Carlos Prestes and the Brazilian Communist Party: A Secondary Issue? – Folha de S. Paulo, October 10, 1979
by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
With the return of exiles, the issue of the Communist Party’s freedom in Brazil is becoming increasingly relevant. Understandably, Folha readers would ask for my opinion on the matter.
I answer this question with some perplexity, as I do not understand why this issue would be dramatic.
Indeed, what is the scope of this “remaining freedom” that is supposedly yet to be granted? Long before the country’s political opening, Brazilian communists already enjoyed a wide margin of freedom to disseminate their ideas. Bookstores were packed with communist literature sold at token prices, and newspaper offices were notoriously infiltrated by activists who added their own “seasoning” to news and commentary of every kind. In universities, radio and television stations, and the leadership of important social and economic sectors, communists have likewise secured positions from which they can broadly broadcast their doctrines through their presence, influence, and speech.
Moreover, the immense field already given to them is of high strategic value, but that’s not all. While communists (masked or unmasked) were entering, militant anticommunists were being removed on a large scale.
In this context, is there really a meaningful difference between the extensive freedom they already enjoyed and “total” freedom? Indeed, communists could not openly broadcast their ideas in the press, on the radio, or on television. But suppose they began doing so tomorrow—how long could they sustain it? The Brazilian people are not communists. Any centrist outlet that openly embraced communist propaganda would be abandoned by its readers, listeners, and viewers. One or more explicitly communist newspapers might appear, and a small minority would read them, but doing so would only isolate them from the overwhelming majority.
In short, communist expansion in Brazil has always depended less on open proclamation than on infiltration—on slipping in, insinuating themselves, and whispering under a disguise. The national bonhomie tolerates this, grows accustomed to it, and may even come to absorb it. But the moment communists remove their masks, Brazilians—who have an instinctive aversion to grimaces—will turn their backs on them.
What, then, of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) and the Communist Party of Brazil (PC do B)? To begin with, I view the supposed distinction between them with the same skepticism I reserve for the alleged antagonism between Russia and China. But let us set that aside. Is it only now that the PCB or the PC do B will be “reopened”? The very question makes me smile. Can anyone seriously believe that the entire expansion granted to communists in recent years was not coordinated by a single leadership? And was that leadership not, in turn, directed from Moscow? Did all this not amount to a virtual PCB—an unofficial party in everything but name, lacking only electoral participation? And how advantageous would electoral participation be for the PCB? Forced to run under its own banner, it would face nothing short of a complete fiasco.
Carlos Prestes? His importance to the Brazilian public is folklore. It is nothing more than what big media capitalism grants him in the centrist media. He will make headlines only to the extent that they want him to.
I am not saying the communists’ transition from broad to total freedom is trivial. I intend to return to this topic.
Even so, the dramatization of the issue makes me smile, albeit warily, because you can sense a game behind it. In the current climate, the ostensible communist danger conveniently diverts public attention from the truly perilous work of infiltrated activists and from the ambiguous, energetic leftism of certain useful innocents.
For example, I am far more frightened by a recent statement from Bishop Luciano Mendes de Almeida, the CNBB secretary-general, than by Prestes’ rhetoric. The prelate said, “I am neither for nor against the Communist Party, as this position will depend on the degree of respect its leaders have for the fundamental values of the human person.”
This sentence has two meanings. The most natural, and the one the reader most easily understands, is that communism is not necessarily contrary to human rights and, if the leaders of a communist regime are good, it is perfectly acceptable, according to the prelate.
Still, the eagerness of certain across-the-board defenders of “Catholic leftism” to extract a twisted loophole from the bishop’s words is revealing. They would have us believe that Bishop Luciano implied the following: since the communist regime violates human rights, it would be acceptable only insofar as it is not communist. But does such a strained reading truly provide a basis for defense? I remain doubtful.
Thus, Bishop Luciano’s bland and ambiguous interview, in which he seeks to forbid dissent from democracy in the name of democratic freedom of opinion, ends up doing more for the communist cause than ten interviews or speeches by Prestes himself. At the very least, it sows confusion.
For an unsuspecting reader who has always taken the radical incompatibility between Catholicism and communism as a settled truth, such ambiguity can only erode the very ideological barrier that once shielded him from communist propaganda.
Therefore, this single statement by the CNBB secretary-general draws more sympathy for communists masquerading as nonviolent than ten speeches by Prestes combined.
However, this enormity went largely unnoticed. Meanwhile, the greatest emphasis was placed on the problems of Prestes, non-Prestes, BCP, or non-BCP. Is there not a greater danger in this field?
That’s the problem. What’s the solution?
“There is none,” someone will say, melancholically. I disagree. It exists, and it is entirely in John Paul II’s hands. Brazilians must communicate these matters to him, not only directly but also through the apostolic nuncio in Brazil.
That is what I will do as soon as I finish this article.
