Some repeat that in modern times traditionalism as a political direction is simply a blind alley, and the unaltered way to the right remains bourgeois conservatism supplemented by the ideology of the National State.
I do not identify with specified an thought programme, but it can be accepted as a makeshift minimum programme for the wider part of society, whose cognition of more serious concepts requires a long period of hard work. However, if you gotta operate on this level, then I definitely like bourgeois conservatism without any interference and nationality, or, more clearly, nationalistic.
The fundamental advantage of bourgeois conservatism is simply a certain interior peace (with a Christian background or possibly another one, e.g. a Stoic one), which makes it sober and as a consequence resistant to acceptance in explanation and practice of various ideologically motivated stupidities. Nationalism, on the another hand, brings a characteristic component of collective emotional confusion, making the broad social circles more susceptible to various ideological stupidities.
The threat to burgher conservatism is simply a primitive, demagogue variety of the right, which for all the justification of its actions or governments and as a tool for the management of the minds of the crowd serves a pair of loud, supposedly patriotic slogans specified as national security, “the size of the homeland”, the fight against the external enemy, the fight against traitors in the country (i.e. anyone who refuses to halt thinking). From another right-wing currents, it expects them to submit to it and accept the function of its buildings, otherwise it starts to fight it fiercely and in a rude way. From a conservative perspective, the expression "there is no enemy on the right" is so meaningless. In Poland it was the first to introduce this kind of political endecia, and this is how she dealt with conservatives in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. After 1989 it is represented by the "right of independence", whose full thought and imagination of the planet comes down to manic anti-Russianism. In Latin America, to which I wanted to refer, he was spread by the crude soldates, frequently supported by the US, for the full program and legitimacy having sterile “anti-communism”. Among the most celebrated was the Brazilian junta, and its acquisition of power meant, among another things, a conviction for Brazil's Conservative bourgeois organization Amoros Lima.
Life communicative
Alceu Amoro Lima was born on 11 December 1893 in Rio de Janeiro. He grew up in an atmosphere of positivism. However, this simple message will not tell the Polish reader much about the intellectual climate in Brazil, so let us add any details. The Polish version of positivism, which we all know from school textbooks, was - as I late wrote [1] - average and reasonable, mostly devoid of sectarian tendencies, but with a strong tendency to social and political conservatism. As the creator of the positivist direction, he is widely believed to be Auguste Comte (1798-1857). This romanticist thinker, initially a saintsimonist, however, wanted to bring his positivism to the rank of rational religion and set up a positivistic “church”. specified a version of positivism seldom where it fell on susceptible ground. It gained its top popularity on Brazilian soil, where after the overthrow of the Empire of Brazil in 1889 it became the authoritative ideology of the elites ruling the Republic. This is why the Brazilian flag from 1889 inactive has the word “Ordem e progresso” – coined by Comte himself by the motto “Order and Progress”.
Lima, Alceu Amoroso.Amoro Lima was passionate about doctrine from his youth. Initially, his favourite authors included an idealist Benedetto Croce (1866-1952). This Italian philosopher promoted the thesis that philosophical reasoning and spiritual reasoning are completely exclusive and cannot coexist in the same mind. specified a view was coincident with the hard-headed variety of positivistic philosophy, but Croce as a neoheglist stood outside positivism, and the same interest in his thought has already demonstrated that young Amoroso Lima in his intellectual quests did not close in a tight positivistic circle. The Brazilian was besides fascinated by the most influential typical of the French "life philosophy" – Henri Bergson (1859-1941), 1 of the authors who at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries led to an anti-positive breakthrough in planet philosophy. While in Paris, Amoro Lima listened personally to Bergson's lectures on Sorbonne in 1913.
The most crucial breakthrough in his biography occurred in 1928 erstwhile Amoro Lima, as a mature man, converted to Catholicism. He made this change – in the last year of his own life – Jackson de Figuereido (1891-1928), Brazil's loudest Catholic author and publicist (converted itself), by any called "Brazilian Veuillot". Figuereida's influence brought Amoros Lima not only to faith, but besides to the desire to carry out the apostolic work in public life. Figuereido founded the diary “A Ordem” in 1921 (the very choice of the title of this Catholic periodical was already a polemic with the motto of Brazilian positivism – “Ordem e progresso”), and in 1922 the Center im. Vitala home – a body fighting spiritual indiferentism and with ideas promoted by freemulence. The bishop became the patron of this institution Vital Maria Gonçalves de Oliveira (1844-1878), persecuted and possibly besides killed by masonry. erstwhile Figuereido died prematurely, Amoroso Lima replaced him as editor of the magazine and manager of the Centre.
Civil War
In 1932, a civilian war broke out in Brazil, sparked by opponents of the existing constitution. The fights lasted for respective months until the president Getúlio Vargas (1882-1954) in the name of the end of the conflict, he did not order elections to the Constitutional Assembly. In order to introduce as many candidates as possible who profess Christian principles and values under the patronage of the Church, the Catholic Electoral League was established. Amoro Lima became her secretary general. Elections were held in May 1933, and the Constitutional Assembly elected in them began its deliberations in November. Parliamentarians brought into the Assembly by the League thanks to the organizational work of Amoros Lima have influenced the form of the fresh Constitution of Brazil, adopted on 30 May 1934. They were able to put invocatio Dei in her preamble, and in the appropriate text, among others, articles on the inseparability of marriage, the teaching of religion in schools, the introduction of chaplains to the army and to prisons, the restoration of election rights to clergymen, Sunday as a day off from work, the provision of clergymen as a substitute service alternatively of regular military service. This marked a reversal of the secular, unfriendly religions of the solutions set out in the erstwhile 1926 Constitution.
During the constitutional crisis in Brazil, an integrative movement was born. In 1931, a novelist and publicist who had been in parliament for respective years Plinio Salgado (1895-1975) announced the Revolutionary Legion Manifesto, and in October 1932 founded the Brazilian Integralist Action. Integralism was a native version of Fascism. AIB members wore uniforms with green shirts; as organizational greetings, they utilized the Roman salute and the cry “Anaue” (a word taken from the language of the Tupi Indians). Salgado as the National Chief was surrounded by a chief worship. As its sign, placed on flags and armbands worn by activists, the organization adopted the black letter E in a white ellipse on a blue background. In 1937, the organization reached 250,000 members. It was a typical urban movement. Its ranks were mainly powered by workers, students, officials, professional soldiers. For this she was not popular among landowners or the Negro and Indian population (although in her symbolism she partially referred to the culture of the latter). It was frequently joined by white migrants from European countries. Amoroso Lima sympathized with the Brazilian Integralist Action in its early years, but later lost interest for her.
Time showed that I think he had a reason. As for the fascist group, the integralists proved to be an highly undisciplined movement, which was reflected in the fact that without the cognition of their leader (sic) on the night of 10 to 11 May 1938, they attempted to overthrow president Vargas, who had held authoritarian regulation since 1937. The course of the coup proved grotesquely unsuccessful. The AIB militants attacked the presidential palace, but the organizers of the bombing did not release part of the militant groups in time, resulting in the president and his secretaries succeeding alone (because no 1 else inside) to halt the attackers utilizing 1 revolver. They could besides call for aid due to the fact that the city-run diversion groups of AIB did not think of cutting off telephone lines connecting the most crucial offices. The bombers managed to seize only 1 government building that night – the Ministry of the Navy, where they were allowed in without a fight due to the fact that most of its staff belonged to AIB. Meanwhile, the president's chief of general staff of the Brazilian army rapidly assembled 12 soldiers, whom he had at hand and a group of officials, led by ft (because no vehicles were available) under the presidential palace and spread the integrists [2]. Vargas' government accepted the Chief of Nationals' assurances that the bomber's plans were unknown and agreed to abstain from his arrest in exchange for immediately leaving the country. Salgado emigrated to Portugal, where he obtained the position of prof. at Coimbra University. He returned to Brazil after Vargas resigned in 1945.
When the collapse of the Brazilian Integralist Action occurred, Amoroso Lima had been consumed with a completely different work for respective years. In carrying out the instructions of Pope Pius XI, he organized the Brazilian Catholic Action. In 1935, he became her first president and served as her president for the next 10 years. During this period he discovered the thought of the most influential Catholic philosopher in the world, Jacques Maritain (1883-1972). A French neotomist in the late 1930s formulated a task of a "personalist system". It was to be based on corporateism and the strong position of “labour aristocracy” in the socio-economic sphere, while maintaining pluralism in the political sphere. As such, it was expected to be a affirmative alternate to Fascism and Communism in politics and the statistic or collectivism of economics that these directions push. Amoro Lima became a hot promoter of the conservative concepts of Maritain. After his resignation in 1945 from the position of president of the Catholic Action, whose holding entailed the work to abstain from direct participation in political life, he was ready to fight for their implementation.
Brazilian Chadece
In 1947, the Christian Democratic organization (PDC) was established on his initiative. Amoro Lima wrote her own manifesto. The ambition of his fresh task reached beyond the borders of 1 country. In 1949, he took part in establishing the alleged Montevideo Movement – a platform for cooperation and common support of Christian-democratic groups throughout Latin America. However, on the political stage, the PDC was to stay a number group.
In 1951, Vargas returned to power. Following his suicide death, the fresh president's election was scheduled to take place in 1956. In the pre-election run he led Yuscelino Kubitschek, a candidate for the Social Democratic organization founded by Vargas. The Christian-Democratic organization supported his main rival, General Juareza Távora, candidate for the right-wing National Democratic Union. Kubitschek won the vote by a tiny advantage [3]. He ruled until 1961, and after his word of office, his course was continued by another president from the Social Democratic Party, Joao Goulart, otherwise formerly Minister of Labour, manufacture and Trade in Vargas's government.
In 1959, Amoro Lima hoped to accept the convocation of the universal council by John XXIII as many fervent Catholics, expecting the Second Vatican Council to open the way to the spiritual renewal of Catholicism. All the more so, since among the council fathers there was clearly an interest in Maritain's thought, which was peculiarly emphasized erstwhile the fresh Pope Paul VI, at the end of the Council's deliberations, placed the "sent to intellectuals" of the planet on the hands of the French philosopher.
But as it turned out, a blow fell on the Christian-Democratic organization during the Second Vatican Council. On 30 March 1964, General Humberto Castelo Branco, in a coup d'état, overthrown Goulart's government, beginning a 20-year period of pro-American military dictatorship in Brazil. This meant a fundamental change in the situation besides for chadeks. Castelo Branco rapidly banned existing political parties after the coup and forced them to self-solve. The Christian-Democratic organization was besides among the disbanded parties. The advent of the pro-American, “anti-communist” military dictatorship put an end to Alceu Amoros Lima's work. He himself then sat for respective years on the Vatican Commission "Iustitia et Pax" created by Pope Paul VI. He died on 14 August 1983. He lived as a Benedictine oblatator, and after his death he rested in an old Benedictine abbey under the call of Our woman of Montserrat, in his household Rio de Janeiro.
Generation of Leaders of Chadtia
Amoro Lima historically belonged to a large generation of leaders and politicians of Christian Democracy. These people grew up in a planet before 1914 that remained in their memory forever. They gained political experience in the shaken radicalism of the interwar period. They were eyewitnesses to the demolition of the remains of the erstwhile planet from 1939 to 1945. But their appropriate historical function was played only later, erstwhile in changed, hard conditions they rebuilt political order, trying to dig out for him from the ruins of planet War II the old civilizational foundations – as far as possible.
In France, this generational formation represented a partisan nymb from the time of the war Georges Bidault (1899-1983), president of the People's Republican Movement (MPR). American historian Walter Lacqueur In the first years of the Republic, they voted to nationalize key sectors of the national economy industry. The MPR policy supported nationalisation wherever the large business held control of the public administration, where a large private financier threatened the independency of the state, yet where the private initiative ceased to function. By January 1946, the organization worked closely with de Gaulle. She was very powerfully opposed to the polarisation of planet politics in the cold-war version and tried to act as “third strength” — first between the communists and their enemies and then between de Gaulle and its opponents” [4].
The improvement of a "third position" between the West and the East and between capitalism in the U.S. stock exchange and socialism in the Soviets would be a warrant of the political independency that Europe needed so much in the post-war years. Bidault was besides able to supply evidence of individual independence: during planet War II, the president of the Gaullist National opposition Council, after the war he powerfully advocated maintaining Algeria as part of the French state, and erstwhile president de Gaulle agreed to the Algerian secession, Bidault again became president of the National opposition Council, only that the head of the Anti-Gaullist Organization of the Secret Army (OAS).
Today, the MPR should be seen as an ensign legacy of the Old Continent in conditions of double, Soviet-American occupation. This is besides the goal – to make a continental economical power so that Europe, trampled during the war, could again play the function of an crucial actor in global politics regardless of the US – was guided by Schuman's 1950 "plan" by which Bidault's most crucial partymate, Robert Schuman (1886-1963), is present considered the father of political integration of the continent. Schuman's efforts in this direction supported Alcide de Gasperi (1881-1954), Prime Minister of Italy from 1945 to 1953 and leader of Italian Christian Democracy. In his vision, the unification of Europe de Gasperi was inspired by the example of the Catholic Church, in line with the link between national particularities within the universal structure. besides remains the mark of their political charisma, the fact that Schuman and de Gasperi's beatification processes are taking place in the Church itself today.
Cristian's democracy in the early post-war years besides created an interesting ideological conglomerate. The left wing of the Italian chadeks, pro-social and union, opposed the state's dependence on the US, demanding neutrality in abroad policy and incompatibility Italy with a western or east block; they directed it Amintore Fanfani (1908-1999, Prime Minister in 1954) and Giovanni Gronchi (1887-1978, president from 1955 to 1962), erstwhile Deputy Minister in Mussolini's First Government. The right wing of the organization led Luigi Gedda (1902-2000), before the war 1 of the leaders of the Catholic Action in Italy, and at the same time... a promoter of eugenics and a signatory to the 1938 Fascist Government's “Racial Manifesto” The democratic strategy was imposed on Italy, like Japan, by the American occupier, but there were supporters of maintaining strong governments in Italy, like the erstwhile eras and giving the fresh political order the "authoritarian democracy".
However, this second concept was implemented primarily by the leader of German leadership, Catholic Chancellor Konrad Adenauer (1876-1967). The left-wing political scientists number Adenauer's regulation in Germany from 1949 to 1963 as fascist regimes – and why disagree with them on this issue, at least in part? Adenauer takes place alongside Schuman and de Gasperi in the pantheon of the fathers of political unification of the continent, which he supported from the beginning. And he supported it due to the fact that he did not trust the Americans and wanted to build a European power capable of independency from the United States.
Christian democracy has now become a political direction. Therefore, in Poland there have late been voices talking about the request for a revival of the chades – in our country, or even across Europe. It may well be, if by the revival of the charade, we mean returning to the historical patterns mentioned here – not resuscitation of the faint, summer, tiny ideas of projects from the sign of the present Polish PSL or Szymon Holown.
Adam Danek
[1] Adam Danek, “The spiritual culture of positivism”, “Think Poland”, 2022, no. 51-52.
[2] Karl von Ritter, Ambassador of the 3rd Reich to Sao Paulo, wrote in a situation study sent to Berlin that "like the bad execution of the coup could only happen in a country like Brazil."
[3] Let us besides note that in the 1956 election, Plinio Salgado took the last place with a score of about 8.3% of the vote.
[4] Walter Lacqueur, "History of Europe 1945-1992", trans. Roman Zawadzki, London 1993, p. 159.
Think Poland, No. 29-30 (16-23.07.2023)
photo public domain
