HAT does the record roa

veal about these principles
for which we are ostensibly in-
“dicted? What are the. Marxist-
Leninist. principles to which we
11 defendants proudly declare
our adherence and our endeavor
to apply in the interests of our
people and country?

These principles are outlined in
the testimony of the defense. They
are also stated in various ways in
relation to a host of historical
and social events and develop-
ments in The ‘Communist Mani-
festo, in State and Revolution,
Foundations of Leninism and
the History of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union, which
were the chief Marxist-Leninist
classics put in evidence by the
prosecution, » ee

The record establishes that the
principles of Marxism-Leninism
affirm the following:

1. That the struggle between
social classes—that is, between ex-
ploiters and exploited, between
jabor and capital—has been and is
the motive force, the moving force,
in the development of civilized so-
ciety, regardless of the will or
‘desires of men, be they Marxists
or non-Marxists.

® That the working class is
the most progressive class in our
society, the class in league with
the future, destined to rule the
nation and to free the people
-from the tyranny and oppres-
sion of vested capitalist interests,
and to free the peoples from class.
and national oppression. There-
fore, the working class is the cre-
ator of a new system of society,
socialism, ‘

Further, our principles teach
that neither evolutionary social
progress nor revolutionary social
change can be brought about by
minorities, by adventurist plots
or palace revolutions. Basic so-
cial change can only be achieved
when objective circumstances and
the teaching of experience bring
tens of millions of people to act
together under the leadership of
the working class in accard sae
the majority will. ’

3. That after the attainment of
state power, the working class and
its allies can maintain their rule

only by establishing the dictator-
ship of the proletariat and by us-
ing the power of the new class
state, which then would be the
only legal and constitutional state
power, to smash the old state ma-
chinery of the exploiters, of the
old capitalist minority, and to
erush counter-revolutionary
sistance.
The dictatorship of the prole-
__tariat, we have made clear, is a
- working class dictatorship against
the exploiters, and it is the rule
of the majority of the people. It
is democracy for the great mass-
es of the people. We must con-
solidate and establish socialism,
which will ultimately create a
Communist classless moctety,

4& Our Marxist-Leninist “prin-
‘ciples establish that™some wars
are’ just, —

re-

Here are the WW ZS:
Thompson, Henry Winston, Eugene Dennis, Gus Hall, John Williamson; (standing), - Jack

Stachel, Irving Potash, Carl

ive, and should be supported,
while other wars are imperialist
and reactionary, unjust and should
be opposed, whether waged by
one government or by some other
government.

5. That there is a brotherhood
of all working people whose com-
mon historical destiny and inter-
est in peace, in national freedom
and social progress, unite them
against their common enemies in
the spirit of working class solid-
arity.

6. It’ is also a principle of
Marxism-Leninism that the _his-
toric destiny of the working class
needs to create a political party
of a new type, a vanguard party

a party of socialism, a party

Communist leaders.

They are (seated,

left. io right): Robert

Winter, Benjamin Davis Jr., John Gates and Gilbert Green.

ist-Leninist principles, nor has the
prosecution dared to challenge
openly the historic goal of the
working class, of the eventual so-
cialist reorganization of America’s
society, which we Communist
leaders advocate.

As we have testified, socialism ig
the public ownership of the banks,
the factories, utilities, railroads,
mines, and of all productive re-
sources, and it is the manayement
of the nation’s economy by a
people’s government at whose
head stands the working class and
its Communist vanguard.

The defendants have testified -

that under socialism there is no
exploitation of the many by the
few; there is no racial or national
inequality; no religious persecu-
tion; no fear of unemployment or
insecurity. There is no peonemic

any time or under any circum-
stances be accomplished without
the overthrow of the government
of the United States by force and
violence?

In falsely answering this ques-
tion, the prosecution has deliber-
ately jumbled and sought to con-
fuse the important difference be-
tween the principles and ultimate
aims on the one hand, and: the
strategy and specific tactics re-
quired to apply these principles
on the other.

But as you have learned © ‘trom
defense evidence and testimony,
we Communist leaders teach and
emphasize that the realization of
working class aims, the applica-
tion of the principles of scientific
socialism, necessitates the adop-
tion of a definite strategy and of
flexible tactics in accord with his-
tori¢ réalities, in accord with
time, place and circumstances.

em SARE a

Eugene Dennis, at the trial of American Communist leaders,

sits apart me charge of advocating ‘force and violence’

which is guided by the science of
Marxism-Leninism and cham-
pions day in and day out the im-
mediate and the fundamental in-
terests of the working class.

e + *

These Marxist-Leninist | prin-
ciples sum up the fundamental
truths distilled from American
and world history, and from the
general international working
class experience.

They are very different from
what the Wall Street Journal
frankly and approvingly calls the
jumbled principles of the Atlantic
Pact, and our principles have no-
thing in common with the prin-
ciplés of, say, the duPonts or
Rockefellers, or of John Foster
Dulles, John Rankin or the Na-
tional Association of Manufac-
turers, or of the United States

Chamber of Commerce.

, Strange as it may seem to the
jury, the prosecutior has_never

= openly challenged directly our for-

ward-looking and ectentitic Marx-
sgehtet ‘SREP

or social» basis for seeking to
subjugate other nations and peo-
ple, and hence there is no reason
or basis for a socialist state to
pursue a foreign polity of aggres-

And as we have further testi-
fied, it is our belief that social-
ism in the countries wheré it has

“been established and the attain-

ment of eventual socialism in all
countries ‘will forever end the
threat of reaction, fascism and
war, and so open up new and

boundless opportunity for human- —

ity’s well-being,
social progerss.

Whether or not any of you
jurors agree even in small part
with what we Communist leaders
believe about socialism is not an
issue here. Just when the Ameri-
can people will decide that they
want socialism, and how they will
achieve it, is a question for the
majority of all of our fellow citi-
zens and for the future.
eo

However, the pebeesntion has
placed before you jurors a hypo-
-thetical and a theoretical question:
namely, do we defendants believe
that the Socialist reorganization
of Amefic¢a’s ‘society can ever at

happiness and

; sion and war. Quite the contrary. -

¥

i ga AREA

Government Exhibit No. ° 33,
Foundations of Leninism, deals
extensively with this distinction
in Chapter 7. And what does this
exhibit underscore in regard to
what we Marxists mean by stra-
tegy and tactics? It tells us what

‘real Marxists must first of all

understand, that they cannot ac-
complish their socialist dims by
wishful thinking. They must study

‘what is going on in each particu-

lar country, in each particular his-
torical period, in each particular
stage of the country’s political life,
including what is what in the
working class movement.

They must know how to iden-
tify the main enemy Of progress,
the main danger to peace at each
particular stage. And they must
shape their policies and set their
course in accord with objective
reality and the wili of the major-
ity of the workers and common
people. That is what we defend-
ants mean when we teach Marx-
ist-Leninist strategy.

In addition,
thibit No. 33 tells us that tactics
are subordinate to and serve stra-
tegy. It tells us that tactics may
change often and rapidly in re-

sponse to changing a tai igi

d violence?

- real terror—that unspe:

Government Ex- '

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — OCTOBER 28, 1949 — race | *

even. though these changes do not
necessarily require a change in
strategy.

‘It must be clear to this july
that there is nothing in any of ©
this teaching to substantiate the —
prosecution’s specific charge that,
because we Communist leaders
ate Marxists, we advocate the
duty and necessity of the forcible
overthrow of some hypothetical
future United States govermment,
or that we teach this as the only
possible means to achieve the ul-
timate goal of the American —
working class, socialism.

The law of inevitable proletari-
an revolution was and is a basic
social law. It exists as independ-+ —
ent of the defendants or of any
other Marxists as the law of atom-
ic fission exists independent of
the will of the nuclear physicists.

This law of social change and
revolution says socialism will ul-
timately be established in every .
country, but it does not say when
and how.

We defendants are proud that.
Marxists have, for 101 year's, used
their understanding of the desires
of society to advance social pro-
gress, and to demand the imme-
diate as well as the future in-
terests of the working people.

Everywhere in the world, force
and violence are the instruments |
of monopoly rule, especially in
its drive toward fascism, and in
every time and place the pious
profession of abhorrence of vio-—
lence hag been a hypocritical dis-
guise adopted by reactionary
vested interests, by those who op-
pose anything and_ everything:
the people may do to promote life, _
liberty and the pursuit of happi-_
ness. And to this rule, this trial is_
no exception. _

The responsibility for force and
violence was very well described
in what Mark Twain wrote about _
the French Revolution. He wrote:

“There were two reigns of
Terror if we would but remem-
ber it; the one lasted mere
months, the other had lasted a
‘thousand years; the one inflicted
death upon 10,000 persons, the
other upon a hundred million;
but our shudders are all for
the ‘horrors’, of the minor tér-’
ror, the momentary terror. A
city cemetery could contain the
coffins filled by that brief terror
which we have all been so dili- —
gently taught to shiver at and
mourn over; but all France
could hardly contain the cof-
fins filled by that older and

bitter and awful terror paw
none of us has been taught
see in its vastness, or pity as it —
deserves.”

Because it wanted to” obscure
that older and real terror, the
prosecution also tried to keeP
the jury from understanding that
the law of inevitable proletari
revolution covers a long, historic: |
al process.

We defendants have explained
to the jury that the five stage?
of social evolution and_ soci
change covered by this law in-
clude:

First, the vise of capitalism and
its development into what we per
scientifically, moribund capi
ism.

Second, the attainment of state
power by the working class.

Third, the establishment of
rule of the working class,
working class state power.

Fourth, the building of social
ism

Fifthly, the aventedl achieve
ment of communism and. the :
timate withering . away of the
state. ‘

me
of