The Naked Communist (14 page)

The problems under such a system obviously assume mountainous proportions and any hope of eliminating money, markets and prices fades into oblivion. Such a system also would require many times more government machinery than free-enterprise capitalism, and the prospect of producing goods and services in such quantities that the state might "wither away" defies both reason and experience.

In concluding this discussion of the basic fallacies in Communism we should perhaps make a summary comment on the most significant fallacy of them all. This is the Communist doctrine that problems can be solved by eliminating the institution from which the problems emanate. Even Marx and Engels may have been unaware that this was what they were doing, but the student will note how completely this approach dominates every problem they undertook to solve.

Take, for example, the problems of government. Marx and Engels would solve these problems by working for the day when they could eliminate government. Problems of morals would be solved by doing away with morals. Problems growing out of religion would be solved by doing away with religion. Problems of marriage, home and family would be eliminated by doing away with marriage, home and family.

The problems arising out of property rights would be resolved by not allowing anyone to have any property rights. The problem of equalizing wages would be solved by abolishing wages. Problems connected with money, markets and prices would be solved by doing away with money, markets and prices. Problems of competition in production and distribution would be solved by forcibly prohibiting competition.

Finally, they would solve all the problems of modern society by using revolution to destroy this society. It seems the phantom of Communist hope can only arise from the bowels of the earth through the ashes of all that now is. Communism must be built for one purpose -- to destroy. Only after the great destruction did the Communist leaders dare to hope that they might offer to their disciples the possibility of freedom, equality and justice.

It is this dismal and nebulous promise for the future which Communism offers the world today. Until such a day comes, the Communist leaders ask humanity to endure the conflagration of revolutionary violence, the suppression and liquidation of resistance groups, the expropriation of property, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat which they themselves describe as "based on force and unrestricted by any laws," the suspension of all civil liberties -- suppression of free press, free speech and assembly, the existence of slave labor camps, the constant observation of all citizens by secret police, the long periods of service in the military, the poverty of collective farming, the risk of being liquidated if discovered associating with deviationists, and finally, the tolerance of an economic order which promises little more than a life of bare subsistence for generations to come.

More than forty years have come and gone since Communist leaders first seized a nation to demonstrate to a curious world what marvelous wonders might be wrought. From that one nation they have expanded their grip until one-third of the human race now bows to their iron-clad dictates. Those who have escaped their tyranny bear witness that Marxist Man has produced a political monstrosity containing the collected relics of practically every form of human degradation and torture invented by the mind of man since the dawn of history.

While pretending to liberate mankind from the alleged oppression of capitalism Marxist Man has defied the warm, white light of Twentieth Century civilization to introduce slavery on a scale unprecedented in the history of the race. While claiming to foster the "rights of the common man" the Marxist has butchered his fellow citizens from Kulaks to aristocrats in numbers that baffle rational comprehension. And while describing himself as the epitome of the best in nature -- the creature of science, the supreme intelligence of the universe --
Homo-Marxian
has exploited his cunning to compound crimes which scarcely would be duplicated by the most predatory tribes of pre-historic times.

It is for this reason that discerning men have described Communism as reversing and negating history. It has turned man against himself. Instead of solving the many complex problems of modern life, Marxism's negative approach has simply resurrected primitive problems which past generations of struggling humanity had already succeeding in solving.

To more fully appreciate precisely what has been happening we shall now examine the circumstances which led to the launching of the first Communist controlled nation in the history of the world.

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The events described in this chapter are intimate facts in the minds of all well-informed Marxists. Communists often base their arguments on their interpretation of these events and therefore the student should find this historical background helpful.

This chapter also includes the biographies of the principal Communist leaders -- Nikolai (V.I.) Lenin, Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin.

A review of the following questions will indicate some of the answers which this chapter is designed to provide.

Who launched Marxism in Russia in 1868? Why did Marx consider this man his "enemy"? After the assassination of Alexander II what did Marx say about the possibility of a Communist revolution in Russia?

What kind of environment produced Nikolai Lenin? Why was his brother hanged?

Who organized the Bolsheviks? What does the name mean? What did they call their enemies? Was this an accurate designation or a matter of strategy?

What was the background of Leon Trotsky? How did he get this name? How did he escape from Siberia? Why did he oppose Lenin in 1903?

Was the Russian Revolution of 1905 led by a few radicals or was it a general uprising of the whole people? Why did Lenin and the Bolsheviks oppose the "October Manifesto" which promised the people representative government?

From what kind of home did Joseph Stalin come? Why was he expelled from the seminary where he was being trained as a priest? What did the criminal activities of Joseph Stalin during 1907 reveal about his personality? How extensive were Stalin's activities as a union organizer, propagandist and revolutionary leader during this period? What was his relationship to Lenin?

What brought Russia to the brink of another general uprising during the First World War? What was the Tsar's attitude during this crisis?

In 1885 a U.S. citizen, Andrew D. White, returned from a tour of duty as attache in the American Embassy at St. Petersburg and described the Russian situation as follows: "The whole governmental system is the most atrociously barbarous in the world. There is on earth no parallel example of a polite society so degraded, a people so crushed, an official system so unscrupulous."
¹

When White made this statement, the population of Russia was slightly over 70,000,000. Of these, 46,000,000 were in virtual captivity as serfs.

It will be recalled that Marx and Engels had been aroused to wrathful vehemence when they saw conditions among the industrial workers of England, but the status of life among the English was far above that of the peasants in Russia. The Russian serfs were not only starved, exploited and pauperized, but they were subjected to an iron-clad system of feudal political suppression. Always there was the plague of the secret police, the threat of arrest and sentencing to forced labor camps in Siberia and the cruel indecencies imposed upon them by the Tsar's everpresent military. A Russian serf seemed to enjoy no sacred immunities whatever, neither in his person, his possessions, his children, nor, sometimes, his wife. All were subject to the petty whims of grasping officials in the Tsar's corrupt bureaucracy.

Between 1861 and 1866, Tsar Alexander II sincerely attempted to do away with the institution of serfdom by approving several acts of emancipation. However, for all practical purposes, the impoverished lives of the peasants continued to be insecure, harsh and austere. Circumstances leading to a revolution were in the making.

Marxism came to Russia in 1868 when Bakunin's translation of
Capital
escaped the Tsar's censors and passed among liberals and radicals like a choice morsel of spiritual meat. For Russia it meant the kindling of the bright red flame in the original Communist Manifesto: "Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.... Working men of all countries, unite!"

Russian revolutionary movements soon began to take shape and by 1880 Marxism could be described as definitely taking hold. The first significant violence came in 1881 when Tsar Alexander II fell dying beneath the shattering impact of a bomb which was hurled into the royal carriage by Ignatius Grinevitsky, a member of a revolutionary group called "The People's Will."

The successful murder of the Tsar led many Marxists to feel that the hour for unrestricted revolution might be very near. Over in London, the aging Marx began receiving inquiries from his Russian disciples. They wanted to know whether or not it might be possible to have a revolution in Russia even though the Russian economy had never passed through the capitalistic development which Marx had always said was a prerequisite. Marx studied the problem diligently. Finally, he gave it as his opinion that Russia had "the rarest and most suitable opportunity ever offered to any country to avoid (skip) the phase of capitalistic development." In other words, Marx was suggesting the possibility of an early revolution in Russia.

This was a complete theoretical switch for Marx. He was also admitting the error of one of his earlier prophecies; namely, that the revolution would come first among highly developed capitalistic nations such as Germany and England. Among his friends he declared: "It is an irony of fate that the Russians, whom I have fought for twenty-five years, and not only in German (publications), but in French and English, have always been my patrons."

It was indeed ironical that the Russian Marxists had remained loyal to Marx and his theories in spite of the verbal and editorial abuse he had heaped upon them. This was never truer than in the case of Bakunin, the first Russian Marxist, who promoted the theories of Marx and Engels with such zeal, that they both feared he might take over the First International. They, therefore, marked him for political liquidation.

Even at the end, however, Bakunin reaffirmed his faith in Marxism, and after referring to the "furious hatred" of Marx toward himself, he concluded: "This has given me an intense loathing of public life. I have bad enough of it, and after devoting all my days to the struggle, I am weary.... Let other and younger persons put their hands to the work. For my own part, I no longer feel strong enough.... I therefore, withdraw from the arena, and ask only one thing of my dear contemporaries -- oblivion."