Brazil’s Communists ahead of the elections: Alliance with Lula or political independence? With Brazil heading to the polls in October, three communist parties are approaching the elections from sharply different positions. The Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) remains fully committed to the re-election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the PT-led coalition, while the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) is presenting its own presidential ticket headed by Edmilson Costa, and the Revolutionary Communist Party (PCBR) is calling for an independent revolutionary left position outside both the Bolsonarist camp and the Lula-led broad front. For the PCdoB, the immediate priority is defeating the far right and securing another Lula government. The party has officially endorsed the Lula-Alckmin ticket and is campaigning inside the Brasil da Esperança federation with the PT and PV, arguing that a new Lula term should deepen national development, reindustrialization and social policies. Its leaders present Bolsonarism as a neofascist, pro-US force and frame the election largely as a confrontation between the democratic-popular camp and the far right. That strategy, however, also exposes the central contradiction of the PCdoB’s electoral line: for years it has subordinated its communist identity to alliances led by the PT and to the management of capitalism through broad coalitions. Its 2026 campaign again ties communist activity to Lula’s re-election rather than to an independent communist presidential project. From a class standpoint, this leaves unresolved the question of whether repeated support for social-democratic and social-liberal governments can produce a genuinely independent political pole for the working class.
https://www.idcommunism.com/2026/10/brazils-communists-ahead-of-elections-alliance-with-lula-of-political-independence.html France: an explosive situation Since the beginning of September, social tensions have been rising day by day. As we write, tens of thousands of high school students across the country are taking to the streets to demand decent learning conditions. The government is responding with insults and police repression. On 29 September, many school students joined the powerful mobilisation of firefighters and public sector workers. The CGT at TotalEnergies – whose bosses are raking in billions of euros in super-profits at the expense of the people – is calling on all the company’s employees to strike on 8 October. Other movements are underway or on the agenda in the private sector, notably in response to the massive redundancy plan at Sodexo. Finally, calls for action on 17 October have been widely shared on social media. The immediate cause of this initiative is the soaring cost of fuel, which is hitting the vast majority of workers, tradespeople, shopkeepers and farmers. It is difficult to say what will happen on 17 October and in the days that follow. But the fact that calls launched on TikTok have met with such success in just a few days is an expression of immense social anger. Against this backdrop, the government is preparing €54 billion of budget cuts, at the expense of workers and the middle classes. From the ruling class’ point of view, these cuts are absolutely necessary to constrain the public deficit, and rising interest payments on this debt. From the point of view of the masses of exploited and oppressed, however, it is a provocation and a further reason to mobilise.
https://marxist.com/france-an-explosive-situation.htmCondition of the Working Class in England, by Engels, 1845 ch08. Single Branches of Industry FACTORY-HANDSIn dealing now with the more important branches of the English manufacturing proletariat, we shall begin, according to the principle already laid down, with the factory-workers, i.e., those who are comprised under the Factory Act. This law regulates the length of the working-day in mills in which wool, silk, cotton, and flax are spun or woven by means of water or steam-power, and embraces, therefore, the more important branches of English manufacture. The class employed by them is the most intelligent and energetic of all the English workers, and, therefore, the most restless and most hated by the bourgeoisie. It stands as a whole, and the cotton-workers pre-eminently stand, at the head of the labour movement, as their masters the manufacturers, especially those of Lancashire, take the lead of the bourgeois agitation. We have already seen in the introduction how the population employed in working up the textile materials were first torn from their former way of life. It is, therefore, not surprising that the progress of mechanical invention in later years also affected precisely these workers most deeply and permanently. The history of cotton manufacture as related by Ure, [1] Baines, [2] and others is the story of improvements in every direction, most of which have become domesticated in the other branches of industry as well. Hand-work is superseded by machine-work almost universally, nearly all manipulations are conducted by the aid of steam or water, and every year is bringing further improvements. In a well-ordered state of society, such improvements could only be a source of rejoicing; in a war of all against all, individuals seize the benefit for themselves, and so deprive the majority of the means of subsistence. Every improvement in machinery throws workers out of employment, and the greater the advance, the more numerous the unemployed; each great improvement produces, therefore, upon a number of workers the effect of a commercial crisis, creates want, wretchedness, and crime. Take a few examples. The very first invention, the jenny, worked by one man, produced at least sixfold what the spinning-wheel had yielded in the same time; thus every new jenny threw five spinners out of employment. The throstle, which, in turn, produced much more than the jenny, and, like it, was worked by one man, threw still more people out of employment. The mule, which required yet fewer hands in proportion to the product, had the same effect, and every improvement in the mule, every multiplication of its spindles, diminished still further the number of workers employed. But this increase of the number of spindles in the mule is so great that whole armies of workers have been thrown out of employment by it. For, whereas one spinner, with a couple of children for piecers, formerly set six hundred spindles in motion, he could now manage fourteen hundred to two thousand spindles upon two mules, so that two adult spinners and a part of the piecers whom they employed were thrown out.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/condition-working-class/ch08.htm