Anti-communism
"A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies. Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as communistic by its opponents in power? Where is the opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of communism, against the more advanced opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries?" — Opening of the Communist Manifesto
Anti-communism is a reactionary position which is opposed to the creation and spread of communism, revolution, and Marxist movements. Anti-communism is interlinked with support for the capitalist system, and has been a core aspect of anti-Semitic and fascist tendencies. Nominally "left-wing" opponents of communism are known as the non-communist left.
Anti-communism is as old as communism itself, and has taken many forms throughout the history of capitalism. Examples of anti-communism include Jewish Bolshevism, the Red Scares, McCarthyism, and in the present, cultural Marxism.
Beliefs and propaganda
Communism as a totalitarian movement
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Excess deaths in socialist states
Anti-communists frequently cite the supposedly massive death toll in socialist states, often asserted to be in the tens of millions, to discredit communist movements. Sources for these claims generally derive, directly or indirectly, from the Black Book of Communism, a notorious propaganda-piece which employs intellectually fraudulent methods to reach a total estimate of over 100 million deaths under communist states.[a][1] Anti-communists who make assertions about the death toll under communism care little about the extremely high death toll under capitalism.[2]
Anti-communism in academia
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See also
References
- ↑ Stephane Courtois, Karel Bartošek et al. (1997). The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Available on the Internet Archive.
- ↑ Engel-Di Mauro, Salvatore; et al. (May 4, 2021). "Anti-Communism and the Hundreds of Millions of Victims of Capitalism". Capitalism Nature Socialism.
Notes
- ↑ They include revisionist and non-communist states in the estimate, including the People's Republic of China under the leadership of both Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.