In this connection we must distinguish between the discipline that communism can exact when it is in state control, as in Russia, Hungary, and China, and when it is not. Communists in the United States cannot exact the death penalty; they cannot operate slave labor camps; they cannot deport families to isolated areas. Yet the disciplinary actions of the Communist Party, USA, as we shall see in the “purge” of Earl Browder in 1945, show unmistakably that communists in this country think and would like to act in disciplinary matters precisely as do communists behind the Iron Curtain. Moreover, the stronger the Party in this country, the more able it has been to enforce its discipline. Every Party member should realize that, by working to strengthen the Communist Party, he is thereby giving the Party greater power to discipline him in the future. Today, at most he can be expelled and vilified, unless he is subjected to the treatment given John Lautner. We can readily conjecture, however, recalling the purge trials under Stalin, what could happen here if communism ever controlled our government. Communist discipline is a part of the everyday life of the Party. It is not something that can be developed overnight or learned exclusively from a book. It comes gradually from attending schools, reading, and doing Party work. A “conscience of responsibility,” as one old-time member explained it, is created; a feeling that, whatever your personal desires and responsibilities, _the Party’s orders come first_; that every task is surrounded by a Party “halo of sanctity,” thereby becoming an emergency urgently demanding instant handling; that a “guilty” feeling arises if the member relaxes for a moment or doesn’t do the job assigned by the Party “boss.” In the communist system, discipline means _conscious_ and _voluntary_ submission to the will of the Party. To obey Party instructions is regarded as a high ethical duty, to be undertaken joyously and willingly as an honor and privilege, never as bondage. Not to obey is unthinkable and a matter of personal shame and Party irresponsibility. This is the terrifying danger of communist discipline—that in the name of freedom, by appealing to the most noble qualities in man, the human being is pushed into deepest tyranny. Communist “courts” seek out those who do not “knuckle under” to communist discipline. If a mistake is made from bad judgment, a lapse of memory, or lack of knowledge, that is one thing. This can be corrected by more “education.” But if the member persists in error, that is, doesn’t follow undeviatingly the Party line, he must be “flayed without mercy.” “... an organization of real revolutionaries,” says Lenin, “will stop at nothing to rid itself of an undesirable member.”