Cold war anti-communism and the impact of communism on the West

Abstract

As the polarization of the Cold War began to shape strategic and ideological alignments – first in Europe and then rapidly, albeit haphazardly, on other continents – anti-communism rose to prominence as a key political language throughout the West. As such, postwar anti-communism was not intrinsically different from its interwar predecessor. It still embraced liberals who praised individualism and markets, social democrats who entrusted progress to state planning and collective bargaining, Christian democrats who prioritized family, community and religion, and authoritarian anti-Bolshevist nationalists. There were, however, two key differences. The first was the marginalization of the fascist version of anti-communism, epitomized by the isolated regime of Francisco Franco in Spain. The second and more important one was the replacement of destabilizing rivalries among the various anti-communist political families with an uneven but robust, resilient operational unity