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Police-State Liberals by Art Preis

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Police-State Liberals by Art Preis A MARXIST QUARTERLY FALL 1954 Police-State Liberals by Art Preis They TALK about civ/~ liberties - But how do they VOTE? • To establish concentration camps • To outlaw a political party • To make dissenting opinion a crime. 95 OAK F A MARXIST QUARTERLY FALL 1954 Police-State Liberals by Art Preis They TALK (Jbout civil liberties - But how do they VOTE? • TfJ estfllJ/isn CfJncentrfltifJn cflmps • TfJ fJut/flW fI pfJ/iticfI/ pflrty • TfJ mfl/(e dissenting fJpinifJn fI crime. Literature Agent Carol Houston re­ ports an excellent response to the F I on the Chicago campus. She com­ ments: "Incidentally, the Summer is­ sue is really wonderful, both in ap­ pearance and content. Everyone here is very impressed." A MARX I ST QUARTERLY * * * Comrade Al Winters reports Vol. 15-No. 4. Fall 1954 Whole No. 129 good sales on the campus in Detroit. "We placed. a bundle of the Winter FI in a bookstore near Contents \Vayne University. They sold them out in about two weeks - So the Police-State Liberals 111 students seem to go for it. We put by Art Preis a bundle of the Spring issue there also." Does "Co-Existence" Mean Peace? 115 by Milton Alvin * * * San Francisco Literature Agent The F.arm Crisis in the Soviet Union 118 Gordon Bailey writes: "We have by John G. W-right put Fourth International on an­ The Degeneration of the Communist Party other newsstand and are planning to get it placed on more. The new And the New Beginning 121 by James P. Gannon format makes it far more saleable." Perspectives of American Marxism 128 * * * by Leon Trotsky An agent for the magazine in England writes: "The new format The Role of Statism in the Colonial World 131 is much appreciated here." by David Miller * * * Bernstein's Challenge to Marx 139 Rev. H. W. of Boston, Mass., by Joseph Hansen writes, "Your material helps me keep abreast of socialist trends and has helped me very much in FROM OUR READERS "In addition, we think Laura Gray's presenting liberal ideas." Evelyn Reed's articles on woman's cartoon of McCarthy on the cover of the Summer issue is priceless! The role in society in the Spring and McCa-rthy sneer and the shrugged Summer issues of Fourth Internatiol1- FOURTH INTERNATIONAL is shoulder are characteristic and won­ published quarterly by the Fourth al continue to attract much interest. derfully drawn-and the color scheme Internati(;nal Publishing Associa­ St. Paul Literature Agent Winifred of the whole is very attractive." tion. Nelson writes: "We have very much Managing Editor: William F . Warde appreciated the articles on the woman * * * Business Mngr: Dorothy Johnson question. We had a discussion on the Oakland Literature Agent Dolores first article last Wednesday night, and Seville writes: "We expect to increase ADDRESS communications and Thursday when the new F I came, I our F I bundle order substantially. subscriptIOns to 116 Ulniversity The last issue sold so well at a news­ Place,New York 3, New York. sat down and read her article right Telephone: ALgonquin 5-7460. away! stand on the Berkeley campus that "Discussion stimulates reading, you we plan on doubling the amount when ISUBSGRIPTION RATES: U.S.A. the fall term starts." and Latin America, $11.25 a year know, and vice versa. And these ar­ ( 4 issues) ; single copies, 35-c.; ticles on the woman question are * * * bundles, 25c. a copy for 5 copies new, although dealing with an old, Seattle Literature Agent Helen and up. Foreign and Canada, $1.50 old subject, and different from any­ Baker reports: "The last issue of the a year (4 issues); single copies, 35c.; bundles, 26c. a -copy for 5 thing we have had on the subject F I is attracting a lot of interest here." copies and up. before. In fact some of the questions * * * Reentered as second class matter raised in last Wednesday's discussion Jean Simon writes from Cleveland: April 20, 1954, at th~ Post Office at are answered in her new article. We "Please send us extra copies of the New York, N. Y., under the Act say 'Fine!' to see these documents in Summer issue. We have sold our of Mar-ch 3, 1879. the Fl. whole bundle." . A Case of "Midsummer Madness"? the contest between the liberal Dem­ ocrats, the Eisenhower Republicans Police·State Liberals and the lVlcCarthyites tooffe'r the most repressive, anti-:-democratic mea- sure was "one of the most amazing acts of demagogy any Congress has put on display . a sorry spectacle by Art Preis ... Frankly, we are at a loss to un- dersta11:d how the bill travelled so far NCE MORE the intellectual, make simple membership in the Com- without defeat. Many of the Senators journalistic and labor sup­ munist Party a felony • • • Real and Represent.atives voting for it O-" porters of the liberal politi­ politik has all but killed the liberals have long stood out as champions of cians in Congress are drenching the in this ,country, and we might as civil liberties. If, as some observers wailing wall with their tears. They well drink the death brew at the have suggested, <they joined in the are -crying about . the flagrant act of w.ake ... The recent record of the stampede for political expediency" 'indecent .exposure committed by the Democratic Party on civil liberties is their actions were heinous." New Deal-Fair Deal Congressional at least as bad as that of the Repub- The official national CIO and AFL liberals. who authored the so-caned licans. And liberals are its architects." papers play down the real danger of "Communist Control" Law which, for The Aug. 21 Nation magazine, old- the new law to organized olabol" and the first' time in American history, est and most respected voice of tra- even find merit in the conduct of the outlaws a pOHtkal party. ditional liberalism in America, declar- Congressional liberals who pushed Not a single voice of official lib­ ed editorially that "once again, the this law that now hangs like a heads­ eralism dares to defend the conduct Democratic 'liberals' have out-sma; Iced man's axe over all parties which make of the Senate and House liberals in themselves 'in their neurotic electiort- any pretense of observing the dem­ connection with enactment of the bw year anxiety, to escape the charge of ocratic forms and over <the entire which puts politkal liberty in Amer­ being 'soft on communism' even at union movement. ica in mortal peritl and places a new the expense of sacrificing constitution- In the Aug. 23 CIO News, we find legislative' knife at the throat of or­ al rights." The liberal weekly admon- the moves and countermoves over the ganized labor. ishes the Senate to "censure itself for bill in the Senate described in terms The Aug. 24 N.Y. Post admitted the disgraceful 85 to 0 vote by which of a slick trick by the liberals that "it wiU be justly said that liberal it has attempted to edge us a little through which the Eisenhower Admin­ Democrats disgraced themselves by closer to the concept of the one-party istration's "jnsistence on passage now striving to out-McCarthy McCarthy." state." 'of anti-Communist legislation aimed Arthur' Schlesinger, Jr., the Post's Speaking of the Senator who in- only,at unions backfired . The chief political soothsayer, spoke of troduced the political outlawry sec- Republican Party and the President "midsummer madness" in a "group tion of the law,' the Aug. 30 New got the anti ... labor provisions they of Democrats, infected by pre-election Republic explains that "of course asked for, but they had to' swallo~ fever" and predicted that "their hasty Senator Humphrey [HuDert Humph- with them a bill they didn't want-a and :reckless action will plague them­ rey (D-Minn.)] is tired-and embat- biB, which outlaws the Communist selves, as well as the country, for tIed in the current campaign. But Party and establishes severe penalties some time to come." He added that neither fact is justification for sad- for being a member." "the Democrats succeeded trium­ dling the nation with restrictive The CIO News does object to thee phantly in placing their party to the laws ... The sad truth is that the measure's "loose language." But the right of Joe McCarthy, of Pat Mc­ Democrats were ... weak in judg- impression is given that the Eisen­ Carran, of Judge Harold Medina ment, in miscalculating the course of hower administration, yelling and ... " Murray Kempton, the Post's public opinion. par more important, balking, was driven by sheer force· to labor 'columnist, went all out in his they wer'e weak in spirit ... " 'back the outlawry of the Communist excoriation of the liberal capitalist The labor union bureaucrats, who Party and that this wonderful politi­ politicians that he, along with all the take their ideology mainly from the cal achievement of the . liberals was other liber.als, had urged the people liberal intellectuals and journalists, secured at a small price-justa law to elect. Kempton admitted: "Every served up diluted versions of the lat- to undermine political} liberty and great name in the pantheon of liber­ ter's complaints. The Sept. I Ad- free trade unions. aiism in the United States Senate was vance, organ of the CIO Amalga- As for the AFL tops, their AFL7' on the list of those who voted to mated Clothing Workers, found that N~ws-Reporter not only found noth- Falll954 .... 267 111 ing wrong with the law ,as· a whole, We might then have to ask what it.
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