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What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

Anti-anticommunism

There has been an interesting back-and-forth over at Taki's Magazine (which, by the way, ought to be daily viewing for any conservative dissatisfied with the Bush administration) concerning the "anti-anticommunism" of John Lukacs.

It all came up because of Lukacs's hit piece on Patrick Buchanan's recently published book, Churchill, Hitler, and The Unnecessary War - which has led to a lot of sound & fury, in the past few days, which I will not even attempt to recount.

Anyway, the most interesting response to Lukacs' review, to my mind, came from Richard Spencer. And the most interesting response to Richard Spencer came from our own Daniel Larison. Please do read both - I think you'll find it worth your while.

Though I was as fascinated by DL's piece as I am by everything he writes, I must admit that I find myself very much in Richard Spencer's camp, here - especially after reviewing Lukacs' notorious article "The poverty of anti-communism".

It just strikes me as incredible that any reasonable human being could still believe that universalist communism was, in the long run, a trivial threat, in comparison to German nationalism.

I mean, c'mon, guys...what is the biggest problem we face today? Is it nationalism, of any stripe?

Or is it universalism?

Comments (31)

Can't I be both anti-communist and in favor of World War II against the Nazis? I always thought it was possible to be both...So, if you're anti-communist, I'm getting here from reading these articles, you are supposed to question the necessity of WWII. Who knew?

"So, if you're anti-communist, I'm getting here from reading these articles, you are supposed to question the necessity of WWII. Who knew?

I think the debate waging at Takimag has a fever swamp edge to it, but is ultimately a healthy one. Two things need to be challenged; 1) the civic religion built around WWII with it's hagiographies surrounding Churchill and Roosevelt, and the gloss covering some of the motives and conduct by the Allies. 2) the neo-con narrative that it is forever 1938 with modern-day "appeasers" leaving us vulnerable before the reigning Hitler(s) de jour.

A sense of proportion seems lacking over at Taki, with John Lukacs' reputation, unfairly taking the biggest hit. It isn't difficult to simultaneously hold the following views; WWII though inevitable, could have been waged differently and ended earlier. That anti-communism had excesses, which lead to blunders during the "Cold War" and some deep, long-lasting and negative consequences in it's aftermath, but thank God, the anti-communists prevailed.

Instead, some are straining to develop a "paleo-party line" that neatly falls in perfect opposition to neo-con mythology and selective history. Doomed to fail, of course, yet any debate that brings the horrors of war and the less than noble reasoning of it's proponents to the fore of our self-understanding is a very positive development.

"a fever swamp edge to it..."

We can certainly agree there. Oy. Or yikes. Or something like that.

Check out some of the commenters on Buchanan's retrospective regarding Munich. A certain "Cognate", would clearly never say; oy'. Or, deserve the sobriquet of mensch.

The reason for the intensity with which these matters of historical interpretation are debated among paleos owes to the association, in politico-historical myth, of the American campaigns in the World Wars and the obliteration of the remnants of the older, less-centralized American Republic. Once neoconservatives and other apologists and shills for the managerial state progress beyond narrow questions of historical fact and analysis, and incorporate those analyses into broader narrative frameworks, they tend to argue, sometimes explicitly, as with Norman Podhoretz's infamous admission that the historical destiny of neoconservatism was to drag the conservative movement, against its will, into acceptance of the managerial state, that all of these developments were inevitable: that American involvement in the wars was inevitable, and if this entailed the demise of the Old Republic, well, that merely demonstrates that conservatives must reconcile themselves to intractable realities; or, perhaps, that the demise of the sort of world order in which the Old Republic, if it ever possessed legitimacy, made some sense, entailed the emergence of a world order in which American involvement in foreign wars - the empire - was more or less necessary. In other words, the association of American foreign policy in the Twentieth Century with domestic developments in political economy is essentially presented as a package deal; the evolution of American capitalism bequeathed global interests and/or the imperatives of intervention in the European wars resulted in America inheriting global interests. Regardless of the specifics of the interpretation, paleos are reproached for failing to grasp the imperatives of modern political economy, for failing to reconcile themselves to the logic of modern managerial, mass-democratic politics. In response, therefore, it is natural for paleos to endeavour to demonstrate the contingency of each one of the cherished historical moments of the neoconservatives.

As regards anticommunism, I've already said my piece on the subject,so I'll quote a particularly pungent section of the Larison essay Steve linked:


Anticommunism served as the common ground, the chief organizing principle of diverse groups on the right, which compelled traditional conservatives into a dubious alliance with the cheerleaders of corporate capitalism not necessarily that much less antithetical to the stability and integrity of their communities and their way of life, drove the right to embrace a series of questionable foreign wars, deployments and foreign commitments that continue to burden our country with their costs and to reconcile itself to an expansive security state whose unchecked power makes invocations of constitutional constraints quaint and amusing and, of course, opened the door to the neoconservatives who gained entry and found common cause mostly thanks to their even more intense anticommunism that was the fruit of old quarrels from the left. At the end of the Cold War, some anticommunists who had embraced a relatively more hawkish line in the Cold War now saw the conflict as over and all of the things just mentioned as no longer necessary, yet it is almost unavoidable that “emergency” and “temporary” powers that they are never temporary and will continue long after the emergency has ended (especially when the “emergency” lasts for five decades).

And, of course, as is well-known, once the Cold War had concluded, many factions within the American body politic and foreign policy establishments sought both to resurrect that conflict and to devise alternative rationales for the expansive national security apparatus it had engendered; we have heard no end of risible mythmaking, concerning the Indispensable Nation, Globalization, Global Democratic Capitalism, Benevolent Global Hegemony, Democratization, Islamofascism, and so forth, and the wreckage results lie about us. It so happens that an appreciation of the origins of our present discontents necessitates reconsideration of past commitments and attachments. So be it. That is the nature of historical consciousness.

Can't I be both anti-communist and in favor of World War II against the Nazis? I always thought it was possible to be both...

You absolutely can, Lydia. And those that aren't, I worry about.

The anti-anti-Nazi position is obviously disordered to anyone not in its thrall. The anti-anti-communist position is seemingly quite rational, which makes its errors more devastating and demoralizing.

"The reason for the intensity with which these matters of historical interpretation are debated among paleos..."

What I object to is the lack of humility and sense of humor necessary to entering a debate that eventually turns on the mystery of iniquity and man's fallen nature. Like the neo-cons, one often senses in some paleo's, a thinly veiled contempt for this nation, her people and her story. The warts are just too much, the villains too many, for them to bear. A necessary and noble correction of the historical record, thus becomes clouded by a warped nostalgia for a non-existent time and an implausible, often bitter revisionism. I yield to no one in my loathing for the Managerial State, but it's roots run deeper than the causes offered in these trips back to the "dirty '30's". The rise of Leviathan was inevitable in light of our historical predilection for conquest and expansion. The only corrective is genuinely turning to Christ, not a reckless settling of old, forgotten ("how dare they smear Lindbergh") and dubious scores. I sometimes think many would are content settle for the cheap grace of pounding yesterday's bogeymen.

edit;
I sometimes think many are simply content to settle for the cheap grace of pounding yesterday's bogeymen.

"Like the neo-cons, one often senses in some paleo's, a thinly veiled contempt for this nation, her people and her story."

While I can't speak for everyone involved in the debate, I can say quite confidently that I don't have contempt for "this nation, her people and her story." It is disappointing to me that the argument in my post on anti-anticommunism seems to have flown right by almost everyone, since the anti-anticommunism I am describing is one that critiques the excesses and mistakes of anticommunism. It is not an argument that says that containment was wrong or unnecessary given the circumstances of post-war Europe, so obviously one can support the policy of containment and still be an anti-anticommunist of the sort I am talking about, and I'm not sure how anyone could have read the post and come to another conclusion. It doesn't therefore follow that everything done in the name of anticommunism should be beyond question or criticism, or that the ways that containment policy was used to promote misguided wars in Asia aren't beyond challenge.

To read some sort of contempt for America into a dispute over historical questions and counterfactual possibilities about WWII-era Europe strikes me as bizarre. One might ask, "Why argue about WWII-era Europe?" Of course, one might ask why anyone should study any history other than his own, and the obvious reason is that there is much to be learned from the study of the past of all nations, particularly during some of the most significant events of modern history. History, which is to say inquiry, never ends, and there are always new reassessments to be made about the past. Does revising the image of Churchill have relevance for current debates? I think it does, since it can hardly be unfamiliar to anyone here how frequently his name is trotted out by those who wish to justify every foreign adventure that comes at the expense of "this nation" and "her people."

Conservatives of all kinds should be able to recognise flaws in their country without in the least lessening in their affection and devotion to their country, and this is why I am constantly citing the Chestertonian line, "The patriot boasts not of the greatness of his country, but of its smallness." Patriots love their country with warts and all; that doesn't mean that they merrily ignore its flaws or refrain from criticising the blunders of the government. I should have thought that readers of this site would appreciate this distinction. What many paleos don't care to do is accept some official version of America's story when it conflicts with what they would argue is a more complete or less ideological understanding of our history, especially when the official story is used against "this nation, her people and her story." But it is apparently far better to put us in the same box as the neocons and be done with us.

Furthermore, the idea that one cannot maintain consistent support for non-intervention and American neutrality without falling into some grievous error is offensive. Likewise, it should be reasonable to ask whether it was in the American, or British, national interest to enter into the wars and foreign policies that they did. One would have thought that the past actions of governments, whether ours or anyone else's, would not be considered so sacrosanct that debating the wisdom of various courses of action amounted to descending into "the fever swamp." Goodness knows my colleagues here at this site have their concerns about the perfidies of Islam, and I generally regard these as reasonable and appropriate, but it would not be hard to imagine that an unsympathetic outsider would find them strange and perhaps even obsessive.

The reason for the intensity of the debate is that it involves hotly contested claims between two of the men whom most paleos admire and respect enormously, and some of my colleagues, in their eagerness to defend Mr. Buchanan against what they regard as an unacceptable attack, have tended towards using unusually strong rhetoric.

It is disappointing to me that the argument in my post on anti-anticommunism seems to have flown right by almost everyone, since the anti-anticommunism I am describing is one that critiques the excesses and mistakes of anticommunism.

Maybe you should name names. Who were the individuals responsible for the "excesses and mistakes of anticommunism?"

One would have thought that the past actions of governments, whether ours or anyone else's, would not be considered so sacrosanct that debating the wisdom of various courses of action amounted to descending into "the fever swamp."
I think part of it may be related to the way modern people view the legitimacy of peoples and governments. Nobody ever claims that (say) Bob is not a legitimate human being because there are some acts in his past the wisdom or even morality of which are questionable. Indeed we take it for granted that every human being qua human being has at times exercised questionable judgement. But modern people - for whatever bizarre reason - seem to think that history is the justifying sacrament of nations, without which a given country qua country is illegitimate. The historical narrative with respect to certain events comes to be of existential import, and as a result we can't even talk to each other about the past without committing sacreliege.

"...the idea that one cannot maintain consistent support for non-intervention and American neutrality without falling into some grievous error is offensive."

I guess it depends on what has actually happened in history. I do, in point of fact, happen to think that it's a serious error to hold that England and, later, America, should not have entered into WWII and should have simply allowed Hitler to rule Europe. (From what I have seen of his comments on this topic and re. Buchanan's position over the last few days, I'd say my position on this thesis is pretty similar to Auster's.) So if that's what "consistent support for non-intervention and American neutrality" leads one to conclude re. WWII, then I guess I'd have to say that in that case, it's led one into a serious error. One hardly needs to hold all one's government's actions in the near or distant past to be sacrosanct in order to hold this opinion on this subject.

"...it would not be hard to imagine that an unsympathetic outsider would find them strange and perhaps even obsessive."

So much the worse, then, for the opinions of the unsympathetic outsider. In fact, I was just wishing today that I could be even _more_ able than I already am not to care what other people think.

"To read some sort of contempt for America into a dispute over historical questions and counterfactual possibilities about WWII-era Europe strikes me as bizarre."

As someone who agrees with much of the criticism rightly aimed at Churchill and Roosevelt, and views our current geo-political position dangerous and delusional, I find some of the "strong rhetoric" and themes (we goaded Hitler into war surely qualifies as fevered) over at Taki's embarrassing. Kind of like stumbling into a really petty faculty lounge.

A recurring sub-text is that the American people betrayed the "Old Republic" (starting with Lincoln, or maybe it was during the Lousiana Purchase) and chose to be imperialists. I profit from reading both Lukacs and PJB, as each overturns conventional wisdom and conformist mythologies, but some of the missives written by their supporters should give anyone interested in a just and truthful rendering of the historical record, serious pause. One reads the thread over there and hopes Bill Kaufman will interject some much need humor. Balance may have to wait.

"Who were the individuals responsible for the "excesses and mistakes of anticommunism?" "

Um...Dulles, Kennedy and Johnson for starters. Rollback was an excessive expression of anticommunism, one which was fortunately never actually put into operation, but as a matter of ginning up popular hysteria it was bad enough. Getting involved in Vietnam was a mistake, and the political consensus behind doing that included McGovern and Goldwater at one point, so there were quite a few individuals who contributed to that mistake.

Um...Dulles, Kennedy and Johnson for starters...

I was just about to make that point. Never mind, as it has already been made.

Apparently, others, are equally unimpressed with the debate at Taki's;

"...you only have to look at the controversy stirred up by Pat Buchanan’s new book on Churchill and by John Lukacs negative review written by historian. Since I count both men as friends, I do not intend to enter into the polemics except to say that I have found most of the discussion superficial at best and repulsive at worst. If this is conservatism or paleoconservatism or postpaleoconservatism, I want no part of it."
Thomas Fleming
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?p=603#more-603

Ouch.

Um...Dulles, Kennedy and Johnson

OK. Just as long as you don't try to say anything bad about a certain junior senator from Wisconsin.

A recurring sub-text is that the American people betrayed the "Old Republic" (starting with Lincoln...)

The older, less centralized American Republic was destined for demise after the Civil War. Only a strong, centralized authority could prevent that tragedy from happening again and the political class learned its lesson. Whether or not that necessitates an empire to provide an external release for internal political conflict or it is an outgrowth of the Second Industrial Revolution and the strategic needs of global commerce, or if it is just plain old alliances of shared interest and history, the options for remaining neutral in international affairs are more difficult than they seem in retrospect.

I don't view McCarthy with the same hostility that, say, Viereck expressed, and if McCarthy was a bit overly dramatic and obnoxious in manner he was fundamentally right that there were Soviet agents working in our government. I would not say that the anti-anticommunists were always right in each and every instance, but that they were right to warn about exaggerating and misunderstanding the nature of the threat. It can sometimes be ultimately more dangerous to exaggerate a threat, because it then causes people to overreact by underestimating or ignoring it because the exaggeration proved to be false.

I should add that I have found the tenor and quality of the debate there badly lacking, too, I find the virtually universal hostility to Lukacs disturbing, and so I have tried in my responses to raise the level of the debate as much as I could. Perhaps I failed, but if it has not been evident in my writings I share Dr. Fleming's distaste for how the debate has been going. The thing I find baffling about all of this is that you have some who essentially agree with the substance of Lukacs' position on *American* entry into WWII ridiculing Lukacs, while I am defending Lukacs in spite of not agreeing with his views on these matters.

"I should add that I have found the tenor and quality of the debate there badly lacking,"

Good to know. Then "fever swamp" is an apt description, as there seems to be an attempt to enforce a party line at the expense of reason, charity and honesty. I am puzzled as to why Baker's excellent "Human Smoke" hasn't garnered this reaction. Is it because he lacks the paleo good housekeeping of approval? If so, all the more troubling.

"I have tried in my responses to raise the level of the debate as much as I could."

It's largely a failing of the readership and a couple of contributors who had to personalize the discussion.

Kevin,
Probably because Baker only has the seal of approval from pacifists in the grip of denial. He and Buchanan should have a discussion about who was the "real enemy" during WWII, neither of them would pick Hitler.

Step2,
Needless to say you didn't read the book, as the insinuation that he is soft on Nazism is impossible to entertain, by anyone who has.

The ramp-up to WWII has many aspects that should sicken all people of good faith. Learning the unvarnished truth is vital to re-awakening the moral imagination essential to sustaining any semblance of a civilization.

Your cheap-shot at both authors, suggests you prefer your history safely packaged for easy consumption.


I haven't followed the Taki's mag debate in great detail, but I sometimes wonder whether it's just the name, "anti-anticommunism," that causes most of the trouble. Communism has been rightly described as "the most comprehensive onslaught that has ever been mounted on the human spirit"; to my mind, opposition to this onslaught is the kind of opinion I feel that all good men ought to share.

Now, as to the question of how best to oppose it, and how would have been the best way in 1935, 1945, 1955, 1965, etc.: well, the differences of opinion would seem to naturally proliferate in great abundance and variety.

Still the terminology rankles: the anti-Communists were Dulles, Kennedy and Johnson? Interesting. Shall we then call Buckley and Burnham anti-anticommunists, on account of their frequent opposition to specific policies of said gentlemen? Much of the NR crowd was furious about Khrushchev being allowed to visit the United States in 1960; there were organized protests of considerable size. This was strident anticommunism, but it put them in opposition to establishment anticommunism.

The kind of anti-Communism I favor, and hold that all sane men ought to favor, is similar to my opposition to the Jihad: it begins with the insistence on the ineradicable wickedness of the doctrine in question. Communism and Jihad are wicked systems of human social order. There is no possible redemption for them; they should be repudiated and denounced without qualification.

Policy steps, following upon this foundational truth, are open to discussion. There is no logical reason to take anti-Communism or anti-Jihadism to mean imperialism. I don't want more foreign wars, and opposed Iraq form the beginning; but I do want to outlaw Jihad, Sharia, and Dhimma. Indeed, some of the early Cold War legislation, which aimed at directly attacking the doctrines of Communism -- the Smith Act, the so-called McCarran rider -- could provide, I believe, serviceable models for what we might need against the Jihad.

The ideal of anti-Communism, as I see it, would have been the eradication of Communist doctrine on American shores. Not wars to remove it from the world, period; but carefully crafted legislation and enforcement to weaken, enfeeble, harass and frustrate its machinations at home, while upholding its opponents abroad as best we can. Likewise, we should construct an anti-Jihad policy which, beginning with the firm judgment of the wickedness of this institution, aims toward its removal from our shores, and the establishment and preservation of its opponents abroad.

Good comment, Paul. The problem with terms like 'anti-anticommunism' is that really anyone sane should be anticommunist; which does not minimize the fact that there are vast and important differences of understanding in what that implies in terms of tactics, etc.

Of course it cuts both ways. Neoconservatives adopt the label 'anticommunist' and attempt to attach it to their favored tactics precisely because anyone who is not anticommunist in the general sense deserves to be ejected from the company and discussion of men of good will.

The ramp-up to WWII has many aspects that should sicken all people of good faith. Learning the unvarnished truth is vital to re-awakening the moral imagination essential to sustaining any semblance of a civilization.
The conduct of the war, and its immediate consequences, too, not just its antecedents. The unsullied righteousness of the Allied cause and Allied conduct have become, especially for a large portion of those who fancy themselves conservative, articles of faith of which no criticism or even doubt will be brooked. If one can cavalierly sign off on city bombing or unlimited submarine warfare, or worse, condone it after making some long faces, one can condone anything, and thus the war continues its morally coarsening effects long after its conclusion. Too, the war, and the received history of the war, did and continue to do no end of harm to conservatism as we at WWWTW understand it.

Mr. Burton wrote:

It just strikes me as incredible that any reasonable human being could still believe that universalist communism was, in the long run, a trivial threat, in comparison to German nationalism.
I have to agree with you, sir. In America, communists and their fellow travellers were and are a great deal more powerful, influential, and fashionable than any reactionary movement ever was, and certainly more so than German nationalism, the appeal of which was largely restricted to Germans. Abstract nationalism is more popular than Communism, yes, but there is no such thing in nature as abstract nationalism, only French, German, Russian, or American nationalisms which are naturally at odds with each other. Communists were able, with some success, to run an international conspiracy from Moscow. Not to the extent thought by the more fervid anticommunists who saw a Red in every shadow and who Lukacs makes his whipping boys, but on the other hand, there was no Nazi Silvermaster ring, and the Nazi government was hardly able even to cooperate with its allies.

This is a fine point, Cyrus: "Abstract nationalism is more popular than Communism, yes, but there is no such thing in nature as abstract nationalism, only French, German, Russian, or American nationalisms which are naturally at odds with each other."

If one can cavalierly sign off on city bombing or unlimited submarine warfare, or worse, condone it after making some long faces, one can condone anything, and thus the war continues its morally coarsening effects long after its conclusion. Too, the war, and the received history of the war, did and continue to do no end of harm to conservatism as we at WWWTW understand it.

Readers will recall, of course, a long-running debate right here at WWwtW about the bombing of cities, which managed to annoy and even outrage a lot of people. I don't think any of us here is under any illusions about the horror of the Second World War.

The ideal of anti-Communism, as I see it, would have been the eradication of Communist doctrine on American shores. Not wars to remove it from the world, period; but carefully crafted legislation and enforcement to weaken, enfeeble, harass and frustrate its machinations at home, while upholding its opponents abroad as best we can.

Excellent formulation.

Readers will recall, of course, a long-running debate right here at WWwtW about the bombing of cities, which managed to annoy and even outrage a lot of people. I don't think any of us here is under any illusions about the horror of the Second World War.
I remember it well. This site's contributors and regular correspondents are not the conservatives to which I was referring. I was thinking more of the reaction one would get broaching the question of the morality of the Hiroshima bombing at Free Republic.
The ideal of anti-Communism, as I see it, would have been the eradication of Communist doctrine on American shores. Not wars to remove it from the world, period; but carefully crafted legislation and enforcement to weaken, enfeeble, harass and frustrate its machinations at home, while upholding its opponents abroad as best we can.
This was Kennan's view, too, was it not?

Because of it's incomprehensible enormity, how many truly grasp the impact the "European civil wars" had on Western civilization? The carnage started in 1914, there was an interval of 2 decades and by the end of 1945, over 70 million dead. Why? The mind boggles. Any inquest into contemporary Europe's spiritually moribund state should be undertaken with humility and grief.

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