New Brazil Bulletin #7

The Struggle for Land

On January 24, peasants organized by the League of Poor Peasants (LCP) held a demonstration in Messias due to not being given land that they were promised by the city. The land was promised to the peasants after over 700 peasant families were evicted by the government on behalf of the latifundium over 3 months ago. City Hall sent guards to block the protesters, rather than meet with them. According to the popular and democratic newspaper, A Nova Democracia (AND), the peasants left with heightened enthusiasm for the struggle.

The struggle for land in the state of Rondônia has intensified and advanced. As a result of this advance, the police have increased their repression of the peasantry. Over January and December, the police tear-gassed women and children, threatened and harassed peasants, and tried to persecute peasant leaders. New agrarian reform for Rondônia was proposed by the old-State’s National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform, where they presented their solution to the land problem: that landless peasants should take out bank credit and buy public land. This institute has a history of not keeping its promises, with it promising to give a Certificate of Concession of Use—a certificate that holds that the peasants have a right to the land they live on—to all residents of the Tarifa River area. By mid-December, it only provided certificates to a portion of residents.

On January 27, dozens of posters were put up and over 200 pamphlets were handed out by activists at the University of Brasília in support of the Agrarian Revolution. On January 29, activists at the same university held a screening of the documentary “Land and Blood: Behind the Scenes of the Pau D’Arco Massacre”, holding a discussion on the Agrarian Revolution and pointing out how despite the old-State’s best efforts, the struggle for land has advanced.

Workers’ and People’s Struggle

On January 22, unionized teachers of Rio de Janeiro held a virtual hearing with the city’s Court of Justice. They demanded the court undo the mayor’s unconstitutional decision to criminalize the teachers’ strike at the end of 2024, docking the pay of those who struck. Despite the legality of the strike, the judge referred the case to a rapporteur for further analysis instead of making a ruling.

On the same day and the 23^rd, activists in Brasília and Campina Grande, respectively, distributed hundreds of pamphlets against the “6×1 scale,” a constitutionally-set work week of 44 hours within 6 days.

On January 23, a demonstration was held by workers and protesters against the bus fare increase in the city of Recife, a common trend throughout all of Brazil as inflation worsens and the ruling class tries to pass off the crisis of bureaucrat-capitalism onto the people, with the train fare in Rio de Janeiro increasing on February 1.

On January 27, a demonstration was held in the city of São Luís against bad street conditions, exacerbated by regular flooding and sewage pipe bursts.

On January 29, school cafeteria workers in Passo Fundo protested their wages (including their end-of-year bonus and their length-of-service guarantee fund) being delayed for three months.

Student Struggle

On February 6, The National Coordination of the People’s Revolutionary Student Movement (MEPR) released a statement in support of the struggle for the repeal of Law 10.820/24. The law removes the System of Modular Organization of Education and System of Modular Organization of Indigenous Education, the systems that allow for in-person rural and indigenous public high school education in Pará. The repeal of this law replaces in-person teachers with distance education, which the MEPR says “serves no other purpose than privatization, total precariousness and the denial of the fundamental right of students to study and learn,” reflecting the general trend of budget cuts made at expense of the people’s right to education.

Brazil’s National Situation

Continuing the general trend of inflation, economic cartels demanded the Brazilian government to not implement a new price regulation policy that would limit food prices. On January 23, the government gave in to the cartels and decided not to implement the policy. In the face of this inflation, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said, “One of the most important things for us to control the price is the people themselves. If you go to the supermarket and you suspect that such a product is expensive, you do not buy [it],” showcasing the opportunism of the false leftist president. As AND says, da Silva is calling for individual thriftiness and the extension of micro-loans as a false solution instead of throttling the latifundium which forces food production for export, raising domestic food prices. AND further argues that the ultimate solution is the Agrarian Revolution.

AND says that the price of fuel will continue increasing due to the increasing tax on them and the pressure from the economic cartels to match the Brazilian fuel price with international prices. They also say that this inflation of fuel prices will result in inflation of food prices.

On January 27, a poll was conducted that revealed that popular support for President Luiz Inácio was on the decline, with 37% having a negative opinion of the government and 31% having a positive one. AND says that this disapproval is due to issues like inflation and counter-reforms.

On January 29, AND released an editorial which argued that the rise of the ultra-reactionary right in Brazil (Bolsonarism) and disapproval of the Luiz Inácio government is due to the opportunism of the fake “Left.” They say that it is even more imperative to struggle for the rights of the people due to the risk of a new ultra-reactionary offensive—as AND argues, the front line of this struggle is the Agrarian Revolution which destroys the latifundium, the base on which the old-state and the ultra-reactionary offensive relies.

Rent prices in the city of Porto Alegre rose by 26% over 2024, mainly due to the ongoing crisis of bureaucrat-capitalism, but also because of the floods that hit Rio Grande do Sul in May 2024, affecting around 85,000 homes. Only 2,000 citizens have been given new properties as reparation for flooding damage. Similar to the Los Angeles wildfires, it is the poor who suffer when disaster hits.

The electoral farce in Brazil was further exposed when it was revealed that there were more voters than residents in the municipality of Riozinho, and that people from other localities were being bribed into voting in Riozinho elections.

image: A demonstration of LCP-organized peasants on January 24, with the banner reading “No more waiting! Home and Land Now!” Credit: A Nova Democracia

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