Those Who Damn Hearst and Condone Stalin
Powers, John
Those Who Damn Hearst and Condone Stalin Half-Baked "Liberals" Have No Kick if They Suffer Here What They Defend There I!l| 1 ly John Powers ¦¦HE NEW LEADER has alm, ready devoted a great...
...By way of accelerating, we presume, the advent of that moment in the New Republic's fairy talc when it will no longer be necessary to kill human beings for the crime of holding opinions unpleasant to the dictatorship, the rate and scope of the killings have been progressively speeded up...
...Having thus stated in true and conservative measure how- Stalin and his Communist praetorian guard treat dissident intellectuals, including those of Communist beliefs, Mr...
...Instead of killing human beings by the thousand, as under Lenin and Trotsky, they have been exiled by the million under Stalin (tee 1ft...
...they would be eon signed to some bleak and inhospitable 'concentration camp, probably in the vicinity of the Arctic Circle...
...Chamberlin continued...
...And this it too much to eipeet from Hearst the fascist, the degenerate Communists, or our fake liberals...
...What Bolsheviks Would Do With his observations in Russia in mind, the truly draconic suppression of all criticism and civil liberties, Mr...
...Chamberlin expressed "amazement" and "lively satisfaction" at the fact that any such maneuver as Hearst is now engaged in can be "discussed and denounced in public" in this c6untry...
...This opens up a wider question that I have long since desired to pose...
...By way of contrast, he called attention to "what would have happened to dissident or subversive professors in the Soviet Union" if they had tried to challenge the theories upon which the Stalin dictatorship in Russia operates...
...and in ways more subtle, workers, peasants, Socialists, Communists—all who venture to doubt his wisdom and omniscience...
...Isn't there something * fundamentally unsound, even ridiculous, in \ i mental processes that lead many non-Communists to apply to Russia an ever condoning, ever mitigating, soft and mild standard -of • judgment, while- *»f»lying to the systems of Mussolini and'Hitler and also to democratic regimes a merciless severity or moral judgment that suggests Jonathan Edwards,- hell fire and eternal damnation...
...The Communist lust be pasted on every rehat even remotely suggests ment of the power of the ir which Hearst has become cus barker...
...Mr...
...Once more we arc told by the New Republic that the end justifies the means, that the Communist dictatorship in Russia seeks "noble aims" justifying the repression and suppression of free thought and conscience," that all this is merely "transitory," and that it will pass as soon as the noble experiment attains fruition and the dangers surrounding Russia from outside disappear...
...As the reader wiii perceive, we have a long time to wait...
...Instead of killing,by the scores, the Bolsheviks now kill by the hundreds, to say nothing of the countless unfortunates whose fate is never made known to the world...
...But to realize this, to perceive that by Its very nature dlctatorship must inevitably degenerate into dictatorship for tha sake of dictatorship, as it has dona In Soviet Russia and In every country where it has obtained a stranglehold upon the people, requires the capacity to think as well as Intellectual honesty...
...that he will continue to kill, outrigh...
...Chamberlin pointed out...
...In fact, it is beginning to neauseate an increasing number of honest folk who in the past were inclined to make allowances, but who have now begun to perceive that Stalin's dictatorship will never end by his own free will...
...tearst Peart Labor the capitalist class as a Hearst is disturbed over the g aotivization of labor in dted States...
...The first phase would have been similar to the experiences of Professors Washburne, Counts and Kilpatriek" in the Hearst campaign, Mr...
...Double-Entry Liberals To prove once more the "something fundamentally unsound, even ridiculous" in the double-entry system in the morals and ideology of our "liberals," the New Republic, in the same issue, ventures to make reply to Mr...
...But some of Mr...
...This is the conception of Soclallsm the editors of the New Republic preach* in cooperation with their Communist brethren...
...He wrote: "Mr...
...It is the old, threadbare argument, *a_argument that went, ever "big" with the innocent and uninformed, but which is beginning to lose its potency...
...i for example, their defense Id's recent blood purge and tontinued dithyvambies to >mmunist dictatorship in as contrasted with their ntg against Hearst and i against violations of civil t in this and other countries, tm H. Chamberlin, the own correspondent, author ssia'a Iron Age," who rerecently from a twew* years' sojourn in Soviet Russia, took occasion to call attention to this amusing contradiction in a Tewe...
...What fs the background for ' the double standard of morals that not a few American and British , radicals and liberals have con- ¦ ciously or unconsciously let up, J one for Russia, one for the rest of j the world...
...Hearst's fumbling efforts in the same direction seem mere fteabites by comparison...
...No, gentlemen, dictatorship end despotism have their own inexorable logic...
...Hearst cuts a ridiculous figure when he employs communistfascist methods of espionage and intimidation, supposedly in the interests of American democracy...
...They would have been arrested, brought before a secret irresponsible tribunal, hectored and browbeaten and finally requested to sign elaborate confessions of counter-revolutionary thoughts and activities, with the intimation that it would be worse for their families if they refused to do so...
...Chamberlin ventured to make the following equally true observation and to ask some embarrassing questions...
...What the stration is doing or proto be seeking must be assoin the public mind with regimentation and dictatorHence the play on two : Communism and the deter a return to "rugged intlism...
...The unfortunate Soviet professors "would have been plied with spies and provocateurs...
...Those Who Damn Hearst and Condone Stalin Half-Baked "Liberals" Have No Kick if They Suffer Here What They Defend There I!l| 1 ly John Powers ¦¦HE NEW LEADER has alm, ready devoted a great deal I space to Hearst's anti-Com¦anist campaign, ami we would ¦Jrtfurn to the subject today— jetng, "atter an, more infL ipftera to discus - if r the necessity of erophaan element which as Sowe cannot pass unnoticed...
...Whether, they signed the 'confessions' or not would make little difference in the final disposition of their cases...
...to"The"~f-Jew" Republic ofFebruary 27...
...Duranty's own figures on the subject...
...He fears 'elopinent of Socialist ideas, ke the rest of the reactionbe believes that the mild, is f e f o r m policies proI by the Roosevelt adminismust be discredited, as part larger purpose of destroying dical and labor movement, idling the Communist label administration...
...Breedinq Sycophants All this, we are to believe, la hastening the day when it will no longer be necessary ts kill, ss4when from the soil of despotism, the fear and sycophancy it breads, the destruction of aH independent thinking and action, from terrorism and increasing bloodletting, from the whole moral and political swamp of dictatorship, .will rise the beautiful sdifice of the slff society...
...Hearst's campaign against ted peril" in the United .here can be no two opinions, not so stupid as to fail to e that the "Red peril" of he shouts does not exist, r the purposes of his edlpolicy and the class for he speaks he believes that Communist devil does not i is necessary to invent him...
...Chamberlin, a reply which confirms the growing impression that "liberals" of the type of the New Republic's editors are essentially hypocrites when they are not ignorant...
...He is worried rising tide of working class ¦ial consciousness...
...A Double Standard "The sequel, however, would have been distinctly less favorable tothe Russian professors," Mr...
...Hearst's opponents seem to be in no better plight logically when they vitiate fully justified indignation over an attack on academic freedom in America by uncritical and unreserved praise of a system in Russia that is based on such an amount of espionage and repression that Mr...
...They prefer to help and the Communists, there f a service to the reaction dealogy...
...Stalin, Lenin, Roosend socially-minded college ors, radical and not so , must be lumped into one nass to stir up the ignorant e vicious...
...st helps the Communists, tnmunists help Hearst, and tip the reaction, ass-conscious worker gov>y clear Socialist ideas has iculty, of course, in perthis simple fact, and refrom pouring water on the t the friendly enemies...
...As illustrations he cites a professor who would venture to question the Marxian theory of value, another who would be so rash as to consider Trotsky or Zinoviev a more faithful interpreter of Marx and Lenin than Stalin, or one who "should express, privately or publicly, the point of view that Ukraine should enjoy more autonomy in relation to Moscow...
...But our lfbei-a-a-lg and parlor dks...
...This and noth» is the purpose of Hearst's eril" cacophony, t matter of fact, Hearst is il to Stalin for maintaining mmunist party in America, i our impotent Communists anki'ul to Hearst for the ublicity they are receiving ions of copies of his newsk, Hearst Invention "Red peril" in America is entidn of the Hearst press, >mmunist propaganda and r in the United States is not t its own reactionary inAs Walter Citrine, general ry of the British Trades Congress, said on his recent ) the United States: "For lommunist created in any I ten fascists are born...
...Chamberlin then proceeded to tell, on the basis of experience, what would happen to these dissidents in Soviet Russia...
Vol. 18 • March 1935 • No. 11
