BRASIL: THE EMERGENCY REGIME ADVANCES!

The Army Generals put pressure on the Supreme Court to imprison Lula

Statement of the Corrente Comunista Revolucionária (CCR, Brazilian Section of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency), 5 April 2018, http://elmundosocialista.blogspot.com

The appeal of Lula's lawyers to the Supreme Court for a preventive Habeas Corpus was rejected by a small majority (6-5). In the days leading up to the appeal judgment at least seven army generals made public statements pressurizing the Supreme Court. The main TV network Rede Globo and other television networks and radios gave much space to report about the speeches of the putschist generals. The result was the advance of the emergency regime which came to power with the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff in April 2016.

Who is the real target? Only Lula da Silva or the Working Class and the Social Movements?

The offensive of the military opens a new chapter in the advance of the putschist movement. It means that the military returns to a preponderant role. This has been encouraged by the politically weak President Temer when he authorized the military intervention in Rio de Janeiro.

Such a policy is strictly related to a central issue of the current national political struggle: the imprisonment of the former president and main leader of the national left Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Lula has a strong lead in all polls for the Presidential election in October 2018. But the target is not only the former president Lula who has lead in a reformist government, conciliatory with the bourgeoisie, in 2003-2011.

The target of the reactionary offensive is the whole of the Brazilian working class, the leftist parties and the social movements. The leading circles of the bourgeoisie are determined to implement harsh neoliberal reforms which would actually destroy the political and social rights of the Brazilian working class. This also means that a successful offensive would also drastically reduce the space for reformist and conciliatory politicians and leaderships of mass organizations (e.g. PT, PCdoB, CUT, MST, PSOL) to reach compromises with the bourgeoisie.

But this reactionary offensive against the working class and its mass organizations inevitable provokes resistance. This is the reason why the financial bourgeoisie, supported by the imperialist powers, activated its instruments: the monopoly media with Rede Globo at its heart, the highly conservative and reactionary parliament, the Public Prosecutor's Office, and the Supreme Court. But this is not enough; they also had to call the army command back to having a role that they didn’t have since 1985 when the military dictatorship ended.

The growing role of the Military 30 years after the end of the dictatorship

This is evident when, in a week, seven Generals of the Armed Forces threatened the Federal Supreme Court (STF), at the same time as the habeas corpus trial of former president Lula da Silva was to occur. These sevens generals are only those who openly have revealed their positions; inside the High Command, the hegemonic opinion of these generals was in favor of the immediate imprisonment of Lula. They sent a very clear message: if they (the Supreme Court) do not arrest Lula, there will be a military coup.

The crisis of bourgeois leadership is enormous and without solution in sight. The imperialist monopoly capital and the Brazilian big capitalists are determined to restructure Brazilian semi-colonial capitalism to recover the falling rate of profits around the world. For this, it needs favorable political conditions that do not exist at the moment.

Under these conditions, installing a regime of emergency becomes increasingly indispensable to the capitalists. Hence the danger of a military coup, which could even take a semi-fascist character, is gaining strength.

Unfortunately, this huge danger is met with complacency of the major left parties which still believe in the legality of bourgeois "democracy". They ignore the fact that such a coup could result in massive repression against the entire revolutionary left and mass movements as well as against these same reformist parties.

On the other side, if the working class and the oppressed succeed in organizing mass resistance against the putschists, this could provoke a pre-revolutionary situation with enormous opportunities for revolutionaries and the mass movement.

What do we defend?

We from the CCR urge the reformist and socialist parties, trade unions and popular organizations (e.g. PT, PCdoB, CUT, MST, PSOL) to immediately establish a mass united front in order to organize a massive struggle against the reactionary attacks. Let us overcome passivity and complacency NOW! We need the creation of action committees in factories, unions, neighborhoods, favelas and peripheral regions to organize the masses and to democratically plan the struggle. We need a national congress of delegates of all parties and mass organizations as well as of the action committees in order to organize the struggle.

We also call for the creation of committees of self-defense which are essential to resist against fascist thugs and state repression.

Without having any illusion about the limitation of bourgeois democracy and the corrupt parliamentary system, we unconditionally defend all democratic rights against the military and institutional putschists. We combine such a defense of democratic rights with a call for a revolutionary constituent assembly which should discuss and elaborate a new constitution under the control of the working class and the oppressed.

We call all activists who agree with our analysis and strategy for the present important situation, to unite forces and to join us in our efforts to build a revolutionary party!

* No to the criminalization of political demonstrations and the criminalization of social movements!

* Public safety is not the role of the Armed Forces! For the cancellation of federal military intervention in the state of Rio de Janeiro!

* For the creation of action committees in factories, unions, neighborhoods, favelas and peripheral regions in defense of our rights and against the putschist government and against any military intervention! For committees of self-defense of the workers and poor in the neighborhoods and peripheries!

* Down with the constitutional law that allows the army to intervene in political matters!

* For the Revolutionary Constituent Assembly!

* For a revolutionary workers' party – a new World Party of the Socialist Revolution! For the Fifth International