Excerpt from Annual Report for the Year 1956: January 2, 1957 (Original Release Date)

It is not a pleasant task to state these conclusions. The Committee on uh-american Activities would prefer to report to the Congress and to the American people that the tide has turned against inter national communism and that the day of its dissolution is in sight. The committee cannot do so. There are many, nevertheless, who feel that communism has become enfeebled and exultantly hail each new sound from the Soviet sphere as the death knell of the vast Communist totalitarian empire. It is a grave delusion which they embrace.

Events in Hungary are still fresh enough for us to remember the jubilation which reigned at the rising of the courageous men and women of that nation against the despots who had enslaved them. We can remember too our profound shock as Soviet tanks and tr00ps marched back to crush the rebels and demonstrate that the power of the Kremlin had not diminished.

Numerically, the membership of the Communist Party of the United States has declined considerably during the past few years as many dilettantes left the fringes from which they had long gazed with starry eyed credulity. But those remaining in the Communist apparatus comprise a hard core of revolutionaries who have consecrated them selves to accomplish the annihilation of our form of government.

Anyone who thinks that communism in the United States no longer constitutes a serious menace should consider that at this moment on American soil are the equivalent of 20 combat divisions of enemy tr00ps engaging in propaganda, espionage, subversion, and loyal only to the Soviet Union.

A prominent American jurist once observed that if the American people saw this horde wearing the uniform of a foreign power and moving freely in their midst, they would immediately voice great alarm. The alarm should not be less if the uniform clothes the mind instead of the body.

The past year has been an exceptionally fruitful one for the work of the Committee on um-american Activities. A total of 398 witnesses testified before the committee. The investigations and public hear ings that we have conducted across the country have disclosed.

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