Anti-Leftist Politics in Modern World History: Avoiding 'Socialism' at All Costs

289 Pages·2021·28.603 MB·English

by  Philip B. Minehan

Anti-Leftist Politics in

Modern World History
ii
Anti-Leftist Politics in

Modern World History
Avoiding “Socialism” at All Costs
Philip B. Minehan
BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
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First published in Great Britain 2022
Copyright © Philip B. Minehan, 2022
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Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.
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Cover design: Terry Woodley
Cover image © Ruins (Detail) by Fernando Velazquez. Oil on canvas, 100 x 160cm, 2020
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Minehan, Philip B., author.
Title: Anti-leftist politics in modern world history : avoiding “socialism”
at all costs / Philip B. Minehan.
Description: London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2021. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021025431 (print) | LCCN 2021025432 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781350170643 (hardback) | ISBN 9781350170650 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781350170667 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: History, Modern–20th century. | History, Modern–19th
century. | Right and left (Political science)–History. |
Socialism–History. | Liberalism–History. | Imperialism–History. |
Communism–History. | Fascism–History. | Neoliberalism–History.
Classification: LCC D445 .M56 201 (print) |
LCC D445 (ebook) | DDC 909.82–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021025431
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021025432
ISBN: HB: 978-1-3501-7064-3
ePDF: 978-1-3501-7065-0
eBook: 978-1-3501-7066-7
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For Ángeles and Miranda
vi
Contents

List of Figures ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction and Historical Background 1
Introduction 1
Historical Background in Europe to 1871: The Problem of the Left and
the Liberal Solutions 5
Part 1 The Failed Solutions: Imperialism, the Great War, Fascism,
Anti-Bolshevism, and the Second World War
Introduction 15
1 The Imperial Solution, 1871–1917 17
The Example of Colonial India and the South Asian Diaspora 27
2 The Fascist Solution: From Anti-Socialism and Anti-Bolshevism to
another World War, 1917–39 43
3 The Second World War, 1939–45: From Anti-Communism to
Anti-Communism 67
Part 2 The US-led Global Anti-Communist Solution
Introduction 91
4 Soft on Social Democracy, Hard on “Communism”: Britain, the United
States, Greece, China, Korea, and Indochina 95
Britain and the United States 95
Anti-Communism in Greece 101
Anti-Communism in China, Korea, and Indochina 103
China 103
Korea 109
Indochina 115
viii Contents
5 Cold War Bipolarities versus Complex Realities: Examples from Africa
and the Middle East 125
British and US Anti-Communism in Parts of Sub-Saharan Africa 127
Algeria 134
The Middle East: Fighting the Cold War, Planting Seeds for the “War
on Terror” 136
6 Anti-Leftist Politics in Western Europe, Latin America, and the United
States to the 1970s 151
Western Europe: Anti-Communism and Social Democracy 151
Latin America: The United States and Anti-Reformist
Anti-“Communism” 158
The Course and Character of Anti-Leftist Politics in the United States
to the 1970s 172
Conflicting Global Currents: Leftist Upsurge, Economic Downturn,
and the Shift to Neo-Liberalism 182
Part 3 The Neoliberal Solution
Introduction 193
7 The Overkill 199
Neoliberal Rollback in Latin America: Operation Condor and
the Contras 199
Iran, Afghanistan, and the Coming “War on Terror” 204
The New Model in Full Force: Globalized Capitalist Production
and Its Political Consequences 207
The Collapse of the Soviet Union 210
Post–Cold War US-led Political and Military Triumphalism 211
Summary and Conclusion 225
Epilogue: The Pathology, the Pandemic, and the Prospects 233
Bibliography 245
Index 257
Figures
1 Communards in their coffins, Paris, May 1871 12
2 Child laborer in South Carolina, United States, 1908 37
3 Rosa Luxemburg, of Polish-Jewish-German origin and an ardent
socialist internationalist 62
4 Russia, 1921 63
5 Ku Klux Klan (KKK) parade, Washington, DC, September 13, 1926 64
6 “Paul Robeson, world famous Negro baritone” 87
7 Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-Shek toasting to the victory over Japan, 1945 120
8 Jomo Kenyatta with leaders of the Lembus people that had protected
him from British colonial persecution in the 1950s 147
9 Italian Communist Party leader Palmiro Togliatti and labor leader
Giuseppe Di Vittorio in the 1950s 187
10 Martin Luther King Jr. and fellow activists during the 1963 March on
Washington for Jobs and Freedom 188
11 American troops in the Long Khanh Province of South Vietnam look to
the sky for a helicopter evacuation of their fallen comrade 189
12 President Salvador Allende of Chile and his security and political
entourage in Valparaiso, Chile, during the early 1970s 220
13 Manolis Glezos (1922–2020) speaking in Omonia Square in Athens, 2015 221
14 One of the mass graves of Spanish republicans discovered in an
excavation from July to August 2014 at Estépar, in the province of Burgos 232
15 Supporters of Donald Trump in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021 243