NIXON SAYS: COMMUNISM'S BASIC NEGATIVITY ON THE MARKET PRINCIPLE HAS MADE POLITICAL AND LEGAL PHILOSOPHY ALMOST NON-EXISTENT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000500450100-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 9, 2010
• Sequence Number: 100
• Publication Date: August 25, 1960
• Content Type: NSPR

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/04/09: CIA-RDP75-00149R000500450100-0
14 1 ,1 I
Nixon Says: Communism's Basic Negativity
On the Market Principle Has Made Political
And Legal Philosophy Almost Non-Existent
Of the Communist legal and political emanating from the capitalist countries. He
philosophy, we can almost say that there is points 'out; for example, that' in Russia the
none. This lack is notan accident, but is an voting age is 18, while in 'many capitalist
'
integral part of the
systematic negations countries it is 21.
which make up the Communist philosophy. The capitalists thus disenfranchise mil-
According 'to Marx and Engels the whole 'lions of young men and women, be-
life of any society is fundamentally deter- cause, says Vyshinsky, it is feared they may
mined by the 'organization of its economy.
What men will believe; what gods, if any,
not yet have acquired a properly .safe
"bourgeois" mentality. As one reads argu-
they will worship; how they will choose their ments like this spelled out with the greatest
leaders or let their leaders choose themselves" solemnity, and- learns all about the "safe-
This" article is extracted from Vice
President' Richard M. Nixon's report on
"The Meaning of Communism to Amer-
icans." The-Republican Presidential nomi-
nee has said he will make a number,of
reports on major issues.
how they will interpret the world about them;
all of. these are basically determined by
economic interests and relations. In the jar-
gon of Communism : religion, morality,, phi-
losophy, political science and law constitute
a "superstructure" which reflects the under-
lying economic organization of a . particular
an end to law and legal b
processes, was quietly taken off and shotwith-
out even the semblance of a trial.
As in the case of economics,
since Pashukanis' liquidation there has de-
veloped in Russian intellectual life a sub-
stantial gray market for capitalistic legal
and political theories. But where Russian
economists seem ashamed of their conces-
sions to the market principle, Russian law-
yers openly boast of their legal and political
system, claiming for it that it does every-
thing that equivalent "bourgeois" institutions
do, only better. This boast has to be muted
somewhat, because it still remains a matter
of dogma that unde
r
t
guards'. of the Soviet Constitution, it comes
a a curious shock to find it openly de-
clared that in the Soviet Union only one
political party can legally exist a nd that
the Soviet, Constitution is "the only constitu-
tion in the world which frankly declares the
directing role of the party in the'sfate:"
One wonders what all the fuss about vot-
ing qualifications is ;about if the voters are
in the, end permitted only to vote for the
candidates chosen by the only political party
permitted to exist. The plain fact is,' of
course, that everything in the Soviet consti-
tution relating to public participation 'in
political decisions is a facade concealing
the real instrument of power that lies in the
Communist party. It has been said that hy-
ashcan
of history as a fraud and delusion,
beneath the contempt of Communist science.
How, then, is law defined today in Russia?
We have an authoritative answer. It is de-
clared to be "the totality of the rules of con-
duct expressing the will of the dominant
class," designed to promote those relation.
ships that are advantageous and agreeable
to the dominant class.
Law in the Soviet Union is not conceived
as a check on power, it is openly and
proudly an expression of power. In this con-
ception surely, if anywhere, the bankruptcy
of Communism as a moral philosophy openly
declares itself.
ma
ure Communism It is vitally important to emphasize again 4
law and the state will disappear. This em- that all of the truly imposing absurdities
barrassing aspect of their inherited doctrine achieved by Communist thought-in what-
the Soviet theorists try to keep as much ever field : in economics, in politics, in law,
as possible under the table. They cannot, in morality-that all of these track back to
however, openly renounce it without heresy, a single common source. The origin lies in :1
and heresy in the Soviet Union, be it re- a belief that nothing op universal validity can
membered, still requires a very active taste be said of human nature, that there are no
for extinction, principles, values or moral truths that stand
One of, the leading books on Soviet legal above a particular phase In the evolution
and political theory is edited by a lawyer of society.
who is well-known in this countr
th
y e ,
e late This profound negation lies at the very >I
Andrei Vyshinsky. In the tabl -pounding heart of the Communist philosophy and gives
annrr he made f m ms in the LJ.N., to it both its
zp,c ~~.,,; ~ .~
ity pr motive force and its awesome io
^ftv for os;t :,...
.
25 YEAR RF-RwiPXAil
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