The Party in 1944 claimed a membership of 80,000. Communist fronts welcomed overflow crowds; distinguished citizens flocked to do their work. A great backlog of influence was built up upon which the Party is still drawing. Thought-control nets touched, in one way or another, literally thousands of sympathizers and victims. Many individuals, people who should have known better, went completely overboard, hailing communism as “Twentieth-century Americanism,” a term widely publicized by the communists themselves. Henry A. Wallace, in a frank and forthright article entitled “Where I Was Wrong,” published in _This Week_ magazine on September 7, 1952, graphically pictured the communist power of deception, how he incorrectly interpreted communism and its counterpart, Russian imperialism. While Vice-President of the United States, and even later, Wallace thought Russia “wanted and needed peace.” He visited the Soviet Union in 1944 and was favorably impressed. But, as the article relates, he did not realize during his tour the feverish efforts being made by the Soviets to hoodwink him. For example, he visited Magadan, a city in Siberia, which was one of the Soviets’ most notorious slave labor camps. “Nothing I saw at Magadan or anywhere else in Soviet Asia suggested slave labor.” Later he learned of the Soviet actions ... to pull the wool over our eyes and make Magadan into a Potemkin village [an ideal show city especially built for visitors] for my inspection. Watch towers were torn down. Prisoners were herded away out of sight. On this basis, what we saw produced a false impression. Mr. Wallace then added these important words: ... what I did not see was the Soviet determination to enslave the common man morally, mentally and physically for its own imperial purposes. The communists claim to be many things they are not. All over the world and in every field of human life they have erected false fronts, Potemkin villages, to fool and enslave mankind. 8. _Why Do People Become Communists?_ In the last chapter the Five False Claims of Communism showed how, in truth, communists stand for everything that is abhorred by normal Americans. Why, then, do Americans turn communist? The answer involves many details and is not simple. Most communists are ordinary-looking people, like your seatmate on the bus or a clerk in one of your neighborhood stores. Most communists in the United States are now native-born. Others are naturalized citizens; a few are aliens. Some have never gone to school and have difficulty reading and writing. Many are well educated and have college and university degrees. Often they possess special talents in one field or another.