I'm sure it made all those lefties feel all warm and good even though it was clearly not true. I have read that he first wrote it on that c. 1940, as World War II had been going for several months, as Europeans measure that. Of course in places like Ethiopia it might rationally be considered to have started earlier. Needless to say, Woody Guthrie's guitar, even all of the Almanac Singers put together, had a nugatory effect in defeating fascism except in so far as any of them enlisted during WWII.
And that was after the Almanac Singers, as good commies during the period of the Hitler-Stalin pact sang songs condemning FDR as a warmonger, slamming Britain for fighting the war with the Nazis, you know, things they didn't tell us callow, young lefties about those lefty heroes during the 1960s folk revival. Woody Guthrie warn't the great hero the PR campaign claims he was. I believe Pete Seeger, perhaps alone of the Almanac Singers, late in life made some kind of apology for dutifully following the Stalinist line of the Communist Part, people every bit as evil as the fascists they proved they could get along with on orders from Stalin. At the time Stalin had a body count already in the millions, even as Mussolini and Hitler were mere beginners.
They left that out of the piece I remember reading in one of the lefty magazines about how FDR and others in his administration didn't trust those idiot young lefties in the Almanac singers. I recall reading somewhere that Woody's early mentor who gave him his radio show broke with him over the Hitler-Stalin pact so I suspect Woody, that great champion of "freedom" followed the party line on it. I can't claim that I've been able to maintain my image of him since finding out about it.
Update: I'm not making that up. Here's ol' Woody and Pete and Lee Hays and that other one I can't remember the name of slamming FDR and Eleanor as warmongers for J.P. Morgan IN 1941 EVEN AS WW II WAS ALREADY ON. You have to wonder, if Hitler's timing had been only slightly different if the Almanac Singers would, like the most corrupt of Republican businessmen, have been advocating doing business with Hitler into the month of the Wannsee Conference. It, in fact, was already going as those lefty heroes were writing and singing the song, the official genocides beginning in 1939 with the disabled.
As it happened, Hitler started his invasion of the Soviet Union right after the song came out and all those young commies and their backers withdrew the record and tried to destroy all copies of what had suddenly become so revealingly politically incorrect. If I'd heard this c. 1963 I'd have understood a lot that I didn't and I'm sure I wouldn't have bought nearly as many lies as I had. I never bought any Pete Seeger albums, as it was, it wasn't my thing. But I did see that documentary about The Weavers that, if I saw it now, would turn my stomach.
Update 2: The Almanac Singer whose name I couldn't remember was Millard Lampell who wrote that piece of crap get along with Hitler song for those idealistic young Commmies. He later turned to Hollywood script writing, writing several pieces of crap for the movies and being one of those who was persecuted by HUAC and blacklisted, though that only meant he had to use a pseudonym as he went on writing. Many writers in the land ruled by his great hero didn't make out nearly as well after he wrote the song or before. Lots of them ended up shot or worse, something I always feel obligated to point out.
Update: I'm not making that up. Here's ol' Woody and Pete and Lee Hays and that other one I can't remember the name of slamming FDR and Eleanor as warmongers for J.P. Morgan IN 1941 EVEN AS WW II WAS ALREADY ON. You have to wonder, if Hitler's timing had been only slightly different if the Almanac Singers would, like the most corrupt of Republican businessmen, have been advocating doing business with Hitler into the month of the Wannsee Conference. It, in fact, was already going as those lefty heroes were writing and singing the song, the official genocides beginning in 1939 with the disabled.
As it happened, Hitler started his invasion of the Soviet Union right after the song came out and all those young commies and their backers withdrew the record and tried to destroy all copies of what had suddenly become so revealingly politically incorrect. If I'd heard this c. 1963 I'd have understood a lot that I didn't and I'm sure I wouldn't have bought nearly as many lies as I had. I never bought any Pete Seeger albums, as it was, it wasn't my thing. But I did see that documentary about The Weavers that, if I saw it now, would turn my stomach.
Update 2: The Almanac Singer whose name I couldn't remember was Millard Lampell who wrote that piece of crap get along with Hitler song for those idealistic young Commmies. He later turned to Hollywood script writing, writing several pieces of crap for the movies and being one of those who was persecuted by HUAC and blacklisted, though that only meant he had to use a pseudonym as he went on writing. Many writers in the land ruled by his great hero didn't make out nearly as well after he wrote the song or before. Lots of them ended up shot or worse, something I always feel obligated to point out.
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