A few days ago I read a report from one of our eastern offices about a currently operating Communist party front—about how it is collecting money, distributing literature, subtly undermining our democratic way of life. As I saw the machinations of the party, enticing unsuspecting Americans into its devious network, I could not help thinking about a statement I had recently read: “In modern times the death of democracy is, more often than not, camouflaged suicide.”
This is our danger today. Communism has been able to make inroads into our country not so much because of its inherent strength but because of our weaknesses; not because of its superiority but because of our failure to understand its chicanery and deceit. The penalty for such a failure can be nothing but national suicide, all the more tragic since it is a camouflaged suicide.
Let us make no mistake. Communism is an aggressive, dynamic, assertive ideology, claiming to offer, in the words of one of its textbooks, “an integral world outlook, the most progressive outlook of our time” (Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism, a Communist textbook published in Moscow). No man can deny the demonic power of Communism—its lethal wizardry in inciting men to fanaticism, dedication, and allegiance to an ideal, false as that ideal may be; its admitted ability to break down the sinews of civilized nations; its monstrous intention to rewrite all of history in its own self-proclaimed dialectical patterns. Never must we forget that in barely a generation this false religion has swept through one-third of the world’s population and one-quarter of the earth’s land surface.
Yet despite this tremendous energy and this monstrous capacity to enslave men’s minds, hearts, and souls, Communism is inherently weak when compared with the explosive power of man’s urge to be free. This basic fact Americans so often overlook—that it is in the faith of our fathers, a trust in God, and a belief in the dignity of man that the real revolutionary power of history arises; and that it is this power that over the centuries has ripped apart tyrannies, overthrown dictators, and humbled the idolatrous.
By neglecting our spiritual heritage, by succumbing to apathy and unconcern, we are endowing the enemy with a strength he does not possess and could never hope to secure from his own inner being. As I read the FBI report on my desk and saw how some Americans were donating money to the Communist front, supporting its program and spreading its propaganda without taking the time to examine what the group’s true objectives were, I thought again: “Look how we are opening the gates of our nation to the Marxist wolf, giving him an entree he could never have achieved on his own merits.”
Truly one of the striking phenomena of our age is the failure of so many men of good will to trust the historic values of our Western civilization and to believe that freedom is the best way to solve the problems of man and bring in a better world for all. Far too many Americans today are uninformed about the history of their country and the principles of free government. They are victimized by the lure of false panaceas. The glib talk of a Communist front is mistaken as an authentic effort to improve society. Some, caught in the deadly snare of Communist influence, become party members.
A Course In Disillusionment
The real tragedy of Communism can be seen in the tortured testimony of men and women who have passed through the Iron Curtain and have eaten of the Communist manna, have sampled the wares of the Marxist table, have lived in the Communist household, and have then returned to their heritage of freedom. These men and women—and there are thousands of them in the United States—testify to the eerie darkness of the Communist world, the stultifying of independent thought, the shackling of human love, the inculcation of a materialistic discipline that chains reason and dries up the true emotions of the heart.
“Basically, my break with Communism can’t be adduced to one factor alone,” wrote one ex-Communist. “If it is desired to put the answer in a nutshell, it is the contradiction between the shining beauty of the theory of Communism and what it is in practice as a bestial, corrupt, retrogressive way of life, as a system of government of false morality, perverted ethics, wasteful economy, and politics of horror and torture for the working people.”
I am convinced that deep down in the hearts of many in the Communist movement, even in the hard-core, fanatical members, there still flickers a flame of freedom even though they themselves do not realize it. This flame is the eternal striving of man to be free, to have dignity and respect, to be regarded as a human being. I further believe that despite Communist discipline and indoctrination, this flame can never be permanently extinguished. Why? Because of the image of God in every human being.
The current intensive campaign inside the Soviet Union to throttle the free expression of writers is indicative of the scope of this problem even in the nation where Communism has already been in state power for more than a generation. “An impassioned struggle for the triumph of the most humane and just society on earth—Communism—is the principal mission of literature and art in our day,” proclaimed L. F. Ilyichev, secretary of the Party’s Central Committee. “The truly Soviet artist or writer,” he said, “… is asked to have keen eyes for and to help consolidate by all available means … those new, growing, Communist features that express the very essence of our life as it develops.” In other words, the writer in Communism is the handmaiden of the state, its tool in propagandizing the masses, its weapon in the struggle to create a Communist culture.
The Need To Dream
But this party intention runs counter to the inner flame of freedom. “Some great thinker once said that man is an animal with a capacity for dreaming,” wrote Yevgeny Yevtushenko, one of the Soviet poets severely censured by Mr. Khrushchev. Then Yevtushenko adds these significant words: “There are men whose lives confirm only the first part of this proposition. Yet if we look into their hearts we find that, although they have no lofty dreams, there are dreams nevertheless, for man has a need to dream.”
“For man has a need to dream.” This is the free human spirit at work. George Washington struggling at Valley Forge, Thomas Jefferson penning the Declaration of Independence, the colonial patriots wrestling with a new Constitution—all dreamed, dreamed of a new nation that would be free, strong, and obedient to God. In their dreams they found strength and the faith that enabled them to endure suffering, hardship, and discouragement.
This is the spiritual nature of man. It is that aspect of his existence which causes him to rebel eternally against tyranny, to fight desperately any effort to shackle his heart, mind, and soul. This is the need of man, as a child of God, to ask questions about life, to think for himself, to mold his own inner destiny. This is the demand for man to be himself, thereby giving Communism an obstacle that it will never be able to conquer.
Here, in a belief in the power of freedom, lies the strength of America. This is the faith of our fathers, a faith that liberates the energy, vision, and dreams of our people. We need to rededicate ourselves to this faith, to know more about our history and the spirit of freedom.
Freedom as a way of life is not antiquated. In fact, it has as never before meaning and significance for our lives. As Americans, we should learn to trust God, to know his teachings, and to live in his ways. Before the eternal majesty of God, the Utopian promises of Communism pale as the murky shadows before the blazing sun.
Let us not allow Communism to gain a strength it does not deserve. Let us place our hope in the only faith that can move men to the most noble purposes in life, the faith of our fathers.
J. Edgar Hoover has been director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation since 1924. He holds the LL.B. and LL.M. degrees from George Washington University and many honorary degrees from other universities.
