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?

What is Communism?

It has been said, that one has to be a Catholic to understand Catholicism, and a Yogi to understand Yoga; so it is with most superstitions. But Communism is no mum-bo-jumbo. Marx wasn't a god, who reserved his final denouement for the Judgment Day.

Communism can be understood by the intelligent reading of a few books, and its essence is logical and straightforward: a clearout interpretation of society, and a plan for action.

Fundamental to Marxist Commun- ism is the historical concept of the class struggle; but this idea by no means originated with Marx. Its reality was understood by the six thousand slaves who survived the defeat of Spartacus's revolt, as they were crucified by their Roman masters along the highroad from Capua to Rome; it was understood by the rebellious peasants of England, as they gathered with pitchfork and bill-hook to march against the "Cutty Wren"; and it is understood in many lands today by wage-earners who have never read Marx, as they struggle against their employers and colonial masters for a decent living.

Why a Party?

For Communists, it is not sufficient merely to realise the existence of the class struggle. Nor is it sufficient to realise that in our day it is the working class which is the forward-looking class, and it is the bourgeoise who are driving backward now, moribund and desperate, with nothing to offer but wars, slumps, unemployment and starvation. "The Communist's task is not merely to interpret the world, but to change it."

The Communist disdains to stand on the side-line, or to grope dismally for a "middle road". As with the barricades of Paris, Petrograd and Madrid, there are only two sides; and you have to be on one of them—or run away! Progress is not spon-taneous: it has to be striven for, and defended if necessary. History has no wishing-wells. Neither is it a sufficient guarantee of victory to be firmly of an opinion. Moral strength alone could not overcome the Nazi executioners, nor could faith withstand the Moors of Franco.

Organisation is the key to working class victory, as it has been the key to the victory of progressive movements in the past. The purpose of the Communist Party is to build this organisation. The Communists do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement. They have no interests separate from and apart from those of the working class as a whole. Their aim is simply to build and strengthen the organisation of the working class, [unclear: and] to provide the ideological leadership, loyal and re-solute of the working class in its actual struggle against actual ene[unclear: mits].

Why Comms have Enemies

The Communists are not content to sympathise with the working class; they want them to be organised for victory. It is precisely because of this that they are singled out for the most violent and extravagant abuse.

The enemies of the working class do not object to arm-chair socialists, pacifists, or long-haired philosophers, however outrageous their ideas. Likewise, they do not object so much to Marxism as a "philosophy". In all the attacks and slanders launched against the Communist Party today, the economic or philosophical basis of Marxism is seldom attacked; most critics do not even bother to acquaint themselves with it. The enemies of Communism reserve then-most bitter attacks for the Communist Party itself—as a Party. They say it is corrupt, dictatorial, ruthless and dishonest. They say it is alien, un-British, traitorous, the agent of a foreign power. In short, they say there should be no Communist Party.

The thought of an organised and united working class strikes fear into their hearts, and no abuse is too extravagant, no persecution is too vicious, to be Justified In preventing that.

For who would benefit from this new strength? Certainly not the big businessman, for socialism and militant trade unionism pays no dividends. Certainly not the Roman Catholic Church, which always thrived on ignorance and despair, and exhorts the working class to "tranquil resignation" (Leo XIII, "Rerum Novarum").

Who then are the most violent enemies of Communism? We have quoted from a representative selection of them in an inset on this page. There we have Churchill, the mouthpiece of British Conservatism, whose ducal blood revolts at the idea of a workers' state. There we have the Trumans and the Dulleses and the Vandenburgs, representatives of Wall Street, who seek to chain the world to the dollar, and whose shells and bombs have been dropped on every workers' liberation movement from China to Indonesia, from the Philippines to Greece. There we have the Hitlers, the Lavals and the Francos, the fascist hangmen who reduce the workers to slavery. There we have the Attlees and the Frasers, the Bevins and the Semples, the men who climbed to power on the backs of the workers, and then betrayed everything they had stood for. And there we have the Church of Rome, no longer a religion but a political creed, maintaining its proud and traditional position at the forefront of all that is reactionary, ignorant and oppressive, clinging like a leech to society, and sapping the spirit of the workers—the Church of Rome, which after opposing and persecuting every progressive movement since the baptism of Const an tine, now poses as the champion of liberty. In the Communist Parties they recognise their most dangerous enemies.

And they have prepared their answer: Fa turn and the Corporate State—beloved alike by Wall Street and the Vatican—that idyilic state where the class straggle is "abolished", where all disputes are settled by conciliation tribunals appointed by benevolent governments where workers love their bosses, and there aren't any Communists (except in prison). In every capitalist country in the world, including our own, the foundations of this state are already being laid.

Of course, the workers of most countries, being somewhat disillusioned with fascism after the recent war, some extra inducement is needed to make them accept it. The lead here is given by the Roman [unclear: Chur] which, after preaching fascism for over a decade, is now given to telling us that there is no such thing as fascism, that it is merely a term of abuse coined by the Communists to describe all their enemies.