Fate of Austria - A Warning to Us!

n.p.: American Student Union, 1938. A flyer issued by the American Student Union at UC Berkeley urging students to support the five-point program adopted by the Associated Students of the Univ. of California's Peace Committee and calling for a "mass protest rally against Hitler's invasion of Austria." The ASUC's program consisted of opposition to Fascist aggression and U.S. rearmament; barring arms shipments to Italy and Germany; sending medical aid to Spain and China; opposition to the Shepperd-May bill, "which calls for military dictatorship in the United States"; and support of the Nye-Kvale bill for optional ROTC.

Previously a pacifist organization, the American Student Union voted to change its position on the war at its third annual convention held at Vassar College in January 1938, and this flyer reflects the change in tenor. The group's Communist majority continued to support the war even after the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939, causing its Socialist members to leave the organization. It remained a Communist youth group until its dissolution in 1941.

An 8 ½" x 11" sheet mimeographed on recto only. The top edge of the flyer is affixed to an opened brown envelope in some act of misguided preservation, with bibliographic info to the verso. Both folded once, else well-preserved, perhaps vindicating use of envelope after all.