The PT debates socialism ONE of the fiercest discussions at the First Congress of the Brazilian Workers Party (PT) which took place in Sao Paolo at the end of November 1991', concerned the question of socialism; the debate concluded with the defeat of those currents identified as the right of the PT, who had put forward the theses entitled "A project for Brazil.
This debate allowed the PT to develop clearer positions concerning its socialist objective at its last national meeting. In an article which first appeared in the December edition of the magazine Em Tempo, Jose Correia, a member of the Socialist Democracy current of the PT, examines below what over ditterences that have not yet tully crystallized. Anyone searching for clear-cut and definitive programmatic differences will not find them in the CP today. At least not yet.
Profoundly undemocratic
What is clear, though, is that the CPUSA remains a profoundly undemocratic party, with no tolerance for minority views and with a top leadership seemingly incapable of shedding its Stalinist past. But there is no doubt that that very leadership, for the most part, retains the allegiance of the CP's working class and trade union membership.
The opposition is a hodgepodge, heterogeneous grouping which has yet to come up with a clear alternative to the Hall line. What binds them together is more the demand for greater democracy in the CP and a greater openness to new ideas than anything else. But as important as these are, they hardly constitute a program.
For now, revolutionary Marxists may be able to establish dialogue with some Pers who are open to discuss ideas which the party shunned in the past. In addition, every effort should be made to forge united fronts for action in areas of agreement, such as opposition to US intervention in Cuba.
Further developments within the Communıst Party together with the deepening of the crisis of capitalism may well lead some CPers towards genuine proletarian internationalism, to democratic instead of bureaucratic centralism, to building workers united fronts instead of reformist multiclass popular fronts, and to help construct an urgently needed mass revolutionary workers' party in the United States. *
OPUSA 18 is at stake in this discussion. JOSE CORREIA T HE initial theses proposed by the
PT on the attitude of the peoples of Latin America towards the "new international order" contained some ambiguities. An amendment proposed by the left (theses 9 and 10) stipulated that the "emancipation of Latin America and the construction of a new society necessitates going beyond a world order... which assures the domination of those sectors which, both inside and outside the continent, profit from it".
The congress debated the question of Cuba at length: the majority of delegates rejected both the arguments of those who demanded an abstract engagement in the struggle for democracy in Cuba, ignoring the concrete context, and sectarian amendments which called on the Cuban masses to bring down the Castro regime through political revolution. The text adopted stressed that the deepening of democracy is the best way of defending the revolution: it underlined the need to build a broad movement against the imperialist blockade and in support of the gains of the Cuban revolution.
The identification made by the right of the PT, between Stalinism/' actually existing socialism" and the theoretical sources of Marxism and the real movement which was at the origins of the Russian Revolution, was rejected. The initial text adopted states that the process of bureaucratization constitutes a negation of the theoretical and practical sources which inspired October 1917.
Another amendment, which was integrated into the text, explains that: "The Russian revolution was at the heart of the revolutionary upsurge which took place in Europe and Asia at the end of the First World War. However, despite the resistance made to the military pressure of its external adversaries, [the revolution] suffered a mounting series of defeats — international isolation, the result of the defeat of the revolution in countries like Germany, Italy and Hungary and its encirclement by the international bourgeoisie; the massive destruction of the country and its social consequences; the suppression of the conquests of 1917 in the field of political democracy; the growing power, in the new state and in the party, which was intertwined with it, of a bureaucracy autonomous of any control, and so on.
### Errors committed
"This process, the product of "objective" circumstances which should not be underestimated, was also the product of errors committed by the revolutionaries who were at the head of the new regime. It led to a veritable counter-revolution, which dispossessed the workers of the exercise of power and which concentrated [the latter] in the hands of a bureaucracy transformed into a new dominant layer of Soviet society.
"Starting from this, conceptions like that of the construction of socialism in a single country, founded on state ownership of the means of production under bureaucratic control, became predominant. This model, as well as the material, political and ideological pressure that it exercised, weighed in a decisive fashion on the course of the subsequent revolutionary processes, like the Chinese, Yugoslav, Vietnamese or even, to a lesser degree, Cuban revolutions".
The discussion on socialism was launched through a prominent Brazilian newspaper, the Folha de Sao Paolo, by PT deputies and leaders Jose Genoino and Eduardo Jorge. They took violent exception to certain amendments proposed by the left and adopted at the local PT con-
International Viewpoint #222 • February 17, 1992
gress at Sao Paolo, which disavowed the positions of the social-democratizing" sectors of the party, reaffirming that "the ideas which were at the root of the social and revolutionary movements throughout this century persist: they are a source of inspiration for our party, which is engaged in the struggle for the abolition of capitalism". The amendments clarify the kind of society for which the PT is fighting: "a goverment of freely associated individuals"; the end of all forms of exploitation and oppression; the end of the use of "labour power as a commodity", , and so on. This amendment was finally adopted at the national congress.
Another modification proposed by the left was approved: it dealt with the importance of direct democracy in the objective of the extinction of social classes and the state: "The problem of the links between the direct and representative forms of democracy should take into account the objectives of the destatization of politics.
"Socialist democracy is based on the growing overcoming of alienation and of the political apathy of the majority of the population, on the basis of a greatly superior level of activity, of participation, of consciousness and of organization of the people. It necessitates also different socioeconomic conditions from those currently in force, including a significant reduction in work time.
"In this framework the abolition of the "In this framework, the abolition of the currently existing institutions, responsible for the significant autonomy enjoyed by the rulers in relation to the people (such as is the case with the classic mechanisms of liberal representative democracy) is an objective to be pursued. It amounts to the abolition of the distinction between governing and governed and the beginning of the extinction of class inequalities and of the state as an apparatus of domination".
The PT is, then, making an important clarification of its previous texts; this represents a real defeat for the social democratic positions within the party. However, the discussion on the economy and socialism has been cursory and must be continued.
### Victory for right
The only victory scored by the right of the PT came during the debate on the dictatorship of the proletariat — thanks to an agreement made with the majority current of Lula, an amendment was adopted rejecting this concept. According to this text, "For us, democracy is both a means and an end. To say that implies the rejection of any kind of dictatorship, even the dictatorship of the proletariat, which can be nothing other than the dictatorship of the single party over society, and even over the workers... We struggle for a genuinely pluralist society; it is yet another reason to be anti-capitalist, for capitalism, by oppressing and alienating individuals, amounts in fact to a pluralism narrowed
BRAZIL Pluralism and tendency rights
THE question of tendencies dominated a good part of the debate on the functioning of the PT. The position finally adopted assured the effective right of tendency, while trying to resolve some of the practical problems.
The congress discussed two proposals on functioning. One, based on the existing regulation of tendency rights, proposed the broadening of democracy and pluralism, to unfreeze the internal life of the PT. The other, presented by the Articulation and the right, advocated the suspension of certain prerogatives, which amounted to a restriction of the right of tendency. Such a change would have destroyed or severely damaged the process of synthesis which has constituted the PT, and opened the road to expulsions.
Finally the conception adopted by majority vote envisages that: • Tendencies can maintain spaces [of expression], but their use to organize activities external to the PT or meetings with non-affiliates is forbidden... It is recommended that the tendencies meet in the offices of the party [their activities should be open to any militant of the PT]. • The different tendencies can produce information bulletins inside the party, or publications on theoretical political debate, with proposals on the conjuncture and the social movement. The publication of any material which seeks to orientate and organize the autonomous political intervention of tendencies in the social movement is forbidden, as is the diffusion of the positions of tendencies outside the PT... • Tendencies can conserve the mechanisms of collection of resources providing that this does not prejudice the finances of the party...
• International relations are the exclusive domain of the party, through its leadership bodies. The national leadership will pursue the international relations entered into by its tendencies with the perspective of taking them over itself, if they correspond to the policy defined by the party...
• The tendencies of the PT cannot impose on their militants an obligatory centralism. The positions of the tendencies cannot be counterposed to the implementation of the decisions of the party." From Em Tempo, December 1991. * by inequality of conditions and opportunities.
"It is also a reason to reject that which is called "pluralism for the workers parties" — that is, "pluralism for those who think like us" — historically, this can only concretize itself as a transitional expression of the dictatorship of the proletariat"
_•
This amendment equates Stalinism and the dictatorship of the proletariat. It introduces a theoretical confusion on the question, reducing this concept to its Stalinist interpretation and affirming that the dictatorship of the proletariat can only exist as the dictatorship of a single party.
But, inasmuch as the text adopted does not end the discussion on the theory of the state, its class character, the necessity of destroying the bourgeois state and building a new class regime, this is not a major blow. For revolutionary Marxists, the dictatorship of the proletariat has always been understood as socialist democracy organized in a pluralist framework, capable of integrating all currents which accept the legality established by the regime of the workers, born out of the smashing of the apparatus of bourgeois domination.
An amendment proposed by the right currents defending non-violence was rejected by the congress. Moreover, another modification proposed by the left was adopted: it stated that "political power is built everyday in the struggles, in the trade union, in the factory organization, in the enterprise committee, in the neighbourhood association, in the school or in the countryside... This popular power, meanwhile, has a character limited by the dominant institutions in capitalist society and by the relation of social forces - in particular political situations, it could take on a new character, extending and generalizing itself".
Finally, amendments presented by the PT commissions for intervention in the mass movement were adopted, concerning, mass movement were adopted, concerning women, the racial question, and so on. The discussion on socialism has, then, been a positive one. At this level the PT has made some clear progress towards revolutionary and socialist positions. * 1. See /V 219, December 23, 1991. 2. Several draft theses were presented to the PT congress: thesis 5, proposed by Socialist Convergence, a Trotskyist grouping linked to the international Morenist current (6 to 7% of the delegates); thesis 7, put forward by the O Trabalho current, linked to Pierre Lambert's international tendency (4%); thesis 8, A Project for Brazil, proposed by various currents from the right of the PT (12%); thesis 9, A Revolutionary Road for the PT, presented by Socialist Democracy (Brazilian section of the Fourth International) and other sectors (12%); and thesis 10, associated with different left sectors (10-12%o). Finally, thesis 11, proposed by the Articulation, the majority tendency, had the support of 47% of the delegates. Its draft was finally adopted as the basic text for discussion on socialism and strategy, and amended. 3. A proposal emerging from the commission of women delegated to the congress, seeking to establish a or the PT, was a dope% women in the leading bodies 19 of the PT, was adopted.
CIS
From the plan to the clan
H OW would you define the main features of the new situation in the Soviet Union?
At the moment one cannot say that "positive" features are in the ascendant; on the contrary the dominant