The founding of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Worker’s Party) in Brazil, in 1980, created enormous expectations amongst socialists and revolutionaries around the world. It was a working class party borne under the sign of class conflict. It was the first working class party created in the twentieth century that was neither social democratic nor Leninist. It positioned itself as democratic, constructed from the base by its militant rank and file members.

Twenty years later, the majority of comrades abroad have not followed the practical actions undertaken by the PT. They remember the promises, but do not know if they were kept. So, we ask: is the PT still what it purports to be?

The PT is still the party of the working class in Brazil. This must be clear. Many small groups split from the PT, believing that the project was exhausted, and that they could rapidly form new worker’s parties, filling the political vacuum, as the PT itself had done in the ’80s. They were wrong. The working class in Brazil is not eager for a new political party.

Amongst the militants of the PT, on the other had, there is a nostalgia for the original PT. Many fantasize about a radical democratic socialist party, in which the grassroots would always have the final word. They are also wrong. The PT only defined itself in socialist terms in 1985 (and since then little was done beyond that formal definition). The democratic structure grounded in the grassroots nuclei was never implemented. Many nuclei existed, many still exist – but their role in the party structure was never clearly defined. In practice, they are clubs of friends; their voice on party matters is weak, their role in the implementation of the political lines of the PT in society is non-existent.

However, if the party never really formed a structure that permitted the base membership to express itself, if it never committed itself to really understanding what social transformation should be, the PT has in the past truly expressed the desires of the working class for change, more so than is the case today. In 1985, when the bourgeoisie organized the controlled transition from dictatorship to democracy through the Electoral College, the PT refused to lend its support, and its elected members did not appear at the session. In 1986, President José Sarney’s government attempted to disorganize the trade union movement through an economic plan that included a wage and price freeze and an artificially overvalued new currency. The bourgeois press created a climate of unanimity around the demagogic measures, while the PT decidedly opposed the Plan. It is not a coincidence that it was between 1985 and 1989 that the PT grew the most, including electoral growth.

The capitalist offensive of the last 15 years was difficult for the PT. The Brazilian union movement did not discover solutions for the dilemmas created by the bourgeoisie. The rising unemployment cooled the enthusiasm of the workers, increasing the competition between them. The unemployed, however, have not yet organized themselves. The union structure of CUT (Central Única dos Trabalhadores – Workers’ Unified Central), which represented a real rupture with the official union movement subordinated to the dictatorship, did not renew itself. Distancing itself from the base membership, it was confronted by a “unionism of results” – an approach put forward by an alternative working class central arguing that unionism should bring economic advantages to the workers, regardless of their political unity or willingness to fight the bosses. The CUT was not able to demonstrate (in large part because it stopped believing) that combative struggle offers better economic results than does the collaboration of classes.

The party, for its part, was filled with enthusiasm by the near victory of Lula in 1989 and started relying more and more on electoral results. But it appears that it has not understood what the motives were that led to the spectacular growth in the second half of the ’80s. Because of this, the party attempted to appease its enemies in the hope that winning an election in a stable situation would be easier to manage and that it would be permitted to govern. The shift eroded the party’s image for the working class, and it did not attain greater electoral results.

This year, the PT runs again in the elections for the Presidency of the Republic. The conditions have never been so favourable: the candidates on the right devour each other, none of them are able to get good ratings in public opinion polls (and when they eventually succeed, they are bombarded by others until they fall). But, by attempting to forge alliances at any price, the PT disassembled the Frente Brasil Popular (Brazilian Popular Front), since, after treating the electoral alliances in a pragmatic and opportunistic way, it ended up stimulating pragmatism and opportunism in too many parties on the left. Activists also appear to be exhausted, and, since the leadership has attempted to replace them with a professional electoral campaign, neither the motive nor the necessity of going into the streets can be detected.

Nevertheless, the PT is still the party of the working class in Brazil, and it still captures a large left-wing sector that is combative and committed to the struggles. The party structure, in spite of the attempts by the leadership to centralize and control it, still allows for an intense and robust political life, albeit increasingly oriented toward internal fighting. Today, the PT is a party hegemonized by those who believe that there is no way out of capitalism. But that hegemony is far from being tranquil, because it depends, in large part, on the bases of the party and the whole working class not understanding the politics of the hegemonic sector.

Luís Henrique is a member of the National Collective of the Movement for the Reaffirmation of Socialism, an internal tendency of the PT.