Grasping Reality on TypePad, by Brad DeLong

George Orwell, August 22, 1939:

Foreign & General

1. Officially stated in Berlin that Ribbentropp flies to Moscow tomorrow to sign non-agression pact with U.S.S.R. News later confirmed from Moscow by Tass Agency, in a way that seems to make it clear that pact will go through. Little comment in any of the papers, the news having evidently arrived in the small hours of this morning & the Russian confirmation only in time for the stop press. Reported suggestion from Washington that it may be a Russian manoeuvre (ie. to bring England & France to heel) but everyone else seems to take it at face-value. Shares on the whole have dropped. Germans still buying shellac etc. heavily. The military talks were still proceeding yesterday. Daily Telegraph [a]; Daily Mail [b]; News Chronicle [c]; Daily Mirror [d]

Social

1. Illegal radio, somewhat on the lines of German Freiheit movement’s radio, has been broadcasting anti-conscription propaganda. Secretary of P.P.U. (Rowntree?) denies knowledge but does not dissociate himself from the talks. P.O. engineers state that they have tracked down location of radio to within a few houses & will soon run it to earth. Indication is that it takes at least some days to locate an illegal radio Daily Telegraph [e]

Party Politics

1. Letchworth “Citizen” reprints long article on Sir A. Wilson from Sunday Pictorial with evident approval Letchworth Citizen, no date

2. Soc. Corresp. Prints long statement on war issue by Comm. Opp. setting forth hoplessly complicated programme of supporting anti-Fascist war & at same time disillusioning the working class etc., etc. But makes statement (probably true as Thalheimer & others would have knowledge of Russian conditions of at any rate a few years ago) that tho’ the Red Army is now more or less as other armies, the reserves still receive more or less the training of a revolutionary army. Also violent attack on I.L.P. signed by 3 sets of initials one Audrey Brockway’s[2], launching slogan of 4th International. Socialist Correspondence