Editorial: What’s in a name?
The American public has been officially informed, to the accompaniment of all the excitement of a party convention plus the usual paraphernalia of a huge Madison Square Garden rally, that the Communist Party is dead! Yes, honest to goodness dead, and Comrade Browder would presumably swear it on a stack of Bibles if he felt that would lend any plausibility to his story. But knowing it wouldn’t, he didn’t.
At any rate, that’s his story and he’s stuck with it. Orders from Moscow, you know. Just as when he changed overnight in 1940 from being anti-Roosevelt and pro-Hitler to pro-Roosevelt and anti-Hitler when he got unexpected orders from Moscow.
If he received orders from the same source tomorrow to start propaganda for a peace settlement with Japan and a movement for the removal of Eisenhower if he didn’t start his invasion by next Tuesday morning, there is little doubt in most American minds as to what Mr. Browder would do.
Anyway, the Communist Party in America is now dead, according to Browder and Stalin, and, we presume, all the fellow travelers are delighted. In its place stands the Communist Political Association – pure as driven snow.
Americans with any memory will remain unimpressed. This new Red outfit will be 100% Russian as its predecessor has always been. It will stand for American policies and ideas only as long as they meet with Stalin’s approval. And it will bear close watching just as the Communist movement always has, regardless of the name it may adopt to suit its own selfish purposes.