I read Emily's posting about the Janaury 1st, 2nd and 3rd of 1936 issues of the Daily Worker. I have not looked at microfilm yet, and am impressed and inspired to check it out after reading this post.
The paper sounds like a strong piece of propaganda, which would make the articles pretty boring to me. I was interested in the article about Stalin's interest and knowledge about agriculture, however. Emily brings up the good question of how the US Communist party related the Soviet Union's emphasis on agriculture to a largely industrial following in the States. Agriculture seems to represent the roots of civilization; In Homer's The Oddesey, Oddyseus often defines barbarism as a state in which nature grows wild and independently of man. In H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, the main character looks out over the land from a hilltop, and, seeing no dividing line between farmers' fields, says one word: Communism. Wells seems to equate agriculture with the development of private property because one must keep ones crops to oneself in order to sell them and make money, and the only way to delineate between your crops and your neighbors' crops is to put up fences and stake out your territory. Stalin obviously holds a different view toward agriculture, perhaps seeing it as a good, simple labor for man to undertake.
I'm surprised the paper came out daily. For such a specific paper, I would have thought it would come out weekly or monthly. Today, it seems that a paper like the Daily Worker would not have enough readers or staff to make daily publication feasible. One of the filmmakers from the Good Fight spoke of reading a dozen papers a day to get all the different angles on the news, a possibility I cannot fathom. I try to read the free papers I find whenever I can. My family subscribed to the New York Times at home, but even then I did not take the time to read more than an article or two a day. The knowledge of world and local affairs during the time the volunteers decided to volunteer must have been so much more thorough than today. It helps me understand how young men and women can decide to risk their lives fighting against fascism across the Atlantic Ocean in Spain.
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It is interesting to see your surprise at the idea that the Daily Worker actually had a following sufficient for daily publication. It kind of surprised me at first too, but I guess we should expect the unexpected during times as drastic as the Depression. These days it seems like the type of publication we would find strictly on the internet.
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