Lula: The Socialism That We Build Will Be Defined by the People
- Caio Fernandes Barbosa
In 1981, Lula da Silva spoke to the first Brazilian Workers’ Party convention about his country’s path to democratic socialism. Ahead of the second round of Brazil’s presidential election later this month, we reproduce his speech here.
Lula Da Silva during a press conference on September 30, 2022 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Buda Mendes / Getty Images)
Comrades,
On behalf of the National Commission of the Workers’ Party and my own behalf, I want to express to my comrades the great joy of seeing the realization of our first national convention. The Organization Party Reform Law [a law passed in Brazil at the time], with all its formalisms, and all its details, failed to dampen our enthusiasm. Although I disagree with the authoritarianism that inspires the Organization Party Reform Law, it was followed in this convention, as it has been in all activities of the Workers’ Party since its beginning. And today, with all the legal requirements fulfilled, we arrived at the National Convention, which allows us to obtain the definitive registration of our party.
“We Already Are a Mass Party”
Here we approved, as required by law, our statutes and our program, and we elected our first National Directory. All those who have been following the formation of our party know that neither our statutes, nor our program, nor the names that make up the National Directory came up for debate only at the time of this convention. They have been discussed by the rank and file of the party for a long time, in our municipal and regional meetings and pre-conventions, as well as in the National Preconvention, which we held in São Paulo last August.
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