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Thursday, May 17, 2018
Reading List: The Naked Communist
- Skousen, W. Cleon. The Naked Communist. Salt Lake City: Izzard Ink, [1958, 1964, 1966, 1979, 1986, 2007, 2014] 2017. ISBN 978-1-5454-0215-3.
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In 1935 the author joined the FBI in a clerical position while
attending law school at night. In 1940, after receiving his law
degree, he was promoted to Special Agent and continued in that
capacity for the rest of his 16 year career at the Bureau.
During the postwar years, one of the FBI's top priorities was
investigating and responding to communist infiltration and
subversion of the United States, a high priority of the Soviet
Union. During his time at the FBI Skousen made the acquaintance
of several of the FBI's experts on communist espionage and
subversion, but he perceived a lack of information, especially
available to the general public, which explained communism: where
did it come from, what are its philosophical underpinnings,
what do communists believe, what are their goals, and how do
they intend to achieve them?
In 1951, Skousen left the FBI to take a teaching position at
Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. In 1957, he accepted
an offer to become Chief of Police in Salt Lake City, a job he
held for the next three and a half years before being fired
after raiding an illegal poker game in which newly-elected mayor
J. Bracken Lee was a participant. During these years, Skousen
continued his research on communism, mostly consulting original
sources. By 1958, his book was ready for publication. After
struggling to find a title, he settled on “The Naked
Communist”, suggested by film producer and ardent
anti-communist Cecil B. DeMille.
Spurned by the major publishers, Skousen paid for printing the
first edition of 5000 copies out of his own pocket. Sales were
initially slow, but quickly took off. Within two years of
the book's launch, press runs were 10,000 to 20,000 copies
with one run of 50,000. In 1962, the book passed the milestone
of one million copies in print. As the 1960s progressed
and it became increasingly unfashionable to oppose
communist tyranny and enslavement, sales tapered off, but
picked up again after the publication of a 50th anniversary
edition in 2008 (a particularly appropriate year for such
a book).
This 60th anniversary edition, edited and with additional material
by the author's son, Paul B. Skousen, contains most of the
original text with a description of the history of the work
and additions bringing events up to date. It is sometimes
jarring when you transition from text written in 1958 to that
from the standpoint of more than a half century hence, but for
the most part it works. One of the most valuable parts of the
book is its examination of the intellectual foundations of
communism in the work of Marx and Engels. Like the dogma of
many other cults, these ideas don't stand up well to critical
scrutiny, especially in light of what we've learned about
the universe since they were proclaimed. Did you know that
Engels proposed a specific theory of the origin of life based
upon his concepts of Dialectical Materialism? It was nonsense
then and it's nonsense now, but it's still in there. What's more,
this poppycock is at the centre of the communist theories of
economics, politics, and social movements, where it makes no
more sense than in the realm of biology and has been disastrous
every time some society was foolish enough to try it.
All of this would be a historical curiosity were it not for the
fact that communists, notwithstanding their running up a body
count of around a hundred million in the countries where they
managed to come to power, and having impoverished people around
the world, have managed to burrow deep into the institutions of
the West: academia, media, politics, judiciary, and the administrative
state. They may not call themselves communists (it's “social
democrats”, “progressives”, “liberals”,
and other terms, moving on after each one becomes discredited
due to the results of its policies and the borderline insanity of
those who so identify), but they have been patiently putting
the communist agenda into practice year after year, decade after
decade. What is that agenda? Let's see.
In the 8th edition of this book, published in 1961, the
following “forty-five goals of Communism”
were included. Derived by the author from the writings
of current and former communists and testimony before
Congress, many seemed absurd or fantastically
overblown to readers at the time. The complete list,
as follows, was read into the Congressional Record
in 1963, placing it in the public domain. Here is the
list.
Goals of Communism
- U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
- U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
- Develop the illusion that total disarmament by the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
- Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
- Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
- Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
- Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
- Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
- Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
- Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
- Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
- Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
- Do away with all loyalty oaths.
- Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
- Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
- Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
- Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
- Gain control of all student newspapers.
- Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
- Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
- Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
- Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.”
- Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”
- Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.
- Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
- Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”
- Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a “religious crutch.”
- Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”
- Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
- Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man.”
- Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the “big picture.” Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
- Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture—education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
- Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
- Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
- Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
- Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
- Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
- Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand or treat.
- Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
- Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
- Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
- Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use “united force” to solve economic, political or social problems.
- Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
- Internationalize the Panama Canal.
- Repeal the Connally Reservation so the US can not prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
Posted at
20:19
