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| 62. COMMUNISM AND CATHOLICISM The danger, accordingly, is primarily in the spread of world Communism, and this by the p«wer of arms rather than by conviction. Local" Communist leadership, usually Moscow-trained, will furnish the smokescreen, a local NKVD will be organized, and the majority cowed by a police government* So great is the power wielded V modern arms and modern propaganda that the presumption favors the success and the permanence of such regimes rather than the reverse. This would leave Western Europe and the Anglo-American powers, including South America, in danger of becoming a minority while Communism organized the millions of Eastern Europe and Asia* We have seen what has happened in Poland, the Baltic States, and the Balkans. If Similar tactics are being employed elsewhere, only the naive would doubt that the ul- timate aim is the same* Only a strong Anglo-American foreign policy can save China, India, and possibly Italy and France. If the danger has been presented correctly, and all the evidence assembled points in the direction indicated, then most of the groups in the United States which discuss Communism have been discussing a false problem. Conservative forces which are concerned with the -growth of Communism by con- viction, and particularly the reactionary propaganda groups which are in- discriminate in labeling measures of social reform as Communist, are missing the real problem and are contributing to the confusion. On the other hand, liberal groups which spend their energies in tearing apart the straw man erected by the conservatives and which proclaim that social reform is the primary and even the only weapon against Communism, are •qually b'eside the point. It is hard to see how social reform in the United States will restore liberty to Poland or free Hungary and CzeckoSlovakia from Soviet economic domination. Higher wages to workers and justice to the Negro will scarcely give the legitimate government / of China control over the vital areas of the North and of Mianchuria. A decline in antisemitism will not bring about the automatic collapse ofsthe major Communist fronts in the United States, nor would it free the United Electrical Workers, C.I«0., of the Communist hege- mony which dictates its policies* These tbservations are not meant to imply that the approaches taken by these groups are useless in the struggle against world Communism. There is a legitimate place for propaganda and even denunciation, but it must be based on a correct appraisal of the situation. Above all, it must be complete- ly disassociated from forces whose motive are suspect, such as the anti- Communist fronts of the National Association of Manufacturers and reactionary capitalists, the anti-Negrt and antisemitic forces in Congress and elsewhere, and groups which are opposed to the rightful aspirations of organized labor. Likewise, the preaching of social justice, as a matter of justice and not merely as a weapon against Communism, can have great incidental value in preventing the growth of Communist power and offsetting its propaganda. Thus, intelligent and courageous efforts to seek justice for the Negro could easily eradicate the danger of appreciable Communist infiltration into his ranks. The Negro wants justice, not Communism, and drifts to the left only by default. An open^and honest approach to the problem of antisemitism, in- stead of the covert mutterings heard from individual Catholics as well as other individual?, would remove the growing appeal of the Soviet and Commun- ism among the Jews. Finally, a well-organized program of getting Catholic social teaching to the workers, and training of these workers to exercise their democratic rights within union^: would prevent Communist-trained minorities from controlling these unions or from misleading them through propaganda* |