Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

In March, 1917, revolution erupted in Russia. The German army had defeated Russian troops. The Czar’s government was tottering, and a liberal regime, later headed by Alexander Kerensky, assumed control. The Czar was forced to abdicate. This was the signal for Russian revolutionaries of all types to return to Petrograd: Lenin from Switzerland, aided by the German High Command; Leon Trotsky, later to become a high official in the Bolshevik regime, from New York City; Stalin from Siberian exile.

Lenin plotted against Kerensky, eagerly awaiting the moment he could overthrow the new government. He created dissension in the armed forces. He refused to cooperate with the government except on his own terms. All the time he was desperately building up and training his Bolshevik Party. Lenin had a “sixth sense” in diagnosing revolutionary situations. He knew when to act and when not. Like a crafty tiger, he was circling his prey. Lenin was the true leader of the Russian revolution. Stalin, fresh from Siberia, was relatively unknown, but he was learning the skills of deceit and murder that were soon to catapult him to power.

In the fall of 1917, the Bolsheviks seized power in the October Revolution. Lenin became the dictator of all Russia. Communism had made its first breach in the wall of capitalism. (The revolution occurred on October 25, 1917, according to the Eastern calendar then in use in Russia. Hence, the term “October Revolution.” Under the Western calendar, later adopted by the Soviets, the date is November 7, 1917.)

The Bolsheviks immediately instituted a terroristic “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Marx had conceived the dictatorship of the proletariat as a transitory period for the establishment of a communist society. Lenin, however, dipped it in blood and gave it a prominence and ruthlessness that shocked the entire world. The secret police, then known as the Cheka, instituted a reign of terror; capital punishment was meted out widely. A search for enemies rocked the country. _Pravda_, the Party newspaper, urged drastic measures.

The Czar and members of his family were executed by the Bolsheviks and their bodies destroyed. Here is an eyewitness account by Leonid Krassin, a member of the early Bolshevik government, as related by his wife, Lubov Krassin:

... we went through a period of so-called “Terror”.... About
six hundred to seven hundred persons were shot in Moscow and
Petrograd, nine-tenths of them having been arrested quite at
random or merely as suspect of belonging to the Right Wing of
the S. R.’s [Socialist Revolutionaries, a Russian revolutionary
party], or else of being counter-revolutionaries. In the
provinces this developed into a series of revolting incidents
such as arrests, executions en masse, and wholesale eviction of
bourgeois and educated people from their houses, leaving them
homeless.

The test of loyalty was often to what class the individual belonged, the extent of his education, how he was dressed, how much food he had in his house. If his pantry was too well stocked or his clothes too new, he might be accused of being an exploiter and sent before an execution squad.

This was an example of the dictatorship of the proletariat in action. This was a first step toward what Marx proclaimed as the “final” and “perfect” state of society, which is as visionary now as it was then. Millions of Russians found themselves gripped by a tyranny incomparably worse than that of the Czar.

Oddly, despite the predictions of Marx, communism seized power in a country where Marx would least have expected it. Marx had prophesied that the revolution was destined to occur in a highly industrialized nation. Russia was industrially backward.

During the years 1917-20 the Bolsheviks were forced to fight for survival, first against the German army, then in a war with Poland. Also, the White Russians, a vigorous anti-Bolshevik group, assembled powerful military forces. A bitter White-Red civil war raged.

Lenin’s answer was a policy of “war communism.” Most industry was nationalized. Trade and commerce were officially abolished. The government undertook to distribute manufactured articles to the people. In agricultural regions food supplies were openly confiscated. Poor peasants were assembled in committees to spy on their richer neighbors who might be hiding grain. The setting of class against class was an established tactic of communism.

By 1921, when the last “enemies” had been driven from Russia, the nation was a shambles. The Bolsheviks, trying to adapt Marxist theory to a nation predominantly rural, had compounded confusion. Industrial production was down, peasants were in open revolt. Private incentive had been ruined. By 1922 famine raged, with tens of millions of people starving or on a semistarvation diet. Some estimates place the loss of life at five million. This was Russia’s introduction to communism.

Fanatical Lenin, after years of working for the revolution, would not let it slip away from him now. He struck back furiously. Slave labor camps were increased; dreaded secret police compelled conformity; churches were closed. “Enemies of the people,” those who opposed the Bolsheviks, were ruthlessly executed. Uprisings were cruelly suppressed.

However, terror was not the answer. In March, 1921, sailors of the Red navy in Kronstadt, formerly strong Bolshevik supporters, rebelled. Lenin, with his keen sense of timing, realized that a change had to be made.

The result was the NEP—New Economic Policy. Capitalist practices, so denounced by the Bolsheviks, were temporarily introduced to save the Russian government. Peasants were now allowed to keep surpluses of grain after taxation, instead of having them confiscated. They could even dispose of their surplus products as they chose, and private trade was allowed to develop. In the industrial field many businesses were returned to private owners, although the government retained control over larger concerns.

To the surprise of Bolshevik leaders the NEP proved a relative success. It gave them the breathing spell they so desperately needed to consolidate their gains. Both agricultural and industrial production jumped. Lenin never lived to see the final results of the temporary NEP, but the revolution was no longer in immediate danger.

Lenin’s scheming mind was laying the groundwork for extending the communist conspiracy throughout the world. In March, 1919, Lenin founded the Third International (better known as the Communist International or Comintern). The Third International was a keystone of Soviet policy, whereby Moscow, through Bolshevik discipline, could guide the activities of communists around the world, including those in the United States. To the communists, victory in Russia was only the first step. The whole world, they said, must go communist. “... victory is ours,” Lenin proclaimed at the First Congress of the Comintern in 1919; “the victory of the world Communist revolution is assured.” In early days the regime confidently expected communist revolutions in Western Europe. A communist regime sprang briefly into power in Hungary, another flickered in Germany. Although no permanent communist successes were achieved outside Russia, an effective agency of conspiracy now existed to undermine noncommunist governments.

The skill of Lenin simply cannot be overestimated. He introduced into human relations a new dimension of evil and depravity not surpassed by Genghis Khan or Attila. His concept of Party supremacy, girded by ruthless and ironclad discipline, gave communism a fanaticism and an immorality that shocked Western civilization. Countless individuals, some in high places, simply did not believe that men could behave as did the Bolsheviks; that brutality, terror, and the utter meaninglessness of human dignity could be a policy of state. But that was the contention, and the legacy, of Lenin.

Underlying all of Lenin’s thoughts and actions was the use of naked force to achieve Party ends. He held that there could be no permanent coexistence between communists and noncommunists. The latter must be liquidated, by force if necessary. “Marxists have never forgotten that violence will be an inevitable accompaniment of the collapse of capitalism on its full scale and of the birth of a socialist society.”

Dictatorship is power based directly upon force and
unrestricted by any laws.

* * * * *

The dictatorship of the proletariat is necessary, and victory
over the bourgeoisie is impossible without a long, stubborn and
desperate war of life and death....

* * * * *

As long as capitalism and socialism exist, we cannot live in
peace: in the end, one or the other will triumph—a funeral
dirge will be sung either over the Soviet Republic or over
world capitalism.

Lenin liked to use the word “ruthless,” which is a clue to his thinking:

There is still too little of that ruthlessness which is
indispensable for the success of socialism....

* * * * *

... capitalism cannot be defeated and eradicated without the
ruthless suppression of the resistance of the exploiters....

* * * * *

Contempt for death must spread among the masses and thus secure
victory ... the ruthless extermination of the enemy will be
their task....

This is the Lenin who has always been hailed by the Moscow ruling hierarchy as the guiding genius of communism in Russia and in this country. In fact, with the downgrading of Stalin, Lenin became increasingly extolled in Russia as the “guide to communist action.” Nikita Khrushchev, speaking before the Twentieth Congress of the Russian Communist Party in February, 1956, stated categorically:

The central committee has always and undeviatingly been guided
by Lenin’s teachings on the party.

* * * * *

Lenin taught us that a line based on principle is the only
correct line. Never to deviate a single step in anything from
the interests of the party....

* * * * *

We must be guided by these wise injunctions of Lenin in all our
activity.

In April, 1956, a Moscow journal, _International Affairs_, also made clear the pre-eminence of Leninism in Russia:

Using the brilliant plan left by Lenin.... All the complex
questions of home and foreign policy are decided by the Party,
basing itself on the teaching of the immortal Lenin. That is
why the Soviet people recall the words of Vladimir Mayakovsky
[Soviet poet]:

“Lenin
is now
the most live of all living,
Our weapon,
our knowledge,
our power.”

These sentiments have been echoed by communists in the United States. In January, 1957, for example, Eugene Dennis, former General Secretary of the Communist Party, USA, wrote, “... it is essential at all costs to consolidate and build the CPUSA as a strong Marxist-Leninist political party of the working class.”

Another American Party leader, Hyman Lumer, stated in February, 1957:

... he [Lenin] showed ... the need for a vanguard type of
party, armed with the Marxist theory of scientific socialism
and possessing a high degree of unity and discipline.... In its
essential features, this is no less true today than it was when
Lenin first formulated it.

Lenin could not have anticipated the lofty pedestal on which he was to stand in Moscow a generation after his death. However, his nation and the Party were to pass under the control of an ambitious, scowling, mustached revolutionary from the province of Georgia in south Russia, Joseph Stalin, who until recently was regarded as the fourth great personality of communism.

3.

_Stalin—A Fallen Idol_

In January, 1924, after a long illness, Lenin died, leaving open a struggle for power that was to last until the 1930’s.

The Russian dictator sensed, some time before his death, the evil influence of the man who had squirmed his way to the position of the Party’s General Secretary. Joseph Stalin, a cobbler’s son, had been an old-time Bolshevik. Born in 1879, he had attended a seminary at Tiflis, in the Caucasus, but in 1899 had been expelled. Already he was involved in revolutionary activities. From 1902 until 1913, according to the communists, he was arrested seven times, exiled six times, and escaped five times from exile.

Plodding by nature, Stalin lacked the brilliance of his chief rival, Leon Trotsky. However, his grasp of the Russian mentality was tremendous. Years as an agitator, prison inmate, and political schemer gave him an insight into communist intrigue that other Party leaders seemed to lack. Working silently but meticulously, he was quick to exploit any opportunity to increase his personal power.

Stalin liked to represent himself as the heir of Lenin, the man predestined to carry on the Bolshevik revolution. This claim is not borne out, however, by a “testament” prepared by Lenin shortly before his death. “Comrade Stalin,” wrote Lenin, on Christmas Day, 1922, “having become General Secretary, has concentrated an enormous power in his hands; and I am not sure that he always knows how to use that power with sufficient caution.”

Then Lenin added a postscript dated January 4, 1923, a full year before he died:

Stalin is too rude, and this fault, entirely supportable in
relations among us Communists, becomes insupportable in the
office of General Secretary. Therefore, I propose to the
comrades to find a way to remove Stalin from that position....

However, the time for action had passed. Lenin was too sick to implement his testament. The result: a terrific struggle between Stalin and Trotsky for power.

Trotsky (real name Bronstein) was born in 1879 (two months earlier than Stalin). Early a revolutionary, he spent many years as an exile from Russia. After the Bolshevik revolution he served as Lenin’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs and later did much to organize the Red army.

Many differences separated Stalin and Trotsky, the chief one being Stalin’s idea that Russia should concentrate on making itself powerful _first_, before undertaking extensive revolutionary action abroad. Trotsky, on the other hand, believed that the Russian revolution could survive only if communist revolutions were promoted in other countries. Both desired world conquest. Their dispute, clouded by a personal hunger for power, centered on how to achieve it. Stalin was the winner. Trotsky was exiled by Stalin in 1929, eventually finding refuge in Mexico. He was assassinated in 1940, reportedly by a secret communist agent.

Joseph Stalin was the fourth “top leader” of communism, claiming “divine” ancestry from Marx, Engels, and Lenin. Until his death in 1953, Stalin played a major role in the history of Russian and world communism, as a “continuer” of the work of Lenin. It was Stalin who, through murder, deceit, and brutality, gave communism _power_, firmly establishing Bolshevik control in Russia and spreading communism to other countries. However, he also was to become the first of the “Big Four” to be denounced by the communists and to have his name blackened by successors.

In carrying on the revolution Stalin became the interpreter of Marxism-Leninism. Under his rule the state, which Marx had visualized as “withering away,” became even stronger, an agent of sheer oppression. The army, navy, secret police, and all political structures of the state grew ever more powerful and permanent. Slave labor camps multiplied. Soviet society became ironclad, more rigid than under the most autocratic Czar. Army officials, Party henchmen, industrial managers, all emerged as classes, each jealous of the other. The “workingman,” whom Marx had extolled, was now an inferior class, exploited and downtrodden.

Stalin carried to the extreme Lenin’s concepts of the Party as a fanatical, disciplined group. To Stalin the Party was not only a tool to seize and maintain power but also a method of liquidating all personal opposition and a means of educating the masses in the communist way of life.

The Party, for this reason, was kept “pure,” meaning completely loyal, disciplined, and blindly obedient. Party schools, cadre training, and regimented discipline were needed to saturate the members in communism. Weaklings were purged, expelled and exiled to Siberia, or executed. In Soviet Russia, and all her satellites, the Party was constantly “Bolshevized”—made “more perfect in communism.”

One result of this insistent demand for discipline under Stalin was the increasing crystallization of Marxism-Leninism—already a harsh and regimented code—into an even more rigid, static, and often sterile body of doctrine. Like a shrinking garment, communist doctrine pressed ever more tightly on communists everywhere. Every action now had to be “justified” by theory. If the theory didn’t fit, then it had to be reinterpreted. To deviate was to court disaster. Stalin, though not so good a theorist as Lenin, liked to pose as Marxism-Leninism’s “expert” interpreter.

This ossification of communist doctrine, under which the individual was afraid to take any initiative, contributed largely to the violent reaction against Stalin after his death. His successors realized that _some_ breathing room was absolutely essential, although during Stalin’s reign they were content to serve, without protest so far as the record shows, as the executors of his policies.

Stalin also identified communism with nationalism and imperialism: _Russian_ nationalism and _Russian_ imperialism.

To him, communism seemed an ideal vehicle for Russian world conquest, and so, once communism was firmly entrenched in Russia, he embarked on a policy curiously similar to that of Czarist imperialists like Peter the Great and Catherine the Great.

Aided by disturbed world conditions between 1939 and 1953, Stalin started the Soviet chariot of conquest. He directly annexed a number of areas, such as eastern Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, part of Finland, eastern Czechoslovakia, part of Roumania. Then, using communism as an ideological adhesive, Stalin created a Soviet orbit: Yugoslavia, China, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, North Korea, Czechoslovakia, Roumania, East Germany, Albania, Tibet, Outer Mongolia, and North Indochina (where bloody fighting was in progress at the time of his death). No wonder William Z. Foster in February, 1956, could boast that seventeen countries were “actually building Socialism or are definitely orientating in that direction,” having a total population of 900,000,000! He adds: “They constitute the beginning of the new Socialist world.” Note the use of the word “beginning.”

Native communist parties, aided by Moscow, were often the instruments of subjugation, Trojan horses of the twentieth century. At other times Russian military power paved the way. Peoples with long traditions of freedom were betrayed into slavery. Significantly, no entire country has ever gone communist and become a satellite by the free choice of election.

This grandiose conquest was abetted by Stalin’s inheritance of the tools of Marxism-Leninism, a way of life that is imperialistic, overbearing, and dictatorial. Some individuals may accuse Stalin, alone of the communist “Big Four,” of being responsible for the terror of modern-day communism. Marx, Engels, and Lenin, however, are also fully accountable, and so are Stalin’s henchmen, who still rule in the Soviet Union. Stalin may have been the active agent of conquest in our generation, but his knives were sharpened on the diabolical teachings of his communist predecessors.

Even in Stalin’s time cracks had begun to appear in the communist empire. In 1948 a terrific fissure, the break with Tito’s Yugoslavia, rocked Moscow. Currents of discontent, leading to national communism, spread through the European satellite nations. (National communism holds that nations can find their own way to communism and need not slavishly copy Moscow, yet also implies full confidence in the aims and doctrines of Marxism-Leninism, whose application will result in world communism.) “Treason trials” sprouted in many places: Vladimir Clementis and Rudolf Slansky in Czechoslovakia; Laszlo Rajk in Hungary; Traicho Kostov in Bulgaria. These high Party officials, all old-time communists, along with others, were executed. In Poland, Wladyslaw Gomulka, a deputy premier, was expelled from the Party and imprisoned. Stalin’s tyranny became even more strongly entrenched.

Few observers, even in Russia, however, could have guessed the intensity of hatred that lay under Russian tyranny. Less than four years after Stalin’s death the power of freedom was to erupt in Hungary. Poland swayed on the verge of revolt; unrest swept other satellites. Ironically, Gomulka, expelled as a traitor, now became Party boss of Poland; Rajk, along with others, was “rehabilitated.” The “sorrowing” communists even dug up his body, staged a giant funeral, and buried him again, this time with honors. Stalin left a precarious legacy for his successors.

But in barely a generation Russia had moved swiftly forward in its campaign of world conquest. In the name of Karl Marx (who, in his day, had roundly denounced the imperialism of the Czars) and by the application of his doctrines, Stalin had created a dictatorial empire far beyond the dreams of any Czar. Such a dictatorial empire grows out of the very nature of Marxist thought and is inevitable wherever it is applied. In the Kremlin the dream of world conquest still persists. It threatens free peoples everywhere.

This Russian conquest was made possible, in large measure, by the tremendous strengthening of the Soviet state. In 1928 the first of a series of Five Year Plans, designed to strengthen heavy industry and collectivize agriculture, was launched. Step by step the New Economic Policy, adopted by Lenin in 1921, disappeared.

The government now undertook to control everything. Production quotas, which had to be met, were set. Compulsory labor increased. Private trade disappeared. A system of rationing was introduced. Consumer goods virtually disappeared.

In rural areas small farms were abolished. Peasants were compelled to live in giant cooperatives. Many of the more well-to-do farmers, called kulaks, were dispossessed and shipped to Siberia. Entire families were liquidated. The secret police became more active.

As under Lenin’s “war communism,” the Five Year Plan brought untold human misery. The forced collectivization of agriculture caused a shortage of food. Transportation broke down in many areas. In the Ukraine, the food basket of Russia, famine reappeared. Millions of people died. Disease stalked the land.

But Stalin held firm. Heavy industry must be expanded—steel mills, automobile and tractor factories, railroads. Coal mines must be operated. Armaments must be expedited. Stalin was preparing the base for world conquest. The price in human suffering and privation was incalculable, and unimportant.

At the same time Stalin was furthering a communist society. Art, literature, education, and the press were harnessed to the struggle. A new generation dedicated to following Stalin’s will was being created. No opposition was tolerated. In 1936 Stalin brought forth a Soviet constitution, a document glittering with supposed “rights” for the people but actually a mask for ever-increasing tyranny.

From 1934 to 1938 was a period of great purges. The world witnessed the spectacle of gigantic public trials of old Bolsheviks such as Grigori Zinoviev and Nikolai Bukharin, both former presidents of the Communist International, and A. I. Rykov, a former Premier, all accused of treason. Even Yagoda, former head of the secret police, was brought to court. Many, as comrades of Lenin, had fought to create the Bolshevik revolution. Now they were denounced as arch traitors. Nobody knows how many thousands were killed in these blood purges. But one thing was obvious: Stalin was liquidating all possible opposition.

Inevitably Stalin became, in communist eyes, a virtual god on earth. He was pictured as the world’s greatest military genius, scientist, author, critic, statesman, popular hero, thinker and engineer.

Here are some of the accolades:

Long live the wise leader of our Party and people, the inspirer
and organizer of all our victories, Comrade Stalin! (N. S.
Khrushchev, October, 1952)

... Stalin’s work will live through the ages, and grateful
posterity will, like us, glorify his name. (G. M. Malenkov,
March, 1953, who in 1957 was junked like Stalin)

... During those hard and grim days for our Motherland, the
greatness of our leader and teacher, Comrade Stalin, was
revealed in all its magnificence. (N. A. Bulganin, December,
1949)

On March 5, 1953, Stalin died. The communist world went into mourning. His funeral was a state spectacle. His body, like Lenin’s, was entombed in Moscow. Speeches extolled his “greatness.”

The whole world wondered, What next? First a triumvirate, Malenkov, Molotov, and Beria, assumed control. Less than a year later Beria, head of the secret police, was executed as a “traitor.” Then Malenkov, generally regarded as the Number One leader, was deposed as Premier. Later, Molotov, the old-time Bolshevik, was ousted from the Foreign Ministry, as was his successor, Dmitri T. Shepilov, former editor of _Pravda_. All three were denounced in 1957 as “enemies” of the Party. (Still later, Marshal Georgi Zhukov, Red Army hero, was ousted as Soviet Defense Minister.)

Gradually new faces began to appear, especially that of Nikita S. Khrushchev, a Politburo member, who became First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, a powerful position. N. A. Bulganin, one of Stalin’s “political” generals, assumed the job of Premier. These two, referred to as “B and K,” became the most prominently known leaders.

Significant changes, both in foreign and domestic policies, appeared. But underneath, as the suppression of the Hungarian revolt was to prove, lay the ruthless policies of Stalin. Under Malenkov, attempts were made to encourage the production of consumer items, but with his fall, stress reverted to the old Stalinist emphasis on heavy industry. In the foreign field, “B and K” made a widely heralded trip to Yugoslavia, there to woo Tito back into the Moscow camp. The “Big Smile” was radiant at the Geneva Conference of July, 1955, attended by heads of state of France, England, the United States, and Russia, and during highly publicized visits of “B and K” to India and Great Britain.

The cult of Stalin, which had reached nauseating proportions, was toned down. Emphasis was laid on collective leadership. Then, on the night of February 24-25, 1956, came the bombshell that shook and shocked communists around the world—the bitter denunciation of Stalin by Khrushchev at the Twentieth Congress of the Russian Communist Party. It was as devastating a speech as was ever delivered by one man against another. Copies of the speech, not made public in Russia, found their way to the West and in June, 1956, were released by our own Department of State.

Khrushchev denounced Stalin, the “great Stalin” who had been idolized by all communists as a man who could do no wrong, as a murderer, pathological liar, and perverter of Marxism-Leninism. In fiery language and with specific names and dates, Khrushchev accused Stalin of mass terror, deporting whole populations, forging false evidence against alleged enemies, being a coward during World War II, and possessing a vanity that led him to believe he was a god. Khrushchev in his systematic destruction of Stalin dealt with such matters as:

_1. Mass terror:_

Stalin acted not through persuasion, explanation, and patient
cooperation with people, but by imposing his concepts and
demanding absolute submission to his opinion. Whoever opposed
this concept or tried to prove his viewpoint, and the
correctness of his position—was doomed to ... subsequent moral
and physical annihilation.

* * * * *

Stalin put the Party and the NKVD [secret police] up to the use
of mass terror....

* * * * *

Mass arrests of Party, Soviet, economic and military workers
caused tremendous harm to our country and to the cause of
Socialist advancement.

_2. Suspicion and distrust:_

Stalin was a very distrustful man, sickly suspicious; we knew
this from our work with him. He could look at a man and say:
“Why are your eyes so shifty today,” or “Why are you turning so
much today and avoiding to look me directly in the eyes?” The
sickly suspicion created in him a general distrust even toward
eminent Party workers whom he had known for years. Everywhere
and in everything he saw “enemies,” “two-facers” and “spies.”

* * * * *

“It has happened sometimes that a man goes to Stalin on his
invitation as a friend. And when he sits with Stalin, he does
not know where he will be sent next, home or to jail.”

* * * * *

... after the war ... Stalin became even more capricious,
irritable and brutal; in particular his suspicion grew. His
persecution mania reached unbelievable dimensions. Many
workers were becoming enemies before his very eyes. After the
war Stalin separated himself from the collective even more.
Everything was decided by him alone without any consideration
for anyone or anything.

_3. Illegal arrests:_

[In one case, Stalin curtly told an official:] “If you do not
obtain confessions from the doctors we will shorten you by a
head.”

* * * * *

When Stalin said that one or another should be arrested, it
was necessary to accept on faith that he was an “enemy of the
people”.... And how is it possible that a person confesses to
crimes which he has not committed? Only in one way—because of
application of physical methods of pressuring him, tortures,
bringing him to a state of unconsciousness, deprivation of his
judgment, taking away of his human dignity. In this manner were
“confessions” acquired.

_4. Abuse of power:_

It is clear that here Stalin showed in a whole series of
cases his intolerance, his brutality and his abuse of power.
Instead of proving his political correctness and mobilizing the
masses, he often chose the path of repression and physical
annihilation, not only against actual enemies, but also against
individuals who had not committed any crimes against the Party
and the Soviet government.

_5. Isolation from people:_

Stalin separated himself from the people and never went
anywhere. This lasted tens of years. The last time he visited
a village was in January 1928 when he visited Siberia in
connection with grain deliveries. How then could he have known
the situation in the provinces?

_6. Love of self:_

You should have seen Stalin’s fury! How could it be admitted
that he, Stalin, had not been right! He is after all a
“genius,” and a genius cannot help but be right! Everyone can
err, but Stalin considered that he never erred, that he was
always right. He never acknowledged to anyone that he made any
mistake, large or small, despite the fact that he made not
a few mistakes in the matter of theory and in his practical
activity.

* * * * *

The cult of the individual acquired such monstrous size
chiefly because Stalin himself, using all conceivable methods,
supported the glorification of his own person....

Khrushchev, telling how Stalin, in his own hand, wrote flattering statements about himself for his own biography, said: “This book is an expression of the most dissolute flattery, an example of making a man into a godhead, of transforming him into an infallible sage, ‘the greatest leader,’ ‘sublime strategist of all times and nations.’ Finally no other words could be found with which to lift Stalin up to the heavens.”

And then Khrushchev says, Stalin even had the audacity to add, again with his own pen, “... Stalin never allowed his work to be marred by the slightest hint of vanity, conceit or self-adulation.”

No mention was made by Khrushchev of any anti-Semitic crimes committed by Stalin. However, on April 4, 1956, an article entitled “Our Pain and Our Solace” appeared in the Warsaw Yiddish-language newspaper _Folks-Shtimme_, which charged that Jewish culture had been largely liquidated under Stalin and many Jewish leaders executed. To date these allegations have never been denied by the Kremlin and American communists have reluctantly accepted them as true. On April 13, 1956, the East Coast communist paper, the _Daily Worker_, in an editorial entitled “Grievous Deeds,” made mention of the earlier Polish “disclosures ... that a large number of Jewish writers and other Jewish leaders were framed up and executed and that Jewish culture was virtually wiped out” in the Soviet Union. These monstrous deeds of anti-Semitism in Russia have had profound repercussions among communists in the United States.

No single event in Party history so unnerved communists abroad—and inside Russia too—as did the Khrushchev attack. Where did it leave communist leaders who year after year had fawned upon Stalin as the greatest of all leaders? Weren’t they also responsible for such terrible perversions? What was this system called communism, represented as noble, when its chief exponent was a murderer, falsifier, and bigot?

History alone can tell the reasons for, and the ultimate effects of, this violent denunciation. We know about the growing unrest within Russia and the eagerness of the government to appease demands for a higher standard of living. We know how communists like to find scapegoats on whom they can place the people’s hate and distrust, especially if the scapegoat is dead. We know of the jealous jockeying for power that is inevitable in any communist hierarchy.

Moreover, there also appeared to be an effort to rid communism of the growing “dead hand” of Stalin who, in his old age, had become capriciously tyrannical and personally maniacal. His successors saw how this crust of sludge, through fear, terror, and ossification of communist doctrine, was crushing initiative.

But the essential elements of Stalinism, brutality, illegality, ruthlessness, remain. In October, 1956, the Hungarians revolted against their puppet government, only to be violently attacked by Soviet tanks and troops. Nothing could illustrate better the unrepentant Soviet heart. Moscow still firmly controls her satellite empire. Nowhere in a communist country have truly free elections been held. Communist subversion against the free world continues. Atheism remains a dominant doctrine. Unremitting support for Moscow is still demanded of communists everywhere. Speaking before the East German Parliament, Khrushchev made this point clear by stressing the “holy duty” of every communist to help strengthen the communist world.

Apparently realizing he had gone too far in criticizing Stalin, Khrushchev backed up and started to praise the late dictator, showing that in actual fact Khrushchevism was actually Stalinism in a different dress. At a diplomatic reception in Moscow in early 1957, Khrushchev commented boldly:

As a Communist fighting for the interest of the working class,
Stalin was a model Communist.... We have criticized Stalin,
we still criticize him, and if necessary we will do it again.
But we do not criticize Stalin as a bad Communist as far as
the interests of the working classes are concerned.... God
grant that every Communist should fight for the interest of the
working class as Stalin did.

What can we expect in the future? Let Khrushchev himself answer: “Those who expect us to abandon communism will have to wait until a shrimp learns to whistle.”

“What will the [Soviet] policy be like?... We will do the same, but with more emphasis.”

This is the enemy we face today.

4.

_How U.S. Communism Began, 1919-21_

The world-wide dangers of the communist conspiracy started with the Russian revolution in 1917. There and then, for the first time, a communist party seized control of a nation. Almost immediately this conspiracy spread to the United States, seeking to take root by undermining our institutions and traditions.

The Communist Party, USA, first emerged in Chicago, Illinois, in 1919. In the beginning it seemed little more than a freak. Yet in the intervening years that freak has grown into a powerful monster endangering us all. Here is the story:

An emergency convention of the Socialist Party was scheduled to begin in Machinists’ Hall, 113 South Ashland Boulevard, Chicago, on August 30, 1919. The air was charged with tension. The socialists were badly split. The left wing, thrilled by the Russian October Revolution, wanted to establish a Communist Party. The rightists opposed.

The procommunist left-wingers, however, could not agree on a program of action. One group wanted to use the emergency convention to take over the Socialist Party. Another group objected, wanting to set up a Communist Party right away.

A battle quickly developed. Men famous in the history of American communism—Benjamin Gitlow, John Reed, Charles Ruthenberg, Alfred Wagenknecht—were present. Each was trying to assemble followers for his point of view.

One group, the Reed-Gitlow group, refused entrance to the Socialist Convention, retired to another room in Machinists’ Hall (later to the IWW Hall, 129 Throop Street), and on August 31, 1919, founded the _Communist Labor Party of America_ (CLP). Wagenknecht was named Executive Secretary. (John Reed, incidentally, was to become the Party’s first “martyr.” An American, well-educated, a poet, writer and newspaperman, Reed was in Russia during the October Revolution. Completely captivated, he wrote a book, _Ten Days That Shook the World_. He later returned to Moscow, participated in Comintern meetings, and died there in 1920. Reed was buried in the Kremlin.)

A rival group, together with a number of foreign-language federations, met at Smolny Hall, headquarters of the Russian Federation, 1221 Blue Island Avenue, Chicago. Its members criticized the Communist Labor Party as not being truly communistic. The CLP returned the retort, and all attempts at reconciliation failed. On September 1, 1919, this rival group formed the _Communist Party of America_ (CP). Split off was a group from Michigan that was later to form the Proletarian Party. Ruthenberg was chosen as Executive Secretary of the CP.

Not one but two Parties, the CLP and the CP, each claiming to be the true representative of communism and bitterly maligning the other, came out of the Chicago turmoil. The CLP set up headquarters in Cleveland, the CP in Chicago. The Communist Party was born in America amid confusion, bickering, and partisanship, a condition that was to haunt it for years.

The communists of 1919 were a motley lot, vastly different from the highly disciplined, efficiently operating Party of recent years. Though not lacking zeal or fanaticism, they had little Party training or discipline. They varied in extremes from bitter die-hards, who were ready to do anything for the “cause,” even throw a bomb or lead a riot, to comical show-offs, attracted by violent language and subversive possibilities. Many believed revolution in the United States was imminent.

The great majority were foreign-born. Many had difficulty speaking English. _The Communist_ (June 12, 1920) states: “The Communist Party, from the very beginning of its existence, found its work hampered because it had in its ranks only a few men capable of expressing Communist principles in the English language.” The comrades lacked a practical understanding of American affairs, especially in the trade union field. Soon all kinds of wild-eyed plans arose. Each leader became his own interpreter of Marx and Lenin. Cliques, quarrels, and personal rivalries were rife.

The Russians (those who had been born in the “home of the revolution”) thought they should play the predominant role. They argued: Wasn’t Lenin a Russian? Didn’t the revolution start in Russia? Hence they, the Russian-born, obviously had an “insight” denied all the others. They should be the leaders.

On one point, however, all agreed: obedience to Soviet Russia. Every communist considered Lenin a god and the Russian Bolsheviks models of perfection. These were the men who had made the October Revolution. They were the teachers; the Americans, the learners. Soviet Russia, at this time, was assuming an authority over communists in this nation that it has never relinquished. This control was to become ever more pronounced, inescapable, and dangerous.

The history of the Communist Party in the United States since 1919 is characterized by two main trends: (1) the development of a disciplined Party structure or, in the words of William Z. Foster, “the building of a Leninist Party of a new type,” and (2) the complete and unquestioning subservience of the Party to Soviet Russia. Every word and deed, hope and aspiration, of American communists over the years has promoted these two objectives.

The conventions of the CLP and CP were over, but “civil war” continued. Communists roamed the country, denouncing each other.

Just a few weeks after the Chicago conventions Charles Ruthenberg, Executive Secretary of the Communist Party (the “American Lenin,” who died in 1927 and whose ashes lie buried in the Kremlin), mounted a platform in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

He began his address. The Communist Party was the heir of the revolutionary spirit and its rival, the Communist Labor Party, was wrong. The CLP, he charged, was “centrist,” a vile word to communists, just like the Party in Germany where the communists had failed. But _his_ group, the Communist Party, was without sin. It represented the thoughts of the victorious Bolshevik Party of Soviet Russia.

When would the revolution come? Ruthenberg did not know; tomorrow or next week. But he was optimistic. The communists, he said, had better hurry to learn how to run the government.

Communist Labor Party orators replied in kind. They denounced their opponents. They alone held the sacred communist truth. Splinter factions, and they were many, raised their voices. They attacked everybody but themselves. American communism in these early days was bedlam.

There were other complications. Just a few weeks after the founding conventions, in the fall of 1919, the federal government and local authorities initiated prosecutive action against the communists.

As a consequence the communist movement went underground. Comrades met in secret hide-outs, maintained underground headquarters, and sent messages by couriers. Hidden printing presses poured out propaganda.

Underground or not, the “civil war” continued. The cramped quarters did not hinder the oratorical artillery. The inter-Party strife became fantastically bitter.

Moscow did not like either this bickering or the enforced underground work. The Kremlin wanted a single, unified Party, able to operate legally (above ground) as well as illegally (underground). Communism simply could not thrive on factional fights or in stuffy undercover cellars.

Moscow intervened through the Third International, an organization designed by the Soviets to control Communist Parties in other nations and to serve as an instrument of world revolution. The founding Congress of the Comintern, which opened March 2, 1919, in the Kremlin, was a bizarre affair.

The “delegates” were chiefly make-believe, picked from prisoners of war, visitors in Moscow, or “rubber-stamp” friends. The main problem was to find as many nationalities as possible. This was an “international” organization. That these individuals were not truly representative of their “home” groups did not matter. England was “represented” by a Russian emigré; Hungary by a prisoner of war.

The proceedings were impromptu. It is related that Lenin, during one session, sent Angelica Balabanoff (later to become General Secretary of the Comintern) a note on a scrap of paper instructing her to take the floor and announce the affiliation of the Italian Socialist Party with the International. She replied that she could not. She had not been in contact with Italian Socialists. They were “loyal.” There was no doubt of that, but she could not speak for them.

Lenin’s answer was prompt, scribbled in another note: “You read _Avanti_ [their newspaper] and you know what is going on in Italy.”

The Comintern soon became a powerful weapon of communist control. The Second World Congress of the Communist International, held in Russia during July-August, 1920, adopted the notorious twenty-one points of admission for Comintern membership. These were basic rules that every Communist Party must accept before being admitted. The twenty-one points established an ironclad discipline, a single type of Party structure from which there could be no dissent. Here are some of the conditions:

—All party publications must have communist editors.

—If communists cannot carry out their work legally, “a
combination of legal and illegal work is absolutely necessary.”

—Vigorous and systematic communist propaganda must be carried
on in the army. If forbidden by law, it must be pursued
illegally.

—Each Communist Party must develop communist agitation in rural
areas, within trade unions, workers’ councils, and other mass
organizations.

—“Parties belonging to the Communist International must be
built upon the principle of democratic centralism,” that is,
“organized in the most centralized manner,” controlled by
“iron discipline,” and with a leadership possessing power and
authority.

—Parties operating legally must “make periodical cleanings” of
the membership to weed out dissenters.

—“Every party that desires to belong to the Communist
International must give every possible support to the Soviet
Republics in their struggle against all counter-revolutionary
forces.”

—“All decisions of the Congresses of the Communist
International, as well as the decisions of its Executive
Committee, are binding on all parties affiliated to the
Communist International.”

Here is the final, clinching point:

—“Members of the Party who reject the conditions and theses of
the Communist International, on principle, must be expelled
from the party.”

The Comintern made its position clear: either join on its terms, involving complete surrender, or become a renegade. Later congresses elaborated on this communist discipline. In July, 1921, for example, an order was issued by the Comintern Executive Committee that national congresses were to be held after the Comintern congresses so that they could ratify decisions. The Fourth Congress (1922) ruled that all Comintern delegates should arrive in Moscow uninstructed. Lenin was determined to make the Comintern the iron fist that controlled communism throughout the world.

The Third International exercised supervision not only by instructing American communists who flocked to Moscow but by sending representatives, or “reps” as they were called, to this country. These individuals would openly sit in communist meetings, participate in decisions, and issue orders. The “reps” represented Moscow, and that fact alone was proof of their communist “divinity.”

The Comintern “reps” contributed to a picturesque period in the history of American communism. Many were riffraff European Bolsheviks, of various nationalities, themselves knowing little about communism, who were hurriedly dispatched to the United States. Often, by their inept actions, they made American leaders more confused than ever. To gain admittance to the United States, they often used fake names, false passports, and special “covers.”

This sounds like a crude system, and, in the light of present-day communist “diplomacy,” it was. Nobody would imagine an official Soviet representative so identified in today’s communist meetings or American communists openly going to Moscow to receive instructions. This “crudity” has been polished. The same channels of communication are still open, but more “professional” ways of supervision have been perfected.

Soon after the 1919 founding conventions, the Executive Committee of the Communist International sent a letter to the two underground Parties, the CP and CLP. The split, said the Comintern, had harmed the communist cause in the United States. Unity must be established “in the shortest possible time.” The letter recommended the calling of a joint convention. The condition for unity was acceptance of the program of the Comintern.

This meant that personalities must be submerged, cliques ousted, and a uniform, standardized structure instituted. The concepts of a small, tightly knit Party (as taught by Lenin) must be put into practice. The Russian mentality must be imposed on _every_ Party member. The Comintern was emphatic:

... unity is not only possible, but absolutely necessary. The
Executive Committee categorically insists on its immediate
realization.

In May, 1920, a “unity” convention of the Communist Labor Party and a faction (led by Ruthenberg) of the Communist Party was secretly held at Bridgman, Michigan, resulting in the formation of the United Communist Party of America (UCP). The delegates, as a security measure, used assumed names. _The Communist_, in a special convention issue, was secretive: “Sometime recently, somewhere between the Atlantic and Pacific, between the Gulf and the Great Lakes, two groups of elected delegates assembled as the Unity Conference of the Communist Party and the Communist Labor Party.” A Comintern “rep” was present.

Many elements of the Communist Party, however, refused to go along and boycotted the new UCP. A chief point of dispute between the CP and CLP was the position of the foreign-language federations: should they be autonomous within the Party, having the right, if they desired, to withdraw, or be completely subject to the will of the Party? This issue touched the very heart of communist doctrine. No Communist Party could ever allow a member the “right” to withdraw. The misguided members seeking to retain some of these “rights” were swimming upstream, destined to failure.

Finally in May, 1921, after another year of bickering, the UCP and the remainder of the CP formed the Communist Party of America, Section of the Communist International, at a secret two-week convention at Woodstock, New York. The group’s program, among other things, provided that the Communist Party would work for violent revolution, preparing “the workers for armed insurrection as the only means of overthrowing the capitalist state.” The convention officially accepted the twenty-one points for admission to the Comintern. The CP was now a complete prisoner of Moscow.

By early 1921 an “outward” unity was achieved in the communist movement, but the second problem still remained: bringing the Party into the open. The Third Congress of the Comintern (June-July, 1921) defined the problem:

The Communist International draws the attention of the
Communist Party of America (unified) to the fact that the
illegalized organization must not only serve as the ground for
collecting and crystallizing the active Communist forces, but
that it is the Party’s duty to try all ways and means to get
out of the illegalized condition into the open, among the wide
masses.

The outline of the Party of today was beginning to take shape, the true Party conceived by Lenin, having both a legal and illegal apparatus. The legal aspect would be necessary to conduct communist propaganda among the noncommunist masses, to infiltrate organizations and operate communist fronts. But the underground must exist, for the revolution, the final aim of the Party, could never be anything but illegal. The underground apparatus would handle espionage, super-secret Party work, and would always be ready to expand if the legal Party, because of “capitalist” opposition, could not operate fully. The Communist Party at all times has desired both an upper and a lower level.

In December, 1921, the Workers Party of America was formed, a “legal” outlet for the underground Communist Party. The founding convention, held in New York City, was organized, controlled, and directed by Party leaders. Acting as a front for the underground communists, the Workers Party set up “open” headquarters, issued a “public” paper, and operated in full view. The communist movement now had a dual setup: the underground Communist Party, affiliated with the Third International in Moscow, commonly known among members as _Number One_, and the Workers Party, not so affiliated, known as _Number Two_. They were, however, the two faces of the same communist coin.

Those were turbulent days in the American communist movement. Party leaders were grotesque characters, making speeches in underground meetings, sitting in secret conventions (sometimes in the middle of woods), or traveling to Moscow. They usually had several aliases for use on fake passports and in Party correspondence or to be given to the police if arrested.

Their obsessive love was Soviet Russia. Communists of all varieties streamed to Moscow. William Z. Foster, Earl Browder, Jay Lovestone, Benjamin Gitlow, John Reed, “Mother” Bloor visited there. Many had business: to attend Comintern meetings, to serve as “representatives” of the American Party, to enroll in a communist school. Others went as plain sight-seers, to view at first hand this land of “paradise.” Sometimes whole groups would go, as for example a delegation that sailed in 1927 to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the revolution.

The visitors were received cordially and treated well unless reason existed to the contrary. Some actually got to see the great Lenin. William Z. Foster, telling of seeing Lenin for the first time in 1921, commented that “It was one of the most inspiring moments” of his life. They attended Comintern Congresses, talked to high Party officials, looked around the town. They were being primed for their roles, puppets to fight the communist battle in America.

Then back they came to tell their comrades of the marvels of this new land. In speeches all over the country they shouted communist propaganda:

Russia is the only “real democracy” on earth; the working
people are better off in Russia than in America.

Never has the American communist movement expressed itself in more revolutionary, violent, and bitter terms than in the early 1920’s. Party leaders shunned the cautious, evasive double talk of today’s communists. They believed in violent revolution and said so. The underground communist press was filled with revolutionary statements. One journal tried to outdo the other in the use of violent language.

The Party was controlled, just as it is today, by a very few. Moreover, policy, at all times, was subject to the approval of the Kremlin, acting through the Comintern. Loyal Americans should always remember that the Communist Party, USA, has never existed as an independent organization. Soviet control was instituted at the very beginning. Acceptance of the twenty-one points confirmed the imprisonment.

Party business of the underground apparatus and the above-ground Workers Party was supervised by the Secretariat, a group usually consisting of three of the most trusted leaders. A larger group, the Political Committee of some seven to ten comrades, handled many of the Party’s day-to-day affairs, such as manipulating a strike, designating a new Party official, planning infiltration tactics. The Secretariat, elected by the Political Committee, however, handled the most confidential matters, items not even brought to the attention of the Political Committee: the safeguarding of records, receipt of subsidies from abroad, maintaining contact with Russian espionage agents. These activities were too confidential even to be mentioned in minutes.

Relations between the Comintern in Moscow and American communists were almost like those between feudal lord and serf. Moscow wanted to know everything: the background of Party leaders, how a certain strike was getting along, the strength of the Party in various localities. The “reps” did not hesitate to criticize. In one Political Committee meeting a letter from the Comintern “rep” was read. It contained the following criticisms:

—Lack of information received relative to the Party convention;

—The Party’s campaign on a certain issue, though going well,
was not strong enough. The “rep” recommended a pamphlet be
written;

—Editorials in the _Daily Worker_ [the Party’s newspaper] were
politically incorrect;

—The Party had not taken a correct position against certain
enemies of Russia.

The minutes of the meeting indicate that a motion made to accept the letter was “carried unanimously.” The Comintern’s influence was felt in practically every communist meeting. Every move of the American Party was watched from Moscow. No wonder a joke making Party rounds went as follows: Why is the Party like the Brooklyn Bridge? Because it is suspended on cables!