Jay N. Darling (1876–1962)

It seems as though Russia had an attraction for editorial cartoonists in the early Stalin era -- there's David Low's account of visiting Russia, and here is the account of an editorial cartoonist of a different kidney, Jay Darling of the Des Moines Register, a cartoonist of nearly equal fame and skill to Low. Darling was generally a conservative (he was a fairly consistent critic of the New Deal, in spite of work he did for the Roosevelt Administration), but here, he does seem to try to give show more Russia the benefit of the doubt in some cases, while being genuinely critical in others (for example, in the way Russian propaganda works). Darling traveled through the Ukraine just before the Holodomor, so unlike Duranty, he can't be truly scored on that point, though aside from passing comments on kulaks, he doesn't really touch on that aspect. He does, I think, swing and badly miss on the issue of religious freedom, especially on his off-hand comments about the Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow. The drawings, of course, are top-notch. An interesting look at Russia before the dark night of the 1930s truly descended on Russia. show less