Marxist Fundamentals

The fact is that we live in a time of fateful chal-lenges. As a people and a nation we are under test. This challenge is, of course, Marxism-Leninism. There is no mystery in its strategies and tactics. It has always been concrete and spelled out in black and white. It has also been openly and actively tested in the economic, political, and ideological struggle for control around the globe.

Lenin, the founder of the first Communist state, put it simply: "First we will take Eastern Europe, then the masses of Asia. We will encircle the last bastion of capitalism, the United States of America. We will not need to fight. It will fall as a ripe fruit into our hands." And, "We must practice coexistence with other nations, until we are strong enough to take over by means of world revolution.... We are not pacifists. Conflict is inevitable. Great political questions can be solved only through violence.... It is inconceivable that Communism and capitalism can exist side by side. Inevitably one must perish."

Rykov, Lenin's successor in the Council of Soviet Commissars, corroborated: "It is our duty to inculcate in the minds of nations the theories of international friendship, pacifism, and disarmament, encouraging their resistance to military appropriations and training, without ever relaxing our own efforts in building our military equipment."

Manuilsky, a prominent Soviet professor at the School of Political Warfare, said: "The bourgeoisie will have to be put to sleep. We shall begin by launch-ing the most spectacular peace movement on record. There will be electrifying overtures and unheard-of concessions. The capitalist countries, stupid and decadent, will rejoice to cooperate in their own destruction. They will leap at another chance to be friends."

And Khrushchev, a more contemporary Soviet prime minister, said: "We cannot expect Americans to jump from capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving Americans doses of socialism until they suddenly awake to find out they have communism."

Today, Marxism-Leninism represents a most complex and powerful doctrine developed by Communist theoreticians and practitioners in every corner of the world. Its universal library offers dynamic political weapons and comprehensive theories, diversified approaches and seductive slogans. On one side of the globe, there is the Yugoslav moderate theory of reformed Communism and participative economy which lures masses into socialism. On the other side of the earth there are Chinese slogans which are more productive in inflaming a Communist revolution.

Marxism-Leninism is particularly effective on the semantic level where it exhibits a devastating duality. It lulls its adversaries to sleep, while at the same time it mobilizes its followers to revolutionary action. The Communist International's Seventh Congress con-cluded that open use of revolutionary terminology does not promote the Marxist-Leninist drive for world domi-nation. Therefore, "revolution" has been changed into "liberation," "world conquest by the proletariat" has been changed into "peace and socialism ... .. armed seizure of power and liquidation of the bourgeoisie" has been rephrased to read "peaceful and gradual transition to socialism."

Even the word "Communism," which every revo-lutionary is so proud of, has been changed into "progressive ... .. anti-Fascist" or "liberal." Further, to confuse their adversaries, the Marxist-Leninists have devised a new language which uses old words in the basic vocabulary. When they say "imperialism arouses the wrath of the people and digs its own grave," they mean "through our manipulation of the local Communist parties, and with a vast auxiliary corps of dupes and sympathizers, we so arrange matters that the free enterprise system and democracy are destroyed from within. All we need to do is push it into the grave."

Thus, the free, complacent, conscience-stricken, guilt-ridden, sex-sodden, drug-driven, decadent, and often antagonistic societies have been manipulated by goal-oriented, dedicated, and shrewd Marxist-Leninist dialectics into a notorious period of so-called peaceful coexistence and plain overt hostilities. "Detente" has become not the hope of free people everywhere, but rather their doom. "Detente does not necessarily spell out the end of the struggle between the two social systems," says Pravda. "The struggle will continue between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie."

In other words, the so-called detente is nothing more than a form of Marxist-Leninist art skillfully geared toward pacifying the American public by encouraging them to act ridiculously nice while the Communists kick the daylights out of them. The result is that the free world continues to shrink. Democracies cannot handle periods of low-tension confrontation. They have an almost universal desire to believe that peace is the natural condition of man, that armies are temporary nuisances, that conflicts of interest can be dissolved simply by a policy of good will. Unfortunately, nothing is further from the truth; but for some reason free people prefer to believe it.

Commitment or Holocaust

We ask ourselves who has caused the protracted holocaust in the world. Could it be that for evil to win only one thing is necessary - good people who do nothing? Or that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, at the time of moral crisis, retain their neutrality?

True, there are people in our world who have lost their moral perspective. Human knowledge has become vast and unmanageable. Astronomy has revealed a world beyond the imagination of man, physics a universe in the atom, biology a microcosm in every cell, physiology mysteries in every organ, and psychol-ogy dark secrets in every dream. Theology has crumb-led, technology has exploded, economics has shattered, and politics has inflamed the world. The scientific specialist knows more and more about less and less, the philosophic generalist knows less and less about more and more, and both have put their blinders on to shut out any moral decision. The door is opened wide for a lasting holocaust.

Knowledge has to be man's prime instrument for action and survival.

Introductions that enumerate the institutions of learn-ing where I have earned my degrees amuse me. They miss the most important school and the most influential teachers I have ever had - my home and my parents. They were simple, hard-working people who had little time and very few luxuries to give. They did give me, however, their personal example and a firm spring-board from which to jump into the world of confusion, terror, and war which followed. They professed one simple basic belief: Something is either good or bad, it is either decent or indecent, it serves either God or the devil, and most important they believed that it was my duty to find out what is right and what is wrong. This was what their education was all about.

Yes, education is a stratified totality. First, educa-tion is facts. Second, it is concepts based upon these facts. Third, it is a decision based upon facts and concepts - a personal decision as to what is right or wrong. Without this moral decision education is worthless.

When we fail to make decisions, someone else will make them for us. In times of intimidation, revolution, and war this "someone" is more apt to be the mobs in the streets who care little for facts or concepts. The result is tyranny.

If freedom and democracy are to survive, it will take a miracle - a miracle that only dedication and commitment can bring about. After the technological and intellectual revolutions, a moral revolution is necessary.

When trapped in a world of indolence, incompetence and impotence, when challenged by ambivalence, arrogance and aggression, when you feel insignificant, you can and must do your duty!

You know the needs of your family, your neighbor, your town, your state and your community. You have here a duty to perform.

It is not important that others are bad, lazy, and dishonest. It is important that you are good, diligent, and honest. It is not important that others lie, scheme, and destroy. It is important that you are hard at work to maintain our democracy, justice, and peace.

There is no time to waste. The revolutionary forces shaking the earth have converged upon us, presenting us with difficult choices - with a need for action, for ideas, for concerted and sustained commitment as a nation and as individuals.

We must meet the challenge with the conviction of our beliefs. We must remember that as Americans - by birth or by choice - we are heirs to a permanent, continuing, liberating revolution. Our great ancestors left us an unparalleled moral and political weapon that we must share with the suffering peoples of the world.

In April '945, the Second World War was coming to an end. In Central Europe great numbers of people were still dying. In our village fifty hostages had been taken by Nazi soldiers. I was among them. Orders had been given for ten of us to be executed each time one of their retreating soldiers was killed by our guerrillas. Being first in the alphabet, I found myself in a courtyard facing two soldiers armed with machine guns, not knowing if I had one minute, ten seconds, five seconds to live.

Almost unknowingly, I began to pray, a prayer of thanksgiving to God, that if I had not lived for a noble cause He was now giving me the opportunity at least to die for a noble cause - to die in resistance to the tyranny and misery represented in those two Nazi soldiers. Happiness momentarily filled my being - finally my life made some sense.

Without any advance warning, the guards were ordered to take me back to jail. Eventually we were released. From that moment on I have believed in miracles.

Only those who are willing to die for a noble cause are fit to live.

I believe there is a great difference between Americans and the people of other countries. Whenever I travel I recognize this difference. These people have a dream, a sense that there exists a powerful force capable of leading the world to justice and peace. They are aware that there is a unique society in the world where God has put together all nationalities, races, and interests of the globe for one purpose - to show the rest of the world how to live. The dream around the world, in spite of all contrary propaganda, is America.

I ask you, where is your America?

Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, the monthly journal of Hillsdale College. August '982, Vol. '', No. 8.