The Argentine “Kerenskys” – Folha de S. Paulo, October 15, 1972
by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
The more the public reads the news about current events in Argentina, the less they will understand them. Contradictions constantly erupting in the public life of our great sister country are so numerous that they leave the average observer bewildered.
This is true in Brazil and in the other countries of the extensive Ibero-American family. In Argentina itself, only a few people outside the clique of professional politicians (in uniform or not) understand what is going on.
Yet the means to decipher this enigma, or rather a set of enigmas, is within everyone’s reach. It is a book-manifesto. For many weeks, groups of young people could be seen selling it in the central streets of Buenos Aires, sometimes speaking from the tops of barrels that served as improvised platforms and sometimes using powerful megaphones. As the reader may have guessed, these young people wore jackets and ties, and red capes marked with a golden lion. They were valiant volunteers of the Argentine Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property.
One fact speaks eloquently to the public’s response to this campaign. The book reached two editions in just 60 days, with an impressive print run of ten thousand copies. A third edition is in the works.
Following the initial ‘battle’ cry in Buenos Aires, the campaign quickly spread throughout the country. The TFP youth widely distributed the manifesto book in Cordoba, Tucuman, Rosario, Santa Fe, Mendoza, and many other places. Everywhere, even in red Cordoba, the Peronists, severely attacked, did not dare to react in the slightest. One of them let slip an explanation for this inertia, so strikingly at odds with the usual Justicialist aggressiveness. The only way to counter this accurate propaganda, he said, is to let the TFP shout into a vacuum. What a childish illusion. As if the environment that original and up-to-date propaganda created in large modern cities, inevitably reverberating throughout the population, could be a vacuum!
The Argentine TFP’s manifesto book is owed to the clear talent and unusual culture of the young president of that entity’s National Council, Mr. Cosme Beccar Varela Filho.
Its title, The Argentine Kerenskys, speaks volumes. It reveals that a team of Argentine socialists is carrying out in their homeland the same inglorious mission Eduardo Frei undertook in Chile—a sinister task that my young and unforgettable friend Fábio Vidigal Xavier da Silveira so aptly stigmatized by stamping the epithet “Chilean Kerensky” on Frei’s forehead once and for all.
People especially interested in Argentine politics can find the fundamental work of Cosme Beccar Varela Filho at TFP centers throughout Brazil.
However, interest in these grave Argentine issues extends beyond small groups of “experts.” Given their natural connection to our country’s life, all educated Brazilians should have a clear understanding of these issues.
Thus, I decided to present to Folha readers a summary of what our sister TFP thinks and feels about the ongoing drama in the Southern Cone, the maneuver it denounces, and the positive program it proposes.
* * *
Due to the depth and coherence of its content, The Argentine Kerenskys is built on a masterfully simple scheme.
The work begins by focusing on the contradictory aspects of the Argentine situation as perceived by the public. Faced with the joint crisis of the political system and the socioeconomic regime, Perón’s demagogic figure looms on a horizon already clouded by smoke and the clamor of terrorist attacks. The danger of radical leftism is clear to all. And the severity of this danger, greater or lesser, becomes the central issue of the moment.
Can a naturally conservative Catholic nation, composed of an intelligent and courageous people, fall into communist hands?
Many believe this is impossible, while others consider it inevitable, and most of the public holds both views at once.
Faced with such an ambiguous situation, all outcomes are possible, and particularly the worst. The most immediate positive step is to dispel ambiguity. In turn, this can only be achieved through a thorough explanation of the facts.
Such an explanation is both simple and subtle. The confusion in Argentina is not accidental. It creates an environment in which a process unfolds, aimed at leading our sister country toward populist socialism. The goal of the process is to establish a moderate leftist government, neither too leftist nor too moderate.
This process—which, thanks to the confusion, is unfolding unbeknownst to the general public—is the work of a revolutionary minority comprising “toads” in high finance, leftist clergy, the media, government, “intelligentsia” figures, and professional politicians. The real driving force behind it thus comes from the top down. It does not come from the bottom up, as the vast majority of Argentines want nothing to do with socialism.
Two eminent voices have recently spoken out to attest to the grave danger in which the country finds itself under these conditions. The people can hear the statement by the distinguished Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Antonio Caggiano. The other voice was silenced by crime. It was that of General Juan Carlos Sanchez, who was assassinated by terrorists.
This revolution from the top down has two paths to victory:
a) The electoral path, which, through a “gran acuerdo nacional” (great national agreement) among all political forces, including Peronism, imposes a single candidate and a socialist program on the country.
b) The path of a nationalist military coup, if electoral success seems unlikely.
So far, the first path is being followed. The analysis of this path is most interesting.
Fundamentally, if a minority group wishes to win an election and cannot persuade the majority, it has only one means of coming to power. That is to disorient the majority by creating confusion and division.
* * *
The socialist minority is employing simple yet modern methods for this purpose. We will describe them in the next article.
