Brazilian Left Faces the Rise of Neofascism

A Brief Afterword: Brazilian Left Faces the Rise of Neofascism

This book was already in production when the Brazilian elections of 2018 came to an end. In October 2018, the voters chose not only the future president but also state governors, state representatives, federal deputies, and senators. Throughout the book chapters, we saw that left-wing parties and movements were in a challenging position during and after Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment process, when right-wing protests emerged and proto-fascist groups become visible. If this scenario represented a retreat of the Brazilian Left from the political foreground, it worsened after the elections. The far-right presidential candidate, Jair Bolsonaro, was elected with an advantage of more than ten million votes over his opponent in the second round, Fernando Haddad, from Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party—PT). To earn the right to compete, Bolsonaro joined a small party, Partido Social Liberal (Social Liberal Party—PSL, an equivo- cal name, as in many Brazilian parties). In 2014, PSL obtained only one seat in the Chamber of Deputies; in 2018, with Bolsonaro, it arrived at 52 seats. PT still has the largest parliamentary bench, with 56 seats. Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies is the most fragmented in the world, and in 2018 no less than 30 parties elected representatives. On a rough estimate, the left and center-left have around 20 percent of the elected seats, PSL and far- right Bolsonaro supporters in other parties add up a little less, and the clear majority is formed by right and center-right politicians, by and large with little programmatic commitments, available to any kind of negotia- tion. In the states, the scenario is similar, with a remarkable growth of the

© The Author(s) 2019 285 V. Puzone, L. F. Miguel (eds.), The Brazilian Left in the 21st Century, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03288-3 286 A Brief Afterword: Brazilian Left Faces the Rise of Neofascism far right. That majority of the elected governors aligned with Bolsonaro in the race, including those of the larger and more developed states. Until a few years ago, Bolsonaro was an obscure politician, better known for his incitement of torture and the praise of the civil-military dictatorship, and also for his misogynistic, homophobic, and racist state- ments. After the 2014 elections and in particular after the right-wing protests that began in 2015, he became increasingly popular. His massive presidential campaign fostered other obscure figures, whose political slo- gan during the first turn of the 2018 elections comprised the criminalization of all left-wing organizations (including the classification of “communism” as a crime), the reduction of public spending, and the rear- mament of civil population. There has been a debate in the last months about the nature of Bolsonaro’s politics and his supporters. Indeed, it is clear that their argu- ments are strictly related to the extreme right. However, it is not unam- biguous to describe them as a neofascist group. Instead, many understand their discourse as authoritarian and populist. One of the reasons to reject this description lies in the fact that fascism would be primarily a European movement, which resulted from specific characteristics of countries like Italy and Germany. Even though fascism was born and developed in the context of the political and economic crisis in the 1920s, some fundamental traits distinguish it as a political phenomenon. These traits could persist beyond its original circumstances. Our task here is not to develop a formal theory of the actual stage of fascism around the world and to debate a new variety of fascist movements, what would be impossible in a short afterword. Nevertheless, we would like to emphasize some elements that allow us to bring the latest events in Brazilian society closer to a description of neofascism. First of all, we could understand the term “fascism” as a revolt against social order reproducing the same structures of domination and exploitation. It helps to explain why fascism and neofascism emerge during the economic and political crisis. After 2014, Brazil experienced a long period of recession, when unemployment rose, and the living conditions of the working classes deteriorated. Besides this economic crisis, there has been a crisis of political representation which became undeniable since the 2013 protests. As a result of the growing detachment between professional politicians and voters, large groups of the Brazilian population demonstrated their hatred against the isolation of the congressmen concerning their voters and corruption scandals. During his entire campaign, A Brief Afterword: Brazilian Left Faces the Rise of Neofascism 287

Bolsonaro presented himself as an anti-systemic candidate, who would be different from other politicians—although he is a professional politician for three decades and voted for the maintenance of their high revenues and privileges. In this sense, he presents himself as the solution to the pres- ent crisis but with violent and authoritarian measures. Those include the promise of physical elimination of the PT supporters and the whole left- wing spectrum. It is no accident that during the electoral campaign, there were numerous physical attacks against people who declared their vote in the PT candidate, Fernando Haddad as well as against women and trans- genders. At least four people, including two transwomen, were killed by Bolsonaro followers in the course of the electoral campaign. We think that is also valuable to relate the actual extreme-right groups in Brazil closely to fascist movements because they share a fundamental attribute: fascist and neofascist movements rise when the workers, subaltern, and leftist organizations are demobilized. In other words, fascist movements tend to flourish at moments when social degradation and extreme individualization replace political organization. Since left-wing parties in Brazil, especially the PT, centered their politics in a demobilizing relation between professional politicians and voters—which means that people are mobilized only to choose their candidates, not to discuss their lives and problems—this detachment allowed the extreme-right candidate to gain votes among the working classes. If their most impoverished strata tended in the last elections to vote in Lula da Silva and Rousseff, his arbitrary arrest and the process of depoliticization of the subaltern, alongside the political and the economic crisis, paved the way to the popular support to Bolsonaro. One must not forget the vital support of some influential evangelical churches, whose religious leaders preached to their adherents to vote in the neofascist candidate. The prosperity theology inspires most of those evangelical groups, and these adhere to conservative values against the recognition of questions concerning gender and sexuality. Over the last decades, they reached a growing influence over impoverished workers, especially in the outskirts of large cities. Their impact over the subaltern represented a relief to daily violence and the continuing precarization of living conditions. At the moment when left-wing political parties dis- tanced themselves from the immediate reality of those strata of working classes, the prestige of evangelical churches emulated the Gramscian con- cept of hegemony. In other words, with their conservative agenda and the growing distance of left-wing organizations with ordinary problems, those Christian strands constituted a deep-rooted political party. 288 A Brief Afterword: Brazilian Left Faces the Rise of Neofascism

Moreover, as a former army captain, Bolsonaro is associated to some top-ranking officers who express their positive visions about civil-military dictatorship and the necessity of a strong government, capable of bringing Brazilian society back to order. The armed forces and evangelical churches took advantage of hatred against the PT and therefore against all left-wing parties and movements. Since 2015 there is a political and mediatic campaign to destroy the public image of all left groups in Brazil since the corruption scandals involving some members of the PT are manipulated to stimulate the hostility to any left politics. Not only was Rousseff’s impeachment firmly based on this campaign but also the immediate association to political and economic crisis to the politics of the PT. The center and right-wing political parties, such as Partido da Social- Democracia Brasileira (Brazilian Social-Democracy Party—PSDB, another inaccurate name) and Rede Sustentabilidade (Rede—Sustainability Network), helped to foster this offensive against left-wing organizations. They believed that they could profit from the destabilization of the PT and consequently represent an electoral alternative, allowing the reconquest of the Brazilian state. Bolsonaro and his allies were deemed too radical to win widespread popular support but useful to keep the left on the defensive. However, the force of far-right and neofascist movements is so substantial today that almost all the right-wing electors tended to migrate to Bolsonaro. The political crisis did not only involve the PT but almost all political parties, including PSDB— which, it was imagined, would be the main beneficiary of the 2016 coup, since it was the larger opposition to PT and had strong connections with international financial capital. According to considerable demonstrations against the political system in general, an essential part of the electorate pre- ferred to choose Bolsonaro not only because he appears as an anti-systemic candidate, but also because he is the only alternative in the right spectrum to the defeat the PT. It is no coincidence that ultraliberal economists support Bolsonaro, including Paulo Guedes, a defender of the Chilean political economy during Pinochet dictatorship, who earned a PhD at Chicago University. If one could understand the deposition of Rousseff because she was not able to continue the implementation of hardcore neoliberal policies, then finance bourgeoisie has chosen his candidate, no matter how extreme he is. For right- wing parties, it represented the lower balloting in their history. If there is one crucial element that contributed to the growing popularity of Bolsonaro, it is the importance of social media for politics. Since the election of Donald Trump and the Brexit, it has been clear that Facebook and Twitter represent a platform to spread electronic messages directed to A Brief Afterword: Brazilian Left Faces the Rise of Neofascism 289 voter segments. The Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed that social media is a vital commercial and political instrument to reach people and to privatize public discussion. One of the men who were behind Trump’s victory, Steve Bannon, was also in touch with Bolsonaro’s campaign, offering his expertise on how to spread fake news and dubious information. It is no coincidence that Bannon declared that Brazil is an essential target of his international organization which coordinates the efforts of far-right movements. Its name could not be more suggestive regarding neofascism, The Movement. In the previous days before the first round in the Brazilian elections, social media, especially WhatsApp, was flooded with fake news containing rumors about the PT candidate, with the support of some of the most important evangelic churches. Certainly, none of those rumors were true, but the way social media works prevented from the beginning the verification of information and a rational discussion on their topics. The result was an astonishing increase in Bolsonaro’s votes— he was very close to win the elections in the first round. Two weeks after, one of the most important Brazilian newspapers, Folha de S. Paulo, pub- lished a news report demonstrating that businesspeople illegally supported the far-right candidate. They bankrolled Bolsonaro by bombarding electors with fake news about Haddad but without declaring it as a campaign donation. The PT appealed to the superior electoral court, but no further action was taken. The lack of legal measures against fake news and illegal donations by Bolsonaro’s campaign indicates that the Brazilian justice system has chosen its side. Despite all the political problems evolving the development of the PT and its most important leadership, Lula da Silva, it is important here to remember that his arbitrary arrest had a huge impact over the actual electoral process, since Lula da Silva was the favorite to win 2018 elections, according to previous surveys. Without his presence, a great number of his supporters, especially among the working classes, changed their vote to Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro represents a menace to the existence of left-wing groups and political parties. Probably, as he already declared in one of his public speeches, social movements such as Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) and Homeless Workers’ Movement (MTST) will be considered “terrorist organizations.” The destiny of the PT seems no better. Not only its most prominent leadership will be kept in prison, but one can assume that many of the party’s members and activists will share the same condition. Something similar can be thought concerning other left-wing political parties and organizations. Certainly, the increase in authoritarian measures 290 A Brief Afterword: Brazilian Left Faces the Rise of Neofascism will depend strictly on the control over the working classes and other subaltern groups. In other words, it will count on the possibility of a severe labor power discipline in particular and social conflict in general, exercis- ing forms of control over unions and militarizing, even more, the outskirts of large cities, as it already happens in Rio de Janeiro. There is the possibility of controlling urban areas not only using military force but also consti- tuting paramilitary groups. In the case of trade union organization, their actions are extremely compromised by the new labor legislation approved during Michel Temer’s administration, since negotiations between workers and enterprises can be made directly, without the mediation of unions. The economic policy proposed by Bolsonaro explicitly intends to expand this form of precarization to all labor relations. Even with Lula’s imprisonment, PT maintained his candidacy for the presidency. Immensely popular among the poor, he appeared as the favorite in the opinion polls. The persecution against Lula was so intense that many have seen him as a victim of a conspiracy involving the judiciary, police, Public Prosecutor’s Office and the media. From a certain moment, his popularity began to grow with the accusations against him. But there was little hope that the registration of his candidacy would be accepted. A law, sanctioned by Lula himself when he was president, banned the candidacy of people convicted by appeals bodies within the judicial power. Intended to moralize Brazilian politics, the “Lei da Ficha Limpa” (“Clean Record Law”), as it was known, allowed judicial oversight of the elections. In a highly controversial and politized case such as Lula’s, it deprived a large portion of the voters—40 percent or more in the first round and a clear majority in the second, according to the polls—from the right to choose the president they want. PT’s strategy was to insist on Lula as a candidate, to expose the persecution and to bet on his capacity to transfer votes to another name when the continuity of Lula’s campaign became impracticable. It was reason- able: at the end of his second term as president, in 2010, Lula made a little-known minister, Dilma Rousseff, the new president of Brazil. So, on August 4, the national convention of PT acclaimed Lula as its candidate. The ticket was completed with Fernando Haddad, revealed as Lula’s replacement when necessary. On August 15, a massive political act marked the registration of the candidacy in the superior electoral court. Two days later, the UN Human Rights Committee demanded that Lula be granted permission to compete, based on an international agreement to which Brazil was a signatory, strengthening PT’s narrative that he was a political A Brief Afterword: Brazilian Left Faces the Rise of Neofascism 291 prisoner. But, as expected, the court blocked Lula’s candidacy, on September 1. The campaign continued with only Haddad as the vice- presidential candidate until the deadline for an official substitution, when Haddad was announced as the presidential candidate in a ticket with a young state representative, Manuela d’Ávila, from the small Partido Comunista do Brasil (Brazil’s Communist Party—PCdoB). Fernando Haddad is a university professor of political science who was Lula’s Minister of Education and, in this position, commanded a massive program of expansion of higher education in Brazil. In 2012, in his first electoral experience, he became mayor of the largest Brazilian city, São Paulo, but was defeated from reelection four years later, in the conservative wave that swept Brazil after Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment. Lula chose Haddad as the candidate (and it was indeed a decision taken alone by the leader) because he had the profile to reconnect with a part of the middle classes and to rebuild the bridges with the bourgeoisie and the old political elites. He is a well-educated and polite man, very moderate in his political views, free of corruption suspicions, and recognized as a “serious” administrator who is committed to public account control policies. At the beginning of Haddad’s campaign as the presidential candidate, vote transference occurred as expected. PT’s free political advertising time on television hammered without ceasing: “Lula is Haddad, Haddad is Lula.” The electoral court prohibited the former president, incarcerated, from recording speeches in favor of Haddad, but older footage videos and other media guaranteed the identification. In less than two weeks, the expected vote for Haddad rose from 4 to more than 20 percent. But this growth was interrupted when Bolsonaro’s campaign intensified its fake news offensive against Haddad on social media, especially on WhatsApp groups. Meanwhile, the move in the direction of the middle classes, bour- geoise, and traditional political groups simply did not work. Bolsonaro’s main themes were the opposition of the supposed dissolu- tion of the family by LGBT movements (accusing Haddad by his support of policies to fight homophobia in the schools), the risk of Communism, the defense of the release of weapons, the stigmatization of human rights as a device to protect criminals, and the denunciation of PT as a corrupt party. He obtained 46 percent of the votes in the first round, followed by Haddad with 29 percent. But PT’s dream to create a broad anti-fascist front in the second round was rapidly dissolved. Even if we ignore his earlier speeches, there is little space to doubt that Bolsonaro is a kind of neofascist populist leader. Already as a candidate to 292 A Brief Afterword: Brazilian Left Faces the Rise of Neofascism the presidency, he praised the military dictatorship (1964–1985) overtly and defended the use of torture against political enemies. Several times in public speeches, he glorified the late colonel Brilhante Ustra, a notorious torturer and rapist, as his personal hero. His son, a congressman, threat- ened to close the Brazilian Supreme Court, and the vice-presidential candidate, a retired general, spoke about imposing a new Constitution and producing a “self-coup” to amplify the power of the executive branch. Bolsonaro himself promised to banish, incarcerate, or kill the “red margin- als,” including Fernando Haddad and to close the newspaper that revealed the scheme of illegal financing of his party. Even so, most of the business- men, media corporations, judges, and conservative politicians have pre- ferred to support him to prevent the return of PT to the Government. The biggest right-wing party in Brazil so far, PSDB, which held less than 5 percent of votes in the first round, announced “neutrality” in the second round. Its most popular leaders, however, aligned with Bolsonaro. PDT, the center-left Partido Democrático Trabalhista (Brazilian Labor Party), declared “critical support” to Haddad but did not engage in the campaign. Its candidate, Ciro Gomes, who came in third with 12 percent of the votes, never made a clear statement in favor of Haddad and spent most of the second round on European vacations. Gomes aimed to pre- serve his candidacy for the 2022 presidential race. It is a risky move, since, with Bolsonaro in the government, there is no confidence that the next elections will occur. The anti-fascist front was, in fact, restricted to the left organizations and some isolated centrist personalities. It is interesting to take a closer look at a leftist dissidence of PT, the Partido Socialismo e Liberdade (Socialism and Liberty Party—PSOL). Even though founded by former petistas that deemed that Lula had betrayed the party’s ideals, PSOL felt compelled to join forces with PT in the opposition against the parliamentary coup of 2016. In the 2018 election, it presented a ticket composed of Guilherme Boulos, the leader of the homeless worker’s movement, and Sonia Guajajara, an indigenous leader. The candidacy was supported by another small leftist party and some social movements. The conditions of the political debate in Brazil, polarized between PT and anti-PT, gave little space to such a message as PSOL’s, which intended to tie the opposition to the coup and to Lula’s judicial persecution, on one hand, with criti- cisms of the insufficiencies of PT’s “conciliatory” politics in government, on the other. Boulos and Guajajara received very poor voting numbers, but PSOL doubled its number of congresspersons. A Brief Afterword: Brazilian Left Faces the Rise of Neofascism 293

The day after the election, nearly every member of PSOL was engaged in Haddad’s campaign. Even Partido Socialista dos Trabalhadores Unificado (Unified Workers Socialist Party—PSTU), a small far-left party that was vehemently opposed to PT, manifested unequivocal support to Haddad. The urgency to block fascism justifies these steps, but they generate trou- bles for the task of redefining the Brazilian Left beyond the PT experience. In a front whose central organization by far is PT itself, it is difficult to maintain independence and critical perspective. Lula’s legacy, as the chapters in this book show, is a complex one, combining advances and weak- nesses. He built a political project with deep popular resonance, but at the price of uncountable concessions, little challenge to dominant groups sta- tus quo, and little effort to change mentalities or the forces correlation in society. When politics returns to revolve around some fundamental issues such as democracy, freedom of speech, or human rights, it is expected that difficult debates move to the background. But they are not superfluous. They are essential to the Brazilian Left if it wants to be able to produce more radical and more solid changes in reality. The challenges are more significant since Brazil is living through a very rough chapter in the history of the contemporary crisis of liberal democracy—the process called “global de-democratization” or the “emer- gence of post-democracy.” The crisis of the capitalist economy and the increased appetite of the bourgeois class after the collapse of the Soviet empire reduce the amount of resources that can be allocated to appease the social conflict and permit the functioning of electoral democracy. “Post-democratic” societies do not abolish liberal and democratic institutions but deprive them of any effectiveness. Whatever is the people’s will, the state must implement austerity measures, guarantee the profits of financial markets, and so on. When the popular vote says anything different, it is ignored (as in the 2015 Greek plebiscite) or overruled (as in the Latin American “soft coups,” including the 2016 Brazilian coup). Another option is the manipulation of public opinion by right-wing populists who direct the dissatisfaction with the political and economic system at minority groups and affirmative politics, like Donald Trump. Bolsonaro is the worst version of this path. He announces not only a “de-democratization,” but a dictatorship. It is hard to believe that Brazilian institutions will resist a Bolsonaro government. Democracy in Brazil was already harshly fractured by the 2016 coup. The 2018 race revealed several problems, apart from the pro- hibition of Lula’s candidacy. Electoral justice was slow and lenient in 294 A Brief Afterword: Brazilian Left Faces the Rise of Neofascism responding to the public denunciation that the neofascist candidate had benefited from a massive scheme to spread fake news, apparently with the involvement of Steve Bannon himself and illegally funded by private enterprises (Brazilian law forbids both business money and undeclared donations in the electoral campaign). It was also very permissive with the use of churches and TV channels in favor of Bolsonaro, which were additional violations of the electoral law. At the same time, bulletins of trade unions comparing the programs of the candidates were seized, and in the last days of the campaign at least three dozen universities were prohibited from promoting debates about fascism or political violence. Even Roger Waters, the former Pink Floyd singer, was warned by an electoral judge not to speak against fascism in the concerts of his Brazilian tour. Bolsonaro’s campaign promoted an escalation of political violence in Brazil, an outbreak of violence, as seen, directed against not only leftist militants but also against feminist women and LGBT persons. Adopting a discourse that equated political divergence and betrayal, the candidate refused to attend any debate with his opponent, Fernando Haddad. In short, Bolsonaro worked, with remarkable success, to weaken popular support for democratic procedures and liberal rights in Brazil. The perspective on democracy in Brazil is dramatic precisely because of this join- ing together between a mobilized and aggressive social base for neofascism and the penetration of its discourse and values in the very institutions that are supposed to defend democracy, like the judiciary and the press. The permanent dilemma of democracy in Brazil is revealed again, in full force: every time democracy serves to reduce social inequalities, the privileged groups turn against democracy. But a democracy that cannot fight inequalities is not a democracy at all. Many analysts describe the political situation in Brazil as “polarization,” but it is an asymmetrical polarization between a very moderate left and a radicalized Right. PT’s program in government was less than social- democratic, focusing on combating extreme poverty, and left-of-PT candidates in the 2018 election totaled less than 1 percent of the popular vote. That is, the Brazilian Left was aware that there was little space for a more advanced platform. Still, Bolsonaro dragged out all the Brazilian right, turning more centrist leaders and parties into supporting characters. The fact that the neofascist discourse was able to captivate millions of Brazilians is a tragedy for democracy and a threat to leftist parties, labor unions, social movements, and minority groups. The criminalization of PT is a proposal embraced by many Bolsonaro followers, including elected A Brief Afterword: Brazilian Left Faces the Rise of Neofascism 295 congresspersons, and echoed in some sectors of the judiciary. It is unlikely, at least for the moment, but it serves to encourage violence against the party. However, the criminalization of social movements is a more achiev- able objective. Bolsonaro announced that he would treat the Landless Workers’ Movement and the Homeless Workers’ Movement as “terrorist organizations,” and indeed there is a bill to be voted in the Congress that permits this characterization. This offensive against popular organizations is crucial to break resistance and open the path to demolishing the historical achievements of marginalized groups in Brazil. Bolsonaro promises a brutal reduction in the rights of the working class, worse than the post-2016 coup setbacks. A famous statement of his is that it “is better to have a job without rights than rights without a job,” and indeed one of the few proposals clearly presented in his government plan is to institute an alternative, “green-and- yellow,” Record of Employment Booklet to those workers unable to receive the Labor Law legal guarantees. He is also against any policy designed to promote gender or racial equality. There are too many exam- ples of his misogynistic, homophobic, and racist declarations to list them here. Nonetheless, it is important to point out that the incitement of violence against women, LGBT persons, black people, and indigenous peoples is one of the main features of his discourse and one major mechanism by which to maintain his ties with fundamentalist Christian churches and other ultra-conservative groups. The popular aggression toward minori- ties that rose together with the rise of Bolsonaro’s leadership must be understood as a kind of direct political violence in contemporary Brazil, since it is now, in no small measure, a reflection of a political speech delib- erately aimed to build and maintain a hardened militant base. With the results of the Brazilian election, one element appears to be crucial to left-wing politics, mainly because neofascist trends will be not defeated only in vote terms. Several chapters in this book call attention to problems involved in the transformations in the PT and the type of political relations established with the working classes, the state, and racial and environmental questions, to name a few. The bureaucratization of the party and the reduction of the relation to its rank and file to a mere political consumer, what involves a process of individualization of social questions and depoliticization, should be challenged by an intense process of reorganization. Among other things, it implies the reconstitution of a broader democratization process, such as the democratization of working places, the control by people of their health and education services, and 296 A Brief Afterword: Brazilian Left Faces the Rise of Neofascism the establishment of political networks that go way beyond political parties and the privatization of the public discussion enacted by social media. The scenario for this renewal presents at least two obstacles. The first and most obvious is the escalation of far-right movements. With Bolsonaro’s victory and the possible predominance of his party over the Congress, all left-wing groups will probably face a process of political scat- tering. The combination of political persecution and violent repression over radical demonstrations could destroy any possibility of resistance. Therefore, it is urgent that all the Brazilian left-wing organizations consti- tute solidarity and mutual support networks to prevent their isolation. The days before the second round demonstrated a massive mobilization against neofascism, with thousands of activists taking the streets to discuss pub- licly the threats and dangers embodied in Bolsonaro. Although it is defensive and structured by the elections, it could represent the process of political reorganization, but it faces some difficulties as well, concerning the problems of the Brazilian Left since the political choices today are resumed between neofascism and the PT’s candidate. Hence, the second obstacle is represented by the hegemonic model of the PT. Its transformations exist side-by-side with the processes of spec- tacularization of politics and the reduction of democracy to a choice between different political merchandises. The impasses of representative and liberal democracy are intrinsically connected to a strict split between the common life of the workers and the powers of capital and the state. If the PT itself runs the risk of isolation and annihilation by accepting the rules of the political system, so it would be vital for left-wing partisans to discuss the limits represented by PT’s political model and how they relate to the political crisis. Moreover, if the political framework represented by the PT reduced left politics to formal democracy, then its reorganization must advance toward de-discussion of substantial and participatory democracy. If fascism corresponds to a violent solution to the crisis in advanced capitalism, then the Brazilian Left has to overcome its character as a simple administrator of social conflicts. A significant process of reorganization is necessary to reconnect to necessities and desires of the working classes and subaltern groups; so these can change radically the way they reproduce their lives, not by capital purposes. Their independent and autonomous organization is the only means to defeat fascism since its force will continue to be attractive in moments of crisis. Brasília, October 29, 2018. Index1

A D Activism, 237–254 Democracy, 91–107, 139–155 Developmentalism, 39, 72, 74, 75, 77, 86, 87, 216, 220, 230 B Brazil, 139–155, 259, 260, 264, 265, 267, 267n4, 269, 270, 273, E 275–280 Experience, 127, 131, 131n8 Brazilian capitalism, 31, 32 Brazilian Communist Party (PCB), 3–11, 13, 17 F Brazilian left, 1–9, 16–18, 91, 93, Feminist movements, 139, 141–145, 95, 96, 98, 99, 106, 107, 147–149, 151–155 237–254

H C Homosexuality, 183–185, 187–189, Coloniality, 160 192, 194, 195, 197–199 Conformism, 24, 25, 30, 42 Coup, 45–65, 49n8, 51n13, 91–94, 104, 106, 107 I Crisis, 63 Indigenous peoples, 205–231

1 Note: Page number followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

J R June 2013, 237–254 Race, 160–163, 163n6, 165, 170, 171, 174, 175, 177, 178n17, 178n18 L Labor movement, 113–135 Latin America, 259–280 S Left, 183–202 Social transformation, 27, 36 Left Turns, 259–280 Societal overflow, 241 LGBT movement, 183–202 State, 69–87, 119, 123–132, 124n6, Lulismo, 46–48, 52–54, 56–59, 62, 65 140–155

M T Marxism, 2, 7n2, 8, 12, 14, 93, 95, Territory, 205, 206, 209–211, 97, 99 213, 219–226, 228, 230, 231 Trade unions, 114–130, 132–135 N Traditional communities, Neoliberalism, 74, 259–280 205–231 New right, 238, 247

W P Women’s movements, 139, 142, 145 Parliamentarian coup, 242–245, Workers’ Party (PT), 1, 2, 5, 7, 243n1, 253 16–18, 17n5, 23–43, 24n1, Participatory democracy, 70–72, 77n3, 26n2, 27n3, 29n4, 30n6, 33n8, 78–80, 83 41n9, 41n10, 46–50, 48n6, Polarization, 237–254 49n8, 62, 69–73, 70n1, 79, Post-democracy, 259–280 83–85, 93, 98–106, 159–179, Protest cycle, 238, 239, 241, 242, 193n1, 194, 199 245, 249 Work ethic, 121–127 PT, see Workers’ Party Working class, 24–26, 26n2, 28–38, Public policies, 160, 161, 165, 170 30n6, 40–43