Soviets Isolated, Appeased Hitler Until Nazis Struck
HASTINGS, MALCOLM
Soviets Isolated, Appeased Hitler Until Nazis Struck By MALCOLM HASTINGS Germany and Soviet Russia are at war. At 5 a. m. last Sunday morning vast Nazi hordes crossed the frontier into Soviet...
...This city, too, is practically gone...
...The Balkans, North Africa, Crete were mere interludes...
...Only when the labor unions involved gave permission for this exemption did the companies go ahead on bids for canned goods for the army...
...The entire cultural front will be in chaos for a while...
...TJE Stalin-Hitler pact was a bombshell that destroyed the Popular Front illusion of Soviet Russia as an ally of the democracies in the fight against Hitlerism...
...Churchill was quite right, as was President Roosevelt, in pledging every possible assistance to Russia, but let us have no illusions as to the kind and measure of assistance England and the United States can give...
...That's why he has cooperated with the Communists, opening CIO to their agents...
...All they need do now, says the old down, is "to sit back, smile and wait...
...Competent observers are warning that a peace between Hitler and Stalin will bring a reversal of line again...
...The matter has gone to the "President and is still unsettled...
...This was followed by a blast by NAM head Walter Fuller, against the President's seizure of the North American Aviation plant at Inglewood...
...We have never given him any provocation and so hje won't march against us...
...But why did Hitler chose this moment for attack on Russia...
...It was necessary to end the war quickly by a possible compromise peace at the expense of Russia before the full power of the United States could make itself felt, or, failing that, to obtain, as a counterweight, direct rcontrol of Russian food and oil resources in the Ukraine and in the Caucasus for a long war...
...Eden put it, Stalin "feared Hitler" and was careful only not to provoke him...
...America, whose defense industries the Communists here have tried to disorganize on orders of their Moscow lord, is far, far away, while close to Russia the peoples of Finland, of the Baltic States and of Romania, raped by Stalin and bleeding from a thousand wounds, are only to eager to obtain revenge by joining with ' Hitler in the attack...
...In such a case they will be put into the background, if not shelved...
...Once more the calamity of war, with all its consequences and implications, has descended upon the tortured Russian land...
...Will he succeed in his new maneuver...
...There was always the probability that Hitler would eventually attack Soviet Russia...
...The only effective assistance England can give is by intensifying her activities in other theatres of the war and by increasing to the maximum her air attacks on Germany...
...Typical of this is a recent meeting of the American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born...
...He can't do anything subversive as an artist but he adds to the patronage mill of the Stalinists...
...He knows that however great and bloody may be the slaughter he has unleashed with his gigantic murder machine upon thc-numberless masses of Russia, Stalin will be a pushover...
...For example, Jose R. Espinosa, chief investigator for the Immigration and Naturalization Service is mentioned by a Washington broadcaster as rrancis Kiddle s possible choice to suc-ceed J. Edgar Hoover when Biddle takes ovefr the Attorney Generalship being vacated by Robert Jackson...
...Stalin's policy of "neutrality" and "peace" has borne its inevitable fruit...
...to prop up tottering Italy in Lybia and the Mediterranean, and to complete the encirclement of Russia by domination of the Dardanelles and the Black Sea approaches...
...Only the grimmest realism can bring the victory of the democracies—the grim-¦*st realism and no illusions...
...Because France had relied on Stalin for help against Germany she failed to make adequate provision for her defense and paid the price of catastrophic defeat...
...Men like Quill, who are closely associated with the Greater New York Industrial Council, CIO, the backbone of the American Peace Mobilization, are faced with the problem of losing face among their members, or sticking to a policy inimical to the best interests of Soviet Russia...
...This lie was invented by tlTe Communists to cover the crimes of their master in Moscow...
...The American Youth Congress meeting in July will reverse its anti-war position of last year...
...That is why Hitler has now directed his blow at Russia...
...But let there be no illusions concerning the benefits to be derived by the democracies from Stalin's "help...
...Can there be any doubt that the collapse of Russia would be a moral blow to the British people as great if not greater than the fall of France...
...Hitler had no intention of spending- large numbers of troops and huge quantities of material in vain search of victory across lone lines of communication in North Africa and the Middle East...
...President Roosevelt and Mr...
...Isolated from the rest of the world as a consequence of his loyal aid to Hitler, the Russian people now fight alone as they face their formidable foe...
...defied Henderson's order barring price rises in auto...
...Stalin helped Hitler to power in the hope that with the hands of the Berlin dictator he would make the Communist "world revolution...
...There was never any doubt in the minds of the informed that Stalin would not dare to fight Germany as long as Hitler remained master of the continent...
...Again, recently) several canneries refused to bid oh army contracts unless they were granted exemption from the Walsh-Healy Act which provides a forty-hour maximum and forty«cent an hour wage minimum...
...Espinosa was formerly with the LaFollette Committee staff, which contained several Stalinists...
...Business Plans to Defy Gov't Efforts to Control War Industries By DANIEL BELL The spectre.of widespread government control which has been haunting big...
...Hitler, on the othe'r hand, maintained secrecy to the last moment in .order to keep the world in tense expectation, to be followed by one of those dramatic climaxes with which he likes to impress his audience...
...The chances of political success are in reverse ratio to the military probabilities...
...Molotov prattled something about the fate of Napoleon that is awaiting Hitler...
...The American Student Union has already asked for lend-lease aid to Russia...
...By concluding his pact with Stalin in August, 1939, he smashed the diplomatic front of his opponents and cleared the road for" the advance of his armies...
...The only avenue of direct aaistance still open is Vladivostok, and that, too, may soon be closed—by Japan...
...According to the Department of Labor, when the War Department recently went into the market for a large purchase of tomatoes, the price shot up overnight...
...As ¦Mr...
...Behind-the-scenes battling has long gone on between Henderson's Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply—recognized as the New Deal stronghold—and the newer businessmen elements...
...Why did he halt his preparations for the campaign in the Middle East via the Mediterranean for the Russian adventure...
...Hitler victorious required domination of Russia to complete his new European order...
...He knows that any such adventure would only weaken his powers of resistance against England's future offensive, buttressed by the mighty resources of the United States...
...He had intended to finish off Soviet Russia after com-f Dieting the conquest of England...
...From personal experience in Washington it is now obvious that the Communists—who were on their way out in tnsny unions—will retain their posts...
...News letters like In Fact, mazagines like Friday may lose some support as they turn pro-war and begin praising those whom they were kicking only the day pervious...
...The big fight looms over the War Department's property seizure bill...
...Hitler knows, too, of the poverty, the misery, the inefficiency that mark Soviet life and organization...
...Hitler facing the danger of defeat at the hands of England, was bound to seek complete mastery of Russia and her resources as a means of saving himself from destruction...
...As a result, the Army last month rejected bids for shoes as too high...
...England will win when her superiority •f ah* power will make it possible for.her to pulverize German industry and communications and paralyze Hitler at the source of his power...
...Foreign Minister Eden, in the House of Commons, hailing goviet Russia as England's new ally, confirmed the truth of Molotov's assertion...
...Many labor leaders have already pledged themselves to an all-out drive on the Stalinists regardless of government policy...
...His speech on Labor Day of 1939 was against the President's foreign policy...
...He also has a program minimum...
...He1 will not reverse his position...
...At 5 a. m. last Sunday morning vast Nazi hordes crossed the frontier into Soviet Russia at many points in another gamble for victory...
...Reid Robinson, vice president of CIO and the American Peace Mobilization, is in a similar position...
...The reversal of organizations like the League of American Writers, the New Theatre League, and the National Negro Congress will be damaging, and they will have to find a new base...
...But what does all this mean to England and to the cause of world democracy...
...The big question mark is John L. Lewis...
...The end of the Stalin-Hitler pact, marked by Hitler's invasion of Soviet Russia, i has revived this illusion under circumstances no less dangerous than those existing in Aognst, 1939...
...In 1918, because he deserted France, England and the United State*, Lenin was compelled to surrender the Ukraine and other valuable parts of Russia to Germany...
...But this need not disturb the enemies of Hitlerism if the governments and leaders of the democracies do not arouse in the minds of their-people's hopes which Soviet Russia cannot possibly justify...
...Only the victory of the AUies forced Germany to disgorge her Russian loot...
...These instances can be multiplied...
...gang of killers...
...He will encourage isolationist and reactionary elements in this country, for example...
...The reports that had emanated for many days from various news centers in Europe concerning the preparations for the conflict on both the German and Russian sides were denied both in Berlin and Moscow as newspaper talk...
...And he knows where to.strike...
...Hitler has merely altered his plans...
...While some are more optimistic than others concerning Russia's ability to hold out against the Nazi assault, most, military experts believe that Russia's defeat is a question only of weeks...
...Espinosa is openly hostile to Jan Valtin and is actively pushing attempts to deport him...
...Can there be any doubt that this would strengthen greatly the appeaser elements in England and the United States...
...This business drive for the safeguarding of profits has resulted in an all-out lobbying drive against any attempts at wide-spread price fixing, or government power to- seize property...
...One of these men, Thomas Emerson, well known as a fellow-traveler, is now high in the Department of Justice...
...The moral effect of Stalin's betrayal upon their will to battle was no less deductive to the French people than the loss of Russia's military aid...
...Only last Friday, the Daily Worker, in an editorial ridiculed the reports of Hitler's impending attack as "wishful thinking about the Soviet Union" on the part of "Wall Street...
...They are now preparing wide appeals for united fronts, stressing the anti-Nazi fight...
...This organization might be dissolved shortly...
...Frequently this crowd obtains prominent government officials to lend their prestige to Communist fronts...
...As we write, thousands of Russian peasants and workers are dying on the fields of battle...
...And today we are saying just the same thing and tomorrow . . . but finish this sentence for yourself...
...Stalin himself helped weave that rope...
...What can he do with his drive for a national AFL-CIO peace conference in the Yankee Stadium, about which he has "made so much noise...
...Latest rift between Henderson and Stettinius came over the question as to who would control the allocation to civilian industries of material remaining after defense orders have been filled...
...The administration must decide now whether its price of aid to Russia will be the crippling of the Communist apparatus inside the government, as in Poland and Turkey...
...Bernard Shaw, in his dotage, hails Stalin's forced entry into the war as the salvation of England...
...But these circumstances are the most tragic in which they have yet found themselves in the entire long period of Bolshevik misrule...
...Hitler knows the poisons and explosive mate-, rials which have accumulated in Russia during the twenty-four years of Communist terrorism...
...Apparently, Stalin had hoped against hope that the worst would be averted...
...The attack on Russia became inevitable with his failure to bring England to her knees after the fall of France in June, 1940...
...Both President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill have made amply clear that they have no intention of permitting Hitler to deflect the democracies from their determination to destroy him and his regime...
...If he does it will be at the request of the President and not the party...
...This action came as the Chrysler Auto Co...
...John Lewis hates the President...
...He now finds it necessary to seize the grain fields f of the Ukraine and the oil wells of the Caucasus before proceeding with the drive into the Middle East and against Suez as a preliminary to the assault on the British Isles...
...Even so.notot-ious an apologist for the Soviet regime as Walter Duranty doubts whether Russia has more than 80 divisions of well-equipped , and well trained troops, and questions-the »]»ility of the Soviet transport system to sustain more than that number of divisions/ England cannot win this war in Russia.^It will be won on the sea and in the air...
...For example: the Maritime Commission recently assigned one* Anton Refregier, to paint murals for a new vessel, the S.S...
...Last April, the CIO pointed out that retail prices of shoes had risen above any point justified by increased cost, despite the fact that the price of hides had reached speculative heights...
...That house stood in a city which was the largest commercial port of the land in which I was born...
...He knows that all these peoples and nations remember how Stalin helped him enslave them...
...They seek to hamstring the bill by asking the War Department to specify products it might want to commandeer...
...Many of the men who scurried from the National Labor Relations Board when Harry Millis replaced J. Warren Madden, have obtained jobs in other divisions...
...Churchill have rendered fruitless Hitler's latest scheme to escape the consequences of his crimes and exposed effectively, at the same time, the Communist lie that the "bourgeois" democracies are the enemies of the Soviet Union...
...This is the illusion against which .. we warn...
...With the effective assistance of Stalin's diplomacy and collaboration, Hitler succeeded in enslaving the nations of Europe one by one...
...they also seek to wipe out the section giving the government the right to alienate patents...
...The answer is simple...
...But having created the Nazi Frankenstein, Stalin trembled before him and obeyed all his commands...
...It's an indication of how nebulous property rights can be...
...The problem of speculators is serious...
...Facing the mighty Nazi military machine alone, isolated from the ? rest ef the world, Soviet Russia is now confronted with the fate of France...
...By breaking Us pact with Russia and smashing Stalin he plans again to dislocate the political unity of his adversaries by posing once more as the savior of the world from Bolshevism...
...or whether the President of the "United States will tolerate inside his most vital bureaus, men and women who will follow the Soviets' foreign line no matter how frequently it changes...
...business for some time, and which has been the occasion of undercover industrial sniping at the present defense set-up, loomed larger this week as Leon Henderson prepared to submit legislation to Congress which would authorize price-fixing and provide stiff penalties for violators...
...Why did he embark upon an enterprise which, however promising of military suecess, must by its sheer magnitude of masses and terrain involve huge losses in life and material for the Germans, too...
...It- happened just the same...
...There are scores of such cases, all common gossip in Washington...
...Change in CP Line Gives Gov't Chance to Clean Out Washington By EDWARD LOSING Special to The New Leader WASHINGTON, D. C.—Although sentiment here has not crystallized it is becoming abundantly clear that the government, the CIO and other organizations heavily loaded with Communists, plan to do nothing about weeding them cut...
...This writer has frequently touched on the situation in CIO...
...More than tut: he now faces the prospect of losing his head, of execution in the Kremlin Square for his unspeakable crimes against the Russian people whom he has subjected to un-measurable woe and suffering...
...Recently the same criticism by shipping men was thrown against Louis Bloch, member of the Maritime Labor Board...
...Another speaker was Frederick N. Myers, one of the Communist leaders of the National Maritime Union...
...Speaking over the Moscow radio a few hours after Hitler had launched his invasion, Molotov, whose signature, together with Ribbentrop's, graces the Stalin-Hitler pact—the pact which unleashed the world catastrophe — no longer maintained that "fascism is a matter of taste," as he did in justification of that unholy pact...
...Many of the Communist leaders in CIO are out on a limb...
...Germany will be defeated in her own skies...
...The record supports Molotov...
...Hitler may well laugh at these words...
...The fate of this bill wfll determine how far Leon Henderson can g<f in obtaining legislative approval for price-fixing, how far industry will be exempt from-Sri all-out ,war against Fascism...
...Refregier is a New Masses artist...
...Events he helped ¦ anleash have now presented him with the prospect of losing out on both...
...Why has hp postponed his assault upon the British Isles whose conquest he must achieve before he can really call himself master of the world...
...He knows that however great the hatred they feel for Nazi Germany, they will shed precious few tears over the fate that has befallen Stalin...
...Stalin's' only hope of escaping the consequences of his treacherous policy was either in the collapse of the entire world, which might open the road to Communist world revolution—his program maximum—or in the victory of England, which would ,_ gave him from Hitler while permitting him to retain at least part of the loot he had gathered from his pact with Nazi Germany—his program minimum...
...Others, less expansive in their optimism, are also inclined to ascribe too great positive importance to the Russo-Germah conflict as it may affect the prospects of British victory...
...In making this clear to their respective peoples and affirming their determination to act accordingly...
...England, struggling to maintain her lines on the seas, on land and in the air, unfortunately cannot come to their aid, except in indirect' and limited measure...
...The conquest and subjugation of Russia was to be the last move in his plans for world domination...
...And it is not because he had ceased to fear and obey this Frankenstein that Stalin now finds himself ' at war with Hitler, but because Hitler decided that it was to the interest of Nazi Germany to attack...
...In this he would have the energetic support of Murray, which he does not need, of course, Lewis will not cetract...
...There ; are no other land or sea approaches to Russia...
...i The Russian people may be expected to fight the Nazi invaders as well as the circumstances in which Stalin has placed them ""permit...
...By his attack on Russia, Hitler is playing his greatest military and political cards...
...L*st Sunday...
...It was propagated by the Communists to the very last moment before Stalin's pal launched his murderous drive against Russia...
...Under cover of the international situation, anti-administration will now seek to burj-i this" bill or emasculate it...
...It was the only true statement he ever made...
...He knows also the hatred which the Russian people themselves feel for Stalin and his clique...
...The vast changes which must fee wrought now in party fronts which the ptftlic is accustomed to view as rabidly isolationist and anti-Roosevelt will take some time, just as did the establishment of the American Peace Mobilization...
...He must be...
...Now is the time for American power to make itself felt...
...The measure has been in Congress for more than three weeks now, with Senators Reynolds, Lodge and Johnson of Colorado leading the sniping...
...Harry Bridges has publicly announced that he is still for peace...
...It was criticized by the Oommn-nists until the turn occasioned by the Nazi pact crystallized...
...He feared that the army running the plant was too much of a precedent...
...Moreover, Hitler could not trust Stalin any more than Stalin could trust him...
...Hitler's assault on Russia may he a confession of his inability to conquer England, but it may well be also the prelude to an all-out attack on the British Isles...
...Can there be any doubt that this would enhance powerfully the isolationist sentiments in the United States...
...Precisely because of the military, industrial, economic and political advantages . Hitler may derive from a conquest of Russia, it is essential that the United States t redouble without delay its output and deliveries of war weapons and supplies to England...
...As a military ' factor Soviet Russia was important only if she fought side by side with the French ,nd British armies...
...The problem posed by anti-totalitarian liberals throughout the country by the German invasion of Russia finds its manifold expression in the capital...
...And he knows particularly the immeasurable enmity which the peasants of the Ukraine, whom Stalin has starved and murdered by the million, feel for the Kremlin dictator and his G.P.U...
...All this is his program maximum...
...He knows that Stalin's power rests on rotten foundations...
...Another department which is notorious in Washington for its friendliness to the Russia First crowd is that of Harriett Elliott, head of the Consumers Division of the National Defense Commission...
...At the same time he placed . t noose around the neck of the U.S.S.R., waiting only for the moment when he would consider it expedient to tighten it...
...Here are best exhibited the facades of the American Comrmuiist structure: the youth move' ments, the unions, the government employees, the social groups, the lobbies...
...Hitler's political purpose—the purpose of appearing once more as the savior of the world from Communism and obtaining a compromise peace at Russia's expense—will not be realized...
...More than ever the democracies must rely upon their own resources and will to fight...
...There are already reports that Lewis is ready to declare his own private kr war on the Communists...
...He discovered suddenly in his master's allies of yesterday "the clique of bloodthirsty Fascist rulers of Germany who have enslaved Frenchmen, Czechs, Poles, Serbians, Norwegians, Belgians, Danes, Hollanders, Greeks and other nations...
...To be sure, he will fool some...
...Domination of the Ukraine and the Caucasus by Hitler would not only give him additional vast material resources but would also open the back door through Iran for an advance through Iraq and Syria to the Suez Canal...
...On the same program with Carol King, attorney for Harry Bridges and Earl Browder, was Marshall E. Dimock, assistant to the Attorney General of the United States...
...a simple presidential signature placed government in contrql of business...
...The most immediate decision is faced by the government...
...He denounced Hitler and Nazism as enemies of mankind, but underscored the bankruptcy of his master's policy of provocation and treachery by pleading that Soviet Russia had sought faithfully to observe the blood-stained agreement...
...No Illusions...
...Henderson wants that power for this would be his strongest club against speculators...
...Joe Curran has told reporters that heis still for peace...
...Keynote of this drive was the declaration recently by the board of directors of the National Association of Manufacturers, warning against price-fixing...
...That was why he concluded his pact with Stalin...
...With characteristic contempt for their peoples, the two dictators kept secret all information concerning immiifence of hostilities...
...It is both military and political...
...The President will not be booed...
...The people who iived in that country and in that city had had endless warnings that such a fate might overtake them, but they always answered: "The Leader of our neighbors on the East has given his solemn word that he would never march against us unless we gave him provocation...
...Russian men, women and children are being torn to bits by German bombs...
...By HENDRIK WILLEM VAN LOON The pile of rubbish in the foreground of this picture is all that remains of the house in which I was born...
...Leningrad, the cradle of the Russian Revolution, betrayed and defiled by the Communists, is on fire...
...But now the CP swings back to Roosevelt, collective security, and war...
...It was necessary to mop up the Balkans and the islands of the Aegean in order to close these doors for a possible British drive into Germany through Southeastern Europe...
...Fuller is head of the Saturday Evening Post...
...On Sunday morning, the very day when the Nazi legions crossed the Russian frontiers, the Communist sheet headlined a cable from London "British press tales still incite joint war on the Soviet Union," and lied about the new "Munich" that was being prepared at the expense of Russia...
...This fear S^s echoed by the David Lawrence's U. S. News, which faithfully reflects industry's viewpoint, when it said, "The ease with which the government took over the defense plant is worth thinking about...
...They have all been closed by Hitler before he embarked upon his new drive...
...For ,the second time, the Communist dictatorship has betrayed "P* *• Germany...
...He was isolationist long before the pact...
...In 1941, Russia faces German conquest and domination under some Quisling government now already in preparation in Berlin, because Stalin, Lenin's suc-cessor, again betrayed the Western democracies...
...We know that he has broken his word a dozen times these last few months and we are familiar with the fate of Denmark and Czechoslovakia and Norway and all the other victims of his violence but we are certain of one thing: IT CAN NOT HAPPEN OVER HERE...
...The British need not worry any longer...
...He, too, was too far committed to this policy on the west coast...
...Fuller would h*re had the company operate the plant, with workers returning under troop protection...
...Rises in furniture, too, was forbidden—the climbing marriage rate has stimulated sales—but these companies are defying Henderson's order...
...Last Sunday, in his address denouncing Hitler's onslaught against Soviet Russia, Molotov pleaded that Moscow had loyally observed her pact with- Hitler...
...Polk...
...True enough...
...Now is the time for our fleet and air force to join the British in the Atlantic, to help sweep German submarines and raiders from the seas, to help clear the air over England of German bombers, and to strengthen the position of the British in the Mediterranean, the Middle East and North Africa...
...We must be prepared for the worst...
...He knows the ramshackle state of Russia's transport and industry, the hunger and weariness of her people, their hopelessness...
...Already the America First Committee (whose name shoald be the America Serf Committee) is hailing Hitler as the foe of Communism...
...Agitation in many cities indicates that strong efforts are being made to expose the Communists and prevent their gaining prestige out of Hitler's attack on Russia...
...By all means, let us give all possible aid to the Russian m people...
...Hitler never wanted to fight on two fronts at the same time...
Vol. 24 • June 1941 • No. 26
