How Communism Came to America
Frank Chodorov
[1955]
If all the card-carrying members of the Communist Party in the United
States were put in jail or deported, it would have little or no effect
on the growth of communism in America. True, members of the party are
especially dangerous because most of them have pledged allegiance to a
foreign government. But so far as advancing the principles of
communism is concerned, they are not nearly as effective as the
average Republican or Democrat who professes to hate communism and all
it stands for.
That's a strong statement! Proof? Reach for your dictionary and turn
to communism: "Any system of social organization involving common
ownership of the means of production, and the equal distribution of
the products of industry." This, of course, is to be done by the
authority and force of the government.
How much communism do you believe in and support? The so-called
average American is currently demanding that about one third the
nation be communized, when measured by the government's tax take: one
fourth when measured by government's ownership of land; more than one
fourth when measured by government's ownership of total national
wealth other than land; almost one fourth when measured by
government's production of electricity; about nine-tenths when
measured by government's ownership of school and subsidies to
education; better than one half when measured by government's share of
earnings from industry; and so on and so on.
Ah! You say, but democratic ownership and controls by government in
America aren't true communism; when you say communism, you mean the
dictatorial program laid down by Karl Marx in his Communist Manifesto
in 1848.
Okay, reach for that document and read: "We have seen
that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise
the proletariat to the position of the ruling class; to win the battle
of democracy. The proletariat will use its political supremacy to
wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie; to centralize all
instruments of production in the hands of the state."
Mark well the phrases. ' to win the battle of democracy' and ' to
wrest, by degrees, all capital'. No revolution there! While we have
been passing laws against those who might advocate the violent
overthrow of the government, the real threat to freedom in America --
democratic government ownership and controls - has leaped to new
heights.
But let us refer again to the communist program as laid down by Marx
and Engels in their Communist Manifesto. "These measure will, of
course, be different in different countries. Nevertheless, in the most
advanced countries the following will be pretty generally applicable."
Then they list the long-time objectives of communism. Among them are
government ownership of land, a heavy progressive income tax,
abolition of inheritance rights, a national bank, government ownership
and control of communication and transportation facilities, a
government program for soil conservation, and free education.
How many of these planks of the Communist Manifesto do you support?
Federal Reserve bank? Interstate Commerce Commission? Tennessee Valley
Authority? The Sixteenth (income tax) Amendment? The Inheritance Tax?
Government schools with compulsory attendance and support?
Did the card-carrying communists bring any of these to America?
Remember, these ideas were generally repudiated in the United State of
1848 when Marx recommended them. Would any of them disappear if the
party members were imprisoned or deported?
But maybe you would prefer to consult the works of a modern American
communist rather than a European one. Well, how about Earl Browder,
the former leader of the Communist Party of America? In a 1950
pamphlet, Keynes, Foster, and Marx, he lists 22 items which 'express
the growth of state capitalism
an essential feature of the
confirmation of Marxist theory.' Among them are the following
governmental actions: deficit financing, insurance of bank deposits,
regulation of installment buying, guaranteed mortgages, price
controls, farm price supports, agricultural credits, RFC loans to
business, social security, government housing, public works, tariffs,
foreign loans.
How many of these measures - which a leading communist identifies as
Marxist - do you oppose? All of them? Half? Would any of them
disappear as the result of the jailing of the communists?
Te opening sentence of this editorial is: If all the card-carrying
members of he Communist Party in the United States we re put in jail
or deported, it would have little or no effect on the growth of
communism in America. Government ownership and government controls
have come to America because we have demanded them, not because the
communists brought them from Russia. We can rid ourselves of the
communism of government ownership and government controls -- and
return to private ownership and a free market -- at any time we want
to.
That's the question! Do the American people want to return to the
responsibilities of freedom of choice? Do many of us really desire to
return to the original concept of a strictly limited government? I
believe we do - fundamentally - and that we will yet turn back before
it's too late. But if I'm wrong in this hope and belief, at least
let's not blame the communists for our own rejection of freedom and
responsibility. Let's put the blame where it belongs - and you and me
and other Americans who have avidly accepted the subsidies of a
paternalistic government while self-righteously professing to detest
the communistic principle of government paternalism.
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