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3. The PT, the Workers’ Party
- University of California Press
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In all the hubbub at the end of the 1970s, with an amnesty, major strikes, and a sense that the military dictatorship was in its final throes, a different note was sounded. Lula and a group of other more progressive union leaders were calling for a distinctive workers’ party—the Partido dos Trabalhadores, the PT. This was a contentious idea and, for many in opposition circles, divisive. It was divisive because it overtly introduced class-based politics to Brazil. This put off many in the middle class and many traditional politicians and liberal professionals who had been struggling against the military through the tolerated opposition party—the Movimento Democrático Brasileiro, the MDB. For them it was essential to maintain a broad front if the dictatorship was to be banished and a full democracy—something Brazil had never had—was to be achieved. Fernando Henrique Cardoso, then a young sociology professor returning from exile, was among many who took that view. It was also divisive on the left. The old PCB had split, with the Maoist PCdoB winning credit for tying up tens of thousands of troops in its Araguaia guerrilla campaign, though the PCB retained support in the unions. Trotskyites were also active. Some Marxists were critical of the idea of a PT because it seemed unideological and too concerned with bread-and-butter issues. As one PCB supporter said, there was already one party that struggled for Brazil’s working class, and it had been founded as long ago as 1922.1 The PCB, which had pursued a strategy of 49 3 TH E PT, TH E WOR K E R S’ PARTY infiltration of legal parties since before 1964, was also working for a negotiated transition out of the military regime. The smaller Trotskyite groups were more sympathetic to a PT. Lula had first brought up the PT question publicly at the conference of oil workers in Bahia in the middle of 1978,2 but there had been informal discussion in unions in the main industrial centers earlier that year. What was the motivation? Undoubtedly there was a feeling that none of the existing politicians were truly representative of the workers. They had not spotted or campaigned against the erosion of the salário mínimo. Workers who had been standing up for their rights did not want to be mere vote banks for bourgeois and opportunist congressmen. Furthermore, the claims of the Marxist groups were bogus; they did not have much support among industrial workers, and atheism was anathema to those from a Catholic tradition. When Lula went to Brasília to try to get support from MDB congressmen for the strikes and union demands, he found little sympathy. In September 1978 he had gone with a delegation of union leaders to persuade them to vote against a measure of the Geisel government designed to prohibit strikes in essential services including transportation , banking, and petrochemicals. But only two MDB deputies, each of whom had other underground allegiances, gave them a hearing.3 Lula concluded that the existing Congress was totally aligned with the interests of employers. At the same time, the union movement was gaining confidence. Between 1960 and 1980, the number of workers in the more advanced industries had almost quadrupled, from 2.9 million to 10.6 million.4 The strike wave had shown that they were prepared to use their muscle and take risks. In 1979 the momentum for a new party increased, stimulated by the knowledge that the military regime was preparing new legislation for the formation of parties. The regime was concerned that MDB was overtaking ARENA, the conservative party that supported the regime. The object of the legislation was to create a multiplication of parties, to muddy the waters, and to make it harder for a more democratic system to undo its economic and institutional changes or lead to revenge. 50 l u l a o f b r a z i l [18.212.102.174] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 17:01 GMT) The proposal for a PT was officially launched at a congress of the São Paulo metalworkers in Lins in January 1979. Lula was not the only union figure involved; among others were those who had been working together to coordinate the strikes—people such as Jacó Bittar of the oil workers and Paulo Skromov Matos of the leather workers. Nonetheless, the key movers took care to keep the party political planning...