THE MEANING OF COMMUNISM TO AMERICANS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01676R000900020059-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 18
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 3, 2002
• Sequence Number: 59
• Content Type: REPORT

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THE MEANING OF COMMUNI SM TO AMERICAN S
$X RICHARD NIXON
VICE PRESIDENT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
The major problem confronting the people of the United Stat=s
and free peoples everywhere in the last half of the Twentieth
Century is the threat to peace and freedom presented by the mili-
tant aggressiveness of international communism. A major weakness
in this struggle is lack of adequate understanding of the character
of the challenge which communism presents.
I am convinced that we are on the right side in this struggle
a .. A. a .p r.r -
in
ll
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--- - - -
and that we are we
e and assure victory in the struggi
ta
d
g
van
are to maintain our a
we must develop, not only among the leaders, but among the people
of the free world a better understanding of the threat which con-
fronts us.
The question is not one of being for or against communism.
The time is long past when any significant number of Americans
contend that communism is no particular concern of theirs. Few
can still believe that communism is simply a curious and twisted
philosophy which happens to appeal to a certain number of zealc-ts
but which constitutes no serious threat to the interests or id els
of free society.
The days of indifference are gone. The danger today in ouz'
attitude toward communism is of a very different kind. It liek; in
the fact that we have come to abhor communism so much that we no
longer recognize the necessity of understanding it.
We see the obvious dangers. We recognize that we must reca.xn
our present military and economic advantage over the comm.=nist
bloc, an advantage which deters a hot war and which counters the
communist threat in the cold war. In the fields of rocket tech-
nology and space exploration, we have risen to the challenge and
we will keep the lead that we have gained. There is no question
that the American people generally will support whatever programs
our leaders initiate in these fields.
What we must realize is that this struggle probably frill ?Zoot
be decided in the military, economic, or scientific areasyiim-
d
portant as these are. The battle in which we are engrga
primarily one of ideas. The test is one not so much of arms
of faith.
a contest of ideas we must know their idcts
i
n
If we are to w
Our knowledge must not be superficial. We
ll as our own
s
.
s we
cannot be content with simply an intuition that communism is wrong.
It is not enough to rest our case alone on the assertions, true as
they are, that communism denies God, enslaves men, and destroys
justice.
W t eco nine that the appeal of the communist idea
u
s r g
m
.not to the masses, as the communists would have us belieyo,, but
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more often to an intelligent minority in newly developing courtrLes
who are trying to decide which system offers the best and surest
road to progress.
We must cut through the exterior to the very heart of the
communist idea. We must come to understand the weaknesses of c3:n-
munism as a system--why after more than forty years on trial it
continues to disappoint so many aspirations, why it has failed ii
its prcmise of equality in abundance, why it has produced a whol.
library of disillusionment and a steady stream of men, women and
children seeking to escape its blight.
But we must also come to understand its strength--why it has
so securely entrenched itself in the USSR, why it has been able to
accomplish what it has in the field of education and science, wn:t
in some of the problem areas of the world it continues to appeal
to leaders aspiring to a better life for their people.
It is to find the answers to these questions that in his
statement I want to discuss communism as an idea--its economic
philosophy, its philosophy of law and politics, its philosophy of
history.
This statement will admittedly not be simple because .,he
subject is complex.
It will not be brief because nothing less than a knowledge
in depth of the communist idea is necessary if we are to deal with
it effectively.
In discussing the idea I will not offer programs to meet it.
I intend in a later statement to discuss the tactics and vulner-
abilities of the communist conspiracy and how we can best fashion
a strategy for victory.
I anticipate that some might understandably ask the questio.l--
why such a lengthy discussion of communism when everybody -_s
against it already?
If the Free World is to win this struggle, we must ha-re men
and women who not only are against communism but who know why
they are against it and who know what they are going to do about
it. Communism is a false idea, and the answer to a false :idea is
truth, not ignorance.
One of the fundamentals of the communist philosophy is a
belief that societies pass inevitably through certain stages. e.eh
of these stages is supposed to generate the necessity for -ts suc-
cessor. Feudalism contained within its loins the seed of capital-
ism; capitalism was, in other words, to supplant feudalism. C"z_L-
talism, in turn, moves inevitably toward a climax in which it will
be supplanted by its appointed successor, communism. All of these
things are matters of necessity and there is nothing men can do to
change the inflexible sequence which history imposes.
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.it is a i,art of this philosophy that as society moves L,lonF..
its predestined way, each stage of development is dominated by a
particular class. Feudalism was dominated by the aristocray;
capitalism by something called the bourgeoisie; communism by? the
prolcstr-~r _' a' - , Turin eny ~):'rticular sta e of society's deve__opme.l;
the whole of human life within that society is run and rigged fc::
the benefit of the dominant class; no one else counts for anything,
and the most he can expect is the left-over scraps. In the end,
of course, with the final triumph of communism, classes will dis-
appear,---what was formerly the proletariat will expand so that i
is the only class, and since there are no longer any outsiders
that it,can dominate, there will in effect be no classes at all.
Now this theory of successive stages of development man=es i-:-,
clear that if we are to understand communism, we must understand
the communist view of capitalism for, according to communist
theory, capitalism contains within itself the germs of communism.
The communist notion of capitalism is that it is a market economy,
an economy of "free trade, free selling and buying" to quote the
Manifesto again. It follows from this that since communism in-
evitably supplants and destroys capitalism, it cannot itself be
anything like market economy.
The fundamental belief of the communist economic philo.ophy
therefore is a negative one, namely, a belief that whatever the
economic system of mature communism may turn out to be, it cannot
be a market economy, it cannot--in the words of the CommuniEt
Manifesto--be an economy based on "free trade, free selling and
buying."
It may be well at this point to digress for the purpose of
recalling the curious fact that the literature of communism con-
tains so many praises for the achievements of capitalism. The
Manifesto contains these words about the market economy of
capitalism and its alleged overlords, the bourgeoisie:
"It has accomplished wonders far surpassing
Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic
cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put
in the shade all former migrations of nations and
crusades...The bourgeoisie, during its rule of
scarce one hundred years (the Manifesto speaks from
the year 1848), has created more massive and more
colossal productive forces than have all preceding
generations together. Subjection of naturets forces
to man, machinery, application of chemistry to in-
dustry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways,
electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents
for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole popu-
lations conjured out of the ground--what earlier
century had even a presentiment that such productive
forces slumbered in the lap of social labor?"
Marx and Engels could afford this praise for capitalism be-
cause they supposed it woii1A everywhere be sncreeded by communism.
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o stage of society whose glories would in turn dwarf &I% the
achievements of capitalism. Communism would build on capitalism
and bring a new economy that would make the capitalist world lco~.
like a poor house. Those who constituted the dominant class of
would have performed their historic:
mission and would be dismissed from the scene--dismissed without
thanks, of course, for after all they only accomplished what wak
foreordained by the forces of history, forces that were now to
throw them into the discard like the husk of a sprouting seed.
One of the most startling gaps in the communist theory is the
lack of any clear notion of how a communist economy would le
organized. In the writings of the great founders of communism
there is virtually nothing on this subject. This gap was not an
oversight, but was in fact a necessary consequence of the ?,ener[-._
theory of communism. That theory taught, in effect, that is a
society moves inevitably from one level of development to anothe,:,
there is no way of knowing what the next stage will demand until
in fact it has arrived. Communism will supplant and destroy the
market economy of capitalism. What will its own economy be like"
That we cannot know until we are there and have a chance to see
what the world looks like without any institution resembling an
economic market. The Manifesto, in fact, expresses a deep con-
tempt for "utopian socialists" who propose "an organization of
society specially contrived" by them, instead of waiting aut the
verdict of history and depending on the "spontaneous class
organization of the proletariat." The communist economy would.
organize itself according to principles that would become apparent
only when the arena had been cleared of the market princip:-e.
Operating then, in this vacuum of guidance left behind by
their prophets, how did the founders of the Soviet Union p:?oceei
to organize their new economy? The answer is that they applied
as faithfully as they could the teachings of their masters.
Since those teachings were essentially negative, their act:_ons c-1d
to have the same quality. They started by attempting to root out
from the Russian scene every vestige of the market principle, ev!n
discouraging the use of money, which they hoped soon to abolish
altogether, The production and distribution of goods were put.
under central direction, the theory being that the flow of goods
would be directed by social need without reference to principles
of profit and loss. This experiment began in 1919 and came to a=
abrupt end in March of 1921. It was a catastrophic failur-.. it
brought with it administrative chaos and an almost inconcevabi.e
disorder in economic affairs, culminating in appalling sho-tagcs
of the most elementary necessities.
Competent scholars estimate its cost in Russian lives at
5,000,000.
The official Russian version of this experiment does not a.eriy
that it was an enormous failure. It attributes that failure to
inexperience and to a mythical continuation of military opvrattons,
which had in fact almost wholly ceased. Meanwhile the Russian
economy has been moving steadily toward the market principle.
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The flow of labor is controlled by wages, so that the price
of labor is itself largely set by market forces. The spre.d
from top to bottom of industrial wages is in many cases wider
than it is in this country. Managerial efficiency is promoted
by substantial economic incentives in the form of bonuses ind
even more substantial perquisites of various kinds. Enter-prises,
are run on a profit and loss basis. Indeed, there are all the
paraphernalia of an advanced commerical society, with lawy-ors,
accountants, balance sheets, taxes of many kinds, direct and In-
direct, and finally even the pressures of a creeping inflation.
The allocation of resources in Russia probably now comes
about as close to being controlled by the market principle as .s
possible where the government owns all the instruments of -sro--
duction. Russian economists speak learnedly of following the
"Method of Balances."
This impressi.ve phrase stands for a very simple idea. It
means that in directing production and establishing prices an
effort is made to come out even, so that goods for which triere is
an insufficient demand will not pile up, while shortages will not
develop in other fields where demand exceeds supply. The "Method
of Balances" tunrs out to be something a lot of us learned about
in school as the law of supply and demand.
All of this is not to say that the Russian economy has fully
realized the market principle. There are two obstacles that block
such a development. The first lies in the fact that there is a
painful tension between what has to be done to run the economy
efficiently and what ought to be happening according to orthodox
theory. The result is that the Russian economist has to be able
to speak out of both sides of his mouth at the same time. He has
to be prepared at all times for sudden shifts of the party line.
If today he is condemned as an "unprincipled revisionist" 'who apes
capitalist methods, tomorrow he may be jerked from the scene for
having fallen into a "sterile orthodoxy", not realizing that
Marxism is a developing and creative science.
The other obstacle to the realization of a free market lies
in the simple fact that the govern.iTent owns the whole of industry.
This means, for one thing, that the industrial units are huge, so
that all of steel, or all of cosmetics, for example, is under a
single direction. This naturally creates the economic condition
known as oligopoly and the imperfectly functioning market 'Thicit
attends that condition.
Furthermore, a realization of the market principle would
require the managers of the various units of industry to at as
if they were doing something they are not, that is, as if they
were directing independent enterprises. Understandably there --s
a considerable reluctance to assume this fictitious role, since
the managers reward for an inconvenient independence may wel
be a trip to Siberia where he is likely nowadays, they say, to be
made chief bookkeeper in a tiny power plant three hundred miles
from the nearest town. Meanwhile, a constant theme of comalaint
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by Moscow against the managers is that they are too "cousinly"
with one another and that they are too addicted to "back-
scratching." They ought to be acting like capitalistic entre-
preneurs, but they find this a little difficult when they are
all working for the same boss.
One of the most familiar refrains of communist propaganda I E
that "capitalism is dying of its internal contradictions." In
fact., it would be hard to imagine a system more tortured by in-
ternal contradictions than present-day Russia. It constantly _as
to preach one way and act another. When Russian economists and
managers discover that they have to do something that seems to
contradict the prophets, they usually don't know which of three
justifications--all hazardous--they ought to attempt: (1) to
explain their action as a temporary departure from Marxist
propriety to be corrected in a more propitious future; (2) to
show that what they are doing can be justified by the inhe:.^ited
text if it is read carefully and between the lines; or (3) to
invoke the cliche that Marxism is a progressive science that learns
by experience,--we can't, after all, expect Marx, Engels and Lenin
to have foreseen everything.
These inner tensions and perplexities help to explain the
startling "shifts in the party line" that characterize all of the
communist countries. It is true that these shifts sometimes
reflect the outcome of a subterranean personal power strug:le
within the party. But we must remember that they also at times
result from the struggles of conscientious men trying to fit an
inconvenient text to the facts of reality.
The yawning gap in communist theory, by which it says nothir.g
about how the economy shall be run except that it shall not be by
the market principle, will continue to create tensions, probab1N
of mounting intensity, within and among the communist nations.
The most painful compromise that it has so far necessitated oc-
curred when it was decided that trade among the satellite countries
should be governed by the prices set on the world market.
This embarrassing concession to necessity recognized, on -he
one hand, that a price cannot be meaningful unless it is set by
something like a market, and, on the other, the inability of the
communist system to develop a reliable pricing system within its
own government managed economy.
The communist theory has now had a chance to prove itself by
an experience extending over two generations in a great nat:.on of
huge human and material resources. What can we learn from .his
experience? We can learn, first of all., that it is impossible t-o
run an advanced economy successfully without resort to some variant
of the market principle. In time of war, when costs are largely
immaterial and all human efforts converge on a single goal, the
market principle can be subordinated. In a primitive society,
where men live on the verge of extinction and all must be conten.
with the same men.ser ration, the market principle largely lases
its re lern.ii ee . But When f?,~~_i I.y z f, Aim i.8 to eati_ cfy divers human
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wants and to deploy its productive facilities in such a way a: to
satisfy those wants in accordance with their intensity--their in-
tensity as felt by those who have the wants--there is and can oe
no substitute for the market principle. 1-1 _c t'h:: Russian exFeri-
ence proves abundantly. That experience: also raises serious doubt
whether the market principle can be realized witha.n an economy
wholly owned by the government.
The second great lesson of the Russian experience is 01
deeper import. It is that communism is utterly wrong about it.'
most basic premise,--the premise that underlies everything ii, has
to say about economics, law, philosophy, morality and religior.
Communism starts with the proposition that there are no universal
truths or general truths of human nature. According to its teach-
ings there is nothing one human age can say to another about the
proper ordering of society or about such subjects as justice.
freedom, and equality. Everything depends on the stage of society
and the economic class that is in power at a particular time,
In the light of this fundamental belief--or rather, thi 3 un-
bending and all-pervasive disbelief--it is clear why communi3ri
had to insist that what was true for capitalism could not be true
for communism. Among the truths scheduled to die with ccapita__:,.sm
was the notion that economic life could be usefully ordered b. a
market. If this truth seems still to be alive, orthodox, communist
doctrine has to label it as an illusion, a ghost left behind by an
age now being surpassed. At the present time this particular
capitalist ghost seems to have moved in on the Russian econoraY
and threatens to become a permanent guest at the communist tt2itiq,uet.
Let us hope it will soon be joined by some other ghosts, suci3?1s
freedom, political equality, religion and constitutionalism.
This brings me to the communist view of law and po-_itiC3. Of
the communist legal and political philosophy, we can almost CL
that there is none. This lack is, again, not an accident, bu'; is
an integral part of the systematic negations which make up tilt
communist philosophy.
According to Marx and Engels the whole life of any soci:r.Y
is fundamentally determined by the organization of its econom.T.
What men will believe; what gods, if any, they will worshil4 aow
they will choose their leaders or let their leaders choose
selves; how they will interpret the world about them;--till of
these are basically determined by economic interests and r? 41,ions.
In the jargon of communism: religion, morality, philosophy,
political science and law constitute a "superstructure" whic_
reflects the underlying economic organization of a part=cular
society. It follows that subjects which fall within the "urar-
structure" permit of no general truths; for example, what is true
for law and political science under capitalism cannot be true tinder
communism.
I have said we can almost assert that there is no comrn r,ist
philosophy of law and political setence. The little there pis can
be briefly stated. It conr.i ,t-.s in the an.sumpti.on that afte the
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revolution there will be a dictatorship (called the dictatorship
of the proletariat) and that this dictatorship will for a while
find it necessary to utilize some of the familiar political and
legal in.stitutioi.s, such as courts. (There is an incredibly
tortured literature about lust h ,Iv those institutions are to be
utilized and with what modifications.) When, however, mature
communism is achieved, law and the state, in the consecrated
phrase, "will wither away." There will be no voting, no parlia-
ments, no Judges, no policemen, no prisons--no problems. There
will simply be factories and fields and a happy populace peace-
fully revelling in the abundance of their output.
As with economic theory, there was a time in the history of
the Soviet regime when an attempt was made to take seriously the
absurdities of this communist theory of law and state. For about
a decade during the thirties an influential doctrine was ca.L:ied
"the commodity exchange theory of law." According to this theory,
the fundamental fact about capitalism is that it is built on the
economic institution of exchange. In accordance with the doctrine
of the "superstructure" all political and legal institutions under
capitalism must therefore be permeated and shaped by the concept
of exchange. Indeed, the theory went further. Even the rules
of morality are based on exchange, for is there not a kind of
tacit deal implied even in the golden rule, "Do unto others, as
you would be done by"? Now the realization of communism, which
is the negation of capitalism, requires the utter rooting out of
any notion of exchange in the communist economy. But when ex-
change has disappeared, the'political, legal and moral super-
structure that was built on it will also disappear. Therefore,
under mature communism there will not only be no capitalistic
legal and political institutions, there will be no law whatever,
no state, no morality,--for all of these in some measure reflect
the underlying notion of an'exchange or "deal" among me.
The high priest of this doctrine was Eugene Pashukanis. His
reign came to an abrupt end in 1937 as the inconvenience of his
teachings began to become apparent. With an irony befitting the
career of one who predicted that communism would bring an end to
law and legal processes, Pashukanis was quietly taken off and shot
without even the semblance of a trial.
As in the case of economics, since Pashukanis's liAuiciation
there has developed in Russian intellectual life a substantaa:i
gray market for capitalistic legal and political theories. but
where Russian economists seem ashamed of their concessions to the
market principle, Russian lawyers openly boast of their legal and
political system, claiming for it that it does everything that
equivalent "bourgeois" institutions do, only better. T.ais boast
has to be muted somewhat, because it still remains a matter or
dogma that under mature communism law and the state will disappear.
This embarrassing aspect of their inherited doctrine the Soviet
theorists try to keep as much as possible under the table. They
cannot, however, openly renounce it without heresy, and heresy in
the Soviet Union, be it remembered, still requires a very active
taste for extinction.
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One of the leading books on Soviet legal and political theory
is edited by a lawyer who is well-known in this country, the late
Andrei Vyshinsky. In the table-pounding manner he made famous ii:=
the U. N,, Vyshinsky praises Soviet legs.l and political l iithitu.
tions to the skies and contrasts their wholesome p th
"putrid vapors" emanating from the capitalist countries. 1H e,
points out, for example, that in Russia the voting age
while in many capitalist countries it is 21.
The capitalists thus disenfranchise millions of young; men z6ad
women, because, says Vyshinsky, it is feared they may not yet have
acquired a properly safe "bourgeois" mentality. As one reads
i
arguments like this spelled out with the greatest solemnity, and
learns all about the "safegu'titfopthe enlySoviet
declaredsthattannt:iet
comes as a curious shock to find
Soviet Union only one political party can legally exist and that
the Soviet Constitution is "the only directing roletofuthenpartyhinWthed
which frankly declares the
state."
One wonders what all the fuss about voting qualifications
is about if the voters are in the end permitted only to vote for
the candidates chosen by the only political party permitted to
exist. The plu.in fact is, of course, that everything in the
Soviet Constitution relating to public participation in political
decisions is a facade concealing the real instrument of power
that lies in the communist party. It has been saithat
hypocrisy is vicars tribute to virtue, The holding d larly e
in which the elcctcrate is given no choice may
described as an attempt by communism to salve its uneasy
de-
conscience. Knowing that it cannot achieve representative
mocracy, it seems to. feel better if it adopts its empty forms.
When one reflects on it., it is an astounding thing ';bat a
great and powerful nation in the second half of the twen.ietn
century should still leave its destinies to be determinedliyic~-1
intra-party intrigue, that it should have developed no p
institutions capable of giving to its people a really effective
voice in their government, that ituhouldilalack fanyeopenlr declared
and lawful procedure by which the r
other could be determined. Some are inclined to seek an ex)lunayo and tion for this condition in Russian thisais with its in
regular successions of Czars. r
England, the mother of parliaments, there we once indtsome imes .ir ng
gone by, some pretty raw doinge8bfornthe throne.
r seemly and even bloody struggl
But where other nations have worked gradually toward stuc;.e
political institutions guaranteeing the integrity of their
governments, Russia has remained in a state of arrested devee-P-
ment. That state will continue until tlegRlssianpleaders have
the courage to declare openly that
philosophy of Marx, Engles and Lenin is fundamentally mistaken
and must be abandoned.
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How heavy the burden of the inherited communist philosophy
is becomes clear when the concept of law itself is under dis-
cussion. Throughout the ages, among men of all nations and
creeds, law has generally been thought of as a curb on arbitrary
power. It has been conceived as a way of substituting reason for
force in the decision of disputes, thus liberating human energies
for the pursuit of aims more worthy of man=s destiny than brut
survival or the domination of ones fellows. No one has suppoved
that these ideals have ever been fully realized in any society.
Like every human institution, law is capable of being exploiter.
for selfish purposes and of losing its course through a confusion
of, purposes. But during most of the world's history, men have
thought that the questions worthy of discussion were how the ic--
stitutions of law could be shaped so that they might not be
perverted into instruments of power or lose the sense of their
high mission through sloth or ignorance.
What is the communist attitude toward this intellectual
enterprise in which so many great thinkers of so many past ages
have Joined? Communism consigns all of it to the ashcan of history
as a fraud and delusion, beneath the contempt of communist science.
How, then, is law defined today in Russia? We have an authorita-
tive answer. It is declared to be "the totality of the rules cf
conduct expressing the will of the dominant class, designed to
promote those relationships that are advantageous and agreeable to
the dominant class."
Law in the Soviet Union is not conceived as a check on power,
it is openly and proudly an expression of power. In this con-
ception surely, if anywhere, the bankruptcy of communism as a
moral philosophy openly declares itself.
It is vitally important to emphasize again that all of the
truly imposing absurdities achieved by communist thought--in what-
ever field: in economics, in politics, in law, in morality--that
all of these trace back to a single common source. That origin
lies in a belief that nothing of universal validity can be said
of human nature, that there are no principles, values or moral
truths that stand above a particular age or a particular phase in
the evolution of society. This profound negation lies at the very
heart of the communist philosophy and gives to it both its motive
force and its awesome capacity for destruction.
It is this central negation that makes communism radically
inconsistent with the ideal of human freedom. As with other
"bourgeois" virtues, once dismissed contemptuously, Sovier
writers have now taken up the line that only under communsm
can men realize "true freedom." This line may even have a certain
persuasiveness for Russians in that individuals tend to prize
those freedoms they are familiar with and not to miss those the:/
have never enjoyed. A Russian transplanted suddenly to Americas
soil might well feel for a time "unfree" in the sense that he
would be confronted with the burden of making choices that he vas
unaccustomed to making and that he would regard as onerous. B4it
the problem of freedom goes deeper than the psychological con-
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ditioning of any particular individual. It touches the very
roots of man's fundamental conception of himself.
The communist philosophy is basically inconsistent with the
ideal of freedom because it denies that there can be any standard
of moral truth by which the actions of any given social order may
be judged. If the individual says to government, "Thus far may
you go, but no farther," be necessarily appeals to some principle
of rightness that stands above his particular form of government.
It is precisely the possibility of any such standard that com-
munism radically and uncompromisingly denies. Marx and Engels
had nothing but sneers for the idea that there are "eternal truths;
such as Freedom, Justice, etc., that are common to all states of
society."
They contend that there are no eternal truths. All ideas oZ"
right and wrong come from the social system under which one .ives.
If that system requires tyranny and oppression then tyranny and
oppression must within that system be accepted; there can be no
higher court of appeal.
Not only do the premises of communist philosophy make any
coherent theory of freedom impossible, but the actual structure
of the Soviet regime is such that no true sense of freedom can
ever develop under it. To see why this is so, it is useful ;o
accept the communist ideology provisionally and reason the matter
out purely in terms of what may be called human engineering. Let
us concede that a struggle for political power goes on in all
countries and let us assume in keeping with Marxist views that
this struggle has absolutely nothing to do with right and wrong.
Even from this perversely brutal point of view, it is clear why
a sense of freedom can never develop under the Soviet regime.
In a constitutional democracy the struggle for political power
is assigned to a definite arena; it is roped off, so to spew,
from the rest of life. In the Soviet Union, on the other hand,
there is no clear distinction between politics and economics, or
between politics and other human activities. No barriers exist
to define what is a political question and what is not. Instead
of being ordered and canalized as it is in constitutional
democracies, the struggle for political power in Russia pervades,
or can at any time pervade, every department of life. For tcis
reason there is no area of human interest--the intellectual,
literary, scientific, artistic or religious--that may not at
any time become a battleground of this struggle.
Take, for example, the situation of a Soviet architect.
Today without doubt he enjoys a certain security; he is not likely
to lie awake fearing the dread knock at the door at midnight.
Furthermore, he may now see opening before him in the practice of
his profession a degree of artistic freedom that his predecessors
did not enjoy. But he can never be sure that he will not wake up
tomorrow morning and read in the papers that a new "line" has been
laid down for architecture, since his profession, like every other,
can at any moment be drawn into the struggle for power. He can
never know the security enjoyed by those who live under a system
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where the struggle for political power is fenced off, as it
were, from the other concerns of life. When Soviet "politics"
invades a field like architecture, it cannot be said to spread
beyond its proper boundaries, for it has none. It is precisely
this defect in the Soviet regime that in the long run prevents
the realization of the ideal of freedom under communism.
It is only in the constitutional democracies that the human
spirit can be permanently free to unfold itself in as many
directions as are opened up for it by its creative urge. Only
such governments can achieve diversity without disintegration,
for only they know the full meaning of "those wise restraints
that make men free."
Since the communist philosophy of history is the central core
of its ideology, that philosophy has of necessity permeated even
theme I have so far discussed. Briefly stated the communist
philosophy of history is that man does not make history, but is
made by it.
Though communism denies to man the capacity to shape his
own destiny, it does accord to him a remarkable capacity to
foresee in great detail just what the future will impose on him.
The literature of communism is full of prophecies, tacit a.na
explicit. Probably no human faith ever claimed so confidently
that it knew so much about the future. Certainly none ever ran
up a greater number of bad guesses. On a rough estimate the
communist record for mistaken prophecies stands at about one
hundred per cent.
Among the conclusions about the future that were implicit
in the communist philosophy, or were drawn from it by its proph2
we can name the following:
That communism will first establish itself
in countries of the most advanced capitalism;
That in such countries society will gradually
split itself into two classes, with the rich
becoming fewer and richer, the laboring masses
sinking steadily to a bare level of existence;
That under capitalism colonialism will increase
as each capitalistic nation seeks more and mere
outlets for its surplus production;
That in capitalist countries le.bor unions will
inevitably take the lead in bringing about the
communist revolution;
That as soon as communism is firmly established
steps will be taken toward the elimination of
the capitalist market and capitalist political
and legal institutions; etc., etc.
As with other aspects of communism, this record of bad
guesses is no accident. It derives from the basic assumption
of Marxism that man has no power to mold his institutions to
meet problems as they arise, that he is caught up in a current
of history which carries him inevitably toward his predestined
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goal. A philosophy which embraces this view of mants plight is
constitutionally incapable of predicting the steps man will take
to shape his own destiny, precisely because it has in advance
declared any such steps to be impossible. Communism in this
respect is like a man standing on the bank of a rising river and
observing what appears to be a log lodged against the opposite
shore. Assuming that what he observes is an inert object, he
naturally predicts that the log will eventually be carried away
by the rising flood waters. When the log turns out to be a
living creature and steps safely out of the water, the observer
is, of course, profoundly surprised. Communism, it must be
confessed;, has shown a remarkable capacity to absorb such shocks,
for it has survived many of them.. In the long run, however, it
seems inevitable that the communist brain will inflict serious
damage upon itself by the tortured rationalizations with which
it has to explain each successive bad guess.
This brings us to the final issue. Why is it that with all
its brutalities and absurdities communism still retains an active
appeal for the minds and hearts of many intelligent men and
women? For we must never forget that this appeal does exist.
It is true that in the United States and many other countries
the fringe of serious thought represented by active communist
belief has become abraded to the point of near extinction. .t
is also the fact that many people everywhere adhere to groupo
dominated by communist leadership who have only the slightest
inkling of communism as a system of ideas. Then again we mu3t
remember that in the communist countries themselves there are
many intelligent, loyal and hard-working citizens, thoroughli
acquainted with the communist philosophy, who view that philosophy
with a quiet disdain, not unmixed with a certain sardonic pleasure
of the sort that goes with witnessing, from a choice seat, a
comedy of errors that is unfortunately also a tragedy. Finally,
we must not confuse every "gain of communism" with a gain of
adherents to communist beliefs. In particular, we should not
mistake the acceptance of technical and economic aid from
Moscow as a conversion to the communist faith, though the
contacts thus established may of course open the way for a
propagation of that faith.
With all this said, and with surface appearance discounted in
every proper way, the tragic fact remains that communism as la is
faith remains a potent force in the world of ideas today.
an even more tragic fact that that faith can sometimes appeal not
only to opportunists and adventurers, but also to men of dedicatEC
idealism. How does this come about?
To answer this question we have to ask another: What are tht
ingredients that go to make up a successful fighting faith, a fa3 t.h
that will enlist the devotion and fanaticism of its adherents,
that will let loose on the world that unaccommodating creature,
"the true believer"?
I think that such a faith must be made up of at least three
ingredients.
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First. It must lift its adherents above the dread sense
of being alone and make then feel themselves members of a
brotherhood.
Second. It must make its adherents believe that in working 'wi for the objectives of their faith they ore,~ithltheidivi'ne will.
nature, or with the forces of history,
Third. It must be a faith that gives to its adherents a
sense o:~being lifted above the concerns that consume the lives
of the non-believing.
All of these ingredients are furnished rst n atwo bundancedbiyncom-
munism. In the communist philosophy the are fused into one doubly
effective amalgam. To become a com-
munist is no longer to be alone, but to join inhmarch .of .t'his
great, oppressed mass of humanity called "the prt eettaria Baal by t silent, faceless army is being Ther~eisithustabdouble identiti-
the unseen forces of history.
cation. History belongs to the proletariat, the proletariat
belongs to history. By joining in this great march the commnist
not only gains human companions but a sense of responding to the
great pull of the universe itself.
Now the picture I have just painted is not one
thatevan all wi him
most devout communist can comfortably CCOrmYunists who do not,
times" Indeed, there are probably
even in their moments of highest faith, sense some of the fi(-ts
my The
hoare wever, committed.
and contradictions of the dream to which they
absurdities of the communist ideology no mecans
immediately apparent to the new convert, who is likely to T be he in-
trigued rather by the difficulty of understanding them. Theo
believer sees no reason to point out these absurdities, partly
because he does not wish to undermine the faith of the young,
and partly because he has become enured to them,, has learned to
live with them at peace, and does not want
adjustment to them.
One of the key fictions of the communist edifice of ttho houghtii,
the belief that there is in modern industrial society
able class of people called "the proletariat." That such a clan:
r
would develop was not a had guess in 18+8 and Marx hahid
economists with him in raking this guess.
perversely took the wrong turn. And as usual, this has caused
communism no particular embarrassment, for it continues--with
diminished ardor, to be sure--to talk about theeeroletariat as
if it were actually there. But professing to this are not there is often a sign of faith and furnishes, in any
event, a bond of union among believers.
To many of its American critics, communism has appeared as
f
a kind of nightmare. Like awakened sleepers still recoilin;
the shock of their dream, these critics forget that the nig1tmoji
with absurdities.
is after all shot through ~and"through
that in
ideology
result is to lend to the
fact it d.o~~ nwh roor.ons- If in momenta of d