THE Venezuelan general election, due to take place on December 1, has assumed great significance because it is the prime target of attacks by pro-Castro 'Communists. Guerilla warfare in the countryside and bombings in the Lities are seen as efforts to disrupt the election campaign and force a military dictatorship, which in turn would serve the Communists as a focus for rallying "liberation" drives.
Castro-trained leaders among the Venezuelan guerillas are said to be the spearhead of the Cuban Communists' drive to export their revolution throughout the Western Hemisphere. The whole pattern of Communist activity indicates that current subversion of Venezuela's democratic political system is intended as a precedent to a Communist beachhead on the South American continent.
A pastoral letter of the hierarchy acknowledged the gravity of the threat two months ago. The bishcps declared: "To abstain from voting through plain apathy or negligence, represents a moral failing that could become a serious sin if such abstention promotes the success of candidates or parties that are against God, the Church, true mutual welfare or against the dignity of the hirman person."