The PCB and the Brazilian Political Crisis

Political Note from the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB)

In recent days, we have witnessed a succession of scandals involving Banco Master, its owner Daniel Vorcaro, and numerous figures from national politics, big business, judges, Supreme Court justices, state governors linked to the far-right Bolsonarista movement, and parliamentarians from various parties (including a PT senator), all embroiled in corruption schemes responsible for plundering public coffers to favor the interests of a privileged minority.

The Brazilian population has long ceased to be surprised by this horror show that floods the news, involving the country's economy, politics, and legal system. But these swindles and assaults on public property do not simply appear due to the proximity of elections. No! Their ramifications are deep and concern the power disputes among factions of the bourgeoisie. Vorcaro is not an "isolated case": the connections between the big bourgeoisie – especially financial capital, but not only that – and organized crime and bourgeois institutional politics are structural. In particular, the deeply intertwined relationships between Vorcaro, organized crime, and the far-right are striking: at the same time that Vorcaro's brother-in-law was the largest donor to the electoral campaigns of the fascists Tarcísio de Freitas and Jair Bolsonaro in the second round of 2022, the reactionary government of Cláudio Castro in the state of Rio de Janeiro pumped over R$ 1 billion reais into Banco Master's rotten papers.

To understand why this almost endless thievery occurs, where one scandal follows another daily, weekly, etc., we must understand the class character of the capitalist state, which establishes a legal order, a justice system, fundamentally aimed at guaranteeing, sustaining, and enforcing the interests of the ruling classes. As the old comrade Karl Marx once said, "the bourgeois state is the executive committee of the bourgeoisie."

At the same time that this state creates mechanisms for social, political, economic, and legal control, competition and contradictions among the different sectors of the ruling classes result in frequent political crises of this bourgeois order, bringing to the surface acts and actions of looting, theft, and use of public property, which fundamentally serve the ruling class, resulting in a double assault on the proletariat, through direct exploitation and through corruption and the deterioration of public services.

This has been the keynote of the state since colonial Brazil, that is, a small group appropriates control of the state apparatus, acts in its own name and for its exclusive benefit, disregarding the situation experienced by the vast majority of the population, formed by the working class, which suffers the daily reality of low wages, poor living conditions, and constant attacks on their rights.

The bourgeoisie imposes the vision and culture of plunder and corruption as natural and inevitable facts, against which social and popular control over the state apparatus and public money would be impossible. To this end, they count on a vast apparatus of institutions that associate with and justify this malfeasance: the media (television, radio, newspapers), social networks, the conservative majority in Congress, in state legislative assemblies, in city councils, the Judiciary, etc. None of this happens by chance; it is a deliberate and coordinated form of action by the lords of money.

Those who, in good faith, believe that eventual investigations and punishments of these bandit and deformed personalities, who, as has been demonstrated, are sometimes associated with organized crime, will truly and profoundly change the structure of our state, are mistaken. Superficial changes, as we have seen at certain moments, may even, for a time, reduce the looting, the theft of public property, which should in fact belong to our people. They are not "quick fixes" or superficial solutions that will address the profound changes necessary to change the course of the Brazilian state. The Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary are all aligned in the acts of plundering the people's money.

We also combat the neofascist theses that we live under a dictatorship of the judiciary and that the STF (Supreme Federal Court) is the cause of all the ills of Brazilian society. This is pure opportunistic demagoguery and a smokescreen so that coup-mongering theses can win more hearts and minds. The Bolsonaro government did not make a single effort to cut the superfluous perks of high-ranking judiciary and Public Prosecution officials and allied itself with the STF and the judiciary in dismantling labor laws and expanding the penal punitivism that has genocided thousands of children of the working class (especially Black people). The fascists and false patriots have no political condition whatsoever to offer real alternatives to this political crisis.

Brazilian communists understand that there is no easy solution to this structural set of ills, malfeasance, and scandals involving the pillaging of public money. Patches here and there, promoted by those who hold power and are at the helm of government, have not solved the heart of the problem, as the bureaucrats on duty and the bourgeoisie suggest. It is necessary, and the PCB has always affirmed this, to carry out a radical, profound reform, in which the working class can participate actively and in an organized manner in decision-making in favor of its own destiny.

The PCB, in the immediate conjuncture, demands a thorough investigation of all complaints and the punishment of all those involved in the web of shady deals spun by the criminal Daniel Vorcaro, be they Cláudio Castro, Ibaneis Rocha, Ciro Nogueira, Jaques Wagner, Alexandre de Moraes, André Mendonça, and, above all, Flávio "Dark Horse" Bolsonaro. However, the PCB is clear that the necessary punishment of these scoundrels will not by any means stem the tide of shady deals involving the big bourgeoisie and the Brazilian state.

The real and effective fight against these corruption scandals involves the nationalization and popular control of the entire Brazilian financial system, the country's biggest corruptors. Banco Master was part of the intermediary sectors of Faria Lima and has already caused great damage; imagine what big financial capital is capable of. These sectors cannot be regulated or humanized; they need to be expropriated and controlled by the working class.

Another fundamental measure is a profound structural reform of the entire Brazilian judiciary (necessarily including the Public Prosecution), both from the point of view of legislation, and of social control and transparency over judicial activity and, especially, that judges appointed to regional and superior courts have fixed terms under social control: 10-year terms, eligible and revocable by Popular Power in their respective jurisdictions. The dismantling of the entire militarized and punitivist structure of the justice system is another central element of this reform. We also defend the end of all funds and perks that exceed the constitutional ceiling.

In this electoral period we are going through, knowing all its limitations and constraints, the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) not only comes forward to denounce this scenario of atrocities that pervades the Republic, but also guides its militants, allies, and friends to promote dialogue with the population, aiming to combat the salvationist and/or messianic rhetoric, coming mainly from far-right groups, which end up fueling arbitrary solutions contrary to the interests and needs of the working people. It is always necessary to make it clear that the central contradictions can only be overcome with struggles and radical, profound changes, through the construction of popular power, so that from these, the foundations of a new political ethics and an egalitarian, fraternal, solidarity-based, and effectively democratic society, the socialist society, can be laid!

Central Committee of the Brazilian Communist Party – PCB