To the Editor of the Crimson:

In past weeks the press (with few exceptions) has sought to convey the impression that the Communist movement has been shattered, its members mazed in confusion and disillusionment, its ranks thinned by mass defection. The resignation of Granville Hicks, reported in the Press, is already being seized upon as an incident to lend plausibility to this tissue of fiction.

The Communist movement has long been accustomed to the loss of a few individuals in critical times. But despite these isolated defections, it grows stronger and more unified on the basis of its correct position.

The Harvard Young Communist League takes this occasion to reaffirm its faith in the ideals and principles for which it has always stood. We believe that the activities of the soviet Union and the policies of the American Communist Party are entirely in accord with these principles. Although we appreciated Mr. Hicks' presence at Harvard during the past year, his present action can in no way alter our fundamental belief in the tenets of scientific socialism, the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin. We will persist in our policy, based on these teachings, of exerting every effort to keep the United States out of the present imperialist war.

Many of those who in 1917 rejected the Communist analysis of the last World War were forced later to recognize the imperialist character of that war. History has proved the complete correctness of the Communist analysis of the inevitability of a world economic depression, of the disastrous results of the Munich "peace-in-our time" policies.

Today the Communist analysis of the present and imperialist war deserves the serious attention of all those sincerely interested in peace.

A thorough analysis of the Communist position on the designs of Hitler and the Chamberlain Munich group, which the Crimon dismisses without any examination, an analysis substantiated in whole or in part by such prominent non-Marxists as George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, and Lloyd George, is being prepared for the campus. (signed)   The Executive Committee of the Harvard   Young Communist League.