WASHINGTON, April 21--The Senate rejected efforts to strip proposed Taft-Hartley Act changes from the Kennedy labor bill today. It also voted down an effort to write in Taft-Hartley changes sought by the Eisenhower administration.

The result of the first day of voting on the bill was a considerable victory for Sen. John F. Kennedy (D-Mass), chief sponsor of the legislation. He led the defense against attacks from both those who wanted all of the Taft-Hartley provisions knocked out and those who wanted to go further than his measure.

Chinese Communes in Trouble

TOKYO, April 21--Red China disclosed today its peasant communes are in trouble and will need both a subsidy and tax relief to bail them out.

By order of Chairman Mao Tze-tung and the Communist party Central Committee, a subsidy of a billion yuan will be used for pump-priming in communes and production brigades which are lagging.

The subsidy--the equivalent of 435 million dollars by Peiping's recokning--indicates that many are in straitened circumstances. In addition, the 7 per cent agricultural tax of 1958 will be cut to 5.2 per cent.

With all this, the communes are expected to contribute a smaller percentage to Red China's overall revenue than they did last year.

Herter Confirmed

WASHINGTON, April 21--The Senate brushed aside a no-hurry rule today and whisked through by a 93-0 vote its confirmation of Christian A. Herter as secretary of state. This cleared the way for the suave, scholarly, 64-year-old Herter to take over with full authority from cancer-stricken John Foster Dulles.

Herter leaves Monday for Paris to take part in a free world foreign ministers' conference in preparation for East-West talks on the touch-and-go German situation.