Retreat from the West

For the peripatetic hammer-&-sickle set in South America, it was bag-packing time.

The Brazilian Government brusquely broke off diplomatic relations with Moscow. Foreign Minister Raul Fernandez had hauled in the welcome mat and handed passports to the Soviet Embassy staff. Ambassador Jacob Surits was saved the indignity; he had already hiked off to Moscow.

Chile, which first raised the anti-Red cry last fortnight by packing two conniving Yugoslav diplomats out of the country, was reported to be ready to follow

Brazil's lead. Argentina, third member of South America's ABC, was still to be heard from.

In domestic politics, Argentina's Peron has found the Commies useful, and he has made some efforts to play off Moscow against the U.S. in international dealings. But the Strong Man's real sentiments are firmly antiCommunist, and reporters guessed that a concerted drive against Russian penetration is Peron's top business at this week's boundary-line meeting with President Hertzog of Bolivia.

Retort Discourteous. What sparked the Brazil-Soviet break was a rude affront to touchy national honor. Last fortnight Moscow's Izvestia said, in a generally churlish editorial on Brazil, that President Eurico Caspar Dutra was "surprisingly colorless even for a country where the generals are made, not on the battlefield, but on coffee plantations." The Brazilian Army fumed. A Foreign Office demand for an apology went unanswered. Last week the Brazilian Ambassador in Moscow was instructed to tell the Kremlin that 2 1/2 years of edgy fraternity (but no trade) were all over.

Izvestia's editorial was the immediate cause of the break, and the U.S. attitude toward Russia was an encouragement for Brazil's action. But more important than either were the goings-on of the Communists in Brazil.

The Leader. In the three years since he got out of jail (after nine years), magnetic Luis Carlos Prestes, No. i South American Communist, had rallied over 130,000 Brazilians--intellectuals, workers and the dispossessed--to form the biggest Communist Party in the Western Hemisphere. Moscow-trained Luis Carlos Prestes preached cooperation with the bourgeoisie and discontent with the government. Six months ago, at Army behest, President Dutra had the Superior Electoral Court declare the Communist Party illegal. Then the Party turned to infiltration tactics, presumably with counsel and advice from the Soviet Embassy. Soon it had made deals within Dutra's own disorganized Social Democratic Party. Reluctantly, Dutra concluded that Brazil's new democracy was getting nowhere in fighting the smooth hamstringing of organized Communism. He now hopes that strong public opinion, backing his break with Russia, will make Communism unpopular, that Congress will disenfranchise those Communists who still hold public office (e.g., one senator and 16 congressmen).

To crack down on Communists, Congress last week established "military control bases" in some of the country's large cities. Mayors would act under the orders of the military commanders. Did that act presage an authoritarian regime? Most observers thought not. Brazil faced a dangerous situation created by its Communists in the first months of its new constitutional freedom, and felt it necessary to use stern measures to meet the threat. But Rio's sober Correio da Manha warned: ". . . Now more than ever, democrats must be vigilant in the face of the intentions and motives of the reactionaries, fascists, integralistas and remnants of [Vargas'] New State."

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