Red Harvest

Rio's Communists blew their horns and the notes were echoed from the provinces. The Party had accomplishments to report and it seized an occasion--the 48th birthday of its magnetic leader, Luis Carlos Prestes--to tell the world. Throughout Brazil, at dozens of picnics and other celebrations, the comrades sang such ideological lyrics as "Take off your shirt, Joe, the time of Fascism has passed."* They also saluted the past year's items of progress: 1) emergence as the Hemisphere's largest Communist Party (120,000 militant members); 2) collection of $600,000 for bigger Party newspapers; 3) pro-labor provisions in Brazil's new Constitution; 4) U.S. withdrawal from outposts on the Brazilian "hump," which the Party naively claimed had been due to its "return the bases" campaign.

How far are the Communists getting in Latin America? Four months ago, the New York Times decided to find out. On a 16,000-mile tour of every capital south of the Rio Grande it sent burly William (Bill) Lawrence, onetime Moscow correspondent. Last week, Lawrence was back and the Times printed his colorless, cautious report. Highlights:

P: Communists have made more progress in Latin America than did the prewar Fascists and Nazis loyal to Berlin, Rome and Madrid.

P: Party members now number 300,000 to 400,000. In free elections, the Communists could get from a million to a million-and-a-half votes from among Latin America's 20,000,000 voters. (In the U.S., in their best year--1932--the Communists got 102,000 out of 40,000,000 votes.)

P: The Communists are dangerous to the U.S. chiefly as anti-Yankee propagandists and cunning supporters of Soviet foreign policy.

P: Although inflation and food shortages have recently played into Communist hands, Communism finds its greatest asset in Latin America's feudal, low-pay, high-profit economy which keeps the people in squalor and ignorance.

* Argentina's Juan Peron, no Communist, also idealizes his descamisado (shirtless) followers.

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