Indifference and Slumber as Barriers Are Torn Down – Folha de S. Paulo, August 8, 1971
by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
The 18th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution recently passed without any triumphalist demonstrations to mark the occasion. Nor was there any need for them. Each year marks a new stage in the Cuban people’s grueling journey toward complete misery. I don’t understand why the Cuban bishops didn’t issue a collective pastoral letter calling for comprehensive reform of the poor country’s structures. With a few honorable exceptions, bishops across Latin America seem captivated by the idea of fixing poverty through structural reforms, so I can’t understand how those in Cuba, surrounded by poverty many times worse, remain calm and relaxed as if living in an ocean of abundance.
Among us, reformist bishops claim, there is misery that contrasts painfully with abundance. I say that in Cuba, there is no contrast between misery and wealth because everything is misery. Therefore, logic would dictate that the Cuban bishops should be a thousand times more anxious, impatient, and restless in their reformist zeal than Bishop Helder, Bishop Valdir, or Bishop Fragoso. How come the opposite is true?
Some might say that Cuba has already undergone all the reforms it needs. Everything has been changed, but nothing has actually succeeded.
In that case, I respond that reform involves undoing what was wrongfully corrected and reversing course, especially considering the disastrous experience that has occurred. Why be a reformist when it’s about moving left, and not be one when the circumstances call for retreating to the right?
Oh, mysterious and dark contradiction!
All the more because, when it comes to poverty in Cuba, the facts don’t just cry out — they howl.
This was the sixth straight year that its sugar harvest fell well below expectations. The agricultural output shortfall is very significant. The island already owes Russia three billion dollars, and its debt is increasing by $250,000 every day, according to Mr. Jaime Suchlicki of the Center for International Studies in Miami. Fidel hopes to receive $100 million in aid this year from the Soviets in the form of consumer goods that the struggling economy cannot afford to buy.
Despite these discouraging results, the Cuban dictator shamelessly—there is no other word for it—continues to spread his failed revolution throughout Latin America. He never tires of celebrating Allende’s rise, his worthy Chilean counterpart, encouraging the Bolivian working class to revolt, predicting a total leftist takeover “by force” in Peru, and expressing hope that Uruguay will soon be under a regime similar to Cuba’s.
Castro is a charlatan. It’s no surprise that he does such things. What’s surprising is that his behavior isn’t met with widespread, demoralizing laughter. The same laughter that would greet a bankrupt merchant who issued a manifesto urging all businesses to adopt his methods.
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The Chilean foreign minister, “comrade” Clodomiro Almeyda, attended the somber “celebration” marking the 18th anniversary of injustice and misery in Cuba.
Of course, he wouldn’t have been surprised by anything. According to Folha de S. Paulo (7/27-2-31/1971), the misery typical of communist countries has already begun in Chile. Production has declined across all sectors. Lines are starting to form outside stores. Discontent is growing, and police activity is increasing. Everything is getting worse. Everything, including Cardinal Silva Henriquez’s attitude. He gave Catholics free rein to vote for the Marxist candidate with dedication, helped Allende seize power, later issued a brief and wishy-washy anti-Marxist statement, and now stands passively by as the country deteriorates.
The cardinal apparently sleeps peacefully despite the widespread disgrace, just like the Cuban bishops do.
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Let us summarize. Socialism is spreading complete misery across Latin America, with the inexplicable inaction of so many cardinals and bishops, and without the contrast with wealth that so irritates our most radical bishops. This is creating a vast empire of suffering, injustice, and oppression, separated by sharply contrasting borders from countries where there is both misery and wealth, and less misery and more wealth, as is Brazil’s shining example.
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Are these borders only economic?
The destroyers of “ideological borders” seem to believe so. However, who does not see that the Marxist doctrine, which causes all evils, is behind the hunger and tyranny prevailing in “socialized” countries? On the other hand, who cannot see that no prosperity would exist if the principles about family, property, individual initiative, profit, etc., which the Old and New Testaments have taught for millennia, were no longer practiced, even with deplorable distortions?
Ultimately, the main cause of misery on one side is a doctrine, and the same is true for the ultimate source of increasing abundance on the other. Isn’t this frontier essentially and clearly doctrinal?
If the Marxist empire isn’t primarily ideologically driven, how can we explain Russia sending so many dollars to support the Cuban regime without any economic gain? And why does Fidel work so hard and spend so much to spread his ideology and misery across the Americas?
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The importance of these considerations is both theoretical and practical.
After the ceremonies where President Lanusse very unceremoniously declared his country’s ideological borders with Marxist Chile to be down, and “comrade” Allende announced his intention to extend this border breakdown to all Latin American peoples, Brazil’s foreign ministry made timely and prudent reservations, but public opinion remained disturbingly indifferent across the hemisphere. We must oppose this indifference, or else one day history will judge us as harshly as it currently judges the laziness of the Romans as they watched the barbarian legions invade the Empire.
