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Show tODAYj TOMORROW 00MMTXIS.M system We use the word Communism nowadavs to mean a particular system of government which has been adopted in Russia and to which Russians are trying to convert con-vert the rest of the world. It would mean a complete change in the special and economic order from that to which we are accustomed. ac-customed. The Russian system is actually ac-tually not one of Communism Commun-ism in the literal sense of equal or common ownership of all property. In Russia , everything, including the lives and liberties of the masses of the people, is controlled con-trolled by a small minority called the Communist Party. Its membership is limited. Whenever the Party gets too many members the leaders kill off or exile a few thousand, thous-and, so as to keep control in a small and well-disciplined group. The Russian system, therefore, is not real Communism but a ty-' ty-' rannlcal system of minority rule. CHRISTIANITY . . communism j At various times throughout j .history the idea has taken root of true Communism, in which no one had any advantage over any i other in material possessions, but i ! all contributed to a common store i of wealth, which was at the disposal dis-posal of every member of the com-' com-' ; munity. J That was the principle un der which the early Christian , communities and congrega- i tions lived. They took this pure form of Communism to ! be the direct teaching of Christ. Brotherhood meant to them literally that all men i were brothers and all should I share alike. ! This got them Into trouble with their non-Christian neighbors, and with the political powers of the 'countries in which they lived. It prevented the politicians from taxing them, because if nobody owned anything he couldn't pay , taxes. Since people existed chiefly to provide revenue for their political rulers, this early form of Christianity Chris-tianity was so persecuted that af- ter a few hundred years Christians , gave up the struggle and accepted j the existing political system. UTOPIA real More than four hundred years ago Sir Thomas Moore, recently elevated to sainthood by the Roman Ro-man Catholic church, wrote a book about an imaginary country which he called "Utopia." It was a description of a whole nation living happy and contented lives under a Communistic system in which wealth was shared, everybody every-body contributed his labor to the common welfare and everyone's needs were met out of the common com-mon store of wealth. Recently it has been learn-from learn-from a sailor who had been ed that Sir Thomas had heard shipwrecked on the coast of Pern, an account of the still mysterious kingdom of Incas, long before the conquest of Peru by the Spanish. The treasure of the Incas was stolen by the conquerors, its leaders were slain and the people reduced to slavery. But such authentic records as still exist indicate that this srange people, whose origin is unknown, lived for thousands of years in the nearest approach to the perfect state that has ever been achieved by humanity. They were able to make Communism Com-munism work because they were completely self-sustaining and shut off from envious neighbors by high mountains and impassable rivers. PERFECTION . . . experiments The word "Utopia" has become a common noun meaning an ideal and perfect community or state. Scores of philosophers have written writ-ten books telling how universal contentment might be achieved, and hundreds of attempts to work it out on a more or less limited scale have been made. All but two of these attempts have failed utterly, and the ones that survive sur-vive have done so by abandoning abandon-ing most of their original Com- mumstic principles. Nearly all of these experiments experi-ments have been tried in the United States, beginning with at Plymouth, where every-the every-the settlement of the Pilgrims thing was owned in common. After seven years Communism Commun-ism was abandoned because the younger men rebelled at working to support other men's families. The Mormons have succeeded better than any other group in building a community' life in which, though all are not equal, none is allowed to starve. The Mormon empire has been built on the foundation of rigid religious reli-gious control of the lives of its members. That is also true of the only other surviving experiment of the sort, the Oneida Community. Both the Oneida Perfectionists and the Mormon Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints had to abandon aban-don some of their original principles princi-ples in order to survive. INDEPENDENCE .... efforts All of the early efforts in this country to establish something like the communal system of the early Christians were made by groups of individuals acting In- dependently of any government. It did not occur to the founders of the most famous fam-ous of the communal enter-rises enter-rises of a century ago, Brook Farm in Massachu setts, that their venture was anything in which government was or ought to be concerned. The most eminent intellectual and religious leaders of the time joined in the Brook Farm experiment, ex-periment, or gave it their support, because they saw no other way to demonstrate the ideal way of life which they had visualized. Brook Farm failed because its people failed to recognize inequalities inequal-ities in talent and ability between indivduals, and were so completely complete-ly committed to the ideals of Democracy and individual liberty that they would not subject any member of their colony to discipline, disci-pline, either religious or political. |