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 In the 70s, there was a joke in college campuses in Brazil. That Stalin did not want the establishment of the socialism in Brazil so not to demoralize the regime. As a joke it wasn't that funny, since socialism had been demoralized long before that, and definitively, by Stalin himself.
Parenthetically, we can say that the demoralization started even before Joseph Vissarionovitch Djugatchivili - this was the monster's name -, with Lenin. Vladimir Illitch did not kill that many, after all, his time alive in power was quite short. But we shouldn't harbor any doubt: had he lived longer he would have killed more Russians. No dictatorship remains in power without slaughters.
Even with Stalin unmasked, the Lefts for a long time wanted to preserve Lenin's image. History, however, is implacable and there is no crime that does not come to the surface, even if it remains unpunished. Today, documents of Lenin authorizing the Romanoffs execution have surfaced.
Just after taking over, still in 1920, Lenin rushed to destroy the villages of the cossacks and to deport the survivors. He just didn't kill more people because in 1922 already he was physically weakened, dying in 1924.
In the idealized world of the Lefts remained Trotsky, who little killed because he did not end up taking part in the power. Still he was the one responsible for the Kronstadt's massacre.
Later on we had Mao, the champion (65 million deaths) and smaller imitators such as Nicolai Ceaucescu, Envers Hodja, Pol Pot, Hoenecker. They killed what they could.
There were millions of victims - more precisely a hundred million corpses - and at this price the 20th century understood that that romantic doctrine of the 19th Century irascible German only resulted in misery, gulags, mass murders.
Socialism's top leaders - I'm not talking here about social-democracy, let's make it clear - were the ones who decreed once and for all the death of the socialist idea. What remains today are the ridiculous ghosts of Castro and Kim Jong II, who despite having dragged their countries into misery, still can count on a large group of claqueurs in the international press.
In Brazil, always in the rear end of history, the defenders of those potentially murderous ideas from the 19th century only came to the power ... in the 21th century.
Twice (in 1935 and 1964) they tried to seize power by guns. They didn't get a thing, they were repelled by better armed forces.
More than one century late, the PT (Workers' Party), in whose DNA are Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and their likes' genes, manages to take over the government through the vote.
But by then the Wall had already fallen, the USSR was shattered, socialism (as synonymous for communism) was demoralized. Too late to establish proletariat dictatorships.
Were it in the 80s, when the PT was created, when the USSR burped and the planet trembled, and then perhaps the whole continent would be communist today. Twenty years later, the PT did not have enough power to make of Brazil a huge Cuba.
Taking advantage of the situation in a country where the history of communism had been adroitly hidden from their citizens, the self-proclaimed Workers' Party (created not by workers, but by Catholic priests and USP (University of São Paulo) intellectuals), managed to accomplish the old communist dream, to place a worker in power.
Worker but not much, since what he has done less in life was to work. But he had, at least at the start of his trajectory, the profile of a worker, and as a worker he continued to be considered, even after he wasn't one anymore. Brazil was safe.
"Our proletariat who art on Earth, hallowed be thy name, thy will be done, come to us your power", used to say the revolutionary prayer of God's Builders, movement founded by Gorki and Lunatcharski.
But times had changed. It was already somewhat démodé to talk about proletariat or class struggle, bourgeoisie or socialism.
Lula, the elect, had a glimpse of common-sense and betrayed his class - the so-called proletariat - and even his biography.
If before he fought furiously against the IMF, once in power he started to exploit the low and middle class to increase the notorious primary surplus, even far beyond what the IMF itself expected.
If before he showed with sacred ire his aversion towards banks and bankers, he transformed his government in an unexpected paradise for banks and bankers, who today have found in a country of the Third World the best of the worlds to live in.
This incredible country of ours had luck. It was necessary that the proletarians' hope betrayed the proletariat so that we wouldn't fall into a miserable economy such as the one from Russia, Cuba or Albania.
Brazil had luck, but only the luck of not falling into the abyss, what does not constitute any advance. There is no perspective, however, for the country to distance itself at least a step from the abyss.
Lula's great merit is to not have done anything that he proposed in his campaign. On the contrary, he accelerated the exploitative economic politics of Fernando Henrique, just dipped his hand deeper in the taxpayer's pocket, particularly in the pocket of old folks and pensioners, who don't even have the possibility to go on strike to defend themselves.
If this wasn't enough the PT mounted an efficient scheme for buying House Representatives, something denounced today by the entire press, in proportions never seen in the history of this or any other country.
Lula, as it is already known through countless testimonies, was well aware of this generalized corruption going on at his party. And being aware of the situation, by his inaction he guaranteed that it continued.
PC Farias - who gave origin to former President Collor's impeachment - never put his hand in the taxpayer's pocket. He collected the dirty money from private companies, which naturally expected a few courtesies in return.
Delúbio Soares, the PC Farias of the PT, purchases deputies with public money and what's more, with the President's connivance. From that same man who used to burp: 'in my government we neither steal nor let it be stolen.'
And here it resides Lula's and the PT's great contribution to the nation. With the institution of mensalão (big monthly), the party and the President have been once and for all demoralized. The PT lasted as the roses last.
It hardly reached adult age - and power - and it's already showing its real intentions: to loot the nation and to purchase consciences. Everything very coherent according to its Leninist-Slalinist origins: the ends justify the means. This if the PT has as its end something besides indefinite maintenance of power.
According to former Finance Minister and former Federal Deputy Delfim Netto, the PT needed to arrive to power so that Brazil would be vaccinated against the PT. It's time to give the vaccine shot and the honor of administering it belonged to the first - and let's hope the last - worker to take the reins of the country.
The administration of an immense and complex economy, in these times in which we live, is not for the beak of a scoundrel lathe operator and without any scruples.
In this Brazil of ours always in the rear end, Lula had the honor of putting a shovel of dirt in the hallucinated ideals of the 19th century. The PT, truth be said, has already generated an abortion, the PSOL party.
It might produce another one. But, in Brazil at least, such hallucinated people won't have a chance to deceive the voter anymore. (I, an atheist, at these moments turn mystic: may the good Lord listen to me!)
Those who voted in the PT, starting with the public servants, today are pulling their hairs out. The only ones who still defend the PT are those who eat corn from their feed-bag.
To Lula, hard-working grave-digger of socialism in this part of Latin America, my eternal and touched gratefulness.
Janer Cristaldo - he holds a PhD from University of Paris, Sorbonne - is an author, translator, lawyer, philosopher and journalist and lives in São Paulo. His e-mail address is janercr@terra.com.br.
Translated by Arlindo Silva.
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