Political Statement by the National Coordination of the União da Juventude Comunista(Communist Youth League) — Brasil
AGAINST THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE INTERVENTION IN THE YOUTH LEAGUE!
IN DEFENSE OF THE 17TH (EXTRAORDINARY) CONGRESS AND THE REVOLUTIONARY RECONSTRUCTION OF THE BRAZILIAN COMMUNIST PARTY(PCB)!
The Brazilian Communist Party faces its deepest crisis of the last three decades. This crisis not only directly impacts the party itself, but also its collectives, the trade union movement and the youth. The National Coordination of the UJC — União da Juventude Comunista(Communist Youth League) comes to publicly express its position in face of this situation.
On the night of August 11th and in the morning of the 12th, during an extraordinary meeting of the National Coordination of the UJC, we were surprised by several summary expulsions, without evidence, of the militants elected in the National Youth Congress held in 2022. Several elected leaders from the states of Pernambuco, São Paulo and the Federal District were expelled, not including expulsion attempts in other states. The National Executive Committee, composed of members elected without reservations at the IX National Congress of the UJC and endorsed by the Central Committee at the occasion, had 4 of its 8 members expelled. Faced with this arbitrary and authoritarian intervention we say: WE DO NOT RECOGNIZE THE EXPULSIONS CARRIED OUT BY THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE BRAZILIAN COMMUNIST PARTY!
The National Commission of Youth, through its National Secretary of Youth from the PCB Central Committee, after the shady expulsion processes and after remaining up to that point throughout the meeting of the National Coordination of the UJC, including making speeches, sent the following statement during propositions:
“Comrades, as the National Youth Secretary of the PCB, I am hereby communicating that we will not recognize any deliberation made in this space by members who used suspect spaces to infiltrate factions in our organization. We recognize a plenum of elected militants in congress, supported by the militant base, that only came to be the National Coordination of the UJC, in their relative autonomy, after the approval of its composition and nomination by the plenum of the Party’s Central Committee. Having exposed this, the National Commission of Youth will forward a link to a meeting at 2:30 p.m., so that legitimate UJC militants can organize their criticisms and proposals to overcome our contradictions.”
After the Youth Secretary withdrew from the meeting, about 10% of the members chose to leave the instance and the National Coordination of the UJC remained, for the most part, present for the propositions where it was approved by the large majority (30 votes against 5) the publication of this note. In addition, we approved — by consensus — the liberty of debate among all our militants, without restriction of criticism and in default of the veto of internal discussion made by the party’s Central Committee, as well as the overruling of the expulsions!
Now, comrades, it was not the Central Committee that elected us at the Youth Congress, and it won’t be the Central Committee that will dismiss us. The National Coordination of the UJC remains firm in its task of conducting our country’s youth and does not recognize any coup attempt, without right of defense and without evidence, of dismissal! The bases of the UJC elected us and they are the ones who should decide the direction of the youth and not a clique of the central committee that acts in breach of our statute and congressional resolutions!
In the last week, several cells and hundreds of militants have already taken stances along their Regional Coordinations. Notably, the militant youth from thirteen states (Pernambuco, Rondônia, Rio Grande do Norte, São Paulo, Pará, Amazonas, Acre, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Paraná, Goiás, Amapá and Minas Gerais) shared their estimations, all of which, with the exception of the comrades from Goiás, manifested favorably for the calling of the XVII (Extraordinary) Congress of the PCB and for the Revolutionary Reconstruction of our party. Faced with this situation, the National Coordination of the UJC could not remain silent.
It was proposed, within the national governing body of the UJC, the call for an Extraordinary Plenum for the 12th of August. This proposal was approved by the majority of the body’s members, resulting in the adoption of the position that we have now made public. From the beginning, our effort has been to ensure that the position of the UJC is not just the result of the opinions of its leaders, but rather a position built from a process of a national synthesis. However, as mentioned above, we were surprised by the coup expulsions on the eve of and during our meeting, which proposed to build a national synthesis of the crisis that the communist movement in Brazil is experiencing today.
Bringing the criticisms and evaluations we make here to the public does not mean that we consider ourselves to be perfect. We can still progress further in our internal democracy, in our mass work and in our leadership work. If, on the one hand, the last two Congresses of the UJC were confirmation of the revolutionary line in all aspects, on the other hand, there is still much room for improvement. However, we understand that for these corrections to be possible, the moment requires our firm position, as we hope to present here.
The crisis we are facing did not start this year. It is the result of ideological contradictions and divergences that have been accumulating in a disorganized manner since, at least, the Party’s XVI Congress, that now explodes in the form of a split. If the struggle between the different political opinions had been maintained within the scope of the ideological struggle, it is certain that this process would have contributed to strengthening the party, unifying it and making it more prepared. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened.
The crisis deepens with the publication of comrade Ivan Pinheiro’s text “Still on the so-called World Anti-Imperialist Platform”, criticizing our Party’s work with the The World Anti-Imperialist Platform(WAP) and the internal situation of the Central Committee that led to this, along with the later response by the Central Committee. The majority of the Central Committee, instead of taking advantage of this error to explore its causes and initiate a necessary process of self-criticism of our political mistakes, which are not limited to this international issue, chose to aggravate the crisis.
Initially, they vetoed the youth and party collectives from engaging in debate. Members of the majority of the Central Committee went public to say that these referred bodies of the party complex were not composed of party militants and, therefore, should not get involved in party matters. The internal and external political statements by the Central Committee and its members did not address the core issues and limited themselves to vilifying and persecuting those they identified as internal enemies. At the Central Committee’s plenum on the 8th and 9th of July, comrade Jones Manoel was expelled from the administration duties which he performed. The persecution culminated in the expulsion of Gabriel Landi, Gabriel Lazzari, Ana Karen, Jones Manoel and Ivan Pinheiro from the ranks of the Brazilian Communist Party, on the last 30th.
The deviation in the international question, however, was not a bolt from the blue, nor was the political persecution. The core of this dispute is the Revolutionary Reconstruction of the PCB itself. From the almost automatic alignment to the social-democrat PSOL in the bourgeois elections of the last five years to the closing (and non-opening) of internal debate spaces, we see the principles that allowed us to save the Party in 1992 in the fight against liquidationism being put at risk.
During this crisis, a slogan emerged spontaneously: the defense of the XVII (Extraordinary) Congress of the PCB, with the participation of the entire party complex (party collectives, the youth and trade union movement). This was the greatest demonstration that it was still possible to fight a battle for unity. Despite this, the Central Committee opted to shut down this possibility. Today, they go so far as to consider that any and all agitation — even internal ones — for the XVII Congress means adherence to factionalism, subject to immediate expulsion, which has been producing dozens of expulsions in states and cities. The replication of this persecution by the Regional Committees had been promised and, unfortunately, is now being realized.
In this scenario, we have no alternative. If the Central Committee wants to make impossible the option for unity of the communists in Brazil, the necessary step for the construction of a revolutionary party of the proletariat in our country, we will have to make it inevitable. The National Coordination of the UJC declares without hesitation: we are in favor of building the XVII (Extraordinary) Congress of the PCB and we will make every effort to defend the Revolutionary Reconstruction of our party.
This position was formulated after weeks of reflection and internal debate, involving from our militant bases to the leadership. We answered to the call of comrades from the Regional Coordinations and the cells, who legitimately demanded our position. Our silence up to this point was intended to ensure internal debate and a collective formulation as far as it was possible.
The National Coordination of the UJC will not recognize the interventions and expulsions in the states and cells that express their position, either publicly or internally. We trust that the Communist Youth League across the country will also adopt this stance, ensuring due support to those who understand the need to fight in defense of our party.
Comrades, the struggle we face is not a simple one. However, we are convinced that the Brazilian communists will go through this process and come out of it strengthened, unified on the base of Marxism-Leninism principles, and with a renewed and expanded capacity to work among the masses. Building a revolutionary party is a fundamental condition for leading the revolution and, at this moment, we hope to do our part.
