1940.01.02 “Look Who’s Here, Buddy”
by Mischa Richter (1910-2001)
15 x 19 in., ink and wash on paper
Coppola Collection
Mischa Richter (1910-2001) was a well-known New Yorker, King Features, and PM newspaper cartoonist who worked for the Communist Party’s literary journal “New Masses” in the late 1930 and early 1940s, becoming its art editor in the 1940s.
The Winter War was between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet invasion of Finland on November 30, 1939, three months after the outbreak of World War II, and ended three and a half months later with the Moscow Peace Treaty on March 13, 1940.
The placard “Help Finland” refers to the Winter War, when Finland’s resistance to the Soviet invasion triggered a wave of sympathy in the US, especially among anti-communists and mainstream newspapers. For New Masses, which was firmly on the left and broadly sympathetic to the USSR at this moment, this sympathy was deeply suspect.
The two flanking figures are spectral reminders of recent American crises. The apple seller evokes Depression-era street poverty, men reduced to selling apples for pennies, a ubiquitous image of early-1930s desperation. The Bonus Marcher recalls the 1932 march of WWI veterans demanding early payment of promised bonuses, many of whom were violently expelled from Washington by federal troops. Both figures are unmistakably American victims, men who once stood in full public view, asking for help, and were denied or suppressed.
The tone of the dialogue between the two ghosts is bitter: oh, so now there’s money. The implication is that humanitarian concern becomes fashionable only when it aligns with elite interests, whereas those who once begged within the US were treated as nuisances, threats, or embarrassments. Who is allowed to ask for help without being criminalized?
In early 1940, New Masses repeatedly attacked what it saw as hypocritical outrage over Finland while unemployment, labor repression, racial violence, and veteran neglect persisted at home.
By January 2, 1940, pleas to help Finland during the Winter War were intense, with President Roosevelt publicly expressing admiration for Finland's government and people while condemning Soviet aggression, even as Finland's government intensified desperate requests for troops and military aid from Sweden, France, and Britain, hoping for intervention against the invading Soviets despite limited tangible support materializing.
