Four experiences to learn from: left governments in Brazil, Greece, France, Britain
Timelines
Brazil
1980: Workers' Party (PT) founded. Its leader Lula had been
a leader of the Sao Paulo metalworkers' strikes in May 1978,
when 300 factories and 300,000 workers came out. These
strikes detonated a wave of workers' protest that ended
military rule, in force since 1965.
1983: PT instrumental in establishing a militant trade union
federation, the CUT.
1985: "Controlled" end to military rule, with two parties
licensed by the military, PMDB and PSDB.
1989: First direct presidential election. A conservative beats
Lula 53%-47%.
Early 1990s: the PT had around 600,000 members. It won
seats on local and municipal councils, and at state and federal
level.
Over 1990s: PT bureaucratises itself in response to
exigencies of running local government, and two presidential
defeats by the ex-Marxist Fernando Henrique Cardoso. After
defeat in 1998. Lula insisted that he would run a fourth time
only if he were given a free hand to form alliances across the
political board and was provided with the resources to run a
slick, professional electoral campaign.
2002: Lula wins presidential election, but on bland slogans
After 2003; PT redistributes some of the proceeds of export
successes for Brazil: welfare payments (Bolsa Familial) take
millions out of poverty; more workers gain "formal"
employment status.
2010: PT candidate Dilma Rousseff wins presidential
election to succeed Lula.
2013 big but politically headless demonstrations call for
better education and better healthcare.
2014: Rousseff wins presidential election on promise to save
PT programs from right-wing attack, but amidst economic
crisis quickly turns to cuts. Meanwhile the street movement
comes under increasing right-wing populist influence.
2016: Congress removes Rousseff from office, puts in right-
wing as caretaker.
Greece
January 2004: formation of Syriza as a coalition around
Synaspismos, a continuation of the left-Eurocommunist
strand.
October 2009: Pasok wins big majority in Greek election
(Syriza on 4.6%). Pasok announces that it has found
government finances much worse than it thought; imposes
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cuts and then in May 2010 enters the first of a series of
“Memoranda” with the EU, European Central Bank, and
IMF, spelling out cuts in return for bailouts (in fact bailouts
of the commercial banks which had lent to the Greek
government)
May and June 2012: After the fall of the Pasok
administration, and some months of a caretaker regime, two
general elections. Syriza wins 17% in May, and 27% in June,
but the right-wing party New Democracy narrowly wins.
July 2013: first congress of Syriza as a party rather than a
coalition. Commits to reversing cuts; abolishing or defaulting
on the “illegitimate” bulk of Greece’s debt; public ownership
and public control of the banking system; taxation of
domestic big capital; against privatization and in favour of
renationalisation. September 2014: Syriza leaders replace (de
facto) the Syriza congress policies by the “Thessaloniki
declaration”, promising to renegotiate a better deal with the
EU and distribute the proceeds in welfare measures.
January 2015: Syriza wins election under the leadership of
Alexis Tsipras. Forms a coalition government with the right-
wing populist Anel. The activists of the occupations of city
squares, the anti-austerity movements, and the 30-plus
general strikes since 2010 are asked to sit back and play a
supportive role.
February 2015: Despite a high-profile tour by Greek finance
minister Yanis Varoufakis, eurozone finance ministers refuse
to give Greece a better deal. Syriza extends the
Memorandum; pledges to cut spending on health care,
education, mass transit, local government, and other essential
social services. Utilises all reserves in order to meet debt
payments.
July 2015: In a referendum, called by the Syriza government,
on EU austerity terms, 61% vote “Oxi” (no). Massive rallies
all around Greece, 500,000 in Athens. But over the next
weeks, Tsipras pushes through approval of EU austerity
terms, sacks left cabinet ministers, and asks all MPs who do
not vote for bailout measures to resign. Syriza leftists quit to
form Popular Unity.
September 2015: Syriza wins narrow re-election and forms a
new coalition government with ANEL. Voter turnout at
56.6%, is the lowest recorded since the fall of the military
junta in 1974.
November 2015: Syriza government passes a new austerity
budget and expels deputies who voted against the measures.
The budget is passed just days after the outgoing president of
parliament, Zoe Kostantopoulou, issues the final report of the
“Truth Committee on the Greek Debt.” The report notes that:
“The Third MoU [Memoranda of Understanding] that
accompanies the August 2015 loan agreement, just like the
previous ones of 2010 and 2012, transfers the weight of
structural adjustment to Greek society. As a result, the Third
MoU will increase poverty, class polarization and social
exclusion”. Its measures “are of equal or greater social and
fiscal impact, compared to the preceding ones.”
March 2016: Syriza-Anel government and Tsipras act as the
gatekeeper of fortress Europe. At the Brussels EU summit;
Alexis Tsipras signs a bilateral agreement with Turkey which
stipulates that “irregular” migrants must be deported with
greater speed back to Turkey. (Following legal studies, the
UN has designated the deal between Turkey and Greece as
illegal).
October 2016: Syriza agrees to further austerity measures.
The Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers approves the
release of €2.8 billion to the Greek government, after the
Syriza-led coalition has met the deadline for implementing
austerity and privatisations. Legislation earmarks a series of
state-owned companies for privatisation, including the
Thessaloniki and Athens Water Supply and Sewerage
Companies, the Public Power Company, the Athens Metro
and ELVO (a bus and army vehicle manufacturer). The sale
of these assets will be overseen by the Hellenic Company for
Assets and Participation, a “super-fund” to which all Greek
state assets to be sold off will eventually be transferred. The
super-fund is to have a life span of at least 99 years; half of
all its revenues are to go to service Greece’s debts.
France
May-June 1968: Huge general strike batters the regime of
president Charles De Gaulle, installed by a "soft" military
coup in 1958, but is defused by big concessions on wages
and conditions. In the following years, the revolutionary left
grows a lot, but so also does the Communist Party, and even
more the Socialist Party, which in 1968 had been moribund.
1972: CP and SP agree "common program".
May 1981: Francois Mitterrand, leader of the SP, wins
presidential election with the backing of the CP. Carries
through extensive nationalisations, 35 hour week, and
welfare improvements.
March 1983: Facing a flight of capital amidst world
recession, high unemployment, and roaring inflation, the
government announces "tournant de la rigueur" - a turn
towards cuts and privatisation - initially as a temporary
measure.
September 1983: A coalition of the mainstream right and the
fascist Front National wins municipal elections in the town
of Dreux. From then until today the FN, previously marginal,
has established itself as a big political force.
June 1984: SP and CP do badly in European Parliament
election, and CP ministers resign from government.
March 1986: Mainstream right wins parliamentary elections,
and Mitterrand as president governs in "cohabitation" with
the right through to 1988.
By the end of the 1990s, essentially all of the nationalisations
had been reversed.
Britain
June 1970: Tories, who had ruled from 1951 to 1964, regain
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office after 1964-70 Labour government flounders. The new
Tory government at first attempts a proto-Thatcherite policy
(the "Selsdon program").
Jan-Feb 1972 and July 1972: Strong miners' strike (Jan-Feb)
and mass unofficial strikes at jailing of five dockers under
new Tory anti-union laws force Tories to retreat.
October 1973: Labour right-winger Denis Healey, who will
be Chancellor in the 1974-9 Labour government, tells Labour
conference: “There are going to be howls of anguish from the
rich”. He promises to “squeeze property speculators until the
pips squeak”. The Labour manifesto in February 1974 will
propose “a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance
of power and wealth in favour of working people and their
families”.
Jan-Feb 1974: Facing an overtime ban and then a strike by
the miners, the Tory governmernt puts industry on a three-
day week and then calls a snap general election on the theme:
Who rules? Government or unions? Labour wins the
election. Trade-union membership had been growing
uninterruptedly since 1934, and would peak at 12 million
members in 1979. Shop-steward organisation, previously
concentrated in engineering, had expanded to many white-
collar sections new to trade-unionism. Strikes were on a
broadly rising trend from about 1956 through to 1985.
After Feb 1974: The Labour government repeals the most-
hated Tory laws, and introduces reforms (Equal Pay Act, Sex
Discrimination Act, Health and Safety at Work Act). Strikes
continue at a high level.
Meanwhile, world capitalism is in its biggest crisis since
World War 2. Economic output begins to sag in 1973, slumps
drastically in 1974, and keeps falling until late in 1975.
Inflation reaches 24.2% per year in 1975. Unemployment
rises from 2.6% in 1973 towards 5.7% in 1977.
June 1975: Jack Jones, the leftish leader of the strongest
union, the TGWU (now part of Unite), becomes so
convinced of the danger of a right-wing military or other
coup against the Labour government than he persuades the
government to scrap its manifesto commitment against
binding wage controls and introduce a flat-rate limit on pay
rises of £6 per week (about £60 in today’s values). The limit
holds.
Also June 1975: withdrawal from the EU is rejected 67%-
33% in a referendum. This demoralises the parliamentary
Labour left, for whom EU withdrawal has been the politico-
economic cure-all.
1976-8: The government imposes heavy cuts on the NHS and
other social spending under the terms of a deal it has done
with the IMF. Opposition from the parliamentary Labour left
collapses.
1977-9: Industrial militancy revives, patchily at first, then in
large public-sector strikes in the “Winter of Discontent” of
1978-9.
After 1979: frustration has accumulated so that a big left
surge develops in the Labour Party, around demands to
democratise the party and the slogan "Never again a Labour
government like the last one".