Rude Pravo Speaks – Folha de S. Paulo, February 13, 1972
by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
Rude Pravo is a Prague newspaper designed for intellectual consumption. Naturally, as the press invariably does in countries behind the Iron Curtain, it reflects the thinking of government circles.
This circumstance lends unusual interest to a curious commentary it has published on the “United Nations of Europe.” As is well known, the Prague leaders meekly follow Moscow’s party line. And since two quantities equal to a third are equal to each other, the Czech newspaper’s pronouncement somehow involves the Kremlin itself.
Rude Pravo’s plan for the “United Nations of Europe” is so absurd — and at the same time so symptomatic — that I cannot help but share it with my readers.
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Of course, Rude Pravo strongly supports a united Europe that includes all countries on the continent on both sides of the Iron Curtain. To revitalize relations between the two blocs, the newspaper envisions a range of commercial, scientific, and cultural exchanges. The list even includes a vague proposal for collaboration to fight pollution.
The natural corollary of such great mutual friendship is the dismantling of the Warsaw Pact and NATO. Incidentally, this would leave naive, liberal, and pacifist Western Europe at the mercy of the Russian monster, known for its aggression and rigidly dictatorial rule.
Returning to the subject, Rude Pravo opposes all plans to promote peace, with one notable exception. It admits the possibility of tourists entering the communist world but categorically rejects the exchange of ideas and citizens.
To justify this restriction, the Czech newspaper claims that such an exchange, proposed by the West, is nothing more than an attempt at ideological subversion of the East.
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Unsurprisingly, the communist authorities view with indifference the entry of small groups of tourists, rigidly regimented and supervised, led by guides working for the police. What deserves special comment, however, is the panic among the communist potentates about the exchange of people and ideas—a panic clearly evident in the lines of Rude Pravo.
For starters, if this exchange remains prohibited, Europe will remain divided by the Iron Curtain, the most formidable and sinister of borders. Describing such a divided Europe as “united” is a gross deception that sounds sarcastic. But there is more.
With the permission or tolerance of their respective governments, Western countries are shaken by stubborn and incessant communist propaganda from Moscow and Beijing. The West receives their books, magazines, newspapers, ballet companies, circuses, traveling exhibitions, and everything else they want to send, with calm or even sympathy.
Why, then, can the same penetration of ideas not be met with similar dispositions in the East? Is reciprocity not the most basic condition for good relations among individuals and among nations?
All of this is viewed from the perspective of international relations.
From an even deeper perspective, the subject reveals new dimensions.
Communist propaganda mentors delight in making Westerners believe that the masses detest the regime they live under, a regime that teeters dangerously and will be swept away by a hurricane at any moment.
However, to date, there has not been a single fair election in which the communists have won a majority of the vote. This is despite their use and abuse of the freedom granted to them.
Is the West’s regime really weak? Or does the very freedom it grants to communists magnificently affirm the strength of its popular and traditional roots?
I oppose granting freedom to communists. I consider it wrong from a doctrinal perspective and fraught with practical drawbacks. However, I think that, in the current historical context and within the framework of representative government, it at least demonstrates, in a dazzling way, the vitality of the Christian tradition on which the institutions of family and property are founded.
In contrast, how weak and timid the communist regime appears in the face of the prospect of adverse propaganda being carried out in the lands it has enslaved!
Today, as in the darkest times of Lenin and Stalin, a bookstore selling anticommunist material would be seen as a threat to institutional stability.
Compared to the West, the communist regime clearly looks like a fragile house of cards!
Those among us who constantly contrast our seeming weakness with the seeming robustness of communist regimes must not forget this.
At this point in the commentary, a problem becomes apparent. If communist governments are so weak, it is largely because they keep the population in poverty. On the other hand, the tyranny by which they cling to power only aggravates their unpopularity. Finally, reliable information shows that an immense “hunger for God” is emerging among those unfortunate populations that are hungry for everything.
Thus, I wonder whether establishing a “United Nations of Europe,” especially under the terms advocated by Rude Pravo, would truly ensure peace or be a ploy to perpetuate the discredited and faltering communist authorities. More precisely, I wonder whether it would be an act of prudence on the part of the West or a reckless concession to atheism, misery, and tyranny.
It seems to me that it would be an act of insane complicity.
