"Had We but Listened"

"We were wrong, terribly wrong." With those words, Manhattan's Daily Worker reached a bawling climax last week in its editorial breast-beating prompted by the deflation of Stalin. Commenting on the State Department's release of a text of Nikita Khrushchev's bitter charges against the dictator, the Worker abjectly apologized for its "blind and uncritical attitude" during Stalin's regime and for its "stupid and arrogant condemnation of those who told the truth about the violations of justice in the Soviet Union."

With its remorse, the Worker even dared to mingle some criticism of the new regime. It rapped the Russians for their "mistake" in not publicizing Khrushchev's speech themselves, took Khrushchev to task for omitting Stalin's anti-Semitism from the indictment. The Worker added: "We do not consider the speech to be the last word on just how Stalin's terror control came into existence and maintained itself for 20 years and of the role of other Communist leaders.

"We were wholly ignorant that these crimes had been committed, yet there was reputable evidence had we but listened. We did not want to believe these crimes could occur in a socialist state, and so we refused to believe. What was unforgivable and inexcusable was the manner in which we passed judgment--harsh and sometimes vindictive in tone--on many of our fellow Americans based solely on their criticism of the Stalin rule."

Another Worker editorial offered "sincere and heartfelt apologies" to a onetime target of Communist billingsgate: Anna Louise Strong, 70, longtime pro-Russian writer and lecturer. Welcoming her to Manhattan for a speaking engagement as a "veteran fighter for peace and socialism," the editorial said: "To our shame, we accepted unquestioningly a Moscow characterization of Miss Strong as an enemy of socialism when she was expelled from the Soviet Union, a crude frame-up since admitted and corrected by the post-Stalin regime." If the Worker planned to retract the abusive adjectives it has heaped on all other victims who had fallen out of favor, readers could brace themselves for many an apology still to come.

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