Tooling up for Mass Repression: The Subversive Activities Control Board
1953-12-12 035-0019-007 [pin]ning that interpretation on the protesting Communist Party. Thus the board remarks: "In view of the divergence of testimony of witnesses for Petitioner and those of Respondent concerning the meaning and application of this tenet [dictatorship of the proletariat]...
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| Institution: | MCR - The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick |
| Language: | English |
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12 December 1953
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10796/3AA94D62-2165-4C30-88CB-E4921BE2C413 http://hdl.handle.net/10796/A6DC598F-5179-4303-9930-1302F30F84D2 |
| Summary: | 1953-12-12
035-0019-007
[pin]ning that interpretation on the protesting Communist Party. Thus the board remarks: "In view of the divergence of testimony of witnesses for Petitioner and those of Respondent concerning the meaning and application of this tenet [dictatorship of the proletariat], we have taken particular pains to ascertain its real character. It is best understood from the volume . . . Lenin's postulates on this question make clear. . . ." And again: "Adherence to Marxism-Leninism, as its principles and precepts are stated in the Classics, is completely incompatible with Respondent's contention. . . ." THE BOARD'S permanent function, however, for which the Communist case is merely a legal opening gambit, is the control of the principle of voluntary association. This is indeed an awesome power. Tocqueville, more than a century ago, found this principle to be a basic characteristic of American institutions. "Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions," he said, "constantly form associations. They have not only commercial and manufacturing companies in which all take part, but associations of a thousand other kinds, religious, moral, serious, futile, extensive or restricted, enormous or diminutive. If it be proposed to advance some truth or to foster some feeling by the encouragement of a great example, they form a society." It may be seriously contended that these associations have played an even greater part in making change possible by democratic methods than the amorphous political parties, which have often tried to be all things to all men and have seldom been willing to embrace any new idea until it had first been thoroughly popularized by associations. Certainly a new idea will have little impact on a society subjected to radio, television, movies, and the daily press unless it has some organized backing. Consequently, the traditional freedoms of which we are more acutely conscious, those of speech, press, and religion, are of little practical value without freedom of association. It is thus an event of no slight importance that we now have a board of five persons empowered to sit in judgment on any organization and to issue orders capable of destroying it. Since organizations will be judged in large part by the causes they promote, this is also a power over the fate of the causes themselves. The twelve petitions already filed by the Attorney General give some hint as to the type of accusation the board will be called upon to try. Space does not permit a detailed analysis of the petitions, but an examination of five of them—those against the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, the Civil Rights Congress, the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, and the American Committee for Protection of the Foreign-Born—reveals the following significant facts: Each of the organizations is accused of having persons in its leadership who are also Communists. It is not stated who these persons are, what positions they hold, whether they were democratically elected, whether they are known as Communists to the other members. It is not alleged and the Attorney General, therefore, presumably considers it unnecessary to prove—that these persons used the organization for any unlawful or immoral purpose, for any purpose inconsistent with the maintenance of democratic capitalism, for any purpose outside the scope of the organization's professed objectives, or even for any purpose not known to and approved by the membership. Each is accused of having "received favorable publicity and support through the Communist Party press." Each is accused of "non-deviation" from the Communist Party line on the basis of taking positions which might be approved by a substantial number of non-Communists, such as "urging the recognition of and trade with the Chinese People's Republic." Several of the organizations are accused of "non-deviation" for taking positions which seem implicit in the organization's professed purposes. For example, the Civil Rights Congress is accused, among other things, of having defended Communist leaders prosecuted under the Smith Act, of having "supported the position of the Communist Party with respect to the 'Hollywood ten,' " and of having "supported the position of the Communist Party in its protest against the trial and conviction of Harry Bridges." It is not mentioned, of course, that the conviction of Harry Bridges was reversed by the non-deviationist majority of the Supreme Court. Both the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee are alleged to have "supported and followed the position and actions of the Communist Party in its opposition to and campaign against the Franco government of Spain." The American Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born showed non-deviation by "opposing the deportation of aliens who were members of the party," although there is no allegation that the committee failed to give similar aid to aliens who were not members, which they have done in many cases. Apparently it is characteristic of organizations which are not "Communist fronts" that they will jettison the very purposes for which they were founded rather than do something which Communists might applaud. Three of the organizations are charged with opposition to the Internal Security Act of 1950, under which they are currently on trial, and three with opposing its predecessor, the Mundt-Nixon bill. Three showed Communist domination by disliking the Hobbs bill, the Smith Act, or the government loyalty program. Four are charged with opposing the House Committee on Un-American Activities, which puts them in a class with many religious groups. HOW FAR will such reasoning be carried? Justice Holmes long ago noted the tendency of any principle to expand to the limits of its logic. Any estimate of the potentialities of this logic must take account of the fact that, as has happened with individuals in the government loyalty program, an organization may suffer virtual ruin just for having been cited before the board, even if it ultimately wins its case. It must also take into account the invisible pressure on organizations which may
292/946/35/20(vi) |
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