Building democratic socialism: the Partido Dos Trabalhadores in Brazil

BUILDING DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM: THE PARTIDO DOS TRABALHADORES IN BRAZIL

By 1978 Brazil's "economic miracle" had come to an end, and the social costs of severe income inequality were becoming unbearable. The Catholic church had moved strongly into the opposition to the military government. Progressive sectors of the church, committed to the theology of liberation, were actively organizing the poor in Basic Christian Communities, neighborhood organizations, peasant and Indian movements, and rural trade unions. Because of repressive conditions, most social movements organized quietly, in small and decentralized groups.

In April 1978, to the surprise of Brazil's military rulers, workers rebelled. Auto workers strikes, involving 140,000 metalworkers in Sao Paulo, the nation's most industrialized area, rapidly spread over the country and throughout the economy; within a few weeks over 500,000 workers were on strike. The strikes of 1978 had a profound impact on the working class: fear was broken. The vast civil disobedience movement succeeded both in achieving salary gains and in delegitimizing the military's anti-strike legislation. The strike movement of 1978 also established Luis Inacio (Lula) da Silva, the president of the Metalworkers' Union of Sao Bernardo do Campo and Diadema, on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, as a new kind of working class leader. Charismatic, capable of holding the attention of thousands of workers in open-air assemblies, yet profoundly attached to the idea of rank-and-file participation, Lula rapidly became one of the most important political figures in Brazil.

In 1979, more than three million workers in Brazil went on strike for better working conditions and against the strict salary squeeze imposed by the military government. The unprecedented wave of strikes across the nation, in urban and rural areas, set the stage for a new unionism characterized by strong rank-and-file participation and organization in the workplace. Workers had already learned to organize in their communities, setting up neighborhood associations to mobilize residents to effectively pressure the government to respond to their needs. These neighborhood organizations intertwined with the new trade union movement to build the most widespread grassroots movement in Brazilian history.

Toward the end of 1979, however, many trade union and community leaders began to doubt that grassroots organizations alone could reverse established governmental policies. Workers discovered they could overturn some repressive measures and gain some concessions, but they could not change the basic economic policies of the government. The 1979 strikes led activists to the conclusion that social movements were not enough. Unless workers could effectively organize an instrument of political mediation their efforts to transform the economy would be in vain. What workers could gain with strikes could be rapidly undone by political measures that would decrease salaries.

In a series of seminars and discussions radical activists analyzed Brazilian capitalism and drafted alternatives for the working class movement. One of the most important conclusions to emerge from these meetings was that workers needed a political party that could remain deeply connected to the grassroots movements and could represent working class interests in struggles over state policies. It was necessary to build a political party that would be flexible enough to include the different political views of those active in the grassroots and at the same time strong enough to compete for electoral office with bourgeois parties. It was also necessary to build a socialist party that would reflect the experience of workers in Brazil, building socialism from the day-to-day struggles in the workplace and in neighborhoods. Thus, in 1979, the Partido dos Trabalhadores (the PT or Workers' Party) was founded:

The idea of the Workers' Party arose with the advance and reinforcement of this new and broad-based social movement which now extends from the factories to the neighborhoods, from the unions to the Basic Christian Communities, from the Cost of Living Movements to the Dwellers Associations, from the Student Movement to the Professional Associations, from the Movement of Black People to the Women's Movement, as well as others, like those who struggle for the rights of indigenous peoples. (1)

Nine years later, in the municipal elections of November 1988, the Workers' Party--so socialist, so radical, and still so young--surprised political observers with victories in such major cities as Sao Paulo, Santos, Vitoria, and Porto Alegre. Sao Paulo, with 13 million inhabitants, is the third world's largest industrial center, and the key to the economic and political life of Brazil. Santos and Vitoria are among Brazil's largest ports. Porto Alegre, capital of the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, is the south's most important industrial and cultural center. The PT also won 30 other important city governments and came extremely close to winning the key state capitals of Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte. In addition, a very close vote showed the PT's strength in the Amazon region.

In November and December of 1989, Brazil held its first free, direct presidential elections in 30 years. In the first round, among 22 candidates, Lula placed second with 11.6 million votes. In the second round Lula was supported by a broad alliance which included the populist Partido Democratico Trabalhista, whose candidate Leonel Brizola had placed third with 11.2 millio votes, and the Partido Social Democratico Brasileiro, whose candidate Mario Covas was fourth with 7.8 million votes. Lula lost the runoff to his conservative opponent, Fernando Collor de Mello. Although Collor's base was small, with the backing of national and international capital, and Brazil's largest television network, in the final count Collor won with 53 percent of the vote.

Although Lula lost the election, a labor leader, with strong socialist politics, had received 31 million votes. This result firmly established the PT not only as one of Brazil's most important political parties, with a clear hegemony on the left, but as a party with great international significance.

Where Did the Partido Dos Trabalhadores Come From?

The Workers' Party arose as a direct consequence of Brazil's great economic and social inequality. In 1988, the richest 20 percent of the population appropriated two-thirds of the national income; the richest 1 percent appropriated an amount equal to that of the poorest 50 percent. In 1989, although average national income was over $2,000 per person, in more than one-third of Brazil's families per person income was only $180. With this pattern of inequality, malnutrition due to poverty is the leading cause of Brazil's extremely high infant mortality rate: 65 per 1000 babies born alive, a much higher rate than that of such neighbors as Venezuela (36), Argentina (33), or Uruguay (27). According to the World Health Organization, approximately 10 million Brazilians receive less than the daily minimum nutrition required for survival. Government statistics show that there are 32 million children living in absolute poverty and more than 7 million children abandoned in the streets of the cities. The PT is deeply committed to the transformation of the political and economic structures of the society which have been responsible for the growing misery of 80 percent of the Brazilian population.

The Workers' Party not only proposes to redistribute income with immediate economic reform programs, it is an orga ization for the empowerment of working people who, because of long standing patterns of discrimination and inequality, have been denied democratic participation. The PT has provided the opportunity for those who are oppressed to regain a voice, to build their dignity, and to win recognition of their rights. Those who were never included when it came to decide matters of budget, of development programs, of distribution of wealth and income, of urban and rural property tenure, now find that they can participate in decision making and experience the energy which comes from collective organization. As Lula wrote in the introduction to the PT's presidential platform:

There is no future for Brazil if the energy of the people (and the joy which comes with it) cannot be freely expressed. If I was asked to summarize in one sentence the meaning of our program I would say: we mean to reorganize Brazilian society, giving the leading role to those who live in the world of work. It is a radical proposal: teachers, workers, doctors, artists, men and women of the countryside, writers, rubber tree tappers, journalists, fishermen, small businessmen, engineers and all other people who, like those above, construct the present with their work. For them must we build the future. We cannot imagine Brazil without them and we do not want a Brazil which is against them. This is the great message of the Partido dos Trabalhadores.

The roots of the PT are not only socio-economic. The PT's political strategy has been built upon the accumulated historical experience of the working class movement in Brazil, especially a critique of the legacy of Getulio Vargas's populism and the legacy of the Brazilian Communist Party.

Getulio Vargas first took power in Brazil in 1938, after a military coup that instituted the authoritarian and corporatist Estado Novo (New State). Vargas, a charismatic leader who admired Benito Mussolini, copied Brazil's 1945 Labor Code from Mussolini's Carta del Lavoro. The Labor Code's corporatist measures tied trade unions to the state, allowing the Ministry of Labor to recognize trade unions, dissolve them, intervene in elections, remove officials from union posts, and control all matters pertaining to finances, budget, and bargaining rights.

The Labor Code also prohibited horizontal organization of workers in a central federation. The entire structure was meant to prevent the class consciousness of workers by connecting civil society's organizations to the state in a corporatist pyramid. During the period from the overthrow of Vargas in 1946 to the military coup of 1964, Brazil's formally democratic governments did not strictly enforce the Labor Code, and workers organized in a climate of relative flexibility as populist governments sought working class support for their policies. However, the Labor Code itself was never repealed. After 1964, the military government applied in full all the Labor Code's restrictions on organizing: controlling union budgets, decertifying many unions, and removing from office all trade union officials who did not comply with the policies imposed by the military.

After the overthrow of the Estado Novo dictatorship, Vargas continued to play an important role in Brazil as a populist leader who founded the Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro (PTB). The PTB mediated working class demands and provided a political mechanism to mobilize workers around specific populist leaders and reform programs. The party was connected to state-controlled trade unions, and unionists were regularly co-opted into agencies to collaborate with government policies. The main characteristic of the PTB was that of a mobilizing, rather than an organizing, political party, mobilizing workers to elect charismatic populist leaders and to support their policies rather than building autonomous political organizations of workers and promoting class consciousness. Within the general framework of populist politics there was little role for the working class as an autonomous political actor.

The working class leaders who founded the PT in 1979 were very aware of the dangers of this legacy of corporatism, co-optation, and clientelism. Their political experience was rooted in organizational activities in the context of the strictly government-controlled unions set up under Vargas's Labor Code. Working class movements after 1964 had organized union opposition groups to fight government-appointed union bureaucrats and sought an alternative form of rank-and-file organization in the workplace. Much of the Catholic church, in reaction to the economic and social inequalities and to the repression, had moved into the opposition and organized working people in neighborhood associations, mothers' clubs, and Basic Christian Communities. Peasants were meeting quietly and learning to defend their right to land as well as win better conditions for agricultural laborers. All of the many social movements in Brazil had in common a deep commitment to popular empowerment through the exercise of leadership and collective decision-making. In addition, a search for autonomy of organization was perhaps the key ingredient that united all groups of working class opposition to the military governments after 1964. (2)

From this historical perspective, these trade unionists and community organizers consciously wished to avoid founding a party based on a populist framework, and intended to move the working class from a position of backstage mobilizing to frontline organizing as independent major political actors. This position of autonomy and empowerment was, perhaps, best expressed in an exchange that took place in 1979 between Lula and Brizola. Brizola, the most important inheritor of the populist legacy in Brazil, was attempting to convince Lula to join his effort to reestablish the traditional PTB. Brizola argued, "We are reaching the river and it is necessary that we, as leaders, show the people where to cross it." Lula replied, "I think it is time that the people should learn where and how to swim by themselves." With the idea that the "people should learn where and how to swim" the Partido dos Trabalhadores was born.

The founders of the Workers' Party also drew on the experience of the Partido Cuminista Brasileiro (PCB). The PCB had deep roots in the working class movement since its founding in 1922 in connection with autonomous trade unions, and it became one of the leading organizers of underground resistance during the Vargas dictatorship. Because of this early history, the PCB enjoyed a high degree of legitimacy within the working class. The PCB organized mostly in a clandestine or semiclandestine fashion from its founding days and became characterized by a top-down structure, rather rigid in its following of "democratic centralism," with little room for internal debate and dissent. The Brazilian Communist Party is known as one of the most orthodox in Latin America.

After the end of Vargas's dictatorship, the PCB worked in loose and unofficial alliances in support of populist politicians. Its basic theoretical position on political action emphasized unity with the local bourgeoisie against imperialism. The PCB held strictly to this policy even after the military coup of 1964, and, within the resistance, argued for center-left unity with bourgeois sectors to overthrow the military government. This emphasis on alliances with the bourgeoisie caused a series of splits in the PCB and the loss of a significant number of it's working class militants.

In 1979, at the time of the founding of the PT, the PCB argued for a soft line on strikes in order to build a secure interclass alliance capable of overthrowing the dictatorship. Because many of the strikes deeply affected the interests of the national bourgeoisie, the PCB instructed its trade unionists to negotiate agreements with local capital in such a manner as to take advantage of what the PCB believed to be an inherent contradiction between local and international capital. This position became the subject of heated polemics within the new trade union movement, eventually leading to a new series of splits from the PCB. Some members left the party to join social democratic and populist parties; others supported the efforts to found the Partido dos Trabalhadores. Those members of the PCB who joined the PT did not believe in the effectiveness of an "inter-class alliance" because of the deep connection between local and international capital in Brazil. And they were frustrated by "democratic centralism" and the inability of rank-and-file militants to influence the party platform. They joined the PT to have a more active voice in decision making.

Building the Partido Dos Trabalhadores

How could a mass-based, democratic and socialist party be created within the strict limitations imposed by the military state? How could the party's leaders and militants work both within and in opposition to the system?

The Political Party Law of 1979 established the limitations on party organization. First, the law prohibited formation of a political party based on "appeals to class, race, sex or religious beliefs." Second, the law required the registration of party members, which meant that workers were vulnerable to pressure and that the security police could easily keep tabs on party membership. Third, the law required that parties be organized from the top down, with a national executive committee selecting the members of party regional and municipal committees. There were, in addition, a variety of complicated legal requirements for holding local conventions.

Most political parties in Brazil have been molded by this legislation. They have a top-down structure in which power lies exclusively with the national executive committee. All decisions are made by the top leadership who do not even attempt to organize the rank and file. Accepting the various legal impediments, the traditional political parties exist mainly at election times and have little mobilizing power, counting on financial support to hire campaign workers during elections. They have institutionalized the patron-client relationships of Brazil's patriarchal society and serve as distributors of organized favors.

The PT has attempted to avoid this institutionalized pattern. In order to legally exist as a political party and at the same time fulfill its intent to build a mass-based democratic party, the PT developed two forms of organization. The first strictly complied with the law. The second, a parallel structure, allowed the party to institutionalize mechanisms of rank-and-file participation and to establish an organization from the bottom up. Those who can fight off political or job pressures formally register as party members. Many more people register only in internal party records but participate with equal rights in all committees, conventions, and meetings; these are the party's militantes. A third and even more numerous group is comprised of sympathizers who support the party, contribute financially, and largely provide the free labor for all party campaigns. Some ten years after its founding, the PT has approximately 400,000 officially registered members, slightly over one million militantes, and over four million activists or sympathizers.

The PT regularly holds local, regional, and national conventions as established by the law, with national conventions which elect members of the national executive committee which, in turn, names all other members of regional or local committees. However, these "official conventions" are only pro forma. In reality, the "official conventions" simply sanction decisions which are previously taken by "pre-conventions" held at local, regional, and national levels, and involving all party members whether or not they are "legally" registered.

The actual structure of the party is democratic and alive with membership participation. The PT is organized in local units called nucleos, in neighborhoods or workplaces: for example, the nucleo of the Fort Motor plant, the nucleo of the University of Sao Paulo, the nucleo of the Banco do Brasil, the nucleo of rubber-tree tappers of Araguaia, the nucleo of the district of Nova Iguacu, of Sao Joao de Meriti, of Copacabana, and so forth, throughout the country. The flexibility of organization by place of work or residence allows broad participation in the day to day discussions of issues, national concerns, party platforms, choosing candidates, etc.

The nucleo organization also allows for control by the rank and file. One can only join the party at its most basic and lively level, the nucleo, with the approval of fellow workers or neighbors. The criterion for nucleo membership is militancy in social movements. The nucleos meet regularly, some monthly, others every week. Documents on issues of concern to the party are distributed to each nucleo for discussion by members. Their opinions are reflected in documents which are discussed in all local "pre-conventions." The documents that are approved by the local "pre-convention" delegates are then taken to discussions at the regional "pre-conventions" and finally the national "pre-convention." Rank-and-file delegates are chosen in elections of each nucleo, in proportion to the numbers of members who belong to the nucleo. They vote in the municipal "pre-convention" electing the delegates to the regional "pre-convention" and in turn they elect delegates to the national "pre-convention." In this way the PT guarantees a reversal of the pyramid with the institutionalization of a party structure pela base (from the base).

Although many problems arise from inefficient distribution of materials, lack of experience in running assemblies, and myriad other constraints, the organizational structure ensures constant discussion of issues and a high degree of participation in all matters relevant to the party, its programs, platform, and candidates for public office. (3) The top leadership's wishes are often reversed by the "pre-conventions." In 1988 Sao Paulo delegates nominated Luiza Erundina for mayor instead of Congressman Plinio de Arruda Sampaio who was Lula's and the Sao Paulo Executive Committee's preferred candidate. The same thing happened at the 1989 national "pre-convention" choosing the vice-presidential candidate. The majority of top leaders, including Lula, campaigned for Fernando Gabeira, president of the Green Party, but delegates, nonetheless, chose Joao Paulo Bisol, a southern senator of the Brazilian Socialist Party, who had won public recognition for his pro-worker activity during the Constituent Assembly.

Within the PT, internal democracy is exercised through a complex system of proportionate voting in "pre-conventions." The membership of the PT includes people of a variety of political ideologies: progressive members of the Catholic church, progressive Protestants, members of Marxist-Leninist groups, ex-members of armed struggle organizations, former members of the Brazilian Communist Party, independent socialist, Trotskyists, and members of social movements without any particularly defined ideology. Members form a number of well defined groups known as tendencias (tendencies). They present documents for discussion during nucleo meetings and all "pre-conventions." The tendencia which has the majority of the membership's participation is the Articulacao comprised of trade unionists, Catholic church and Protestant militants, and independent socialists. There is an array of other tendencias, mostly those which come out of various Trotskyist groups. All documents presented by the tendencias are discussed and voted on. During the municipal, regional, or national "pre-conventions" the tendencias organize their own slates and compete for the vote of the delegates. The party posts at all levels are decided on the basis of proportion of votes.

There is much complaining among the smaller tendencias that the procedures do not work properly. They claim that the majority imposes its viewpoint and makes it difficult for minority documents to be properly distributed. Members of the Articulacao, the majority group, on the other hand, say that the Trotskyist tendencias organize themselves as a "party within the party," meet before the conventions, and engage in gerrymandering techniques to make sure that their small numbers will count more when the votes are taken.

The question of obedience to party decisions and party platforms, once they are formally established, has also become a source of growing tension between members of Articulacao and the Trotskyists. Sometimes the smaller groups set off on their own to carry out policies which were specifically defeated in the open assemblies of the party's "pre-convention." This practice has led to a recent debate in the PT over mechanisms to enforce party discipline.

As the PT has gained experience--and political power--the question of the participation of members in the making of public policy has become a crucial issue which has fomented bitter party debates. It is one of the PT's most cherished conceptions that its administrations shall institutionalize mechanisms for direct popular participation in the decision-making process of government. The PT program calls for the formation of citizen's committees, elected by direct popular ballot, concerned with specific issues, such as education, health, and transportation. These committees are to work directly with the city government to formulate policy and decide matters of budget in their area of concern. In addition, the PT calls for the election of the popular councils in neighborhoods as auxiliary representative organs to help make and oversee the implementation of policies.

The formation of this institutionalized direct-participation program blurs the boundaries of party participation. Some members of the PT argue that the citizens' committees and the popular council should be, in essence, organizations of the party itself to institutionalize membership participation in the government's decision-making process. Virtually all the mayors who were elected by the PT have resisted this understanding of popular administration. They are supported by many members of the party in their argument that once they are elected to office as mayors they are sworn to represent all of the people of the particular city--not just the membership of the PT, and cannot allow the popular councils and citizens' committees to become exclusively controlled by the party. This interpretation views the process of popular administration as implanting institutionalized mechanisms for popular participation in government, direct citizen-government relationships not mediated just through one political party. Because of the political power implications, this issue has become the source of the most bitter divisions and intra-party struggles in all city administrations of the PT.

Conclusion

The Partido dos Trabalhadores was born from social movements. It is deeply interconnected with grassroots and working class organizations both in urban and rural areas. However, social movements in Brazil are determined to keep an autonomy vis-a-vis political parties. The Central Unica dos Trabalhadores (CUT), which represents 15 million workers, for example, maintains a close relationship to the PT but is not monopolized by it. In some regions--e.g., Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande do Sul--Brizola's PDT holds a hegemonic position with the CUT.

Social movements which are not only of the working class but are concerned with a specific issue--e.g., the women's movement, the black consciousness movement, the environmentalist movement--organize autonomously outside of the PT. Members of these movements have a double militancy, permeating all levels of the PT and exerting considerable influence to determine party program and draft government policy. The PT, in its brief existence, has already elected three women as mayors of extremely important cities (Sao Paulo, Santos, and Fortaleza) and the first black congresswoman in Brazilian history. The presence of these movements, interconnected to the PT, has enabled the party to make some innovative proposals and pass progressive legislation and also affected the new constitution of 1987. The movements shape the policies of the PT but maintain a position of independence and autonomy vis-a-vis governments. (4)

The decentralized party structure of the PT is consistent with the political principle of democratic socialism because the means are just as important as the ends. It is impossible to build a democratic and socialist society on authoritarian structures of organization. One of the main aspects of the Partido dos Trabalhadores is the richness of discussions, debates, and the competition between different tendencias within the party. The PT, however, has not altogether solved the problem of exercising party discipline. It is generally held that once a decision is reached on a major policy or strategy all tendencias should respect it, defend it publicly, and organize in a unified manner. This has not always been the case and, at times, specific groups set out on their own, causing a great deal of difficulty for the PT and its elected representatives alike. The question of how to enforce party discipline without falling into rigid regulations of "democratic centralism" has been one of the major problems of the PT.

Perhaps the most important historic role of the Partido dos Trabalhadores has been the empowerment of the working class in Brazil. Paulo Freire, one of the PT's most influential members, often reminded us of the negative aspects of the oppressor's consciousness upon the oppressed. People who are oppressed may come to view themselves through the eyes of the oppressors and, therefore, feel devalued, without their own voice and power. The decentralized structure of the PT has enabled millions of oppressed people in Brazil to participate actively in discussions, recover a sense of self-worth, exercise their individual voices, and as a consequence, become empowered. This empowerment allows the oppressed to take history into their own hands and believe that, collectively, they are capable of transforming the political, economic, and social structures which oppress them. This has been a revolutionary transformation of truly historic dimensions and is the PT's most lasting contribution to the liberation of the working class in Brazil.

The experience of the Partido dos Trabalhadores in Brazil is perhaps important to other nations as well. First of all, it is significant that a political party, born from a grassroots social movement, could maintain an overall democratic structure sufficient to ensure its dynamic flexibility while, at the same time, not losing sight of the ultimate purpose of a political party: winning political power. Albeit the PT still has many problems to resolve, its experiences in the exercise of political power have been enormously innovative and encouraging. By attempting to put into practice the theory of participatory democracy, the PT has broadened the conception of representative democracy through the incorporation of direct participation in public policy. In addition, the PT's conception of democratic socialism opens new arenas for the debate on workplace democracy, worker control, and worker-government relations. As Lula said, with a smile, in answer to a question by his opponent in a televised debate during the presidential campaign: "The PT feels very comfortable with the events in the Soviet Union. It has been practicing glasnost from its founding days, well in advance of Gorbachev." (5) Finding different solutions to questions of political power, discovering new mechanisms for the incorporation of citizens in public policy-making, putting into practice ideas of internal party democracy, implementing alternative developmental and economic programs in government, serving the function of administrator, mediator, and educator of the population in important issues--in all of these areas the PT's experience has helped develop new modes of social and political organizing.

(1) Partido dos Trabalhadores: "Declaracao Politica," Sao Bernardo do Campo, October 13, 1979. Cited in Margaret Keck, Change from Below: The Workers' Party in Brazil's Transition to Democracy, forthcoming.

(2) On this point of the history of the trade union movement in Brazil and its search for autonomy, see my article "Trade Unions in Brazil: A Search for Autonomy and Organization" in Edward Epstein, ed. Labor Autonomy and the State in Latin America (Winchester, Mass.: Unwin Hyman, 1989)

(3) In Change from Below, Margaret Keck discusses the complaints of many members of the PT about the malfunctioning of the nucleos and, particularly, of the inefficient system of distribution of party documents. I believe that the latter has been the most important problem for the implementation of nucleo participation policies. It is indeed difficult with limited resources to distribute materials throughout Brazil. There is much recent debate in the PT about the need to decentralize the production, printing, and distribution of materials to the district level to increase efficiency.

(4) For details of the PT's relationship to social movements see my forthcoming article: "The Workers Party of Brazil: Building Struggle from the Grassroots" in William K. Tabb, editor, The Future of Socialism (New York: Monthly Review press, 1990).

(5) The PT, it might be added, was the first major party of the left in Latin America to support Poland's Solidarity.

Maria Halena Moreira Alves teaches political science at the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She is one of the founders of the Partido dos Trabalhadores and an active member of the education department of the Central Unica dos Trabalhadores, Brazil's left labor federation representing over 15 million workers. She is the author of State and Opposition in Military Brazil (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986).

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