Only when they found themselves being flung into dirty dungeons or facing firing squads did they realize that Stalin’s supposed affection and trust was nothing but the figment of their own imaginations. By the hundreds, the chiefs of secret police units, the heads of forced labor camps and the examining judges who had conducted the purge in every district of the USSR found themselves sharing the fate of their victims.
Even Yeshov, whose unbalanced mind had not only heaped cruelty and violence on Stalin’s enemies but upon their wives and children as well, now faced extinction. He was swept up in the great final dragnet of terror and disappeared into oblivion along with those who had served under him.
Once Stalin had skirted the brink of political disaster he immediately determined to consolidate his power by the innovation of a Communist spoils system. Prior to this time, the Communist leaders had recognized only two classes—the workers and the peasants. Stalin now decided to give recognition to a new class—the Communist bureaucracy or official class. He bestowed special favors on them by allowing them to shop in “closed” distribution centers. These centers had great quantities of items which were never distributed to the workers. And Stalin arranged it so that his party appointees received other favors—dwellings, luxuries, special holidays, and special educational opportunities for their children. This was Stalin’s way of building a new Communist Party with members who owed absolute allegiance to him.
He likewise protected them in the new constitution which he presented to the Congress of Soviets in 1936. It provided for the protection of “occupational property.” Thus the official class could not be deprived of wages, articles of consumption, houses nor savings. It even provided that this “occupational property” could be bequeathed. Substantial estates could, therefore, be accumulated by the official class and passed on to a selected beneficiary. These gifts of inheritance (which Communist propaganda had denounced with vehemence for over a century) could also be given to non-relations and in any amount without restrictions.
To further illustrate the whole change in Stalin’s attitude, he adopted a series of “reforms” which were purely capitalistic in nature. These included payment of interest on savings, the issuing of bonds to which premiums were attached and the legalizing of a wider disparity in wages. A laborer, for example, might receive only one hundred rubles a month while a member of the official class could now get as high as six thousand rubles per month!
All of this clearly illustrated one simple fact concerning developments in Russia. The “have nots” of yesterday had taken possession of the realm. Their policy was likewise simple: to stay in power permanently and enjoy the spoils of their conquest.
By 1938 Stalin was supremely confident of his position. He announced that the regime had no enemies left inside of Russia, and there was no longer a need for terrorism or suppression. He made it clear, however, that there must be undeviating prosecution of the Communist program abroad and that the acts of terrorism against the outer world of capitalism should be accepted as necessary and unavoidable.
Russia was now asserting herself as a world power. Stalin was clearly manifesting a determination to enter the next phase of his dictatorship—the expansion of world Communism.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Communism in the United States
We have now traced the history of Russian Communism up to 1938. In order to appreciate what happened after 1938 it is necessary to understand the historical development of Communism in the United States.
The conquest of the United States by Marxist forces has been an important part of the plan of Communist leaders for many years: “First we will take Eastern Europe; then the masses of Asia. Then we will encircle the United States of America which will be the last bastion of Capitalism. We will not have to attack it; it will fail like an over-ripe fruit into our hands.” This clearly reflects the Marxist intent to overthrow the United States by internal subversion.
It is sometimes difficult for us to realize how enthusiastically encouraged the Communist leaders have frequently felt toward the progress of their program in the United States. The answers to the following questions will indicate why:
• Have Americans who embraced Communism overlooked a vigorous warning from the Pilgrim Fathers? Why are the Pilgrim Fathers described as having practiced Communism under “the most favorable circumstances”? What were the results?
• How soon after the Russian Revolution was Communism launched in the United States? How extensive was the first wave of Communist violence?
• What was William Z. Foster’s testimony under oath concerning a Communist revolution in the United States?
• Why was Whittaker Chambers able to furnish so many details concerning Communism in the United States? In June, 1932, Chambers was asked to pay the full price of being a Communist—what was it? How did Chambers’ small daughter influence him to abandon Communism?
• What was the background of Elizabeth Bentley? How did she happen to become the Communist “wife” of a man she did not even know?
• How did Communists who were employed as Russian spies successfully clear themselves?
• How would you expect the Communist leaders in Russia to react as they reviewed the U.S. list of top-level government employees who were risking imprisonment and disgrace to commit espionage and otherwise carry out the orders of the Soviet leaders?
American Founding Fathers Try Communism
One of the forgotten lessons of U.S. history is the fact that the American founding fathers tried Communism before they tried capitalistic free enterprise.
In 1620 when the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth, they had already determined to establish a Communist colony. In many ways this communal society was set up under the most favorable circumstances. First of all, they were isolated from outside help and were desperately motivated to make the plan work in order to survive. Secondly, they had a select group of religious men and women who enjoyed a cooperative, fraternal feeling toward one another. The Pilgrims launched their Communist community with the most hopeful expectations. Governor William Bradford has left us a remarkable account of what happened. The Governor reports:
“This community… was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For the young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense. The strong… had no more in division of victuals and clothes than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought an injustice… and for men’s wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc, they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it.” (Note that even in a Christian brotherhood, Communism cannot be practiced without setting up a dictatorship.)
But the colonists would have continued to endure Communism if it had only been productive. The thing which worried Governor Bradford was the fact that the total amount of production under this communal arrangement was so low that the colonists were faced with starvation. Therefore, he says: