It’s not uncommon when reading some historical account of the
1950s to come across references to “anti-communist hysteria” or, in the
Australian context, fears of “Reds under the bed”. These terms tend to imply that,
during the Cold War, there was an irrational fear of communist infiltration in
the western world which led to the imposition of intrusive surveillance
measures, draconian legislation and violations of both personal and political
freedom. They tend to be used by people who either were communist
sympathisers during that period (and perhaps still are) or were not actually
alive at the time.
To get some perspective on what the level of threat actually
was, it would be fair to say that the “communist menace”
of the Fifties was not unlike the threat of radical Islam today.
The reality is that goal of the International Communism in the Fifties was identical to the current
goal of Al Qaeda and Islamic State: that is to say - world domination. The aim of I.S.
is to establish a worldwide Islamic caliphate. The aim of the U.S.S.R. was to
establish a worldwide union of socialist republics. Of course, like I.S., the U.S.S.R.
could not simply invade other countries and impose a communist regime on them (though it would do so later to stop them becoming UNcommunist) so its strategy was to preach the doctrine of Marxism as
far and as wide as possible and cultivate revolutionary cells
in as many countries as possible.
The m.o. of international communism was therefore remarkably like that of its
counterpart today.
Like I.S., the Communist Party especially targeted young people
in spreading of its ideology since young people tend to be idealistic, already resentful of authority
and not too well informed. Both organisations had and have their sacred texts:
the Koran for I.S. and Das
Kapital and the Communist Manifesto for the Socialists. Both movements also promoted their philosophy via a promise of Paradise. For I.S. it is a paradise in the afterlife; for Communists it was a paradise
on Earth.
Both movements also employed different strategies to foment
revolution depending on the type of society they were targeting and the degree
of impetus towards an actual revolution. The Soviets sent organisers, agitators and propagandists into the western democracies to
assist with party structuring and operation. They trained the locals in recruiting techniques, and funded the costs of printing booklets and pamphlets,
paid for office rental and costs of travel – often to Moscow for "advanced instruction." In the
developing world, where societies were already simmering on the brink of revolt, they
provided arms and military advisors to assist the overthrow of governments.
In the same way I.S. and Al Qaeda jihadists adopt multiple tactics
to advance their aims. They recruit soldiers whom they train in Afghan camps to
conduct military invasions of provinces in Syria and Iraq, while at the same time
creating bases of sympathisers in the western democracies to provide financial
and other assistance for those militants. In moderate Moslem countries they
cultivate the growth of radical Islamist cells and a return to sharia law and in non-Moslem countries they
send proselytisers to encourage the “lone wolf” martyrdom attacks and provide
instructions for bombs and other terror weapons via the Internet.
In the end however, what communism and radical Islam have most in common, is that they aim to impose totalitarian order on the world – to establish a system of government where individual choice is impossible and dissent illegal. There is thus no real difference between an imam at a mosque exhorting young Moslems to wage jihad and a university lecturer telling students that a Marxist-Leninist society that Socialist is a moral responsibility.
Of course, at the moment, radical Islam seems to present a more immediate
threat than the Communist Party of Australia who, as far as we know, has never
beheaded anyone or crashed an airliner. But the fear of Communism in that
period of the Cold War was not unjustified.
In the 20 years following World War 2, communist or
communist supported uprisings occurred in Malaya, Indonesia, Cuba, China,
Korea, Congo, Vietnam, The Philippines, Ethiopia, South Yemen, Mozambique, Burma and Sudan, amongst others.
Some of these, such as those in Malaya and Indonesia were overcome, others
ended in stalemate, partition or the rise of dictators; others continue to the
present day. It is true that many if not most of these uprisings were against brutal
dictators and/or exploitative and inhumane colonial masters. The problem for the democracies however was that with each overthrow of a colonial
dictatorship – regardless of how justified - the international influence the of the U.S.S.R. grew.
Whereas the radical Islamic presents a threat of random localised acts of
violence, the mingling of communism with nationalist and independence movements threatened to
strengthen an expansionist regime that possessed thousands of nuclear arms and intent on ruling
the world. What such a world might be like was graphically illustrated in the swift and brutal
response of the Soviets to Hungary and
Czechoslovakian when they sought to declare independence from the Soviet bloc.
However the fear of Communism was not just that it was tool for increasing the political influence of a ruthless, well-armed, totalitarian regime. It was seen as a threat
for a far more subtle reason – the very fact of its superficial plausibility.
The actions of jihadists - martyrdom, mass murder, destruction of artefacts, beheadings
and enslavements - are so alienating to most people that only the alienated, the ignorant, the stupid and the psychopathic are drawn to it. Socialism
on the other hand weaves a subtle web of persuasion, appealing to humanitarianism,
pacifism and notions of natural justice. The great fear during the Cold War
was that, even given the violation of human rights, the mass executions, the
labour camps, the appalling economic mismanagement and deaths of millions
through famine in U.S.S.R and China, many Westerners would continue to be
seduced by the childish idealism of the Marxism. And indeed, the fact that in
spite of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the failure of Cuba and the corruption
of nearly all communist states into brutal autocracies, there are still people - academics, artists, broadcasters and public intellectuals - in this country who tacitly or explicitly espouse
and endorse Socialist doctrine, and that many of the illogical tenets of Marxist theory still influence public discourse in this
country, shows that those fears of 60 years ago, were not unfounded.
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