Book Review: The Revolution That Never Was
Peterson, Chris
The Revolution That Never Was: Northeast Brazil, 1955-1964. Joseph A. Page, Grossman Publishers, New York, 1972. 273 pp, $12.50. For those interested in learning more about events surrounding...
...imperialism on Northeastern Brazil without some discussion of longer range North American contacts with and infiltration into Brazilian national institutions, notably the military apparatus known as the Escola Superior de Guerra (Superior War College), whose elite has ruled Brazil since 1964...
...Page's study bogs down in the dissection of what he terms "factionalism, the congenital disease of the left...
...2) the mobilization of Brazilian and American ruling class interests to repress this agitation...
...But the author falls back into a rationalization of the Alliance for Progress by arguing that the Recife mission might have been more "effective" if its staff had been more sensitive to the cultural characteristics of the Northeast...
...The book analyzes three main historical currents in the given time period: 1) the agitation for social, economic, and political change in the Northeast prior to the coup...
...The "Sorbonne," as the ESG is known, is a Cold War creation headed by proAmerican generals who made their first contacts with their "loyal allies" during World War II...
...and Brazilian military institutions...
...Brazil's national sovereignty was attacked on three non-military fronts...
...foreign aid attempts to wield in influencing the internal policy decisions of receiving nations...
...The first was the manipulation of SUDENE by the USAID mission in Recife...
...Personal interviews, anecdotes, and eyewitness accounts of political meetings mask a more deep-seated cynicism toward the "revolution that never was...
...Fortunately, Juliao, Furtado, Arraes, and other well-known Brazilian patriots have written their own accounts of their country's struggle, which they view as one of their whole people and not of particular factions or personalities...
...In describing the first wave of terror following the coup, Page again views the Bra-zilian left with a mixture of sympathy and cynicism...
...Despite the impressionistic approach of Page's book, we feel that it combines some useful insights into events preceding the seizure of power by the Brazilian military...
...Page's analysis is a useful case study in the power that U.S...
...The most valuable section of the book is that dealing with North American intervention in the Northeast...
...Subscribing to the idea that social unrest presented a purely political threat to the Southern Brazilian ruling class he fails to take account of the direct economic threat that revolution in the Northeast posed (and poses...
...Finally, he discusses briefbriefly the "possibility" that U.S...
...For information on the polarization of the Brazilian struggle since 1964, we particularly recommend For the Liberation of Brazil, by Carlos Marighella, and A Grain of Mustard Seed: the Awakening of the Brazilian Revolution, by Marcos Moreira Alves...
...Page discusses the more immediate promises of U.S...
...Since 1964, the dictatorship has absorbed and expanded IBAD's philosophy and activities...
...His sympathetic presentation of individual Northeastern leftists may make their actions more real to foreign observers (who may not be able to justify Brazilian national liberation on a more abstract, economic basis), but it does not contribute greatly to an understanding of the revolt in the Northeast...
...His discussion of these men as individuals is fair, and above all, he asserts correctly that none of the three was prepared to lead the sort ot armed struggle which the ruling class reaction left as the only option for structural change...
...These are the same people who constructed the showcase capital, Brasilia, who work under conditions of virtual slavery in the remotest areas of Brazil, including the Transamazonic Highway project, and who year after year arrive in Sao Paulo in droves to hunt for low-paying jobs in the city's factories...
...and 3) the breakdown of bourgeois democracy in Brazil and the first wave of terror carried out by the military dictatorship...
...Once again Page's study is limited chronologically and spatially by its journalistic focus...
...Page chooses to describe the pre-coup situation in the Northeast in terms of personalities and political factions, with only a superficial analysis of the economic stagnation of the Northeast and of its historical development as a subimperial colony of the South, where national political power is concentrated...
...His discussion of the CIA-CLUSA agent's attempts to co-opt the Peasant League is more to the point...
...For those interested in learning more about events surrounding the 1964 military coup in Brazil, Joseph Page has provided a detailed historical account entitled The Revolution That Never Was: Northeast Brazil, 1955-1964...
...In addition, any move toward a more equal distribution of land and income in the Northeast, whether by reform or revolution, would cut off the ready supply of cheap (i.e., starving) migrant Northeastern laborers...
...The "barren" Northeast houses Brazil's largest deposits of petroleum, copper, and other valuable and strategic resources which, since 1964, have been increasingly controlled and exploited by the Southern "military-industrial complex" and its foreign overseers...
...diplomatic and military support made to the conspiring generals before the coup, but does not mention the long-term alliances between the U.S...
...Rather than address himself to these and other aspects of the Northeast's role in the imperial and sub-imperial economic structure, Page zeros in on key figures in the pre-1964 Northeastern arena, notably Francisco Juliao, leader of the Peasant League movement, Celso Furtado, originator of the plan for SUDENE (the Superintendency for the Development of the Northeast), and Miguel Arraes, leftist-nationalist governor of Pernambuco, all now stripped of their political rights and in exile...
...business interests lent financial support to IBAD (Brazilian Institute for Democratic Action), a ruling class organization devoted to rigging elections in key cities of Brazil...
...Imperialism as the first and foremost obstacle to the Brazilian Revolution and the common enemy of all Brazilians, and the necessary abandoning of "legal" tactics by the Brazilian left...
...One cannot realize the full impact of U.S...
...One must go beyond Page's book to see how - 31 -events since 1964 have led to the identification of U.S...
Vol. 7 • April 1973 • No. 4
