The Naked Communist (53 page)

When carefully analyzed, this was simply free enterprise capitalism
with a heart
!

The student will also probably recognize that whenever modern capitalism is practiced "with a heart" it showers blessings of wealth, generosity, good will and happy living on every community it touches. The ancient Christian order was a great idea.

____________________

Appendix E
What is the Secret Weapon of Communism?

(This is the text of a speech delivered May 6, 1953, to 1,150 guests at the annual banquet of the Washington State Parent Teachers Association. At the time this speech was given the author was serving on the faculty of the Brigham Young University.)

One hundred years ago there was a little school of philosophers in Europe who called themselves "pure materialists." They had their headquarters in Germany. Two of those materialists carved a place for themselves in history. Through their speeches and books they lighted a flame which, in a century, has created more distrust, insecurity, bloodshed, war-mongering and destruction of property than all the criminal and gangster elements in the world combined.

One of these men was Frederick Wilhelm Nietzsche. It was Nietzsche who rose up out of the school of pure materialism to advance the idea of a superman. His ideas could be summarized as follows:"Since there is not any God and since human beings are only graduate beasts without any souls and without immortality, men should not therefore follow a system of ethics and morals. The natural law of force should prevail in the universe. The weak deserve to serve, the strong deserve to rule. Somewhere on the earth there is a nation which is just naturally superior and which should ruthlessly subdue the rest of mankind. Within that nation a single individual should rise up as the natural leader and dictator to rule over humanity because he is a superman." It was Nietzsche who made up Superman, not the comics.

Now it was Nietzsche's thinking which inspired Adolf Hitler with his apocalyptic nightmare of total war. Hitler envisioned himself as the man of destiny -- the superman -- who would one day rule the world. When Hitler wrote Mein Kampf it was as though Nietzsche were speaking from the dead. Said Hitler, "Look at these young men and boys! What material! I shall eradicate the thousands of years of human domestication. Brutal youth -- that is what I am after.... I want to see once more in its eyes the gleam ... of the beast of prey. With these I can make a new world ... and create a new order!"

Mankind felt the crushing, brutal impact of Hitler's mammoth war machine during World War II as he forced millions to join his ranks of imperialistic conquest which was designed to make him dictator of the world. In this country we watched in amazement as he rose to power. Finally, after several years of seeing the black boots of National Socialism stomp out the light of civilization wherever they marched, we rose up in our wrath and joined forces with other nations of the world to smash Nietzsche-inspired Nazism.

However, the spirit of total war which was spawned by the materialists was not confined to the National Socialists in Germany. It had been projected into the ambitions and philosophies of the leaders of several nations. It was codified into the political aims of the military leaders of Japan and Italy who also collapsed under the mighty blow which struck down National Socialism.

However, with the ending of World War II, many people felt that the conflict with materialism was at an end. Almost immediately the spirit of sacrifice seemed to wither within us. Virtually overnight our armies were demobilized, the world's largest air force was practically scrapped, and the world's largest navy was put into mothballs. All this was on the presumption that the war with materialism was finished. Time, of course, proved this presumption to be a mistake.

In putting down National Socialism and the Axis we had only conquered one form of materialism. Another form, equally strong, immediately rose to take its place. This new form of materialism came from Nietzsche's comrade-in-arms -- Karl Marx -- a man out of the same school of philosophy, with the same motivations as Nietzsche. Karl Marx thought of himself as the father of dialectical materialism, more commonly known as Communism. Today, the great force of conquest and imperialism which he envisioned stands arrayed against the people of the free world and marches under the banner of the hammer and sickle.

Some people have mistaken the mission of Karl Marx and his followers as purely economic in nature, but like all other materialists their mission was to gain power through ideological warfare. Note how they denounced any competitive ideology, even religion: "We must combat religion -- this is the ABC of materialism, and consequently of Marxism."
¹
And another disciple declared that when they took over, "God will be banished from the laboratories as well as from the schools."
²

Now since we are dealing with the field of ideological warfare, one might well ask, What is the objective of these militant atheists? What are they trying to set up as the new ideal for human relations? Listen to the words of Lenin:

"We must hate-hatred is the basis of Communism. Children must be taught to hate their parents if they are not Communists." And listen to the amazing declaration of the former Russian Commissar of Education, Anatole Lunarcharsky: "We hate Christians and Christianity. Even the best of them must be considered our worst enemies. Christian love is an obstacle to the development of the revolution. Down with love of one's neighbor! What we want is hate.... Only then will we conquer the universe!"
³

I am sure you would agree that when men like these rise to positions of power in the earth it is indeed a challenge to the youth of the free world. When Karl Marx was asked what his object in life was, he said, "To dethrone God and destroy capitalism!"

In a declared war against morals, ethics, and spiritual values among the people, Marx and his associates resolved to completely eliminate the worship of the Almighty among men. Heinrich Heine declared: "Our hearts are filled with compassion for it is ... Jehovah Himself who is making ready to die,"
⁴
and Nietzsche, so successful in the atheistic campaign, said: let the "death of God" be boldly proclaimed.
⁵
Ludwig Feuer-bach announced that: "The turning point of history will be the moment man becomes aware that the only God of man is man himself."
⁶

The strategy of the materialists was to appropriate to themselves the toga of "science" and take credit for all scientific accomplishments. Then they determined to ridicule and rationalize away all the things which they opposed by pronouncing them "unscientific." Thus they attacked the Bible, called themselves higher critics, and attempted to explain it away. They explained the worship of God as being merely the effort of man to project the qualities of his own better nature into some fictitious superior being. They called Jesus Christ an itinerant preacher whose life and writings were effeminate and weak. They ridiculed the possibility of his resurrection; They denied the immortality of human life or the existence of the spirit or soul.

They said that man was nothing but a graduate beast and that human life -- especially the other man's life -- was no more sacred than that of a centipede, a caterpillar, or a pig. In other words, the materialists turned their backs on six thousand years of human history and achievement. As Marx and Engels boasted in their Manifesto: Our program "abolishes eternal truths; it abolishes all religion and all morality ... it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience."

But having denounced God, the scriptures, morals, immortality, eternal judgment, the existence of the spirit, and the sanctity of individual human life, the materialists turned to worship themselves. They decided that man, collectively speaking, was the epitome of perfection among nature's achievements and therefore the center of the universe. This gave Nietzsche an excellent opportunity to teach his concept of "superman."

As Nietzsche exalted himself and all other men as the most superior of all existing things he burst forth into statements like this: "Now this God (of the Bible) is dead! You higher men, this God was your greatest danger.... Do you understand this saying, Oh my brothers? You are frightened? Do your hearts fail you? Does the abyss yawn at your feet? What of it? Forward, higher men! Now at last the mountain of man's future is about to give birth. God is dead; now it is our will that superman shall live!"
⁷

In the egotistical tunnel vision of these men who sought to dethrone God there flamed the phantom hope that somehow they may have made the discovery of the ages. Nietzsche made a studied attempt to assume the proper humility which he felt was becoming to such a genius as himself. Said he, "Great heavens!” Who has any idea of the burden that weighs upon me and the strength that it takes to endure myself! I don't know why it should fall upon me of all people -- but it may be that I am the first to light upon an idea which will divide the history of mankind in two.... It takes some courage to face that thought."

But it took more courage than Nietzsche realized. His writings groaned with the burden: "Since there ceased to be a God, loneliness has become intolerable." But then he bolstered his timidity by reminding himself that after all he was a superman and resolved that he, as "the man who overtops the rest must set to work."
⁸

But if there is no God, no design, and nothing for the future but an accidental destiny, what is there to work for? In the dark hours of his anti-theistic reasoning and just a short time before he went insane, Nietzsche could not help asking himself:"How did we come to do that? How did we manage to empty the sea? Who gave us a sponge to wipe out the whole horizon? What were we about when we undid the chain which linked this earth to the sun? Are we not wandering through an endless nothingness? Do we not feel the breath of the void in our faces? Isn't it growing colder? Is not night always coming on, one night after another, more and more?"
⁹

Such was the final, fearful lamentation of the men who started the chain-reaction of pure materialism.

Now we have reached an interesting point in the history of the United States when the word "Communism" has become universally unpopular. If the label of Communism is placed upon a person or an institution it may bring ruin overnight. The disgraceful conduct of Communist leaders has given their name a deep-dyed stigma in the United States.

But how many Americans could recognize a Communist without his label? What does a Communist really believe? Most people identify Communism as "state-ownership of property" or Socialism. It is interesting, however, that the economics of Communism are primarily for propaganda purposes. The idea of sharing the wealth appeals to the masses. However, when the Communists took over in Russia you will recall that the first thing they did was impose upon the Russian people a form of economics which we got rid of back in the feudal days. It is a system where a privileged few dispense the necessities of life to the serfs who work for them and rely upon them for protection and leadership.

But if Communist economics are primarily propaganda, what, then, does the Communist believe?

In the interest of time I have endeavored to reduce the basic belief of these people to four fundamental concepts which turn out to be the basis for their philosophy. These beliefs are the heart and soul of dialectical materialism. They pretend to provide a complete explanation for the whole universe. They provide the reasoning which gives an excuse to the Communist for his revolutionary violence and amoral conduct. They are the things which convert a few intellectual people to this foreign ideology, and they are the things which even make a few wealthy people think that Communism is the last great hope of the modern world. Understanding these beliefs helps to evaluate the actions of the Communists when we sit down with them to discuss world problems.