O holocausto stalinista contra a Ucrania (1931-33) - review of Anne Applebaum's book

Ellman on Applebaum, 'Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine' [review]

Anne Applebaum. Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine. New York: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 2017. 496 pp. $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-385-53885-5.

Reviewed by Michael Ellman (University of Amsterdam)
Published on H-Diplo (April, 2018)
Commissioned by Seth Offenbach (Bronx Community College, The City University of New York)

Printable Version: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=51300

Anne Applebaum’s Red Famine is about the famine in Ukraine in 1932-33. This book acts as a sequel to the well-known book of Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow (1986). Applebaum’s work differs from the latter mainly in that she was able to use the mass of archival documents that became accessible after the collapse of the USSR, the document collections based on them, the recent work of numerous historians in a number of countries, and new sources such as oral history. The author also received significant encouragement and support from scholars at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. As a result of all these factors it is much better informed than Conquest’s book and provides a mass of data about a terrible catastrophe that caused millions of deaths and plays a role in Ukrainian historiography similar to the 1840s famine in Ireland, the 1915-16 deportations and massacres in Armenia, and the Holocaust in Israel.

The book contains a harrowing account of the famine, the suffering of the starving and dying, the cannibalism of the desperate, and the actions of the activists who visited Ukrainian villages to confiscate all the food of the peasants. The book also describes the efforts of the Soviet government to hide what was going on, its success in getting Western correspondents in Moscow to send fake news to their newspapers, and its failure to stop two British journalists from telling the truth. For decades the Soviet authorities denied that there was a major famine in Ukraine in 1932-33. The silence in the USSR about the famine lasted almost to the very end of the USSR. It is one of the many Stalinist crimes (like the state terror of 1937-38) for which documentary evidence only became available after the collapse of the USSR and the archival revolution in the study of the USSR.

In order to provide the background to her story the author devotes 185 pages to the period before the famine. This is necessary to frame her interpretation of the famine. The crucial point of her interpretation is that the famine was a result of a deliberate policy aimed at destroying Ukrainian national sentiment and those who embodied or propagated it. Part of that policy was the starvation of Ukrainian peasants, and part was the state terror in Ukraine in 1933, which targeted Ukrainian cultural intellectuals and national Communists and also refugees from Poland/West Ukraine. It is certainly true that Joseph Stalin thought he was engaged in a war with the peasants, who, in his opinion, were consciously sabotaging the construction of socialism by not voluntarily delivering the required grain quotas. In view of this perceived sabotage, in a speech on November 27, 1932, Stalin stated that this sabotage needed to be answered with a knockout blow. Stalin was also worried about losing the Ukraine and about the loyalty of the Ukrainian Communists. It is also true that the measures he took and the orders he gave were bound to cause the death of very many peasants. Furthermore, in 1932-33 he also pursued a multipronged policy of state terror against the population of the USSR, in particular the peasantry, which showed his indifference to human suffering.

During the famine Stalin, instead of requesting or accepting international assistance to help the starving (as was done in 1921 and 1947, respectively), or ending grain exports, explained that the "idlers’" (i.e., the peasants who failed to deliver the required quantity of grain and/or did not have enough to eat) deserved to die. Moreover, the failure of Ukraine to supply the desired quantity of grain, memories of the civil war, the peasant anti-collectivization riots in 1930, and fear of potential war led to the abandonment in 1932-33 of the Ukrainization policy (the encouragement of Ukrainian culture and language) which was followed in the 1920s. This was followed by a Russification policy. This was particularly drastic in the Kuban, an area of Russia which in the 1920s had a large Ukrainian population. According to the 1926 census, 915,000 Ukrainians lived there and accounted for 61 percent of the population. By 1939 the number of Ukrainians living there had dwindled to 197,000 and they accounted for only a small proportion of the population.[1] Stalin himself changed his view of national policy in 1930-31. It evolved from a criticism of Great Russian chauvinism to a Russian nationalist position. Hence, Applebaum argues that the famine was a conscious attack on Ukraine partly inspired by Russian nationalist ideas. However, whereas we have the document signed by Stalin (and his henchmen) approving the Katyn massacre and the documents ordering the terror of 1937-38, we do not have an analogous document ordering the starvation of millions of Ukrainians in 1932-33. In addition, the Ukrainians were not the only victims of starvation in the early 1930s. Badly hit were the Kazakhs, about 1.4 million of whom died, about 36 percent of their population[2]. Many Russians also starved. Where Ukrainian historians and those who sympathize with them mainly see a specifically Ukrainian tragedy, Kazakh historians see a Kazakh tragedy, and Russian historians see a tragedy of the peoples of the USSR. Applebaum’s interpretation, while understandable and possible, lacks the irrefutable documentary proof which exists for Katyn and the terror of 1937-38.

An important issue in discussing this famine is the number of victims, for which numerous estimates have been made. Appelbaum uses the estimate of 3.9 million excess deaths and a demographic loss (which includes unborn children) of 4.5 million (p. 280). These figures are taken from the detailed calculations by Omelian Rudnytskyi et al. which were published in 2015 in Canadian Studies in Population. The figure of 3.9 million excess deaths is lower than some of the estimates that have been bandied about. However, it is higher than the estimate of 3.2 million published by the Ukrainian historian Stanislav Kulchytsky in 2005.[3] It is also higher than the estimate of 2.6 million excess deaths by the French demographers Jacques Vallin et al. in their 2002 article in Population Studies and in the 2012 book edited by France Meslé and Vallin (Mortality and Causes of Death in 20th-Century Ukraine). An important reason for the difference between the Rudnytskyi et al. estimates and those of Vallin et al. is that Rudnytskyi et al. reduce the estimated population of Ukraine in 1939 by about 800,000 to allow for the falsification of the 1939 census. Another reason is the greater decline in the birth rate during the crisis assumed by Vallin et al. According to Vallin et al. this was 1.1 million, making a demographic loss of 3.7 million. Rudnytskyi et al. conclude their analysis by drawing attention to the big regional differences in the demographic loss and the need to explain them. That would indeed be important in fully understanding the demographic crisis of 1932-33. An interesting result of the 2002 article by Vallin et al. is that their estimate of excess mortality in 1941-45 is 6.7 million, which is much higher than their estimate of the 1932-33 famine mortality. However, the huge wartime excess mortality in Ukraine (except that of Jews and Roma) gets much less literary or political attention than the smaller excess mortality caused by the 1932-33 famine, since attention to the wartime excess mortality would not serve any political purpose.

The book presents a balanced and nuanced picture of many controversial issues. For example, it points out that collectivization did have some popular support, both rural and urban. It even notices that deportation in 1930 was sometimes favorable – it saved some of its victims from the famine of 1933. Appelbaum also recognizes the existence of the Kazakh famine and the famine in parts of Russia. Similarly, while acquitting Symon Petliura (a prominent Ukrainian leader in 1918-20) himself of the charges of anti-Semitism and organizing pogroms, she notes that the same cannot be said of all his followers.

Appelbaum frames her analysis in the context of Ukrainian history. In this capacity it provides Ukraine with a tragic past, which plays an important role in state-building. Published in English, and in a well-written book, it contributes to the international recognition of Ukraine as a major European nation which was a victim of the Soviet system and subject to Russification and has an absolute right to an independent existence. However, this is not the only possible framework for a study of the famine. Economic historians, both Anglophone and Russophone, tend to see it as an episode in the industrialization of the USSR.[4] They pay attention to the low harvests in 1931 and 1932 and make comparisons with the famines of 1727-28 and 1891-92. In their analysis the specific Ukrainian element tends to disappear. Specialists in famines tend to see it as an important twentieth-century famine which can be compared, for example, to the Finnish famine of 1868, the Bengal famine of 1943, or the famine in Sichuan in 1960, in order to understand famines in general. If Ukraine were to join the Eurasian Economic Union then future historians might see the Soviet famines of 1931-34 as Eurasian disasters.

This very well-informed and very readable book will be useful for anyone interested in Ukraine past or present, the history of the USSR, twentieth-century history, famines, or the use of national disasters in state-building. However, its interpretation is based on circumstantial evidence and is possible but unproven.

Notes

[1]. For these figures see Michael Ellman, "Stalin and the Soviet Famine of 1932-33 Revisited," Europe-Asia Studies 59, no. 4 (2007): 683.

[2]. R. W. Davies and Stephen G. Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931-1933 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 415; Niccolò Pianciola, "Famine in the Steppe: The Collectivization of Agriculture and the Kazak Herdsmen, 1928-1934" Cahiers du Monde Russe 45, nos. 1 and 2 (2004): 137.

[3]. Stanislav Kulchytsky, Golod 1932-1933 gg v Ukraine kak genotsid (Kyiv: Institute of Ukrainian History, 2005), 196.

[4]. Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger; S. Nefedov, Uroven’ zhizni naseleniia i agrarnoe razvitie Rossii v 1900-1940 godakh (Moscow: Delo, 2017).

Citation: Michael Ellman. Review of Applebaum, Anne, Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine. H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews. April, 2018.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=51300

The Globalist: China among the greatest, by volume, but also by quality

O mais recente boletim de Globalist, traz algumas matérias que confrontam resultados chineses – indicadores econômicos e sociais – com os de países atualmente na vanguarda do desenvolvimento mundial. A China já é a maior economia mundial, a despeito do fato que, em termos per capita, ela ainda vai levar décadas para se equiparar aos países mais avançados.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

China Vs. the US: Just the Facts

China Vs. the US: The GDP Race

Who leads depends on how it’s measured. | By The Globalist

China Vs. the US: Lifespan Gains

A child born in China today can expect to live decades longer than someone born in China in 1950. | By The Globalist

China Vs. Europe: Living Standards and Costs

While much of China remains poor, some cities are now on par with EU levels. | By The Globalist

China Vs. the US: Who Has More Land?

The two countries have very similar land areas for now, but China has extensive additional claims. | By The Globalist

China Vs. The US: The GDP Race

Who leads depends on how it’s measured.

9

By The Globalist, April 13, 2018

Takeaways

• At market prices, China’s GDP is still only about 61.7% the size of the US economy.
  
• China’s economy is also more than three times greater than that of Germany, and four and a half times larger than the economies of France or the United Kingdom.
  

1. At market prices, China’s GDP (the size of its economy) is still only about 61.7% the size of the U.S. economy, according to International Monetary Fund estimates in 2017.

2. China is the second-largest economy in the world in nominal terms (i.e., without adjustment for local purchasing power). 

3. China’s GDP is nearly two-and-a-half times larger than that of third-ranked Japan.

China and the US Compared: A “Just The Facts” Series

China Vs. the US: The GDP Race

China Vs. the US: Lifespan Gains

China Vs. Europe: Living Standards and Costs

China Vs. the US: Who Has More Land?

4. China’s economy is also more than three times greater than that of Germany, and four and a half times larger than the economies of France or the United Kingdom.

5. Only by measuring China’s GDP in international dollars that adjust for local purchasing power does it surpass the United States’ economic size.

6. By this indicator, the U.S. economy is 84% the size of China’s. 

7. China certainly seems destined for economic pre-eminence, if current trends continue. 

8. This would be a return to China’s previous path and position in the global economy. 

9. Back in 1820, two centuries ago, the largest productive economies in the world were China and India. 

10. Together they accounted for half of the aggregate value of the global economy at the time.

Sources: IMF, Maddison Project Historical Statistics, The Globalist Research Center

A infamia nazista e a dignidade atual de uma alemã - uma historia humana

Do Washington Post deste domingo, 15/04/2018:

Nazis seized his home during World War II. A letter recently arrived, expressing remorse.

by Eli Rosenberg

The Washington Post, April 15, 2018

The letter arrived for Peter Hirschmann with a postmark from Nuremberg, Germany, where he and his family had escaped from Nazis nearly 80 years ago.

The words, neat script in three pages, brought the 92-year-old resident of Maplewood, N.J., to tears. They were a message of remorse, sent by a German woman who began to investigate how her grandfather had acquired Hirschmann’s family home after it had been seized by the German government.

Doris Schott-Neuse, a 46-year-old civil servant, wanted to express her regret and ask Hirschmann for forgiveness, according to the Associated Press.

Listen to this story on “Retropod”:

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“I am deeply ashamed for what us Germans did to yourself, your family and to your friends and relatives and to the members of the Nuremberg Jewish community,” she wrote. “It is hardly bearable to start thinking about the details — what a horror and nightmare it must have been to live through this.”

In an interview with the AP, Hirschmann recalled his old home on the outskirts of Nuremberg, an old Bavarian town where Nazis had created the Nuremberg Laws, a series of rules that deprived Jews of citizenship, in 1935.

Hirschmann’s father Julius was a businessman whose success was evident in the two-story, three-bedroom house.

“It was probably one of the nicer homes around according to the standards of the day,” Hirschmann said.

Peter Hirschmann at his home in Maplewood, N.J. (Julio Cortez/AP)

He remembers the changes his parents started to make after Nazis came to power and began implementing policies against the country’s Jewish population. After Jews were banned from using a local pool, his parents set up sprinklers for the children in their back yard.

“All of a sudden there was a sign up there: ‘Juden und Hunde Verboten,’ which means Jews and dogs not allowed,” Hirschmann recalled. The family fled Germany in 1939.

Schott-Neuse had begun to look into her own family history and how they came to acquire the house a few years after the Hirschmanns left.

Doris Schott-Neuse flips through a residents’ register from the 1930s in Nuremberg, Germany. (Matthias Schrader/AP)

Schott-Neuse, who lived in the house until she was five, dug through the city’s archives and found that Nazis had seized Hirschmann’s home. By 1941, Willi Muhr, her grandfather, was listed as its owner.

Schott-Neuse said her aunt, who inherited the house and later sold it when Schott-Neuse was five, told her that her grandparents had acquired the home after helping the previous owners escape to the United States. But Schott-Neuse said she had come to doubt the story about her grandparents after learning about the house’s history.

“I don’t know if I want to believe that any longer,” she said. “I thought he bought it directly from the Jewish owners but this doesn’t seem to be true.”

Instead, she has begun to assume her grandfather was connected to Nazis, given how nice the house was.

“That is what prompted me to write the letter, because I thought that the family also doesn’t know what happened and I wanted to say I’m so sorry, because it’s not done and over,” she said.

In her letter to Hirschmann, she wrote that the Holocaust and Nazi years were “lessons filled with numbers, data, and facts of the deeds of ‘them’ — the Nazis — and we felt that all that was something which was awful but that it happened in a faraway past. And I did not connect these history lessons to my family. My sister and I enjoyed a very happy childhood and connecting family with gruesome horrors did not work. I know that this was the same for my friends.”

The Hirschmann family was later paid restitution for the house that amounted to about a tenth of its prewar value, the AP reported.

The letter Schott-Neuse wrote Hirschmann. (Julio Cortez/AP)

Hirschmann and his family were able to flee Nazi Germany; his parents sent him and his brother to live with a relative in England in the hopes that Adolf Hitler’s time in office would be short, he said in an interview with The Washington Post.

But as conditions worsened for the Jews in Germany, Hirschmann’s parents were granted visas to come the United States in August 1939, just weeks before Hitler invaded Poland in what historians consider the start of World War II.

By the end of that year, the whole family was reunited in Newark, Hirschmann’s parents working menial jobs but happy to be living free. Hirschmann got a waiver to join the Army after his 18th birthday in 1942, even though he was still a German citizen.

An infantryman, he fought in the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, the last major German offensive of the war, where he was captured along with other American troops. He spent the last five months of the war in a prisoner of war camp — he still remembers the dates, Dec. 16, 1944, to May 8, 1945 — telling his captors that he had learned German in high school to obscure his past and ethnicity.

“If he had found out my background, I would have been shot without any explanation,” he told AP.

Back in the United States, Hirschmann raised two children with his wife Merle, and had a successful career as an accountant and real estate broker. They have five grandchildren. He has been married for 55 years, and still goes to work at the office of the real estate company he owns just about every day.

He and his family had visited the home in Nuremberg decades ago during a trip to Germany, sitting down for tea with the young family that had purchased the place.

Then, decades later  the house came back to him again in the form of Schott-Neuse’s letter, which was mailed to his office.

“How she got the address to my office, I don’t yet know,” Hirschmann said.

“I give her a lot of credit for researching and finding him,” his wife, Merle, said.

Hirschmann wrote an email back to Schott-Neuse, according to the AP, telling her that she was blameless and writing that he was touched by her letter.

“You had the option to ignore it and instead you confronted it,” he wrote. “My tears reflect the fervent hope that the humanity, dignity, and compassion you have shown is shared by others of your generation and the generations to follow.”

Algumas palavras sobre a atualidade politica brasileira

Vejamos estas palavras, absolutamente pertinentes para os nossos dias: 

Todo homem procura, nos limites de suas possibilidades, atingir a perfeição do ideal humano, não só para conquistar a paz com a sua consciência e a sua felicidade pessoal, como para subsistir, pela colaboração na tarefa comum à existência. 

É da natureza das coisas como dos seres, a sobrevivência.

Todos trazemos, com a vida, uma ânsia de perpetuação e de aperfeiçoamento de milênios – de evolução.

(...)

O homem é, como sempre se repetiu, a medida de todas as coisas.

(...)

Nosso país nunca foi rico de homens. Não quero repetir uma frase [Nota: “O Brasil é um deserto de homens e ideias.”], ditada em hora de desalento, cuja contradita serve, hoje, para as expansões da inconsciência demagógica e patrioteira de nossos dias.

A verdade, porém, é que não nos é dado afirmar que os homens de nosso tempo e de nosso País sobreviverão ao transcurso de nossa era e às transformações inesperadas das nossas gerações...

A vida política brasileira sempre foi uma seleção negativa dos valores humanos. Faltou-lhe inspiração para as grandes vocações. O destino tem razões profundas. E a nossa vida política sempre foi superficial. (...)

(...)

Os portos abertos por D. João ao mundo, quando chegou à Bahia, têm sido fechados, sistematicamente, por todos os seus infiéis seguidores, incluídos os republicanos, contrariando o exemplo de outros povos e até os deveres contraídos com a grandeza do Brasil e a convivência mundial. 

(...)

Vivemos de elites, de falsas elites governantes, perdidas em suas abstrações e privilégios, e que não souberam ou puderam defrontar a realidade brasileira, fugindo às considerações práticas e realistas, bases mesmas de toda ação governamental e do progresso material e moral dos povos.

A falta desse pragmatismo, essencial à função política, desde o Império, determinou a perturbação do conhecimento e dificultou a solução dos problemas fundamentais, do povo e do País.

A decorrência logica dessa atitude das nossas elites, no campo governamental, como nos demais, foi o distanciamento crescente entre o governo e o povo, e o das camadas superiores das populações nacionais. 

(...)

A retomada democrática é a única estrada para nossa salvação dos descaminhos de um passado de retrocessos.

(...)

 Na verdade, trata-se de um discurso pronunciado por Oswaldo Aranha na Assembleia Legislativa do Rio Grande do Sul, em fevereiro de 1947, antes de partir para a representação do Brasil junto às Nações Unidas, em Nova York.

Encontra-se neste livro: 

Aita, Carmen; Axt, Gunter (orgs.):

Oswaldo Aranha: discursos (1916-1931)

(Porto Alegre: Assembleia Legislativa do Rio Grande do Sul, 1999, p. 258-260).

Ele não foi incluído neste livro que organizei porque tratava mais de aspectos de política doméstica do que de política externa.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

Brasília, 13 de abril de 2018

Brazil-Turkey: two emerging nations -

Esta tese de doutorado, detectada por mim imediatamente após a sua defesa, e recomendada para publicação pela Funag,

está sendo finalmente publicada com esta capa:

Regional integration in LatAm: the case of Mercosur - Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Regional integration in Latin America: an historical essay

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

(www.pralmeida.org; http://diplomatizzando.blogspot.com)

 [Objetivo: complementar trabalho 3043; finalidade: Meridiano 47]

Introdução

Recebi, em 3 de abril, a seguinte mensagem dos editores de Meridiano 47, a partir da submissão do artigo escrito seguinte: “Regional integration in Latin America: historical developments, current challenges, especially in Mercosur”:

“ (…) Temos a satisfação de anunciar que o seu artigo foi aceito e que será publicado no volume 18 de Meridiano 47, tão logo seja concluída a sua produção editorial. (…)

Ao longo dos últimos anos vimos trabalhando intensamente para ampliar a divulgação dos artigos publicados nas revistas do Instituto Brasileiro de Relações Internacionais - IBRI. Esta ação está dando resultados excelentes, proporcionando o  aumento da visibilidade dos artigos publicados. Para isso, temos trabalhado em parceria com os nossos autores para aumentar o impacto nacional e internacional de suas pesquisas, com o uso inteligente de vários canais de divulgação, inclusive das mídias sociais.

Meridiano 47 publica kits de mídia sobre os artigos publicados no site do IBRI (http://www.ibri-rbpi.org) e em Mundorama (Revista de Divulgação Científica em Relações Internacionais - http://www.mundorama.net) . Nós usamos essas peças para divulgar intensivamente os artigos no nosso perfil no Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/meridiano47e http://www.twitter.com/ibri_rbpi) e em nossa página no Facebook (https://goo.gl/xHrkpZ e http://www.facebook.com/ibri.rbpi).

Prepare uma nota em seu artigo (com no máximo 800 palavras, 3 ou 4 parágrafos) que deverá ter um título distinto daquele do seu artigo. Este texto pode ser escrito em Inglês ou Português. Pense em uma nota que seja extensa o suficiente para manter o interesse dos leitores pelo seu artigo e pelo seu perfil científico, mas tomando o cuidado de não resumir o artigo ao ponto em que a leitura da peça original seja dispensável. Veja as instruções dadas pelo Scielo para a produção de bons press releases em http://goo.gl/NKhVah.

Nota preparada para atender ao pedido dos editores do boletim Meridiano 47.

The evolution of Mercosul in the world context

Historical and analytical essay on the evolution of the regional integration process, especially of Mercosur, in the South American Southern Cone, created in 1991 on the basis of a previous bilateral experiment between Brazil and Argentina (the 1988 treaty of integration and the 1990 Buenos Aires Act, both promising a bilateral common market, first in 10 years, then in 5 years). Resulting from the intention of Paraguay and Uruguay to join in this process, the Asunción treaty was signed in the Paraguayan capital in March 1991, and the new, quadrilateral, Mercosur confirmed the same objectives of the Buenos Aires Act, starting a progressive and automatic process of tariff reduction among the four member countries, in order to create a free trade zone, complemented by a Common External Tariff, the basis of a Customs Union.

Mercosur was thus confirmed in December 1994 as a new promising common market, with other objectives in view. Although impressive advances were made in its 8 years of existence, up to 1999, absence of a more structured process of coordination of macroeconomic and sectorial policies, and of a real convergence in other sectors – such as harmonization of rules and norms for many areas of economic activities, such as services of administrative regulation, including taxation and other fiscal dispositions – the integration process was hampered by the economic crises (exchange rate policies, external debt, and balance of payments disequilibrium) in the two major members, which resulted in a serious decline of intra-trade flows.

For the rest of its existence, Mercosur knew few, if any, advances in its economic and commercial interface, as Argentina and Brazil started new orientations in their overall economic policies, less open to economic opening and trade liberalization, and more in line with nationalistic and interventionist policies (Nestor Kirchner in Argentina, Lula da Silva in Brazil). There was a real stagnation in the integration process, due to this change in main priorities in each country. Mercosur today is actually less relevant either for its member countries or for their integration into the world economy than it was the case at the origin, because member countries or the customs union itself kept themselves away from new trade negotiations and agreements with foreign partners. Mercosur countries are virtually absent from the most important global value chains in the new global economy.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Brasília, 13 de abril de 2018

Prata da Casa: os livros dos diplomatas - Paulo Roberto de Almeida

O mais recente número da revista da Associação dos Diplomatas Brasileiros

trouxe mais uma "colheita" de livros de diplomatas:

1277. “Prata da Casa, dezembro de 2017 a março de 2018”, Revista da ADB(ano XX, n. 97, dezembro de 2017 a março de 2018, p. 43-45; ISSN: 0104-8503; links: https://adb.org.br/revista-adb/#revista-adb-97/page42-page43e https://adb.org.br/revista-adb/#revista-adb-97/page44-page45). Mini-resenhas sobre os seguintes livros: (1) Paulo Roberto de Almeida: Formação da Diplomacia Econômica no Brasil: as relações econômicas internacionais no Império(3ra. edição, revista; Brasília: Funag, 2017, 2 volumes; Coleção História Diplomática; ISBN: 978-85-7631-675-6; obra completa; 964 p.; vo. I: 516 p.; ISBN: 978-85-7631-668-8; vol. II: 464 p.; ISBN: 978-85-7631-669-5); (2) Rubens Ricupero: A diplomacia na construção do Brasil, 1750-2016(Rio de Janeiro: Versal, 2017, 780 p.; ISBN: 978-85-89309-80-6); (3) Sérgio Corrêa da Costa: A diplomacia do marechal: intervenção estrangeira na Revolta da Armada (3^a. edição; Brasília: Fundação Alexandre de Gusmão, 2017, 494 p.; ISBN: 978-85-7631-708-1); (4) Sérgio Eduardo Moreira Lima; Paulo Roberto de Almeida; Rogério de Souza Farias (orgs):Oswaldo Aranha: um estadista brasileiro (Brasília: Funag, 2017, 2 vols.; vol. 1, 568 p.; ISBN: 978-85-7631-696-1; vol. 2, 356 p.; ISBN: 978-85-7631-697-8); (5) Paulo Borba Casella, Raphael Carvalho de Vasconcelos, e Ely Caetano Xavier Junior (orgs.): Direito Ambiental: o legado de Geraldo Eulálio do Nascimento e Silva (Brasília: Funag, 2017, 492 p.; ISBN: 978-85-7631-673-2); (6) Henrique Carlos Ribeiro Lisboa:A China e os chins: recordações de viagem(Rio de Janeiro: Fundação Alexandre de Gusmão/CHDD, 2016, 334 p.; ISBN: 978-85-7631-593-3).

Meira Penna: um intelectual liberal, morto aos 100 anos - Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Meu trabalho publicado mais recente: 

1276. “José Osvaldo de Meira Penna: um intelectual brasileiro”, Revista da ADB(ano XX, n. 97, dezembro de 2017 a março de 2018, p. 36-37; ISSN: 0104-8503; link: https://adb.org.br/revista-adb/#revista-adb-97/page36-page37).

José Osvaldo de Meira Penna: um intelectual brasileiro

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Diretor do Instituto de Pesquisa de Relações Internacionais (IPRI).

Qualquer que seja a qualificação que se lhe atribua – liberal, conservador, direitista –, Meira Penna foi um dos grandes intelectuais brasileiros, certamente o maior da carreira diplomática, talvez até mais, na variedade e volume dos escritos, que os dois outros colegas que poderiam legitimamente lhe ser equiparados: Roberto Campos e José Guilherme Merquior. Já conhecedor de boa parte de sua obra, para preparar esta nota fui consultar as entradas sob seu nome nas bibliotecas próximas. As do Itamaraty, possuem apenas 27 obras (mas em vários exemplares), sendo 17 na SERE, oito no Rio de Janeiro e duas no Instituto Rio Branco. A do Senado Federal, mais copiosa em artigos do que em livros, exibe 16 obras no catálogo, mas 104 artigos – parte ínfima de seus “sueltos” em periódicos, durante décadas –, sendo o último deles significativamente intitulado “Por que escrever memórias?” (2006). 

Suas memórias, justamente, ficaram por terminar, e ainda permanecem sob a guarda da família. Um excelente verbete na Wikipedia registra 23 livros publicados, dos quais eu destacaria os seguintes: O Brasil na Idade da Razão(1980); O Evangelho segundo Marx(1982); O Dinossauro(1988); Utopia brasileira(1988); Opção preferencial pela riqueza(1991); O espírito das revoluções(1997); A Ideologia do século XX(1994); Em berço esplêndido: ensaios de psicologia coletiva brasileira(1999); Da moral em economia(2002). Esse verbete, provavelmente escrito pelo amigo Ricardo Vélez-Rodríguez, trata de suas análises sobre o patrimonialismo brasileiro, nosso cartorialismo, o burocratismo, e vários ismos também fustigados pelo seu colega – e contemporâneo na carreira – Roberto Campos. Meira Penna foi admitido em 1937 e Campos ingressou em 1938, no primeiro concurso do DASP, ao lado de outros que entravam pela janela, situação que se prolongou até a criação do Instituto Rio Branco.

Antes de entrar no Itamaraty eu já o conhecia de nome, pelos artigos publicados no Estadãoou no Jornal do Brasil. Quando ingressei, fui ler um de seus livros: Política externa: segurança e desenvolvimento(1967), obra que discute de forma inteligente os dois princípios da era militar. O primeiro livro emergiu no segundo posto: Shanghai: aspectos históricos da China moderna(1944). Ao partir para missão temporária nessa cidade, em 2010, eu o contatei, para conversar sobre a cidade que ele tinha conhecido antes da dominação comunista. Em mensagem de 8/11/2009, ele me escreveu:

Estive duas vezes em Xanghai [sic]. Da primeira, 1941-42, como Vice-Cônsul sob as ordens do Cônsul Geral James F. Mee. Da segunda, em 1949, assistindo ao fim da guerra civil que trouxe Mao ao poder. Dessa segunda vez, fiquei quase um ano em Nanking como Encarregado de Negócios, até a chegada do novo Embaixador, Paranhos da Silva. Saí da cidade duas semanas antes da entrada dos maoístas. (...) Terei grande prazer em conversar consigo. Meu telefone é... 

Eu já o conhecia desde os anos 1980, tendo feito uma visita à sua residência, a “Vila Castália”, na Park Way, depois de retornar do doutorado e começar a dar aulas no Instituto Rio Branco e na UnB, onde ele também se exercia como professor do então Departamento de Relações Internacionais. Ele me presenteou com um de seus livros, e nos anos seguintes fui adquirindo ou sendo agraciado com vários outros, todos eles fortemente estimulantes de um diálogo de alto nível sobre as razões do atraso brasileiro em perspectiva histórica e comparada, com base em grandes nomes da cultura ocidental: Weber, Tocqueville, Marx e outros pensadores. Meira Penna foi, salvo engano, o primeiro brasileiro a ser admitido na Sociedade do Mont Pèlerin, o grupo liberal criado no imediato pós-guerra por Friedrich Hayek para se contrapor ao keynesianismo, já dominante nas universidades e nas políticas econômicas de quase todos os países.

Por sua vez, ele se contrapôs desde o início ao pensamento estatizante e terceiro-mundista, que prevalecia nas elites brasileiras, independentemente do regime político ou das chefias do Itamaraty. Em plena atividade como embaixador nos anos 1970, Meira Penna nunca se eximiu de criticar as orientações da política externa, em especial as dos últimos governos da era militar. Tais críticas recrudesceram na democratização, a despeito da boa disposição inicial em relação ao banqueiro Olavo Setúbal. Aposentado desde 1981, seu último grande embate se deu pela denúncia das “polonetas”, os créditos oferecidos a países socialistas para a exportação de manufaturas brasileiras sem quaisquer garantias credíveis. O mesmo ocorreu nos financiamentos oferecidos a países do Terceiro Mundo, na África e na América Latina, redundando em grandes perdas para o país, quando as insolvências passaram a exame, e desconto, no âmbito do Clube de Paris, onde o Brasil era admitido como credor. 

Em meados dos anos 1980 ele funda, com amigos e intelectuais de renome, a Sociedade Tocqueville, assim como esteve na origem do Instituto Liberal de Brasília. Suas principais contribuições no campo intelectual se dão na crítica ao patrimonialismo e à mentalidade estatizante e intervencionista no Brasil, entranhada na psicologia social, que interpreta com base em teses de Carl Gustav Jung. Uma das últimas manifestações de Meira Penna se deu em entrevista a Bruno Garschagen, do Instituto Mises Brasil, em 6/12/2013 – nos links: https://goo.gl/1Aj5HC; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkE00n0ZYNk–, na qual ele revela inicialmente que sua orientação liberal surgiu ainda em 1935, quando ele iniciava estudos de Direito e ocorreu a intentona comunista de novembro daquele ano. As leituras de Hayek, Mises e Milton Friedman foram solidificando suas convicções liberais, e sua oposição ao ambiente positivista, intervencionista, nacionalista míope, predominante no Brasil e na grande maioria dos países dominados pelo keynesianismo.

Sua morte, aos cem anos, em 29 de julho de 2017, deixou o Brasil mais pobre na vertente liberal, num ambiente intelectual carente de grandes nomes nessa área, pois já rarefeito desde o desaparecimento de Roberto Campos e de José Guilherme Merquior. Uma coleção de ensaios em sua homenagem seria bem vinda, a exemplo daquela que se fez por ocasião do centenário de Roberto Campos: O homem que pensou o Brasil. Uma coletânea de seus escritos mais representativos seria ainda melhor...

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Brasília, 21 de janeiro de 2018

Relação de Publicados n. 1276.