The PT and Unions in the Political Regime of the Coup

Abstract

This article seeks to investigate the strategic location of the Workers' Party (PT), based on its influence on the unions, in the political regime of the institutional coup consolidated in 2016. Marked by the Gramscian concept of organic crisis and followed by the rise of a far-right government led by Jair Bolsonaro. For this, the methodology used was to historically recover the Brazilian union structure, based on the realization of a critical bibliographic review based on the theoretical elaborations of Leon Trotsky. Thus, it identifies the capitulating role of Stalinism in its alliance with the national bourgeoisie until the coup of 1964, and the non-overcoming that represented the creation of the PT in the 1980s from the perspective of a policy of independence of the working class. This process of institutionalization of the party, throughout the 1990s as opposition, and from 2002 onwards as a government, deepened the contradictions with its union and social base. A trend that as a hypothesis should continue in development until the elections of 2022, with the figure of Lula ahead, drawing an important parallel with the English work of Tony Blair. With regard to the application of neoliberal adjustments, which in the Brazilian case means regaining its relations of trust with North American imperialism, assuming commitments contrary to the interests of the working class at a time when class struggle is again a determining factor of the international political situation.