Brazil.
During the meeting, the body paid tribute to Alfred Rosmer who died May 6, Although Rosmer was not a member of the Fourth International, he helped found the movement and was held in high esteem by Trotskyists throughout the world,
To Revolutionists of Latin America:
THE LESSON OF THE COUP DIETAT IN BRAZIL
The Second Declaration of Havana Offers the Only Road!
The working class of: Brazil has. just ‘suffered a grave defeat, This defeat, of course, will not last.for a long time. The reaction has no chance whatsoever of stabilizing the situation in Brazil, None of the explosive factors there can be eliminated. by the "goril- Last. [reactionary officials of the military caste] now in power, The millions of landless peasants are still starving in the Northeast; the masses’ of agricultural workers still remain serfs on the big faciendas; the unemployed drawn to the big cities still live in the frightful favelas; the flight of capital among the ruling classes continues; the run-away inflation is worse than ever; the imperialist grip on the main resources of the country remains as strong as before, All the objective factors, | consequently, remain to give rise to a new wave of mass struggles in a coming stage.
7 But these considerations do not mean that the defeat was any the less real or serious, Fifteen thousand working-class and anti«+ imperialist militants have been thrown in prison, The trade unions and Peasant Leagues have been decapitated, The terror unleashed by the "gorillas," and even more so the shock and disorientation caused by an foreseen defeat have depressed and disarmed the masses, leaving . the initiative to the enemy.
The international effects of the Brazilian defeat are not less grave, The usurping regime has broken diplomatic relations with Cuba, It is exercising heavy pressure on all the governments of the rest of Latin America to follow this road, It is supporting the efforts of the Venezuelan rulers, lackeys of Yankee imperialism, to unleash an attack against Cuba under the form of "sanctions" against the-"subversive plots" of Cuba in Latin America, It is eager to head ‘a "holy erusade” of the Latin-American oligarchy against the
“me LG me
"Communist threat" emanating from Cuba.
Thus the events in Brazil, following those in Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Argentina and Ecuador, prove that Yankee imper= — ialism does not hesitate at overthrowing any regime in Latin America, even those adhering to bourgeois democracy, that continues normal» relations with revolutionary Cuba, and that it is ready not only to unleash terror but even to take the world to the brink of a nuclear holocaust in its rabid desire to overthrow Fidel Castro, who dared to defy American imperialism in a continent it considers its own — empire,
These events are a warning to all peoples, But especially the peoples of Latin America, the masses of workers and poor peasants in this vast. continent, who only yesterday watched with greatest hope thé rise of the anti-imperialist and anticapitalist forces in Brazil, must ask themselves how these forces let themselves be:driven back and beaten so easily by a handful of reactionary generals, The reply to this question involves fundamental questions of revolutionary strategy and tactics in the Americas, and constitutes the main les-~ son to be drawn from the Brazilian defeat by the communists and ‘révo-~ lutionists of all these: countries,
The regime of the "gorillas" was able. ‘to install itself so easily because the Brazilian masses were disoriented by the so-called "progressive" parties, including the Brazilian Communist party, con cerning the possibility of a "peaceful and parliamentary road" toward the destruction of the pro-imperialist, oligarchical power, They were disoriented concerning Goulart's §resolution" to undertake a resolute struggle in behalf of "structural reforms," They were dis~ oriented concerning the will and the capacity of Goulart to "resist the assault of reaction,"
The events in Brazil show once again that although the . "national bourgeoisie" is capable of undertaking limited mobilizations of the masscs to wring concessions from the oligarchy and imperialism, it is incapable of mobilizing these masses sufficiently to break the fundamental structures of the state, of the reactionary army and private property. Faced with choosing. between such a mobilization or capitulation before the oligarchy, the "national bourgeoisie" prefers to capitulate, The experience with Goulart, after Quadros, and Vargas is extremely instructive in this respect. It shows that the masses cannot place confidence in anyone but them~ selves, that they must count only on their own forces to win out against the oligarchy, imperialism and capitalism, Only thcir own struggle led by a revolutionary proletarian party is capable ‘of carrying the battle against reaction through to the end,
The events in Brazil show once more that all the regular armies of Latin America are reactionary to the core, When the first signs of decomposition appeared in this army, when first the sergeants, then the marine riflemen became insubordinate, reaction im»
mediately prepared for a coup d'état, It was the duty of the workers parties to at once prepare to arm the proletariat in order to meet the reaction with something besides empty hands, The big battles in Latin America will be decided by arms, This conclusion, which leaves nothing of the Khrushchevist lucubrations about a “peaceful road," must be emphasized by all the revolutionists of Latin America,
Some persons have learned nothing from events of the day, At the last presidential elections, the Brazilian Communist party flirted with generals and bourgeois politicians like Adhemar de Barrios who played a prominent role in the reactionary conspiracy. For the next elections he is already at work on a new electoral farce, The Communists and other revolutionists of Latin America must draw the conclusion from the events in Brazil that the "constitutional struggle" in itself does not point a way out and that in most of the countries what is required is the road.of Fidel Castro, the "insur rectional road," the "road of guerrilla warfare,"
Rejecting the subordination ‘of: the mass movement to the lead-. ership of the national bourgeoisie, rejecting the "peaceful" and "constitutional" road; understanding the importance of the armed struggle, the revolutionists of Latin America must understand at the same time that the anti~imperialist revolution will, like the Cuban Revolution, be a permanent revolution, an uninterrupted | ‘revolution, that. land cannot be given to the peasants, the country cannot be freed from the imperialist hold, except by leading the. proletariat and the poor peasants to power, establishing the dictatorship of.the proletariat, creating a workers state, and thus assuring the transition of the anti-imperialist revolution into.a sodialist revolution as proclained by the Second Declaration of Havana.
A year ago, Prestes, the leader of the Brazilian Comaunist party, proclaimed that the "road of Fidel Castro is not applicable in Brazil," The defeat suffered by the masses is the sad commentary on that bankrupt line, It teaches the Latin-American revolutionists | to the contrary that the road of Fidel Castro and only the road of Fidel Castro is the road to victory in Latin America,
The Fourth International appeals to all the revolutionists, all the Communists, all the socialists, all the resolute anti~impor~. ialist revolutionists, to constitute a ’ powerful anti=imperialist and anticapitalist united front, to draw inspiration from a strong spirit of. solidarity, to join together in a vast front of combat that resolutely takes the revolutionary road based especially on setting up guerrilla fighters wherever it is geographically and materially required,
It is in this way, and only in this way that defeats like the one in Brazil can be avoided, that the defeat in Brazil will be made up, relief will be brought to the Cuban Revolution through an. immense Second Front on the Latin-American continent itself, that new and important defeats will be inflicted on Yankee imperialism, that. new
victories for socialism will be won in the Western Hemisphere, _ .
International Executive Committee
of the Fourth International