to see what the fishing will bring. Each day, unfortunately, communist
thought-control nets, sweeping through American life, catch new
supporters, maybe two or three new members, several sympathizers, an
opportunist, many victims. A “big-name” sympathizer is worth a great deal
and so is another fellow traveler. Each can be put to work. The strength
of the Communist Party depends, at any given time, on the number of fish
in the net.
How can we, as Americans, protect ourselves from becoming “innocent
victims” of the communists?
First, we should not fall for “fronts.” In Chapter 17 you will find a
detailed description of how communist fronts operate, together with a
twelve-point list of ways to spot them so that we will not be fooled
into giving them our support. (The Attorney General of the United States
has issued a list of subversive organizations, and the House Committee
on Un-American Activities has also issued a _Guide to Subversive
Organizations and Publications_.)
Second, we should know the answers to the _Five False Claims of
Communism_. In the next chapter we shall learn what those claims are
and how United States communists use them to disarm and confuse loyal
Americans. We should learn to spot those claims, and know the answers.
Finally, we should not permit the use of our names unless we know
the true identity of the soliciting group. We should use our right
of petition to further the American way of life, and not allow the
communists to steal it from us.
7.
_What Do U.S. Communists Claim?_
I have said that one of the chief strengths of the Communist Party has
been its ability to appeal, by trickery, to many Americans who are
sincere, idealistic, and well-meaning.
A first step in arming ourselves against communism is to know how those
appeals are made and how to see through them. So now let us consider five
of the most deceptive claims made by the Communist Party, USA, in its
effort to lure “innocent victims.” Let’s see what communists pretend to
be and what they really are:
1. _Communists are not liberals._ The concept that communism is a new
world of liberalism is false, a trap used to catch noncommunists. The
word “liberal” has a fine, upright meaning and is symbolic of a great
historic tradition. That is why the communists appropriate the term for
their own use.
Communism is the very opposite of liberalism. Liberalism means increased
rights for the citizen; a curb on the powers of the central government;
freedom of speech, religion, and the press. Communism means fewer and
fewer rights for the private citizen, curtailment of freedom of speech
and press and worship of God. The state becomes all-powerful, the
absolute reverse of American tradition.
Make no mistake, communists do not like liberalism; that is, the genuine
liberalism of Western civilization. They denounce liberals (“liberal
blockheads” Lenin called them) and attempt by every means to destroy
them. The communists realize that true liberalism is a bitter enemy, a
fighter for the things that communism opposes.
A derisive poem entitled “March of the Liberals” published in the July
16, 1935, issue of _New Masses_ (a now-defunct communist publication)
makes clear this communist attitude, depicting liberals as weak,
vacillating, and incapable of any affirmative action:
a conclusion is something
we never can find....
... One step forward
and two steps back:
that’s the method
of our attack.
“You see here,” _New Masses_ comments, “the rhyme and reason of why a
liberal looks so poisonous to a sincere and active radical....” The
“antidote” for such liberalism? “Weekly doses” of Marxism-Leninism, or,
in the words of the editors, “If you know one of these ‘open-minded’
marchers, you can save him! Give him a copy of NEW MASSES quick....”
The liberals do not want revolution but genuine social reforms. That is
why the communists detest them. But if they can be exploited, so much the
better. Like everybody else, they are fuel for the communist engine of
revolution.
2. _Communists are not progressives._ “We of the Communist Party are
fully and completely in the camp of progress....” A prime tenet of
communist propaganda is that communism is the latest word in social
progress. All other forms of government, especially our constitutional
government, according to the communists are outmoded, old-fashioned, and
antique. Communism is the wave of the future, they like to say, bringing
all the good things that man has been dreaming about for years. Religion,
the “opium” of the people, must be destroyed, God cast out, and the
“oppressors” liquidated. The road ahead is clear. Join the Communist
Party and see “progress.” Those who do not join are “reactionaries,”
“fascists,” and “warmongers.”
Everybody likes progress. If you are a farmer, you want to grow better
corn and more of it. If you have a lawn, you want to weed out the
dandelions and have better grass. If you are a manufacturer, you want to
develop a better product. This is a natural human trait. The communists,
identifying themselves with this idea, have convinced many people that
they are the “progressives” of the twentieth century.
The exact opposite is true. Communists are barbarians in modern dress,
using both club and blood purge.
Shortly before 1700 Peter the Great came to the throne in Russia. He
was ruthless and dictatorial. He was interested in making the Russian
state strong. The church, the nobles, the peasants, everybody must be
subjected. The most minute details came under his supervision. The army
was reorganized, a new civil service put into operation. He even ordered
men to shave their beards and women to dress in modern clothing. The law
was what he said it was.
Communists have inherited this tradition. With modern, efficient tools,
such as the secret police, the army, and control of communications, they
have increased the tyranny of the state. The individual under communism
is a mere number with two shoulders to carry a bale of hay or a couple
of feed sacks, two hands to pull a wagon or drive a tractor. This is not
progress but a turning backward, throwing away the fruits of history,
religion, and free government.
3. _Communists are not social reformers_, people working for the
betterment of living conditions. “The Communist Party ... champions the
... interests of the workers, farmers, the Negro people and all others
who labor by hand and brain....” This theme, here quoted from the 1957
Party Constitution, is exploited time after time, to attract noncommunist
support.
Some years ago a very distinguished person, after reading a summary
of the program of a communist-front organization, commented that if
communists worked for desirable objectives, that was praiseworthy.
However, in this individual’s opinion, such action could hardly represent
much of a gain for communism, except perhaps to make it more like
democracy.
This is a complete misunderstanding of communism and is just what the
Party desires. The communists detest democratic reforms. These changes,
they know, will make free government stronger, hence less likely to
be overthrown by revolution. Their espousal of reforms (higher wages,
better working conditions, elimination of racial discrimination) is
strictly a revolutionary tactic. That communism, by such mass agitation,
might gradually change to democracy is a false and dangerous illusion.
Communism’s goal is world revolution. Any device that will advance its
cause is urgently pursued.
Lenin himself is frank:
The strictest loyalty to the ideas of Communism must be
combined with the ability to make all the necessary practical
compromises, to “tack,” to make agreements, zigzags, retreats
and so on....
4. _The Communists do not believe in democracy_. Communist leaders of
all ranks, from N. S. Khrushchev to William Z. Foster, from Lenin to
the communist agitator on the corner of 12th and Market Streets, have
proclaimed that communism is the most highly developed form of democracy.
Lenin stated that the Soviet Union was “a million times more democratic”
than the most advanced capitalist democracies of the West. William Z.
Foster in an official statement commented, “The Communist Party is a
democratic movement,” adding:
And in the Soviet Union ... there exists a higher type of
democracy than in any other country in the world.
Mention must be made, to understand this double talk, of a communist
deceptive device called _Aesopian language_.
Nearly everyone is familiar with the fables of Aesop, such as “The Fox
and the Crow” and “The Lion and the Mouse.” Often the point of the story
is not directly stated but must be inferred by the reader. This is a
“roundabout” presentation.
Lenin and his associates before 1917, when living in exile, made
frequent use of “Aesopianism.” Much of their propaganda was written in a
“roundabout” and elusive style to pass severe Czarist censorship. They
desired revolution but could not say so. They had to resort to hints,
theoretical discussions, even substituting words, which, though fooling
the censor, were understood by the “initiated,” that is, individuals
trained in Party terminology.
The official _History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
(Bolsheviks)_, telling how Bolshevik agitation in Saint Petersburg in
1912-14 was led by _Pravda_, the communist newspaper, explained that the
periodical could not openly call for revolutionary action. That would
have brought government suppression. Rather, “hints,” understood by the
communists, were used:
When, for example, _Pravda_ wrote of the “full and uncurtailed
demands of the Year Five,” the workers understood that this
meant the revolutionary slogans of the Bolsheviks, namely, the
overthrow of tsardom....
In 1914 labor troubles sprang up in the capital of Russia. The
communists wanted mass meetings and demonstrations. _Pravda_ couldn’t
publicly sound the call, so it resorted to Aesopian language.
But [the communist _History_ reads] the call was understood
by class-conscious workers when they read an article by Lenin
bearing the modest title “Forms of the Working-Class Movement”
and stating that at the given moment strikes should yield place
to a higher form of the working-class movement—which meant a
call to organize meetings and demonstrations.
Lenin himself told how he was compelled to write:
with an eye to the tsarist censorship. Hence, I was not
only forced to confine myself strictly to an exclusively
theoretical, mainly economic analysis of facts, but to
formulate the few necessary observations on politics with
extreme caution, by hints, in that Aesopian language—in that
cursed Aesopian language—to which tsarism compelled all
revolutionaries to have recourse, whenever they took up their
pens to write a “legal” work.
In one propaganda tract Lenin, writing about world problems, mentioned
“Japan.” However, as he later explained, that was merely a trick to pass
the censor. “The careful reader,” Lenin said, “will easily substitute
Russia for Japan....”
So it is with the word “democracy.” Communists still use Aesopian
language; they say one thing and mean another. In this manner they fool
noncommunists, encouraging them to believe that communism stands for
something desirable. The trained communist knows otherwise: it is mere
double talk with a completely different meaning.
The word “democracy” is one of the communists’ favorite Aesopian terms.
They say they favor democracy, that communism will bring the fullest
democracy in the history of mankind. But, to the communists, democracy
does not mean free speech, free elections, or the right of minorities
to exist. Democracy means the domination of the communist state, the
complete supremacy of the Party. The greater the communist control, the
more “democracy.” “Full democracy,” to the communist, will come only when
all noncommunist opposition is liquidated.
Such expressions as “democracy,” “equality,” “freedom,” and “justice” are
merely the Party’s Aesopian devices to impress noncommunists. Communists
are masters at getting other people to do their work. They clothe
themselves with everything good, noble, and inspiring to exploit these
ideals to their own advantage.
5. _Communists are not American._ The Communist Party, USA, endeavors, in
every possible way, to convince this country that it is American. “The
Communist Party is American,” one of its top leaders recently proclaimed.
“... We take second place to nobody in our devotion to the United States
and its people.”
This is a typical Aesopian trick. Communism stands for everything America
abhors: slave camps, rigged elections, purges, dictatorship. As we saw
in Part II, the communist movement was born abroad, was imported into
the United States, and grew up under the personal direction of Russian
leaders in Moscow. How can communism be American when it employs every
form of treason and trickery to bring about ultimate domination of the
United States by a foreign power?
The American people, fortunately, are now more than ever aware of
the danger of communism. The hostile attitude of Soviet Russia in
international affairs, the Canadian spy revelations, Khrushchev’s
denunciation of Stalin, Soviet intervention in Hungary, the aggression
in Korea—all these events, and many more, have taught Americans that the
communist is not an angel of mercy, ministering to the weak, oppressed,
and wounded, but a menacing demon spattered with blood and wielding a
hammer and sickle of iron.
Nevertheless, great damage has been done, and is still being done, in
miscalculating and failing to understand the true nature of communism.
In the 1930’s, and especially during World War II when Russia was a
military ally, this foreign ideology gained tremendous strength.
The Party in 1944 claimed a membership of 80,000. Communist fronts
welcomed overflow crowds; distinguished citizens flocked to do their
work. A great backlog of influence was built up upon which the Party
is still drawing. Thought-control nets touched, in one way or another,
literally thousands of sympathizers and victims. Many individuals,
people who should have known better, went completely overboard, hailing
communism as “Twentieth-century Americanism,” a term widely publicized by
the communists themselves.
Henry A. Wallace, in a frank and forthright article entitled “Where I
Was Wrong,” published in _This Week_ magazine on September 7, 1952,
graphically pictured the communist power of deception, how he incorrectly
interpreted communism and its counterpart, Russian imperialism.
While Vice-President of the United States, and even later, Wallace
thought Russia “wanted and needed peace.” He visited the Soviet Union in
1944 and was favorably impressed. But, as the article relates, he did not
realize during his tour the feverish efforts being made by the Soviets to
hoodwink him. For example, he visited Magadan, a city in Siberia, which
was one of the Soviets’ most notorious slave labor camps. “Nothing I saw
at Magadan or anywhere else in Soviet Asia suggested slave labor.” Later
he learned of the Soviet actions
... to pull the wool over our eyes and make Magadan into a
Potemkin village [an ideal show city especially built for
visitors] for my inspection. Watch towers were torn down.
Prisoners were herded away out of sight. On this basis, what we
saw produced a false impression.
Mr. Wallace then added these important words:
... what I did not see was the Soviet determination to enslave
the common man morally, mentally and physically for its own
imperial purposes.
The communists claim to be many things they are not. All over the world
and in every field of human life they have erected false fronts, Potemkin
villages, to fool and enslave mankind.
8.
_Why Do People Become Communists?_
In the last chapter the Five False Claims of Communism showed how,
in truth, communists stand for everything that is abhorred by normal
Americans.
Why, then, do Americans turn communist?
The answer involves many details and is not simple. Most communists are
ordinary-looking people, like your seatmate on the bus or a clerk in one
of your neighborhood stores.
Most communists in the United States are now native-born. Others are
naturalized citizens; a few are aliens. Some have never gone to school
and have difficulty reading and writing. Many are well educated and have
college and university degrees. Often they possess special talents in one
field or another.
A member may earn his living in practically any occupation or profession.
Not long ago a large Communist Party section listed members in these
categories, tabulated as “professional and white collar”: artists,
actors, doctors, dentists, educators, engineers, draftsmen, lawyers,
musicians, nurses, newspaper writers, office workers, salesmen,
social-service workers, pharmacists, clergymen. Or a member may be a
butcher, carpenter, mechanic, truck driver, plumber, or laborer.
Members are recruited from all nationalities, races, and areas of the
country. They may live in expensive mansions or tumble-down homes.
They are of all ages. Never can a communist be identified simply by his
physical appearance, occupation, or clothes.
Why, you may ask, do these individuals join? And why, especially in this
country, which, under democracy, has such a long and heartening record of
expanding privilege and opportunity for so many?
Perhaps we can better understand why members join if we look at an actual
case, which we can call the Case of Lost Faith.
Jack was born in a Midwestern city. He was tall, brown-haired, and
possessed a pleasant disposition. He liked school and endeavored to
please his teachers. He was intensely curious concerning the world about
him, especially the physical sciences.
Then something started to happen to him, slowly but surely. His faith
in God and religion seemed to be fading. As he later told FBI agents,
he felt this loss already in high school. By the time of his graduation
his faith in religion, which as a small child had been most sincere
and tenacious, had completely disappeared. There was now inside him a
spiritual vacuum.
Upon entering college Jack found himself with an exceedingly curious mind
but one uncontrolled by any spiritual faith. In a class on government
he made the acquaintance of the _Communist Manifesto_. Later he read
sections of Engels’ _Anti-Dühring_, which, among other things, discusses
Marxist theory in relation to science. He was impressed. Here were some
ideas that seemed to offer something positive and new.
Then one day, almost by chance, he came upon a leaflet distributed on the
campus by a communist club. Jack became interested and made contact with
the Party. Here, for the first time, he seemed to find an “answer” to the
problems that had plagued him. Here, in the Party’s claim to be working
for a better world, Jack believed he had found a new “faith,” which would
give meaning and validity to his life. Though later he was to realize his
tragic error, Jack joined the Communist Party.
In many instances we know, joining the Communist Party comes from a loss
of faith, so to speak, in our Judaic-Christian heritage and earnest,
though perverted, seeking for a new faith. The individual is trying to
find solutions to problems, real or fancied, that disturb his life.
Many reasons cause individuals to join the Party, but undoubtedly most
important is the Party’s appeal to idealistic motivations, to a “bright
new world” where justice, peace, and freedom will replace strife,
injustice, and inhumanity. “I believed that in the Communist Party was
the beginning of a true brotherhood of man, working with devotion for
socialism, peace and democracy,” wrote Howard Fast, one of the Party’s
best-known writers, later to become bitterly disillusioned. “... I
believed, as did millions of men of good will, that the only truth about
the Soviet Union was the picture presented by friends of the Soviet
Union.”
Communism with its deceitful double talk exploits these basic human
yearnings for better social conditions, racial equality, justice, and
peace, and places them in the service of tyranny. In this way, strange as
it may sound, communists are able to entice free men to fight for slavery
in the name of freedom.
Unfortunately, this idealistic motivation has given thousands of members,
from brilliant scientists like Klaus Fuchs to ordinary laboring men,
undaunted zeal and enthusiasm. Members driven on by this idealism have
been willing to sacrifice their homes, families, and lives for the cause.
They have become inflamed with a passionate, though twisted, courage.
This is the motivation of the New York functionary who thought that five
or six hours of sleep a night were sufficient for any member and regarded
any request for time off as traitorous. “You can get your recreation
after the revolution,” she once snapped at an associate.
The Communist Party, in a very true sense, becomes as in the case of Jack
a new but bigoted faith.
The FBI has interviewed many hundreds of Party members. A few case
histories will illustrate why many joined. By understanding these
influences we can do much to defeat the Party’s present recruitment drive.
Let’s take the case of Eric. He is typical of the many who joined the
Party during the economic depression. He remembered his youth as days of
“deprivation.” He worked at odd jobs, such as helping the milkman and
caring for chickens. But everywhere he went he met bitter frustrations.
He became more and more dissatisfied with existing economic conditions.
Then one day at a secondhand bookstore he came upon some documents that
alleged very unsatisfactory conditions in American economic life. Eric
bought and read these documents. “The effect upon me was profound; I
don’t believe that anything I have ever read has had the same impact
upon me since.” In his own words, he felt a “terrific compulsion ... to
do something to help better the conditions brought out in the report.”
He was swept up by a desire to wipe out prejudice, to “help bring the
underdog of our civilization up to a place of dignity.”
Eric had never talked to a Party member. He had no personal knowledge
of communism. Yet somewhere he had formed a false impression of the
Communist Party, based on communist propaganda. “I knew that it ...
somehow had come to believe that it considered all men equal, that it was
fighting for the underdog, that it had no prejudices against color of
skin or religion.”
Motivated by these errors, Eric on his own initiative went to a corner
drugstore, looked up the Party’s address in the telephone directory, and
called headquarters. He told how Party officials seemed “surprised” when
he stated his desire to join.
With determination in his heart, Eric went to Party headquarters,
climbed the brownstone steps to the front door, and rang the bell. A
young lady answered. He asked if this was Party headquarters. She said
no but pointed to a basement entrance. There, in the presence of an
eighteen-year-old girl and a dark-haired, stooped man, Eric signed an
application card for Party membership. His tragic decision had been made
with gusto and enthusiasm.
Karl as a young man, like Eric, was deeply affected by the depression.
He told how he had seen people eating out of garbage cans. He felt that
something had to be done to remedy conditions. Moreover, in his opinion,
the incumbent government was not adequate to cope with the problems.
Soon he began to read communist literature and in 1934 joined the Young
Communist League. But this was to be only the beginning.
In 1936 came the Spanish Civil War. Karl, because of communist agitation,
became deeply interested. He detested Hitler and fascism. Mussolini and
his Black Shirts were even more detestable. The more he thought about
international developments, the more he had the urge to take a personal
hand in the situation. His hatred of fascism was intensified when some of
his relatives had to flee from Europe because of Mussolini’s persecution.