The 45 Communist Goals: A 1963 List In Motion Today

The Origin Story

In 1958, W. Cleon Skousen, a former FBI employee and anti-communist writer, published The Naked Communist, a book that I believe should be mandatory reading in every high school throughout the West. The book outlined what he believed were communist strategies to take over the world, not through war, but by slowly undermining American culture and institutions from within.

A few years later, around 1961, Skousen added a list of 45 specific goals to a new edition. On January 10, 1963, Florida Congressman A.S. Herlong Jr. read this entire list into the Congressional Record, presenting it as “Current Communist Goals” to warn about internal threats during the Cold War.

Why It Still Matters

Whilst the Soviet Union may have collapsed in 1991, thus ending the Cold War, the fight for the communist agenda did not die. In fact, many of the agenda items on Skousen’s list have taken root in modern America, not because of Soviet communists, but through “progressive” movements, policy changes, and cultural shifts associated with socialist or “woke” ideologies.

Below are the most-discussed goals from the original 1963 list, quoted directly from the Congressional Record, with examples of how many of them are playing out today.

Education and Youth

Goal 17: “Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.”
Modern examples: Debates over critical race theory, gender ideology in schools, and social justice curricula. Teachers’ unions like the NEA and AFT backing woke, “progressive” policies. Textbooks that downplay traditional American history.

Goal 18: “Gain control of all student newspapers.”
Modern examples: Campus media and student groups that largely align with left-leaning causes, with conservative voices often facing protests and/or deplatforming.

Goal 19: “Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.”
Modern examples: Campus protests against speakers or policies (ex, Israel-related issues).

Goal 41: “Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks, and retarding of children to the suppressive influence of parents.”
Modern examples: Gender-affirming care for minors without parental consent. School policies that don’t notify parents about a child’s social transition. Claims that traditional family values promote bigotry.

Media and Culture

Goal 20: “Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.”
Modern examples: Bias in mainstream media, “fact-checking” organizations, and Big Tech content moderation.

Goal 21: “Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.”
Modern examples: Hollywood and major networks promoting progressive values while marginalizing conservative perspectives.

Goal 24: “Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them ‘censorship’ and a violation of free speech and free press.”
Modern examples: Debates over content moderation, Section 230, and “cancel culture.”

Goal 25: “Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.”
Modern examples: Explicit content on streaming platforms, OnlyFans, and easy access to pornography online.

Goal 26: “Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as ‘normal, natural, healthy.’”

Modern examples: LGBTQ+ representation in media and education. Pride curricula in schools. The legalization of same-sex “marriage” in 2015.

Religion and Family

Goal 27: “Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with ‘social’ religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a ‘religious crutch.’”
Modern examples: Mainline Protestant denominations shifting toward social justice activism, seeker sensitive movement.

Goal 28: “Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of ‘separation of church and state.’”
Modern examples: Supreme Court rulings in 1962–1963 that removed school prayer. Modern restrictions on religious expression in public schools.

Goal 40: “Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.”

Modern examples: Rising divorce rates, cohabitation becoming normalized, and cultural portrayals of non-traditional families.

Government and Institutions

Goal 15: “Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.”
Modern examples: Self-described democratic socialists in Congress influencing the Democratic Party.

Goal 29: “Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs…”
Modern examples: “Progressive” calls to “reimagine” or amend the Constitution on issues like electoral reform, court reform or gun control.

Goal 30: “Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the ‘common man.’”
Modern examples: Removing statues, renaming schools, and critiquing figures like George Washington or Thomas Jefferson for owning slaves.

Goal 32: “Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture; education, social agencies, welfare programs…”
Modern examples: Expansions of federal healthcare programs, education funding, and welfare systems.

The Big Question

Skousen’s list wasn’t an actual Soviet document, but it was his interpretation of communist tactics based on his research and worldview. Many Cold War-era goals (like recognizing Communist China, promoting the United Nations, or destroying the family unit) have either become true or become irrelevant after the Soviet Union fell.

Whilst some have dismissed his list as outdated McCarthyism or paranoid projection, we can clearly see it was eerily accurate in predicting cultural shifts, shifts that are impacting us today.

The real debate is this: What are we, as the body of Christ, going to do to combat this deliberate communist strategy?

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