The Spirit of '32

THEY CAME AND THEY'RE GONE. Only a few left and prices are about to go up. Precision weapons, .32 caliber, complete registration plus 50 bullets free.

The ad, which ran last week in Rio's Correio de Manha, would have been unthinkable a few months ago. For all their recurrent economic and political crises, the Brazilians are traditionally a gentle, urbane people who believe that any problem on earth can be solved by jeito, the artful fix.

No more. Brazil today is an armed camp, astir with hate and fear as it has not been since the bloody, abortive 1932 revolt against President Getulio Vargas. In the ugly spirit of '32, a Congressman from Sao Paulo cried recently: "We are ready--old, young, even children--to go again to the trenches." Says middle-roading Congressman Joao Calmon, who now packs a Smith & Wesson .38: "Brazil is catching fire so rapidly, we cannot accept a dinner date any more without wondering whether we'll be able to keep it."

All over Brazil, leftists are fighting rightists, peasants are threatening landholders, unions are threatening everyone; even the military is torn by dissension. Last week, encouraged by Communist labor leaders, more than 700 sailors and marines holed up for two days in Rio's Metallurgical Workers Union building, yelling "We want reforms" and "We want food."

Guns & Rosaries. When another group of sailors and marines marched off to join the rebels, navy officers intercepted them, finally opened up with machine guns, wounding three. In the midst of the rebellion, the left-wing marine commander resigned, later to be restored; then the conservative navy minister resigned, to be replaced by one of the navy's most outspoken leftists. The new minister meekly gave the mutinous servicemen full pardons and weekend passes. But for several tense hours, Rio was a trigger pull away from widespread violence--even civil war.

Almost anything could ignite the country. In the backlands, many landowners stand ready to defend their property against peasant invasion; in the state of Goias alone, 20,000 landholders have their own "Force for the Defense of Private Properties." Sao Paulo Governor Adhemar de Barros is actually selling cut-rate submachine guns, rifles and pistols to landowners all over Brazil. This week Barros and four other state governors plan to form a "United Front in Defense of Democracy." Even the women are organizing. "We'll hold a rosary in one hand, a gun in the other," cried one at a rightist rally.

Hunting License. The spirit of '32 has been rekindled by volatile "Jango" Goulart. After 2 1/2 years of political zigs and zags and soaring inflation, the President last month lunged sharply left, seeking power in ways that deeply disturb and alarm many of his countrymen. Goulart has cut off all discount loans from the Bank of Brazil to politically unfriendly banks, has nationalized oil refineries and threatened to expropriate almost everything else in sight. He favors legalizing the Communist Party, is campaigning also for sweeping constitutional "reforms" that would enfranchise millions of illiterates, lift the constitutional ban on a second straight term for Brazil's Presidents.

One of Goulart's most explosive moves to date was to decree an "agrarian reform" program to take over idle farmland along federal highways, railroads and reservoirs. The decree was sheer demagoguery, since the government has long had legal power to take over these lands, but has always lacked the cash to compensate the owners. To the peasants, Tango's loudly touted decree is simply a hunting license to grab the land. The government-sponsored, Communist-bossed National Peasant Confederation has even assured Brazil's peasants that the land decree "is an instrument that the peasants can use as of now."

Military Manifesto. Many of Goulart's decisions of late have been urged on him by advisers who include leading Communists, notably Party Boss Luis Carlos Prestes. Thus after Jango advocated revision of the constitution last month, the Communist-run General Labor Command immediately obliged by threatening a general strike unless the reforms go through. A measure of the feeling on the other side came in Sao Paulo fortnight ago, when some 500,000 antileftists--largest rally ever assembled in Brazil--demonstrated their opposition to constitutional change.

Unruffled, Goulart insists that the ruling classes are wantonly distorting his "democratic" reforms. Indeed, he is no Communist. But he has relied so heavily on Communists and the far left that, willy-nilly, he is approaching the point of no return. So far he has been able to discount any likelihood of a coup by Brazil's studiously constitution-minded armed forces. But even the military has given him fair warning. Last month 73 retired "pajama generals," with 2,800 years of service among them, issued a manifesto labeling Goulart a "flagrant transgressor of the law," charged that under him "subversion is not only officially tolerated, but desired, directed and aided." The generals concluded grimly that the armed forces "are not obliged to preserve or guarantee the government."

Jango Goulart proved their main point. All 73 of the retired soldiers were put under ten days' military arrest.

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