A-Infos (en) Spaine, Regeneration: Interview with O.S.L. Brazilian culture, history and struggles. Part 2. (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Interview with the Libertarian Socialist Organization (OSL) of Brazil by 
Embat, Organització Llibertària de Catalunya ---- "WE ARE CONTRIBUTING 
TO BUILDING A SOCIALIST AND LIBERTARIAN ALTERNATIVE FOR BRAZIL" ---- 
PART 2: BRAZILIAN CULTURE, HISTORY AND STRUGGLES ---- Between the 
protests of 2013 and the first year of the PT's return to power, after 
the coup and Bolsonaro, while the CAC grew until it collapsed, how do 
you assess these last 10 years? What change has occurred in Brazilian 
politics and society?

The last 10 years have seen a great change in terms of the political and 
social situation in Brazil. In general terms, there have been, on the 
one hand, some attempts to move towards a more radicalised left, to the 
left of the Workers' Party (PT), and also the loss of support and 
increasing moderation of the PT and of PTismo (a political and social 
force linked to the PT). On the other hand, there has been a 
considerable radicalisation of the right, forming a new extreme right: 
Bolsonarismo (a political and social force linked to Jair Bolsonaro).

This process began with the exhaustion of the PT government years 
(2003-2013), characterized by class conciliation, when it became 
economically and socially impossible to continue what was called the 
"win-win game" (maintaining the benefits of those at the top and 
providing some improvements to those at the bottom). This exhaustion has 
its roots in the international economy, when the effects of the 2008 
crisis spread throughout the world and the commodity boom in Brazil 
began to weaken. And also in the way the PT government dealt with these 
effects: economic policies, political articulations, press, etc.

The fact is that the period between 2013 and 2016 was marked by great 
popular discontent and, at the same time, by important popular 
mobilizations. There was a record number of strikes, a greater 
organization of youth, as well as street protests, occupations, etc. In 
many cases, this meant a more radicalized rise of the struggles, which 
were to the left of the PT and PT, and managed to maintain a certain 
independence from them.

The most important of these mobilisations took place in June 2013, when 
the São Paulo-based Movimento Passe Livre (MPL), with an ideologically 
autonomist/libertarian orientation, organised protests against the 
increase in bus, metro and train fares. The movement was fuelled by a 
growing context of struggles around transport, which were being promoted 
elsewhere (notably in the cities of Porto Alegre, Goiânia, Natal and Rio 
de Janeiro). It became widespread and nationalised, acquired great 
popular appeal and, in different circumstances, acquired a certain 
radicalism.

In different regions, these demonstrations began to be highly contested 
by political forces that were often opposed to each other. Certainly, 
there was a presence of various left-wing forces, both moderate and 
radical. But there was also a presence of the right, which took to the 
streets (something that had been rare until then) and which became 
progressively more radical. A certain anti-political spirit was growing, 
which was also disputed by the forces at play on the left and right.

This struggle ended victoriously and opened the door to a new situation 
in the country. On the one hand, the years 2014 and 2016 witnessed 
important processes of struggle, such as the demonstrations against the 
World Cup (2014), the occupations of high schools and universities 
(2015-2016), as well as countless strikes and mobilizations. But on the 
other hand, this was a fundamental period of stimuli for the right: the 
coup process against President Dilma Rousseff advanced and materialized; 
Operation Car Wash, through a process of lawfare, stimulated this 
anti-political sentiment in an anti-PT and anti-left direction; a more 
open and aggressively neoliberal national policy was promoted by the 
government of Michel Temer.

In the context of this confrontation, the right has mostly moved towards 
the extreme right, in a process of fascist radicalization that 
culminated with the election of Bolsonaro in 2018. For its part, the 
left has seen its most radical projects weakened and, hegemonically, has 
responded by moving towards the center, (re)grouping around PTism and 
proposing avenues of dialogue with the center and the center-right.

During the years of the Bolsonaro government (2019-2022), we went 
through the COVID-19 pandemic with a denialist government, which refused 
to buy vaccines and ended up being responsible for a considerable part 
of the 700,000 deaths we had in Brazil. In addition, in economic terms, 
this government has made great progress on liberalizing projects, which 
have led to an increase in poverty and a worsening of the living 
conditions of workers. In political terms, it has encouraged the 
strengthening of the presence of the military in politics and has 
advanced authoritarian projects, flirting with coups d'état and 
exceptional measures. In ideological and moral terms, with ample help 
from evangelical churches (mainly neo-Pentecostal), it has contributed 
to normalizing neo-fascist absurdities in Brazilian society.

Lula's narrow victory in 2022, the result of a broad front that united 
the left and the moderate right, did not change this situation much. 
Lula's government is currently trying unsuccessfully to return to the 
conciliatory formulas of the early 2000s. It is constantly cornered by 
the far right and the traditional right ("centrão"), which is very 
strong in the national legislature. In social terms, the big dispute is 
currently between Bolsonarism (far right) and PTism (center-left, 
increasingly in the center). There are no prospects of significant 
changes in economic, political or cultural terms.

What have you learned from all this?

In the last 10 years, speaking more specifically about Brazilian 
anarchism, there have been moments of ebb and flow. We have had some 
influence on these processes of struggle (depending on the region, 
greater or lesser), but we have not managed to be decisive at the 
national level, much less have a more significant impact on the 
Brazilian situation. We can point to some lessons we learned during this 
period.

First of all, it became clear that popular discontent and mobilization 
do not necessarily move to the left, and even less so in a revolutionary 
and libertarian sense. In other words, as history also teaches us, in 
the processes of radicalization of the struggle all forces are in 
conflict, including the extreme right. Once again, it is clear that 
there is no possibility of betting on spontaneity. The masses will not 
go out on the streets and automatically build leftist, revolutionary or 
libertarian projects, even if they are encouraged to do so by 
collectives with these positions.

Secondly, the radical and revolutionary left (understanding anarchism as 
part of it here) needs to have real conditions not only to stimulate 
popular mobilizations and revolts, but to give them a precise direction. 
These struggles need to be built daily, and the production of a 
libertarian political culture seems to be fundamental to this. As far as 
anarchism is concerned, what has happened in Brazil also reinforces our 
opinion that for this construction and direction to take place in a 
libertarian sense, and for the movements and mobilizations that 
constantly arise to be able to point towards a socialist and libertarian 
project of transformation, there is no way to renounce political 
organization.

For us, this means a coherent and united anarchist party/organization, 
capable of effectively influencing reality and of concretely contesting 
the direction of struggles, mobilizations and situations of this kind. 
An anarchist political organization that is capable of enduring over 
time, recording and discussing its achievements, and incorporating them 
into a coherent and influential political practice. We believe that it 
is this organization that can provide the necessary responses, not only 
to these types of situations, but also to advance towards structural 
transformations of society. It is the anarchist party/organization - to 
the extent that it has an influential presence in the most dynamic 
sectors of the oppressed classes, as well as an adequate 
strategic-tactical program and line - that has the conditions to 
stimulate and contribute to the construction of a project of 
self-managed popular power.

Third, the risks of the Brazilian left remaining restricted to the 
limits of PTism have become clear. For decades, the PT has had a broad 
hegemony on the left in our country, both politically and socially. When 
we look at the historical trajectory of the party, we see a progressive 
movement towards bureaucratization, away from the bases and towards the 
center. The PT emerged in 1980 with a leftist position, linked above all 
to classical social democracy, although it had more radicalized sectors 
and a considerable popular mass base (unions, social movements, etc.). 
What occurred throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and which became more 
pronounced in the 2000s, was a split of the most leftist sectors and a 
growing movement towards the center. This process involved not only the 
distancing from the bases, but an active effort to undermine the old and 
new initiatives of articulation and mobilization of these bases in favor 
of a project of bureaucratic and centralized power.

Fourthly, the need to work on building a new radical left, to the left 
of PTism, and, as part of it, to challenge its leadership in a 
libertarian sense. 2013 showed widespread dissatisfaction among the 
population with the situation in Brazil. Note that it was the extreme 
right that gave an "anti-system" response, "against everything that 
exists" (a phrase often uttered by Bolsonaro), mobilizing the fascist 
notion of "revolution by order." In our opinion, there was (and still 
is) room for a radical left to respond to this widespread discontent. 
And it does not seem reasonable to us to combat the neo-fascist extreme 
right with moderation and class conciliation.

Fifthly, in this process we have seen progress in the debate on race, 
ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and we consider this very positive. 
However, we have also observed that, along with this process, there has 
been an enormous growth of postmodern and identity-based influence in 
Brazil, both on the right and on the left, something that we find deeply 
problematic.

On the left (and even in anarchism), this postmodern identitarianism - 
heavily influenced by liberalism in the US and Europe - has promoted 
individualism, fragmentation and dispersion of struggles (each 
person/sector fights only for "their" cause); it has undermined 
collective debates and disconnected the important agendas mentioned 
(gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, etc.) from a class basis and from a 
class-based and revolutionary perspective of struggle. This has led to 
confusion about who are allies, potential allies, adversaries and 
enemies; to treating those who are different as enemies; and to treating 
difference in an authoritarian way.

Let us be clear about our position on this fifth point. Nationality, 
gender-sexuality, race-ethnicity are very important issues. What we 
criticize is the postmodern and liberal influence in their treatment, 
which we believe is necessary to combat by reinforcing a socialist, 
libertarian, classist, internationalist and revolutionary perspective. 
Furthermore, reality cannot be understood in a completely subjective way 
(such as the notion that there is no material and objective reality, but 
only different points of view, experiences and narratives). And 
identities cannot be separated from the material reality (structural, 
conjunctural, etc.) in which they are produced.

In Europe, attention is drawn to the rise of evangelical churches in 
Brazil, which silence the popular classes and drag them towards deeply 
reactionary positions. How does a revolutionary organization deal with 
this situation?

Recent research has shown that 17 evangelical churches are opened every 
day in Brazil. There are already more churches in the country than 
hospitals and schools combined. These churches have been occupying 
spaces in areas where the State only reaches out with repression, and 
also spaces that, decades ago, had the presence of the left and popular 
movements. Today, any political force that works in the outskirts of 
large cities has to deal with evangelical churches, as in the case of 
our community activism.

Evangelical left-wing expressions such as integral mission theology, 
which plays a similar role to liberation theology among Catholics, have 
been greatly weakened. Morally conservative and economically liberal 
positions are increasingly common among this public.

On moral and ethical issues, evangelicals tend to be conservative or 
even reactionary, for example, by being completely opposed to the right 
to abortion. On economic issues, given the so-called evangelical 
neo-Pentecostalism, linked to the so-called "theology of prosperity" 
(the fastest growing sector among evangelicals), there is a strong 
neoliberal indoctrination. This is because there are values that have 
been propagated by these churches that reinforce this worldview, such 
as, for example, the encouragement to become rich in life and the 
defense of individual entrepreneurship as a path to salvation.

However, these positions are not completely hegemonic. There are still 
sectors that support social assistance policies and economic agendas 
more closely linked to social democracy; for example, they voted for 
Lula in the last elections. However, with the strengthening of the 
extreme right in Brazil, evangelical churches have been progressively 
moving to the right and have constituted, although without great 
homogeneity, a prominent pillar of support for Bolsonaro. The PT 
government believed that it would be possible to attract this sector by 
offering benefits and political support, but it has become increasingly 
clear that this is not a possible way out. Sooner or later, most of this 
sector will have to be dealt with harshly.

Obviously, among the bishops and pastors of the large evangelical 
churches there are countless "merchants of faith" who take advantage of 
this growth to exploit the faithful, enrich themselves personally and 
expand their economic and political power. What is also striking about 
this growth of evangelicals is the role that the churches have been 
fulfilling, especially in peripheral urban areas: responding to certain 
needs that contemporary capitalism has produced and that revolve around 
work, hospitality, sociability, overcoming daily difficulties, etc. For 
example, when these evangelicals explain why they go to church, they 
talk about issues such as: getting a job, accessing people who listen to 
them, making friends, having leisure spaces (education, sport, etc.) for 
the family, building hope for a better tomorrow, strengthening networks 
of mutual support (listening, money lending, drug addiction, etc.), 
establishing standards of life (drinking, work, delinquency, etc.).

A social democrat might say that these are functions that should be 
performed by the State, and to the extent that the State only enters 
these regions to repress, evangelical churches have occupied that space. 
But looking at Brazilian history and society, there is another possible 
answer. There have been different moments in our history when popular 
movements have responded to these needs, as in the case of revolutionary 
syndicalism at the beginning of the 20th century or the Ecclesiastical 
Base Communities (CEBs), linked to liberation theology, in the 1970s and 
1980s. In this last case, it is interesting to note that the 
aforementioned bureaucratization of the PT caused the abandoned spaces 
in the peripheries to be occupied by evangelical churches and other 
institutions.

Note how these same needs can have contradictory responses. Today, a 
worker who goes to an evangelical church to alleviate his daily 
suffering and nourish a hope for improvement will be encouraged to think 
that he will soon be able to become rich like the believer next to him. 
At the beginning of the century, a worker who sought revolutionary union 
initiatives to do so would be encouraged to build this subjectivity 
around the possibility of a social revolution and socialism. This 
applies to all issues.

We say this because it seems essential to us to understand why these 
churches are growing and to find alternatives capable of responding to 
these needs, but with a profoundly different content. In other words, we 
need to have the capacity to build a class-based political culture, 
through popular movements, that reconstructs the social fabric in these 
peripheries through solidarity, and that gives this process a 
class-based and transformative content. This must be a central aspect of 
a popular power project. This question will not be resolved simply by 
criticizing evangelical churches, because it is essential to respond to 
the needs of contemporary capitalism. This is one of the great 
challenges of our community project for urban peripheries.

Can you give us a historical and contemporary overview of trade unionism 
in Brazil? Is the movement controlled by post-Stalinist and Trotskyist 
currents?

To understand the Brazilian trade union movement, it is important to 
review the origins of trade unionism in Brazil, which began in the early 
20th century. At that time, anarchists played a prominent role through 
revolutionary trade unionism, which guaranteed class independence and 
the organizational autonomy of workers.

Throughout the 1930s, under Getúlio Vargas, there was a process of 
linking the unions to the State. In short, what happened was the 
following. On the one hand, after strong pressure, the government gave 
in to certain historical demands of the Brazilian working class 
regarding labor rights (among others: minimum wage, eight-hour workday, 
paid vacations, weekly rest). But it publicly declared that this was an 
initiative of the government itself. On the other hand, it implemented a 
union structure (union unity, mandatory union tax and investiture), 
which turned the unions into state organizations that could be 
controlled by the State. In other words, the Vargas government greatly 
limited union possibilities.

Other factors - such as the international Stalinist line of the 
Communist Party, which promoted a reformist unionism based on class 
conciliation - contributed to establishing a consensus in the country 
that the union, in organizational terms, was a structure tied to the 
State and only served to deal with economic agendas, through negotiation 
aimed at conciliation between capital and labor. This union structure, 
inherited from the 1930s, continues to largely guide the way unions are 
organized even today in Brazil.

Broadly speaking, there are currently two major sectors of the labour 
movement in the country. One defends that the union is linked to the 
State and that its function is to reconcile (often even defend) the 
demands of employers and workers. And the other defends class 
independence and that the union is an instrument of the workers to 
expose and encourage class conflict. Obviously, within these two major 
sectors, there are different positions, ranging from trade unions that 
defend neoliberal policies to those that defend the socialist revolution.

To understand the main currents of the current trade union movement, it 
is essential to understand the question of trade union unity, 
established in the 1930s. Trade union unity establishes that each 
category has (and can have) only one union, authorized by the State to 
represent the workers of that category. It is not like in Spain, where 
any worker can choose the union or trade union center that represents 
him. In Brazil, workers are obliged to join the only union authorized to 
represent their category. This leads to a dispute, union by union and in 
each category, and only then the elected leaders approve which trade 
union center the union will join.

To give a practical example, a public school teacher cannot choose to 
join the CSP-Conlutas (which defends class independence), just as a 
Spanish teacher can choose to join the CGT or Solidaridad Obrera. In 
Brazil - if he is from São Paulo, for example - he can only join 
APEOESP, which is the teachers' union of the state of São Paulo. From 
there, that teacher can challenge the day-to-day running of the union to 
take on certain positions and join a union. In the case of APEOESP, the 
largest union in Latin America, it is affiliated with the Central Única 
dos Trabalhadores (CUT), which is mostly run by an internal current of 
the PT.

This leaves Brazilian trade unionists with only two options. One is to 
participate in the single unions and invest in internal disputes. The 
other is to invest in the creation of a parallel union structure. There 
have been and are some initiatives in this second direction, but they 
are proving to be deeply limited in terms of the number of workers 
involved and, above all, their capacity to make demands in the 
workplace. In our analysis, the option of creating a parallel union, at 
least at this historical moment, would distance us from the real base of 
the workers and would only bring together a few dozen workers with 
overly ideological criteria, to the extent that the unions would not 
have the capacity to confront the concrete reality of ordinary workers.

For example, in this context of the ebb and flow of the trade union 
movement, an underground worker is unlikely to join a parallel union 
that is unable to negotiate wages, working conditions, etc. and that 
does not give him political and legal support against dismissal. This is 
even worse when we are talking about precarious workers, whose less 
stable status means that, even if they want to, they have enormous 
difficulties in joining a parallel union. For example, a subcontracted 
cleaning worker, after a long working day, often marked by employer 
repression, if he is absent from work for an activity of this parallel 
union, could lose his basic food basket or a day's work, be transferred 
to more unhealthy places or even be fired.

Today, the camp that defends class independence (Trotskyists, some 
anarchist sectors, autonomist Marxists, etc.) is a very small minority. 
The largest Brazilian trade unions are the CUT - with a 
social-democratic/social-liberal line and led mainly by the PT - and the 
Força Sindical - controlled by sectors of the right and the employers' 
trade union bureaucracy. Intermediate unions are the General Union of 
Workers (UGT) - which defends neoliberal policies - and the Central de 
Trabajadores de Brasil (CTB) - controlled mainly by the Communist Party 
of Brazil (PcdoB), a split from the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) and 
which follows the line of the Albanian CP. There are also other smaller 
organizations. Among them, the only trade union that defends class 
independence, and which is led mainly by Trotskyists, is the Central 
Sindical e Popular Conlutas (CSP-Conlutas). Another organisation along 
these lines, which is not a central organisation and has far fewer 
unions/members, is the Intersindical "Network" (Instrumento de Luta...).

In general, post-Stalinists have little involvement in the Brazilian 
trade union movement. Due to their ethical and strategic flexibility, 
they tend to be close to the more pragmatic categories, often joining 
the CUT, but with almost no social force capable of influencing the 
policies of the central, let alone the whole Brazilian trade union movement.

What do you think of anarcho-syndicalism and/or revolutionary 
syndicalism? Could an autonomous current be emerging within syndicalism?

In this complex union framework, our challenge, trying to adapt elements 
of revolutionary unionism, has been to build the struggles in these 
existing unions and fight within them. In all the unions we have been 
in, we have tried to convince workers that the model of unionism based 
on independence and class conflict is the one that leads to concrete 
victories, and that allows us to accumulate social strength to later 
break with state unionism and promote more far-reaching transformations.

We understand that it is necessary to create a real structure, with a 
strong base that can respond to the situation, support the affiliated 
workers against the bosses and dispute the hegemony with the central 
unions and tendencies that defend the union bureaucracy. Of course, this 
does not depend only on our will, it does not happen overnight, and it 
is only possible with a medium and long-term strategic planning, which 
can establish the necessary tasks step by step.

When we look at the history of anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism and 
revolutionary syndicalism, we find many references to what we are doing. 
We know that, depending on the country and region, the distinction 
between anarcho-syndicalism and revolutionary syndicalism varies greatly 
and is the subject of controversy.

For us, in terms of mass strategy, when we give preference to 
revolutionary syndicalism over anarcho-syndicalism it is because, for 
example, we understand that the revolutionary syndicalist model of the 
Brazilian Workers' Confederation (COB), founded in 1908 - based on the 
proposal of a syndicalism that encompassed all workers willing to fight, 
without an explicit and programmatic link to an ideology or doctrine - 
is more interesting than the anarcho-syndicalist model of the Argentine 
Regional Workers' Federation (FORA), from 1905 onwards - based on the 
proposal of a syndicalism ideologically and programmatically linked to 
anarchism. For us, anarchism must be within the union movement and not 
the other way around.

The revolutionary syndicalism that we defend is clear from the mass line 
that we explained earlier. We do not want unions or anarchist movements, 
but workers' unions that can have an influential reference in anarchism, 
based on certain practices that are capable of pointing towards social 
transformation along the lines that we support. However, we know that 
there is a long way to go before this strategy has the concrete 
conditions to be implemented on a large scale in Brazil. But to the 
extent that we believe that the means must be consistent with the ends, 
and lead to them, we are already seeking to build this strategic 
perspective in the unions where we are present.

Can you tell us a little about the situation in rural areas in Brazil?

First of all, it is important to mention the importance that the issue 
of land concentration has in the social formation of Brazil, both in the 
countryside and in the city. Currently, Brazil has 453 million hectares 
under private use, which corresponds to 53% of the national territory. 
Since the colonial period, the country's ruling classes have tried to 
create the conditions to maintain private ownership of this 
concentration of land.

In 1850, when the abolitionist movement was gaining strength and before 
the Slavery Abolition Act, the Land Law was established to regulate 
private property in the country. Among other things, this prevented the 
black population from owning land to live and work on, and contributed 
to the social exclusion of this population. In other words, part of the 
social inequalities, relations of domination and structural racism in 
Brazil are related to the historical process of land concentration in 
the country.

Historically, there have been various processes of revolt and 
mobilization in the Brazilian countryside, just as there are different 
rural movements today, from the most organized at the national level to 
smaller local groups. Throughout the country's history, the rural 
population has been systematically expelled to the big cities due to 
land concentration, land grabbing, violence and the lack of policies 
that guarantee that small farmers and rural workers can continue to live 
there. This has led to an ever-increasing concentration of the 
population in the big cities.

To a large extent, this historical context also explains why Brazil 
remains an agrarian country that exports grains, meat, minerals and 
other primary products. Brazil has 45% of its productive area 
concentrated in properties of more than 1,000 hectares, barely 0.9% of 
all rural properties. And a large part of Brazilian agricultural 
commodity production is linked to conglomerates with a vertical 
structure, which control the entire process, from planting to marketing. 
These are companies that exploit the land market both for the production 
of commodities and for financial speculation. Despite this, more than 
70% of the food consumed by the Brazilian population is produced by 
family agriculture and small farmers, but they occupy the smallest 
amount of arable land in the country.

This model has deepened and advanced under neoliberal and far-right 
governments such as Temer and Bolsonaro, but it has also continued under 
Lula and Dilma. The agribusiness lobby in Brazil is institutionalized 
and strong; it operates in Congress through the Agricultural 
Parliamentary Front (FPA, formalized under this name in 2008). More 
recently, ruralists have organized themselves in the Invasão Zero (Zero 
Invasion) movement, a kind of paramilitary initiative that has the 
support of public security sectors, repressing land occupations and 
retaking territories from indigenous communities, mainly in the states 
of Pará and Bahia. Conflicts and murders in the countryside and the 
forest continue under Lula's government, especially in the areas of 
advancing agricultural frontier, in the north and northeast of the country.

In 2021, the Bolsonaro government created the Titula Brasil program, 
with the aim of privatizing settlements and ending Agrarian Reform 
policies. And also to promote the dismantling of the National Institute 
of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA), stimulate the increase of 
violence in the countryside and the destruction of the environment. 
Although it covers the entire country, Titula Brasil was specifically 
designed with the aim of accelerating the process of regularizing 
properties in the Legal Amazon, the main focus of the expansive land 
policy advocated by Bolsonaro.

In addition to stimulating the advance of the agricultural frontier, 
especially in the north and northeast, this policy also served the 
interests of the industrial livestock sector, part of Bolsonaro's base 
and the most backward sector of agribusiness. There is also the 
agribusiness sector of large mechanized and technologically advanced 
farms, of grain monocultures sold as agricultural commodities to be 
converted into livestock feed in countries like China.

On the other hand, the Lula government's Safra 2023 Plan (an incentive 
program for the agricultural sector) allocated only 20% of the total 
budget to family farming, while most of the federal funds continue to 
finance agribusiness and landowners, who continue to enjoy tax 
exemptions. The release of agrochemicals, many of them banned in Europe, 
also continues under the Lula government. The total number of pesticide 
registrations in 2023 was 555, lower than the total recorded in 2022 
(652) and 2021 (562), but still at the same level as in the Temer and 
Bolsonaro governments.

What is the situation of the landless peasants' movement at the moment?

First of all, it is important to characterize two of the largest rural 
movements in Brazil, the Landless Workers' Movement (MST) and the Small 
Farmers' Movement (MPA). Because of their size, they end up dominating 
this issue in the country, so today we cannot understand the peasant 
movement without talking about them.

The MST was founded in 1984 and the MPA in 1996. Both form part of the 
so-called "popular democratic project", according to the terminology of 
the 1980s and 1990s. This project now mainly directs other large 
organisations, such as the Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT), in the 
trade union sector, and the União Nacional dos Estudantes (UNE), in the 
student sector. And the PT is its great political and institutional 
representative. In other words, it is a camp that is directly part of 
PTismo or has a lot of influence on it.

It is important to remember that the MST and the MPA are also members of 
the Latin American Coordination of Rural Organizations (CLOC) and Via 
Campesina, along with the Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB), the 
Peasant Women's Movement (MMC), the Fishermen's and Fisherwomen's 
Movement (MPP), the Rural Youth Ministry (PJR), the National 
Coordination of Quilombola Communities (CONAQ), the Movement for Popular 
Mining Sovereignty (MAM), the Federation of Agronomy Students of Brazil 
(FEAB), the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), the Association of Forestry 
Engineering Students (ABEEF) and the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI).

The MST's main program is Popular Agrarian Reform, based on the brutal 
concentration of land in Brazil. In this sense, it has developed a 
program that addresses both agrarian issues (democratization of access 
to land for those who live and work on it) and agricultural issues 
(conditions, techniques and ways of producing in an agroecological 
matrix). Currently, this involves various topics and agendas such as 
gender, rural education, health, LGBT issues, training, production, 
marketing, housing and culture, among others.

The MPA emerged in the 1990s because it realized that rural trade 
unionism was insufficient to meet the survival demands of small farmers 
at that time. It defends and supports agrarian reform, but organizes 
peasant families and small farmers who already have their own land. And 
they do so understanding that policies are needed to guarantee the 
permanence of these families in the countryside and that people do not 
have to abandon their land to try to survive in the big cities. That is, 
policies on housing, support for production, credit, marketing, culture, 
leisure, health, infrastructure and rural education, among others. The 
Peasant Plan is the program that systematizes the main proposals of the 
movement for these issues.

Speaking of the current struggle in this sector, at the beginning of the 
current Lula government there were occupations in more than 10 cities, 
led by another movement, the National Front for the Struggle for the 
Country and the City (FLN) in the southeast and south of the country. 
The FLN was founded in 2014 and one of its main figures is a former MST 
militant, Zé Rainha. During this period, the MST also temporarily 
occupied Incra, in the south of Bahia. Despite this start of the year, 
let us remember that the movements linked to Via Campesina and the 
popular democratic camp have opted for a line of retreat since the first 
PT government (2003 onwards), and do not aim for any significant change, 
especially in the new Lula government.

For example, during the first PT government (2003-2006), the MST adopted 
the line of not continuing with land occupations, but of qualifying the 
settlements that already existed. It supported the release of credit and 
development policies for production that would help structure 
transformation and marketing cooperatives in the states, such as credit, 
dairy, rice and milk derivatives cooperatives. While, on the one hand, 
the organization of economic tools is important as a way of adding value 
to production and generating income for settled families, training in 
cooperative and collective work methodologies, developing knowledge and 
technology, and organizing the territory, on the other hand, can 
generate a lot of dependence on public policies, credits and government 
programs. This contributes to a line of thinking that seeks to negotiate 
first and avoid putting pressure on the government and that, over time, 
builds a political culture of adaptation to the system to the detriment 
of a combative policy.

The truth is that little changed in agrarian reform and family farming 
policy during the first Lula and Dilma governments (2003-2016). And it 
got even worse under the Temer and Bolsonaro governments. Despite this, 
the movements of the popular democratic camp have been limited to 
occasional demonstrations and ephemeral occupations of a more political 
nature. This is due either to the fact that they have lost the ability 
to mobilize their bases, or to the fact that they have preferred to let 
the Bolsonaro government wear itself out, betting on a change of 
situation via elections rather than through social pressure from 
struggles and the streets.

Meanwhile, the MST and MPA have made progress in different forms of 
dialogue and propaganda with society. This includes gender and LGBT 
agendas, food donation campaigns for communities and favelas (especially 
during the pandemic). And beyond that: training of popular health 
agents, state and national agrarian reform fairs, organic rice 
production. Examples of this are spaces such as Armazéns do Campo (MST) 
and Raízes do Brasil (MPA) in the big capitals, where the 
agro-industrialized production of the cooperatives is sold and political 
and cultural activities are held. These were advances, although much of 
this dialogue was mainly maintained with the urban middle classes. 
Something that ended up giving the movement a more attractive and 
healthy face, and erasing the old image of peasants with their scythes 
in large marches and occupations.

In the 2022 presidential elections, the MST and other movements, such as 
the indigenous ones, also supported their own candidates for state 
representatives. Others, such as the oil workers, supported candidates 
from neighbouring sectors. This was done in an attempt to advance 
certain policies and agendas at the institutional level, but it ended up 
contributing even more to the distancing of these movements from direct 
action policies. While it demands a significant part of the movements' 
energies, it is also related to the fact that, even with a PT government 
and from the same political camp, the agrarian reform agenda continues 
to fail to advance. Just as there was no significant progress in 
agrarian reform and family farming policies in the first Lula and Dilma 
governments. There are currently about 90,000 families still camping in 
Brazil, waiting for progress on agrarian reform.

Our perspective is that, given the stagnation in the government's 
response to rural issues, land occupations and mass mobilizations at 
different levels will resume. Because, just as Lula's government 
increasingly gives in to the so-called "centrão" (the traditional right 
in Congress), Bolsonaro's far right also continues to mobilize. 
Meanwhile, a number of social rights are threatened or urgently need to 
be advanced. And this can only be achieved with popular pressure.

Mobilization processes to pressure the government for social agendas, as 
well as the processes of occupation of public bodies and occupation of 
land and housing, are also important tactics because of their formative 
character and because they help to renew militancy. Retreat is 
detrimental to social movements because it leads to an increasing 
demobilization of their bases and a lower capacity to produce social 
force. As a result, they have less influence in society and less 
reference in the field of the left, as the MST and other movements did 
significantly until the end of the 1990s.

Embat Organització Llibertària de Catalunya.

https://www.regeneracionlibertaria.org/2024/10/15/entrevista-a-o-s-l-cultura-historia-y-luchas-brasilenas-segunda-parte/
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