Celso Rocha de Barros: The PT (Workers' Party) has the role of restoring democracy in Brazil.

By Pedro Alexandre Sanches, from Opera Mundi - The sociologist and political scientist Celso Rocha de Barros stated, on the program 20 MINUTES This Tuesday (October 18th), the Workers' Party will have to play the role of restoring the Sixth Republic in the coming period, which began with the end of the military dictatorship (1964-1985) and was interrupted by the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff in 2016.

“Since the 2017 political mini-reform, there has been a concentration of political parties in Brazil. Some kind of consolidation of a bloc that brings together the left and the center is quite likely,” he predicts.

Author of the newly released book PT, a History (Companhia das Letras), Barros responds to journalist Breno Altman's question about the likelihood of the party, throughout this process, ending up transforming into a new PMDB. 

"God forbid, but it's not impossible. In theory, it's possible to prevent the left from diluting its identity in the process. It's not mandatory that the PT become what the PMDB became. Perhaps it was possible for the PMDB to succeed, perhaps they made a mistake at some point," he said.

In comparing the current moment with that of the democratic transition of the 1980s, the columnist of Folha de S. Paul He highlights the "spectacularly unfavorable" balance of power at the moment for the PT and the left. According to him, the party had a "more radical position."

"But I knew that at that moment there was a much greater force negotiating the democratic transition, the PMDB. The PT was radicalizing from below, including to pull the transition to the left, which during the Constituent Assembly generated some notable successes. At this moment, that PMDB no longer exists," he stated.

When confronted by Altman about the Eurocentrism of the thesis of PT, a HistoryWhile acknowledging that he might be underestimating the anti-imperialist struggle and the weight of Marxism in the formation and consolidation of the PT (Workers' Party), the sociologist insists on differentiating between theory and practice: "what was decisive is what prevailed when the party had to make a choice. For me, it is quite clear that it was the class interest, to achieve social improvements and progress in social welfare within capitalism."

Barros states that what determined the party's development was the fact that it originated from working-class unions, coupled with the circumstances of Brazil's redemocratization. Even so, he classifies the PT as a success story within the global left, because it not only won elections but also managed to implement, in practice, an important income redistribution policy.

Another point of discussion is the meaning of the 2016 impeachment, which the political scientist classifies as fraud, not a coup d'état. "I think it's better to reserve the definition of coup for something like what Bolsonaro is saying, a more heated and violent conflict," he differentiates, preferring to situate episodes like the impeachment, Operation Lava Jato, and the imprisonment of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva within the context of the decline in the quality of democracies around the world. 

According to Barros, the understanding of this process may change in the future, depending on the results of the current elections and the near future. "The debate is still open. If, God forbid, Bolsonaro manages to stage a coup or shut down the system, I'm sure historians will agree with him," he responded to Altman's argument.

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