Ames Daily Tribune (Newspaper) - June 22, 1966, Ames, Iowa Once top Red in US No By JERRY KLEIN Newspaper Enterprise Assn PRINCETON NJ NBA of the neighbors here rec the grizzled ing old codger as Americas former No 1 Communist main ly because this once rabid Marxist is now such an iastic booster for the American economic system 7 At 75 Earl Browder one leader of the Communist the United States and twice its candidate for president of the United States lives quietly with one of his three sons And all three sons are university instructors leaders in their communities Born in Kansas Browder once preached revolution and the downfall of the capitalist class Today he acknowledges that the material blessings of fte free enterprise system have far exceeded the promises of communism He sees no future for the Communist party in the US Already a devoted stu dent of Marxist dogma by his teetas Browder became a member of the partys national committee at 30 For 25 years he served in the top office as secretary before Stalin the party by ordering it to fol low the Kremlins hard line blindly Wed June 22 1966 15 for in ism In World War 11 Browder had been jailed for a time as repre a possible danger to na security He was set free by President Roosevelt and af ter the war tried to extend the U S Soviet relations that Roosevelt first fostered by diplomatic recognition of the Kremlin regime in 1933 But by 1945 Moscow had lost interest in peaceful tence and Browder was dis missed from the party as a traitor to Marxist theory Since eni he some writing and lecturing watching the decline of communism in America and the flowering of capitalism Looking back over the vast social and economic changes the years have brought here are the observations of Earl Browder today Is China a real threat to fu ture peace Yes The future may well be long to China in another hun dred years As America showed during the last century it is the rate of economic growth that determines which shall be the leading nation of the world So we will need to learn quick ly how to mobilize our poten more efficiently and put them to work I have lived in China and used to be a friend of some of the top Communists there but YESTERDAY Twentyfive years ago Earl Browder sec of the Communist Party in the United States was preach ing the downfall of the capitalist class But Browder was a renegade Communist and at the end of World War II he was dismissed from the party as a traitor to Marxist theory now 1 am one of their bugaboos because 1 believe that east and west can live together in har mony Must communism be a threat to organized religion There is a strong antireligious tradition in communism but there have been equally strong anticlerical traditions in other political schools Consider It aly where there are some sev million Communists 90 per cent of whom are Catholics What does he future hold in the ideological struggle America defeated Marxism not in ideological struggle but our living standards tremendously through an rate of capital invest ment As time passes the contrast between capitalist and socialist systems is blurred and the two giants of world power resemble one another more We can coexist in peace and 1 pray that we will Are you still opposed to the American economic s y s tem 1 may have been critical of America at times in the past but I appreciate its blessings The poor are better off here than the rich anywhere else For example Social Security its an absolute marvel To Marx belongs the credit of putting the abolition ol poverty into focus as a practical aim To Ameri ca belongs the glory of proving that poverty for the many is not the inevitable companion of wealth for the few How do you feel about Marxism now Ideas of Marx about of the working class es and the struggle between high wages and high profits ne ver applied to the U S econ omy Here high wages have been our godsend the secret driving force that helped make us great Here good profits coexist with good wages in fact the profits depend on the wages for labor and machinery are in competition and low wages only retard technologi cal advance Communism of the Marxist variety was doomed to failure It has failed The great irony of the CPUSA was that we talked revolution on Sundays while the rest of the week we worked cur heads off to bring about the social reforms that prevented the revolution from happening In doing the Communist movement actually helped to build the American peoples faith in our govern ment and in its institutions The ideal of the great society free of poverty now has been adopted as the declared aim of the U S gov not only within Am erica but throughout the world What about charges o f creeping socialism America is getting socialism onthe installment plan through the programs of the welfare state There is more real so the United States to day than there is in the Soviet Union Americans may not be willing to vote for a program under the name of socialism but put it under another party label whether liberal lican and they are by and large in favor of the idea Would you say the U S is a socialist state We have no real socialist party no socialist ideology but we have a large and growing degree of what 50 years ago would have been recognized as socialism We got it without any fiveyear plans merely in the piling up of single decisions under the pressures of need and crisis Today the United States enjoys the socialism of the rich Is the American Communist party still a threat to our security The CPUSA has no influence now and never will have again It still exists only because it usually takes about 200 years to eliminate a political party even after its dead There are 3000 to 4000 members of the CPUSA in the United States today Ev en the world movement i s fragmented and leaderless and will remain so The CPUSA is harmless and ineffective now and should be ignored We only keep them alive by making martyrs of them Theyre not hardy ad venturers searching for a dra matic way to strike a blow at our system theyre just aging doctrinaires worshiping a t some meaningless shrine with no practical job to do at all Did Moscow run the Commu nist party here in the United States There never was a time when the CPUSA was not influenced by Moscow to the extent that any strong views it had were accepted as justified Yet from 1934 to 1945 Moscow did not interfere greatly but backed me up and let me run things as 1 saw fit Of course while I had unquestioned authority within the party I was merely tolerated by Moscow because I was a renegade In terms of the rich life for the common man there is as yet no socialism outside of America Everywhere else so remains an aspiration a program for the future What about the Red revolution that was once predicted in this country Talk of revolutionary class struggle was silly The Ameri can working class is distinctly not revolutionary and shows no signs of ever becoming so Mass dissatisfaction in this to deep reforms not forcible change in the con ditions that hampered improve ment And these reforms refute classical Communist theory that socialism may be reached only by revolution Did the Kremlin support the Communist movement here Moscow subsidized the CPU SA for a time but by 1934 I abolished this reliance on the Soviets for financial aid and af we actually got along better During the Spanish civil war for instance we raised at least million for the Loy Americans may have blindly insisted the CPUSA was a pup pet of Stalin but in reality it was a headache to the Kremlin In Jhe the Russians tol us but as soon as Hit lers defeat was sure they de our reformist course The result was to shatter the American Communist move ment What role did you play In Russian spying As for Russian espionage agents I was not aware of any of this dirty work at the time it was being done Only later did 1 learn that any individual had been involved Certainly Moscow knew that I wasnt a man for any sort of illegal undercover work 1 was a heretic and they knew it Did you know Khrush TODAY At 75 Earl Browder says he has changed his think ing completely from the days when he headed the Communist party in this country He sees no future whatsoever for con in the United States chev I never heard of Khrushchev before World War II 1 was as with the highest lead ers in Moscow when he was running errands for them Khrushchev adopted the here sy for which I was kicked out of the Communist party in 1945 the idea of peaceful coexist ence Red China even called Khrushchev a disciple of Brow der for advocating a peaceful transformation of capitalism and they have criticized me for saying that communism is 20th century Americanism Hes making on early start Your newspaper carrier knows the promptness in deliv ering your newspaper to you when and where you want it Thats Just one reason why hes making cm early start In developing sound business abilities and principles Through serving you he learns the Importance of 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