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.

Treachery?

To whom? the writer asks with glib answers which are questionable themselves. He makes no mention of treachery on the grand scale. The four Non-aggression pacts the Soviet made with those great warlike powers Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Lithuania which the Soviet broke—without provocation. Is this not treachery?

But then listen to Mr. Stalin: "Sincere diplomacy is no more possible than dry water or [unclear: worden] iron."

Cruelty?

The pot calls the kettle black. But is it not cruelty to let five million people starve as Mr. Stalin did in the Ukraine because it was expedient? Trotsky was bludgeoned to death with an axe—a kindly death. The communists are cruder than the gas chamber fiends of Dachau. No one knew the extent of Nazi methods until that system was overthrown and exposed to investigation.

Hatred?

The questions asked import their own answers—most of those answers have sufficient truth to be credible—but they are never the whole answer. But the reader flatters himself that he knows the answers and the writer makes his point without a mention of the regular diatribes of Moscow radio, the Russian wives who may not join their husbands, the German wives in the same position and the other side to those suggestive questions.

Fear?

More sidestepping, more colourful words like parasitic and that abused term "the people" (as if business men are not people). This is followed by some good old political man to man "You've got something there Mr. Wadman" ... but listen to the communist who will say "Yes as a matter of fact Mrs. Kasenkfna was not the least bit frightened. She only jumped from a second storey window. And those refugees who risk their lives in frail tubs to cross 6,000 miles of Ocean away from Paradise, they're not frightened. They're all peasants and intellectuals and have tremendous fortunes—that's why they are frightened."

No Force? No Terror?

The proletarian revolution is impossible without the forcible destruction of the bourgeois machine." Lenin: The Proletarian Revolution.

"The scientific concept of dictatorship (of the proletarian) means nothing more nor less than power which rests on violence which is not limited by any laws or restricted by any absolute rules" (Problems of Leninism).

"The proletariat cannot and ought not to seize nower if it has not the majority in the country"—But wait read further—" This absurd thesis" continues Mr. Stalin, "cannot be justified either theoretically or practically" Stalin in The Theory and Practice of Leninism).

Are They in Blinkers?

Here Mr. Wadman's critic begins his descent from treading gently in the swamp into the mire of nonsense and presumption. Relying on an editorial by Mr. Combs which proved nothing of the sort he tries to make us certain that communists are not in blinkers by some abuse of Christianity. "In contradicition to evidence" (what evidence?) he says, "it has all the signs (what signs?) of being 90% myth" (for example?). This type of unproved assertion is an insult to Salient's readers. Is it the result of an overdose of Lenin? "All religious ideas are an unspeakable abomination" (Lenin on Religion).

The point in issue (the Blinkers) he noisily overlooks.

I invite the writer to attempt to arrange a subscription to three American magazines to be sent to readers in the Soviet Union and see how far the blinkers extend.

The Abolition of Slavery

It is not to the Churches' credit that some Churchmen condemned the adolition of slavery but one swallow does not make a summer and many churchmen did fight for it. Moreover if a system, and a large one of forced labour camps is anything but slavery then what is it? It cannot be defended on the same grounds as our penal system because there is no code of law comparable nor are our prisons closed to inspection.

End Justifies Means

This section at least indirectly admits that the statement "the end justifies, the means" (incorrectly imputed to the Jesuits who, quoted in context, said something quite different) is dear to the communists heart—as of course it is and must be. But the conclusion "after all ends are means" is glib but dissatisfying.

An approximate end may be a means to a remote end. But any fool can see that ends and means are there used in differing senses. If the end is good but the means evil the choice of evil means cannot be justified. Absolute morality commands that one choose the lesser of two evils only If one must be chosen otherwise neither may be chosen.

Ends are means only when used in different senses. Presume ends are means. Let the end be the extermination of Cancer—a good end. Then if means are ends there can be no evil in killing off all those with Cancer. This idea may not be offensive to the Communist. How does it strike you?

The Church and Art

I have not the space to deal with this absurdity fully, but I wish to remark in passing that anyone who has the nerve to say without qualification that Beethoven was the world's greatest composer is a fool.

This argument about art in all its aspects leads nowhere since it is mainly a matter of opinion.

The Church and the Worker

"Christianity broke down the contempt with which the master had regarded his slaves and planted among the slaves a principle of moral regeneration which expanded in no other sphere with equal perfection," Lecky (a bitter opponent of the Church) History of European Morals.

"In the Middle Ages, wages were taken as a first charge; in modern times the reward of the labourer cannot but fluctuate in connection wih fluctuation in the utility and market price of things" Prof. Cunningham noted English eoonomic historian.

"Medieval authorities . . . did not hold what we may call the theory of minimum subsistence . . . Instead they seem to have recognised that wages should be made to conform to a fit and proper standard of life." Lipson: Economic History of England.

"The Church recognises and affirms the rights of employers and workers td form industrial associations, separately or together . . . and urges their formation." Included in the official statement of the Catholic Bishops of Australia "Peace in Industry" 1946.

It would surprise me to learn that Mr. Wadman's critic had read any of the teachings of the Church on such matters. His emotive criticism indicates that his knowledge—or hers—has been culled from the literature of communism which is strictly limited to its own biased view.

Pie in the Sky My Eye?

To debunk an idea is one of the best ways of getting it put aside as fact. For this reason the Christian view is called "pie in the sky" and then not discussed at all. Instead there are some quotations from the Bible calculated to point out that perhaps Christianity had said something sensible. This is labelled Brown-shirt gutter philosophy and then left to be pointers for Bolshevism. This childish evasion ignores the issue. Is there any evidence sufficiently strong to contradict Christianity?

The communists unable to answer prefer to debunk the whole thing. Mr. Wadman's critic does so because he knows his propaganda. Nothing will allow his biased mind to be imperilled in this deception so dear to his radical vanity, and his fanatic refusal to admit another point of view leads him on to bigger lies and nastier deceptions.

The rank and file communists know their party slogans, the villifying catchcries, the glib answers to knotty questions but a discussion of essentials must be avoided for those who become too interested in that sort of thing seem to have trouble-Communism's essentials are its weakest point since they are based on distortions and philosophical errors. (See "Communism and Man." F. J. Sheed.)

Codlin Moth?

Defections at the heart of the communist apple on earth arc increasing and the Party is hard put to it for explanations. Mr. Sharpley was a blow they are trying to explain away with an excuse that has nothing to do with his knowledge of Red Fascism. Two other recent defections are not well known in New Zealand, for leaving the party or any country under its control is a risky business and not rashly tried by the higher ups when minor figures find it necessary to leap from a window or go into hiding. It seems that Communism has nothing left to offer but a nice rosy red apple with a very rotten heart.

At least that must be the opinion of both Mr. Hyde (ex-editor of the Communis) Daily Worker in Britain) and Mr. Budenz (ex-editor of the Communist Daily Worker in the. U.S.A.). These two men ought to know. That is why they left the party which promises everything and reduces man to the statistic in the Plan. But one must not mention them they must be fascists or decadent bourgeois profiteers or parasites. After all the truth will out which is unfortunate for the communists since you cannot tell the truth and be a communist too. Which is just too bad,

Laying a Ghost

It is time that it was made clear that no Christian body of any importance is fascist. Listen to Pious XI on Fascism: "A regime based on an ideology which clearly resolves itself into a true, a real pagan worship of the State . . . the Statolatry which is no less in contrast with the natural rights of the family that it is in contradiction with the superatural rights of the Church." June 1931.

Every other Christian body has expressed similar views. There arc similar and stronger quotations condemning inequitable wage systems, the exercise of competition so that it offends the common good and reforms in the present system for the benefit of the people in any nation as a whole, Statements which make the suggestion that the Church only worries about the hereafter as ridiculous as the person who is ignorant enough to believe and propagate it. All the Churches realise that conditions here and now are vitally important in relation to man's End. Any other assertion is contrary to fact.

The Voice of Democracy

"We desire to give the Soviet people absolute liberty of voting for those they desire to elect ... In the Soviet Union they are not, and cannot be, any other political organs other than the Communist Party." "Moscow News" in an article on the New Constitution Nov. 7th, 1936 p 19. The Free People's Democracy in truth.

Veritas.