Student Activism in the 1930s
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True Color
Stalin Forces ASU Out Into the Open

Mirror, 1/2/40

MOST BRAZEN EXPONENT of Communism among American youth is the American Student Union, which claims to have 30,000 members in 150 U. S. schools and colleges.

Last week the ASU wound up its fifth annual convention at the University of Wisconsin. Present were 450 delegates from all over the country who went grimly along the "party line," turned down 322-to-49 a resolution which would have named Russia as the aggressor in the war with Finland.

Meanwhile, the Communist Daily Worker approvingly described resolutions submitted to the convention as "calling for a struggle to . . . unmask the efforts of the imperialists to use Finland for a crusade against the U.S.S.R."

Party Liners

Formed in 1935, when the Socialist Student League for Industrial Democracy joined hands with the Communistic National Student League, the American Student Union has since been the tell-tale weathervane in the wind blowing from Moscow. Make "The Campus a Fortress of Democracy," as its letterhead read, was the slogan of the ASU for popular consumption.

In 1936, the word from Moscow was "peace," the ASU adopted the Oxford Oath, vowed not to support the U. S. in any war. By 1937 Moscow saw a menace in Japan, which was attacking China. The ASU urged a boycott of Japanese goods, threw silk stockings and ties on bonfires, chanted: "If you wear cotton, Japan gets nottin'!"

The Oxford Oath was dumped; "collective security" was the password.

In 1938 the ASU concentrated on the U.S. Theme of its convention in New York City was: "Keep Democracy Working by Keeping Democracy Moving Forward." Proudly displayed was a message from President Roosevelt.

A message in greeting from the President also opened the 1939 convention. Then the delegates listened to a defense of the Soviet Union's war policy by Earl Browder, general-secretary of the Communist Party.

Blasted later was the Dies Committee, which early in the month, had heard ASU national secretary Joseph P. Lash testify that "some" but "not all" ASU members were Communists.

Communist democracy: By a vote of 286-to-28, the 1939 convention turned down a proposal for a referendum to the entire ASU membership, to decide whether or not Russia is an aggressor against Finland.

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