“Just Say Russia is Collapsing Three Times a Day” (April 25, 1939)
by Mischa Richter (1910-2001)
11 x 13 in., ink and wash on paper
Coppola Collection
Mischa Richter (1910-2001) was a well-known New Yorker, King Features, and PM newspaper cartoonist who worked for the Communist Party’s literary journal “New Masses” in the late 1930 and early 1940s, becoming its art editor in the 1940s.
From the article on the page where this appeared… 1939… roll the tape…
“Current Catchwords: One of [the current] catchwords or slogans that deserves deep examination is the demand that the US must fight against “dictatorships of both right and left.” What is meant, practically, by those who use this catchword is that the US must refuse to cooperate with the Soviet Union. Its consequence… is to oppose every step by President Roosevelt to align the US with the peace forces of the work to halt the aggressors. … Roosevelt’s measures against the aggressor governments are the main danger to the peace of America and of the world, a view fully shared by the axis powers. We of the Communist Party… consider that the President’s leadership in this movement has been his greatest single contribution… He must make a clean break with the bankrupt and discredited [appeasement] policy of Chamberlain.”
The context for this cartoon is unclear. At this point, Russia was more or less allied with the US, although Stalin was also a more or less tyrannical leader. The editorial leadership would have been pro-Russia, so why does it help to think that Russia is collapsing?
The start of WWII was less than five months away. On April 13, Roosevelt had sent Hitler a telegram asking, “Are you willing to give assurance that your armed forces will not attack or invade the territory or possessions of the following independent nations?” Thirty-one countries were then listed. “If such assurance is given by your Government, I shall immediately transmit it to the Governments of the nations I have named, and I shall simultaneously inquire whether, as I am reasonably sure, each of the nations enumerated above will in turn give like assurance for transmission to you. Reciprocal assurances such as I have outlined will bring to the world an immediate measure of relief.” The message was ridiculed.
And on April 16, the Soviet Union proposed an alliance with Britain and France to contain German aggression in Eastern Europe. What we did not know is that the Soviets were working out their own non-aggression pact with the Nazis, which led directly to the invasion of Poland, and its subsequent division, at the end of August.
