committed by a citizen who has not had any regular employment for more than the last three months and has no fixed residence, is punishable by virtue of Article 192-a, Paragraph 2, of the Criminal Code by imprisonment for a period of up to two years. (7) The same penalty applies to a person who has stayed behind after having registered his departure from a given place, or who has remained after having received the militia injunction to depart because of his having no passport. (8) The same penalty is applicable by virtue of Article 192-a, Paragraph 2, to a person who has no passport and who has already been punished once for unlawful residence in the passport area.53 Under no circumstances should the position of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, upholding the right of the Department of State to deny passports to members of the anti-American Communist conspiracy, be confused with the universal restrictions of passports under czarism and communism. With reference to external passports, American Communists have contended that "every American citizen has the right to travel regardless of politics." 54 Within the Soviet Union, however, the official position is exactly the reverse. No Soviet citizen may go abroad unless he has a passport. Article 84 of the Soviet Criminal Code provides the following penalty for violations: The departure abroad or the entry into the U.S.S.R. without the established passport or permission of competent authorities is punished by confinement to a camp from one to three years. As a rule, a Soviet passport is granted only to those on official Soviet missions abroad. Failure to return is considered tantamount to treason and therefore subject to severe penalties. We cite in this connection from Article 58-la of the Criminal Code: Treason, that is to say, acts committed by citizens of the U.S.S.R. to the detriment of the military power of the U.S.S.R., its State independence, or its territorial integrity, such as * * * * escape or flight abroad, are punished by the supreme measure of criminal punishment-death by shooting and confiscation of property, in the case of extenuating circumstances punishment consists of deprivation of liberty for ten years with confiscation of property.55 FREEDOM OF THE PRESS During the period of seduction before the Communists took over power, one of Lenin's outstanding demands was for freedom of the press. He proclaimed that: We demand immediate and unconditional recognition by authorities of *** freedom of press ***. Until this is "The Soviet Regime" by W. W. Kulski (Syracuse University Press, 1954), pp. 657, 658. Decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Rockwell Kent and Waiter Briehl, Petitioners v. John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State, October term, 1957, pp. 3, 4. "Ugolovnii Kodeks, Juristic Publication of the Ministry of Justice of the U.S.S.R. (Moscow, 1947). p. 26. done, all words about tolerance *** will remain a miser- "Political liberty," declared Lenin in one of his early evangelistic moods, "means the right of the people *** to publish whatever papers and books they please, without having to ask permission." 57 Joseph Stalin pointed out why he considered freedom of the press impossible under capitalism, declaring: Under the capitalist system there is no true "freedom" for the exploited, nor can there be, if for no other reason than that the buildings, printing plants, paper supplies, etc., indispensable for the enjoyment of this "freedom," are the privilege of the exploiters.58 Speaking of freedom of the press in the United States, Lenin sought to explain the mechanics of so-called capitalist control, as follows: ***this freedom is a delusion so long as the capitalists commandeer the better printing establishments and the largest stores of paper, and capital retains its power over the press *** 59 In interpreting the measures taken by the Soviet Government to control the press, it is necessary to realize that all opposition opinion was indiscriminately branded capitalistic and that these measures were therefore directed against all publications not in line with official, Soviet opinion. Lenin therefore announced that ** it is necessary at the outset to take away from capital the possibility of hiring writers, buying printing houses, and bribing papers, to which end it is necessary to overthrow the yoke of capital and to overthrow the exploiters and crush their resistance.60 It should be noted that the decree concerning the press, adopted by the Council of People's Commissars, October 27-November 9, 1917, evoked sharp criticism from leading members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as well as members of the Left Social Revolutionary Party, who threatened to recall their representatives from the War-Revolutionary Committee. The critics of the decree referred to it as "terrorist" policy.61 The Moscow Pravda, official Communist organ, has made plain the crushing restrictive measures which the Soviet regime will apply to all those it considers its enemies, which, of course, includes everybody who does not uphold the line of the Communist Party. Pravda is most specific about this. He will not obtain a sheet of paper, he will not be able to cross the threshold of a printing office, should he try to fulfill 66 V. I. Lenin, "The Autocracy is Tottering" (Mar. 1, 1903), Sochineniya, Gospolitizdat, Moscow, 1946, vol. VI, p. 314. 57 V. I Lenin, "To the Rural Poor" (1903), "Selected Works" (Lawrence and Wishart, Ltd., London. 1936), vol. 2, p. 246. 5 Joseph Stalin, "Foundations of Leninism" (International Publishers, New York, 1932), p. 52. V. I. Lenin, "Collected Works" (Russian), vol. XXIV, p. 10. 00 Ibid. 61 "The Law of the Soviet State" by Andrei Y. Vishinsky, former Prosecutor of the U.S.S.R. and former Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs (MacMillan Co., New York, 1948), pp. 615, 616. his wretched purpose. He will not find a hall, a room, or a mere corner in which to spread his poison by speech.62 Former U.S.S.R. Prosecutor A. Y. Vishinsky has outlined Soviet measures for the "political-ideological control of productions of the press" as follows: *** The law, Concerning the Chief Administration for Literature and Publication (June 6, 1931), provides for political-ideological control of productions of the press and obligates the Administration, a constituent part of the RSFSR People's Commissariat for Education, "to prohibit the issuance, publication, and circulation of productions: (a) containing agitation and propaganda against Soviet authority and the proletarian dictatorship; (b) publishing state secrets; (c), arousing nationalist and religious fanaticism; 63 The RSFSR Criminal Code (Arts. 182, 185) prosecutes those who violate Soviet legislation concerning the press. To cap the climax, we find Stalin proclaiming to a foreign workers delegation that "you will not find another country in the world with such broad and complete freedom as exists in the U.S.S.R." 4 The suppression, by the Soviet Government, in 1957, of Boris Pasternak's "Dr. Zhivago" and the disciplining of the author proves the contrary to be true. WORLD REVOLUTION The closing sentences of Marx and Engels' "Communist Manifesto" of 1848 proclaim the Communist dedication to world revolution: Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The theme was carried persistently forward by Lenin on numerous occasions of which the following is typical: The victorious proletariat of that country, having expropriated the capitalists and organized its own socialist production, would rise against the rest of the capitalist world, attract to itself the oppressed classes of other countries, raise revolts among them against the capitalists, and in the event of necessity come out even with armed forces against the exploiting classes and their states * * * 66 Stalin, as the faithful disciple of Lenin, sounded the same note in his numerous works, from which we cite one example: Lenin never regarded the Republic of the Soviets as an end in itself. To him it was always a link needed to strengthen the chain of the revolutionary movement in the Pravda, June 22, 1936. "The Law of the Soviet State" by Andrei Y. Vishinsky (MacMillan, New York, 1948), p. 616. Joseph Stalin "Interviews with Foreign Workers Delegations" (Nov. 5, 1927), "Leninism" (Cooperative Publishing Society of Foreign Workers, Moscow, 1934), vol. I, pp. 403, 404. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, "Communist Manifesto" (International Publishers, New York, 1982), sec. IV. V. I. Lenin, "The United States of Europe Slogan" (1915), "Selected Works" (International Pubshers, New York, 1943), vol. V, p. 141. countries of the West and East, a link needed to facilitate The Communist International made it plain in its program that it considered the U.S.S.R. as the base of the world revolution: The U.S.S.R inevitably becomes the base of the world movement of all oppressed classes, the center of international revolution.68 However, in his interview with the American publisher Roy Howard on March 1, 1936, Stalin denied that the Soviet Union had any such intentions: ROY HOWARD. Does this, your statement, mean that the Soviet Union has to any degree abandoned its plans and intentions for bringing about a world revolution? JOSEPH STALIN. We never had such plans and intentions."9 WITHERING AWAY OF THE STATE Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin all considered the state under capitalism as an instrument of class repression. This characterization they applied to both democracies and monarchies. Lenin put it this way: According to Marx, the state is an organ of class rule, an organ for the oppression of one class by another * * * 70 They promised the victims of their propaganda that, under communism, the state, that hated instrument of capitalist repression, would be done away with and that the state, as an institution, would wither away. Mankind would live in a paradise of freedom and tolerance. The logic of this theory was eloquently formulated by Engels: Insofar as, at long last, the State becomes truly representative of society at large, it renders itself superfluous. As soon as there is no longer any social class which has to be kept in subjection, as soon as class dominion has been abolished and therewith an end been made to the struggle for existence, and the consequent collisions and excesses arising out of the extant anarchy of production, there will be nothing left to repress, and therefore nothing which will necessitate the existence of a special repressive authority, a State ***. In one domain after another, the intervention of a State authority in social relations becomes superfluous, and therefore spontaneously ceases to occur. The Government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and by the management of the processes of production. The State is not "abolished," it dies out."1 71 67 Joseph Stalin, "On the Death of Lenin" (Jan. 26, 1924, Pravda, Jan. 30, 1924). Program of the Communist International (1928), pt. V, sec. 2, "Handbook of Marxism" (International Publishers, New York, 1935), p. 1020. Joseph Stalin "Interview with Roy Howard" (Mar. 1, 1936), New York Times, Mar. 5, 1936. 70 V. I. Lenin, "State and Revolution" (1917), "Selected Works" (International Publishers, New York, 1943), vol. VII, p. 9. "Herrn Eugen Duhrings Umwalzungen der Wissenschaft" by Friedrich Engels, third edition, Dietz, Stuttgart, 1894, pp. 102, 103. This idyllic picture was amplified by Lenin in an authoritative work "The State and Revolution," in part as follows: * there will vanish all need for force, for the subjection of one man to another, and of one part of the population to another, since people will grow accustomed to observing the elementary conditions of social existence without force and without subjection.72 So much for the promise. What about the performance? First, let us consider the words of a veteran Bolshevik, one of the foremost leaders of the Russian Revolution, Leon Trotsky, on the actualities of the withering away process: "The realitics of Soviet life today," he said, "can indeed be hardly reconciled even with the shreds of old theory. Workers are bound to the factories; peasants are bound to the collective farms. Passports have been introduced. The freedom of movement has been completely restricted. It is a capital crime to come late to work ***. The frontiers are guarded by an impenetrable wall of border-patrols and police dogs on a scale heretofore unknown anywhere. To all intents and purposes, no one can leave and no one may enter. Foreigners who had previously managed to get into the country are being systematically exterminated. The gist of the Soviet constitution, the "most democratic in the world," amounts to this, that every citizen is required at an appointed time to cast his ballot for the one and only candidate handpicked by Stalin or his agents. The press, the radio, all the organs of propaganda, agitation and national education are completely in the hands of the ruling clique. During the last five years no less than half a million members, according to official figures, have been expelled from the party. How many have been shot, thrown into jails and concentration camps, or exiled to Siberia, we do not definitely know. But undoubtedly hundreds of thousands of party members have shared the fate of millions of nonparty people. It would be extremely difficult to instill in the minds of these millions, their families, relatives and friends, the idea that the Stalinist state is withering away. It is strangling others, but gives no sign of withering. It has instead arrived at a pitch of wild intensity unprecedented in the history of mankind." (Leon Trotzky as quoted by Max Eastman in "Marxism-Is It Science?" pp. 280 and 281). No less an authority than Soviet Premier Khrushchev, himself, speaking before the XXth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in February 1956, said: He (Stalin) abandoned the method of ideological struggle for that of administrative violence, mass repressions, and terror *** he often chose the path of repression and physical annihilation, not only against actual enemies, but also against individuals who had not committed any crimes against the party and the Soviet Government * *. It ** V. I. Lenin, "The State and Revolution" (1917), "Collected Works," "Toward the Seizure of Power" (International Publishers, New York, 1932) vol. XXI, book II, p. 214. |