Toward Upheaval, If Not Gunpowder – Folha de S. Paulo, February 25, 1986

by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

Let’s get straight to the facts.

Last week started with a crisis at the Ministry of Development and Agrarian Reform. Minister Nélson Ribeiro’s position was being heavily questioned. The episode, however, ended on a positive note for everyone involved. First, for the minister himself, since the crisis that seemed ready to unseat him once again dissipated, allowing him to stay in office. Second, for Contag,[1] which gained public recognition as one of the decisive forces behind this outcome, thanks to the telegram it sent to pressure President Sarney and Congressman Ulysses Guimarães.

According to news reports, both leaders seemed to take Contag’s claim of effective leadership over the “2,600 unions and more than eight million union members” affiliated with it quite seriously. Contag claimed that this leadership enabled it to assert that its labor base—most of whom show little interest in land reform—still regards agrarian reform as the “highest aspiration of the working class” and would “not tolerate a setback” on this issue. Because Minister Nélson Ribeiro’s retention was widely seen as due to Contag’s intervention, a significant part of the victory was attributed to the organization.

Incidentally, this victory hints at strikes, riots, and maybe, at some far-off point, gunfire. Saying that it is “unacceptable” for a government to act a certain way suggests that one intends to stop it from doing so. And mass agitators usually “prevent” what they oppose through familiar methods: strikes, riots… and eventually, gunfire.

According to the same news report, along with Contag, “another powerful voice spoke out” in support of the embattled Minister Nélson Ribeiro: the CNBB. And it appeared just as united—at least outwardly—as Contag. Once again, it fell to its president, Bishop Ivo Lorscheiter of Santa Maria—a well-known leader of the most left-leaning faction within the episcopate—to address the matter. The prelate, without explicitly advocating the minister’s retention, nonetheless stated that it was “fundamental” for “a comprehensive agrarian reform … to come soon.” He added that, whoever the minister might be, the Church “would hold [President Sarney] accountable for the implementation of the agrarian reform plan along the lines established” by Mr. Nélson Ribeiro. All of which amounts, in effect, to telling the President: “If Nélson leaves, only someone indistinguishable from him will do.”

One question remains unanswered. How can the CNBB, an essentially spiritual body, “demand” from the head of state—who is responsible for governing the temporal realm—a reform for which, under the Constitution, he is only accountable to the nation? I’m not claiming that all this smells of gunpowder. But it certainly smells like… a storm.

Echoing Bishop Ivo Lorscheiter’s stance, Most Rev. Cláudio Colling, Archbishop of Porto Alegre—who is often, and somewhat gratuitously, described as belonging to the conservative wing of the episcopate—publicly praised the decision to keep Mr. Nélson Ribeiro in his position.

Under intense pressure, President Sarney reportedly capitulated. However, he also gained significant political advantages from the incident. He had become thoroughly discredited among conservative and anti–land reform groups. By alluding to the possibility of removing Mr. Nélson Ribeiro, he created a favorable impression within those same groups that he might pursue milder land reform—or perhaps none at all. The blame for the reform’s more radical approach would then fall not on him but on Contag and the CNBB.

By now, the leaders of major labor unions and employers’ associations—along with many mid-level, compliant, and pro-government leaders (for they have been nothing else for decades, and the pipe has warped their mouths)—must be gleefully spreading the news throughout all rural communities.

These were the unusual news items from the 8th and 9th, taken from Folha and Jornal do Brasil. The 11th brought even more news filled with grim surprises.

CIMI (the Indigenous Missionary Council) is the CNBB‑affiliated body responsible for matters concerning Brazil’s indigenous peoples. Yet, judging by the Folha report of the 11th, this body has drawn up a program of demands, many of which have little or nothing to do with indigenous issues. They bear a striking resemblance to the platforms of the Socialist International and to those of organizations promoting global communist expansion based in Moscow. Indeed, CIMI calls for the “nationalization of basic services such as education, health, transportation, and housing”—that is, the transfer to the State of all private institutions providing basic education and health care, and, on the same level, all those involved in transportation and housing construction. This is monstrously broad. Furthermore, CIMI demands new agrarian legislation, and its direction is unmistakable: the law must set “limits on the maximum size of private property.” Not content with this, CIMI also calls for “redefining the role of the Armed Forces.” And, perhaps most astonishing of all, it proposes the “establishment of mechanisms that allow for effective popular control over the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches.”

The report does not specify what form the populist bodies will take to oversee government agencies chosen by the electorate through direct, secret ballots. Nor does it specify the nature and scope of this oversight.

In the absence of this information, one naturally thinks of the committees of public safety from the French Revolution… or the Soviets from the Russian Revolution of 1917.

The final two items on CIMI’s list of demands warrant closer scrutiny. According to Article 91 of the Federal Constitution, the Armed Forces are tasked with defending the country against both external threats and internal unrest. However, it now seems that the Navy, Army, and Air Force might be kept out of maintaining internal order. This indicates not only upheaval but also a clear smell of gunpowder.

And if it were only CIMI! Another CNBB-affiliated organization is the CPO (Pastoral Commission for Workers). According to the November 11 edition of Folha, the CPO has also developed a “joint program for the working class,” which demands that workers—rural, industrial, and commercial—be treated equally with owners, participate in corporate management, and share in company profits. It further calls for labor unions to have access to economic, financial, and administrative data that companies usually keep confidential and justifiably so. This would effectively eliminate industrial secrecy and give workers, as co-directors, control over the entire life of the company. The few remaining employers would be reduced to mere puppets of labor-union oligarchies.

Add to this the fact that calls for urban reform are once again gaining momentum in major cities: the expropriation of vacant land at ridiculously low prices; draconian rent freezes that are otherwise eroded by inflation; and so on.

We thus have the overall picture of the catastrophic transformation being imposed on the country. A transformation that will certainly bring to fruition all of Moscow’s plans for Brazil.

[1] Contag: Confederação Nacional dos Trabalhadores na Agricultura (National Confederation of Agricultural Workers).