Topics: Culture & Ideology

Recently in the mainstream media the words “Nazi” and “Hitler” are perhaps two of the most commonly used words employed by pundits and even politicians. Those on the Left go so far as to claim that the current President parallels to Hitler,[i] with some public schools even teaching it in classrooms.[ii] Members of the Right retort that the rapidly growing socialist elements within the leftist parties are more deserving of the association because “Nazi” is simply an abbreviation of its full name—Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or, National Socialist German Workers’ Party.[iii]

With the centrality of the debate and the frequency of its usage, it is no surprise then that the political arguments have led directly into historical debates about Nazism. Thus, the most recent development in this match of political badminton has materialized in a slew of articles from left-leaning authors denying any connection between the National Socialism of Germany during Hitler’s regime and the socialism on the rise today in the American Left.[iv]

The claim that National Socialists were not true Socialist is not entirely new, with Western Marxist and socialist economists and historians distancing themselves from Nazism by claiming that Hitler and his followers were actually capitalists.[v] The historical facts of the Nazi regime, however, leave little room for doubt, the National Socialist party truly was ideologically socialist in name and in deed.

In order to competently answer this question definitions for both socialism and capitalism must be adopted. The generally accepted fundamental distinction between a capitalistic and a socialistic economic system rests upon the ownership of the means of production. In free markets the private ownership of capital is safeguarded as an intrinsic right which the government is bound to protect. For example, in the American tradition considers protections for private property paramount, with Thomas Jefferson explaining that:

“A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.”[vi]

On the other hand, the general sentiments of socialist theorists suggest that the private ownership of the means of production leads only to the richer propertied classes oppressing the poorer non-propertied parts of the population. Thus, the hypothetical hallmark of a pure socialist society is one in which there is no real private ownership of the means of production, only public or state ownership.[vii] Simply put, socialism is the destruction of private property rights.

Although there are endless varieties when it comes to methods, ends, and styles of each capitalism and socialism, for the purposes of this investigation the basic understood definitions will provide a sufficient evaluative baseline. In short, the crux of whether or not the German National Socialists can be rightly considered as true socialists comes down to the status of private property during the Nazi regime. If the rights of private ownership were protected, then Nazism ought to be viewed as a form of capitalism. If, however, the Nazis dramatically infringed upon property rights to the extent that they failed to meaningfully exists, then their self-appointed moniker is rightly applied.

To discover how the Nazis approached the matter of private property Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf naturally reveals the early rational which would soon materialize once he gained power in 1933. The significance of Mein Kampf is seemingly often overlooked today with some writers drawing conclusions which even a quick perusal of the text directly refutes,[viii] but Hitler’s manifesto certainly captured much of what it meant to be a National Socialist. So much so, that the German Ministry of Culture later instructed that:

“Boys and girls in their teens must acquire a proper insight in order to understand this new Bible of the People. They must become acquainted and familiar with the lines of policy traced therein by the master’s hand. The grown-ups must, by reading this book, purify and strengthen their civic consciousness.”[ix]

Whatever the effect it had on German readers, one quickly learns two key facts concerning Hitler’s economic thought throughout Mein Kampf. First, that Hitler viewed Marxism as a Jewish scheme to destroy nations for their own capitalistic ends.[x] He explains that:

“I resumed the process of learning, and so came to realize for the first time what it was that the life work of the Jew Karl Marx was directed toward. Now I really began to comprehend his Capital, as well as the struggle of Social Democracy against the national economy.”[xi]

Hitler continued later in Mein Kampf to declare Marxism nothing more than “the pure essence of the Jew’s attempts” to achieve the “destructive purposes of the international world Jew.”[xii] For National Socialism to successfully come to power, Hitler believed that they must be extremely wary of being “eaten away by the poison of Marxism,” because the two ideologies, are on the face, so similar.[xiii] In fact, the future Führer

“What must fundamentally distinguish the populist world-concept [Nazi worldview] from the Marxist one is the fact that it recognizes not only the value of race, but the importance of the personality, and thus makes these the pillars of its whole structure…If the National Socialist movement were not to understand the fundamental significance of this basic realization, and instead were superficially to patch up the present State, or actually to regard the mass standpoint as its own [i.e. Democratic Socialism, which was a major party in Germany at the time], it would really be only a party competing with Marxism.”[xiv]

Thus, from Hitler’s perspective, Marxism differed from Nazism because the Nazis would not let the “international Jew” use them for capitalist ends, nor would they let any element of democracy remain. In fact, democratic elements were so repugnant to the National Socialist theory that the:

“State must release all leadership, but particularly the highest—that is the political—leadership, from its parliamentary principle of the majority (i.e. mass) rule.… Of course every man has counsellors to assist him, but one man makes the decision.”[xv]

This explains Nazism’s repression of Marxists throughout the regime—a fact sometimes offered as proof of National Socialism’s underlying capitalism. But Hitler and his followers rejected Marxism on the belief that it was a clandestine method for achieving capitalism, believing that the class warfare was merely a pretense, “meant solely to prepare the ground for the rule of truly international finance capital.”[xvi]

Thus, the problem with Marxism for the Nazis was its Jewish connections and Hitler’s belief in an undercover capitalism inherent in the methodology suggested for reaching socialism, not anything pertaining to economic socialism itself. Therefore, the professed goal of a Marxist revolution—that being socialism—was still a valid and desirable end, but the method for attainment would be that of German Nationalism.

In fact, Hitler routinely showed his frustration for those whose, “brains have not grasped the difference between Socialism and Marxism even yet.”[xvii] Significantly, the more astute and principled of German businessmen resisted Nazism on the grounds that it was a modification of Marxism sharing the same goal but substituting the class struggle with race.[xviii]

The second revelation about Hitler’s economic development is that after his interaction with soon-to-be Nazi economist Gottfried Feder, Hitler’s whole view towards capitalism and wider economics changed.[xix] Feder became one of the earliest members of the National Socialist party and his economic policy had enormous influence early on.

Hitler explains that even though he was, “attentive as I had always been to economic problems,” his knowledge was relegated to social experience with little theoretical development.[xx] But upon listening to Feder’s lectures, “the idea instantly flashed through my head that I had now found my way to one of the prime essentials of the foundation of a new party.”[xxi] These ideas led directly to the formal creation of the Nazi Party.

The influence of Feder on Hitler extended well beyond the pages of Mein Kamp. It is notably present when Hitler announced the Twenty-Five Points on February 24, 1920, which constituted the political

platform of the National Socialist party (at this point they were still the German Workers’ party, but changed the name later that year). Along with the typical and expected aspects of pre-war Nazism (such as abrogation of the Treaty of Versailles, the restoration of the colonies, and blatant anti-Semitism), there were many plainly socialist aspects reflecting Hitler’s growing commitment to the system.

Points 7 and 10 suggested increased government interference and control of the “industry and livelihood of citizens,” through ensuring everyone “work with his mind or with his body…for the general good.”[xxii] Point 11 demanded the “abolition of incomes unearned by work,” while point 13 called for the “nationalization of all businesses.”[xxiii] Many of the other articles within the platform—such as points 14, 15, 17, and 18—all advocated for distinct increases in government control of finances and close regulation of profits and property.

It was in the principles of the Twenty-Five Points that Hitler declared:

“The National-Socialist German Workers’ Party has a foundation which must be immovable. The task of our movement’s present and coming members must consist not in critically reworking these guiding principles, but in pledging themselves to them.”[xxiv]

But what happened once Hitler and his National Socialist party took power? His socialist intentions to regulate, direct, and nationalize the economic nature of Germany were plain, but upon taking the reins how did the Nazis manage their newfound Reich?

An invaluable source of information concerning the economy of the National Socialist Germany comes from those dissident voices who managed to escape the censors or flee before all contact to the outside world was cut off. One such voice was Emil Lederer, a Jewish professor of economics at the University of Berlin who fled to America after being deposed of his teaching position. In a 1937 article he explained a fundamental law of economic theory, writing that, “inasmuch as reality is never the crystallization of a pure principle, every historical system is more or less a compromise.”[xxv]

Thus, the Nazis were never able to perfect their Twenty-Five Points and create a pure socialist system—much like any other proclaimed socialist state, reality universally underperforms the ideal. In Hitler’s Germany, however, the central economic planners were able to get remarkably far in securing the government supremacy. Lederer concludes that, “this new economic system built up in Germany, taken in its structural character,” was designed so that the entire population was, “organized for purposes fixed by the government.”[xxvi]

Lederer is far from alone in his evaluation. Famous Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, building off of his famous 1940 work on economics, declared shortly after the war that:

“The doctrines of Nazism are vicious, but they do not essentially disagree with the ideologies of socialism and nationalism as approved by other peoples’ public opinion. What characterized the Nazis was only the consistent application of these ideologies to the special conditions of Germany.”[xxvii]

Later in his writings Mises identifies Nazism as one of the “two patterns for the realization of socialism,” with the other being Russian Bolshevism.[xxviii] The key distinction between the German and Russian varieties, is that National Socialism, despite their intentions, “nominally and seemingly preserves private ownership of the means of production.”[xxix] At this point, some writers positively declare that Nazis were not real socialists and instead sought to preserve a capitalistic system, or at the least they failed to actively purge capitalism from their midst.[xxx]

However, although the term “private property” was preserved, it remained little more than an entry in the dictionaries. At any moment, if the Nazi leadership demanded it, anyone could be deprived of all their assets without warning or recourse. For example, we see the appropriation of the Junkers airplane factory in 1934 and the institution of Hermann Goring Works in 1937 designed specifically to, “encourage compliance with government production plans.”[xxxi]

Similarly, when even some of the most powerful manufacturers failed to meet government demands, “the state simply replaced his organization with one better suited to the National Socialist war effort.”[xxxii] In the end:

“the state therefore could direct the firms’ activities without acquiring direct ownership of enterprises.…They were opposed to capitalism and formal markets.”[xxxiii]

A different German businessman lamented to a confidant that the situation meant the destruction of private industry through a variety of means, saying that:

“You have no idea how far State control goes and how much power the Nazi representatives have over our work.…These Nazi radicals think of nothing except ‘distributing the wealth.’ Some businessmen have even started studying Marxist theories, so that they will have a better understanding of the present economic system.…You cannot imagine how taxation has increased. Yet everyone is afraid to complain about it. The new State loans are nothing but confiscation of private property.”[xxxiv]

In the end, Nazism left no room for private property. If the state has the power, ability, and inclination to confiscate the means of production whenever their wishes are not conformed to there is no real private ownership anymore. A common anecdote within the cowering business class remarked that:

“Under National Socialism you are allowed to keep the cows; but the State takes all the milk, and you have the expense and labor of feeding them.”[xxxv]

This nominalization was even outlined by Nazi economist Othmar Spann who desired a state where private ownership existed only in a, “formal sense, while in fact there will be only public ownership.”[xxxvi]

The effects of the National Socialist system of central planning, government control, and arbitrary powers destroyed whatever vestiges of private financial vivacity remained, with the purposes of making it all the easier for the State to consolidate its grip on every aspect of production. Quality of goods rapidly fell while prices remained steady, and out of what little raw materials which were available most was rapaciously consumed by the military. Thus, as early as, “1936 almost complete control over production could be exerted.”[xxxvii]

Even in military matters, the Nazi system was ill-equipped, and despite outspending England nearly two-to-one in 1940, Germany still produced 50% fewer planes and 100% fewer vehicles.[xxxviii] Additionally, factory laborers often were required to work up to 70 hours per week without a corresponding rise in wages.[xxxix]

Therefore, National Socialism rightfully earns its designation because it generally achieved, or significantly worked toward, the hallmarks of a socialist system. The objection on the grounds of private property has been proven to be merely a mirage, with the arbitrary State being the ultimate decision maker and real owner of the means of production.

To a large extent, perhaps unparalleled anywhere besides the Soviet Union, Hitler realized his vision of autocratic socialism. Thereby confirming his 1925 threat that, “the future lord of the highway is National Socialism,”[xl] which exists solely because, “it has the life of a people to destine and to regulate anew.”[xli] Nazism is clearly inseparable from socialism and ought to be recognized as such.

Endnotes

[i] Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, “An American Führer? Nazi Analogies and the Struggle to Explain Donald Trump,” Central European History Volume 52, Issue 4 (December 2019): 554-587.

[ii] Aris Folley, “Maryland Republicans criticize high school lesson comparing Trump to Nazis, communists,” The Hill (February 23, 2020), https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/484284-maryland-republicans-criticize-high-school-lesson-comparing-trump-to (accessed March 28, 2020).

[iii] Dinesh D’Souza, The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left (Washington: Regnery, 2017).

[iv] Josh Bresnahan, “Bizarre fight breaks out in House over whether socialists are Nazis,” Politico (March 26, 2019): https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/26/congress-socialist-nazi-debate-1237472 (accessed March 28, 2020); Jane Coaston, “Adolf Hitler was not a Socialist,” Vox (March 27, 2019): https://www.vox.com/2019/3/27/18283879/nazism-socialism-hitler-gop-brooks-gohmert (accessed March 28, 2020); Ronald Granieri, “The Right Needs to Stop Falsely Claiming that the Nazis were Socialists,” The Washington Post (February 5, 2020), https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/02/05/right-needs-stop-falsely-claiming-that-nazis-were-socialists/ (accessed March 26, 2020); David Emory, “Were the Nazis Socialists?” Snopes (accessed March 28, 2020): https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/09/05/were-nazis-socialists/.

[v] Cf. Maxine Sweezy, The Structure of the Nazi Economy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1941); Richard Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich (New York: Penguin Group, 2003), 173; Ian Kershaw, Hitler: A Biography (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010), 269-270.

[vi] Thomas Jefferson, “Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801,” The Works of Thomas Jefferson (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1905), 9.197.

[vii] Cf., Ludwig von Mises, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1996), 4.998.

[viii] For a clear example of this see, Kershaw, Hitler, 269-270.

[ix] Quoted in the preface to, Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (New York: Stackpole Sons Publishers, 1939), 5.

[x] Hitler, Mein Kampf, 194, 212, 305-307, 433, 469, 525.

[xi] Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (New York: Stackpole Sons Publishers, 1939), 212.

[xii] Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (New York: Stackpole Sons Publishers, 1939), 433.

[xiii] Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (New York: Stackpole Sons Publishers, 1939), 435.

[xiv] Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (New York: Stackpole Sons Publishers, 1939), 434-435.

[xv] Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (New York: Stackpole Sons Publishers, 1939), 435.

[xvi] Hitler, Mein Kampf, 212.

[xvii] Hitler, Mein Kampf, 469.

[xviii] Matt Bera, Lobbying Hitler: Industrial Associations between Democracy and Dictatorship (New York: Berghahn Books, 2016), 222.

[xix] Hitler, Mein Kampf, 206-208, 212.

[xx] Hitler, Mein Kampf, 206.

[xxi] Hitler, Mein Kampf, 208.

[xxii] Anson Babinbach and Sander L. Gilman, “The Program of the German Workers’ Party: The Twenty-Five Points,” The Third Reich Sourcebook (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), 13.

[xxiii] Babinbach, “The Program of the German Workers’ Party,” 13.

[xxiv] Hitler, Mein Kampf, 446.

[xxv] Emil Lederer, “The Economic Doctrine of National Socialism,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 191 (1937): 221.

[xxvi] Lederer, “The Economic Doctrine of National Socialism,” 225.

[xxvii] Mises, Human, 1.187.

[xxviii] Mises, Human, 3.717.

[xxix] Mises, Human, 3.717-718.

[xxx] Cf. Kershaw, Hitler, 269-270; Granieri, “The Right Needs to Stop Falsely Claiming that the Nazis were Socialists”; Gunter Reimann, The Vampire Economy: Doing Business Under Fascism (New York: Vanguard Press, 1939), 314; John D. Heyl, “Hitler’s Economic Thought: A Reappraisal,” Central European History 6, no. 1 (1973): 92.

[xxxi] Peter Temin, “Soviet and Nazi Economic Planning in the 1930s,” The Economic History Review, New Series, 44, no. 4 (1991): 576-577.

[xxxii] Bera, Lobbying Hitler, 224.

[xxxiii] Temin, “Soviet and Nazi Economic Planning,” 583, 588.

[xxxiv] Reimann, The Vampire Economy, 6-7.

[xxxv] Reimann, The Vampire Economy, 309.

[xxxvi] Quoted in Mises, Human Action, 2.683.

[xxxvii] Arthur Van Riel and Arthur Schram, “Weimar Economic Decline, Nazi Economic Recovery, and the Stabilization of Political Dictatorship,” The Journal of Economic History 53, no. 1 (1993): 97-98.

[xxxviii] R. J. Overy, “Hitler’s War and the German Economy: A Reinterpretation,” The Economic History Review, 35, no. 2 (1982): 286.

[xxxix] C., “Will Hitler Save Democracy?” Foreign Affairs 17, no. 3 (1939): 461

[xl] Hitler, Mein Kampf, 525.

[xli] Hitler, Mein Kampf, 559.

This is a part of our Alumni Series of articles written by past participants of the WallBuilders/Mercury One Leadership Training Program (now called “AJE Summer Institute”). Click here to learn more about this program. 

By Noah DeGarmo – Class of 2019

Manning Johnson, a black man born in 1908, joined the Communist Party USA in 1930, where he served as a national organizer for the Trade Unity League.[i] From 1931 to 1932, he served as the District Agitation Propaganda Director for Buffalo, NY, and was district organizer for Buffalo from 1932 to 1934. In 1935, Johnson ran as the Communist Party’s Candidate for New York’s 22nd Congressional District for the U.S. House of Representatives. From 1936 to 1939, he served on the Party’s National Committee, National Trade Union Commission, and Negro Commission. Despite his notable status, Johnson left the Communist Party in 1939.[ii]

Johnson explained that some of the biggest factors to his departure included his original religiosity, the Party’s promotion of “Soviet Negro Republic” in the “Black Belt” of the United States, the insincerity of the Party in saving the Scottsboro Boys, and finally, the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939.[iii] Additionally, Johnson saw that the Communists were using black Americans as pawns in their hope that a “bloody racial conflict would split America.”[iv]

After leaving the Party, Johnson became a government informant and witness, testifying in 18-20 cases by his own estimation.[v] In 1958, he published Color, Communism, and Common Sense detailing the Communist Party’s tactics for infiltrating the African-American community and inciting racial division in the United States, paving the way for a Communist takeover in America. Shortly after publishing the book, Johnson died in an automobile accident on June 26, 1959.[vi] The information he provides in this book is eerily similar to and has much to say about the state of America in 2020.

Johnson shares that the goal of Communist agents in the early 20th century was to cripple the black community in America and incite racial division. This division would consequently weaken the nation as a whole and provide the opportunity for Communists to gain power.

He writes that white Communists infiltrated black communities by presenting themselves as allies of the black cause. They preached that black Americans were oppressed and offered liberation as a guise for their Communist agenda:

White leftists descended on Negro communities like locusts, posing as “friends” come to help “liberate” their black brothers. Along with these white communist missionaries came the Negro political Uncle Toms to allay the Negro’s distrust and fears of these strangers. Everything was interracial, an inter-racialism artificially created, cleverly devised as a camouflage of the red plot to use the Negro.[vii]

Despite how they portrayed themselves, the Communists never did anything to advance the well-being of the black population. However, they gained power and money by parroting and hiding behind the cause of civil rights. The Communists placed all the responsibility for the condition of the African-American community on the white man. Johnson noted that this victimhood mindset strips black individuals of agency, discouraging initiative and responsibility.

The placing of the repository of everything, right and just, among the darker races is a dastardly Communist trick to use race as a means of grabbing and enslaving the whole of humanity.

Moscow’s Negro tools in the incitement of racial warfare place all the ills of the Negro at the door of the white leaders of America. Capitalism and imperialism are made symbols of oppressive white rule in keeping with instructions from the Kremlin.

To one familiar with red trickery, it is obvious that placing the blame for all the Negroes’ ills at the door of the white leaders in America is to remove all responsibility from the Negro. This tends to make the Negro:

• feel sorry for himself;
• blame others for his failures;
• ignore the countless opportunities around him;
• jealous of the progress of other racial and national groups;
• expect the white man to do everything for him;
• look for easy and quick solutions as a substitute for the harsh realities of competitive struggle to get ahead.

The result is a persecution complex — a warped belief that the white man’s prejudices, the white man’s system, the white man’s government is responsible for everything. Such a belief is the way the reds plan it, for the next logical step is hate that can be used by the reds to accomplish their ends.[viii]

Despite all the promises, plans, and “solutions,” Johnson understood that the Communists were only fanning the flames of racial tension in order to raise money which they poured into promoting more tension instead of using it to benefit black communities:

The fact that the reds have never contributed anything tangible to the progress of the Negro is overlooked though the reds have collected millions of dollars as a result of race incitement. Like the Communist Party, the N.A.A.C.P. has collected millions of dollars through exploitation of race issues. The bigger the race issue, the bigger the appeal and the bigger the contributions.[ix]

Yet one cannot find any report of any of this money being spent for factories and shops to provide jobs, land and home construction, specialized training for talented youth, hospitals, convalescent homes, classes in sanitation and personal hygiene, care and upkeep of property, combatting crime and juvenile delinquency, centers to aid Negro youth in preparing to meet stiff employment competition in science and industry.

It is then no accident that the N.A.A.C.P. is dubbed “The National Association for the Agitation of Colored People.” The record speaks for itself. Millions for agitation; not one cent for those things that win the respect and acclaim of other races and national groups.[x]

Johnson’s words from 1958 seemingly prophesy the events of  2020. Modern leftists of both races have artificially enflamed and exploited racial division for profit. Former NFL player Colin Kaepernick gained fame by kneeling during the national anthem in protest of police brutality, and has made millions off of this fame, securing an exclusive advertising deal with Nike and a recently-signed partnership with Disney. Additionally, organizations like Black Lives Matter collect millions in donations while doing nothing to practically advance black communities.

Johnson also writes that politicians would exploit racial division for votes, a practice continued by Democrats today.

Many white Northern politicians objectively aid the rapidly deteriorating racial situation through the exploitation of leftist propaganda to garner Negro votes. They care not a tinker’s dam about the Southern Negro and simply flatter the Northern Negro whom they consider a gullible fool. Getting elected and re-elected is their only concern.[xi]

The Democrat Party has maintained power in black communities for decades, while those communities continue to suffer from poor economies and high crime rates. Democrats claim to fight for black people, while doing nothing for their well-being.

Because the Communists were not truly on the side of the black community, they had to squash any voices who called them out on their hypocrisy. Any whites who opposed the communist agenda were accused of white supremacy, while black opponents were labeled Uncle Toms. Johnson, in a long but invaluable section of his book, reveals that this is not a new practice:

At the root of all the present racial trouble is interference in the internal affairs of Southern States by people not at all interested in an amicable settlement of any problems arising between Negro and white Americans.

This interference comes from organizations and individuals in the North seeking to use the Negro. Among them are found Communists, crypto-communists, fuzzy-headed liberals, eggheads, pacifists, idealists, civil disobedience advocates, socialists, do-gooders, conniving politicians, self-seekers, muddle-headed humanitarians, addle-brained intellectuals, crackpots and plain meddlers. Like “missionaries,” they descend on the South ostensibly to change or to benefit the Negro.

In fact and in implication, all of them seek to by-pass the responsible white and Negro leaders in the South to effect a solution. They employ a pattern of setting up provocative situations which inflame and agitate the white populace and then using it as propaganda here and abroad against the South in particular and all of America in general.

White Southerners who oppose these “missionaries” are pounced upon and labeled “race baiters”, “reactionaries”, “Ku Kluxers”, “white supremacists”, “persons outside the law” and so forth. Negro Southerners who oppose these “missionaries” are also attacked and labeled “Uncle Toms”, “traitors of the race”, “handkerchief heads”, “white folks niggers” and so forth.

Obviously such name calling is a deliberate attempt on the part of these “missionaries” to scuttle all the progress made by the Negro since slavery by creating an atmosphere of distrust, fear, and hate. Like a witch stirring her brew the “missionaries” stir up all the sectional and racial bitterness that arose in the wake of the Civil War and Reconstruction. They open old wounds. They thumb the pages of closed chapters. They rake over the dying embers of old grudges, old grievances, old fears and old hates, that time has been gradually consigning to history in the onward sweep of a young, lusty, healthy and growing nation.

Labeling opponents is a specialty of the reds. Smear is a cardinal technique. Any label found in the red stockpile, you may be sure, is carefully made and selected to draw the maximum hate to the person or persons, the group or the organization to which it is attached.

The use of such labels has a tendency to divide America. Nothing, in my opinion, would please the aforementioned weird assortment of “missionaries” more than a divided America unless it is a Soviet America. They are forever predicting it at the same time working tirelessly to bring it about.[xii]

Modern leftists still employ this tactic today. The Republican Party has been smeared as the party of racism, as the media constantly accuses conservatives, particularly President Trump, of white supremacy. Additionally, black conservatives are frequently labeled “coons” and “Uncle Toms.” In fact, conservative author and commentator Larry Elder, recently produced a documentary titled Uncle Tom exploring this exact phenomenon. Black conservatives in the public eye like Elder, Candace Owens, Jesse Lee Peterson, Ben Carson, and even Kanye West are often smeared as Uncle Toms by their leftist opposition.

Johnson goes on to share how the communists would highlight racial division and emphasize incidents of racist violence while downplaying racial progress to cultivate a victimhood mentality among blacks in America.

Moreover, while they talk about “racial strife” in America as providing grist for Moscow’s propaganda mill they are busy creating it. They are careful to hide the fact that they are responsible for the provocations of extremists as was the case in Little Rock.

In all red propaganda, here and abroad, such acts of extremists are made the symbol of the treatment of the Negro in America. It also is the red smear pot in which all opponents of a forthwith solution of the race problem are tossed. The fact is that the majority of white Southerners are opposed to extremists. All-white Southern juries have convicted some of them as troublemakers and white Southern judges have sentenced some of them to long prison terms. This is deliberately ignored or played down by the leftists.[xiii]

These facts, too, are ignored or played down by the leftist “missionaries” and irresponsible crusaders. In political warfare, it seems, a cardinal principle to credit your enemy with only that which will hasten the build-up for his destruction.

The media of public information is far from free of communists and fellow travelers who operate under the guise of liberalism. They are ready at all times to do an effective smear job. Among these red tools may be found editorial writers, columnists, news commentators and analysts, in the press, radio and television. They go overboard in giving top news coverage to racial incidents, fomented by the leftists, and also those incidents that are interpreted so as to show “biased” attitudes of whites against Negroes. This is a propaganda hoax aimed, not at helping the Negro, but at casting America in a bad light in order to destroy its prestige and influence abroad, thereby aiding Soviet Russia in the penetration and conquest of Asia and Africa.

Thus all racial progress based upon understanding, goodwill, friendship and mutual cooperation, built up painfully over the years, is wiped out. White Americans are set against Negro Americans and vice versa. The stage is thus set for the opening of a dark and bloody era in Negro and white relations. Many white Northern politicians objectively aid the rapidly deteriorating racial situation through the exploitation of leftist propaganda to garner Negro votes. They care not a tinker’s dam about the Southern Negro and simply flatter the Northern Negro whom they consider a gullible fool. Getting elected and re-elected is their only concern.[xiv]

Modern leftists likewise seek to define the African-American experience exclusively by horrible, yet rare, incidents of violence against blacks at the hands of whites, specifically white cops. Following the tragic murders of Ahmaud Arbery and George Flloyd, many prominent Democratic politicians and celebrities wasted no time in painting the picture that these murders reflect the treatment of blacks across America.

Additional statements include:

Watching his life be taken in the same manner, echoing nearly the same words as Eric Garner more than five years ago — ‘I can’t breathe’ — is a tragic reminder that this was not an isolated incident, but part of an ingrained systemic cycle that exists in this country.[xv]—Joe Biden

Being black in America should not be a death sentence. For five minutes, we watched a white officer press his knee into a black man’s neck. Five minutes. When you hear someone calling for help, you’re supposed to help. This officer failed in the most basic, human sense.—Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey

This does not necessarily mean that LeBron James is a communist. In fact, Manning Johnson reveals that Communists would manipulate progressives and liberals to spread their propaganda.

Significantly… there is only one highly organized, trained and disciplined force, and that is the Communists. So they are able to use, manipulate and combine this weird assortment of leftist “missionaries” in one way or another to bring about “a social upheaval which will plow up Southern institutions to their roots.”[xvi]

An essential tenet of the Communist strategy was the destruction of black businesses. Black communities could not have strong, independent, economies because that would undermine the communist argument that they were oppressed by the white man. According to Johnson, they schemed to ensure that black people were dependent on white businesses and on the U.S. government. If the black community was thriving, they wouldn’t be susceptible to the communist victimhood propaganda. As discussed earlier, the communists fostered “a persecution complex — a warped belief that the white man’s prejudices, the white man’s system, the white man’s government is responsible for everything.”[xvii] Independent, black-owned businesses were detrimental to this complex. Johnson writes:

The Negro business man has always been a chief target of the reds. They despise him because of his conservatism. They label him “a tool of the white imperialists” and an “enemy of the Negro masses.” Such labels are reserved for those the reds plan to liquidate and since the Negro business man is an inspiration and example to other Negroes to take advantage of the countless opportunities of the free enterprise system, he is therefore an object of derision by Communists. An enthusiastic response of the Negro to the appeal and opportunities for Negro business is a cardinal bulwark against Communism. Consequently, the reds seek to discredit, discourage and liquidate Negro business.

Only during the period of the Popular Front did the reds cease their attack on Negro business in order to link the Negro banker, broker, realtor, business man, merchant, lawyer, physician, preacher, worker and farmer with Bolshevism under the guise of a National Negro Congress.

Basically, the reds’ policy is now, and always has been, anti-Negro business. The fact that Negro business is sustained in the main by Negro patronage, that it exists almost entirely in the Negro community, makes it vulnerable to attack by the reds. They term it a product of “segregation,” “social isolation,” “the ghetto,” etc. And, too, the reds use the example of sharp competition between small and big business to discourage Negro entry into the general arena.[xviii]

While there were many peaceful protests following the murder of George Floyd, there were also violent riots in nearly every major city across America. Businesses were looted and communities were destroyed. The leftist message, parroted by the media, was that only large, insured corporations like Target were subject to looting. This is false. The brunt of the physical and financial destruction caused by these riots was borne by the Communists’ greatest enemy: black-owned small businesses.

Violent, racial conflict was the goal of the Communists — to divide America, weaken it, and make it ripe for Communist takeover.

Black rebellion was what Moscow wanted. Bloody racial conflict would split America. During the confusion, demoralization and panic would set in. Then finally, the reds say: “Workers stop work, many of them seize arms by attacking arsenals. Many had armed themselves before . . . Street fights become frequent. Under the leadership of the Communist Party the workers organize Revolutionary Committees to be in command of the uprising. Armed workers . . . seize the principal government offices, invade the residences of the President and his Cabinet members, arrest them, declare the old regime abolished, establish their own power. . .”[xix]

While it may seem conspiratorial, we should not underestimate the influence of Communists and Marxists in America today. Socialism is now viewed as favorable by millennials and Generation Z,[xx] with popular Democrat politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders openly advocating for it. Marxism has spread through universities and left-wing activism, and one of the founders of Black Lives Matter has openly said, “We are trained Marxists.”

We should acknowledge the information shared by Manning Johnson and recognize that Communism is still a threat to American liberty, and it is a threat that we must take seriously and address accordingly.

Too few Americans in our day have the courage of their convictions. Too few will fly in the face of leftist opposition. Too few will stand up for truth in the face of the ominous and destructive storm of “me-tooism” or the communist ideological regimentation that hangs like a pall over our country. Many take the attitude that it is better to be safe than sorry or conclude, after a little difficulty or several reverses, that “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” The words God, country and posterity have lost much of their substance and are becoming only a shadow in the hearts and minds of many Americans.[xxi]

Johnson’s entire book, which I encourage everyone to read, can be freely viewed at manningjohnson.org.

Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions of WallBuilders. 

Endnotes

[i] Hearings Regarding Communist Infiltration of Minority Groups. US GPO. 1949. pp. 497–521.

[ii] Hearings Regarding Communist Infiltration of Minority Groups. US GPO. 1949. pp. 497–521; County Clerk’s Index. 1951. pp. 1180-1363 (all testimony), 1180 (birth), 1183-1184 (CPUSA service), 1294-1295 (witness against Gerhart Eisler), 1295 (18-20 cases); Rader, Melvin (5 July 1954). “The Profession of Perjury”. The New Republic.

[iii] Hearings Regarding Communist Infiltration of Minority Groups. US GPO. 1949. pp. 497–521.

[iv] Manning Johnson, Color, Communism, and Common Sense (Belmont: American Opinion Reprints, 1963), 18.

[v] County Clerk’s Index. 1951. pp. 1180-1363 (all testimony), 1180 (birth), 1183-1184 (CPUSA service), 1294-1295 (witness against Gerhart Eisler), 1295 (18-20 cases).

[vi] National Cemetery Administration. U.S. Veterans’ Gravesites, ca.1775-2006 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006. Ancestry, Inc.

[vii] Manning Johnson, Color, Communism, and Common Sense (Belmont: American Opinion Reprints, 1963), 22.

[viii] Manning Johnson, Color, Communism, and Common Sense (Belmont: American Opinion Reprints, 1963), 43-44.

[ix] Manning Johnson, Color, Communism, and Common Sense (Belmont: American Opinion Reprints, 1963), 43-44.

[x] Manning Johnson, Color, Communism, and Common Sense (Belmont: American Opinion Reprints, 1963), 44-45.

[xi] Manning Johnson, Color, Communism, and Common Sense (Belmont: American Opinion Reprints, 1963), 54.

[xii] Manning Johnson, Color, Communism, and Common Sense (Belmont: American Opinion Reprints, 1963), 51-52.

[xiii] Manning Johnson, Color, Communism, and Common Sense (Belmont: American Opinion Reprints, 1963), 52-33.

[xiv] Manning Johnson, Color, Communism, and Common Sense (Belmont: American Opinion Reprints, 1963), 53-54.

[xv] Sullivan, Sean. Biden calls for federal civil rights investigation into death of George Floyd, April 27, 2020. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-calls-for-federal-civil-rights-investigation-into-death-of-george-floyd/ar-BB14G39Q?sf17491758=1.

[xvi] Manning Johnson, Color, Communism, and Common Sense (Belmont: American Opinion Reprints, 1963), 55.

[xvii] Manning Johnson, Color, Communism, and Common Sense (Belmont: American Opinion Reprints, 1963), 43-44.

[xviii] Manning Johnson, Color, Communism, and Common Sense (Belmont: American Opinion Reprints, 1963), 58.

[xix] Manning Johnson, Color, Communism, and Common Sense (Belmont: American Opinion Reprints, 1963), 18.

[xx] “2019 Annual Poll,” 2019. https://www.victimsofcommunism.org/2019-annual-poll

[xxi] Manning Johnson, Color, Communism, and Common Sense (Belmont: American Opinion Reprints, 1963), 56.