Naked Communist – Reading Log

After WWII, W. Cleon Skousen set out to synthesize a sprawling literature on Communism into a single accessible volume. Cold War flashpoints and domestic spy cases sharpened debate. Skousen (FBI 1935–1951) published The Naked Communist (1958). Supporters (Hoover, Reagan, Paul Harvey) praised its clarity; critics pointed to extremism and Birch ties. The “45 Goals” list became a durable cultural artifact (read into the Congressional Record in 1963).

The introductory materials function as a biography of the book: how it circulated, who endorsed it, and why it endured as a Cold War artifact. The frame blends popularization with activism, positioning the text as a civic handbook more than an academic treatise.

Communism appealed to many intellectuals because it paired an all-encompassing materialist worldview with a promise of universal peace and prosperity. Marx and Engels framed a philosophy of nature—Dialectical Materialism—claiming that matter alone explains all reality. They outlined three “laws”: a Law of Opposites (internal contradictions drive change), a Law of Negation (entities “die”/reproduce to expand), and a Law of Transformation (quantitative change can “leap” into new forms). From this, Engels argued that life, consciousness, and mind emerge from matter—leaving no room for God, soul, or immortality.

In this scheme, man effectively becomes his own “god,” tasked with remaking the world “scientifically,” and Lenin subordinates morality to class struggle (ends justify means). Critics respond that these “laws” often describe rather than explain phenomena (motion is presumed, reproduction isn’t accounted for, spontaneous life lacks evidence). Disillusioned figures like Whittaker Chambers ultimately rejected Communism when its materialism could not bear the complexity of life. Even so, the framework was extended into politics, history, and ethics—aiming to abolish prior truths and religions to clear a path for a Communist future.

The chapter reframes Communism from a mere economic program to a total worldview. Skousen explains why educated believers found it compelling—its scientific gloss and philosophical scope—while arguing the reasoning is flawed. This foundation helps explain the zeal that propelled revolutionary ambitions beyond economics.

This chapter lays out Marx and Engels’ explanation of world problems through the lens of economic determinism. They argued that history is driven not by ideas or moral choices, but by material production and the clash between those who own the means of production and those who do not. Human institutions — law, religion, morality, and the state — are seen as products of economic necessity, created to defend the interests of the ruling class.

Private property is identified as the root of exploitation, producing inequality, class conflict, and war. The state exists only to defend property, and religion and morals are portrayed as tools of the ruling class to keep the workers passive.

The Communist “solution” is a final, global revolution to abolish private property, overthrow capitalist classes, and establish the “Dictatorship of the Proletariat.” This transitional phase, enforced by revolutionary terror, is meant to consolidate socialism, eliminate resistance, and prepare humanity for a stateless, classless society where production is abundant and distributed “according to need.”

Skousen highlights the radical break Marx and Engels made with Judeo-Christian and liberal traditions. Instead of improving human character to improve society, they argued that changing economic structures would reshape humanity. Religion, morals, and law were recast as class weapons rather than universal truths.

Cold War readers in the 1950s would have recognized these arguments as the foundation of militant atheism, revolutionary violence, and Soviet policy. The concept of the “withering away of the state” stood in stark contrast to the expanding power of the Soviet regime. Skousen’s presentation emphasizes both the intellectual roots of communism and its perceived danger to Western civilization.

In chapter 4 Skousen shifts from exposition to critique, arguing that Marxism reduces the complexity of human affairs to a single engine—material economics—and then tries to derive history, society, law, religion, and morality from that premise. In his reading, this “economic determinism” underwrites predictions of inevitable class conflict, the collapse of capitalism, the rise of a proletarian dictatorship, and the eventual withering of the state. He contends that such reductionism misses the roles of conscience, culture, religion, invention, geography, and free choice, and that once free will is minimized, revolutionary coercion ends up justifying “ends-over-means” politics.

The chapter groups its critique across theory and outcomes. Theoretically, Skousen argues that Marxism overstates how production methods dictate government forms and legal codes, misreads the nature and uses of religion, and recasts moral universals as “class” tools. Empirically, he claims the 20th-century record contradicts key Marxist forecasts: middle classes expand rather than vanish, wages and employment rise with technology, and planned economies struggle with incentives and information. He concludes that the “dictatorship of the proletariat” concentrates power, requires force to sustain output, and never convincingly transitions to a stateless, classless order. In sum, Communism is portrayed as a negative method of problem-solving—abolishing institutions (law, property, family, markets) rather than reforming their abuses—and thereby re-creating older forms of scarcity and repression rather than solving them.

Written in a Cold War frame, the critique contrasts Marxist theory with both ancient/modern history and post-revolution outcomes. It emphasizes plural causes in human affairs (moral, cultural, legal, technological, economic) and favors dispersed checks—independent courts, civil society, property rights with restraints, free exchange—as alternatives to centralized planning. Whether one agrees with Skousen’s conclusions or not, the chapter invites readers to test large, single-cause theories against the grain of history and the stubborn incentives of human nature.