a ig a eS il wherea : now, for this is winter in Braz er the thirty-odd hills which

y i NHE rare beauty of Rio de Janeiro is not

December. Occasional clouds lie ov

waterfront. Yet, the immense figur

and blue and yellow rooftops, the x t : reflect eth ne of. sunlight. despite the. drifting clouds.

buildings, the pride of Brazil- ian architecture, are bunched in the <city. center,. just above the dirty red brick and.stone of th Warehouses. : :

Our launch, which takes a full hour to..cross the bay from the Galeno airport, skirts the huge

amp . steamers loaded with Coffee, and makes its way among Smal] fishing boats in which

Town and black. half-clad men re hauling nets. It is still early Morning. Here I am in Rio 88ain. It seems unbelievable. And here is the city—unchanged.

But the question on my mind How the politics of Brazil have Changed in the meantime. On ay 7, the dynamic Communist Party of Luiz Carlos Prestes was Suspended as an electoral body. D headquarters were closed. ae of dictatorship’ were re- Ugits: we had heard in the

aS

The clique of fascists around ie Owlish figure of President ' aaa Gaspar Dutra had: been

ightenea by * the. great out- ieee of support for the party

.. ~restes in the state elections ca vanuary 19. And in the city Ss pei of Rio, 18 Communists ‘a @been elected out of 50, form- ie the largest single bloc. ei ee gripped Brazil's, econ-

meee North American competition

Closed down many factories oth Tazil's own textile, glass and » "er industries.

openina the scenes, Standard Benin New Jersey was seeking ts to exploit the undevelop-

of RB

Ho. Petroleum resources. Herbert

dickens, » Jr, and A, A. Curtis, ARR ng for oil concessions, had

ly bywords here.’ aitaes Pawley, the U.S. am- tery. who complains so bit- cal] ecause the Communists istic, United States imperial- was said to be working

SODAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1947

all

€nd. the inroads of ruth- |

night and day to get around

the constitution and tradition of

Brazil which forbids exploitation

of Brazilian sub-soil by foreign-

ers. en e 2 ‘

OW had all this affected the H friends I made here last De- cember? Were these courageous men and women who withstood 23 years of illegality and 10 years of fascist persecution still as optimistic as I found them

to be last winter? I was inter- |

ested in the proceedings of 20 American Republics assembled in a fancy hotel in Petropolis, 30 miles north of Rio, to form a ‘mutual non-aggression. pact.’

The answer is that everything is in flux-here in the ordinarily fluid Brazilian political situation. The Brazilian reactionaries have not been able to go through with their plans. In the last month they have even suffered defeats. Brazil’s deep democratic wellsprings cannot be stifled so

easily. It may be hard for us”

North Americans to understand, but here it is: | Although the Communist Party

is closed down as ‘an electoral organization, and its branches do

not function, and its headquart-

ers. are occupied by police—the Communists continue an even more intense activity than ever.

The 16 deputies to the nation-

al parliament continue to occupy ~

their posts, speak on all ques-

tions and take part in all normal.

parliamentary life.

The single Communist Sena- ior, Luiz Carlos Prestes, how-

ever, is somewhere in Brazil; his ©

colleagues are risking no chances

of some provocation, some mad -

attempt of reaction to take his life. Early in August, on the same day that the leading irre-

sponsible papers said that Pres- tes was in Russia, the short,

Christ on one of the hills is still visible. The » ae of the cariocas, lying disorderly on the hillsides And the modern glass and concrete

RIO DE JANEIRO.

affected by the seasons. It is somewhat cooler s it was summer when I visited here last

descend to the very The red

black-haired ‘Knight of Hope’ appeared in the senate, took his seat and then took the floor. He again called attention to the disastrous pass to which

General Dutra. was leading the . - country; he denounced the pres- _

sure of North American business firms, whose competition is crushing Brazil’s industry; he

‘called for a program of national

salyation, and urged an inter- party conference for this pur- pose. And then Prestes disap- ‘peared again. The effect was magnetic. The ‘impresna sadia’ (the kept’ press) ‘had to change its headlines from one edition to the other.

In fact, the influence of the Communists is such, especially in the state governments, that the day before I arrived the en- tire legislative assembly of the

important state of Rio Grande ©

do Sul, whose governor is a member of Dutra’s own Social-

Democratic Party, passed a reso- -

lution affirming unanimous sup- port for Prestes’ proposal.

situation is characteristic

_of Brazil. The two main poli- tical parties — the Social-Demo- crats and the Democratic Na-

‘tional Union—are not only divid- ed on a national basis, but frag-

mented on a_ state and local scale.

Last January, the Communists formed local alliances with dif- ferent groups in different states, pursuing a very flexible strat- egy. The result is that the mili- tary clique around Dutra is con- siderably paralyzed, and finds it hard to act against the Com- munists nationally’ or locally.

' In the important state of Per- nambuco, in the far northeast, the Communists are in an offi- cial coalition with the Social-

‘Democrats, and the governor is

also a very progressive figure.

When Dutra selected a five- man commission (sarcastically called “the five wise men”) in the national legislature to study means of ousting the Communist deputies, he found that represen- tatives of the Social-Democrats from the state would not support’ the idea; their local interests are too closely allied with the Com- munists who have great support in Pernambuco.

In fact, the new state consti- tution is considered ‘Soviet’ in some quarters; for instance, it declares that instead of the usual repressive police, the state of Pernambuco. shall--have a police “for the protection of the peo- ple’s. economy”; this kind of

thing gets in the hair of Dutra

and his fellow-fascists.

’ Not only do the Communist deputies function but the Com- munist newspapers — I think there are seven dailies in the major cities—continue to publish.

_ Every once in a while, Tribuna

Popular will carry a series of answers by Prestes to important questions of the moment.

-It was a strange feeling to

re-visit the editorial offices of

Tribuna Popular, and meet the same journalists I spent many hours with last December . . . Pedro Motta Lima, and his bro- ther, Paulo, or the managing editor — tough, professional-look- ing Aydano Couto do Ferrar (a figure out of Front Page)—or the editor-in-chief, Pedro Pomar, who is also a deputy and who was national educational direc- tor of the Communist Party and

one of: its top leaders.

Through the newspapers, there- fore, and the deputies, the Com-

munists continue their fight for peace, for constitutional govern- .

ment, for defense of Brazil’s economy, Even thouhg the Bra- zilian Confederation of Labor was arbitrarily suspended for six months in May, Brazil’s workers have a voice. Every day, articles and editorials champion the bat- tle to improve their conditions. Ree ee

N° one knows how long this

equivocal situation will last. The violent dictatorship which everyone expected after the can- cellation of the Communist Party’s registration last May did not take place. Here and- there violent repressive measures were attempted, as in Algoas state, for example, where the reac-

tionary governor, brother of the

minister of war, Goes Monteiro, allowed the police to smash up the Communist newspaper, O Momento,

But, in general, the Commun- ists refused to be provoked. They called on all their members to remain calm and obey ‘the Elec- toral Tribunal’s three to two de- cision. They appealed the case to the Supreme Court, which is expected to hand down its rul- ing before the end of this month.

But. other dangers do con- front the Communists here. A drastic ‘Security Law’ has been introduced and is being studied in commission. This would give legal sanction to _ repressive measures against democratic forces.

Another item of the same kind is an attempt by the minister of justice, Costa Neto, to pros- ecute Luiz Carlos Prestes al- legedly for insulting statements against Dutra made in an in- terview early in June, This, too, is considered part A a war of nerves here against the Com- munists. Thousands of denunci-

ations have come from all sorts — :

of popular organizations against this kind of thing. :

The thought of another frame- up against Petres (who suffer- ed eight years’ imprisonment, it will be remembered) is a mon-. strous one—even for non-Com- munists .

Geis the reactionaries tread water and calculate their next strokes, the Communists are planning to take an active | part in the municipal elections, scheduled for this autumn. ~Only in Rio itself was a municipal government elected last January; in the bulk of the towns and cities the first such balloting since the September, 1945, Con- stitution will take place now. It is for these elections, and _for the eventuality of,a negative “Supreme Court decision on the electoral rights of the PCB, that © the Communists are planning to — organize ,another party. oS

are now being circulated to have it registered with the Electoral ‘ Tribunal. These elections in the fall will be a major test for

Brazil. A strong vote for the -

Communists, no matter on what ticket, would be a blow to the Dutra crowd and might compel it to back out of the present half-way house.

So you see, Brazil has : and yet the spirit remains the ~ same among the scores of Com- munist leaders and journalists I have been meeting here again.

Thirty-four-year-old Pedro Po- mar sat around the dinner table at his home, chewing the rag about the events of the past six months with another of the most distinguished leaders here, Joao Amazonas, while Pomar’s six

‘and eleven year-old soéns scram- _

bled on the sofa, reluctant to go off to bed.

Both Pomar and Amazonas kad lived through the illegal days together. Both are now deputies. Both of them have few illusions about Brazilian reac- tion and the fierce pressure of the North American monopolies on Brazil’s economy. :

And yet, as was the case last December, they are optimistic. They are full of fight, full of — confidence in their people; in the favorable development of the world democratic tide, and in ‘their party and its indomitable leadership. aig

I had often thought, since my _ trip here last year, that.these men were over-optimistic. Re- visiting Rio, I think they have grown in strength and stature. They may be hurt further. But

_ they will not be beaten.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 11