On January 8, Brazilian supporters of ex-president Jair “Trump of the South'' Bolsonaro stormed Brasilia, their capital city. Like the Trump-inspired insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, they aimed to reverse a presidential election. After Bolsonaro lost to liberal misleader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva last October, his followers agitated en masse at several military bases. When the generals failed to join them, they mounted a short-lived occupation of Brazil’s halls of power.
Twitter-nimble fascists like Trump and Bolsonaro thrive in a morass of mass ignorance, which has grown out of generations of liberal capitalist miseducation and political deception. In a world where the remarkable 20th-century communist revolutions in Russia and China have been reversed, and working-class consciousness is in short supply, sham elections have absorbed workers’ energy and aspirations. Liberal democracy–and voting, in particular–are the glue that keep us stuck to our mortal class enemy.
Lula, liberal tool of finance capital
Workers may be tempted to cheer that Lula is pursuing a vigorous crackdown on the Bolsonaro-backed coup by using federal forces to seize local police power, suspend high-ranking security officials, and investigate who paid for the buses that brought thousands to the capitol city (Vox, 1/8). But to cheer for Lula and his gang is to root for a different set of fascists. Even as he cracked down on the Bolsonaro forces, Lula assured financiers at home and abroad that he would retain Bolsonaro’s pension reforms that are anti-worker and tax cuts that prioritize businesses (Reuters, 1/15). As the worldwide crisis of capitalism intensifies, the liberals will squeeze the international working class to the last pound of flesh and ounce of blood.
Like all capitalist bosses, Brazil's rulers seek to expand their influence on the world imperialist stage. During his 2003-2010 tenure as president, Lula led in the establishment of Brazil as a hemispheric power by taking a lead role in the occupation of Haiti. The atrocities of the Brazil-led UN Mission for the Stabilization of Haiti are written in blood. MINUSTAH recklessly sparked the largest cholera outbreak in recent history, with 800,000 people infected and 10,000 dead (Al Jazeera, 10/15/19). Lula’s administration sent 30,000 troops, the bulk of the UN operation’s military force from its start in 2004. These soldiers carried on the long and vicious tradition of indiscriminate civilian massacres and rampant sexual abuse by occupying imperialist forces.
Lula's popularity with workers rose in lockstep with global commodity prices, part of the capitalists’ boom-and-bust system. During his earlier tenure, as Brazilian oil output grew by 700,000 barrels per day, 20 million Brazilian workers escaped extreme poverty–temporarily (S&P Commodity Insights, 10/31/22). By the time Lula left office in 2010, his approval rating stood at 80 percent (Bloomberg, 12/19/10).
But as oil prices and Brazil’s economy inevitably collapsed, Lula’s hand-picked successor, Dilma Rousseff, shut down his reforms. As workers suffered from the worst recession in the country’s history and homicides reached record levels, the liberal bosses and their cronies kept skimming off the top (New York Times, 10/28/18). The resulting Operation Car Wash corruption scandal sent Lula to jail for 18 months before he was freed in 2019 on a procedural technicality.
Liberals pave the way for open fascists
The blatant corruption, lies, and policy failures of the Lula/Rousseff era opened the door for the right-wing nationalist Bolsonaro to come to power in 2019 as a role model. Donald Trump was halfway through his term as U.S. president. Bolsonaro used the Trump playbook to attack workers with savage pension reforms while spouting vile racism and sexism. His brand of openly fascist ideas won the support of millions and deepened divisions in Brazil’s working class, an urgent need for the capitalist bosses when their system is in crisis.
In the absence of a mass communist movement, workers who detested Bolsonaro and Trump were left rooting for the more dangerous liberal fascists, from Joe Biden to Lula and the Brazilian generals whose troops removed the insurrectionists by force.
Fascism signals the bosses’ weakness; workers, seize the time!
The blood-soaked and climate-destroying liberal world order, dominated by the genocidal U.S. bosses, has ruled the globe without political competition for the last fifty years. Despite the rot of their system, the capitalists prevailed because communists in Russia and China abandoned the strategy of revolution for a worldwide dictatorship of the proletariat. Meanwhile, workers in the capitalist liberal democracies have remained trapped by the futile hope that voting will somehow improve their lives.
As the profit system begins to fall around our ears, bosses in the U.S. and Brazil, and elsewhere will be forced to discipline their own class, smash their internal rivals, and prepare for World War III by imposing full-blown fascism. If history is any guide, the liberal rulers and finance capital will lead the way. For our class to win, we must reject the rulers’ rotten ideas of patriotism and racism. We must overcome cynicism and despair. Led by the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party, workers must embrace our historic role. We must build the confidence to defeat the capitalists in armed revolution and create a society that serves workers’ needs.
At a time when mass culture is a science-free zone for hundreds of millions, it remains an uphill battle for our communist movement to grow. Nevertheless, the facts are clear. From China to the U.S., Ukraine to Taiwan, the world is fast moving toward open fascism and global war. To fight back, the working class must be moved by a communist understanding of the necessity of class struggle–of who our real enemies are. We must break with fascism in all its forms, most of all the deadly liberal variety. Just as the cataclysmic world wars of the 20th century opened doors to revolution, the current world situation is both great danger and tremendous responsibility. The ball is in our court. Dare to struggle, dare to win!