Reds on the Run

One of the most turbulent sessions in Brazil's legislative history reached its climax last week. The issue: Bill 900-A, a measure to cancel the mandates (jobs) of all Communist legislators. For hours in the summer heat, shouts and insults were traded back & forth. Deputies screamed, leaped on the benches, fell back in steaming exhaustion as the galleries shrieked approval. A Communist cry of "sellout" brought the pistols of government deputies waving in the air.

When the vote was finally taken, and the result announced--181 to 74 for the bill's passage--the comrades cried a last "Viva General Luis Carlos Prestes!" and "Viva Russia!" A few minutes later, at Catete Palace, President Eurico Caspar Dutra signed 900-A in the presence of top army brass who had reportedly strong-armed the bill through. Gloated the pro-government A Noite: "The beauty of it is . . . that within the law we were able to put the Communists outside the law."

The Red hunt did not end in the legislative halls. On the lookout for Communist saboteurs, troops patrolled Rio suburbs and Santos docks. Light tanks guarded the great Sao Paulo electric plant. Hoje, Sao Paulo's violent Communist sheet, was worked over by police, and masked toughies who had caught the linotype-smashing fever took on the sensational but anti-Communist tabloid A Hora.

Rio's Communist daily, the name-changing Tribuna Popular, got the treatment a few hours after President Dutra signed 900-A. A police detail appeared with a two-week suspension order from the Minister of Justice. Gingerly trying Tribuna's metal door, they set off a burglar alarm, and then started shooting. For half an hour they fought it out, until police machine guns and tear gas ended the brawl. Score: four Communists seriously wounded.

Where were Brazil's Communist big shots? Leader Prestes was variously reported hiding in Sao Paulo and streaking off for Montevideo, where a Latin-American Cominform is rumored for the near future. Already there was famed Communist Artist Candido Portinari. Last week at least, brilliant young Architect Oscar Niemeyer was sticking to Rio.

Perhaps the Red leaders would eventually go underground again; they had prospered there during the repressive days of Dictator Getulio Vargas. Or they might even run for office on the Laborista ticket of Strange Bedfellow Vargas, once their desperate enemy, now their desperate ally.

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