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CONDENSATION OF
related to the target. Both Ozaki and Sorge were such
experts, Ozaki on China and Sorge on Japan.
Within an espionage network, contact between members
is kept down to a minimum for efficiency, and subordinate
members deal only with specified persons within the
hierarchy. In the case of Sorge, this precaution did not
protect him or his net, since his lieutenants "sang" as
soon as their subordinates had implicated them. The principle, however, remains.
The Sorge case underlines the urgency of making a
check of a man's whole life history, not just a previous
decade, every time he is considered for a post of trust
and confidence under the government. The present leftist-
liberal agitation against security checks, in the States, can
only be interpreted as manipulated by Communist interests who are afraid of this kind of investigation. The agitation against checks of immigrants is in the same category. The record of civil employees, in the occupation of
Japan, is typical of the situation: inadequate security
checks unloaded a large number of Commies on Mac-
Arthur's Headquarters; it took enormous efforts to get
rid of them.
A Communist or Communist sympathizer must be considered ipso facto, a traitor who will use his position to
betray his country. The pressure to employ experts \rith
leftist leanings in government departments in times of
crisis must be avoided no matter what their technical
skill or how hard pressed the government agency may be
for expert assistance.
JT ollowing are excerpts from Richard Sorge's own story,
"Partial Memoirs," from an exclusive English translation
of typed original pages, rescued by Mr. Yoshikawa from
the holocaust of bombed Tokyo. Here is a rare glimpse
into the mind and soul of a professional Communist, tracing the psychological evolution that turned a young patriotic German soldier into a mechanistic tool of the Kremlin
— a mercenary espionage agent.
". . . World War, 1914-1918, exerted a profound influence upon my whole life. Had I been swayed by no other
considerations, it alone would have made me a Communist. When it broke out, I was a high school student, 18%
years old, in Berlin. My boyhood was passed amid the
comparative calm common to the wealthy bourgeois class
of Germany.
"At the early age of 15, I developed avid interest in
Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, Klopstock, Dante, and other
various authors and struggled with the history of philosophy and Kant. My favorite periods of history were the
French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars and the time of
Bismarck. I knew Germany's current problems better than
the average grown-up. For many years I studied political
developments carefully. At school I was known as the
'Prime Minister.'
"One summer vacation, I visited Sweden and returned
to Germany by the last boat available. World War I had
broken out. I volunteered for service immediately. After
a completely inadequate six-week training course at a drill
ground in the outskirts of Berlin, I was shipped out to
Belgium to take part in a great battle on the banks of the
Yser. Nobody knew the real purpose of the war, not to
speak of its deep-seated significance.
"My attention was arrested by the fact that we common
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soldiers were living a life apart. There was very little off-
duty contact with officers. They kept to themselves, and
I was never able to feel a great affection for them. . ."
[Sorge received three wounds; during his convalescences he studied intensely, especially philosophy and
economics; resumed university classes after the war.]
". . . My relations with the German Communist party
were confined to the period 1918-24. My activities therein
ceased with my removal to Moscow in 1924-25 and my
transfer to the Soviet Communist party. I assisted actively
in the expansion of the Communist International (Comintern ). I was connected with the Russian Communist party
headquarters from a subject-matter standpoint and with
the 4th Bureau (Army Intelligence) from a procedural
standpoint.
J. he 'Comintern' is not a party but a world organization
of national Communist parties. It consists of many sections representing individual parties, one of which is the
USSR Communist Party Section. Its program is to work
for the incorporation of the whole world into a single
Communist society. It seeks to organize a world-wide
Soviet Union — to do away with private ownership of the
means of production, with class exploitation and oppression, and with racial tyranny; and to unite all nations in
accordance with a single master plan. The Comintern will
some day become an economic general staff headquarters
for the socialist nations of the world and subsequently a
general staff headquarters for the creation of Communist
societies.
"At present, the Comintern's immediate major objective
is to furnish positive guidance to the (national) sections
in their struggle for the acquisition of political power in
their respective countries. For example, it will judge the
prospects for a general strike movement in a given country on the basis of the international economic health of
world capitalism. Similarly, it will discourage rebellion
when objective conditions do not favor violent revolution
but will vigorously encourage revolt when world capitalism exhibits symptoms of acute crisis.
"The Comintern will also assist individual parties by
consolidating national political and economic struggles and
by furnishing national movements with propaganda materials, financial resources and, when necessary, political
propaganda, and organization advisers. Such aid has
clearly been important and effective. Finally, the Comintern has helped individual sections by establishing special
schools and training institutes in Moscow for middle and
lower echelon party leaders.
". . . As early as 1928-29, the international revolutionary
movement was forced to give increasing thought to problems of defense against counter-revolutionary forces,
particularly fascism, national socialism, and ultra-nationalism; the labor movement was driven back on the defensive;
and an early revolutionary offensive by the laborers and
the 'oppressed races' became out of the question. Moreover, there was ever-increasing danger that war would
break out between the world powers, or that they would
converge on Russia in an 'imperialistic attack.' The unification of Comintern leadership and Soviet Communist
party leadership was consummated through recognition of
the hitter's supremacy. . ."
Facts Forum News, March, 1956 I C-Ts
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