COUNTERREVOLUTIONARY COUP D'ETAT IN BRAZIL
The following statement concerning the events in Brazil was issued April 5 by the United Secretariat of the Fourth International:
The coup d!état that smashed the regime of President Joao Goulart April 1 was carried out by Brazil's reactionary military caste in collusion with political figures representing the feudalistic landholders, the big bourgeoisie and national agents or junior partners of UsS. imperialism, It is part of a desperate effort to foreibly hold back a little while longer ‘the revolution which profound economic decay andsintense social unrest have placed on the order of the day
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in Brazil, The reactionary character of the coup dtétat is sufficiently attested by the relief and joy with which it was greeted in New York and Washington and by the sweeping witch-hunt begun under the slogan proclaimed by Sao Paulo's reactionary Governor Adhemar de Barros upon the overthrow of Goulart's government : ‘we will go hunt~ ing for Communists," : -
Goulart represented the most "enlightened" sector of the national bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie, This sector recognizes that Brazil's antiquated economic and social order cannot be maintained for long against the tide of history and that the best alternative from the viewpoint of Brazilian capitalist class interests is to make concessions to the masses of workers and peasants who wish to modernize their country and who have become more and more conscious of the models of the Russian, Chinese and Cuban revolutions as realistic ways of accomplishing this aim.
But Brazilts national bourgeoisie is paralyzed by its ties to the feudal-minded landholders and the venal sectors directly linked with U.S. business, It is incapable of exerting the revolutionary initiative required to break the grip of the landholders and to press back the foreign imperialists, Thus Goulart!s program boiled down largely to demagogy. And when he did initiate some concrete measures they did not go beyond taking over the seven remaining pri-~ vately owned oil refineries, expropriating uncultivated land ina narrow strip on either side of Brazil's railways, highways and water~ ways, and promising rent controls in the cities,
These were small concessions in the light of the mounting mass pressure, Peasants, in fact, began seizing land in the northeast in recent months, the unemployed have rioted in Brasilia, and, of course, there is the constant pressure from workers for wage boosts to keep up with prices which jumped more than eighty per cent last year, Goulart's measures were ridiculously far from meeting the prescrip tions proffered in the "Alliance for Progress" program to Latin America's oligarchies about the need to undertake minimum selfreforms if they hope to avoid being overwhelmed by revolutions like the one in Cuba,
Served as Catalyst
In tho context of the crisis-ridden economic, social and political situation in Brazil, however, even this feeble turn to the left, announced February 17 and followed up by a giant rally in Rio do Janeiro March 13, was sufficient to serve as a catalyst. The masses tended to take Goulart's concessions, which were designed to secure and retain his leadership over the masses, as the signal for a new era, Once begun, mass action would have tended by its own logic to sweep over the head of Goulart. This was clearly indicated by the beginning of fraternization between the rank and file of the sailors and marines and trade unionists in Rio de Janeiro (the so-called March 25-26 "mutiny").
Brazilian reactionaries were keenly aware of the implications, Goulart!s gestures in the direction of an agrarian reform brought a threat from Governor Adhemar de Barros to use his state police to block any land seizures by federal authorities. Big landholders all over Brazil threatened to shoot any peasants who might move ahead and take the land themselves. In the armed forces, consciously fascist elements began feverish agitation. Some 700 top officers of the marines, including fifteen admirals, met at the Naval Club, with the flag at half. mast, to protest the amne sty given the "Easter mutineers," Among them. was Carlos Pena Boto, president of the "Anti- Communist League" and Admiral Silvio Heck, one of the ministers in Quadros! cabinet who opposed Vice-President Goulart taking office when Quadros. resigned in 1961,
After a tip-off from policy-makers in Washington, the plotters went into action. On March 31 Governor Magalhaes Pinto of Minas Gerais rebelled against the federal government. An army spokesman in Belo Horizonte, the state capital, said: "President Joao Goulart is not in charge here any longer. If the president sends a general here to interfere, that general will be arrested at the airport," This was followed by mass arrests of trade-union leaders and the seizure of newspapers, and radio and television stations, Ten more governors.of Brazil's twenty-two states joined the counterrevolu-_ tion, Army officials who.appeared loyal either capitulated or were arrested, The Socialist governor of Pernambuco, Miguel Arraes, was arrested as were other elected officials throughout the: country.
Labor Leaders had threatened to stage a nation-wide general strike if the threatened plot were actually carried out. The threat proved to be empty, since no preparations had been made for this’ eventuality. Thus most of the labor leaders found themselves behind bars. The plot succeeded so ewittly and so easily that its: authors © themselves were surprised, Green Light in Washington
It must be stressed that a key, possibly decisive move, in the plot came March 17 in Washington when Thomas C, Mann, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs and President Johnsonts chief Latin-American policy-maker, gave a speech before -an assemblage. of "high-ranking United States officials serving in Latin America," The text of the speech was not made public, but the March 20 New York Times reported the gist of it ina front-page article, . It was the announcement of an important shift in policy. Under the new policy, "the United States would no longer seek to punish military juntas for — overthrowing democratic regimes. °
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Mann was said to have concluded that "the United States should stop trying to distinguish between dictators and democratic regimes in its foreign policy." To drive home his point, Mann "was quoted — as saying that he had difficulty in distinguishing politically between Presidents Adolfo Lopez Mateos of Mexico, Victor Paz
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Estenssoro of Bolivia and Alfred Stroessner of Paraguay."
The - objectives of the “thew policy were listed as “the foster~ ing of economic growth in the area, the protection of $9 billion in United States investments there, nonintervention in the internal political affairs of the hemisphere's republics and opposition to Communism,"
This represented no shift in fundamental policy, which has. always been to protect the investments of U.S. bankers and monopolists and to back reactionary regimes, It meant simply that the State Department would no longer be bound -by the diplomatic niceties of the "alliance for Progress" stance which required deploring the fall of. a "democratic" regime at the hands of the military caste and observing a decent interim before recognizing the successful plotters of a coup d'état even if they are aided by the Central Intelligence Agency.
‘In a wider | sense, the speech served notice that U.S. imperialism rules out the variant. of seeking to save capitalism by considerable concessions such as were instituted by Ldzaro Cardenas in Mexico and Juan Perén in Argentina. Aside from prejudices about making conces~ sions, Wall Street is. deathly afraid that any steps in this direction would. only open the door for a revolution of the Cuban type. .Goul~ art's "enlightened" course was unacceptable. In their own way the rulers of the Western Hemisphere pay tribute to the. validity of Trotskyts theory of the permanent révolution.
In the midst of the events in Brazil, Mann's March 17 speech represented approval of the plot being hatched by the generals, admirals and reactionary governors, All this was confirmed to the hilt when President Johnson on April 2 -- the very same day Goulart was reported to have gone into exile «~~ sent a cable offering his “warmest wishes" to Ranieri Mazzilli, the stooge named to the presi~ dency by the plotters, and when Seoretary of State Dean Rusk affirmed April 3 that the U.S. would "work very closely" with. the regime. that had toppled the constitutionally established Goulart government.
The reasons for Johnson's interest in the success of the plotters in Brazil are self-evident, In his campaign for the presideney next November, he counts on using the counterrevolutionary: coup d'état in Brazil as a great tiumph for a new "anti-Communist" policy. in Latin America which he personally initiated through Thomas C, Mann and which, in contrast to China and Cuba, "saved Brazil from... Communism," He counts, in addition, on mobilizing Brazil for new — measures aimed at the Guban Revolution, “Rusk hinted in his April 3° press conference that Brazil might. now join the State Department in bringing further pressure to bear on the Castro government,
On top of this, American imperialism obviously hopes that the turn in Brazil, the largest and most populous country in Latin America, will not only prevent this power center from sliding into revolution, but will establish a new pattern for the whole hemisphere,
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possibly even encouraging the military caste in Chile to engage in... comparable moves in that country before the elections September 4 which presage a victory for the left, Cannot Bring Stability —
The counterrevolutionary coup d'état in Brazil, however, will not prove dureble, It can only postpone the revolution and’ add to its explosiveness, The new regime will, of course, follow the olassic pattern of its numerous predecessors. It will seek to stabilize the situation through repressive measures, Already hundreds of trade unionists have been arrested and the purge includes circles deemed even remotely liberal, The objective of these moves is not only to behead the opposition, or potential opposition, but to prepare the ground for "austerity measures through which a temporary solution to Brazil's near bankruptcy will be sought at the expense of the living standards of the masses,
Such measures, however, cannot possibly solve economic problems of the scope faced by Brazil. These stem fundamentally from the interrelationship between Brazil and the imperialist centers and involve the notorious "widening gap" between the levels of the imperialist and colonial sectors of the international capitalist structure, Brazil's outrageously unbalanced economy, outmoded agrar= ian.pattern, improper investment structure, raging inflation and cancerous unemployment derive their special virulence from this, Such deeply rooted ills cannot be rectified along the capitalist path in the world of today; it is barred by the needs of imperialism and the fears of the national capitalists to take vigorous measures against the feudalistic vestiges, The only way out is through swift expansion of productivity by means of a planned economy that connects up with the planned economies of the workers states, This elemental truth has seeped down to the level cf mass consciousness throughout the colonial world,
The pitiful illusion that Brazil can be stabilized by institu. ting "austerity" measures runs into another difficulty. Living standards in Brazil are already at rock bottom. In some areas of the country, particularly the northeast, the level is as abysmal as in India and explosive tensions have been building, particularly ~~ among the peasantry, for some years. An effort to further depress consumption of such elementary things as food, clothing and housing in face of ostentatious wealth and glaring special privileges oan: quickly prove to be utterly unendurable. To further increase the terror; i.e., attempt a Nazi-like solution would prove quite difficult in Brazil, elthough certain elements are clearly prepared to try that road, Even if they were to succeed, the ultimate outcome would be Similar to the outcome under Batista in Cuba and Chiang Kai-shek in China but in a much shorter period under present~day world condi-~ tions. The forecast for Brazil remains: great instability.
Problem of Leadership
The main leaders of the Brazilian working class have proved woefully inadequate in measuring up to the needs of the situation, As the counterrevolutionary plot unfolded, almost openly, they _ seemed unable to grasp what was really happening. They were betrayed by the. fatal. policy of relying on and supporting allegedly "progres~ sive'' sectors of the national bourgeoisie instead of depending on their .own. capacities and the power of the masses and setting out boldly on a course of independent political action. By trusting. to Goulart they made it easy for Carlos Lacerda, the sinister one-time member of the Communist party and now reactionary governor of Guanabara, to master-mind the plot that brought dowm the federal government, As in other countries, the Brazilian workers -have had to pay a bitter price for the decades in which the Communist party applied the Stalinist policy of “peaceful coexistence". with the Brazilian and U.S. capitalist classes, ,
‘At present the Communist party is much reduced in membership and - influence and has split into two sectors, pro-Khrushehev and pro- Peking. The latter wing, together with other socialist-minded cur= rents, offers some hope of helping to provide the nucleus for constructing the necessary Marxist-Leninist leadership and mass revolutionaryssocialist party, but only if it avoids repeating old Stalinist mistakes, even if under new (and.in some cases not so new) labels, The greatest hope is that these militants will continue to carefully study the example of the Cuban Revolution, above all the recognition by the July 26 leadership, after. coming to power, of the importance of building a revolutionary-socialist party, In a country with class relations as developed, as hardened and. as complex as those in Brazil this is absolutely crucial, as the current events prove :once again,
While the Last word has not. yot been given by the workers and the unemployed in the wretched, teeming favelas of Brazil's major cities, the default of their current leadership in face of the excep~ tional’ opportunities and the acute: counterrevolutionary danger, may now shift the political axis for a time to the countryside, Brazil's major need is a thoroughgoing agrarian reform. The peasants have been organizing for this, principally under the leadership of Francisco Juliao, and their expectations were undoubtedly aroused by the steps projected by Goulart in February and March, They may begin to take things into their own hands.. This could mark the beginning of a class struggle of ferocious character -- in view of the landholderst blind resistance to any concessions whatsoever -- that would eventually sweep into the cities,
Thus, while the counterrevolutionary minority seem to have secured.a firm grip on government power in Brazil, their act. of desperation may prove to be but a prelude to the great social Ups heaval which no force on earth can long restrain.
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ANOTHER STEP FORWARD IN ALGERIA
By Henri Dumoulin
ALGIERS, April 1 -- The-National Congress of the Industrial . Self-Managed Socialist Sector, held here March 28-30, marked