Introductory Note
Chapter VI
The Rt. Rev. Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, Ph. D., LL. D. concludes in Chapter Six that portion of this symposium which has been alloted to the discussion of Communism. More completely and satisfactorily than has been done in any other brief treatment of the subject, Msgr. Sheen traces Communism from the time of its foundation by Karl Marx to the present day, exposing the while its insidious propaganda, the new tactics which it employs to prepare the world for revolution and its failure in the only nation in which it has received a trial, Russia.
Msgr. Sheen is internationally known and respected as an orator and scholar. Recognized as one of the foremost authorities on Communism, he has devoted portions of three series of lectures in the nation-wide Catholic Hour radio broadcasts to this subject and has lectured on it on scores of other occasions. As will be noted, he goes directly to official Communist publications and documents for the materials on which his discussion is based.
Born in El Paso, Illinois and ordained for the diocese of Peoria in 1919, Msgr. Sheen is now serving as Professor of Scholastic Philosophy at Catholic University. Educated at St. Viator's College, St. Paul's Seminary, Catholic University, University of Louvain, Belgium, and Angelico University in Rome, his degrees are A. B., J. C. B., Ph. D., D. D., L. L. D. and Litt. D., the last two being honorary. The author of at least one book a year, lie is a frequent contributor to many of the outstanding Catholic publications of the country.
Chapter VI
Communism
BY THE RT. REV. MSGR. FULTON J. SHEEN, PH. D., LL. D.,
Professor at Catholic University of America
Modern Communism was founded by Karl Marx, a German Jew, born of the respectable Jewish middle class in Trier, May 5, 1818. At the age of six his whole family was baptized, not for religious but for political reasons. In April, 1841, he presented to the University of Jena his dissertation on The difference between the national philosophy of Democritus and of Epicurus and was admitted to the degree of doctor of philosophy. In the year 1844 Marx met in Paris, Friedrich Engels, the son of one of the pioneers in the mechanical spinning machine business in Germany. Later on he became associated with his father's business in the city of Manchester in England. In 1849 Marx himself settled permanently in London where he spent the remainder of his life, and where he and Engels continued a life-long intimate friendship. Marx was a highly gifted theorist, but quite impractical in the affairs of everyday life. On one occasion while he was writing his famous work on Capital his wife said to him, "Karl, if you had only spent a little more time making capital instead of writing about it we would have been far better off." Marx earned very little money during his life. A correspondence between the two reveals that Marx exploited Engels as surely as Marx's imaginary bourgeois exploits his ideal proletariat. Marx could not have survived materially without Engels, but it would be quite unfair to say that he was just as dependent upon Engels for his ideas, though Engels did cooperate with him in a few of his writings. Marx died on the fourteenth of March, 1SS3. Not more than a dozen persons were present when three days later, he was buried in the unconsecrated part of Highgate cemetery in the grave where his wife lay. The only ceremony was a speech delivered at the graveside by his oldest friend, Friedrich Engels.
The sources of Marx's doctrine are threefold: his philosophy came from Germany; his sociology from France; his economics from England.
Philosophy
During his University days, Karl Marx studied the philosophy of Hegel, and wrote his dissertation at the University of Jena in an Hegelian fashion. In order to understand the philosophy of Marx one must know at least the general philosophy of Hegel. For Hegel the evolution of the universe is the unfolding of the Idea which is always on its way to self-knowledge. The motive-force of this evolution or progress is through the development of opposites or contradictories. All ideas develop by contradiction and pass through three phases. This development he called dialectics, a term which not only means logic but also discussion. In a conversation, for example, first one side of the question, and then another will be presented and finally as a result of the conflict of both, one will arrive at a solution. The first stage in the development of the idea Hegel called the thesis or affirmation. This thesis contains within itself its opposite or contradictory which is called the antithesis. The third stage which results from the interaction of both is called the synthesis, that is, the uniting of the truth contained in both the thesis and the antithesis. A very imperfect example of this dialectics which has been used by modern Communists is to call the male of the species the thesis, the female the antithesis, and the human race the synthesis. Another even more imperfect example used by them is to call the day of twenty-four hours the synthesis resulting from the thesis and antithesis, day and night. A better example is that of drunkeness which as a thesis produces sickness which is antithesis. From both results temperance which is the synthesis.
Applied Dialectics To Matter
Marx was not so much concerned with ideas as he was with the dialectics of ideas. Hegel applied dialectics to ideas; Marx chose to apply it to matter, or in his own words "to stand dialectics on its head" (Capital, London 1930, Vol. 2, p. 873.) Marx came to this conclusion from reading Feuerbach's Essence of Christianity, which sought to demolish the idealistic basis of theology of Hegel and others. Feuerbach claimed that there is nothing but matter. "Man is what he eats" said Feuerbach. Marx liked Feuerbach's insistence on matter; and he liked Hegel's dialectical method, but not his idealism. By marrying the dialectical method of Hegel to Feuerbachean materialism, Dialectical Materialism was born. Hegel saw contradiction at the heart of all ideas; Marx saw contradiction or dialectics at the heart of all reality. In other words, reality is essentially revolutionary. What dialectics is to thought, (Hegel) that revolution is to matter (Marx).
The application of Hegel's dialectics to matter gave Marx a new outlook on the universe. Instead of matter being looked upon as dead, inert and lifeless, with no other motion than that communicated to it from the outside, Marx saw it as essentially active and endowed with its own movement. Just as Hegel's dialectics applied to ideas was called dialectical idealism, so Marx's dialectics applied to matter is called Dialectical Materialism.
Before passing on to the development which Marx gave this philosophy it might be well to recall an illustration which Friedrich Engels gave of it. "Let us take a grain of barley. Millions of such grains of barley are milled, boiled and brewed and then consumed. But if such a grain of barley meets with contradictions which for it are normal, if it falls on suitable ground, then under the influence of heat and moisture a specific change takes place, it germinates; the grain as such ceases to exist, it is negated, and in its place appears the plant which has arisen from it, the negation of the grain. But what is the normal life-process of this plant? It grows, flowers, is fertilized and finally once more produces grains of barley, and as soon as these have ripened and the stalk dies, is in its turn negated. As a result of this negation we have once again the original grain of barley, but not as a single unit, but ten, twenty or thirty fold." (F. Engels Anti-Duhring, N. Y. 1935 p. 138).
Sociology
The philosophy of Dialectical Materialism might have remained just another untrue constructive human mind had not an acquaintance of Marx whom he met in Paris brought him in still further contact with reality. About the time of Marx's arrival in Paris, Prudhon, the French sociologist, was already interested in applying Hegelean dialectics to the social order. Marx knew much more Hegel than Prudhon, but Prudhon was much more practical; in fact, he rebuked Marx for not attempting to apply Hegel to the economic order. Though Marx repudiated Prudhon later on in life, there is but little doubt that it was the French socialist and anarchist who inspired Marx to apply his dialectics to society.
Its Application
We are now in the second phase of Marx's Dialectical Materialism, namely its application to society. Just as Hegel said that all ideas are made up of contradictory elements Marx now said that society is made up of such contradictory elements, namely the classes. Classes are determined by their role in production and not by religion, race, family, or fatherland. There are only two classes in society, the exploiters and the exploited, which are in contradiction one with the other. No class has existence except in antagonism to another class, for history is nothing but the struggle of the two classes. "In changing the modes of production, mankind changes all social relations. The hand mill creates a society with the feudal lord; the steam mill a society with the industrial capitalist. The same men who establish social relations in conformity with their material production also create principles, ideas and categories in conformity with their social relations... All such ideas and categories are therefore historical and transitory products." (Misery of Philosophy). "The whole history of mankind," states the Communist Manifesto written by Marx in 1848, "has been a history of class struggle, conflict between exploiting and exploited, ruling and oppressed classes." In terms of the present situation the thesis of the new social dialectics might be called Capitalism. Capitalism has within itself the contradictory principle of the proletariat or the wage earner who corresponds to the antithesis in the philosophy of Hegel. Out of the irreconcilable opposition between the two there is a disruption of the system and its supercession by another which is the synthesis of Communism. The changes by which society passed from the one phase of social development to another is not gradual but violent, for the reason that the political, legal and moral systems generated during them have a power of endurance. Furthermore, each class clings to its privileges and refuses to abandon its authority without a struggle. The only way that a political change can take place is for the exploited class to violently break down this resistance, in order to appropriate itself to continually changing economic obstructions. Marx wrote to his friend Weydemeyer March 5, 1852, "No credit Is due me for discovering the existence of classes in modern society, nor yet the struggle between them. Long before me bouregois historians had described the historical development of this class struggle... what I did that was new was to prove: 1) that the existence of classes is only bound up with particular historical phases in the development of production; 2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat; 3) that the dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society".
Economics
The inspiration for Marx's economics came from Engels. Marx's work Capital, which was finished in 1865, the second and third volumes of which were published posthumously in 1885 and 1894 by Engels, had for its incidental purpose the demonstration that the hatred of the proletariat is justified. The argument which is long and complicated has as its starting point what is known as the labor theory of value, but Marx never claimed it as his original discovery. He was very careful to trace it back to the anonymous author of a pamphlet on The Interest of Money, published in 1740 and to quote in support of it the respectable authority of Adam Smith and Ricardo. In its simplest terms surplus value is the difference between the value of wages which a laborer receives and the value for what he produces which according to Marx is the whole product. For example, a worker receives twenty dollars a week for forty eight hours' work. His labor during that time produces things which have an exchange value of forty dollars. The difference of twenty dollars the Capitalist pockets to the detriment of labor.
Critical Appreciation Of Dialectical Materialism
1) Dialectical Materialism is not a philosophy based on facts, but rather a theory imposed on them. It was born of an attempt, as Marx himself admitted in the "first thesis on Feuerbach" of a desire to escape the immateriality of idealism. If Marx had lived at any other time than when he did live, and if he had not been perplexed by the artificial problem of Hegel and Feuerbach, he never would have formed a philosophy by the union of both. It is a philosophy born of philosophers, not of the world.
2) Historically, it is not true that the economic is the basis of religion, politics, art, culture and morality. Other interests are often prior to the economic, for example, health, happiness, knowledge, art, leisure, religion. Marx himself was never controlled by economic motives. He did not earn his own living, and if it were not for Engels he would have starved. Furthermore, Arab expansion was not due to economic pressure in Arabia. The Crusades had nothing to do with economics in their motivation; Columbus did not discover America because he needed a new source of economic income. The Renaissance which left its imprint on modern civilization was primarily a literary, philosophical, artistic and scientific movement rather than an economic one. The French revolution was a struggle for political equality and only secondarily for economic equality. In our own times race has become a more potent element in Europe than economics, and throughout the world the loyalty of Catholic working men to their religion proves that something else besides tools determines their love of God. A French worker ought to feel he has more in common with a Russian worker than with French Capitalists, but there is no such feeling. The Communists must admit that the birth of Karl Marx depended on other factors than those of the purely economic order.
3) According to Communists, changes in tools or methods of production are the causes for all other changes, political, social and religious. But why are there changes in the methods of production? Communism does not answer this question. Marx says they change when a new economic situation arises. This is untrue. Economic changes take place more often because of inventions, and inventions are due to intelligence. Therefore the economic is not always the cause. It was science and not economics which made industry develop. Furthermore, scientists and inventors do not work for the sake of production ; as a matter of fact they are very often disinterested in the economic side of life. When Marx left out brains as an important factor in history he failed to use his own.
Russell's Criticism
As Bertrand Russell well remarks: Marx's theory of history is so definite "he does not allow for the fact that a small force may tip the balance when two great forces are in approximate equilibrium. Admitting that the great forces are generated by economic causes, it often depends upon quite trivial and fortuitous events which of the great forces gets the victory. In reading Trotsky's account of the Russian Revolution, it is difficult to believe that Lenin made no difference, but it was touch and go whether the German Government allowed him to get to Prussia. If the Minister concerned had happened to be suffering from dyspepsia on a certain morning, he might have said 'No' when in fact he said 'Yes' and I do not think it can be rationally maintained that without Lenin the Russian Revolution would have achieved what it did. To take another instance: if the Prussians had happened to have a good General at the battle of Valmy, they might have wiped out the French Revolution. To take an even more fantastic example, it may be maintained quite plausibly that if Henry VIII had not fallen in love with Anne Boleyn, the United States would not now exist. For it was owing to this event that England broke with the Papacy, and therefore did not acknowledge the Pope's gift of the Americas to Spain and Portugal. If England had remained Catholic, it is probable that what is now the United States would have been part of Spanish America," (Bertrand Russell, Freedom Versus Organization 1814-1914. pp. 198, 199).
4) Economic determinism puts the economic above the human. It makes man exist for production instead of production for man. Man thus becomes the slave of the economic instead of the economic being the instrument of man. Economic production is not the distinguishing mark of man; production is like walking, it is a means to an end and what the end is will often vary from man to man. As F. J. Sheed remarks: "If only the defects in human nature had been as real to him as the defects in the Capitalist system, the world might have been immeasurably the gainer: but, alas, this could not be, since systems were more real to him than men. If he had taken some of that time which he spent with books in the British Museum and devoted it to speaking from a platform in Hyde Park, he might (so great was his genius) have produced a sociology greater than any man has yet produced without the aid of Revelation. He simply did not know the poor. He did not look at men because fundamentally he was not interested in men, but only in systems. He did not love men, but he was desperately in love with the system he had constructed for them." (F. J. Sheed Communism and Man, pp. 104, 105).
5) Economic determinism is a denial of free will. If social, religious and political institutions are determined by the methods of production, then man's free will is equivalently denied. If the Communists say that man's will is not determined, but only conditioned by economics, then economic determinism is no longer true. They cannot eat their caviar and have it. Either there is no economic determinism, or there is no freedom.
If It Were True...
If economic determinism were true, and we were all determined by economic necessity to end in Communism, why does Communism carry on propaganda? If Communism is inevitable, why do anything about it? If the sun of Communism is going to rise in the East tomorrow why organize a "League for Peace and Democracy" to make it rise? If nothing can stop Communism then why should Earl Browder be so anxious to get out of Leavenworth penitentiary in order to spread it? Then why "purges" in Russia? Why indignation against "wreckers" which is just as absurd as the anger of a child against a toy that will not work? The answer is, in practice Communism admits free will while in theory it denies it —just one of the many contradictions which make Communism unacceptable to anyone who thinks.
6) Among other difficulties inherent in Dialectial Materialism the following may be mentioned: a) Once the classless class is established what happens to the dialectics? Is Communism exempt from the very law which It brought into being? If it is, then Dialectical Materialism is not the necessary law of history, b) Does not Communism create as its antithesis, viz Fascism? This is what it is creating today but Marx did not see its possibility, c) Dialectical Materialism does not as Communism asserts disprove the first principles of thought. The mere fact that it is in the process of becoming, A can coexist with a partial realization of B which was implied potentially in A, is no evidence that A is not B. The mere fact that an adolescent with a little down on his cheeks is bearded and not bearded does not mean the truth of contradictories. The two contradictory predicates are not applied to the same subject. Strictly speaking we should say that in the process of becoming, the boy is partly bearded and partly not bearded, which is not a contradiction, d) Matter is auto-dynamic according to Marx. If this auto-dynamism is intelligent, then materialism is abandoned. If it is not intelligent, then how did it ever culminate in intellect and will? To say there is a passage from quantity to quality is only verbiage. How explain the fact?
Labor Theory Of Value: A Critical Appreciation
The Labor-Theory of value and the theory of surplus value of Communism contend that those who do not contribute labor-power do not produce value. Value is determined, says Marx, by the amount of socially necessary labor time embodied in a product, which amount is fixed by the process of exchange. Hence all who receive a share of the product without labor, such as the Capitalists are parasites. Since labor is the source of the exchange-value of its product, the profit belongs to labor. Communists today put it this way: "Labor should have all the profits and the Capitalists nothing."
1) Labor is not the sole constituent of value, nor is the cost of production always the principal determinant of value. There must always be a demand before objects become valuable, and value created by demand is ofttimes psychological as well as economic. As Mr. Dooley once remarked: "Ye say, 'tis valuable because ye spent yer days and nights making it for me. But the value of anything is how much I'll be wanting it." To say that value is made by labor is as absurd as Thale's doctrine that the universe is made of water. To argue that the workers should receive all the profits suffers from the same fallacy as to say the cows should receive the whole produce of the dairy, and the horse should receive the value of what he hauls. In X-ray the labor is a far less determinant of value than the use to which it is put. Labor then is not the only source of value. Engels himself had to admit that machines which are the crystallized intellects were "making human labor superfluous" (Socialism, Utopian and Scientific 5th. ed. 1920 p. 60). Furthermore, Leadership is a factor not to be neglected in the estimation of value. Even Russia after shooting or exiling all its Capitalists had to send to America for capitalists to start its machinery moving again!
2) The Labor theory of value ignores the fact that labor differs in quality. Marx thought only of its quantity or the "expenditure of brain, muscle, nerves, hands, etc. Skilled labor is only intensified or rather multiplied simple labor." If there ever was a masterpiece of astounding naivety this is it. To say that glass blowing is just multiplied ditch digging is to miss the point of basic human skills and capacities.
3) The labor-theory of value is today rejected by all serious economists and for that reason merits no further consideration. Even H. J. Laski despite his sympathy for Marx says: "it is unnecessary to dwell at any length upon the fallacies implicit in this analysis... the Marxian theory of value seems clearly untenable, not-less on theoretic grounds than from an analysis of the facts of business." (Karl Marx, pp. 22, 30). Bertrand Russell describes it as "not a contribution to economic theory so much as a translation of hatred into abstract terms and mathematical formulae" (Roads to Freedom pp. 18, 38). Another writer favorable to Marxism is of the same opinion. "It is impossible to set aside the view that Marx's theory of value and surplus value has rather the significance of a political and social slogan than of an economic truth" (Max Beer Life and Teaching of Karl Marx p. 15).
Class Struggle
Marx also taught that just as the contradictory elements which compose material reality bestow on it its action and development, so too the contradictory classes in society, capital and labor, exploiter and exploited, confer on it its revolutionary character. "The whole history of mankind has been a history of class-struggles, conflicts, between exploiting and exploited, ruling and oppressed classes." (Communist Manifesto)
1) Like all other of his theories Marx offers no proofs to support his statement. He starts with a preconceived theory and then sets out to find a few generalizations to support it. Marx relies upon his own affirmations and feels that if he makes the statement often enough he need not find a proof for it. With the same snap of the fingers he rejects all criticism of Communism. As he wrote in the Communist Manifesto: "The charges against Communism made from a religious, a philosophical and generally from an ideological standpoint, are not deserving of serious examination." Never once does Marx make any pretense to abstract his law of class-struggle from any period other than the one in which he lived. Because there was economic class-struggles in his day, he argues there were class-struggles every day in history. His attitude toward the Capitalists of his day was just as irrational as the attitude of Nazis today to Jews. Both engender a hatred not only of the abstractions "Capitalism" and "Jews" but of individual Capitalists and individual Jews. Hitler makes the same weird charges against Jews in Mein Kampf, that Marx made against Capitalism in his Manifesto e. g. when he said: "Bourgeois marriage is in reality a system of wives in common." Marx himself was a virtuous man. He could pen such hatred in his day as Hitler does in ours simply because he is not concerned with objective, historical reality, but only with subjective myth.
2) The dialectics of class-struggle is false, because the proletariat society does not always emerge from the bourgeois as "inevitable", a) The German in 1848 was proclaimed by Marx as "the prelude to an immediately following proletarian revolution." But the dialectics were immediately falsified for what followed the rising of 1848 was the "bourgeois reaction." Today the Communist Revolution in Germany is farther off than ever, b) In 1867 Marx delivered himself of another eschatological pronouncement: "The American Civil War has sounded the tocsin for the European working class." As a matter of fact capitalist development followed the Civil War in the United States and it did nothing to stir revolution in Europe, c) Engels in his Anti-Duhring said the "point" of the proletariat revolution "was now reached". That was the year 1877! d) Lenin in 1917 said: "the existence of revolutionary masses within the European states is a fact and the world-wide socialist revolution is beyond doubt." But in 1935 seeingthat the expected revolution did not come through in dialectical fashion, the Communists decided on the "Democratic Front" tactics and "pre-revolutionary" slogans.
e) Today 90 years after the Communist Manifesto the proletariat state exists nowhere but in Russia and there it is rapidly becoming State Capitalism, with its own class-struggles between "Stalinites and Trotskyites".
3) According to the dialectical law of Marxism the lot of the worker was to become worse and worse until the revolution between the two classes. The fact is that the lot of the worker has become better and better. It is only in Russia that the lot of the worker is bad.
4) Marx said that according to his Dialetical Law Communism would arise in the country where Capitalism was most developed. As a matter of fact it developed in the country where there was little or no industrial development and the country which is most industrialized (America) is where it has made the least progress.
5) What Marx forgot is that history does not follow the ideas a man works out in the British Museum. If man were made by economics he would have been nearer right. But many free acts of man threw his dialectical machinery out of gear. Marx, for example, never thought of, a) effective labor organizations; b) the willingness of some capitalists to share profits with workers; and e) the intervention of the State to procure the common good of all.
6) Communism is guilty of over simplification in speaking of only two classes; that is just like saying that the vegetable kingdom is divided into beets and radishes, and that whatever is not a beet is a radish and whatever is not a radish is a beet. There is a difference between the big capitalist and the shopkeeper, between the technicians and the teachers, between the farmers and the bakers. Marx mistook the abstractions of his thought for reality. Communism in France had to wake up to the fallacy of two classes, for the millions who owned small farms in France were neither exploiters nor exploited. That is why the Communists there had to promise the French peasants that they would not confiscate their productive property as they did in Russia. But the Russian peasants were promised the same! Furthermore, there is not the irreconcilable opposition between capital and labor that Communism imagines, as is proven by the fact that, a) every laborer wants to become a capitalist, in the broad sense of the term; b) general education and democracy constantly break down the barrier between the two; c) the increased interest of the State in the relations of capital and labor; d) when a nation is attacked all classes unite as the British citizens did against Napoleon in the beginning of the 19th century.
7) Class struggle is not a reality. There are other interests stronger than classes, for example, nationalism. At any given time when a class idea is confronted with a national idea, the class idea has capitulated as it did in France. The ease with which Mussolini and Hitler swing the emotions of their people away from class struggle to the idea of nation and the race is a phenomena which the Communists cannot ignore. Even in Russia the idea of Russian fatherland is stronger than that of international working class solidarity. The castes of India do not fit into the Marxist scheme, nor even the so-called intellectuals who side with Communism without accepting its principles but only its praise and its emoluments. As an example of the stupidity of the two-class theory, when Communism began in Russia, the Soviets did not know where to put the "Writers Society". They had nothing to do with economic production; they were neither exploited nor exploiting. So the Soviets without any consciousness of the humor of it all enrolled them with the printers.
8) It is nonsense to suppose, as Communism does that the end of a class-struggle is a classless class, free from all exploitation. There must always be, even under Communism two classes: the leaders and the led, those who enjoy power and privileges and those who do not. Furthermore, because under Communism the Power of the Dictator is absolute, the classes will be much more rigid than under any other system. Communism does not do away with classes; at best it only transfers booty, and anyone who is at all familiar with conditions in Russia knows that they have not done away with classes, but built up in general two others: the powerful and the powerless.
9) The most inhuman part of class war is that it places the classes above man, instead of man above the class. What matters above all things else in the economic world is the freedom of man; but if all man's activities are subordinate to a class, then his freedom is at an end. Human personality then is but a function of class. Then his freedom is only class-freedom; his rights are only class rights; his liberties are only class-liberties. Once he breaks with the class, he loses all his rights for in the Communist hypothesis man has no other rights except those which the State gives him.
What is worse, not only does man function only for the class, but the class functions only for economic production. This is the final dehumanization and mechanization of man. Man is for the economic instead of the economic for man. Class warfare is wrong because hostility is not the way to peace. It is sheer irrationality to say that there must first be hatred between men before there can be love among them. A class is wrong just because it is a class. Selfish provincial interests which ignore the good of all are not right. No class is good, because goodness is not in classes but in the men who compose them. Furthermore, class-conflict is wrong because it ignores the brotherhood of man. Until men lose reason altogether, cooperation and collaboration will always e a better road to peace and happiness than class0bitterness and war.
Basic Argument
The basic argument of Communism is this: Inequalities in the economic order are due to private ownership of productive property which in its turn creates classes in society and makes exploitation possible. Communism proposes to do away with private ownership of productive property as well as the government which supports it, and thus build a classless class.
Let us now ask this official program a series of questions the answers to which will be taken verbatim from the Program.
1. Must there be a revolution before Communism can be established and what does it imply?
"Between capitalist society and communist society a period of revolutionary transformation intervenes.... Proletarian revolution, however, signifies the forcible invasion of the proletariat into the domain of property relationships...." (pp. 34, 35).
2. What will happen to the Capitalists whom the Communists always call exploiters?
"The characteristic feature of the transition period as a whole, is the ruthless suppression of the resistance of the exploiters...." (p. 36).
3. What will happen to church lands, productive property, industry, transportation, communication services, and big housing property?
The official program uses the same word in relation to all of them, namely, "confiscation"; e.g., "the confiscation of all property utilized in production belonging to large landed estates, such as buildings, machinery and other inventory, cattle, enterprises for the manufacture of agricultural products (large flour mills, cheese plants, dairy farms, fruit and vegetable drying plants, etc)" (pp. 40-41).
4. What will happen to the middle classes who are not sympathetic to the Communist revolution and to those who are in favor of land owners.
The answer is suppression. "The proletariat must neutralize the middle strata of the peasantry and mercilessly suppress the slightest opposition on the part of the village bourgeoisie who ally themselves with the land owners" (p. 49).
5. What will happen to the liberal left wingers and the intelligentsia who refuse to go the full way of the Communist revolution?
The Program calls for "ruthlessly suppressing every counter-revolutionary action on the part of the hostile sections of the intelligentsia" (p. 48).
6. Why is violence necessarily associated with the Communist revolution?
The Program answers: Because it enables Communism to get rid of those who oppose it. Think of how much bloodshed there is hidden in these following lines, as the history of Russia has so well proved to be true. "The mass awakening of communist consciousness, the cause of socialism itself, calls for a mass change of human nature which can be achieved only in the course of the practical movement, in revolution. Hence, revolution is not only necessary because there is no other way of overthrowing the ruling class, but also because, only in the process of revolution is the overthrowing class able to purge itself of the dross of the old society and become capable of creating a new society" (p. 52).
7. Finally, what is the official attitude of Communism toward religion?
"One of the most important tasks of the cultural revolution affecting the wide masses is the task of systematically and unswervingly combating religion the opium of the people" (p. 52).
8. Does the Communist revolution propose to seize Government power and to overthrow our armies, our police, and our courts?
The Program calls for the "violent overthrow". "The conquest of power by the proletariat is the violent overthrow of bourgeois power, the destruction of the capitalist state apparatus (bourgeois armies, police, bureaucratic hierarchy, the judiciary, parliaments, etc.)" (p. 36).
Right In One Thing
Communism is right in only one thing, and that is it protests against concentration of wealth in the hands of the few; it is wrong in its reform because it carries that concentration to a point where nobody owns the means of production except the State, though they humbug the workers into believing that they own it. Putting all the productive property into the hands of the collectivity is no solution of the problem of property. Among the many defects of the system, these few might be mentioned:
a) It is difficult to see why our economic and social problems would be any easier to solve after a revolution than before. That a revolution must precede Communism, though never mentioned in the cooing speeches of Stalin's agents over the radio for the sake of creating a democratic front, is nevertheless called for by their Official Program already quoted.
To say that we must first have a revolution and a civil war between classes with all its bloodshed and ruin before we can ever have peace is just like saying that before we can have health we must have pneumonia, typhoid fever, cancer and ulcers. When a husband and wife are quarreling it is no solution to say that if you burn their house and purge their children, they will live happily ever after. In a society as complex as our own, the revolution would not be to the advent of Communism, but a return to barbarism. It proved so in Barcelona, in Hungary, and in Russia and will doubtless prove so again. Destruction is rapid; but reconstruction is slow. We could undo in a day what it took centuries to accomplish. The forces of destruction never win for the simple reason that construction has a purpose, but destruction has none. Furthermore, all that revolutions do anyway is transfer booty from one group to another.
Interested Only In Loot
There has never yet been a reformer who advocated a bloody revolution and class hatred who was interested in anything but loot. Furthermore, those reformers who gave the most revolutionary economic schemes for society are men who could neither manage their own affairs, such as Fourier and St. Simon, or else they were the type that never earned a cent in their mature lives, such as Karl Marx, who from the day he went to England as a young man until the day of his death never earned a single cent as a worker. It is no wonder that his wife said to him: "Karl, if you had only made some capital instead of writing about it we would have been far better off."
b) Communism forgets that there is no magic in the transfer of the title of property from a few Capitalists to a few Red Commissars. Like most violent reformers they reform the wrong thing. The truth of the matter is that the cause of our ills is not in property, but in the person who owns it; hence, there will never be a radical transformation of society unless there is a spiritual regeneration of persons through a rebirth of Justice and Charity. By outlawing religion, Communism makes this impossible. Thinking that if we transfer the ownership of all property into the hands of a few Red Commissars, we will do away with economic injustice, greed, and exploitation, is just like thinking that if you register an automobile in the State of Illinois instead of the State of New York, it will never backfire nor run out of gas.
c) Communism can give us no assurance that the workers will be the chief beneficiaries of State-owned combines than they will be under a Capitalist-owned combine. The point is not who owns the property, but who divides the spoils. This is always a problem when administration is distinct from ownership. Putting all property into the hands of the State may do away with private property but it will not do away with lust. It only transfers the lust from ownership to privilege. There is still something to be envied under Communism, namely, who will have the privilege of distributing the booty. The constant butchering of so-called "wreckers" and "Trotskyites" and "public enemies" in Russia proves that it is probably more difficult to find there, than in America, economic eunuchs so devoid of the passion of wealth as to give every man his due. In 1937, one hundred and thirty-two commercial workers were arrested and tried for theft. (Pravda, Mar. 20, 1938—Izvestia, Feb. 3, Mar. 5, May 14, and June 15, 1938)
Workers Worse Off
Facts bear this out. Workers are no better there than anywhere else; they are worse. Every newspaper correspondent who has ever been to Russia, and their name is legion, with the exception of Walter Duranty, of the New York Times, and the Moscow correspondents for Stalin's three daily newspapers in the United States have all agreed that the poor on relief in America are far better off than the employed in Russia. And to the testimony of Andre Gide, Sir Walter Citrine, William Chamberlin, Harold Denny, the Correspondent of the London Times, John D. Littlepage, John T. Whitaker and dozens of others, there is now to be added the testimony of another American engineer who has just returned to America after eight years of residence in Russia. In a series of syndicated articles we read the following: Edmund Lowry, Washington Evening Star, Dec. 26, 1938.
"Russian workers are not only among the lowest paid in the world but they also are undoubtedly the most heavily taxed. There is unquestionably a greater array of direct and indirect imposts in the Soviet Union than in any other country, and hardly a minute goes by for the Russian citizen—with the exception of the top stratum of favored bureaucrats—that he is not exploited by the State, the super-employer owning and managing everything, to an extent which would lead to an immediate revolution in any democratic country."
Wages Increase, Prices Multiply
The average monthly wage in large scale industry was 231 rubles a month. (Incidentally in figuring the average wage Russia counts only 27,000,000 out of a vastly larger number of working people which there must be in a population of 170,000,000). Although this wage represents a nominal increase of 400% over the wages of 1926, during that same period the price of food increased 1000% which means that the real wages were considerably less than in 1926.
Planned economy of 170,000,000 where all factories, mines, stores, telephones, hotels, railroads, farms, banks, hospitals, launderies, plumbing establishments, nurseries, meat shops, department stores, belong to the State, creates a problem of distribution and consumption which is too great for any planning body in the world. No individual can indulge in private production for profit, for on the Communistic theory that is the basis of exploitation.
Think of the government determining how many pants it would make, how many cows it would butcher, how many shirts it would make, how many razors it would manufacture, how many hats it would make and what size and color they would be, how much each government store would get. Think of all the purging that would be necessary; all the wrecking dairymen who like Kulaks refused to milk cows for the State, all the wrecking farmers who refused to grow State onions; all the push cart salesmen who make their own articles to sell them, all the prices which will have to be fixed; all the concentration camps we would have to find for a man who wants to call his shoe shop his own.
Sounds Well, But...
The Collectivist slogan "from each according to his capacity, to each according to his needs" sounds well in theory, but who is going to decide what is each man's capacity and what is each man's needs? The answer is: the bureaucrats. And who determines the bureaucrats? The Dictator. And what is Dictatorship according to Lenin. Dictatorship is an authority relying directly upon force and not bound by any laws. The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is an authority maintained by means of force over and against the bourgeoisie and not bound by any laws." (Lenin—The Proletarian Revolution p. 15 Communist Party Publication London).
The Result Is Chaos
Collective planning for any complex civilization in which no citizen owns productive private property would result in chaos as the facts prove.
1) Suppose you wished to buy meat. All butcher shops belong to the State, the State raises the cattle and pigs and sheep, the State butchers them, dresses them and sells them. Moscow, which is better fed than all the rest of Russia, planned to distribute in 1938, 31 pounds of meat per year to each comrade or 2 ½ pounds a person per month or 1 and 1-3 ounces per day which is indeed very little where everyone is a worker (Vetch. Moskva July 7, 1938; Izvestia March 29, 1938).
2) On May 17, 1937 the People's Commissariat of Light Industry approved a Production Plan for the year of 1938 of 393,000,000 pairs of socks, which if the plan were achieved would allow each citizen a fraction over two pairs per year. The number of shops to supply State-owned food is naturally less than where private enterprise supplies it. In England there is a grocery shop for every 430 persons. In Russia there is one for every 24,400. This accounts for the long lines outside the stores. When one does arrive one finds that very often there are no vegetables. (Vetch, Moskva July 14, 1938; Izvestia July 8, 1938; Pravda Feb. 2, 1938; Vetch. Moskva July 14 and 25, 1938).
In the Central Moscow Univermag in the spring of 1937, men's ready made suits were limited to seven sizes; an inspection of 260 shops in the province of Voronezh disclosed that 69 had no sugar, 49 no confectionery, 36 no salt and 26 no cigarettes. (Soviet Trade Distribution cfr. Pravda May 17, 1938). In 1938 according to Tchourakov, the Head of the Restaurant department "the popular restaurants in the course of the year 193S existed on famine rations" (Sovietskaia Torgovlia No. 114—1938). As regards transportation there is not a sufficient number of autobuses to handle the traffic; of 915 autobuses controlled by the 'Mosautobus' only 460 could run. (Pravda Jan. 17 and July 7, 1938; Pravda Sept. 28, 1938). The director of the automotive factory of Podoisk himself said that, "There are defects in our motors which endanger the lives of those who use them" (Pravda April 27, 1938). Every time a comrade wants his roof fixed he has to get in touch with the State roof mender. Moscow set aside 120,000,000 rubles to repair houses in 1938 (Pravda July 11, 1938) but in the previous year with two months of the year left, out of 12,500 houses needing repairs only 1,435 had been fixed "by the State that year" (Vetch. Moskva Dec. 22, 1938). It is interesting to note that if one uses some of the pre-revolutionary artisans to repair the houses the work is better done and in a shorter time than if the State is called in (Vetch. Moskva July 12, 1938).
Personal Interest Destroyed
The destruction of private productive property in favor of government ownership does not, as Communism claims, result in greater benefits to the workers. Soviet economists are fond of pointing out that overhead costs in Soviet trade add only 11% to the wholesale cost of goods, as against 25% in capitalist trade. But in practice this does not mean the advantage accrues to the purchaser. In fact, he loses many advantages under government owned business: women love the thrill of "sales" but there is no competition when the State owns everything and Stalin is the salesman behind every counter. There are practically no deliveries of purchases. "Gastronom No. 1" which is the largest provision shop in Moscow delivered only 1.65% of its total sales; the regular daily delivery of bread, milk, etc. to private dwellings is unknown; furthermore, there is a decreased selection of goods.
Communism forgets that the collective ownership of productive wealth means the destruction of personal interest and initiative, for as Aristotle said: "That which is the care of all is the care of none." The workers in Russia own the factories in the same way that we in America own the parks, but how many Americans do you see going out into their parks on Monday morning out of love for their country to pick up the greasy lunch baskets of the day before? No man will treat property with care or affection unless it is his own "You wouldn't do that in your own house" is an expression full of the Profoundest understanding of human nature.
Stalin discovered that when he steals the cattle and horses from the peasants they are not going to have the same care for them as before. "In 1928", said Stalin, "the peasants owned 307,000,000 cattle, cows, heifers, sheep, goats and hogs." And since the enforced collectivization of farm produce in 1928 there were only half that number (Bolshevik No. 7. 1938). Stalin made some concession to the peasants allowing them now to keep a cow—but not a horse (Izvestia Feb. 18, 1935). The revenue of the Russian farmer is only 12 pounds of wheat a day (or half a ruble). (Izvestia April 2, 1938). The most successful farmers earn 280 rubles a year (Visti Feb. 12, 193S) which was just enough to buy a pair of shoes. Pravda, Dec, 4, 1937 narrates a "miracle" which happened at Kertch in the Crimea. The citizens of that city could never find the necessities of life in the government stores. But one day when they went there were all kinds of fish, fruits, vegetables and in such abundance that it was not necessary to stand in line to wait for their arrival. This "miracle" for the Pravda explains it as such, was soon explained. The Commissar for Commerce stopped at Kretch and he provided everything for his visit so there would be no complaints. The next day everything returned to "Normal".
Individuals Don't Count
Once the collectivity becomes the sole owner of productive goods of all descriptions, it can do whatever it likes with the individuals. Once you begin taking your jobs, your education, your food, your work, your clothing and your housing from the State, it will only be a matter of a few visits from the police until you take your thinking from the State, and that is the end of liberty.
This is the basic defect of Communism—the destruction of liberty. Power follows property. Put all productive property in the hands of the State and you take freedom out of the souls of men. Children are encouraged to betray their parents who criticize Communism. Instead of being ashamed of such want of parental love and the right of a father to dissent with an enslaving government, Mikoyan the official review Partiihoie Stroitelstovo Jan. 15, 1938 boasts that "such acts are not possible in any capitalistic country, but we have many of them here".
To be in Russia what corresponds to a Cabinet Minister in the United States is indeed perilous, In 1937, 15 ministers (People's Commissars) without counting hundreds in the federal republics were shot; eleven Ministers of Agriculture in 1937 in the federal republics, along with Echernov, the Minister of Agriculture of the Soviet Republic were shot. Two assistants of Litvinoff (Finkelstein) Kretinsky and Karakhan have been shot. Four assistants to the Minister of Defense, two Army Marshalls, Under-Secretary of the Navy, Under-Secretary of the Air minister and fifty-five generals and admirals met their death in that "land of liberty and democracy" in 1938. It is no wonder all the resolutions of the Communist Party are passed "unanimously."
There Is No Liberty
If one wants some concrete proofs that there is no liberty under Communism, a) try to send to Russia a year's subscription to any American daily newspaper or Life, or Time, or Fortune to one hundred peasants or workers there who are not members of the Communist Party, b) Offer to pay any one of the leaders of the Communist Party in the United States fare back to Russia on condition that they abandon their American citizenship and live under a regime the like to which they would establish in the United States. Not one of them will go. They would rather live in America, which they are seeking to undermine, than in the "Paradise" which their philosophy of class struggle has created. The truth is: They are Communists until they have to live under Communism; then they want to be Americans.
Changed Tactics Of Communism
When Communism began in Russia in 1917 it was generally expected that within a few years the whole of Europe would be in the throes of a Communistic revolution. For that reason, Moscow instructed its delegates in various parts of the world openly to preach revolution and practice violence. But the world, quickly seeing that Paradises are not built by bloodshed, reacted against the violence of Communism and defeated it. Russia finally recognized this fact and in July and August of 1935 it called the Seventh World Congress of Communism which decided to change the tactics of Communism. From that point on it resolved to use non-revolutionary language in the open to attain revolutionary ends in secret.
World Not Ready
Without openly admitting that the world would not have a revolution simply because Russia had had one, the Seventh World Congress now decided its former tactics were wrong. The world was not yet ready for revolution, conditions were not the same elsewhere as in Europe, and the majority of mankind still believed the best way to heal social ills was by legislation and not by revolution.
To accommodate themselves to the modern mentality the Communists decided to cease talking revolution and to begin talking "democracy", "peace", and "hatred of Fascism". Their new program called for a "United Front" with all groups, parties, and programs, on the broadest possible basis of unity. The new method was very much like that of the card shark who makes friends with his victim on the "United Front" ground that they both like a drink. The innocent victim does not yet know what the card shark intends to do, but the card shark knows. The affability and the willingness to pay for the drinks, the sleek geniality, are all details of his 'front' and a part of his tactics.
The United Front of Communism is in like manner the fake face of Communism. During the period of the United or Popular Front, Communism says nothing about the destruction of private property, nothing about the hatred of religion, nothing about Lenin's statement that "killing is not murder" (Iskra, No. 20—Letters of Lenin, edited by Hill and Mudie, p. 401). On the contrary, it speaks of its love of America, the rights of the worker, its sympathy for religion, and its passion for democracy.
Revolution, But Not Yet
Does this mean Communism has changed its philosophy or that it has given up its intention to overthrow the existing order? No! It only means it has decided not to talk about those things yet. The time is not ripe for the kill. It has merely changed its tactics, but not its principles. To put it all very simply, the United or Popular Front is only a technique of the moment, like the card shark's paying for the drinks. That this is the plain truth we know from the General Secretary of the Communist Party in the United States who writes in his book, What is Communism: "We must emphasize that this united front government would be a transitional form... [for the] masses... not yet prepared to light for Soviet Power" (p. 99).
In the Gospel language this means the United Front is the wolf in the clothing of sheep. These words are nothing: else but the echo of the official Program of the Communist International, which dictates the methods to be used during what it calls the pre-revolutionary period.
As this official program puts it, "Throughout the entire pre-revolutionary period a most important basic part of the tactics of the Communist Parties is the tactic of the united front, as a means towards most successful struggle against capital, towards the class mobilization of the masses and the exposure and isolation of the reformist leaders" (Communist Program, p. 82). "When there is no revolutionary upsurge, the Communist Parties must advance partial slogans and demands that correspond to the every-day needs of the toilers, linking them up with the fundamental tasks of the Communist International" of Moscow (Communist Program, p. 81). "The Party determines its slogans and methods of struggle in accordance with... circumstances, with the view to organizing and mobilizing the masses on the broadest possible scale... This it does by carrying on propaganda in favor of increasingly radical transitional slogans... [and] this mass action includes: a combination of strikes and demonstrations... and finally, the general strike conjointly with armed insurrection against the state power" (Communist Program, p. 80).
Boring From Within
Let us analyze these statements. Communism changes its tactics; it no longer talks revolution, it talks against Fascism; it no longer talks arms, it preaches peace; it no longer talks about overthrowing government, it talks about preserving democracy; it no longer talks about butchering the capitalists, it talks about the rights of the worker. In order words, it has changed its complexion, but has it changed its face? It changes its tactics, but does it change its desire for revolution? It changes its talk, but does it change its mind? It has merely decided that the best way to achieve revolution is not to talk about it, but to work secretly for it. The termites who eat away your porch do not first ring your door bell, inform you of their presence, and tell you they propose to make the roof fall on your head. They seem to know they can accomplish more by the "United Front" tactics of boring secretly from within. You know they have been at work only when the roof falls upon your head.
Is such the new tactic of Communism? Communists admit that it is, only instead of using the example of termites to explain their new approach they use the example of the Trojan Horse. The exact words of George Dimitrov to the assembled delegates of the World Communists at the Moscow Congress, among whom was the Communist candidate for President of the United States in the last election, are these: "Comrades, you remember the ancient tale of the capture of Troy. Troy was inaccessible to the armies attacking her, thanks to her impregnable walls. And the attacking army after suffering many sacrifices, was unable to achieve victory until with the aid of the famous Trojan horse it managed to penetrate to the very heart of the enemy s camp (The Working Class Against Fascism, p. 52). In that large wooden horse were hidden soldiers w om the defenders of Troy never suspected of being on the inside, until they arose to seize power. In like manner Communists are urged to wheel their Trojan Horse into our labor unions, religious organizations, political parties, athletic associations under the guise of a peaceful United Front, until they can tear off their mask and throw this country into a barbarous Civil War such as they instigated in Spain, so that they may emerge victorious and thus honor their beloved Comrade Stalin. Their United and Popular Fronts call for a union of Communists with other political organizations, but what these political organizations forget is that Communism uses them only to further its revolutionary ends. Listen to this Official Resolution of the Communist International of August 20, 1935: "The unification of social-democratic parties, in any particular organization with the Communist Party, should be subject to the recognition of the necessity of the revolutionary overthrow) of the existing order, and the installation of the Dictatorship of the proletariat under the form of the Soviets" (Pravda, August 6, 1935; cf. chapt. 6, Resolutions, Aug. 20, 1935).
Suspect These Parties
This means it would be well for Americans to suspect all political parties who accept the support of the Communists, for on their own admission, the Communist union with these parties is "subject to the revolutionary overthrow of existing society."
But this is not all. Lest anyone should still believe that their seemingly peaceful tactics mean anything less than revolution, let us hear a word from their own leader. D. Z. Manuilsky summarizing the Congress states: "Tactics, generally may change, but the general line of the Communist International... for the proletarian revolution... remains unchanged" (The Work of the Seventh Congress, p. 65). On a preceding page, the same Bolshevik also states that the "Communists must actively intervene in the present mass movement and strive to raise it to... the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of the proletarian dictatorship" (ibid., p. 63). Furthermore, Dimitrov said that Communism had "intentionally expunged from the reports as well as from the decisions of the Congress high-sounding phrases on the revolutionary perspective" (The Working Class Against Fascism, p. 165). But he goes on immediately to warn us that they still believe in revolution. "We did this not because we have any ground for appraising the tempo of revolutionary development less optimistically than before." Then he concludes that by using the new tactics which he advocates, they will be doing everything to "accelerate more than in any other way, the creation of the subjective preconditions necessary for the victory of the proletarian revolution" (ibid., p. 165).
Now, what kind of revolution do they propose to carry on? Will it be one in which there will be a dictatorship and the abolition of landed private property? The answer of the Program is, Yes: "In carrying out all these tasks of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the following [postulate] must be borne in mind: the complete abolition of private property in land..." (Communist Program, p. 44).
The Revolution Would Mean...
Will the revolution mean the purging of those who oppose the revolution as it does in Russia, and as it did in Spain?
The answer of the Communist Program is, Yes: "The violence of the bourgeoisie can be suppressed only by the stern violence of the proletariat". "The characteristic feature of the transition period as a whole, is the ruthless suppression of... resistance... (p. 36). Again, we read in the Program of "ruthlessly suppressing every counter-revolutionary action on the part of hostile sections of the intelligentsia" (p. 48), and of "mercilessly [suppressing} the slightest opposition on the part of the village bourgeoisie" (p. 49). This gives an indication of how sincere the Communists are when they talk of democracy. Democracy means, to us, the right to dissent. To them it means the right only to say "yes" to the will of the dictator.
Does the revolution mean that our government, our courts, our armies, and our police will be suppressed? The answer is Yes. "The conquest of power by the proletariat is the violent overthrow of bourgeois power, the destruction of the capitalist state apparatus (bourgeois armies, police, bureaucratic hierarchy, the judiciary, parliaments, etc.), and substituting in its place new organs of proletarian power, to serve primarily as instruments for the suppression of the exploiters" (Communist Program, pp. 36, 37).
Does the Communist Revolution imply that during the revolution those who oppose it will be purged in the Stalin fashion? The answer is, Yes: "Revolution is not only necessary because there is no other way of overthrowing the riding class, but also because, only in the process of revolution is the overthrowing class able to purge itself of the dross of the old society..." (Communist Program, p. 52).
Finally, does the Communist Revolution mean the persecution of religion? The answer is, Yes: "One of the most important tasks of the cultural revolution affecting the wide masses is the task of systematically and unswervingly combating religion —the opium of the people" (Communist Program, p. 53).
Communist Testimony
And if you doubt their revolutionary intentions in America then kindly read the Communist testimony before a special committee of the United States House of Representatives, 71st Congress, Report No. 2290. The then and present Chairman of the Communist Party of the United Slates who had just arrived back in America after attending the Communist Congress in France and visiting Communist headquarters in Moscow, is being questioned by the government.
Q. "...the workers in this country look upon the Soviet Union as their country, is that right?
A. "The more advanced workers do.
Q. "Look upon the Soviet Union as their country?
A. "Yes."
Q. "They look upon the Soviet flag as their flag?
A. "The workers of this country... have only one flag and that is the red flag..."
Q. "...are the communists in this country opposed to our Republican form of government?
A. "The capitalist democracy—most assuredly..."
Q. "And they desire to overthrow it through revolutionary methods?
A. "I would like to read from the program of the Communist International... The conquest of power by the proletariat does not mean peaceful capturing... by means of a parliamentary majority... the violence of the bourgeoisie can only be suppressed by the stern violence of the proletariat.
Q. "You take your orders from the Third International, do you ?
A. "...The Communist International is a world party, based upon the mass parties in the respective countries. It works out its policy by the mass principles of these parties in all its delibei*ations... when a decision is arrived at... the workers, with their customary sense of proletarian discipline, accept [it] and put [it] into effect."
Q. "Do the Communists in this country advocate world revolution?
A. "Yes..."
My friends, if this be not disloyalty—then let us burn our dictionaries! If this be red-baiting, then tell me where lies America's right to self-preservation. Is the doctor who takes out a ruptured appendix an appendix-baiter? Is the judge who sentences a murderer to prison a criminal-baiter? Is the father who defends his wife and children from a burglar's violence a burglar-baiter?
Be not deceived then by the Communists draping themselves in the American flag and, with tears in their eyes, protesting their love of America—just remember that in 1937 3000 of them in Madison Square Garden raised their clenched fists and with shrill voices pledged themselves to the establishment of "Soviet America".
If you love America you should just as much resent that pledge as if 3000 Fascists pledged themselves for a "Fascist America".
Be Not Deceived
Be not deceived then by the anti-Fascist front of Communism. Just remember that Communism is Soviet Fascism, and, as a loyal American, if the Communists ask you to join the "American League against War and Fascism" (now called, euphemistically, the American League for Peace and Democracy), tell them you will join it if they will make it an "American League against War, Fascism, and Communism".
Be not deceived by the Communists' present tactics of ceasing to be roaring lions and appearing to be cooing doves. The American Communist Party is a member of the International Communist Party of Moscow. That is why the Communists of America will neither deny their revolutionary intentions, nor affirm them. They will not deny them because if they did Moscow -would not tolerate them one minute; they will not affirm them because if they did America would not tolerate them one second. That is why Communism is the greatest humbug ever foisted on the American people.
That is why the Holy Father has warned us not to be deceived by their hypocrisy about religion and democracy and their love of the workers. Our attitude toward their extended hand has been well expressed by M. Le Cour Grandmaison of the French Parliament who said to the Communists: "If the hand you hold out to us is that of the starving, we will give you bread both of body and soul; if that of the wounded, we will bear on our shoulders this fraternal sorrow; if that of the blind, we will guide you towards the light; if that of the despairing disinherited, we will give you peace, joy, hope and love; but if the hand that you offer is that of the traitor, of the seducer, of the enemy of souls, then in the name of Christ who saved our souls with His Blood we will reject your gesture" (The London Universe Feb. 4, 1938).
The Modern Judas
The tactics are designed solely to deceive. They will fool a few of our countrymen, but very few. Americans love the honest man; that is why they have no fear of the sword. But they dislike the deceiver, the knave, the one who conquers by stealth. These very tactics Communism is using now were used centuries ago, when a nervous man twitching nervously at a money bag, stole down a Jerusalem hillside. Crossing a brook, he turned to his followers and said: "Whomsoever I shall kiss, that is he; lay hold on him" (Mark 14:44). And Judas then threw his arms about the neck of Our Blessed Lord and blistered His lips with a kiss. Why did he use the kiss? Because he knew there was something so Divine and Sacred about Our Blessed Lord that He could be overcome only by some mark of affection.
In like manner, why does Communism use the kiss of the United Front? Why do they use the kiss of the "tactics"? Because they know there is something so God-given and so sacred about our national institutions that they must preface their overthrow by some sign of love. They know some things are so good that they can be betrayed only by a good sign—so they blister our national cheek with a kiss.
It is just that kiss that made Judas the most ignominious man in human history, and it is his direct descendants who turn our blood cold. Their tactics, deceits, and ruses to gain wicked ends, revolt all noble hearts and honest minds. If then you know the Tactics of Communism, you can hear its promises, peruse its propaganda, attend its inflammatory sessions, glance into its anti-religious museums, scan its atheistic literature, read its hymns of hate against God and fellowman, and you will never once be convinced that there is no God. If you know its tactics, you will however be convinced of one thing, and that is, that there is a Devil!
Insidious Propaganda
Now for an important warning about insidious propaganda:
1) Do not be fooled by Communist propaganda that Communism is democracy. Democracy means the right of minorities to dissent, but Communism permits neither minorities nor dissent. Furthermore, democracy believes in parliamentary reform; Communism believes in revolution. Democracy believes in the right of people to choose a leader; Communism, believes in the right of a Dictator to "choose" himself by purging his opposition. Communism calls itself a democracy to fool us, and here is the proof: American Communists were told by Moscow to talk democracy to us, but not to believe in it. Dimitrov told the Americans, quoting Lenin, that It would be a fundamental mistake to suppose that the struggle for democracy can divert the proletariat from the Social revolution, or obscure or overshadow it" (Working Class Against Fascism, p. 129). And Manuilsky told them that the United Front tactics of talking democracy did not mean that Communism bad capitulated to democracy, and if they believed it did they were "downright scoundrels" and "hopeless idiots" (Manuilsky, The Work of the Seventh Congress, pp. 58 and 59). If Communism is democracy then Stalin loves Trotsky.
2.) Never defend America politically against Communism without at the same time defending it against Nazism and Fascism, for the simple reason that dictatorship and democracy do not go together. Beware of any organization for peace, for youth, for democracy, e. g. "The American League for Peace and Democracy," which condemns one without the other. If, for example, you find an organization condemning Fascism or Nazism without condemning Communism, you may be sure that it is only a question of the pot calling the kettle black. As an American you must be opposed to all Dictators, Fascist, Nazi, or Communist. The Communist trick is to accuse all who are opposed to Communism of being Fascists. This is not true. Because I dislike Russian caviar it does not follow that I am mad about spaghetti or wiener-schnitzel. The tactics of Communism in relation to Fascism are very much like those of the prize fighter who whispered to his opponent in a clinch that his shoe-string was untied, whereupon the boxer let down his guard to tie his shoe and was cracked into oblivion. So too Communism says, "Look out for Fascism"—and as we become excited about it, Communism worms its way in for the kill. The proper American attitude is to keep both out of America.
How To Prevent Fascism
Now how do that? The best way to keep Fascism out of American life is to keep out Communism. The reason is simple. Historically, Fascism has arisen as a reaction against Communism, as a counter-irritant to Communism. It arose that way in Italy and in Germany and in other countries. It did not arise as a separate and independent movement, but as an exaggerated response to the danger of violent revolution. That is why in Europe every forward growth of Communism has produced a military dictatorship. Fascism is not first, but Communism. Fascism is the reaction against Communism. If then you want to keep Fascism out of America, the best thing to do is to keep out Communism. The danger of both grows proportionately, just as jails grow proportionately with criminals. It is not very likely that Communism will ever gain a foothold in America, simply because of the innate common sense of the American people. But we must avoid being stampeded by pressure groups, either Fascist or Communist. If Communism grows, the American people may be stampeded into a Fascist reaction; and if the Fascist danger is exaggerated, we may be stampeded into a Communist reaction. The best thing for us to do is to keep our heads and do our thinking according to American principles and not swallow sugar-coated propaganda. In other words, if you do not want to smell up your closets with. Fascist moth-balls, then keep out the Communist moths; for the moths come first, then the moth-balls. If you do not want your parlor cluttered up with rattraps, then keep out the rats; if you do not want an anti-Communist dictator then do not want a Communist dictator; if you do not want a Hitler in America, then don't let the Communists talk you into a Stalin.
Questions For Discussion