The mass demonstrations against Bolsonaro and the fight for socialism in Brazil
Demonstrators march on in Paulista Avenue to demand that Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro resign, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Saturday, July 3, 2021. (AP Photo/Nelson Antoine)
Over the past month, Brazil has seen three days of nationwide demonstrations that have brought hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets against President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration and its criminal response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The scale of the demonstrations and the persistence of the protesters express the growing discontent among broad layers of the Brazilian population with the existing social order and point to the urgency of the fight for genuine socialist politics in Brazil.
Bolsonaro sacks military command to consolidate authoritarian rule in Brazil
In an action without precedent in the history of Brazil, the country’s fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro has fired his defense minister along with the uniformed commanders of the Army, Navy and Air Force. His unconcealed aim is to secure a total grip over the state in preparation for dictatorial measures against the working class under conditions of a catastrophic worsening of the COVID-19 pandemic and a deepening social and political crisis in Brazil.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonao and Army commander Gen. Edson Pujol (Credit: AgênciaBrasil)
Bolsonaro’s conflict with the top echelons of the military has emerged in the context of his increasingly strident demands for a complete subordination of the Armed Forces to his government’s political agenda, in particular his genocidal herd immunity policy in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. On the same day as the wholesale change in the senior command