Tovarish Sir Walter

In the years before Munich Sir Walter Citrine, beaver-eyed, baby-faced boss of the British trade unions, was called a Red-hater. He visited the Soviet Union in 1935, wrote a chilly book called I Search for Truth in Russia. Late in 1941, when the Germans were pressing against the western suburbs and the U.S. was not yet in the war, Sir Walter went again to Moscow. He went with a smile, but his hosts remembered and they were chilly. Back in London, he found the faces of the resisting Russians unforgettable. He wrote of the heroic Red Army, the magnificent sacrifices.

When Sir Walter arrived in Moscow last week the papers called him "Tovarish." Theatergoers stood up to cheer when they saw Trade Union Chief Shvernik steer him into a box to watch a performance of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.

Sympathy. Sir Walter had a tough assignment. The Russians knew it and were sympathetic. He had to try to sell a makeshift compromise instead of the outright three-way Anglo-American-Russian Trade Union Committee the Russians had proposed and Sir Walter had promoted. The compromise: that the Anglo-Russian Trade Union Committee continue, that the Anglo-A.F. of L. Trade Union Committee continue, that the British carry such messages as may be necessary between A.F. of L. officials and the Russians. Sir Walter had visited the U.S. in February, found the A.F. of L., with which the British have long had fraternal relations, still adamantly against direct dealings with Russians. He found the C.I.O. cool toward relations with the Russians, cold toward joining an A.F. of L. -dominated committee. Before he returns to London this time, Sir Walter will know whether his patient trotting back & forth has sufficed to keep open the way toward eventual direct three-way collaboration.

The long view explains Anglo-Russian attempts to maintain cordial trade-union relations in spite of their failure to interest U.S. trade unionists. A new international federation of labor is in the cards for the postwar years. Sir Walter, like many another Briton and many a Russian official, hopes for a three-way arrangement at the base of such a federation. But he intends to insure at least a two-way understanding.

Symptoms. The gropings toward labor unity were symptomatic of other attempts to secure Anglo-American-Russian postwar collaboration. Said cautious U.S. Ambassador William Standley in Moscow last week: "Postwar cooperation is absolutely essential if we are to win the peace."

Said youthful, straight-talking Senator Joe Ball of Minnesota: "All the nations are working on two types of peace plan: one based on the assumption that the U.S. will cooperate to organize and preserve peace; the other on the assumption that while the U.S. may give lip service it will not really do anything to help it along. . . . England will have no alternative but to make arrangements with the Soviets unless this country comes out firmly for cooperation."

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