Communism South of the Border:
ALEXANDER, ROBERT J.
A SHORT HISTORY COMMUNISM South of the Border By Robert J. Alexander When the United States denounced Communist infiltration of the Guatemalan Government last spring, it was the first inkling...
...In Latin America, it has adapted one special old technique and created one new one...
...They feel that the U. S. is oblivious to their suffering and, even worse, is tightening their shackles by providing weapons to armies which are good for little but tyrannizing over the helpless civilian population...
...A Communist served as a member of the revolu?tionary junta which took over the Ecuadorean Government for a short while after the 1944 revolution...
...The fight against Communism in Latin America is a psychological, political and economic one...
...Unfortunately, the U. S. does little to give the lie to these charges...
...If they are to be fought successfully, we must have a clear comprehension of the political prob?lems of neighboring countries and lend a helping hand to right their economic difficulties...
...The people know that the U. S. can help them diversify their agricultural output and build up manufacturing industries to the point where they can offer higher wages, more social security, and increased fringe benefits...
...THE UNITED STATES seems to be of several minds about the Com?munists of Latin America...
...In Brazil, a group of anarchist trade-unionists founded the local CP, while in Mexico a hetero?geneous group of labor leaders, in?tellectuals and peasants laid the foundations for what they hoped would be, but has never become, the leading force in the Mexican Revolu?tion...
...They still have bases in the trade unions, and their contin?ental labor organization, the CTAL, has in recent months launched a new campaign to win supporters from the ranks of the underpaid and super-nationalistic workers...
...The Communists made their great?est strides during World War II...
...The second issue is the Latin Americans' desire to develop their economies and raise their standards of living...
...The initial sense of alarm over Communist penetration vanished when the Guatemalan regime was overthrown...
...They also enjoyed the favor, or at least the toleration, of most of the continent's dictators, since they followed the Comintern's policy of supporting any regime...
...They never accept defeat, and they are continuing to work hard...
...the best way to help it develop into a military one is to treat it as if it were already in this category...
...Cuba's President Batista had three Communist ministers-without-portfolio in the early 1940s...
...Deftly, they seized key posts in the administration of President Jacobo Arbenz, who be?came chief executive in 1951...
...The Communists, as always, have a tactic for the occasion...
...In several of the countries plagued by dictator?ships, the Communists parties have split...
...They wrapped the banner of "the heroic Soviet armies" around themselves and basked in the glory of Russia's vic?tories over the Nazis...
...But, though we have slept and still sleep, the Kremlin has been working hard all along...
...Soon after World War I, the Socialist parties of Chile and Uruguay joined the Third International and a sizable minority among the Argentine Socialists did the same...
...The Communists are nothing new in Latin America...
...One faction supports the dictator...
...In the 1930s, they began to gain strength...
...no matter how reactionary or dictatorial??that favored the side on which the Soviet Union was fighting...
...But the Communists, while making the most of U. S. neglect, are also pro?claiming that any U. S. aid will merely be "more Yankee imperial?ism...
...The Latin American Communists gained considerable influence in the continent's labor movements by following the dual unionist tactics of the Communist International during the Third Period...
...the other opposes him...
...Since most democratic elements in Latin America supported the United Nations, the Communists won many new allies...
...The peak of Communist power and influence came between 1945 and 1947...
...his most recent book was The Peron Era...
...Looking at the situation in proper perspective, it becomes apparent that the Stalinists in this hemisphere are a long-run rather than an immediate menace...
...Communist-controlled groups split, and new non-Communist labor movements grew up...
...And it has adjusted to the mercurial nature of Latin Ameri?can politics by a dual-party system in various countries: one party working with the regime, one with the opposition...
...It would rally the support of many people who have become increasingly hostile to the U. S. because of our neglect...
...Latin American democrats feel that they have found little sympathy in recent years for their protests against their oppressors...
...There are three issues that the Communists can exploit...
...The third issue which the Com?munists can exploit is the dictator?ships rampant in Latin America...
...They played a very destructive role in Cuba during and after the revolution that dislodged dictator Gerardo Machado...
...A leading Com?munist sympathizer, the Mexican Vicente Lombardo Toledano, was elected as its president...
...First, they made a "deal" with Machado: To get his support in the labor movement, they agreed to call off a revolutionary general strike which they had never actually called...
...Gonzalez Videla of Chile invited three Com?munists to be ministers in his cabinet when he became President in November 1946...
...Then they did everything possible to sabotage the left-wing nationalist regime of President Ramon Grau San Martin, for whose overthrow they and the U. S. State Department were principally re?sponsible...
...At present, the Communist-dominated CTAL has only one or two national affiliates of any real im?portance, most of the rest being small groups or even paper organ?izations...
...Nevertheless, the Commun?ists' decline may be more apparent than real...
...It is high time that the United States became aware of its obligations in this hemisphere and of the steps which are necessary to defeat Communism and assure a normal development of democracy in Latin America...
...But they lost their grip on the continent's trade-union movement...
...In Brazil, they took the lead in forming the National Liberation Al?liance, around which the opposition to Getulio Vargas gathered in the middle 1930s...
...The size and wealth of the U. S., the frequently unfortunate policies of U. S. firms operating in the southern countries, the apparent callousness of our State Department toward Latin American aspirations for economic development and political democracy ??these give the Communists much to work with in stimulating tradi?tional Latin American anti-Yan-keeism...
...only in Chile, where they con?trolled a majority of the trade unions, did they constitute an im?portant political force...
...Latin Americans would undoubtedly react to it just as the Europeans did to the original Marshall Plan...
...They were more pro-Allied than the Allies...
...There they were able to take advantage of the naivete and opportunism of those who led the Guatemalan revo?lution of 1944...
...During the 1920s, the Commun?ists in these countries were insignifi?cant...
...The Communists are playing on the rising feelings of nationalism that are sweeping the Latin American countries...
...Latin Americans are primarily con?cerned with their own plight, not with what is going on behind the Iron Curtain...
...If they are given time to con?vince a large part of the population that this is true, our efforts may boomerang...
...Of course, their pro-Nazi position during the war's first 21 months did them no good, but they more than made up for it during the remainder of the conflict...
...A SHORT HISTORY COMMUNISM South of the Border By Robert J. Alexander When the United States denounced Communist infiltration of the Guatemalan Government last spring, it was the first inkling many Americans had that international Communism was as interested in Latin America as it was in Asia and Africa...
...Robert J. Alexander of the Economics Department at Rutgers University has been watching the Latin American Communists for many years...
...The days when President Franklin Roose?velt sounded the tocsin call for the defense of liberty against all tyrants, whatever their political color, are gone...
...After 1947, the Communists de?clined in numbers and general sup?port, except in Guatemala...
...Even when we get excited over the Communist threat in our hemisphere, moreover, we somehow tend to think that it can be liquidated by fine oratory, slick propaganda, conference resolutions and more arms for Latin America's useless armies...
...After merging their pet unions in the majority labor groups, they helped form a continental labor group, the Confederation de Trabajadores de America Latina...
...Since those days, the Com?munist movement has established parties in every Latin American country...
...If the United States develops a constructive economic program for Latin America, it can inflict a crush?ing defeat on the Communists...
...During this outbreak, they proclaimed their leader, Luiz Carlos Prestes, "provisional President...
...One of these is nationalism...
...The policy of our Government, press and public seems to veer from total unconcern to exaggerated fear...
...Once the Alliance was organized, they led it in an unsuccess?ful revolt...
...As soon as possible, therefore, the U. S. must launch an economic-aid plan that will catch the Latin American's imagination and prove our sincere concern for his welfare...
...Meanwhile, the other faction is busy telling the op?pressed people that the Yankees are responsible for the dictator and are maintaining him in power...
...The latest to be organized were those of Bolivia and Honduras, set up in 1950...
...As long as he remains in power, the faction which supports him has more or less freedom of action...
...It has applied the lessons of China, with emphasis on anti-imperialism and peasant discontent...
Vol. 37 • December 1954 • No. 52
