 These are the people who move along the road. Some walk, some ride, some are well shod, some are barefoot, some are so young they must be carried, some are old. Of the hundreds of millions who take this road, some do so willingly. Others hope that the road leads to bread for the hungry, peace for the weary, land for the landless. Some protest openly, it doesn't matter. Some were born on the road. Many will die along the way. In the beginning, the road exists in the mind of a 19th century philosopher and scholar, Karl Marx, who maintains that only through a system he called communism can the worker and farmer avoid starvation and exploitation. We declare openly, Marx writes, that our ends can only be attained by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Thus the road begins. Many who walk the road know its origins well. Many do not. Some things must be known about the road by those who do not travel it. This is a one-way street. The signposts along the way do not describe the true destinations and nearly everyone who sets foot or wheel on this road goes all the way to the end, for there are few exits, only difficult, dangerous escapes. This man is Bernd Ludens, a resident of East Berlin. His right to free passage into West Berlin is guaranteed by international agreement. But on August 13th, 1961, this right has been set aside. To cross into West Berlin, Ludens swims the canal that at one point divides the zones. On reaching the Western Bank, he takes his first few steps into freedom and is promptly shot down by rifle fire from a border guard on the Communist side. To know why Bernd Ludens was shot down across an artificial border by a man who bore him no personal malice, we must look at the road. We must go back along it many miles and many years. Back from Berlin 1961 to Havana 1959 to Budapest 1956 Koyakon 1940 Kronstadt 1921 St. Petersburg 1905 Sunday, January 22nd Onto the Tsar, Nicholas II, Russia is ruled by a government of absolute powers. These people, the workers and peasants of St. Petersburg, are not here to protest against this autocracy but to appeal to the autocrat. Onto the leadership of a priest, Father Georgie Gaepal, they have come to Brasat a petition to the Tsar. We, the working men and inhabitants of St. Petersburg, come to the Tsar to seek defense. We have become beggars. We wait. One quarter of a million people stand before the Winter Palace, but the Tsar, in fact, is not there. Nor is it his will that the petition be received. Instead, said the Tsar, Nicholas II. My autocracy will remain unchanged. Said Father Gaepal, We no longer read them. The bearded young man who amends Father Gaepal's words is V.I. Yulianov. Party name, Lenin. Long live the revolutionary! The Tsar will never be a success as a ruthless autocrat. He doesn't even look the part. And he's busy. Busy with elaborate ceremonials that no longer interest hungry people. Busy with his family, including his son, a hemophiliac who nears death whenever he cuts himself, and is kept alive according to his mother by the occult powers of Gregory Rasputin. Rasputin is a holy man. He says so himself. For one may be hell in the west. It is pure hell ten times over for the Russians. For them, no glamour, no airplanes. Divisions without artillery. Companies without rifles. Rifles without bullets. The Russian casualties from Typhus alone exceed the total casualties of the Germans. Defeat, disorganization, and lonely death. Home, starvation, and poverty exceeding even previous Russian experiences. Finally, in March 1917, a demonstration in St. Petersburg starts over a simple demand for a higher bread ration, gets out of hand, includes a new demand. Transfer of power from the Tsar to an elected parliament. The Tsar reacts in customary fashion. Turns his troops loose on the demonstrators. But something goes wrong. The army joins the people. With incredible swiftness, the Tsar's regime falls. A. N. Kerensky, a young lawyer, is made minister of justice in a provisional government in which many parties are represented. The revolution belongs to the people. I propose to defend it against any attack, whether from the left or from the right. Kerensky arrests the Tsar and his family, and announces that free elections are to be held. Political prisoners are freed, and some food is distributed. But in a country without experience in self-government, dissonant elements of all shades struggle to convince still hungry people that their particular road leads to salvation. Russia's participation in the European war is unpopular. When it becomes clear that Kerensky means to continue it, the German general staff arranges for the return of Lenin, who has been exiled by the Tsarist government. Leon Trotsky arrives a month later from Canada. Summer 1917, Kerensky becomes head of the provisional government and proclaims Russia a republic. Universal suffrage, power to be vested in an elected constituent assembly, freedom of speech and press, equal rights for women. Lenin speaks on the Kerensky Republic. A democratic republic, more free under war conditions than any other country in the world. But in November, Lenin and Trotsky, as leaders of a huge farmer-worker army union called the Soviet, call for destruction of the republic. The class war is quick and relatively bloodless. Lenin's Bolsheviki sees the railroad stations, telegraph lines, electric plants and government offices and declare themselves in business. On November 25th, the election Kerensky had called is held under the control of Lenin's Bolsheviki, who, to their amazement, lose three to one. The assembly thus elected meets under the guns of Trotsky's Red Army, refuses for a time to turn power over to the Soviet, but finally leaves the building. The following day, a few thousand citizens gather outside the building to protest against the dismissal of the assembly they have elected and are promptly shot down by Trotsky's Red Army. Citizens of the Soviet Union still vote, but not since November 1917, as more than one name per office appeared on the ballot. The assembly never reconvenes. Power passes to the Soviet, which Lenin controls, and from there to the Council of Commissars, where Lenin's power is absolute. This is the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin makes peace with the Germans, but now a genuine civil war breaks out in Russia. The White Russians rebel against the Red's peace effort. Allied troops fight to keep Russia in the war. Cossacks fight for both sides. Tsarists rise up to restore the monarchy the Tsar and his family are executed. And the Tchaikov, first of many Soviet secret police groups, becomes active. Arrest without charge. Imprisonment or exile without trial. Disappearance without explanation. All become routine. But Lenin complains. There is still too little ruthlessness. Not because we lack determination, but because we do not know how to capture enough profiteers, marauders, capitalists. The signposts along the road read peace, freedom and bread. Because they understood that freedom and bread could be theirs only when peace was obtained, the workers and sailors of Kronstadt have fought a bloody civil war. Now on March 7, 1921, they mill in the streets, asking for freedom and bread. Finally, at 6.45 in the evening, Trotsky, commander of the Red Army, who ordered the slaughter, gives the only explanation. It was necessary. Lenin and Trotsky are now firmly in power. The Tchaikov is abolished. In its place comes the OGPU, or Political Police. And to check on the OGPU, there is Rob Green, the Workers and Peasants Inspection Group, whose chief is Joseph Stalin. He disputes Trotsky's position as Lenin's second in command and heir apparent. In the struggle, Stalin has the support of Zenoviev, chief of the Communist International and of Kamenev, city leader of Moscow, who could make you a judge or send you to Siberia. Now with the Civil War I, Lenin eases the demands for belt tightening and public sacrifice. Out of economic necessity, he institutes a new policy. Emphasis is placed on production of consumer goods, but the state maintains control of heavy industry. Even private enterprise is permitted within limits. And a new phrase, American aid, enters the Russian vocabulary. By March 1922, the American Relief Administration under Herbert Hoover is feeding 10 million Russians. But in March 1923, Lenin suffers a stroke. The following January, he is dead. Zenoviev and Kamenev force Trotsky into exile. Then Stalin overrules his two associates and ends the new economic policy. In its place come three successive five-year plans, all designed to emphasize productive capacity, especially heavy industry and power output. From 1928 to 1941, Russia's industrial capacity rises nearly 300%. Her hydroelectric output is up nearly 800%. Agriculture production lags, however, and housing actually fails to keep pace with the population increase. If you're an average Russian, this means more work, not enough to eat, and less and less living space per family. If you don't work hard enough or if you complain, there are plenty of trains to Siberia where many hydroelectric dams are being built. These are also the years of the great executions called Yezhovshina in honor of Stalin's executioner N.I. Yezhov. How many people are permanently removed from circulation? No one knows. In some provinces, as much as 4% of the population vanishes. Kamenev and Zinoviev, who helped Stalin seize power, are quickly disposed of. To have been a friend of either one of them is now a crime. For this and related activities, well over half of the top communist leadership and thousands of lesser officials vanish, as do most of the army officers. A very few of Yezhov's victims are given trials. Some of the trials are remarkable. For example, several defendants are convicted of conspiring with Trotsky in 1936 in the Hotel Bristol in Copenhagen. In actual fact, in 1936 the hotel was no longer in business. Next case, in 1938, Yezhov himself is purged, together with many purged judges, labor camp operators and the like. Koyakhan, near Mexico City, August 20, 1940, a young man plunges a mountain climber's axe into an old man's skull. In the exile, Leon Trotsky is dead. In the West, meanwhile, another dictatorship arose devoted to world conquest, complete with infallible leader, secret police and cattle cars that carried men and women to the grave, or worse. This is the time of the popular front. All who would make common cause against the fascists are welcome. But even as the pickets march, the popular front is changing. On August 23, 1939, Molotov and Stalin for the Russians and von Ribbentrop for the Germans undertake to divide the world between them. On September 1, eight days after the Nazi Soviet pact is signed, German troops cross the Polish frontier and the world learns the meaning of a German word, blitzkrieg. On September 17, the Red Army crosses Poland's frontier. On October 5, Poland has disappeared. But with the fall of France, Hitler decides the pact has served its purpose and ends it by invading the territory of his recent partner, Russia. The turning point of the German invasion of Russia comes at Volograd, then called Stalingrad. When the war ends, Russia acquires their spoils of war, eastern Poland, Bessaradia, subcarpathian Ruthenia, east Prussia, northern Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands and portions of Finland. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are incorporated as Soviet republics and much of their native population is deported. There are Russian zones of occupation pending final peace treaties in Germany, Austria and North Korea. And the Russians have the right to maintain garrisons in Poland, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. How did we get to the present situation with an iron curtain dividing Europe and communist outposts throughout much of the world? What is the secret of communism's post-war expansion? What methods do they use? The answer is they use them all. Occupying troops remain until political domination is achieved in Poland, Romania and Hungary. Zones of occupation become zones of influence and control in East Germany and North Korea. Along with their political and psychological efforts, economic aid and trade agreements help spread the Soviet influence in Africa and in the Middle East. Force is avoided wherever possible, but when it is needed, it is used. The expulsion from the mainland of the Chinese nationalist government is a military exercise complete with artillery, tanks, infantry, amphibious operations, casualties and refugees. Subversion is, of course, an important technique of communist conquest. Czechoslovakia in 1948 is an established democracy in Eastern Europe. Suddenly, a rash of strikes. Conservative elements are forced to resign from the cabinet. Communists deputies pound their desks. As the street demonstrations reach riot proportions, police brutality and putting down the riots is charged. And the communists take over the police. On February 25th, informed that the alternative is civil war and aware of unmistakable threats of invasion from the Soviet Union if he does not capitulate, President Banish accepts a communist cabinet. But Jan Mazarek, son of the country's greatest hero, will not go along and remains in the foreign office. Two weeks later, his dead body is discovered, whether he was murdered or killed himself is not known to this day. Three months later, a constitution, Soviet style, is adopted by parliament. Banish refuses to sign it and is forced from office. Before the year is over, Czechoslovakia, like its heroes Banish and Mazarek, is dead. And Eastern Europe, in the words of Winston Churchill, from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has extended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. But human freedom dies hard. Uprisings and strikes in East Germany in 1953 and in Poland in 1956 are put down with local police, augmented by Russian soldiers. Budapest, October 1956. These demonstrators are not anti-communists. In fact, many of them, Hungarian students, are communists who feel that they have the right to determine how Hungarian communism is to be administered. On October 24th, local party bosses decide enough is enough. And in the interest of law and order, their law, their order, direct police to fire into the crowd. But the crowd does not melt away, even when Russian garrison troops join the police. Faced by an overwhelming mob, the Russians stage a strategic withdrawal, leaving the Hungarian police to be slaughtered by their own countrymen. In November, Imre Nagy was a communist, but a Hungarian communist. Speaking as prime minister, he declares Hungary neutral as between Russia and the West. The Russians hesitate. The Hungarians celebrate. But hesitation and celebration end soon. An entire Russian army invades Hungary and crushes the revolt. Nagy visits the Russians under a flag of truce to discuss surrender terms. June 17th, 1958. His execution is announced. For many Cubans, the years before 1959 were hard. As in many other countries, the Cuban peasants rarely owned the land they worked so hard to till. For the urban masses, life in city slums was also depressing. Filth and disease flourished. Yet most of these poor Cubans, the proletarian mob, suffered their lot almost as if they were unaware that there was another way to live. When Fidel Castro was ready to come out of the Sierra Maestre, his support is based not on the poor, but on the middle class. It is the knowledgeable who formed the advance army of the revolution. But when the pied piper seeks to broaden the support for bread and peace, the poor are there to listen. Many believe, few doubt, the revolution is a success. Castro's brother, Raul, is a self-proclaimed communist. His close associate, Che Guevara, had participated in the unsuccessful revolution in Guatemala. But in the enthusiasm of the revolution, few Cubans, even in the middle class, believe that Fidel Castro will ever turn communist. At first, he promises free elections. He acknowledges many of the traditional rights of citizens and the established institutions of government. But the elections never take place and the government quickly becomes an instrument of coercion. The takeover is a success. 1961, the road has almost reached the present. Why have the Russians built this wall? Why are all Berliners denied the right guaranteed them under the international agreement to pass freely from zone to zone within Berlin? The communist explanation is simplicity itself. According to them, West Berlin is a base for intrigue, an imperious assault on East Berlin and East Germany, where a man has a chance to enjoy the finer things in life. But Berndt Ludens was going the other way, East to West, and so was every other casualty at the wall. The free passage of people between East and West Berlin was the only critical gap in the Iron Curtain, so the Russians sealed it. The wall is a solid fact. And the wall remains. It stands in Berlin today. It stands and will stand wherever the road of world communism leads. Someday, according to its builders, it will surround not merely the world, but the moon, the stars, outer space, the universe. Their objective is clear, but so is ours. They intend to put the world on their road. We intend that the world shall be free, each man and each country to choose the road that suits him best. To achieve our objective, we need above all to understand each new threat must be met, force with force as in Korea, threatened military action with military aid as in Greece and Turkey, exploitation of economic weakness with economic aid and cooperation. The choice is not red or dead. The choice lies between ignorance and wisdom, cowardice and bravery, slavery or freedom.