-Caveat Lector-
an excerpt from:
The Hoaxers
Morris Kominsky
Branden press©1970
Boston
LCCN 76-109134
735 pps. -- Out-of-print
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An interesting book. As always . . .
Om
k
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The Conspiracy That Never Was! [10]
One of the pillars, upon which the Red Scare hysteria is based, is the theory
of an international Communist conspiracy. Indeed, a law still on the statute
books of this country, the McCarran Act, begins by a "Congressional finding"
of the existence of such a conspiracy. So well ingrained is this belief, that
any attempt to refute it is usually met with the charge that one is defending
the Communists. Nevertheless, this risk must be assumed by those who wish to
restore rational political dialogue as a basis for coping with the pressing
problems of our era. Any other course is fraught with danger to the very
existence of the human race. Our study, of necessity, must begin with a
definition of conspiracy and by the establishment of some criteria.
Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition, 1949, defines
conspiracy as:
1. "Act of conspiring; combination of men for evil purpose; an agreement
between two or more persons to commit a crime in concert, as treason; a plot."
2. "Combination of men for a single end; a concurrence, or general tendency,
as of circumstances, to one event; harmonious action."
3. "Law. An agreement, manifesting itself in words or deeds, by which two or
more persons confederate to do an unlawful act, or to use unlawful means to
do an act which is lawful; confederacy."
The American College Dictionary, 1963 edition, gives substantially the same
definitions, although in more concise form. It points out, however, that the
concept expressed in the Webster definition number 2 is now obsolete. This
must be conceded, unless one is willing to call conspiracies the concurrences
of action in the Roman Catholic Church, the World Council of Churches, the
United Nations, and a huge number of international societies, businesses, and
groups.
Reduced to its simplest terms, the use of the word "conspiracy" usually
denotes a secret combine to do something evil and/or illegal. That, in
essence, is the image that the users of the term international Communist
conspiracy intend to convey. In our examination of the question, we have to
consider the two essential elements of our definition: secrecy in methods of
achieving a goal; a chosen goal that is evil.
The question of whether the goal of a Communist society is intrinsically evil
is, of course, beyond the purview of this study. We need only point out that
it depends upon one's point of view, upon one's frame of reference. To the
British ruling class of the 18th century, the American revolutionists were
conspirators with an evil goal in mind. In the early years of the labor
movement, reactionary employers looked upon union organizers as unspeakable
conspirators, and many working people were jailed on charges of conspiracy,
only because they were organizing themselves into unions. Anti-Catholic
bigots consider the Roman Catholic church as a vast conspiracy to control the
world, just as the anti-Semites use the fraudulent "Protocols of the Learned
Elders of Zion" to "prove" that the Jews are plotting for control of the
entire world. In fact, they have invented the term, "the International Jew,"
to signify that concept. Furthermore, along with many of the evil deeds
perpetrated by some Communists in countries where they have assumed control,
it is conceded even by zealous anti-Communists that the general conditions of
life have improved. (There are a few die-hard scribes who attempt to prove
that living conditions have worsened in the Communist countries, in
comparison with pre-Communist standards. This is accomplished by juggling
facts and figures to conceal the truth.) Inasmuch as the question of evil is
a debatable one, we can now examine the question of secrecy.
One of the strangest things about the proponents of the secrecy charge is
their simultaneous support of laws to make the Communist Party illegal and to
drive it underground. It would seem to be fair to ask: Why not allow it to
operate openly, where it is easier to watch it? Another fact that militates
against the secrecy theory is the relative ease with which the FBI plants its
informers in the Communist Party and the relative ease with which some of
these informers have risen to top leadership. This hardly conforms with the
concept of tight secrecy for any purpose, good or evil. The memories of some
people are short, so it is necessary to remind them that before the hysteria
of the McCarthyite period and before the repressive laws were enacted, the
Communist Party operated openly, and conducted forums, public meetings,
election campaigns, and May Day parades, in which Communist Party members
marched without concealing their identity. In the light of these facts, the
secrecy charge would appear to be one that partakes of the nature of
self-fulfilling prophecy. It seems to be sheer hypocrisy to force people to
go underground and then taunt them with the charge of operating in secret.
The easiest way to eliminate the "secrecy" of the Communists is to allow them
to operate openly and to compete in the marketplace of ideas, where they can
be confronted with rational arguments in open debate. Who is afraid of open
debate and why?
The concept of an international Communist conspiracy had gripped the
Ultra-Rightists so severely that for a long time they refused to accept the
facts of life, that each Communist country is pursuing an independent policy
and that, whatever degree of collaboration exists between them, is no more
and no less than U.S.-British or U.S.-Canada or U.S.-Australia collaboration,
which no one in his right mind would call an international conspiracy.
Believers in the theory of a monolithic bloc of Communist countries-an
essential ingredient of the conspiracy theory-found it hard to believe that
hostility had developed between the Soviet Union and Communist China. Some of
the more desperate of the Ultra-Rightist scribes and orators have resolved
this question by an increase in the use of slander and vituperation.
Closely related to the conspiracy thesis, and forming almost an intergral
part of it, is the oft-repeated charge that Communism is a foreign
importation. When one stops to think that the charge is made in every
country, then it refutes itself by the sheer absurdity of it. With the advent
of investigations of flying saucers, one can soon expect to hear that
Communism was introduced by strange beings from another planet. Anyone who
might consider this to be idle raillery should consider this item from the
October 30, 1966 issue of the (White) Citizens Councils paper, The Councilor:
Los Angeles-According to the highly reliable Cross and Flag magazine, 284 of
the 300 (approx.) commisars in the original Soviet government after the 1917
revolution were from New York.
(Editor's Note: Your editor was told by a Russian nordic in Seoul, Korea in
1946: "Communism is not a native product to be exported to New York.
Communism and Communist control of Russia is an import FROM New York.")
Here we have a switch from the usual charge that Communism is imported from
Russia, and we are being told, in effect, that it was largely imported from
the U.S.A. This, of course, is the ultimate in the irrational thinking
generated by the false theory of an international Communist conspiracy. The
falsehood about the 284 commissars from New York is meant to convey the idea,
prevalent in anti-Semitic circles, that Communism is a Jewish plot; and the
284 commissars are supposed to be New York Jews. It doesn't say so in this
particular item, but it has been stated so many times in anti-Semitic and
racist journals, that the readers "catch on," without the specifics being ment
ioned each time. After they are told repeatedly that the Jews control New
York City, it is easy for anti-Semitic dupes to equate 284 commissars from
New York with 284 New York Jews.
Pertinent to our examination of Communism as an alleged foreign importation
is an item in the United States News & World Report, November 18, 1955, which
reported a Moscow radio address by Deputy Premier Lazar M. Kaganovich. In the
course of his speech, the Deputy Premier quoted Lenin as having said:
There are people who believe that revolution can be brought into being to
order in any country. These people are either lunatics or provocateurs.
Lenin's position was reiterated by Joseph Stalin, in an interview granted the
American newspaper man, Roy Howard, in 1936:
We Marxists believe that a revolution will also take place in other
countries. But it will take place only when the revolutionaries in those
countries think it possible, or necessary. The export of revolution is
nonsense. Every country will make its own revolution, if it wants to and if
it does not want to there will be no revolution. For example, our country
wanted to make a revolution and made it, and now we are building a new
classless society. But to assert that we want to make a revolution in other
countries, to interfere in their lives, means saying what is untrue, and what
we have never advocated.
This outlook was brought up to date in a speech by Premier Nikita Khrushchev,
which was broadcast on Moscow radio, January 28, 1959:
In every country the people themselves determine their fate and select the
course of their development. The Soviet Union does not want to impose upon
anyone the path it has chosen. We are guided wholly by the instructions of
Lenin to the effect that revolutions are not exportable.
Many of the fabrications that we have discussed were also used to create the
myth of the international Communist conspiracy. One of the shabbiest of these
fabrications is a statement attributed to the late Communist leader, Georgi
Dimitrov, who is quoted as saying:
As Soviet power grows, there will be a greater aversion to Communist parties
everywhere. So we must practice the techniques of withdrawal. Never appear in
the foreground; let our friends do the work. We must always remember that one
sympathizer is generally worth more than a dozen militant Communists. A univer
sity professor, who without being a party member lends himself to the
interests of the Soviet Union, is worth more than a hundred men with party
cards. A writer of reputation, or a retired general, are worth more than 500
poor devils who don't know any better than to get themselves beaten up by the
police. Every man has his value, his merit. The writer who, without being a
party member, defends the Soviet Union, the union leader who is outside our
ranks but defends Soviet international policy, is worth more than a thousand
party members. Those who arc not party members or marked as Communists enjoy
greater freedom of action. This dissimulated activity which awakes no
resistance is much more effective than a frontal attack by the Communists.
Our friends must confuse the adversary for us, carry out our main directives,
mobilize in favor of our campaign people who do not think as we do, and whom
we could never reach. In this tactic we must use everyone who comes near us;
and the number grows every day.
This alleged quotation appears, in condensed form, in a sleazy little
pamphlet, entitled The Truth About the American Civil Liberties Union, issued
by Organizational Research Asso. ciates, Louis Scura, Director. It operates
out of a postoffice box in Garden Grove, California. The distinctive feature
of this pamphlet is that it does not tell the truth about the American Civil
Liberties Union; it smears it with phoney quotations, outof-context
quotations, and the usual unreliable items from the various Un-American
Activities Committees. In 1962, Scura collaborated with Assemblyman Louis
Francis in preparing and campaigning for Proposition #24, the so-called
Francis Amendment to the California State Constitution. Under the guise of
outlawing the Communists, this measure would have put California well on the
road to becoming a Fascist state. The proposed amendment had the energetic
support of the Ultra-Rightist Fire and Police Research Association of Los
Angeles, the Birchers, Carl McIntire's American Council of Christian Churches
of California, American Legion Department of California, California Real
Estate Association, County Supervisors Association of California, California
Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Los Angeles Chamber of
Commerce, Orange County Associated Chamber of Commerce, Los Angeles Herald
Examiner, Veterans of Foreign Wars California Department, Riverside County
Sheriff Joe Rice, former State Senator Nelson S. Dilworth, Karl Prussion,
George Putnam, Congressman James B. Utt, Rev. Paul C. Neipp, Harry Von Zell,
and others.
The proposed Francis Amendment was such a dangerous measure that the Los
Angeles Times and most of the responsible California newspapers came out
against it. Even that veteran Red-hunter, Richard Nixon, joined Governor
Brown in opposing it. The California State Chamber of Commerce opposed it, as
did the State Chairman of the Republican Party, the State Chairman of the
Democratic Party, the California Teachers Association, the San Diego Chamber
of Commerce, Bishop Gerald Kennedy, Bishop James A. Pike, the California
Attorney General, and a long list of distinguished lawyers, labor leaders,
scholars, and others who valued democratic rights. The Francis Amendment was
soundly defeated, but it is of more than passing interest that one of the
principal backers of this police state measure is using the phoney Dimitrov
quotation, as part of a smear attack against the American Civil Liberties
Union. In a footnote, Scura tells us that Dimitrov made those remarks in the
course of giving "advice to the Lenin School of Political Warfare, as quoted
in the Report of the American Bar Association Committee on Communist Tactics,
Strategy and Objectives-Congressional Record, 22 August, '58, P. 17719." It
should be noted that Scura uses that favorite device of the Ultra-Rightists:
quoting the Congressional Record as such, instead of stating who placed it in
the Congressional Record. The second point to be noted is, that Dimitrov is
alleged to have made these remarks at the non-existent Lenin School of
Political Warfare, a myth created by stool pigeon Joseph Kornfeder and the
House Committee on Un-American Activities. It was Senator Styles Bridges who
placed the Report of the American Bar Association Committee in the
Congressional Record on August 22, 1958. As we mentioned in Chapter XIV,
Senator Everett Dirksen placed that same Report in the Congressional Record
3.5 years later, on March 1, 1962. RightWingers know a "good thing" when they
see it, and they work hard to exploit it to the fullest degree.
Turning to the actual Report of the Bar Association Committee, we find that
they quote the phoney Dimitrov remarks, and they preface the quotation with:
Georgi Dimitrov advised the Lenin School of Political Warfare how to make use
of innocents and dupes in these words.
One could expect that lawyers-trained in the rules of evidence -would be able
to cite a reliable source for such a. quotation and for such an
authoritative, prefatory statement. The only authority they give is page 2 of
the 1957 annual report of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, a
most dubious and unreliable source under the best of circumstances. In this
instance, the irresponsibility of the lawyers' committee is shocking, because
the House Committee's Report gives no source or documentation for either the
quotation or their own introductory remarks: stating that Communist tactics
"were concisely formulated by the former Secretary General of the Communist
International, Georgi Dimitrov, at the Lenin School of revolutionary
leadership in Moscow in the following words:" This is followed by the entire
phoney quotation, exactly as we have quoted it.
The hate sheet, Common Sense, in its February 1, 1964 issue, quotes a
modified version of the phoney Dimitrov remarks. It omits the first 2.5
sentences and the last sentence, but at the end it-adds the following:
Particularly, we must use ambitious politicians who need support; men who
realize that we communists can clear them a path, give them publicity, and
provide them with a ladder. Such men will sell their souls to the devil-and
we buy souls.
Common Sense gives this explanation:
You have just read a quoted directive by Georgi Dimitrov, Comintern leader,
1938, as published in The Yenan Way by Eudocio Ravines, pp. 256-7
(Scribner's, New York, 1951).
The astounding statement quoted above was made in secret sessions held by the
Comintern in Moscow, and was NEVER MEANT TO BE PUBLICIZED.
We note that the previous quoters of Dimitrov said that he delivered those
remarks at the mythical Lenin School of Political Warfare, but here we are
told that the remarks were made at "secret sessions held by the Comintern."
Instead of the House Committee on Un-American Activities as a source, we are
now given a book as authority for a statement made in "secret sessions."
The quotation attributed to Dimitrov is a weapon used by Common Sense in a
2.5 page attack against the National Conference of Christians and Jews,
which, Common Sense avers, is carrying out Dimitrov's conspiratorial and
deceitful tactics by its sponsorship each February of BROTHERHOOD WEEK. The
title of this Red-Baiting tirade is:
"BROTHERHOOD—A TRAP FOR CHRISTIANS
Is it not becoming clear why this Dimitrov quotation was fabricated by the
Ultra-Rightists?
The Navy League of Dallas, Texas issued a brochure, entitled:
TOO BUSY!—FOR FREEDOM?
It contains the Manuilsky Hoax, Lenin Fabrications No. I and No. 2, the
Treaty Breaking Hoax, the "We Will Bury You" Hoax, the Stalin Fabrication No.
1, and the phoney Dimitrov quotation. The Navy League is a private
organization that carries on propaganda for larger naval appropriations by
Congress. For this purpose, the Red Scare lies are very useful. It may come
as a shock to the reader when we disclose the fact, that the Atomic Energy
Commission, Office of Technical Information Extension at Oak Ridge,
Tennessee, reprinted this compendium of fabrications and distortions of
truth, and shamelessly stated: "Reprinted by Permission of the Navy League,
Dallas, Texas." Pursuant to our inquiry, Thomas D. Sample, Production Control
Officer at the Oak Ridge plant of the Atomic Energy Commission wrote to us on
May 18, 1964, regarding "Too Busy!—For Freedom?":
The USAEC has its largest operations office in Oak Ridge. Our printing plant
produced quite a lot of administrative printing for them. This leaflet was
printed for the Security Division for use in the security education program
for employees of the USAEC and AEC contractors. Although the AEC is not a
distribution point to the public for this type of material, it does print and
place in the hands of each employee materials designed to make them aware of
their responsibility for the protection of the National Security.
On July 15, 1965, we sent a long letter to Mr. Sample, calling to his
attention 7 falsehoods in the brochure, including the lie, that the billion
dollar per year pornography business is Communist-inspired, and we offered to
send him overwhelming documentation of the charges, providing the Atomic
Energy Commission Office would agree to distribute among its employees a
disavowal of the 7 falsehoods. On August 10, 1965, Mr. S. R. Sapirie, Manager
of Oak Ridge Operations, wrote us regarding the Navy League's brochure:
It is now out of stock, and we have no plans for any further printing.
Accordingly we must decline your offer to review or publish the material
which you have gathered.
Is it not shocking and tragic that the most powerful nation on earth
requires the dissemination of lies about Lenin, Dimitrov, Stalin, Khrushchev,
and the American Communists, in order to make the employees of an atomic
energy plant "aware of their responsibility for the protection of the
National Security"? Why cannot the truth be told as a means of insuring
loyalty?
The retired oil millionaire, James R. Taylor, president of the Ultra-Rightist
Committee of Christian Laymen of Woodland Hills, California, delivered a rambl
ing, Red-Baiting speech at the Sixth Annual Christian Crusade Leadership
School, Tulsa, Oklahoma, February 20, 1967. Taylor said:
Joseph Kornfeder was a graduate of the Lenin School of Political Warfare.
Georgi Dimitrov, the Russian expert on political warfare, advised the school
as follows:
This is followed by a condensed version of the Dimitrov fabrication, which
Taylor attributes to the Congressional Record, August 22, 1958, page 17719,
without stating who placed it in the Congressional Record. Incidentally,
Dimitrov was a Bulgarian, not a Russian.
The December, 1967 issue of Free Enterprise, monthly organ of the
Ultra-Rightist We, The People, says:
Joseph Kornfeder, a graduate of the Lenin School of Political Warfare,
related how Georgi Dimitrov, the Russian expert on political warfare advised
the school:
This is also followed by a condensed version of the Dimitrov fabrication, and
the source given is "Congressional Record, p. 17719, Aug. 22, 1958."
The circumstantial evidence makes it pretty clear that this Dimitrov
quotation is a concoction of the House Committee on Un-American Activities
and its specialist in fabrication, the late Joseph Kornfeder, perpetrator of
the Manuilsky Hoax. A comparison of the Manuilsky Hoax and the Dimitrov
fabrication shows the use of the same style of writing, the same cadence of
sentences, and the same recklessness of statements. The sheer imbecility of
the alleged Dimitrov proposals would have brought his summary dismissal from
his post, if he had delivered such a speech. Nowhere in any of Dimitrov's
speeches and writings can one discover anything resembling either the style
or the content of Kornfeder's fabrication. In response to a letter of inquiry
about the alleged Dimitrov quotation, the Director of the American Institute
of Marxist Studies, Dr. Herbert Aptheker, wrote to us on July 29, 1965, "that
is simply out of the whole cloth; surely he never dreamed of, let alone said
anything like that. I do not have any recollection of anything remotely like
it."
Finally, it should be noted that, the official State Department compilation
of statements by Communist leaders, does not contain that alleged Dimitrov
quotation. One can be certain that, if it were a genuine item, the Cold
Warriors of the State Department would have eagerly included it in their
collection. Its obviously fraudulent nature made it too risky for them to use
it.
Conclusion
The evidence clearly shows that, insofar as the people of the United States
of America are concerned, the menace of domestic Communism is a myth, a
chimera, a delusion. Even if one proceeds from the assumption that the
domestic Communists are as evil as they are portrayed by John E. Hoover, Fred
Schwarz, Billy James Hargis, and the House Committee on Un-American
Activities, the fact remains that the American Communist Party is very small
in numbers and is heavily infiltrated with FBI stool pigeons. The splinter
groups, that also call themselves Communists, are even smaller and are
equally infiltrated. The "fright peddlers," as Senator Thomas H. Kuchel calls
them, are accustomed to counter with the argument that Lenin was able to make
a revolution in Russia with a handful of followers. This argument is usually
presented with figures of the number of followers Lenin had, and it runs
anywhere from exactly 14 followers to 40,000. You can take your pick of which
figure, in between, suits your fancy!
The argument is incredibly stupid and/or dishonest. When an honest person
uses the argument, he is indulging in two fallacies: the nonsequitur and
oversimplification. Translating this into plain United States, we must point
out that it does not follow that, if something happened in Russia, it will be
repeated here; and revolutions are not made to order by individuals or
groups who agitate for revolution. If tomorrow morning, 40,000 agitators
should take positions on the main thoroughfares of the principal cities of
the United States and scream at the top of their lungs for the violent
overthrow of the United States Government, the only thing that would probably
happen, if the police did not interfere, would be that 40,000 agitators would
acquire hoarse voices and would probably receive volleys of epithets and
ridicule from the people passing by. The point is that there has to be
widespread discontent in large segments of the population and a desperate
need to eliminate oppressive conditions in order for revolutionists to
succeed in their efforts. Without revolutionary conditions, revolutionists
cannot effect the violent overthrow of a government. Inasmuch as there is no
revolutionary situation in this country at the present time' the "fright
peddlers" should be challenged to "put up or shut up." Senator Abraham
Ribicoff told, on the Meet the Press television program, January 1, 1967,
about the absence of any revolutionary situation at the present time in this
country. Reporting about a series of hearings, held by a Senate Subcommittee,
of which he is chairman, Senator Ribicoff said that "the interesting thing
is, what comes out of these hearings is that while you have 35 million very
unhappy Americans, they are not revolutionary. They want a piece of the
middle class. They want in."
For all their vaunted claims to be defenders of Americanism, the "fright
peddlers" seem to forget that this country was born through a revolution,
that violently overthrew the control of the colonies by Great Britain. They
seem oblivious to the fact that the basic "rules" of revolution were
brilliantly outlined in one of the world's greatest documents of human
freedom, our own Declaration of Independence:
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not
be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience
hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are
sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they
are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing
invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute
Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government,
and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Perhaps it would be a great help in the process of restoring political sanity
to this country, if we could induce the "fright peddlers" to read
occasionally the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the
United States.
Nothing that we have said should be construed as meaning that criticism of
and opposition to Communism should be stifled or that such criticism is in
any way morally reprehensible. The point that we are making is that lies,
hysteria, and repressive legislation pave the way for Fascism and war. The
history of the twentieth century proves the correctness of this analysis, and
we can ignore the lessons of history only at our peril.
There remains only for brief consideration the alleged menace of Communism
from abroad. It is a measure of the extent to which the Red Scare hysteria
has gripped the American people that they are acquiescing in their
government's acting as gendarme of the entire world. Slowly, but surely, the
American people have been conditioned to accept, and even approve, the idea
that our government can invade militarily any country on the globe simply by
screaming "Communism." Usually, of course, pretexts of morality are used to
justify American aggression, but the reasons are bogus. Every people has a
right to adopt any social order it sees fit, and we have no moral or legal
right to essay the role of God and to dictate to any nation, large or small,
what kind of social system or form of government it should adopt. The concept
of "Amerika Ober Alles" is just as repugnant and dangerous as "Deutschland
Ober Alles." If arguments of morality and legality do not suffice, it must
then be stressed that attempts to dictate our will over the entire globe can
only result ultimately in a third world war. Such a war will undoubtedly be a
thermonuclear war, with the very possible extinction of the human species.
The final conclusion of this study is that Americans of good will and sound
mind must move rapidly and vigorously to put an end to the Red Scare, the
Cold War, and the anti-Communist Crusade. They must begin to seriously study
and cope with the pressing problems of poverty, unemployment, the effects of
automation, the slums, inflation, discrimination, and the alarming inroads of
militarism. They must no longer be captives of the diversionary propaganda of
the
Plain Liars, Fancy Liars, and Damned Liars!
pps. 705-717
--[note]—
10 The inspiration for this title came from the now-defunct satirical
television program, "That was the week that was."
=====
Lenin Fabrication, No. 2
Lawyers are supposed to be trained in the art of carefully scrutinizing
evidence in the course of a court trial. This universal rule was flagrantly
violated by the Special Committee on Communist Tactics, Strategy and
Objectives of the American Bar Association, the highest body among the
lawyers. This Committee presented a report to the bar association's house of
delegates in August of 1958, which included a number of fabrications
attributed to Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, and others. The Report was placed in
the Congressional Record on March 1, 1962 by Senator Everett McKinley
Dirksen, a member of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, the
counterpart of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Thus was a
double-barreled weapon furnished to the purveyors of falsehood-the combined
"seal of approval" of the American Bar Association Committee and the Congressi
onal Record![5]
The Report not only quoted the phoney pie-crust story, which we have called
Lenin Fabrication No. 1, but quoted the following words, allegedly written by
Lenin:
First, we will take Eastern Europe, then the masses of Asia, then we will
encircle the United States, which will be the last bastion of capitalism. We
will not have to attack. It will fall like an overripe fruit into our hands.
A footnote in the Committee's Report tells us that the quotation comes from Co
llected Works of Lenin, vol. 10, p. 172. Sounds authentic, doesn't it?
Not to be outdone by others in the dissemination of false quotations, the
Free Enterprise Department of Coast Federal Savings & Loan Association of Los
Angeles used Lenin Fabrication, No. 2 on page 5 of a manual for study groups,
which they have brazenly entitled The Truth About Communism. Coast Federal
tells us that the quotation comes from Collected Works of Lenin, Vol. 10, p.
172, "as printed in the Congressional Record of August 22, 1958, p. 4." There
is a very shrewd device employed here. If the quotation does not appear in
the quoted volume of Lenin, Coast Federal can always claim innocence, because
they relied upon the Congressional Record! However, this maneuver will not
suffice. First of all, there is no page 4 in the Congressional Record of
August 22, 1958. The pages are numbered from 19015 to 19325. Secondly, if
Coast Federal were interested in the truth, it could have researched the
authenticity of the alleged quotation as well as I did. Furthermore, having
twice visited the Free Enterprise Department of Coast Federal, I can testify
that they have an adequate library of Communist books, including the works of
Lenin.
In the "bible" of the John Birch Society, the Blue Book, page 10, Robert
Welch quoted Lenin Fabrication No. 2. Mr. Welch prefaced the false quotation
with the following, which sounds so "scholarly" to his dupes:
Lenin died in 1924. But before he died he had laid down for his followers the
strategy for this conquest. It was, we should readily admit, brilliant,
far-seeing, realistic, and majestically simple. It has been paraphrased and
summarized as follows.
Then follows the phoney quotation, exactly as it was used in the Report of
the Committee of the American Bar Association. Welch also used a device to
give him an "out," when he said: "It has been paraphrased and summarized as
follows." But then he gives the phoney Lenin statement in quotation marks.
Even Welch's former public relations man, John Rousselot, knows that a
statement in quotation marks must be the exact words, not a paraphrase or a
summary. Rousselot repeatedly told audiences that no one, just no one, has
ever found any factual error in Mr. Welch's writings.
There is a widely circulated pamphlet entitled A Business Man Looks at
Communism. Underneath the title on the outside cover we are told that it is
"By An American Business Man." On the title page we learn that the author is
Fred Koch, and that by January, 1964, it had gone through ten editions. On
page 2, it says that Koch is president of two corporations, chairman of the
board of another corporation, and a director of a bank and of five other
companies. Koch wrote this booklet in 1960, many years after he had built
fifteen oil-cracking plants in the Soviet Union and after having traveled,
according to his own admission, with one of the old Bolsheviks. I find it
necessary to supply some information not given in the booklet:
A. Fred C. Koch is one of the founders of the John Birch Society. B. Fred C.
Koch is listed as a member of the Executive Committee of the John Birch
Society.
Among other falsehoods contained in this booklet is the Lenin Fabrication,
No. 2, which Koch solemnly proceeds to prove is the basis for a program now
in progress.
Hate peddler Gerald L. K. Smith uses this phoney quotation in The Cross and
The Flag, October, 1955, assuring his dupes that it is "the prophecy made by
Lenin in 1923."
The Rev. Howard Kershner, who operates a Right-Wing propaganda outfit called
Christian Freedom Foundation, says on page 27 of a booklet entitled The
Hangman's Rope: "Lenin said we would fall like a ripe apple into their
basket."
Marie Larson, in Freedom Club Bulletin of Rev. Fifield's First Congregational
Church in Los Angeles, issue of June 16, 1966, has her own version of the
phoney Lenin quotation. Marie's inventive genius is expressed in the
following manner:
Lenin decreed: "Demoralize, degenerate, and if necessary devastate the United
States ... it will fall like an overripe fruit into our hands."
A Right-Wing outfit calling itself The Patrick Henry Group, operates from a
postoffice box in Richmond, Virginia. Its sponsor is former Internal Revenue
Commissioner T. Coleman Andrews, who has been prominent in many Right-Wing
causes. A circular that this group sent out in August of 1965 advertises a
book attacking the U.S. Supreme Court. The title of the Circular is the
phoney Lenin quotation.
That compendium of falsehood and distortion of truth, which the Right-Wing
circulated in the millions during the 1964 election campaign, "None Dare Call
It Treason," followed Robert Welch's style in its use of the phoney
quotation. On page 26 it says:
After only seven years at the head of the world's first communist state,
Lenin died in 1924. Before he died, he formulated a plan for world
domination. Summarized and paraphrased, Lenin's plan stated:
"First, we will take eastern Europe, then the masses of Asia, then we will
encircle the United States which will be the last bastion of capitalism. We
will not have to attack. It will fall like an overripe fruit into our hands."
I first ran across this "overripe fruit" fabrication in the May, 1964, issue
of a little Right-Wing propaganda monthly, issued by a group calling itself
California Liberty Bell, Inc. in San Diego, California. I sent a letter to
the author of the article, Col. Fred S. Stevers, U.S. Air Force, Retired,
challenging him to prove the authenticity of the quotation he had attributed
to Lenin. The Colonel replied cordially that the quotation comes from the Coll
ected Works of Lenin, Russian Edition; that I might have some difficulty
locating the Lenin volume in my home town of Elsinore; that he was enclosing
a U.S. Senate Document containing the quotation. It is a publication of the
Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. It simply reprints, as part of a
Hearing of the Subcommittee, a fantastic document submitted to the Committee
by a Colonel Tom Hutton, retired Air Force intelligence operative. Hutton
called his document "The Supreme Court as an Instrument of Global Conquest."
Hutton and the group that he heads up will be discussed in another chapter;
and we shall also come back to Colonel Stevers.
A close examination of the document shows that Colonel Stevers had no basis
for relying on "a Senate Document." The Senate only printed Colonel Hutton's
statement as part of the Report of its Hearings. It is therefore Colonel
Hutton who is furnishing the phoney Lenin quotation in a footnote on page
1077, prefacing it with the words: "Lenin's exact language." Incidentally, on
the same day that Colonel Stevers' letter arrived, I received a letterhead of
the American Committee to Free Cuba. Listed on the Advisory Board is the name
of Colonel Stevers and such Right-Wing worthies as John Rousselot of the John
Birch Society, Kent Courtney, Jose Norman, Walter Knott, Phyllis Schlafly,
Congressman James B. Utt, and others.
We are now ready to examine the proof that Lenin Fabrication, No. 2, the
"overripe fruit" yarn, is a fraud.
In 1950, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research of the United States
Department of State published a large volume entitled Soviet World Outlook, a
Handbook of Communist Statements. In its own words, it is "a handbook of
major statements by Communist leaders from Marx to Khrushchev." Inasmuch as
we have already shown that the State Department was slyly spreading the Lenin
Fabrication, No. 1, the "piecrust" fraud, one can be sure that this document
would not omit anything that the Cold Warriors of the State Department could
use in its anti-Soviet propaganda campaign. A careful examination of the
third revised edition, released in July, 1959, shows that Lenin Fabrications,
No. 1 and No. 2, are not quoted. The reason is very obvious. Not only can
these statements not be found in any of Lenin's writings and speeches, but
they are so out of character that the State Department would discredit itself
if it used them in a document prepared by its Bureau of Intelligence and
Research.
On May 21, 1964, I asked the Library of Congress to institute a search for
the "overripe fruit statement." The following reply was received from Robert
H. Land, Chief of the General Reference and Bibliography Division of the
Library of Congress.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20540
REFERENCE DEPARTMENT
GENERAL REFERENCE AND BIBLIOGRAPHY DIVISION
June 11, 1964
Dear Mr. Kominsky:
According to Mr. Pistrak of the United States Information Agency, an expert
on Communist statements, it is extremely improbable that Lenin ever made the
statement you quote. The Library of Congress, Mr. Pistrak, and others have
searched fruitlessly for verification of this quotation. In addition,
according to Mr. Pistrak, since Lenin was almost wholly uninterested in the
United States (his interest lay in the hope of a Communist revolution in
Europe), it is unlikely he would have made such a statement.
Very truly yours,
Robert H. Land
Chief
General Reference and
Bibliography Division
In order not to leave any loopholes in my research, I sent a letter on
September 21, 1964, to Mr. Donald H. Holmes, Chief of the Photoduplication
Service of the Library of Congress. I asked him to send me a photocopy of
page 172 of Volume 10, Collected Works of Lenin. I explained that I
especially wanted the quotation attributed to Lenin:
First we will take Eastern Europe, then the masses of Asia, then we will
encircle the United States, which will be the last bastion of capitalism. We
will not have to attack. It will fall like an overripe fruit into our hands.
On October 20, 1964, Mr. Holmes sent me a report which stated that the
alleged Lenin quotation is "not identified in available Russian and English
editions." Mr. Holmes also sent me the following memorandum which he received
from Robert V. Allen, Area Specialist (USSR) of the Library of Congress.
UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
Memorandum
TO Donald R. Holmes. Chief
Photoduplication Service
FROM Robert T. Allen, Area Specialist (USSR)
Slavic and Central European Division
Subject: Attached AttaoW photocopy of letter from Morris Kaminsky
This Division has been asked a number of times about the quotation given by
Mr. Kominsky, stated to be found On Page 172 of volume 10 of the Collected
works of V.I.Lenin. We have examined that page in the tenth volume of all
editions of the marks of V.I. Lenin and have not found the quotation.
=====
Mr. Bryan W. Stevens, teacher at San Marino (California) High School and
former Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, discusses the "overripe fruit" quotation
in his book, The John Birch Society in California Politics, 1966. On page III
Mr. Stevens says:
Now, there is no record that Lenin ever wrote or said this. Research
scholars at Stanford University have pored over Lenin's works, the Curator of
the Slavic Room of the Library of Congress has tried to track the quotation
down. Even Louis Budenz, now fairly discredited professional anti-Communist,
wrote in the March-May issue of the Communist Line Bulletin, that this quote
from Lenin is one of the "many questionable quotations from Lenin that are
floating around in ill-informed anti-Communist circles."
We can give the final burial to this fabrication by quoting from an article
by Kenneth D. Robertson, Jr. in the UltraRightist Task Force of October,
1964. Mr. Robertson tells us that the "overripe fruit" story is "a popular
quotation spuriously attributed to Lenin." Despite its fraudulent nature,
this phoney story is continually used to poison the minds of unsuspecting and
gullible citizens.
pps. 35-42
--[note]—
5 One of the earliest uses of this hoax was by the late Chairman of the House
Committee on Un-American Activities, Congressman Francis E. Walter, in a
series of articles he wrote for the Philadelphia inquirer, March 3-9, 1958.
Walter's articles were reprinted as an official document of his Committee.
-----
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
All My Relations.
Omnia Bona Bonis,
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
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