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