United States. Congress. House. Committee on Un-American Activities

“ The experiences of the Soviet Union during the World Crisis of Capitalism stands out as a Beacon Light to the toiling masses throughout the world as a living example of the Working Class way out of the Crisis. ”

“ And I fear that the average person who attempts to transplant an arbitrary form or an idea which is erected in one part of the world because of a certain historical set of circumstances and arbitrarily transplant it to another part of the world under entirely different historical circumstances finds himself trying to solve an impossible problem. And I think that that is basically the problem which the Communist Party itself ran into. ”

“ With regard to Party members who do not wish to take part in the work of factory cells, the most attentive and stubborn explanatory work must be carried out. But if somebody or other all the same, categorically refuses to work in a factory cell, that comrade must be told that nobody is keeping him in the party. (The Communist Party is a voluntary organization, but every worker who voluntarily joins the ranks of the Communist Party accepts iron party discipline. If that discipline seems very hard to him, even unbearable, then the Party should not shut its doors upon him.) ”

“ To meet this condition of World Revolt, the Ruling Classes throughout the world are turning more and more to Fascism—a system of open dictatorship of the present group of exploiters—a system more brutal, more ruthless, and exceedingly 352 more destructive of the materials needed for the sustenance of human life. Fascism is therefore the main enemy of the Workers of the World.
A system of Fascism will not bring about a stabilization of Capitalism, but will instead bring a whole train of persecutions, and inflict the most abject misery upon the toiling masses. ”

“ The Party Committee of this town should interest itself above all in what is happening in the big enterprises—in the railway workshops, in the metal factory and the textile factory, how the factory cells are working there and in the first place help the factory cells of these enterprises by all and every means possible, concentrating all their attention and all their forces on this task. In the lawyer’s office and the doctor’s surgery there are no masses which the Party must win over and organize for revolutionary struggle. It is another matter with the big enterprises. ”

“ Every Party member working in the factory should begin with the workshop in which he is working, organizing the Party work there. He should first of all find out who his fellow workers in the shop are. That is his first Party duty. He should establish who is the Fascist agent in order to know whom to avoid, and in his presence not talk about Party affairs or carry on Communist agitation; next he should find out which workers are so narrow-minded that they are not interested in politics at all, either Communist or Social-Democratic ”

“ When we approach the study of the work of the factory cells in capitalist countries we are often struck by the great passivity of the members of the cell. A further examination of the reasons for this passivity will reveal, as a rule, a complete ignorance on the part of the Party members as to what they should do in the factory in their everyday work. The task of the Party organizer, his most important task, consists in teaching every Party member working in the factory what he should do every day. ”

“ At the present stage of development of the Communist movement, when the Communist Parties are ceasing to be organizations for propaganda and agitation of the Communist idea, and are turning into fighting organizations, preparing and leading revolutionary actions of the proletarian masses against the organized forces of the employers, police, State and Social-Fascists, some members of the Party are showing themselves incapable of fulfilling the new fighting tasks of the Communist Party. ”

“ It is perfectly clear that with activists like the “activists” of the Prague organization, who were present at Vandervelde’s meeting, the Czechoslovakian proletariat will not win power but the Communist Party will be a shameful laughing stock in the eyes of the proletariat and the proletariat, quite rightly, will not listen to such “activists” and will not support Party organizations which keep such “activists” in leading Party work. ”

“ The inexorable laws of Capitalist Development will continue to bring new crises in spite of the repressive measures of Fascism. During the Present Economic Crisis the Fascist nations have suffered along with the other Capitalist Nations, and they are now staggering under the strain, thereby intensifying the present World Crisis of Capitalism. Only in the Soviet Union where there is the open dictatorship of the Workers and Farmers, where Socialism is being definitely planned and organized and put into operation is there any escape from Economic Crises. ”

“ The preservation of the constitutional democratic form of organization in the United States governmental structure has always held a very firm appeal to any person who has made any study of governmental structures. The Communist leadership found it virtually impossible to convince anybody that is acquainted with that fact that this constitutional, democratic form of representative government should itself be changed. ”

“ As to the latter, he must have systematic chats with them in the intervals of work, preferably during working hours, also on the way to and from work, or arrange special walks with them in the town on holidays; he must patiently, unceasingly, from day to day, using every hour, every minute, agitate them into the spirit of Communism, of course not in a general abstract way, but on questions of everyday struggle in the given enterprise and in the given workshop, organizing them around himself and thus creating a revolutionary kernel in the shop, and in consequence a workshop factory cell. ”

“ Mr. Dennett. It didn’t take very long after I reached Seattle before I had my first rude awakening. I was naive enough to believe that it was proper for anyone to ask any question at any time in a party meeting. But after coming to Seattle and being assigned as the district agitprop director, believing that my duty required that I should supervise the production of leaflets and propaganda which was being issued, I was naive enough to ask what were my various duties. And the answer I got from Mr. Noral was to the effect that anybody knows what that is, which left me completely in the dark. ”

“ When the shop cell succeeds in creating the institution of revolutionary shop stewards leading their everyday struggle, then no police can drive the Party organization from the factory, then, in order to drive the Party organization out of the factory it will be necessary to shut the factory down, to dismiss all the workers and recruit a new staff of workers. ”

“ Bellingham, you have to understand, is a comparatively small town. People in it live much closer together than they do in a larger city. Neighbors are a little better acquainted with each other. Consequently, any suffering in the neighborhood arouses a deeper response among people who are better acquainted than it does among total strangers.
And these women extended themselves greatly to aid those of us who didn’t have any adequate income or any adequate subsistence. I understand that both of these women have since left the Communist Party. Do you want me to name them now?
Mr. Tavenner. ”

“ The most important element of successful working of the Party Committee—the one on which during the checking of its work the most serious attention must be concentrated—is the question of connections of the Party Committee with the higher and lower Party organizations, especially with the factory cells and the fractions of the mass non-Party organizations. ”

“ In all non-Party mass proletarian organizations, such as trade unions, sport organizations, tenants’ organizations, etc. the Party should form fractions embracing all Communists and sympathizers. There are thousands of decisions about fractions in mass organizations, but up to now the position in all Parties with regard to fractions is bad. In the first place fractions are far from being organized everywhere. In the second place, organized fractions in the majority of cases work without the direction of the Party Committee. ”

“ I went on to school being firmly convinced, as a result of what I had seen as a child, having seen workers defeated time after time in strikes and in disputes, I became thoroughly convinced that the most priceless thing that anyone could obtain would be a full and complete education. ”

“ I think we have to get at the facts as they exist. And my own feeling and the thing that I was impressed with was, again, the teachings of Lenin wherein he proclaimed that never did any autocracy willingly yield up its power. Never did any tyranny willingly yield up its power, and that necessarily any group who sought to obtain political power under those circumstances would be confronted with solving a problem of force and violence. They would be met with force and they would have to answer it with force. ”

“ Now, therefore, we, the International Association of Machinists, pledge ourselves to labor unitedly in behalf of the principles herein set forth, to perpetuate our association on the basis of solidarity and justice, to expound its objects, to labor for the general adoption of its principles, to consistently endeavor to bring about a higher standard of living among the toiling masses. ”

“ Among those who should be thrown out it will now be necessary to include individual Social-Democrats who show themselves Fascist police agents, but the general line in relation to Social-Democratic workers must remain, i. e., they must be drawn into the general class channel of the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat by means of the organization of the united front from below.
Thus the foundation of the factory cell must definitely be the workshop of dept. cell. The general factory cell can work well only when it has strong support points in the workshops and separate departments. ”

“ But through the people’s councils we were able to exert some influence because we had a considerable Communist leadership developing in the ranks of the people’s councils in Whatcom County. Strangely enough, that organization was in a position where its top leadership was friendly with and collaborated with the unemployed citizens’ leagues in Seattle while those of us in the Communist Party, in the ranks of the organization, naturally were following the leadership of the national unemployed councils and were friendly with and working with the unemployed councils in the city of Seattle. ”

“ For example, it might be advisable and practicable that a Party member working as a fitter in a metal factory, a member of the factory cell of the metal factory should apply for a job in the textile factory where a fitter may be needed. Everything must be done in order by such means to strengthen the cell of the textile factory from within. Further, let us suppose that near the textile factory a street cell is working and that in this street cell there are, let us say, five more or less weak comrades living in the district. ”