Brazil is in the grip of political crisis, with the start of legal moves to kick President Fernando Collor de Mello out of office.
A corruption scandal - so far little more than an internal squabble within the ruling class - now threatens to explode into mass mobilisations against the regime.
The biggest demonstrations since the pro-democracy protests of 1984 have seen hundreds of thousands on the streets of all major cities, dressed in black to symbolise rejection of Collor's appeal to don national colours of yellow and green in support of him.
Some 70 per cent of all Brazilians now want Collor to go; as recently as July, 67 per cent thought he should stay. Collor negatives: Brazilians want President out Collor, an open admirer of Thatcher, came to power in 1990 in Brazil's first direct election in almost three decades, standing on a free market/clean government ticket.
Last May, his younger brother •Pedro accused presidential campaign treasurer Paulo Cesar Farias - also Pedro's major business rival - of accepting hundreds of millions of dollars in kickbacks for government contracts.
Swimming pool
Collor is alleged to have received sweeteners including a swimming pool, money for alimony payments and $1.8m towards 'home repairs'.
Both Farias and Collor flatly deny the alleaations. Nevertheless. Brazil's congress spent three months investigating the two mens dealinas. Impeachment moves ain.
Collor ominously refers to the scandal as 'a campaign by coupmakers'. A Brazilian political scientist summarises the affair as a simple dispute between those who have power and those who want it. If you line up the tanks, cannons and troops, you see that Collor wins.
The country has seen six military coups this century, and after recent events in Peru, an attempt to restore military dictatorship cannot be excluded. But for the first time, a powerful organised workers' movement is a factor in the political equation.
The anti-Collor protests could trigger a working class fightback against the privations caused by well over two years of recession. Real wages have fallen by a third, with unemployment running at up to 30 per cent - some 1.3m people in Sao Paulo alone. The government's only answer has been to imolement International Monetary Fund austerity plans to ensure interest payments to western banks are met. More than 40 per cent of next year's budget is devoted to debt servicing. Even economy minister Marcilio Marques Moreira remarks: 'It's incredible how things are not collapsing with the cuts we have made.! While the leadership of PT, the mass workers party, has recentiy moved right, the revolutionary currents including Fourth Internationalists -still command substantial minority support. workers have been dismissed this year. This is one per cent of the total urban workforce. There are estimated to be 10 million workers within state en terprises without work.
Contract system
Guangdong province is also trying to catch up with the reforms; last January they decided that a labour contract system should be fully introduced in the province within three years.
From the beginning the workers have opposed these attacks. Chinese Woman magazine worker in shanghai as saying: 'The reforn should bring workers a sense of security, otherwise it will not gain the support of the majority of workers.
The magazine said most workers in state enterprises in Shanghai felt the same way. It said that some workers said they were forced to sign labour contracts 'flavoured with capitalism'. Some workers have responded with extreme actions.
Killed
In the first two months when the reforms were launched in Jinhua City, Zhejiang province, seven managers were beaten up by workers compulsorily transferred. A director of a biochemical factory in Hefei was killed when run over by a worker using a factory vehicle.
A factory worker in Yunan province ran amok in a car after being refused a wage increase, knocking down 34 people.
A worker in Houma fired a shot at a factory director after he was sacked. There were also reports of mass protests, beating up of managers and sabotaging equipment in Shenyang and announced that only 17.67 million workers had been involved in enterprises subject to the reform; this amounts to about 16 per cent of all workers in state enterprises.
Workers resistance has deterred the smooth implementation of the government's reform of wages and the labour system. Fiercer resistance will probably occur if moves are made to privatise the state enterprises.
Tradition
The Chinese working class has a tradition of struggle. Today the industrial working class is a staggering 145 million people; they are much better educated than 30 or even 20 years ago.
But long years of Stalinist repression have resulted in the weakening of their collective strength; and several attempts to independent unions, especially in 1980 and 1989, have been brutally crushed.
Industry has stagnated (although not agriculture) because of a combination of bureaucratic •olonnaoamnoni and the reforms. Workers' enthusiasm has been shattered by the policy of attacking their interests and promoting those of the bureaucracy.
It is lack of organised resistance which has caused mainly individual acts of resistance and anger.
The only feasible alternative is workers self-organisation against the bureaucrats, corrupt officials, capitalists and mafia, privileged few.
*Zhang Kai is a member of October Review, Chinese supporters of the Fourth International. No. 27 12 Sept, 1992
Union news September 11 strike call guards' interests. to one yes vote. A initial one-