The Zombie Worker

In the 34 years since the paper was born to shimmy with the Moscow line, the Communist Party has huffed, puffed and passed the hat repeatedly to save Manhattan's Daily Worker from folding. Last week the party tried for the first time to fold the Worker deliberately--and found to its chagrin that the hardy little rag kept right on coming out.

With a circulation of only 20,000 in its 1938 heyday, the Worker has shrunk to four tabloid pages, a publishing schedule of four days a week and sales of about 5,000--many of them to the FBI, the capitalist press and other students of the party line. Orders for its demise came from the party's national executive committee, apparently because 1) it has become a costly luxury to sustain, and 2) Editor John Gates belongs to the "right-wing" party faction that now balks at blind obedience to Moscow.

After casting the lone vote in favor of continuing the paper, Editor Gates told a capitalist-press reporter: "I intend to fight for the paper's continued existence. In any case, the Daily Worker will cease to exist when it alone says so." Sure enough, the paper appeared on the day it was to have died, said nothing about ceasing to exist or even about the party's orders. At week's end Gates was passing the same old hat, hoping to keep working the Worker until he gets the results of his appeal for its reprieve by the full national committee.

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