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2 ——— Afar of U.S. Commas “© Browder ‘ inished, ’ Aims-of U.S. Communists May Crawl Back as Browder a Scapegoat, Minor Party Stooge ‘F inished’ a By Oliver H. Crawford (Third of « Series) Continued From First P . Jonting m First By Oliver H. Crawford mre Party in June, 1944, and even though ARL BROWDER, undisputed leader of the American Com- 4 was adopted unanimoysly and with munists for 16 years, has become the favorite whipping boy of cheers by the hational committee. his erstwhile comrades in New York these days and willeithet he american Communists had to quit the Communist Party or craw! abjectly back as a minor flunky eter their skiris of that policy to The status of Browder was one of the reasons for spending sev: prepare their role in the reconver- eral weeks mingling with the Communists on their native heath sion pericd. Browder was the of Greenwich Village. The answer is clear. sheen al to make the about- “Browder is kaput, finished,” they tell you. “Foster (Willlan and the Foster letter now can be . Foster) is the boss, and he doesn't want Browder around.” th to prove that the new “Don't be surprised,” one said, “if Browder turns up work , TO nen 1 the National Association of Manufacturers.” The party leaders who have three times rebuffed Browder a zs. ucunced him in a bizarre series of “confessions,” have set the atyle for the party underlings. D vorite diversions of the Communists at the present moment. And since the headline attractions in their neighborhood theaters are ‘Stalin Addresses the U. 8. 8. R.," “The Red Army Hecovers the Ukraine” and a double bill of the French and Russian revolytions jn the respective tongues, their time is divided. More interesting to the idie bystander is the trail leading di- rectly back to Moscow and the Comintern, reputedly dissolved in May, 1944. Foster apparently was the chosen new czar of the American: Communists as far back as January, 1945, for it was then he pre-, pared the trap for Browder in a document so secret that not even. the party membership in New York was aware of it. Some of the rank and file of the party are still pretty angry: at how thoroughly they were shut out of the imner dealing of the’ party. But, being Communists, and disciplined, they take it out, in grumbling. A heavy-set, swarthy fur worker, whom I met in a lower Broad- way cafeteria, expressed this viewpoint: "4 “Foster knew for six months that Browder was to go out, ” he aaid with a heavy accent, “But for six months the party members know nothing. They go blindly along until it is time for the big; blow-off.” t i an ek aio, a ee a, ERIDING Browder and attending the movies are the two ta-. an a * * ROWDER was faithfuly following the party line at the time,: B a line which called for complete co-operation with govern- ment and industry in support of the war effort, a policy to hich the Soviet Union had agieed at Teheran. - He had survived all of the previous zigs and tags | in the Com + Barty the industrial disorders of 1935, the ant!-Hitl I period of the Spanish Civil War, the pro-Hitler period beg with the German-Soviet non-seggression pact in August, 1939, and| the abrupt about-face when the Nazis invaded the Boviet Union on June 22, 1941. ; y Bince he was following Soviet Union policy, even to the extent | of offering to shake hands with J. MA. Morgan and gently chiding Vice President Wallace for an attack On Wall Street, Browder ex- pected to survive any future changes in the party line. But in January, 1945, as President Roosevelt took office for his fourth term and the last German offensive collapsed in Belgium, Browder called a routine meeting of the Communist national board in New York. Foster stunned that meeting by submitting a long letter criti- ~cizing Browder's policy of co-operation, “ The debate that followed was long and bitter. It ended with }. .. ohn tnttan haine valneatad ta the elasely guarded archives of the fa LE Te vine. Gelphia dagitrer ae oe CL, aTr-4 4 eter s Leader jeader of the American Communist: always Was opposed to co-operaticr with “monopolistic capital” a1 “bourgeois democracy.” . . ia TRE national convention . whic made Foster the leader was : mere formality, but it brought thi first of three subsequent results fo Browder. Foster followed with th second, a statement bragding Brow. der as a “bourgeois ref 4" anc a champion of “reactionary capi. lism.” Browder'’s response this time wa. rvile, In @ letter to the Commu. ist Party, he apologized for hi: visionist policy and asked to g: long in the new program. Thi time his rebuff came from furthe: sown in the Communist hierarchy wom John Williamson and Eugen: nBennis, members of the secretariat The handwriting is on the wall fo: Browder, A fourth rebum, if neces sary, WH] come frem atill furthe: down in the ranks. . } | * . BAS step has served its purpose as the Communist Party mo to renew its strength. Browder aloi+ was to blame, its members are nov free to say, but we Communists al- ways have been te our social- ist aims. . , . . FTlooked up Jay'Lovestone, now ar ‘official of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union ¢A, F. L.) ‘in the handsome uptown headquar- vters of that union. An active anti- sOommunist, he told me the odd: were 3 to 2 that Browder would quit the Communist Party. And Lovestone is an authority, ir a ‘sense, because he was head of the American Communist Party in 192! when the national convention § re- versed itself overnight and selectec obscure party worker as Com- rom whom did the order f£ wder’s elevation come? : From Stalin,” says Lovestone. (Continued Tomorrow}