Mobilize for Our Rights and Radical Change!
Text of leaflet distributed by LSR (ISA in Brazil) on anti-coup protests on 9 January 2022
The violent coup attacks by the Bolsonarist horde on Sunday in Brasilia must be strongly repudiated by one and all.
Bolsonaro must be held accountable first and foremost, and must pay for his coup-plotting campaign.
But that is not all.
The events in Brasilia should also serve to open the eyes of those who underestimated the seriousness of the moment we are going through and the need for independent working-class mobilization to contain the extreme right.
They should also convince people once and for all that it is a mistake to rely on the supposed “normal” functioning of the institutions as a way to contain the far-right Bolsonarist threat.
These institutions have not worked to contain attacks like Sunday’s. Or perhaps it is better to say that they functioned as they always do — with an iron fist against poor, black and struggling workers and with inaction, negligence or connivance when it comes to the right wing and the lackeys of big business and agribusiness.
The coup attacks in the ‘Praça dos Três Poderes’ in Brasília had the active collaboration of the Federal District’s police, its public security secretary (Bolsonaro’s former minister, Anderson Torres) and even governor, Ibaneis Rocha, himself.
Is there any surprise in this?
Ibaneis and the Federal District police had already demonstrated before their connivance with the coup-plotters. Outstanding examples of this were their criminal absence in the face of the attacks on the Federal Police headquarters on the day of Lula’s appointment by the Supreme Court (12 December) and the attempted terrorist attack at the Brasília airport (24 December) by Bolsonarists.
But it is not only about the complicity of authorities close to the Bolsonarist movement. There was also slowness, leniency, or negligence on the part of authorities of the current government.
The defense minister nominated by Lula, José Múcio, had publicly defended the supposed “democratic right” to demonstrate of those who stood in front of army barracks demanding a military coup, the same ones who organized terrorist acts and attacks in Brasilia on Sunday.
Evidently the same goes for the commanders of the Armed Forces who tolerated and fraternized with the pro-coup rallies outside the barracks.
President Lula himself and his Minister of Justice and Public Safety, Flávio Dino, underestimated the more-than-predictable risk of this type of attack.
Similarly, all the confidence placed in the Supreme Court and its Chief, Alexandre de Moraes, did not prove sufficient to contain the coup initiatives.
Even with the federal government’s public security intervention into the Federal District, the temporary suspension of Ibaneis Rocha, and the arrest of hundreds of participants in the attacks in Brasilia, the Bolsonarist threat is not over yet.
The attempts to block avenues, highways and Petrobras oil refineries that we saw after the attacks in Brasilia, even if they had no major consequences for the time being, show that the Bolsonarist scoundrels will remain active in the coming period.
What to do, then?
We must prepare for a long struggle against the extreme right and for our rights without illusions and false hopes in institutions and in the political regime!
Today it is more evident than ever that only the organized mobilization of the working class, demonstrating its strength in the streets and workplaces, will be able to counter the coup attacks and terrorist initiatives of the Bolsonarist extreme right.
We welcome the call for the demonstrations taking place today. They should have been called for long ago, at least since the elections or during the first pro-coup Bolsonarist road blockades. However, there was a decision from the top of the movement, that there should be no street activities to supposedly not get in the way of Lula’s election and inauguration. The result is that the extreme right has been advancing in the streets without any hindrance. Therefore, we need independent action by the working class, prepared by the base.
These demonstrations should represent an initial milestone in a journey of struggles that must continue, always in defense of democratic and social rights and against the Bolsonaroist coup.
From today on, meetings and assemblies must be organized in workplaces, schools, and neighborhoods. A permanent mobilization through struggle committees must be built so that we have a quick response capacity in the face of new coup attempts and other attacks, including the self-defense of working-class organizations and social movements.
Bolsonaro must be held directly responsible for the coup attacks. We must also demand the punishment of co-responsible politicians, businessmen, and military personnel. Popular commissions of investigation and denunciation can be organized to denounce the participation of these sectors in coup actions.
Along with the struggle against the coup and against any kind of amnesty for the crimes of Bolsonaro and his accomplices, we need to raise the flags of struggle that can bury once and for all the project of Bolsonaro and the capitalists in Brazil.
This means, for a start, demanding the repeal of the counter-reforms and reactionary attacks of the last period, like the labor and social security counter-reforms, the spending cap, privatizations, the independence of the Central Bank, the secret budget, etc.
These demands will only be met with a lot of struggle on our part and not through the good will of the government.
To get the country out of this crisis, these measures will require a program which is deepened in an anti-capitalist and socialist direction, including the nationalization of key sectors of the economy under workers’ control. An independent movement of the working class and the socialist left, including the PSOL, must raise this socialist program.
Only the independently organized and mobilized strength of the working class represents a guarantee against a coup and the extreme right and the hope for a better future for the Brazilian people. LSR (ISA in Brazil) is part of this struggle! Join us!
We Say:
- Punishment of all those responsible for the coup attacks in Brasilia and the rest of the country starting with Bolsonaro, businessmen, politicians and the military. Organize popular committees to denounce and investigate the coup plotters throughout the country.
- Build a united day of struggles of the trade union, popular, student, women’s, black, LGBTQIA+s and indigenous peoples’ movements against the Bolsonaro coup, for the repeal of the counter-reforms and attacks of the last period and for a working-class alternative to the crisis.
- Organize the unity of the socialist left, independent of the government, to defend a strategy of working-class struggle and a socialist program as an alternative.
