lin ukases whenever it suited them?rnDoesn’t he, a scholar, know that overnightrnthe veteran communist leaderrnEarl Browder in 1945 became an enemyrnof the Party at Stalin’s orders and wasrnpurged? It was only an accident ofrngeography that worse didn’t happen tornBrowder and other purged AmericanrnCommunists.rnProfessor Powers takes care to distinguishrnamong different categories of anticommunists.rnHe is critical of what herncalls “countersubversive anticommunism”rn—the anticommunism of congressionalrncommittees and conspiracy theoreticiansrnlike Joe McCarthy. In actualrnfact, not all of these committees werernanywhere near as bad as they were depictedrnby the left; neither were they exemplarsrnof McCarthyism. The “countersubversivernanticommunist” operated onrnthe principle that a communist conspiracy,rndirected and financed by Moscow,rnexisted. And while it was quite the intellectualrnfashion in those days to sneer atrnexposes of “Moscow gold” financing therninternational communist movement,rnthe opening of Soviet archives, thousandsrnof its documents now reposing onrnmicrofilm at the Hoover Institution library,rnhas confirmed that the Kremlinrnspent perhaps hundreds of millions ofrndollars on its Western affiliates: aboveground,rnunderground, and camouflaged.rnThere was also the anticommunism ofrnAmerican labor—of men like GeorgernMeany and David Dubinsky. There werernthose intellectuals who had been closernto, or actually became. CommunistrnParty members, and then had defectedrnfor all kinds of reasons—the Moscowrntrials, the Nazi-Soviet Pact, Stalin’srnseizure of Eastern Europe, the attack onrnHungary in 1956, Khrushchev’s anti-rnStalin speech. Something was alwaysrnsure to happen that would test a partyrnmember’s faith in Stalinism.rnThe dominant force in American anticommunism,rnsays Professor Powers, wasrnthe foreign policy of liberal internationalismrngoing back to Woodrow Wilson,rnwho rejected the Bolshevik Revolution;rnto President Truman; and, finally, tornPresident Reagan, who like Trumanrnregarded appeasement or detente asrndefeatist compromises with an esurientrnSoviet Union. In fact, Mr. Reagan worernhis anticommunism as a badge of honor.rnOn the very day he left the WhiternHouse, he said: “I am proud to say that Irnam still an anticommunist.” And, abovernall, there was what is too often patronizinglyrncalled the good sense of the Americanrnpeople, who knew without much instructionrnfrom their betters that communismrnwas bad; bad for themselves asrnwage-earners, for their children and theirrnchildren’s ambitions, for family values—rnfor their country.rnAnticommunism got a bad name inrnthe 1960’s owing to Vietnam, and in thern70’s, according to William F. Buckley,rnthanks to President Nixon’s detente policies.rnPowers quotes Buckley as sayingrnthat under Nixon’s “tutelage, the entirernanti-Communist constituency was disarmed.”rnAnti-anticommunism becamerna rallying slogan for the liberal left. Powersrnsingles out Norman Podhoretz, thenrneditor of Commentary, as the man whorn”summoned the will, the strength andrnthe imagination to commence the giantrntask of rebuilding the anticommunistrncoalition.” Powers also credits the Committeernon the Present Danger for havingrnbrought back the liberal internationalismrnethos which had been so effective in organizingrnanticommunist policies. Whatrnis striking about the political scene in thern1970’s is that while anticommunism inrnthe United States weakened, it was, asrnPowers puts it, “reborn in the heart of thernSoviet empire” as a result of the braveryrnof Andrei Sakharov, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,rnand other dissidents.rnThere was a moment back in 1989,rnwith the fall of the Berlin Wall, and twornyears later when the Soviet Union disintegratedrninto a collection of 15 independentrnstates, when anticommunists couldrnempathize with Othello: “O! now, forever,rn/ Farewell the tranquil mind; farewellrncontent! / Farewell! Othello’s occupation’srngone.” Who would have thoughtrnthat a few years later they would be wonderingrnwhether it were really gone?rnI am writing this essay in early March,rnBy the time it is published, we may see arncommunist president of the Russian Federation.rnAnd if by a miracle Boris Yeltsinrnis reelected, he will probably be a prisonerrnof a resurgent Communist Party. Sornonce again the anticommunists will havernto reorganize, although this time theyrnmay have a different kind of communistrnadversary; even one, perhaps, without arndriving ideology like Marxism-Leninism.rnrnA Satirical Poet, Turned Down for anrnNEA Grant, Consoles HimselfrnWith an Image of True Grandeurrnby Richard MoorernBridling at every limit, herndetests his anonymity:rnto celebrate his crimes,rnwrites letters to The Times.rnO, Unabomber, hail yourrnsuccess It is no failurernto stay obscure, unknown.rnBe glad that you alonernhave held the helpless Feds off,rnwhile blowing all those heads off.rnJULY 1996/31rnrnrn