sions of this treaty. During the entire period of the opera- Yet Stalin kept a perfectly straight face when he ignored his pact with Hitler and announced in 1946 that *** the Second World War against the Axis states, from History will show that Soviet Marxist-Leninists have committed many more mistakes. We will rest, however, with just one more, from the columns of the Moscow Pravda of February 21, 1956-and Pravda means "truth" in Russian: Left to right: Aide, Joseph Stalin, V. M. Molotov, Joachim von Ribbentrop. In 1938 the Executive Committee of the Communist International adopted a resolution on dissolving the Communist Party of Poland in view of an accusation made at that time concerning wide-scale penetration by enemy agents into the ranks of its leading Party aktiv. 2 Statement of Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet Commissar of Foreign Affairs, on June 22, 1941, quoted from David J. Dallin's "Soviet Russia's Foreign Policy" (Yale University Press, 1942), p. 377. J. Stalin, "Speech at a Meeting of Voters of the Stalin Electoral Area of Moscow" (Feb. 9, 1946), Pravda Feb. 10, 1946. It has now been established that this accusation was based on materials which were falsified by subsequently exposed provocateurs. After examining all the materials on this matter, the Central Committees of the Communist Parties of the Soviet Union, Italy, Bulgaria, and Finland, together with the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers Party, have come to the conclusion that the dissolution of the Polish Communist Party was groundless. As a member of the Political Bureau of the CPSU for years, Khrushchev bore witness to the overbearing cocksureness of Stalin, the foremost Marxist-Leninist of his time, despite his well-known "boners". Describing one such Politburo meeting, Khrushchev declared: You should have seen Stalin's fury! How could it be admitted that he, Stalin, had not been right! He is after all a "genius," and a genius cannot help but be right! Everyone can err, but Stalin considered that he never erred, that he was always right. He never acknowledged to anyone that he made any mistake, large or small, despite the fact that he made not a few mistakes in the matter of theory and in his practical activity ***. Such a man supposedly knows everything, sees everything, thinks for everyone, can do anything, is infallible in his behavior. Such a belief about a man, and specifically about Stalin, was cultivated among us for many years.25 Naturally one is moved to ask: Are we dealing here with some special perversion peculiar to Stalin or is the obsession of infallibility something inherently characteristic of the oracles of MarxismLeninism? In this connection it might be well to recall what Carl Schurz, a German refugee who later became a U.S. Senator, general and Secretary of the Interior, had to say about Karl Marx, whom he encountered at meetings of the Congress of Democratic Associations held in Cologne in the 1840's: I have never seen a man whose bearing was so provoking and intolerable. To no opinion which differed from his, he accorded the honor of even a condescending consideration. Everyone who contradicted him he treated with abject contempt; every argument that he did not like he answered with biting scorn at the unfathomable ignorance that had prompted it, or with appropriate aspersion upon the motives of him who had advanced it.2 26 In comparatively recent times, the leader of the American Communist Party, Earl Browder, was denounced by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, a member of its national board, in almost identical terms, as follows: Comrade Earl Browder has apparently locked his mind. of mental isolation and arrogance *** We have all con- 25 Nikita S. Khrushchev at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Feb. 25, 1956. Despite his intolerance toward all who differed with him, Karl Marx arrogated to himself the freedom to declare: All I know is that I am not a Marxist. 28 While Khrushchev, at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, charged Stalin with violating Lenin's precepts and example, the latter himself described his ruthless intolerance of opposition in the following works: My words were calculated to evoke hatred, aversion and contempt *** not to convince but to break up the ranks of the opponent, not correct an opponent's mistake, but to destroy him, to wipe his organization off the face of the earth. This formulation is indeed of such a nature as to evoke the worst thoughts, the worst suspicions about the opponent ***29 PREDICTIONS OF INCREASING POVERTY UNDER CAPITALISM From Marx to Khrushchev, the Communists have maintained that capitalism breeds increasing misery and poverty for the workers. In his "Communist Manifesto," Marx, in 1848, insisted that: The modern laborer, on the contrary, instead of rising with the progress of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. The worker is becoming a pauper, and pauperism is increasing even more rapidly than population and wealth.30 As late as 1954, Khrushchev echoed the same refrain which is inherent in Communist dogma *** the invincible law of capitalism is the law of the impoverishment of the proletariat and the ruin of the peasants.31 Marx went on to emphasize that the lot of the workers was so miserable under capitalism that they possessed no property and therefore had everything to gain by revolution. Here are the words of Marx: The proletarian has no property nothing of their own to safeguard nothing to lose but their chains.32 * * Proletarians have To test the scientific validity of these assumptions we have compiled the most recent available data concerning average annual weekly earnings of production workers, automobile and property ownership in the United States, the foremost capitalist country and the chief current target of Communist criticism. These figures show that the index of average annual weekly earnings of production workers in the United States has increased from 39.9 (using 1926 figures as 100) in 1909 to 407.6 in 1963. Automobile ownership has increased 37.0 percent from 1949 to 1962, while the number of families has increased 28.5 percent in the same period. Home ownership has increased from 47.8 percent of the total of occupied dwellings in 1890 to 61.9 percent in 1960. 28" Marx-Engels Selected Correspondence," International Publishers, New York, 1936, p. 472, quoted in a letter from Friedrich Engels to Conrad Schmidt, dated Aug. 5, 1890. V. I. Lenin, "Collected Works," Moscow, vol. XII, pp. 378-379. 20 The Communist Manifesto," by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Publishers, New York, 1930), p. 41. 31 Nikita 8. Khrushchev, speech Feb. 23, 1954; Tass, Mar. 20, 1954. Written in 1847 (International 22 The Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Written in 1847 (International Publishers, New York, 1930), pp. 39, 40, 68. Index of average annual weekly earnings of production workers: 1909–631 1 Percentages based on average annual weekly earnings shown in the following table. Employees on manufacturing payrolls, total, number of production workers, and production-worker annual average weekly earnings, 1909–63 Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment and earnings statistics for the United States. 1909-62. Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1963, pp. 32-34 (Bulletin No. 1312-1), and monthly report on the labor force, January 1964, pp. 52–53. Average gross weekly earnings (including overtime) in constant and current prices in manufacturing industries: 1939 to 1963 1 Economic Report of the President, January 1964. Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964 (88th Cong., 2d sess., H. Doc. 278), p. 243. Estimates in current prices divided by the consumer price index on a 1964 base (using 11-month average). • Preliminary. NOTE.-Data relate to production workers and for pay period ending nearest the 15th of the month. The annual figures for 1963 are simple arithmetic averages of the monthly figures shown and are not strictly comparable with the averages for earlier years, which have been weighted by data on man-hours. Data for Alaska and Hawaii included beginning January 1959. Source: U.S. Department of Labor. Automobile ownership in the United States, 1949 to 1962 1 1 Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1957, p. 555; 1962, p. 565; 1963, p. 570. According to the roseate promises of Communist doctrinaires, the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of a Communist system of society meant the wiping out of exploitation of man by man. Marx put it: The proletarians cannot become masters of the productive forces of society, except by abolishing their own previous |