us Hall's

N ALL of history there is no
Subject about which there
has ever been as much false-
ood and distortion so widely
Irculated as there is about the
Ommunist viewpoint.

4 Professional anti-Communism
K . become a big business. It is
ull time profession of thou-

ists would suddenly come [0
s end, I’m afraid it would
‘eger off an economic crisis.
don’t knonw if our economy

‘Could stand such unemploy-
ent.

_. Let me say again: We, the
a anists of the United
a €s, are Americans who are
“©OnvVinced that socialism and
Communism provide the an-
os for the basic problems
.

it}

Ow developing from capital-
sm,

The U.S. Constitution or the

g sions for, nor do they advo-
Cate any specific economic sys-
tem, ;

Capitalism has no more_ in-
eet or constitutional rights
Nan does socialism. Therefore,
3 for one do not accept the
pullers rights proclaimed by
usm on our soil. Capital-
™M is a foreign import shipped
€re from old Europe.

i t

hea at economic system is now
ho for one of its most cri-
= tests. We are in a period
, ee ee boom and at the
; aie time there are now five
Fate in the army of perman-
0 y unemployed.
§ Automation of industry re-
Bans. two million pairs of
c es each year. Automation in
y € control of capitalism has be-
s Come a Frankenstein.
ae World is passing from one
i System to another —

is from Capitalism to socialism.
'S turning point in human

Bill of Rights do not make pro- »

‘socialism

affairs has now come to a new
dramatic impasse. The two
world systems now stand more
or less shoulder to shoulder.
They both posses enough nu-
clear weapons to destroy each
other 125 times over again.

Each side now admits that if
a nuclear war starts, there can
be no “strike first” or quick.
massive retaliation victory for
either side.

Each side has nuclear weap-
ons in the air, in the ground
and atomic submarines.

So for the people of the USA
and the Soviet Union it is» a
stark reality that if nuclear
war starts the bombs will con-
tinue long enough, that while
there may be civilization left
somewhere in the world the
spot where these two peoples
lived will be barren wasteland.

Where do we go from here,
therefore, has become the most
crucial question of our times.
Mankind cannot for long post-
pone or evade answering and
resolving this question.

The economic and political
processes of life cannot be
stopped — even if we wanted
to. This is an age of change,
and it can be an age of reason.

It is an age of change be-
cause no people or nation now
is going to accept any other
status. except complete inde-
pendence and equality.

It is an age of change be-
cause no people or class is g0-
ing to accept or continue as the
“have not” people while others
are in the “have” status. The
Negro Americans, for example,
are now insisting that we fin-
ally honor Abe Lincoln’s signa-
ture on the 100-year old Eman-
cipation Proclamation.

All these processes will go
on. But it seems clear that there
is only one sane course for
mankind to follow.

Let these processes of life
proceed. Let there be debate.
Let there be comparison of the
two systems. But let all na-
tions, all statesmen, all people
declare now: wars between
states cannot be an instrument
of settling differences. Then
there can be disarmament. There

can be an end to all nuclear
testing.

We believe civilization and
progress can continue without
destructive wars. We believe
there is a path to peace that
need not damage the honor, the
rights or the interests of any
people or nation on this earth.
The world has only two alter-
natives — either coexistence or
no existence.

We Communists believe that
Communism will be the way of
the future. We believe, how-
ever, that social change cannot
be induced artificially. Social
revolutions are not command
performances. Social revolu-
tions cannot be imported or ex-
ported.

Only thoughts can cross na-
tional boundaries. But such
thoughts can take root only if
the political soil has been pre-
pared by the unsolved prob-
lems of the existing order.

Socialism is not today onthe
order of the day in the USA.
The American people will con-
tinue to go through the pro-
cess of trying out every other
possible solution. They will try
to reform capitalism in every
way possible.

Only after all these efforts
have failed — and when the
unsolved problems continue to
pile up, only then will our peo-
ple think in terms of a more
fundamental social change.

We are convinced the change
will be to socialism. It will not
be in the image of socialism in
any other country. It will bean
American brand of socialism. It
will reflect our experience asa
people, our traditions as a na-
tion. :

How will the transition take
place? It is our aim to look for
the most peaceful path posi-
sible to socialism. We are prob-
ably the most optimistic peo-

The most peaceful path possible

aN

"Baseball American’ is the term often used to
describe the down-to-earth language of Gus
Hall, leading Communist spokesman in the
United States, when he talks about socialism.
Published here are excerpts from a speech

Hall made to 6,500

students in Honolulu on

Oct. 23, 1964, before the U.S. elections.

ple about the possibility of a
peaceful transition.

But as with all transition it
takes two sides to make it a
peaceful one. For our part we
are working toward a constitu-
tional change to socialism. As
long as the avenues of demo-
cratic expression remain open,
a peaceful path is possible.

So we are a political move-
ment that believes in socialism.
We speak for it. But we are
not a movement that sits
around abstractly discussing the
evils of capitalism and the vir-
tues of socialism.

We are an active political
movement. We are an active
force for peace. We are an ac-
tive force in the struggle for
equal rights for all Americans.
We are an active force in the
struggles of labor. We see no
contradiction in these activities
and our belief in socialism.

Marxism is a completely
rounded out body of thought.
It -has a theory of economics. It
has a philosophical outlook. It
has an approach to history. And
it is a body of political thought,
of tactics, of policies.

One of the sharp offshoots of
the present turning point is
the emergence of an ultra-Right
reactionary grouping in U.S.
politics. They have a program
that leads to fascism and to
thermonuclear war, to racist
oppression, to union busting, to
the destruction of the system of
social security.

This ultra-Right threat is
dangerous and we dare not un-
derestimate it. But this threat
has given rise to a» counter
movement. There is a new
alignment — a new crystaliza-
tion of a broad democratic coa-
lition.

‘Civilization has now reached
the point where on the world
horizon one can begin to see
where there can be abundance
of everything for every human
being. We now have the know-
how; we have the chemical fer-
tilizers, and we have the ma-
chinery—if distributed through-
out the world — to raise all the

January 15,

food that the population of this
earth can eat.

We have the technology, the
raw materials and the man-
power — if we put it to work
on a global scale — to produce
an abundance of clothing, shel-
ter, schools, hospitals, roads,
planes, medical supplies and all
necessities for all.

There need not be malnutri-
tion or unemployment any-
where. There need not be any
“have-not” nations or people
anywhere. Words like “hun-
ger,” “want,” “lack of econo-
mic security,” “rations,” “scar-
city,” “famine,” “undernour-
ished” — are words that civil-
ization is now materially ready
to discard.

Until now man has been forc-
ed to spend most of his wakeful
hours at “making a_ living.”
Now it is possible to have an
abundance of everything for
everyone by spending possibly
less than 30 to 50 percent of
such time at work. The rest of
the day could now be spent at
leisure, play, recreation, educa-
tion and cultural events.

This is all possible now be-
cause we are at the dawn of a
qualitatively new technological
revolution. Nuclear energy, au-
tomation are the harbingers of
this new day.

This, then, will be the divid-
ing line between man’s crawl-
. ing from the caves, killing each
other for a bigger share of the
shortages; each man for him-
self, exploitation of man by
man, and the modern civilized
man — a man of plenty, of
peace, man united to work to-
gether to make the new tech-
nology produce abundance for
all.

For a society of abundance
capitalism is obsolete. The ball
game.of civilization calls for a
new term, namely — you gues-
sed it — socialism.

1965—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 7