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ona UN-aAMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA 291 clear about China. Brigadier General Carlson worked with the Chi- nese Communists and he worked with Chiang Kai-shek. He is convinced if we get out of there it will be settled, and he does not believe the Russians will go in there. Mr. Latimer says it is not so much a question of expansion, but contradiction to a country which has raised millions and millions of peasants. When you come to the question of freedom of speech, take Negroes shot down in the South, if you asked them tomorrow—I said this to Mrs. Roosevelt once, if there was a certain kind of centralized power t« enforce this—ask the Negro if he would like to have this shadowy degree of freedom instead of material and actual equality, let alone, as I say, on this question as an average American. Ask the man who- works for the newspapers. Ask him if he believes it. In private he says so, but if he goes out and says so he has no job. It seems to me to be a very sladewy Ereedom. Freedom is a very relative thing. ° e ° * . . e Q. You testified a moment ago about a comparison of the Soviet Union and other countries, A. Yes, Q. Is it your opinion that im October, 1917 when the revolu- tion had its inception that it would have been impossible to find a better country to test the principles of Marxism than the Russia as it existed under the Czar? . A. No. I would say the best country in the world to test the principles of Marxism might be the America of today, with its wealth and so forth. : e * cd] * s e . Q. Do you feel that Marxist theory as exemplified in the Soviet Union today is a dictatorship of the proletariat or a dictatorship over the proletariat? A. You have brought up two questions. I will go to the first question and quarrel with whether Marx thought it was the per- fect type _— Q. (By Chairman Tenney): By perfect type I think we had better modify it by saying highly industrialized. A. Iam coming to the point. As a matter of fact, you know one of the great breaks among the Marxists wad that a lot of what I would call doctrinaire guys—you see it so happens, according to Marx, in the highest industrialized areas which these Marxists feel was Germany—so the Russian revolution did not exist. Mr. Comba: I remember. A. This was very extraordinary. So I would’ say no; that Marxist conditions were evolved where proletarians were strong- ext in aiding the pcascntry in Russia, and led to one great atrug- gie. But the peasant party of Spiradinova felt it should lead the peasant uprising. I think that is one of the weaknesses of Mr. Nehru in India of its peasants leading. It was Lenin who had to practically restate Marxiam in order to justify that position or explain why it happened in Russia because by far from being the strongest link, it was the weakest link. 80 O.K. Today I would say ba cw ee ee . +