By ELENIRA VILELA*
There is a left that likes to proclaim itself revolutionary and radical, but which is merely sectarian and places its self-construction as a strategic project.
This has been a recurring debate and the answer is… it depends!
In the tradition of the workers' movement and the class struggle on the side of the working class, criticism and self-criticism need to be a constant practice. The Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, in my humble opinion one of the intellectuals who best understood and applied the historical dialectical materialist method systematized by Marx and Engels in history, always emphasizes that criticism is the exercise of confronting analyses and theoretical constructs with their capacity to explain reality and provide instruments for its transformation in the direction of the strategic objectives of the class and that criticism needs to be made of the intellectuals, leaders and organizations that matter, that are relevant in the production of science or the class struggle.
In this sense, criticism is not only permitted, but desirable. But criticism must also be understood as much more than pointing out mistakes, disagreeing with or disliking a decision, but rather as locating these decisions and opinions within the movement of the class struggle and analyzing what is necessary to direct action to achieve objectives and meet needs in accordance with the tactics and strategy of the struggle of the exploited class.
The same goes for any criticism of movements, parties, governments, actions in institutionality, in the political, legal, scientific struggle or in any field of struggle.
The problems of pointing out government mistakes or attributing problems to the government that, at times, are not even its problems and that can in fact strengthen fascism are related to three pillars:
The State is class property in capitalism and the owner is the bourgeoisie
Failing to take this fact into consideration and starting to attribute all the problems of the class to the current government, in addition to distorting reality, contributes to the class constructing a formulation that it is necessary to replace this government with any other and this strengthens fascism, which is the political force that is strongest in absorbing the desertion of this government.
Institutional struggle is necessary for the accumulation of organizational and political strength in our class’s society, but it is always a political struggle on the adversary’s side. Elections, governments, the judiciary, and parliaments in capitalist countries will always be structurally organized to preserve the interests of the bourgeois class. There is no way to act in these areas without giving in to the interests of this class. There is no purist or revolutionary action in this place. There is no total victory in any struggle in this field. Victories, when they occur, will always be partial.
For this reason, some political or thought currents in the working class field in history consider the struggle in the institutional field to be useless or even counterproductive for the revolutionary struggle. However, Leninist currents understand that this struggle is necessary because it is capable of forming or strengthening the bases of the working class in this field, since this is the most fertile moment for the attention and exercise of the class in the strictly political struggle and since, through the conquest of institutional power, it is possible to advance rights for the class, which contributes to it organizing itself and fighting more for both pragmatic and structural agendas. Labor rights, such as vacations, reduced working hours and maternity leave, democratic advances such as universal suffrage and the recognition of unions and human rights, among others, were achieved through mass struggle combined with struggle in the institutional field and objectively improved the lives of the producing class, which, as Rosa Luxemburg teaches us, is obvious for any revolutionary to seek, both for the improvement itself and because the achievement encourages us to fight harder and contributes to increasing class consciousness and the level of organization.
The same organizations that refuse to effectively fight in this space often, ironically, openly charge those who gain space in this area as being responsible for solving all the problems of the class through this route. This happens very frequently with the PT being targeted by what its parliamentarians should achieve in parliament, even ignoring that according to its own logic, they should not even be there and ignoring, which should be impossible to ignore, that they are an objective minority and that the bourgeoisie has a large majority in this field, with its well-paid employees working in favor of the structure of maintaining power.
This does not mean that we cannot point out mistakes and apply pressure when the government and parties are giving up rights. It is even necessary to apply pressure. But we must always point out that it is the bankers and landowners who are demanding decisions like this and that the regulations and laws were made to benefit them in a fight that is always unequal. Oh, but we know that it is unequal, if the PT chose to fight there, then it should endure. The point is that it is formative for the class to always denounce how unequal the game is. Of course, those who are there already expect this, but it is necessary to explain it a million times and demonstrate this imbalance, so that the class consciousness takes ownership of the need to overcome the system and that often what is not achieved there is not a lack of will on the part of those who occupy that space against the current. That it is much easier to overcome formal obstacles to take away a right from the majority than to achieve something for that minority in that sphere. To demonstrate that Glauber Braga's case is not progressing and could lead to his dismissal due to a personal error, it is necessary to demonstrate why a thousand deputies did terrible and illegal things, but as they are employees of the system, they never suffered anything and he is being prosecuted.
All of this gets much worse when the crisis of capital forces the resurgence of the extreme right all over the world. Therefore, even comparing Lula's governments with his own previous governments ignores the fact that the situation is completely different, the correlation of forces has changed brutally for the worse, since the rise of fascists all over the world as a capitalist response to maintain their accumulation rates in conditions of immense inequality. This government did not win under any circumstances; it was imperative to form an absurdly broad range of alliances, with a good part of the bourgeoisie in the most strategic positions of the government, with external and internal pressure, with coup attempts, assassinations, and imprisonment. It is always necessary to emphasize that even what could and should be better now could be infinitely worse if Bolsonaro had been reelected or the coup had been carried out.
Ah, but doesn't everyone know that? No, they don't. If you just say that the minimum wage should be much higher, that the Bolsa Família program should be much higher, that the police shouldn't be killing as much as they do and that the adjustment wasn't what the public servants asked for, and you don't make it clear that there wouldn't be any adjustment and almost no Bolsa Família program and that the police would be killing even more and that the minimum wage would be completely frozen if Bolsonaro had won, people will believe that the current government is at rock bottom and will vote for the "alternative" that is presented, which is the extreme right.
Who is the enemy?
There is a left that likes to proclaim itself revolutionary and radical, but which is merely sectarian and presents its self-construction as a strategic project, ignoring the objective needs of the class, both from a pragmatic, tactical or strategic point of view.
I have seen militants from this pseudo-left attribute all social problems to the federal government. I call it sectarian because it simply cannot see and point out that the problems that afflict our society are the responsibility of capitalism, its ruling class, the bourgeoisie, and its power exercised through economic means, through politics – currently having a very large majority in parliaments at all levels in Brazil and in much of the world, through military means – with wars, the actions of the armed forces and the media, which in addition to having the already historic apparatus of radio, TV and newspapers, and which currently in Brazil have become strictly vehicles used as advertising agencies by the bourgeoisie (it was never the opposite, but there are times when journalism manages to surpass advertising more frequently, at the moment, this has hardly happened), also have all the social networks, various apparatuses structurally organized to promote ideologies of creation and extermination of created enemies.
There are also very legitimate movements, such as those of indigenous people, black people and trans people, who say, and are not wrong in saying, that whether the government is right-wing or left-wing, their group still suffers brutal oppression. This is a fact; the issue is that these are not the same types of oppression. It is not the same to have zero demarcated lands for indigenous and quilombola peoples and to have some, even if not all, or even if not in the desired conditions. It is not the same to have the State acting to criminalize transgenderism or to create public policies for this social segment. It is not the same to have a family ministry wanting to force indigenous people to become Christians by acculturating them or a ministry acting to demarcate lands. Obviously, conflicts and oppression continue; oppression is linked to the system and not only to the government, and left-wing or humanist governments still have policies that maintain the structures of oppression and must be pressured to change them, and only through organization and pressure can they change. But in left-wing governments, pressure has a better chance of working; in far-right governments, the structure of oppression is strengthened and falls back with all its might and in an even more violent manner against these populations.
Therefore, it is essential to always name the bourgeoisie, the super-rich, the bankers, the landowners and their arms, including, in addition to those already mentioned, the Churches and merchants of faith, not beliefs, but the power structures that manipulate this faith and ideological and moral values to strengthen oppression, as those responsible for exploitation and oppression.
The PT itself was called “Udenism in overalls” by the wise Leonel de Moura Brizola, and quite rightly so, because for a long time it incorporated a moralistic discourse, as if the problem were the politicians and corruption and not the system and the usurping class. This is a mistake that no one on the left can make anymore; it is always essential to name as the culprits and enemies those who are actually responsible; that is being radical. A good example of radicalism was the video that Ian Neves made denouncing the reasons why the Mayor of Porto Alegre, Sebastião Melo, was winning the elections in that city so comfortably after the whole flood tragedy, demonstrating the super-rich financiers of the schemes that guaranteed him this victory, in addition to pointing out possible tactical electoral errors in the campaign of Maria do Rosário and Tamyres. Unlike superficial videos pointing out tactical-electoral problems that certainly occurred in the defeats of Boulos in SP and Duda or Rogério Corrêa in BH. The system is always against us, the bourgeois class usually wants to see our leaders dead or ostracized. It is possible to win, but the tendency is always to lose and attributing defeats only to tactical errors is depoliticizing and demobilizing.
In this sense, when I analyze the biggest problems in national education policies, I always first research on the websites of investors on the stock exchange about the recommendations and analyses of the shares of COGNA and YDUQS, the large companies that commercialize education. Obviously, the documents proposed and approved by the MEC or the National Congress are compared with these analyses, and thus we realize how much capital is pressuring policies and how much this pressure is or is not working. Obviously, we should not ignore the responsibility of the MEC, Camilo Santana or Izolda Cela (former executive secretary of the ministry with strong ties to foundations and companies), but rarely is what these agents publish purely an act of their own convictions or desires. In fact, it is somewhat pathetic to single out ministers' decisions as if every proposed policy were their act of will (Fernando Haddad is usually the preferred victim of this type of accusation), and to protect Lula, as if he were personally very different from his government and Haddad, Santana or any other minister acted on fundamental policies without his consent. It is also interesting to treat disagreements within the government as if only those who make the criticizable decisions are "The Government" and those who took a stand and lobbied against it are not. This happened recently, in relation to the inferences made by the press about what would come in the so-called fiscal package and public positions against proposed measures, such as cuts to the constitutional minimums for education and health, to which Santana and Trindade expressed their opposition, and cuts to the Minimum Wage policy and the BPC, to which Marinho and Lupi expressed their opposition, but in this case the government is only the one who is supposedly willing to adopt the measures (in this case, Haddad) and not those who interfered so that the measures would go in other directions and managed to avoid losses to a greater or lesser extent. The government is not a homogeneous whole without internal conflicts and, while it is true that Lula does not control everything, it is also true that nothing central goes forward without his agreement.
Quantity generates quality
The dialectical category of quantity and quality explained by Engels teaches us that qualities generate quantities and quantities generate qualities. Taking this last part of the inequality, we have that if you only remember to criticize the government or if you only remember to criticize the oppressed and never the oppressors, what are you actually highlighting and strengthening?
There is a pseudo-intellectual who likes to write texts very often criticizing and dismantling movements that affect his own identity, that of the straight, white, literate man. He usually starts by saying that he receives false criticism that his criticizing these movements would be a way of denying the existence of oppression, which he claims he is not doing. But do the following exercise: look among his texts for a critique of an act of racism or sexism. Look for an article of his denouncing LGBTphobia or ableism in some institution, intellectual or organization. You will never find it. So, for him, it is quantitatively demonstrated that the problem of society is the fact that there are movements against oppression. If you never remember to confront oppression in any way and always remember to confront those who fight against it, you, as Florestan Fernandes taught us, are an intellectual who made a choice for the oppressors, because the choice for the oppressed needs to be made consciously and deliberately every day.
The same goes for the government. There's no point in saying that you know there's a bourgeoisie, capitalists, a correlation of forces. and passant in 15 seconds and then dedicate 3 hours to saying that the government is wrong about this and that and is an enemy of the people. Dedicate a paragraph of your newspaper to criticizing Arthur Lira or Lehman and two pages to criticizing Nísia Trindade, Anielle Franco, Fernando Haddad and Lula.
The other day I attended a lecture about the situation in Palestine and if you didn't pay close attention to the beginning, you would leave with the impression that the massacre against Palestinians is being imposed by Lula, Múcio and Amorim and not by Netanyahu and the Zionists, because the name of the genocidal leader was mentioned two or three times, the name of his party not once, the name of the Zionist movement two or three times, and now the names of the PT and members of Lula's government about 3 times. I agree with demanding that the government break off relations with Israel and I do so, now it is not Lula who is murdering the children and the Palestinians know the importance of having Lula making the statements he did and that made the Brazilian Zionists freak out.
The other day, in “defense” of one of those left-wing sectarian YouTubers, someone said, “No, but when it comes time for the election, in a possible second round between Lula and Bolsonaro or someone fascist like him, that guy will defend the correct position of voting for Lula.” Yes, he will, but will he convince someone who spent hundreds of hours saying that all the country’s problems are the fault of Lula and his ministers? The person who hears this, if they are not already very well-educated on the left, will call that guy incoherent or a traitor. After all, it makes no sense to ask me to vote for and reelect a government responsible for everything that is bad in our lives.
This quantity generates a quality. One must be radical and this means spending most of one's time criticizing the bourgeoisie, the right, the apparatuses of imposition of capitalist power and also criticizing the government when it fulfills this role by giving in to the pressures imposed by this power.
The PT is not a party created by the bourgeoisie or by the powerful in this country. It is a party that managed to consolidate a legitimate labor experience into a mass party with broad social inclusion. It is a party of the progressive capitalist order of the center-left that forever changed the organization of the class and that managed to create problems for a local bourgeoisie tied to imperialism, which is the most slave-owning, misogynistic, racist, ableist, cisheteronormative and credonormative. Here, any struggle such as the legalization of abortion and agrarian reform, agendas easily absorbed by liberal capitalist states, are treated as revolutionary or communist agendas.
Brazil badly needs radical and revolutionary organizations. But they will not be built by weakening the PT by pushing the masses that have references in this organization to the right and far right. The fight for the left cannot be sectarian and cannot be limited to new left-wing organizations trying to co-opt the PT base. These organizations need to fight for class consciousness and this cannot be achieved through sectarianism.
Struggles such as feminist and anti-racist struggles, the struggle for the end of the 6x1 work shift, and strikes for workers' rights in the private sector (other than lockouts) and in the public service (other than for coup-related issues) strengthen the government itself and the left, which does not mean that they do not give rise to conflicts between the government and unions or movements. Mobilizing for lower interest rates and the taxation of large fortunes, dividends and inheritances, and for a drastic reduction in tax breaks for large companies and landowners, as well as for the regulation of the financial system and the debt system, are essential to push the government, the class and the system to reduce the perks of the super-rich. It is necessary to strengthen and expand the impact when the government engages in political disputes in a class-based direction, which has happened far less than necessary, but has occurred, as in the fight against interest rates, in the fight to reduce tax breaks, in the defense of the SUS, in the fight to tax fortunes and in the fight against super-salaries, among others.
Finally, there is a recurring comment when questions are presented in formulations that criticize the government, demanding care and balance in the tone of the demands and criticisms, which is: “if it were government X (Collor, FHC, Temer or Bolsonaro) we would not be delaying or being careful with the tone and we would already be striking.” Exactly, we have to be careful, because even though it is a fragile shield, with holes and even with some enemies shooting at us from the very same shield, the Lula government is the best shield we have at the moment against brutal attacks that we know about and under which we are being attacked or threatened, and it makes no sense to shoot to destroy the shield that protects us. Criticism needs to help plug the holes or remove the support of those who shoot at us from there, but it can never put the shield itself at risk until we have something better for our protection, which is not foreseeable at the moment. It is simply stupidity, because the shield has problems, to destroy it as a whole without anything to replace it.
In short: it is not only possible, but necessary to criticize the government. But it is always necessary to criticize first and with greater emphasis the capitalist system, the bourgeoisie, its employees and instruments. Criticism must demand solutions that give political strength to achieve advances for the class, both in terms of rights and in organizational terms. It must pressure the government to address our demands and act against the pressure from the bourgeoisie to take away rights, denouncing this pressure and the lies it contains. Our actions must demand accountability from the government, but, above all, change the correlation of forces so that the government is pressured more by the working class than by the bourgeoisie. It is important to emphasize always what a fascist/coup government represents and how necessary it is to defend this partial and fragile democracy, because in the current situation, the supposed alternatives do not solve any current problems, but their downfall would brutally deepen them. It is also necessary to point out truly anti-system alternatives and demonstrate that those who declare themselves anti-system on the far right are effectively the greatest servants of the interests of the super-rich minority.
If you identified with any of the examples or situations, don't worry, I'm probably talking about you, but I'm also talking about many others who have very similar attitudes. The concerns that led me to write this article involve people from the rank and file and leadership of my own category or union, as well as YouTubers, intellectuals or people from academia who consider themselves such, social communicators, economists, activists from various unions, groups within the PT itself or other parties, and a wide variety of political organizations, among many others. They even include people who defend the government in a messianic way and believe that no one can criticize it, which is a huge mistake.
We need to build and strengthen a correlation of forces that will allow the majority to have ever more objective power and the ability to change reality in their favor, until we are able to completely defeat the capitalist system and end exploitation and all forms of oppression. Only struggle can change lives, but the struggle must have theory, tactics and strategy, organization and intelligence. It will not be possible to defeat capitalism openly, with naivety or by thinking that conviction and will alone are enough, nor by repeating sectarian pseudo-revolutionary mantras. The struggle is hard and we will continue in it, until victory.
*Elenira Vilela is a mathematics teacher at the Federal Institute of Santa Catarina.
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