municipal elections of November 15. Once again, millions of Brazilians of all social classes are preparing to exercise the sole political "right" they have been granted by the dictatorship during the past twelve years: the right to chose among rigorously selected candidates sifted through the sieve of the security organs and presented by two servile puppet parties to represent them in a fake democratic game, to represent them in the legislative bodies and municipal councils. (With the exception of about 150 municipalities which are considered areas of national security, the mineral centers and state capitals have mayors directly appointed by the government). Although conscious that the bourgeoisie, through its representatives in power, the officers, transforms every electoral process in Brazil into a farce, revolutionary Marxists know that it is not enough simply to denounce the electoral fraud and ignore the election campaign from Olympian heights in the name of revolutionary purism, using arguments like "this is an affair of the bourgeoisie, " "the workers are not interested in elec-
"and so on. On the contrary, revolutionary Marxists believe that the coming elections, more than ever, require an active and consistent participation on the part of the revolutionary vanguard, which must not limit itself to propagandism and abstract denunciafion, but must instead present to the broad mosses, particularly the workers, students, and all exploited and oppressed layers of the population, a political and programmatic alternative to the political projects and programs backed by the two bourgeois parties inside and outside the goverment. It must be an alternative that prepares for consistent action independent of any tutelage of the ruling classes and the government. Whether we like it or not, the electoral process, even with all its deformations and given the caricature to which it has been reduced, nonetheless constitutes a political event, an important moment in the life of the country. As was shown by the parliamentary elections of 1974, elections create a period favorable to political discussion, one which opens breaches of relative freedom for discussion and denunciation of the regime. Even given the degree of disorganization of the mass movement, the lock of free trode unions and independent organizations, the lack of a free press, of political parties with solid bases, and finally, of channels of genuine popular expression, the elections nonetheless constitute one of the few means through which the workers and the Brazilian people can, collectively and on a national scale, manifest their repudiation of poverty, political oppression, and the crimes committed by the military dictatorship, the bourgeoisie, and imperialism. The gigantic "No" of November 15, 1974, when 15 million Brazilians repudiated this anti-worker and anti-popular government, is one proof of this. The fact that they voted for the MDB (Movimento Democrático Brasileiro - Brazilian Democratic Movement) was not an indication of support to this party of the marginalized bourgeoisie but rather a deformed expression of protest in the absence of channels of genuine popular expression. To create these channels, to offer correct perspectives and leadership to this discontent, which has been consistently on the rise since 1974 given the failure of all the government's attempts to bridge the chasm that separates it from the broad masses, is the central tosk of revolutionaries. Political and economic crisis It is important that we have a clear view of the context in which the coming elections will take place. Two parties, ARENA and the MDB (ARENA: Aliança Renovadora Nacional - Alliance for National Renewal) will play the role of trying to channel the millions of popular votes. ARENA is discredited in the eyes of
BRAZIL broad sectors of the population because of its complete lock of independence and its identification with the central power, its obligation always to say "Yes" to the demands of the regime, even when a majority of its members want to say "No. " ARENA therefore knows in advance that it has little to hope for from these elecfions. Its defeat is a foregone conclusion in the large and middle-sized urban centers, especially those of great working-class concentration and greater politicization. This defeat will scarcely be attenuated by the favorable results it may obtain in some small localities where the official machine may consign it a few limited positive results. Already a walking corpse, ARENA will be buried definitively on November 15. The government and the big bourgeoisie will have no choice but to seek to create new alternatives of representation beginning next year. The MDB, the party of the "permitted" opposition, has emerged as the probable "victor" in the November elections. The massive vote it received in 1974 breathed new life into its moribund body at a time when the party was threatened with extinction. Once again, no thanks to its own merits, the MDB will capitalize not on a consistent practice of opposition to the Geisel dictatorship, but rather on the fact that it appears to millions of Brazilians as a form in which to express their repudiation of the government. Nonetheless, the MDB's position relative to 1974 should certainly deteriorate considerably, at least among the most conscious sectors of the mass movement and its vanguard, which supported the MDB in 1974. Incapable because of their own weakness, the liberal bourgeoisie and the rodicalized sectors of the petty bourgeoisie that make up the MDB have not succeeded in demonstrating that they can constitute a genuine alternative for all those who oppose the dictatorship. The MDB's trajectory since November 1974 has been one of continual capitulation to the dictatorship. Sparing no effort to win recognition from the "system" as a party of Law and Order, the bourgeois leadership and the great majority of MDB parliament members have not hesitated to betray the commitments they made to the popular sectors which voted for the party and have not at all carried out any of the points of the program they demagogically presented during the last electoral campaign. There are many examples of this: the refusal to convoke the parliamentary commission of inquiry on Human Rights in 1975, although legal conditions for the MDB to do so existed; the refusal to demand that the Ministry of Justice account for the whereabouts of twenty-five political prisoners who had disappeared (murdered under torture); the virtual lack of reaction to the risk contracts" which benefit the capitalists; the silence about the murder of Wladimir Herzog and Manuel Fialho and the massive imprisonment of militants during the repression against the Brazilian Communist party; and finally, the caution and moderation exhibited af the time of the ouster of five deputies of the "autentico" group from the parliament. Not to mention the clear 28 and total absence of the MDB and its workers and youth departments (with a few rare exceptions) from any and every strike movement or mobilization that has occurred among the workers and students. This capitulationist and conciliatory position, which is also shared by the great majority of the "autentico" group, contributes to discrediting the MDB in the eyes of some of the most important and conscious sectors that supported it in 1974, Many of the illusions that Flourished in 1974 have rapidly withered as this bourgeois movement's evolution of betrayal has been confirmed; in any case, this was no surprise to revolutionary Marxists. In spite of this, for the most right-wing sectors of the armed forces and the ruling classes, the MDB nevertheless appears today as a focus of dissent, a "leftist" danger, because of the presence in this party of groups and militants identified with popular sectors, in turn a result of the straitjacket of the two-party system. The workers, youth, and women's sections of the MDB, as well as the institutes for economic and social research, are considered dangerous "focuses" of dissent, more because of what they represent potentially than because of what they represent today. Not even the laborious intensity with which the leadership of the MDB tries to control these groups and reduce them to silence is sufficient given the hard line of the government; the MDB thus preserves an undeserved image as an opposition party. The so-called Falcão Law, which maximally reduces the already limited right of parties to use the radio and television for electoral propaganda, falls within this political framework. The censorship imposed by the federal police and the self-censorship the leoderships of the two parties exercise over their own candidates are not enough, for the government wants to hold political debate to a minimum. The government has not forgotten the bitter experience of 1974, which cost Geisel's "détente" plans dearly. Although for Geisel a relatively strong MDB has a role to play in the so-called "grodual relaxation, " the unexpected and excessive growth of the opposition vote, in addition to being a surprise, was a factor that gave rise to tension with the "hardliners" of the regime, and this forced Geisel to make a series of retreats. Given that political conditiors do not permit simply cance ling the elections (neither internally nor externally, in view of Brazil's need to polish up its "foreign image"), Geisel's present aim is to maximally limit the debate and prevent the social tensions that have built up over past years from worsening. Finally, he is seeking to silence any and every critic: The vulnerability of the government on all points, the collapse of the "economic miracle, " the administrative corruption, the rise of inflation and the cost of living and the consequent worsening poverty of the broad masses mean that any criticism, even the timid and constructive criticism of the permitted opposition, appears extremely dangerous for the stability of the regime.
The Falcão Law, one more factor in the right turn of the regime, is another concession which Geisel, representing the most lucid and enlightened sector of the ruling classes (but not the strongest politically or militarily on that account) has had to make in order to maintain the project of his "détente" policy, even if tenuously. Geisel and his ilk know that a qualitatively greater hardening of the regime, a more accentuated "fascicization, " or a pure and simple return to the methods of government used during the Medici period would also entail serious dangers for the survival of the regime. We are no longer living in the golden age of the "economic miracle. " The foreign debt should exceed $30,000 million by the end of 1977; inflation has not been brought under control; spending for imports and the deficits in the trade balance have compelled the government to take a whole series of unpopular palliative measures (prior deposits for imports and for trips abroad, for example), without any visible results being achieved. Domestic production is declining in various sectors, which boosts the unemployment figures, and the number of bankruptcies has been rising, especially since the latest measures restricting consumer credit. The economic pie is getting smaller, and even some sectors of the bourgeoisie are losing their slices. The crumbs with which broad segments of the petty bourgeoisie were bought off or neutralized are increasingly skimpy. The broad masses find their state of poverty reaching intolerable levels. The masses are now tending to raise demands, although in an atomized and disorganized way, while the deepening of the crisis is reducing the government and bourgeoisie's maneuvering room and possibility of granting significant concessions practically to zero. Given the context of crisis, it is difficult to reestablish the homogeneity and monolithism among the ruling classes that existed during the Medici regime. It is equally difficult to reestablish unanimity around an even more repressive regime representing an even greater dominance of the technocrats and officers over the state apparatus. On the contrary, the tendency is precisely one of the bourgeoisie (or at least some sectors of it, the landlords, big industrial national capital, and sections of finance capital) attempting to recover at least a part (if not all) of the exercise of political power that had been delegated to the officers and technocrats, who are now demoralized by their failure and inability to bring the country out of the crisis. It is extremely difficult for the anticommunist hysteria pushed by some sectors (Dinarte Mariz, José Bonifocio, and some of the major military chiefs) to be able to motivate and unite all the presently conflicting bourgeois groups. To moderate the growth of the MDB in these elections, to turn them into a virtual formality, is part of Geisel's tactic, which is aimed at gaining enough time to make his "détente" project prevail within the military estab -lishment itself and to introduce some changes in the facade of the regime, hopefully capable of prolonging its existence for a few more years. Concurrently, the mass movement has taken some small but significant steps toward recovery. The strikes, work stoppages, "slowdowns, "and protest demonstrations which had developed in the factories, construction sites, popular neighborhoods, and railways even before 1974 are now proliferating. Significant nuclei of trade-union oppositions have developed in some of the largest and most industrialized states, while at the same time a critical position toward the official unions and a recognition of the necessity of beginning Immediately to build independent organs — workers commissions - in the foctories and neighborhoods is starting to take root among the most advanced elements of the workers vanguard. The student movement, which has always opposed the military dictatorship, has not abandoned this tradition and has even played a vanguard role in struggles ogainst the dictatorship on many occasions. Since its virtual paralysis during the years 1971-73, the student movement has reemerged in a combative manner, carrying out many protest actions around the quality of education, the lack of democratic rights in the universities and in the country, the imprisonments and murders (for example the reaction to the death of the joumalist Wlodimir Herzog), against the "risk contracts. " The representative bodies of the movement are being reorganized and strengthened and the government has been compelled to recognize the free organizations of the students, as in the case of the Central Student Directory of the University of Sao Paulo.
BRAZIL This radicalization of the student movement has now spreod to other sectors of the petty bourgeoisie, such as journalists and artists, while employees of the middle layers (such as bank employees) are also showing signs of recovery. Without falling into impressionism and crude voluntarism, we may assert that there is now motion in the mass movement. Although it is true that the movement remains embryonic and atomized, suffering from an inadequate development of struggles, lack of links among various struggles, and the lack of solid independent trade-union organizations and a firmly based political vanguard. Tactics of revolutionary marxists during the election campaign This framework is decisive in formulating the tactics of revolutionary Marxists during the electoral period. Beginning from the assumption that is important to participate in the electoral process, that the elections constitute a significant event in national political life, what position should be adopted? Support the NDB and inflict a great defeat on the dictatorship, or simply cast blank ballots? In our view neither of these two choices represents an adequate orientation for the mass movement, either because they are incorrect (support to the MDB) or because they are insufficient (call for a blank vote). Let us look at each possibility. The First alternative, support to the MDB in order to inflict a defeat on the dictatorship, appears totally false to us. As we have already pointed out, the MDB, which capitalized on popular discontent in 1974, at no time constituted a consistent alternative for the antidictatorship forces. The MDB was not even able to constirute itself as a bourgeois anti-imperialist movement, which at certain moments can and must be supported by a revolutionary Marxist organization (for example the July 26 Movement in Cuba during its early phase or the Basque nationalists in Spain). Although the MDB is seen by the most right-wing sectors of the ruling classes as a focus of dissent, this organization is nonetheless useful for a whole other sector of the bourgeoisie and the armed forces led by Geisel, who rely on: it as a factor for neutralizing and channeling popular discontent into the framework of the regime. As has been demonstrated by its practice throughout its existence, both before and after 1974, at no time has the MDB been a "genuine, authentic, and effective opposition." Nor has it been capable of turning itself into a "stronger democratic party, "which is what was desired by some honest but confused sectors of the MDB, such as the people who signed the May 29, 1976, manifesto of Porto Alegre. Obviously, no serious and non-sectarian revolutionary with a minimum of sensitivity would refuse to recognize that some sectors of the MDB, mainly among the rank30 and-file workers and youth, are sincerely committed to a perspective of struggle against the dictatorship. Nor do revolutionaries ignore the fact that these sectors' attachment to the MDB is primarily the result of the defeat suffered by the revolutionary organizations beginning in 1968, the failure of militarist adventures, and the lack of an organic alternative with a solid national base and recognized by broad layers of workers in the cities and the countryside as well as by the other exploited sectors as their own political organization. It is precisely this weakness of the left that accounts for the fact that many old vanguard militants as well as a whole generation that is just now undergoing its first political experience see the MDB as an alternative party. This observation poses some important tactical problems for revolutionary Marxists. Recognizing that because of the weakness of the revolutionary pole these sectors will continue to undergo political experience in the MDB, we must adopt a tactic that enables us simultaneously to work together with these sectors, constantly calling for unity in action with them (for example, during student and workers" mobilizations, for campaigns against the crimes of the dictatorship, in defense of the popular vote and against the removal of opposition deputies, etc.) and to compel them to radicalize increasingly in the direction of a definitive break with the MDB. In order for this work to be consistent, in order to be able to correctly channel the full potential for combativity that exists among many of the popular militants of the MDB, revolutionary Marxists must, beginning right now, maintain their organic and programmatic independence, which will enable them to copitalize on the future breaks that will inevitably occur in the MDB. This means implanting the revolutionary organization in the basic sectors of the mass movement, independent of any and every link with or subordination to the MDB, without postponing the formation of such a revolutionary organization to the future, Whatever the importance of regional specificities, the existence of more combative MDB rank and file militants in this or that region, this must be our fundamental orientation. What revolutionary Marxists cannot accept - even at the risk of being called purists, sectarians, conspirators, incapable of political action, etc. - is, in the name of working with the MDB rank and file in order to influence them, to take a conciliatory attitude toward the MDB's vacillations or to feed illusions in the possibility of this party's being able to represent, even episodically, a genuine opposition to the dictatorship or in the possibility of transforming it into a genuinely popular party in the future. These sorts of illusions in the democratic or progressive character of the liberal bourgeoisie have been paid for by innumerable defeats for the Brazilian workers, For us, the MDB is a bourgeois party. This character derives from its origin (it was created in 1965 on the basis of a decision of the victorious dictatorship itself, its programmatic proposals (which have never gone be-
yond the limits of the redemocratization of the country and have never considered any transformation of society), by its social composition, its leodership, and above all its political practice. The MDB is working along with significant sectors of the marginalized bourgeoisie, attempting to represent it in its struggle for survival against the attacks of monopoly capital, especially international monopoly capital. It is also trying to base itself on the mass movement in order to obtain greater economic and political concessions from imperialism and the allied national big bourgeoisie. Nor does the claim that a greater penetration info some popular sectors could be achieved through the MDB have any validity in these elections. As we have seen, the recovery of the mass movement has its own dynamic, which unfolds independent of the action or participation of the MDB, and this offers revolutionaries a framework for intervention enabling them to maintain their independence of this party. The tactical concession of supporting the MDB in order to penetrate its rank and file is not justified. In view of this, the position of revolutionary Marxists during these elections is to give no electoral support on any pretext to the MDB as a political party, nor to any of its "progressive" candidates, the members of its "autentico" wing, who are more closely identified with some popular sectors but who attempt to channel popular discontent into solutions of a parliamentary/electoralist type, urging their ranks to have confidence in the MDB or its left wing as a political alternative. Full solidarity with the rank and file and militants of the MDB who are persecuted, beaten, and tortured by the dictatorship, constantly call for united action with the popular rank and file of the MDB around objectives in the interests of the workers and the oppressed; try to convince them to abandon this party, while never supporting it ourselves - that is the position of revolutionary Marxists. Nor do we believe that the second alternative - that of simply casting blank ballots - offers a better orientation to the mass movement and vanguard militants, for it also falls into an electoralist deviation: it limits the orientation to the electoral period, "Vote blank" instead of "vote MDB" does not respond to the most buring problems felt by the masses. Our proposal is to transform this electoral campaign into a broad campaign to denounce the dictatorship through an active boycott of the elections, through the struggle for democratic rights and for raising the living standards of the masses. We must agitate offensively and propose in practice the creation of independent organizations of the workers and students; we must demand the right to strike, freedom for political parties, the holding of free and direct elections, and the convocation of a constituent assembly elected by universal suffrage and secret ballot with the participation of all the popular parties.
The struggle for democratic rights, beginning from the most immediate problems felt by the broad masses, can, if it assumes a revolutionary dynamic, lead the masses to become conscious of their political oppression given the lack of liberty and can show them the necessity of creating their own free trade unions, the embryonic germs of power, and of overthrowing the dictatorship and moving toward the establishment of a workers and peasants govemment in Brazil. The struggle for democratic rights is the means by which the workers, echoing the needs and aspirations of all the oppressed of the nation, will themselves become capable of developing a political consciousness that goes beyond the limits of economism. It is not a matter of an abstract stage to be achieved, after which conditions will be created whereby the workers and their allies will form their own political parties, their own independent unions, and so on. Revolutionary Marxists believe that this must be the real tactical axis during the election compaign, the blank vote emerging as a consequence of this position. With this aim, we call upon the workers and people's organizations, the various revolutionary nuclel that exist in the country, the trade-union and Christian oppositions, and the other organizations of the working class, the student movement and its associations, and the groups that are fighting, inside and outside the MDB, for the revolutionary conquest of democratic rights and for raising of the living standards of the masses to support this proposal, promoting unity in action wherever possible and transforming the electoral process into a gigantic struggle for democratic rights and for defense of the most immediate interests of the broad masses. Brazil, July 1976 * * * * The results of the municipal elections of November 15 confirmed the predictions of our Brazilian comrades. The MDB won in the major cities. It took 70% of the vote in Rio de Janeiro, 65% in Porto Alegre, 60% in São Paulo, and 57% in Belo Horizonte. The MDB held the lead in eighteen of the thirty-two cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants. Its only important defeat occurred in Recife in the northeast. As a whole, the MD B's vote rose from 14% of the total in the municipal elections of 1972 to 38% in 1976. The "majority" of the vote won by ARENA on a national scale was the clear result of fraud, intimidation, and terror, used by the dictatorship on a grand scale. The decline in the MDB vote in the small cities compared with the legislative elections of 1974 was the result of both pressure and the spectacular rise in the number of blank ballots cast, especially in the states of So Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul. November 24, 1976