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School of Darkness: The record of a life and of a conflict between two faiths
Autobiography of a former member of the National Committee of the Communist Party who left the party & became a Catholic, shows the behind-the-scenes subversion occurring in the US
First published January 1, 1954
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February 3, 2019
Chock full of history about one woman's loyalty to the Communist Party until she spirals out of control and on the chance meeting with Archbishop Fulton Sheen that changed her life forever.
November 12, 2018
Interesting, particularly in light of current politics.
A few quotes from the book that caught my attention:
“I did not realize, as I do now, that for close to a century the educational world of Germany had been subjected to systematic despiritualization which could result only in the dehumanization now apparent. This made it possible for such despiritualized men to serve both the Nazi and later the communist power with a terrifying loyalty and efficiency.”
“The steady march of the Communists into the [American] Federation [of Teachers] at this period was planned and not accidental.”
“[an astute Communist, a charter member of the Party and before that a revolutionary socialist] once said to me that when communism came to America it would come under the label of ‘progressive democracy’. ‘It will come,’ he added, ‘in labels acceptable to the American people.’”
“If, occasionally, I saw things that made me uneasy, I rationalized that the times demanded such actions.”
Communism in the US was held back in previous decades by committed Christian people like my dear friend who gave me this book. I wonder how much longer we will be able to defend our democracy.
A few quotes from the book that caught my attention:
“I did not realize, as I do now, that for close to a century the educational world of Germany had been subjected to systematic despiritualization which could result only in the dehumanization now apparent. This made it possible for such despiritualized men to serve both the Nazi and later the communist power with a terrifying loyalty and efficiency.”
“The steady march of the Communists into the [American] Federation [of Teachers] at this period was planned and not accidental.”
“[an astute Communist, a charter member of the Party and before that a revolutionary socialist] once said to me that when communism came to America it would come under the label of ‘progressive democracy’. ‘It will come,’ he added, ‘in labels acceptable to the American people.’”
“If, occasionally, I saw things that made me uneasy, I rationalized that the times demanded such actions.”
Communism in the US was held back in previous decades by committed Christian people like my dear friend who gave me this book. I wonder how much longer we will be able to defend our democracy.
June 16, 2020
The intrigue, the mystery the clandestine march to dystopia. Sadness, depression, anger and hate followed by a return to God, to hope, to love. This book was a short and intense journey I was glad to have trudged.
The inspiration to get this book was the story of Dr. Bella Dodd recruiting over 1000 immoral persons to join seminaries throughout the United States as part of her work as a leader in the Communist Party of America. In her autobiography here, there is not an inkling of an indication that this is true. Further, her retelling of her conversion back to the Catholic Faith is in direct contradiction to the idea she did so. Thus, for her to have been an agent of recruitment into the Catholic priesthood of communists and perverts, she would have been dishonest in the bulk of the book through gross omission of this quite important part of her story, and she would have been dishonest at the close of her book, when twice she asserts that her crimes against Holy Mother Church were through silence during calumniation of the Church. If her sin against the Church culminated in silence during the spreading of lies as she states twice, then the legend of her aid in infiltration is a false legend.
I have acquired some original copies of manuscripts of two different of her depositions to government agencies, one from 1952 and another from 1954. Those were not the only times she went for deposition by government agencies. I have not read them yet.
It has been said that Archbishop Fulton Sheen told her not to name those who infiltrated with her aid. That sounds suspect. Also, I doubt he would have instructed her to lie, and if she did recruit these men for said purpose, she made herself a liar in her autobiography.
There is zero claim by her in her autobiography that she ever targeted or knew of a targeting of seminary infiltration, and there are statements that directly contradict the idea that she had anything to do with an infiltration of men into the Catholic priesthood.
If such things were occurring, which is certainly possible, that was absolutely out of her scope in the Communist Party as described in her book “School of Darkness”. She may have had an opportunity to prep individuals that were teachers to enter as professors of the seminaries, but that idea is well contradicted in her autobiography as well.
She is quite clear on the cultish destruction of any books in the libraries of the communists that were “dangerous”. That said, the communists would not have permitted their agents to study Catholic theology and philosophy which might undermine their faith in communism, but would have been necessary knowledge in order to infiltrate the seminary.
The destruction of books is very believable as Marx himself proclaimed that no study of older philosophy was necessary or desirable as it was all bourgeois philosophy and should be utterly rejected. He and Engels were both clear on this in their essays and articles.
I do have original transcript copies of two separate congressional depositions of hers which I have not read. But, if those depositions contain such assertions, I would have to believe that either her book, her depositions or both are merely fabrications, and that she was being spiteful after rejection from the party, unless it is a description of actions she was aware of, but not involved in personally.
The inspiration to get this book was the story of Dr. Bella Dodd recruiting over 1000 immoral persons to join seminaries throughout the United States as part of her work as a leader in the Communist Party of America. In her autobiography here, there is not an inkling of an indication that this is true. Further, her retelling of her conversion back to the Catholic Faith is in direct contradiction to the idea she did so. Thus, for her to have been an agent of recruitment into the Catholic priesthood of communists and perverts, she would have been dishonest in the bulk of the book through gross omission of this quite important part of her story, and she would have been dishonest at the close of her book, when twice she asserts that her crimes against Holy Mother Church were through silence during calumniation of the Church. If her sin against the Church culminated in silence during the spreading of lies as she states twice, then the legend of her aid in infiltration is a false legend.
I have acquired some original copies of manuscripts of two different of her depositions to government agencies, one from 1952 and another from 1954. Those were not the only times she went for deposition by government agencies. I have not read them yet.
It has been said that Archbishop Fulton Sheen told her not to name those who infiltrated with her aid. That sounds suspect. Also, I doubt he would have instructed her to lie, and if she did recruit these men for said purpose, she made herself a liar in her autobiography.
There is zero claim by her in her autobiography that she ever targeted or knew of a targeting of seminary infiltration, and there are statements that directly contradict the idea that she had anything to do with an infiltration of men into the Catholic priesthood.
If such things were occurring, which is certainly possible, that was absolutely out of her scope in the Communist Party as described in her book “School of Darkness”. She may have had an opportunity to prep individuals that were teachers to enter as professors of the seminaries, but that idea is well contradicted in her autobiography as well.
She is quite clear on the cultish destruction of any books in the libraries of the communists that were “dangerous”. That said, the communists would not have permitted their agents to study Catholic theology and philosophy which might undermine their faith in communism, but would have been necessary knowledge in order to infiltrate the seminary.
The destruction of books is very believable as Marx himself proclaimed that no study of older philosophy was necessary or desirable as it was all bourgeois philosophy and should be utterly rejected. He and Engels were both clear on this in their essays and articles.
I do have original transcript copies of two separate congressional depositions of hers which I have not read. But, if those depositions contain such assertions, I would have to believe that either her book, her depositions or both are merely fabrications, and that she was being spiteful after rejection from the party, unless it is a description of actions she was aware of, but not involved in personally.
August 4, 2017
I give this 5 stars because of her powerful message of truth which helps me to solidify my understanding of the corrupting influence of communism in American politics then and now. Admittedly, some of the details about her work for the Communist Party are dry at times. However. the ending delivers a powerful punch!
October 28, 2018
I give this book 3 stars because Bella Dodd‘s story is an important one. Her life and work with Teacher’s Unions and how it led her to the Communist party is a dark journey of a soul looking for meaning in all the wrong places. It exposes the true intentions of people behind the Communist movement and how it was never really about helping anyone but those in charge through a vast web of manipulating people as well as undermining the capitalist economy. Admittedly, the story does become stagnant in many places,; arguably a correlation to her search for meaning, approval, and acceptance which only led to betrayal in the end. Once she renews her faith in the Catholic Church she recognizes all she was missing and had been searching for in her life.
February 15, 2016
Please give my review a helpful vote on Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/review/R17T3I8Y...
"This is the memoir of Bella Dodds. Ms. Dodds was a union organizer and lawyer, who became active active in the Communist Party in New York City between 1920 and 1949. She eventually became a member of the national committee of the Communist Party, where she observed the hypocrisy, hatred and malice that made up Communism. She was expelled in 1949 and returned to the Catholic Church.
If the devil's greatest trick has been to make the world believe that he doesn't exist, the Communists are not far behind. Today, Communists are presented as loveable goofballs, who didn't threaten anyone, except where they are presented as being a non-existent bogeyman. If you read Bella's memoirs, you will be amazed at the extent of Communist power and infiltration into, at least, New York politics. Communists had wealth supporters and its own financial agents and operated their own night clubs. They had politicians who were their mouthpieces in state and federal government and in New York they were often able to swing the vote so as to decide who would be elected. Bella casually mentions the murder of a Republican precinct captain who stood in the way of a Communist election victory, and how that murder was never solved.
If you read this memoir, you will be disabused of the myths about Communism: Communism was real, it was a was a tightly knit conspiracy, it was corrupt and corrupting and it murdered people and wrecked lives.
This memoir works on two levels. On one level it is an insider's account of the Communist Party during its heydays, in the decade before and after the Great Depression. Bella explains how she became involved in Communism. Although she makes the traditional nod toward her desire to help the poor, we actually see how she is influenced by her teachers who presented Communism as synonymous with "progress":.
"In the days that have gone since we enunciated these statements so confidently I have had many occasions to see that this cataloging of people as either “right” or “left” has led to more confusion in American life than perhaps any other false concept. It sounds so simple and so right. By using this schematic device one puts the communists on the left and then one regards them as advanced liberals -after which it is easy to regard them as the enzyme necessary for progress".
And:
"More and more I wanted to talk and act only in terms of the future, of a future that would have none of the corruption of the present. It depressed me that people close to me could accommodate themselves to such a present. Only people I did not know, the great mass of unknown human beings, began to awaken in me a poignant sense of kinship. In fact, I began to transfer my personal feelings to this wholly unknown defeated mass. And so it came about that I began to seek my spiritual home among the dispossessed of the earth."
One of the interesting features about reading this book is how many of Bella's teachers and fellow communists were women. Although we are led to believe these days that women were kept out of education and tee professions, Bella casually mentions how she went to law school in New York of the late 1920s. She certainly doesn't discuss fighting against glass walls and sexism, albeit, without a doubt women were underrepresented in law and education, but apparently not so much that she was touting herself as either the "first" or the "only."
It seems that education was a significant factor in radicalizing young men and women, even in the 1920s:
"Nationalism.” I studied closely A. A. Berle and Gardiner Means who wrote of the two hundred corporations that controlled America at the end of World War I. I read widely on imperialism and began to be critical of the role my country was playing. I discovered the John Dewey Society and the Progressive Education Association. I became aware of the popular concept of the social frontier. I also repeated glibly that we had reached the last of our natural frontiers and that the new ones to be sought must be social. There would be, we were told, in the near future a collective society in our world and especially in our country, and in teaching students one must prepare them for that day.
As a result of that year’s study of American history and national politics, as well as in the direct experience of my students and myself in local politics, I now began to tear apart before my students many respected public groups - charity, church, and other organizations - that were trying to better conditions in old-fashioned ways."
This leads to another great part of this book; it shows how our present is a product of our past. Listen to these excerpts and ask if they do not resemble the culture that has developed in college campuses by the year 2016:
Hatred of America:
"Again we were to despise our own country as an exploiter of the workers."
Opportunistic use of civil liberties:
"When a person conditioned by a totalitarian group talks about the right not to incriminate himself, he really means the right not to incriminate the communist group of which he is only a nerve end. When he talks of freedom of speech, he means freedom for the communist group to speak as a group through the mouth of the individual who has been selected by the higher intelligence"
Repeatedly refashioning historical understanding based on the current political fashion:
"Before 1935, for instance, the Party had preached hatred of John L. Lewis as a labor dictator. No stories about him were too vile. He was accused of murder and pillage in his march to power in the Miners Union. Suddenly, in 1936, Lewis became the hero of the Communist Party. Again in 1940, when the Party decided to support Roosevelt against Willkie, and John L. Lewis risked his leadership in the CIO by calling on the unions to vote for Willkie, the Communists screamed invective, and in private meetings Roy Hudson and William Z. Foster, in charge of labor for the Politburo, vilified Lewis. When the Communists shifted their support, Lewis was dropped as president of the CIO and Philip Murray was elected in his place."
Group hate:
"During my years in the Teachers Union I gradually got used to these bitter expressions of hate. And since hate begets hate, often those under attack also responded with hate. Hearing them, I began to take sides and in the end accepted the Party’s hates as my own."
Opposed to the traditional family:
"The bourgeois family as a social unit was to be made obsolete."
Politically-motivated change of standards:
"Before June 1941 it had been an “imperialist war” for the re-division of markets, a war which could have only reactionary results. But when the Soviet Union was attacked, the war was transformed into a “people’s war,” a “war of liberation.”
The American Communist Party dropped all its campaigns of opposition. Its pacifist friends were again “Fascist reactionaries” and all its energy was employed in praise of France and England as great democracies. The fight against the Board of Higher Education had to be brought to an end because the Party regarded Mayor LaGuardia as a force in the pro-democratic war camp."
Hatred of opponents:
"Even more significant was the fact that I had made their hates my hates. This was what established me as a full-fledged Communist. In the long ago I had been unable to hate anyone; I suffered desperately when someone was mistreated; I was regarded as a peacemaker. Now, little by little, I had acquired a whole mass of people to hate: the groups and individuals who fought the Party. How it came about I cannot tell. All I know as I look back to that time is that my mind had responded to Marxist conditioning. For it is a fact, true and terrible, that the Party establishes such authority over its members that it can swing their emotions now for and now against the same person or issue. It claims such sovereignty even over conscience as to dictate when it shall hate."
Bella experienced Communist-hate when she was expelled for insufficiently hating the deposed CPUSA president, Earl Browder:
"I was dismissed. As I walked down the dingy steps my heart was heavy. The futility of my life overcame me. For twenty years I had worked with this Party, and now at the end I found myself with only a few shabby men and women, inconsequential Party functionaries, drained of all mercy, with no humanity in their eyes, with no good will of the kind that works justice. Had they been armed I know they would have pulled the trigger against me. I thought of the others who had been through this and of those who were still to go through this type of terror. I shivered at the thought of harsh, dehumanized people like these, filled with only the emotion of hate, robots of a system which was heralded as a new world. And I sorrowed for those who would be taken down the long road whose end I saw, now, was a dead end."
Individual worth subsumed into group-ideology:
"What I had failed to understand was that the security I felt in the Party was that of a group and that affection in that strange communist world is never a personal emotion. You were loved or hated on the basis of group acceptance, and emotions were stirred or dulled by propaganda. That propaganda was made by the powerful people at the top. That is why ordinary Communists get along well with their groups: they think and feel together and work toward a common goal."
Deliberate attacks on the Catholic priesthood and history:
"I was silent as we drove to Chevy Chase. All the canards against the Catholic Church which I had heard and tolerated, which even by my silence I had approved, were threatening the tiny flame of longing for faith within me. I thought of many things on that ride, of the word “fascist,” used over and over by the communist press in describing the role of the Church in the Spanish Civil War. I also thought of the word “Inquisition” so skillfully used on all occasions. Other terms came to me — reactionary, totalitarian, dogmatic, old-fashioned. For years they had been used to engender fear and hatred in people like me.
A thousand fears assailed me. Would he insist that I talk to the FBI? Would he insist that I testify? Would he make me write articles? Would he see me at all? And then before my mind’s eye flashed the cover of a communist pamphlet on which was a communist extending a hand to a Catholic worker. The pamphlet was a reprint of a speech by the French Communist leader Thorez and it flattered the workers by not attacking their religion. It skillfully undermined the hierarchy in the pattern of the usual communist attempt to drive a wedge between the Catholic and his priest."
Opportunistic accusations of racism:
"Close friends of many, years' standing became deadly enemies overnight. Little cliques, based on the principle of mutual protection and advancement, sprang up everywhere. Some shouted slogans from Jacques Duclos. Some shouted down anyone who suggested logical discussion of problems. The mood, the emotions, were hysterically leftist with the most violent racist talk I ever heard."
And:
"But the communist leadership heard with delight that Bella Dodd had appeared as "attorney for a landlord." At last they had the excuse for getting me politically, the excuse for which they had been looking. Of course they could have simply expelled me but this would involve discussion of policies. They were looking for an excuse to expel me on charges that would besmirch my character, drive my friends away, and stop discussion instead of starting it. What better than to expel me for the crime of becoming a "hireling of the landlords"?
They must have realized that such an argument would scarcely be cogent to outsiders. Even to many of the Party it was weak. They must add something really unforgivable to make me an outcast in the eyes of the simple people of the Party. They did this by spreading the story that in my court appearances I had made remarks against the Puerto Rican tenants, that I had slandered them, and showed myself a racist, almost a fascist. And last of all, a charge of anti-Negro, anti-Semitism, and anti-working class was thrown in for good measure."
An attentive reader will appreciate why college campuses have become such a cesspool of political correctness and intimidation of those who step outside of group think through the artifice of faux-moral outrage.
Bella also explains how Communists were so effective at infiltration of other organizations, a subject explored in Lewy's The Cause That Failed: Communism in American Political Life:
"This use of fractions made the Communist Party effective in noncommunist groups. They went prepared, organized, trained, and disciplined with a program worked out in detail, and before other groups had a chance to think the Communists were winning advantages. They worked in every convention as an organized bloc. In other organized blocs the Communists had “sleepers,” assigned to protect Communist Party interests. These “sleepers” were active members in noncommunist blocs for the purpose of hamstringing and destroying the power of the opposition."
What we also pick up from Bella's book is how Communism filled in a spiritual void in the life of Communists. The Party was their life, their friends, their purpose. Being excommunicated from the Party was a death sentence because it meant that an old life had been lost. Bella describes her life after her expulsion from the Party as "learning to unbecome a Communist." What is also interesting about her memoir is how she counterpoints her Communist life with her non-Communist life; in the latter, people were allowed to be human, and to not hate:
"As he and the other men discussed various matters, I realized why these three talked so differently from the little groups I had been with at tables like this in the communist movement. Here there was no hatred and no fear. We talked of books and television and of communism too, and Father Keller referred to the latter as “the last stage of an ugly period.”
A final point is this phenomenal image of mercy and conversion:
"By what right, I thought, was I seeking the help of someone I had helped revile, even if only by my silence? How dared I come to a representative of that hierarchy?
The screeching of the brakes brought me back to reality. We had arrived, and my friend was wishing me luck as I got out of the car. I rang the doorbell and was ushered into a small room. While I waited, the struggle within me began again. Had there been an easy exit I would have run out, but in the midst of my turmoil Monsignor Fulton Sheen walked into the room, his silver cross gleaming, a warm smile in his eyes.
He held out his hand as he crossed the room. “Doctor, I’m glad you’ve come,” he said. His voice and his eyes had a welcome which I had not expected, and it caught me unaware."
A final nice element of this book is that it puts "flesh on the bones" of the people who lived during this time and on the time itself. I have known of Sheen, but until reading this, I didn't really know him
"This is the memoir of Bella Dodds. Ms. Dodds was a union organizer and lawyer, who became active active in the Communist Party in New York City between 1920 and 1949. She eventually became a member of the national committee of the Communist Party, where she observed the hypocrisy, hatred and malice that made up Communism. She was expelled in 1949 and returned to the Catholic Church.
If the devil's greatest trick has been to make the world believe that he doesn't exist, the Communists are not far behind. Today, Communists are presented as loveable goofballs, who didn't threaten anyone, except where they are presented as being a non-existent bogeyman. If you read Bella's memoirs, you will be amazed at the extent of Communist power and infiltration into, at least, New York politics. Communists had wealth supporters and its own financial agents and operated their own night clubs. They had politicians who were their mouthpieces in state and federal government and in New York they were often able to swing the vote so as to decide who would be elected. Bella casually mentions the murder of a Republican precinct captain who stood in the way of a Communist election victory, and how that murder was never solved.
If you read this memoir, you will be disabused of the myths about Communism: Communism was real, it was a was a tightly knit conspiracy, it was corrupt and corrupting and it murdered people and wrecked lives.
This memoir works on two levels. On one level it is an insider's account of the Communist Party during its heydays, in the decade before and after the Great Depression. Bella explains how she became involved in Communism. Although she makes the traditional nod toward her desire to help the poor, we actually see how she is influenced by her teachers who presented Communism as synonymous with "progress":.
"In the days that have gone since we enunciated these statements so confidently I have had many occasions to see that this cataloging of people as either “right” or “left” has led to more confusion in American life than perhaps any other false concept. It sounds so simple and so right. By using this schematic device one puts the communists on the left and then one regards them as advanced liberals -after which it is easy to regard them as the enzyme necessary for progress".
And:
"More and more I wanted to talk and act only in terms of the future, of a future that would have none of the corruption of the present. It depressed me that people close to me could accommodate themselves to such a present. Only people I did not know, the great mass of unknown human beings, began to awaken in me a poignant sense of kinship. In fact, I began to transfer my personal feelings to this wholly unknown defeated mass. And so it came about that I began to seek my spiritual home among the dispossessed of the earth."
One of the interesting features about reading this book is how many of Bella's teachers and fellow communists were women. Although we are led to believe these days that women were kept out of education and tee professions, Bella casually mentions how she went to law school in New York of the late 1920s. She certainly doesn't discuss fighting against glass walls and sexism, albeit, without a doubt women were underrepresented in law and education, but apparently not so much that she was touting herself as either the "first" or the "only."
It seems that education was a significant factor in radicalizing young men and women, even in the 1920s:
"Nationalism.” I studied closely A. A. Berle and Gardiner Means who wrote of the two hundred corporations that controlled America at the end of World War I. I read widely on imperialism and began to be critical of the role my country was playing. I discovered the John Dewey Society and the Progressive Education Association. I became aware of the popular concept of the social frontier. I also repeated glibly that we had reached the last of our natural frontiers and that the new ones to be sought must be social. There would be, we were told, in the near future a collective society in our world and especially in our country, and in teaching students one must prepare them for that day.
As a result of that year’s study of American history and national politics, as well as in the direct experience of my students and myself in local politics, I now began to tear apart before my students many respected public groups - charity, church, and other organizations - that were trying to better conditions in old-fashioned ways."
This leads to another great part of this book; it shows how our present is a product of our past. Listen to these excerpts and ask if they do not resemble the culture that has developed in college campuses by the year 2016:
Hatred of America:
"Again we were to despise our own country as an exploiter of the workers."
Opportunistic use of civil liberties:
"When a person conditioned by a totalitarian group talks about the right not to incriminate himself, he really means the right not to incriminate the communist group of which he is only a nerve end. When he talks of freedom of speech, he means freedom for the communist group to speak as a group through the mouth of the individual who has been selected by the higher intelligence"
Repeatedly refashioning historical understanding based on the current political fashion:
"Before 1935, for instance, the Party had preached hatred of John L. Lewis as a labor dictator. No stories about him were too vile. He was accused of murder and pillage in his march to power in the Miners Union. Suddenly, in 1936, Lewis became the hero of the Communist Party. Again in 1940, when the Party decided to support Roosevelt against Willkie, and John L. Lewis risked his leadership in the CIO by calling on the unions to vote for Willkie, the Communists screamed invective, and in private meetings Roy Hudson and William Z. Foster, in charge of labor for the Politburo, vilified Lewis. When the Communists shifted their support, Lewis was dropped as president of the CIO and Philip Murray was elected in his place."
Group hate:
"During my years in the Teachers Union I gradually got used to these bitter expressions of hate. And since hate begets hate, often those under attack also responded with hate. Hearing them, I began to take sides and in the end accepted the Party’s hates as my own."
Opposed to the traditional family:
"The bourgeois family as a social unit was to be made obsolete."
Politically-motivated change of standards:
"Before June 1941 it had been an “imperialist war” for the re-division of markets, a war which could have only reactionary results. But when the Soviet Union was attacked, the war was transformed into a “people’s war,” a “war of liberation.”
The American Communist Party dropped all its campaigns of opposition. Its pacifist friends were again “Fascist reactionaries” and all its energy was employed in praise of France and England as great democracies. The fight against the Board of Higher Education had to be brought to an end because the Party regarded Mayor LaGuardia as a force in the pro-democratic war camp."
Hatred of opponents:
"Even more significant was the fact that I had made their hates my hates. This was what established me as a full-fledged Communist. In the long ago I had been unable to hate anyone; I suffered desperately when someone was mistreated; I was regarded as a peacemaker. Now, little by little, I had acquired a whole mass of people to hate: the groups and individuals who fought the Party. How it came about I cannot tell. All I know as I look back to that time is that my mind had responded to Marxist conditioning. For it is a fact, true and terrible, that the Party establishes such authority over its members that it can swing their emotions now for and now against the same person or issue. It claims such sovereignty even over conscience as to dictate when it shall hate."
Bella experienced Communist-hate when she was expelled for insufficiently hating the deposed CPUSA president, Earl Browder:
"I was dismissed. As I walked down the dingy steps my heart was heavy. The futility of my life overcame me. For twenty years I had worked with this Party, and now at the end I found myself with only a few shabby men and women, inconsequential Party functionaries, drained of all mercy, with no humanity in their eyes, with no good will of the kind that works justice. Had they been armed I know they would have pulled the trigger against me. I thought of the others who had been through this and of those who were still to go through this type of terror. I shivered at the thought of harsh, dehumanized people like these, filled with only the emotion of hate, robots of a system which was heralded as a new world. And I sorrowed for those who would be taken down the long road whose end I saw, now, was a dead end."
Individual worth subsumed into group-ideology:
"What I had failed to understand was that the security I felt in the Party was that of a group and that affection in that strange communist world is never a personal emotion. You were loved or hated on the basis of group acceptance, and emotions were stirred or dulled by propaganda. That propaganda was made by the powerful people at the top. That is why ordinary Communists get along well with their groups: they think and feel together and work toward a common goal."
Deliberate attacks on the Catholic priesthood and history:
"I was silent as we drove to Chevy Chase. All the canards against the Catholic Church which I had heard and tolerated, which even by my silence I had approved, were threatening the tiny flame of longing for faith within me. I thought of many things on that ride, of the word “fascist,” used over and over by the communist press in describing the role of the Church in the Spanish Civil War. I also thought of the word “Inquisition” so skillfully used on all occasions. Other terms came to me — reactionary, totalitarian, dogmatic, old-fashioned. For years they had been used to engender fear and hatred in people like me.
A thousand fears assailed me. Would he insist that I talk to the FBI? Would he insist that I testify? Would he make me write articles? Would he see me at all? And then before my mind’s eye flashed the cover of a communist pamphlet on which was a communist extending a hand to a Catholic worker. The pamphlet was a reprint of a speech by the French Communist leader Thorez and it flattered the workers by not attacking their religion. It skillfully undermined the hierarchy in the pattern of the usual communist attempt to drive a wedge between the Catholic and his priest."
Opportunistic accusations of racism:
"Close friends of many, years' standing became deadly enemies overnight. Little cliques, based on the principle of mutual protection and advancement, sprang up everywhere. Some shouted slogans from Jacques Duclos. Some shouted down anyone who suggested logical discussion of problems. The mood, the emotions, were hysterically leftist with the most violent racist talk I ever heard."
And:
"But the communist leadership heard with delight that Bella Dodd had appeared as "attorney for a landlord." At last they had the excuse for getting me politically, the excuse for which they had been looking. Of course they could have simply expelled me but this would involve discussion of policies. They were looking for an excuse to expel me on charges that would besmirch my character, drive my friends away, and stop discussion instead of starting it. What better than to expel me for the crime of becoming a "hireling of the landlords"?
They must have realized that such an argument would scarcely be cogent to outsiders. Even to many of the Party it was weak. They must add something really unforgivable to make me an outcast in the eyes of the simple people of the Party. They did this by spreading the story that in my court appearances I had made remarks against the Puerto Rican tenants, that I had slandered them, and showed myself a racist, almost a fascist. And last of all, a charge of anti-Negro, anti-Semitism, and anti-working class was thrown in for good measure."
An attentive reader will appreciate why college campuses have become such a cesspool of political correctness and intimidation of those who step outside of group think through the artifice of faux-moral outrage.
Bella also explains how Communists were so effective at infiltration of other organizations, a subject explored in Lewy's The Cause That Failed: Communism in American Political Life:
"This use of fractions made the Communist Party effective in noncommunist groups. They went prepared, organized, trained, and disciplined with a program worked out in detail, and before other groups had a chance to think the Communists were winning advantages. They worked in every convention as an organized bloc. In other organized blocs the Communists had “sleepers,” assigned to protect Communist Party interests. These “sleepers” were active members in noncommunist blocs for the purpose of hamstringing and destroying the power of the opposition."
What we also pick up from Bella's book is how Communism filled in a spiritual void in the life of Communists. The Party was their life, their friends, their purpose. Being excommunicated from the Party was a death sentence because it meant that an old life had been lost. Bella describes her life after her expulsion from the Party as "learning to unbecome a Communist." What is also interesting about her memoir is how she counterpoints her Communist life with her non-Communist life; in the latter, people were allowed to be human, and to not hate:
"As he and the other men discussed various matters, I realized why these three talked so differently from the little groups I had been with at tables like this in the communist movement. Here there was no hatred and no fear. We talked of books and television and of communism too, and Father Keller referred to the latter as “the last stage of an ugly period.”
A final point is this phenomenal image of mercy and conversion:
"By what right, I thought, was I seeking the help of someone I had helped revile, even if only by my silence? How dared I come to a representative of that hierarchy?
The screeching of the brakes brought me back to reality. We had arrived, and my friend was wishing me luck as I got out of the car. I rang the doorbell and was ushered into a small room. While I waited, the struggle within me began again. Had there been an easy exit I would have run out, but in the midst of my turmoil Monsignor Fulton Sheen walked into the room, his silver cross gleaming, a warm smile in his eyes.
He held out his hand as he crossed the room. “Doctor, I’m glad you’ve come,” he said. His voice and his eyes had a welcome which I had not expected, and it caught me unaware."
A final nice element of this book is that it puts "flesh on the bones" of the people who lived during this time and on the time itself. I have known of Sheen, but until reading this, I didn't really know him
December 31, 2018
A classic on the dangers of communism
A true believer who lead the American efforts to spread communism across the USA discovers the truth. As important now and it was when it was written.
A true believer who lead the American efforts to spread communism across the USA discovers the truth. As important now and it was when it was written.
June 16, 2021
Extremely disappointing.
If you want to read 200 pages in painstaking detail about internal AFL and CIO politics, then this is the book for you!
If you want to learn about the communist infiltration of the Church, too bad! She doesn't mention it AT ALL. I'm not even sure where her oft-cited statement about 1300 communist infiltrators in the seminaries comes from if not from this book...maybe an interview? that would have saved me hours of my life. I know it is said that Bishop Sheen warned her not to release names...but even the slightest intimation of this operation is gapingly absent from this, her "autobiography."
Some important takeaways:
1. The Communist Party in the United States used communists in principle but not in name to infiltrate the more centrist unions. Bella, zealous for the communist cause, was surprised when she was initially denied entry into the Party. As it was explained to her, Party membership would be too obvious, and she was more useful as a material communist placed in a regular union than as a formal communist in the Party.
2. She was a very very small fry. Absolutely no interactions with Soviet contacts whatsoever, it would seem. I don't think this even qualifies as a defection.
3. Communists hated reform because then the conditions would not be bad enough to foment *revolution*
4. Support for the USSR waned around the time the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was made public. They regained it somehow, though that is not within the scope of this book.
5. Communism is like Freemasonry: the underlings at the lower levels are ignorant of what they're supporting at the top.
6. And yet, she states: "Of course, I was not the only American who thought one could go along with the good things the Communists did and then reject their objectives."
They know not what they do? Or they just don't care to know?
7. The last several chapters, which detail her reversion story, are worth reading. She just meets with Fulton Sheen as a matter of course! :D Oh, to live in a truly Catholic (or as much as it's ever been) America... Pray for her soul.
8. "A nominal Christian with a memory of the Cross can be easily twisted to the purposes of evil by men who masquerade as saviors."
9. "I found St. Augustine and the 'City of God' infinitely more life-giving than the defiant modern professors who wrote 'The City of Man.'"
10. Communists do not value - and actively discourage - critical thinking. Trust the experts!
11. Education ungrounded in Truth is just knowledge weaponized by Pride.
12. Utopia is not possible, and robs the world of its inheritance by denying the Cross.
"Even if the Communists were sincere in the glittering promises they make, they would be incapable of fulfilling them for they cannot create the kind of men needed for the task. Whatever apparent good the Communists have achieved has come through human beings who despite the harsh materialism taught them still retained a memory of God and who, even without realizing it, drew on the eternal standards of truth and justice."
Lastly, this was written in 1954. The communists were really, still, JUST getting started. Wait until the Vietnam years...I wonder how she reacted to what happened next.
If you want to read 200 pages in painstaking detail about internal AFL and CIO politics, then this is the book for you!
If you want to learn about the communist infiltration of the Church, too bad! She doesn't mention it AT ALL. I'm not even sure where her oft-cited statement about 1300 communist infiltrators in the seminaries comes from if not from this book...maybe an interview? that would have saved me hours of my life. I know it is said that Bishop Sheen warned her not to release names...but even the slightest intimation of this operation is gapingly absent from this, her "autobiography."
Some important takeaways:
1. The Communist Party in the United States used communists in principle but not in name to infiltrate the more centrist unions. Bella, zealous for the communist cause, was surprised when she was initially denied entry into the Party. As it was explained to her, Party membership would be too obvious, and she was more useful as a material communist placed in a regular union than as a formal communist in the Party.
2. She was a very very small fry. Absolutely no interactions with Soviet contacts whatsoever, it would seem. I don't think this even qualifies as a defection.
3. Communists hated reform because then the conditions would not be bad enough to foment *revolution*
4. Support for the USSR waned around the time the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was made public. They regained it somehow, though that is not within the scope of this book.
5. Communism is like Freemasonry: the underlings at the lower levels are ignorant of what they're supporting at the top.
6. And yet, she states: "Of course, I was not the only American who thought one could go along with the good things the Communists did and then reject their objectives."
They know not what they do? Or they just don't care to know?
7. The last several chapters, which detail her reversion story, are worth reading. She just meets with Fulton Sheen as a matter of course! :D Oh, to live in a truly Catholic (or as much as it's ever been) America... Pray for her soul.
8. "A nominal Christian with a memory of the Cross can be easily twisted to the purposes of evil by men who masquerade as saviors."
9. "I found St. Augustine and the 'City of God' infinitely more life-giving than the defiant modern professors who wrote 'The City of Man.'"
10. Communists do not value - and actively discourage - critical thinking. Trust the experts!
11. Education ungrounded in Truth is just knowledge weaponized by Pride.
12. Utopia is not possible, and robs the world of its inheritance by denying the Cross.
"Even if the Communists were sincere in the glittering promises they make, they would be incapable of fulfilling them for they cannot create the kind of men needed for the task. Whatever apparent good the Communists have achieved has come through human beings who despite the harsh materialism taught them still retained a memory of God and who, even without realizing it, drew on the eternal standards of truth and justice."
Lastly, this was written in 1954. The communists were really, still, JUST getting started. Wait until the Vietnam years...I wonder how she reacted to what happened next.
July 21, 2022
I would have given it a 5 star but it got repetitive and boring but the story in general was very interesting.
I do believe that the 1920s and 30s were the years that the seed of communism were planted in the US and now we can see the outcome of this agenda. Every upheaval and disorder in the US that is currently taking place, was created by that generation of communists of the 1920s. Communism infiltrated every single institution, including the Catholic Church and it’s only a matter of time that the world turns communist. The iron curtain that came down in the 1990s was a facade and Russia took another turn in their agenda in order to infiltrate the world(Gorbachev confirmed it). We will see the rise of global communism in the future. Communism has brainwashed and continues to brainwash the minds of many generations - everyone can see the outcome in every country.
The Virgin of Fatima said in 1917, “Russia will spread its errors” and this book and Bella Dodd’s account confirms it.
Only Divine intervention will be able to safe the world from a complete and utter destruction that’s heading our way.
I do believe that the 1920s and 30s were the years that the seed of communism were planted in the US and now we can see the outcome of this agenda. Every upheaval and disorder in the US that is currently taking place, was created by that generation of communists of the 1920s. Communism infiltrated every single institution, including the Catholic Church and it’s only a matter of time that the world turns communist. The iron curtain that came down in the 1990s was a facade and Russia took another turn in their agenda in order to infiltrate the world(Gorbachev confirmed it). We will see the rise of global communism in the future. Communism has brainwashed and continues to brainwash the minds of many generations - everyone can see the outcome in every country.
The Virgin of Fatima said in 1917, “Russia will spread its errors” and this book and Bella Dodd’s account confirms it.
Only Divine intervention will be able to safe the world from a complete and utter destruction that’s heading our way.
October 9, 2018
Fascinating overall, but Dodd does get a bit bogged down in names and places. This brilliant, educated and articulate woman was seduced by the utopian promise of Communism. The slow descent into darkness coincided with the loss of the faith of her youth--Communism and Catholicism are like oil and water, at odds with one another, never to mix. She watched as comrades died, were kicked out of the party or worse. The good news is the Good News of Christianity. For Dodd, it proved to be the light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel. Definitely worth the read. She writes well, especially at the beginning, which is very poignant, and the end, which is encouraging, but she does get bogged down with names, places, etc., in the middle of her story.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 17, 2018
This book has many names/dates etc. so be forewarned, however the information is historical and so important... one can see just how deeply and extensively people with anti-American sentiments infiltrated our educational system and government/politics. Sadly, it appears to have just continued from then, with occasional changes to the names of the groups involved... we continue to face a really daunting battle for the soul of this country... I am reminded of the quote, "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction."
The last couple chapters when she returns to her Catholic Faith are very moving. The contrast between this and her earlier life encapsulates the whole issue.
The last couple chapters when she returns to her Catholic Faith are very moving. The contrast between this and her earlier life encapsulates the whole issue.
January 16, 2020
Communists in 1954, Democratic Socialists in 2020: Dodd still relevant.
Bella Dodd’s autobiography is as relevant in 2020 as it was in 1954. The Communists she writes about in 1954 are the Democratic Socialists of 2020.
A foremost Communist activist in the 1930s and early 1940s, Dodd was expelled by the Communist Party when she opposed its callous treatment of ordinary members and Party leaders.
However, Dodd’s autobiography is not just about politics. Her reversion to Catholicism saved not only her life from an inhuman and intolerant political movement, but, as she hoped, her own soul. As a narrative of a spiritual journey, therefore, Dodd’s 250-page work is a stunning work of twentieth-century Catholic feminism.
The twenty-first century reader would find several ideas expressed in 1954 familiar in 2020 politics. For example, conservative intellectuals can understand that the agnosticism and pragmatism that Dodd found in the Communist Party of yesteryear is just as rampant in the Democratic Party of today (27-8). Also, contemporary conservatives would understand her claim that “the radicals of today are the conservatives of tomorrow” (40)—anecdotal proof that today’s violent Antifa youth will one day become, to their disgust, Republican.
Teachers and faculty can learn the most from Dodd. Her style of teaching in the 1920s was what we would now call facilitative (38). Her disgust over the meaninglessness of degrees and dissertation research (45) echoes the opinions of today’s students (and faculty) who wonder why most courses in certain subjects function like sociological attacks on Western civilization instead of, for example, courses in English where grammar and research paper writing should be taught.
Of course, Dodd’s return to Catholicism was gradual, and the steps of her return to the Faith can help today’s New Evangelizers understand how millennials can rediscover the faith of their parents and grandparents. To support those who think sacramentals are important in the life of any religious person, Dodd notes that Benediction had a lasting impression on her (23). Seeing how corrupt the Communist Party was and how it considered human beings expendable (much like how the Democratic Party of today devalues human life, whether unborn or elderly), Dodd asserts the simple yet obvious idea that “God is the cure for godlessness” (136). Even when she was most active in the Communist Party, Dodd says that she always read the New Testament (223), anecdotal evidence of the importance of scripture in the conversion process.
Most important, however, are Dodd’s soul-wrenching statements that, after experiencing the hatred and dehumanization of the Communist Party, she “had to learn to love. I had to drain the hate and frenzy from my system” (224). Finally, the solidarity that she thought she could find in socialist and Communist activity she later found at the Mass (236). These ancient elements were enough to persuade Dodd to renounce Communism and return to Catholic Christianity.
The same steps can be followed by anyone who wants to leave the equally dehumanizing and atheistic Democratic Party of today.
Certainly, her conclusion chapter is naïve. She claims that “our civilization [is] a life-giving force” (247), but it would be an inappropriate and anachronistic counterargument to suggest that she could see into the future where abortion would be legalized throughout the nine months of pregnancy for any reason whatsoever as it was in 1973, four years after her death. How proud she would be, though, to see a vibrant pro-life movement in 2020, fulfilling her claim.
Similarly, while she was too optimistic about youth in her time (248-9), Dodd would have had no idea that the juvenile delinquents of the fifties would be matched by the Woodstock libertines of the sixties. She would have rejoiced to see today’s young people who affirm human life by rejecting abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia forced on the nation by the Democratic Party.
Overall, Dodd’s is a remarkable autobiography of a twentieth-century woman who lived genuine feminist ideals.
Bella Dodd’s autobiography is as relevant in 2020 as it was in 1954. The Communists she writes about in 1954 are the Democratic Socialists of 2020.
A foremost Communist activist in the 1930s and early 1940s, Dodd was expelled by the Communist Party when she opposed its callous treatment of ordinary members and Party leaders.
However, Dodd’s autobiography is not just about politics. Her reversion to Catholicism saved not only her life from an inhuman and intolerant political movement, but, as she hoped, her own soul. As a narrative of a spiritual journey, therefore, Dodd’s 250-page work is a stunning work of twentieth-century Catholic feminism.
The twenty-first century reader would find several ideas expressed in 1954 familiar in 2020 politics. For example, conservative intellectuals can understand that the agnosticism and pragmatism that Dodd found in the Communist Party of yesteryear is just as rampant in the Democratic Party of today (27-8). Also, contemporary conservatives would understand her claim that “the radicals of today are the conservatives of tomorrow” (40)—anecdotal proof that today’s violent Antifa youth will one day become, to their disgust, Republican.
Teachers and faculty can learn the most from Dodd. Her style of teaching in the 1920s was what we would now call facilitative (38). Her disgust over the meaninglessness of degrees and dissertation research (45) echoes the opinions of today’s students (and faculty) who wonder why most courses in certain subjects function like sociological attacks on Western civilization instead of, for example, courses in English where grammar and research paper writing should be taught.
Of course, Dodd’s return to Catholicism was gradual, and the steps of her return to the Faith can help today’s New Evangelizers understand how millennials can rediscover the faith of their parents and grandparents. To support those who think sacramentals are important in the life of any religious person, Dodd notes that Benediction had a lasting impression on her (23). Seeing how corrupt the Communist Party was and how it considered human beings expendable (much like how the Democratic Party of today devalues human life, whether unborn or elderly), Dodd asserts the simple yet obvious idea that “God is the cure for godlessness” (136). Even when she was most active in the Communist Party, Dodd says that she always read the New Testament (223), anecdotal evidence of the importance of scripture in the conversion process.
Most important, however, are Dodd’s soul-wrenching statements that, after experiencing the hatred and dehumanization of the Communist Party, she “had to learn to love. I had to drain the hate and frenzy from my system” (224). Finally, the solidarity that she thought she could find in socialist and Communist activity she later found at the Mass (236). These ancient elements were enough to persuade Dodd to renounce Communism and return to Catholic Christianity.
The same steps can be followed by anyone who wants to leave the equally dehumanizing and atheistic Democratic Party of today.
Certainly, her conclusion chapter is naïve. She claims that “our civilization [is] a life-giving force” (247), but it would be an inappropriate and anachronistic counterargument to suggest that she could see into the future where abortion would be legalized throughout the nine months of pregnancy for any reason whatsoever as it was in 1973, four years after her death. How proud she would be, though, to see a vibrant pro-life movement in 2020, fulfilling her claim.
Similarly, while she was too optimistic about youth in her time (248-9), Dodd would have had no idea that the juvenile delinquents of the fifties would be matched by the Woodstock libertines of the sixties. She would have rejoiced to see today’s young people who affirm human life by rejecting abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia forced on the nation by the Democratic Party.
Overall, Dodd’s is a remarkable autobiography of a twentieth-century woman who lived genuine feminist ideals.
December 31, 2022
I learned about this book from a podcast with an author who wrote a biography on Bella Dodd. I decided to read her autobiography, because that author referred to her as the female Whittaker Chambers, whose book, Witness, is a classic. Dodd was born in 1904 in Italy, baptized, raised in a Catholic, but non-practicing, family. In high school in New York she read The Call, a Socialist publication, and was inspired by the revolutionary language. Eventually she decided to spend her life serving her fellow men. She writes: “Only people I did not know, the great mass of unknown human beings, began to awaken in me a poignant sense of kinship. …to seek my spiritual home among the dispossessed of the earth.” What’s that line: It’s easier to love a billion strangers than your own neighbor. She graduated college and then began to work for the Teachers Union, and also earned a law degree and got married in between. The Communists established a beachhead in this union, which she began understand why later on. Over time, she became a Communist, taken into their fraternal circle, though not getting a Party Card until 1943, and leaving her Union job behind.
She would come to learn that Lenin held in contempt unions because they were only interested in economic betterment. She discusses the similarities between Hitler and Nazi Germany and Lenin/Stalin in the USSR. They aren’t polar opposites, they are just different types of criminals. She started to see chinks in the armor of Communism and its promises as hallow after the 1944 election of FDR, though the last illusion to die for her was about the Soviet Union still being the future. Like Chambers’ book, this illuminates just how prevalent Communists were in government, and what their real aim was: overthrowing the American government, and how it recruited people to this cause throughout the country. More telling, it’s a personal story of how the Party used up and spit out its loyal members once they disagreed with the Party line.
Ultimately, this a sad tale, because Dodd spent her youth working for a meaningless cause that she came to see as evil and Godless. She writes the “unbecoming a Communist was a long and painful process.” What do you do when your entire worldview has been discredited by the evidence? She turned back to religion, which is the most inspiring part of this sad tale. “There can be no social regeneration without a personal regeneration.” She returned to her Faith and was baptized in 1952. She concludes that Communism cannot be fought in a negative manner, but only with the Truth. “Men schooled in darkness are doomed to defeat.”
She would come to learn that Lenin held in contempt unions because they were only interested in economic betterment. She discusses the similarities between Hitler and Nazi Germany and Lenin/Stalin in the USSR. They aren’t polar opposites, they are just different types of criminals. She started to see chinks in the armor of Communism and its promises as hallow after the 1944 election of FDR, though the last illusion to die for her was about the Soviet Union still being the future. Like Chambers’ book, this illuminates just how prevalent Communists were in government, and what their real aim was: overthrowing the American government, and how it recruited people to this cause throughout the country. More telling, it’s a personal story of how the Party used up and spit out its loyal members once they disagreed with the Party line.
Ultimately, this a sad tale, because Dodd spent her youth working for a meaningless cause that she came to see as evil and Godless. She writes the “unbecoming a Communist was a long and painful process.” What do you do when your entire worldview has been discredited by the evidence? She turned back to religion, which is the most inspiring part of this sad tale. “There can be no social regeneration without a personal regeneration.” She returned to her Faith and was baptized in 1952. She concludes that Communism cannot be fought in a negative manner, but only with the Truth. “Men schooled in darkness are doomed to defeat.”
May 24, 2021
I have to admit I struggled through this book. I’m not one for politics so I found the subject matter kind of dry. The best part of the book was the last two chapters.
What kept me going was the author’s occasional pause and reflection on communism tactics seen from retrospect. Very enlightening. Innocent people taken advantage of by fanning the flames of injustice when the whole objective is to stir up so much chaos that the country falls, and the men behind the curtain can slide in and take control. The issues the pawns are standing up against are the exact things their leaders are, and intend to be under communistic rule.
It’s laughable, but at the same time it’s frightening. The spread of communism in the 30’s and 40’s had limitations that today’s technology has, unfortunately for us, solved. There is much to be afraid of.
But back to the book, my favorite chapters were the last two where the author finds herself inexplicably drawn back to the Catholic Church. Here she finds truth and unity among Christians similar to what she vainly searched for in the communists. Here she finds peace in the promise of Jesus Christ and the sacraments He left for us for protection until His return. This warmed my heart and made the whole read worthwhile.
At the end she expresses hope that the Communists will not be successful due to signs she sees in humanity. She wrote this in the mid-50’s. She died in 1969. I wonder what she thinks now as she looks down on humanity? I imagine she is awestruck and horrified over the incredulous gains of the communist party.
Once you understand the tactics of communism, it becomes ever so clear how active they are in current events and how close we are to a complete upheaval and sabotage of the America we know and love.
Good smart people I’ve known my entire life are falling in line and chanting the media’s preposterous narrative. It breaks my heart.
May God help us all.
What kept me going was the author’s occasional pause and reflection on communism tactics seen from retrospect. Very enlightening. Innocent people taken advantage of by fanning the flames of injustice when the whole objective is to stir up so much chaos that the country falls, and the men behind the curtain can slide in and take control. The issues the pawns are standing up against are the exact things their leaders are, and intend to be under communistic rule.
It’s laughable, but at the same time it’s frightening. The spread of communism in the 30’s and 40’s had limitations that today’s technology has, unfortunately for us, solved. There is much to be afraid of.
But back to the book, my favorite chapters were the last two where the author finds herself inexplicably drawn back to the Catholic Church. Here she finds truth and unity among Christians similar to what she vainly searched for in the communists. Here she finds peace in the promise of Jesus Christ and the sacraments He left for us for protection until His return. This warmed my heart and made the whole read worthwhile.
At the end she expresses hope that the Communists will not be successful due to signs she sees in humanity. She wrote this in the mid-50’s. She died in 1969. I wonder what she thinks now as she looks down on humanity? I imagine she is awestruck and horrified over the incredulous gains of the communist party.
Once you understand the tactics of communism, it becomes ever so clear how active they are in current events and how close we are to a complete upheaval and sabotage of the America we know and love.
Good smart people I’ve known my entire life are falling in line and chanting the media’s preposterous narrative. It breaks my heart.
May God help us all.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 2, 2021
A remarkable autobiographical account of one individual's time in the Teachers' Union and then in the Communist Party in the 1930s and 40s; describing events 80 plus years ago it could have been written today as the core tenants of Marxism and tactics have not changed one iota.
There truly is nothing new under the sun.
I appreciated the matter of fact nature in the way the book was written; it avoided the diatribes and overdramatization of an ex member that often appears when one has left an organization.
There truly is nothing new under the sun.
I appreciated the matter of fact nature in the way the book was written; it avoided the diatribes and overdramatization of an ex member that often appears when one has left an organization.
July 12, 2021
Bella Dodd describes how she slowly became a Communist in the late 1910's because of the appeal of the vision of a better society and her sense of a wider social justice. She worked tirelessly to help the down trodden and underclass. But by the 1940's she began to be repelled by the dictatorial methods of the Party and the constant struggle for power and by 1949 she had decided to leave the Communist Party and was formally expelled by the Party, accused by the Party leadership of being a racist, anti-Negro, anti-Semite and anti-working class, all such charges being total lies.
November 23, 2020
This book was given to me by one of Bella’s descendants- apparently it was taken from many volumes of her writings. It’s extremely scary to realize that this was published in the early 50’s and could have been written today with the events that have occurred with the “progressive left movement “ ie: communist infiltration of American politics and society - I guess we haven’t leaned anything from history - very scary !
January 8, 2024
The book served its purpose in highlighting Bella Dodd's life and dealings with the American Communist party. With that being said, the vast majority of it was unbelievably dry. Unless you're researching this very particular subject, there's nothing you can gain from this book that can't be read on Wikipedia.
July 2, 2019
I am on p. 177. Wow!! If someone involved hadn't told you of what's in here it would be unbelieveable!! Every American citizen should read this book for the good of their country & themselves. It will influence the future choices one makes in society.
May 13, 2021
It was a very interesting book but the entire section about implanting communists into the priesthood was not touched on anywhere except the back cover. Completely worthless to learn anything about that allegation.
September 27, 2023
An incredible life story about a woman whose loyalty to the Communist Party of America in the pre-war days was rewarded with betrayal and allowed her to come back to Jesus following a chance meeting with Bishop Sheen.
March 17, 2019
Remarkable.
October 20, 2020
Remarkable autobiography, worth a screenplay.
Read
April 20, 2021Curiously, the subheadings in the index were sorted by page number, rather than alphabetically. Not very user-friendly! The index also made use of ff. which is not very common, but can be useful.
August 29, 2022
Makes for a great companion to Witness by Whittaker Chambers. Dodd testified before Congress at least 5 times over 6 years. Her words were of great interest then, and indeed still are today.
October 12, 2017
An idealistic Hunter College grad initially finds direction from the Communist Party....ultimately through much firsthand experience, finds the direction is actually descending rather than ascending. She exhibits courage and wisdom to change course after over a decade in the clutches of darkness. I wondered as I approached the end of the book, if there was enough pages left to describe her conversion to Catholicism. Well to be frank, when one of her friends asks her: 'Do you want to see a priest?' Tears welled up in my eyes and that brief question made all the difference. The priest she did see and was conditionally baptized by him at St. Patrick's Cathedral in NYC. The priest by the way was a Monsignor when she met him and a Bishop when he baptized her. Famous wonderful Bishop.
April 18, 2018
From Death to Life
Bella Dodd recounts the story of her intellectual and spiritual journey, from the bare-knuck!e combat of communism to answer the gentle call of sanity and saintliness. Her liberation, at first unwanted, from the counterfeit materialist "struggle," frees Ms. Dodd to rediscover the true humanity of Christ in all.
In addition, it is a primer on the techniques of "progressive socialism," the 21st century movement still battling for the hearts and minds of every person in the quest for world domination. Do not underestimate this persistent force for evil!
Bella Dodd recounts the story of her intellectual and spiritual journey, from the bare-knuck!e combat of communism to answer the gentle call of sanity and saintliness. Her liberation, at first unwanted, from the counterfeit materialist "struggle," frees Ms. Dodd to rediscover the true humanity of Christ in all.
In addition, it is a primer on the techniques of "progressive socialism," the 21st century movement still battling for the hearts and minds of every person in the quest for world domination. Do not underestimate this persistent force for evil!
April 7, 2012
Gives a marvelous insiders' insight into the methods of organized communism and secret networks in general.
January 22, 2019
Great read for anyone interested in the deception of communism; as well as anyone who thinks it’s not a threat. Communism is evil.
January 24, 2021
Un libro fácil de leer y muy esclarecedor para conocer los orígenes del partido demócrata en los EEUU.
Muy recomendable
Muy recomendable
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