Comrade Stalin Explains

Last week Comrade Stalin gave his countrymen the explanation he had owed them since that Sunday morning when Russians woke up to learn that Germany had invaded their country. It was his job to explain why he had promoted the 1939 Non-Aggression Pact with Germany, which enabled Adolf Hitler to pick off his enemies by ones and twos until he was free to tackle Russia. Taking to the microphone, with a big pitcher of tea at his elbow, Comrade Stalin saluted his fellow comrades in patriarchal tones:

"Comrades, Citizens, Brothers and Sisters, Men of our Army and Navy! I am addressing you, my friends. ... A grave danger hangs over our country. . . ."

That danger, explained Comrade Stalin, was caused by the fact that Germany "suddenly and treacherously violated the Non-Aggression Pact. ... It may be asked: How could the Soviet Government have consented to conclude a non-aggression pact with such treacherous fiends as Hitler and Ribbentrop? Was not this an error on the part of the Soviet Government?"

Pouring himself a glass of tea to cool his throat, Comrade Stalin answered his own question: "Of course not! . . . Could the Soviet Government have declined such a proposal? I think that not a single peace-loving State could decline a peace treaty with a neighboring State, even though the latter was headed by such fiends and cannibals as Hitler and Ribbentrop. . . ."

Continuing his self-interrogation, Brother Stalin asked: "What did we gain? . . . We secured for our country peace for a year and a half and the opportunity of preparing our forces. . . . What has Fascist Germany gained and what has she lost? . . . She gained a certain advantageous position for her troops for a short period, but she has lost politically by exposing herself in the eyes of the entire world as a bloodthirsty aggressor. There can be no doubt that this short-lived military gain for Germany is only an episode, while the tremendous political gain for the U.S.S.R. is a serious and lasting factor. . . ."

Russia's politically naive many and politically cynical few may have swallowed this without even a gulp of tea, but outside of Russia it did not go down so well. Croaked the London Daily Mirror's caustic Columnist Cassandra: "Come off it, you gnarled old humbug! If ever a man picked up the starting gun and fired it to throw the world into war, that man was Comrade J. Stalin. . . . We can do without this hypocritical bilge, Comrade."

But Comrade Stalin had more, and more bizarrerie, to come. Gulping another glass of tea, he proceeded to talk to his people as though they lived in a careless land, bird free. "The Soviet people must . . . abandon all heedlessness; they must mobilize themselves and reorganize all their work on new, wartime lines. . . . Further, there must be no room in our ranks for whimperers and cowards, for panic-mongers and deserters; our 'people must know no fear in the fight and must selflessly join our patriotic war of liberation.

"He works so hard I wonder when he finds time to sleep," murmured a woman listener in Red Square. "I am worried about his health."

"Our war for the freedom of our country will merge with the struggle of the peoples of Europe and America for their independence, for democratic liberties." Here Comrade Stalin swallowed another gulp of tea and thanked Great Britain and the U.S. for their offers of aid. Calling on all the people to rally around, not the Communist State, but "the party of Lenin-Stalin," he concluded: "Forward, to our victory!"

The next day being July 4, the Russian radio had a good opportunity to plug in Comrade Stalin's newest party line. It devoted an hour to an English-language program, the theme of which was: "The people of the Soviet Union, now fighting a great patriotic war in defense of their country . . . extend their ardent greetings to the American people on the occasion of their glorious national holiday. ... It is altogether fitting on this occasion for the American and Russian people to clasp hands more firmly. . . ."

The conscious humor of the week was furnished by beetle-browed little Foreign Vice Commissar Solomon Lozovsky, that colorful Old Bolshevik who holds the record of having escaped from prison more times than any living Communist. New Spokesman for the U.S.S.R., in a press conference he referred to the "shocking fact" that Albania had declared war on the Soviet Union. This step, said he, was taken under the direction of "Italy's Al Capone, known as Mussolini." As for the German claims of mighty victories, said Funnyman Lozovsky, "they remind me of the story of the hunter who shouted: 'I have caught a bear, but he won't let me go.' "

All of this was very funny--or it would have been if a couple of years ago the rest of the anti-Fascist world had been any smarter than Comrade Stalin and comrades.

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