Only the organized struggle of the exploited will be able to defend the lives of the poor, miserable and hungry

Only the organized struggle of the exploited will be able to defend the lives of the poor, miserable and hungry

Masses 638, editorial, May 30, 2021

A year and three months of the Pandemic more than proved that the passivity of the working class and other workers is their main enemy. The centrals, unions and movements, by giving up the organized struggle, and taking refuge in the virtual world, left the oppressed majority defenseless. The union and political leaderships disarmed – ideologically, politically and organizationally – the working class, under the justification of the dangers of contamination and the defense of life. The most striking fact is observed in the closing of the unions’ doors.

The workers had no one to turn to. They were and still are at the mercy of political disputes between Bolsonaro and Doria. They remained inert for so long, waiting for the Pandemic to be contained, deaths reduced and collective suffering cooled. They were forced to rely on the effectiveness of social isolation, and to wait for vaccination. The result: uncontrolled pandemic, overcrowded hospitals, out of medicine, 460,000 deaths, millions of families sunk in the scourge.

These harsh health consequences combine and add to the aghast unemployment and underemployment. The wave of layoffs boosted informal work. Wage earners’ income have plummeted. The result: the country’s workforce went through another period of mutilation, poverty advanced, and hunger loomed large.

Since the 1918 Pandemic, caused by the Spanish flu, Brazil has not been shaken by such a catastrophic combination. The poor and miserable masses of the population have suddenly found themselves, since the beginning of March 2020, dragged along by a whirl of blows upon blows, without being able to defend themselves. The poor and  miserable masses, however, form a powerful social force. Suffice that they are organized by unions, assemblies, base committees and movements, and guided by a class and revolutionary leadership. The struggling masses defend themselves against the evils of decaying capitalism.

The Pandemic and its lack of control are reflections of the rottenness of the bourgeois regime of labor exploitation and growing accumulation of capital. This is why only the moving masses, under the leadership of the proletariat, were and are the only social force capable of defending itself. They would have to take to the streets in the first symptoms of the pandemic. But they depended on a leadership with a accentuated class consciousness, armed with a proletarian program, supported by independence from bourgeois politics, and ready to confront the capitalists, the rulers and imperialism.

Unfortunately, the organizations of the working class and the peasant and popular movements are subject to a leadership adapted to capitalism and subordinate to the state institutions of the bourgeoisie. The first sign that they would leave the fate of the masses in the hands of the rulers and capitalists was given with the suspension of the National Day of Struggle, on March 18^th , 2020. The leaderships of the centrals hardly knew the dimension of the catastrophe that would hit the masses, and they rushed to raise the banner of “stay at home”, don’t mobilize, don’t protest collectively, and wait for the government’s measures. And the more the Pandemic took over neighborhoods, workplaces and collective locomotion, the more the queues for a bed in the ICUs grew, and the more workers died, the more bureaucrats sold to the bourgeoisie raised the banner of collective passivity. More hid their responsibility, immersed in virtual speeches. More collaborated with the emergency plan of Bolsonaro, the National Congress and the front of governors.

May 1st arrived. The centrals, without exception, decided not to call demonstrations. Bolsonarists took the opportunity to occupy the streets. The Jacarezinho massacre took place, and bureaucrats remained in virtual speeches in defense of the poor, young and black. Only now they’ve decided to hold the National Day of Mobilization. The self-described “socialist” imposters, in turn, stick their heads out of the den. They say the political situation has changed. They threw away the crutch of life’s defense. And they took the crutch of Out with Bolsonaro back. Bureaucrats and opportunist currents take one foot out of the den, look out into the daylight and discover, after a year and three months, that it is necessary to challenge Bolsonaro’s denialist and genocidal government in the streets.

For so long – a time when the poor and miserable struggled with Covid-19 and workers lost jobs and wages – it was enough to challenge the genocide through social networks. But, now, the theater of the CPI of the Pandemic in the National Congress plays, Bolsonaro collapsed in the electoral polls, and Lula rose. So, it’s time to prepare the way for the electoral dispute. There is nothing better than attacking Bolsonaro, when sectors of great capital are moving away from the imbecile ultra-right, and when discontent among the generals grows over the incapacity of the bolsonarism.

What has changed for the oppressed majority? Continues to struggle under the Pandemic; bear the historic unemployment rate; depend on underemployment; suffer the pain of hunger. It was not the aggravation of barbarism that led the leftist leaders and opportunists to come out of the den, but the possibility of boosting Lula’s candidacy, and constituting a broad electoral front. Do they intend to overthrow Bolsonaro through workers’ and popular uprisings? No! Not that way! Do they want to set in motion a powerful national movement for jobs, wages and labor rights? No! What they want is to empower one of the factions of the bourgeois opposition, led by the PT. This is why the National Mobilization Day will take place under the strategy and policy of class conciliation. The same one that helped the bourgeoisie to keep the masses in passivity.

The class-conscious vanguard has a duty to intervene in this first sign of the resumption of collective action, in defense of the workers’ own emergency program. The banner to call for a National Day of Struggle remains standing, with stoppages, prepared by assemblies and grassroots committees, in defense of jobs, wages, labor rights and universal vaccination, starting with the poor and miserable.