2023-06-06 17:14:30
“Now go! Give him pawn! There is a party to make revolution! That was the cry that resounded in the plenary session of the PSTU Foundation Congress, on June 5, 1994, in São Paulo. After three days, the 195 delegates and 73 guests approved the new party’s program and statutes, which outlined the need for socialist revolution.
By: Editorial PSTU Brasil
The foundation expressed the reorganization that arose from disappointment with the PT. At a call from the Socialist Convergence, a revolutionary front was formed that brought together political organizations and militants from all over the country. After two years of debates, the PSTU was born.
The history of the PSTU goes back a long time! It is marked by the fight against the military dictatorship, the extreme right and the reformist currents that adapted to bourgeois democracy, abandoned direct action and became administrators of the bourgeois state. They are 29 years of struggle in defense of Marxism, the teachings of Lenin, Trotsky and the legacy of the Russian Revolution of 1917, against the Stalinist bureaucracy that led to the restoration of capitalism in the former Soviet Union and other countries in which the bourgeoisie had been expropriated. We are part of the fight for the construction of an international organization, the International League of Workers – Fourth International (LIT-FI), legacy of Nahuel Moreno.
The PSTU is different from the other parties. We are a revolutionary and socialist organization that believes in the organization and leadership of the working class as a subject of social transformation. That it is organized following the model of the Bolshevik Party, with centralism in action and with wide freedom of discussion and internal debates, as a guarantee of workers’ democracy.
In Brazil, the parties are associated with politicians who just want to fix themselves, win elections to get rich by taking advantage of the public coffers. The PSTU is not like that.
Join the PSTU. Come build the revolutionary and socialist party!
First of all, because the PSTU is not simply an electoral party. It is a party for the struggles of the workers and students, and the program of the socialist revolution, which starts from the most felt needs of the workers and the poor people, connected with the strategic need for the defeat and destruction of capitalism, in defense of another society without exploited or exploiters, oppressed or oppressors: a socialist society!
The history of the PSTU can only be understood as part of a larger one: that of the Brazilian labor movement. We are going to see that we are also part of the tradition of the strikes of the ABC in São Paulo at the end of the 70s, of the formation of the CUT and the PT in the 80s. But that, to keep the socialist program alive, we broke with the CUT to form the CSP-Conlutas. And we broke with the PT to form the PSTU.
The militants of the PSTU are proud to raise their red flags, which do not have the stains of corruption, of the administration of capitalism, and of bureaucratization, symbol of Stalinism.
The PSTU is also different because its militants do not “make do” with their activity. On the contrary, they sacrifice their time and effort to raise the banner of revolutionary socialism. And they have no material advantage as a result. They are happy to see that they managed to give this program a real support base in the labor movement and in the youth.
The party neither receives money from the bourgeoisie nor does it divert public funds. We maintain the party with the contributions of our militants and the financial campaigns we carry out. And we are proud of that, because not only do we not have the glass ceiling of those who become corrupt, but we also do not have the imprisoned tail of those who receive money from companies.
contribute, Make your contribution and help maintain the PSTU
So that you can get to know the PSTU better, we try to capture here our vision of the socialist strategy. The revolutionary socialism that we defend is opposed to the Stalinist conceptions that we have fought since our birth.
We defend the theoretical legacy of Leon Trotsky and his conception of the permanent revolution, which leads us to a strategy of revolutionary socialism opposed to the reformist strategy of electoral parties like the PSOL.
We seek to apply, in reality, the Leninist conception of party. This also means a different type of party from the bureaucratic centralism of Stalinism (PCdoB, PCB and UP) and from the social democratic version of the party, common to the PT and the PSOL. These latter parties are run undemocratically by parliamentarians because they are electoral parties.
Internationalism for us is not a statement on holidays. The PSTU is engaged in a battle for the reconstruction of an international, the Fourth International.
You will be able to accompany the youth of the PSTU and their relationship with the great processes of the student movement.
You will also see the association for the fight against the oppression of women, black men and women, LGBTI, indigenous peoples and immigrants.
For this reason, we call you to be part of the PSTU. Join us in building a revolutionary socialist party!
Rosa, Jose Luis and Gildo
A few days after the founding of the party, while militants across the country were still commemorating, the organization lost two leaders. Rosa and Zé Luis Sundermann, militants from São Carlos (SP), were assassinated at their home on June 12, 1994, by gunmen. Despite the campaign carried out by the party and all the evidence pointing to the owners of the sugar mills in the region, the culprits remain unpunished.
The PSTU had another militant assassinated, in 2000, in Brasilia. The trade unionist Gildo Rocha was participating in a picket of his union when he was attacked by policemen.
Article published in www.pstu.org.br
Translation: Natalia Estrada.
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