LULA: "I THINK THE POLISH WORKERS WERE ON THE RIGHT PATH.."
Question. Since the electoral "package" adopted by the government in November, talk has started about the possibility of a political crackdown in the near future. What do you think about that, and what do you think that the PT can do about this threat in its campaign?
Answer. We'll see. First, I don't think that the right kind of climate exists for a tightening up of the military regime. The country is in deeper and deeper economic problems. The government needs to present a facade of democracy to the world to distract attention from the poverty of our people. It would be naked if it locked up the country again.
In 1964, the coup d'etat was supposed to be necessary because of a 90% inflation rate and because of strikes. Now, after eighteen years of dictatorship, none of these problems have been solved, not even unemployment. So, it would be hard for the military to explain the need for a new coup d'etat and a new
However, it should be clearly understood that for the working class, there has never really been a political liberalization. For us, the crackdown remains in force. We have no right to strike. There are no tradeable to negotiate freely with their employers. Strikes lead to the union leaders being charged under the National Security Law. Union leaders cannot oppose the government's economic policy without risking removal of their recognition as trade-union representatives.
The Brazilian political liberalization is elitist, in the sense that its aim is to show the world an appearance of democracy. For us, the majority of Brazilians, for the working class, it is only a deception.
Q. In your speech to the Sao Paulo state congress of the PT, you described your own candidacy for governor as a break from the populist political tradition, from machine politics, from coalition with the parties of the "broad opposition." Do you see the PT's 1982 campaign, therefore, as a class-struggle cam-
The most important thing to stress is that the Workers Party would have no reason for existence if it were not an out growth of the organization of the mass movement in the country, if it did not represent the immediate and general aspiration of the entire society, and in particular, of its majority, the working
For all these reasons, the party would have no reason for being if it did not define itself on a class basis, in accordance with its origins. It represents a part of society, which is the working class. This has to be entirely clear, otherwise you end up I making a front of various parties, which is not what the PT is interested in, because in that case it would not have been necessary even to form the party. We could have stayed in other parties.
Naturally, this class definition must not be extended to the point of absurdity, to the point of forming some exclusive society that you would need workers credentials to join. Here we place a great importance on people's ideas, what they commit themselves to do, to the stands that they're ready to make at the side of the working class, regardless of whether they are workers and regardless of their social origin.
A campaign by the Workers Party would not make any sense unless it avoided vanguardism as well as the electoralism, which tries to hustle votes by means of false promises. The campaign must take the candidates and the party as a whole into the neighborhoods and villages, and not just to hold rallies and spread the message of the party. I think that it is essential that everywhere we go we try to leave behind us an organized cell of the working class. That is the central thing in the party's campaign.
Q. What's your answer to the campaign that will certainly be pushed to try to convince people that "small parties" aren't serious, that you have to "make your vote count, " you can't split the opposition, and so on?
A. These arguments are not heard just in Brazil. You hear them every-
where in the world, whenever the working class tries to organize for itself and threatens the pedestal that the bourgeoisie is used to sitting on. First of all, I think that the way for workers to make their votes count is to vote for the party that they work with. That is why the way for them to make their votes count is to vote for the PT, if you consider that the way you cast your vote is a choice in real life, the adoption of basic political positions.
As regards splitting the opposition, I think that in Brazil there are two kinds of opposition--real and formal. The real opposition is the PT and the working class, which has long suffered the evils of the sort of capitalist system that has been established in this country. The formal opposition is the bourgeoisie that is not in power but is fighting to get there. However, it has no intention of making even the slightest changes. It is not interested in changing the existing structures and the position of the working class in society.
On the other hand, the PT has the clear objective, a result of the very origins of the working class itself, of achieving transformations that would lead in the direction of the sort of social equality that may exist in few countries. When we advocate a just and egalitarian society, we mean by that there is no other type of society possible but a socialist one. Our concern is to define what kind of socialism, what sort of socialism suits the needs of the Brazilian people, our requirements, our special features.
So, the arguments that the conservative parties are going to use in the campaign, that we are splitters etc. are the same ones that are used every time the working class tries to gain its political independence. What we are going to say is that those who do not want to divide the working class should come with us. This is the first time in the history of this country that there has been a working-class candidate for governor of a state, more important for a state such as Sao Paulo. And this candidacy is threatened with invalidation under the National Security Law. What do you think of that?
This is the first time that a party has been set up in Brazil that is genuinely led by workers. Not even the Communist Party came out of the working class, it came out of the petty bourgeoisie. This is the first time in the history of this country, I think, that a worker has run for governor and we are threatened with having our candidacy invalidated. In the party reconvention for the state of Sao Paulo, we thought that it was worth running that risk and seeing if the government has the nerve to keep me from being a candidate.
I think, and said so that the preconvention, that my candidacy has no meaning unless at the same time there is a campaign to win votes, a campaign for consciousness in order to win this victory and keep it, if necessary. That means, if we win, the ranks of the party have to provide us with the means to hang on to the victory. We cannot make the same mistake that was made in Bolivia of thinking that throwing ballots in a box was enough to overthrow an authoritarian regime. So, I am starting this campaign aware that many obstacles will be put in our way. But I am firmly convinced that now is the time for the working class to denounce what has to be denounced, and to say why it exists.
Q. What chance do you think that the PT has against the other parties?
A. I think that the PT has excellent chances. No other party has such a potential audience for its political message. The PT stands for the interests of the majority of the population, the working class. We have to believe in that and throw everything we have into the work. You see, Montoro has been running for I don't know how many years, while our party is new born and I have never run for anything. The polls are already giving us a good percentage, even though we have not yet started the campaign, even though we have no apparatus, no big press, no finances.
Our strength is difficult to estimate, but we are going to surprise people. We'll just have to wait and see,
Q. Let's take up another subject. Despite the different context, there are certain similarities between the PT and Solidarity in Poland. In both cases, we have a renaissance of the workers movement, a search for democratic organizational forms. Both movements have advanced class demands. Both have proposed building new structures based directly on the masses, workers control over production and society. What conclusions have you drawn about the coup d'etat that has just taken place in Poland?
(DR)
A. The coup in Poland and the attack on the working class seems worse than what we experienced in 1964.
I think that the Polish workers were on the right path in looking for an independent form of organization and trying to free themselves from the shackles of the official unions and the single party. If you look at the demands raised by the Polish workers and those of the Brazilian workers, you see that most of the demands were similar. They wanted freedom and the right to organize in the factories, they wanted a shorter work-day, a freeze on the prices of necessities. The Brazilian workers have the same demands.
What deeply disturbs us is that a regime that calls itself socialist is using the same methods as a capitalist regime to crush the workers. But we don't think that the Polish government has managed to kill Solidarity. We think that the Polish working class
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