WAR
IS IT?
By EARL BROWDER
General Secretary, Communist Party, U.S.A.
1C
2) /
74-1 - '.

WHOSE WAR IS IT?
By EARL BROWDER
Speech delivered at Town Hall, Philadelphia, September
THE war that is engulfing Europe, that threatens also the United
States, raises the problem of what attitude to take toward this
war, what should be done in relation to this war. What kind of war
is this, for what is it being fought, what kind of peace will come out
of it?
Some people will not be worried by such problems. They have
the answers ready-made for themselves/and they do not need to think.
Such are the pacifists, who know in advance that it is wrong to fight,
no matter what the issues are, or alignments, who are guided by the
slogan that "there never has been a good war or a bad peace/' Such
also are those who take their opinions without question from the "rec-
ognized leaders of public thought/' that is, from the ruling class, from
the bourgeoisie, from Wall Street.
But the great mass of American people, especially the workers,
who are neither doctrinaire pacifists nor uncritical followers of the
powers that be, are thinking through these questions for themselves,
finding in terms of their own experience, education and independent
- thinking, their own independent answers.
The Communist Party has issued as the slogan of the day: "Keep
America Out of the Imperialist War!7' In this slogan are implicit
what we consider the only correct answers to all those pressing ques-
tions about this war. Let us examine it in more detail.
It Is an Imperialist War
First, is it correct to describe this as an imperialist war, that is,
a war in which both sides are directed by imperialist aims, by rival
and ^reconcilable ambitions of world domination to which all other
considerations are subordinated?
On the side of Nazi Germany, the imperialist character of the
war is so crude, so brazen, so obvious, that for the overwhelming
majority of all Americans it is taken for granted, without argument,
as a matter of common knowledge.
Indeed, it is precisely this most crude imperialist aggressive char-
acter of Nazi Germany which is seized upon to mask the equally
imperialistic but subtle, sophisticated, devious character of the British-
French camp, which decks itself out in the colors of "champion of
small nations," "defender of international order," "protector of
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z&tion," etc. For American people, the first and most basic problem
is thes correctly to evaluate, without illusions and with the utmost
objectivity, the claims of the British-French war-makers to their
sympathies. What are these claims worth?
The more clever defenders of British-French claims to the role of
protector of small nations, international order, and civilization itself,
ni, longer apologize for the British-French past; they will not deny
that the scheme to direct Germany into a war against the Soviet
Union had led the British-French bourgeoisie upon the disastrous path
of assisting Hitler into power, aiding the rearmament of Germany,
accepting the fortification of the Rhineland, sacrificing Austria,
strangling the Spanish Republic, betraying Czechoslovakia, tossing
Ethiopia and Albania to Mussolini, scrapping the League of Nations,
handing China to the Japanese—in sum, to the effective destruction
oi the foundations of peace and of all international security, and the
spread of one-sided imperialist aggression to a large part of the world.
But, so these clever propagandists for Chamber lain-Daladier claim,
the British-French ruling classes finally woke up to the catastrophic
consequences of their old policy, and made a decisive turn about face,
called a halt, and set their feet on a new path, one which had been,
demanded and fought for by all progressive and democratic forces,
including the Communists, a new path which commands the support
and allegiance especially of those who had most sharply condemned
the old disastrous course. The point at which the British-French
bourgeoisie called a halt and started on a new road, they tell us,
was Poland and the threat to the destruction of Poland.
Both Sides Are Equally Guilty
Poland, indeed, furnished the turning point in the world-historical
process now unfolding at such a furious pace. >5ut not by any means
in the sense of the idealistic slogans they put forward to justify and
mask the brutal imperialist character of the British-French bour-
geoisie and its side in this war. On the contrary, it is Poland and
the peoples of that unhappy country which furnish devastating and
final proof that the Pritish-French ruling jlasse- are equally guilty
T*ith those of Germ -n/ for the war, that the workers and their pro-
gressive allies can no more support one side than the ether, that ^oth
">i fighting for purely imperialistic aims to which th^v sacrifice every
other interest.
When, last March, Hitler wiped out the last remnants-of Czecho-
slovakia, turned over to his tender mercies the previous September at
Munich by Chamberlain and Daladier, it was clear to, the world that
Poland was the next on the list. Chamberlain, faced vith revoli among
the British, people, gave the solemn guarantee of the British Empire
~WtKe integrity of the Polish state; but it was equally clear to the
i
whole world that such a guarantee was practically worthless unless
backed up by the military and economic might of the Soviet Union,
that Chamberlain could make good only through Russian, not British,
'hands.
1 In order to create the appearance. of seriousness and sincerity,
negotiations were opened up with the Soviet Union in Moscow osten-
sibly to implement the policy long proposed by the Soviet Union of
organizing collective security. But as it was proved, nothing was
further from Chamberlain's mind than such an outcome. Let us refresh
olir memories about some undeniable facts of these negotiations be-
tween the British-French and the Soviet governments.
Chamberlain sent as negotiators to Moscow not even a member of
his cabinet, but a group of third and fourth line diplomatic messenger
boys, without any clear credentials. This was in sharpest contrast
with the handling of negotiations with Hitler by Chamberlain him-
self. The negotiations were dragged out interminably, from April into
August,, without the slightest progress being made, and without the
slightest sign of any uneasiness on Chamberlain's part. This was
in sharpest contrast to the hysterical haste with which Chamberlain
had flown to Berchtesgaden, to Godesberg, and to Munich, in 1938, to
rush through the surrender of Czechoslovakia to Hitler. The British-
French governments have never dared to disclose what were their
concrete proposals to the. Soviet Union. But the Soviet Union de-
clared them unacceptable, as being impractical for their professed
purpose, and as violating the principle of equal obligations. From
the very heart of the British imperialist bourgeoisie itself came un-
impeachable evidence of the soundness of the Soviet position, when
Winston Churchill wrote last June. I quote:
"I have from the beginning preferred the Russian proposals
to either the British or French alternatives. They are simple,
they are logical and they conform to the main groupings of
common interests."
The Soviet Proposals
'What was the Soviet Union prepared to do for halting the threat-
ened aggression? It proposed, on the basis of mutual guarantees for
the integrity of existing frontiers, to meet and throw back any
aggression in Eastern Europe by the might of the Red Army and
Air Fleet. The British and French governments rejected the proposals,
basing themselves, first of all, upon the Polish government's refusal
to agree to any operations of Soviet forces on Polish territory. The
Soviet Union was thus asked to enter a war ostensibly to protect
Poland, 'but was refused the right to fight in the war until Poland
ha'd been destroyed and the German army crossed into (Sovietjter.-
ritory..
4
There is not a single military expert in the world who will deny
that the Soviet proposals were the only possible means of achieving
.'the declared intention to defeat aggression anci maintain the integrity
of Poland. When the British-French governments rejected these pro-
posals, they de'nlerately threw away the only possible barrier to the
threatened aggression to Poland. They sealed ;he.doom of Poland
and they proved to the world and to history that they were interested
in Poland only as the occasion for a war in their own imperialist
interests, and a war which they expected quickly to transform into a
-war against the Soviet Union.
This is further proved by the fact since disclosed that the British-
French governments took not one single step to put the Polish gov-
ernment into a stronger position to defend itself. The Polish govern-
ment was told to resist the Nazi invasion, with the promise of the full
force of the British and French empires in its support; But not a
single fortification was erected against the threatened invasion, not
even trenches were dug, not even was the Polish army mobilized in
full, not so much as a single rifle, not to speak of an airplane, was
added to Polish equipment. - -
True, the British government negotiated with the Polish govern-
ment for a five-million pound loan, but they tangled up the question in
. so many controversies that the loan was never made, although, at the
same time, one of Chamberlain's cabinet was offering Hitler a billion
pound loan, two hundred times as much, as a bribe for a British-
German alliance. Clearly, Chamberlain's practical refusal to give Po-
land even the miserly $25,000,000 he had promised was simply the
instinctive thrift of a typical British businessman who had already
written Poland off his books as a total loss, and incited Poland to
fight merely in the expectation of thereby involving the Soviet Union
in a serious war with Germany, while securing for himself an idealis-
tic slogan to cover British-French imperialist aims.
Why did the Polish government permit itself to be used as the
passive instrument of Chamberlain's intrigues, a role so quickly proved
suicidal for itself? That can be understood only when we understand
that the Polish government was itself fascist in character, that it had
long degenerated into an instrument of the Hitler-Chamberlain con-
spiracies against the Soviet Union, and when Hitler, frightened at.
the prospect of breaking his teeth on the Red Army, suddenly broke
his compact with Chamberlain, the Polish government was as incapable,
of changing its course as it would have been to change its fascist
character. . .
- The; general public is very insufficiently informed about the depth
of the Polish government's complicity in the destruction of Czecho-
slovakia. Mos't people still think of this only-in terms of the disgraea-
-- —•"•-•'• '"•••' §
fal last-minute grabbing of fragments of that country when the final
dismemberment took place. But the Polish ^government was deeply
involved with both Hitler and Chamberlain in the long chain of con-
spiracy that led up to Munich in September, 1938. There has just
come into my hands a most illuminating piece of evidence about this.
A Damning Document
A certain newspaperman in France sent me a copy of a memoran-
dum which he furnished his paper in May, 1938, but which was never
published. He says he is certain that every great power received this
information about the same time, that it will be found in the archives
of practically every Foreign Office, but that it reached the public only
in hints and innuendoes. He sent it to the United States since the
French press is strictly censored and the Communist press entirely
closed, while in the United States, so far, we still suffer only from the
censorship of publishers and editors. This memorandum, citing fact*
of great historical significance, reads as follows: Remember the date—-
May, 1938:
"The Polish Ambassador to France, Lukasiewicz, has just re-
turned from Warsaw. He declared that without question Poland
would declare war immediately on the Soviet Union if that country
should, in operation of its treaties, attempt to send troops across
Polish territory to support Czechoslovakia. He declared that if
Soviet airplanes should cross Polish territory en route to Czecho-
slovakia they would at once be attacked by Polish planes. He
declared that there is a big concentration of Polish planes near
the Rumanian frontier for the special purpose of attacking Soviet
planes should they attempt to cross in this neighborhood.
"He further declared that if Soviet troops should attempt to
cross Rumania en route to Czechoslovakia the Rumanian gov-
ernment was committed to declare war simultaneously on the
Soviet Union in accordance with the Polish-Rumanian alliance;
that if the Soviet planes should attempt to cross Rumania it might
be impossible for the Rumanian air force to stop them, but in
that event it was probable that the Polish air force would send
sufficient planes to Rumanian territory to do the job. These
declarations of the Polish Ambassador have been received with
satisfaction by the French government, and are the foundations
for Bonnet's 'predictions' that any attempt by the Soviet Union
to give aid to Czechoslovakia would result in its becoming en-
gaged in war by both Poland and Rumania. The reports from
German, Japanese and British representatives in Moscow, point-
ing in the same direction, are undoubtedly ~ based upon similar
information from the same source."
e * ...-.....- -...__
That is the sort of government Poland had, steeped in corruption
and intrigue, with both Hitler and Chamberlain against the Soviet
Union, ruling its own people with military means, based upon the
most backward and oppressive landlordism, aping the worst Nazi
practices in oppression of national minorities who compose more than
a third of the population, and plunging its peoples into ever deeper
poverty. Such was the government of the Polish "colonels," which
broke up and fled the country at the first impact of war.
Up until this month, the world has been repeatedly assured that
the Polish army was one of the most effective in the world. That
opinion was generally accepted without question. It remained for
that most reactionary columnist of the Hearst press, Boake Carter,
to observe on September 13, after two weeks of war, that the collapse
of the Polish army "is astonishing military men" and that "it has
ceased to make sense." Mr. Carter then compares this with the ex-
perience in Spain. He says:
". . . In contrast, it took General Franco, with seasoned Ger-.
man and Italian troops, two and one-half years to battle his way
against a Loyalist army composed of Communists, rabble, un-
trained citizenry and the International Brigade—all improperly
armed, clothed and fed—before he entered Madrid/'
The Soviet Union Acts for Peace
When the British, .French and Polish governments rejected the
proposals of the Soviet Union, which alone could have preserved peace
01 have guaranteed the quick defeat of any aggressor, the Soviet
Union was left with no other course open to it but to find its own
way to contribute to the peace and welfare of itself and neighbors,
and thereby of the world. It had given sufficient evidence of its ability
to defend its own borders, to cause Nazi Germany to think twice and
a third time before proceeding with its compact with Chamberlain,
sufficient to cause it to renounce its war aims against the Soviet
Union, and to propose a non-aggression pact. There was no longer the
slightest ground for the Soviet Union to refuse this offer, whether
in its own interests, the interests of neighboring peoples, or the
interests of world peace.
The course of events since the signing of the Soviet-German
Non-Aggression Pact has confirmed a hundred times over the correct-
ness of that action from every point of view except that which in-
corrigibly, against mountains of evidence, considers Chamberlain and
the British empire the full and sufficient foundation for international
order and world peace.
The Soviet Union has kept out of war, as the people of the United
8ta.tes 4g_determined to,keep out of this war and the imperialist
f
rivalries from which it arose, but on a much higher level from that
<xf the United States, and only after it had done everything possible
to organize world peace. Americans who want to keep out of this
war should be in a position to understand and sympathize with the
determination of the Soviet Union not to be used as a catspaw for
one or another imperialist camp to pull its chestnuts out of the fires
of war. America is now being prepared for the role of the cat&paw
for the British Empire, and we have to decide whether we will accept
that role-which the Soviet Union refused.
U.S.S.R. Stopped Nazi Advance
But the Soviet Union has done much more than merely keep out
of the war. Without engaging in a war it has been able to accomplish
what all the rest of the world confessedly failed to do. It drew the
line far from its own borders beyond which Nazi aggression dared
not go. It even was able to force the Nazi military machine to retire
and to redeem more than half of that Poland which the British-French
governments, with all their paper guarantees, had cast to the Nazi
wolves. The Red Army marched. The Red Army marched into
Western Ukraine, White"Russia and Poland.
Our American newspapers leaped to the defense of Chamberlain,
like a pack of well-trained hunting dogs. They leaped forward with-
out a second's hesitation, they knew all the answers in advance. They
- didn't have fo think a single moment before they began to vilify the
Soviet Union, brand the march of the Red Army into Western
Ukraine, White Russia and Poland on its mission of liberation and
protection, as a "partnership in aggression" with the Nazi aggressors.
But already before the month of September is over, when war has
been going on less than a month, through all the howling of the dogs
oi reaction, the truth forces its way through for all the world to see.
The most rabid anti-Communists in America, who happen to have
family connections in Poland, are publicly praying that their relatives
may find themselves in the area occupied by the Red Army. American
newspapermen in Rumania are forced to note in their dispatches that
refugees, who fled across the border before the advance of the Nazi
armies, returned immediately to Poland when they learned that the
Red Army had come.
Behind the Red Army lines, the peasant masses, long among the
most exploited and oppressed in Europe, are fulfilling their age-long
•dream of undisputed possession of the land* .It is their land for the
first time in history. The quarter of a million-acre estate of Prince
Radziwill was one of the first to be distributed among the landless
peasants. That is why they are so profoundly angry with the Soviet
Union and the Red Army. They are angry -
I
this news that the land is being distributed to the men who dig the
land and who raise the crops, that news they can't stop from spreading
Jike wildfire throughout Europe and the rest of the world, especially
throughput Eastern, Europe. The peasants are getting their land,
and no censorship and no blockade can stop that news from penetrat-
ing over the world. And let us not forget that Eastern Europe, as well
as Central Europe, including Germany, rests upon the foundation of
a land-hungry and exploited peasantry, who are going to learn this
- news and are going to watch for the day, which is coming soon, when
they can do the same thing in Germany and Eastern Europe.
That is what Dorothy Thompson meant when she wrote the other
day that what we are facing is not a war, it is a revolution. Yes, the
revolution is marching in Europe.
What all the might of the British and French Empires could not
accomplish, under Chamberlain and Daladier, over the years, has been
accomplished by the Soviet Union with its Red Army and its peace
policy, in three weeks.
A new alignment of mighty peace forces is arising in the world.
Chamberlain and Daladier destroyed the old peace front that we were
fighting for all the time, but a new peace front is coming into being
more powerful than anything dreamed about by the so-called demo-
cratic governments, who sabotaged and destroyed the peace front. A
new peace front, led by the mighty Soviet Union, and more and more
drawing into alignment with it the oppressed and exploited peoples of
Eastern Europe, and finally of the Western Europe area, and .America
as well.
If the gentlemen statesmen and diplomats of the so-called civilized
Western democracies are not able to keep peace in the world, the
peoples of the world are getting ready to show them how to do it.
America Wants Peace and Democracy
It is clear that the masses of the people of the United States, the
workers, farmers, toiling middle class, do not belong to and do not
want to be tied up with the imperialist camp of Chamberlain and
Daladier. The American people do not want to cast in their fate with
the rotten and corrupt British and French Empires, who call them-
selves democracies, but who are, as rapidly as they know how, pro-
ceeding to destroy what is left of democracy in their own countries.
Only the day before yesterday, we got the news that the great
French Republic had outlawed the Communist Party of France, the
third largest party in the country, a country divided into a dozen
parties. Well there* have been many governments in the past which
tried to dissolve Communist Parties. For six years Hitler was telling
th^ world that he,had dissolved the Communist Party of Germany, but
-~ the American bourgeois correspondents informed us
that tke Communist Party of fermany was out on the streets as
strong: as it was in 1932. And now the French bourgeoisie, in the nam«
of democracy, boast that they have liquidated the Communist Party of
France.
Well, by that act they have struck a heavy >low against French
bourgeois democracy.
But Daladier can no more kill the French Communist Party than
Hitler could kill the German Communist Party. The French govern-
ment proceeds to deny the simplest political rights to the third
greatest party in the country. The Party, with a majority above all
other parties combined in the Paris area, has been dissolved by decree
-—a decree—and still they expect us to consider France a democracy.
American War-Makers at Work
Everywhere, throughout the world, the enthronement of the
bloody dictatorship of monopoly capital, that we call fascism, has
always begun with the dissolution of the Communist Party, but it
itcver ended there, but always proceeded to the destruction of the
democratic rights of all the people. And in the United States we see
Mr. Martin Dies has immediately announced that he proposes that the
United States follow quickly in the footsteps of the French Republic,
and outlaw the Communist Party of the U.S.; we know what that
means. It is an announcement that they intend to take America on the
same path that the French Republic is being taken and take it into
this imperialist war on the side of the British-French camp.
We^have no guarantee that the American bourgeoisie may not
accept the leadership of Martin Dies, We have not heard for a long
time now a single responsible voice raised in Washington against
Martin Dies and his program. Those voices which spoke up so cour-
ageously in 1938 have become strangely silent. Martin Dies may have
some of his detailed pronouncements denied in a half-hearted way,
but there is no longer a voice raised in Washington boldly denouncing
the political course that Martin Dies wants to take the United States
on. Let's understand the significance of that.
One of the first decisive steps on the road of American entrance
into imperialist war will be serious attacks upon the Communist
Party of the United. States. Do you think that anybody wants to out-
law the Communist Party of the U.S. in order to keep America out of
the war? And if there is a big demand right now to outlaw the Com-
munist Party, can it have any other reason except the determination
to get America into this war?
The fight for a peace policy in the United States today is, first of
all, a fight to keep the United States out of any involvement in this
imperialist war, that means, to keep the United States from any
involvement not only in a military way but from any involvement in
economic and political support and sympathy. The.,victory_of either
10 ^~
one of these gangs of imperialist bandits will be a defeat for th«
people of their own country and for the people of the world. The only
possible victory of the people will be the overthrowing of the bandits
at the head of both camps.
We can support neither one side nor the other in the imperialist
war. The former distinetion between the fascist and democratic
nations has lost the meaning it once had, and is rapidly losing any
serious political meaning at all.
The Neutrality Act—A False Issue
The fight to keep the United States out of the imperialist war is
presented in a very distorted form in the discussions now going on
around the special session of Congress, and around the issue of the
Neutrality Act and what to do about it. I am sure you have already
read, if you have not you must read it, the declaration of the
National Committee of the Communist Party OB September 19 char-
acterizing this whole situation, which gives the correct answer to the
problems of «he Neutrality Act. It is not necessary t« discuss that
again tonight at length since the hour is already growing late, but I
read yesterday a very significant political comment written from
Washington saying that the difference between the pros and eons on
the Neutrality Bill and its revision hau been reduced to such a small
area that it could be placed on a postage stamp. Ther^ is a great deal
of truth in that observation.
But it would be a great mistake if you should conclude that the
great body of Congress has come together in general agreement in
order to represent the desire of the majority of the masses to keep out
of this war. They are coming together upon the general agreement
that whether America gets into the war sooner or later, they all agree
that they want to make as much profits as possible out of this war
right now. That is the dominating mood in Congress today and it is a
most shameful and dangerous thing for America.
All considerations are being subordinated to the question of
how American monopoly capital can get the maximum profits out of
the European war, with the result that everybody that is thinking
like that is not very anxious that this profitable war should end very
soon; the longer it lasts the more profits. Even President Roosevelt
made his bow to this motive in his message to Congress. In this
respect there is very little difference, if any at all, between tihe
representatives of the two sides on the discussion on the embargo.
Let us understand this—that profits out of this war will not do
America any good. More than that, profits out of this ^.var are going
to be a curse to the American people. Out of the profits derived from
the blood of the peoples of Europe will arise stronger and stronger
those_force^tri&t'wtn drag America into the war, when profits can no
longer be made only from Europe but will have to be squeezed out of
the blood of American boys. The only way to keep America out of
war is.to keep the profiteers from making profits out of the war. The
main line of struggle for neace f orS1 America is a struggle against
monopolists *nd profiteers, don't forget that. Only if the American
workers, farmers and middle classes fix their eyes on this line will
they be able to defeat those forces that would drag our country into
war, the forces of Wall Street, monopoly capital and the profiteers.
These rapidly narrowing differences about the Neutrality Act
are no longer of decisive import for the future of our country; the
divisions on this among the upper strata of the bourgeoisie are not
deep and are easily reconciled. The masses of the people who really
want peace and to keep out of war are divided on this confused issue
and lose their force. That is why our National Committee declared
that we could not identify ourselves with one side or the other of this
alignment, because we see enemies on both sides, and we see our
friends on both sides, and our task is to fight the enemy on both sides
and unite the workers and farmers of both sides against the reac-
tfonaries and Wall Street.
. Th sfr Je .-.gainst t- : profiteers and aonop^1" has i.j be
struggle against the worsening of living standards; it has to be a
struggle for a better life, higher wages, shorter hours, more social
legislation, unemployment and old-age insurance, all sorts 0? safe-
guards for' democratic rights, the extension of democratic rights,
which is just the opposite of what the majority of our Congress is
thinking about in Washington today.
We cannot depend upon any other power in this country' to
accomplish these things than tht power of the workers and workers'
organizations and those progressive forces aligned with the working
class to keep America out of the imperialist war.
Every moment this war continues, tl e -danger grows more sharp
that America will be dragged into it. That is why we say, if we want
to keep America out of this imperialist war we also have to put up a
great united demand of the American people—Stop this imperialist
war!—before they have a chance to drag us into it,
'The U.S.S.R. Wants the War Stopped
• The Soviet Union today issued a statement to the peoples of the
world that it considered the continuation of this imperialist slaughter-
a senseless thing and hoped that some friendly government will
cooperate.in calling a halt to it. .
What is the significance of this? You rememoer how in the past
weeks the newspapers and radio have been repeating to ua on
the one hand that Stalin has made an alliance with Hitler and
that Stalin has abandoned the revolution
12
unprincipled power politics with fascism against the democracies, and
at the same time these newspapers and radios tell us—after all it was
al a very clever game of Stalin's in which he was inciting Hitler to
'fight the democracies anJ the democracies to fight Hitler and wants
: both sides to continue the war and bleed each other white until finally
Europe is exhausted and then Stalin will step in and take it over.
But it happens that the whole course of the Soviet Union from in-
ception down to date has always been a struggle for peace, to prevent
war from breaking out, and when :t did break out to stop it as quickly
as possible, to secure a democratic peace; and that is what the Soviet
Union is doing now. But whereas, not so long ago, the voice of the
Soviet Union was not listened to in world councils, today we have a
situation where the proposals for peace of the Soviet Union will have
to be taken seriously by every government in the world.
By proposing the immediate cessation of this senseless slaughter
the Soviet Union has again proved that all of those who talk about
the U.S.S.R. being interested in continuance of war are liars. The
Soviet Union has always, following the teachings of Lenin, utilized
the contradictions among the imperialists in the cause of peace, in the
cause of the liberation of oppressed peoples. There were long years
of the first period of the building of the new socialist syLtem when the
country was almost helpless in a military sense and almost any com-
bination of imperialist powers, if they could have gotten together,
could have sent armies in and destroyed the socialist system. How
was the Soviet Union able to exist in face of a world of powerful
-enemies when it was so weak? It was able to exist and defend itself
because not only did it have its own small but growing force, but it
played the contradictions of one imperialist camp against the other
and utilized these so skillfully under the leadership of Lenin that in
spite of its relative weakness, it gained time that was necessary for it
to become strong, until today no possible combination of powers that
could be brought together can ever defeat the Soviet Union.
Now today again, under the leadership of Stalin, the Soviet
Union is again giving a brilliant example of Leninism, of how to
utilize the contradictions among the imperialists in order to prevent
them from carrying through their imperialist schemes .of oppression
and war, of how to rouse the masses so that they can intervene and
stop the bloody business of imperialist war, showing how the people
can make peace over the heads o^ their rulers, how to find a people's
road to peace.
That is the significance of these great developments of the past
weeks. That is the thing that frightens the bourgeoisie of every coun-
try, including our own, that is the thoig that makes them so desperate
arid sO enraged, so full of the hatred they spew out every day through
the columns of their newspapers. Well, the gentlemen have reason
13
to be afraid, because when peoples begin to arise the exploiters
are not going to last very long, in any part of the world.
American Democracy Is in Danger
The bourgeoisie, the capitalists and all their hangers-on are
abandoning as rapidly as they know how the defense of democracy
and are abandoning the defense of progressive social measures. It is
i*ot an accident that we see together with this movement to scrap all
progressive measures » f the New Deal, as the spearhead of that
movement, such a terrific, unprecedented campaign in this country
against the Communist Party at this moment.
Why are they so excited about our small Party? Why do they
move heaven and earth to spatter us with all sorts of synthetic mud?
Why are they makin; preparations for the outlawing of our Party?
It is because not only are they thinking about getting America into
the war, but they know that that course can only be put across on
the American people if they destroy American democracy, and the
destruction of democracy always begins by denying democracy to the
Communists. That is a law of politics in the modern world.
Great changes are taking place in the relationship of class forces.
A section of the American bourgeoisie was standing on the platform
of the maintenance of American traditional democracy, and for that
aim they were taking a progressive course. Some of them may stiy
fool themselves that they still stand on that platform, with only one
limitation—the Communists shall not be included in the concept of
American democracy.
When Congressman Dies, day before yesterday, said he wanted
to outlaw the Communist Party, the progressive Democrat, Congress-
man Voorhis of California said, in amendment to Mr. Dies' declaration
—"Well, if we are going to have to do it, let's do it in such a way that
we don't harm American democracy." Well, I venture to predict that
six months after Dies should succeed in outlawing the Communist
Party, "Comrade" Voorhis will be purged from Congress as a secret
Communist. The moment ':he open Communist Party has been abol-
ished, every known progressive will be under suspicion as a member
of the secret underground Communist Party, and they will have 100
per cent "evidence" to prove it. After all, aren't you trying to think
straight?—That is the sign of a Communist. After all, aren't yoii
talking for peace? Ah, that is a sign of Communism. After all, aren't
you a New Dealer? Well, everybody knows that the New Deal was a
result of the "secret machinations" of the Communist Party.
These gentlemen think that democracy is something that can be
handed around to chosen people and denied to others who happen to be
Communists—but by this position they have already abandoned the
struggle for democracy*
14
The newspapers have been making a great noise about the sad
conditions within the Communist Party. Fifty million copies of news-
papers every day are repeatedly telling the 100,000 members of the
Communist Party that you have lost faith in the leaders of your
Party and especia.'Iy in the Soviet Union. As a matter of fact, some-
thing that we are very proud and happy about, the condition of the
Communist Party today is one of unexampled unity, unexampled
enthusiasm, unexampled courage and fighting spirit such as the Com-
i .nist Party has never known.
Of course, we have had casualties. There never is a battle without
somebody getting hurt. There never is a great struggle or great
historical turning point without people who lose their way and who
rapidly change sides. We have had a few, and, I warn you, we
will have some more. I have not the slightest doubt about that. So far,
there have been about a dozen or so. In the next few weeks, there may
be even a couple of dozen more who will run awa~^ from the^fight^
The most extraordinary thing is ho^v few there are, with all the force
of the American radio, bourgeois press turned upon the Communist
Party to try to persuade each and every individual member that he
had better dissociate himself from this "criminal" organization, and
threatening the most dire measures against those, threatening their
livelihood; the most extraordinary thing, with all this mighty labor of
the mountain of American capitalism, is the most they have been
able to bring forth has been twelve or fifteen little mice.
When the fight becomes a little hotter, they may get as many
a; 50 or 60 or even 100, but we still have 99,900 members of the
Communist Party, better Communists than ever before, and I can
assure you, dear friends, that the Communist Party is winning more
friends and more future- members than it has in the whole twenty
years of our previous history.
Of course, I don't want you to understand that I belittle the
significance of those, even the few, who left the Communist Party
as a result of the turn of history and the tremendous new tasks facing
us. We should not laugh it off. It is significant to us, -entirely
aside from the question of the individuals or their motives; it is sig-
nificant, first of all, that almost without exception, all these examples
of people who run away from the fight now are people who in one form
or another are in the closest class relationships with the upper middle
or upper classes, o: else people who for long years have become soft
or a little rotten from too long sitting in comfortable office chairs of
bureaucratic positions.
Now, when -uch people as that*leave our movement, what does
it mean? It aieans that while they may be important in themselves,
or may not be, they have this importance—they are like the impor-
tance of straws in the wind. It means that strong winds have begun
15
r
to Wow; a-storm is coming up, and when a storm is coming up, the
first gust of wind blows away straws that have been lying around.
Labor Will Defend American Democracy
It is unquestionably true that storms are coming, great social
storms, great social struggles, and all the"faint-hearted andmuddle-
heaT are going to clear out. I want to ask you, do you feel weaker
Scat* theV are gone, or do you feel stager? You feel stronger
Our enemy is powerful; the great social struggles are going to be
Sffic"ut we face the future unafraid and we tell the worker^ of
America not to be afraid. The^nem.yJ^powerful, but- the workmg
class of America're powerful too and becoming more^powerful every
ky,: and'under the blows of battle are going to become powerful
^Mtlie Reactionaries try to outlaw our Party, it will only multiply
- our .contacts and our influence among the masses. We do not invite
these attacks; we would much prefer if the American bourgeoisie
would maintain the traditional American democratic system. We
Communists have cooperated loyally, persistently, for the maintenance
and strengthening of this democracy. Sometimes we have even leaned
over a little backwards and gone a little bit too far to demonstrate
that the dangers to this democracy come not from the Communist
Party, but from those who talk loudest against the Communists We
have done everything to maintain and extend and .to defend the
America democratic system, in order to save America from fascism.
No one can say that any weakening of American democracy has come
from the Communist Party. . ,
Today the greatest menace to American democracy comes in the
name of anti-Communism. But it is not up to us; we are a small
Party relatively weak in this country. We cannot by our own unaided
efforts maintain American bourgeois democracy if the bourgeon
that owns the economy of this country desires to scrap that democracy.
But we warn these gentlemen that if they think they can outlaw
the Communist Party and then proceed with their planned attacks
.gainst the labor movement and the dragging of America into this
Imperialist war-we warn them they are making a great historical
xniStake. They may think that they, are fighting for another lease.of
life of their rotten and decaying capitalist system, but history will
prove them wrong. By going on such a course, they are takmg_the
shortest road to the downfall of American capitalism. The American
people are going to fight for their democratic rights; they are going
to fight for their living conditions; they are going to fight for peace,
and those who go against those desires of the American people are
going to be swept off the boards of history^