A storm looms over the skies of Latin America’s biggest country. On October 4th, Flávio Bolsonaro, a far-right personal favorite of Donald Trump, scored a victory in the first round of the Brazilian presidential election against social democratic president Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva. As the country braces itself for the second round of elections, the Trump administration has refused to pledge to accept the results, leaving open the possibility of a reenactment of the earlier Venezuela intervention. Thousands of US troops have been deployed across Latin America for the so-called “War on Drugs”, a favorite excuse of US imperialism in making trouble throughout the continent. Tomorrow, October 25, millions of Brazilians will cast their votes to decide the new puppet president. Lula had so far faithfully served US imperialism, big capitalists and landlords under the language of socialism and national sovereignty; he is however at risk of being replaced by Bolsonaro, who had pledged to out do him by copying Trump and other right-wing demagogues in Latin America, who ride to power on evangelical religious sentiment and the failure of opportunist governments to bring genuine change.
The so-called “left” in Brazil has united in the same tired choir of voting out “fascism”, calling on the masses to give Lula another term. They raise the flag of false “anti-fascism” but have failed to take any measure against organized fascism and the far-right for the past four years, all while working within the same State set up by the big capitalists and landlords to oppress the people. The various parties of the fake left also hope to retain their position in managing the rotten Old State, as the current Lula administration is staffed with politicians identifying as “socialists”, “laborists”, and even a “communist”. In January, this “progressive” government had allowed the killing of Adeildo Gonçalves Calheiro, a prominent land defender and leader of the Poor Peasants League (LCP). In October of last year, the Rio Janeiro police brutally massacred 128 city residents under the pretext of fighting the gang Comando Vermelho, which horrified genuine democrats and progressives across the world.
The political crisis Brazil finds itself is rooted in the ever-deepening economic crisis. Foreign Affairs, a mainstream publication, wrote in a pessimistic manner that “Brazil is in serious economic trouble.” The country’s public debt ratio has ballooned to 83 percent of the GDP, owed to big banks and financial institutions controlled by the big comprador bourgeoisie and the US. Its fiscal deficits ($257.03 billion, or 9.99% of GDP) has reached pandemic-era level, as the growing economic and political crisis requires the deepening of State monopoly capitalism by the big bureaucrat bourgeoisie. Each president – whether left, right, or center – had tried and failed in containing Brazil’s fiscal problems, because the real source is no other than the domination of US imperialism. In 2025, the US trade surplus with Brazil has reached $41.8 billion, as the Trump administration furthered naked oppression of Brazil by raising an additional 37.5% tariff on select categories to punish Lula’s insufficient collaboration in the “war on drugs” and against Venezuela.
Brazilian bureaucrat capitalism – a stunted capitalism dependent on imperialism – is based on the big landlord class, who continues to own the vast majority of Brazil, ruling over millions of peasants with no or little land through feudal oppression. Similarly, not a single president in the past 136 years of the Brazilian republic had carried out genuine land reform. It is also necessary to recall the history of the Brazilian State. Imposed by Portuguese colonialism through the genocide of the indigenous peoples, this system built on feudal serfdom and African slavery had been outdated since the day of its creation. Its only purpose is to better facilitate the oppression and exploitation of the broad Brazilian people by foreign rulers, from the Portuguese and the British in the past to US imperialism of today. As the biggest country in Latin America, whether by population or land, Brazil is the crown jewel of US imperialism in its own “backyard”.
On September 23, Flávio Bolsonaro referred to the LCP as a “terrorist organization” and declared his intention at “ending” it should he be elected. The big bourgeoisie and imperialism knows its true threat: not the fake left, but the poor peasants rising up across the country to occupy land and wage militant struggle with machete, hoes, and guns in hand, guided the red banner of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
His worry is not misplaced. Throughout 2026, more and more Brazilian far-right personalities and politicians have begun to talk about the threat posed by the LCP in the Brazilian countryside. Protests have increasingly been replaced by land seizures and skirmishes with the old State and militias of the big landlords, as increased crackdowns only led to the intensification of the struggle. As the crisis deepens, the Brazilian people are learning how to fight through struggle, from simpler, lower forms to more complex, higher forms. While the media of the false left is enamored by constitutional illusions, another storm is brewing among the workers and peasants: the storm of revolution.
Since early October, graffiti had appeared on walls throughout Brazil, both in the countryside and the cities, with a single message: “Don’t Vote! Long live the People’s War! – P.C.B.” These letters refer to the Communist Party of Brazil, recently reconstituted under Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. As has been proven again and again in Latin America and the world over, there is no way out of the ever-worsening crisis other than a thoroughgoing revolution to destroy the rule of imperialism, semi-feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism, whose main content is the agrarian revolution. Such a revolution will be the highest form of the revolutionary class struggle. It shall be carried out through People’s War, in which the peasantry led by the working class will overthrow the big landlords and capitalists in the tens of millions, defeating the counterrevolutionary violence of the ruling class with the revolutionary violence of the people. Through this process, the semi-colonial status of the country will be replaced by national independence, and semi-feudalism will be replaced by genuine democracy, in which the aspiration of the peasant majority will be fulfilled with land reform. A new state, based on basic alliance of the workers and peasants, representing the broad majority of the Brazilian people, will be erected on the ruins of the capitalist-landlord State. Through this declaration, the Communist Party of Brazil has taken up the glorious tradition of the original Communist Party, section of the Communist International, and the Party reconstituted for the first time in the 1960s that waged the heroic People’s War in Araguaia.
Amid the constitutional illusions and false exits of the crisis, the Brazilian Communists highlight a third path: the path of People’s War, where the people shall rise up as protagonists of history and make history according to their own will, lead by the Party of the working class. Such an act, even if starting small and embryonic, will surely have a world-historical impact not only to the people of Brazil, but to the people of the entire continent and the entire world.
