Communist Party of the United States

“ If our handling of the problem of Communist influence in our midst is not carefully moderated -- if we permit it, that is, to become an emotional preoccupation and to blind us to the more important positive tasks before us -- we can do a damage to our national purpose beyond comparison greater than anything that threatens us today from the Communist side. The American Communist party is today, by and large, an external danger. ”

“ COMMUNISTS ARE HERE, TOO
But what of the United States—our own country, which is the headquarters of the most powerful capitalist class in the world today—a bold, ruthless, reactionary, predatory, imperialist class of profiteers and exploiters? What of our American monopoly capitalist class—the sixty families who own and control the economic life of our country—who are hated and feared by the people of Europe and Asia and in every neighboring country of the Western Hemisphere? We, the American Communist Party, fight their rule here at home and abroad. ”

“ The Communist program does not presently, nor in foreseeable future elections, commend itself to enough American voters to be a substantial political force. Unless the Communist Party can obtain some powerful leverage on the population, it is doomed to remain a negligible factor in the United States. Hence, conspiracy, violence, intimidation and the coup d'etat are all that keep hope alive in the communist breast. ”

“ All these statements indicate quite clearly that no matter how often or how quickly we repeat the claim that the Communist Party is not a political party, we cannot outlaw it, as a group, without endangering the liberty of all of us. The reason is not hard to find, for mixed among those aims of communism which are illegal are perfectly normal political and social goals. And muddled with its revolutionary tenets is a drive to achieve power through the ballot, if it can be done. ”

“ They were retired; they had ceased working daily on a job. Therefore, they had the leisure time to do what they wanted to do in most instances or at least in many instances. The result was that some of these people could go out and peddle leaflets and knock on doors. They constituted an enormous political strength. And the Communist Party conceived the idea that these people certainly would be the most able people to carry on political programs if they could be won to support such a program.
So the Communist Party set about to do exactly that in the pension union. ”

“ This was considered by the district leadership of the Communist Party and by the national leadership as well as being evidence of very successful mass work, and it was often used as an example of successful Communist mass work where it didn’t take so many Communists in order to influence a large number of people.
Were you aware of the influence that was brought to bear by the Communist Party upon this organization, the Washington Pension Union? ”

“ 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 ”

“ The Soviet Union, with its satellites, and China are held in the tight grip of communist party chieftains. The party dominates all social and political institutions. The party regulates and centrally directs the whole economy. In Moscow's sphere, and in Peiping's, all history, philosophy, morality and law are centrally established by rigid dogmas, incessantly drummed into the whole population and subject to interpretation--or to change by none except the party's own inner circle. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We were trying our level best to support the policies which the Communist Party urged upon us, and that pertained especially to the question of war, fighting the program of involvement in war at that time. It involved being very critical of the top leadership of the American Federation of Labor, which many other people criticized as well as we, and by we, I mean the Communists were not the only ones that criticized; many of the rank-and-file members who had no knowledge of Communist Party policy or activity were also critical. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is perfectly clear that the Communist Parties will not be in a position to organize any mass actions of the Proletariat or mass strikes, or mass street demonstrations, if the Party Committees at sharp moments of struggle lose connection with the factory cells and mass non-Party organizations. ”

“ I was told that it had been impossible to place candidates for the Communist Party on the election ballot and that steps were taken then to put Communist candidates on an Independent Party ticket and take this means of bringing the Communist program into the election campaign. ”

“ When the government faced a foreign and domestic crisis, the Communist Party had established a leverage strong enough to threaten civil war. In a period of confusion, the Communist plan unfolded, and the underground organization came to the surface throughout the country in the form chiefly of labor "action committees." Communist officers of the unions took over transportation, and allowed only persons with party permits to travel. Communist printers took over the newspapers and radio, and put out only party-approved versions of events. ”

“ If a democracy is to work, if it is to be a democracy or continue to be a democracy, it is essential that each participant, each member be a participant. That is the best recommendation I can make.
Mr. Moulder. That is very true. In our investigations the committee has found many instances where the Communist Party leaders have been able to infiltrate into, say, a local union in the eastern section of this country because the membership did not attend the elections and did not vote and participate actively in the meetings. ”

“ He continued, same applied to the development of the revolution in this sense the American people will not and cannot make a successful change over from capitalism to socialism by themselves, like the fire underneath the water, the Communist Party teaches and leads them to where when the society reaches that nodule point, the Communist people teaches the people before and then leads them to make that abrupt change into the society of socialism. ”

“ I am compelled to say in closing that I fear that all the arguments and urgings the Communists and their sympathizers can use in trying to convert Americans to an ideology wholly foreign to our habits and our instincts are far less dangerous to the security of this Nation than laws which embark us upon a policy of repression by the outlawry of minority parties because they advocate radical changes in the structure of Government. ”

“ In the united States the Communist Party adopted the practice of adapting its basic organization, the elementary part of the organization, to whatever circumstances they found themselves in.
In the period of great unemployment people weren’t working in the factories. ”

“ It wasn’t so easy to do so among the ranks of the members who didn’t hold any official position, but any person who held an official position, such as a unit organizer or a section organizer or an agitprop director or a trade-union organizer or a fraction secretary, in any of those positions a person was expected to carry the Communist Party line. ”