Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

Folha de S. Paulo, May 28th 1984

Concerning the future Civil Code which threatens to be enforced across the board like a straight jacket upon our defenseless Brazil, I have manifested apprehension that it would be a device for the self destruction of the social classes which run our country. For there are plenty of reasons to fear that, under its effect, Brazilian society will stray even further from the ancient Christian standards and, at the same time, come even closer to communist standards. In other words, those of the bourgeoisie who hold the reins of public affairs will have made us take an important step along the already terribly short trajectory that remains before reaching total communization.

The self destruction of the ruling classes is a feature of capital importance in the great revolutions that have shaken the West: the religious cultural humanistic Renaissance and Protestant earthquake of the XV and XVI centuries; its sociopolitical counterpart with far reaching economic ramifications that was the French Revolution at the end of the XVIII century; and at the same time the socio political and economic catastrophe that the world Communist Revolution is showing itself to be beginning in 1917 with the implantation of the Soviet regime in Russia. According to revolutionary theory, the next explosion should be the self managing revolution, in which the communist state will self destruct so as to give rise to the utopia of self managing symphonic anarchy.

Without the cooperation of these successive self destructions which, for example, led so many French aristocrats to support the revolution that was to devour them and, in turn, led so many Russian aristocrats and bourgeois to do the same when faced with the opposition to the Tsarist regime, which also annihilated them, it is doubtful that this succession of hecatombs would have gone on so far, or been so victorious... or perhaps even have made it much past the starting line.

Now has came the moment in which the bourgeoisie of the left that is, all the leftists who are not manual laborers make their contribution to self destruction; out in front are its two leading forces: capital and the clergy (the latter apparently so hostile to the former!). Authentic successors of the revolutionary sectors of yesterday's leading classes, similar sectors of today's leading classes are actively at work in the same process. I give as an example the agitation in Ivinhema, Guariba, Bebedouro (Brazilian cities affected by communo clerical agitation, N.T.), etc., that have had the open and decisive support of ecclesiastical leaders throughout this last fortnight of turmoil and confusion. The cycle was inaugurated by the predictions of the Cardinal Primate Dom Avelar Brandão, whose words so surprised the unwary: "Everything can happen. If we are not careful, the accumulation and growth of tension could take us to a confrontation. So that there will be no period of confrontation or civil war..." (Folha de S. Paulo 5-6-1984).

One could say that these words, when tossed into the air, fell, taking the shape of a magic wand; a noxious magic wand which, upon touching our country's soil, caused a fiery rash of agitation, whose end no one can foresee.

Unfortunately, the work of the leftist clergy in Brazil and throughout the world has become very clear. Much less clear for many readers is the leftist mission of capital.

Capitalism reached its apogee in the XIX century and continues to lead the world in the XX century and I speak not only of the West, but also of the many communist regimes that would have fallen into the most complete misery if it were not for the torrential subsidies that certain Western capitalists send them. Consciously or not, capitalism carried out in favor of the gradual communization of the world a dual role: a) It emulated the surviving aristocracies, replaced them, and in replacing them impressed upon society a character that was ever less elitist and ever more leveling, and turned more toward future proletarianization; b) With this, it devoured the substance of the monarchies, left them fragile, and prepared the ground for the coming, in cadenced step, of republics throughout the world, so much so that the few remaining monarchies were reduced to mere shadows of what they used to be.

These republics, proclaimed in the name of an egalitarian, radical and absurd philosophy which is the great evil unleashed revolutionary appetites all over the world.

All this did not happen, and would not have happened, without the aid of important sectors of today's society, especially of leftist capitalists and, permit me the redundancy, of their capital.

Are these the mere digressions in the air of a reactionary situated in the doctrinal field, the most genuine field of reaction, in which, thanks be to God, I am? No. One of the greatest theoreticians of communism, Engels, affirmed the same thing, and for this reason expresses his admiring gratitude to capital.

In a passage in which Engels' views take in the world revolutionary role of capital, he writes: "So go on, proceed, all of you, with courage in your fight, most excellent lords of capital! We need you right now. In some places we even need you in power. You have to remove from our path the remains of the Middle Ages and of the absolute monarchy. You have to eliminate the remnants of the patriarchic epoch, finish the work of centralization and change the more or less possessionless classes into true proletariats, our recruits. With the help of your factories, of your commercial links, you must create for us the material foundation which the proletariat needs for its emancipation" (Yuri Kuroliov, "Marx and Latin America" in America Latina, periodical of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Editorial Progreso, Moscow, Sept. 1983, no. 10 (70) pp. 4 ff.).

Could it be clearer what communism expects of capitalism and what still remains to be done in our days by the leftist capitalists, who are becoming ever more devoted fellow travelers of communism?...

Will my beloved country know, will my beloved compatriots know, how to find a way to escape from the growing pressures they are receiving from the self-destructing leading classes of the left? This article is intended as a disinterested and categorical aid to their throwing themselves resolutely into this task.