It is becoming more and more common
to see people and organizations on the left
defending a narrative that seeks to blame
the June 2013 riots in so-called Brazil
for the rise of Bolsonarist fascism,
and drawing parallels between the use of the black bloc tactic
and the fascist attacks in Brasilia.
And even that they would have been
orchestrated by occult forces
to destabilize the government of the left.
But this version does not hold up
when we analyze the context
of strikes and movements of that period.
2013 was the culmination of a historic series of protests,
strikes and occupations
that span from 2011 to 2016.
It was a year of popular struggles,
with the largest number of strikes
since the end of the military dictatorship.
There were more than two thousand strikes.
One thousand one hundred in the private sector alone.
These demonstrations were attended
by workers who no longer saw the unions as their representatives
and who sought to express their dissatisfaction and precariousness.
Several categories organized wildcat strikes,
against their respective unions' wishes.
Demonstrators started throwing objects at the sound car
of their own union.
The Workers' Party (PT) governments have fed popular dissatisfaction
by spending billions on mega-developments,
such as the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam
and the projects of the Growth Acceleration Program,
the World Cup and the Olympics,
which have led to the displacement of marginalized communities
and indigenous peoples.
This was only made possible
by the increasingly militarized presence of the state
in the favelas and communities.
Many of these projects
further prioritized the use of cars,
which boosted organic movements in defense of public transportation,
for urban mobility,
and in defense of public spaces.
And while the PT administration
brought the social movements inside the institutions,
taking away from them the role of pressuring
the state for change,
the autonomous and horizontal characteristic
of these new movements made them attractive.
They gained momentum and popular support
by addressing what was forgotten by the left in government,
that the solution was not merely a matter
of managing neoliberalism,
and by demanding more radical changes.
When faced with demonstrations without clear leadership
and which refused to be assimilated,
the organizations of the Brazilian left
found out that they were disconnected
from the popular demands
and began to attack and delegitimize the uprising.
Most leftist parties
released statements disassociating themselves from
and criticizing the action of supposed anarchists.
Some even helped to criminalize
and turned people over to the police.
The Workers' Party government and its allies
did not hesitate to respond
to the popular indignation with criminalization
by arming the police
and passing an anti-terrorist law.
A law that makes no sense
in a country whose only terrorist practice was,
and still is, state terrorism.
A people that turns against a so-called people's government
must not be a people.
The government and society cannot accept
that a violent and authoritarian minority
destroy public and private property.
The philosopher Marilena Chaui
said in a lecture to Military Police officers in Rio de Janeiro
that those who adopted the Black Bloc tactic
were fascists.
For such intellectuals,
to this day, 2013 was not a popular uprising,
but the beginning of Brazilian fascism.
The demonstrations represented the beginning,
the serpent's egg, so to speak.
Within this logic,
part of the left sees 2013
as the beginning of a reaction of the privileged middle classes
to the social gains achieved during the PT governments,
manipulated to serve the interests
of the usual imperialist enemies.
To situate these setbacks in a global narrative,
the notion of a "hybrid war" has been adopted.
Hybrid warfare is a concept,
coined by US military personnel,
to describe Russia's actions
during the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
The intention was to create on the left
an aversion to popular mobilizations.
This is done by spreading the idea
that all demonstrations and struggles against oppression,
such as anti-racist,
feminist,
and LGBTQIA+ struggles,
as well as autonomous demonstrations
and those against representative politics
and institutions,
are actually manipulations by imperialist powers
to destabilize governments.
This narrative comes from the book Hybrid Wars,
which became a hit with the Brazilian left after 2013.
Its author, Andrew Korybko,
is a political analyst who aligns himself
with the policies of the Russian state
and its foreign geopolitical interests.
He defends the fascist regime of Viktor Orbán in Hungary
and the AfD,
a far-right German party.
In 2016 he supported Donald Trump's candidacy
for the US presidency,
to "end the totalitarianism of political correctness."
The totalitarian, opressive, controling ideology
of political correctness is dead.
It's gone. It's over.
Thank God, I say.
Korybko structures his book
on the geopolitical thinking of Aleksandr Dugin,
a Russian intellectual, conservative and Christian,
who is one of the main influences
of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Dugin founded the National-Bolshevik Party
after the end of the Soviet Union.
A branch of fascism known as Nazbol.
The name is homage
to Nazism and Bolshevik Communism,
which he says
once served as a counterpoint to the expansion of the USA.
The party symbol is similar to the Nazi flag,
but with a black sickle and hammer
instead of the swastika in the center.
Mixing elements of communism with others of the far right,
it seeks to seduce people on the left
into a political project that is essentially fascist.
Much of its program may seem attractive
to libertarian and leftist people -
for it is anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist;
it praises aspects of
non-Western and pre-colonial societies and traditions
while condemning the nation-state.
These positions -
as necessary as they may be for a radical left program -
are neither good nor bad in themselves;
rather, they are instruments,
tools for the creation of a new world.
Dugin's influence ranges from
Trump's campaign coordinator Steve Bannon
to the philosopher of Bolsonarism,
Olavo de Carvalho,
with whom he has collaborated.
The June 2013 uprising
had a massive popular presence.
The people who protested
were clearly from the marginalized classes,
street vendors, homeless people, people living in the favelas,
precarious workers,
and, of course, a large part of the so-called middle class.
Upon noticing the scale of the demonstrations,
mainstream media considered that
the popular dissatisfaction could be manipulated
discursively and media-wise.
Why don't they fight against Bill 37?
Really,
these middle-class rioters
are not even worth 20 cents.
But even with the daily attacks by the corporate press,
popular support kept growing
in solidarity against the brutality of state violence.
I understand that people are so angry
that they're supporting any kind of protest.
The black block tactic,
which although it was not new,
gained prominence in the midst of the protests
and had broad popular support.
Digital media and social networks
helped in this regard,
refuting the constant misinformation of the corporate press,
and allowed the images of State violence
to be shown directly to the population.
When the information war failed to domesticate the uprising,
At first sight,
this movement seemed like a pointless provocation
that many wrongly criticized,
including me.
the state began the process of heavy criminalization,
which was more successful.
The institutional left failed to take advantage of these mobilizations
to push forward their most radical agendas.
Not even their reformist agendas advanced.
And until today they refuse to recognize
that 2013 was the product of a dissatisfaction
with the model of inclusive neoliberalism
promoted by the PT governments.
Which aimed to integrate the population into the consumer market
through an economy based on extractivism.
And did not dare to disturb the structures
that sustain inequality in the country.
Nobody can convince me that that was
because the São Paulo police attacked
a demonstration of 3,000 people.
I don't buy it.
That was already part of a political plot
to overthrow the government.
To continue to deny the legitimacy of those demonstrations
is to guarantee the permanent criminalization
of protest and dissent.
On the other hand,
the right wing knew how to take advantage of popular dissatisfaction.
And for the first time since 1964,
it returned with force to the streets.
Meanwhile,
all that most of the leftist sectors did
was to call for law and order.
Countless people and organizations that consider themselves left-wing
have given up supporting social struggles against oppression
to defend the oppressive institutions of the bourgeois state.
Lula's return to the political arena
is a way for the system
to reestablish faith in bourgeois institutions
like representative democracy.
But this time in an arrangement even more to the right
and even with broad sectors of the left
advocating the strengthening of police, courts, and prisons
to defend the so-called "democratic rule of law.
The new PT government
will need increasingly broader alliances
to defend increasingly modest social advances.
At the same time the economic and political
conditions that in the past allowed its governability
now tend to deteriorate.
The stability they seek
will not come only through handouts,
aids, or inclusion policies.
We will see more and more the increase
of surveillance and control,
with security devices that multiply mass incarceration
and genocide of black, indigenous and marginalized people,
whether in the city or in the countryside.
The return of Lula and PT to government
may be a favorable conjuncture,
but it will not last long.
The state will never completely eliminate fascism,
because it depends on it to reestablish control
when it loses political legitimacy.
As long as the people do not occupy
and have autonomy over their territories and their lives,
the pacification and class conciliation of Lulism
will only stifle popular revolts,
while legitimizing and strengthening state institutions.
And when the left loses power again,
a new fascist takeover will once more be a threat.