Land Reform and Psychological Warfare – Folha de S. Paulo, October 31, 1981

by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

If I had the misfortune of supporting radical land reform, I would have asked Minister Abi Ackel for the same bill on rural adverse possession that President Aureliano Chaves has just sent to Congress at his suggestion. I would have preceded the bill with a message identical to the one that precedes it. And I would have asked the country’s media to give the bill precisely the kind of publicity that most of them have been giving it in unison.

I would say that the combination of message, draft bill, and publicity forms a small masterpiece of politics. I do not use this last word in its vulgar sense, which is often employed, but in its finest and most subtle meaning: politics in people’s mentalities and environments, rather than directly in facts. Politics that manipulates events to influence or undermine moods and ideological stances, opening or closing pathways in public opinion toward major national transformations. In short, politics is only secondarily related to the electoral issues of any individual or clan.

This is the arena where countless Machiavellian tactics of psychological warfare unfold. It is executed effectively by those aiming to break down social classes and create a fully egalitarian order, and poorly by those seeking the opposite.

One of the Machiavellian methods of psychological warfare is that its true leaders seldom appear. Those seen as responsible are often useful pawns, prone to notice only the immediate effects of events. We can apply the famously clever metaphor from the 1968 Sorbonne movement: when a hand shows them the light, they focus only on the finger.

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How was the rural adverse possession draft bill an example of egalitarian psychological warfare? There had been a steady call across the country for agrarian reform even before 1964, supposedly driven by starving populations who “could no longer take it.” “Prepare your shrouds, barons of the land,” sang Vinícius de Morais. The political environment was filled with embarrassment, stagnation, and confusion. Most rural leaders followed their example. The psychological manipulation was skillfully executed to enable the left to steer the country toward the long-awaited reform from one moment to the next.

One way or another, the saving typhoon of the “Family Marches [for God and Country]” arrived. Amid the stagnation, the book Agrarian Reform, A Question of Conscience, shone like a warning. The psychological warfare maneuver came to a halt. The emerging land reform drama collapsed. The prophets of agrarian cataclysm fell silent, and their threats evaporated.

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For some time now, the chorus of threat-mongers has begun to repeat the same slogans, exaggerations, and pressures of the Jango era. This time, agrarian reform is supported by an even more compact episcopal apparatus and by much broader, well-trained publicity. Stagnation has once again invaded the rural class. Everything is ready to start over.

But be cautious. An initial attempt at action led to a recent fiasco. In the Northeast, the drought caused scenes of violence that could have escalated into an explosion. However, it rained, and the powder was dampened. The good Brazilian people were no longer sympathetic to violence, which was glorified by the media. The fiasco caused by the rains led our clear-headed people to suspect that the fuss lacked authenticity. The first attempt failed.

Then, sometime later, a wave of riots and occupations swept through. Those who take media hype as an accurate reflection of public opinion believed that the world was ending, fueled by clergymen and struck by hyssop. Tension between the (dissatisfied) bishops and the government (defender of legality) reached its peak.

Suddenly, everything came to a halt without anyone understanding how or why. Good people kept living and working normally, unaffected by the (obviously organized) land occupations and indifferent to the clerical-communist rallies about the high cost of living. One thing, however, had changed: the “Catholic left” entered the legal system as smoothly as a sword slides into its sheath. During this unexpected pause, the government seized the opportunity to champion the CNBB’s agrarian reform and pushed it forward.

Lucky land reform. After failing in the 1960s, those who advocated for using force have been joined in recent years by those claiming to follow God’s law. However, they have not managed to sway the majority of the country. But now, those called to act in the name of the State’s law are stepping into the fight in support of the same cause.

But how cautious they are! The rural adverse possession bill is just a preliminary test. This bill is more concerning for what it hints at than for what it explicitly states. Reading it suggests that, once approved, it will open the floodgates for uncontrollable land reform.

People threatened by it want to stop the catastrophe by opposing the government’s draft bill. However, anyone who tries will be surprised, as upon review, the bill appears to fall apart. So, anyone who tries to fight against it grows more frustrated with every step they take.

People’s reactions are thus immobilized, and since the media portrays the bill as the start of the end of the current agrarian order, the country’s masses are left with the impression that agricultural property is lost. Everything farmers lose under the five-year statute of limitations harms them far less than the impression that their defeat is hopeless.

Meanwhile, the CNBB’s mentors already appear to have given up on the current agrarian system and are preparing to challenge urban property ownership at the Itaici-82 meeting.

I hope that opposition will develop within the agrarian class to condemn what is happening.

In any case, as the reader can see, the rural adverse possession law is an undeniable masterpiece of agro-reformist psychological warfare. However, a strong counteroffensive from the rural class could still prevent it. Will it happen? I hope so. In time? Let’s wait and see.