Bannon, Bolsonaro and Brazil: Fascism is an International Phenomenon that must be Combated With Proletarian Internationalism and Protracted People’s War.
Steve Bannon, the fascist kingmaker formerly of the Trump Administration and Breitbart News, has been very busy in the past few months, building further his alliances overseas, offering assistance regarding internet and data analysis to Jair Bolsonaro, the fascist poised to win the Brazilian presidential election runoff. Brazil has suffered under military dictatorships in the past — Bolsonaro thinks they were too moderate. Much like Trump, and all fascists new and old, the Bolsonaro campaign is a hotbed and lightning rod for the bourgeoisie and petit bourgeoisie in crisis, disenchanted and “dispossessed” white people AKA settlers who, in settler-colonial countries founded by slave drivers like Brazil or the US, nearly always turn to fascism to preserve what few privileges they still have left at the expense of the broad black and brown masses who produced the wealth of these countries. In short — we produce, settlers eat off of us. When we start to mobilize and take back our food, they bring out the fascist big guns — suppression, blind reactionary authoritarian control, and abuse/destruction of basic civil and democratic rights. Fascism in settler colonial countries is the tyranny of the big settler bourgeoisie in conjunction with the reactionary segments of the non-bourgeois settler population — cross class. White bourgeoisie, white petit bourgeois, white labor aristocrats, white lumpen and white “proletarians” all work in their own ways to provide ideological and material support for fascism. In Rhodesia, next to all white people regardless of class opposed black majority rule. The same went in South Africa. Brazil is different because it’s older, but the working class is still overwhelmingly nonwhite. The old Portuguese caste system which linked color to social mobility still holds massive sway. When a white lumpenproletarian meth dealing bonehead kicks a black man to death or a white cop shoots a black woman or a white labor aristocrat registers white workers to vote for imperialist bourgeois Democrats, that’s cross-class collaboration and building fascism both in the community and in the highest halls of power. Fascism in settler colonial countries is, by and large, a white thing, this being said it will make use of compradors like Sheriff Clarke of Milwaukee and the various fools like Tiny of the Proud Boys. Bolsonaro will have black and brown lackies in Brazil. This doesn’t change the fact that the ideological foundations of fascism in these countries are rooted in white petit bourgeois (aspirational or otherwise) reaction. The average white worker in the US has a petit bourgeois class consciousness and does not see themselves as a proletarian or belonging to an international proletariat. Even their flirtations with communism by and large have been opportunist, once they get what they think they want, they go right back to being loyal dogs of empire. This must change. There is a need for genuine white Communists (not revisionists, not opportunists and not reformists and social fascists) to organize the white working class away from fascism and sow seeds of race treason, however it’s also necessary to be cold, thorough and sober in our analysis.
Back to Brazil. Bannon exclaimed after resigning from his White House position: “Now I’m free. I’ve got my hands back on my weapons… I am definitely going to crush the opposition. There’s no doubt. I built a fucking machine at Breitbart. And now I’m about to go back, knowing what I know, and we’re about to rev that machine up. And rev it up we will do.” He’s told you his plan — he is in the process of struggling for greater material unity for international fascism. To this end he engages with and provides material support to people like Bolsonaro. Furthermore, the US just “donated” 96 tanks to Brazil after exercises and continues to saber rattle and meddle in Venezuela and Nicaragua. As a Maoist of course I have no delusions about the revisionist and social-democratic character of these so-called pink-tide governments in South America tied to Chinese and Russian imperialism and the bankrupt Sandinista government in Nicaragua, but the need for PPW in these places led by ideologically firm Maoist parties who can unite the broadest segments of the lowest and deepest masses does not mean we should idly sit and watch US fascists, our own fascists, intervene and attempt to sow chaos. Latin America and the Caribbean has been a playground for Yankee imperialist aspirations for a century and a half, beginning with the Haitian revolution which the US and France sought to strangle. Both sides of Hispañola ended up being subject to imperialist degradation, run by butchers like Duvalier and Trujillo. It is necessary to realize that the masses of Latin America do not see voting as the solution. Millions of people boycott in Brazil, Mexico, Peru and other places. Riots have been seen this year in Haiti, there was a massive strike in Brazil. The thing is that these things must be disciplined, coordinated, armed and organized. These things must be led by a Maoist communist party, not weak willed trade unions or pink parties run by people like Lula or the guerrilla turned revisionist Rousseff. The duty of US communists is to develop our own movement and frustrate our own fascists like Trump and Steve Bannon, develop our own strength, develop our own Party, and step by step lay the foundations for our own protracted people’s war. This is what comrades in revolutionary armed struggle throughout history and across the world have demanded of us. Furthermore, it is essential to foment electoral boycott propaganda among the masses at every opportunity and mercilessly criticize all who attempt to channel the rage of our people to the polls. The polls are where material support for fascism and opportunism come from. Any communist who promotes elections is a phony, a dilettante, a revisionist, a fraud and a fool.
