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>Brazil
>
>The debate around socialism
>
>There was been little discussion about socialism at the II
>Congress of the Workers Party (PT). Carlos Henrique Arabe*
>reports.
>
>
>The only amendment sent to the assembly for voting was presented
>by the "Nosso Tempo" ("Our Time") current, which included those
>PT comrades associated with the Fourth International.
>
>The amendment proposed going beyond the PT's shy programme of
>"democratic revolution", and setting out the perspective of
>transition to socialism. "Nosso Tempo" suggested that the PT
>learn from the experience of popular participation, notably in
>PT-governed Rio Grande do Sul state, and develop various elements
>of direct democracy. The amendment argued that PT local and state
>governments must have a strategic purpose in broader
>transformation. This is not the case at the moment, except in Rio
>Grande do Sul.
>
>The debate did not polarize the Congress. But it was rejected by
>the "majority" and even most of the PT sectors that label
>themselves as "left". The "Articula��o" group claimed that
>reaffirming the parties previous resolutions was sufficient. They
>also argued that the amendment overestimated the strategic value
>of popular participation experiences, specially the
>"participative budget" in Rio Grande do Sul.
>
>Other "left" currents claimed that the "Nosso Tempo" amendment
>proposed a concept of attaining socialism through a continuous,
>evolutionary process, putting aside the fight for a revolutionary
>rupture.
>
>Popular participation
>
>The issue of popular participation is the most significant
>dimension of the debate, and the most relevant for the concrete
>policy of PT representatives in local and state governments.
>
>Nosso Tempo argued that the implementation of processes like Rio
>Grande do Sul's participative budget has the potential of
>introducing embryonic forms of direct democracy. Such a practice
>may be inserted into a perspective that will reinforce the need
>to overcome the limits of representative democracy, linking the
>material conquests of a majority to a new form of organization of
>the system of political decision-making.
>
>It is quite clear that the transformation of the state into a
>public good, un-privatized, and not a hostage of private
>interests, depends on structural modifications in its
>organization and that this cannot be achieved simply by governing
>well and honestly. The experience in Rio Grande do Sul confirms
>the limits of participation in the structures of the capitalist
>state.
>
>But the problem is that the kind of popular participation that
>characterises the Rio Grande do Sul administration goes far
>beyond what the PT practices elsewhere in Brazil. In many cases -
>even where the PT is hegemonic within a local or state government
>- the motivation to participate is carried on in a very
>controlled form, subordinated to the Executive or even the head
>of the Executive. In those situations, "popular participation"
>accomplishes a very limited function of democratization of
>political life. It is much more a form of legitimating left-wing
>governments, without changing the basic mechanism of power -
>restrictive representative democracy, and the exchange of favors
>and interests between the state and economic elites.
>
>Most left currents said that the Nosso Tempo amendment
>overestimates the strategic role of direct democracy experiences.
>This disagreement within the left seems to reflect incompatible
>views of the question of power. Some leftists see popular
>participation in PT governments as only a form of "power
>accumulation", of political and social reinforcing of the party,
>towards a moment of rupture. Only after that 'glorious day' will
>direct democracy be fully introduced.Naturally, this kind of
>vision emphasizes the strategic duties that should lead to a
>revolutionary rupture.
>
>But since such a rupture is absent from the preoccupations of
>most of the PT, it is difficult to accept that this is the real
>reason why other left currents opposed the "Nosso Tempo"
>amendment. Much more popular is the idea that the work of PT
>governments is the administration of the bourgeois state without
>proposing its overthrowing. Thus, we should be satisfied with
>what is done today, especially in what concerns the forms of
>popular participation, acknowledging this as possible, realistic
>reform.
>
>Process and rupture
>
>The leftist currents in the PT agree that the socialist
>transformation of the society demands a revolutionary rupture.
>This idea is generally viewed as a moment concentrated in time
>when the political and social working class movement focuses its
>forces against bourgeois domination - against the state -
>destroying the old oppressive "machine" and creating a new state
>based on direct democracy.
>
>But this dynamic, best described as a revolution, is never a
>magic and accidental moment. On the contrary, in all historic
>revolutionary experiences there had been a previous process of
>construction of an alternative or double power, combining
>elements of process and rupture. On many occasions, in many parts
>of the world, sectors of the left satisfy themselves with grand
>proclamations about the need for rupture, but make little or no
>contribution to the construction of a program that overcomes the
>traditional ("stages") view that separates "maximum" (socialist)
>and "minimum" (almost class-conciliatory) programs. The "question
>of power" becomes reduced to the question of whether the
>self-styled revolutionary party has total hegemony or not.
>
>In other words, a critical analysis of past revolutions and the
>class struggle in Brazil does not justify the leftist criticism
>of the alleged "evolutionary" character of the Nosso Tempo
>amendment.
>
>The amendment also approaches the fight against privatization and
>market domination, demanding the (re)nationalisation of strategic
>sectors (banks and monopolies), linking it to a system of social
>control over the state. It emphasizes that it is possible and
>relevant to integrate into this perspective the initiatives and
>experiences of cooperativism, self-government and non-capitalist
>forms of economic organization. This concerns the conquests of
>land reform, particularly the struggle of the Landless Movement
>(MST) and resistance to economic disintegration and unemployment.
>The amendment gives importance to these aspects and tries to add
>them to the party's program in order to guide its action of
>opposing the government.
>
>* Carlos Henrique Arabe is a member of the PT's National
>Leadership (DN). He is a leading member of the Socialist
>Democracy (DS) current, which is associated with the Fourth
>International. DS is the main component in the Nosso Tempo
>current, which won 10% support at the recent PT Congress.
>
>
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
>------
>
>Organized People's self-government [Excerpts from Nosso Tempo
>amendment]
>
>Our democratic and popular program must be guided by a conception
>of socialism that represents the control, by the organized
>masses, of society's economic and political management. Socialism
>will make possible popular sovereignty over the definition of the
>destinies of society, currently alienated by the capitalist
>market and a state organization that, as the Communist Manifesto
>says, works as a "executive committee with the charge of managing
>the common businesses of the bourgeoisie."
>
>This means the creation of institutions that occupy the place
>taken by the capitalist market and the bourgeois state. Those
>institutions must be based on the free association of workers, on
>the autonomous, democratic and sovereign activity of the
>population.
>
>We don't want statism, merely promoting social changes from
>above, with popular participation controlled by the state
>machine. Nor do we want market domination, where popular needs
>are subject to an external logic that favors the owners of
>capital.
>
>Our program must develop all forms of popular self-organization
>and social control over the state and the market.
>
>Our experience in the last few years is extremely useful in
>making this program concrete. We have seen advances in popular
>participation in many city halls, specially in Porto Alegre,
>capital of Rio Grande do Sul state. It has been shown that this
>form of treating the state is democratic and efficient.
>
>On the other hand, it is necessary to make advances in popular
>control over the markets (though without intending to eliminate
>them in the short or medium term, naturally). Control over
>markets must be performed by public organisms. At this stage,
>that can only mean state organisms subject to popular control.
>
>>From a democratic standpoint it does not make any sense to
>replace state functions with a wider role for the capitalist
>markets. This would result in diminishing people's ability to
>decide. It would be a retrogression as far as democracy is
>concerned. The state must have the capacity to coordinate
>economic activities, so that they become compatible with the
>project of democratic and popular development, and it becomes
>possible to steadily reduce social and regional inequalities. To
>that end it is not necessary to make all the economy
>state-controlled, but it is most necessary that many strategic
>industries be under social (state) ownership "
>
>Extracts from the amendment "Socialism as organized,
>solidarity-based, people's self-government", presented by the
>"Nosso Tempo"current.
>__________________________________________________
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