Evening star., 1948-11-08
Molotov in Wonderland

Foreign Minister Molotov has outdone
himself in interpreting our election re-
turns. Addressing a gathering of Soviet
ofhcialdom marking the thirty-first ami
versary of the Russian revolution, he has
hailed Governor Dewey's defeat as a clear
sign OF the American peoples refusal to
support "a frankly reactionary and aggres-
sive program" against the U. 8. s. r. Tie
vote for Mr.. Truman and the Democrats,
1t appears, is proof positive that the great
bulk OF our electorate does not agree with
the idea that the Kremlin's policy is one
OF COMMUNICATING direct and indirect
aggression and that it must be firmly
resisted by the United States and the rest
Of the free world
Mr.. Molotov, in arriving at this Alice
in-Wonderland conclusion, has been Moth
Ing daunted by the fact that our foreign
policy has long been bipartisan in all
essentials, and that Mr.. Dewey and the
Republicans have espoused identically the
same course of fundamental action as that
initiated and carried out by Mr.. Truman
and the Democrats. But the Soviet leaders
and their propaganda machine have never
oeen known to let an obvious and unde-
oataole truth interfere with their party
hne; In the case of our election. as in
the case Of so many other matters in the
past, they simply turn reality upside down
and solemnly declare, like the queer people
IN Ailces Looking-Glass world, that black
is white or vice versa
or course, Mr.. Molotov has noted that
the election still leaves the United States
with government in favor of the Mar
snail Plan and interested in such projects
as a security pact with Western Europe,
nevertheless, as he purports to see the
returns, the votes supporting Henry Wal
laces most important" Progressive Party,
not to mention millions of working
people whose voices find no expression
IN the bought up mercenary organs of
the yellow bourgeois press" have shown
mat they are against what Premier
Stain has described as Anglo-French-
American policies for new aggression and
the unleashing of new wars" Mr.. Molotov
mas not attempted to explain just how
ne has been able to read this conclusion
into the pathetically microscopic vote
won by Mr.. Wallace. He has left that
task to Ilya Ehrenburg. Writing in Pravda.
Mr. Enrenburg makes it all very clear:
Most Americans, it seems, really wanted
TO elect Mr.. Wallace, but they feared
that II they cast their ballots for him.
the victory might go to the "war-minded"
Republicans, and SO they voted instead
Tor the less "war-minded" Democrats.
1t Is difficult to believe that either Mr..
Molotov or Mr.. Ehrenburg has deluded
himself into accepting such nonsense
as the truth. It is much easier to believe
that their topsy-turvy Wonderland logic
is deliberately designed as part of
home-front propaganda effort to make it
appear to the Russian masses that public
opinion in the United States, far from
being united behind a program of resist
ance to new Kremlin aggressions, is in
favor OF what the Soviet Union Is doing
Lincoln had Americans in mind when
he said, you can fool some of the people
all OF the time, and all of the people some
OF the time, but not all of the people
all OF the time. The maxim may not hold
true for the bamboozled multitudes be-
hind the Iron Curtain, but occasionally
1t seems that even they must be beginning
to catch on to the cruel hoax being per-
petrated against them by their colossally
dishonest dictatorship.