Re: [Marxism] What is a subimperialist?

[<hari.kumar@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Firstly, thanks to Renato P & to Nestor for picking up the question.
Subsidiaries:
1) Recommendations of web-links for Ruy Mauro Marini? Recommendations for books 
(English?) by him - what is the definitive volume ['Ars Long, vita brevis']?

2) The Comintern used the term "a minor partner of imperialism", Renato, to 
depict the 'white' colonial implants in Canada; South Africa; NZ & Oz.
Is the formulation here similar?

3) Finally, as an old dog who really finds new tricks hard to learn - how 
exactly is this terminology different from 'comprador' and 'national' capital?
A please at this juncture; Please no fearsome tirades from the T-ite vigilantes 
here.
I am asking an un-emotive question.

With thanks once more to Renata & Nestor for having the courtesy to address 
honest questions.
Hari

>

During the first years of the military regime, Brazil displayed a
most menacing "subimperialist" policy, thus justifying Ruy Mauro
Marini's definition, which of course did _not_ imply that Brazil had
become a minor member of the imperialist gang like, say, Denmark or,
even, Greece.

What the Brazilian military did in those times was in essence what
the Hispanic American countries, particularly the River Plate basin
countries, used to term the "perfidious policies of Itamaraty".

Itamaraty is one of the names of the Brazilian Ministry for Foreign
Affairs.  The fact is, however, that the policies of Itamaraty were
neither perfidious nor egregious, but simply and essentially
_policies_.  The River Plate republics (and most Hispanic American
republics save for, partially, Mexico) lacked absolutely anything
like that.  The "policies" of the Argentinean Foreign Affairs
Ministery, for example, were particularly erratic, futile, snobbish,
clumsy and makeshift.

There were historic and social reasons for this, and it would be long
to explain them here, but the fact is that without this fact in mind,
it is hard to understand what does this issue of Brazilian
"subimperialism" mean.

When the coup of 1964 put the whole of Brazil under the undisguised
and uncontained lordship of imperialist multinationals and financial
centers, the state naturally followed suit, and so did Itamaraty.
Thus, its policies acquired the scent of a rabidly pro-imperialist
bully's sweat, and they were developed seriously.

For example, during the mid/late 1960s there was a fear in Bras?lia
that the Uruguayan Left reached power, and they menaced with
invasion.

This "subimperialism" was unique in that there was nothing the like
across borders, particularly in Argentina.

The Brazilian oligarchy had a long tradition of collaboration with
foreign powers: it  dates back to the implantation in Rio (1808) of
the complete Portuguese court by the long and strong arm of Britain.
That is, it starts with very beginnings of the history of independent
Brazil (and it is even possible to trace it even further back, to the
1703 Methuen treaty between Lisbon and London).

On the contrary, the Argentinean diplomacy, whose main target (had it
seriously intended to match Itamaraty) should have been not just the
"reconstitution of the old Vice Royalty of the River Plate" [as
Itamaraty -completely wrong on this- blamed Juan Manuel de Rosas
(1829-1853) to attempt] but the reunification of at least the
republics of Hispanic South America, had in the end no target at all,
because our own oligarchy lacked any interest in South America other
than murder the Argentinean population of the Inland provinces and
keep Buenos Aires safely protected from any American heroic
adventure.

The Argentinean dictatorship of 1966-73 attempted to match and if
possible to challenge and even win over Itamaraty by offering our own
country as the most privileged partner for American imperialism.  But
not only it was not as sure a partner as Brazil was (mainly due to
internal reasons, the resilient resistence of Peronism not the less
important of them), it lacked the diplomatic abilities that Itamaraty
displayed.

When the character of the Brazilian policy began to change (and this
was evident already with Geisel), the policies of Itamaraty changed
accordingly.

Today, the idea that Brazil displays a "subimperialist" policy is one
of the main lines of attack of the not yet fully born South American
Confederation of Nations.


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