"Around the world there is a steady upsurge in demands for freedom, independence, and economic betterment--demands with which we sympathize and which we support. In no sense do these demands suggest a forthcoming victory for communism but rather a victory for freedom and democracy . . ." 1
----Andrew H. Berding, U.S. State Department
The Question arises:
Are the Communists putting into effect Lenin's and Stalin's theories on "the national and colonial questions? Or have these theories remained unrealized--nothing but the psychotic desires of a band of thugs? We know what the Communists have wanted to do; now how can we be sure that they are actually doing it?
Let us make a historical survey, examining several recent national and colonial revolutions--and in each instance trying to answer two questions: What is supposed to have happened? What actually happened?
CHINA
And let us begin with the case of China. You will recall that for several years before the Communists captured that country, many people warned that Mao Tse-Tung and his fellow Communists were Communists--and that they were, and were eagerly, everything a Communist is. You will recall further, of course, that these people were either ignored, denounced, pitied or urged to report for immediate psychiatric treatment. Sure, Mao was a Communist--he said so himself--but he wasn't a bad Communist like Joe Stalin--who wasn't a bad Communist, either, until the end of the Second World War.
Mao was a good Communist. Granted, he made some mistakes in economics and probably had bad manners. But what he was doing was good for China and the world. He was fighting "corruption" and "colonialism." Indeed, he was struggling to "end colonialism" in China.
So, criticism of Mao and concern over his Communist beliefs and background were considered to be symptoms of political paranoia.
"We are confronted with this almost incredible fact," writes Dr. Fred Schwarz:
The Chinese Communist leader, Mao Tse-tung, was writing such statements as this: "I am a Stalinist, Stalin is my leader. The Chinese Communist Party is a portion of the international proletarian party." "The Chinese revolution is a portion of the international proletarian revolution to destroy imperialism." While he was writing statements of this nature in English, available to anyone, the Information and Education section of the United States Army circularized the troops telling them that the Chinese Communists were not Communists at all. They were really "agrarian reformers." They had no connection with Soviet Russia; they were democrats as we were, and the Communist conquest in China posed no threat to American sovereignty and security. 2
This statement has about it the odor of "wild charges," and Dr. Schwarz is of course a "right-wing extremist." So let us turn to the pages of the New York Times:
One point which Mao Tse-tung and most other Communist leaders stress is that neither have they an alliance with the Soviets nor do they hope to impose on China the proletarian dictatorship set up in Moscow by the Bolsheviks in 1917. They admit a great friendship for Soviet Russia. They point out that Russia was their only friend abroad for many years. But they believe a different system is needed in China, a revolution based on land reform, a Government built on peasant foundations. Because China is industrially backward, they favor encouragement of investment in industry--but from Chinese, not foreign sources. They differ from the Bolsheviks, too, in proposing a coalition government of all democratic elements, and not one party rule . . .
Most Americans who have visited Red China are accused of arriving at their judgements according to previously held prejudices. None denies, however, that in Communist China they have found matters of law and order, public health, equitable distribution of food and wealth, and other operations of Government carried out with greater earnestness and success than elsewhere in China or in most of Asia. . .
There is one thing that seems sure: the civil war is neither of their making nor to their liking. . .
Another certainty is that the idea they represent, the hope they hold for the landless, overtaxed Chinese peasant, is not one that can be destroyed by force. . .
. . . there is no ground for the belief that Communism can be eliminated from China in a military campaign. . . (3)
So it's obvious, isn't it, that the planners in the State Department, and the thinkers in the New York Times, made a mistake. Somebody, somewhere, was wrong.
For as we read among many other places in Joseph C. Grew's Invasion Alert!, when Comrade Mao had been in power only a few years--he had already murdered twenty million of his fellow Chinese:
The appaling figures on murders committed by the Peiping Communist government are neither propaganda, exaggerations nor guesses. Since the Communists drove Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists off the mainland in 1949, official accounts in Red newspapers have listed the executions of millions of Chinese. . .
. . . The real total of Chinese deaths administered by Peiping probably would total a great deal more than the estimates. Few Chinese marked for death by Peiping had a chance to escape their executioners. The Communists masked their real intentions with a deceptively mild, restrained and orderly entry to power.(4) (Italics added)
And less than a year later, in June 1950, the Reds began the Korean War - in which Chinese Communist troops killed and imprisoned American husbands, brothers, fathers and sons. In fact, a this moment [1965] in South Vietnam, American servicemen are being killed and imprisoned by Communist troops supplied and encouraged, and probably trained, by this same Mao who was recommended by the New York Times.
No doubt you have already remembered that a sizable portion of our foreign policy today is based on the fact that Mao isn't really nice, which is why we must take the side of the Russians, who have recently "mellowed" and become agrarian reformers - according the the New York Times.
It becomes obvious that somehow, for some reason, you were fooled. But it isn't very funny especially if your husband, brother, father or son got the joke. It is not the province of this book to ask who played this trick or how. All we want to establish here is that in the case of China at least, the trick was played.
CUBA
The strange case of Fidel Castro has already become a legendary tale in the annals of reporting. You will recall that Castro was constructively engaged in destroying "oppression" and "imperialism" represented by Fulgencio Bastista, whose corruption was probably equal to that found in the mayors' offices of certain large american cities. Castro saind nothing about "Yankee imperialism." He said nothing about "national liberation." All he was doing was fighting for clean government - like George Washington.
There was even a rumor that Castro was some sort of agrarian reformer.
But it happened that even before Castro captured Cuba, the same people in the United States who had been correct about Mao - and many more - began to hint that Castro did not entirely agree with George Washington. They even charged that his motives smacked of something sinister.
The bearded beast soon struck back. According to the front page of the New York Times for April 18, 1959:
Premier Fidel Castro of Cuba denied today charges of Communist influence in his regime. In a speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors he asserted: 'I have said very clearly that we are not Communists,'
He further declared that "our revolution is a humanistic one"; what he was trying to do, said the Times, was to develop industry and to end unemployment."
In an editorial later, the Times made it clear that as far as it was concerned Castro was in the clear:
He made it quite clear that neither he nor anyone of importance in his Government so far as he knew was Communist or in agreement with communism . . . (5)
That should have done it. But it didn't. So one month later, on May 23, 1959, on the front page, the Times recorded the following details:
Extremists have no place in the Cuban revolution, Premier Fidel Castro said in a television interview early this morning.
Asked whether the "extremists" he referred to were Communists, the Premier said, "Perhaps there is much coincidence in this."
And of course, if you're against "extremists," you're probably okay, aren't you?
Later on in the same story, and perhaps to reassure the initiate, there appeared the following sentence:
In the same broadcast the Premier dashed hopes of United States sugar interests to save their properties from seizure under the new land reform law.
That's agrarian reform, of course.
In an editorial in the same issue, the Times reported itself officially encouraged:
It is encouraging to see Premier Fidel Castro of Cuba facing up to the Communists as he did in his television interview on Thursday night.
. . . The aims of the Cuban Reds, with their links to Moscow and their totalitarian philosophy, were bound to be contrary, in the long run, to the aims of the 26th of July movement, which fought for democracy, freedom, social justice and - rather unhappily - for an extreme nationalism. (6)
But still the attacks went on. Many people in the United States insisted that the evidence showed Castro to be a Communist, and, as you recall, these people were denounced for their pains.
And then, on July 1, 1959, the Timesreported that the chief of Cuba's air force had resigned, "charging there was Communist infuence in the armed forces and Government. . ." (7)
In its issue for July 15, 1959, the Times reported this man's testimony:
The former head of the Cuban Air Force testified today [July 14] that Premier Fidel Castro was the chief Communist in Cuba and a member of the international Communist conspiracy. . .
Maj. Pedro Luis Diaz Lanz told the Senate Internal Security subcommittee he was convinced that Dr. Castro was determined to impose an all-out Communist regime upon his country. . .
Major Diaz said he was convinced Dr. Castro was a Communist because of "many facts" including things the Premier had said to him about getting rid of the banks, taking land from "everybody" and giving Cuba "a system like Russia has." (8)
This was strong stuff. Major Diaz was not an American "right-wing extremist." He had been there and seen it. Something more would have to be said than the usual comment that Major Diaz should see a psychiatrist.
It was a day of much activity at the New York Times. Apparently a cable was sent - to Havana, of all places. For on the very next day, July 16, 1959, and of course on the front page, readers were treated to an amazing coincidence, a story datelined Havana, written by Herbert L. Matthews:
This is not a Communist revolution in any sense of the word and there are no Communists in positions of control. This is the overwhelming consensus among Cubans in the best position to kow and this writer subscribes to that opinion after searching inquiries and talks with Cubans in all walks of life and with many Americans.
The accusations of the former head of the Cuban Air Force, Maj. Pedro Luis Diaz Lanz, before the United States Senate Internal Security Subcommittee yesterday are rejected by virtually all Cubans. It is stated here that before his resignation Major Diaz was removed . . . for incompetence, extravagance and nepotism. . .
There seem to be very few in Cuba - and one need have no hesitation in saying this - who believe Fidel Castro is a Communist, is under Communist influence or is a dupe of communism. The problem of communism, which aroused little interest in Cuba until Americans picked it up, can be easily summarized. The point of view among the most experienced and knowledgeable Cubans is as follows:
There are no Reds in the Cabinet and none in high positions in the Government or army in the sense of being able to control either governmental or defense policies. The only power worth considering in Cuba is in the hands of Premier Castro, who is not only not Communist but decidedly anti-Communist, even though he does not consider it desirable in the present circumstances to attack or destroy the Reds - as he is in a position to do any time he wants. . .
Even the agrarian reform, Cubans point out with irony, is not at all what the Communists were suggesting, for it is far more radical and drastic than the Reds consider wise as a first step to the collectivization they, but not the Cuban leaders, want. . .
Premier Castro is avoiding elections in Cuba for two reasons. He feels that his social revolution now has dynamism and vast popular consent, and he does not want to interrupt the process. Moreover, most observers would agree that Cubans today do not want elections. The reason is that elections in the past have merely meant to them the coming of corrupt politicians seeking the spoils of power.
It was a mighty day of work. Premier Castro himself polished it off on page two of the issue of July 28, 1959:
Premier Fidel Castro likened himself to the late President Roosevelt as a victim of attacks by "trusts and monopolies" against social reform.
We are being attacked by the same interests that attacked Roosevelt," Dr. Castro declared. . .
So great is Dr. Castro's preoccupation with unfavorable comment in the United States - he says the comment if "fabricated from lies" - that it apparently has colored his views on relations with the United States.
The Times reported the alarming news that Castro seemed to resent, "greatly resent," the open Senate hearings recently held for Major Diaz.
On the same page of the same newspaper--in fact in the same story--there appeared the following information--there appeared the following information:
Dr. Castro said at the news conference that United States owners of sugar land and cattle ranches, as well as other landowners in Cuba, must accept the twenty-year bonds that the Cuban government had offered in compensation for expropriated land.
Dr. Castro . . . was emphatic in declaring that Cuba had no dollars to pay for the land, which is being expropriated under the new Agrarian Reform Law.
And of course, in an editorial on page twenty-six of the same issue, the Times warned that a little agrarian reform should not provoke anti-Castro reactions:
The basic problems, in the long run, are going to lie in the fact that Cuba is beginning a social revolution of a drastic nature. This has already hurt some American interests and shocked many Americans who, in our day, find it difficult to believe that revolution are not necessarily communistic . . .
On December 2, 1961, while such Americans, in growing numbers, were still being shocked--and ignored, ridiculed, vilified and abused--Castro announced that he was forming:
a "united party of Cuba's Socialist revolution," a monolithic organization like the Soviet Communist party with restricted membership.
[He] acknowledged that he was a Marxist-Leninist and said that he was taking Cuba down the path to communism. He maintained that the world, too, "is on the road toward communism." . . .
"I am a Marxist-Leninist and will be one until the day I die," Dr. Castro declared in a nation-wide television speech that began about midnight . . .
Castro added that by 1953, three years before his invasion of Cuba, his political thinking "was more or less like what it is now." (9)
Washington's collective jaw fell slack and there was trouble up at the Times.
Something, somewhere, had gone wrong--again.
Herbert L Matthews? Since his days in Havana as a reporter, he has been promoted to the editorial board of the New York Times.
Algeria
Let us turn to the case of Algeria. For here we observe the textbook application of the Communist theory of "self-determination." The story, you will recall, went as follows: Algeria contained nine million Moslem slaves, and one million French colonialists. The Moslems were innocent and defenseless, and were being brutalized by the vicious colonialists. This gave the Moslems psychological problems. They felt offended in the "national integrity." For it happened, you see, that they were a "nation."
Well of course, you can't have nine million people with psychological problems, so it was necessary for this "historic nation" to "reassert its national pride," and to do this it was necessary to secede.
No nation had ever existed in the area known as Algeria, of course. And no citizen of any nation had ever been born. Algeria was not a colony or a possession, but an integral part of France, more closely related to Paris than Hawaii is related to Washington.
But as you will remember, General de Gaulle decided to hold a referendum to see whether the Algerian nation desired to secede.
Self-determination means "only the right of independence in a political sense, the right to free political secession from the oppressing nation. Concretely, this political, democratic demand implies complete freedom to carry on agitation in favor of secession and freedom to settle the question by means of a referendum of the nation that desires to secede." (10) V. I. Lenin
And would you believe it--the Algerian nation did desire to secede.
It developed however that a small band of psychotic Americans began to make the amazing charge that Ahmed Ben Bella, "historic chief" of the revolution, was actually, and had always been a Communist!
It was another piece of extremism, of course. The strongest evidence they had was a photograph of Ben Bella taken by the Algerian police just before they locked him up for doing nothing more than killing an annoying woman during the course of an armed robbery designed to finance humanitarian political work.
"From this it is likewise apparent that the party leaders also intended [in Indonesia in 1926] to enlist criminals in the illegal groups. That this was a means of propaganda recommended by the Communist International is confirmed not only by passages quoted above from the statutes and conditions for admission into the Communist International, but also by what the press reported early in 1924 concerning revolutionary activities in Bengal following the attempted murder of the head of the Sakanritolla post office. It then came to light that political clubs had been formed there with the aim of committing murders and driving the Europeans out of the country; the clubs planned first to organize large-scale robberies in order to accumulate the necessary funds to carry out the plan . . ."(11)
In 1963, we read in U.S. News & World Report:
Cuba dispatched three shiploads of arms to Algeria during Algeria's border fight with Morocco. With them went Algerian military men who had been training in Cuba.
It is now believed that Fidel Castro is collaborating closely with Algeria's President Ben Bella in sponsoring and aiding African guerillas. (12)
On Monday, March 30, 1964, the State Department handed a report on the world situation to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in which was contained the charge that Algeria was a nation increasingly "marked by pro-Communist influence." (13)
The Algerians at once struck back: "Such a statement," said a foreign ministry spokesman, "serves no one but the Communists, who will surely make the most of it." (14)
It was in an editorial on April 23,(15) that the Times condescended to notice the situation. The Timessaw
a serious State Department blunder in its recent public warning against dangerous Communist influence in Algiers. The warning, in a report to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, provided grist for Communist propaganda mills and has noticeably cooled Algerian-American relations.
There are two mysteries about the report. The first is why the State Department should have permitted such remarks to be published, as they seemed almost designed to insure ill will.
The more important mystery is why such a misleading comment on the Algerian political situation should have appeared in any State Department report, public or private.
It is true that there are some pro-Communist French and Algerian intellectuals in the press, the radio and the student associations of Algeria. It is true that Premier Ben Bella has criticized "capitalists" and praised Fidel Castro. It is true that Algeria has obtained credits of $100 million from Moscow and $50 million from Peking.
But this apparently is not significant.
. . . similar remarks might be made about a score of other new nations the world around which equate their independence with neutralism and a native brand of socialism.
And this is not significant either.
Far more important facts are that Premier Ben Bella, though very much a dictator, is not a Communist. . . the State Department's published analysis of the Algerian situation is wrong. Its policy, which has ignored that analysis, is right.
One week later, on May 1--May Day--at a dinner in Moscow, Ben Bella was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union:
The Algerian leader is known to be an ardent admirer of Premier Fidel Castro. Significantly, Mr. Kruschchev in his speech hailed the close relations between Algeria and Cuba as well as the friendship between Algeria and the Soviet Union.(16)
Jaws fell slack again.
Because Ben Bella, who is being kept in power by American aid, and who has been invited to the White House by the American President at the expense of the American taxpayer, is most certainly a Communist.
It was another mistake at the New York Times.
But Ben Bella kept his oar in. He just loves those Yankee dollars: "President Ahmed Ben Bella assured Algeria's Moslem traditionalists in a speech today that his 'Socialism' was not heading toward atheistic Communism."
Ben Bella declared: "we solemnly reply here that our Socialism stems from Islam. We repeat before world opinion that we are not Communist."(17)
"Tanzania"
At this point you may already be convinced. But with your permission, let's push on just a bit further. For it is necessary to make this point once and for all.
Let's push south into East Africa. You will recall that on January 12, 1964, the government of Zanzibar was captured by a Communist coup in which more than eighty were killed, five hundred injured, and many more stores and homes were looted.(18)
The revolution in Zanzibar, says U.S. News & World Report, worked like this:
Furthermore, Cuban-trained guerillas often are reinforced by agents trained in Russia or Red China.
In Zanzibar, for instance, 20 or so persons trained in Cuba reportedly formed the hard core of armed men who overthrew the pro-Western Government. They had been sent to Cuba, after January, 1962, by Sheik Abdul Rahman Mohammed Babu--a paid agent of Red China who now is foreign minister of Zanzibar's Marxist Government.
Africans who have been or are being trained in Cuba are expected to play leading roles when all-out guerilla warfare is launced against Portugese rule in Angola and Mozambique. They may also be sent into white-ruled South Africa on trouble-making missions.(19)
Not long after, Julius Nyerere, the president of Tanganyika, decided to merge his country with the new Zanzibari Communist state. The New York Times decided to sell the idea that the merger was designed to prevent communism:
. . . President Nyerere was understood to have felt that armed African intervention might be the only means of preventing Zanzibar from becoming the "Cuba of Africa." He was deeply concerned about increasing penetration from the Soviet Union, Communist China and their allies.
Sheik Abdul Rahman Mohammed, who is described as "an advocate of Peking's theory of violent revolution," is out as minister for external affairs. ". . . His place in the United Cabinet is occupied by a Tanganyikan, Ali Mogne Halona-Tambwe."(20)
So Nyerere sounds really nasty, doesn't he--like a Tanganyikan version of Barry Goldwater.
And as we learn from Mr. C. L. Sulzberger on page thirty-four of the same issue, this "non-Communist" Tanganyikan shouldn't stop worrying: "A Chinese-tinged revolution that seized Zanzibar has managed to retain power despite the island's union with non-Communist Tanganyika. . ."
This was the situation on October 19, 1964, when we turned to page nine of our copy of the Times:
Details have been disclosed here [in Dar Es Salaam, Tanganyika] of an offensive to free the East African territory of Mozambique from Portuguese rule.
The details were reported this weekend by Oscar Kambona, Foreign Minister of the Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, speaking as chairman of the African Liberation Committee.
A high official of the "Mozambique liberation movement" said the offensive began September 24.
The freedom fighters were trained mainly in Algeria, and some were trained in the United Arab Republic and elsewhere in Africa, the official said. He refused to confirm or deny that the nationalists were using arms of Soviet origin.
According to Mr. Kambona--who is the foreign minister of Tanganyika--the offensive is "a forceful assertion of the right to self-determination. . . "
"Mozambique's largest rebel group claims 9,000 members, including 500 guerilla fighters training in Tanganyika." [Italics added]
In fact, as we have just seen, U.S. News has said that Africans who are "expected to play leading roles" in guerilla warfare in Mozambique from a base in Tanganyika with the blessings of the Tanganyikan government.
So, Communist troops trained in Communist Algeria and Communist Cuba are now conducting a Communist "revolution" in Mozambique from a base in Tanganyika with the blessings of the Tanganyikan government.
On November 5, 1964, the Times reported that President Nyerere had announced a cabinet revision: "Sheik Abdul Rahman Mohammed, the former Minister of State in the Directorate of Development and Planning, was appointed Minister of Cooperatives and Commerce. . ."(21)
Abdul, according to the Times, is "an advocate of Peking's theory of violent revolution."
It looks as if the New York Times has made another mistake. Once again the Communists have captured a country under the cloak of "anti-colonialism"--this time Tanganyika--and the Times has told you nothing about it.
Ghana
You will recall that not long ago, a furor broke out among Washington humanitarians when a Ghanaian exile had the temerity to charge that his country had become in effect a Communist state. Choosing at random from the New York Times, we find:
All university students, most new Ghanaian Ambassadors and many senior civil servants must undergo indoctrination at the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute.
. . .The bitterest anti-American campaign to date has started. The United States is no longer termed "neocolonialist" but "Faschist-imperialist."
The institute, at Winneba, is charged with spreading the precepts of "Nkrumahism." More than half of its staff is from countries in the Communist bloc.(22)
In fact, we read in a pamphlet by Ghanaian exile K. A. Busia:
. . . is it not also revealing that Nkrumah, who has been screaming so loudly about neo-colonialism, should be making Ghana more and more dependent on Soviet Russia? By means of a series of agreements and commericial transactions, and the employment of hordes of Russian experts, maintained at fantastic cost, the economy of Ghana is being increasingly tied to the Soviet Union, and whilst the Soviet Union always gains, Ghana is always the loser in these cunning transactions . . .(23)
Kenya
Remember Jomo Kenyatta, now prime minister of Kenya, and the leader of the Mau Mau--a gang which murdered both blacks and whites in a campaign to encourage European colonialists to leave the country? Of course he did have one bad habit: He enjoyed killing people.
Now it turns out that he "retains in his Cabinet two ardent advocates of China. . ."(24)
In fact, on December 12, 1964, in what the Times described as his "first official act," Kenyatta opened a
Soviet-sponsored political training center. . . in memory of Patrice Lumumba. . . The institute also intends to help African nationalist organizations in other countries to train what are termed militant "cadres."
. . . Moscow's share of the costs was understood to amount to $84,000
. . . The Soviet Union was said to be prepared to provide two professors for the institute which is surrounded by a barbed-wire fence seven feet high.(25)
Moreover, we read in a recent British government publication:
To return to Jomo Kenyatta. . . he, with the help of Communist contacts, went to Russia in August, 1929, returning in October. . . he next joined the Communist Party and in 1930 attended the Communist Inspired International Negro Worker's Congress in Hamburg, proceeding to Berlin where he contacted leading Communists. . .(26)
He also had a full knowledge and understanding of the psychology of the Kikuyu and was able to blend the technique of revolution, undoubtedly learnt while he was in Russia, with an appeal to superstition and to the strong sense of tribal destiny which the Kikuyu possessed. In this way the Mau Mau gradually but inexorably assumed the character of a tribal religion, albeit a religion based on evil, which bore remarkable resemblence to the witchcraft and black majic practiced in Europe during the Middle Ages.(27)
Indonesia
Indonesia is the creature of the United States and her allies who helped the island empire acheive independence from Dutch rule in 1949. The cry of "colonialism" had been raised, and the Department of State did everything it could to bring about a separation of the Dutch from the island possessions.(28)
Since then, your government has supplied Sukarno with military training,(29) arms,(30) and almost a billion dollars of your money in "foreign aid."
Is Sukarno a Communist?
Well, Bernard H. M. Viekke describes him as a youth as follows:
Sukarno himself strongly leaned toward the Marxist concept of history and society. These views were rejected by many of the more mature nationalist leaders. It may be that Sukarno grew rather reckless in his exhortations to the people of Java to refuse cooperation with the Dutch "imperialist capitalists," he may have been embittered by the refusal of many other nationalist leaders to gather around him and to present a common front against the Dutch, in any case his speeches grew more and more incitatory and revolutionary. . .(31)
As long ago as 1947, Current Biography said:
At this time Soekarno's [the Dutch spelling] political philosophy was Marxist, an ideology that was apparently too extreme for the mass of Indonesians. When Soekarno's agitators were arrested by the Dutch authorities, Soekarno organized "fighting squads." For this action he was subsequently tried by a native tribunal and imprisioned in a Dutch concentration camp on the island of Flores. . .(32)
Hasan Muhammad Tiro, former head of research at the Indonesian embassy in Washington, said in 1955:
Since the Sastroamidjojo regime [Sukarno's prime minister] took over the Government more than a year-and-a-half-ago, no open criticism against the Communist party has been tolerated. Even the former Premier, Muhummad Natsir, Chairman of the Masjumi party, and Isa Anshary, prominent Moslem leader, were arraigned for interrogation by the Prosecutor General's office because of anti-Communist speeches they delivered on September 23, 1953. . .
Among those convicted and sentenced to jail in the Communist plot of 1946 were Iwa Kusumasumantri, a Moscow-trained Communist, and Mohamed Yamin. Soekarno not only pardoned these men, but appointed both of them to high office. Yamin is now Minister of Education, and Kusumasumantri is now Minister of Defense. It is beyond understanding how the Indonesian people can defend themselves against Soviet encroachment when their Defense Minister is a Communist party leader whose family, to this day, resides in Moscow.
Little consolation can be drawn from the backgrounds of other members of Sastroamidjojo's cabinet. Gondokusumo, the Minister of Justice, participated in the Budapest Peace Conference and . . . ousted the anti-Communist Chinese leaders from Indonesia. Minister of Labor Abidin participated in the Peking Peace Conference. . .(33)
Sukarno himself said after winning the Order of Lenin, "Thus, I am a Communist of the highest order."(34)
"I am Communist, religious and nationalist as well."(35)
"President Sukarno. . . said he prayed that Vietnam might soon be 'reunited in freedom' through the efforts of the Vietcong guerrillas."(36)
It is the Vietcong guerillas of course who are now killing American servicemen.
Well, what do you think? Is this another mistake? Is this why your government has given this man almost a billion dollars of your money?
Puerto Rico
Let's start getting closer to home. You will recall that there has recently been some trouble in Puerto Rico: "Nearly 1,000 high school and university students demonstrated outside the Capitol today," said the New York Times, "to protest alleged police brutality in repressing student disorders Wednesday night."(37)
What it is actually about, writes Victor Riesel, is as follows"
. . . there have been riots, burnings of cars, clashes with police, stonings of buildings and damage to the University of Puerto Rico. . .
This violence was forcast in this column last April. The street fighting broke out Oct. 28, when a band of "students" called for a demonstration against participation in the Nov. 3 election. The revolutionary hard core, numbering 60 trained men and women, soon merged into the melee as the demonstration grew and some 1,000 students fought the police.
[Riesel speaks of] the hard-core Puerto Rican revolutionists, some of whom were in Communist China earlier this year.
This peripatetic Puerto Rican group operated under the name "Puerto Rican University Students Federation for Independence."
Friends of the group also visited the Chinese--all expenses paid--also visited Cuba a few months later, and again all expenses were paid.
This is no hastily collected political potpourri. It is the youth infra-structure being setup by the Chinese Communists in the Western hemisphere, and those who don't view it seriously should remember those who first viewed Fidel Castro as simply an avant-garde refugee from a barber shop.(38)
Canada
Many Americans--and most Canadians--have wondered about the strange events now going on in Canada. A man has been killed, another seriously injured, and property destroyed, ostensibly as part of a campaign for the "national independence" of Quebec. Now of course, the idea that the good people of Quebec have developed the notion that they are some sort of nation, and that what they need is national independence, is about equivalent to a demand for secession from New York City by the people of Greenwich Village, and could be appreciated seriously only by the Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan, if those talented gentlemen were happily still in operation. The New York Times apparently takes the view that the whole thing is a bit mystifying, but is probably the work of a band of unruly collegians who like nothing better than placing bombs in mailboxes.
What is it actually all about? Let us turn to a man who knows, the late Leslie Morris, former head of the Canadian Communist party:
. . . there is a merging of a democratic anti-capitalist, anti-monopoly struggle with a national revolution in French Canada, spearheaded by a demand for self-determination up to and including secessionfrom the present federal union with English-speaking Canada.(39) (italics added)
And how did all this happen to come about?
. . . The impact of the national-liberation movements throughout the world, and particularly events in Cuba and the Negro liberation movement in the United States, have affected French Canadian public opinion.(40)
Andre Malraux also affected French Canadian public opinion:
The French Minister of Cultural Affairs, Andre Malraux, stunned this French Canadian city [Montreal] today with his allusion to Quebec's nationalist movement. Raising his trembling voice, he proclaimed: "France needs you! We will build the next civilization together."
. . . What surprised leaders of both the French-speaking and English-speaking communities of Montreal was the appeal to nationalist and separatist emotions contained in Mr. Malraux's speech, and the address by Mayor Drapeau, which was similar in tone.(41)
Andre Malraux is a member of the government of Charles de Gaulle, who as you will recall succeeded in separating a province of France--Algeria--from the rest of France, and giving it to the Communists.
And how do we know that the events in Canada as well are the work of the Communists?
The rise of the democratic and national French Canadian revolution in an imperialist state such as Canada constitutes an amazing verification of the truth of Marxism-Leninism that in the time of imperialism national movements inevitably take on an anti-imperialist character and are a constituent part of the road of socialism.(42) (Italics added)
This however, leaves one important matter unsettled. All that this proves is that the Communists want to capture "French Canadian Revolution," yet inevitably the Communists want to capture all such revolutions> Where is proof that in Canada they are succeeding?
Let us turn to the New York Times:
The police arrested today eight men suspected of being members of the Quebec Liberation Front. The terrorist organization that has been blamed for a series of recent bombings in Quebec Province.
The Times then recorded the following sentence, "Most of the suspects were between 19 and 22 years of age, authorities said, but one was a 33-year-old Belgian reported to have been trained for revolutionary work in Cuba."(43) (Italics added)
Let us proceed carefully and examine for meaning what we have just read in the New York Times: A man who is not only a participant, but a leader--at least because of the disparity--of the conspiracy to blow Canadians up with bombs, has been trained to do just that in Cuba. Cuba is, as we know, a Communist state, operated by Fidel Castro--a self proclaimed Communist.
Now, if Castro--a Communist--is doing any training, it would be moderate to conclude that he isn't training any capitalists. It would be reasonable to conclude that a Communist would be training more Communists. So let's draw a very reasonable conclusion that one of the leaders in the conspiracy to blow up Canadians--is actually a Communist.
Let's in fact draw the exceedingly probable conclusion that this Belgian Communist trained in Cuba has been assigned to kill people in Canada by an international association of Communists--that is, by an international conspiracy.
Now it happened that this information appeared on the front page of the New York Times. And the most moderate thing one can say about it is that it is information which should be loudly advertised to Americans in general and Canadians in particular. It should because it is essential to their survival that Americans and Canadians be made aware of it. It is therefore absolutely essential--and nothing more than barely adequate journalism--that this information should be investigated and developed by people trained for the job. However, to our knowledge nothing more has even been said about it by the New York Times.
* * *
Let us draw some reasonable conclusions. It is not the purpose of this chapter or book to make an investigation or file an indictment of the New York Times. So let's say here only the most moderate thing we can say, which is that a trapeze artist, an employee or a doctor who made such a series of mistakes would long since be either dead, unemployed or locked up for criminal negligence.
All we should say, in short, is that there is something very peculiar going on up at the New York Times.
But what we want to underline now is only what we have proved so far:
We have proved--by quoting their own words--what the Communists mean to do.
We have proved--by using quotations from the pages of the New York Times--that they are doing what they mean to do, all over the world.
We have proved--through the use of reason applied to quotations from the Times--that over and over again you have been fooled.
Notes
1. Andrew H. Berding, "Strategy of Incitement," Department of State Bulletin, vol. 43. mp/ 1105 (August 29, 1960), p. 308.
2. Frederick C. Schwarz, "Blueprint for Conquest," American Mercury, vol 77 (August 1953), p. 86.
3. Foster Hailey, New York Times Magazine (December 22, 1946), pp. 40-41.
4. Joseph C. Grew, Invasion Alert! (Baltimore, Maran Publishers, 1956), pp. 42-44.
10. V. I. Lenin, The Right of Nations to Self-Determination (New York, International Publishers, 1951), pp. 76-77.
11. Harry J. Benda and Ruth T. McVey, editors, The Communist Uprisings of 1926-1927 in Indonesia: Key Documents (Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University, 1960), p. 3.
12.U.S. News & World Report, vol. 56, no. 6 (February 10, 1964), p. 52.
16.Ibid. (May 2, 1064), p. 1. Khrushchev was still grinning about the Lenin Peace Prize he had given Ben Bella the day before. See the New York Times (May 1, 1964), p. 10.
38. New York Journal-American (November 5, 1964), p. 15.
39. Leslie Morris, "National and Democratic Revolution in French Canada," World Marxist Review, vol. 7, no. 9 (September 1964), p. 15. Morris was the general secretary of the Communist party of Canada.