O significado do comunismo na teologia política de Carl Schmitt e de Francisco Campos

Abstract

The jurist Francisco Campos, Minister of Justice of the Brazilian state system, was responsible for translating Getúlio Vargas's political aspirations into a legal-political framework of exception, ultimately sustained by the Federal Constitution of 1937.Thus, a new State model was consolidated, based on a political project centered on authoritarian nationalism and anti-communism.The political response to protect the Brazilian nation against the 'grave threat' represented by the 'red danger' was the creation and operation of a violent repressive national security apparatus, composed mainly of the National Security Law, the Nation al Security Court and a Political Police. This criminal framework that repressed the 'political crime' was based on the logic of exception, and allowed not only to abolish individual rights and guarantees, but also to impose the death penalty on 'the heads ' of insurrectionary attempts (art 2º, LSN/38). This article intends to contribute to the study of part of the legitimating narrative of the forceful repression to Communism in the “Estado Novo”. To do so, it will use methodological premises derived from Critical Criminology and Critical Discourse Analysis. Several social instances contributed to engender a series of negative symbolic representations on Communism; the modest purpose of this research is to investigate the images produced by two of these instances to maintain that Communism was the internal enemy to be harshly repressed in Brazil: Political Theory and Catholic Theology. As the theological-political vision of Carl Schmitt is received in Brazil by Francisco Campos to legitimize the forceful repression of Communism, the structure of the article in two parts in a dialogue on the subject between the two Catholic jurists and political politicians in question is justified; in addition some final critical considerations will be mentione.