Introduction to Communism

Fifty years ago nearly all Americans believed that the general trend of history was toward the gradual adoption by other peoples of the political principles upon which our own society had been founded. Just as we believed, almost passionately, in the inevitability of progress, so we believed that, elsewhere in the world, progress would be attained by following the road which we had travelled, a road which could lead only to freedom, democratic institutions, and an expanding and prosperous civilization. As millions of migrants flocked to our shores, the better and freer life which unfolded for them gave us a reenforced confidence in our belief that America was more than a Land of Opportunity; it was a society whose economic and political principles had gone far toward solving the age-old problem of reconciling freedom and authority in all spheres of human activity. cee |! lions of people. Within the iron grip of a ruthless a ‘oi a i‘ aes of sal hick cclec in fact if not en ee societies have developed Within these states men have been forced to pi ee a of fot eaune : hich avian : ange even the rudiments of freedom 2 entation which with the greatest difficulty can be distinguished £ pbject slavery. It is one of the supreme ironies of mod hi . . a : ern history that men who originally were attracted by the slogan of the Communist Manifesto (ae 8 ; chains to lose, now are bound by chains more confining Ny at t 4 had only their absolute of the monarchs of the past. It would have been f n any devised by the most declared: “Workers of the World unite. You have nothin ar more accurate had Marx & to lose but your freedom.”