Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1941, General, The Soviet Union, Volume I

811.00B/1870: Telegram

The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Steinhardt) to the Secretary of State

Moscow, January 6, 1941—7 p.m.
[Received 7:49 p.m.]

16. The December number of the Kommunistichesky International, Russian language periodical of the Comintern,² contains the text of a speech said to have been made by Browder³ on November 16, 1940 at a special congress of the Communist Party at which the congress voted, in view of the Voorhis law⁴ passed by the last session of Congress, to sever as of January 1, 1941 the organizational ties of the American Communist Party with the Communist International. As Browder’s speech presumably was given in full in the American Communist newspapers it will not be summarized here.

In view of the fact that the control exercised by the Comintern over its member parties in other countries is not effected through public channels, this ostensible severance of organizational ties is meaningless, especially in view of the resolution of the special congress that despite this act the American Communist Party would continue to serve the cause of Lenin⁵ and Stalin.⁶

Steinhardt

2. The Third (Communist) International founded by the Bolsheviks in Moscow in March 1919.
3. Earl Russell Browder, Secretary General of the Communist Party in the United States.
4. Anti-Subversive Activities Act, approved October 17, 1940; 54 Stat. 1201. Jerry Voorhis was a member of the House of Representatives from California.
5. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik Revolution of October (November) 1917; President of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Soviet Government until his death on January 21, 1924.
6. Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin, Secretary General of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks); member of the Politburo and Orgburo of the Party, etc.