Statement on Socialist Democracy (Brazil) and its Acceptance of a Ministry in the Lula Government

Michael Pugliese debsian at pacbell.net
Tue Mar 4 20:20:45 PST 2003


Statement on Socialist Democracy (Brazil) and its Acceptance of a Ministry in the Lula Government

International Left Tendency (formerly the International Trotskyist

Opposition led by Ferrando and Grisolia) Presented to the 2003 World

Congress of the

Fourth International (USec)

January 2003

Miguel Rosetto, a member of the Brazilian section of the USFI,

Socialist Democracy (DS), has accepted a position as Minister of

Agrarian Development in the newly elected government of the Workers

Party (PT) of Brazil. The PT leader, Lula, was elected as president

of the Brazilian republic as part of a popular front electoral

alliance with the bourgeois Liberal Party—which gained the vice-

presidency. Lula has also appointed a career banker, a member

of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB)—the party of the

outgoing government of Cardoso—as head of the Brazilian Central

Bank.  It is reported that DS Senator, Heloisa Helena, walked out of

his appointment hearing to avoid either voting for him or being

expelled from the PT. What kind of "opposition" was this? This

abstention in the appointment of a deadly enemy of the working class

to a position of power can only be regarded as a betrayal. It sent a

message to the Brazilian working class that revolutionary Marxists

are agnostic about the appointment of an acknowledged agent of big

business to a key post in the economy.

There is no doubt that the PT administration is a

counterrevolutionary, reformist bourgeois government presiding over

bourgeois state institutions. It has long been a basic, elementary

principle of Trotskyism that revolutionary Marxist parties do not

join bourgeois governments. In allowing Rosetto to become a minister

in the Lula government, Socialist Democracy, has breached these

principles. The very act of joining the government was itself

a betrayal. This action provides left cover to the reformist Lula

regime, creating confusion in the minds of workers about the

reactionary nature of this regime and thus lowers class consciousness

instead of raising it. Rosetto is now in a position where he is

obliged to accept full responsibility for the actions of the Lula

administration in the coming months and years. DS has committed an

error similar to that made by the POUM during the Spanish Civil War,

which provoked strong criticism from Trotsky at the time.

In view of this, the International Left Tendency calls upon USFI

national sections to adopt, and send, resolutions to the 2003 USFI

World Congress calling for the convening of an inquiry into this

affair at the Congress. DS must be given every opportunity to explain

its actions and defend itself at the inquiry and in the Congress

plenary sessions. However, there is no doubting the fact that Rosetto

is a member of Lula's government and that this is one of the worst

errors that a Trotskyist can commit. The facts speak for

themselves. Rosetto and DS have repeated the errors of Andres Nin. 

 In view of this accomplished fact, Congress must present DS with an

ultimatum: to withdraw immediately from the Lula government. A

failure to do so must be met by immediate expulsion of DS and Rosetto

from the USFI. A failure to take these drastic steps would mean that

USFI would become responsible itself for the actions of its Brazilian

section. The expulsion of the Sri Lankan section in 1964 demonstrated

that the USFI was willing to dissociate itself from opportunist

errors of this sort. It is necessary for the USFI  to do so again.

 

-- Michael Pugliese

"Without knowing that we knew nothing, we went on talking without listening to

each other. Sometimes we flattered and praised each other, understanding that

we would be flattered and praised in return. Other times we abused and shouted

at each other, as if we were in a madhouse." -Tolstoy



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