Communism in Retreat
Too little attention has been paid in this country to the remark- able speech delivered last week in New York by Mr. Earl Browder, the leader of the American Communist Party, who has twice run as a Communist for the Presidency, advocating the dissolution of the party and the consecration of its members to the general war-effort. The advocacy went astonishingly far, so far as to urge that the fight against capitalism be abandoned and that members of the Communist Party reconcile themselves to a two-party system in the United States and enrol themselves as either Republicans or Democrats. What matters here is the motive behind Mr. Browder's speech. If it is merely a recognition that the Communist Party in -the United States has never succeeded in establishing a position worth holding it is of very little consequence indeed. If it is to be connected with the decision to disband the Comintern and leave the Communist Parties in different countries to go whatever way they choose it is more interesting. If, as many serious commentators in America appear to think, it is the direct result of something more important still, the Teheran discussion between Mr. Churchill, President Roosevelt and Marshal Stalin, tl3en it is a very notable event indeed, for it means that Marshal Stalin intends in all seriousness to leave the existing social and economic systems in countries outside Russia unchallenged, and content himself, as was suggested in his controversy with Trotsky, with establishing a Communist (or more accurately a Socialist) State in Russia alone. But the Communist Party of America never attained any "considerable importance, and the fact of its disappearance will not in itself stir the political firma- ment deeply.
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