A-Infos (en) Brazil, OSL: Beyond electoral illusions: reorganizing the oppressed classes and building self-governing popular power. (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

1. The crisis of the democratic-popular strategy and the limits of the 
institutional path. --- The Brazilian situation continues to deepen the 
contradictions that permeate the labor, popular, and student movements. 
In yet another electoral cycle, the struggle for government and state 
institutions is once again presented as the only alternative. However, 
the experience of recent decades highlights the limitations of the 
democratic-popular strategy, hegemonic in broad sectors of the left and 
whose main expression is the Workers' Party (PT). This strategy has 
placed electoral competition and state management at the center of 
political action, progressively subordinating popular organization to 
the calendars, alliances, and institutional logic of the dominant classes.

This process was accompanied by a strategy of class conciliation and 
adaptation to bourgeois and bureaucratic institutions, contributing to 
weakening the independent capacity for organization and resistance of 
the oppressed classes. The successive defeats and attacks-such as labor 
and pension reforms, privatizations, the precariousness of public 
services, violence against indigenous peoples, peasants, and residents 
of the peripheries, and the maintenance of the country's economic 
dependence and subordination-demonstrate the limits of this orientation.

The idea that the progressive occupation of the institutions of the 
dominant classes by the oppressed sectors would lead, through a gradual 
accumulation of forces, to a systemic rupture, also proved to be 
mistaken. Experience seems to have produced, to a large extent, the 
opposite movement: it was not the oppressed classes that progressively 
transformed the bourgeois and bureaucratic institutions, but rather the 
institutional framework itself that imposed its limits, rules, and 
interests on those who came to occupy it. Instead of making the 
institutions more socialist, institutional integration brought sectors 
of the left closer to the logic of the capitalist state and, 
consequently, to the interests of the dominant classes.

This problem is not limited to organizations directly linked to the 
democratic-popular strategy. Even socialist organizations that start 
from different strategies are not immune to this dynamic. The hegemony 
of institutional logic and the centrality acquired through electoral 
competition exert permanent pressure for different organizations to 
reproduce, even if partially, mechanisms of adaptation, electoralism, 
and subordination of social struggle to the institutional framework of 
the dominant classes. Breaking with this cycle is essential to 
rebuilding an independent perspective of organization and struggle.

2. The Lula-Alckmin government and the downgrading of class conciliation.

It is within this context that the experience of the Lula-Alckmin 
government must be understood. Their election was presented by a large 
part of the left and sectors of the progressive camp as the main 
instrument to "combat fascism," defend national sovereignty against 
imperialism, and halt the neoliberal offensive. However, the concrete 
experience of the government reveals the persistence of fundamental 
elements of the agenda of the dominant classes.

Economic policy remains subordinated to the interests of finance 
capital, while fiscal adjustment imposes limits on social spending. 
Privatizations, outsourcing, and mechanisms of precarious employment 
persist, without any structural reversal of the reforms that attacked 
labor and social rights. The government manages real contradictions and 
implements policies distinct from the far-right; however, it remains not 
only subject to the structural limits of the capitalist-statist system 
but also incapable of advancing substantial reforms.

This dynamic becomes even more problematic when we observe the actions 
of reformist and governing parties within unions and social movements. 
The various struggles, strikes, occupations, and mobilizations for 
housing and in defense of territories encounter obstacles precisely from 
sectors that prioritize the political stability of the government and 
the preservation of its institutional base at the expense of the 
radicalization of mobilizations.

From an anarchist perspective, this is not merely a problem related to 
the intentions of certain rulers. The government administers the State, 
which remains an instrument for maintaining existing power relations and 
a political instrument whose nature is intrinsically linked to the 
dominant classes-it is the very dynamic of the capitalist-statist 
system. This is the structural limit of any government, however 
well-intentioned. We do not place our hope in governments to bring about 
ruptures capable of profoundly transforming the lives of the oppressed 
classes. Effective changes-and even the defense of existing gains-depend 
on the capacity for organization and mobilization, with class 
independence, of workers and the most oppressed and precarious sectors.

This does not mean, however, indifference towards the actions of 
governments. On the contrary: it is necessary to confront their policies 
when they attack the interests of the oppressed classes and, above all, 
to combat any attempt to paralyze social struggles in the name of 
governability. In the case of the current government, the rhetoric is 
different from that of the far-right, but certain neoliberal policies 
continue to impose costs on workers and on the very survival of the 
population that depends on public structures, such as education and 
health. The central problem, therefore, is to prevent the expectation of 
change through institutional means from demobilizing struggles and 
weakening the capacity for independent organization and resistance.

3. Electoral polarization and the limits of the competing projects

Electoral polarization tends to deepen this dynamic, presenting the 
struggle for government as if it were the only one capable of defining 
the fundamental direction of society. Different political blocs compete 
for control of the state, presenting distinct discourses and programs 
and mobilizing different social sectors. Even so, they remain subject to 
the limitations of a structure that possesses enormous power to 
condition political, partisan, and electoral actions.

On one side, sectors of the far-right openly defend a reactionary, 
neoliberal, punitive agenda aligned with imperialist interests. On the 
other, the government and the political front that supports it present 
themselves as a barrier to "fascism," but maintain mechanisms of fiscal 
adjustment, a degraded conciliation with financial capital, outsourcing, 
and privatization of services.

This does not mean claiming that the different projects are identical or 
that their immediate consequences are indifferent to the workers. It 
means recognizing that the alternative for the oppressed classes cannot 
be limited to choosing which bloc will administer the State and 
Brazilian capitalism itself. Polarization, when it transforms the 
defense of an institutional project into a strategic horizon, tends to 
put workers back in the position of spectators of a dispute that should 
be faced from their own organized strength.

That is precisely why it is necessary to build an independent position 
regarding the electoral process and the different projects vying for the 
administration of the State and capitalism. The task is not to choose 
which institutional project will manage the permanent crisis, but to 
strengthen the workers' capacity to confront it through direct struggle.

4. Imperialism, sovereignty and internationalism

The 2026 electoral landscape is also marked by strong international 
tensions. The offensive by the Donald Trump administration against 
Brazil, expressed in the high tariffs on Brazilian products, the 
discursive evocation of the Monroe Doctrine , and initiatives to 
interfere in Brazilian politics, demonstrates that the national dispute 
cannot be separated from inter-imperialist disputes and the defense of 
the self-determination of peoples.

At the same time, diplomatic conflicts with governments in the region 
highlight the worsening tensions in Latin America. Given this scenario, 
it is necessary to reject both subordination to the interests of 
imperialism and the idea that defending national sovereignty means 
politically supporting any form of multi-class nationalism and/or the 
Brazilian government.

The sovereignty that matters to workers is that built upon the capacity 
for decision-making and organization by the oppressed classes 
themselves, and not the autonomy of governments to manage the interests 
of the dominant classes. We cannot replace international solidarity 
among workers and peoples with the defense of nation-states.

This issue also calls for a critique of the nationalist framework 
present in some of the strategies of the Brazilian left, especially when 
the electoral situation demands quick and seemingly simple answers. When 
tactics and programs subordinate internationalist axes to a strictly 
national context, there is a risk of limiting the understanding of class 
struggle to the framework of the nation-state and weakening its 
articulation with the international dynamics of capitalism and statism.

Capitalist exploitation, the actions of imperialism, and economic crises 
transcend national borders. Therefore, denouncing imperialist shackles 
cannot be limited to defending national solutions. It must be linked to 
building international solidarity among the working class and to the 
prospect of a revolutionary transformation on an international scale.

In other words, internationalism does not mean ignoring national 
particularities or failing to confront imperialist domination over 
Brazil. It means understanding that this struggle is inseparably linked 
to the struggle of workers in other countries against their own ruling 
classes and against the international and transnational structures of 
capital. A libertarian socialist alternative must start from the 
concrete conditions of each country, but it needs to constantly seek its 
articulation with an international perspective of popular emancipation.

5. Precarious employment and violence

While the institutional dispute intensifies, the economic and social 
situation continues to produce concrete effects on the majority of the 
population. High interest rates, credit restrictions, household debt, an 
increase in judicial reorganizations, and difficulties faced by workers 
and small producers reveal a growing precariousness of life and the 
limits of an economy organized around the valorization of capital.

These contradictions are not only reflected in economic indicators. They 
are directly expressed in working conditions, access to public services, 
and the difficulty millions of people face in securing minimum living 
conditions.

In rural areas and indigenous territories, violence remains a structural 
reality. Murders, evictions, land conflicts, and human rights violations 
demonstrate that the defense of native peoples and peasant populations 
cannot depend exclusively on institutional action. Similarly, in urban 
peripheries, everyday violence is used as justification for 
strengthening increasingly repressive policies.

The social crisis, therefore, does not only produce economic precarity. 
It also fuels mechanisms of control, criminalization, and repression 
that particularly intensely affect the most exploited and oppressed sectors.

6. Public security, punitivism and state repression

It is in this context that public security has become one of the main 
battlegrounds of political dispute. Faced with the growth of violence, 
different projects present responses based on strengthening the state 
apparatus of "security." The Lula government responds to the problem 
mainly by reinforcing state structures of repression, while sectors of 
the right defend even more authoritarian models, inspired by experiences 
such as that of Nayib Bukele in El Salvador.

Mass incarceration, increased prison populations, suspension of legal 
guarantees, and the use of the Armed Forces as a policing tool are 
presented as solutions to combat violence, which is intensified by the 
very dynamics of the institutions of the capitalist-statist system. 
However, these proposals deepen the criminalization of poverty and 
marginalized communities and strengthen the repressive apparatus without 
addressing the social roots of violence.

Inequality, lack of prospects for millions of young people, arms 
trafficking, and economic interests associated with drug trafficking are 
not addressed by simply increasing repression. On the contrary, the 
expansion of the police and prison apparatus tends to deepen the 
conditions that fuel this violence.

Therefore, the alternative does not lie between different models for 
strengthening the repressive apparatus. It is necessary to confront the 
social conditions that produce violence and, at the same time, combat 
militarization, the criminalization of poverty, and repression against 
popular sectors.

7. Social struggles and the paths of direct action

While institutional channels may demonstrate their limitations, the 
experiences of struggle in recent years point to another path. The 
mobilizations of delivery workers, the struggles in education, the 
strikes and resistance at the Post Office and Petrobras, the 
mobilizations for housing, and the struggles of indigenous peoples and 
communities threatened with eviction demonstrate that concrete 
achievements depend on the capacity for collective organization and 
direct action by workers.

Even when defeated or partially isolated, these mobilizations reveal the 
strength of solidarity, self-organization, and the capacity of the 
oppressed classes to directly interfere in reality. They also 
demonstrate that there is a growing conflict between the concrete needs 
of workers and the attempt to subordinate their struggles to electoral 
projects and the needs of governability.

This experience is crucial because it points to a different conception 
of social transformation. Instead of waiting for bourgeois and 
bureaucratic governments and institutions to produce changes on behalf 
of the workers, it is about building the capacity of the workers and 
popular sectors themselves to fight, decide, and organize social life.

Direct action should not be understood merely as a mobilization 
technique. It expresses a political perspective in which the agents of 
transformation are the exploited and oppressed sectors themselves, 
collectively organized and capable of building, through concrete 
struggles, forms of power independent of the State and capital.

8. The crisis of the institutional left and new leadership.

It is precisely at this point that the crisis of the so-called "new 
leadership" of the institutional left becomes evident. In the recent 
past, this renewal occurred through sectors that emerged linked to 
popular movements and were presented as alternatives. However, they 
ended up, to varying degrees, being incorporated into the logic of 
institutionalism and electoral competition.

This problem, however, goes beyond the simple institutionalization of 
leaders who emerged from the struggles. In much of the current left, the 
very renewal of its ranks has come to occur according to the logic of 
social networks and algorithms. Visibility and digital communication 
capabilities are occupying a space that was previously built through 
organizational experience, grassroots work, and concrete participation 
in the struggles of the working class.

Now, the rhetoric that works on social media doesn't necessarily 
translate into organizational social force or the capacity to radicalize 
concrete struggles. Digital popularity can produce public recognition, 
but it doesn't replace building organizations with a permanent presence 
in workplaces, schools, and neighborhoods.

This contradiction becomes apparent when we confront revolutionary 
discourse with the reality of the organization. There is talk of a 
"Brazilian revolution," rupture, and social transformation, but little 
progress is made in building organizations with grassroots reach, in the 
political training of activists, and in the capacity to sustain 
prolonged struggles.

The promise of political renewal without a break from electoralism thus 
reproduces already known limitations. If previously leaders forged in 
social struggles were progressively incorporated into institutions and 
distanced themselves from their bases, today a new phenomenon is also 
emerging: leaders formed from the beginning with the electoral contest, 
visibility on social media, and a kind of "socialist marketing" as their 
horizon.

The result is a form of electoralism that participates in the very 
formation of leadership. Instead of figures built in struggles that 
later become institutionalized, we have political characters molded from 
their origin by the need to compete for space on social media and in 
elections, with their horizon limited to bourgeois and bureaucratic 
institutions.

Therefore, the challenge is not simply to produce new leaders or renew 
the names of the left. It is to rebuild the conditions so that new 
cadres are forged by the class struggle itself. This means recovering 
grassroots work, militant training, organization in workplaces, schools, 
and neighborhoods, as well as the capacity to transform indignation into 
permanent organization.

More than new public figures, we need to build a new generation of 
activists rooted in the grassroots, capable of linking the discourse of 
social transformation to the concrete practice of class and 
revolutionary struggle.

9. From organizational crisis to grassroots reconstruction

Criticism of institutionalization only makes sense if it is linked to a 
concrete proposal for reorganization. There is no purely electoral 
solution to the crisis of organization of the working class. The central 
task at this moment is to rebuild an independent perspective, capable of 
organizing workers and popular sectors based on their concrete needs.

This requires strengthening grassroots organizing, especially among the 
most precarious sectors; rebuilding unions and social movements as 
instruments of permanent struggle; connecting different categories and 
movements; and developing forms of organization that are not subordinate 
to governments, electoral parties, or state institutions.

This reconstruction cannot occur solely through political declarations. 
It needs to be carried out in everyday life, in the places where 
political practice actually takes place, based on concrete struggles and 
the needs that mobilize workers and popular sectors.

It is on this ground that a new political culture must be built: a 
culture based on solidarity, direct democracy, collective participation, 
autonomy, and direct action.

Reorganizing the working class therefore means rebuilding bonds, trust, 
and the capacity to fight. It means transforming scattered indignation 
into collective social force and ensuring that each struggle can 
contribute to a more permanent and conscious organization.

10. From distrust in institutions to the construction of self-governing 
popular power.

The growing distrust in institutions should not be appropriated by the 
far-right, which seeks to transform it into authoritarianism, 
nationalist rhetoric, and repression. Nor should it be channeled into 
new promises of electoral renewal that preserve existing structures.

This crisis of confidence can take on a different meaning when linked to 
the construction of organizations rooted in everyday life. Disbelief can 
transform into solidarity; indignation into mobilization; and 
mobilization into collective organization capable of directly contesting 
living conditions.

The alternative to bourgeois institutional politics is neither apathy 
nor authoritarianism. It is the construction of forms of self-managed 
popular power that allow workers and sectors of the oppressed classes to 
intervene directly in decisions that affect their own lives.

This power should not be understood as the conquest of the State, or of 
certain privileged positions within it. It is about building, from the 
ground up, organizational and decision-making bodies capable of 
confronting the power of capital and the State and, at the same time, 
creating forms of collective management of society.

It is from this perspective that self-management ceases to be merely an 
abstract principle and becomes a political horizon: the possibility that 
those who produce wealth and sustain society can directly decide on its 
production, distribution, and organization.

Building this path requires reaffirming a class-based, internationalist, 
and libertarian socialist perspective. Defending the interests of the 
working class must unite the struggles against capitalist-statist 
domination with the struggles against all forms of domination and 
oppression. It is necessary to confront racism, patriarchy, state 
violence, and environmental destruction; defend indigenous and peasant 
territories; combat all forms of exploitation and oppression; and build 
a society in which economic and political decisions are subject to 
collective needs.

11. Building the alternative through struggle

We are living through a period marked by economic turbulence, 
imperialist offensive, the advance of authoritarianism, inequality, and 
a profound crisis of political organization among the oppressed classes. 
In this scenario, the main task of popular movements is not to choose 
the best project to manage the crisis, but to rebuild the capacity for 
struggle and class conflict.

Breaking with bourgeois and bureaucratic institutionalization does not 
mean abandoning political reality or ignoring the concrete effects of 
government decisions. It means ceasing to place the center of our 
strategy on them. It means understanding that every lasting achievement 
depends on the organized social force of those who fight for it, and 
that no institution of the capitalist-statist system can replace the 
collective capacity built by the working class itself.

The challenge is to transform fragmented struggles into organized social 
force, to articulate unions, social movements, student organizations, 
territorial collectives and other forms of resistance, and to build a 
common perspective from the grassroots. It is about rebuilding, in 
everyday life, starting now, a social force capable of confronting 
capital, the State, and all forms of domination.

It is from this daily organization, from concrete struggles, from direct 
action and solidarity among the exploited and oppressed, that a horizon 
of social transformation can emerge. A horizon that does not depend on 
electoral illusions or the replacement of rulers, but on the organized 
capacity of those who produce wealth and sustain society to build new 
forms of power, based on direct democracy, self-management, federalism, 
solidarity, and internationalism.

It is through struggle and grassroots organization that we can overcome 
disorganization, break with institutionalization, and build a 
libertarian socialist alternative.

Libertarian Socialist Organization,
September 2026

https://socialismolibertario.net/para-alem-das-ilusoes-eleitorais/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe https://ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en