Turning the pages back...

June 21, 1948

This week in 1948, the House Committee on Un-American Activities released a report titled, "100 Things You Should Know About Communism in U.S.A." The report, which the Committee unanimously approved, constituted a string of questions and answers about communism.

For the preface, the committee selected a quote from William Z. Foster, national chairman of the Communist Party: "When a Communist heads the government of the United States - and that day will come as surely as the sun rises - the government will not be a capitalist but a Soviet government, and behind this government will stand the Red Army to enforce the dictatorship of the proletariat."

The following are excerpts from the House of Representatives committee report.

* * *

Q: How many Communists are there in the United States?

A: There are approximately 100,000 out of a population of 145,340,000 people. J. Edgar Hoover has testified that" in 1917 when the Communists overthrew the Russian government, there was one Communist for every 2,277 persons in Russia. In the United States today there is one Communist for every 1,814 persons in the country.'

Q: What would happen to my insurance?

A: It would go to the Communists.

Q: Would communism give me something better than I have now?

A: Not unless you are in a penitentiary serving a life sentence at hard labor.

The committee report was supposed to be the first in a series of releases on "Reds," as Communists were often called, in the areas of religion, education, labor and government. Another planned report was to be called "One Hundred Things You Should Know About Communism in Religion."

Source: "How to Identify a Communist?" The Ukrainian Weekly, June 21, 1948.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, June 17, 2001, No. 24, Vol. LXIX

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