U.S, COMMUNISTS' MANIFESTO

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25811, 24 May 1949, Page 5

U.S, COMMUNISTS' MANIFESTO

“Government’s Fall Not Advocated” PEACEFUL AIMS CLAIMED (N.Z. Press Associatton—Copyright) (Rec. 9 p.m.) NEW YORK, May 22. Mr William Foster, national chairman of the United States Communist Party, to-day issued a party manifesto in which he said that the Communists did not advocate the forceful overthrow of the United States Government, because Communism was “inevitable, war dr no war.” Mr Foster called his document, “The New Tactical Line of the World Communist Movement, including the American Communist Party.” “This line,” he said, “is that war is no longer inevitable because the Communist forces have become strong enough to compel the Fascist imperialist monopolists to keep world peace. Capitalist violence cannot defeat Socialism (Communism).

“A people’s right of revolution cannot be denied. If a peaceful path to Socialism is open to a people, that is the road they will always take, but if capitalist reaction and violence force them to fight for Socialism, then fight they Will, and, as history shows, successfully. “The future belongs to Socialism, and capitalism, with all its violence against progress, cannot possibly 'change the main course of history.” - The document indicates that the keyhote of the Commufiist defence at the conspiracy trial of leading American Communists in New York will be that it is “stupid” to think that the Communists favour the overthrow of the United States Government, since a Soviet America is “inevitable." The document adds: “It is stupid then to think that the Communists Want the common people—their people—slaughtered off by tens of millions in a devastating atomic war which would lay waste<the whole of civilisation?’