Worker Turns Warrior

At the same time last week that the Communist Party Line reacted to the Russo-German war by curling up like a fishhook to head in the opposite direction (see p. 13), the Communist press swept around a hairpin turn to take the same course. To the guffaws of capitalist reporters the Daily Worker's lead editorial, appearing on the morning Hitler invaded Russia, declared:

The freezing of Axis funds, the closing of consulates, the institution of "patrols," the demand for reparations in the Robin Moor case are all spun out of Mr. Roosevelt's determination to get the United States into a shooting war. . . . The people want none of this war. They will have to state this strongly to stay the hand of the war crowd.

Next day the Worker hastily editorialized:

Down with the criminal war of German fascism against the Soviet Union! For full support and cooperation with the Soviet Union in its struggle against Hitlerism! By week's end the Worker chucked away its olive branch, shut off its no-war dirge and strode out--helmeted, booted and spurred. Gone, all gone, were the whoops against New Deal-tycoon collusion, the sneers at "Mamma" Roosevelt, the ballyhoo for the forthcoming American Youth Congress in Philadelphia as a red-hot peace rally. The Worker even referred to elegant, wing-collared, Groton-schooled Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles as "Mr." There were also many chest-throwing stories of Russian Army prowess written in old-fashioned dime-novel style. Typical sample: "Soviet frontier guards, who sustained the first sudden attack of the perfidious fascist enemy, fought like lions and covered themselves with immortal glory. . . ." But the Worker did not in so many words predict a Soviet victory.

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