Call to Arms

When Brazil's Congress voted last month to toss the Communists out of all legislative offices, most party members got tossed. One who did not was wiry, red-headed Pedro Pomar. Reason: Pomar, though a Commie, had been elected on the government party's ticket.

One afternoon last week, before a scant ten members of the House of Deputies, Deputy Pomar stood up and read a rousing, 2,000-word manifesto from Communist Leader Luis Carlos Prestes. It was a statement of party position and a call to arms: "We must block the march of reaction . . . resist without weakening . . . fight for our rights. . . We must organize in our places of work, in the mills, on the farms . . . resorting when necessary to strikes. . . Prove to your fellow workers the real necessity of fighting and resisting the government of hunger, the government of political terror. . . We must fight for liberty and democracy . . . against the brutality of. . . capitalistic exploitation and against Yankee imperialism."

President Eurico Caspar Dutra's government, which has reportedly been waiting for an excuse to throw Prestes in jail, now seemed to have one. If Prestes wanted to return to prison and martyrdom, he had made a start.

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