This decadence in the communist heartland has led some to anticipate that the Communist Party in the Soviet Union will be overthrown by an internal revolution.  It has always been difficult to see how such a revolution could take place in the conditions which prevail there.  It is easy to make generalized statements such as, “People love freedom and will inevitably rise against oppression,” but actual rebellion is only possible in certain conditions.

            Lenin stated that two conditions are essential before a successful revolution can take place.  These are: 1) A breakdown in the unity and will of the existing authority, 2) An organization to promote and co-ordinate the rebellion.

            Some argue about the necessity for the second of these conditions, but the need for the existence of the first seems indisputable.  Today weapons are enormously destructive.  If the ruling power has a monopoly of the weapons of destruction and the will to use them, it can annihilate any rebellion in its infancy.

            Defeat in war does provide certain conditions for the collapse of efficient tyrannies.  This is due to the defeat causing a breakdown within the existing authority.  It took defeat in the second World War to break the power of Hitler and Mussolini.

            A Russian writer has prophesied the collapse of the Soviet Union about the year 1984.  Little comfort can be derived from his prediction as he attributes this collapse to a disastrous and prolonged war between the Soviet Union and Red China.  He believes that the outcome will be anarchy and chaos.

The Author

            The author is Andrei Alexeivitch Amalrik, a Russian historian, playwright, translator, artist’s model, construction worker, ex-convict, and now, after his last demotion, a mailman in a small village.  His current occupation gives him time to grow cucumbers and tomatoes, he says, “In patient expectation of further imprisonment.”  He has written an essay, an apocalyptic vision of the Soviet state disintegrating into anarchy by 1984 which was published in Paris’s weekly L’Express and translated in the February edition of Atlas magazine.

            Judged by his own past, his anticipations for his personal future are bleak.  He was expelled from Moscow University in 1963 for an unorthodox dissertation on Norman influence in Russia; exiled to Siberia in 1965 for circulating plays branded “patently anti-Soviet and pornographic”; upon his return to Moscow, he was demoted from journalist to mailman for demonstrating publicly against Britain’s Biafra policy.

            Extracts from his essay are reprinted so that thoughtful readers may evaluate his judgments and see if they provide guidelines for future conduct.  His views certainly provide no grounds for complacency:

Liberalization in the Soviet Union

            “It has been claimed that Soviet society has been undergoing a process of evolution for the past ten years, and that the U.S.S.R. will become even more liberal over the next ten years.  I don’t believe this is true.

            “It may be true that writers and painters now express themselves more openly, and that a cultural opposition has arisen out of the ruins of the Stalin era.  True, that after having fought this opposition, the regime is now resigned to tolerate it in certain forms.  True that some political opposition has also arisen, and has begun to attack the regime’s policies and ideology.  The voice of this opposition is the Samizdat or ‘Home Edition,’ by means of which thousands of photostatic copies of novels, articles and studies are circulated clandestinely.  It is known as the ‘Democratic Movement.’  It has its leaders—a dozen activists—and hundreds of sympathizers, but its true membership is difficult to estimate.

The Opposition

            “The Movement is a mixture of three different currents.  First, Marxism-Leninism.  (Its partisans believe that the regime has betrayed the purity of the doctrine.)  Second, Christianity, a doctrine somewhat related to the Pan-Slavist idea.  Third, liberalism.  People who believe in it would like to use the West as their model but at the same time retain collective and state property.

            “Three-fourths of the ‘Democratic Movement’ seems to be composed of those people least inclined to take action: the intellectuals.  Writers, painters, technocrats and academicians enjoy a relatively high standard of living, positions of respect and a certain degree of culture.  They belong to the new Soviet middle class, the ‘specialists,’ a class that has taken shape gradually and is beginning to be aware of its unity.  But this class is vegetating in its own mediocrity and its members believe that there is no point in hitting one’s head against the wall.

            “The Movement’s mediocrity is the result of a Government policy that has banished the activists and free thinkers from society for many years.  As we all know, a sense of impotence is the sentiment most common to Government employees.  They see themselves as tiny cogs in a big machine and prefer passive obedience to the embarrassment of choice.  What is more serious: In the Soviet Union, everybody is a Government employee, since everybody, including the middle class, works for the state.

The Bureaucrats

            “Bureaucrats multiply by inbreeding.  Every generation of bureaucrats loses a little initiative.  Silent obedience brings them to positions of power.  When they have talent, they use all of it to keep their power.  They no longer have any ideas.  They see any innovation as a menace.  Their only concern is to endure.  The regime does not particularly want to return to stalinism, to persecute the intellectuals or to ‘give brotherly aid’ to those who don’t want it.  All the regime desires is that its authority be respected, that no one make waves, that no audacious reforms be proposed, that the intellectuals be docile.  The regime is on the defensive.

            “If it manages to continue to strike a balance between minor concessions and minor repressions, this regime could theoretically last for a long time.  Democratic due process has without doubt, made progress in the last fifteen years.  The citizens feel freer, the director of a factory can occasionally make decisions, the writer has pushed aside a few barriers.  Some people see in this apparently irreversible trend a humanization of communism.  It seems to me that all American hopes with regard to the U.S.S.R. are based on this naïve point of view.  I see in it a symptom of decrepitude.

            “Too authoritarian to permit everything, too weak to repress everything, the regime is tottering toward death.

            “Will the Democratic Movement take its place?  I think that the middle class is incapable of regenerating society on its own, unless it can extend its popular support.  But nobody knows what the people think, not even the bureaucrats—who make so many efforts so silence them while, at the same time, they try so hard to learn what they are thinking.

The People

            “The people feel vaguely discontented, and they express this discontent more and more often.  They are not against the essence of the regime, for they know nothing else, but they are against specific aspects of it: controls, low pay, shortages.  The desire for a higher standard of living and more housing are steady irritants, and the people express their dissatisfaction.

            “All ideology is vain if the masses do not understand it.  For the majority of the people, who are of peasant stock, the concepts of democratic government, liberty and civil rights have no meaning.  They respect force, intelligence and culture, but not the rights of the individual as such: the concept ‘individual’ has no meaning.  A neighbor’s freedom is a threat.  Justice?  Yes, they could die for it.  But justice means doing away with the privileges of others.

            “The weaker the regime grows, the more vehement will be its attack on two forces:  First, the constructive force of the middle class. . . Second will be the attack on the destructive force of the lower classes.  A dying regime could present them with the opportunity of expressing their discontent so violently that the horrors of the two Russian revolutions of this century would pale by comparison.

Alternatives to Communism

            “How long can this regime last?  The possibility of an internal mutation should not be excluded, for either the Army of the liberal economists could take over.  But these two groups have such close ties with the party that any meaningful reform would get bogged down on bureaucrats’ desks.

            “Like the defunct czarist regime of half a century ago, the Soviet regime takes up the banner of Russian nationalism.  Their enemies—and they have to have enemies—are ‘American imperialists,’ Jews and Chinese.  But Russians make up less than half of the Soviet population.  The regime is therefore playing with fire.

War With China

            “A war with China is inevitable.  As I see it, it will break out between 1975 and 1980.

            “Following the footsteps of the Soviet revolution, the Chinese revolution, first internationally, then nationally oriented, will reach its third phase, that of expansion.

            “Soviet blackmail attempts that threaten China with a preventive attack could result in prudent behavior and even in negotiations on the part of the Chinese.

            “But China will not attack until it has enough conventional and nuclear weapons—that is, in five to ten years’ time.  China will no doubt prefer to use conventional weapons.  The U.S.S.R. would hesitate before escalating the conflict: a nuclear counterattack could mean suicide. . .  The war will grow by leaps and bounds before anyone has actually seen its beginning.  Along the 3,500-mile border, the Soviet Union will get bogged down in large-scale guerrilla warfare for which it is not prepared.  Guerrilla tactics, distances, troop endurance—all the factors that have brought Russia victories in the past three hundred years—will work against victory this time.

Eastern Europe Revolts

            “A crack will soon appear in the European surface.  The Soviet Union has been forcing it to maintain a status quo.  But if Russian troops should move toward Siberia, Germany would seize the occasion to unite.  A ‘de-Sovietized’ Eastern Europe will demand that the Soviet Union return the territories that once belonged to it.

            “The first fervor of Russian patriotism will eventually degenerate into fatigue.  Desertion by their allies, disturbances caused by racial minorities, the nibbling going on at the Eastern frontiers—and in the Pacific, . . . will drive the Russians to despair.  From the depths of despair will rise extremism.

            “The bureaucrats, expert in half-measures, will be unable to run the war and maintain order at the same time. . .  The Army, holding the reigns of power, will last longer.  But its fall will be even more disastrous.  As I see it, the collapse will come five years after the beginning of the war with China, in 1980 or 1985.

            “The Democratic Movement, weakened by repression, will not have the strength to take power.  Even if it should, it would not be able to keep it.  Thus the Soviet Union would dissolve into anarchy, hate and violence.

            “Rome thought it would save itself by becoming Christian.  The Slavic Empire has postponed its fall by adopting Karl Marx.  But this old empire is now in its last few decades. . .  We know only one form of progress—scientific progress; one threat—the bomb.  But our civilization does not need a superbomb to die.  Science and technology have their roots in only an insignificant strata of the human species.  The triumph of technology simply increases the gulf between that small group and the rest of humanity.  Soviet space ships have reached Venus.  But the people in my village harvest potatoes by hand.

            “Mao Tse-tung sees the word as cities surrounded by villages.  By ‘villages’ he means one third of the world, and by ‘cities’ he means the rich countries.  The ‘villages’ are organized and the ‘cities’ are becoming isolated.  Is this not the most dangerous threat to our times?

            “In fifth-century Rome, with its six-story houses and its stream-driven mills, a planner might have predicted twenty-story houses and mechanized industry for the sixth century.  However, in the sixth century, goats were chewing at the grass of the Forum.  Just as they now pass under my windows at Akulovo.”  Atlas, February, 1970, Pages 20-24.

A NEW COMMUNIST YOUTH ORGANIZATION

            A convention to form a new communist youth organization was held in Chicago, February 7, 8, and 9, 1970.  Advance publicity in the communist press outlined clearly the purpose and character of this new organization, but the name had not been chosen in advance.  Here is a typical statement from the Daily World, Wednesday, February 4, 1970:

            “Several hundred youths—more than half of them young shopworkers—will attend the gathering February 7, 8, and 9, to establish a new Marxist-Leninist youth league.

            “Preparations for the meeting have been under way for several months by the National Organizing Committee of the Marxist-Leninist Youth Organization.”  Page 9.

            This new organization is to replace the DuBois Clubs which have not been too successful in recruiting radical student youth recently.

Recruit the New Left

            The new organization is designed to attract radicals of the New Left.  This is stated clearly in an editorial of the Daily World, Thursday, February 5, 1970:

            “For more than a decade now, young Americans—black, brown and white—have waged a battle against this legacy of filth, corruption and bestiality.  Thousands have gone to prison, suffered physical injury from the clubs and guns of police, been attacked by hired hoodlums and fascist-minded hoods, endured the sneers and jeers of the Reagans and the Agnews, fled from the sheer boredom of irrelevant ‘educational’ mills, and found—when the chips were down—they could neither obtain decent jobs nor vote for candidates of their choice.

            “The so-called ‘revolt of the youth’ has taken many forms.  Some were frankly experimental, some based on illusions and naivete about the possibility and the ways and means of rapid and radical change, but all were groping for a way to change this crisis-ridden society.

            “The new socialist youth organization can help them find and take this way.  This new organization, according to its stated purpose, will base its activities on the tried-and-proven ideology of Marxism-Leninism, which sees the working class as the gravedigger of capitalism.  We believe the young generation of U.S. men and women will find in this ideology and method the way to restructure and renovate the institutions of this country within the framework of a socialist society.”  Page 1.

Foment Labor Strife

            This new organization will attempt to recruit young workers and to exploit conflicts within labor.  It will be guided by the classical Marxist-Leninist teaching that the workers are the “gravediggers” of capitalism.

            The communists cling to this delusion despite the overwhelming evidence that the overwhelming majority of the workers are hostile to communism and eager to secure more benefits such as higher wages, shorter working hours, longer vacations, increased medical benefits, better pensions, and better houses, cars, and schools from the capitalist system.  The workers despise student radicals.

Servant of the Soviet

            One major goal of the new organization is to serve the Soviet Union.  This is clearly stated in the draft document of the founding convention.  The Daily World, Wednesday, February 4, 1970 states:

            “On a world scale, anti-Sovietism is labeled in the document as the key ideological weapon of U.S. capitalism.

            “‘The strategy for world domination takes as a long term aim to weaken, isolate and defeat the Soviet Union because it is the strongest component part of the Socialist camp and the world anti-imperialist force in economic, political and military terms.  The U.S.S.R. has played the most decisive role in aid to all anti-imperialist and national liberation struggles in all spheres.

            “‘U.S. imperialism uses every possible weapon against the Soviet Union, including a variety of ideological weapons to isolate its influence, such as the big lie that the U.S.S.R. threatens to conquer and enslave the world . . . and it pushes within the left the slanderous idea that the Soviet Union has sold out the world revolution and become an imperialist power.’”  Page 9.

International Liaison

            In tune with this international emphasis, leading foreign communists sent advance greetings to the organizers of the convention.  Two of these given considerable publicity are Cheddi Jagan, ex-Prime Minister of Guyana, and Kwame Nkrumah, former Dictator of Ghana.  In the telegram sent from Georgetown, the capital of Guyana, Jagan states:

            “An event such as this is always one for rejoicing, and also for sober reflection.

            “Rejoicing because it marks a significant forward step by a section of American youth in the spread of that understanding of the power structure of the capitalist West which is essential to change and the emergence of a just society.  Sober reflection because the pathway of those who. . . challenge the ‘establishment’ is always strewn with difficulties and harassments. . .  But we shall overcome!  Accept our best withes for a successful youth convention and that you go from strength to strength in the months and years ahead.”  Daily World, Saturday, January 31, 1970, Page 9.

            Njrumah states:

            “A Marxist-Leninist youth organization to vitalize the socialist and progressive forces in the USA is long overdue and I congratulate and salute the sponsors and organizers for taking this initiative, wishing the coming convention splendid success.

            “Long live Marxism-Leninism!  Long live world socialism.” Daily World, Saturday, January 31, 1970, Page 9.

            Anti-communism is listed among the enemies of the new organization which is has to fight:

            “The document sharply poses the role of the new organization in fighting anti-working class ideology, racism, national chauvinism, anti-communism and petty bourgeois radicalism.”  Daily World, Wednesday, February 4, 1970, Page 9.

            There is little doubt that the communists will be the ultimate beneficiaries of the radicalism of the new left.

            P.S. The name selected for the new communist youth group is: Young Workers Liberation League.  Watch for the letters, YWLL, in the news.

COMMUNIST PEACE

            Kenneth M. Wiley of 21 Woodcrest Avenue, Short Hills, New Jersey, 07078, has suggested that the discussion of “communist peace” on pages 6, 7, and 8, of You Can Trust the Communists (to be Communists) be printed so that people may understand better the problems of the Paris “Peace Negotiations.”

            “Since the communists are at war, they naturally desire peace.  Wherever you find a communist, you find an advocate of peace.  ‘Peace is one of the golden words of their vocabulary.  They have ‘peace’ movements of every kind; they have peace campaigns, peace prizes, peace conferences, peace processions.  Every communist is a devotee of peace.

            “Most people watching the military preparations of the communists, noting the enormous percentage of their budget devoted to military objectives, observing their ruthless, brutal repression of any attempt by their captive nations to secure freedom, classify the communists as blatant hypocrites.  This is far from the truth.  The communists are not hypocrites.  They are sincerely and genuinely dedicated to peace.  If you gave a mature communist a lie detector test and asked him if he desired peace with all his heart, he would pass with flying colors.  They live for peace; they long for peace; they would willingly die for peace.

            “What is this peace which they desire?  During the war against Japan, most Americans undoubtedly wanted peace.  Peace was the thought that comforted mothers whose sons were in danger on distant battlefields; peace was the word which sustained wives, lonely and anxious without their husbands; peace was the goal that motivated servicemen who knew the boredom, the loneliness, and the danger of war.  Had they been asked to define peace, they would doubtless have described it as the termination of hostilities in the defeat of the enemy by the allies.  Not under any circumstances would victory by Japan have been termed peace.  To the American people, peace meant only one thing—American victory.  The communists believe they are at war.  They desire ‘peace’ with all their hearts.  But to them, peace is that golden consummation when the progressive force of communism totally overwhelms American imperialism and climaxes in communist world conquest.  By definition, ‘peace’ is communist world conquest.

            “Since this is true, any action that advances communist conquest is a ‘peaceful’ action.

            “The communists use the word ‘peace’ in their own sense with total sincerity.  We interpret it in our sense.  We are victims, not of their hypocrisy, but of our own ignorance.

            “The communists are not hypocrites.  They suffer from paranoic delusions of an intense sincerity.  They are so enmeshed in the delusions of Marxism-Leninism that they are beyond the scope of rational argument and conviction.  All observed phenomena are interpreted within the framework of their preconceived conclusions.  If they were hypocrites, it would be much easier to deal with them.  You can make a bargain with a hypocrite; you can scare a hypocrite.  When you are dealing with the paranoics of highly organized delusional patterns, your sole recourse is to acknowledge and understand these patterns and take appropriate measures to protect yourself against the conduct which results from the delusions.”

PROLETARIAN TRUTH

            The communist Daily World of February 3, 1970, page 6, expresses its concern about the Orange County Antisubversive Seminar as follows:

            “Limerick Away with James Madison

            “From Anaheim, Orange County, California, in recognition of a forthcoming four-day anti-subversive seminar, Febuary 20-23, comes this:

            “The Christian Anti-Communism Crusade

            Is full of crackpots, all overpaid.

            Black Panthers it hates

            All colored it baits.

            To the past it lends all of its aid.

            “The Christian Anti-Communism Crusade

            If twenty dollars for tuition is paid,

            In Anaheim shortly

            Will brain wash you smartly

            And show you how fascism’s made. – Anna Heimer”

            The limerick does, inadvertently, make one truthful statement:  The seminar will “show how fascism’s made.”  We will do this by exposing the nature and organization of communism.  This will simultaneously expose the nature and structure of fascism.

KEEP YOUR EYE ON BOLIVIA

            An alarming report appears in Atlas magazine, February, 1970.  It states:

            “All the way to Che?  Informed U.S. forces expect the leftist, nationalistic Bolivian regime to embrace Castroism before the new year runs out.  Castro emissaries and ultra-leftists of the Bolivian regime are already in contact.  They believe that an ‘inquiry’ into the killing of Che Guevara in Bolivia will further weaken the role of the U.S., giving Castro a real hold in Latin America.  The concept: to ‘prove’ that Guevara was betrayed, against the people’s will, by paid U.S. informers—now purged—thus preventing a genuine revolt in Bolivia.”  Page 8.

A MESSAGE FROM JAPAN

            A Professor from Nanzan University, the Catholic University of Nagoya, writes:

            “The newsletter is read by many of the teachers on our English Department staff at Nanzan University.  In the Faculty Common Room of our department, the advertising literature of book companies are displayed.  Between classes teachers gather there for the coffee break and look at the literature.  Invariably your newsletter gets read and very often commented favorably upon.  And to us here in Japan, most of it IS news.”