“Nor is the further existence of the Communist International necessary as the living embodiment of the principle of internationalism and international working class solidarity. The fight for internationalism has not disappeared. It has been raised to new and more glorious heights.”{175}
“The dissolution of the Communist International does not, therefore, mark a step backward…. Millions all over the world live, work and fight under the bright banner of Marxism.”{176}
Diplomatic Intrigue
Student: “During World War II what did Stalin say the Russian policy was toward nations which were then under Nazi domination?”
Stalin: “We are waging a just war for our country and our freedom. It is not our aim to seize foreign lands or to subjugate foreign people. Our aim is clear and noble. We want to free our Soviet land of the German-Fascist scoundrels. We want to free our Ukrainian, Moldavian, Byelorussian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian and Karelian brothers from the outrage and violence to which they are being subjected by the German-Fascist scoundrels….
“We have not and cannot have such war aims as the imposition of our will and regime on the slavs and other enslaved peoples of Europe who are awaiting our aid. Our aim consists in assisting these people in their struggle for liberation from Hitler’s tyranny and then setting them free to rule in their own lands as they desire.”{177}
Student: “What excuse could Stalin and the Communist leaders have for doing the very opposite of what they had promised?”
Lenin: “The strictest loyalty to the ideas of Communism must be combined with the ability to make all necessary practical compromises, to maneuver, to make agreements, zigzags, retreats and so on, so as to accelerate the coming to power.”{178}
Stalin: “Sincere diplomacy is no more possible than dry water or iron wood.”{179}
Ethics and Morals
Student: “Doesn’t this approach to international relations sound more like a criminal code of conduct rather than sincere diplomacy? Does Communist Morality permit this?”
Lenin: “We say: Morality is that which serves to destroy the old exploiting society and to unite all the toilers around the proletariat, which is creating a new Communist society. Communist morality is the morality which serves this struggle….”{180}
Official Statement: “Morals or ethics is the body of norms and rules on the conduct of Soviet peoples. At the root of Communist morality, said Lenin, lays the struggle for the consolidation and the completion of Communism. Therefore, from the point of view of Communist morality, only those acts are moral which contribute to the building up of a new Communist society.”{181}
Student: “But this sounds like an excuse for doing whatever one may find expedient rather than following a system of rules for right living. Assuming Communism was right; would that justify a communist in lying, stealing or killing to put Communism into effect?”
William Z. Foster: “With him the end justifies the means. Whether his tactics be ‘legal’ and ‘moral,’ or not, does not concern him, so long as they are effective. He knows that the laws as well as the current code of morals are made by his mortal enemies…. Consequently, he ignores them in so far as he is able and it suits his purposes. He proposes to develop, regardless of capitalist conceptions of ‘legality,’ ‘fairness,’ ‘right,’ etc., a greater power than his capitalist enemies have.”{182}
Student: “Would you then deny the possibility of there being an eternal, God-given code for moral or ethical conduct?”
Lenin: “We do not believe in eternal morality, and we expose all the fables about morality.”{183}
Marx: “Law, morality, religion are… so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests.”{184}
Engels: “We therefore reject every attempt to impose on us any moral dogma whatsoever as an eternal, ultimate and forever immutable moral law on the pretext that the moral world too has its permanent principles which transcend history and the difference between nations. We maintain on the contrary that all former moral theories are the product, in the last analysis, of the economic stage which society had reached at that particular epoch. And as society has hitherto moved in class antagonisms, morality was always a class morality; it has either justified the domination and the interests of the ruling class, or, as soon as the oppressed class has become powerful enough, it has represented the revolt against this domination and the future interests of the oppressed.”{185}
The Bible
Student: “Then what is the Communist attitude toward the Bible which contains many moral teachings?”
Official Statement: “A collection of fantastic legends without any scientific support. It is full of dark hints, historical mistakes and contradictions. It serves as a factor for gaining power and subjugating the unknowing nations.”{186}
Engels: “It is now perfectly clear to me that the so-called sacred writings of the Jews are nothing more than the record of the old Arabian religious and tribal tradition, modified by the early separation of the Jews from their tribally related but nomadic neighbours.”{187}
Religion
Student: “If you reject the Bible, do you also reject all religion and all of the institutionalized morality which it represents?”
Official Statement: “The philosophy of Marxism-Leninism—the theoretical foundation of the Communist Party—is incompatible with religion.”{188}
Lenin: “Religion is a kind of spiritual gin in which the slaves of capital drown their human shape and their claims to any decent human life.”{189}
Student: “Could not a Communist enjoy religious activity as a matter of conscience and as a private right?”
Lenin: “To the party of the Socialist proletariat… religion is not a private matter.”{190}
Yaroslavsky: “Every Leninist, every Communist, every class-conscious worker and peasant must be able to explain why a Communist cannot support religion [and] why Communists fight against religion.”{191}
Student: “But supposing I were a Communist and still wanted to go to Church?”
Official Statement: “If a Communist youth believes in God and goes to Church, he fails to fulfil his duties. This means that he has not yet rid himself of religious superstitions and has not become a fully conscious person (i.e., a Communist).”{192}