Hicks Resigned Because He Can Not "Be Effective" in Communist Party

Granville Hicks resigned from the Communist Party because "it is no longer an organization in which I can be effective", according to a signed statement published in the New Republic today.

Hicks states that "the occasion of my resignation is the Soviet-German pact" but he continues that he cannot condemn nor support the pact because he does not know "what is going on in Europe."

The former Harvard Counsellor says that his immediate quarrel with the Communist Party is that its leaders have made definite statements defending the pact without the necessary information on which to base an intelligent opinion.

"They Have Rushed Into Print"

"If the party had left any room for doubt, I could go along with it, at least for the present. . . . They have rushed into print with apologetics completely devoid of clarity and logic," Hicks says.

Hicks does not believe that there is any political or financial tie between the Communist Party in America and Moscow, and he does not believe Communist leaders knew about the pact in advance. He believes that if the party did have any information about the pact it "should have prepared the American people for such a possibility."

The noted Communist author in his statement reiterates his faith in his Communist beliefs and his support of the Soviets, saying "I cannot now defend the pact, but I can conceive of history's justifying it . . . After all, the Soviet Union is a Socialist commonwealth, and, even if it makes mistakes, its fate is of the utmost concern to every believer in socialism."

In a statement printed on the editorial page today, the executive committee of the Harvard Young-Communist League, denies rumors of a split in its ranks, stating that "the resignation of Granville Hicks is already being seized upon as an incident to lend plausibility to this tissue of fictions."