Editing Saul Alinsky (section)

===Communism===
{{Socialism in the United States}}
Alinsky never became a direct target of [[McCarthyism]]. He was never called before a congressional investigating committee nor had to endure a determined press campaign to identify and exclude him as a communist "[[fellow traveler]]". Alinsky liked to think this because of his toughness and the ridicule he would have heaped upon his persecutors. Herb March, the most prominent [[Communist Party USA]] member with the [[United Packinghouse Workers of America|Packinghouse Workers]] in Chicago, said he would "place a little more emphasis ... on the Church influence", but also allowed that, as the government "undoubtedly must have had him under close surveillance", they cannot have had "anything" on him.{{sfnp|Horwitt|1989|pp=240-24}}

Yet Alinsky was not "untouched by the climate of fear, suspicion and innuendo". Rumors of [[communist]] associations and [[red-baiting]] would follow him into the 1960s,{{sfnp|Horwitt|1989|p=24}} and, once his name was associated with leading Democratic Party presidential contenders, would follow his legacy into the new century. For some of his "anti-communist" critics, Alinsky's definition in ''Reveille for Radicals'' of what it is to be a "radical" may have been a sufficient indictment:<blockquote>The Radical believes that all peoples should have a high standard of food, housing, and health … The Radical places human rights far above property rights. He is for universal, free public education and recognizes this as fundamental to the democratic way of life … The Radical believes completely in real equality of opportunity for all peoples regardless of race, color, or creed. He insists on full employment for economic security but is just as insistent that man's work should not only provide economic security but also be such as to satisfy the creative desires within all men.<ref name="Alinsky 1945">{{cite book |last1=Alinsky |first1=Saul |title=Reveille for Radicals |date=1945 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |location=Chicago |pages=16, 24|url=https://historyofsocialwork.org/1946_Alinsky/1946%20-%20Saul%20Alinsky%20-%20Reveille%20for%20Radicals.pdf |access-date=9 December 2020}}</ref></blockquote>

Alinsky would not apologize for working with communists at a time when, in his opinion, they were doing "a hell of a lot of good work in the vanguard of the labor movement and ... in aiding blacks and [[Okie]]s and Southern [[Sharecropping|sharecroppers]]."{{sfnp|Norden|1972|p=79}} He also said, "Anyone who was involved in the causes of the thirties and says he didn't know any communists is either a liar or an idiot". They were "all over the place, fighting for the [[New Deal]] the [[Congress of Industrial Organizations|CIO]] and so forth".<ref name="Sanders" />

Alinsky said he was "sympathetic to [[Soviet Union|Russia]] at that time [i.e. in the 1930s before the [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact]]] because it was the one country that seemed to be taking a strong position against [[Hitler]]... If you were [[anti-fascism|anti-fascist]] on the international front in those days you had to stand with Communists". But Alinsky insists he "never joined the party" for reasons "partly philosophic":<blockquote>One of my articles of faith is what Justice [[Learned Hand]] called "that ever-gnawing inner doubt as to whether you are right." I've never been sure
I'm right but also I'm also sure nobody else has this thing called truth. I hate dogma. People who believed they owned the truth have been responsible for the most terrible things that have happened in our world, whether they were Communist purges or the Spanish Inquisition or the Salem witch hunts.<ref name="Sanders" /></blockquote>

In ''Reveille'', Alinsky is "as contemptuous of 'top down' [[Soviet-type economic planning|centralizing Soviet approaches]] to social planning as he is of [[laissez-faire]] economic policies".<ref>{{cite news |last1=Matthews |first1=Dylan |title=Who is Saul Alinsky, and why does the right hate him so much? |url=https://www.vox.com/2014/10/6/6829675/saul-alinsky-explain-obama-hillary-clinton-rodham-organizing |access-date=9 December 2020 |agency=Vox |date=19 July 2016}}</ref> The Radical, he says, "will bitterly oppose complete Federal control of education. He will fight for individual rights and against centralized power …The Radical is deeply interested in social planning but just as deeply suspicious of and antagonistic to any idea of plans which work from the top down. Democracy to him is working from the bottom up". With [[Thomas Jefferson]], the Radical believes that the people are "the most honest and safe", if not always the wisest, "depository of the public interest."<ref name="Alinsky 1945" />

On the issue of whether communists should be banned from unions and other social organizations, Alinsky argued that:<blockquote>[The question is] whether there can be developed an American Progressive Movement in which the Communists are forced to follow along or get out on the basis of the issues--a movement so healthy, so filled with the vitality of real American Radicalism, that the Communists will wear their teeth down to their jaws trying to bore from within. I know that the latter can be done</blockquote> But in the meantime, Alinsky believed that "certain [[Fascism|fascist]] mentalities" posed a far greater threat to the country than "the damn nuisance of Communism".{{sfnp|Horwitt|1989|p=24}}

In 2020, the [[Reuters|Reuters Agency]] "fact check team" noted that viral images on social media were circulating quotes attributed to ''Rules for Radicals'' and ''Reveille for Radicals'', which suggest that Alinsky set out an aggressive plan "social state" essentially equated to Soviet communism. The quotes attributed to Alinsky, however, were not found in his writings.<ref>{{cite news |date=April 23, 2020 |title=False claim: Saul Alinsky listed a scheme for world conquest, creation of the "social state" |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-alinsky-social-state-idUSKCN2252LY |access-date=20 February 2021 |work=[[Reuters]]}}</ref>