[smartyaz]

Post 18: Manning Johnson

Post 29: Stuart Chase

“…revolution can give what no other road promises to give so directly and forcibly – a new religion. It will be based not on rewards in the Hereafter, but on peace, goodwill and plenty on earth today. It will be materialistic, if you please, harsh on sinners with an acquisitive bent…

We need a new religion… Great religious movements have usually been grounded in collectivism, in the brotherhood of man, leaving laissez-faire, in the last analysis, a cold and ferocious anti-Christ. Capitalism, though officially blessed by Christian priests, has all but killed Christianity. Western mankind is thirsty for something in which to believe again. Red revolution is a creed, dramatic, idealistic and, in the long run, constructive.”

– Stuart Chase (American technocrat, economist, and engineer who is considered an intellectual father to the New Deal), A New Deal (The Macmillan Company, 1932), pp.164-165.

[WayneS]

Thanks. It appears Manning Johnson was a “recovering communist” in his later years. Is that the case as far as you know?

[WayneS]

I just found this little gem, from Manning's testimony before the Committee on Un-American Activities of the U.S. House of Representatives during the 83rd Congress:

Robert L. Kunzig (chief counsel for the committee): Was deceit a major policy of Communist propaganda and activity?

Manning R. Johnson: Yes, it was. They made fine gestures and honeyed words to the church people which could be well likened unto the song of the fabled sea nymphs luring millions to moral decay, spiritual death, and spiritual slavery...

He was apparently a pretty eloquent speaker.