If Lula is elected, it is not just the PT that returns to the presidency. The executive power of the Brazilian government will be handed over to the international revolutionary movement.
I know this phrase will sound like an exaggeration to some people, but this is the sober conclusion that emerges from observing the history of the movement revolutionary.
The unity of the international revolutionary movement
I recommend to the reader the book ‘Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the Revolutionary Faith’ , by James H. Billington, which narrates the trajectory of several revolutionary movements from the 18th to the 20th century.
An interesting aspect of the book is its description of the personalities behind the revolutions. From this description the profound cohesion of the international revolutionary movement is evident.
This identity eludes contemporary observers because of the essentially dialectical nature of the revolutionary movement. Revolutionaries do not unite because they have a cohesive system of proposals and values. They unite because they want to overthrow the current system. As the current system always changes, so do the proposals and strategies of revolutionaries.
If we look at the lives of revolutionaries, and not for your ideas, it is evident that everyone shares the same ethos, of the same cultural climate . Behind the countless ideological differences between an anarchist, a fascist and a Marxist, there are similar life trajectories, common experiences and even a sense of fraternity that transcends national borders and social classes. They knew each other personally, exchanged correspondence, went to the same conferences and were part of the same secret societies.
And, of course, they provided support to their exiled colleagues and shared expertise in the strategies of political agitation, seizure of power and, in many cases, in techniques for promoting terrorist acts.
This international cohesion of the movement intensified further in the twentieth century, as communist parties seized power in major nations and began to use each country’s significant state resources to finance the international expansion of the revolution, whether through overt military operations or for the most discreet operations of the intelligence services.
In this sense, the São Paulo Forum, denounced by Olavo de Carvalho more than twenty years ago, is the continuation in our region of a practice revolutionary movement: bringing together the leaders of different factions revolutionaries to coordinate actions in different countries for the benefit of the movement itself.
I know that, at first glance, this unity will sound forced to readers who do not know the historiography of the revolutionary movement. However, I ask you to note that this perfectly explains a series of decisions that the PT itself took during its government: both in the negotiations of Brazilian refineries in Bolivia, in the agreement with Cuba in the Mais Médicos and in numerous agreements with Venezuela, PT governments seemed willing to take positions that were not only contrary to the national interest, but also harmed the party’s image.
The explanation for these decisions is simple: loyalty to the international revolutionary cause spoke louder than the Brazilian people.
The revolutionary mentality
Obviously, the realization of this deep cohesion between such different ideologies generates a mystery: where does the unity of the revolutionary movement come from?
How can the same impetus take on the most diverse proposals and causes, maintaining a high degree of internal cohesion and coordination between allies?
The explanation lies in the revolutionary mentality , a set of psychic traits that provides the “social glue” for the different branches of the same movement.
The revolutionary mentality is characterized by an inversion of the Christian formula. While Christians consider themselves sinners, that is, imperfect beings, seeking redemption through divine intervention and seeking paradise after death, revolutionaries believe that paradise will be implemented here and now through the action of the revolutionaries themselves.
For an authentic revolutionary, the world is evil and only revolutionaries are good. The revolutionary sees injustice on all sides and sees himself as the avenging angel who will make all things fair again.
The revolutionary may speak of justice, equality and fraternity, but the real engine of revolutionary mentality is hatred and resentment. Note that hate is a very specific type of feeling: it arises from the feeling intense
that we were victims of a personal injustice.
The revolutionary extends this feeling to the whole of society. He believes that there is something fundamentally rotten around him – whether in families, religions, elites or institutions – and that, only being pure himself, it is up to him to root out this evil from the world.
This feeling of revolt is what gives the revolutionary movement its dialectical nature. The revolutionary does not have a specific government proposal. He simply feels that he could create something much better than “everything that is there”.
That’s why , the revolutionary is always changing causes and methods. The revolution has no other objective than the revolution itself.
Any government instituted by revolutionaries lives with the threat of being seen as not being sufficiently revolutionary by its own supporters, generating successive crises of legitimacy, oscillating between generalized violence and an increasing authoritarian repression even more violent than the pre-revolutionary government.
Hence the adage that the revolution devours its own children: no one kills as many revolutionaries as the revolutionaries who are in power.
Violence, after all, is an essential part of the revolutionary movement.
As its objective is to implement paradise on earth, as only revolutionaries are good enough to fight for it, and since not even they know exactly how it will be done, that means there is only one thing left to do. do: put all the power in the hands of the revolutionaries and let them decide the whole future.
If you have to kill some people to get that result, they will gladly do it.
After all, what are some sacrificial victims for the benefit of implementing heaven on earth?
Committing a few crimes to carry out this noble mission – rigging state-owned companies, lying, stealing – are less than details. They are moral obligations.
It is the duty of every revolutionary to do whatever it takes to support the revolution.
The strategic flexibility of revolutionaries
At this point, I know that some readers raised the following objection: it is ridiculous to call Lula a revolutionary, since the PT did not break the institutional order or abolish capitalism.
This objection, once again, is quickly dispelled when one looks at the dialectical nature of revolutionary movements.
Just as revolutionaries change targets according to context, they also change strategy just as often.
For example, although the movement is often anti-clerical, nothing prevents it from trying to infiltrate churches to destroy them from within. Although he is intrinsically internationalist, nothing prevents him from promoting nationalist movements when it is convenient to destabilize a particular adversary.
Likewise, the revolutionary movement can support elections or question them, defend the constitutional order or demand a new constituent, attack the private sector or parasitize it – all depending on the convenience of the moment.
For the revolutionary movement, Brazil is most useful as a source of funding than as a stage for a bloody takeover.
The policy of creating “national champions”, “developmentalism”, far from being signs of “moderation”, a “nod to the center “, it was a very intelligent maneuver by the PT to concentrate economic resources in the hands of an oligarchy, to facilitate the redirection of these resources to its revolutionary partners – as can be seen in the agreements with the governments of Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba, among others.
It’s the old strategy of and fatten the cow before sending it to the slaughterhouse.
In this sense, the high school meaning of the term socialism is extremely misleading.
The revolutionary movement will not necessarily confiscate the means of production — it will not there are more efficient ways to control the capitalists and continue to finance the revolution (as can be seen, by the way, in China, where the Communist Party has already completed years in power and has learned to use the big private corporations).
The revolutionary movement and drug trafficking
Although this article is already quite long, I cannot help but notice that there is a direct link between the revolutionary movement and drug trafficking.
Even before the explosion of the counterculture of the sixties, the use of drugs and the search for “altered states of consciousness” was a topic of enormous interest on the part of intellectuals linked to the revolutionary movement, whether with as a way of stimulating artistic creativity or breaking the “moralistic standards of bourgeois society” or, in a more Machiavellian interpretation, for its potential to destabilize families and remove people from the labor market.
However, there are also pragmatic considerations: drug trafficking, after all, is a very efficient way to finance and arm parastatal organizations, a prerequisite for any revolution.
If we look at the FARC, a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla organization that financed itself through kidnappings and drug trafficking, we don’t have to wait for the TSE to tell us what to think of Marcola’s statements to know who the drug trafficking candidate is.
Our responsibility
With this, I am not saying that a Soviet-style revolution will come to Brazil after a Lula victory. What will come will be more discreet, but equally insidious.
The PT will return to its role of parasitizing Brazilian society, transferring resources to the international revolutionary movement and releasing drug trafficking to continue destabilizing families and destroying social cohesion.
Our actions in the coming weeks will define the next decades.
Lucas Mafaldo is a professor and researcher, with a postdoctoral degree in philosophy from the University of Ottawa. His texts can be found on his personal website: https://www.lucasmafaldo.com.br/
