deeply problematic.
On the left (and even in anarchism), this postmodern identity movement -
which is heavily influenced by US and European liberalism - has promoted
individualism, fragmentation and the dispersion of struggles (each
person/sector fights only for "their" cause); it has harmed collective
debates and disconnected the important issues mentioned (gender,
sexuality, race, ethnicity, etc.) from a class basis and a class-based
and revolutionary perspective of struggle. This has led to confusion
about who are allies, potential allies, adversaries and enemies; to
treating those who are different as enemies; and to dealing with
difference in an authoritarian manner.
Let us be clear about our position on this fifth point. Nationality,
gender-sexuality, race-ethnicity are extremely important issues. What we
are criticizing is the postmodern and liberal influence in their
treatment, which we believe must be combated by strengthening a
socialist, libertarian, class-based, internationalist and revolutionary
perspective. And more. Reality cannot be understood in a completely
subjective way (like the notion that there is no material, objective
reality, but only different perspectives, experiences and narratives).
And identities cannot be separated from the material reality
(structural, conjunctural, etc.) in which they are produced.
In Europe, the growth of evangelical churches in Brazil and their
penetration into the working classes, leading them to deeply reactionary
positions, is striking. How can a revolutionary organization confront
this situation?
Recently, research has come out showing that 17 evangelical churches are
being opened every day in Brazil; there are now more churches in the
country than hospitals and schools combined. These churches have been
occupying space in areas where the State only reaches with repression,
and also in spaces that, decades ago, were occupied by the left and
popular movements. Today, any political force that operates in the
outskirts of large cities has to deal with evangelical churches, as is
the case with our community activism.
The left-wing expressions of evangelicals - such as, for example, the
theology of integral mission (which fulfills a role analogous to that
which liberation theology fulfilled/fulfills among Catholics) - are very
weakened. Morally conservative and economically liberal positions are
increasingly predominant among this public.
In matters of morality and customs, evangelicals tend to be conservative
or even reactionary, for example, by being completely opposed to the
right to abortion. In matters of economics, given the so-called
evangelical neo-Pentecostalism, linked to the so-called "prosperity
theology" (the fastest-growing sector among evangelicals), there is a
strong neoliberal indoctrination. This is because there are values that
have been propagated by these churches that strengthen this worldview,
such as, for example, the encouragement of enrichment in life and the
defense of individual entrepreneurship as a path to salvation.
However, these positions are not completely hegemonic. There are still
sectors that support social welfare policies and economic agendas more
closely linked to social democracy; for example, they voted for Lula in
the last elections. However, with the strengthening of the far right in
Brazil, evangelical churches have been progressively moving to the right
and have become, albeit without much homogeneity, a prominent pillar of
support for Bolsonarism. The PT government believed that it would be
possible to attract this sector by offering benefits and political
support, but it has become increasingly clear that this is not a
possible solution. Sooner or later, most of this sector will have to be
severely confronted.
Obviously, among the bishops and pastors of the large evangelical
churches, there are countless "merchants of faith" who take advantage of
this growth to exploit the faithful, enrich themselves personally and
expand their economic and political power. Now, this growth of
evangelicals also draws attention to a role that churches have been
fulfilling, especially in peripheral urban areas: responding to certain
needs that contemporary capitalism has been producing, and which revolve
around work, acceptance, sociability, overcoming daily difficulties,
etc. For example, when these evangelicals explain why they go to church,
they talk about issues such as: getting a job, accessing people who will
listen to them, making friends, having leisure spaces (education,
sports, etc.) for the family, building hope for a better tomorrow,
strengthening networks of mutual support (listening, lending money, drug
abuse, etc.), establishing rules in life (drinking, work, crime, etc.).
A social democrat could say that these are functions that should be
performed by the State, and to the extent that the State only accesses
these regions for repression, evangelical churches have occupied this
space. But when observing Brazilian history and society, there is
another possible answer. There have been different moments in our
history when popular movements have responded to these needs, as in the
case of revolutionary unionism at the beginning of the 20th century or
the Base Ecclesial Communities (CEBs), linked to liberation theology, in
the 1970s and 1980s. Regarding the latter case, it is interesting to
note that the aforementioned bureaucratization of the PT caused the
abandoned spaces in the outskirts to be occupied by evangelical churches
and other institutions.
See how these same needs can have contradictory responses. Today, a
worker who attends an evangelical church to alleviate his daily
suffering and nurture hope for improvement will be encouraged to think
that he can soon become rich like the believer next to him. At the
beginning of the century, a worker who sought revolutionary union
initiatives to do so would be encouraged to build this subjectivity
around the possibility of a social revolution and socialism. This is
true for all issues.
We are saying this because it seems essential to us to understand why
these churches are growing and to find alternatives capable of
responding to these needs, but with a profoundly different content. In
other words, we need to have the capacity to build a class-based
political culture, through popular movements, that rebuilds the social
fabric in these peripheries through solidarity, and that gives this
process a class-based and transformative content - this must be a
central aspect of a popular power project. This issue will not be
resolved simply by criticizing evangelical churches, because it is
essential to respond to these needs of contemporary capitalism. This is
one of the great challenges of our community project for the urban
peripheries.
Could you give us a historical and contemporary overview of trade
unionism in Brazil? Is the movement controlled by post-Stalinist and
Trotskyist currents?
To understand the Brazilian trade union movement, it is important to go
back to the origins of trade unionism in Brazil, which began in the
early 20th century. At that time, anarchists played a leading role
through revolutionary trade unionism, which guaranteed class
independence and organizational autonomy to workers.
During the 1930s, during the Getúlio Vargas government, there was a
process of tying unions to the State. In short, what happened was the
following. On the one hand, after strong pressure, the government gave
in to certain historical demands of the Brazilian working class
regarding labor rights (among others: minimum wage, eight-hour workday,
paid vacations, weekly rest). But it publicly stated that this was an
initiative of the government itself. On the other hand, it implemented a
union structure (union unity, compulsory union tax and investiture) that
made unions state organizations that could be controlled by the State.
In other words, the Vargas government severely limited union possibilities.
Other factors - such as the Communist Party's Stalinist international
line, which promoted a reformist trade unionism based on class
conciliation - contributed to the establishment of a consensus in the
country that the union, in organizational terms, was a structure tied to
the State and that it served only to deal with economic issues, through
negotiations aimed at conciliation between capital and labor. This union
structure, inherited from the 1930s, continues to largely guide the way
in which unions are organized in Brazil today.
Currently, broadly speaking, it is possible to say that there are two
major sectors in the trade union movement in the country. One, which
defends the union as being tied to the State and whose function is to
reconcile (often even defend) the demands of employers and workers. And
the other, which defends class independence and sees the union as an
instrument for workers to expose and foment class conflict. Obviously,
within these two broad sectors, there are different positions, ranging
from trade unions that defend neoliberal policies to those that defend
socialist revolution.
To understand the main currents that are currently operating in the
labor movement, it is essential to understand the issue of union unity,
established back in the 1930s. Union unity establishes that each
category has (and can have) only one union, which is authorized by the
State to represent the workers in that category. It is not like in
Spain, where any worker can choose the union or union center that will
represent him/her. In Brazil, workers are required to join the only
union that is authorized to represent their category. This leads to a
dispute, union by union and in each category, with only the elected
leadership later approving which union center the union will join.
To give a practical example, a teacher in a state school cannot choose
to join the CSP-Conlutas union (which advocates class independence), in
the same way that a Spanish teacher can choose to join the CGT or
Solidaridad Obrera. In Brazil - if they are from São Paulo, for example
- this teacher can only join APEOESP, which is the teachers' union of
the state of São Paulo. From there, this teacher can dispute the
day-to-day running of the union so that he or she can assume certain
positions and join a union. In the case of APEOESP, the largest union in
Latin America, it is affiliated with the Central Única dos Trabalhadores
(CUT), which is mostly led by an internal faction of the PT.
This leaves Brazilian unionists with only two options. One is to
participate in single unions and invest in internal disputes. Or, to
invest in the creation of a parallel union structure. There have been
and are some initiatives in this second direction, but they have proven
to be extremely limited in terms of the number of workers involved and,
especially, in terms of the ability to demand something in the
workplace. In our analysis, the option of creating a parallel union, at
least at this historical moment, would distance us from the real base of
workers and would only bring together a few dozen workers through overly
ideological criteria, since the unions would not have the capacity to
deal with the concrete reality of ordinary workers.
For example, in this context of decline in the labor movement, it is
unlikely that a subway worker will join a parallel union that is
incapable of negotiating wages, working conditions, etc., and that does
not provide political and legal support against dismissal. This is even
worse when we talk about precarious workers, whose more fragile
stability means that, even if they want to, they face enormous
difficulties in joining a parallel union. For example, an outsourced
cleaning worker, after a long work day, often marked by repression by
the employer, if he or she takes time off work to do an activity with
this parallel union, may lose the basic food basket or a day's work, may
be transferred to more unhealthy places or even be fired.
Today, the camp that defends class independence (Trotskyists, some
anarchist sectors, autonomist Marxists, etc.) is quite a minority. The
largest Brazilian trade unions are the CUT - which has a
social-democratic/social-liberal line, led mostly by the PT - and the
Força Sindical - which is controlled by sectors of the right and the
employers' union bureaucracy. Intermediate unions are the União Geral
dos Trabalhadores (UGT) - which defends neoliberal policies - and the
Central de Trabalhadores e Trabalhadoras do Brasil (CTB) - which is
controlled mostly by the Partido Comunista do Brasil (PCdoB), a split
from the Partido Comunista Brasileiro (PCB) and which follows the line
of the PC Albanês. There are also other smaller organizations. Among
them, the only trade union that defends class independence, and which is
led mostly by Trotskyists, is the Central Sindical e Popular Conlutas
(CSP-Conlutas). Another organization along these lines, which is not a
central and has far fewer unions/members, is the "Red" Intersindical
(Instrument of Struggle...).
Post-Stalinists, in general, have little presence in the Brazilian trade
union movement. Due to their ethical and strategic flexibility, they
tend to be close to the categories in a more pragmatic way, often
linking themselves to the CUT, but without almost any social force
capable of influencing the policies of the central, much less the
Brazilian trade union movement as a whole.
What do you think about anarcho-syndicalism and revolutionary
syndicalism? Would it be possible to move towards an autonomous tendency
in syndicalism?
Within this complex union framework, our bet, trying to adapt elements
of revolutionary unionism, has been to build the struggles in these
existing unions and to fight within them. In all the unions we are part
of, we have tried to convince workers that the model of unionism based
on independence and class conflict is the one that leads to concrete
victories, and that allows us to accumulate social strength to, later
on, break with state unionism and promote larger-scale transformations.
We understand that it is necessary to create a real structure, with a
strong base that can respond to the current situation, support
affiliated workers against the bosses and compete for hegemony with the
union centers and tendencies that defend the union bureaucracy. Of
course, this does not depend solely on our will, it does not happen
overnight, and it is only possible with medium and long-term strategic
planning that is capable of establishing, step by step, the necessary tasks.
When we look at the history of anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism and
revolutionary syndicalism, we find many references to what we are doing.
We know that, depending on the country and region, the distinction
between anarcho-syndicalism and revolutionary syndicalism changes a lot
and is a source of controversy.
For us, when, in terms of mass strategy, we give preference to
revolutionary syndicalism over anarcho-syndicalism, it is because, for
example, we understand that the revolutionary syndical model of the
Brazilian Workers' Confederation (COB), founded in 1908 - based on the
proposal of a syndicalism that would encompass all workers willing to
fight, without an explicit and programmatic link to an ideology or
doctrine - is more interesting than the anarcho-syndicalist model of the
Federación Obrera Regional Argentina (FORA), from 1905 onwards - based
on the proposal of a syndicalism ideologically and programmatically
linked to anarchism. For us, anarchism must be within the union
movement, and not the other way around.
The revolutionary unionism that we defend becomes clear with the mass
line that we explained earlier. We do not want unions or anarchist
movements, but rather workers' movements that can have anarchism as an
influential reference, through certain practices that are capable of
pointing to a social transformation along the lines that we support.
However, we know that there is a long way to go before this strategy has
concrete conditions to be implemented on a large scale in Brazil. But to
the extent that we believe that the means must be coherent with the
ends, and lead to them, we seek to build this strategic perspective from
now on, in the unions where we have a presence.
Can you talk a little about the rural situation in Brazil?
First of all, it is important to mention the importance that the issue
of land concentration has had on the social formation of Brazil, in the
countryside and in the city. Currently, Brazil has 453 million hectares
under private use, which corresponds to 53% of the national territory.
Since the colonial period, the country's ruling classes have been trying
to create the conditions for the maintenance of private property in this
land concentration.
In 1850, when the abolitionist movement was gaining momentum and before
the Abolition of Slavery Act was passed, the Land Law was established to
regulate private property in the country. This prevented, among other
things, the black population from owning land to live and work on, and
contributed to the social exclusion of this population. In other words,
part of the social inequalities, relations of domination and structural
racism in Brazil are related to the historical process of land
concentration in the country.
Historically, there have been several processes of revolt and
mobilization in rural Brazil, just as there are currently different
rural movements, from the most organized at a national level to smaller,
local groups. Throughout the country's history, the rural population has
been systematically expelled to the big cities due to land
concentration, land grabbing, violence, and the lack of policies that
guarantee that small farmers and rural workers can remain in their
place. This has led to an ever-increasing population concentration in
the big cities.
To a large extent, this historical context also explains why Brazil
continues to be an agrarian country that exports grains, meats, minerals
and other primary products. 45% of Brazil's productive area is
concentrated in properties larger than 1,000 hectares - just 0.9% of all
rural properties. And a large part of Brazil's production of
agricultural commodities is linked to vertically structured
conglomerates that control the entire process, from planting to
marketing. These are companies that exploit the land market, both for
the production of commodities and for financial speculation. Despite
this, more than 70% of the food consumed by the Brazilian population is
produced by family farms and small farmers, but they occupy the smallest
amount of arable land in the country.
This model has deepened and advanced under neoliberal and far-right
governments, such as those of Temer and Bolsonaro, but it has also been
maintained under the governments of Lula and Dilma. The agribusiness
lobby in Brazil is institutionalized and strong; it operates in Congress
through the Frente Parlamentar da Agropecuária (FPA, formalized under
this name in 2008). More recently, ruralists have organized themselves
into the Invasão Zero movement, a type of paramilitary initiative
supported by public security sectors, repressing land occupations and
repossessions of indigenous communities, mainly in the states of Pará
and Bahia. Conflicts and murders in the countryside and forests continue
under the Lula government, mainly in areas where the agricultural
frontier is advancing, in the north and northeast regions of the country.
In 2021, the Bolsonaro government created the Titula Brasil program,
with the aim of privatizing settlements and ending Agrarian Reform
policies. It also aimed to promote the dismantling of the National
Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA), encourage
increased violence in the countryside and the destruction of the
environment. Despite encompassing the entire country, Titula Brasil was
specifically designed with the purpose of speeding up the process of
regularizing properties in the Legal Amazon, the main focus of the
expansive land policy defended by Bolsonaro.
In addition to encouraging the expansion of the agricultural frontier,
especially in the North and Northeast, this policy also served the
interests of the industrial livestock sector, part of Bolsonaro's
support base and the most backward sector of agribusiness. There is also
the agribusiness sector of large mechanized and technological estates,
of monoculture of grains sold as agricultural commodities to be
transformed into feed for livestock in countries like China.
On the other hand, the Lula government's Plano Safra (agricultural
sector incentive program) in 2023 allocated only 20% of the total budget
to family farming, while most of the federal resources go to finance
agribusiness and large landowners, who still have tax exemptions. The
release of pesticides, many of which are banned in Europe, also
continues under the Lula government. The total number of pesticide
registrations in 2023 was 555, below the total registered in 2022 (652)
and 2021 (562), but still at the same level as the Temer and Bolsonaro
governments.
And what is the situation of the landless peasant movement at the moment?
Initially, it is important to characterize here, in general terms, two
of the largest rural movements in Brazil, the Landless Workers' Movement
(MST) and the Small Farmers' Movement (MPA). Due to their size, they end
up setting the agenda for this issue in the country, and that is why
today we cannot understand the peasant movement without talking about them.
The MST was founded in 1984, and the MPA in 1996. Both are part of the
so-called "popular democratic project," according to the terminology of
the 1980s and 1990s. This project currently largely directs other large
organizations, such as the Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT), in the
union sector, and the União Nacional dos Estudantes (UNE), in the
student sector. And it has the PT as its major political and
institutional representative. In other words, it is a field that
directly composes the PT or that has great influence from it.
It is important to remember that the MST and the MPA also make up the
Latin American Coordinator of Rural Organizations (CLOC) and Via
Campesina, together with the Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB),
the Peasant Women's Movement (MMC), the Artisanal Fishermen's and
Fisherwomen's Movement (MPP), the Rural Youth Pastoral (PJR), the
National Coordination of Quilombola Communities (CONAQ), the Movement
for Popular Sovereignty in Mining (MAM), the Federation of Agronomy
Students of Brazil (FEAB), the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), the
Association of Forestry Engineering Students (ABEEF) and the Indigenous
Missionary Council (CIMI).
The MST's main programmatic line is Popular Agrarian Reform, based on
the brutal concentration of land in Brazil. In this sense, it has
developed a program that considers both agrarian issues (democratizing
access to land for those who live and work on it) and agricultural
issues (conditions, techniques and ways of producing in the
agroecological matrix). Currently, this involves several themes and
agendas such as gender, rural education, health, LGBT, training,
production, marketing, housing, culture, among others.
The MPA emerged in the 1990s, due to the understanding that rural
unionism was insufficient to meet the survival demands of small farmers
at that time. It defends and supports agrarian reform, but organizes
peasant families and small farmers who already have their own land. And
they do so based on the understanding that policies are needed to ensure
that these families remain in the countryside and prevent people from
having to leave their land to try to survive in the big cities. In other
words, policies for housing, support for production, credit, marketing,
culture, leisure, health, infrastructure, rural education, among others.
The Peasant Plan is the program that systematizes the movement's main
proposals for these issues.
Speaking about the struggle in this sector in the current situation, at
the beginning of the current Lula government, occupations took place in
more than 10 cities, led by another movement, the Frente Nacional de
Luta Campo e Cidade (FLN) in the southeast and south of the country. The
FLN was founded in 2014, and one of its main references is a former
historic MST activist, Zé Rainha. During this period, there were also
temporary occupations of Incra by the MST in the south of Bahia. Despite
this beginning of the year, let us remember that the movements linked to
Via Campesina and the popular democratic camp opted for a retreat from
the first PT government (2003 onwards), and do not indicate any
significant changes, especially in the new Lula government.
For example, during the first PT government (2003-2006), the MST adopted
the line of not moving forward with land occupations, but rather of
improving the existing settlements. It focused on the release of credit
and production incentive policies that would help structure the
processing and marketing cooperatives in the states, such as those for
credit, dairy products, rice, and dairy products. While on the one hand,
organizing economic tools is important as a way of adding value to
production and generating income for settled families, training in
cooperative and collective work methodologies, developing knowledge and
technology, and organizing the territory, on the other hand, this can
generate a great deal of dependence on public policies, credit, and
government programs. This contributes to a line that seeks to negotiate
first and avoid putting pressure on the government, and that, over time,
builds a political culture of adaptation to the system to the detriment
of a combative policy.
The fact is that little changed in the agrarian reform and family
farming policies during the first Lula and Dilma governments
(2003-2016). And things got even worse under the Temer and Bolsonaro
governments. Despite this, the movements of the popular democratic camp
were limited to a few specific demonstrations and occupations of a more
political nature and of short duration. Either because they were losing
the capacity to mobilize their bases, or because they preferred to let
the Bolsonaro government wear itself out, betting on a change in the
situation through elections rather than through social pressure from the
struggles and the streets.
In the meantime, the MST and the MPA have made progress in different
forms of dialogue and propaganda with society. This includes gender and
LGBT issues, food donation campaigns for communities and favelas
(especially during the pandemic). In addition, there have been trainings
for grassroots health agents, state and national agrarian reform fairs,
and organic rice production. Examples of this are spaces such as
Armazéns do Campo (MST) and Raízes do Brasil (MPA) in large capitals,
where the agro-industrialized production of cooperatives is sold and
political and cultural activities are held. These were advances, despite
the fact that much of this dialogue was mainly with the urban middle
classes. This ended up giving the movement a more palatable and
sanitized face, and erasing the old image of peasants with their scythes
in large marches and occupations.
In the 2022 presidential elections, the MST and other movements, such as
the indigenous movements, also supported their own candidacies for state
deputy. Others, such as the oil workers, supported candidates from
neighboring sectors. This was done to try to advance certain policies
and agendas at the institutional level, but it ended up contributing
even more to the distancing of these movements from direct action
policies. While this demands a significant part of the movements'
energy, it is also related to the fact that, even with a PT government
and from the same political camp, agrarian reform agendas continue to
fail to advance. Just as there was no significant progress in agrarian
reform and family farming policies in the first Lula and Dilma
governments. Currently, there are around 90,000 families still camped
out in Brazil, awaiting the progress of agrarian reform.
Our perspective is that, given the government's stagnation in meeting
rural demands, land occupations and mass mobilizations, at different
levels, will resume. In addition to the Lula government increasingly
giving in to the so-called "centrão" (as it is called, the traditional
right wing of Congress), the far-right Bolsonaro supporters are also
continuing to mobilize. Meanwhile, a series of social rights are under
threat or urgently need to advance. And this can only happen with
popular pressure.
Mobilization processes to pressure the government to address social
issues, as well as processes of occupying public offices and land and
housing occupations, are also important tactics due to their formative
nature and their ability to help renew militancy. Retreating is harmful
to social movements, as it leads to an increasing demobilization of
their bases and a reduced capacity to generate social force. As a
result, it produces less influence in society and less construction of a
reference point on the left, as the MST and other movements did in a
significant way until the end of the 1990s.
https://socialismolibertario.net/2024/09/13/fica-evidente-que-nao-ha-qualquer-possibilidade-de-apostar-no-espontaneismo/
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