The petty bourgeois left and the 2010 elections

One of the discussions that polarized the CONCLAT was the question of the 2010 elections and the alliances between the petty bourgeois groups. Even if this discussion comes up in a few occasions, as in the presentation of the Theses, the policy of alliances for the 2010 elections has widely polarized the congress.

The world capitalist crisis and its reflections in Brazil has tear to pieces the Front of the Left, formed in 2006 by the PSOL (Mandelists), PSTU (Morenoists) and the PCB (Stalinists), that in that moment grouped around the candidature of Heloisa Helena of the PSOL.

The Front of the Left, formed around the personality of Heloisa Helena, did not have any classist or socialist program; it was a bourgeois program, with some reformist shades that tried to deceive the sectors of the proletariat unhappy with Lula’s government.

The capitalist crisis opened in 2008 put on clear the reformist policy of the renegades of Trotskyism and their Stalinist allies. Before the 2 million dismissals undertaken by the capitalists, the policy of the renegades was a mixture of developist reformist program (PSOL) and a policy of demand on Lula’s government (PSTU), which was the whole 2009 demanding Lula to pass a decree against the dismissals.

While the bourgeoisie launched furious attacks against the proletariat with dismissals, closed enterprises, reduction of wages, the renegades of Trotskyism, PSOL, PSTU, PCO, LER-QI, LBI, etc…, gave a cover from the left to the policies of the Popular Front that attacked the working class.

When the discussions about the 2010 elections began, the renegades placed themselves to reedit the failed policy of Front of the Left of 2006 and 2008. But this time Heloisa Helena is not ready to sacrifice herself in the elections, because she has many chances to go back to Senate from the state of Alagoas, place she already occupied when she was in the PT between 1998 and 2006, and that give great prestige to those who occupy it.

The leaving of Heloisa Helena from the presidential dispute, opened a great crisis in the Front of the Left because what is at the head of the renegades and reformist is the electoral prestige of Heloisa Helena, who got 7 million votes in the 2006 elections.

Without Heloisa Helena the PSOL split in two blocks, one that defends supporting Marina Silva (Green Party) and another wing that defends an own candidature of the PSOL. The dispute inside the PSOL was enraged, typical of the internal disputes in the bourgeois parties, with many maneuvers and corruption. At the end, the center-left wing of the PSOL conform by APS, Enlace, LRS, CST and others who defended the own candidature won upon the right wing formed by Heloisa Elena, Luciana Genro, MES and MTL who proposed the support for Marina Silva.

In spite of launching of Plínio de Arruda Sampaio as candidate, the crisis of the PSOL did only deepen, the wing of Heloisa Helena and Luciana Genro have declared that they were not going to support Plinio but Marina Silva.

When Heloisa Helena desists, the PSTU decides to launch Jose Maria for president alleging that the PSTU could not support Plinio because of the programmatic differences. Pure opportunism. The PSTU does not support the PSOL because the candidate is not Heloisa Helena. If she would be the candidate, the PSTU would support her with any program as it was in 2006. The break of the PSTU with the Front of the Left is just an electoral calculation that has nothing to do with the program.

Now the Stalinist PCB will also launch its own candidate in the elections, Ivan Pinheiro, general secretary of the PCB and pelego (bureaucrat) who led for many years the bank workers’ union of Rio de Janeiro, in the epoch when the PCB supported the pelegos and placed itself against building up the CUT.

The CONCLAT in its discussions reflected the decomposition of the Front of the Left. In the discussion about the political conjuncture, while the PSOL defended the reedition of the Front with the support of the PSTU for Plinio, the Morenoists said that they could not support Plinio because of his program and then they would launch the candidature of Ze Maria.

The first night of the CONCLAT, the PSTU met its 1300 delegates to make a rally supporting Ze Maria. In the final plenary meeting there were evident the positions of the PSOL for the reedition of the Front of the Left and the support of the PSTU for the candidate Plinio Arruda Sampaio. As always in these occasions, the PSTU, hided itself behind a supposed “independence” of workers organizations before “parties”.

It was evident that the struggle for the control of the apparatus of the new syndical organization coming up with the unification, had a direct relationship with the electoral struggle that PSTU and PSOL were going to carry on in the elections, and for sure, one of the reasons of the split in Brazil has to do with the electoral dispute.

Or with the Front of the Left or with independent candidates, the policy of the renegades of Trotskyism and the Stalinists (PSOL, PSTU and PCB) is to prevent any phenomena of class Independence emerging in the elections.

The majority of the small groups of the petty bourgeois left will divide between supporting the PSTU (Espacio Socialista, LER-QI), and the null vote without revolutionary program as the LBI, TPOR.

The LER-QI inaugurates a leap forward in its opportunist policy in Brazil when signing an act of support to the PSTU in exchange of legalization for two of its candidates to dispute in the elections for the PSTU.

The PCO, as it always does, will launch its candidate Rui Costa Pimienta, president of the party which will make a campaign with a reformist stamp, defending a workers’ government.

The Pabloists of the LBI will make a campaign for the null vote, they will call for a front with anyone as they did in CONCLAT, where they made an Alliance with different small groups (Lucha Marxista, anarchists, Green Communists, etc.), any group that can amplify its sectarian and opportunist policy. May be they will get the support of the POM.