Serialized in the "Daily Worker" in March 1940, published by the Communist Party USA to which Trumbo belonged, the book became "a rally point for the political left" which had opposed involvement in World War II during the period of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (1939-1941) when the USSR maintained a non aggression pact with Nazi Germany. Shortly after the 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union, Trumbo and his publishers decided to suspend reprinting the book until the end of the war, due to the Communist Party USA's support for the war so long as the US was allied with the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany.