Down Warmongers!

Denied other halls by the government and by leary landlords, the Communist-run Western Hemisphere Peace Congress met last week in an old Mexico City sports arena, still redolent of sweat and arnica. A swatch of peace posters blotted out a big notice reading: “Please check your guns and knives.” Overhead a flock of 40 red-eyed, papier mâché doves of peace hovered between a battered Scoreboard and “No Betting” signs.

The sparkplug of the congress was suave, greying Vicente Lombardo Toledano, Mexican boss of the leftist Latin American Confederation of Workers. An old hand at organizing pro-Communist meetings, he had the shabby hall packed on opening night with 5,000 people, including 800 delegates from the U.S., Canada and Latin America. During a two-hour delay before the rally got under way, they whooped it up with cheers for “Peace, Peace, Peace!”

Sounding the Pitch. The Communist keynote — Down with Yankee Imperialism — had been anticipated long before Poet-Chairman Enrique González Martínez uttered the first word. It was sounded again & again as each delegation chairman got off a short, sharp speech.

Said Chilean Communist Cesar Godoy, an ex-Senator: “Chile is a typical example of how imperialist warmakers served by repulsive native agents seek to destroy what is best in the country.” Mrs. Paul Robeson explained that her husband had stayed in the U.S. “to finish the battle of Peekskill” (TIME, Sept. 5). Only the U.S.’s O. John Rogge, after unsuccessful efforts had been made to censor him, struck a discordant note, and his was one of the last speeches. Before he finished saying that “the excesses of capitalism are balanced by the excesses of Communism,” most of the audience had walked out.

Spreading the Word. The U.S. State Department paid the peace congress little public heed. The Mexican press all but ignored it. With the public barred after the opening day, some concluded that the congress was a flop. But Lombardo and his fellow workers had reason to be satisfied. Said a Cuban delegate: “We are working for the future and getting plenty of propaganda out of our peace movement.”

Despite the enthusiasm of the Mexico City congress, Communism is actually on the decline in Latin America. It has been outlawed in nine countries, plagued by party splits in others. In several countries, e.g., Cuba, the party has deliberately cut its own membership rolls to be ready for underground activity. Moreover, the peace rally could boomerang on party members in some countries. Brazil’s Deputy Pedro Pomar, who is a member of the outlawed Communist party but holds his seat because he was also elected on the Social Progressive ticket, was threatened with expulsion from Brazil’s Congress after saying in Mexico that Brazil’s armed forces were ruled by “Yankee generals.”