Page 2
Battalion Editorials jS TALIN’S
Hoax
THE BATTALION
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1952
Ike And Adlai Move
Along Singing A Song
rjpEXAS WAS in the spotlight of the nation
al political scene yesterday as Gen. Eisen
hower brought his big brass band through
on tour singing some new hit parade tunes.
Like all tunes, they went in one ear and out
the other.
Among the favorites enjoyed by Texans
were: “Truman’s administration is weak-
kneed and soft headed . . . power hungry . . .
discredited ...” Here’s the way things
went:
In Houston, an estimated 65,000 persons
wildcatted as Ike threw a few hot songs at
Stevenson and Harry.
And the general was happy. It was his
birthday and he now* is 62 years old.
Stevenson was rolling through Wyoming
Women Offered
ROTC Training
r'HANCES OF WOMEN students taking
^ Air Force ROTC courses, at A&M are nil,
but at other colleges across the country, it’s
the thing.
AF ROTC courses now are open to women
students at several universities beginning
with this fall semester, The Air Reservists,
a Department of the Air Force publication,
said recently.
Women may take this training at Le
high University in Pennsylvania and at the
Universities of Georgia, Utah, and Maryland.
Coeds are allowed to enroll for the same
course of study offered male students and re
ceive full academic credit for their ROTC
studies as elective subjects.
There is no practical need for the wo
men’s course here at the present time. State
law covers the situation.
It is a good thing to be rich and a good
thing to be strong, but it is a better thing
to be loved by many friends.—Euripides
Absentee Voting
Easy For Freedom
DLANNING TO VOTE? Away from home?
4 Read on:
The absentee ballot will enable you to
vote for Ike or Adlai on Nov. 4 in your own
home town. Your vote will be counted there
as if you had cast the ballot personally
If you are a Texas resident, write to your
county clerk and enclose 15 cents in coin with
your poll tax receipt or exemption. He will
send you a ballot. When you receive it, get
the ballot notarized before marking it. After
you have marked it, mail the ballot back to
your county clerk.
Absentee balloting requirements are dif
ferent in every state. If your home is not in
Texas, write to your local county clerk for
information about absentee balloting.
Protect your freedom—vote.
singing “Republican bosses have fought with
blind fury” against all programs aimed at
bolstering the nation’s prosperity.
Five thousand persons greeted Ike at
Waco. The general told them, “It is pure
unadulterated bunk ...” (interruption by
cheers.) “ . . . that if I am elected, I will pull
the rug right out from under the farmers.”
But Stevenson was strumming along with
a tuning fork claiming “Old Guard Repub
licans own the Republican Party hoofs, hide,
and tallow ...”
And the vice presidential candidates ?
Sen. Sparkman spoke to an AFL union
and told them the Democrats have a basic
philosophy of “doing things” while the Re
publicans “stand pat.”
Sen. Nixon was on a television program
again (it does wonders to women) and he
contended that Stevenson’s record on com
munism disqualified him for the presidency.
On The Communists
Today’s politics in the United States are caus
ing many varied opinions “on who is corrupt where.”
But of one thing all Americans seem certain: Russia
is up to no good. Yet few of these same Americans
know why this is so.
Starting in The Battalion today is one of a
series of articles taken from The Christian Science
Monitor. The articles were written by Ernest S.
Pisko, who spent considerable time behind the Iron
Curtain and upon multitudinous research. We feel
these articles will help clarify many questions you
might have on Russian communism and the change
it has undergone.—The Editors.
By ERNEST S. PISKO
Staff Writer of The Christian Science Monitor
was typical of what all the candidates are
doing now. When asked if he would answer
Nixon he said, “I don’t think so.”
Few are thinking.
Communist’s Story
In Russia Today
YESTERDAY IS history.
In an attempt to refute Abraham Lincoln and “fool all
^ ^ ^ the people all the time,” Soviet Prime Minister Joseph Stalin
Stevenson’s remark about the program J 1 * 18 pl a y e d a gigantic hoax not only on the 25 million card
bearing members of the various Communist parties and the
Soviet people but on the world in general and the western
democracies in particular. And he almost carried it off
unnoticed.
The purpose of his hoax was to make people within and
without the Soviet sphere believe that the Bolshevik system
is identical with communism.
This does not mean that communism is better than
Bolshevism. It means that the two have little in common.
Communism, as will become abundantly clear in the course
of this series, is an outmoded and unworkable socio-economic
theory. It reflects conditions as they were a hundred years
ago, and it was unworkable even then on account of its inner
contradiction between total freedom and total organization.
Yet few of our books now used in history Today, with every aspect of life—except the moral one—af-
courses can present to us the rapidly chang- fected, and in many instances transformed, by fantastic tech-
ing policies and conditions of different coun- ^logical progress, the Marxist doctrine is less workable than
, . 0V0T.
tri0s.
And the next best thing to having some- Revised Plan to Avert Defects
one speak to you on rapidly changing issues, Stalin apparently recognized this fact earlier than any
is to read current commentaries and reports. ot her of the leading Bolsheviks. Indeed, there may be ample
We plan to bring* to you these current justification to ascribe his personal triumph as well as his
reports. successful stewardship of the Soviet Union to his insight into
Starting in today’s publication is the first the fundamental defects of Marxist communism and to his
decision—reached some time between 1925 and 1928—to
revise the blueprints and change the structure of the Soviet
state while in the midst of the building process.
How complete a reversal of the Marxist doctrine Stalin
has brought about during the past 25 years can be seen by
comparing Karl Marx’s key tenets with their present counter-
Gone are their ideas that “The Commun- P ar ts in the Soviet Union. . ,
To start with the economic features, since these probab-
of a series o£ articles concerning “Stalin’s
Hoax on Communism.”
Stalin has replaced “The Communist Man
ifesto” as planned by Karl Marx and Fried
rich Engels with a theory of his own.
ists disdain to conceal their views and aims;
ly are the first ones everybody thinks of when communism
that the proletarians have nothing to lose but j s discussed:
their chains; that the Communists seek to In the Communist state, as designed by Marx and Engels,
rescue education from the influence of the all private property, inheritance rights, taxation, and pro
ruling class; that in proportion as to the ex- were to be abolished.
nloitation of ono individual bv -mother is In the Soviet Union, people may own property. They
P y £ . k own their clothing—whether it be one threadbare and patch-
put an end to, the exploitation of one nation ec j gu j£ or a wardrobe full of the finest wearing apparel. They
by another will also be put an end to; that own their furniture, their books, Their stamp collections,
free education is for all children in public their automobiles, motorcycles, or bicycles. If they belong to
schools; that the theory of communism may the upper classes, they may own a house or even several
houses. '
be summed up in a single sentence: Abolition
of private property.”
These articles written by a man who has
seen the- story first hand behind the Iron
Curtain is as interesting as it is factual.
Tax Bite Hits Little Man Hard
The Battalion
They own savings accounts and government bonds—both
of which earn interest. In contrast to the Communist Mani
festo, which expressly abolished inheritance rights, Soviet
We hope you will read and study it crit- citizens can dispose of their property in their wills in exact-
ically. ly the same manner as citizens of western democracies. And
just as western people have to pay taxes to their govern-
• ments, so do the Soviet people. But there is quite an interest-
That action is best which procures the j n wes tern democratic countries, turnover or sales taxes
greatest happiness for the greatest numbers. are regarded as unfair to the economically weaker groups of
11 anas Hutcheson population and therefore are kept within narrow limits.
In the Soviet Union, there is a turnover tax on every item.
Its scale ranges from 26 per cent for certain types of shoes to
80 per cent on salt and 71 per cent on beer. The factory man
ager, who earns $1,000 or $1,500 a month, and factory night ~
watchman who earns $135, are fully equal before the turn
over tax law.
Evidence of deliberately fostered enequality can be
found in every sphere of Soviet activity. Details will be given
in the following articles of this series. They will show the
hierarchical setup not only of the Soviet Communist Party
but of the entire state, as evidenced in the reestablishment of
rank distinctions in the Soviet Army and the civil service,
in the selection of candidates for higher education, and in
the ruthless enforcement of discipline in factories and on j
the farms.
Cultural Outlets Stifled By Danger
Perhaps the most striking example of Stalin’s deviation *
froih Marxism is the role which the profit motive plays in
Soviet affairs. In writing about this dream-state, Marx and
Engels occasionally implied that some portions of this blue
print would have to be realized gradually over a considerable
period of time. But they never allowed any doubt that the
“capitalist” striving for profit would be banned from the
Communist state right from the beginning.
However, instead of being alien to the Soviet citizens,
the profit motive now dominates their thinking and their
activities. Tue^r struggle ror the ruble is all the more intense
since they have hardly any opportunity for satisfying their
nonmaterialistic interests in freedom.
They cannot go to church without risking their reputa
tion or their job. They cannot travel in their own state with
out asking -for permits. They cannot read the books they
like, listen to the music they like, and view the films they
like, and they cannot discuss the books, the music, the films,
atid so on, without risking that some members of their
family or some of their friends will denounce them for “sub
versive attitudes.” ,
Stalin Distorts Theory
The only thing Soviet citizens can do if they want td
live in peace is to work. The harder they work, the mom i *
money they will make, and then they will be able not only to
afford some luxuries but also to climb up a few steps on the
social ladder. This is one of the reasons why the ruble now
looms so large in their consciousness—it is the symbol of dis
tinction, the key to success, the measure of all recognized
values. Another reason is that it is very hard for the Soviet
masses to earn the amount of rubles necessary for a most
modest life.
As radically as in the case of the economic tenets, Stalin
either has done away with most of the other key features *
of Marxism or has distorted them beyond recognition.
The Communist society which Marx envisaged was to
be classless; it was to express the will of its overwhelming
majority, and this will was to be ascertained by strictly dem
ocratic means; it was to be impervious to such “bjourgeois”
emotions as nationalism or such “bourgeois vices” as impel-
ialism.
The Soviet Union today is a super capitalistic, militaris-
tic, hierarchical, and tyrannical state. It has taken over
from capitalism the profit motive and such features, oWw /- v
lete in western countries, as the piecework system and vef
strictions on labor’s freedom of movement. It is militaristic .
because of its preferential treatment accorded to members of,
the armed forces, the militarization of youth, and the gov
ernment’s ever-present will to use military pressure for for
eign political ends. It is a hierarchy modeled on the pattern ^
of ancient Egypt. Every Soviet citizen’s standing in society ”
(See STALIN’S HOAX, Page 6)
Lawrence Sullivan Ross, Founder of Aggie Traditions
“Soldier, Statesman, Knightly Gentleman”
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Co-Editors
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Today’s Issue
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P O G O By Walt Kelly
LI’L ABNER Come To Poppa „ By A1 Capp