THE COMMUNIST ALMANAC
From the “American Times” Sunday Review of Books, A. D. 1944
SATAN SANCTIFIED
_A New Religion Enters the Lists_
There come to the desk of a literary editor many volumes which could not
by any stretch of the imagination be considered as literature. But they
are printed and bound, and those who write them believe them of
importance, and others may be of the same opinion. So it becomes the
task of a reviewer to give an account of these volumes.
The book now before us came through the mails, bearing no indication as
to the sender; and examination of the contents quickly reveals the
reason. Those who print and circulate the volume know that in so doing
they render themselves liable to the lethal gas chamber. Nevertheless,
they are impelled by fanaticism to incur the risk, so here is the result
on our desk. Technically, we believe the editor incurs penalties by
keeping the volume, instead of turning it over to the police
authorities. But it seems to us a matter of importance that the public
should know what sort of material is now being circulated among the
populace, and for that reason we give an account of the contents of the
“Communist Almanac for 1944.”
It is perhaps a natural tendency of the human mind, an inevitable
process of history, that holders of proscribed opinions should see
themselves as martyrs, and endeavor to capitalize their sufferings for
political advantage. So, ever since the extermination of the Soviet
government by the armed forces of the civilized world, the surviving
Communists, hiding in forests and holes in the ground, have been seeing
themselves as founders of a new religion. In this document which they
now put before us, we find the creed and ritual of this monstrous
perversion of the so-called proletarian mind, together with the
biographies of its founder and the acts of its leading martyrs.
The founder is Nikolai Lenin, and, incredible as it may seem, this
person has been selected for sanctification! A couple of years before
his death, an almost successful attempt was made to assassinate him, and
the bullets then shot into his body are said to have been the final
cause of his death. That is sufficient to constitute martyrdom in the
Soviet formula, and to entitle Vladimir Ulianov to become a legend. For
a year after his death the Soviet government attempted to preserve his
body in mummy form; but this kind of immortality being unattainable, the
body was buried, and soon afterwards rumors began to spring up all over
Russia to the effect that Lenin had come back to life, and was
reappearing to his followers, giving them advice about the management of
his Bolshevik dictatorship. That was a miracle; so now Lenin is a divine
personage, and those who died in the faith of the “proletarian”
revolution are martyrs and saints. At least, that is the thesis of the
“Communist Almanac for 1944.”
The volume opens with no less than four biographies of the founder,
alleged to have been composed by different followers who knew him
intimately, Mattiu Shipinsky, Marco Sugarmann, Luka Herzkovitz, and Ivan
Petchnikoff. The last, it appears, is a kind of philosopher, and
provides for the Bolshevik cult the mantle of a mystical and
metaphysical system. It is amusing to note that the four biographies go
into minute detail--and differ as to many of these details! They purport
to quote their founder verbatim--and his words on the same occasions are
seldom the same words! Most absurd yet, they cannot even agree about his
ancestry! In fact, they cannot agree about anything, except that he was
the most remarkable person who has ever lived on earth, the bearer of a
new revelation to mankind.
Following the biographies, the “Almanac” proceeds to a long recital of
the doings of various propagandists of the cult, their travels over the
world in the interest of the “class struggle,” and the persecutions to
which they were subjected in various countries. It is a melancholy duty
to record that among these emissaries of disaster were several of
American birth and ancestry. One of the easy ways of achieving
sanctification under the Bolshevik system is to be bitten by a
body-louse, and to die of typhus. So among the Soviet apostles we find
the figure of John Reed, graduate of Harvard University, and traitor to
his country and his race.
Next we have various communications from these agents of social chaos,
addressed to their deluded followers. This part of the volume is almost
comical, in the solemnity with which these precious words are recorded
and preserved for the benefit of posterity. Needless to say, the
communications contain exhortations to the party members to remain
steadfast in the faith, and to carry the message to their fellow
“wage-slaves.” This portion of the volume is known as the
“Epistles”--the word “epistle” being Russian for letter.
Finally, there is a collection of miscellaneous prophesyings, attributed
to a former commissar under the Russian Bolshevik government. All we can
say concerning this part of the volume is that we have been unable to
find out what it means, and it seems destined to serve as an inspiration
to all the lunatics and would-be prophets of the next two thousand
years. It is called “Revelations,” and closes the amazing volume.
We think the time has come when public sentiment should make plain that
the present laxity of the Department of Justice toward Communist
agitators, and the whole tribe of “parlor Bolsheviks” and “pinks,” will
no longer be tolerated. We should be sorry to see this country return to
the old days of the Democratic and Republican parties, and the oil
scandals of the Harding-Coolidge era. But when we read a collection of
perversities such as this “Communist Almanac,” we cannot but sigh for
the return of Palmer and Daugherty, when red-blooded hundred per cent
Americans set to work with vigor to preserve their country from the
fanatical propagandists of class greed.