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p The struggle to create the atmosphere of immunity toward communist ideology in the USA is multifaceted in its forms and methods and accompanies every American throughout his life. The cultivation of the salient features of the “American way of life” and its propaganda and proliferation as a model for other nations are a key element of anti-communist strategy.

p The mass media are used extensively to educate the American in this spirit. As soon as a child learns to turn on a radio receiver or a television set he is deluged with a torrent of conditioned information. In these broadcasts the main accent is placed on fostering in children a sense of superiority in being white and an American born into the American way of life. A large portion of the broadcasts for children 317 consists of films (Western, adventure and detective) lauding violence and brutality and preaching hardness as the trait of the typical American.

p One can obviously speak of a clear-cut anti-communist orientation of these radio and TV broadcasts only with a certain reservation. Their objective is of different kind, namely, to prepare the minds of children for the acceptance of the ideas and knowledge that they will receive later at school.

p However, it is indicative that even at this phase one of the principal methods used to kindle hostility for communist ideology is the narrowing, the limitation of the outlook given to children.

p The actual anti-communist indoctrination of children begins at school with its detailed system of education. This is facilitated by the fact that children begin going to school at the age of five or six. From the early age they thereby become the object of unflagging attention of the institutions and agencies engaged in integrating them into capitalist society’s system of postulates and concepts.

p One of the basic methods of ideological indoctrination employed at schools is the inclusion in the curriculum of a subject we shall conditionally call “What Communism Is Like”. Although the heading of the subject differs at different schools, its content remains unified throughout the country: slander against the socialist community, distortion of the theory and practice of communism and constant preoccupation with the alleged threat to the USA from “world communism” and its agents.

p Illuminating in this respect is the book Communism in Theory and Practice edited by Howard D. Mehlinger, a leading expert in this field. While claiming to give an impartial exposition, the book is so constructed (commentaries to each chapter, juggled data, generalisations based on solitary facts, and so on) as to create an ugly picture of communist society. The compilers use many photographs 318 which they accompany with the corresponding comments.^^3^^

p In the chapter devoted to “communism in the USA” the theory and practice of communism are doctored with careful subtlety. Various “documents” and the depositions of former members of the Communist Party of the USA are offered as evidence that in the USA the Communists are the “agents of the Kremlin”. Special emphasis is made on proving the fiasco of alleged attempts “to apply the Bolshevik concept of the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ to the United States”.^^3^^ In their interpretation and slanted selection of historical documents these “scholars” strive to portray communism as a monster attempting to swallow the whole world, especially the USA, and turn the “free world” countries into a barracks denying man any possibility of finding an outlet for his aspirations and satisfying his spiritual and material requirements, where in order to survive man has no alternative to becoming a mute adjunct of an all- embracing machinery of dictatorship. Further, the idea is propounded that the Communists and other democratic forces in the USA are in the service of the “Kremlin’s international communist dictatorship” and therefore the enemies of the average American.

p In the school textbooks used in anti-communist education the usual pattern for the presentation of materials is as follows: the USSR, other socialist countries and international communism as a whole have achieved certain successes in various spheres of socio-political life, but actually—and this is where the juggling and falsification begins. In view of the prevailing mass media orientation, this method of presenting material, by virtue of the truncated information available to schoolchildren, is quite effective.

p The method of training college teachers is part of the ideological indoctrination of American schoolchildren. Special courses and seminars are arranged regularly for teachers. The innumerable centres studying communism likewise devote considerable attention to the elaboration of 319 methods of teaching the subject and to the programme as a whole. One of the leaders in this field is the Institute on Communist Strategy and Propaganda at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, whose widely publicised six weeks’ courses for secondary school teachers employ the services of its own staff and of prominent anticommunist ideologists.

p In order to understand the substance of the ideological indoctrination of schoolchildren, it must be borne in mind that it is not always predetermined by the desire of teachers to deliberately misrepresent the existing reality of communism. In many cases the obtaining practice is predetermined by the ignorance and delusion of the teachers themselves, who have to draw their information from the mass media run by big business. Moreover, this by no means signifies that the schools are void of teachers endeavouring to foster the finest human qualities in children and resist the obscurantism that reigns in many US schools.

p In response to the recent growth of the role played by young people in the USA’s socio-political life, the ruling circles are intensifying the ideological indoctrination of students and young workers.

p Institutions of higher learning have always held a notable place in American socio-political life. This was accentuated by the fact that a large segment of young people went to the polls for the first time during the Presidential Elections in 1972.

p For its discipline specialisation the American student body may be divided into two groups, namely students of the technical and the humanitarian departments. A certain differentiation must be made in the forms and methods used to indoctrinate them ideologically, to build up a sort of immunity to scientific communism.

p Students of technical departments are more isolated from the study of social disciplines by the curricula, which are constituted in such a way as to prevent a serious study of socio-political disciplines, to confer a certain technocratic 320 immunity to the acceptance of ideas that have no direct relation to the chosen profession.

p This immunity is fostered in large measure by enlisting students for work on projects ordered by corporations and government agencies.

p In the case of students of the humanitarian and natural science departments, obstacles of another kind are erected to their familiarisation with Marxist-Leninist ideology and policy. One of these obstacles is the selection of teachers. Most of the social science teachers at American universities and colleges are reluctant to parade their anti-communist views. They prefer to give the impression of being unbiassed, frequently criticising the government, its internal and foreign policies and some of its measures. However, it would be hard to find among these “impartial people” those who did not aspire to participate in the various research ordered by monopolies or by private and state institutions and agencies. Some of them get the possibility of directly participating in charting and implementing the policy of the country’s ruling circles. For this purpose they are enlisted as temporary or permanent consultants of state agencies or given posts in the administration itself.

p The views of students are vital to their eligibility for jobs offered by the special departments of educational establishments. Outwardly, this gives the impression of a quite natural selection of the “most capable students” for various research on subjects determined by clients—government and private institutions and agencies. These research groups are headed by the leading academics of the given college or university who select their own assistants.

p Participation in this sort of work is the best recommendation for a student, making his name and allowing him to count on receiving “interesting high-salaried work” upon graduation. The situation is the same for students of technical departments. Consequently, the student is placed in a position where in order to receive not only interesting work but employment as such he has to present himself in a good 321 light, as capable and loyal. The importance of this fact has grown immensely in recent years, when upon graduation many young people have been unable to find employment in their profession. Students thus find themselves in an environment of views, requirements and stereotypes that obstruct their perception of scientific communism.

p The ruling circles of the USA are today devoting much attention to educating young workers in a spirit of immunity to scientific communism. The system of steps taken in this area is designed to mould an “ideal” worker, the stereotype of whom was defined by the ex-chief of the FBI J. Edgar Hoover. This “average American working man is loyal, patriotic and law-abiding. He wants security for his family and himself.”^^4^^

p After the brainwashing he gets at school, the young American finds himself the object of continued ideological indoctrination from the very outset of his work career. Here a large role is played by the vocational training system, which is under the close surveillance of government agencies, the private corporations and the AFL-GIO leadership, in particular the Committee on Political Education.

p At the vocational training centres young people not only learn a trade but receive some knowledge of social disciplines. A major role is played here by the instructors, whose laudation of the advantages of free enterprise is all the more effective for coming from the lips of people belonging to the same class. The anti-communist orientation of this educational activity is often covert, its principal objective being to fortify the prevailing understanding of the values of the American way of life, in the spirit of which the young American is taught at school.

p At the vocational training courses and at work the accent is placed on persuading the young American that all his day-to-day problems can be resolved through trade unionism. This is increasingly underscored in the decisions and actions of the AFL-CIO Right-wing leadership.

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p The selection of the most “worthy” members of the organised working-class movement has much in common with the screening practised at American institutions of higher learning. As in the first case, the young worker is taught to live with the thought that he has to concentrate on improving his professional skill and avoid involvement in the struggle for the politicisation of the working-class movement, for the replacement of the conciliatory leadership of the trade unions.

p This cultivation of an immunity to communism affects not only children and young people, but also all spheres of the life of the adult population.

p The quickly changing pattern of the demand for talent and labour induced by the scientific and technological revolution in the industrialised capitalist states, notably the USA, is making workers by brain and by hand give the maximum attention to improving their skills and work intensively in order to meet the requirements of the monopolies.

p American economic rationalism, nourished by existing reality, now appears as a basic guideline of behaviour. Indicative in this respect are the pronouncements made by Herman Kahn, director of the Hudson Institute, published by the journal L’Express on April 11, 1971. He and other bourgeois ideologists welcome this American economic rationalism, the striving to obtain every possible material benefit not by reorganising society, but by integrating into it.

p This is not always a conscious adaptation because reality places man in a position where his choice is extremely limited. Moreover, man himself is often turned into a cog of a machine and can very easily be replaced by another cog.

p In the system of ways and means of making the American immune to scientific communism considerable importance is attached to suburbanisation and its effects on various aspects of the life of Americans.

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p Suburbanisation has reached considerable proportions in the USA today. It is induced by economic, social and other factors. On the economic plane it is predetermined by the desire to leave the cities with their overcrowding, high rents and so on, and acquire a privately owned house. Another motivation is that people aspire to be rid of undesired neighbours, in some measure to get away from the social problems of cities and live among “equals”. A certain role is always played by the desire to acquire some “freedom”, a sense of independence within the existing system.

p In its present form suburbanisation is indeed leading to a certain separation of various strata and groups, including various groups of workers by brain and by hand, to the segregation of the Blacks and increasing alienation between white and black Americans. On the other hand, this migration to the suburbs is making it difficult to use leisure time for active participation in the country’s sociopolitical life. This is due, among other things, to the time factor: commuting frequently absorbs too much time, leaving man with the minimal possibilities for recovering the strength he has expended in the course of the working day.

p The emergent trend toward building various enterprises in these areas is, at the same time, leading to the creation of closed microsocieties or, to be more exact, closed microcommunities with their specific, local interests.

p The ruling circles are doing much to restrict political intercourse, participation in the struggle against the system itself, leaving open only a small field for a local struggle against some negative aspects of that system. This is not overt anti-communism, but a system of measures to create an immunity to the theory and practice of scientific communism.

p Various forms of political compulsion comprise a major element of the struggle of the monopoly circles against communism in the USA. More than half a century ago Lenin had characterised the political essence of imperialism as a turn from democracy to political reaction.

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p This political compulsion pursues the objective of creating an atmosphere in which people fear accusations of affiliation to the “Reds”, to a communist organisation, and, where this mechanism of fear fails to work, recourse is had to the physical suppression of the communist and any other democratic movement.

p A relatively new means of instilling fear is “thought surveillance”, which is spreading to ever larger sections of the population. Dossiers are compiled on people belonging to different groups. Today the files contain millions of these dossiers, which are, to some extent, a social X-ray of people, of their views and of the views of their friends. They are compiled not only by state agencies, but also by all sorts of private agencies, organisations and institutions.

p Today it is practically impossible to establish the total number of the dossiers on American citizens. The Passport Office, for example, has about a quarter of a million dossiers of “active surveillance”. The Civil Service Commission has two million. According to a report carried by the journal Le Nouvel Observateur on April 19, 1971, at Fort Holabird the military authorities have dossiers on eight million people. One is thus justified in speaking of total surveillance, which, in addition, implies constant telephone tapping. Further, it must be noted that the very fact of surveillance, of heightened interest in one person or another by a state or other agency may serve as sufficient grounds for dismissal.

p This dossier system is dangerous to the average American also because before giving employment an entrepreneur frequently makes inquiries at various private agencies possessing such files in order to check a person’s loyalty.

p The publicity that has been given to the existence of this system of dossiers and to the methods of using it has evoked fear even among those who may potentially “turn Red”.

p Crime, as everybody is aware, is a social evil. Today it has also become a weapon against communism. It limits people’s possibilities of participating in political activity in their 325 free time in the evenings and keeps them apprehensive of their own and their family’s safety. Moreover, it has an adverse effect on young people, inculcating in a section of them the views and behaviour of declassed elements. In other words, as a negative social phenomenon crime is becoming a weapon against the spread of communist ideology, against the vitalisation of political activity by the people.

p In the New Programme of the Communist Party of the USA it is noted: “Oppression and violence assume monstrous proportions. Assassinations of public figures have become commonplace, as have murders, bombings and burnings by the hoodlums of the racist ultra-Right. Unbridled police brutality and killing prevail; social protest and rebellion are met with armed force; mass killing is practised against oppressed minorities.”^^5^^

p A logical outcome of this activity is the existence of plans and the study of the possibility of establishing a direct dictatorship of monopoly capital in the USA. The exposure of these plans caused a nationwide scandal. But the very fact that these plans exist is evidence that the most reactionary groups of the ruling circles are not relaxing their activities. On the contrary, this activity may be further vitalised as the anti-monopoly, democratic, revolutionary forces strengthen their position. However, the possibility of such a coup depends largely on the balance of political strength in the USA and on the international level.

p In the struggle against communism in the USA a steadily growing part is played by the reactionary forces, by the various fascist-type organisations and Right extremist groups. They number several scores and while differing by the scale of their activity and influence, they share the striving to prevent the spread of communist ideas, to suppress and destroy any forces that propound a radical restructuring of society.

p The largest of the ultra-Right organisations in the USA are the John Birch Society and the All-American 326 Conference to Combat Communism. Their geographical proliferation is extremely wide, and their activities cover all parts of the country.

p Most of them are oriented toward definite strata and groups. But some of the largest of them are endeavouring to embrace the whole of American society. The organisations that specialise their activities include the American Jewish League Against Communism and the Minutewomen of the USA. A considerable role among them is played by the various organisations formed by reactionary church elements. Those with the greatest influence include the American Council of Christian Churches, the Church League of America and the Christian Crusade.

p The danger from the Right is a reality. As the New Programme of the Communist Party of the USA points out, “its most extreme manifestation is an aggressive, well- organised, politically skilled ultra-Right”, which today “ constitutes a grave menace to democratic liberties in our country”.^^5^^

p The support that the ultra-Rights get is predetermined by the striving of the monopoly bourgeoisie to make use of them against the forces struggling for democracy and progress. The monopolies are working toward an atmosphere of fear of the menace from the Right as this enables them to manoeuvre and preserve the system of exploitation without having recourse to extreme forms of struggle.

p The widening scale of the activities of organisations of this kind and the growing financial and other assistance given them by the ruling circles, and many other facts indicate that in its Right-extremist form anti-communism is a serious threat to the revolutionary, democratic movement.

p In the USA today anti-communism is part of the system of exploitation and oppression. At the same time, being a component of imperialism, it carries with it the contradictions inherent in individual groups of the ruling circles, in the different classes and groups of the population.

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The past decade has witnessed a considerable growth of the revolutionary, democratic movement in the USA, a rising level of the political consciousness of its participants and the politicisation of life. This serves as the foundation for creating a powerful anti-monopoly front. The strengthening of the positions of the revolutionary forces, the growing influence enjoyed by the Communists, the attractiveness of scientific communism, the practice of building socialism and communism in the socialist countries, and the vast organisational and propaganda work of the American Communists indicate that in the USA the prerequisites exist for putting an end to anti-communism and to the very system of which it is a part.