Anti-communism

Pope John Paul II speaks to crowds in Poland in 1979

Anti-communism refers to opposition to communism, especially Marxism-Leninism. Marxism, and the forms of communism associated with it, rose to prominence in the twentieth century. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the growing popularity of the communist movement after the Soviet Union was established in 1917.

Monarchists, Christians, social-democrats, and pro-free market forces in Europe fought against the first wave of communist revolutions from 1917 to 1922. Fascism and Nazism were based in part on a violent brand of anti-communism, and they incited fear of a communist revolution in order to gain political power. Nationalists fought against communism in numerous civil wars across the globe. Classical Liberalism shaped much of the anti-communist foreign policy of the Western powers, and dominated anti-communist intellectual thought in the second half of the twentieth century. The human rights movement of the late twentieth century added a strong moral component to the anti-communist cause, exposing gross abuses of human rights in the communist world.

The country best known for being an opponent of communism is the United States, together with its long-time allies like the United Kingdom, Canada, France, and Australia. Some wars and clashes betweens supporters and opponents of communism include the Chinese Civil War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the the so-called Cold War, which refers to the overall struggle between the communist world and the Free World. The 1991 Collapse of the Soviet Union was a major victory for the anti-communist cause, which generally view the U.S.S.R. as the heart of the communist threat.

The career of anti-communism

Communism

Basic concepts

Marxist philosophy

Class struggle

Proletarian internationalism

Communist party

Ideologies

Marxism  Leninism  Maoism

Trotskyism  Juche

Left  Council

Religious  Anarchist

Communist internationals

Communist League

First International

Comintern

Fourth International

Prominent communists

Karl Marx

Friedrich Engels

Rosa Luxemburg

Vladimir Lenin

Joseph Stalin

Leon Trotsky

Máo Zédōng

Related subjects

Anarchism

Anti-capitalism

Anti-communism

Communist state

Criticisms of communism

Democratic centralism

Dictatorship of the proletariat

History of communism

Left-wing politics

Luxemburgism

New Class  New Left

Post-Communism

Eurocommunism

Titoism

Primitive communism

Socialism  Stalinism

Socialist economics

Since communists advocate social equality, they are theoretically opposed to monarchy, aristocracy, and other forms of hereditary privilege. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the communist movement was at odds with the traditional monarchies that ruled over much of the European continent. At the time, monarchists were the most prominent anti-communists, and many European monarchies outlawed the public expression of communist views.

However, after World War I several European monarchies were overthrown in a series of revolutions and military engagements. The most conservative European monarchy, the Russia empire, was replaced by the communist-run Soviet Union. The Russian Revolution inspired and actively supported a series of other communist revolutions across Europe in the years 1917-1922. The Soviet policy of ruthlessly repressing dissent and treating religious leaders as enemies of the state, meanwhile, shocked much of the world.

Francisco Franco and President Dwight D. Eisenhower in Madrid in 1959.

The 1920s and 30s saw the fading of traditionalist conservatism. The mantle of anti-communism was taken up by American-inspired Liberalism on the one hand and the rising fascist movements on the other. Communism remained largely a European phenomenon, so anti-communism was also concentrated in Europe. American anti-communist sentiments tended to follow their European counterparts. When communist groups and political parties began appearing elsewhere in the world, such as in the Republic of China in the late 1920s, their first opponents were usually either colonial authorities and/or local nationalist movements, ofter inspired by American democracy, but sometimes by fascism. Anti-communist dictatorships that were established in Europe in the late 1930s, such as the government of Francisco Franco in Spain, are considered to fall somewhere on the border between traditional conservatism and fascism.

During World War II, the liberal democracies set aside anti-communist in order to ally themselves with Stalin's Russia against Hitler, and non-governmental organizations opposed to communism suffered a setback. After World War II, the Soviet Union became a super-power, and communism became a more global phenomenon. Anti-communism became an integral part of the domestic and foreign policies of the United States and its NATO allies. As the reality of Stalin's tyranny became more apparent, liberal anti-communism gained increasing moral authority. Meanwhile, conservatism in the post-war era abandoned its monarchist and aristocratic associations, focusing instead on the preservation of the free market, private property, human rights, the legitimate interests of large corporations, and the defense of traditional values. This opposition became a cornerstone of American conservative thought in the 1940s and 50s. The rise of Communist China raised the specter of communism taking over Asia, and the policy of the Soviet Union and China to foster revolution throughout the world made the communist threat a very real one in many people's minds.

File:Karsh Churchill.jpg

Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill warned the world that the a communist "Iron Curtain" had fallen in Eastern Europe, while the United States made anti-communism the top priority of its foreign policy. The U.S. and its allies in the United Nations joined to oppose communist aggression during the Korean War, when the Stalinist regime of Kim Il-sung invaded the South in an attempt to unify the country under communist rule. During this time, American conservatives sought to combat what they saw as a growing communist influence at home. This led to the adoption of a number of repressive domestic policies that are collectively known under the term "McCarthyism."

In the 60s, the U.S. attempted once again to stop the communist advance, this time in Vietnam. Unlike in Korea, where the U.S. effort was strongly supported by virtually all South Koreans—American forces found themselves mired in a less clear-cut situation. The U.S. ultimately withdrew from the conflict and allowed the communists to take over not only Vietnam, but Cambodia and Laos as well.

Throughout the Cold War, governments in Asia, Africa, and Latin America turned to the United States for political and economic support. Some of these were liberal democracies, but others were authoritarian regimes, which—according to their critics—used the fear of communism as a means of legitimizing repression.

During the 1970s, communist revolutions in South America and Asia advanced in the wake of the U.S. failure in Vietnam. Meanwhile, dissidents in the Soviet Union added their voices to the anti-communist cause by exposing abuses of human rights such as the Gulag Archipelago. In 1980s, the conservative governments of Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in Britain followed a clearly anti-Soviet foreign policy that is credited as a major factor in the fall of the Soviet Union and the democratization of Eastern Europe and other countries.

In the aftermath of the Cold War, communism is no longer seen as a major force in world politics, and therefore most conservatives are far less concerned with anti-communism. However, both liberal and conservatives express concerns over human rights abuses in China, Cuba, and North Korea, an anti-communist groups continue to struggle against resurgent far-leftism in such nations as Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Special types of anti-communism

Religious anti-communism

Soviet communism followed Marx in teaching that religion was the "opiate of the masses" and actively sought to destroy religious institutions. The main target of communist "militant atheism" in the Soviet Union was usually the Russian Orthodox Church, but Catholics also were targeted. Thousands of priests and believers died when they resisted communist attempts to turn churches into "museums of atheism" or murdered priests deemed loyal to the Tsar or ideologically hostile to socialism. A similar pattern emerged in China, Tibet, North Korea, North Vietnam, and other communist stronghold, with Buddhists, Christians of various denominations, and others feeling the brunt of communist repression.

The Orthodox churches sometimes resisted the communists, but Orthodox leaders also were willing to compromise with the state, even to the degree of being suspected of working with the secret police to root out believers who were disloyal to Soviet policy. The relatively cooperative attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church resulted both from a desire retain at least some of its believers and protect its most sacred sites, but also from a long-standing attitude in the Orthodox tradition which held that the church and state should work in harmony with one another wherever possible. Nevertheless Orthodox believers often spoke out against communism, and in the west many Orthodox Christian were active in groups such as the Captive Nations Committee and other anti-communist movements.

The Catholic Church, on the other hand, has a strong history of anti-communism. Catholicism, for one thing, had its headquarters outside of the Soviet Empire, in Rome. Additionally, the papacy had a long tradition of confronting secular rulers it considered incompatible with the Catholic faith. In Hungary, Cardinal Mindzenty became an international symbol of opposition to communist oppression of the Church, and Catholic leaders in other communist nations often ran into problems with communist authorities. One of these, who later became Pope John Paul II, was harsh critic of communism. Earlier popes had shared this view as well. For example Pope Pius IX issued Papal encyclical called Quanta Cura in which he called "Communism and Socialism" a most fatal error

Protestants were often even more vocal in their opposition to communism. Without strong international associations, however, they lacked political leverage and were repressed by the communists in the most brutal manner. In the U.S., groups such as the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade rose up to alert Christians throughout the world to the suffering of Christians in the communist world.

Jews, too, faced repression in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Orthodox Jews faced serious persecution not unlike that of the Christians, while secular Jews faced job discrimination and all Jews found it virtually impossible to leave the country. Jewish anti-communist in the west usually found expression in broader political movements such as social democracy and labor unions, but in the 1970s a large-scale campaign on behalf of Soviet Jewry found expression in Jewish synagogues.

Fascist anti-communism

Fascism and Soviet Communism both arose to prominence after World War I. At the end the war, socialist uprisings or the threat of them arose throughout Europe. In Germany, the Spartacist uprising of January 1919 failed, but in Bavaria, communists successfully overthrew the government and established the Bavarian Soviet Republic, which lasted for a few weeks in 1919. Similar short-lived Soviet republics emerged in other German states and a Soviet government was also briefly established in Hungary under Béla Kun in 1919. The Russian Revolution also inspired revolutionary movements in Italy, a wave of labor strikes in Britain, the Winnipeg General Strike in Canada, the Seattle General Strike in the U.S., and other radical events.

Fascism was in part a reaction against to these developments. Italian fascism, led by Benito Mussolini, took power in 1922 with the blessing of Italy's king after years of leftist unrest led many conservatives to fear that a communist revolution was a very real threat. Throughout Europe, numerous aristocrats and conservative intellectuals as well as capitalists and industrialists lent their support to fascist movements in their countries that arose in emulation of Italian fascism. Meanwhile in Germany, numerous right wing nationalist groups arose, particularly out of the post-war Freikorps, which were used to crush both the Spartacist uprising and the Munich Soviet.

During the worldwide Great Depression of the 1930s, communist and fascist movements were bitterly and often violently opposed to each. The most notable example of this conflict was the Spanish Civil War, which became in part a proxy war between the fascist countries and their international supporters who backed Francisco Franco and the worldwide Communist movement (allied uneasily with anarchists and Trotskyists) which backed the Republican government and were aided chiefly by the Soviet Union.

Adolf Hitler, too, rose to power partly on the basis of his anti-communism, as well as his ideology of Aryan superiority and anti-semitism. Indeed, much of Hitler's anti-semitism focused on the alleged Jewish responsibility for the rise of communism. Initially, the Soviet Union supported the a coalition with the western powers against Nazi Germany as well as popular fronts in various countries against domestic fascism. The Munich Agreement between Germany, France, and Britain heightened Soviet fears that the western powers were endeavoring to force them to bear the brunt of a war against Nazism. The Soviets thus negotiated a non-aggression pact with Germany—the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939, more commonly known as the Hitler-Stalin pact.

Stalin was taken by surprise when Nazi Germany broke the pact and invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, with Operation Barbarossa. Fascism and communism reverted to their relationship as lethal enemies, with the war—in the eyes of both sides—becoming one between their respective ideologies.

With the defeat of the Axis Powers, fascist anti-communism was dealt a death blow. However, fascist elements persisted in the world anti-communist movement, often to the dismay of its other components.

U.S. Anti-communism and the Cold War

Following World War II, and the rise of the Soviet Union, many of the objections to Communism took on an added urgency because of the stated Communist view that their ideology was universal. The fear of many anti-Communists within the United States was that Communism would triumph throughout the entire world and eventually be a direct threat to the government of the United States. This view led to the so-called "domino theory," in which a communist takeover in certain nations could not be tolerated because it could lead to a chain reaction which would result in a triumph of world communism. There were also fears, not unfounded, that powerful nations like the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China were using their power to create and support revolutions in various country, as well as to forcibly assimilate other countries into communist rule, as in the case of Eastern Europe, Tibet, South Korea, and South Vietnam. Many politicians adopted a pragmatic anti-communism, opposing the both the communist ideology and the growth of communist revolutions as a way of limiting the expansion of the Soviet Empire. The US policy of halting further communist expansion came to be known as "containment."

Anti-Communism and NGOs

A number of U.S. groups worked to oppose communism during the Cold War. These include:

• U.S. Council for World Freedom: Created in the early 1970s to act as the U.S. coordinating committee sending delegations to the W.A.C.L.
• Captive Nations Committee: An association of liberal and conservative anti-communists working on behalf of the rights of nations and peoples who fell under the Soviet yolk after WWII.
• Christian Anti-Communism Crusade: U.S. educational organization which engaged in large scale seminars focusing on communism's incompatibility with Christianity.
• Freedom Leadership Foundation: A Unificationist educational organization that created a "Critique and Counterproposal to Communism," promoted the cause of Soviet dissidents, and educated young people against Marxist ideology.
• Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation: Catholic-based educational organization named after the famous Hungarian prelate who was persecuted in his home country and sound sanctuary for several years in the U.S. Embassy.
• CAUSA: Unficationist successor to the Freedom Leadership Foundation which created sophisticated anti-communist seminars both in the U.S. and Latin America.
• Cuban Anti-Communist Groups: Various Cuban anti-communist groups included Alpha 66 (a militant groups sometimes accused of violence and arson) and Abadala (a more liberal group which emphasized exposing human rights abuses in Casto's Cuba).
• Hungarian Freedom Fighters: An association of pro-democracy Hungarians who had supported their nation's unsuccessful resistance to communist aggression.
• Voice of the Martyrs: Founded by the persecuted Rumanian pastor Richard Wurmbrandt and dedicated to publicizing the plight especially of Protestant Christians in Eastern Europe.
• Accuracy In Media: One of America's first media watchdog groups, A.I.M. focussed especially on the mainstream media's lack of balance in report on anti-communist issues.
• Council Against Communist Aggression: Washington D.C.-based groups created to foster communication and networking among groups and individuals in the nation's capital opposed to communism.

After the Cold War

The United States government based its anti-communism both on national defense priorities with the Soviet Union as its most powerful international rival and the human rights record of Communist states—notably the Soviet Union during the Stalin era, Maoist China, Cuba, North Vietnam, and North Korea, and the short-lived Khmer Rouge government in Cambodia led by Pol Pot. These states killed of millions of their own people in the course of ending capitalism and continued to suppress civil liberties of the surviving population.

Anti-communism became significantly muted after the fall of the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc communist regimes in Eastern and Central Europe between 1989 and 1991. The fear of a worldwide communist takeover is no longer a serious concern. Remnants of anti-communism remain, however, in United States foreign policy toward Cuba, mainland China, and North Korea. The growth of China as a major economic and military power is a major concern for some. The conservative wing of the Republican Party opposes opposes trade normalization and military cooperation with China, while liberals in the Democratic Party sometimes favor imposing sanctions on China for its human rights violations and its treatment of Tibet.

See also

This entry is related to, but not included in the Political ideologies series or one of its sub-series. Other related articles can be found at the Politics Portal.

• American Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia
• Anti-fascism
• Anti-Stalinist left
• Capitalism
• Category:Anti-communists
• Category:Soviet dissidents
• Cold War
• Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia
• Criticisms of communism
• Criticisms of Communist party rule
• Evil empire
• House Unamerican Activities Committee
• Joseph McCarthy and McCarthyism
• National Alliance of Russian Solidarists
• National Committee for a Free Europe
• Nationalist Movement
• Operation Condor
• Operation Gladio
• Radio Free Europe
• Second Red Scare
• Reagan Doctrine
• Stay-behind
• Strategy of tension
• Truman Doctrine
• Western propaganda
• World Anti-Communist League
• Iron Man#Origins (anti-Communist comic book superhero)

External links

• Anti-Communist Action
• The Chilean Anti-Communist League
• Industrial Workers of the World: The IWW Shattered – an excerpt from Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States
• Hirata Tetsuo and John W. Dower, "Japan's Red Purge: Lessons from a Saga of Suppression of Free Speech and Thought"

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