A Brazilian’s International Success – Folha de S. Paulo, January 8, 1969
by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
It seems that the impact of Brazilians’ gestures and achievements abroad is reported inconsistently in our country. Telegrams from overseas inform us about the reception of certain literary figures, especially left-wingers or Dom Helder Camara. No Brazilian has received publicity comparable to his since Getúlio Vargas. However, I believe many individuals outside this select group achieve undeniable success abroad that goes unreported. I know of at least one notable case worth sharing.
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Attorney Fábio Vidigal Xavier da Silveira, a young and energetic member of TFP’s National Council, is a farmer on the outskirts of Amparo. As such, he developed a strong interest in opposing socialist and confiscatory land reform and was part of the expert committee that Most Rev. Geraldo Sigaud, Archbishop of Diamantina, Most Rev. Antonio de Castro Mayer, Bishop of Campos, economist Mendonça de Freitas, and I consulted with to draft the Morro Alto Declaration, a positive (and, therefore, antisocialist and anticonfiscatory) land reform program that the TFP has adopted as its own.
Driven by his interest in the subject, Fábio Xavier da Silveira traveled to Chile to study land reform. As he inquired, the Frei government arbitrarily gave him 48 hours to leave the country. This TFP director had done or said nothing to deserve such a harsh measure. You might think Frei’s police used telepathy because deep in his soul, the visitor had accumulated observations and reflections that opposed Frei’s social and economic policies. Upon returning to Brazil, he documented his impressions. This resulted in a book first published by the respected monthly magazine Catolicismo. Later, Editora Vera Cruz published Frei, the Chilean Kerensky, as a 202-page volume. It is a well-documented report enriched by a broad socio-economic, philosophical, and moral critique. The author argues that Frei is carrying out a work similar to that of Kerensky in Russia (there’s no evidence whether intentionally or not). Full implementation of Frei’s program would turn Chile into a very “advanced” socialist people’s republic.
The work went through two editions, totaling 10,000 copies, and generated notable reactions in Brazil. It received harsh invectives in the House of Representatives and the leftist press, as well as strong expressions of support, including from the Navy, Interior and Labor Ministers, the archbishop of Diamantina, the bishops of Campos and Bragança Paulista, and numerous figures from the political and military spheres.
However, all of this is minor compared to the book’s incredible success in Spanish-speaking South America. In Argentina, it was translated by the well-known Editorial Cruzada and sparked so much interest that it went through four editions in just four months, totaling 18,000 copies. The “Grupo Tradicionalista de Jóvenes Cristianos Venezuelanos” (Traditionalist Group of Young Venezuelan Christians) published two editions in Caracas, both of which were very successful. On the eve of the latest Venezuelan elections, the leading Caracas newspaper, El Nacional, printed 200,000 copies of a summary of the work.
As far as publicity goes, these are clear signs of interest and support. Let us consider the controversy, which highlights the work’s timeliness and importance. Like their Brazilian counterparts, the Spanish-American opponents of the book did not present a single argument against it. Are its critiques of Chilean agrarian reform objective or not? Silence. The criticisms were nothing more than noise. In Chile, the official Christian Democratic newspaper La Nación, the communist newspaper El Siglo, and the socialist newspapers Clarín, Última Hora, and La Tarde united to defend the “threatened” regime. The Frei government felt the book’s impact so strongly that it banned its circulation, but to no avail.
Thousands of copies arrived by mail from Buenos Aires. The government confiscated the copies that came in. However, the Santiago magazine 7 Días reported that Chileans’ curiosity about Frei, the Chilean Kerensky, was so great that the book spread widely from hand to hand and was eagerly sought after and read with delight by a large audience. At the Buenos Aires airport, Mr. Enrique Krauss, Undersecretary of the Chilean Ministry of the Interior, lost his temper and demanded that the police arrest the local TFP’s young people selling the book. Of course, his demand was not granted. The situationist press even talked about a diplomatic incident. Again, in vain.
With the candidacy of Christian Democrat Mr. Rafael Caldera for the presidency of Venezuela, and his program even more radical than Frei’s, our fellow countryman’s work became a crucial part of the election campaign there. The book, shown on TV and discussed in the newspapers, became the main topic of the moment.
The book from Venezuela resonated in Mexico City, where Mr. Agustin Navarro praised it in El Sol, and the popular magazine Vertice published an enthusiastic review about it. In El Salvador, Father Fuentes Castellano wrote several articles on it. Chilean diplomats responded strongly. The Chilean ambassador in Caracas issued a statement opposing a laudatory article by Congressman Baldó Casanova.
The Chilean ambassadors in Lima and El Salvador also criticized the book. In short, the controversy grew, involving major organizations and top officials. The religious community was not indifferent to the matter. In Argentina, Cardinal Nicolas Fasolino and the Archbishop of Mendoza supported it. The bishop of Punta del Este in Uruguay also showed support. I have a file with more than 500 clippings about the work.
What does this signify? Today, it might be called a clear and undeniable success—something familiar to those accustomed to controversy, debate, and lively conversations in the fast-moving world of publicity. Unlike in the past, when success was judged by the silent, unanimous approval of small, exclusive groups.
Successes like this should be acknowledged in Brazil, which is why I wrote this article.
