Ex-communist Manning Johnson describes his experiences, from chapter one of his Color Communism and Common Sense:
Ten years I labored in the cause of Communism. I was a dedicated “comrade.” All my talents and
efforts were zealously used to bring about the triumph of Communism in America and throughout the
world. To me, the end of capitalism would mark the beginning of an interminable period of plenty, peace,
prosperity and universal comradeship. All racial and class differences and conflicts would end forever
after the liquidation of the capitalists, their government and their supporters. A world union of Soviet
States under the hegemony of Russia would free and lead mankind on to Utopia.
Being an idealist, I was sold this “bill of goods” by a Negro graduate of the Lenin Institute in Moscow.
The color of one’s skin is no bar to a young man or woman dreaming of making a better world. Like
other Negroes, I experienced and saw many injustices and inequities around me based upon color, not
ability. I was told that “the decadent capitalist system is responsible,” that “mass pressure” could force
concessions but “that just prolongs the life of capitalism”; that I must unite and work with all those who
more or less agree that capitalism must go.
Little did I realize until I was deeply enmeshed in the Red Conspiracy, that just and seeming grievances
are exploited to transform idealism into a cold and ruthless weapon against the capitalist system—that
this is the end toward which all the communist efforts among Negroes are directed.
Indeed, I had entered the red conspiracy in the vain belief that it was the way to a “new, better and
superior” world system of society. Ten years later, thoroughly disillusioned, I abandoned communism.
The experiences of those years in “outer darkness” are like a horrible nightmare. I saw communism in all
its naked cruelty, ruthlessness and utter contempt of Christian attributes and passions. And, too, I saw the
low value placed upon human life, the total lack of respect for the dignity of man, the betrayal of trust, the
terror of the Secret Police and the bloody hand of the assassin, during and since, those fateful years when
I embraced communism.
I was lured into the red movement by way of the American Negro Labor Congress, one of the many
“front organizations” set up by the communists to trap the naive, unwary, unsuspecting and idealistic
Negro. The use of such attractive and appealing fronts as a means of entrapment is a most important
serpentine method of the reds.