PSB members celebrate postponement of merger with PPS.

247 – Former national president of the PSB, Roberto Amaral, celebrated this Friday, the 5th, the imbroglio that postponed the merger between his party and the PPS, of Roberto Freire, a union classified by him as a crime.

"We thank all our comrades in the activism for the collective resistance that has prevented, until now, the assassination of our Party," he said in a statement, noting, however, that "there is not much to celebrate, because, according to the newspapers, the harakiri was only postponed and for reasons that are not necessarily those of us who fight under the banner of the socialist left."

"We call upon the activists to continue the fight against the merger, for what it represents in terms of setbacks and political and ideological loss. But above all, we call upon them to help us keep the flame of socialism burning," the text continues. Read the full text below:

To my fellow socialist activists

News reports indicate that the vice-governor of São Paulo will not be able to hand over the negotiated merger of the PSB and PPS to the PSDB.

We thank all our comrades in activism for the collective resistance that has prevented, until now, the assassination of our Party. But there is not much to celebrate, because, according to the newspapers, the harakiri was only postponed, and for reasons that are not necessarily those of us who fight for the banner of the socialist left. Disagreements over the leadership of the party are said to have prevented the crime from being carried out. Petty politics is said to have saved us from petty politics.

It is therefore imperative to maintain our struggle and move forward, in the hope that not all is lost.

We call upon the activists to continue the fight against the merger, because of what it represents in terms of setbacks and political and ideological loss. But above all, we call upon them to help us keep the flame of socialism burning.

More animated and more determined than ever, we will continue, alongside the activists, defending the PSB against its ideological distortion. Our PSB is the heir of the Democratic Left, a focus of resistance to the Estado Novo dictatorship, which, at its founding, counted on the participation of João Mangabeira, Domingos Velasco, Hélio Pellegrino, Paulo Emílio Salles Gomes, Antônio Cândido, and Caio Prado Jr.

Our Brazilian Socialist Party was founded in 1947, under the motto "Socialism and Liberty," committed to redemocratization, alongside the workers. Its destiny was to fight against social inequalities and the exploitation of man by man. We are all responsible for the political and moral heritage built from then on, and we will answer to History for what we make of this legacy.

In its founding manifesto, the PSB committed itself to the struggle for the suppression of social inequalities, the abolition of class privileges, and the gradual overcoming of capitalism. It maintained that democratic-liberal achievements were important, but insufficient to extinguish the exploitation of man by man.

All of these themes are dramatically relevant today.

Against the coup plots and the retrograde arrangements serving the class pact that have always opposed social progress, the socialists defended JK's inauguration, Jango's inauguration and government (with his "basic reforms"), and the Peasant Leagues led by Francisco Julião, a federal deputy for the PSB of Pernambuco.

We have always fought for agrarian reform, distinguishing ourselves in the "The Oil is Ours" battle and in the defense of Petrobras.

Counting among our ranks Pelópidas da Silveira, the first left-wing mayor of the city of Recife, we resisted from the very beginning the military coup of April 1, 64, which removed from power an elected official and plunged Brazil into the long night of the 64-85 dictatorship. Like other parties, the PSB was outlawed by AI-2. Its militants joined the resistance against the military regime in the most varied forms of struggle.

Reorganized in 1985 by Antônio Houaiss, Evandro Lins e Silva, Evaristo de Morais Filho, Jamil Haddad, and Roberto Amaral, among others, and reviving the Program and Manifesto of 47, the PSB would oppose the Sarney government and defend, in the 88 Constituent Assembly – for which it fought so hard – the right to strike, union unity, and agrarian reform, as well as the punishment of torture as a non-bailable and imprescriptible crime.

By joining forces with the PT and PCdoB in 1989, the new PSB would be the architect of the Popular Brazil Front and would have Senator José Paulo Bisol as its candidate for Vice-President of the Republic, on Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's ticket. Throughout the 1990s, reinforced by the entry of Miguel Arraes and maintaining its commitment to building a democratic-popular project, the PSB firmly opposed the neoliberal experiments of Fernando Collor Mello and Fernando Henrique Cardoso. It played a decisive role in Collor's impeachment, in popular mobilization, in Congress and in the trial, through Evandro Lins e Silva, José Paulo Bisol and Jamil Haddad. It participated in the Itamar Franco government, with Jamil Haddad heading the Health Ministry and Antônio Houaiss in Culture, and withdrew from it, at the initiative of Miguel Arraes, when economic and social policy came to be directed by FHC, then Minister of Finance.

This is our PSB. This is the PSB they intend to kill. This is the PSB we will always defend.

After supporting Lula in the second round of the 2002 presidential elections, the PSB participated in his government, faithfully supporting the poverty reduction project and occupying important positions such as the Ministry of Science and Technology, through Roberto Amaral, Eduardo Campos, and Sérgio Rezende. It supported his re-election and the election of Dilma Rousseff, in whose government it participated with ministers Ciro Gomes, Pedro Brito, Leônidas Cristino, and Fernando Bezerra.

In the most regrettable chapter of its history so far, and one that could be surpassed by an even more disastrous one if the intended merger ever comes to fruition, the PSB decided, in the second round of the 2014 presidential elections, to declare its support for the right-wing candidate. It is fortunate, however, that the attempt to seize power through blatant opportunism did not succeed.

After supporting Lula in the second round of the 2002 presidential elections (in the first round, under the leadership of Miguel Arraes, it had launched its own candidacy of Anthony Garotinho), the PSB participated in his government, faithfully supporting the poverty reduction project and occupying important positions such as the Ministry of Science and Technology, through Roberto Amaral, Eduardo Campos, and Sérgio Rezende. It supported his re-election and the election of Dilma Rousseff, in whose government it participated with ministers Ciro Gomes, Pedro Brito, Leônidas Cristino, and Fernando Bezerra.

In the only regrettable chapter of its history so far, and one that could be surpassed by an even more disastrous one – should the intended merger ever come to fruition – the PSB decided, in the second round of the 2014 presidential elections, to declare its support for the right-wing candidate. It is fortunate, however, that the attempt to seize power through blatant opportunism did not succeed.

By choosing to ally itself with what it had always fought against, by choosing to become a counterfeit of itself, the PSB, by majority decision of its national leadership, decided to renounce its past and thus abdicate its future. It compromised its ideological identity, distanced itself from the left, renounced its history, and in the end did not obtain the electoral and administrative gains (positions) that the pragmatists promised.

The path of betrayal, however, was not complete: continuing what it began last year, the new leadership, largely driven in fact by highly personal interests unrelated to our political commitments, endeavored to promote the merger of the PSB with the PPS, an auxiliary line of the conservative PSDB project. What the right has never achieved – except temporarily, and through an act of force by the military dictatorship – is proposed by the leaders: to extinguish the PSB, with the merger resulting in another party, a new acronym, and a new Foundation, replacing the João Mangabeira Foundation. Changing political fields, the socialists would now seek to form an expanded satellite of the center-right.

This disloyalty, which tarnishes the memory of the PSB's founders, would also be an act of political stupidity. After all, at this moment when the Brazilian left is seeking new paths, new ethical and political references, a renewed national project, the PSB, which could grow without making political-ideological concessions, welcoming the discontented and leading the process of renewal from the left, which Brazil so desperately needs, would decide to become an appendage of the PSDB – and this, precisely when the PSDB is separating itself from social democracy to occupy the place of the decadent DEM (formerly PFL and ARENA).

At this crucial moment, numbers cannot overshadow values. A party cannot grow merely arithmetically, abandoning its fundamental principles.

The Party must abandon opportunism as a programmatic line and remain faithful to the struggles that explain its electoral growth. The PSB must remain in the progressive camp, committed to the project of deepening democracy, combating class privileges and prejudices of all kinds. Committed, in short, to building a sovereign, rich, democratic, free, just, and supportive nation.

The time has come: say NO to the ideological distortion of the PSB, where the MERGER is just one of the many tools that a conservative majority of the moment can use.

Brasilia, June 5, 2015.

Roberto Amaral
Luiza Erundina
Glauber Braga
José Gomes Temporão
Joilson Cardoso
Vivaldo Barbosa