|
THE ORIGIN OF
COMMUNISM
In a previous chapter, we found out how the Illuminati created Communism
to be used as an adversary against liberty. An indication of that fact
came from a statement by Dr. Bella Dodd, who was a member of the
National Committee of the U.S. Communist Party. She indicated that when
their Board could not reach a decision, one of their members would go to
the Waldorf Towers in New York City to consult with Arthur Goldsmith.
Goldsmith's decision would later be confirmed by Communist officials in
Russia. Goldsmith was not a Communist, but was a wealthy 'capitalist.'
The Communist movement was created out of the roots of Socialism, in
fact, President Hoover said: "Socialism is the forerunner of communism."
Socialistic ideas can be traced back to Plato's (427-347 BC) Republic,
and English Statesman Sir Thomas More's (1478-1535) Utopia in 1516.
Plato envisioned a society where marriage would be eliminated, all women
would belong to all men, and all men would belong to all women. Women
would be equal to men, working and fighting wars side by side. All
children would be raised by the state. There would be a tri-level
society consisting of the ruling class, the military class, and the
working class. Private property would be eliminated, and the
intellectuals would determine what was best for the lower classes.
Indian settlements were communistic. The Pilgrims and Virginia colonists
tried them, but failed. Captain John Smith of Virginia said: "When our
people were fed out of the common store, and labored jointly together,
glad was he who could slip from his labor and sleep over his task..."
The Mennonites, who came to Pennsylvania from Germany, in 1683,
established communes. As they moved westward, they left behind a
splinter group, called the Amish, who gradually developed a society
based on the private ownership of property. Also in 1683 followers of a
Frenchman, Jean de Labadie (former Jesuit, turned Protestant) immigrated
to Maryland. They held property in common, but broke up within a couple
of years.
In 1774, Englishwoman Ann Lee, leading a group called the Shakers
(United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing), which was a
splinter group of the Quaker movement, established a celibate communal
society near Albany, New York, in an area known as Watervliet. Religious
persecution had forced them to America, where they practiced celibacy,
equality of sexes, common ownership of property, and the public
confession of sins. In 1787, two of Lee's followers, Joseph Meacham and
Lucy Wright, established a similar colony in New Lebanon, NY. By 1840,
they had 6,000 members in 19 communes, from New York, to Indiana and
Kentucky. Their numbers declined after the Civil War, and they finally
broke up in the 1940's.
Francois Emile Babeuf (1760-97), was a member of the Illuminati (his
pseudonym was 'Gracchus'), and as such, his social views reflected those
of Weishaupt's. He formed a Masonic-like association of disciples called
Babouvistes, who advocated violence as a means of achieving reform. They
met at the dining hall of the Abbey, and sometimes in the crypt. The
location of the building, which was near the Pantheon, led to the name
of the Order, which was known as the Pantheonistes. The group, at its
peak, had about 2,000 members.
Babeuf wrote: "In my system of Common Happiness, I desire that no
individual property shall exist. The land is God's and its fruits belong
to all men in general." One of his disciples, the Marquis de Antonelle,
a former member of the Revolutionary Tribunal, wrote: "The state of
communism is the only just, the only good one; without this state of
things, no peaceful and really happy societies can exist."
In April, 1796, Babeuf wrote his Manifesto of the Equals, which was
published under the title Analysis of the Doctrine of Babeuf. In it he
wrote:
"No more private property in land, the land belongs to no one ... the
fruits of the earth belong to everyone ... Vanish at last, revolting
distinctions of rich and poor, of great and small, of masters and
servants, of governors and governed. Let there be no difference between
men than that of age and sex. Since all have the same needs and the same
faculties, let there be only one education, one kind of food. They
content themselves with one sun and air for all; why should not the same
portion and the same quality of food suffice for each of them..."
Under his plan, workers wouldn't be paid in money, since the owning of
personal property would be abolished. Instead, payment would be made
through the distribution of products. These products, stored in communal
warehouses, would be equally handed out. Another notable aspect of his
plan was that children would not be allowed to bear the name of their
father, unless he was a man of great importance.
Knowing that people would never allow such a communistic system, they
never fully revealed their plans. Instead, their propaganda centered on
"equality among men" and "justice of the people," while they criticized
the "greed" of the government. The working men didn't fully understand
Babeuf's doctrines, nevertheless, they praised his ideas.
In August, 1796, Babeuf and 45 leaders of his movement were arrested
after the government found out they were making preparations to lead a
revolt of the people against them. They were put on trial in a
proceeding that lasted from February to May, 1797. The Illuminati was
secretly directing the Babouviste movement, and Babeuf testified that he
was just an agent of the conspiracy: "I attest they do for me too much
honor in decorating me with the title of head of this affair. I declare
that I had only a secondary and limited part in it ... The heads and the
leaders needed a director of public opinion. I was in the position to
enlist this opinion." On May 28, 1797, Babeuf was hung, and many of his
followers were deported.
Those who have studied the Russian Revolution have observed that there
is little difference between Babouvism and Bolshevism. The Third
Internationale of Moscow in 1919, in its first Manifesto, traced its
descent from Babeuf. The Russian Revolution may have been the ultimate
goal of Babeuf, who wrote: "The French Revolution is only the forerunner
of another revolution, very much greater, very much more solemn, and
which will be the last!"
The earliest advocate of the movement, later to be known as Socialism,
was the English mill owner Robert Owen (1771-1858). He was a student of
spiritualism and published his views in the Rational Quarterly Review.
At his Scotland textile factory, he was known as a model employer
because of the reforms he instituted, even enacting child labor laws. He
felt production could be increased if competition was eliminated. Many
of his principles were derived from the writings of Weishaupt. For
instance, Weishaupt wrote that the aim of the Illuminati, was "to make
the human race, without any distinction of nation, condition or
profession, one good and happy family." Owen said that the "new state of
existence upon the earth, which, when understood and applied rationally
to practice, will cordially unite all as one good and enlightened
family." Many of Owen's philosophies were parallel to those of the
Illuminati.
Owen's long term goal was to "cut the world into villages of 300 to
2,000 souls," in which, "the dwellings for the 200 or 300 families
should be placed together in the form of a parallelogram." According to
his philosophy, "individualism was to be disallowed," and "each was to
work for the benefit of all." A colony established along those lines in
Ireland failed, so in 1824, Owen sailed to America, where he bought
several thousand acres from George Rapp's pietistic Harmony Society, in
Posey County, Indiana. In 1825, with 1,000 settlers, he started his "New
Harmony Community of Equality." It was a model town of non- profit
making stores.
Other settlements like this were started in America and Scotland, and
communism was born. However, Owen was a weak leader, had few skilled
workmen, and had to put additional duties on the few competent workers
that he had, in an attempt to insure success. In 1826, he adopted a
Constitution that condemned private property and organized religion.
However, Owen had failed to take into account human nature, something he
had fought so hard for in earlier years, when he advocated better
housing for workers, better education for children, and the elimination
of unhealthy living conditions. Even though he failed in an attempt to
merge all the trade unions into a "Great Trades Union," his reforms
completely transformed the town of New Lanark, Scotland. In 1827, Owen
resigned as manager, and dissolved the colony, because he was forced to
change his thinking. He wrote: "No societies with common property and
equality could prosper. In order to succeed it was needful to exclude
the intemperate, the idle, the careless, the quarrelsome, the
avaricious, the selfish..."
His son, Robert Dale Owen (1801-77), was a leader in the Workingman's
Party in 1829, which evolved down through the years into the U.S.
Communist Party.
In 1817, a group of German separatists, led by Joseph M. Bimeler,
settled near the Tuscarawas River in Ohio, naming their society after
one of the few Biblical plain cities that escaped the destruction of
Sodom and Gomorrah. In 1819, they were incorporated as the Society of
Separatists of Zoar. All property was held in common; factories and
shops were managed by an elected Board of Trustees. They prospered
during the 1850's, establishing the town of Zoar, having over 10,000
acres, and $1 million worth of assets. After Bimeler's death in 1853,
interest declined, and the town dissolved in 1898.
There were other communistic settlements, such as Harmony, PA (1805);
Nashoba, Tennessee (1825); the Cooperative Store at Toad Street (1844);
and the Cooperative Society of Oldham (1850), set up by the Rochdale
Pioneers, which also failed.
Some groups today can trace their roots to the 19th century communes. In
the 1830's, Joseph Smith, who founded the Church of Jesus Christ of the
Latter Day Saints (the Mormons), moved his followers from New York, to
Ohio, then to Missouri, and finally to Utah, because of religious
persecution. He believed that a form of communal Christianity existed
during the time of the Apostles.
John Humphrey Noyes ("Father Noyes"), after establishing a colony at
Putney, Virginia, in 1846, set up another in Oneida, New York, in 1848,
which featured common property ownership and child rearing, selective
'breeding' of babies, and a society in which every woman was considered
to be the wife of each man, and every man the husband of each woman. By
1874, there were 300 members. Noyes went to Canada in 1879 after threats
of prosecution, and the colony discontinued their unusual sexual
practices. They reorganized as a joint stock company, which is still
operating today.
Christian Metz, head of the 17th century German Protestant sect known as
the Community of True Inspiration, settled on a farm near Buffalo, New
York, in 1842, where they established a Christian commune where all
property was commonly owned. Work and worship was combined. In 1855,
they moved to an 18,000 acre area in Iowa, forming the community of
Amana. It eventually expanded into seven villages, with farms, stores,
sheds and factories. The commune still exists today, with its factories
producing various appliances. Its stock was held by about 1400 members.
Comte Henri de Saint-Simon (1776-1825), French nobleman, philosopher and
socialist, was the grandson of the author of King Louis XIV's memoirs.
He was considered by some to be mentally unbalanced, because of an
infliction inherited from his insane mother. Others believed him to be a
genius. His philosophy, known as the "New Christianity," advocated the
placing of all property and people under the State's control, to insure
that the exploitation of the poor would end. He declared that the
existing social system was dead and should be done away with. He called
for the merging of scientific and technological knowledge towards
industrialism, in order to have the elite rule. He said that all men
were not created equal. His followers, known as "The Family" instituted
a political program, calling for the public control of industrial
production, abolition of inheritance, and equal rights for women. They
even tried to start a Saint-Simonian Church.
In 1836, one of Simon's disciples, Philippe Joseph Benjamin Buchez,
attempted to combine Socialism with Catholicism, with something called
Christian Socialism. This was a continuation of Weishaupt's efforts to
identify Christianity with the Illuminati, in order to draw members.
Peaceful revolution was to be carried out through the principles of
Christian love and brotherhood, with Jesus being represented as a
Socialist. The group published a labor newspaper called LŽAtelier ("The
Workshop"), which was written and edited by the workers themselves. They
warned against the use of violence to obtain social change, and barred
the workers from belonging to secret organizations. Small co-op
communities were established. They started the Council for Promoting
Working Men's Associations, and in 1854, started the Working Men's
College in London.
As Christian Socialism developed, it was promoted by saying that
Socialism was the ultimate goal of Christianity. In America, prominent
Protestant clergymen, such as Washington Gladden, Walter Rauschenbusch,
Lyman Abbott, Josiah Strong, and Charles M. Sheldon, through sermons,
books, magazine and newspaper articles, called for better working
conditions for women, the elimination of child labor, a six-day work
week, and a decent working wage. These principles were later adopted by
the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America in 1908. The
aforementioned ministers, and economist Richard T. Ely, in 1889,
organized the Society of Christian Socialists, which advocated a
cooperative society based on the teachings of Christ. Rev. Endicott
Peabody, founder of the Grotan School, spoke of such reform to the
capitalist system. One of his young students was Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Buchez' followers soon grew dissatisfied with the equal payment plan,
and the organization split into several factions, one professing
Christianity (setting up several Christian Socialist organizations), and
the other, calling for revolution.
Francois Marie Charles Fourier (1772-1837), a French philosopher,
planned out model communities, in which people would live in a
pleasurable atmosphere, and work at their own pace, at jobs they like.
Everyone would know what to do and when to do it. There would be no need
for regulations. In his communities, called 'phalanxes' (or 'phalansteries'),
everyone was to live in the same building. Jobs were assigned, and
workers received a nominal wage. In 1832, he failed in an attempt to set
up such a commune at Versailles. However, his followers founded about 30
communal settlements in the United States, such as the Brook Farm
(1841-47).
In 1841, George Ripley, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Charles A. Dana, all
advocates of Transcendentalism, established a 192-acre settlement in
West Roxbury, Massachusetts. In 1844, they instituted a constitution,
making it a co-op based on the scientific division of labor advocated by
Fourier. They published a journal, The Harbinger (1845-49), which was
edited by Ripley, and featured such writers as James Russell Lowell and
John Greenleaf Whittier. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Horace Greeley, and Henry
David Thoreau, established another Fourier commune at Red Bank, New
Jersey in 1843, where members picked their jobs and were paid according
to the repulsiveness of their work. The dirtier the job, the more it
paid. They had about 1200 members, and operated for about ten years.
Fourier disciples, Elizabeth Peabody, Parke Goodwin, and William Henry
Channing, also began communes.
Louis Blanc, a Mason, developed a Workingman's Association, but his was
to be under State control. He called for the establishment of labor
organizations in the form of national workshops, with the workers
electing their management. He despised all religion, and eliminated the
idea of Christianity, criticizing Buchez for being too sentimental.
In France, during the 1840's, Louis-Auguste Blanqui espoused a form of
radical socialism that was based on democratic populism. He said that
capitalism was unstable and would be replaced by cooperative
institutions.
Etienne Cabet, the son of a barrelmaker, went to England in 1834, where
he became a convert of Robert Owen. When he returned to France in 1839,
he laid out a plan for a communistic settlement, which he established in
the Red River region of Texas in 1847. His 69 followers were called "Icarians,"
after his 1840 novel Voyage en Icaria, which portrayed a society where
all property was held in common, and products of the community were
distributed according to need. Later that year, he wrote a book on the
French Revolution, and traced the course of communistic theories
starting with Plato, Pythagoras (a 6th century BC philosopher), the
Essenes of Judea, More, CampaneIla, Locke, Montesquieu, Mably, Rousseau,
and other 18th century philosophers. He claimed that the communists were
the disciples, the imitators, and continuers of the philosophy of Jesus.
In 1849, he took 280 of his followers to Nauvoo, Illinois, after the
Texas commune failed because of poor soil, crooked land agents, and an
attack of malaria. This Hancock County area had been a Mormon community
of about 15,000 people, who after the death of Joseph Smith in 1844,
went to Salt Lake City, Utah, with Brigham Young. By 1855, Nauvoo had
farms, a running mill, a distillery, a theater, a printing press, and a
school. Soon there were over 500 people in the town.
They eventually grew restless because of Cabet's autocratic leadership,
since they didn't have a voice in their own affairs. They threw him out
in 1856, and he took 200 of his followers with him. As time went on,
only a few diehards remained, until the commune finally broke up in
1888. Meanwhile, Cabet started a "true Icaria" in Cheltinham, Missouri
(near St. Louis), but soon after, died of apoplexy. The commune lasted
until 1864. Some followers of Cabet also started communes at Corning,
Iowa (1860-84), and Cloverdale, California (1881-87).
Go to Next Page
|