Marxist axis in Latin America. (Insider Report).

Nearly 40 years ago, as Brazil teetered on the precipice of a Marxist coup, that nation's middle class arose in a peaceful counter-revolution preventing the takeover. Ravaged by inflation and subversion, Brazil -- the largest nation in South America -- appeared doomed. Guerrilla teams had been organized, trained, and armed; Communists had infiltrated the lower echelons of the military; "liquidation lists" of prominent anti-Communists had been drawn up. Communist Party chieftain Luiz Carlos Prestes defiantly declared: "We already have the power; we have now only to take over the government!"

But in typical fashion the Communists had neglected the most important potential obstacle: timely, organized opposition from the Brazilian people. The focal point of the uprising was Dona Amelia Bastos, a tiny, 59-year-old housewife and former schoolteacher, who organized Brazil's housewives to educate their friends and neighbors and to mobilize against the Communists. Inspired by this mass movement, military and political officials still committed to the rule of law took decisive action to prevent the coup. That action resulted, thankfully, in minimal loss of life. The people of Brazil, "working against hardened communist revolutionaries ... [proved] that communism can be stopped cold, when people are sufficiently aroused and determined," observed the November 1964 issue of Reader's Digest.

The memory of this victory for freedom is bittersweet in light of the election of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (known as "Lula") to Brazil's presidency. A semi-literate veteran of the radical left, Lula had never won more than a quarter of the total votes in his three previous campaigns. After his most recent loss in 1998, Lula "began to moderate the Workers' Party platform and his own image," noted the October 28th New York Times. A number of cosmetic changes were instituted to make Lula and his Marxist party more palatable, but the candidate pointedly kept "his ever-present lapel pin with his party's emblem, the red star."

Fidel Castro hailed Lula's ascent. "We are friends and I admire his perseverance," declared the Cuban despot. Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's Castroite ruler, "spoke of Mr. Da Silva joining him in a Latin American 'axis of good,' "reported the Times. One of Lula's most interesting endorsements came in a September 27th Financial Times op-ed by Kenneth Maxwell, director of the Latin American program for the Council on Foreign Relations. Writing just before the first round of the Brazilian presidential election, the CFR's Maxwell condemned Lula's opponents for running "a negative campaign" focusing on the Marxist politician's revolutionary past.

"[T]he red flags and red stars of Mr. da Silva's Worker's Party notwithstanding, someone should tell Wall Street and the IMF that the cold war is long over," wrote Maxwell. Brazilians old enough to remember the nation's heroic stand in 1964 are entitled to ask: If the cold war is "long over," which side truly won?