—RIO DE JANIERO .
HIS. interview with

Senator Luis Carlos

Prestes, leader of the
Brazilian Communist Party,
on the recent Inter-Ameri-
can Defense Conference,
held at Petropolis, suburb
of Rio de Janiero, appeared
in Tribuna Popular here.

the peoples of the Americas?

A. In spite of the publicity in
connection with this conference
and the space given to it in the
principal newspapers of the con-
tinent, it has obviously awakened
little or no interest among the
people, among the great Latin-
American working masses. It is
just another gathering of of-
ficial Pan-Americanism, under
the baton this time of President
Truman and his Secretary of
State Marshall, who are repres-
entatives of the big bankers, of
the trusts and monopolies that
exploit us all more cynically and
violently every day.

Q. What do you think of the
idea of forming a _ continental
bloc to defend the peace?

A. Modern war, large-scale to-
tal war, can only be waged today
by the great, highly-industrialized
powers. Peace, therefore, de-
pends in the first place and
abeve all on the mutual under-
; standing and loyal cooperation
- among the great. powers, es-
pecially among the three great-
est, which are the United States,
the Soviet Union, and Britain.
It follows that peace can only
be guaranteed by the Security
Council of the United Nations.
Continental blocs are of no
assistance whatever for this; on
the contrary, they can only up-
set or prejudice the policy of
collaboration and of peace in
the United Nations.

A. The truth is that this Pan-
Americanism they talk so much
about has been nothing more
than the privilege, won step by
step by the U.S. bankers, of ex-
ploiting our countries. We me
_ kept in backwardness and ignor-

ance, systematically exploited by
foreign capital, and our national
economies are distorted because
orientated not in the national
interest of each exploited people,
tut rather in the interest of
U.S. trusts and monopolies. This
unequal Pan-Americanism, this
pretended brotherhood of the.

exploiter and the exploited, has ~

been nothing but a mask to
cover the steady advance of the
exploiter, for good or ill, even
though it lead to conflicts as

a front, which does not help the
people in the least to rid them-
selves of their most hateful op-

pressors; it is a brotherhood

which looks on unmoved, even
- now, at the blood-bath of the
heroic Paraguayan people, vic-
tims of a pitiless tyrant. It
would be silly to expect peace
and security, progress and hap-
-piness for our peoples, from a

‘This Pan-Americanism is only
the front for US imperialism’

An interview with LUIS CARLOS PRESTES

and to prevent the people from
escaping imperialist exploitation.
Today Truman and Marshall are
the principal protectors of Fran-
co and Salazar, of the fascist
monarchy that oppresses the
peoples of Greece, of the Chiang
Kai-shek reaction, of imperialist
Holland that bleeds the Indon-
esian people; they are personal
intimate friends of Trujillo, of
Somoza, of Dutra and of Mor-
inigo.

All this is no secret, because
Truman was very frank in his
March 12 speech, declaring his
support, to the extent of what-
ever armaments and dollars he
may have available, to all those
throughout the world who are
willing to combat democracy and
who will play the part of ag-
gressors against the Soviet Un-
ion, against all those, in short,
who fight for the progress of
their countries.

Under these circumstances, it
is not difficult to guess the, true
purposes that bring Truman and
Marshall to Rio. Under pretext
of peace and security, what these
gentlemen have in mind can
only be the unification of Am-
erica under the hegemony of the
U.S. bankers for their desired
domination of the world.

Q. What do you think of the

“changes made in -the previously-

announced program of the con-
ference, to include discussiom of
military questions?

A. Thanks to the vigilance of
the people, as well as to the
campaign carried on by the de-
mocratic forces of al Latin Am-
erica, with the Communists in
the lead, the sinister plans of
Truman and Marshalt for the

military unification of the con-
tinent, for the submission of our
armed forces to the control and
command of U.S. generals, have
been postponed until later. The

conference of Petropolis limited ;

its agenda to certain more or
less innocent and harmless for-
mulation on aggression and mu-
tual defense.

Behind this, as we already
said, are doubtless hidden the rc-
actionary and aggressive inten-

tions of imperialism, which,
nevertheless, could still be de-
feated.

Q. What is the source of the
threat to the peoples of the con-
tinent?

A. Our peoples desire peace and
security, but they know that war
and insecurity, today, can only
‘come from the great center of
world reaction which . is
United States of Truman and
Marshall. The Latin-American
peoples also know that it is
cnly through progress, through-

-out development of national in-

dustry, through the liquidation
of the backwardness, misery and
ignorance in which they vege-
tate, that they can really defend
the integrity and sovereignty of
their fatherlands. The Latin-Am-
erican peoples already know, in
short, that above all they need
liberty, real and effective politi-
cal democracy, because only s0
can they secure the popular gov-
ernménts capable of making the
necessary economic reforms in-
dispensable to national progress.

Q. Do you think that anything”

can come out of this conference
favorable to the unity of the na-
tions of the continent?

the-

SENATOR LUIS CARLOS PRESTES

A. In the Inter-American Con-
ference at Petropolis, if certain
of the Latin-American delegates
know how to raise and demand
solutions to the problems of
their peoples, if they meet head-
on the imperialist offensive of
Truman and Marshall, there will
be revealed once again, and with

new vigor, the generous and
unifying ideas of the great he
roes of the continent, of Tira
dentes, Bolivar, Hidalgo, O’Hi8-
gins, of San Martin, of Toussaint ~
YOuverture, of all those wh?
understood how to fight for the
independence and progress of
their countries. ak

by ISRAEL EPSTEIN

PEAKING to the Inter-Am-
erican Defense Conference
at Petropolis, Brazil, President
Truman made it pretty clear
that the Marshall plan for
\ dollars abroad differs in only
“one way from the previous
Greek-Turkish aid venture: It
is bigger.

These matters came up at
Rio because .the United States
refused to discuss financial aid
to its Latin
American sis-
ter republics,
on grounds of
greater prior-
ities in Eur-
ope and Asia. i

. President Tru-

man do
er ae
spokesmen e€X-

plained that
Latin Ameri-
ca could not
have money :

right now not Israe

only because

she. had not been devastated
by war but because she is not
a strategic ‘stop Communism’

area.

But the southern countries
will have their armies re-
equipped to back up U.S. state
department policies, when
needed, as auxiliaries to the
U.S. forces. They were also in-
formed that they should make
their economic resources avail-

able where Washington does
not have enough for the Old
World. :

Behind both Marshall plan
and Truman doctrine lies the
theory that money and arms
lent to ‘safe’ rulers only can
force peoples fed up with
feudalism or big business rule
to give them another try. To
help allied nations rebuild war
damage and leave them, to
run their lives without such
conditions is considered dan-

gerous.
e s

PITE U.S. Secretary of

State Marshall’s original
statement that the west Euro-
pean countries should plan for
themselves and then be helped
to carry out their desires, the
state department has sent two
men, Under-Secretary Will
Clayton’ and its anti-Russian

expert, George B. Kennan, to
see that they plan right.

France, for instance, has
been given to understand that
she must forget about out-
building Germany industrially

with U.S. aid, although she
. feels this alone can save her
from being invaded a fourth
time by the boys from Berlin.

It has become bad taste to
remember that Germany was
the enemy. Washington has
picked Germany’s industrial
workship, the Ruhr valley, as

‘Europe’s. arsenal

enterprise.

Meeting in London, British
and American conferees work-
ed out, a plan for a stronger
western Germany unimpaired
by further reparations to any
of her former victims. The
aim is to restore German pro-
duction to its 1936 level. That
level, it should be pointed out,
was powerful enough to enable
Hitler to break the Treaty of
Versailles by re-militarizing
the Rhineland and dare any
country to try to make any-
thing of it.

In London the U.S., which
has the dollars Britain wants,
forced the British to shelve
their ambitions to socialize

major German plants. Free
capitalism, meaning monopoly,
will once again rule the coal
and steel of the Ruhr. Wall
Street will do a lot of the,
ruling but wants the managers
to be German. To have these
managers elected by workers

of private

What's behind the Petropolis Conference? _

*

who dig the coal and. smelt -

the ore would of course be
socialist and New Dealish. Ex-
perienced businessmen are

“wanted—and those, one and

all, helped build up Hitler.

@
ONSIDERING all this, it
does not surprise us _ to

hear ex-President Herbert

(Prosperity is Just Around the

other allies do the fighting

Corner) Hoover telling the —
American magazine that U.S.
participation in World War
Two was all a mistake.

Hoover is once more a big
wheel in American policy
abroad. He thinks that the

late President Roosevelt, wh°
pulled the United States to-
gether after Hoover helped
wreck them, provoked Japa?
into Pearl Harbor by his dis-
like of fascism, In Hoover's
opinion, America should have
let England, Russia and the

and “brought her sword to the
peace table” later. ‘

With such men on top again
the peace the world thought
it won and Roosevelt planned
for is a long way off. High
prices are here. New Hoover —
villes are just around the
plock. The people of the Unit’
ed States and Latin Americ
too ard expected to foot th©
bill’ for implanting Hooverism™ |
abroad and building Germany —
Japan, Greece and Turkey a
its bastions. They are expected
to pay for arms and maybe
later, use them to, make the ai
world safe for such ;
if foreign governments
fere. or foreign peoples
—even thousands of miles

American shores. te

inter |

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