New Left Formations: Keeping Independence from Lula

Interview with Genilda Souza by Rosemary Dodd

An Independent Socialist Left is Needed both to Defend Lula Against the Far-Right Threat and to Defend the Working Class against Lula’s Policies Based on Collaboration with Parts of the Billionaire Class

Genilda Souza lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and is a retired teacher and involved in the movement of health workers. She’s an activist in PSOL and in the leadership of Resistência, one of the organizations within PSOL. 

In 2022, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – commonly referred to as Lula – narrowly beat the then sitting president Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsanaro was a Trumpian style, authoritarian leader, who was president for 4 years. His supporters launched a coup on January 8, 2023, similar to the Trumpian January 6 events in 2020. Rosemary Dodd spoke with Genilda Souza from the Partido Socialismo e Liberdade (PSOL, Party for Socialism and Liberty) about the recent elections and the prospects for Lula. PSOL was launched in 2004 after then and today’s president Lula from the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT, Workers’ Party) expelled left wing critics of his pension reform. PSOL’s main currents come from Trotskyist backgrounds. It has elected representatives across Brazil.

In 2022, Lula defeated Bolsonaro in the recent elections due to the support of students, indigenous people, and important parts of the working class. How is this change playing out? What actions is Lula taking?

The central task in this election was defeating Bolsonaro, a neo-fascist who, during the four years he ruled, set the country back in all levels: in health, education, the environment, security, employment and income, and especially in the rights of the oppressed sectors – women, black people, indigenous people, and the LGBTQIA+ population.

Lula was supported by large parts of democratic and social movements, who saw in his election the possibility of defeating Bolsonaro. However, Lula also received support from different parts of the ruling class. Lula put Geraldo Alckmin as his vice president on the electoral ticket to represent those forces of the bourgeoisie.

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PSOL correctly supported Lula from the first round of the elections because he was the only one capable of defeating Bolsonaro. However, PSOL, and we in Resistência, were against this broad alliance that Lula led that included the capitalist class. 

Before the electoral campaign started we proposed the formation of a left front – composed of leftist parties and supported by organizations of the working class – to run for election. Historical experiences – including Lula’s previous governments – show that class conciliation governments are not a guarantee that the life of the working class can be changed and its needs met.

Lula’s previous government was able to deliver certain improvements in living conditions and social programs, but the global economy is in a very different situation than in the early 2000s. Will Lula be able to deliver for workers?

You are right that the current Lula government is facing worse economic conditions than previous governments. Economists argue that in 2023 the world economy will either stagnate or go into recession. Germany has just announced that it is in a recession. Brazil’s GDP grew by only 1.9 percent in the first quarter of 2023.

In these first six months of government, we in Resistência have been advocating that Lula abandon the policy of conciliation with Congress, where the opposition holds a majority and is made up of right-wing parliamentarians and Bolsonarists. Instead, he should fulfill the promises of the election campaign. In order to govern, Lula must rely on mass movements, following the example of what Petro is doing in Colombia. If this does not happen, he will not be able to deliver improvements to the working class and this could lead to his government being questioned by the sectors that supported his election.

Bolsonaro barely lost the election despite the failures of his regime in terms of COVID, the environment, and the economy. Do you worry about the continuation of “Bolsonarism”? What’s the way forward to defeat Bolsonarism?

Our concern about the possibility of the return of a neo-fascist government led by Bolsonaro, or someone similar, is enormous. The fact that Bolsonaro lost the elections does not mean that he or his positions were defeated. On the contrary, Bolsonaro continues to have the support of a broad sector of the masses in Brazil, and an example of this was the attempted coup on January 8, when Bolsonarists invaded our capital in Brasília.

In our opinion, defeating the growth of neo-fascism is the most important task for revolutionaries around the world. Although electoral processes are very important, they are not enough to defeat neo-fascism once and for all. Liberal bourgeois governments – such as Biden’s – or class conciliation governments – such as Lula’s, or Boric’s in Chile – are not consistent in the fight against the fascist threat.

The only force capable of sweeping the world of this threat against humanity is the organized and fighting working class. This includes the struggles of women, black people, LGBTQIA+ people, young people, environmentalists, native peoples, and migrants as they fight for rights, against the degradation of the planet, and against racist violence.

PSOL was asked to join Lula’s executive and was offered to have ministers, or what we would call secretaries in the US, in his administration. What were the discussions like within PSOL about participating in the Lula government?

A majority in PSOL’s leadership was against participating in the Lula administration in order to maintain its political independence. We do not support class conciliation. Those parts in PSOL who thought it would be the right thing to enter the government argued that this is a way to strengthen the Lula administration against the attacks of the Bolsonarist right. They fear that if PSOL doesn’t enter the government, big parts of the masses who support Lula would view us as “sectarian.”

This has not happened so far. In fact, PSOL’s candidate for president in 2018 and leader of the homeless worker’s movement in São Paulo, Guilherme Boulos, is ranked first in the polls for mayor of São Paulo – the largest city in Brazil – in the 2024 elections.

We understand that we can unite in action even with parts of the capitalist class to fight against the threat of the far right in its various forms. However, the main policy that we are defending at this moment in the face of the fascist threat and the crisis of neoliberalism, is the united front of the left against the conciliation of classes. This applies to elections, mass movements, and when a party like the PT comes to power on the basis of a “popular front,” an alliance with parts of the capitalist class. 

Joining such an administration is something different than having a tactical approach to when to call for a vote. A socialist organization can vote for a left-wing candidate or party as long as it maintains its programmatic and political independence, and is clear about the class conciliation character of these governments, so as not to support and/or participate in them when they are elected. That’s what we did in Brazil and I believe we got it right so far.

How would you describe PSOL and its challenges today?

PSOL is a broad left-wing and progressive party with several currents within it. In this sense, it can be compared to other left-wing formations such as the DSA. We in Resistência consider PSOL an important political tool to develop the struggles and organization of the working class and oppressed people in our country. It is a left alternative to the PT, the Partido dos Trabalhadores, the main center-left party in Brazil and its policies of conciliation of classes.

The biggest challenge facing PSOL today is how to remain independent from Lula’s government while still defending it against attacks by neo-fascism, and supporting measures that would benefit the working class. So far, this has been PSOL’s role in parliament and in mobilizations.

Two examples illustrate this independent performance. At the beginning of the government, in the election for the presidency of the Chamber of Deputies, the PT supported the current president – Arthur Lira, an ally of Bolsonaro – and PSOL launched its own candidate, deputy Chico Alencar. In the vote on the government’s economic project (Arcabouço Fiscal), which contains several attacks on health, education, public services and civil servants, the entire PSOL group voted against the project, while the PT voted in favor.

One high-profile PSOL member, an indigenous leader named Sonia Guajajara, got permission from the party to join Lula’s government as an appointed minister. What do you think of this decision to let a PSOL member join an administration that Resistência has described as a bourgeois-collaborationist government?

Firstly, PSOL passed a resolution that it will remain independent from the Lula administration, and that therefore none of its militants are authorized to accept positions in the executive. Indigenous leader Sonia Guajajara accepting the appointment to lead the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples was her personal decision, and we in Resistência were against it. We believe that PSOL, which is quite heterogeneous, was right when it voted that any affiliate who accepted positions in the administration should leave the party, and that the person does not speak on behalf of PSOL. 

Resistência’s position is that participating in the administration is a mistake, because it hurts class independence and collaborates with a broad government where there is the participation of the bourgeoisie.

“Bourgeois-collaborationist governments,” or “class-collaboration governments,” are those governments where there is the presence of representatives of the working class – such as Lula – and representatives of the bourgeoisie – such as the vice-president Alckmin. These are what Trotsky called Popular Front governments. Class conciliation is a dead end for the global working class. This does not mean that we cannot call for a vote or support progressive measures by these governments, or defend them from the attacks of fascism or imperialism.

Some comrades in DSA, especially on our International Committee, argue that we as socialists in the US should stand in solidarity with the left movements in Latin America, not as we want them but as the people in Latin America choose. Their conclusion is to support Lula and the PT. What would you say to such an approach?

It is very important that the proletariat and its trade unions and popular and political organizations have an internationalist dimension to their struggles. International solidarity is a necessity to advance and win, as Marx and Engels wrote in the Communist Manifesto.

Today, the unity of the working class at various levels is difficult and often impossible, due to the division of organizations, mainly on the left, globally. Maintaining an exchange between the different sectors, with respect for opinions and fraternity in discussions, seeking a united action is fundamental and welcome.

If DSA’s conclusion in supporting Lula and the PT is that they should do so without any criticism, forgetting the class character of this government and its limits, I consider it a mistake. But we would have to have a debate to understand the reasons for this position and what this support for the Lula government consists of.

The first “pink tide,” a very heterogeneous shift to the left with left-populist governments taking power in many Latin American countries, developed on the back of a commodity export boom and crumbled alongside that after 2012. Are we witnessing a new pink tide now? What are the lessons of the first pink tide?

We don’t really like the expression “pink tide”. It’s more accurate to call them left-wing populist or class conciliation governments, which makes the character of these governments clearer. But you are right that these governments emerged and held power while the commodity export boom lasted and began to be defeated from 2012 onwards, with the new economic crisis.

At this moment, the return of left-wing populist governments is not based on economic growth, but on the dissatisfaction of the masses with previous governments – bourgeois liberals or neo-fascists – that did not solve their problems. Another issue, which is at the base of this new “wave,” is the struggle of the majority of the population in these countries to defend democracy. 

The lessons of the first “wave,” which in Latin America provoked coups, such as those in Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay, or electoral defeats of these governments, is that the conciliation of classes cannot bring about the necessary transformations in the world to end the social and economic crises or the destruction of the environment. Sooner or later the bourgeoisie will try to regain its power. Unfortunately, we are seeing the mistakes of the past repeated in the current governments.

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Resistência

Genilda Souza on Her Organization 

Resistência was founded in 2018 from the merger of several Marxist organizations, with the majority of its members coming from the PSTU, linked to the International Workers League, LIT.

We are an organization that defends socialism as an alternative to capitalist barbarism, as we do not believe that it can be reformed. We defend class independence and the proletariat as the societal subject of the socialist revolution. We fight against any and all forms of oppression, as this divides and weakens the working class. Internationalism is a necessity to defeat capitalism in its imperialist phase. We are an organization of activists, with broad democratic discussion and action centered on the class struggle. 

We are engaged in struggles of different parts of the working class in Brazil, in trade unions, popular movements, movements to fight against oppression and against the climate crisis. We currently have eight members of parliament and council members in the cities of São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre, Juiz de Fora, Aracaju and Belém, and two state deputies in the city of São Paulo.