THE NATION: We Would Oppose

For an instant, like heat lightning, an announcement dimly outlined a far horizon. There had been a shake-up in Soviet Russia's high command. The world was left to wonder about the details and the meaning of this dark, distant scene.

Another announcement was like a bolt striking close at hand, sharply outlining the neighborhood right around home. It came from William Z. Foster and Eugene Dennis, the two top American-born bosses of the U.S. Communist Party. The bold net of their announcement, stripped of its tortuous Communist lingo, was that their primary allegiance belonged not to their homeland but to the U.S.S.R. If war came, they and all faithful Communists would be on the side of Russia.

Said Foster and Dennis: "If, despite the efforts of the peace forces of America and the world, Wall Street should succeed in plunging the world into war, we would oppose it as an unjust, aggressive, imperialist war, as an undemocratic and an anti-Socialist war, destructive of the deepest interest of the American people."

Until last week, the American Communist Party had pretended to be a homegrown movement, with no roots in Moscow. President Truman, who only three months ago had denounced the Communist spy investigation as a red herring, had the word to describe U.S. Communists. Said he: "I have no comment on the statements by traitors."