Inkeles Says Men Joining Reds Seek 'Meaning in Life'

Men become Communists "to give a meaning to life," Alex Inkeles of the Russian Research Center told a forum last night in New Lecture Hall.

And they quit, he added, when they realize that "the Communist Party does not enhance human dignity--that it has developed into a monstrous bureaucracy that stamps out thought and dignity."

Inkeles joined two other experts in a discussion of why people, especially intelligent Americans, go Communist and why they later turn back.

Professor Wladislaw W. Kulsky of the University of Alabama said there are two paths open for a man who loses faith in Christian and capitalist ideals.

"One is a hard, narrow road in the wilderness," said Kulsky. "He can say, 'I have lost faith. I do not need any other faith. I am an agnostic and I am happy'."

"Or he can turn to another faith. Many men were converted to Communism this way, without ever thinking what Communism really was."

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. '38, professor of History, agreed that "Communism no longer has its moral appeal. It must now stand or fall on its merits as an embodiment of power."