During its first five months, the dictatorship of Gen. João Figueiredo was confronted with more than a million and a half striking workers. There were more than eighty-five strikes in at least twelve states. It was the most significant development in the Brazilian labor movement in the past sixteen years.
This big strike movement was accompanied by an equally important political movement-the struggle for the establishment of a workers party led by "authentic" trade unionists and the opposition unions.
The dictatorship, for its part, is trying out "reforms." And along with American imperialism, the Social Democracy is coming to its aid with Leonel Brizola, an old populist leader.
Strikes, demonstrations, and struggles against the high cost of living, for an unconditional general amnesty, for a sovereign constituent assembly, as well as the building of a workers party-this is the present context of the Brazilian class struggle.
The military dictatorship that was installed in 1964 and strengthened by an "institutional" coup in 1968 was for an entire period (until 1977-78) the bloodiest dictatorship in Brazil's history. Despite the initial promises to build a "moral democracy" free of subversion and corruptionpromises that have been repeated with every change of president-the dictatorship succeeded only in setting up the most uncontrolled and despotic regime Brazil has ever known. The amount of power concentrated in the hands of the head of state continually increased. The president stood above the judiciary as the real holder of legislative, judicial, and executive powers.
Torture and murder of political opponents was a fundamental prop of the dictatorship. The impunity enjoyed by the repressive apparatus allowed it to develop into a truly independent center of power within the state. Brazil created a political police that was, moreover, able to export its "technology" to other Latin American countries.
Political repression was the basic instrument for freezing wages and for the redistribution of income that made Brazil one of the countries with the greatest inequality in income distribution. This was a fundamental element in the accelerated rate of capital accumulation between 1968 and 1973, Brazil's so-called "economic miracle."
Nevertheless, despite the brutal repression and the unprecedented economic developments of this period, the regime was unable to achieve real political stability.
This was due to the dictatorship's inability to develop an ideology that could give it legitimacy, and thus a reasonable social base. The coup that brought it to power was presented as a "liberal" coup, with the proclaimed objective of reestablishing true democracy, which they claimed had been destroyed by demagogy, corruption, and subversion. They never developed theories regarding the "sole party" or statements about the total corruption of "the political class" that would have been the basis to establish the necessity for a military government.
This explains the surprising fact that they maintained the congress throughout nearly the whole period, although without scheduled elections and under conditions in which elections were meaningless in terms of power. It also explains the military's concern with changing presidents at the end of their term, while strengthening the military character of the presidency and maintaining the total power of the army. Each time a new officer became president, it was always suggested that "next time" it would be a civilian government.
For a short period (under General Médici's government from 1969 to 1974) there was an attempt to use the "economic miracle" to provide legitimacy for the regime. But this short-lived attempt was snuffed out by the beginning of the economic crisis in 1973. And even during the height of the "economic miracle" the regime was being undermined by the exposure of facts regarding the growth of income inequality, the subservience with regard to imperialism, and the growth of the foreign debt.
The regime's difficulty in justifying its existence as a dictatorship and the decision finally made, under the pressure of the onset of the economic crisis, to attempt to "institutionalize" itself by using selfreform to try to give the dictatorship a liberal façade, are important elements to bear in mind in understanding the recent acceleration of its crisis.
The basic roots of the present crisis can be found in the changes in the country's economic profile since 1964.
The Economic Model
The economic model that has been followed since 1964 is in fact simply the accentuation and further development of the model that President Juscelino Kubitschek put into effect in the late 1950s. In its bare outlines, this consists of freezing wages (with a resulting significant growth in the rate of surplus value), along with complete integration of the economy with imperialism. This permitted a big increase in industrial production through the association of imperialism, the state companies, and the big national capitalists. Furthermore, since this period opened up, one can hardly speak of "big national capitalists" because of their integration with imperialism. A more appropriate term would be "big associated capitalists."
One of the principal reasons for the 1964 coup was the fact that the economic model went against the interests of the people-a fact that was already clear by the beginning of the 1960s. The coup simply brought the political superstructure into line with the repression already taking place on the economic level.
The most important results of the accel eration of this kind of capital accumulation since 1964 were industrialization, the growth of urbanization, and the growth in the weight of the industrial working class. The urban population already comprises more than 60 percent of the country's total population. In the southeast, where the main industrial states are located (São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro), the urban population represents 80 percent of the total, 90 percent in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
Industrialization and urbanization of the country are accompanied by the growing penetration of capitalist relations into agriculture, relegating the archaic forms of work relations such as the parceria, a type of share-cropping, to a secondary plane. In the southeast, wage workers already comprise more than 70 percent of the agricultural labor force, and day laborers and seasonal workers represent a high percentage.
It is also important to stress the character of the industrialization. The industrialization has been dominated by monopoly capital, especially in the most modern branches of the economy. The ever greater presence of big capital (state, imperialist, and associated) and the resulting declining arena for the middle bourgeoisie, has led to an increase in the number of wage workers. It is also important to note that this evolution has affected a large part of the old "liberal" professions.
The only way such a transformation could be carried out was through an increase in technological and financial dependence on imperialism. The country's escalating indebtedness is proof of this. In 1973 the foreign debt was $6 billion. In 1974 it had risen to $17 billion (corresponding to a short term debt of $12 billion). Today it is estimated that the foreign debt is more than $50 billion. The thrust of economic policy was aimed at very rapidly increasing exports, and they have doubled in the period mentioned.
But the basic difficulty is that this growth in exports is also accompanied by an equal or even greater tide of imports due to the type of industrialization that exists in the country. Industrialization has developed furthest in the consumer durables sector of the economy (automobiles, household appliances), with less development in the capital goods sector. Added to this is the problem of oil, which the regime always uses as a scapegoat.
In this context, the development of the financial sector has fulfilled tasks that on the one hand are consistent with the "economic model," but on the other hand has shown its weakness. Even officially it is acknowledged that the "model" encourages speculation.
The Crisis of the Model
Since 1973 the economy has been in crisis. First, its dependence on imperialism has grown in all spheres: financial, technological (the industrialization has taken place with an increase in dependence, especially in the field of industrialization equipment), and in terms of the international market (due to the numerous credits obtained for the sale of their products).
The balance of payments constitutes the most sensitive point of the crisis, with a constant indebtedness due to deficits.
Secondly, the industrialization could only take place with big support from the "mother state." The amount of subsidies granted by the public bodies is unbelievable. Several private groups (including foreign groups such as FIAT) were offered installations practically free of charge, so great was the concern of the government (on the federal and municipal levels) to offer the maximum advantages possible in terms of subsidies, tax exemptions, and participation as partners without control. This phenomenon is most evident in the export sectors, since it justifies the major efforts to make Brazilian products more competitive in the world market.
The penetration of this "new capital" into the countryside also took place with the direct participation of the state, through financing arrangements that charge negative real interest rates, i.e. interest rates that are lower than the inflation rate.
The second sensitive point of this economic policy relates to the "struggle against inflation," which increases the financial dependence, the growing weight of public expenditures to get the various enterprises operating, as well as the presence of monopolist capital and a highly speculative financial sector. Since 1974 the inflation rate has surpassed an annual rate of 30 percent, and this year it is certain to reach 60 percent.
For a long time the remedy for inflation was the arrocho—a wage freeze. The minimum wage was introduced in the 1940s as a subsistence wage for a working-class family. Until the beginning of the 1960s it underwent big fluctuations (the rises and falls always depended on the state of the workers movement). But throughout the period as a whole, the increase in the minimum wage has been very small, much lower than the rise in productivity, meaning a growth in the rate of surplus value.
In the period from 1964 to 1974 the minimum wage declined sharply. This meant that the regime had to heavily repress the union movement, which was already very closely tied to the state as a result of the vertical structure that President Vargas copied from Mussolini in the 1940s.
Today the minimum wage would have to be increased more than 120 percent just to again reach the standard of living of the 1940s, without counting any gain in productivity.
How then has the Brazilian population survived such a brutal drop in its pay level? There are explanations. The number of hours worked rose (despite the eighthour day established by law) through the artifice of "supplementary hours." Along with this, the average number of people per family who work-women and children-has also risen.
It is therefore impossible for the dictatorship to contain inflation by lowering the minimum wage even further.
The depth of the economic crisis has resulted in a permanent and growing crisis for the dictatorship. Its legitimacy is thrown into question by its lack of "effectiveness." This increases its instability, and therefore lowers its base of support even within the bourgeoisie. As a result, a period of interbourgeois conflict began under the Geisel government (1974-1979). The issues were what political strategy to choose and how to divide the pie. With the installation of the present dictator, Figueiredo, there has been an attempt to solve this crisis with the creation of a "special" minister whose aim is to satisfy all factions of the bourgeoisie.
Nevertheless, the result of this has been the disruption of the form of bourgeois domination. Until 1964 this domination rested on two important pillars.
The first pillar was the control that the rural oligarchy, the big land-owning bourgeoisie, exercised over vast segments of the population. The votes they bought had a decisive weight within the National Congress.
The second pillar was the control that the populist apparatus maintained over the majority of working-class voters. This apparatus was based on the unions and parties, such as the Brazilian Labor Party,' that were controlled by the minister of labor on the basis of the vertical union structure. The complicity of the Brazilian Communist Party helped maintain this pillar.
The rural oligarchy's domination was destroyed by the process of industrialization as well as by the changes in the agrarian structure. The domination of urban populism was also destroyed by the process of industrialization-which increased the social weight of the working class and consequently its desire for a decisive voice-and especially by the repression that its apparatus suffered.
The period immediately following 1964 saw populism go through a process of radicalization (mostly in a nationalist direction, as Leonel Brizola, the principal leader, began using anti-imperialist language). This led the dictatorship to try to destroy it. It was quite natural that a structure controlling the workers movement from "within" would find itself obliged to follow the workers movement in its process of radicalization and that therefore the "destruction" of the workers movement would also mean the dismantling of the populist apparatus.
Beginning in 1974, after having destroyed the "guerrillaist" left, the regime tried to "institutionalize" its rule. But the problem was more complicated than it had thought. What should it do? On one side the electoral road was blocked because the populism that controlled the "bought votes" was now broken down if not destroyed.
And on the other hand the dictatorship's terrorist violence had thrown all those
"humanist conscience" into the with a camp of the opposition. Even the church, one of the pillars of the 1964 coup, had become an active supporter of the opposition.
This period was also marked by the beginning of unprecedented victories for the bourgeois opposition-the MDB (Movimento Democrático Brasileiro-Brazilian Democratic Movement), especially in the big urban centers.
More recently, starting in 1977-78, the dictatorship discovered a much more serious challenge than the electoral defeats: the workers movement reemerged full of vigor and on new bases, characterized by its suspicion of traditional populism.
This context explains the persistent crisis of the dictatorship, which began in 1974 and speeded up in 1977-78, as well as the rise in the combativity of the workers movement.
Acceleration of the Crisis
The economic crisis that began in 1973 sharpened the problem of the dictatorship's legitimacy, Since the beginning of his government, General Geisel had spoken about "relaxing" the regime. The November 1974 electoral defeat forced him to draw back.
Until 1978 the opposition was developing under the influence of the liberal bourgeoisie, around "institutional" themes. This type of opposition reached its high point after the "April Package," a series of measures decreed by the regime in a context of sufficiently hobbling the Congress to permit parliamentary elections in 1978.
One element of this "package" was the provision for indirect election of one-third of the Senate through the intermediary of an electoral college in which parliamentary representatives of the small towns predominated.
Another was indirect election of governors by this same electoral college (and not by the legislative assemblies as before, since that would have given the MDB control over the governments of the country's principal states).
A third was general application of the Falcao Law, named after its author the then minister of justice, limiting electoral propaganda on radio and television to a simple listing of names, addresses, and biographies of the candidates.
This series of measures led the MDB to call for the convocation of a Constituent Assembly, a slogan that certain sectors of the left had been putting forward for some time. This slogan then began to play a key role together with demands for the revocation of Institutional Law No. 5,2 an end to torture and general amnesty, demands that had already been partially raised by the bourgeois opposition.
In addition to a deepening of the liberal bourgeois opposition, 1977 was marked by a big growth in the student movement, with huge street demonstrations, the first since 1968. Even more important was the emergence of "authentic trade-unionism." Some trade-union leaders whose whole training had taken place during the period of total control by the dictatorship began to take increasingly combative, classstruggle positions. Their first big campaign was carried out around catching up on wages, meaning the 34 percent wage readjustment that the dictatorship itself had authorized, utilizing the fraudulent figures of the inflation index.
Faced with an opposition that was becoming widespread, the dictatorship agreed to a series of "reforms" of the regime to take effect at the end of 1977. These included measures such as the abolition of Institutional Law No. 5 and its replacement by mechanisms for "defense of the state." These "mechanisms" included the power of the executive branch to suppress parliamentary electoral mandates or to decree a "state of emergency" without consulting congress. At the same time, the regime granted a partial amnesty. This is how the maneuvers to win over the liberal opposition began.
The predominant weight of the bourgeois opposition within a broader opposition therefore began to break down. During 1978, and particularly since May, a big strike wave broke out—in a situation where strikes were still illegal. The vanguard of this strike wave was what is called the ABC region, the main center of the automobile industry. The ABC region is made up of three industrial suburbs of São Paulo-Santo André, São Bernardo, and São Caetano.
This was the most important strike since 1968, involving more than 50,000 workers. That strike, however, was not organized by the unions and thus took the form of plantby-plant strikes.
The dictatorship opted to negotiate, agreeing to a large number of wage demands.
The strike movement continued throughout 1978, mainly among salaried workers such as doctors, professors, and the like. In September 1978, during the metalworkers strike in João Monlevade in the state of Minas Gerais, an "authentic" union for the first time took over the official leadership of the movement, which was victorious.
In October-November 1978 a new qualitative leap took place with more than 250,000 metalworkers going out on strike in São Paulo, Osasco, and Guarulhos (in the São Paulo metropolitan area. The results were disappointing, due to the maneuvers of the leaders of this unionwhich is a company union. The end of the strike was announced without the demands being satisfied and despite the disagreement of a large majority of the workers.
Another important political event of 1978 was the November parliamentary elections. Developments on the politicoinstitutional level began to fall behind the real social movement.
The year 1979 has been marked by both the radicalization of the struggle for civil liberties and a new explosion of the workers movement. The regime's "reform" took effect on January 1 with the end of Institutional Law No. 5 as the first measure. This was followed by a partial amnesty, which excluded those sentenced for "crimes of blood," meaning those who had confronted the dictatorship with arms. There was also the "party reform," permitting legalization of other political parties besides the official party ARENA (Aliança Renovadora Nacional-Alliance for National Renewal) and the MDB, the tolerated opposition, as well as the dissolution of existing parties.
The amnesty is an important step for making the regime's alliance with the liberals viable and for reestablishing relations with the old populist leaders like Leonel Brizola, who are today aligned around the Social Democracy. This plan for a partial amnesty was massively rejected by the people's movement, which demands a real, general, and unrestricted amnesty.
From another angle, during August the political prisoners organized a big hungerstrike movement on a national scale. The main trade-union leaders have also shown their rejection of the partial amnesty by going into the streets with the population in several cities around the country. The leading "authentic trade-unionist," Luis Inácio da Silva, who is widely known as "Lula," went so far as to tell a meeting organized by his union in São Bernardo that "the real instigator of bloody crimes is the military regime, which is killing the workers through hunger."
The dictatorship needs the new reformulation of the laws concerning political parties in order to be able to win a parlia. mentary majority. It wants to build an "independent" liberal party that would be a kind of gathering ground for the whole bourgeois opposition and could function as a pillar of the regime. In addition it favors the establishment of a "populist" or Social- Democratic opposition party that could be a "responsible" partner in dialogue.
Aside from the differences within the bourgeoisie, the big obstacle to concretizing this plan is the appearance of the movement for the "Workers Party," led by the "authentic trade unionists" This movement expresses the combativity of the workers movement.
The big problem confronting the dictatorship is that the bourgeois opposition now plays a secondary role. General Figueiredo, in power since last March, has been confronted with an even better organized and more militant workers movement, including a strike by more than 250,000 metalworkers in the ABC region that lasted over two weeks. This represented a challenge to the dictatorship, forcing it to rethink its policy toward the workers movement. Unquestionably this is one of the causes of the difference in the present dictator's behavior compared to his predecessor Geisel.
Figueiredo has opted for a more daring strategy by enlarging the bounds of the promised "opening," hoping through this to be able to gain a populist image. It is now clear that the dictatorship has decided to gamble on an evolution of the type that took place in Spain after Franco's death.
After negotiations between the union leaders and the regime, the ABC strike ended in a no-score tie. The workers did not win a victory, in that they did not get significant wage hikes. But the regime was forced to recognize the union leaders as real representatives of the workers. It must be emphasized that all this took place in a context of the dictatorship's "intervention," with the unions declared "outside the law" and the strikes illegal. Right after the end of the strikes, the ousted leaders were returned to their posts, something never previously seen in Brazilian tradeunion history.
The curve of the strike movement continued to rise. Starting in May 1979 the state of Minas Gerais, which is the second most industrialized, became the center of grav. ity of working-class combativity. It began with the 37-day public-school teachers strike, which gained a lot of popular support and won an important victory. Then, under the impact of this teachers' victory, a succession of other strikes took place: metalworkers, public transport drivers, street cleaners, bank guards, hospital workers, and, starting July 30, construction workers in Belo Horizonte and Ouro Branco, over-the-road drivers, civil servants, retail workers (for the first time in their history, workers for the prefecture, bank workers, metalworkers in Divinópolis, miners in Nova Lima, and others.
This new rise of the workers movement (not limited to Minas Gerais, although centered there showed extremely impor tant characteristics, particularly in terms of the form of organization. All these strikes were organized by the ranks and through "general strike committees," even when the official unions supported them. This represents a total break by the masses from the union structure that is tied to the state, and it therefore shows the high level of organization of the key sectors of the Brazilian working class.
The second characteristic was the general practice of holding street demonstrations to popularize their movement and win the population's support. Generally there was significant support from the masses. There is also a marked tendency toward workers unity within a fighting, anti-dictatorship, anti-employer perspective, with an increasingly predominant role played by the industrial proletariat.
Third, unionists are participating in strikes by those in other industries. This is beginning to make it possible for struggles to take place across occupational lines, and it plays a role analogous to a united workers federation. Such a body does not exist and is prohibited by the dictatorship, along with any structure that cuts across occupational lines.
The fourth characteristic is the increase in repression. So far the dictatorship has been responsible for the deaths of two workers in the state of Minas Gerais—one a construction worker shot down in Belo Horizonte and the other in Divinópolis. A metalworker died of skull fractures after having been beaten by the police. Dozens of workers have had to be hospitalized. Strike pickets were broken up by the military police. Several members of the Bank employees' "strike committee" and of the committee of administration workers were imprisoned. Moreover the president of the
FIGUEIREDO
union at the Bank of Belo Horizonte was dismissed from his position.
The people's movement responded to this intensified repression with demonstrations. One example was the big demonstration of construction workers that drew more than 10,000 in response to the death of one of their members. Another aspect of this mobilization is the struggle for general amnesty.
It is very difficult to make predictions. But today it is clear that it is becoming increasingly difficult for the dictatorship to contain the people's and workers movement through repression. The movement has a strong streak of spontaneity, especially since the struggle is over the question of survival. This year inflation will exceed 60 percent, wiping out all the wage readjustments previously obtained.
It suffices to look at the "liberal" press, such as Veja magazine and the Journal do Brasil, to conclude that in the last five months under Figueiredo there have been more strikes than in the last months of Goulart's presidency in 1964.
Since Figueiredo took over, there have already been 1.2 million workers on strike, and by the beginning of August, 14.3 million work days had already been lost. Under Figueiredo there has not been a single day when there hasn't been a strike somewhere, and it will continue like that.
The workers movement has a high level of combativity, has forms of organization, has class consciousness, and enjoys the support of the population. But it also has a rather serious weakness: its low level of political consciousness.
The big proposal is for a Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers Party), which, according to its leaders, would be a begin. ning of a workers united front. This proposal, while being correct, has limits and is subject to vacillations that are difficult to overcome, beginning with the hesitation of most of the left.
The Brazilian Communist Party is in favor of broad unity of all the opposition forces around the MDB, including "liberal" sectors of the ARENA. The CP systematically tries to hold back strikes, even going so far as to boycott them as it did in the journalists' strikes in São Paulo.
Another sector of the left is made up of the pro-Albanian Communist Party of Brazil (not to be confused with the Brazilian Communist Party); the Movimento Revolucionario 8 de Outubro, which has a guerrillaist origin; the Aliança Popular Marxista-Leninista; as well as other organizations. This sector preferred to support the launching of what they called a "people's party," on a more populist, less classstruggle basis than the Workers Party.
Revolutionary Marxists see the decisive importance of pushing forward the formation of the Workers Party. Within it we will be able to constitute a wing with its own character. This is the only way the working class will have the revolutionary lead. ership that is an indispensable tool for the events to come.
Volcanic Nuke
President Marcos and Westinghouse are pushing ahead with construction of the Philippines' first nuclear plant despite objections from the Philippines Movement for Environmental Protection that the project is not safe.
The construction site forty-five miles west of Manila is within ninety miles of four "active" volcanos. Mt. Natib, the nearest, is only ten miles away and the mudflow from its last eruption came within two miles of the site.
The U.S. State Department gave the goahead October 1 for Westinghouse to export a key component of the nuclear plant. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission still has to approve the export decision but, in any case, President Carter could overrule them, as he has done in the past.
The State Department noted that the "seismic activity and volcanic history of the site region is not well known or understood" and urged installation of a "volcano surveillance system" to evaluate the "probabilities of eruption."
In approving the project, they obviously had concerns other than safety in mind. Wall Street is particularly eager to see the $1.2 billion deal completed because of dim prospects for the nuclear industry in the U.S. Only one nuclear power plant has been ordered by a domestic utility company in the last three years.
Notes
1. The Brazilian Labor Party was an old populist party that had broad support and succesgfully carried out a class-collaborationist program. The Brazilian Communist Party had an entry tactic toward the Labor Party and played an important role in it. Today the Labor Party has reemerged with the same old leaders, including Brizola.
2. Institutional Law No. 5 was a series of amendments to the constitution introduced after 1968. It contained measures such as the suppression of civil liberties, habeas corpus, etc.