REPRODUCED AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES. DECLASSIFIED Authority Statele Her the sy ME, NARA 02:e 24981. possibility exists of unusual hardships to the poorer people, with some dispossession of property through foreclosing of mortgages. Such misfortune is a logical fomentor of discontent.
At the present moment, what Communist propaganda there is in Costa Rica can be considered as concentrated in the urban districts, such as San José, Limon, Alajuela, Heredia and Puntarenas. These cities have a population which is largely engaged in industrial enterprises and which is not of the property owning type. Some agency, which bears all the earmarks of being directed originally from Moscow, carries on propaganda among the urban proletariat; and handbills, as well as newspapers, with the customary Marxian catchwords are handed out to these workers as they leave their places of employment. The authorities have not thought advisable, nor necessary possibly, to curb this type of activity, nor can it be said that this type of activity has been, so far, effective, although it has doubtlessly sown some seeds of discontent.
In the rural districts, ambulating merchants of Eastern European origin who are usually termed Polacos. continue to go from large plantation to large plantation selling clothes at 75 per cent or more below normal retail prices and even these sales are made on time.
The pedalars give receipts for payments made on purchases and the backs of these receipts usually bear printed quotations in Spanish from Carl Marx, Lenin or their likes. The most common catchword on these