Part 25

In the early days, before Party discipline was established, Lenin counseled: “The Anarchist, who preaches war against God at all costs, actually helps the ... bourgeoisie....” William Z. Foster, rebuking the extreme left, said that some of their efforts at “God killing” served only for “... overstress and distortion of the religious question.”

By 1937 such tactical caution was beginning to be replaced by a calculated program to exploit religion. Foster called this the “... more recent practical approach to the religious question, on the basis long ago laid by Lenin.”

This “practical approach” means attempting, through deceptive tactics, to capture support from American religious groups for an atheistic Communist Party. As Foster put it in 1937:

In consequence, the antireligious Communist Party is now to be found in close united front cooperation with dozens of churches and other religious organizations on questions of immediate economic and political interest to the toiling masses.

In line with these tactics, the Party is today engaged in a systematic program to infiltrate American religious groups. “The Communist Party,” said the National Committee in 1954, “declares that it seeks no conflict with any church or any American’s religious belief. On the contrary, we stretch out our hand in the fellowship of common struggle for our mutual goal of peace, democracy and security to all regardless of religious belief.” Members are being told: “Join churches and become involved in church work.”

The Party’s objectives inside religious groups are several:

1. _To gain “respectability”_: “... a church is the best front we can have.” Comrades, by associating in church circles, secure an “acceptable” status in the community, greater credence for their opinions, and the lulling of noncommunist suspicions.

2. _To provide an opportunity for the subtle dissemination of communist propaganda._ Churches are convincing places in which to identify communist programs with such genuine religious values as “peace,” “brotherhood,” “justice.” One member bragged how in a church talk he had “plugged” for Marx. The communists are careful, however, not to overdo it. One fellow was too ambitious. He was challenged by alert church members and relieved of his leadership duties.

3. _To make contact with youth_: through class discussions, recreational affairs, etc. The object is not necessarily to recruit (although in one church several young people did join) but to plant a seed of Marxist-Leninist thought.

4. _To exploit the church in the Party’s day-to-day agitational program._ In the 1930’s and 1940’s the approach was chiefly through “immediate economic and political” problems, with the Party attempting to exploit the church’s legitimate interest in better housing and the elimination of social injustices.

Today this tactic is overshadowed by the “peace” issue. Every possible deceptive device is being used to link the Party’s “peace” program with the church. One Communist Party section issued instructions that every clergyman in the community be contacted to give a sermon on “peace.” Encourage “Party church members” to organize discussion groups, perhaps showing a “peace” film. If possible, circulate “peace” literature. If you can’t get inside, stand outside. One organizer said: “We are to dress up like other people and stand outside churches in our neighborhoods and use the slogan, ‘Peace on earth, good will toward men.’”

5. _To enlarge the area of Party contacts._ One Party section advocated: Join small churches (100 to 500 membership), so that one can more easily work himself into a position of leadership. Make as many personal contacts as possible. Learn where the church member works, what his hobbies are, etc. Someday he might be used. One Party member, active in youth work, learned that the parents of several young people were working in an industrial plant. Securing this information was most important, he said.

6. _To influence clergymen._ A dedicated clergyman, being a man of God, is a mortal enemy of communism. But if he can, by conversion, influence, or trickery, be made to support the communist program once or a few times or many times, the Party gains. If, for example, a clergyman can be persuaded to serve as sponsor or officer of a communist front, to issue a testimonial or to sign a clemency petition for a communist “victim of persecution,” his personal prestige lends weight to the cause.

The church, in communist eyes, is an “enemy” institution to be infiltrated, subverted, and bent to serve Party aims. Any successes make the comrades diabolically happy. One member, talking to her communist friends, laughed about prayers in church. “Who wants to hear such stuff, but what can I do? That’s the only way I can get in there.”

We might expect, considering the importance of materialism in communist theory, that the Party’s constitution would set forth atheism as a basic principle of communism. But “... we do not declare,” said Lenin, “and must not declare in our programme that we are ‘Atheists’....”

The Party’s aim, in addition to that of exploiting the church, is to neutralize religion as an effective counterweapon. At present virtually nothing is being said in open Party propaganda that is antireligious. Pamphlet after pamphlet is issued on civil rights, “peace,” “democracy”; very few on religion. Communists in the United States, however, are on record in regard to their views on religion: for example, Earl Browder, _Communism in the United States_ (1935), pages 334-49; William Z. Foster, _The Twilight of World Capitalism_ (1949), pages 87-99 and “Reply to a Priest’s Letter,” _Political Affairs_ (October, 1954). Also, a pamphlet, _Science and Religion_, by Marcel Cachin (1946), editor of _L’Humanité_, French communist newspaper, has been circulated.

If members are forced to present the Party’s views, they are instructed to stress, as Lenin did, that religion is a “private matter” for the individual, and to pose as “tolerant.” Doesn’t the Party’s constitution say that a person is eligible for membership “regardless of ... religious belief”? The object here is to dull the vigilance of the noncommunist mind and to make religious belief appear as something minor, secondary, and inconsequential.

When tactically expedient, the communists even liken themselves to the early Christian martyrs suffering persecution for attempting to aid mankind.

One cartoon published in _The Worker_ shows a sketch of Christ in the form of a wanted criminal. The caption reads: _REWARD for Information Leading to the Apprehension of_—

JESUS CHRIST

WANTED—for Sedition, Criminal Anarchy, Vagrancy, and Conspiring to Overthrow the Established Government

Dresses poorly. _Said_ to be a carpenter by trade, ill nourished, has visionary ideas, associates with common working people, the unemployed and bums ... Alias: “Prince of Peace. Son of Man” ... _Professional agitator._

Red beard, marks on hands and feet the result of injuries inflicted by an angry mob led by respectable citizens and legal authorities.

A _Daily Worker_ writer, reviewing a movie in which the background was laid in the early Christian era, says: “Some interesting parallels can be found between the persecution of the Christians shown in the film and the political jailings in the United States today.”

Behind these deceptive tactics, however, can be seen the real nature of communism. For the member, religion is _not_ a private affair. No tolerance is allowed. He cannot be a Marxist and adhere to a religion. The Party is today desperately working to mold atheistic materialism as a weapon of revolution, a revolution which, if it is to succeed, must first sap religion’s spiritual strength and then destroy it.

The Party’s attack can be traced through four stages:

1. _Recruitment_: keyed to the Party’s general approach toward noncommunists, the issue of religion is minimized. “Try to win recruits on the basis of wages and the class struggle rather than religion,” and, “Go ahead and tell a fellow you believe in God to keep from getting into an argument.” Likewise it is urged, “If we approach a church-goer we do not hit him over the head and tell him his idea is crazy. We take a tactical approach....”

Lenin’s advice still holds: “We must not only admit ... all those workers who still retain faith in God, we must redouble our efforts to recruit them. We are absolutely opposed to the slightest affront to these workers’ religious convictions. We recruit them in order to educate them in the spirit of our programme....”

2. _Early indoctrination_: keyed to patience if recruits continue to attend church after joining the Party. They must be gradually “educated.” If new members begin to ask questions, they are to be made to feel, not that their fellow communists are trying to take away their belief, but that these communists are “advanced thinkers,” that they hold a “scientific” concept of the universe, and that religion is to them simply “old-fashioned.” Typical of what members are told are these comments made by communist leaders:

—“How silly to think there is a God.”

—“Religion comes from primitive man’s worship of such things as thunder, lightning and the sun.”

—“Religion was used as an explanation of unanswerable questions, such as ‘Why does it rain?’ Answer: ‘God willed it.’”

3. _Special indoctrination_: keyed to the real job of teaching Marxist materialism are special indoctrination classes. “Our programme thus necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism,” said Lenin, directing his words, of course, to Party members.

A few statements from Party members reveal how persistent is the communist fight against God:

—“The concept of God is manmade and is based on ignorance.”

—“Marxism-Leninism is a science and has solved the mysteries of religion.”

—“To be a true communist you have to be an atheist.”

—“Communism will supplant religion and will keep you warm and give you all the comforts of healthful living.”

—“Religious people fear facts and resort to such things as prayer to end war, but prayers are actually futile and leave war to the capitalists while people sit around praying.”

4. _Final goal_: the utter elimination of all religion (called “bourgeois remnants”) from the heart, mind, and soul of man, and the total victory of atheistic communism. Religious attitudes keep cropping up, however, even in the trained member. One individual admitted that it had taken him a long time to give up his religion. “It was one of the hardest parts of my Party development.”

Even in Soviet Russia, after a generation of the most bitter propaganda, religion is far from exterminated. “One of the most widespread traces of the past in the minds of the people,” said one Soviet writer, “is religious superstition and darkness, survivals of the old, antiscientific conceptions of nature, society and of man himself.” He adds, “The historic victories of atheism in our country do not mean, however, that religion is over and done with. There are still among us no few believers, i.e., people who continue to remain in the fetters of religion.”

To combat these religious “remnants,” says this Soviet writer, more antireligious propaganda is needed. “... forming an advanced, materialist outlook in the rising generation and combating every type of superstition and religious belief make up a most important sector in the fight for the communist education of youth.” Another Soviet writer states, “Convincing, profoundly reasoned propaganda of atheism which does not offend the feelings of believers is the main characteristic of all antireligious work at the present moment.”

Here, then, is the fight the communist leaders wage. We do not believe they can ever win it. These so-called “religious survivals” represent something far deeper in man than the communists can grant: some eternal reaching toward a creative source. But if the Party does not realize the true nature and strength of these “survivals,” it does realize that religion is its most potent foe. To meet this challenge no hesitant, indifferent, half-apologetic acts on our own part can suffice. Out of the deep roots of religion flows something warm and good, the affirmation of love and justice; here is the source of strength for our land if we are to remain free. It is ours to defend and to nourish.

24.

_How to Stay Free_

The communist revolution in Russia is forty years behind us. In these four decades communism has had a chance to show what it does with power in its hands; how it treats the people who live under it; what its attitudes are toward law, education, science, and religion; how it handles its relations with the noncommunist world. It stands condemned on its own record. It has revealed basic errors in theory and practice which will eventually bring about its downfall. To turn around Karl Marx’s famous comment on capitalism, communism is digging its own grave. It cannot survive because it is anti-God and anti-man.

For all too long, communism’s true character has been concealed by its own propaganda, abetted by public ignorance and apathy. Soviet Russia was hailed as an “advanced democracy” and communism as “twentieth-century Americanism.” Such phrases deceived free people and gave the Party a protective cloak.

Marxism-Leninism stands revealed not as a “new world” of hope and justice but as an evil conspiracy in pursuit of power. Its cost in human misery and waste of human life is almost beyond description. Every home in America today is deprived of an even higher standard of living as a result of the tax burden brought on by the utter necessity of keeping our defenses strong against the world-wide advance of communism.

Time has also erased the label of “scientific” from Marxist-Leninist ideology. The communist claim of “infallible” has proved to be all too fallible time and again. The revolution began not in a highly industrialized state but in a backward, tyranny-ridden land where communism meant the substitution of an even more vicious brand of tyranny. It was conducted not as a “dictatorship of the proletariat” but as a dictatorship by dictators who rode roughshod over the workingman. Stalin, in the middle 1930’s, contended that socialism was at last fully established in Russia and that the movement from then on would be toward the second stage which Marx had foretold: true communism and the withering away of the state. Even as Stalin spoke, in terms designed to attract idealists, he was making the state ever more powerful. After his death, with the “New Look” and the Khrushchev “thaw,” the trend has not been reversed.

Khrushchev gives the answer to those who still repeat the shabby, deceitful phrases of communist dogma, when he desanctifies Stalin one day and on the next day rehabilitates him as a good communist. After all, Stalin during his life was the Chief Executioner, and Khrushchev did his bidding, along with many of his associates who rule Russia today. Khrushchev’s answer should never be forgotten, because by his own words the alleged “paradise of human joy” was, in fact, a world of slave labor camps, betrayed human rights, and calculated fear.

The answer also comes from Mao Tse-tung, the Chinese communist dictator who, without apparent shame, admitted that 800,000 of his fellow countrymen had been liquidated between 1949 and the beginning of 1954. The answer further comes from the Hungarian Freedom Fighters of 1956, who with bare hands attacked the steel of Soviet tanks.

The answer finally comes from those Americans who were victimized by the communist deception of claiming credit for reforms and advances which the Party did not deserve. Most informed Americans now know that the communists adopt a cause only to exploit it for their own ends. Communism does not mean better housing, improved social conditions, or a more strict observance of civil rights. The vast majority of Negro leaders have rebuffed the communists’ attempts to exploit them. By forcing Party members out of positions of authority and even from union membership, true trade unionists have shown their awareness that communists seek to disrupt the legitimate mission of labor unions.

Communism, in brief, has bitterly indicted communism; communist practice has indicted communist theory; communist actions have indicated the perverted use of such lofty words as “peace,” “justice,” and “liberty.”

But we cannot afford the luxury of waiting for communism to run its course like other oppressive dictatorships. The weapons of communism are still formidable. They become even more effective when we lower our guard and when we become lax in strengthening our democratic institutions in perfecting the American dream.

The call of the future must be a rekindled American faith, based on our priceless heritage of freedom, justice, and the religious spirit.

In our reawakening, we Americans can learn a great deal from the fight against communism. Here are five special areas:

1. The communists emphasize _ideological study_, meaning, of course, Marxism-Leninism. Such study has been the very foundation of their “monolithic unity”: their power to keep people in line no matter how the “line” changes. Their study allows no deviation for free thought and independent action. Also, it provides them with a “common language” since all communists give the same meaning to words and acts. This emphasis upon study has been the means whereby they have captured the minds of some of our young people who read and think and who are lacking in proper companionship.

It is sad but true that many young people have been drawn into communist clubs or study groups. Often they are highly intellectual but lonely students and fall under a sinister influence. We know this from the experiences of hundreds of former communists and from acts of near-treason we have been called upon to investigate.

American education, of course, does not make communists; communist education does. Communism, to survive, must depend upon a constant program of education, because communism needs educated people, even though it distorts the use to which their education is put. Thus, we need to show our young people, particularly those endowed with high intellects, that we in our democracy need what they have to offer.

We, as a people, have not been sufficiently articulate and forceful in expressing pride in our traditions and ideals. In our homes and schools we need to learn how to “let freedom ring.” In all the civilized world there is no story which compares with America’s effort to become free and to incorporate freedom in our institutions. This story, told factually and dramatically, needs to become the basis for our American unity and for our unity with all free peoples. I am sure most Americans believe that our light of freedom is a shining light. As Americans we should stand up, speak of it, and let the world see this light, rather than conceal it. For too long we have had a tendency to keep silent while the communists, their sympathizers, and their fellow travelers have been telling the world what is wrong with democracy. Suppose every American spent a little time each day, less than the time demanded by the communists, in studying the Bible and the basic documents of American history, government, and culture? The result would be a new America, vigilant, strong, but ever humble in the service of God.

2. Then there is the training of _youth_, on whom the communists place so much emphasis. To the Party, youth is not something auxiliary but an important training ground. We must meet this challenge. America must devote the best of her efforts to make youth responsible, conscious of its obligations, and eager to be good citizens. Experience and observation point to certain facts which we need to consider in providing for youth.

First, youth gravitates toward youth. The young person who feels left out may remain a “solitary.” Or he may, according to his background and make-up, join a delinquent gang. He may join a Party front or club. Or he may find some other short cut to a sense of belonging. But every American youth has a right to find some place within a group that expresses rather than contradicts the real values of society.

Second, given half a chance, youth gravitates toward companionship with competent, generous, and experienced adults. Practically all my life I have been face to face with young people becoming involved in difficulties or coming under the communist spell. Invariably I have discovered that they all had one thing in common. In their early years and in the periods of their lives when their transgressions began to take form, they could not talk things over with their parents. Their parents were either too busy, or not interested, or resented any difference of opinion. Or parents simply doled out “final” answers when the young people wanted to try to think things through.

Our youth want not only to talk to adults, they want to work with adults. It is a fine thing for them to have their own groups, but it is better if, in addition, they can participate in shared projects with adults. If the adults can show, in action, that it is possible to combine high idealism with solid practicality and patience, the results will enhance character and citizenship development manyfold.

3. The communists stress _action_. This means carrying out our responsibilities now—not tomorrow, the next day, or never. To communists the Party means continual action, not just talk, waiting for annual elections, meetings, or affairs. With us action must supplement good intentions in building the America of the future. We need to provide our youth with activity groups. To give them only a high standard of material advantages or a constant diet of recreation is not enough. Recreation must be made part of a life of responsibility, otherwise it becomes merely a preface to boredom. Our young people, as well as adults, need to be working members of our republic and citizens on duty at all times.

4. Communists accent the _positive_. In their deceptive and perverted way they are always purporting to stand for something positive. “Better,” “higher,” etc., are trade-marks in their language. We, too, in the true sense of the word, should strive for goals that are genuinely better, higher, and more noble, trying to improve self, community, and nation. A strictly negative attitude or the philosophy of just staying afloat—all too common today—will never meet the impact of the communist challenge.

5. Most important of all is _faith_. Let us not blind ourselves to the fact that communists do have a “faith.” True, it is falsely placed, but still it inspires them to sacrifice, devotion, and a perverted idealism.

The late Mother Bloor, the Party’s woman “hero,” often praised Walt Whitman’s “The Mystic Trumpeter” as the poem she loved best. It seemed, she said, to prophesy the coming of a “new world”:

War, sorrow, suffering gone—the rank earth purged—nothing but joy left! The ocean fill’d with joy—the atmosphere all joy! Joy! joy! in freedom, worship, love! joy in the ecstasy of life! Enough to merely be! enough to breathe! Joy! joy! all over joy!

She is trying to identify communism with the dream of a world of joy. She is exploiting Walt Whitman. Yet her feeling shows the lure of communist “faith.” If communists can be so inspired from error, falsehood, and hate, just think what we could do with truth, justice, and love! I thrill to think of the even greater wonders America could fashion from its rich, glorious, and deep tradition. All we need is faith, _real faith_.