By: Donald Bisk

Written during the height of the Red Scare of the Cold War in 1958 by former FBI agent turned faith-based political theorist, Cleon Skousen, The Naked Communist could possibly be the next biggest residual threat that is a result of post-Cold War conspiracy theories about a possible Communist invasion happening in the States subversively.

It outlines how Soviet Russia supposedly intended to conquer capitalism, especially American capitalism, through a coordinated effort that apparently wasn’t hard enough for Mr. Skousen to figure out. While it’s not hard to believe that the Soviets knew they could probably never win a head on war with the United States, it’s a little hard believe that Mr. Skousen, heavily partial to faith-related policies than are specifically anti-progressivism, knew the great secrets to how the Soviet machine would operate in taking over America. For one, most of his outlines he maps out in The Naked Communist are incredibly homophobic, racist, and anti-feminism, i.e. anyone in our current state that has a marginalized voice.

Here is a list of some of the goals the Communist Party supposedly had back in the 1950s to infiltrate the American Culture:

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces.
13. Do away with loyalty.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.”
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand or treat.

Taken out of historical context, it would appear that most of what Skousen predicted came true and that we are in fact facing a subtle Communist takeover. But it simply isn’t that simple. Some of the guidelines and plots that Communist were supposedly using to take over America don’t even make sense, such as #18 and #25 to name only two. Reading this I’m reminded of how truly paranoid and reactionary America was during the Cold War. But I must emphasize that none of these goals are taken seriously by political theorist, and The Naked Communist is an artifact of an age where censorship, anti-progressivism, anti-civil-rights, anti-homosexuality, and anti-youth-culture were the norm of public policy.

Unfortunately a new millennial following of The Naked Communist has resurged in the form of a pseudo-documentary called Agenda: Grinding Down America, filmed by a former Idaho Representative, Curtis Bowers. In the film, Bowers accuses homosexuality, feminism, and overall progressivism as the root cause to the degeneration of American values that will continually erode until Communism can take over. Bowers, though, uses a false argument throughout the film, making it impossible to disagree with him without becoming a Communist pawn, or the enemy. This is intellectual dishonesty, a similar dishonesty that Skousen used in his book.

What this The Naked Communist and Agenda: Grinding Down America represent, rather than a legitimate concern of American values, are two examples of reactionary fear mongering. It is horrifically wrong to think that the idea of allowing people to be free and enjoy the same liberties and rights as every other man, woman and child is a form or promotion of Communism. In fact, I would go so far as saying Bowers and Skousen act as unknowing Communist pawns simply because they both conclude that America needs more governmental intervention not for the preservation of individuals’ rights but the restricting thereof. There is a reason why Skousen’s ideas have been rejected for almost thirty years, and it has nothing to do with progressivism or America slowly becoming a Communist state and everything to do with the fact that they’re unfounded, immoral, and xenophobic.