Finally, Self-Persecution – Folha de S. Paulo, September 30, 1973
by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
I have previously addressed the political and moral aspects of the “détente” that Kissinger and Brezhnev are promoting between the Western and Eastern blocs. I have shown that the terms on which this policy is being developed amount to a veritable political self-destruction of the West.
Impressive events following my early articles on the subject confirmed my assertion. U.S. economic aid to its rival superpower has multiplied at an alarming rate. That superpower has used this aid not only to rebuild its damaged economy but also to expand its global influence. When Bangladesh—citing one example—needed American wheat, Nixon, who continues to supply the Soviets generously, replied that they should buy the grain from Russia. Naturally, the Russians resold the wheat at a profit and took the opportunity to enhance their prestige in that disputed region of the globe. In another, even more striking example, the newspapers revealed that Moscow resold large quantities of American wheat in Italy at a profit of about 200%.
Alongside economic reinforcement and the expansion of global influence comes the expansion of armaments. News agencies frequently report on the installation of new equipment in the repressive apparatus of the Iron Curtain and on successive advances in Soviet weaponry.
It takes little thought to conclude that the logical outcome of the “détente” between the White House and the Kremlin is the decline of American leadership and the rise of Soviet power. From the American perspective, détente is essentially self-destruction.
From the Russian perspective, détente has the immediate effect of worsening the persecution of the Russian people. By helping the Kremlin potentates alleviate the economic crisis that the application of communist doctrines has brought upon Russia, Nixon prolongs the existence of the fierce police tyranny, which has recently been denounced with redoubled vigor by Sakharov and other communist dissidents. This means that moral torture, groans, bloodshed, and death are only becoming more widespread in that immense prison that is the world beyond the Iron Curtain, because the Kremlin feels supported by the White House. In other words, for fear that the aggressive fury of the Kremlin clique will turn against them, the US provides it with the means to persecute the Russian people at will. And not only them, but also the satellite nations, among which it would be no exaggeration to include Cuba and, until yesterday, Chile.
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This assessment of the Nixon-Brezhnev détente is incomplete.
In addition to the self-destruction of the US and the persecution of the Russian people, the détente adds another aspect that I have not yet addressed, yet its importance is no less than the previous ones.
Writing recently about the persecution that some of the best Catholics sometimes endure today in the Church, Gustavo Corção aptly used the expression “self-persecution” (a corollary of the mysterious process of “self-destruction” mentioned by Paul VI).
I use this expression to describe what is beginning to happen in the Western economy as a result of Nixon’s policy.
A few days ago, Mr. Gastão Eduardo de Bueno Vidigal, president of Banco Mercantil de São Paulo and former secretary of finance for our state, a person entirely qualified to speak on the subject, concisely and clearly described this phenomenon. In an interview with a morning newspaper, he said, “We must fear the consequences of inflation spreading worldwide. The dollar crisis and the entry into the world market of two major buyers of food and raw materials—the Soviet bloc and communist China, which together account for more than a third of the Earth’s population—have generated a rush for gold and supplies of both primary and finished products.”
In other words, I would add, the scourge of inflation is spreading throughout the West simply because we must feed, clothe, and equip a third of humanity that was until recently excluded from our economic sphere.
Now, I ask why this exclusion ended.
Obviously, because of the détente inaugurated by Nixon.
In other words, I conclude that the West’s leading nation is beginning to unleash a veritable economic persecution against itself and other friendly nations, with the aim of favoring enemy nations! Or rather, favoring the governments that keep these nations under the yoke of misery and violence.
What compensation do these governments pay for so much aid? In reality, no one knows precisely what price they have promised to pay or when they will pay it. Why this mystery? What guarantees are there that payment will actually be made?
No sooner have I written this sentence than I seem to hear the voice of some bellowing Christian Democrat asking me whether I do not accept the principle that the richest should help the poorest.
Of course, I accept it, but it does not apply to the present case at all.
As Russian dissidents are clearly demonstrating, US support is only serving to keep in power rulers whose ineptitude is one of the causes of misery. The same can be said of China.
“One of the causes,” I said. The main cause of poverty in communist countries is the collectivist regime itself, which, because it is unnatural, leads to catastrophe wherever it is established: in South America as in the Antilles, on the Danube as on the Yellow River.
Persecuting the West to strengthen the despots who persecute the East: this is another facet of Nixon and Kissinger’s policy.
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If the policies of these two American public figures come to fruition, history will judge them by applying Churchill’s words in reverse: never have so many been so completely destroyed and liquidated by so few.
