COMMUNISTS: We Grip Your Hand

In the deathbed issue of Manhattan's Communist New Masses last January, twelve Russian Communist writers addressed an open letter to their colleagues in the U.S. The gist of it: Whose side are you on? Last week, in the resurrected and rebaptized Masses & Mainstream, 32 U.S. writers, painters and musicians published their answer. Its gist: We're on your side, comrades.

Said the American "cultural workers": "We want to share responsibility with you . . . Our enemies will see that our international solidarity for peace and democracy stands firm against their frantic writhing and thrashing. On this May Day we grip your hand . . ."

The list of signers included such perennial prophets of the Communist faith as Novelist Howard (Citizen Tom Paine) Fast and a whole bevy of Daily Worker staffers: ex-New Masses Editor Joseph North, his onetime Executive Editor A. B. Magil, Ben Field. It included at least one former Communist Party official: V. J. Jerome (real name: Isaac Romain).

There were other names which pop up regularly all along the U.S. Communist line: ex-Yank Correspondent Walter Bernstein, Movie Scripter Alvah Bessie (now awaiting trial for contempt of Congress), New Yorker Profiler Richard O. Boyer, ex-Howard University Professor Doxey Wilkerson.

Among the not-so-well-known fellow travelers: Anthologist Ben Botkin; Playwright Arnaud (Deep Are the Roots) d'Usseau; Artists Philip Evergood,* Raphael Soyer and Max Weber; Pianist Ray Lev. Just over half were members of the Masses & Mainstream staff.