[This article has mainly been translated from the Spanish version published by the PCR. However, sections in double brackets [[ ]], part of the heading and a section at the end, are translated from the Portuguese, since they did not appear in the Spanish edition. The difference between the two editions is presumably because the Spanish edition appeared later, after the presidential elections in Brazil were over - Translator's note.]

Manifesto of the Revolutionary Communist Party

To the Workers, Peasants, Youths,
Intellectuals, the Brazilian People

[[Defeat FHC and the Bosses, Elect Lula!]]
For a Government of the Workers and for Socialism!

All the capitalist countries are on the brink of bankruptcy. A real catastrophe of gigantic dimensions, with disastrous consequences for the workers and the people, threatens the capitalist world. The dawn of the 21st century is marked by the complete and total bankruptcy of the capitalist regime.

Even the bourgeois media, the large newspapers, the television networks and radio stations, are aware of the gravity of the crisis. They all say and recognize: the catastrophe is already approaching. However, nothing is done. The capitalist governments and their international agencies, the IMF, World Bank, the UN, etc. have no way of solving the crisis. This is because the crisis can only come to an end with the end of capitalism.

Never, in the whole history of humanity, has hunger, malnutrition and unemployment affected so many men, women and children on the whole planet.

No longer is it only in Africa that one sees pictures of children with skin and bones, clinging to the breasts of their starving mothers. No, these days such scenes can be seen in practically all the capitalist countries. According to a report by UNICEF, each year more than 7 million children in the world die, victims of malnutrition.

Even in the USA, the principal imperialist country and the most developed capitalist country in the world, 32 million North Americans live in misery and their meals are limited to soup provided by the government or by charitable institutions; 11 million children are malnourished, and in about 1 million homes North Americans spend their days without having enough to eat.

Today, hunger, malnutrition, prostitution and drugs, severely affect the population of the United States, Latin America, Asia and, since the end of socialism, the countries of Eastern Europe as well. Thus, practically all the peoples of the world.

Furthermore: unemployment is no longer a "privilege" of the underdeveloped countries and is a reality in all the capitalist economies. In the imperialist countries themselves, such as the United States, France, Germany, England and Japan, unemployment exceeds the levels of World War II. There are more than a billion unemployed workers throughout the world. There is no longer a single international agency or capitalist government that is announcing more jobs; on the contrary, they admit that unemployment will increase even more.

Capitalism has arrived at the last years of the 20th century more dead than alive, revealing its destructive character. The exaggerated vigor of capitalism is thus nothing more than a fairy tale. A low level of growth, unemployment, hunger, violence, criminality, bankruptcies and the closing of industries and commercial stores, and at the same time about 6 billion people have been abandoned and live in misery. This is the picture of capitalism at the end of the century.

All these facts reveal the perverse and cruel nature of the capitalist system. After almost five hundred years of the existence of capitalism, any reasonable citizen can conclude that this regime is old and putrid, and its continuation threatens to lead all of humanity to barbarism, to destruction. Even the gigantic technical development, the formidable scientific discoveries, in no way serve to improve the conditions of life or to diminish hunger and poverty for humanity; they are rather utilized to increase the already fabulous profits of a half dozen of international magnates. That is to say, only a tiny minority benefits from that development.

The World Has Definitely Been Divided into Two Classes

On the one hand, a handful of magnates has appropriated the banks, land, machines, industries, commerce and they control science and technology; in short, they have appropriated everything that the world produces; on the other hand, thousands of millions of men, women and children subsist in misery. Each day, more and more people join the ranks of the poor, whether they be unemployed workers, peasants evicted from their land, intellectuals and artists without work, and small and medium businessmen, all have been ruined at an unheard-of speed and violence.

According to the magazine Forbes of July of 1997, just 200 capitalist magnates in the world have a fortune of $789.3 billion. On the other hand, of each 5 inhabitants of the world, 3 live in the most absolute poverty. In other words, all of the immense wealth produced by the working class and peasantry, all the technology developed by scientists is concentrated in the hands of an oligarchy of bankers and speculators.

Still more: capitalism threatens even the very continuation of life on our planet, by means of the destruction of forests and the environment, as well as the frequent nuclear tests of the imperialist powers. Corruption and moral decadence have become a characteristic of bourgeois governments. There is not a single capitalist chief of state who is not involved in a great corruption or sex scandal. It has come to the point where the President of the United States has cowardly bombed the people of Sudan and Afghanistan to deflect the attention of public opinion from the lawsuit he is facing for sexual abuse. Even worse, the bourgeois media not only remain silent over such a heinous crime, but they try to hide it from the people. Life has become unbearable in the capitalist world.

It has been a long time since capitalism has been an economy of small and medium-sized developing businesses. In the 20th century, capitalism has become imperialism, dominated by capitalist monopolies, cartels and finance capital. Under capitalist imperialism, capital is concentrated in the hands of a handful of magnates, who control the governments of the principal capitalist countries and use it to defend, with fire and sword, the plunder of the immense majority of the world's population. The concentration of industries, banks, the large commercial stores and wealth in the hands of a reduced minority is what is taking place in all countries. Only a hundred capitalist families are owners of the industries, commerce and banks in the world.

Russia is the most recent victim of all the cruelty and violence of capitalism. After the privatization of the means of production, that is, after the machines, land and industries ceased to be the property of the whole people and became the private property of just the capitalists, the production of the economy decayed, misery, hunger, prostitution and drugs, before unknown to the Soviet people, became a harsh and cruel reality for the majority of the Russian people. A capitalist mafia, supported by the large imperialist powers, today controls the whole economy.

Panic-stricken, the bourgeois economists and politicians have presented varying theories and analyses regarding the crisis. They are rushing into presenting "solutions," saying that is time for all to sacrifice for capitalism. The "solutions" they present are: reduction of workers' wages, abrogation of labor rights won over two centuries of struggle, an increase in the working day, the end of payment for overtime, etc. In sum, "solutions" which preserve private property and the fantastic profits of the magnates, and at the same time increase the exploitation and misery of the masses. In fact, the large financial group HSBC Holding alone, which recently took over the Bamerindus Bank, had a net profit in 1997 of $5.5 billion. In Japan, the second largest capitalist economy in the world, the government presented as the "salvation" from the disaster which the Japanese economy is experiencing, a proposal to utilize the savings of Japanese workers, deposited in state banks, to save a dozen failed banks.

However, all these analyses and proposals have a single objective: to prevent the people from understanding the true cause of the crisis: the capitalist regime.

What Then is the Cause of the Crisis and How To Get Out Of It

The crisis is the result of the exhaustion and bankruptcy of the capitalist mode of production in its highest stage, capitalist imperialism, a stage that is dominated by finance capital. In trying to obtain maximum profits and new markets, the capitalists are acquiring ever more businesses, increasing the concentration of capital. With surplus capital, the capitalist money-changers go everywhere in search of the highest interest rates to increase their capital, even if that gain is artificial. What happens is what Karl Marx said: "money that generates more money, without any production process and commercialization of commodities."

Particularly in the last years of the 20th century, finance capital has reached its highest point of development, subjecting to itself all other forms of capital and dominating the whole economy: it controls governments, industries, banks, soccer teams, stores, factories, etc. To get an idea of this predominance of the finance capital, it suffices to say that the total production in a year, the GDP [Gross Domestic Product], of 135 countries today is $35 trillion. Meanwhile, in just one month, there are negotiated $45 trillion in the exchange market, speculation with the purchase and sale of currencies. That means that capital is not in production, but mainly in financial speculation by means of bonds, stocks and currencies. It is a world dictatorship of money-changers and speculators.

Equally, guided by their thirst for profit, the capitalists are impelled to increase the production of commodities. Therefore, they invest in machines which substitute for men and permit them to increase production. However, as capitalism is a regime of private appropriation of socially produced wealth, it causes increasing unemployment and continually impoverishes the masses by paying low wages. In this way, it drastically reduces the acquisitive power of those who, in the end, consume the products: the popular masses, the fundamental consumers. The result is that a surplus of production takes place: more is produced than the people are in a position to consume. It is a crisis of relative over-production: there is production, but there are not consumers with money to buy. The road of capitalist development has become exhausted because, on the one hand the profits and wealth of the capitalists have increased, and on the other hand it causes hunger, unemployment and misery for the great majority of the population.

At each crisis of the bourgeois regime, the capitalists act to save their capital and their "holy" private property; they act to maintain and even increase their profits, whether by lowering wages, abrogating rights, increasing the prices of products, that is to say, by deepening the brutal exploitation of the people and the workers. They employ all means to achieve these objectives, particularly the repression of the workers and of strikes; the propaganda and the deception of the media, and the farce of elections, since they own capital, the newspapers, the TV networks and radio stations.

As we saw, the crisis has as its main cause the fact that, on the one hand, production is social, that is to say, millions and millions of people are necessary to produce, while on the other hand, appropriation of the wealth produced is private, capitalist.

This is the principal contradiction of capitalist society: the contradiction between those who produce and those who appropriate the wealth produced, the contradiction between the working class and the capitalist class. Without resolving the contradiction it is impossible resolve the crisis. Therefore, to put an end to the crisis it is necessary to put an end to the capitalist system of production itself.

Only a regime in which not only is production social, but also the appropriation of the wealth produced is collective, is when it will be possible to abolish hunger, unemployment and misery. That new regime of production is socialism. There fantastic and fabulous profits obtained by capitalists at the cost of hunger and the exploitation of the popular masses will not exist.

While under capitalism, the working class, the peasants, the popular masses are condemned to death and uselessness, to unemployment and poverty, the new society, the socialist society will guarantee to all the sacred right to a job, there will no longer be wage slavery, the land will no longer be the property of the landlords, all the wealth produced will be the property of the whole people and only he who works will eat.

Socialism or Barbarism

The true dilemma of the 21st century is: humanity either will march toward socialism or towards the destruction to which capitalism condemns it.

There is, therefore, no other way out for the workers, the poor, the small and medium-sized industrialists and merchants, the intellectuals and youths: either they surrender to the perversity of capitalism, remaining at the mercy of its brutal exploitation and passively assist in the destruction of the planet and of humanity, or they decide to go into struggle to sweep away and liquidate capitalism; to make a revolution and establish socialism. As the great genius of the socialist revolution, Vladimir Ulyanov, Lenin, prophesied: "Capitalism became reactionary and developed the productive forces to such an extent that humanity will have to move toward socialism or it will suffer for years or even decades".

The bourgeoisie has failed. Capitalism has spread misery and hunger throughout the world over 500 years. It is up to the working class, the working people, the small and medium-sized merchants and industrialists, the students and honest intellectuals, to take the ship of history into their own hands.

The working class, as the most advanced, most disciplined class, which has nothing to lose but its chains of wage slavery, is called upon to fulfill its historic role together with the peasants, that is, by placing itself at the front of a broad and powerful popular movement that will free the people from all this suffering.

The working class, allied with the peasants, will only be able to fulfill this role if it is armed with the consciousness of its interests and a great capacity for organization.

This is the role that the Revolutionary Communist Party, founded by Manoel Lisboa de Moura, hopes to fulfill. We, members of the PCR, as continuators and heirs of the Paris Commune of 1871, of the Great Socialist Revolution of October, 1917, which established the first victorious State of workers and peasants of the world, and of the heroic Cuban Revolution of 1959, propose to employ our forces to the maximum to carry forward the struggle for the liberation of the Brazilian people and for the construction of genuine democracy in our country, socialism, and it is for the realization of this task that the PRC calls upon all the class-conscious workers, peasants, intellectuals and youths!

Comrades,

The people and the workers of the USSR, Cuba, Vietnam and dozens of other countries, have already shown the way and have taught us that only a government led by the workers themselves can assure peace, the end to wars and hunger, and can guarantee employment, health and education for all. They have also shown that life can be full of happiness, without crime, without violence, without drugs, without exploitation of man by man. They have shown that this is possible when what is produced is distributed for all and not only for a half dozen.

It is necessary to have the courage to overthrow and crush those who crush us, to destroy the old and to build the new. Some people say that is too early for socialism. However, the truth is that each day that passes is already too late. Let us overthrow the bloodthirsty and murderous capitalist governments before they provoke a 3rd World War and destroy humanity.

Socialism or barbarism!

Either revolutionaries or lackeys of the bourgeoisie!

We have no time to lose! Let us unite for a new world of peace and happiness!

Only a Government of the Workers Can Save Brazil

Either Brazil will free itself from the Government of Fernando Henrique or there will be four more years of hunger, unemployment and repression for the workers and people!

To try to mitigate this serious and deep crisis, a half dozen imperialist countries (United States, Japan, Germany, France, England, Canada) are deepening and intensifying the pillage of the dependent countries, the great majority of the peoples of the world.

Brazil, since its capitalist economy is deeply dominated by the imperialist monopolies, is suffering devastating consequences.

In 4 years, the government of Fernando Henrique has promoted the greatest denationalization of the Brazilian economy. Today, entire sectors of industry, commerce, agriculture and the banks are dominated by foreign capital, such as:

95% of the automotive industry
87% of the industry of health and sanitation
81% of the computer industry
79% of the pharmaceutical industry
62% of the plastics and rubber industry
57% of food
48% of the electric and electronic industry

As if this was not enough, the government of Fernando Henrique has handed over large and important state enterprises in strategic sectors of the economy, a rich and valuable public patrimony built up over decades by the Brazilian people, to a half dozen international and national capitalist monopolies. This was the case with the Vale do Rio Doce Company, the National Iron and Steel Company (CSN), Usiminas. And most recently the whole telecommunications system, Telebrás, evaluated at more than $130 billion, was "sold" for only $23 billion. Even Petrobrás today takes orders from the Odebrecht Company, a large national capitalist group. Even worse, in the 22 state enterprises that have been handed over to private monopolies, 40 thousand workers have been laid off.

The fact is that all this foreign domination over the Brazilian economy, has as a consequence a gigantic pillage of our wealth and of the national labor, that is to say, an enormous transference to the imperialist countries of the resources produced in our country. According to the Central Bank, Brazil sent abroad about $145 billion between 1993 and 1997, in the form of interest payments and amortization of the internal and external debt.

In 4 years, Fernando Henrique has sunk the country into the biggest crisis of its history. Today there are 60 million Brazilians living in misery; in Sao Paulo alone there are 1.7 million unemployed workers; in the metropolitan region of Recife, 360 thousand people have lost their jobs. In the countryside the situation is even more serious: 5 million families without land are roaming the countryside, having nothing to eat or to sow. Whether because of the advance of capitalism in the countryside, or because of the import of food, the fact is that millions of rural workers have lost their jobs in recent years. In Sao Paulo, of a total of 1 million 400 thousand workers in 1985, today there remain only about 800 thousand. However, the concentration of land in the hands of a minority is increasing. Just 46 large capitalist groups are the owners of 20 million hectares [1 hectare = 2.47 acres], equal to the whole State of Sao Paulo.

To help his banker friends, the government of Fernando Henrique committed the crime of diverting money to fight the drought, about $42 million, leading to the deaths of hundreds of children and whole families in the Northeast. All these facts, however, are hidden from the people by the media which is in the hands of the bourgeoisie.

As remains clear, the government of Fernando Henrique is a government of the rich and serves only their interests. That government is doing nothing to overcome the crisis because it is a government controlled by the capitalists and large land owners. On the contrary, the measures taken are to protect the fabulous profits of the bosses and to make them still richer.

This was the case of the Proer, the program to save the bankers from bankruptcies, using 25 billion reals taken from health and education; the same thing happened with the privatizations and also with the spectacular increase in the interest rates of more than 150%, benefiting the money-changers and speculators and increasing the internal debt by $350 billion; for the same reason, the murderers of the landless peasants in Corambiara and Eldorado dos Carajás, in the state of Pará, have gone unpunished.

Now, they are only awaiting the result of the elections to sign the most shameful agreement with the IMF in our country's history. All in all, the Government of Fernando Henrique is a government of national treason and against the people.

Therefore, only a true revolutionary government can free the Brazilian people from catastrophe. A government that takes severe measures against the capitalists, guarding them and preventing any sabotage against the popular economy. A true government of the people which governs for the people.

For a Government of the Workers That Adopts the Following Measures:

* Nationalization of the banks: union of all the banks into a single bank under Sate control.

* Socialization of all the large capitalist monopolies and corporations, especially in the strategic sectors of the economy; planning of the economy to meet the needs of the population and to eliminate regional and social inequalities;

* Obligatory work for all: only he who works shall eat; prohibition of child labor;

* Expropriation of the property of the large landowners, end to the concentration of land: Agrarian Reform;

* Abrogation of taxes for the poor; progressive tax on the large fortunes. He who earns more must pay more.

* Control by the state over all the means of collective transport;

* Free and public education at all levels; an end to the commercialization and profit from education;

* Democratization of the means of communication, with the socialization of all the large television channels, newspapers and radios; guarantee of access of all to the means of communication;

* Broad freedom for parties, freedom of expression and organization; an end to donations by capitalists to electoral campaigns;

* End to discrimination against women; equal rights; fight racism;

* Abrogation of agreements and debts of the State with foreign capitalists, contracted against the sovereignty and interests of the workers;

* Monopoly of foreign trade: transference of foreign trade to the organs of the State;

* Defense and protection of the environment and of nature.

Why are These Measures Necessary to Overcome the Crisis

Nationalization of the Banks

In capitalist society, the banks are the central point of the whole economy. The control and adoption of harsh measures to overcome the crisis are impossible without unifying all the banks. The fusion of all the banks into a single one will in no way affect those who have accounts in the banks that are merged. Someone who has 100 reals in passbook or savings account will keep the same 100 reals; someone who has a million reals will also keep his million reals after the nationalization of the banks. It follows that it will not be a capitalist or foreign-owned bank that will guard that money, but the State of the whole people. It will thus avoid the fraudulent bankruptcies that are so common and that have tormented the life of so many of our countrymen. In the present situation, the private property of the banks is what places at risk the money of those with savings accounts. The capitalist banks do all kinds of tricks, they transfer money to islands and fiscal paradises, deceiving their customers. There is no lack of examples. With this measure the frauds in the balance sheets are eliminated as well as the fictitious businesses which receive loans only to launder money.

In short, the nationalization of the banks places finance capital under the rigorous control of the State and at the service of the interests and needs of the country and the people.

Socialization of the Monopolies and Capitalist Corporations

Present-day capitalism, in its imperialist stage, has brought the interdependence of all sectors of the economy to the highest degree. The banks and most important branches of industry and commerce have been indissolubly linked. This means that it is not possible to nationalize the banks without moving forward to the socialization of the large capitalist monopolies, the large capitalist commercial and industrial corporations, which receive gigantic profits and set exorbitant prices. Capitalism in Brazil has become monopolistic and its powerful monopolies control the government and dominate the economy. It has been a long time since the small and medium-sized enterprises have played a fundamental role in the Brazilian economy.

It is sufficient to take the example of the monopoly Parmalat, which has bought more than 16 national enterprises in recent years and has a cost of less than 15 cents for a liter of milk. However, it sells that same liter for approximately 85 cents. A profit of almost 500%. This situation is reproduced in all the branches of the economy dominated by the large capitalist corporations and monopolies, as is the case in the pharmaceutical industry, food, health and sanitation, etc.

The truth is that the large capitalist monopoly is a socialized enterprise; in it work huge numbers of people, all its operations unite, directly or indirectly, thousands and tens of thousands of families. However, all the profit produced by that social labor is appropriated by one family or ten stockholders. The union of the enterprises in monopolies, corporations, cartels and trusts, bring together a mass of formidable resources. Those resources, with the socialization of the means of production, will be utilized for the benefit of the whole country and the whole people. Socialism is nothing but the step forward after the capitalist monopoly, used to the benefit of the whole people.

The communists do not desire and do not defend the expropriation of small and medium-sized enterprises, which will play an important role in the new socialist society.

In fact, it is the large capitalists who are ruining the small and medium-sized industries. Let us take the case of the auto parts sector: of 1000 small and medium-sized auto parts enterprises that exist today in Brazil, within two years there will remain only 500, the rest will be taken over by the capitalist monopolies. We have already seen that the monopoly Parmalat took over, in a few years, 16 enterprises in the milk and related sectors. The communists defend the union of those small and medium-sized owners together with the workers and peasants and the small merchants and industrialists against the true expropriators of the working class.

The new government, the government of the workers, has a commitment to those who hunger and want to work. Instead of encouraging the consumption of luxury articles, it will place priority on food and clothes, collective transport, employment, education, health and sport.

Agrarian Reform

The objective of the Agrarian Reform carried out by the government of the workers would be to put an end, in the first place, to the enormous concentration of land that exists in the country. In the second place, it would guarantee not only land to the peasants but also that the tractors, warehouses, and transport that today are concentrated in the hands of the large capitalist agro-industrial enterprises, would pass into the hands of the State and the peasants. It would, also, guarantee credit and the commercialization of the products. Finally, it would move towards the socialization of all the means of production that are under control of the rural bourgeoisie and that have a direct relation with agriculture, not only the land. In one word, it is a matter of an agrarian reform of an anti-capitalist character.

Democratization of the Means of Communication

All the important means of communication, the television channels, radio stations, the large newspapers are today the property of only ten capitalist families. Those same ten families also own industries, banks and they invest their profits in money-changing in the financial market. It is evident that those capitalists do all through their news broadcasts, their programs, soap operas, etc, to deceive and alienate the people, to hide information, to promote mystification and distort reality. No effective democratization of the media in Brazil is possible under the control of these ten families. Therefore, the PCR defends the democratization of the media, placing the TVs, radios and large newspapers under the control of the democratic State.

All those measures against the catastrophe and hunger are to the benefit of more than 150 million Brazilians, of the oppressed and exploited classes, of the poorest and those who suffer difficulties and calamities, while the rich capitalists rejoice.

Let Us Therefore Tell the Truth:

The poor classes should and can control and confiscate the wealth of those who exploit them and have built their immense wealth on the sweat of those who work. It is a matter of breaking, in a revolutionary way, with the interests of the large national and foreign capitalists, organizing popular control over the economy. There is no other road!

Class-Conscious Workers,

It is necessary to put an end to all the fear of violating the privileges of the bourgeoisie, of the exploiters. Without truly revolutionary measures it is impossible to put an end to the serious and deep crisis that our country is experiencing and that makes the people miserable. Only a consistent break, without reservations, with the capitalists in external and internal politics can save the country.

The State is the organization for the domination of a single class, the class of the capitalists over the whole people. The revolution has the objective of putting an end to this domination and exploitation by the large bosses and organizing a new State, in which it will be the poor classes and the workers who will govern.

In the hands of which class is the power; this is what decides everything, this is the fundamental question. In other words, either we are governed by the capitalists and landlords or we are governed by the workers and the people. Here there is no middle road.

To fear that with these measures the money-changers, the speculators and the large capitalists will flee the country and take their money with them, now seems like a great irony. For, never in the history of Brazil has there been such an extraordinary flight of capital as in the government of FHC: in less than 30 days more than $35 billion left the country.

Besides, what those capitalist money-changers do is take away our wealth, our reserves and exploit the national labor, sending the profits back to their countries. What they do is, thus, to consume the resources of our country, leading it to ruin. It is a true robbery and pillage that they carry on against Brazil. As has remained clear, with them it is impossible to move forward and to overcome the crisis.

It is a matter of a great challenge, without a doubt. However, the people of Zumbí, of Friar Caneca, of Tiradentes, of Lamarca, of Manoel Lisboa, of Carlos Marighela, of Antonio Conselheiro, is up to it. And we will win!

The PCR calls upon all the class-conscious men, women and youths of the country to defend this program and to give their lives to see it adopted in our country. With it we will pull Brazil and our people out of misery and hunger.

Dare To Struggle, Dare To Win!

September 25, 1998

Central Committee

Revolutionary Communist Party
Brazil


This document was distributed by:

Manoel Lisboa Publishers
Address: Rua Compositor
Antonio Marta, 77, Santo Amaro
Recife - Pernambuco - Brazil
CEP 50050-530
Phone: 5581-4230360
Phone-fax: 5581-2215355

Manoel Lisboa was the founder of the PCR in 1966; he was murdered by the military dictatorship in 1973. For 25 years he has continued to inspire the struggle of the youths and the workers of the cities and the countryside.

"We want a new and better organization of society, in which there will be neither rich nor poor and in which all must work! Which does not have a handful of wealthy people, but in which all the workers have the benefit of the fruits of the labor of all! In which the machines and other improvements facilitate the labor of all and do not serve to enrich some at the expense of millions and millions of men of the people! This better and new society is called socialist. The doctrine that deals with this society is called socialism."

V.I. Lenin

Solidarity With Cuba and Against the Criminal Blockade of Imperialism

[This section appeared only in the Spanish edition - Translator's note.]

Led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, in 1959 the Cuban people carried out a true revolution that put an end to exploitation and hunger, distributed land to the peasants and placed all the wealth produced by the workers under the control of the same workers.

Cuba, its people and the leaders of that revolution, are examples for all the peoples of Latin America of the possibility of defeating the powerful and of having a government of the workers. North American imperialism, the government of the United States, does not want this example to be spread and does all to prevent Cuba's development. This is the reason for the ferocious economic blockade against Cuba, for the Helms-Burton law and the constant violations of Cuban sovereignty.

Solidarity with Socialist Cuba and the struggle to put an end to that criminal blockade is the duty of the communists and of all Latin American democrats.

[[Voters,

The elections of October 4 are approaching. Four more years of the government of Fernando Henrique will mean chaos. He, FHC, who has already destroyed the public patrimony, having degraded education and health, will not hesitate to commit even greater crimes against the country and the people. His continuation [in office] will lead to the aggravation of the crisis and the increase in unemployment and hunger, without precedent in our history. Fernando Henrique will do everything to protect and maintain the gains and the wealth of the powerful and to increase the exploitation of the workers and the people. And to maintain these privileges he will use the most ferocious repression and persecution of those who struggle.

Those who exploit and dominate know how important for their class interests is the reelection of Fernando Henrique and they are making use of all means to ensure it. Rivers of money are financing the millionaire's campaign of FHC, the media are doing everything: they distort information and hide the extent of the crisis so that the voters do not vote consciously; in the newscasts, FHC has about 85% of the time, while all the other candidates together have barely 15%. Besides this, they spread lying and false information. Here is one example: they present numbers which give FHC a big lead over Lula, but they do not reveal the fact that more than 64% of the population have not yet decided for whom to vote. All the big capitalist bosses are united around the candidacy of Fernando Henrique and are doing everything so that he wins the elections.

Every time that an election approaches, the financial oligarchy, the magnates, the exploiters, dress themselves up as lambs and try to deceive the people, the voters. Let us not let ourselves be deceived!

Before us, we have the government of Fernando Henrique and the parties which support him, PDSB, PMDB, PFL, PPB, PTB. All want the continuation of this politics of national destruction; total subservience to foreign capital, to the capitalist monopolies and to the preservation of the exploitation of man by man. All that they own was built up by robbing the public coffers and exploiting the workers. They, more than once, have betrayed the trust of the people. They thus deserve, mercilessly, the punishment of this very people whom they have massacred. Let them receive this punishment and let them be defeated in these elections!

The communists struggle to free humanity from every type of exploitation, we are confident that we will find the solutions to our problems, by mobilizing the forces within our own country. We support and call upon all the workers, all the unemployed, the starving, the peasants, the courageous youths, the men of science, the professors, the artists and intellectuals to vote against the misgovernment of Fernando Henrique, against the exploiters and the mafia and elect Lula President. Lula is at the moment the most outstanding leader of the Brazilian people to assume the Presidency of the Republic. Lula was shaped and grew up in the struggle of the workers and of the people, fighting the misgovernors and defending an honorable and just Brazil. He has proven with his history that he is on the side of the people. His government is one step that we will take in the direction of our major objective, socialism. Let us unite our forces to elect him and to advance our struggle for liberation.

Vote for Lula, Vote for the PT [Workers Party]

Let us mobilize everyone for those who defend

the people and struggle for them.
Let us say no to the lies and farces!

September 25, 1998

Central Committee

Revolutionary Communist Party
]]

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