Part III The Communist Appeal in the United States
6 — Who Are the Communists?
The Communist Party, USA, works day and night to further the communist plot in America. Virtually invisible to the noncommunist eye, unhampered by time, distance, and legality, this bolshevik transmission is in progress. The Communist Party, USA, is bolshevizing its membership and creating communist puppets throughout the country. The American Party, in the Kremlin’s eyes, has for its objective the ultimate seizure of power in America and, to accomplish this purpose, it seeks to “educate” in the ways of communism all who will listen.
To appreciate the deadly seriousness of this process, the American citizen must see how the Communist Party, USA, by its every act, often without fanfare or newspaper headlines, is creating a corps of dedicated Party members, supported in many ways by United States citizens who have been infected or misled in one way or another.
Millions of Americans have wondered how the communists gain support. Frequently they seem to wield influence entirely out of proportion to their actual numbers.
Party influence is exerted through the communist device of thought control (controlling, in various degrees, the thinking of many Americans). The communists quickly accuse anybody who disagrees with them of being guilty of thought control; it is a favorite communist expression. Yet this same technique, applied in varying degrees to different groups of our population, is the key to communist strength in America today.
The Party’s objective is to drive a wedge, however slight, into as many minds as possible. That is why, in every conceivable way, communists try to poison our thinking about the issues of the day: social reforms, peace, politics, veterans’, women’s, and youth problems. The more people they can influence, the stronger they will be.
Top Party officials have a definite assignment: to capture positions of power. They are the Party’s front-line commanders. Communism is at war with America. The United States is a vast battlefield. A school, a labor union, a civic group, a government official, a private citizen—all are important in the never-ending struggle for power.
The whole nation, to the communists, is a gigantic checker-board. The communist high command is constantly moving, jumping, switching, and retreating to get communist members in positions of influence. They are outnumbered; they know that. That is why they must depend on skill, maneuvering, and deception.
The communist official in our country realizes that his supporters often form a motley collection, varying greatly in loyalty: some are fanatically loyal; others are half-timers or “single-nighters.” Many are “tremblers,” needing constant encouragement, whereas some are just victims unwittingly caught in the Party net.
But time after time the communists are able to weld these seemingly ill-assorted supporters into a unified instrument of power. They have succeeded in creating and dominating different areas of thought control. Each area contains supporters who, under Party guidance, can quickly and effectively be mobilized. The result of this manipulation, as applied to diverse personalities, groups, and issues, is a tribute to the communists’ deceitful skill. By this technique, using its own membership as a base, the Party is today influencing literally thousands of Americans.
There are five principal areas, or circles, of thought control that should be thoroughly understood. These are the keys to communist mobilization to achieve control of the United States.
1. “Open” Party members. The area of highest thought control, which is the core of communist strength, is the Party membership. These individuals, after indoctrination, become full-fledged revolutionaries, pledged to stick with the Party at all times.
Normally they make no effort to conceal their membership. They may be high-ranking officials, such as a state chairman, a section organizer, a club chairman, an educational director, or mere rank-and-file members. They are enrolled, pay dues, and accept Party discipline.
The Party member must be completely obedient; that is the hallmark of Party life. The constitution of the Communist Party, USA, sets forth specifically this definition of a full-fledged member:
A Party member shall accept the Party program as determined by the Constitution and conventions of the Party, belong to a Party club and pay dues.
Very clearly, he is a tool of the Party.
Party policy is built around Party membership. The trained member is one on whom the Party depends to commit espionage, derail a speeding train, and organize riots. If asked, gun in hand, to assault the Capitol of the United States, he will be expected to obey. These members are today working to promote a Soviet America: some in undercover assignments, some in communist-front organizations, others as Party officials. They are the offensive shock troops—confidently expecting that the precise moment will arrive when conditions will make feasible the revolutionary overthrow of our government.
If the Party desires to undertake a certain task, Party members, seen or unseen, will be the leaders. Suppose that a communist front is to be started; that is, an organization which is to be maneuvered by the Party. A communist sympathizer may be named president, but a Party member will probably be executive secretary, placed there to control policies. Or suppose a giant rally for “peace” is to be held. The platform will glitter with noncommunists. But a communist member on hand will control the agenda.
The strength of this inner circle, the real backbone of communist striking power, lies not in numbers but in organized deception. Following Lenin’s teachings, the Party is a small, compact, and highly mobile group that can strike quickly with great fury, often achieving objectives unwarranted by its numbers. Today’s membership is hard, well trained, and disciplined. The weak, fainthearted, and skeptical have been purged. Those who remain faithful to the Party are dedicated to the communist revolution. They are willing to sacrifice everything for it. Here is an actual case:
A Party member was given a special assignment. The first step was to drop everything and go into hiding. That was all he was told. He obeyed. He took another name, moved away. Time passed. The children began to ask, “Where is Daddy?” The mother’s answer: “He is dead. You don’t have a daddy!”
This is the fanaticism of the trained member.
To be obedient, however, is not enough. This select group of Party members must be made superobedient, meaning subservient beyond the hope of return. They must be constantly whipped into a state of frenzied enthusiasm and never allowed to relax. The moment a member “lets up” he is endangered; a noncommunist thought might slip in. He must be made to think exclusively in Party terms and nothing else. Some Party members are old-timers; others are new recruits. All of them grew up in capitalist society. Many still show the effects of their “enemy upbringing,” especially the younger ones. That is why they slacken once in a while. They think for themselves; they put self before Party. These instincts must be pounded out and communist thoughts instilled. Communists are not born; they are made. For example:
A Party leader in the Deep South was angry. He was talking to a member who had “slipped” a little. This individual was not giving his best effort to the Party, although he had been in the Party for twelve years and had fought in Spain with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.
“Work harder for the Party,” was the leader’s theme. “You’ve got to give more time to the Party than you’re doing now.”
“And starve,” answered the other man. “I’ve got to keep my job. I can’t make a living just doing Party work.”
“Let your wife work,” retorted the official. “That’ll hold you for a while, or borrow money if need be.”
“But she can’t make enough. Besides, she wants to keep house.”
“She’s a drawback,” flashed the leader, “a definite hindrance. What are you going to do, stand up for the Party or your wife?”
The question was direct. The individual answered, “What do you want me to do? Divorce my wife?”
“If your marriage is such that you can’t work for the Party,” came the reply, “I’d seriously consider divorce. Your wife is selfish, simply self-centered. She wants all your time. She doesn’t understand the movement. She’s interested in her own happiness and security.”
The communist leader rammed home his point. “I’m working all the time, so much that I can hardly sleep nights. You can’t allow personal problems to take your mind off the Party. You’ve got to fight that kind of pressure. Your allegiance to the Party comes first. I never let my wife interfere. She knows her place.”
2. Concealed Party members. Another area dominated by communist thought control consists of the concealed communist, the individual who, though accepting Party discipline, does not wish his affiliation to be publicly known. These two areas, open and concealed members, in fact, are closely related, often interchanging and always cooperating with each other. The concealed communist, because he is not known as a communist, can often advance the Party’s cause among people and in organizations where an open member would be scorned.
The number of concealed communists is high. They vary in degree of concealment. Some are concealed from the public and are not openly identified as communists. Others are concealed even from the membership, and a few are so deeply hidden that only top leaders know their identity. Usually the more prominent the individual, the more concealed he must be.
Concealed communists are found in all fields. They may be enrolled members, although secretly and usually under an alias or assumed name; or their names may never appear on official rolls. It does not matter. They are viewed by Party leaders as members. They are equally as dangerous as the open member, if not more so. They are difficult to identify and, being concealed, can operate freely in noncommunist groups.
A physician, a lawyer, an educator, a personnel manager in a business firm, a television script writer—each may be a concealed communist of great value to the Party. Suppose that a Party member is in hiding. He becomes ill. The doctor, a concealed communist, is called. He can be trusted. Or a study group is formed on a campus. The professor “guides” the discussion and subtly engenders communist doctrine. A personnel manager hires communist sympathizers, working them into key positions. Party influence increases, almost without anybody’s knowing it. Here is an example of how the system works:
Two men huddle in conversation. One is a top Party official; the other, a high-ranking labor union leader who is a concealed communist, although his union has since ousted him from his post.
The national convention of the union is about to open in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Party official is issuing instructions. Support this, support that. He talks in great detail, laying down the over-all Party policy. Then he becomes more specific, even going so far as to dictate the wording of resolutions, suggesting the order of convention business, and advising how certain personalities should be handled. Nothing is to be left to chance.
The union, leader listens. He can go on the convention floor, since nobody knows that he is under Party discipline, and carry out the communist program. This concealed communist is essential to the Party’s thought-control technique. There are thousands like him always seeking to penetrate the healthy body of American life and to corrupt it.
In another case, a top communist leader, long before he fled into the communist underground, was confronted with the problem of being identified, for he was well known and his picture had been widely publicized in the press. He could dye his hair, shave off his mustache, and lose weight, but he still could be readily identified by a mole on the right side of his jaw. He went to a physician in a Midwest city, a reported communist, who operated on the Party leader to remove the mole from his face.
Another concealed member of the Party was the editor-in-chief of a conservative book-publishing house. This editor, having an excellent educational background, was highly regarded by his company. On one occasion, after this publishing house had been criticized by a newspaper columnist for publishing procommunist books, the president discussed the problem at a meeting of the board of directors. He reported that he had asked the editor if, in fact, he was a member of the Communist Party. The editor entered an emphatic denial. The president then advised the board that since the editor was a gentleman, the allegations that he was a communist were false.
The president of the publishing house simply did not know the facts. The editor’s usual procedure was to have the manuscript of a communist author submitted directly to him on a personal basis. He would review it, be sure it was in publishable form, then have the author submit it to the publishing house through routine channels. Receiving the manuscript later through the company, he would recommend its publication. Through this technique, the editor was eminently successful in circulating communist literature.
When noncommunist authors complained and several terminated their relations with the publisher, the editor was later quietly eased out of his job.
There are occasions when a member of the Party will drop his open Party activities, move to another section of the country, and become a secret, concealed member. Such was the case of a talented young man who became active in the Communist Party in New York City before World War II when he was employed by a motion-picture company. After work he functioned as a Communist Party organizer, later as a membership director of a Party club, and, for a while, worked on the paid staff of the American Labor Party. In the meantime he obtained a job in television and in 1953 became program director of a television station in a large Southern city.
Soon after his arrival in the Southern city, the TV program director started to meet secretly with the Party’s “white-collar” professional group. Word came through that he should sever even these connections, according to a Party functionary, who said, “We want them [him and his wife] to be secure for the Party.” He was too valuable a member to be compromised. The Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, however, uncovered the white-collar professional cell, and when the TV director declined to answer Committee questions, he was promptly fired by his employer.
3. Fellow travelers. The third area in which communist thought control works is that of the fellow traveler and sympathizer. These two terms are distinct but related. The fellow traveler, while not a member, actively supports (travels with) the Party’s program for a period of time. The sympathizer is more passive, sympathizing with the Party or individual members on specific issues, and may or may not give active aid. These individuals are not Party members, but, in some degree, have come under Party control.
This control is sufficient to make them work willingly for the Party. Many consistently follow the Party line, even maintaining personal contacts with Communist Party officials. Others, the so-called “intellectuals,” may never have attended a communist meeting and may know nothing about Party organization. Yet, because of the spell of communist thought control, they knowingly do the Party’s work. Perhaps they have been influenced by Marxist writings or the professed aims of the Party on certain issues. In any case, deluded by communist propaganda, they desire to render active assistance.
Fellow travelers and sympathizers, unlike open or concealed communists, cannot be disciplined. A Party leader may request a favor. If the fellow traveler or sympathizer agrees, fine; if he doesn’t, the Party cannot do much except hope to exert more influence next time.
Moreover, these people are often undependable, donating money, for example, to one Party function but not another. Sometimes they may be “hot,” doing just about anything asked. Then suddenly they grow “cold,” lose interest, and become inactive.
The value of fellow travelers and sympathizers lies in their alleged noncommunist affiliation. That is why, in most instances, communist leaders do not attempt to recruit them into the Party. They are more valuable outside: as financial contributors, vocal mouthpieces, or contacts between Party officials and noncommunists. They constitute, in fact, fronts for, and defenders of, the Communist Party.
The role these individuals can play for the communists is clearly illustrated in front organizations, where they serve as sponsors or officials. Behind the scenes is a communist manipulator. Consider, for example, one such organization. In October, 1951, the Daily Worker announced the formation of the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee with one hundred fifty founders (from thirty-nine states), including fifty who were educators, clergymen, and professionals.
One of the Committee’s first official moves was to petition the New York State Commissioner of Education to “forbid the New York City Board of Education from enforcing its newly-enacted ban on suspected communist teachers....” Gradually, as the old Civil Rights Congress, a well-known front, became discredited, the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee took over its work. In 1956 the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, after identifying the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, stated, “When the Communist Party itself is under fire these fronts offer a bulwark of protection.”
The names of the group’s one hundred fifty founders have been exploited by the Party to fight its battles.
To make a known Party member president of a front would immediately label it as “communist.” But if a sympathizer can be installed, especially a man of prominence, such as an educator, minister, or scientist, the group can operate as an “independent” organization. This trick has worked time after time and is still working today. By allowing themselves to be used as tools, fellow travelers and sympathizers have immeasurably advanced the communist cause.
In Chapter 17 we shall discuss communist fronts in greater detail.
Of particular interest to the communists is the influence of fellow travelers and sympathizers in the “thought-molding” field: teachers, script writers, newspapermen, news analysts. If these individuals can be subjected to the slightest bit of communist thought control, the Party will have won a major victory.
One individual in New York City, for example, once occupied an important role as a news commentator and author. His views were consistently procommunist. He represented himself as an authority on international affairs. He claimed to have talked personally to many of the world’s leaders. Just as the communists would want, everywhere he went he built himself up as an individual who could give the American people guidance in their thinking.
This sympathizer was simply irreplaceable in the communist scheme. No open communist could discuss current events before lecture audiences, behind the microphone, or through the written word with his degree of “objectivity” and “independence.” He was able to fool many noncommunists and exert considerable influence. His lecture tours were often arranged by communist-front groups. A concealed communist contributed money to his expenses. Wherever this “world observer” went, he preached communist-line and pro-Soviet propaganda. When his influence began to slip, he then changed his ways and sought his livelihood elsewhere.
Men and women of this caliber can do much to bring others into the communist thought-control net. No wonder the Party works to support them.
4. Opportunists. Another group that falls, on occasion, under communist thought control consists of opportunists, individuals who, if they can benefit personally, will knowingly support the Party in return for support or favors from it. Opportunists are cynical and self-seeking, not caring that by cooperating with the communists, even though temporarily, they are injuring the nation.
In a large Midwestern city a noncommunist labor leader had aspirations to become president of a union council. A group of communists, opposed to the then president, decided that this labor leader could be controlled. They drafted him as a candidate and, of course, on the election slate placed also some Party members. The labor leader won the election, and so did the communists, because they gained a man over whom they had a hold and whom they could therefore expect to use.
The opportunist was then pushed into various front organizations: he was put on the board of a communist-sponsored school; designated as a delegate to a convention of a front group; enlisted to join a campaign to oppose the “anticommunist clause” in a state-wide labor convention. He was besieged constantly to “do this” and “help us.” His value to the Party was shown, for example, when, even though he refused on a certain occasion to cooperate with a Party front, his position was defended by the Party. The opportunist, in the Party’s eyes, was more important to it as a labor leader than as a supporter of the front.
For some time the deal paid off. The opportunist received the prestige and the communists had a champion. Then things began to change. The opportunist had his own ideas and ceased to follow the Party lead. Relations became strained. When the communists wanted the city-wide council to endorse a well-known comrade as a candidate for the board of education, they brought up the motion at a meeting when the opportunist was absent. The communist candidate was endorsed. That was too much for the opportunist, who promptly issued a public statement denying that he was backing the communist candidate. A special meeting of the council was called to reconsider its action.
The communists now moved into high gear. Word went out that the opportunist would have to be “put in his place” for publicly denouncing the communist candidate. At a special meeting the opportunist took the floor and successfully led the fight to reverse the council’s endorsement of a communist. The communists were bitter in their condemnation of their onetime protégé; he was a “traitor” and a “hypocrite.” Deciding he had had enough, the opportunist resigned the presidency.
In such a case who is the ultimate winner? The communists, for they have advanced their program. When he, the opportunist, faltered, he was dropped.
Communists watch eagerly for such opportunists; they are usually easy to influence and exploit. The self-seeker, fighting to win an election or wanting to earn some easy money, may listen to communist double talk and cooperate. Not that the Party is under any illusions; the opportunist is not going to be converted. He will denounce communist support just as quickly as he accepted it. Relations are strictly “dog eat dog,” each trying to exploit the other. But the opportunist can be used.
5. Dupes. The final area is that of the dupe, or innocent victim, the individual who unknowingly is under communist thought control and does the work of the Party. A tragedy of the past generation in the United States is that so many persons, including high-ranking statesmen, public officials, educators, ministers of the gospel, professional men, have been duped into helping communism. Communist leaders have proclaimed that communism must be partly built with noncommunist hands, and this, to a large extent, is true.
Communist propaganda is tailored to attract noncommunists. Communism offers a bogus “spiritual appeal,” a “Kingdom of God on earth.” Its tactics and strategy are covered with attractive, appealing words, such as “freedom,” “justice,” and “equality.” The communists claim they are working for a “better world,” that they have the answer to discrimination, exploitation, and economic want. To fight for communism, they say, is to become part of the most sacred crusade in the history of man.
Many well-meaning citizens, attracted by these words and not seeing behind the communist intentions, have been swept into the communist thought-control net. Most are sincerely interested in improving society, and there are many ways in which our society can and should be improved. They are willing to devote their time, talents, and energies to a “sacred cause.” That is how communist thought control works. If it can influence you on any matter, regardless of how minor, making you think favorably toward communism, it has gained. It has something to sell everyone.
“Fool the noncommunists!” That is the slogan. And, better still, make noncommunists fool each other! Encourage the support of as many dupes as possible. These individuals see only the exterior, or false face, of communism. They are never shown the inside, the real communism, the terror, injustice, and slavery. Time after time, in almost unbelievable fashion, victims, somehow or other under communist thought control, do communism’s work: signing communist election petitions, contributing time or money to communist fronts, issuing statements in support of communist-sponsored campaigns.
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, a member of the National Committee of the Communist Party, USA, quite recently was a candidate for the New York City Council under the emblem of the People’s Rights Party. Communists canvassed to obtain at least 3000 signatures on petitions required by law to place her name on the ballot. They went over the goal with the help of noncommunists. In the November 5, 1957, election, however, Flynn received fewer than 1000 votes.
The People’s Rights Party is a sham political party created to give the Communist Party the legal right to run communist candidates. In 1946, 1952, 1954, and again in 1957 communist candidates have run for municipal, state, or national office in New York City under the banner of the People’s Rights Party. Each time signatures had to be obtained to secure the right of the PRP to place its candidates on the ballot.
Another instance of Party manipulation to gain the support of noncommunists was the campaign in the summer of 1957 to solicit signatures for petitions opposing the further testing of nuclear weapons by the United States government. Most of these signatures, of course, were those of noncommunists. On this issue the Party was slavishly following the line of international communism. Communist strategy is to provide the leadership, encouraging noncommunists to do the work.
Not that these individuals are communists. The great majority of them are loyal, but deceived, citizens. Sending five dollars to a front organization with a patriotic-sounding name; signing a communist-inspired petition urging “world disarmament” (isn’t that a worthy cause?); attending a giant Party-manipulated rally in support of the “Bill of Rights”: the noncommunist does not realize these campaigns are being operated out of downtown communist headquarters. He is fooled because he believes in the aims they profess and does not recognize the hidden motive.
But, from the communist point of view, a dollar is a dollar. A victim makes a contribution. His money is just as good as money from an open member. A noncommunist allows his name to be used on a letterhead. Suppose he was fooled? The name is still there. Thus the communists assemble support from all quarters, whether given intentionally or not, and apply it toward their objectives.
Party officials, like fishermen, are constantly watching their “nets” 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.
Full of youthful vigor, Karl went to Spain as a volunteer in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Here on the front lines he was wounded and to this day bears the effects of the injury. This impetuous decision, taken against the advice of his family, represented a contribution of the Communist Party of the United States to international communism. Karl’s idealistic fervor against fascism and injustice was translated into shot and powder for the furtherance of communist aims.
Many thousands of Americans joined the communist movement during these early days of the fight against fascism. The hardships of depression days contributed to the deceptive appeals of communism. These men and women, seeking solutions, thought incorrectly that the panacea lay in communism. They labored under the illusion that the Party and Soviet Russia represented a better democracy. As one disillusioned member was later to complain, “At this time the Communist apologists stressed idealistic goals, and bragged of a growing democracy in Russia.”
Many individuals have joined the Party in the vain hope of improving social conditions, gaining better housing, or achieving better relations between the races.
Ralph was typical of many. He was a Negro, proud of his race and eager to help better its status in America. While in school he prepared a thesis on this subject. Wanting to secure various opinions, he asked several friends to read his manuscript. One of these, a fellow student, remarked after reading the paper that Ralph’s approach had been very naïve and that further study should be undertaken. Thereupon he furnished Ralph with information about Karl Marx and the communist viewpoint.
The communist position appealed to Ralph. Here was an organization that claimed that it was working zealously for the betterment of the Negro. The propaganda appeals seemed to point the direction that Ralph should take. He succumbed and joined the Communist Party. He was to learn that the Party has no sincere concern for the Negro but was and is using deceptive propaganda appeals to advance the communist cause.
The very same communist tactic applies in the field of labor unions. Edward was an active member of his union. In the early 1940’s he was recruited into the Communist Party and assigned to a club in the industrial section of the Party. Why had he joined? “When I joined the Communist Party I believed that I was joining a political party that would benefit the workingman.” Three years later he dropped out of the Party; it was not for the workingman. Rather it aimed at killing individual rights, making unions subservient to Party orders, and using union strength, influence, and finances to further communist goals.
The Party today is still busily at work trying to infiltrate unions. Historically, communists, including Lenin, have taught that communists must infiltrate unions. Every union member must realize that the communist interest in labor organizations is insincere. Past communist appeals have been recognized as false by patriotic union leaders themselves. Today’s communist appeal is no less false or dangerous than those of previous years. Our knowledge of how the Party operated in the past is one of our best weapons in defeating its techniques today.
The list of specific reasons for joining the Party, growing out of a desire to improve our nation, would be long. One woman was interested in social problems, such as slum clearance and better housing. Communists claimed to favor the same things as she. She believed and joined. Another individual, as a young minister, saw many injustices in a Northern state. Still another, arriving home from overseas, felt that the war had not accomplished any semblance of peace; he was displeased with American policy. He walked into Party headquarters on his own initiative and signed up.
Over the years thousands of Americans have entered the doors of communism. The turnover of Party membership has been great. Besides those motivated from idealistic reasons, there have been curiosity- and adventure-seekers, opportunists, disgruntled misfits, and power-hungry personalities. Some of these have consciously sought out the Party; others have just drifted into it. Many were youngsters, wanting to dance and sing. Some wanted social companionship. In others, sexual appeal played a role.
The Party, falsely representing itself as the final answer to all of society’s problems, economic, social, political, and religious, makes ready use of the various hopes, fears, and aspirations of recruits. This dynamic deceit of communist action provides an immediate channel for energy and enthusiasm. Within hours a recruit will be handing out leaflets or running errands. He gets the feeling of being in action now and not having to wait to participate in the fight for what he conceives to be a better world. Many recruits to the Party, when asked later why they didn’t offer their talents to legitimate organizations concerned with reform, said such groups were “too slow.” In the Party they found that “immediacy” which so satisfied them.
Then, in working in the Party, the recruit is promised a “belongingness,” a feeling of comradeship that can be won only in day-to-day battles for the greatest of causes. The member is told that he is part of a world-wide movement based on the most “enlightened,” “advanced,” and “scientific” principles. Unfortunately the Party has been able to generate great enthusiasm through this teaching. One member told the FBI that the slogan, “vanguard of the working class,” had appealed to him. He felt that not only was he contributing his own talents to the cause but he was “leading,” “educating,” and “guiding” others. “I think this activity was satisfying something in me,” another stated. Such an approach often deceives recruits, especially those of an egotistical nature, who appreciate the prospect of achieving personal “power” inside the Party structure where the chief qualification for advancement is not ability, education, or talent but loyalty to the Party. One high Party leader whose authority over Party disciplinary matters extended across half a continent was in ordinary life a day laborer. The flattering of his ego from his Party position can well be imagined.
In particular the communists have made an appeal to the so-called intellectual. The seduction of many intellectuals over the years by the Party stands as a disgrace. Thinking men and women, trained to analyze critically, all too often have been duped.
Our experience has shown that members joining the Party for idealistic reasons are more likely to stay in the movement than those not so motivated. Of course, this is not always true. Though joining the Party in a sincere attempt to better society, a member may quickly become disillusioned. However, time after time members who join for curiosity, for social reasons, or for sexual pleasure soon drift out. They are usually not the material from which hard-core communists are made. Here is an example:
Gladys was a college girl, rather gay, not too serious, with a great deal of leisure. She attended some Marxist study groups. Here Russia and communism were painted in rosy colors. After several meetings she was invited to join the Party. She accepted, 80 per cent, she said, out of curiosity and partly because she felt that if the communists could achieve a “peaceful” world about which they talked, it would be a “nice thing.” Other reasons Gladys gave for joining: to have something to do and to alleviate “boredom.” She described Party literature as more amusing than educational. Needless to say, she did not stay in the movement. Even Party officials, in her opinion, never seemed to trust her.
A sad group of recruits are simply the twisted, mixed-up neurotics. Perhaps as sons and daughters of well-to-do parents they harbor a “guilt complex” about the very privileges that America has given them. Or, because of some setback in life, they are angry at society and turn to communism as a way to “get even.”
Let’s look at Larry, a communist in a Midwestern state. Ever since youth, he had felt a “persecution complex.” Everywhere he looked he seemed to see despair and strife. The whole of society, he concluded, was strictly a dog-eat-dog affair, with life being divided between the have’s and the have-not’s. Such an attitude was intensified by an “artistic” and “sensitive” temperament. Seeing these “injustices,” he felt compelled to help the “persecuted.” At first he became just a “reformer”; then, after reading Marxist literature, he joined the Party. Twisted, distorted, and maladjusted, he is today even more confused. He found that the Party only exploited his neurotic condition to make use of his services.
The techniques of actual recruitment vary. In most instances indoctrination comes slowly. A fellow union member, worker, or associate who is a Party member will “work” on the prospect. First come conversations about mutual interests such as union activities. Deftly the communist slant will be emphasized. Perhaps then will come communist literature or an invitation to a “study group.” Step by step the recruit becomes enmeshed in the Party’s efficient recruitment apparatus.
A former member told how she first became acquainted with communism, which she was later to reject. She was living a lonely life in a boardinghouse. She noticed that some of her neighbors had many friends who laughed and chattered gaily. Apparently they had common interests that drew them together. One night she heard the muffled overtones of what sounded like a meeting next door: “Overcome by my growing curiosity about them, I snooped as no lady should. I sat on the bed and pressed my ear against the plaster wall. As their subdued voices rose and fell, I caught words and snatches. I don’t know now what I heard, or what could have convinced me in my great ignorance of that time. But before the meeting adjourned, I believed my jolly neighbors were Communists, and that I was listening to a secret meeting of a Communist cell of Government workers! They did not look as Communists were pictured, and they were not plotting bomb-throwing or assassination, but some much duller discussion with long words.” In her loneliness this woman joined the Communist Party but found neither “happiness” nor a “sense of direction”—only bitter disappointments.
Party fronts offer excellent means of recruitment. Be assured that every noncommunist who actively participates in a front is under the Party’s close scrutiny. Sometimes, of course, as we have seen, an individual is more useful to the Party by remaining a nonmember, a sympathizer, or a fellow traveler. At other times, if the prospect seems to offer a fertile field of recruitment, pressure is applied. Thousands of Party members were recruited through the many fronts operating in the 1930’s and 1940’s.
Of special interest to the Party are young people. The Party’s youth organizations, such as the Young Communist League and its successors, are largely recruiters of young people for communism. Many Party-sponsored activities—dances, parties, and picnics—are aimed to win the allegiance of boys and girls. Time after time members join as teen-agers—the age at which the Party would like to capture minds.
Many Party members have been recruited from communist homes, the children of Party members. In America today many hundreds of children, growing up in communist homes, are captives of this alien ideology. These youngsters are taught from the earliest years that God does not exist. One communist mother in a Northern state taught her children that God was not real. She said that it was fun to watch Superman on TV but that a person must recognize that he doesn’t actually exist. It’s the same way, she said, with God. In another city a communist father noticed a religious program on the family television set. He uttered a derogatory remark and turned off the program with the exclamation, “I’m a Marxist.”
Party parents provide special Marxist instruction for their children. One father would sit down with his youngsters and discuss items appearing in the Daily Worker; another gave regular quizzes on Marxist literature; still another lectured on Marxist economics every morning at the breakfast table. When the child grows up, he is given Party tasks: distributing literature, taking up collections at rallies, walking in picket lines. He begins to get the “feel” of Party life. In one instance a communist family gathered around a table and spent an hour or two in Party self-criticism and promising to do better. Party morality is constantly being inculcated in these youthful minds, a belief that whatever helps the Party is good, whatever hinders it is immoral. In one instance a communist father denounced a federal law that restricted the activities of the Party. His teen-age son, confused by the statement, pointed out that the Act was part of the law of the land. “Son,” the father replied, “if a law is bad, you do not have to obey it.”
No wonder many hundreds of recruits spring from communist homes as devotees of Marxism-Leninism.
Our experience has shown that reasons for joining the Party are many, varied, and complicated. Each individual has his own personal problems, hopes, and aspirations. Any attempt to apply generalized, ready-made stereotypes is to leave the problem unsolved. Moreover, we must try to see the total man; that is, all the forces, events, ideas, and motivations that brought about his tragic decision. For that reason each member deserves careful study. In the next chapter I shall discuss the reasons why members leave the Party. Here again we must understand each member as a human being, as an individual, always remembering that even though still a bigoted devotee he is convertible. Any thinking Party member will soon recognize the basic contradictions of communism.
We should be alert to help any communist back on the road to good American citizenship as soon as he shows the slightest indication that he is disillusioned with what he has found inside Party circles.
What lesson can we as a society learn from the Party’s methods of recruitment? Most important, I think, is to realize that the Communist Party is attempting to exploit the rise of materialism, irreligion, and lack of faith in our society. In an era when moral standards have been lowered, when family life has been disrupted, when crime and juvenile delinquency rates are high, communists have tried to set forth a goal—dressed in attractive phrases—that would captivate the longings and hopes of men and women. They have, in truth, tried to “steal” the nobility, the fervor, the enthusiasm of a free government under God.
9 — Why People Break With Communism
Just as important as knowing why people join the Communist Party is understanding why they leave. Here again, by recognizing the influences that cause them to reject this alien doctrine, we can do much to defeat the communist conspiracy.
Always we must keep in mind that communists, even hard-core members, potentially can be converted. To the individual who asserts, “Once a communist, always a communist,” I say: “No. Every communist can be made to see the errors of his way. He must not be despised, belittled, or rejected as hopelessly lost. He can redeem himself by actively taking a stand for freedom. Every patriotic American must do what he can to bring these persons to see the truth. The ex-communist is today one of our most potent weapons against communism.”
On September 9, 1957, the Daily Worker published a story which stated: “Joseph Clark has resigned from the Daily Worker, of which he was foreign editor, and from membership in the Communist Party.”
Clark was a Party member for twenty-eight years, always known as an ardent one. When Stalin died, Clark was his paper’s correspondent in Moscow. Yet, by his own current processes of thinking he saw the futility of the Party.
Howard Fast, well-known communist author, was mentioned in the last chapter. After years of Party membership and thousands of words of communist propaganda, he quit. The revelations of Khrushchev about Stalin’s murderous regime were too much. “The dimensions of this horror were not only beyond anything we could have dreamed of... I was filled with loathing and disgust.”
On the West Coast Barbara Hartle, because of her fiery energy and zeal, was recognized in Party circles as the outstanding woman communist in the Pacific Northwest. So active was she in Party circles that she was indicted, tried, and convicted under the Smith Act. But she, too, became disillusioned. Like Louis Budenz, Bella Dodd, Howard Fast, and Joseph Clark, she added her name to the growing list of communists who have said, “We’ve had enough. We’re quitting.”
To understand why members break with the Party, let’s examine the case of Barbara Hartle, who exemplifies the anguish of a Party official desperately seeking her way to freedom. Her experiences may enable members still in the Party to look into their own hearts. Are they being beset by the same doubts? Why have these doubts arisen? What is working to increase or to quell them?
On the other hand, Barbara Hartle’s story will give the patriotic citizen an appreciation of the anguish experienced by Party members on their journey to freedom. He can learn to be understanding, patient, and helpful. He will see, for instance, how a sympathetic citizen helped Barbara free herself from communist entanglement.
On March 12, 1954, Barbara Hartle walked into the Seattle office of the FBI. She didn’t need to identify herself. The previous October she, along with four other top Party leaders, had been convicted in Seattle under the Smith Act.
Barbara Hartle told her story: She had been graduated in 1929, Phi Beta Kappa, from Washington State College, majoring in English; then she went to Spokane, trying to find a job. Those were depression days and her story is all too typical. Hoping for a “better world,” she began to read Karl Marx. Deeply impressed, she joined the Socialist, then the Communist, Party. Her rise was rapid. Later she was transferred to Seattle where she occupied some of the highest Party positions in the Washington State organization. “I’ll go to jail if I must,” she once declared, “but I’ll remain a communist.”
One day in 1945 Barbara Hartle sat writing an article for the communist press. Earl Browder was on his way out as head of the communist movement. By force of habit she defended him. But Party experience taught otherwise. Foster was now the “boss.” Confused by the sudden Party shift, she tore up the article.
Later, back on the Party line, she wrote another article supporting Foster. But something had happened. Out of this confusion, this “great surprise,” as she termed it, of the Party switch, she seemed suddenly to have seen something new—that the Party was not what it claimed to be, but a fraudulent deception. To Barbara Hartle, as to many communists, doubt had come, an indication that the breath of freedom was still alive in her.
As in many such cases, this confusion and doubt quickly disappeared, swallowed up in the rush of Party life. In 1939 she had become disturbed by the Party’s position on the Hitler-Stalin pact, but this also had passed. She soon became the same fanatical Barbara Hartle, attending meetings, issuing orders, making speeches.
Yet these doubts were to be followed by other doubts. Now she began, as she later explained, to become conscious of certain features of Party life that she had not previously noticed. She listed some of them:
1. The constant factional struggle for leadership.
2. The hand-picking of leaders from the top.
3. The arbitrary handling of funds by some of the top officials.
4. Finding the “self-criticism” of leaders to be mere “empty promises.”
5. The “furious resistance” of Party leaders to criticism or guidance offered by rank-and-file members.
6. The expulsion of members by “rigged trials.”
Like a searchlight, these doubts began to search out other doubts, inconsistencies, and contradictions. The fissure of doubt was widening.
Now Barbara was to experience a phenomenon that affects every Party member trying to break the communist spell: the counterattack of the unconscious Party discipline.
Doubts would suddenly arise, then disappear. They would arise again but again disappear. When she seemed to want to slow up in her Party work, her old enthusiasm would return. She found, as she later explained, that her “process of mental reorientation was impeded by the study and teaching of Marxist-Leninist works, which is the Communist Party’s antidote for such an eventuality.”
Over a long period and through a slow process of constant discussion, schools, and self study the Communist Party builds a conscience of responsibility upon which it then relies to keep a member functioning, even though any real desire to do so has passed.
That’s why the Party keeps stressing Marxist-Leninist education: Party schools, reading the communist press, self-study. It builds up a discipline that automatically attacks doubts, rationalizes contradictions inside the Party structure, and guides every decision in the Party’s favor.
Then, in mid-1950, an important event occurred for Barbara Hartle. She received instructions to attend a secret meeting in Woodland Park, Seattle. There she was told to change her name, leave Seattle, and enter the Party’s underground. For the next two years she lived under assumed names in various Washington State and Oregon cities.
The unending hustle and bustle of everyday Party activity ceased. As she sat in a lonely room or stood on a dark street corner waiting for an underground meeting, she now had time to think. Suddenly all the doubts that had been slowly accumulating came together. At the same time the restraining influences of Party discipline became weaker.
A more rapid disillusionment on my part took place when I left the active Communist Party upon leaving Seattle to enter the Communist Party underground movement. Without direct day to day pressure, with less reading of Marxist-Leninist works and with increased reading of other material, and through coming into contact with average people my mental processes were hastened. The culmination of this process was my decision to leave the Communist Party and to live my own life.
She became convinced that the Communist Party was an evil; that it did not represent a way to better social or economic conditions; that it was a fraud and a deception.
I never realized that this discipline and this mental and physical domination of the Communist Party over its members is necessary to it in order to continue its double life of posing as one thing and being another. I had never before realized that the many unsolved problems I had noted while still a Communist Party member were products of this double existence.
It was one thing, however, to break intellectually with the Party, another to break openly. That was now to be Barbara Hartle’s anguish and the anguish of so many members still in the Party today.
Barbara was living in a no-man’s land: she had broken with the world of tyranny yet was held by the power that had robbed her of freedom. The indecision began to tear her apart. She was spiritually sick. At first she kept saying to herself and the Party, “I’ll be all right. Just give me a little time. I’ll work this out.” She just couldn’t realize that these doubts were permanent signs of a new life, not temporary confusions in an old allegiance. Merely to drift away quietly wasn’t possible. The Party wouldn’t allow that. The only way was to redeem herself by walking boldly forward.
This she did in March, 1954. And here is what a sympathetic citizen can do to help. Mr. Traynor Hansen, a reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, had covered the 1953 Seattle Smith Act trial. He noticed, as did others, that Barbara Hartle lacked the fiery disposition of the other defendants. Later, while on bond, she had long visits with him. It was his counsel that she go to the FBI since it would have been improper under the circumstances for us to go to her.
To Barbara Hartle’s lasting credit, she did not try to evade responsibilities for her past errors. The information that she furnished the FBI is now at work against the very Party that for almost twenty years duped her. And she, with a clear conscience, is winning back the respect and esteem she had before the Party stole her away. She deserves aid as she reconstructs her life.
Many interviews with Party members reflect numerous men and women inside the movement today in various stages of disillusionment. Such doubts are good omens. They indicate that not all members are lost beyond recall. By the very nature of Party discipline doubts are inevitable. Any member in the Party today without doubts is indeed a complete slave.
What causes doubt to arise in the minds of members? Our experiences reveal these major categories:
1. The absence of freedom inside the Party. The greatest single factor making for doubt is the lack of democracy inside the Party. “I was constantly whipped into line,” one member said, “on policies and issues with which I disagreed.” “Discussions at meetings were not open....” Party organizers would come and tell the club what to do. “Why Writer Quit Reds: They Frown on Thinking,” read a headline in a New York City newspaper. This member could no longer force himself “to live in the stifling atmosphere of the party line with all its ruthless intolerance for the processes of the mind.” In another instance a woman told us how she had voted “no” in a Party meeting. “People literally moved their chairs away from me. I walked out of the meeting and never attended a Communist Party meeting again.”
More and more intellectuals are realizing that the Party is simply exploiting their prestige and talents, without trusting them. Intellectuals are encouraged to think, if they think the “right” way; but any independent thinking is not allowed. That is why, in the final analysis, the Party keeps the pressure on its members who are intellectuals. It fears that they might start thinking for themselves. As one intellectual stated, “I think that the Party was using me, as they were many other intellectuals.... I always had the feeling that they never trusted intellectuals beyond a certain limit....”
2. The inability to live a normal life. Closely allied is the impossibility of living as a decent human being. One member said he resented the Party’s constantly demanding his time. There was no end of assignments: distributing literature, attending meetings, getting petitions signed. Another member complained that she was “sick and tired” of her husband’s putting the Party before her and the children. The Party’s instructions must always take precedence. This constant stealing of time, never allowing the member to relax, develop a hobby, or enjoy a family, provokes the most searching doubts.
3. The Party’s callous disregard of members’ personal problems. A Party official’s wife was sick. He asked for time off. It was refused. Or, a member’s home must be mortgaged in a fund drive. And if he cannot make payments, it’s his hard luck. Again, an old-time member was sent underground. He was instructed to change his name, sell his car and personal belongings, leave his wife and not contact her. He asked Party permission to visit his family. The answer: no. He came home anyhow and was severely disciplined.
No wonder more and more members are asking, “Why continue to be exploited?”
4. Discrepancy between Party practices and claims. As we have seen, many members join in the mistaken belief that the Party will improve some social evil, such as racial inequality or inadequate housing. “It is frankly recognized in Communist theory,” one disillusioned old-timer confessed, “that the whole strategy is not for the main purpose of Negro liberation, but for the purpose of the proletarian revolution.” “My dissatisfaction with the Party and my break with the Party came about through a gradual process as a result of the realization that Party policy was a detriment to true trade unionism.”
Like Barbara Hartle, dubious communists see the internal squabbles and feuds, rigged elections, trumped-up evidence, the striving to be little commissars. Party leaders stay in fancy hotels or take vacations, while rank-and-file members are hounded to donate the last dollar. All this is disillusioning, especially in an organization that claims to be working for a just society.
5. Communist tyranny in Russia and behind the Iron Curtain. The sensational revelations of Khrushchev concerning the crimes of Stalin rocked the Party apparatus. Then came indisputable evidence of anti-Semitism in Russia and in November, 1956, the capping blow, suppression of Hungary by Soviet troops, the spectacle of a self-proclaimed leader of “people’s rights” physically strangling a people’s demand for liberty.
This caused Howard Fast to strike violently at the Party that could give birth to “the explosive and hellish revelations of the Khrushchev ‘secret report’” when he said:
I felt a sense of unmitigated mental nausea at the realization that I had supported and defended this murderous bloodbath, and I felt, as so many did then, a sense of being a victim of the most incredible swindle in modern times.
About Hungary: “From Hungary and its tragedy we learned of a new kind of socialism—socialism by slaughter and terror.” No wonder Fast laments, “A lifelong structure of belief lies shattered around me....”
Another member who had been in the Party almost twenty years told our agents that she was quitting. If what happened in Russia, as revealed by Khrushchev, was true, she wanted “no part” of it. Still another member with over twenty-five years in the movement admitted that Soviet intervention in Hungary brought things to a head for him. If he were in Hungary, he said, he would be a Freedom Fighter.
Every abrupt change in the Party line, such as the 1939 Hitler-Stalin Pact or the 1945 ousting of Browder, jars many members. However, no event in Party life has been so conducive to raising doubts among members as the Khrushchev report and its sequel.
6. Communist opposition to religion. Member after member has related that the Party’s claims that God doesn’t exist and that religion is a myth have raised doubts. Many members carry within their hearts the influence of religious training received while they were young. They inwardly rebel at a materialist solution to life.
Then there is the protest against the Marxist doctrine, which, in the words of one former member, “purports to reduce man’s problems and destiny to an economic formula.” In deeply emotional terms he added, “I want my children to approach their world and the history behind it, with the curiosity and objectivity it takes to learn. I do not want them to feel that the questions are answered, that this or that little system is the slide rule for answering all their questions.”
These, then, are some of the reasons why doubts concerning communism arise in members’ minds. Why do many still hesitate to break with the Party? The answer: They are still under the influence of false fears.
1. Fear of the FBI. One member, when interviewed by the FBI, expressed amazement at the cordial treatment accorded him. “I thought you fellows would drag me from my house.” Communists for years have poured scorn and contempt on the FBI. They try to paint our agents as brutal thugs in the hope of driving a wedge between their members and the government. One highly placed member, visited by the FBI, turned what was expected to be a fifteen-minute interview into a five-hour discussion, during which he said, “The Party considers the FBI its prime enemy and Party members are expected to denounce the FBI.” The FBI wants sincerely to help these individuals. They should feel free to counsel with us. Members can be assured that they will be cordially received, not embarrassed, and that their information will be kept strictly confidential, should they so request or if there is good reason to protect their identity.
2. Fear of being a “stool pigeon.” This false belief, inspired by Party discipline, is today keeping many lost souls silent. Our agents asked one Party member, “Suppose a criminal gang kidnaped one of your children. What would you do?” The answer: “Call the FBI.” “Would you want the FBI to make inquiries to locate the youngster?” “Yes.” “Would you expect citizens having pertinent knowledge of this criminal conspiracy to give that information to the FBI?” “Certainly,” he said.
The communist member furnishing information to the FBI is also doing his moral and patriotic duty in helping crush a criminal conspiracy. To remain silent is to assist the Party. Communism, like a criminal gang, thrives when people able to combat it refuse to do so. “Stool pigeon” is a Party-defined term used as a weapon to enforce communist discipline. The Party is enabled to reach into men’s minds, censor their thoughts and words, and thereby buttress tyranny.
3. Fear of personal safety and reputation. Some members fear the rabid hatred that the Party spews out at members leaving the movement. A West Coast communist, though disillusioned, didn’t break with the Party. He feared that his communist friends would ostracize him. Finally, though hesitantly, he said he was now willing to “risk” being with the majority of Americans!
Party members should not fear the hostility of their former Party associates. To be denounced by communists is an honor. Remember, the example of a Party member breaking with the Party may influence others to do likewise.
4. Fear of disgracing their families. Many members trapped in the Party dread that their loved ones will know of their involvement. One man, asked if his wife and children knew of his communist background, began to cry. Another said he would do anything to keep his young son from knowing. Not long ago our agents contacted a Party member. “Don’t talk to me at home,” she said. “I don’t want the children to know. Call me on the phone.” Her wishes were respected.
To remain silent is not to improve the situation. There is no way in which such cooperation will injure the family. One member, very thankful that he had cooperated with the FBI, said he was happily married and simply would not allow his communist background to injure his innocent family.
5. Fear of not being received as a loyal American. The answer lies largely with the Party member himself. It is within his power alone to break completely with communism. He will be judged by his actions, not alone by his words. The biblical advice holds true: “... by their fruits ye shall know them.”
In addition, patriotic Americans must do their share to help these Party members. Many are driven back into Party tyranny by the inexcusable ignorance, rancor, and pride of noncommunists. Moreover, it does not help when the truly reformed communist is characterized as a “renegade” and “traitor”—terms which would normally be used by communists themselves and not by good Americans.
In November, 1953, I wrote an article entitled “Breaking the Communist Spell,” which appeared in This Week magazine. It was an appeal to members disillusioned with communism to step forward and help in the fight against Soviet tyranny. The response was encouraging. In an Eastern city a caller said he had read the article and wanted to give information about Party activities. Another person told our agents, “It’s never easy to tell such a story.... Then I saw an appeal by J. Edgar Hoover in a recent magazine article and after reading it several times felt that I should make a special effort to remember and pull what I could into order.”
I want to set forth again the salient portions of this article. It seems to sum up what we have been trying to say on this most important subject:
The individual contributions of former members of the Communist Party to the security of our way of life are shining examples of people who have recognized their mistakes and are doing all within their power to rectify them.
If, having knowledge of persons and activities detrimental to his country, he breaks from the Party, yet maintains silence, he is still aiding the enemy. The moral obligation involved cannot be met by silence. The choice is simple: help the United States. The man who does this is preserving freedom under law. He is protecting the American way of life for free men and women—including his family and himself.
These people deserve the nation’s respect, and their neighbors’ fair-minded forgiveness for their past devotion to Communism. Their means of livelihood must be protected, and loyal Americans must accept their sincere repentance as a return to the full scope of citizenship. All great religions teach that the sinner can always redeem himself. Who, then, shall sit in judgment on the ex-Communist? Who dare deny him the promise held out to those who repent of the evil they have done and who try to make amends?
For our part, at the FBI, we have always sought to recognize the very real human and personal problems facing the ex-Communists who have come to our offices to make such amends....
In discussing the ex-Communist, those who piously say that the leopard never changes its spots forget that they are speaking of human beings—mortal creatures with immortal souls. And those who say “Once a Communist, always a Communist” are simply advertising their ignorance. To deny that men can change is to deny the truths which have eternally guided civilized man.