Red alert: For an all-out offensive in Brazil

This brief note on the current situation in the lead-up to the October 30 Brazilian elections is written by the socialist Valerio Arcary, a member of Resistencia, a current inside the Party of Socialism and Freedom (PSOL). This article appeared originally in Brazil in Esquerda Online. Correspondencia de Prensa translated it to Spanish, and the ISP translated it to English.

Honesty is the foundation of political confidence. To be a leftist is to embrace a passionate hope that it is possible to change the world. But optimism must not blind us. Realism is the condition of revolutionary lucidity. The time has come for a red alert. The latest polls indicate that Lula is leading with 49 percent to 45 percent, but that is a gain for Bolsonaro. Within the margin of error, meaning the election is technically tied. In other words, unpredictability reigns. Probability calculations based on statistical analysis give Lula a slight edge. But eight days [this article was published on October 22] are an eternity in the political struggle. What the polls suggest is that the race is wide-open. True, Lula won the first round with 57 million votes. A reversal, though unlikely, is not impossible. Two camps who are motivated to vote against the other candidate as much or more than for their own candidate face off against each other. On this front, Bolsonaro is leading, 51 percent to 46 percent. But it is 38 percent who approve of the government and only 39 percent who reject it. Six battlegrounds lie in front of us. All six depend on the campaign leadership and on Lula himself: (a) fine-tuning political tactics; (b) expanding endorsements; (c) marches with Lula in the streets with mass mobilization; (d) intensity of publications on social networks; (e) radio and television programs that make a difference; (f) Lula’s performance in the final debate. Everything counts and by a lot. But the role of activism is the variable that can make the difference. Conscious militancy does not need to boast too much. Lula’s victory is not guaranteed. It is possible to win, but it will be necessary to fight hard. To fight against fear, with anger, with rage, with fury.
We must learn from our mistakes. If there is a strategic lesson that the experience of the last two years leaves with us, it is that it would have been better to bet on Bolsonaro’s overthrow last year. In 2021, when the shock of the second wave of the pandemic hit us catastrophically, with many weeks of thousands of deaths per day, a single left front was built by the ¡Fuera Bolsonaro! (Out with Bolsonaro!) campaign. Lula did not commit. He did not participate in any of the demonstrations. No one can claim that the fate of the campaign would have been different if he had, of course. Counterfactuals are interesting, but inconclusive, exercises. But it is reasonable to say that Lula’s absence diminished the potency of the campaign for Bolsonaro’s impeachment. That decision belies the bet to measure forces in the electoral field this year, relying on the government’s decline in popularity as COVID-19 emergency aid expired. It was a dramatically wrong decision because it underestimated Bolsonaro’s strength. The PT leadership lacked the political courage to put the PT forth as an instrument of mass mobilization willing to try, seriously, to overthrow the government. It believed that these presidential elections would be “normal”.
Elections against a fascist would never be “normal.” Fascists respect nothing. Bolsonarismo has consolidated a political-ideological current of the extreme right. The Data Folha poll identifies that a solid 28 percent of voters are entrenched with the neo-fascists. They group together the “mass” of the bourgeoisie, the small proprietary bourgeoisie, a majority of the middle class in managerial positions in the private and public sector, target swathes of the middle-income working class, as well as popular sectors organized by the neo-Pentecostal churches. They are the ones dragging the “anti-PT” mass sectors through the brainwashing of the LavaJato, not the other way around. [Note: Lava Jato was a 2014-2021 judicial investigation that focused on corruption in the PT. Later, the media disclosed that the political right was manipulating the proceedings to win Lula’s indictment to make him ineligible to run for president in 2018.]The right did not hesitate to open the spigots of the federal government to a tune of R$ 21 billion in cash transfers to voters, beneficiaries of social programs. An attempt at manipulation through “vote buying”. But Bolsonaro’s project is a regression of social rights. They have already frozen the minimum wage and private sector pensions indefinitely. This will also affect public sector retirees. The government has no shame in promoting the criminal harassment of employers against workers, abusing economic power. They encourage daily “fake news” campaigns on social media, just as they did in 2018: closing of churches, communism, unisex bathrooms, drugs, abortion, Venezuela and Nicaragua, everything that can provoke a scandal and install terror. If that were not enough, they act as if they are victims, losing their “freedom of expression,” when the TSE (Superior Electoral Tribunal) took some late actions to establish standards for the election. In the final days, it is unthinkable what they will do. We shall see the horror.
Bolsonarismo has sunk deep social and national roots. It represents the rich and well-to-do. The limits of the negative campaign against Bolsonaro’s personal image have already been reached. There is no magic, witchcraft or mandinga. A little bit of everything has been tried. Freemasonry, Satanism, cannibalism and pedophilia. It is true that Bolsonaro’s own statements provided plenty of material to use against him. Nothing was invented because it was all a monstrosity. But Bolsonaro’s support in the polls has not dropped. All of which confirms that there is a consolidation of reactionary programmatic support for the far right. It is no longer 2018. Tens of millions are poisoned by fascists. Unfortunately, the country is fractured, both socially and regionally (see article “A social and regional fracture as never before”. This is not a Brazil-wide phenomenon. One half of the country, concentrated in the South, the Midwest, parts of the North and, above all, the Southeast, has moved decisively to the extreme right. The most important point, though, is that there is a social majority against them, and they can be defeated.
Lula’s gigantic strength lies in class identity. The popular majority is moving because it trusts Lula. There is a forty-year history spanning two generations. Without Lula, the Brazilian left would have no way to contend in these elections in conditions of victory. The mobilizations in the second round are greater than before the first round. Our weakness is expressed in the inevitable difficulty of mobilization in the absence of Lula. But victory also depends on the program. We will have to denounce the fascist threat for what it is: the lives of a generation are threatened. It will be necessary to combat the danger of an increase in the abstention rate by guaranteeing free public transportation. But, above all, it will be necessary to ignite an unbeatable will to win. The last week is the moment for an all-out offensive.