Witness: Cold War Classics

In the opening pages of Witness, Chambers describes the global struggle between Communism and freedom both as a battle between faith and reason and a battle between two faiths. On one hand, the rise of Communism marks a climactic moment in the historical debate over whether humanity should rely on its faculties of reason or trust in divine power. Communism not only rejects God but also insists on the abolition of religion as a necessary precondition of human liberation. Rather than wait for a paradisical afterlife to experience happiness, Communism promises to create heaven on earth through the power of technology and bureaucratic administration.

Chambers repeatedly stresses that Communism appeals to people because it is practical and lays out its proposed steps in a logical sequence. At the same time, he contends that reason alone cannot inspire people to turn against their own government and community, to risk liberty and life for a glorious future they are unlikely to enjoy themselves. Reason, after all, also demands self-preservation. Communism therefore makes a faith out of reason, with Marx and Lenin serving as saints and the Party as a kind of church. In turn, the Party compels its members to make the same kinds of sacrifices that people have traditionally made only for their gods. Chambers regards Communism as a fearsome union between the wisdom of the world and belief in the hereafter, and he doubts that what he calls “Christian civilization” has the resources to withstand it. In order to be truly free, a person must willingly submit to a moral law outside of themselves to nourish their souls, even at the expense of fulfilling their personal desires. The Communist message that one can do anything that advances the interests of the Communist cause is, by comparison, far more tempting.

In his confrontation with Alger Hiss, Chambers sees the forces of human reason arrayed against him. For Chambers, the powers of the world are making the perfectly reasonable assumption that an awkward turncoat like himself could never triumph over a well-heeled member of the establishment like Hiss. Chambers had every reason to expect that the Justice Department would indict him, or that he would be killed by Soviet agents. Yet his faith moves him forward and ultimately rewards him in the most unexpected ways. Hiss—the friend of presidents and senators, the darling of the press—suffers an ignominious downfall because of Chambers’s testimony and the records he provides. Chambers interprets this reversal in fortunes as the work of spiritual forces that confound human reason and help to manifest God’s divine plan.