By EDUARDO VASCO*
Lula will have to abandon his ambivalence in foreign policy and choose a side. If he doesn't, he won't last. And if he capitulates definitively to imperialism, he won't have any success either.
Brazil did not need to veto Venezuela's entry as a BRICS partner. It is well known that this decision was made to avoid looking bad in the eyes of the United States. But it could very well have abstained and justified itself by saying that it would be wrong to go against the will of all the other members. It would not have been difficult to have let the majority's decision pass. Lula showed weakness and that is the worst thing a head of state can do. The enemy saw that Lula was weak and this will encourage him to increase the pressure. This is a syndrome of the nationalist and reformist left. But the weakness that Lula showed was great – it was a totally unnecessary capitulation.
Along with the Treasury and Defense, Itamaraty is one of the three main ministries of the Brazilian government. Since the US treats Brazil as a colony, it needs to have control over these three key ministries. It is unacceptable for any of them to be independent of imperialist control. The social composition of Itamaraty is perfect for the penetration of imperialist influence: a bureaucratic and family caste formed by the bourgeoisie and the upper strata of the petite bourgeoisie. It has always been this way.
As an extremely traditional and elite entity, it is inherently conservative, even reactionary, which aims to maintain the status quo and its privileges absolutely unchanged. American imperialism takes advantage of this and more than a hundred years ago, when it began to dominate Brazilian politics, it co-opted and placed on its payroll if not the entire structure of this ministry, at least an important part of its members.
As with everything, the PT failed (if it even tried) to change the institution's structure. The ambassadors and top diplomats appointed by Lula and Dilma were fired as soon as Jair Bolsonaro took office. He replaced many "PT supporters" with Olavo supporters or semi-Olavo supporters. They shared control with the corporation's traditional bureaucrats, leaving the few "leftists" in the corner. Now that Lula is back, instead of doing the same cleansing that Jair Bolsonaro did and removing the Bolsonarists and right-wingers from the scene, practically did not change the Itamaraty. Itamaraty is not under the control of the President of the Republic – as it should be, being one of the main ministries and, therefore, having to faithfully obey the President.
The exhaustion of the conciliation policy
Lula's institutional political life is already coming to an end and he has the chance to leave a positive historical legacy, leading Brazil towards a sovereign path in relation to the imperialist yoke. There is no successor on the left and, if Lula fails in the task (which he perhaps aspires to and which his supporters believe he is capable of accomplishing) of opening Brazil's doors to our sovereignty, the left will pay a huge price. There will be a historic crisis of leaders completely adapted to imperial submission, which has only not been hit with full force because Lula still exists.
Brazil's veto of Venezuela in BRICS is a consequence of the left's insistence on maintaining a policy not only of conciliation, but of collaboration with the traditional right, sold as the “least worst” – which is expressed, once again, in the support for the candidates of this right against the “worst” Bolsonaro supporters in the second round of the municipal elections.
The municipal elections consolidated the resurrection of this right wing (the centrão). After the debacle In the historic 2018, the center-right was able to gradually recover, thanks to the rescue provided by the left. The 2022 elections, with the formation of an unnecessary broad front to elect Lula, led him to the presidency, but at the cost of this traditional right taking over the government.
In fact, the centrists have never left power. It is the great scourge that has kept Brazil as a semi-colony of imperialism since the proclamation of the republic. No revolution or counterrevolution has removed them from power – at most it has reduced or strengthened their dominance, but never eradicated it. Most of the time of Jair Bolsonaro's government had already been, in fact, a government of the centrists.
The traditional right managed to neutralize the overwhelming force of the far right throughout the first half of Jair Bolsonaro's government, and was even quicker to neutralize Lula's government. For over a year, the president has been nothing more than a hostage of the centrists, the oligarchic right, and dependent on American imperialism.
The last bastion of Lula's resistance within the government – foreign policy – is already being conquered by the right. Imperialism cannot tolerate a Brazilian policy on the world stage that supports the Palestinian resistance, nor the strengthening of Russia, China and the confrontation with their domination, represented by the BRICS. The pro-imperialist gears of the Itamaraty have already been activated in order to complete the siege of the Brazilian state apparatus itself to President Lula and what he represents.
There is also a crucial problem: the far right, despite its internal contradictions, has had its strength and popularity practically intact for a decade. And, as always, it is favored by the sabotage and propaganda of the traditional right (centrão, the press, banks and big capitalists) against Lula. Furthermore, the strong presence of the far right has influenced the politics of the traditional right itself, which is now even more reactionary.
The non-alignment policy is unfeasible for Brazil
The president is therefore in a very delicate situation. Some believe that he is right to seek an alleged equidistance from both the United States and China. But a country like Brazil, a semi-colony of American imperialism currently subject to increasing pressure from Washington, cannot afford to seek an alleged neutrality, unlike others, such as India or Turkey, which are geographically distant from the United States and neighbors of China and Russia, and whose political and economic dependence on American imperialism (although still significant) is not as great as ours.
Even countries bordering Russia could not withstand the pressure against implementing a non-aligned policy and had their governments overthrown by coups d'état promoted by imperialism. This was the case in Ukraine in 2014, and it is likely to happen again in Georgia. This is also the trend in Brazil, if Lula continues to give in and does not take a truly sovereign path, which means allying with China and Russia and ceasing to depend on the United States.
American imperialism wants to control Brazil. Both the centrists and the far right are its allies against Lula. Even though they have disagreements (sometimes bitter ones), when the time comes they will put these differences aside and fight together against the common enemy, as history has shown on countless occasions. And the bureaucratic apparatus of the State, such as the Judiciary – the main tool of imperialism in Brazil, along with the big bourgeois press – will march alongside them.
The historical failure of the policy of class collaboration is once again becoming increasingly evident. Its stabilization is no longer viable since it was broken with the 2016 coup and the rise of the far right by the bourgeoisie and imperialism. What we have today is a monstrosity: the supposedly nationalist wing of the bourgeoisie, to which Lula and the PT insist on clinging, feels even more pressured by imperialism than Lula – and gives in much more easily and with much less hesitation than the president.
Any overlapping interests with the working class and other popular classes that may still exist are evaporating in a situation of continued and growing political polarization, particularly heightening the contradictions of the popular classes with American imperialism.
The “national” bourgeoisie, Lula’s civilized, democratic and progressive allies will jump ship (even if they don’t do it openly) because they know that there is no future within this anti-historical alliance, in the expression used by Mário Pedrosa when analyzing a similar scenario, the crisis between Jango’s PTB and the PSD a few years before the 1964 coup.
Lula will also have to abandon this ambivalence in foreign policy and choose a side. If he doesn't, he won't last. And if he definitively capitulates to imperialism, he won't have any success either. The problem is that it's not possible to adopt a foreign policy and a domestic policy that are antagonistic. To adopt an independent foreign policy, and therefore opposed to imperialist control, he will have to turn against the agents of imperialism within the country itself, starting with those who infest the government itself.
However, while Lula is facing positive pressure from the enlarged BRICS in foreign policy, in contrast to negative pressure from the United States, domestically popular pressure – the only pressure that could counter the pressure from the right – is almost non-existent, at least in an organized way. Hence the share of blame that lies with the left, the parties (starting with the PT itself), the unions and the progressive press in Lula's capitulating policy with regard to the BRICS and Latin America. In reality, Lula's positions, in general, are still more correct than those of the majority of the left.
It is not just Lula who is on the tightrope. It is the entire leadership of the Brazilian left. Their mediocre and debased policies are largely responsible for the mistakes made by Lula and the government. The popular movements need to make a 180-degree turn in their policies and start to really fight Lula's enemies, that is, the agents of imperialism in Brazil, putting pressure on the president and his own leadership. Because the pressures from the other side of the rope are increasingly strong and Lula will not be able to keep his balance for much longer.
*Edward Basque is a journalist. Author, among other books, of The Forgotten People: A History of Genocide and Resistance in Donbass. [https://amzn.to/3AjFjdK]
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