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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 12, No. 10. September 20th, 1949
[Introduction]
"A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of Communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Czar Metternich and Guizot, French Radi cals and German police spies. Where is the party in opposition that has not been decrieds Communists by its opponents in power? Where is the opposition that has not hurled hack the branding reproach of Communissm?"
With these words, Marx and Engels in 1848 introduced the Communist Manifesto the reverberations of which have in our own time transformed half the world Today these famous have the sound of a prophecy, for the anti-Communist witch-hunt witnessed by Marx and Engels is rising throughout the capitalist world-to new heights of frenzy.
Not a newspaper appears, but it bears an anti-Communist headline or editorial. Not a day goes by but some public figure—if not the Prime Minister, then the Leader of the Opposition, or the Governor-General, or the President of the R.S.A., lays bare for us the fearful red menace with which we are beset. Not a Sunday passes, but some pulpit somewhere is made to pronounce anathema on Communism.
Communism is the most emotive word in our language. It is being nude a bye-word for treachery, cruelty, perjury and immorality: new vices are being invented to go with it.
Communism is being made to replace the Evil Eye of medieval superstition, and the Communists are its hobgoblins. All mortal misfortunes are ascribed to it: poverty, strikes, starvation, wars, unemployment, even the slumps on Wall Street—all are blamed on this new transformation of the Devil.
And while the popular imagination is thus enlivened, more practical measures are put into practice: Communists are deprived of political rights and free speech; they are to be hounded from their jobs and from their homes: deported from their countries; and, according to the Pope, from heaven as well.
Why this appalling tide of bigotry, this deluge of persecution, so medieval in its scope and intensity?