RCP Brazil: The bourgeois army must and can be destroyed

* Published for the first time in the journal “Luta Operaria” (“Workers’ Struggle”), Num. 10, August 1973, a month before the brutal murder of Manoel Lisboa, founder of the PCR, by the military dictatorship

Among many comrades and also among the people, there is a fear of the bourgeois army. Many people think it is impossible to defeat it, and see the army exactly as the dictatorship wants: as something that is above us.

Comrades, above all, we must correctly understand that it is the bourgeois army. This army (of the bourgeoisie) defends the interests of the capitalists, defends the private property (of the capitalists) and oppresses the people during any revolt. We have nothing to be defended by the army (of the bourgeoisie), although we have always heard it said that the army is the defender of the nation. What we really see is the army defending the interests of the rich parasites against the working people.

The capitalists use the propaganda organs (radio, newspaper, television) and public education (teaching) to make people think that the army defends the interests of the nation and not of the capitalists. They want to convince the people that the army is honest and the defender of the nation, and therefore one must respect it. Otherwise, who would die in the wars of the bourgeoisie? Therefore, from childhood we are taught to respect the army, the property of the rich, the president of the republic and other bourgeois authorities.

The army of the bourgeoisie is really strong at the moment, but this does not mean that it will never be overthrown. To think that way is not to recognize the strength our own class; it is not to understand that our unity is a great power to destroy the repressive force of the bourgeoisie. With our force and organization we can put in the place of the bourgeois army, which is anti-people, anti-nationalist and a lackey of foreign interests, that is, we can put in the place of the traitors, an army formed by the best comrades of the working classes. This will be a really popular army because it will be made up of soldiers of the people, of workers, carpenters, lathe operators, welders, household servants, weavers, students, shoemakers, peasants, shopkeepers, etc. It will be a popular and revolutionary army, because it defends the true interests of the people and fights for a better society, a more perfect and just society, it fights for a socialist society.

The most important for an army to win and rule is to count on the support of the people. Propaganda cannot hide the naked and crude truth about the social inequalities, unemployment, low pay, injustice and all the evils of capitalism. This is the main question: they have arms, money, soldiers, but they do not have the people. And since the army of the bourgeoisie is not armed by the Brazilian people, we must form our own army. In order to destroy their army, which is of the bourgeoisie, we must form our own army, the army of the proletariat.

How do we form our own army? We have seen that when we are weak we must use the every form of struggle to strengthen ourselves. This is just what each comrade needs, to understand how to put these questions into practice. We already have the example of the Russian people, of the Chinese people, the Cuban people and many other peoples who, once they were organized, overthrew the bourgeois armies that oppressed them. Vietnam is the most beautiful example of how an (economically) backward country defeated the French army and is defeating the most powerful army of the capitalist world, the U.S. Armed Forces. And what did the Vietnamese do? They fought, they organized themselves and encouraged others to organize as we are doing; we are forming the Council of Struggle. They went out teaching everyone the truth under a worse and bloodier dictatorship than ours. With great difficulties (in order to learn more), they published clandestine newspapers, explaining, encouraging and teaching the people to organize.

To form our army depends solely on our own effort, on the effort of everyone who is already conscious, to organize the masses (the unorganized people), and make conscious those who know almost nothing about the class struggle, our struggle, and to increase the number of people for our organization and thus to go on forming our party. From there we will create our own army, with the people won from all sectors of the population, from the worker comrades who will be the leaders of our struggle, the peasants, students, civil servants, politically good people who exist inside of the enemy’s armed forces, that is, all the exploited social strata of the population who really support our ideas and our methods of struggle. We must make the people conscious and win them over to us; in this way we will have the conditions to create our army.

Well, comrades, there are many forms of struggle, what we need is decisiveness and firmness among the comrades to do and continue doing the work of distributing pamphlets in the factories and districts, to develop the political work with other comrades and participate in the theoretical work that is needed to write for our newspapers. All these forms of struggle have the purpose of making clear and organizing the people for them to take up arms in a conscious manner.

Only in the struggle can we learn to trust in ourselves, in our strength, because we defend the true interests of the people and we fight for justice. This is what gives us certainty in the victory of the workers’ struggle through the revolutionary army of the people, against the mercenary (sold-out) army of the bourgeoisie.

Let us put all our effort into the work of making the people conscious! Into the work of educating the best elements of the working class for the struggle and to bring them into the Council of the Workers’ Struggle. Let us put all our effort into the work to form a Workers’ Party, because the revolutionary army of the people will only obey a single leader, which will be the Workers’ Party.

Only the revolutionary army of the people can destroy the army of the bourgeoisie, to build a just society without class divisions!