Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

“ Surely we can profit in America by the experiences of other countries. Must we go through fascism in America to realize the menace of fascism and the importance of fighting against it? Do we have to go through the actual physical agony and material destruction of fascist occupation, see our homes destroyed, our women raped, our Jewish-Americans and Catholic-Americans murdered because of their religion, our books burned, our labor unions smashed, our cities despoiled and our government become a puppet state? ”

“ Do we have to go through this to realize that we need a powerful labor movement and a large and active Communist Party so that the people can say with assurance—"It will not happen here!"
Who are we—the Communists of America? We are Americans—native born and immigrants; we speak all languages; we are of all religions; of all colors; men and women; young and old. We are miners, steel, railroad, electrical, textile, office workers, trade unionists, farmers, veterans, professionals, housewives, students. We are a cross section of America—folks just like you. ”

“ We extend our invitation to the youth, whose lives were cruelly interrupted by a war, whose aspirations are thwarted, whose plans for a career in the arts, professions and sciences are cut short by poverty, whose success is bought only at the price of submission to commercialism, whose finest hopes and noblest ambitions are frustrated in the withering struggle for existence under capitalism. We offer to youth life with a purpose—a chance to help build a new, free world of Socialism. ”

“ We Communists arouse among them not only a burning hatred of exploitation but a strong sense of their own power, of their historical destiny to free themselves and all mankind from all forms of oppression. We need more workers with Communist consciousness to help their fellow workers overcome weaknesses, prejudices and backward notions—the influence of the capitalist class on their thinking. We need more workers—Communists to help educate and organize their fellow workers in the fight for all their immediate needs and for the ultimate establishment of Socialism. ”

“ Communists had warned unceasingly in every country of traitors, fifth columnists, pro-fascists in government and among the economic royalists, scheming capitalists who flout the rights of the people, and who preferred Hitler to democracy. Communists had warned of those who would divide the people and pit one group against another by Red-baiting and Jew-baiting, labor-baiting and Negro-baiting—which were Hitler's sharpest and most divisive weapons. ”

“ Communists had warned the people at the very beginning against Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and the scheming international bankers and capitalists who supported them. Even when the menace of these sinister figures was being minimized, the Communists clearly saw the dangers they foreshadowed. Later they warned against appeasing fascism by throwing one helpless country after another into its greedy maw—China, Spain, Ethiopia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, until all Europe was engulfed in a wave of terror. ”

“ We talk about health, houses, jobs, Negro rights, unions, votes, newspapers, the price of butter, the atom bomb, but we don't finish a chat by shaking our heads forlornly and letting it go at that.
We know they all tie up together. We know something can be done. We don't drift mentally in a sea of unsolved problems. We act to lead the people in the fight to solve their problems.
Communists have no interests apart from the people, no narrow selfish "axe to grind." ”

“ Labor worked devotedly to turn out the goods for our fighting men, kept its "no-strike pledge" under the greatest provocation and a pyramiding of unsolved grievances. The pay-off now is wage cuts, price raises, injunctions, the spectre of unemployment. The returned veteran meets a cheerless welcome—no jobs, no homes, no clothes, and no adequate provisions for his assistance in securing these essentials.
Negroes—soldiers and civilians alike—are even more shamefully Jim-Crowed than before the war by segregation, discrimination, downgrading in employment and by violence. ”

“ To be a Communist is not a career. Anyone who is found to be self-seeking or egocentric, who is not capable of collective thought and action or amendable to criticism is eventually eliminated from our ranks, no matter how important a place he may occupy. "The greatest good for the greatest number" is the ethical concept of the Communists. Communists practice an enlightened self-interest in a passionate willingness to work unselfishly so that by freeing the workers from wage slavery all humanity is freed from greed and tyranny. ”

“ Socialism does not exclude private ownership of personal property; in fact, most of us would have far more under Socialism than we have now. Socialism denies the right to use any savings or possessions to exploit the labor of others. Under Socialism, work is the right and duty of all able-bodied adults in accord with the precept, "He who does not work—neither shall he eat."
Under Socialism, as demonstrated in the Soviet Union, there is no unemployment, no danger of the inevitable crises of capitalism, no "over-production" accompanies by under-consumption. ”

“ Do you think that a Hearst, a Lindbergh, a Coughlin, could ever change the feelings of love and devotion which the European people have today towards the Communists of their countries?
The shame is that they can poison workers' minds here in America against our natural allies. Where people became steeled in blood and tears, they say now emphatically to all who will listen—"The Communists are right!" This is why Communists are news around the world. They are making news on every issue, and it's people's news. ”

“ Capitalism, like the system that preceded it—feudalism, when men were serfs tied to the land, has become its own grave-digger. It has been tried and found guilty of untold crimes in our generation. It has brought humanity to the brink of extinction.
Do we in America have to duplicate the actual experiences of Europe and Asia before we understand their thinking? Must we be plunged into fascism and war by the reactionary policies of the "men of the Trusts"? ”

“ With millions of workers out in the biggest strikes this country has ever seen, the billion dollar trusts recently saw their enormous plants lie prostrate—dead as a cemetery. Only labor could breathe life into them again. This is the greatest demonstration of labor solidarity, the most united and articulate front labor has ever presented. Organized labor is far stronger, numerically, politically, and in its concepts of its power today than after the last war. ”

“ Women fought in all the occupied countries and are fighting against fascism today in Spain, Portugal, Greece, Argentina. Millions of women worked in war industries in Britain, the Soviet Union and America, to supply our armies with weapons. We Communists insist upon women's right to work, to equal seniority, to equal pay and to adequate protection at work. Women have seen the horrors or heard the harrowing accounts of what fascism did to children—wholesale deliberate murder of thousands to destroy the future citizens of Europe ”

“ Thousands of Communists were shot, guillotined, beaten, starved, done to death in prisons, concentration camps and torture chambers by the fiendish Nazis. The blood of martyred Communists cries out for veangeance to the suffering peoples in whose cause they died. Communists who survived war and terror, who returned from exile or emerged from a living death, are now the trusted and revered leaders of their people. ”

“ The Communist Party is a vanguard political party of the working class, to bring together those who are ready not only to fight for day by day immediate gains, both economic and political, but who are also ready to curb and control by nationalization, and eventually to abolish through Socialism, the octopus of monopoly capitalism. ”

“ To bring about a world where all children are safe, normal, happy, is the will of the women in Europe today. That is why they vote Communist by the millions in Europe. Women here, too, need the Communist Party to help shape political events so that peace will be maintained and our children not be called upon to suffer another more terrible and bloody war, or that women will not be degraded to the level of cattle as happened under fascism. ”

“ Communists struggle unremittingly for all the immediate necessary interests of the people. There is no contradiction between helping to better organize unions, to fight for an extension of full democratic rights to the Negro people, and other such general political activities, and the ultimate goal of Socialism which will come more quickly through the solidarity, class consciousness and understanding developed in just such day to day struggles of masses of people. ”

“ They are determined to crush "the men of the Trusts," to prevent the rebirth of fascism. They burn with hatred of those responsible for the bloodshed, ruin and death that engulfed every family and desolated their countries. The liberated people will never return power into such hands again. They are turning away from capitalism toward a new kind of democracy; yes, toward Socialism in Europe today. ”

“ MUST CHALLENGE AMERICAN IMPERIALISM
The American people have the duty to challenge every step of Big Business toward world domination. What Big Business does to help fascism in Spain and Greece should cause Americans to most serious concern.
What capitalism is doing here in the U.S.A. to us and our children right now is also a forerunner of possible fascist development. Take a rapid glance around. What a mess capitalism has made in our country! The joyous celebrations of V-J Day were not yet over when thousands of workers were laid off in war plants, shipyards, and factories. ”

“ No phrases of democracy and "internal good will" can hide the fact that American imperialism has embarked on a reactionary course in world affairs. Out to dominate the world, American imperialism uses its great wealth and power to blackmail the peoples everywhere. ”

“ That a worker who is able, willing and anxious to work can be jobless, that the stench of the slums can arise in all our great cities, that a child can go hungry, should forfeit capitalism's right to continued existence. ”

“ Labor is a force to be reckoned with in America today, able to take the offensive politically to supplement the defense of its wage and strike struggles. Strong as American capitalists are and ambitious as they are to rule the world, they nevertheless fear the rising tide of the people's movement.
We Communists have the deepest confidence in the workers, their militancy, honesty and courage. ”

“ Communists are working hard to build new democratic people's governments in the liberated countries. Pro-fascist kings find no "welcome" on the doormat. Government officials and rich families who took everything they could lay hands on and fled, leaving the people to the dire consequences of their treachery, are not wanted in those countries. Traitors who became puppets for the conquerers—not only the Queslings, Petains, Lavals, but countless others, are to be judged as war criminals and the Communists' demand that they be executed or imprisoned is cheered by the people. ”

“ Millions of men and women are determined that these words shall become realities for the children of tomorrow, that these children shall be safe from the ravages of war and the crimes of fascism. That's why they have confidence in the Communists, who are militant fighters with faith in the people and hope for the future. That's why the Communists are growing strong and invincible around the world. ”

“ Socialism is the realization of youth's noblest dreams. "Our Party will always be a Party of Youth!" said Lenin.
Communist youth eagerly entered military combat against fascism. Not only did thousands of our American Communist Party young members fight in the Army, Navy and Air Forces, but as early as 1936, over 2,000 went to Spain to fight side by side with the Loyalists. The men of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and Canadian Mackenzie-Papineau Brigade were the first Americans to shed their blood on Europe's soil fighting Hitler, Mussolini—and their tool, Franco. ”

“ Coal miners, steel, packing, maritime, rubber, lumber, textile, railroad workers; auto, aircraft, electrical-radio, shoe, farm equipment workers—we invite you, one and all, to join the Communist Party. We are proud of our Party, and we need fighting workers like you to deepen its ties among the people. It is a tough world! But men and women like you are strong to face the storms ahead. ”

“ Our troops must not be used to police people who yesterday welcomed them as liberators and today are coming to regard them as agents of American imperialism. We want our soldiers back—as private citizens—in the shop, on the picket line, in the voting booth, and we welcome them into the ranks of the Communist Party, to continue the fight against fascism on the home front. ”

“ The people of Europe learned the truth of the Communist warnings through terrible disaster and indescribable anguish. They learned both in countries like France, where they had not heeded, or countries like Czechoslovakia, where they had not the power to resist, that the Communists are right. ”

“ How are Communists different? In their intense and ardent devotion to a purpose in life that directs and fills their days and nights with efforts in the interest of the people, to eliminate all exploitation and oppression. ”