by W. Cleon Skousen
The Ensign Publishing Company,
Salt Lake City, Utah, 1958 pp. 343, $6
Reviewed by Hang Chow
It is difficult to imagine that any book can give a better description of the human species that call themselves Communists. In the present work, Skousen gives an exposé of the Communist in his naked self. He traces the Communist ideological origin to Marx and Engels. He gives a description of the practical Communists Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin as well as those in the United States and other countries. He pictures a Communist as a godless, amoral, cynical individual dedicated to the belief that the world should be made over by a revolution which would result in abolishing property rights after exterminating the bourgeoisie, property owners and "class enemy," a broad term meant to include anyone who does not accept or agree with Communism.
The author then goes on to describe the work of Communists and Communist sympathizers in various countries, especially those in the United States. Their activities in the United States and infiltration into high government level make miserable reading and constitute a dark chapter in the history of the United States. For instance, $11-billion worth of Lend-Lease was sent to Russia during the war. After the United States had entered the war, some of the supplies were sent to Russia at the deliberate sacrifice of American self-interest. The modification, equipment and movement of Russian planes were given first priority, even over planes of the U.S. Army Air Force! Despite the fact that Congress restricted the Russian Lend-Lease to materials to be used for military action against the Axis enemy, $3-billion worth of non-military supplies were sent to Russia. These consisted of non-military chemicals, cigarette cases, phonograph records, ladies' compacts, sheet music, pianos, antique furniture, perfumes, dolls, etc. etc. The joke of it is that the Americans never received a word of thanks from Stalin for all this generosity.
The author also describes in detail how the American Communists and their sympathizers engaged in espionage activities for Russia, how they smuggled uranium salts from the country for the Russians to make fissionable U-235, how they stole the atomic secrets through their large espionage rings. He also describes the betrayal of the National Government of China under Chiang Kai-shek by the Communists or Communist sympathizers entrenched in the United States Government and how they held up the delivery of arms to the Chinese Government at the most critical time in its fight against the Chinese Communists. The American Communists and their sympathizers' also took a hand in helping the Korean and Chinese Communists fight against the United Nations forces. The military commanders were never permitted to fight a winning war. Even this outline of the Communist activities should be sufficient to show the people of the United States and other countries how important it is to prevent a large group of Communists or their sympathizers from infiltrating into the government.
The most valuable part of the book is the chapter in which the author quotes prominent Communists, living or dead, to answer the questions most people like to know about Communists. For instance, he poses the question: "Do you think there is a possibility that the democracies and the Soviet can co-exist?" Then he lets Lenin give the answer. In the Report of the Central Committee at the 8th Party Congress (1919), there is this saying of Lenin, "The existence of the Soviet Republic side by side with imperialist states for a long time is unthinkable. One or the other must triumph in the end. And before that end supervenes, a series of frightful collisions between the Soviet Republic and the bourgeois states will be inevitable." It must be remembered that this was spoken at a time when the infant Soviet Union was just tottering along.
The author conclusively shows that a Communist believes in world conquest by the Soviet Union, that such conquest need not be accomplished by military force alone but by all the tricks in the Communist book, that a Communist cannot be won over by gestures of friendship and trust, that Communist problems cannot be solved by the usual free-world methods of negotiation and compromise, etc. etc.
Here the author mourns the "decadent stupidity" of the ordinary people, who, despite the repeated announcements by Communists themselves of their world conquest plans, refuse to take them seriously. He then lists the Communist timetable of conquest as follows: Japan and India to become part of the Communist sphere of influence by 1960; Africa to be prepared for Communist coup by 1965; Europe shortly thereafter, and that no war should be fought with the United States until after 1970, by which time the defensive and offensive preparations of the Soviet Union and Red China would have been completed. In short, the Communists give the United States only eleven years more to live, as from today. They expect by that time all free men would be dead. So let all free peoples of the world beware.
FLIGHT TO FORMOSA
by Frank Clune
Angus and Robertson, Sydney and London
1958 272 Pages. 25 s.
Reviewed by Geraldine Fitch
In a style much less formal and highbrow than the detailed headings of the chapters would lead one to expect, Frank Clune describes his five-week visit to Formosa with something about Macao, Lantao Island and Hong Kong thrown in for good measure.
In verbiage almost a s rough a s the weather he deplores, on a stormy flight from Sydney to Hong Kong, he sounds off about air-travel, seemingly distrustful fit even after 100,000 miles of safe flying. Evidently he still longs for "terra firma" and what he calls "aqua calma," and would (were it possible) leave flying for the birds. Most people today find air-travel smoother than travel by train or ship, and-as for safety-think the hazards are much greater by motor-car.
Once the author has disposed of his pet peeve about flying, he races through his pages with a lively description of places visited, giving more than a smattering of their history and present significance as he goes. But no one can write so fast without having a good many inaccuracies toted up against him, and such rapid reporting tends to a sameness of style, without pausing for thoughtful interpretation, or poignant description. I take it he writes mostly for the education of the Australian people (giving them little digs, or prodding, as he goes), and no doubt considers it more important to acquaint them with twenty countries than to do a thoroughly adequate job on a few. A total of almost fifty books (in perhaps 25 years) merits the term prolific. While nearly half of them are travelogues, there are also biographies, historical novels, adventure stories and two (not just one) biographies.
Perhaps one should overlook the inaccuracies, which (after all) irritate only the readers who happened) a particular country or two better than the casual visitor. Still it would seem necessary to most authors (and quite easy) to check some of the following: the Portuguese name of Formosa (lhla Formosa; the Spanish would be "Isla Hermosa"); the occupation of Madame Chiang's father; the number of aboriginal tribes on Taiwan (9, not 7) totaling 185,000 (not 100,000); the number of pedicabs (18,000, not 8,000) in Taipei, and bicycles on Taiwan (about 300,000, not 80,000) and the name of the one mission-supported university (Tung Hai, not Hung-Hai).
Repetition, such as "The big construction of the Keelung Outer Harbor was carried through by the Japanese in the 1930s" and (seven lines later) "was completed by the Japanese in 1934," may bother the reader a bit. But the more serious thing is to give the Japanese all the credit, when much of it belongs to the Chinese. The latter had to remove 160 sunken ships from the harbor after the war, reconstruct wharves and wharf-fenders damaged during the war, and re-pave the roads. In addition, the Chinese have extended the breakwaters by 584 feet, built the lighthouses (credited to the Japanese), built transit sheds and warehouses, two new pumping houses and a 1,000-ton reservoir, and in 1956 this reviewer went to the ribbon-cutting for a new cargo wharf (with modern shiploading machinery), a 10,000-ton grain silo, and a tunnel connection to the railway.
In one paragraph the date for the Japanese conquest of Formosa is correctly given as 1895, and the date of retrocession as 1945; yet the author carelessly says this is "exactly forty years." In another place he says, "In 1955 the Chinese merchants of San Francisco decided to present a Chinese junk to that city," so Capt. Ching and crew of six sailed it across the Pacific. He has the story in reverse. Six young Chinese (including Capt. Ching) decided in 1955 to enter a Chinese junk in the cross-Atlantic yacht race. After many mishaps they reached San Francisco too late to go further, and the junk was donated to the city.
But this is too much about the errors which could have been avoided by careful checking, or corrected by a slip of errata inserted in the published books. There are two more important things to say about "Flight to Formosa," and both of them are good.
For one thing, Frank Clune is frankly and unmistakably on the side of Freedom in the world's ideological battle. He recognizes that in the arc of Pacific defense from Alaska to Australia and New Zealand, Formosa is the keystone. If the Communists start any military ventures in Southeast Asia, the author says, "they would be vulnerable to a flanking movement launched from the USA bases in the Pacific, with the cooperation of ... allies in Japan, South Korea, Formosa and the Philippines." He believes this "strategic fact curbs Red aggression south wards."
As a matter of fact, since he is not an Old China Hand, a "long-time friend of China," or a member of the mythical "China lobby," he is that much more free to express his enthusiasm with what he saw of land reform, industrial progress, good government and democracy during his travels all over Formosa. If an Australian who was never on Taiwan before talks about the Chinese "holding the fort of freedom" and keeping "the flag of freedom flying on Formosa," it is all right. Those of us who live here would be discounted as prejudiced, if we were not more restrained.
The most important thing Frank Clune has done in his book is to record his interviews with missionaries, mostly Catholic in Taiwan, who had suffered at the hands of Chinese Communists on the mainland. He went out of his way to find Bishop Donaghy, Father Ford, Archbishop Lacchio, Papal Nuncio Riberi and others; drew forth the stories of their imprisonment on trumped-up charges, their torture and humiliation, the taking over of their schools, hospitals and orphanages, their final deportation. From Msgr. Riberi he obtained and recorded valuable figures on the numbers of Catholic priests, brothers and nuns expelled by a regime which claims to give religious liberty.
From Father Thornton he learned how the Communists seek to destroy the church:
"The Communist theory is that all possible opposition to themselves must be destroyed by encouraging 'anti-bodies' to create internal dissension ... so the Catholic Church must be destroyed by Catholic anti-bodies, the Protestants by Protestant anti-bodies, and all religions or political opposition movements similarly."
Father Thornton's account of matching his Irish wits against Communists who could not think for themselves is one of the best things I have read anywhere. For this I thank the author, and understand why he hurried to get it published for all to share.