SOURCE: "Stalin and Hitler: A Lesson in Comparison," in The Pacific Spectator, Vol. VII, No. 2, Spring, 1953, pp. 152-66.

One day en route to Tiflis a guest of the Soviet government, André Gide, stopped at Gori, a small village where Josef Stalin was born. To the great French writer, who for years had followed the "experiment" in Russia with enthusiasm, the arrival in Gori was an occasion charged with emotional impact. Impulsively he decided to send the Russian leader a telegram expressing his gratitude for the lavish hospitality with which he had been treated.

At the post office Gide wrote out a message which began: "Passing through Gori on our wonderful trip I feel the impulse to send you—" The translator interrupted him with the information that the use of the address "you" was neither proper nor sufficient. He suggested as a better form of address, "You Lord of the people." Gide thought the suggestion absurd, for surely Stalin was not a vain man and did not need flattery, but to no avail. The translator was adamant.

This incident, which in other ways and situations has been experienced by other visitors to the Soviet Union, is suggestive of a prevailing concept of government that is fascist rather than communist in nature. It reveals an attitude of mind that is more akin to the Führerprinzip than to the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

This is not a new discovery, but neither has it been given sufficient attention and emphasis. Rather, students of Russia are habitually but falsely regarding and treating present-day Russia as the product of a communist revolution, and its form of government as Marxist in origin and nature. Although discrepancies between communist theory and communist practice have been pointed out and although the anachronistic element in the Marxian dialectic has been recognized in explaining the Russian Revolution as the inevitable result of the historical process, many historians and political scientists and economists, by force of habit, indifference, or ignorance persist in treating the U.S.S.R. basically as a communist state.

We are not talking here about the technical and theoretical distinction between a "socialist" and a "communist" society but the much more fundamental difference between a state that calls itself, and is so labeled by many of us, a communist (or socialist) state and one that has no resemblance to or connection with communism, socialism, or any other form of Marxism. For the forms of government developed by Lenin and Stalin—particularly those of the latter—are no more the historical application of or continuation of Marxian concepts, the dialectic, the Communist Manifesto, or any other Marxian, socialist, or communist principle or program than was Hitler's or Mussolini's form of government. From its first motivating impulse, Leninism strayed from the Marxist road and employed non-Marxian means to obtain non-Marxian ends. The New Economic Policy is only one example of this departure from the main highway. Lenin was the first "deviationist," and under Stalin this "deviation" has turned into a complete abandonment and rejection of Marxism.

In reality, of course, the Russian revolutionaries never adhered, even from the outset, to the philosophy of Karl Marx. By their actions they became instead the forerunners of fascism, of Mussolini and Hitler. The Italian Duce and the German Führer, true followers of Lenin and Stalin, added ideas and methods of their own. These innovations and adjustments altered superficially the form and system of government, but the fundamental realities remained in substance the same, namely a political and economic organization based on the Führerprinzip, on the concept of one all-powerful, infallible personality. The modern version and perversion of Plato's philosopher-king, this Great Man (Russian, Italian, or German) moves unguided and unrestrained by law; possesses the two chief virtues of the statesman, Knowledge and Truth; and knows what is best for all concerned. Invariably he does what is right because Truth is on his side.

It was in 1903, at the Social Democratic Congress in Brussels, that Lenin took the step which ultimately led to a rejection of all egalitarian principles and the development of authoritarian ones with the leadership principle as the dominant one. For in that year the international Social Democratic movement was split into those who followed Lenin (Bolsheviks) and those who rejected his leadership (Mensheviks). Immediately thereafter, Lenin organized a revolutionary conspiracy of a small group of dedicated, fanatical, ruthless, and well-disciplined men and women, all of them personally loyal to their leader.

This group became the nucleus of the revolutionary "movement" and was largely responsible for plotting, rehearsing, and executing the October Revolution, which was no more than an enlarged Munich Putsch. The "proletarian" element of the Revolution was accidental and coincidental rather than the result of spontaneous social generation. A war-weary, bread-hungry, land-thirsty people assisted the conspirators unaware of their real designs. Lenin was after the only thing in history that has motivated would-be dictators: Power—power and control over what the British geopolitician Sir Haiford Mackinder in 1904 (note the date) called the pivotal area or "the heartland," which constituted the core of the "world-island" (Europe, Asia, and Africa, which cover two-thirds of the world's land mass). From Mackinder, Lenin, who was a prodigious reader, had learned the aphorism: "Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland. Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island. Who rules the World-Island commands the World."

Lenin and even more so his successor, Stalin, were engrossed in realizing ambitions of power and rule, not in carrying out a program of social justice and economic equality. Lenin had no detectable intention of transferring power to the proletariat in form of "a dictatorship of the proletariat" as envisioned and planned by Marx and Engels and, possibly, Trotsky, had the latter had an opportunity to do so; and Stalin not only followed in Lenin's footsteps but carried Lenin's ambitions to their logical conclusion: Absolute Power.

Ultimately this power, as it was accumulated and concentrated in the hands of one man, Josef Stalin, became indivisible and undelegatable; it could not and was not shared by anyone, whether it be the state, the party, or the proletariat; it had to be exclusive. This was the end result envisioned by fascism—but it was already an accomplished fact in Russia before it was realized in Germany under Hitler. It Italy, Mussolini never completely achieved this ultimate goal of dictators because he had to share his power with the Monarchy and the Church—a fact partially responsible for his "premature" undoing.

It is precisely because of the power motives stated above that communism and fascism—that Stalin and Hitler—are fruits off the same tree; these fruits may differ in form but not in substance; so-called "ideological differences" have amounted to nothing more than different shadings of color. Now that both men are dead, one might properly and without reverence for the dead contemplate their misdeeds and compare the master with his pupil to see what lesson can be derived from a comparison.

We shall refer to a man called Malenkov only in passing, as he might be nothing more than a passing phenomenon concealing the real and intense struggle for power that, I am sure, must be taking place behind the scenes; for if such a power struggle is not already going on, Soviet Russia has changed character suddenly (and I do not believe in that Darwinism-in-reverse called "Lysenkoism").

It was the power factor that united Stalin and Hitler in 1939 against what the German Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop called "the unforgiving enemies of both National Socialist Germany and of the U.S.S.R.," thereby precipitating World War II. It is clear from the following declaration by Von Ribbentrop, made on August 14, 1939, and included in a Department of State publication called Nazi-Soviet Relations 1939-1941, that a union of interests between Germany and Russia was not only possible but desirable.

The ideological contradictions between National Socialist Germany and the Soviet Union were in past years the sole reason why Germany and the U.S.S.R stood opposed to each other in two separate and hostile camps. The developments of the recent period seem to show that differing world outlooks do not prohibit a reasonable relationship between the two states, and the restoration of cooperation of a new and friendly type. The period of opposition in foreign policy can be brought to an end once and for all and the way lies open for a new sort of future for both countries.

To this invitation to co-operate, Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov responded that "the Soviet Government warmly welcomed German intentions of improving relations with the Soviet Union. . . ." Nine days later when the friendship pact with Russia was signed in Moscow in the presence of Von Ribbentrop, Molotov, and Stalin, the German Foreign Minister said that "all strata of the German people, and especially the simple people ["proletarians"], most warmly welcomed the understanding with the Soviet Union. The people, he said, felt instinctively that between Germany and the Soviet Union no natural conflicts of interests existed, and that the development of good relations had hitherto been disturbed only by foreign intrigue, in particular on the part of England.

Stalin replied that he "readily believed this," and "spontaneously proposed a toast to the Führer: 'I know how much the German nation loves its Führer; I should therefore like to drink to his health.'" He added: "The Soviet Government takes the new Pact very seriously." He said he "could guarantee on his word of honor that the Soviet Union would not betray its partner."

In November 1940 when Molotov conferred with Hitler in Germany, the latter confirmed his belief that friendly cooperation between his country and the Soviet Union was possible inasmuch as they "had at their helm men who possessed sufficient authority to commit their countries to a development in a definite direction." He stressed that they "need not by nature have any conflict of interests, if each nation understood that the other required certain vital necessities without the guarantee of which its existence was impossible." He believed that Russia and Germany could "achieve a settlement between them, which would lead to peaceful collaboration between the two countries beyond the life span of the present leaders."

Less than a year later Russia and Germany were at war with one another. Stalin provoked. Hitler attacked. That Hitler was a "fascist" and Stalin a "communist" was immaterial and irrelevant. Their falling out was the result of their failure to agree on how to divide the spoils of power. Just as they could not share their power with anyone at home, so they could not share their power with anyone abroad. Hitler and Stalin fought each other for that reason alone and not because of political, economic, or ideological differences.

Stalin's concept of international relations, as has been revealed on many occasions, was purely Machiavellian; it was not based on the solidarity of the working class in all countries, nor on Marx's and Trotsky's idea of world revolution, nor on the idea of "socialism in one country first," but on principles of power politics. His conduct of foreign affairs was totally unrelated to the purposes, aims, plans, and motives of international communism, with which it might accidentally coincide. His actions abroad were calculated on the basis of (1) what served his interests best and (2) what served the interests of his country, which he regarded as his own property. The power politics of the Soviet Union in no substantial way differs from that of Nazi Germany. While Hitler's foreign policy has been described as "panther imperialism" because of the Führer's catlike way of springing on his foes without warning, Stalin's has been called "jackal imperialism" because of the Soviet leader's natural habit of waiting till the victim was dying or had died before he devoured it. Sometimes he might actually attack a victim—Finland, for example—which was too small and too weak to defend itself effectively. But in most cases he proceeded as he did in Poland—let someone else do the job and then reaped the harvest of victory. Or as he did in Korea. His "liberation" of the Baltic States and the Balkans was only a further example of Machiavellian "Marxism."

Stalin's admiration for Hitler, which he expressed upon several occasions, was one tyrant's admiration for another. Asinus asinam fricat. In his own judgment, he differed from Hitler only in his superior ability and keener comprehension of the business of power politics. He told Anthony Eden that Hitler did not know when to stop. Stalin, by inference, knew when to stop, when to begin, when to stop again, and when to begin again. The "cold war" may well be an application of this idea. Witness, for example, the new "peace offensive" which began in March. No one knows when or how it will end—or when it will begin again. Similarly, frequent changes in outlook, when forced upon an individual, would tend to make him neurotic. It may be that states, too, become neurotic under such "psycho-ceramic" (crackpot) treatment. This tactic has had the effect of largely blotting out the differences between "peace" and "war," thereby confusing our concepts and leading to the bizarre circumstances wherein we have been, in one very real sense, actually at war—shooting war (Korea)—with the Soviet Union and in another sense, equally real to us, at peace with Russia in Europe. To Stalin war was diplomacy by other means; but "peace" was also diplomacy by other means (than war), to reverse Clausewitz' maxim. The so-called "peace appeals" which he issued from time to time derived from the latter concept. Like a true Machiavellian he made no distinction between "peace" and "war," except as being different attributes of diplomacy or power politics.

To assume as do our naïve native Communists and their advisers that there were any idealistic undertones in Stalin's "diplomacy," to equate reality with ideals, hopes, and visions long ago vanished—all this is the height of quixotic irony. No man posing in the cloak of a statesman was ever more void of idealism than Stalin. With Churchill, he has been described as a "realist." But compared to Stalin's "realism," Churchill's is blue-eyed idealism. This was brought out at the Yalta Conference, where Stalin discussed the problems of a bleeding mankind with unhuman unsentimentality; Churchill revealed his human "weakness" when, while speaking of the future of the small states, he said: "The eagle should let the small birds sing and care not wherefor they sang," while at an afterdinner snack in his private apartment in the Kremlin, Stalin, without noticeable emotion, told Churchill how he had "liquidated" millions of Kulaks. It was only a matter of statistics. No wonder Churchill called Stalin "a man completely free of illusions"—meaning, I suppose, a man without ideals or human sentiment.

Yet the Russians more than other people pride themselves on their "understanding" of small peoples. It is paradoxical that while Russia in 1939 was "negotiating" with her small neighbor Finland over land concessions to Russia, concessions the Finnish people refused to grant, with Soviet aggression resulting, A. I. Mikoyan, a member of the Politburo, now the Presidium, told one of the Finnish negotiators, Vaino Tanner: "Stalin is a Georgian, I am an Armenian, and many others among us belong to small peoples. We understand the position of small people well." He implied that without this "understanding," much larger concessions would have been exacted from Finland.

What Stalin's real position in Russia was has not been examined properly, nor has his permanent "monarchical" role in Soviet life been fully appreciated. Indeed, many so-called "serious" students of the Soviet government—I do not exclude myself—have behaved like the people in Hans Christian Andersen's "The Emperor's New Clothes": They thought the emperor was dressed in a dazzling uniform when in reality he was naked. It took the eyes of a child to disclose this fact. So, let us look at this recently "expired" Russian "emperor" through the eyes of a child.

Dr. Ley, head of the Nazi Labor Front, said of Hitler that he was Germany and that Germany was Hitler. Malenkov has not to my knowledge said that Stalin was Russia and that Russia was Stalin, although as the temporary or permanent successor (more likely the former), he has paid the tribute of a primitive votary to the god whose place he would like to take and will take if his career is not cut short by force majeure—the usual malady of tyrants. The reason is not that Stalin was not so regarded by those around him and by the Russian people. But such allusions were discouraged and possibly forbidden because it was felt they would sound too much like Hitlerism. The Russians have had other ways of expressing practically the same concept. Constant reiteration of his great virtues, ideals, and accomplishments at the slightest pretext and in every conceivable situation and the lavish, slavish display of his picture blown up to enormous proportions and paraded on a thousand and one occasions instilled in the Russian people essentially the same feeling for their Führer that Dr. Ley sought to convey to the German people by his sublimely ridiculous reference.

The most convincing illustration of Stalin's incarnation in the flesh of "Mother Russia" was the divine appearance of the ruler of all Russians at the May Day parade in the Red Square, when he took his place on top of Lenin's Tomb and his chieftains grouped around him in accordance with their importance at the moment. He remained a fixed star, but his chieftains—like satellites—never kept their old positions for long, and would sometimes even disappear from sight, all depending on their fortunes.

An examination of a picture of those assembled on Lenin's Tomb gave one an idea of the hierarchal nature of a despotic regime falsely labeled "government." This picture showed better than anything the clear and present manifestation of the Führerprinzip in all its rawness and in stark contrast to the teachings of Marx and Engels on whose teachings, by the way (and we want to make this clear!) we are not here passing judgment. The author, it must be understood, is in no way advocating or defending Marxism, whatever its totalitarian form. He merely insists that any resemblance between Marxism and the Soviet system is to a large degree coincidental.

By way of comparison, Lenin for all his prestige was never so far removed in terms of power from his colleagues in the party as was Stalin from his. Nietzsche spoke of "the pathos of the distance"—meaning the distance in power and prestige. That "distance" was far greater between Stalin and his associates than it ever was in Lenin's days. Although a Trotsky, a Stalin, and a Zinoviev looked upon Lenin as their rightful and acknowledged leader, they were for all practical purposes his equals. At least there was more equality than inequality in the top echelons of those days. Trotsky and Stalin exercised real authority, possessed genuine responsibility, exerted tangible power within their own jurisdictions—Trotsky over military affairs, Stalin over party matters.

Stalin's "men" have had no real power of their own—and still do not. This is true even of Malenkov, who has already proceeded to divide the little power he has. All the power they possessed was delegated power—delegated by Stalin as a reward for loyal service. This power was not something Stalin gave up; it could always be retrieved; and on numerous occasions he reclaimed the power he delegated, sometimes with the death of those who held this temporary power. Like Hitler he could at will promote, demote, remove, and dispose of party and state officials of seemingly the highest prominence and the finest reputations. Witness, for example, his treatment of Marshal Tukhashevsky, chief of staff, who, following a rigged trial, was put to death. His "crime" was identical with that committed by Stalin himself a few years later: Nazi collaborationism. This "crime," of course, was a mere pretext for removing a man who, unfortunately for him, had become too popular, too influential. The Führerprinzip tolerates no competitor.

Absolute as Stalin's power was, he varied his use of it according to the place, the circumstance, the individual, and his own personal need—with the result that his inflictions ranged from mild criticism to violent death. In the case of Maxim Litvinov, to take an example from the opposite end of the power scale, Stalin was content with demoting the man and promoting another, Molotov, for two reasons primarily: (1) Litvinov was a Jew (he needed a non-Jew to make the deal with the Nazis); (2) Molotov was less "Western-minded."

Actually it is doubtful if anyone in Russia ever asked for real authority. So much fear was instilled by this one man that few dared to challenge his authority. Not a single member of the Politburo, the most powerful policy organ in Russia, ever suggested that he might be or ought to be Stalin's successor. Nearly every Soviet Communist from time to time was mentioned as a potential heir, but such speculation showed that Stalin's power was personal and that it was the only concrete reality in the Soviet Union. Being indivisible, it could not be shared, nor delegated, nor inherited, nor given away.

Hitler solved the problem of succession by publicly designating his successors: first Göring, then Hess, and then Goebbels—one, two, three, in that order. Why did not Stalin do the same? Because as a despot he was much more clever than Hitler was. As a true Machiavellian, he trusted no one but himself; and he had seen the case histories of tyrants who had violated this rule of Machiavelli and disappeared. He saw what happened to Hitler, betrayed by his number-one successor, Hermann Göring, who, during the final stages of the war, quite uselessly usurped Hitler's power. Outwardly Stalin might care what happened to Russia after he died. He might speak and act as though the future—the future that would exist without him—would be of great importance. But in all likelihood he believed with Louis XV: "Après moi le déluge. "

Ultimately (as was true of Hitler), the Russian dictator's power rested on brute force or, more precisely, on the Soviet secret police. Prestige, respect, veneration, loyalty, and personal allegiance carried him a long way. Remove his secret police, and the prestige he enjoyed would no longer have been enough. It would not have protected him from ambitious men who sought his crown, for they had been taught to live by the laws of the jungle, where the weak are the prey of the strong.

Men who rule by brute force are often destroyed by the same force that keeps them in power. Force is always an erratic and unreliable element in power politics, as many dictators have found out, from Caesar to Mussolini. "Bayonets are good for many things," Talleyrand said, "except to sit on." If eternal vigilance is the price a free people has to pay for its freedom, constant command and control of the sources and resources of force is the price despots have to pay to keep their peoples enslaved. Mussolini told Emil Ludwig he knew how to avoid the pitfalls of dictators. He would never, he boasted, die at the hand of an assassin. And Hitler thought he led a charmed life, that he was immune to that fatal malady that frequently, suddenly, and happily takes tyrants from us at an unexpected turn of history—a visitation we must bear with equanimity.

Mussolini and Hitler both met violent deaths. Why was Stalin an exception? Or was he? The medical reports sounded convincing, but so did Lenin's. Few students of Russia now doubt that Stalin "helped" his chief across the "line." It is not inconceivable that there may have been those who were willing to give Stalin similar "assistance"—perhaps just as another purge was about to "get" them.

If this indisputably Great Tyrant escaped assassination, it was due in part, I think, to the efficiency of the MVD—an organization far more effective than the Gestapo; in part to the fact that assassins are few in the U.S.S.R.—fewer even than they were in Hitler's Third Reich; and in part to the fact that Stalin, for all his tyranny, was accepted, taken for granted, and even liked by millions. I am thoroughly convinced that he was more loved than hated by his people; that, in fact, most Russians looked upon him as their father and protector, accepted his leadership and followed him wherever he took them, in peace and in war.

This philosophy of politics is possible only in a country where the price of freedom is astronomical; where there exists no libertarian tradition; where the people have no standards against which to measure their freedoms and rights; and where rights and freedoms are entirely expendable. For such people collective obedience comes naturally, and Lenin and Stalin, when they took over, were faced with no problem in this respect, as the Russians for generations under the czars had grown accustomed to obeying.

In one of his essays on liberty Bertrand Russell quotes a Russian to the effect that the people of Russia need none of the "external" freedoms that seem so indispensable to the English and the Americans because the Russians have "free souls" whereas the souls of these Western peoples are in a strait jacket and consequently have need of "external" freedoms. Dostoevski would probably have agreed with this observation; in fact he might have first made it. And because of a preoccupation with their souls the Russians, like the Germans, have overlooked their minds. Or, more to the point, they have scorned the free mind. In two countries otherwise dissimilar—Russia and Germany—the concept, the ideal, and the practice of freedom have been strangely similar for more than four hundred years. Their contempt for unhindered freedom as we understand it in the West has been vehement. I refer, of course, to individual freedom, the only kind of freedom the West truly cherishes. Fear of power in the West has been as strong as indifference to individual freedom in Germany and Russia. Only in the West could the maxim have been born that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And only in the West could effective measures have been taken to thwart the ambitions of would-be dictators.

Russians must have found it difficult to comprehend a President of the United States compelled by a court of the country to surrender powers he thought he possessed. Even more incredible must have been the President's acceptance of the court's verdict with little or no "loss of face"! If reported at all in the Soviet press, all this must have been attributed to "democratic insanity." In Russia it could not happen.

The concept of unconsolidated power, if understood at all, would be repugnant to the Russians. The very possibility of having power split three ways into various departments or compartments would seem preposterous to them. Government and dictatorship are synonymous to them, and the possibility of a great many people sharing power of decision in important matters of state would be laughable—just as it has been laughable to the Germans. In a way the Germans killed their democracy—what there was of it in the Weimar Republic—by ridicule and scorn. When Hitler told them how he sat in the Vienna Reichstag and watched the ludicrous proceedings on the floor, how they "talked and talked," millions of Germans laughed with him. Democracy became a hilarious joke, and Der Stürmer and other Nazi publications poked fun in their caricatures at that asinine phenomenon called democracy.

The Russians could not laugh democracy out of existence as the Germans did because they have never experienced it. But as it was described to them by their leaders, by the party, and by the press, democracy appeared as a proposition deserving contempt.

The concept of delegated authority was particularly inconceivable to them. When visiting Moscow on his several wartime missions, Harry Hopkins found that no one in the government, whether an important civilian or military functionary—not even a marshal of the Soviet Union—could speak or dared to speak with finality on any subject. Each referred again and again to Stalin as the only man who could speak with authority.

The usefulness of Stalin's associates depended not on the authority they possessed, nor on their capability, but on their loyalty to Stalin personally. He had built his party and state on the basis of personal loyalty. This was not the way Lenin wanted it. Before his death Lenin warned his associates against Stalin. But the Georgian, thanks to Trotsky's attitude in taking personal succession for granted, succeeded in putting his own men in key positions. By the time the enfeebled Lenin was proposing "to find a way of removing" Stalin, the Georgian was already entrenched, and Trotsky's "magnetic personality," "electrifying oratory," and "spellbinding influence" were of no use.

Leon Trotsky never was given an opportunity to prove whether his brand of communism would have become less tyrannical than Stalin's, but what he predicted before the Revolution, what he did during the Revolution, and what he criticized after the Revolution convinces at least this writer that his critique of Stalin was dictated not so much by his concern for "pure" communism as by his bitter disillusionment over his personal failure to take the place in Russian history and in world history to which, as Lenin's "natural" heir, he thought himself entitled. It was not until his break with his chief rival for Lenin's mantle that he spoke of the "betrayal" of the Revolution. All available evidence strongly suggests that he might have "betrayed" it himself had he, not Stalin, succeeded Lenin. At any rate, an objective student of communist Russia is not justified in concluding that Trotsky and his policies would have been less dangerous to democracy and Western civilization than Stalin has been. On the contrary, because of his greater shrewdness and fanatical dogmatism he might have become an even greater peril than Stalin, especially had he been able to drape his intentions in a camouflage of "pure" communism.

With his only serious rival for Lenin's mantle out of the way, Stalin dedicated himself to the only task worthy of his complete attention—namely, to make his position of power so impregnable that neither man nor event could unseat him. By 1937 he had his first real test of strength. His second came in 1941. Not only did he survive the Nazi invasion and defeat Hitler, but he emerged from this calamity far more powerful—and as a result, far more ruthless, far more tyrannical—than he had been before. And, mirabile dictu, we saluted him, greeted him as our friend, and treated him as a man of honor.

This was the man whom Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill referred to as "Uncle Joe," and whom Harry Truman even after the cold war had begun described as "a prisoner of the Politburo." It was said that we could "reason" with Stalin; he seemed receptive to our point of view. He might not always agree with us, but he seemed like an "agreeable" sort of person—an impression that Harold Stassen brought back from his interview with Stalin in 1947. In this interview Stalin spoke of the "will to co-operate," and Stassen—our new Mutual Security Administrator—recorded and reported it as though he earnestly and sincerely believed he was dealing with a sensible man not very different from himself.

The recent purges of Jews in Russia and in the satellites were only one more demonstration of the close spiritual kinship between the Communists and Nazis.

Hitler was our enemy at a time when Stalin was our friend, and yet there was no moral difference between the two; one was as evil as the other, and their systems were equally repugnant. There was no moral difference between Buchenwald and Katyn Forest; between the killing of Jews and the slaughter of Kulaks; between the Nazi purges of 1934 and the Communist purges of 1936; between the systematic terror of the Third Reich and the terroristic system of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics; between the psychopathology of one dictator and the pathological psychology of the other; between the "mass" philosophy contained in Hitler's statement, "The German has not the slightest notion how a people must be misled if the adherence of the masses is sought," and that displayed in Stalin's "one must not lag behind a movement, because to do so is to become isolated from the masses"; between NKVD and Gestapo; between the rape of Czechoslovakia and the rape of Finland; between the Berlin-Rome axis and the Moscow-Peiping axis; between Foundations of Leninism and Mein Kampf. They are all fruits off the same tree; and by their fruits ye shall know them.