Let's turn the game around and win in the second round!: Brazilian Communist Party
Let's turn the game around and win in the second round!
The result of the first round represented a hard blow for the popular forces, increased the risks against democratic freedoms, and revealed the growth of the far right, including among segments of the popular classes. This result did not come out of nowhere: it is also a consequence of the policy of class conciliation, which preferred to administer institutionalism, negotiate with the Centrão, and make concessions to the oligarchies, big business, and financial capital, instead of seeking to alter the correlation of forces through organization, popular mobilization, and mass struggle. Added to this is the weariness from approximately two decades of governments that maintained neoliberal policies and the frustration of sectors of the population with expectations of change that did not materialize, leading part of the electorate to express a protest vote at the polls.
It would be a mistake, however, to consider that all of Flávio Bolsonaro's voters consciously adhered to the far right. It is necessary to understand how popular dissatisfaction was captured by a powerful political, religious, and technological-digital complex, which exploits common sense, prejudices, moral issues, and religiosity, intensely using Pentecostal churches, social networks, and WhatsApp groups. While sectors of the left withdrew from neighborhoods, the outskirts, and workplaces, the far right occupied these spaces and built lasting ties with broad segments of the population. This reality reestablishes a strategic task for the revolutionary left: rebuild grassroots work, contest values, culture, and worldview, and be present where the people live and face their concrete problems, such as wages, employment, housing, transportation, health, education, security, and indebtedness. Political struggle happens every day, in the streets, in workplaces, housing, and study places, and also in the digital universe.
This second round takes place under difficult conditions, aggravated by an even more conservative Congress and by an international conjuncture marked by geopolitical disputes over wealth and Brazil's strategic position. But now is the time to lift our heads and bounce back, contest hearts and minds, transform difficulties into political energy. Above all, it is necessary to prevent a victory of the far right, turn the game around in the second round, and, at the same time, prepare the popular forces for the battles that will come after the elections. Regardless of the electoral result, only the organization of workers, working women, and youth, grassroots work, and permanent popular mobilization will be able to confront the conservative offensive, defend rights, and build a new correlation of forces in the country.
Change the course of the campaign
The first thing we can affirm is that there is still political space for the dispute of ideas and projects and for dialogue with millions of Brazilians. But this requires a profound change in the course of the campaign. A campaign whose axis is austerity, fiscal responsibility, and the attempt to reassure the so-called markets and conservative forces runs the risk of not dialoguing with the concrete problems experienced by the majority of the population and leading to a negative result. It is not the time to concentrate discourse on bourgeois strata. It is time to speak to workers, the unemployed, youth, working women, the Black population, residents of the outskirts, the indebted, and the millions of Brazilians subjected daily to economic insecurity.
The second round must place the popular agenda at the center of the debate: employment, wage increases, reduction of working hours, an end to the 6×1 scale, defense of public services, strengthening of public health and education, housing, public transportation, combating high interest rates and family indebtedness, and defense of national and popular sovereignty. It is necessary to present a concrete perspective of transformation. Confronting the far right cannot be limited only to denouncing the risks it represents, with an abstract defense of democracy. Political dispute also involves presenting proposals capable of responding to the concrete problems of the majority of the population and debating the social and labor consequences of the different projects in confrontation.
Therefore, comrades, it is not a time for discouragement. It is a time for mobilization, organization, and political militancy. It is time to critically understand the mistakes made and intensify political dialogue, especially with those who did not go to the polls in the first round or annulled their vote. Militants must carry out the dispute in the streets, in neighborhoods, in workplaces, in schools, in universities, and on social networks. It is necessary to talk with the disappointed and especially to understand the workers who voted for the far right not out of a consolidated ideological conviction, but out of revolt, frustration, or disbelief, and to convince them to change their vote.
Each militant can concretely contribute to carrying out this political dispute by talking with friends, visiting relatives, organizing small meetings in neighborhoods, schools, and universities or popular assemblies, participating in popular movements, and also acting on social networks, appealing to the population that did not vote in the first round to now vote for Lula, against the barbarism of the far right. Each vote turned represents a step forward toward the defeat of these reactionary forces. No militant can stand with arms crossed: the political moment demands from each of us political firmness, total dedication, and willingness to win this hard dispute. It is time to put all our militancy in the streets, transform indignation into organization, and organization into popular force.
For this second round, the PCB directs its militancy, its party collectives, friends, and sympathizers to actively participate in the political battle aimed at defeating Flávio Bolsonaro's candidacy, while maintaining our political, programmatic, and organic independence. It is necessary to boost the organization of popular committees in defense of democratic freedoms and social rights, articulating spaces of struggle capable of accumulating lasting political strength for the coming historical cycle, strengthening mass mobilization, and promoting broad initiatives to combat reaction. As a party that has historically participated in the struggles against fascism and in defense of democratic freedoms, the PCB considers militant action necessary at this moment, while we must prepare, starting now, for the hard battles of the next period, in the face of a conjuncture marked by the growth of the far right, the intensification of social contradictions, and the risks to democratic freedoms and the rights of the working class. No minute of truce for the far right! Let's turn the game around, win in the second round, and reorganize the popular forces to face the challenges of the new historical cycle!
Brazilian Communist Party
Central Committee - National Political Commission
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