The Liberal Crisis

Last Thursday night the Harvard Liberal Union faced squarely up to the issue which confronts every liberal organization in America today--the issue which the American Veterans Committee faced in its Des Monies convention last summer and which threatens imminently in the ranks of the CIO: the issue of Communist domination. It is a question which on the one hand Congressman Rankin and others of his ilk have obscured by their irresponsible use of the epithet "Red" so as to render the word well-nigh meaningless, and on the other by the Communists in their unwillingness to declare themselves as such. By bringing up the question at an open meeting, the Liberal Union has done much to clear the surcharged atmosphere surrounding undergraduate political groups.

Making the point that although Harvard members of the American Youth for Democracy who are also members of the Liberal Union may perfectly well not be Communists, the overwhelming majority of the members of the Liberal Union concluded that AYD's origination in the Young Communist League and the antics of certain of its national officers render the charge that AYD is Communist-inspired a valid one. However, the fact that Communist front leadership has been decisively rejected does not mean that the Liberal Union has completely resolved its own version of the liberal program. For if the rejection of AYD leadership means that eventually it will lead to driving AYD members out of the organization, or that it will lead to a misguided policy of blind opposition to the Communists, then the Liberal Union will merely be acting out the old saw about cutting off one's nose.

However liberals may disagree with the long term aims of the Communists, members of the Party have nevertheless for a long time played a very real part in liberal movements. They are traditionally extremely energetic in political action, they are more alert to vital issues on which the average liberal would tend to talk about from the security of his own arm chair. The continued presence of AYD members within the framework of the Liberal Union is more than a case of whether the Liberal Union is to be considered as a genuinely democratic organization. Failure to work alongside the Communists, or the AYD, or what you will, on limited short-term objectives on which all happen to agree can only serve to weaken and finally split the liberal movement in America.