The Indispensable Reds

If Guatemala's anemic anti-Communist opposition still nursed the faint hope that President Jacobo Arbenz might become fed up with his Red allies and disavow them, that hope was blacked out last week by the most forthright pro-Communist declaration the President has ever uttered. In a 2 1/2 hour report to Congress on the state of the nation, Arbenz called the Communists "progressive democratic forces" and "the very wellspring of our regime." He said that to turn against the Reds and repress them, as "certain landowner groups and agents of foreign monopolies" have urged, "would be ... suicide for Guatemala's democratic revolutionary movement."

As fruits of the Communists' fertilizing friendship, Arbenz cited his. program of agrarian reform, "progress in reducing our dependence on foreign companies," happily shrinking foreign investments, a new "freedom in international policy" and "to top it all," the formation of a Communist Party, organized since his inaugural three years ago. Standing shoulder to shoulder with his Marxist comrades, the President then said what they presumably wanted him to say about the conference in Caracas. "It is entirely up to Guatemala to decide what form of democracy she must have . . . The real issue at the Inter American Conference should be the common Latin American problem of economic betterment, so that we will not continue to be the objects of monopolistic investment and the sources of raw materials, selling cheap and buying dear from one of the countries of the American community."

The bluntness of Arbenz' speech left Guatemala's opposition press in a state of mild shock. Impacto commented that in a nutshell the President's speech amounted to: "Yes, gentlemen, organized Communism does exist in Guatemala! So what?"

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