are: The Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels;" The State and Revolution by Lenin;

35

The Statutes,

85 The Manifesto was proclaimed in 1848. The edition in evidence was published by the International Publishers in 1932. Petitioner testified that he believed it to be an authorized publication, that he was familiar with the work, that it was used in classes, and that he thought its principles were correct "particularly as they applied to the period in which they were written and the country about which they were written."

The excerpts stressed are: "The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions."

"Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie.

"In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat."

se This work was written in 1917 between the February and October Revolutions in Russia. The copy in evidence was published in 1924 by the Daily Worker Publishing Company. Petitioner testified that it was circulated by the Party and that it was probably used in the classes of which he was "educational director."

The excerpts are:

"Fifth, in the same work of Engels, . . . there is also a disquisition on the nature of a violent revolution; and the historical appreciation of its role becomes, with Engels, a veritable panegyric of a revolution by force. This, of course, no one remembers. To talk or even to think of the importance of this idea, is not considered respectable by our modern Socialist parties, and in the daily propaganda and agitation among the masses it plays no part whatever. Yet it is indissolubly bound up with the 'withering away' of the state in one harmonious whole. Here is Engels' argument:

""That force also plays another part in history (other than that of a perpetuation of evil), namely a revolutionary part; that as Marx

Opinion of the Court.

320 U.S.

Theses and Conditions of Admission to the Communist International; 37 and The Theory and Practice of Lenin

says, it is the midwife of every old society when it is pregnant with a new one; that force is the instrument and the means by which social movements hack their way through and break up the dead and fossilized political forms of all this not a word by Herr Duehring. Duly, with sighs and groans, does he admit the possibility that for the overthrow of the system of exploitation force may, perhaps, be necessary, but most unfortunate if you please, because all use of force, forsooth, demoralizes its user! And this is said in face of the great moral and intellectual advance which has been the result of every victorious revolution!... And this turbid, flabby, impotent, parson's mode of thinking dares offer itself for acceptance to the most revolutionary party history has ever known.""

"The necessity of systematically fostering among the masses this and only this point of view about violent revolution lies at the root of the whole of Marx's and Engels' teaching, and it is just the neglect of such propaganda and agitation both by the present predominant Social-Chauvinists and the Kautskian schools that brings their betrayal of it into prominent relief."

(Quoting Engels) ""Revolution is an act in which part of the population forces its will on the other parts by means of rifles, bayonets, cannon, i. e., by most authoritative means. And the conquering party is inevitably forced to maintain its supremacy by means of that fear which its arms inspire in the reactionaries.'

37 Petitioner contends that this document was never introduced in evidence, and the record shows only that it was marked for identification. The view we take of the case makes it immaterial whether this document is in evidence or not. The copy furnished us was printed in 1923 under the auspices of the Workers Party. Hynes testified that it was an official publication, but not widely circulated. Petitioner had no recollection of the particular pamphlet and testified that the American party was not bound by it.

The excerpts are:

"That which before the victory of the proletariat seems but a theoretical difference of opinion on the question of 'democracy,' be

118

Opinion of the Court.

ism, written by Stalin.28 The Government also sets forth excerpts from other documents which are entitled to little

comes inevitably on the morrow of the victory, a question which can only be decided by force of arms.”

"The working class cannot achieve the victory over the bourgeoisie by means of the general strike alone, and by the policy of folded arms The proletariat must resort to an armed uprising."

"The elementary means of the struggle of the proletariat against the rule of the bourgeoisie is, first of all, the method of mass demonstrations. Such mass demonstrations are prepared and carried out by the organized masses of the proletariat, under the direction of a united, disciplined, centralized Communist Party. Civil war is war. In this war the proletariat must have its efficient political officers, its good political general staff, to conduct operations during all the stages of that fight.

"The mass struggle means a whole system of developing demonstrations growing ever more acute in form, and logically leading to an uprising against the capitalist order of the government. In this warfare of the masses developing into a civil war, the guiding party of the proletariat must, as a general rule, secure every and all lawful positions, making them its auxiliaries in the revolutionary work, and subordinating such positions to the plans of the general campaign, that of the mass struggle."

38 The copy in evidence was printed by the Daily Worker Publishing Company either in 1924 or 1925. Petitioner was familiar with the work, but not the particular edition, and testified that it was probably circulated by the Party. He had read it, but probably after his naturalization. Hynes and Humphreys testified that it was used in communist classes.

The excerpts are:

"Marx's limitation with regard to the 'continent' has furnished the opportunists and mensheviks of every country with a pretext for asserting that Marx admitted the possibility of a peaceful transformation of bourgeois democracy into proletarian democracy, at least [in] some countries (England and America). Marx did in fact recognize the possibility of this in the England and America of 1860, where

Opinion of the Court.

320 U.S.

weight because they were published after the critical period.39

monopolist capitalism and Imperialism did not exist and where militarism and bureaucracy were as yet little developed. But now the situation in these countries is radically different; Imperialism has reached its apogee there, and there militarism and bureaucracy are sovereign. In consequence, Marx's restriction no longer applies."

"With the Reformist, reform is everything, whilst in revolutionary work it only appears as a form. This is why with the reformist tactic under a bourgeois government, all reform tends inevitably to consolidate the powers that be, and to weaken the revolution.

"With the revolutionary, on the contrary, the main thing is the revolutionary work and not the reform. For him, reform is only an accessory of revolution."

89 (a) Program of the Communist International, adopted in 1928 and published by the Workers Library Publishers, Inc., in 1929:

"Hence, revolution is not only necessary because there is no other way of overthrowing the ruling class, but also because, only in the process of revolution is the overthrowing class able to purge itself of the dross of the old society and become capable of creating a new society."

Petitioner "agreed with the general theoretical conclusions stated in" this Program, but he regarded "the application of that theory" as "something else."

(b) Programme of the Young Communist International, published in 1929: "An oppressed class which does not endeavor to possess and learn to handle arms would deserve to be treated as slaves. We would become bourgeois pacifists or opportunists if we forget that we are living in a class society, and that the only way out is through class struggle and the overthrow of the power of the ruling class. Our slogan must be: 'Arming of the proletariat, to conquer, expropriate and disarm the bourgeoisie.' Only after the proletariat has disarmed the bourgeoisie will it be able, without betraying its historic task, to throw all arms on the scrap heap. This the proletariat will undoubtedly do. But only then, and on no account sooner."

(c) Why Communism, written by Olgin, and published first in 1933, by the Workers Library Publishers:

"We Communists say that there is one way to abolish the capitalist State, and that is to smash it by force. To make Communism possible

The bombastic excerpts set forth in Notes 35 to 38 inclusive, upon which the Government particularly relies, lend considerable support to the charge. We do not say that a reasonable man could not possibly have found, as the district court did, that the Communist Party in 1927 actively urged the overthrow of the Government by force and violence.40 But that is not the issue here. We are not concerned with the question whether a reasonable man might so conclude, nor with the narrow issue whether ad

the workers must take hold of the State machinery of capitalism and destroy it."

Petitioner testified that he had not read this book, but that it had been widely circulated by the Party.

40 Since the district court did not specify upon what evidence its conclusory findings rested, it is well to mention the remaining documents published before 1927 which were introduced into evidence and excerpts from which were read into the record, but upon which the Government does not specifically rely with respect to the issue of force and violence. Those documents are: Lenin, Left Wing Communism, first published in English about 1920; Bucharin and Preobraschensky, ABC of Communism, written in 1919 and published around 1921 in this country (petitioner testified that this was never an accepted work and that its authors were later expelled from the International); International of Youth, a periodical published in 1925; The 4th National Convention of the Workers Party of America, published in 1925; The Second Year of the Workers Party in America (1924); and, The Program and Constitution of the Workers Party of America, circulated around 1924. With the exception of these last two documents, the excerpts read into the record from these publications contain nothing exceptional on the issue of force and violence. The excerpts from the last two documents stress the necessity for Party participation in elections, but declare that the Party fosters no illusions that the workers can vote their way to power, the expulsion of the Socialist members of the New York Assembly (see Chafee, Free Speech in the United States (1941), pp. 269-82) being cited as an example in point. These statements are open to an interpretation of prediction, not advocacy of force and violence. Cf. Note 48, infra.