Josef Stalin

From While You Slept, 1951 by John Thomas Flynn

...     The dark history of Communist Russia had been told to the American people before 1941 in scores of books, hundreds of magazine articles and countless columns of newspapers and editorials. If there was one idea that was thoroughly lodged in the minds of the American people it was that Communist Russia was the enemy of mankind—a dictatorship without morals and without pity. Then suddenly, black as was his name, Stalin at a critical moment in the history of Europe turned his back on the West and joined hands with the hated Hitler in 1939. Like a jackal, he marched into Poland to take what Hitler left and, to put the final touches on his infamy, he attacked little Finland, a country that had a specially warm sot in the hearts of Americans. Then one day in 1941, out of a clear sky, Hitler turned on his Red partner and sent his Nazi legions and tanks rolling over Russia. By the sheer force of Hitler's act, Stalin became the ally of Britain and France and, by the same token, of the vague thing called "the free world."

By this time the United States was an ally of Britain and France and China in all but name. Stalin now became our ally too. It was necessary that he become our "noble ally." But it would take time. There was at first some cold reserve even in the White House and the State Department. Sumner Welles, Under-Secretary of State, said: "Between a Communist dictatorship and a Nazi dictatorship there is no choice as far as the people of this country are concerned." Even though Stalin was now the actual ally of Welles's beloved Britain, he said: "The principles and doctrines of Communist dictatorship are as intolerable and alien to our beliefs as are the principles and doctrines of the Nazi dictatorship." [43]

Nevertheless, the seemingly impossible task of selling Communist Russia and Stalin to the American people began without delay. Norman Thomas, the American Socialist leader, said:

"Of course Socialist sympathy will always go with people attacked. But for Stalin we have no sympathy. His cruelty and duplicity have equaled Hitler's. We shall watch with interest to see how fast American Communists and the organs they control or influence will become propagandists for American entry into the war on the side of these 'great democracies'—Stalin's dictatorship and the British Empire. " [44]

Senator Robert M. LaFollette said with prophetic insight that:

"The fighting interventionists will now put on the greatest whitewash in history. The American people will be told to forget the purges, [..], the confiscation of property, the persecution of religion, the invasion of Finland, the seizing of half of Poland, and all of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. These will be made to seem the acts of a democracy fighting Hitler." [45]

We were not kept long in suspense. The Communist Party sprung   .   .   . (etc).     ( pages 54-5 )

 

43. New York Times, June 24, 1941.
44. Ibid., June 23, 1941.
45. Ibid.

New York : Devin-Adair 1951.