The Naked Communist
Page 33
Lenin: "We do not believe in eternal morality, and we expose all the fables about morality."52
Marx: "Law, morality, religion are ... so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests."53
Engels: "We therefore reject every attempt to impose on us any moral dogma whatsoever as an eternal, ultimate and forever immutable moral law on the pretext that the moral world too has its permanent principles which transcend history and the difference between nations. We maintain on the contrary that all former moral theories are the product, in the last analysis, of the economic stage which society had reached at that particular epoch. And as society has hitherto moved in class antagonisms, morality was always a class morality; it has either justified the domination and the interests of the ruling class, or, as soon as the oppressed class has become powerful enough, it has represented the revolt against this domination and the future interests of the oppressed."54
The Bible
Student: "Then what is the Communist attitude toward the Bible which contains many moral teachings?"
Official Statement: "A collection of fantastic legends without any scientific support. It is full of dark hints, historical mistakes and contradictions. It serves as a factor for gaining power and subjugating the unknowing nations."55
Engels: "It is now perfectly clear to me that the so-called sacred writings of the Jews are nothing more than the record of the old Arabian religious and tribal tradition, modified by the early separation of the Jews from their tribally related but nomadic neighbours."56
Religion
Student: "If you reject the Bible, do you also reject all religion and all of the institutionalized morality which it represents?"
Official Statement: "The philosophy of Marxism-Leninism -- the theoretical foundation of the Communist Party -- is incompatible with religion."57
Lenin: "Religion is a kind of spiritual gin in which the slaves of capital drown their human shape and their claims to any decent human life."58
Student: "Could not a Communist enjoy religious activity as a matter of conscience and as a private right?"
Lenin: "To the party of the Socialist proletariat ... religion is not a private matter."59
Yaroslavsky: "Every Leninist, every Communist, every class-conscious worker and peasant must be able to explain why a Communist cannot support religion [and] why Communists fight against religion."60
Student: "But supposing I were a Communist and still wanted to go to Church?"
Official Statement: "If a Communist youth believes in God and goes to Church, he fails to fulfil his duties. This means that he has not yet rid himself of religious superstitions and has not become a fully conscious person (i.e., a Communist)."61
Lenin: "A young man or woman cannot be a Communist youth unless he or she is free of religious convictions."62
Lenin: "We must combat religion -- this is the ABC of all materialism, and consequently Marxism."63
Student: "What is your attitude toward individual churches? Take the Catholic Church, for example."
Yaroslavsky: "The Catholic Church, with the pope in its van, is now an important bulwark of all counter-revolutionary organizations and forces."64
Student: Are you against all Christianity?"
Lunarcharsky: (Russian Commissioner of Education): "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 can we conquer the universe."65
Student: "How do you justify Communist 'hate' propaganda of this kind?"
Official Statement: "Hatred fosters vigilance and an uncompromising attitude toward the enemy and leads to the destruction of everything that prevents Soviet peoples from building a happy life. The teaching of hatred for the enemies of the toilers enriches the conception of Socialist humanism by distinguishing it from sugary and hypocritical 'philanthropy.'"66
Stalin: "It is impossible to conquer an enemy without having learned to hate him with all the might of one's soul."67
Student: "And what is your attitude toward the Jewish people and their religion?"
Marx: "What was the foundation of the Jewish religion? Practical needs egoism. Consequently the monotheism of the Jew is in reality the Polytheism of many needs.... The God of practical needs and egoism is money.... Money is the jealous God of Israel, by the side of which no other God may exist.... The God of the Jews has secularized himself and become the universal God.... As soon as society succeeds in abolishing the empirical essence of Judaism, the huckster and the conditions which produce him, the Jew will become impossible.... The social emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of society from Judaism."68
Student: "In view of all this, why is it that Communist propaganda sometimes pretends a tolerance for religion?"
Yaroslavsky: "In our work among religious people we must bear in mind Lenin's advice to utilize every method available to us, or, as he said, we must 'approach them this way and that way' in order to stimulate them to criticize religion themselves."69
Student: "If religion is so bad, do you think it will gradually die out?"
Yaroslavsky: "It would be a great mistake to believe that religion will die out of itself. We have repeatedly emphasized Lenin's opinion that the Communist Party cannot depend upon the spontaneous development of anti-religious ideas -- that these ideas are molded by organized action."70
Student: "Do you think a person's attitude toward religion should be changed by friendly persuasion?"
Lenin: "The fight against religion must not be limited nor reduced to abstract, ideological preaching. This struggle must be linked up with the concrete practical class movement; its aim must be to eliminate the social roots of religion."71
Official Statement: "The struggle against the Gospel and Christian legend must be conducted ruthlessly and with all the means at the disposal of Communism."72
Student: "Is it true that you have already suppressed the clergy in Russia?"
Stalin: "Have we suppressed the reactionary clergy? Yes, we have. The unfortunate thing is that it has not been completely liquidated. Anti-religious propaganda is a means by which the complete liquidation of the reactionary clergy must be brought about. Cases occur when certain members of the Party hamper the complete development of anti-religious propaganda. If such members are expelled it is a good thing because there is no room for such 'Communists' in the ranks of the Party."73
Student: "What do you propose to substitute for religion?"
Lenin: "We said at the beginning ... Marxism cannot be conceived without atheism. We would add here that atheism without Marxism is incomplete and inconsistent."74
Student: "If you are going to take away the concept of God, what spiritual substitute do you propose to offer your people?"
Official Statement: "What better means of influencing pupils than, for example, the characteristic of the spiritual figure of Stalin given in the Short Biography: 'Everyone knows the irresistible, shattering power of Stalin's logic, the crystal clearness of his intellect, his iron will, devotion to the party, his modesty, artlessness, his solicitude for people and mercilessness to enemies of the people."75
Student: "I understand Soviet leaders missed no opportunity when Stalin was alive to indoctrinate the children with the idea of Stalin as a spiritual figure. What was the slogan stamped on children's toys?"
Official Statement: "Thank you, Comrade Stalin, for my joyous childhood."76
Individual Freedom and Civil Liberties
Student: "Is there any opportunity for freedom and democracy under Communism?"
Engels: "We say: 'A la guerre comme a la guerre'; we do not promise freedom nor any democracy."77
Student: "Then you do not believe that men should be free and equal in the enjoyment of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?"
Engels: "As long as classes exist, all arguments about freedom and
equality should be accompanied by the question: Freedom for which class? And for what purpose? The equality of which class with which? And in what relation?"78
Student: "But is it not your desire to have freedom and equality for all classes?"
Engels: "We do not want freedom for the bourgeoisie."79
Student: "Do not the people in Communist satellites want freedom and equality for their citizens?"
Engels: "Anyone who talks about freedom and equality within the limits of toiler democracy, i.e., conditions under which the capitalists are overthrown while property and free trade remain -- is a defender of the exploiters."80
Student: "Do you believe in freedom at all?"
Lenin: "While the state exists there is no freedom. When freedom exists, there will be no state."81
Student: "But the USSR still preserves the State. Does this mean the government of Russia is not intended to promote the freedom of the Russian people?"
Engels: "So long as the proletariat still uses the state it does not use it in the interest of freedom but in order to hold down its adversaries."82
Student: "Then do I conclude from this that in Russia you do not even pretend to has the civil liberties which we enjoy over here?"
Vyshinsky: "In our state, naturally there is and can be no place for freedom of speech, press, and so on for the foes of socialism. Every sort of attempt on their part to utilize to the detriment of the state, that is to say, to the detriment of all the toilers -- these freedoms granted to the toilers, must be classified as a counter-revolutionary crime."83
Student: "Supposing I were living in Russia and wanted to publish a newspaper which criticized the government. Would I be granted the same freedom of press which I enjoy in America?"
Stalin: "What freedoms of the press have you in mind? Freedom of the press for which class-- the bourgeoisie or the proletariat? If it is a question of freedom of the press for the bourgeoisie, then it does not and will not exist here as long as the proletarian dictatorship exists."84
Student: "Then you mean freedom of the press is only for the privileged proletariat? It would not include a person like myself?"
Stalin: "We have no freedom of the press for the bourgeoisie. We have no freedom of the press for the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, who represent the interests of the beaten and overthrown bourgeoisie. But what is there surprising in that? We have never pledged ourselves to grant freedom of the press to all classes, and to make all classes happy."85
Student: "But how can a government fairly administer its laws unless they apply equally to all the people?"
Lenin: "Dictatorship is power based upon force and unrestricted by any laws. The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is power won and maintained by the violence of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie -- power that is unrestricted by any laws."86
Student: "But if laws are against classes rather than violators, how can there be any justice?"
Vyshinsky: "The task of justice in the USSR is to assure the precise and unswerving fulfillment of Soviet laws by all the institutions, organizations, officials and citizens of the USSR. This the court accomplishes by destroying without pity all the foes of the people in whatever form they manifest their criminal encroachments upon socialism."87
Moscow University -- where education is often used as a political
tool and professors are among the best paid people in the U.S.S.R.
Education
Student: "Let me ask a few questions about Soviet schools and the Communist theory of education. How would you describe the objectives of education in Russia?"
Official Statement: "It is in the schools, at the desk, in the first class, that the foundations for a Communist outlook are laid in future Soviet citizens. The country entrusts the school with its most treasured possessions -- its children -- and no one should be allowed to indulge in the slightest deviation from the principles of the Communist materialistic upbringing of the new generation."88
Student: "Would it not be better to give students a broad view of all governments and different economies so they could draw their own conclusions?"
Official Statement: "The Soviet school cannot be satisfied to rear merely educated persons. Basing itself on the facts and deductions of progressive science, it should instill the ideology of Communism in the minds of the young generation, shape a Marxist-Leninist world outlook and inculcate the spirit of Soviet patriotism and Bolshevik ideas in them."89
Student: "Is it fair to force the minds of the rising generation to accept only the values which a current political regime wishes to impose upon them?"
Official Statement: "It is important that pupils should clearly realize the doom of the capitalistic world, its inevitable downfall, that they should see on the other hand the great prospects of our socialist system, and actively get prepared when they leave school to be ready to take their place in life, in the struggle for a new world, for Communism."90
Labor
Student: "Since Communism claims to represent the interests of the laboring class, what is the official Communist attitude toward the labor movement?"
Lenin: "It will be necessary ... to agree to any and every sacrifice, and even -- if need be -- to resort to all sorts of devices, maneuvers and illegal methods, to evasion and subterfuge, in order to penetrate into the trade unions, to remain in them, and to carry on Communist work in them at all costs."91
Student: "I think the average American working man would be interested in knowing what the Communists do when they control a labor union. How do the Communists treat labor unions in Russia where they have complete control?"
Victor Kravchenko (Former Government Official now defected): "The local (Communist) party organization elects one of its suitable members to become president of the trade union. Generally speaking, the Soviet trade unions have to see that the workers execute the program."92
Student: "But does that not make the union a subservient arm of government rather than an organization of workers? What if a nation wanted to strike?
Kravchenko: "The union's job is to see that strict discipline is maintained, that there will be no strikes that the workers work for wages established by the central government that the workers carry out all the decisions, resolutions. et cetera, of the party."93
Student: "But what would happen if I were a worker in Russia and wanted to quit my job?"
Kravchenko: "Every citizen in the Soviet Union has a passport. On the passport is his photograph. There is also a special page on which a stamp is put which indicates the place, date and type of employment. If you leave your job in one factory and go to another without the permission of your director you will be prosecuted under the law for violation of the law prohibiting unauthorized change of employment. This refers not only to laborers but to any kind of employee."94
Student: "In view of these statements I would like to conclude with one more question: Is this the hope for humanity which the Soviet offers the world?"
Official Statement: "The Soviet is an inspiring example for the proletarian revolution in the rest of the world.... (It) shows the powerful achievements of the victorious proletariat and the vast superiority of Socialist to Capitalist economy. The Soviet Union is an inspiring example for the national self-determination of the oppressed peoples."95
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1. V.I. Lenin, Report of the Central Committee At the 8th Party Congress, 1919.
2. Thesis of the Sixth World Congress of the Communist International, International Press Correspondence, November 28, 1926, p. 1590.
3. Quoted by Joseph Stalin in, Leninism, Volume I, p. 170.
4. Joseph Stalin's letter to Ivanov, p. 9. See also Resolution of the Fourteenth Party Conference of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
5. P.E. Vyshinsky, "Communism and the Motherland," in Voprosi Filosofi, Problems of Philosophy, Vol. 2, 1948.
6. Varga, World Economy and World Politics, June 1949, p. 11.
7. Reported
by the Continental News Service, November 8, 1946, and quoted in Communist Threat To Canada, Ottawa, 1947, pp. 10-11.
8. Stated in a lecture to the Lenin School on Political Warfare in Moscow, 1931.
9. Joseph Stalin, "Speech to the 15th Congress of the Soviet," Selected Works, Vol. X, pp. 95-96; also see pp. 100-101.
10. V.I. Lenin, "Left-wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder," Selected Works, Vol. X, pp. 95-96; also see pp. 100-101.
11. Thesis of the Sixth World Congress of the Communist International, International Press Correspondence, November 28, 1928, p. 1590.