This reprint of studies published in 1961 and 1962 advocates an insurrection by peasants and urban workers to install a classless society, unhampered by the profit motive. Capitalism’s contradictions were seen as helpful to this revolution. Thus in Brazil, we learn, the bourgeoisie vetoed a land reform, although it would have alleviated one of capitalism’s failures, insufficient development of the consumer market.
Turning to the inability of the Yankee productive capacity to find adequate consumer markets, Moniz Bandeira reveals that the colossus of the north, dominated by about six magnates, resolved its problem in the only way possible for advanced imperialism: it “devotes about sixty percent of its budget” (p. 154) to armaments, thus following “Hitler’s footprints” (p. 154) of twenty years earlier.
In Brazil, Moniz Bandeira felt, peasants would play an outstanding revolutionary role. He warned, however, against overlooking the Brazilian military and urban masses. Although encouraged by the role of sergeants and soldiers in preventing a rightist coup in 1961, he saw the urban masses as handicapped by the lack of a strong vanguard. This lack, he concluded in 1962, could lead to the establishment of a rightist dictatorship, such as Quadros had wanted to head when he pulled his stunt of resigning the presidency.
