The Press: Money from Moscow

In Paris last week, L'Humanité, No. 2 Communist newspaper in the West (see above), screamed in pained indignation about a "scandalous verdict." L'Humanité had good reason to be pained, since the verdict pointed an.accusing finger at the source of its financial backing.

Last fall Paris' big (est. circ. 400,000), right-wing L'Aurore charged that L'Humanité, whose circulation has dropped from 600,000 to 172,000 in the last seven years, "would long ago be dead if [it had not received] subsidies from abroad." L'Humanité replied with a libel suit against L'Aurore, demanded 1,000,000 francs damages. In court, witness after witness backed up L'Aurore's charges of support from Russia. Among them:

¶ Onetime Spanish Communist Leader Julian Gorkin testified that both French and Spanish Communist campaigns were financed by Moscow. Sixty percent of the gold of the Spanish Republican government, he said, was whisked away to Moscow during the civil war, and more than $4,000,000 was later sent back to Paris, part of which went to set up the now defunct Communist daily, Ce Soir.

¶ Camille Bornerie, ex-Communist newsman, recalled that in 1937 the Communists received $1,000,000 from Russia for propaganda purposes, concluded: "I don't know why L'Humanité started this trial. When you are a Bolshevik soldier, there is nothing dishonorable about receiving money from the Soviet Union."

After hearing the evidence, the court threw out the libel suit, ruled that the charges against L'Humanité "are likely to be true." Added L'Aurore last week: "Such a judgment should open the eyes of those Frenchmen . . . who think that . . . the Communists have the interests of France at heart just like anyone else."