VL Communst Turn ... Maybe NP, maybe not: an inquiry

[Terrance]

> (May 16, 1918), law passed by Congress during World War I providing for
> punishment of persons who interfered with the war effort, spoke disloyally
> of the U.S. Constitution or federal government, or hindered the production
> of war materials. Eugene V. Debs, leader of the U.S. Socialist party, was
> imprisoned under this act. Congress repealed the law in 1921.


That's quite a Turn. 

"The War,"  Sasha says, "Changed Everything." 

WWII, that is.  



The Communist Turn Pynchon was complete before Pearl Harbor. 


A back flip with a full twist and Great Britain is purged of all her
Sins (P drives this point home in his Intro to 1984) and Hitler is now
to be hated more than Roosevelt. The Imperialistic blood bath becomes a
People's War for Freedom; Sumner Welles is now a Progressive and Burton
Wheeler an Enemy of the People. The performance of a trapeze artist in a
circus is entertainment, but political acrobats in pink tights posing as
the leaders of the American Working Class is the beginning of the great
Turn by the Left in America annd Frenesi what that Turn gave birth to. 

When Germany and Russia signed a nonagression pact on August 23,
clearing the way for the German-Soviet partition of Poland and the
Soviet occupation of the Baltic States, the Communist led Left in
America pledged their support for Roosevelt's preparedness campaign even
as they preached "Keep America out of the Imperialist War" to the Rank
and File. Union memebership exploded and the Communists delivered the
bread and butter, but there ideological hypocricies would split the
American Labor movement in two and set the stage for its dememberment by
the Anti-Communists. In June 1941 Hitler invaded the Soviet Union,  the
Turn was complete. The Yanks are coming the Communists Union leaders
pledged. The Turn was immediate.