IN PRECEDING CHAPTERS I have briefly outlined the history and internal structure of the Communist Party, USA. Now we must consider the Party’s attack against noncommunist society in the United States.
The Communist Party, USA, is a weapon of attack, not only for the day of revolution but for now. To Party leaders each day is a day of preparation and dress rehearsal for the day when they hope to come to power. Noncommunist ranks must be infiltrated, penetrated, and subverted. The success of the communist mission depends on capturing the enemy’s stronghold from within.
To this end the Party employs a variety of mass-agitation techniques. The communist is in the market places of America: in organizations, on street corners, even at your front door. He is trying to influence and control your thoughts. Mass agitation weakens the noncommunist enemy and builds Party structure.
Communists conceive of their attack against capitalist society in terms of warfare. They see the Party as the “vanguard,” leading the proletariat in battle against the bourgeoisie. Periods of offense and defense, attacks and retreats, skirmishes, even pitched battles and casualties are demanded. They realize that victory can be achieved only by force and violence.
This warlike character of communist policy is reflected in Party expressions such as “strongholds of reaction,” “mobilizing the masses,” “advanced detachments of the proletariat,” “storming the fortress of capitalism,” “seizing the initiative.” Basic battle plans are conceived in terms of strategy and tactics.
The ultimate aim of the Communist Party is the establishment of a Soviet America. For more than a generation, never for a moment have American communists forgotten their allegiance to the Soviet Union. This is the ultimate strategy of the Communist Party, USA.
Party leaders realize, however, that they are a minority. They simply cannot march straight to victory. For that reason the approach (tactics) must be varied, flexible, and constantly subject to change.
To communists, strategy means the determining and carrying out of long-range goals (such as winning a war), whereas tactics are the working out of strategy on a day-to-day basis (winning particular battles and engagements). “Tactics,” Stalin said, “are a part of strategy, subordinate and subservient to it.”
To achieve the long-range goal, retreats and maneuvers sometimes are necessary. Is it not like climbing an unexplored mountain? asks Lenin. How can we “renounce beforehand the idea that at times we might have to go in zigzags, sometimes retracing our steps, sometimes abandoning the course once selected and trying various others?”
That explains the communist phrase, “strategic retreat.” It means: Don’t be afraid to take two steps backward today if it will help to achieve three steps forward tomorrow.
Keep the goal always in mind, teach the communists; remember that the enemy is superior in numbers, better armed, more experienced. Moreover, communists must be willing to endure hardships. Lenin urged: “. . . if you are not inclined to crawl in the mud on your belly, you are not a revolutionary but a chatterbox. . . .” Fight hard and be disciplined, “carefully, attentively and skilfully taking advantage of every, even the smallest ‘fissure’ among the enemies. . . .” Seize “every, even the smallest opportunity of gaining a mass ally, even though this ally be temporary, vacillating, unstable, unreliable and conditional.” And “Those who do not understand this fail to understand even a grain of Marxism . . .”
Use anything to advance the ultimate goal: offensive and defensive tactics, legal and illegal, long-and short-range policies. All are part of the over-all battle plan.
Don’t allow the Party to advance too rapidly. Stop, consolidate, maintain contact with the masses. “. . . an advance without consolidating the positions already captured is an advance doomed to failure.” Likewise, never make a permanent truce with the enemy. Don’t be trapped by his lures, bribes, and promises. Cooperation or collaboration with non-communists must never be more than a “tactic.” It must have as its actual long-range goal the weakening and discrediting of democracy and its eventual destruction. The task of the revolutionary leader is to gauge the comparative strength of the proletariat and (he bourgeoisie and decide what particular tactics are then most likely to promote revolution.
Communists employ various tactics in devising methods to inject themselves into various phases of American life. Their obligation to defend the interests of the Soviet Union dictates their tactics in seeking to obstruct and undermine public confidence in our foreign policy. Thus, seizing upon the inherent desire of all Americans to reduce taxes, the Daily Worker editorializes that foreign aid should be curtailed and billions should not be taken “out of our pockets for a new phony ‘emergency’. . . . The huge seventy-billion a year ‘defense’ budget is rushing America to inflation, and economic crisis.” Actually, communists would like to develop an economic crisis.
Then they urge the development of a peacetime economy by advocating trade between the United States and Russia because Russia would benefit. Political Affairs thus urges, “The only remaining untapped market for U. S. goods is the Soviet Union,
China and the Peoples’ Democracies, in which the threat of crises of overproduction has been removed forever . . .”
In seeking to curry favor with labor, communists employ tactics of calling for immediate demands such as higher wages, a shorter work week, increased vacations, and an abolition of the high cost of living. To that end a communist labor tactician calls for putting “. . . ideological differences aside in order to work together in behalf of a single immediate objective or a number of immediate objectives. . . . the unions must work together. . . .”
The immediate demand tactics are also employed by the communists to find favor with Negroes by urging the abolition of “Jim Crow Laws,” “full representation,” and “the fight for Negro rights.” The controversy on integration has given the communists a field day.
They also have a program “. . . to stimulate broad united-front actions in the rural communities in defense of the economic interests of the farming masses”; “to weld youth unity”; and to “work still harder” for mothers.
A primary tactic of the Communist Party is to preserve the legal status of the Party. Thus, any organization which has the duty to investigate or expose communist activity is singled out for attack. For years the Party has campaigned against the House Committee on Un-American Activities, the Senate Internal Security Sub-Committee, and the Senate Investigating Committee. The Department of Justice and the FBI have not been spared, and we have come to judge our effectiveness by the intensity of communist attacks.
The Red Fascists have long followed the practice of making full use of democratic liberties: elections, lawful agitation and propaganda, and free speech, press, and assembly. Their basic premise: Reap every advantage possible. However, if it will help, don’t hesitate to use illegal methods, such as underground operations, terrorism, espionage, sabotage, lying, cheating. “We have never rejected terror on principle, nor can we do so. Terror is a form of military operation that may be usefully applied. . . .” wrote Lenin. Morality is strictly a bourgeois device. To the communists everything that promotes the revolution is moral, legal, and beautiful.
Many people are confused by the Party’s abrupt twists and turns, such as denouncing the United States as an “imperialist” nation from 1939 to 1941, then overnight, after Russia’s entrance into the war, hailing America as a great ally. Communists often look like frightened rabbits chasing back and forth. But in reality these “changes in the Party line” are merely shifting tactics, all designed to promote the ultimate goal of world revolution. They are not changes in heart.
The Communist Party, USA, has been and is engaged in an all-out war against American freedom. Its tactics of confusion, retreat, advance, infiltration, and hypocrisy are in full play. The attack is both legal and illegal, offensive and defensive, open and concealed.
Above the surface a gigantic propaganda and agitation campaign is in progress, a campaign that depends for success upon the support of non-communists. Basic communist strategy dictates that noncommunist hands, knowingly or unknowingly, under communist guidance, must further the influence of the communist world.
To understand communist strategy and tactics, as designed to destroy American democracy, we must first observe aboveground communist operations: mass-agitation campaigns, infiltration techniques, and Party fronts; then in Part VI we will consider the underground organization.