PCdoB, 99 years, indispensable to democracy
The Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) celebrates, on March 25, its 99 years of foundation that unveils its centenary, fighting on the front line in defense of life and democracy, acting together with broad political forces, to save the Brazil of the bolsonarista disaster. The Party is fighting for the country to win the pandemic, with the urgent vaccine for everyone. It strives for the people, especially the poor, to have help, support and solidarity. It strives to create jobs, preserve salaries and help micro, small and medium-sized companies.
Enough of this painful mountain of deaths! May the life and health of Brazilians be preserved! Our tribute to the memory of the nearly 300 thousand lives we lost, our affectionate feelings for bereaved families.
Despite this dull veil of sadness and tragedy that covers our country, the PCdoB conveys the hope and the certainty that Brazil and us, the people, will once again win. Our country is greater than the destruction capacity of Bolsonaro who will pay for his genocidal and criminal conduct. Away, Bolsonaro and his death government!
A Party that helped build Brazil
The PCdoB, in this epic mural of almost a century of uninterrupted presence in Brazilian history, has never lifted the standards for the defense of democracy and a sovereign and developed Brazil from its fists. It always tried to serve the people and fight for the rights of the working class, which gave birth to them. With its foundation, the proletariat for the first time in the country has a Party that calls on the workers to participate in the political struggle for their rights linked to the struggle for power.
The PCdoB always kept the radiant banner of socialism higher, which came to it by the brilliance of the first great victorious revolution of the oppressed and exploited, the Russian Socialist Revolution.
At each stage of the Brazil Republic, acting on different fronts, the Party sought to contribute to the advancement of national development and social progress. It faced fierce dictatorships and persecutions, bequeathing dozens and dozens of brave men and women to the honor gallery of those who fell in struggle for Brazil and democracy, including men and women guerrillas of Araguaia.
PCdoB thus linked its legend profile with the face of Brazil through the struggle of several generations led by major Brazilians, such as Astrojildo Pereira, Luiz Carlos Prestes and João Amazonas. Renato Rabelo, acclaimed to succeed Amazonas, presided over the Party successfully from 2001 until 2015. With the incorporation of the Patria Livre Party, in 2019, the Party was enriched with the legacy of the outstanding revolutionary Cláudio Campos and was strengthened with a cast of leadership from high commitment to Brazil and its people, including Sérgio Rubens.
Today, PCdoB is chaired by former Member of Parliament and deputy governor of Pernambuco Luciana Santos who, supported by the collective leader, works hard to strengthen the historic legend that is heading for its centenary. The Party has its militants and affiliates as its great treasure, whose most visible public expression are its leaders, among which are the governor of Maranhão Flávio Dino and former federal deputy Manuela D’Ávila. Its Bench in the Parliament, led by MP Renildo Calheiros, stands out for its combativeness and the ability to articulate and aggregate broad forces against Bolsonaro’s neo-colonial, anti-people and genocidal agenda.
The struggle now and already for a New National Development Project
Since 2009, PCdoB has been guided by a Program whose core is the struggle right now for a New National Development Project as a Brazilian path to socialism.
This Program is the synthesis of the political actions of the Party and its theoretical work which, over time, while studying to understand the history and the unique formation of Brazil and its people, participated in the great struggles for the construction of the country. Communists, since their active participation in the creation of Petrobras in 1953, have been and are committed to the journeys to strengthen their national State with strategic companies to boost their development and undertake national defense. Today, in the context of a new technological leap in the world, it shares the efforts for the country to reindustrialize, based on innovation and advanced technology.
In addition to the country’s material base, the communists remain committed to the valorization of Brazilian culture, to the strengthening of free and quality public education, to the support of science and research as the foundation of the national development project.
Communists fight for the people to have a dignified and happy life, so they fight for a strong distribution of income and for a considerable portion of the national wealth to be destined to universalize social rights.
The Program highlights the valorization of work as a fundamental part of the national project and participates in the journey of the working class to reverse the heavy regression in the sphere of labor rights and wage reduction, the struggle for job creation and against the precariousness of labor activity. The Party values its union leaders, its militancy rooted in the world of work, since it is up to the working class, with its allies, to lead the transformative struggle.
The Party has highlighted its commitment to the journey for the emancipation and rights of women, of youth; firmly combats racism and homophobia; and is proud to have been a pioneer in the defense of freedom of religion.
Since the emergence of neoliberalism – now intensified with the Bolsonaro government – the Party has started to defend the national patrimony, criminally dilapidated, as well as social and labor rights, targets of elimination and cuts.
Resistance to the neoliberal project in the 1990s strengthened the role of communists, who were instrumental in forming the front that ruled the country in the democratic and progressive cycle that began with the victory of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in 2002. In this period, participating for the first time in the government of the Republic, even as a minority force, it strove for Brazil to enter a new stage of its economic and social progress, indicating the mobilization of the people as a decisive factor for significant changes.
Radical commitment to democracy
The PCdoB was born fighting the authoritarianism of the Old Republic to, then, face the advance of Nazi-fascism in the 1930s. It faced the attacks on democracy in the government of General Eurico Gaspar Dutra, when its registration and mandates were revoked, and it rose with all its strength against the military dictatorship. PCdoB participated in the 1946 Constituent Assembly and in the drafting of the 1988 Constitution; in both, with performance and legacy recognized by democratic forces.
Present in the National Congress, since the re-democratization in 1985, in the Legislative Assemblies and Municipal Councils, their parliamentarians stand out for their democratic coexistence with the other legends, for their contribution in the elaboration of advanced laws, and for the courageous defense of the rights of the people and the interests of country.
The extraordinary success of the Flavio Dino government, the municipalities that are now administered by Party leaders, the achievements of public managers affiliated to it in several states and in a reasonable number of municipalities reveal its degree of entrenchment in the people and insertion in the country’s institutional life.
Nowadays, the PCdoB follows this line of coherence of almost a hundred years of struggle to help preserve, restore and defend and advance democracy. The arrival of the extreme right to power, with the Bolsonaro government, found in the PCdoB a resolute opponent, which devotes great energy to articulate the movements of the broad front, in defense of life and democracy.
With this legacy to freedoms and the democratic regime, the PCdoB, in the celebration of its 99 years, receives the recognition of leadership in the country that it is an indispensable legend for Brazilian democracy. For all these reasons, it emphasizes the importance of defending party pluralism as a guarantee of the diversity of Brazilian democracy. To exclude or demote the role of any legend of the Brazilian parliament, with restrictive and undemocratic laws, especially programmatic parties and those with a historical tradition such as the PCdoB, would be a huge institutional regression.
Towards the Centenary
Along the way, the Party knew how to preserve itself as Jorge Amado has wrote in his book Subteraneos da Liberdade (Freedom Underground). Of his 99 years, in two thirds the Party has acted in forced hiding. The PCdoB had the wisdom and humility to learn from its mistakes, from the lessons of history and the criticism of the people.
With its 99 years of existence, the Communist Party of Brazil contemplates the future, aims at its centenary, with the expectation of those who helped to build much of the contemporary Brazil.
Tied to the Brazilian people, like our leafy trees that take root in their native soil, the Party has always known how to green up. Connected with the flow of history, the green of life, it has constantly renewed its flags. For all these reasons, at the same time it is long-lived and young, almost 100 years old and contemporary, since its essence is to build, in the harshness of the present, the future of a strong, sovereign, democratic, socially advanced Brazil, solidary with the peoples of the world.
Its legacy to the nation and the workers made it an indispensable legend. Our tribute to the generations of brave people who built it over almost a century of struggles; they remain alive in the hearts of new generations. They are, for our people, a source of immense pride and inspiration for contemporary communists and progressive fighters.
Brasilia, March 18th, 2021
The National Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB)
