I have no doubt that there are comrades in our movement who have not read a single American book outside of progressive literature in many moons but who can discuss in detail the latest Soviet book or periodical from China. ... we have many comrades who have been brought up on Soviet culture and who are not familiar with the cultural life of our own people. * * * * * There are some comrades who never see an American film but confine their movie-going to nothing but foreign films. There are others who see only the decline and fall of American culture but fail to see what is new and growing. So far has the creation of communist man gone that, in some instances, Party members are embarrassed to salute the American flag. The _Party Voice_ comrade tells how embarrassed he felt as he hesitantly saluted the flag at a Memorial Day parade. “At times I looked up and down the street and hoped, inwardly, that none of my ‘left’ friends were looking at me.” So great is the erosion of patriotism that the author even poses this question: “Should Communists know the verses of the Star-Spangled Banner?” This is how communism is working to promote an alien way of life in America. The whole story, however, is still not told. How are all these facets of Party life held together? What gives a ruthless uniformity to Party actions? We must now turn to a study of Party discipline, a system of terror that holds Party members in the grip of an unbelievable tyranny. 13. _Communist Discipline_ In communist eyes the processes of education, the press, and “culture,” which we considered in the last chapter, are not enough for molding the revolutionary. Important as they are, they must be supplemented by _communist discipline_, a discipline that enforces uniformity, ensures Party supremacy, and files fanaticism to a sharp cutting edge. Modern-day communism, in all its many ramifications, simply cannot be understood without a knowledge of communist discipline: how it is engendered, how it operates, how it tears out man’s soul and makes him a tool of the Party. The very core of communism is discipline. Without it communism would lose much of its momentum, terror, and striking power. The Party’s constitution provides for disciplinary action. An elaborate “appeals” framework is provided whereby a series of “courts” is available to hear “charges,” with the National Convention being the “court” of final resort. Generally speaking, disciplinary problems are handled, on all levels of the Party, by Review and Control Commissions (often called Security Commissions). They serve as the “courts” to discipline any member who might be hostile to the Party.