REACTIONARY MOVES AGAINST "POLITICA" AND MEXICAN CP
According to the October 30 La Voz de México [The Voice of Mexico], the newspaper of the Central Committee of the Mexican Communist party, the Mexican bourgeoisie project an immediate "escalation" of repressive measures in the country.
The government appears about ready to launch a two-pronged attack -- one to suppress the biweekly magazine Politica, the other to ban the Communist party.
Commenting on the projected scheme against Politica, the weekly CP paper said that the campaign launched against its editor Manuel Marcué Pardifas was part and parcel of the plot. The ferocious campaign was aimed at removing Politica's editor from the political scene, “including physically."
"The disappearance of Politica as a victim of reactionary violence, besides being a crime would mean losing a tribune...on which the democratic and progressive forces of Mexico depend."
The presidium of the Central Committee issued a communiqué October 27 stressing the meaning of the reactionary moves, linking them to the way in which such "left" publications as El Dia [The Day] and Siempre! [Always!] have recently turned to applauding repressive acts in Mexico. Previously they had never joined in the McCarthyite chorus of the ultrareactionary press.
The most ominous and telling note in the moves now underway was the attack levelled against the Communist party by the sinister Lombardo Toledano in the November 2 issue of Siempre! Among the choice bits was the affirmation that the CP, "former enemy of the Trotskyists...parallels them and the emulators of China and advocates following the experience of the Cuban Revolution." ;
In this way Lombardo is indicating a legal angle whereby the Mexican: police could arrest any member of the Mexican Communist party under accusation of committing the "crimes" of social dissolution, rioting, advocating violence, etc.
It is worth noting that accusations made by Lombardo in the past have been utilized by the police to condemn revolutionists to long years in prison. For instance, in the trial in which the leaders of the railway workers were convicted following the 1959 strike, Lombardo's attacks against them were presented as "proof" of the charges lodged against them. The general secretary of the Railway union, Demetrio Vallejo, was condemned to twenty-six years in prison.
Victor Rico Galén, the well-known socialist-minded journalist, was arrested just two days after one of Lombardo's lieutenants denounced him as a "Trotskyist"! After he was arrested, Rico Gal&én was accused by a member of the Central Committee of Lombardo's party of being an "agent" of the Guatemalan guerrilla leaders Yon Sosa and Luis Turcios.
DESERTIONS SAID TO BE ON RISE AMONG SAIGON