Back
The Pro-Red Orchestra In the USA, 1941
by James J. Martin
This article is adapted from Chapter One of the forthcoming book, Hands Across the Volga: American Mass Communication and the Wartime Affair with the Soviet Union, 1941-1947.
Contents
Part 1: Opinions and opinion makers in the USA
Part 2: Winston Churchill as a factor influencing Americans at the outset, June 1941
Part 3: Initial reaction of interventionist spokesmen and press to the Soviet entry into the European war
Part 4: Some diplomatic and economic straws in the wind
Part 5: The Roosevelt administration and press supporters lean toward aid at the time of the August 1941 Atlantic Conference
Part 6: The main pockets of resistance to supporting Stalin
Part 7: American Communists as a complication in the Soviet aid debate
Part 8: Time, corporate America and ‘culture’ contribute to the confusion
Part 9: New voices in behalf of assistance to Stalin, at home and abroad
Part 10: Continued annoyance from influential anti-Soviet liberal personalities, while pro-aid forces gain in academe
Part 11: October 1941 polls register a gain in aid-to-Stalin sentiment
Part 12: President Roosevelt creates a diversion over the religious issue
Part 13: Diplomatic moves toward vastly increased military aid to Stalin
Part 14: Culture, big names, and the well-placed lend their assistance to the building pro-Soviet bandwagon
Part 15: Echoes of the religious dust-up reverberate
Part 16: British propaganda diversions, and related American Anglophile support for the growing enhancement of Stalin
Part 17: Fellow travelers — domestic and foreign — add their bit
Part 18: Vote of no confidence from the Saturday Evening Post
Part 19: Some practical consequences of Soviet aid get aired
Part 20: The origins of "second front" talk in the West, and the impact of Soviet aid production on American labor and business/ businessmen
Part 21: Pearl Harbor forces a temporary diversion in the overall drive to assist the Soviet Union
Part 22: Reactions and second-guessing following Stalin’s avoidance of involvement in the war Against Japan
Part 23: The dimensions of the propaganda war as waged by the authors and publishers
Part 24: The ante rises after Pearl Harbor on production and appropriations for Stalin
Part 25: Davies’ book, Mission to Moscow, sets the tone on the adulation of Soviet Communism for the rest of the war
Part 26: Endnotes