15 57110120 25 18743 REPRODUCED AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES ISTTT ON 1969 36 GBDISS 7930 Guzman is a Communist and went to Russia sometime in 1937 (See Legation despatch No. 628, March 5, 1939. Mora, who is the General Secretary of the Cormmunist Party, has never been to Russia, but the Communist Party was organized here under his leadership in 1930.
In 1934 Mora was elected a deputy, and during that year he fomented the strike in the United Fruit Company Limón division which resulted in one or two persons being killed. This strike was settled by the intervention of then President Ricardo Jiménez. It was also in 1934 that Mora started bringing the heads of the different labor syndicates within his orbit. Then, as now, he did not appear as a member of any of the organizations, and the National Union of Syndicates, formed in 1942, is ostensibly headed by Rudolfo Guzman. This Union controls practically all of the different syndicates in Costa Rica through control of the heads of such syndicates. The rank and file pay little attention to the organization of their unions and generally leave all direction to the leaders.
They pay their monthly dues, which are very small, and come out for big rallies when called, but other than that take practically no responsibility for the running of the organization. It is estimated that there are perhaps as many as one hundred different syndicates, many of them being small and unimportant. The dock workers in Puntarenas and Limón, the shoemakers, the bakery workers and perhaps the construction workers have the best syndicates, but the policy of all of them is directed by Mora and the committee heading the National Union of Syndicates. None of the syndicates have a legal status. The only important syndicate which is not in this Union of Syndicates is the union of workers on the Northern Railway.
In the Prensa Libre of February 1, there appeared a manifesto (copies enclosed) of the labor organizations in Costa Rica to the effect that they would not give their adherence to any candidate or party that would not explain what methods were to be taken to resolve the problem of the worker right to live. del derecho a la vida del trabajador. and which would not guarantee to defend the social guarantees.
which the labor organizations wish to see incorporated into the Costa Rican Constitution. This manifesto not unjustly pointed out the vapidity of the present political campaign which was then limited to the discrediting of the leading candidates of the parties involved and the publication of lists of adherents to each candidate. The manifesto stated very definitely that the Government had done nothing to organize the economy of Costa Rica and develop its productive capacity though it had had sufficient time to make such plans. The rapidly rising cost of living made these problems daily more urgent, the manifesto pointed out, and yet neither of the leading candidates had come out with a plan to alleviate this situation. The manifesto also took occasion to malign imperialistic capital in Costa Rica in the following words (translation. This plants at the same time the problem already commented upon by others, of knowing where our collaboration begins as a sovereign country in the National Defense and where begins our submission to the interests of imperialistic capital in Costa Rica. The workers in the service of the imperialistic enterprises have already begun to have serious difficulties with these companies in the