The Devil and Karl Marx by Paul Kengor

Author:Paul Kengor
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Publisher: TAN Books

Here was remarkable specificity, with Gitlow tagging a year, month, and date to an actual resolution—as well as a place: Moscow. What did it say? He quoted from the resolution, which included the “religious” among the groups targeted in the united front. According to Gitlow, this resolution declared, “The establishment of a united front with social-democratic and reformist organizations (party, trade unions, cooperative, sport, and cultural and educational organizations), and with the bulk of their members, as well as with mass national liberation, religious, democratic, and pacifist organizations and their adherents, is decisive in the struggle against war and its Fascist instigators in all countries.”

Gitlow explained that this resolution was “very specific for it states that a united front on the part of the Communists and the organizations they control, with religious organizations and their adherents, is decisive in the struggle against war and fascism.” He said that the resolution was passed by the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International and “proves that Communist infiltration of the religious field was decided upon in Moscow as a major policy. Those who declare that such infiltration of religion, especially the Christian churches, is a figment of the imagination, either do so to hide the astounding facts about such infiltration or because they are too stupid to see or realize what is going on.”

Kunzig then asked Gitlow if communists in America had played a part in formulating the policy of the Comintern for the “infiltration of the religious field.” “The American Communists played quite an important part,” answered Gitlow, who had come to this hearing very well prepared for precisely such questions. He brandished a report made directly to Comintern officials in Moscow by Gil Green, head of the Young Communist League of the United States, which stated:

We are influencing larger masses of youth and are accepted by large numbers of them as a constructive force. In these organizations we found innumerable functionaries and cadres to fight with us against reaction. In the course of less than a year our Young Communist League built 175 units within these mass organizations and through these began to anchor the united front from below.

At the second American Youth Congress, the Young Communist League delegation was faced with many complicated questions, any one of which if handled in a broad way could have resulted in a break in the united front. For example, the question of religion. Many of the religious groups were skeptical about uniting with Communists, although they were against fascism, because they feared that was a trap to force our atheistic views upon them. This problem was solved by simply agreeing to permit all religious youth in the Congress to hold church services Sunday morning. This did not compromise the Communist youth and yet showed to the masses of religious youth that this was not a united front against religion but against political reaction.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.