Chapter I: Front Matter (1)

Transcriber’s Note: Two pages of advertising material were moved to the end of the book.

J. EDGAR HOOVER
Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation

MASTERS OF DECEIT

The Story of Communism in America
and How to Fight It

POCKET BOOKS, INC. · NEW YORK

_Masters of Deceit_

Henry Holt edition published March, 1958
Book-of-the-Month Club edition published June, 1958
GIANT CARDINAL edition published October, 1959
11th printing October, 1961

This GIANT CARDINAL edition includes every word contained in the original, higher-priced edition. It is printed from brand-new plates made from completely reset, clear, easy-to-read type.

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Copyright, ©, 1958, by J. Edgar Hoover. All rights reserved.
This GIANT CARDINAL edition is published by arrangement with
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PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

_Foreword_

Every citizen has a duty to learn more about the menace that threatens his future, his home, his children, the peace of the world—and that is why I have written this book.

If you will take the time to inform yourself, you will find that communism holds no mysteries. Its leaders have blue-printed their objectives. The time is far too late not to recognize this “ism” for what it is: a threat to humanity and to each of us.

Moreover, there is the sobering fact that since the end of World War II we have spent billions of dollars to defend ourselves from communist aggression. This burden will continue to mount until the world is free from the communist menace.

This book is an attempt to explain communism—what it is, how it works, what its aims are, and, most important of all, what we need to know to combat it.

In writing this book I have been guided by many years of study and observation of the communist conspiracy in action in the United States.

As a Special Assistant to the Attorney General of the United States in 1919, I was assigned to prepare a legal brief on the newly formed Communist Party and Communist Labor Party. This necessitated an extensive and penetrating study.

The amount of material was voluminous: Party statements, resolutions, platforms, news accounts, manifestoes, the very first documents of American communism. I studied also the writings of Marx, Engels, and Lenin as well as the activities of the Third International.

In this brief, which was submitted to the Attorney General, I concluded:

These doctrines threaten the happiness of the community, the
safety of every individual, and the continuance of every home
and fireside. They would destroy the peace of the country and
thrust it into a condition of anarchy and lawlessness and
immorality that passes imagination.

Today, as I write these words, my conclusions of 1919 remain the same. Communism is the major menace of our time. Today, it threatens the very existence of our Western civilization.

In November, 1917, the Bolsheviks seized control in Russia, gaining state power for the first time. That breach has today widened into a vast communist empire. The attack is still being pressed. International communism will never rest until the whole world, including the United States, is under the hammer and sickle. This is what has happened to the Russian people, now held in bondage, who would be free if they could. (I wish to distinguish here and elsewhere in this book between these unfortunate millions and the small clique of communist rulers of Soviet Russia.)

Communism is more than an economic, political, social, or philosophical doctrine. It is a way of life; a false, materialistic “religion.” It would strip man of his belief in God, his heritage of freedom, his trust in love, justice, and mercy. Under communism, all would become, as so many already have, twentieth-century slaves.

Ever since 1917, I have observed the rise of international communism with great concern, particularly communist efforts to infiltrate and infect our American way of life. The Communist Party, USA, started in 1919 as a small, disorganized group of fanatics. Today, it is a dedicated, conspiratorial group operating under modern conditions as an arm of revolution. There is no doubt that America is now the prime target of international communism.

Obviously, this book does not pretend to disclose a body of material known exclusively to the FBI. What it does express is the hope that all of us may develop a shared body of rudimentary knowledge about communism: a body of knowledge that we _dare not_ be without. It attempts, in almost primer form, to set down certain fundamentals of the day-to-day operations of the Communist Party, USA: how a communist meeting is conducted; how a top Party official lives; what goes on in the underground; how discipline is enforced; how Party members collect money, attend indoctrination schools, hand out propaganda leaflets. Party members are shown organizing agitation campaigns, infiltrating noncommunist organizations, and manipulating communist fronts. The best way to appreciate the nature and objectives of an enemy is to observe him in action.

The Communist Party, never forget, is a state within a state. It has its own system of “courts,” legislative assemblies, schools, and press. It enforces its own laws, has its own standards of conduct, and offers its own road to Utopia. The Party member may physically reside in the United States, but he “lives” in a communist “world.”

The Party, moreover, serves as a “transmission belt” whereby the Soviet mentality is being imposed, both directly and indirectly, on thousands of Americans. The Party’s objective is to produce a “politically mature” comrade—“communist man”—who will work ceaselessly for the revolution that would make our United States part of the Soviet system.

I have deep faith in the American people and in our American way of life. But I know what communism could do to us. Not because it is stronger than we are; it is not. Not because it has something better to offer; it has not. But we may not learn until it is too late to recognize who the communists are, what they are doing, and what we ourselves, therefore, must do to defeat them.

It is my sincere hope that members of the Communist Party will take the time to read this book—to see how, right before their eyes, the Party is deceiving them. As we know, many members, once awakened to the true nature of communism, have renounced the Party. By casting aside the communist spell, these men and women can do much to aid the cause of freedom.

I have sought to avoid sensationalism, even though much of the FBI’s work in keeping abreast of day-to-day activities of American communists makes us ask in wonderment, “Can this be possible?” To recount the sensational activities of communists would defeat my objective. My purpose has been to assemble, organize, and present basic, everyday facts of communism which will be of maximum help to the people of our country in recognizing and fighting the enemy in our midst. Consequently, where illustrative incidents seemed advisable, I have selected those that have occurred most frequently and are most typical of the communism that is seeking daily to undermine our liberties. I have also deliberately avoided identifying many names and places.

I owe deep thanks to many for help in the preparation of this book. On the technical side, I am grateful to William I. Nichols, editor and publisher of _This Week_ magazine, for much editorial guidance and advice. In a wider sense, I owe much to the courageous and self-sacrificing men and women of the FBI who have contributed so greatly to America’s fight against communism.

But most of all, I have been guided by the thought of millions of loyal Americans everywhere and in all walks of life. Never has there been a time when we have so much need for one another. And we must never forget that if our government is to remain free, it needs the help of every patriotic man, woman, and child.

Washington, D.C.

December, 1957

_Contents_

_Page_

=Foreword= v

=Part I. Who Is Your Enemy?= 3

=Part II. How Communism Began=

1. Marx—And the “Science” of Communism 13
2. Lenin—And the Russian Revolution 23
3. Stalin—A Fallen Idol 35
4. How U.S. Communism Began, 1919-21 48
5. The Party Grows Up 61

=Part III. The Communist Appeal in the United States=

6. Who Are the Communists? 75
7. What Do U.S. Communists Claim? 89
8. Why Do People Become Communists? 97
9. Why People Break with Communism 108

=Part IV. Life in the Party=

10. How the Party Is Organized 123
11. This Is the Party! 138
12. Making Communist Man 149
13. Communist Discipline 163

=Part V. The Communist Trojan Horse in Action=

14. Communist Strategy and Tactics 181
15. Mass Agitation 185
16. Infiltration 199
17. The Communist Front 212
18. Communism and Minorities 226
19. The Communist Attack on Judaism 237

=Part VI. The Communist Underground=

20. How the Underground Works 255
21. Espionage and Sabotage 271
22. What Can You Do? 287

=Part VII. Conclusion=

23. Communism: A False Religion 297
24. How to Stay Free 308

=Glossary= 315

=Bibliography of Major Communist “Classics”= 328

=Appendices=

I: Key Dates in Lives of Communist “Big Four” 333
II: International Communist Organizations and Publications 335
III: Communism in Russia 337
IV: Communism in the United States 339

=Index= 341

_Part I_

WHO IS YOUR ENEMY?

Many Americans have not stopped to realize what a “Soviet America” would mean. The communists, however, have no doubts. Their blueprints are already made. So, at the very outset, let us look at their dream and see what it would mean to you and me and all the people we know.

In June, 1957, Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet Communist Party boss, was interviewed before a nation-wide American television audience. With calm assurance he stated:

... I can prophesy that your grandchildren in America will live
under socialism. And please do not be afraid of that. Your
grandchildren will ... not understand how their grandparents
did not understand the progressive nature of a socialist
society.

William Z. Foster, former National Chairman of the Communist Party of the United States (now Chairman Emeritus of the Party’s National Committee), also predicted that this nation will one day become communist when he stated in 1949, in dedicating his book, _The Twilight of World Capitalism_:

To My Great-Grandson Joseph Manley Kolko Who Will Live in a
Communist United States.

These words of Russia’s top Party boss and one of the highest-ranking communists in the United States reveal the nature of the enemy we face. To make the United States a communist nation is the ambition of every Party member, regardless of position or rank. He works constantly to make this dream a reality, to steal your rights, liberties, and property. Even though he lives in the United States, he is a supporter of a foreign power, espousing an alien line of thought. He is a conspirator against his country.

The communist is thinking in terms of _now_, in your lifetime. Remember that within four decades communism, as a state power, has spread through roughly 40 per cent of the world’s population and 25 per cent of the earth’s surface. Some years ago communists were complaining that their “fatherland,” Soviet Russia, was encircled, a communist island in a “capitalist” sea. Today the situation is changed. The world communist movement is on the march, into Germany, the Balkans, the Middle East, stretching across the plains of Asia into China, Korea, and Indochina. Communists have never won over an entire country by a free election and have never hesitated to shed blood if this would best serve their purposes. Moreover, in noncommunist countries thousands of Party members are working for Moscow. Communists firmly believe they are destined to conquer the world.

This belief is held in the United States too. A disciplined Party of hard-core fanatical members is now at work, with their fellow travelers, sympathizers, opportunists, and dupes. Communists in our country, though small in numbers, do not feel lonely. They have faith in the “big Red brother” who will come to their help. William Z. Foster’s hope, a Red America, is today inspiring thousands of Party members and sympathizers to determined effort. They want to add America to Soviet Russia’s list of conquests.

In recent years there has been a tendency to discount the menace of domestic communists solely because of a decline in Party membership. In fact, some have gone so far as to say, “... the party ... is almost over.” Let’s examine that statement:

In 1922, when Communist Party membership reached 12,400, William Z. Foster said, “... we no longer measure the importance of revolutionary organizations by size. In some places where there are only one or two men, more results are obtained than where they have larger organizations....”

This has been the communist line down through the years. Foster in 1951 stated, “Communist strength ... cannot be measured even approximately by statistics.... The Communist parties’ strength runs far beyond all formal measurements....”

The Party’s membership in this country reached a low in 1930 when it had 7500 members, and a peak of 80,000 in 1944; its membership at five-year intervals since 1930 has been as follows: 1935—30,000; 1940—55,000 (a drop of 15,000 from 1939); 1945—64,600 (a drop of 15,400 from 1944); 1950—43,200; 1955—22,600; and by the summer of 1957 membership had further declined. However, over the years it has been estimated by the communist leaders themselves that for every Party member ten others are ready, willing, and able to do the Party’s work.

Fluctuations in the American Party parallel those in foreign countries. The record clearly establishes that Communist Parties have the power of swift and solid growth when the opportunity arises. The following figures reflect how Party membership can dwindle and then spurt:

In Italy, Party membership went from 6000 in 1943 to 2,500,000
in 1951; in France, from 20,000 in 1929 to 400,000 in 1956;
in Syria, from 250 in 1931 to 10,000 in 1956; in Brazil, from
25,000 in late 1947 to 100,000 in 1956; and in Indonesia, from
30,000 in 1953 to 500,000 in 1956.

_When the Communist Party was at its peak in the United States it was stronger in numbers than the Soviet Party was at the time it seized power in Russia._

The size of the Party in the various Soviet satellites at the time each came under Soviet control discloses how a well-organized band of revolutionaries can impose its rule over the majority population:

_Date of
Communist _CP Membership _Population
Take-over_ on That Date_ on That Date_
BULGARIA September, 1945 20,000 7,020,000
ROUMANIA March, 1945 800,000 16,409,000
POLAND January, 1949 1,000,000 25,225,000
CZECHOSLOVAKIA May, 1948 1,329,000 12,338,000
HUNGARY August, 1947 750,000 9,383,000
ALBANIA December, 1945 12,000 1,120,000
YUGOSLAVIA Mid-1945 141,000 14,500,000

Under communism, a tiny minority, perhaps ten to twenty men, would rule the United States. An open dictatorship called the “dictatorship of the proletariat” would be established. (For a definition of “dictatorship of the proletariat,” see the Glossary, page 323.) Communists, in all their teachings, make this point clear. The capital city, as one communist leader pointed out, would be moved from Washington, D.C., to a large industrial center, probably Chicago. National as well as state and local governments would be eliminated. “Soviets” (meaning councils) would be formed throughout the nation. These would consist of local Communist Party henchmen who would depose and probably liquidate your mayor, chief of police, clergymen, and leading citizens.

The Constitution, and all our laws, would be abolished. If you owned productive property you would be arrested as an “exploiter,” hauled before a revolutionary court, and sentenced to a concentration camp—that is, if you convinced the “judge” you were worth saving at all. All property used in production would be confiscated, thus leading ultimately to total communization, meaning state ownership. This confiscation would include your home, business, bank deposits, and related personal possessions. These would “belong to everybody.” You have no “right” to own them under the communist scheme.

The revolution would affect every man, woman, and child in America. Communists do not propose to remodel our government or retain any part of it. They would tear it to the ground, destroy all opposition, and then create a new government, an American province in the Soviet world empire. Their recipe for action? The 1917 Soviet revolution, tailored to modern conditions. The communists themselves have made the claim:

The principles upon which a Soviet America would be organized
would be the same, in every respect, as those which guided the
Soviet Union.

William Z. Foster, long-time head of the communist movement in our country, has boasted that the communist revolution, after the actual seizure of power, would “develop even more swiftly” than the Russian.

All industry would be nationalized and farms taken away from their owners. A small businessman is just as guilty as a large businessman; both must be liquidated. Rents, profits, and insurance would be abolished. Countless occupations, termed by the communists as “useless and parasitic,” would be ended. Here is a part of their list: wholesalers, jobbers, real estate men and stockbrokers, advertising specialists, traveling salesmen, lawyers, “whole rafts of government bureaucrats, police, clericals, and sundry capitalist quacks, fakers, and grafters.” The communists have a special disdain for lawyers. Perhaps it is because there will be no need for lawyers when there are no rights to defend. At any rate, Foster has said, “The pest of lawyers will be abolished.”

Action would be drastic, immediate, and without appeal. An armed “Red Guard” would enforce the orders of Party henchmen. Hotels, country clubs, and swimming pools would be used for the benefit of “workers,” meaning, in most cases, Party bosses. The workingman in the mines, factories, and mills would be told to work certain hours for certain wages. Labor unions, as we know them, would be obliterated. All such organizations would be owned and operated by the communist government, and no laborer would be permitted to organize a union or to strike against his “government.”

The press would be muzzled, free speech forbidden, and complete conformity demanded. If you expressed an opinion contrary to the Party line, you should have known better and your “disappearance” would serve as a lesson for others. Fear becomes an enforcement technique. Movies, radio, and television would be taken over by the government as agencies for government propaganda. Churches would probably not be closed immediately, but they would be heavily taxed, their property seized by the state, and religious schools liquidated. Clergymen would be required to accept the Party line. “God does not exist. Why worship Him?” say the communists. Children would be placed in nurseries and special indoctrination schools. Women, boast the communists, would be relieved of housework. How? Huge factory and apartment-house kitchens would be set up, so that women would be “free” to work in factories and mines along with the men.

This picture of a communist America is not overdrawn. Here are the words of William Z. Foster:

Under the dictatorship all the capitalist parties—Republican,
Democratic, Progressive, Socialist, etc.—will be liquidated,
the Communist party functioning alone as the Party of the
toiling masses. Likewise, will be dissolved all other
organizations that are political props of the bourgeois rule,
including chambers of commerce, employers’ associations, rotary
clubs, American Legion, Y.M.C.A. and such fraternal orders as
the Masons, Odd Fellows, Elks, Knights of Columbus, etc.

Under this schedule many Americans are eligible for liquidation not once but several times, depending on their present freely chosen affiliations and social interests.

Communism is many things: an economic system, a philosophy, a political creed, a psychological conditioning, an educational indoctrination, a directed way of life. Communists want to control everything: where you live, where you work, what you are paid, what you think, what streetcars you ride (or whether you walk), how your children are educated, what you may not and must read and write. The most minute details, even the time your alarm clock goes off in the morning or the amount of cream in your coffee, are subjects for state supervision. They want to make a “communist man,” a mechanical puppet, whom they can train to do as the Party desires. This is the ultimate, and tragic, aim of communism.

These statements are confirmed, day after day, by documented reports from areas where communists have already taken over: Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Poland, Roumania, Czechoslovakia, Red China, and other areas.

When you read such reports, do not think of them as something happening in a far-off land. Remember, always, that “it could happen here” and that there are thousands of people _in this country_ now working in secret to make it happen here.

But also, thank God, there are millions of Americans who oppose them. If we open our eyes, inform ourselves, and work together, we can keep our country free.

_Part II_

HOW COMMUNISM BEGAN

1.

_Marx—And the “Science” of Communism_

The principle of communism is not new. Some primitive societies practiced a limited brand of communism in that the whole tribe lived in common and shared property, food, and housing. But modern-day communism, known as the “science of Marxism-Leninism,” is just a little over a century old.

This kind of communism is also known as “scientific socialism” to distinguish it from “Utopian socialism,” which, according to the Marxists, is unplanned and does not operate on “laws” of society. “Utopian,” or early, socialism predated Marx; and its exponents, such as Robert Owen, believed in making society socialist by peaceful means. Many of these men were visionaries, hence the word “Utopian.”

A few years before the American Civil War “scientific socialism” stemmed from the mind of an egotistical, crabby, stubborn man who from student days showed no interest in productive labor to support his family and who used to pawn his overcoat in the middle of winter to buy a few loaves of bread. This man was born in Germany, became an exile in France and Belgium, later lived and wrote in England. From his extensive writings he is known as the “originator” of communism and is today regarded with the greatest respect by communists everywhere. His name was Karl Marx.

Marx was born in Trier, Germany, in May, 1818, the son of a prosperous German lawyer. He was an intelligent child, but temperamental. At school his marks were superior, and his capacity for work, a trait that was to continue all through life, tremendous. But he did not make friends easily, perhaps because of self-pride. He made arrogant remarks and wrote satirical verse. He was a “smart” young man, but already vain, bitter, and rebellious.

Strangely, his heart held an inner love for a home-town girl, Jenny von Westphalen, a devotion to remain bright despite the utter squalor, poverty, and despair that lay ahead. Jenny, four years older than Karl, was the daughter of a government official in Trier. She was beautiful, charming, and of a socially high rank, much higher than that of the Marx family. She, too, was desperately in love, but she feared to tell her parents. What would they think—the daughter of Privy Councillor Ludwig von Westphalen marrying Karl Marx?

Young Karl was obsessed. He wrote feverish love letters and poetry. “... a new world has opened for me,” he wrote his father in 1837, “the world of love ... art is not as beautiful as Jenny.”

The time for marriage, however, was still distant. Karl was away at school. Then, after graduation, he did not have a job and did not seem to care to find one—another lifelong trait. He preferred to dabble in atheism, socialism, and polemics. After seven long years Jenny was still waiting, but finally, on June 12, 1843, they were married.

Marx had hoped to teach but drifted into journalism. He wrote acidly, pouring ridicule on everything and everybody with whom he disagreed. Strongly influenced by the teachings of Ludwig Feuerbach, a German philosopher who preached materialism, Marx had become an atheist and called for war against religion, a war that was to become the cornerstone of communist philosophy. In 1842 he became editor of a new left-wing paper, the Cologne _Rheinische Zeitung_, and immediately launched into bitter tirades against the Prussian government. As expected, the authorities took action, the paper was suppressed, and Marx, a short time later, went to France. Finally, in 1849, with his family, he went to England, where he was destined to remain until his death in 1883.

Marx was a man with few friends. But one friend, Friedrich Engels, a fellow German whom he first met in 1842, was to become his intellectual comrade, his financial support, his faithful champion. Engels, a vivid contrast to the morose and crotchety Marx, was gay, mannerly, from a wealthy family, and interested in having a good time. He too was an atheist and a revolutionary, a fact that deeply offended his father, a leading textile manufacturer and churchman. He would provide money for school, the elder Engels said, but none for revolutionary activities. Conflict was inevitable. “If it were not for my mother ... whom I really love,” young Engels wrote, “it would never occur to me to make even the smallest concession to my fanatical and despotic father.”

Marx and Engels were close friends for some forty years. Engels, most appropriately, can be called the “collaborator” of Marx. He had an encyclopedic memory and his far-flung interests and knowledge of industrial techniques supplied Marx with important information. He also wrote independently and, in some instances, under Marx’s name (For a list of writings by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin, see pages 333-337.) Together they conceived and formulated the doctrine of communism. They were the parents of “scientific socialism.”

Engels spent much of his time in Manchester, England, tending to his father’s business, while Marx lived in London. Engels was tall and thin, blue-eyed, two years younger than Marx, and a lover of horses and women. He lived for years with one girl without marriage and then, upon her death, with her sister. He finally consented to marry the latter on her deathbed.

Marx, in contrast, lived in squalor. He was often sick; he suffered from boils, headaches, and rheumatism. Jenny’s health began to give way. Her seventh child was born dead. She became wretchedly nervous, irritable, and upset. “Daily, my wife tells me she wishes she were lying in the grave with the children,” Marx wrote in 1862. “And truly I cannot blame her....”

Marx did not have a regular job but depended on pittances, especially from Engels. He lived from pawnshop to pawnshop. It is a bitter irony of history, indeed, that the founder of communism should be literally kept alive by a wealthy industrialist, and that a “capitalist’s” son, turned communist, should become the second “father” of this revolutionary movement.

The great classics of communism, such as _Das Kapital_ (_Capital_), were “hacked out” amid the most trying conditions. For a period the Marx family lived in two furnished rooms on Dean Street, Soho (London). Listen to this description translated from an article by Gustav Mayer:

In private life Marx is a highly disorderly, cynical person....
Washing himself, combing his hair, changing his underwear and
shirts are a rarity with him.... He is often lazy for days, but
if he has a great deal of work, he works day and night with
untiring endurance. Very often he stays up the entire night and
then lies down on the couch fully dressed at noon and sleeps
through until evening, undisturbed by the hustle and bustle of
family life.... The room overlooking the street is the parlor
and the bedroom is to the rear. In the entire apartment there
is not a single piece of clean and good furniture. Everything
is broken, tattered and ragged; everything is covered with
finger-thick dust, everywhere there is the greatest disorder.
In the center of the parlor stands a large table covered by an
overhanging oilcloth. It is cluttered with his manuscripts,
books, newspapers, the children’s toys, scraps of cloth from
his wife’s sewing as well as some tea-cups with chipped rims,
dirty spoons, knives, forks, a lamp, an inkwell, drinking
glasses, a Dutch claypipe, and ashes. In short, all this
conglomeration is piled high and on one table. A junk-shop
would have to cede honors to this extraordinary ensemble. When
stepping into Marx’s room the coal and tobacco smog makes one
grope around the room as in a cave until one’s eyes gradually
develop a tolerance to these fumes and one is able to make out,
as if in a fog, a few objects in the room. Everything is dirty;
everything is full of dust. As for sitting down, that is a
really dangerous matter. Here is a chair with only three legs;
over there the children are playing at cooking on another chair
which happens to be still unbroken. Sure enough, that is the
one which is offered to the visitor, but without any effort to
clean off the food. You sit down at the risk of ruining a pair
of trousers.... Such is a faithful picture of the family life
of the Communist chief, Marx....

Money was always short. Little Franziska died before her first birthday. There was no money for the funeral. A pittance was obtained from a neighbor which, as Jenny says, “... paid for the small coffin in which my poor child now sleeps in peace.” Marx sometimes couldn’t go out of the house: his overcoats were pawned. His wife was sick, but he couldn’t call a doctor. There was no money for medicine. “For a week or more I have kept my family alive feeding them bread and potatoes, and it is questionable whether or not I will be able to scare any up today.” Another time he complained, “... the children are without clothes or shoes in which they can leave the house.”

But Marx was stubborn. He kept plugging away, writing, reading, denouncing “capitalist” poverty, and letting his family starve. No wonder a remark, attributed to his mother, was made that instead of writing about capital it would have been better if Karl had made some. The main source of help was money from Engels, from a relative, or from writings. The “only piece of good news we have,” Marx wrote to Engels on February 27, 1852, “is from my ministerial sister-in-law [wife of the Minister of Westphalia], namely, the news about the illness of my wife’s indestructible uncle. If the brute dies now, I will be out of this mess.” Marx, in scornfully referring to his wife’s uncle as “indestructible,” meant the fellow simply would not die. On March 2, 1852, Engels replied, “My congratulations on the news of the old ... inheritance-obstructor’s illness and I hope that the catastrophe will finally take place.”

If the mind of Marx was perverted and biased, it was at the same time sharp and keen. He was a deep student of history, philosophy, and economics. Sitting in his dingy apartment or in the British Museum, this German-born social theorist surveyed the world. In his arrogant pride he thought he could recast it on his own terms; through his writings and his revolutionary organizations he undertook to do so.

“The Moor,” as his children called him because of his coal-black hair and eyes, developed as his first line of attack an atheistic view of the world. He joined two very old ideas: (1) That everything in the universe, whether a blade of grass, a human being, or society itself, is constantly changing and at the same time is in conflict. This is called _dialectics_. (2) That God doesn’t exist and the world is composed only of “living” matter. Hence, man is walking dust, without spark or image of his divine Creator. This idea is called _materialism_; hence, _dialectical materialism_. (For a fuller definition of this and other communist terms, see the Glossary.)

This concept was to undergird the whole communist “world outlook.” Human society, as well as the physical universe, Marx said, is affected by this outlook. The principles have universal application. Noncommunist thinkers, as well as human experience, have punctured many holes in the thesis; but to communists it applies with the same certainty as does the law of gravity.

Constant and bitter struggle is not bad, Marx said, because it achieves progress. In fact, he viewed the whole recorded history of the world as a story of class struggle. Mankind, he said, has always been divided into _classes_: groups of people who have special interests, ideals, and ways of doing things. These classes, he added, have been struggling from the very beginning of time, and still are.

Marx explained this struggle by means of a special formula, commonly called the _thesis-antithesis-synthesis_ dialectic, which he distorted from the philosophy of the famous German philosopher, G. W. F. Hegel. Here is how it works for communists:

Start, for example, Marx said, with a certain economic class (a _thesis_). This class is the dominant power in society, controlling the means of production, the way houses are built, the kind of clothes worn, and so forth. Soon an opposing class arises (an _antithesis_) which seeks to overthrow the first class. It has different ideals, motives, and ambitions. What happens? A fight occurs and soon a new class (_synthesis_) emerges which, according to Marx, incorporates only the best of both old classes. (Why some of the bad does not seep in, too, Marx does not explain.)

Then the process starts all over again. This is history, for as Marx held, historical materialism was nothing more than applying the concept of dialectical materialism to society. The new class (_synthesis_) is now dominant and thus becomes, in turn, a new _thesis_. It directs how to build houses, who gains wealth, etc., but, following Marx’s ideas, another opposition class arises (a new _antithesis_). They struggle, a new _synthesis_ is obtained, and again the world is off on a new cycle.

These ideas obviously are distorted and theoretical. But to understand modern-day communism, it is essential to grasp the underlying theory. False as it is, this theory is the spark that kindles the communist flame

This class struggle, in Marx’s reasoning, always produced a higher stage of civilization. First, years ago, came slavery. The slave-owning class, as expected, developed its own “antithesis” (meaning its rivals, who wanted to abolish slavery). A struggle ensued and feudalism developed, representing the best of both opponents. But feudal society, then the dominant class, was attacked by its own “antithesis,” forces within its body which opposed its ideas. For hundreds of years this struggle continued, issuing forth finally in a new “synthesis” (capitalism), again representing the best features of both rivals.

When Marx wrote, history was still in the capitalist stage, but he said it could not remain there. It must (there was no alternative) move on to communism. The capitalist class had already developed its own “antithesis,” which Marx identified as the “proletariat” (the working class), which was striving to overthrow the old system.

Communism, Marx proclaimed, represented the new “synthesis” of the capitalist-proletariat struggle and the apex of all history. At this point, said Marx, conflict would now cease, although, again, he does not say why. This new world would be the “perfect” and “final” society: stateless, classless, godless, where all property used in production would be held in common, and human activities would conform to the principle “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”

Marx, with shrewd cunning, applied these concepts to the society of his day. He aimed this appeal to catch everyone who was greedy, ambitious, discontented, or downtrodden. Also, since the Industrial Revolution had led to some very real social abuses, the doctrines of Marx appealed to many sincere idealists and reformers who were impatient with slower and more gradual methods of improvement. The class struggle, Marx said, was now in progress between the “capitalists,” who owned the tools of production, such as factories, railroads, mines, and the “proletariat,” or people employed by the capitalists—the wage earners, the “propertyless,” the “exploited.”

When Marx wrote, capitalists were the dominant class. According to his interpretation, they set economic levels, what wages could be paid, what standards of living the workers could have, what social customs would prevail. They were the greedy “exploiters,” wanting more and more profits. But, said Marx, according to his “law,” capitalists were digging their own graves. The very rise of capitalism, Marx emphasized, called into existence its conqueror, the proletariat. The higher the state of capitalism, as then rising in France and England, the greater the number of workers required to tend the mills, mines, and shops; hence, the larger the proletariat would become. Wealth would accumulate in the hands of fewer and fewer people, the masses would become increasingly poor. Thus, conflict between the two classes was inevitable.

Already, Marx said, this conflict was in progress, as witnessed by European strikes, lockouts, and revolutions. The proletariat was striking against its oppressors, and the result of the struggle would be communism. The working class was destined to win. That was the “law.” This was the way Marx viewed history and how he distorted events and situations to support his thesis, which followers were later to call a “science.” This “science” has long since been disproved by man’s experience and the record of events and situations in the free world.

In this struggle between the capitalist class and the proletariat, what is the role of the Communist Party? The Party, said Marx, was to be the vanguard of the proletariat. Most workers are stupid, uneducated in Marxism, and duped by capitalists. They could never start a revolution by themselves. They need guidance, the job of the Communist Party. Communists are wide awake, intelligent, and, most important of all, “learned” in Marxism. They know the “laws” of revolution, the “mysteries” of the development of society. Their task: to be the “general staff” of the revolution.

What about force and violence? Must they be used? Marx emphasized that capitalist society, most naturally, would not voluntarily turn over its factories, banks, and money to the workers. Moreover, it would probably organize a “counter-revolution”—which means defending itself. Hence, under the leadership of the Communist Party, the workers must, if necessary, be prepared to use force, that is, violent revolution. If the capitalists submit peacefully, good; if they resist, slaughter them.

But this is not all. After power is seized, opposition will remain which must be stamped out, utterly, completely, mercilessly. Again, this is a job that cannot be left to an untrained, untaught proletariat. It is a job, according to Marxist thought, for the _dictatorship of the proletariat_, conceived as a transitional stage between actual revolution and the arrival of the highest and final form of communism.

Who would direct the dictatorship? The Communist Party, of course. And what would it do? It would serve as a steam-roller, liquidating through sheer force all “capitalist” elements. Then, and only then, could new “socialist” construction begin. The dictatorships in Russia and the satellite countries with their secret police, slave labor camps, and mass regimentation are living examples of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” in action.

These were, and are, vicious principles, destined to shake civilization to its roots. In 1848, Marx, in collaboration with Engels, prepared the platform of the Communist League, a revolutionary organization which included a large number of German exiles. This was the famous _Communist Manifesto_, the first sweeping blueprint of communist aims. The language is violent, the threats dire. “A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of Communism,” it starts off, and ends by calling for a violent overthrow of existing society. “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims.... Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite!”

Well-intentioned and goodhearted men, Marx said, cannot be depended on to improve society. They are dabblers and botchers who make things worse. Mere social reforms strengthen capitalism, prolong “exploitation,” and keep the corpse alive. Tear capitalism down, completely. Use force and violence. Set up a communist government!

To the very end of his life Marx remained a ruthless fighter. Invective, anger, and abuse were his weapons. He defiantly defended his position against all comers. He bitterly denounced all who dared disagree with him, such as Ferdinand Lassalle, the German Socialist leader, and Mikhail Bakunin, the Russian anarchist. He fought wordy battles that lasted for years. Always, by skill or skulduggery, he tried to impose his point of view. If he found that impossible, he worked furiously to destroy his opponent.

In 1864 Marx was involved in founding the First International, a motley group of “radicals,” “have-nots,” “socialists,” and “anarchists.” A number of congresses were held, but little was accomplished. Finally, in 1872, after many feuds and quarrels in which Marx was deeply involved, he succeeded in having the group’s headquarters transferred from London to New York, then considered a remote outpost. This was a move made out of spite, Marx preferring to see the organization die rather than fall into the hands of his enemies. In 1876, at a congress in Philadelphia, it was dissolved. The First International’s chief legacy to the cause of world communism lay in giving international structure, for the first time, to communist ideas.

Here is another irony of communism. This man who attacked the domination of the capitalists showed his own dominating nature again and again. In theory, he was “for” the common man and wanted to correct the ills of society. In practice, his fanatical intolerance and overbearing ego made him a tyrant, an autocrat, a dictator.

Marx’s character helped shape the whole philosophy of communism and, as we shall see, forged a hideous instrument of power for those who were to follow him.

2.

_Lenin—And the Russian Revolution_

Marx and Engels formulated the basic doctrines of modern communism. However, they supplied few guides to everyday revolutionary activity.

Remaining in the Marx-Engels stage, communism might well have been drowned in an ocean of angry words, manifestoes, quarrels, and personal feuds. If so, the world today would be a much different place for all of us.

But there was another man, whom Marx and Engels never knew, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, later known as Lenin. It was Lenin’s destiny to lead the first successful communist revolution, about which Marx and Engels had dreamed so long. He was the man who took communist _theory_ and galvanized it into communist _organization_ and _action_. Lenin’s activation of communist theory resulted in the seizing of power in Russia. Lenin stands today, just after Marx and Engels, as the movement’s third force. More than any other man he is the “developer” of modern-day communism and the father of Party structure and dictatorship. His importance is reflected in the communist description of its way of life as the “science of Marxism-Leninism.”

Today Lenin’s prestige has been inflated even more as a result of the “downgrading” of Stalin. He is looked upon as the “ideal” communist leader and, in the words of N. A. Bulganin, Chairman of the U.S.S.R. Council of Ministers, “the great founder of our party and the Soviet State.”

Lenin was born April 22, 1870, in Simbirsk, now Ulyanovsk (changed after Lenin’s death in 1924), a town on the Volga River, deep in Russia. His father was a school inspector and a devout member of the Russian Orthodox Church. Vladimir, one of six children, was a model student. He had a great capacity for concentration and could quickly answer his father’s questions about schoolwork.

Youth, however, was short-lived; Lenin soon was on the way to becoming a “revolutionary.” It is interesting and important to note here, as with Marx and Engels, that atheism was the first step toward communism. At the age of sixteen, as he later said, Lenin ceased to believe in God. It is reported that he tore the cross from his neck, threw this sacred relic to the ground, and spat upon it.

Soon after, in 1887, when Lenin was seventeen, Alexander Ulyanov, his elder brother and boyhood hero, was hanged in the courtyard of Schlusselburg Fortress in Saint Petersburg, later known as Petrograd and Leningrad, along with four companions, charged with conspiracy to assassinate the Czar of Russia. Alexander was a member of People’s Will, a revolutionary organization. This event deeply affected young Lenin.

In the fall of 1887 Vladimir entered Kazan University and soon became involved in student disorders. He was arrested and lived for a while under police surveillance. A short time later, at the age of eighteen, he started reading Karl Marx and soon was expounding Marxist principles to his sister Anna and organizing Marxist discussion groups. In 1891, in Saint Petersburg, he passed his law examination with honors and was admitted to the bar. Although young in years, he was “old” in disposition. At the age of twenty-four, a companion remarked, Lenin already had a tired-looking face. His head was entirely bald, except for fringes of hair at the temples. “The most striking thing about him,” went another description, “was his large head, with its large white forehead. His rather small eyes seemed perpetually narrowed, his glance was serious....”

Within a few short years Lenin was to dominate the Russian Marxist movement. This man who loved to play with children, who, after he became dictator of all Russia, occasionally liked to sleep in a hayloft rather than in a bed, was utterly cynical and ruthless. In one instance an associate in Stockholm complained that couriers were not delivering newspapers on schedule. “Please send me their names,” Lenin curtly ordered. “These saboteurs shall be shot.”

Another time a companion complained about his work. Shut up, were Lenin’s orders. “I will turn you over to the party court; we will shoot you.” Without tenderness, with not a muscle responsive to mercy, he had one goal—revolution. For twenty years, whether as an exile in Siberia or as a wandering conspirator in Europe, he kept working, dreaming, and thinking about revolution. Guided by his “evil genius,” he never deviated from that goal.

Russia, by the 1880’s, was seething with discontent. A strong revolutionary movement, dating from the 1820’s, was in rebellion against the despotic Czarist regime. Many of the suggested revolutionary programs were impractical. Some demanded greater voice for the peasants or industrial workers; some espoused violent revolution; others, democratic reform. But on one point they all agreed: there must be a change. The more radical groups believed in political terrorism. Their violent escapades, however, such as assassinations, led only to greater oppression.

Marxist writings had early found their way into Russia. The first language into which Marx’s _Das Kapital_ (originally written in German) had been translated was Russian. Many revolutionaries were attracted by these new communist ideas. In 1883 a Marxist group was founded. Ten years later, when Lenin joined an underground group in Saint Petersburg, the movement was strong.

These early Russian Marxists, however, were deeply divided. They were babblers of theory, not apostles of action. Lenin immediately undertook to change the situation. But in December, 1895, he was arrested, imprisoned, and later exiled to Siberia.

In 1900 he was released and fled from Russia, more ardent than ever for revolution. With fiendish devotion and intensity he set about the task of creating a revolutionary organization that could seize power in Russia.

For most of the time after 1900 Lenin and his wife, Nadezhda, lived as exiles in Western Europe, going from city to city, often under aliases. Nadezhda in writing about Lenin gave a vivid account of their life in cheap boardinghouses. In Switzerland, on one occasion, they stayed in a room where the windows could be opened only at night because of the “intolerable stench” of a nearby sausage factory. Another time they took their meals at a house where, in the words of Lenin’s wife, “the very ‘lower depths’ of Zurich” congregated.

Lenin was happiest when he could talk revolution. Nadezhda was constantly on guard to protect his health. Many times Lenin, engrossed in revolutionary activities, would work himself into a highly nervous state. One time, Nadezhda writes, he “came home after a heated debate ... I could hardly recognize him, his face was so drawn and he could barely speak.” She encouraged him to take a vacation. In London, Lenin “developed a nervous illness called ‘holy fire.’” Nadezhda, after consulting a medical student, painted him with iodine. She, however, couldn’t prevent her husband, lost in thought while pedaling a bicycle, from running into the back of a tram and “very nearly” knocking out an eye.

Borrowing from the autocratic character of Marx himself, Lenin made Marxism a highly disciplined, organized, and ruthless creed. How can revolution be achieved? Not by democratic reforms, ballots, or good will but by naked, bloody violence. The sword is the weapon. Everything must be dedicated to this aim: one’s time, talents, one’s very life. Revolutions do not just happen. They are made.

Lenin conceived of the Party as a vehicle of revolution. Marx, in his philosophical abstractions, had never thought out the day-to-day composition of the Party. Lenin did. The Party must be a small, tightly controlled, deeply loyal group. Fanaticism, not members, was the key. Members must live, eat, breathe, and dream revolution. They must lie, cheat, and murder if the Party was to be served. Discipline must be rigid. No deviations could be permitted. If an individual falters, he must be ousted. Revolutions cannot be won by clean hands or in white shirts; only by blood, sweat, and the burning torch. These ideas were all inherent in Marxist thought, but they waited for Lenin to translate them into organized action.

In 1903 the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (which was the Russian Marxist Party) met in convention in Brussels. The proceedings were later transferred to London, after Belgian authorities had warned several of the delegates to leave the city. One session of the congress was routed by an army of vermin.

A dispute arose. Should Party membership be restricted or open to anybody? Lenin fought for restricted membership and won. His group was called the Bolsheviks (the majority); the losers became the Mensheviks (minority). The Party, Lenin said, must be composed only of trained revolutionaries. To allow anybody, curiosity seekers, the halfhearted, weaklings, to join would reduce the Party’s discipline, striking power, and fanaticism. The masses couldn’t be trusted to make a revolution. They would run at the first sound of gunfire. What were needed were men willing to die because the Party told them to die. This principle of Party organization remains in full effect today throughout the communist world.

Lenin was an able propagandist and agitator. He thought chiefly in terms of battle plans, tactics, and strategy rather than of theories or philosophical abstractions. In 1900, from his exile in Europe, he helped found a revolutionary paper, _Iskra_ (the _Spark_), printed in Germany but smuggled into Russia. (A young ex-seminary student in southern Russia, Joseph Vissarionovich Djugashvili, later known as Stalin, was a reader of _Iskra_.) This paper offered directions to the secret revolutionaries in Russia, told them the “line” to follow, urged better Party organization. In addition, Lenin pounded out his “rules of revolution” in articles and pamphlets that were widely circulated in the Russian underground.

Though militant himself, Marx was never able, in his detached atmosphere, to instill the spirit of militant action into communist policy as did Lenin. The crafty Russian, brought up in an atmosphere of revolutionary agitation, did not shrink from any crime. He held that there could be no hesitation or vacillation. Use any weapon—knife, hatchet, or gun—to achieve your aim, he urged. A man was either your friend or your foe. Find out quickly. If a friend, clasp his hand; that is, as long as he served a purpose. If a foe, take drastic action.

All during his lengthy exile Lenin was constantly studying, writing, debating, and expounding revolutionary principles. Like Marx, he used the facilities of Western democracy, such as the great library of the British Museum, to undermine the very freedom that gave him this opportunity. Nadezhda tells of his studies in the Geneva library:

He would again take out the books left unfinished the day
before. They would be about barricade-fighting or the technique
of offensives. He would go to his customary place at the little
table by the window, smooth down the thin hair on his bald head
with a customary gesture, and bury his nose deep in the books.
Only rarely would he get up, and then in order to take down a
dictionary from a shelf and search for the explanation of some
unfamiliar term. He would then stride up and down for a while,
resume his seat, and in a tense manner rapidly scrawl something
in minute handwriting on little squares of paper.

These studies, as later events were to prove, helped produce practical and concrete ways of making revolutions:

[Lenin, says Nadezhda] not only read through, thoroughly
studied, and thought over everything that Marx and Engels
had written on revolution and insurrection. He also perused
numerous works on the art of warfare, considering the technique
and the organisation of the armed insurrection from all
standpoints. He was occupied with this work much more than
people realised, and his talk about “shock” groups during the
civil war and “groups of five and ten” was not the chatter of a
layman, but a well-thought-out proposition.

Lenin labored day and night for seventeen years in perfecting his plans for the revolution. His opportunity was to come in November, 1917.