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Salient: An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 12, No. 6, June 24th, 1949.

[Introduction]

The Article on Wadman is a fine example of emotional lying and illustrates the communist method of argument and propaganda. To ignore, understate and over-emphasise is lying and to this method the communist is committed for the putting across of a philosophy which has no necessity to tell the truth because it is not true. The communist must therefore consciously or unconsciously be a liar.

This fact is more unfortunate because most of them are so desperately sincere and their passionate enthusiasm which must be admired, since it expresses itself with courage and zeal deludes their hearers and even themselves into a firm belief. But bcause they think they are right and impress everybody else with their conviction supported by what seem to be facts the case is not proved. A close examination of their facts usually reveals discrepancies and errors. The article which chastises Wadman is typical in style—that of the soap box orator.

The current keynote of communist propaganda is the fight against fascism. The rise of fascism was fortunate because it gave the comunists a cause for people to fight who were not in need of material benefits. The well fed are not very interested in fighting for something, which they already have, but a crusade against fascism which was threatening their freedom enlisted support from many who would never have bothered to read the first page of Das Kapital. But more important still was the reason for this fight. After a brief fraternisation period the communists fought fascism because it was their rival in totalitarian technique. The fight against fascism has distracted the attention of the world and the communist faithful from the fact that Red Fascism and Brown Fascism are brothers in method, in aim and in result. The perpetrators of Buchenwald are therefore dammed as fascists while the fascists who caused the Ukraine famine are extolled as anti-fascists and lovers of freedom. Propaganda for the communist is, as Mr. Gawn pointed out "a present duty." It is also the fine art of scientific lying. It may be hard to be young and harder to be truthful, for the communist it is clearly impossible.