For the U. S.: Revolution

On Nov. 16, 1933 President Roosevelt made it a condition of his recognition of Russia that the Soviet Government "would not permit formation or residence on its territory of any organization or group aimed at bringing about by force any change in the political or social order of the United States." If this pledge was worth the paper on which Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Maximovich Litvinoff signed, it meant that the Comintern, or Moscow organization of the World's Communist Parties for "the World Revolution of the World Proletariat," would be dissolved. Fortnight ago it was still going so strong that its Seventh Congress met in the former Hall of Nobles, but efforts were made to suggest that the Comintern had adopted a new policy of supporting democratic governments temporarily as bulwarks against Fascism (TIME, Aug. 5). This change of policy was supposed to apply to France--following negotiations of Dictator Joseph Stalin and French Premier Pierre Laval--but proceedings of the Congress last week showed that it applies to few if any other great countries and definitely not to the U. S., where the object of the Comintern remains Revolution.

Cheer on cheer greeted the U. S. Communist Party's apostles of direct action, Party Secretary Earl Browder and the No. 2 U. S. Red, Sam Darcy, who raised the Red flag last year in San Francisco's general strike.

Mr. Browder claimed for U. S. Communists a rising influence even in the party of Herbert Hoover, not to mention that of President Roosevelt. No Moscow comrade snickered when he said: "The American Communist Party is reaching not only the proletarians but also the intelligentsia, farmers and professional classes and is penetrating even the framework of the two old parties." All of this, according to No. 1 U. S. Red Browder, has been accomplished by Communists claimed to total 30,000 in the U. S. and to be only 60% foreign-born today, whereas in 1930 the 10,000 U. S. Reds were 90% foreign-born.

Communist Darcy drew even louder cheers by brashly revealing that, after U. S. dock workers' contracts with their employers expire Sept. 20, the U. S. Communist Party expects to foment "strikes of unprecedented magnitude." Asserting that California Communist stevedores enjoy cordial relations with the Communist stevedores of The Netherlands and Australia. Mr. Darcy wisely observed: "The international contacts of the working class acquire special significance in connection with the danger of an imperialist war. It is essential to win great influence among the sailors and port workers engaged in loading and transporting military supplies." In their speeches Reds Browder & Darcy appeared less confident of any immediate triumph by U. S. Communism than fearful that their revolutionary cause be squashed by the immediate rise of U. S. Fascism.

In the U. S. last week the fact that they were being cheered in Moscow made still more glaring the original worthlessness of the Soviet pledge accepted by President Roosevelt. The issue of what the President is going to do about it was considered so grave that Ambassador William Christian Bullitt, who had planned to be away from Moscow during the Congress of the Comintern, canceled arrangements to visit Odessa with his 11-year-old daughter Anne, remained at his post to listen and report to Washington.

In San Francisco the ponderous Police Anti-Radical Squad headed by Captain George Healy was put on its mettle last week by Sam Darcy's announcement to the world that he expects bloody strife on California's coast next month. Since the Anti-Radical Squad had little or nothing on Comrade Darcy, it was overjoyed to discover that although that Red claimed to have been born in New York City when he ran as the Communist candidate for Governor of California in 1934 (and got 45,000 votes), he swore he was born in Russia this year when he applied for a passport on which to go to Moscow for the Congress of the Comintern. Armed with this evidence, San Francisco's Captain Healy prepared to have Sam Darcy indicted for perjury.

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