"The Measures Taken" is not a "spirited defense of Totalitarianism"--in fact, it is a debate of the what one is both obliged and entitled to do to battle evil in the world.

The "Lehrstruck" were a group of collaborative performances that were intended to explore questions about the relationship of the individual and the community. They were intended to provoke debate and even outrage. Which they did, and still do.

"The Measure Taken" is about a group of Communist agents who go into China on a mission. One of their number, is so moved by the suffering that he sees that he tries to help, and this jeopardizes the mission. The other comrades compelled to kill him in order to successfully complete their mission. The play takes place as the surviving comrades explain what has happened to some sort of higher committee.

The statement about Communism, above, "He who fights for Communism must be able to fight and to renounce fighting, to say the truth and not to say the truth, to be helpful and unhelpful, to keep a promise and to break a promise, to go into danger and to avoid danger, to be known and to be unknown. He who fights for Communism has of all the virtues only one: that he fights for Communism." Is only one side of the question.

The other side comes from the murdered man, who says that Communist doctrines allow "misery to wait" and that if they don't provide that "wretched and that every wretched human being should be helped before all else", then they are dirt--

He goes on to say, "I give up all agreement with the others, I alone will do what is human."

In the end, the communists conclude that the measures taken to achieve its objectives were correct, though perhaps unfortunate,( just as any government, corporation, religious group, or advocacy group might) that but the audiences were left to deal with the unpleasant implications of it all.

This was the intention of the Lehrstruck--to create discussion about the relationship between the individuals moral vision and the objectives of the community--