Brazil remains today in a socially explosive and politically unstable situation. In this context, the PT bears an enormous responsibility, both as a political party and as a force in the CUT.
The following documents are from Em Tempo, the paper of the revolutionary Marxist current in the PT. They were published in the framework of preparations for the national congress of the PT that is coming up in December. They take up the main questions under debate in the PT today. * 1. Although it has links with the Socialist Interational, the PDT is a bourgeois party. It is very much tied to the big landowners in the Rio Grande Do Sul region. 2. See "Austerity follows November elections," IV 112, January 26, 1987. 3. The Cruzado Plan I was set in motion in February 1986. On this question, see "Stabilization plan fails," in TV 118, April 20, 1987.
HE REFORMIST left parties that supported the government, especially the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB, pro-Soviet) and the Communist Party of Brazil (PC do B, pro-Albanian), paid dearly for this policy. They were left with very thin pickings indeed.
The Democratic Labour Party (PDT), dominated by the charismatic Leonel Brizola was weakened but maintained its general position.' On the other hand, the Workers' Party (PT) gained from its class-struggle policy, increas ing its strength considerably.
However, the adoption of the Cruzado Plan Il a few days after the elections was to destroy the president's popularity and unleash a wave of angry workers' strikes.3
From January to May 1987, more than 530 strikes were registered, 11 of which were national strikes of whole categories of workers. For example, In March, the army went in with tanks to occupy the oil refineries, whose workers were on strike. Moreover, the navy intervened against the merchant fleet, which had been on strike for three weeks.
The starting point for all these social struggles, which were accompanied by violent riots in the country's main urban centers, was wage demands. In a few months, workers' buying power dropped by 30% to 37%, depending on the various categories.
The minimum wage, received by 42% of Brazilian workers (62% in the Northeast), is the lowest in the country's entire history. Today, it stands at 2,200 cruzados ($1=48 cruzados on the legal market and 60 on the black market). But basic living expenses are estimated at 16,000 cruzados a month. 18 tuted in June by the new finance mini- The draconian economic plan instiInternational Viewpoint • October 12, 1987 ster, Luis Carlos Bresser Pereira, Is making the situation still worse.
The Bresser plan marked the end of the "unorthodox" measures represented by Sarney's much-vaunted Cruzado Plan I and a return to the IMF's fold. It meant strict application of the IMF's "recommendations" in order to put the economy "in order" and choke off inflation, which would have reached 1,000% a year if the tempo of the first six months continued. Its measures included devaluation, priority for exports (to pay the foreign debt interest amounting to $108,000 million), cutbacks in public spending (except on the army) and "true" prices (a 50% increase in transport fares in June). This was to be accompanied by a partial, extremely flexible, price freeze and a very strict wage freeze, as well as abolition of compensation if inflation rose above 20%.
Promises of social justice and agrarian reform
For wage earners, the Bresser plan meant a new nose-dive in buying power. From February 1986 (Cruzado I) to the end of July 1987, workers' real wages dropped by 45%!
In the election campaign, Sarney presented himself as "the president of the poor," promising independence from the IMF, social justice and agrarian reform. Today he is discredited and the target of all the demonstrations, where social demands are combined with calls for direct elections.
The PMDB itself campaigned in 198384 for universal suffrage in the presidential elections. At the end of the day, it was an electoral college that chose Tancredo Neves, who died shortly after his election, to be succeeded by Sarney. This administration