Bolsonaro prepares an offensive

How to respond?

Masses 628, Editorial, February 7, 2021

The ultra-rightist and fascistizing president took advantage of the victory in the president elections of the Chamber of Deputies and senate, to resume the dictatorial objectives that guided his government from the beginning. The essence of his guideline is to strengthen the militaristic and police state. Two years later, Bolsonaro has not been able to go as far as he had promised in his presidential candidacy. The continuity of the economic crisis, which has deepened since 2014, has not allowed political stability and a cooling of inter-bourgeois divisions. The most advanced step of ultra-right authoritarianism was to have managed to mount a government and a state apparatus based on the military. Based on the Armed Forces and the support of the police apparatus, he was able to dispense with membership in one of the parties. The link with the PSL was enough to guarantee an electoral caption. Soon, he fell out with the party leadership, which thought it could participate in the government. No longer needing the PSL, he dismissed its services.

At first, he encouraged the bolsonarist shock troop, which even held demonstrations, calling for the closure of the National Congress and the Federal Supreme Court (STF). The negative reaction from sectors of the bourgeoisie and the STF, which came to accuse the Bolsonaro campaign of coup, and the corruption scandal, forced the president to retreat and change tactics. However, the opposition proved powerless in the face of the fundamental: the militarization of the government and the resurgence of the police state. The change in tactics consisted of approaching the National Congress, since it would not be possible to close it, or to rule over the other powers of the Republic. The DEM party, with Rodrigo Maia and Davi Alcolumbre, contributed to the success of the presidential maneuver.

The coup d’état against the PT government boosted the parties that emerged from the guts of the MDB, PSDB and DEM (Arena / PFL), and the onslaught of economic, religious and police groups. The center-left opposition, led by the PT, declined. The center, which concentrates the flower of the reaction, dictates the functioning of the parliament.

It was not difficult for Bolsonaro to overcome the recurring political crises that shook his government. In acute moments of inter-bourgeois conflicts, the opposition had the opportunity to raise the flag of impeachment, but only to collect it afterwards. That’s probably what will happen now, with Bolsonaro’s victory in both Houses. Temer was able to complete his transitional government, despite the economic crisis and the corruption scandal, which the evidence was clearer than the ones that served Lava Jato to hunt down PT members.

The main factor of this feat, however, lies in the incapacity and betrayal of reformism and union bureaucracy, in the face of the general strike against the labor reform of the coup government. The same happened in the confrontation with Bolsonaro, who resumed Temer’s pension reform, and concluded it. The bourgeoisie and imperialism have the greatest appreciation for the government that manages to impose counter-reforms on the working class and the other exploited. Temer and Bolsonaro express the coup. They must complete their cycle. As long as Bolsonaro is able to keep the masses passive, he can still provide good services, such as administrative reform and the privatization plan. Tax reform depends much more on an agreement at the top of great capital than on the government’s decision. Whatever the solution, to maintain the plunder channels of the national Treasury, which bears the gigantic public debt, should be discharged over the oppressed majority.

The conflicts over social isolation were overcome, at the moment when the opposition governors moved to flexibility and normalization. Now, the same is true with vaccination. Everything indicates that Bolsonaro’s responsibility process, which would provide the basis for impeachment, loses consistency, with the new congressional presidents, who unfurl the flag of economic normalization. The president makes use of the overwhelming defeat of the opposition, to retake the defense platform of the arms industry, to strengthen the police apparatus, and to attend to religious obscurantism.

All this uproar collides with the process of disintegrating the internal productive forces. The massive closure of factories and small businesses, the rise in unemployment, and the rise of informality will not be revert by the government. Ford’s departure from Brazil marks the state of the economy, and exposes the country’s deep subservience to monopolies. The class collaboration policy of the union bureaucracy and the PT’s incapacity, in turn, will make the exploited role of reformism clearer for the exploited. This is the great obstacle, which prevents the masses from resorting to a classist response to the ultra-right bourgeois government.

The class-conscious vanguard has a duty to work hard to defend the proletariat’s claims, program, tactics and unitary organization. There is no other classist response in the situation, other than to set in motion a local, regional and national movement against factory closures, layoffs and unemployment. In this field, the struggle against Bolsonaro, the oligarchic National Congress, the bourgeoisie and the very policy of class conciliation of the union bureaucracy are being fought.