In a Midwestern section an old-time organizer was accused of conduct detrimental to the Party. In a report read at an executive committee meeting he admitted his error. His conduct had been atrocious. Everything charged was true. He should have known better. He was ready to accept punishment. He even suggested his own removal as organizer. This attitude was exactly what the Party wanted. The state office did not relieve the organizer, though cautioning him that if his conduct were repeated, more severe action would be taken. The result: public (and mild) reprimand, not suspension or removal from office. This explains why, in some instances, severe errors receive minor penalties, whereas small mistakes result in expulsion. The test is often not what a member did wrong but his attitude after the error was committed. If the member is willing to admit his mistake, real or fictitious, accept punishment gladly, and still maintain absolute faith in the leadership, he will probably soon be restored to favor. If he tries, however, to defend himself in the light of the evidence, he must be dealt with harshly. On one occasion a member involved in domestic difficulties replied “none of your business” to an inquiry by the Party. He wasn’t long in good standing. In Party language, he showed no “political capabilities,” meaning he was not amenable to discipline. The Communist Party has a systematic campaign of creating hatred against the expelled member. It is not enough just to expel him; he must be vilified, blackened, and made to appear the scum of the earth. These individuals become “spies,” “stool pigeons,” “rats,” “Trotskyites,” “renegades,” and “degenerates.” To communists, ordinary curse words have no meaning. They have a vocabulary all their own. Hence, “opportunist,” “deviationist,” and “anti-Party” are their choicest terms of defamation, of characterizing a person as being the meanest, foulest, most black-hearted derelict imaginable. The higher in Party leadership the ousted member has risen, the greater must be the efforts to defame him. For example, Robert Wood, the Party’s onetime Eastern railroad organizer, was expelled with an explosive statement in the _Daily Worker_ on March 23, 1951, which said: ... various violations of Party discipline, for panic in the face of the fire of the class enemy, for acts endangering the Party, for issuing instructions in the name of the Party which were unauthorized and false, for acts of white chauvinism, and for conduct unbecoming and inconsistent with his post of Party leadership. From the campaign of vilification there arises a fantastically bitter element of communist discipline and hatred. Every man, woman, and child in the membership must be mobilized against the accused. One Party manual, written by a top leader, recommended: 1. Photograph the spy, and print his picture in the _Daily Worker_ and in leaflets and stickers....