Rothbard, while impressed by the ostensiblernhousecleaning within the federalrngovernment undertaken by postv-ar anticommunists,rnheld no brief for an interventionistrnforeign policy. Like RobertrnTaft, they saw McCarthyism, rightly orrnwrongly, as an expression of anti-NewrnDeal republicanism, but not as a call tornengage in crusades beyond America’srnborders. For Chodorov and other opponentsrnof the welfare state, the overridingrnconcern was not communism but thernUnited States’ drift toward socialism. Byrncontrast, American liberals were fightingrninternational fascism even as they favoredrnstrong action against communistrnaggressors. For them, communism wasrnwhat Harry Truman called it in the 40’s:rn”Red Fascism,” an essentially rightist enemyrnresembling the Nazis but pretendingrnto be progressive. From ArthurrnSchlesinger’s The Vital Center, GeorgernOrwell’s novels, and the social democraticrnCongress for Cultural Freedom tornthe neoconservative reconstruction ofrnthe American antieommunist right, thisrndepiction of communism as a fascistrnvariant has been a key antieommunistrntheme. By the end of the Cold War, asrnSamuel Francis observes, it had trumpedrnall other forms of anticommunism.rnSecond, Lukacs and Kennan may bernstating what is either obvious or misleadingrnwhen they present the two worldrnwars as twin mountains in the modernrnhistorical landscape. No knowledgeablernperson would deny that World War Irnproduced unfortunate consequencesrnwith whose ramifications we are stillrngrappling: devastation, Bolshe’ism,rnWilsonian globalism, Nazi genocide,rnand the Cold War. Lukacs is right to sayrnthat the guns of August did colossalrnharm beyond the human lives it extinguished.rnAs scions of Central Europeanrnfamilies who lost that struggle and werernFor ImmediaternCHRONICLESrnNEW SUBSCRIBERSrnTOLL FREE NUMBERrn1-800-877-5459rnsubsequently persecuted by the Nazis,rnboth he and I have every reason to deplorernthe explosion in 1914. Bolshevikrnkillers were among those who benefitedrnfrom that explosion, which helped topplerntwo successive Russian regimes beforernLenin took power. Both Worid WarrnII and the Cold War may indeed be seenrnas outgrowths of what commenced inrn1914.rnBut if Lukacs means that the BolshevikrnRevolution and its effects have beenrnvastly overrated and that anticommunistsrnhave sold us a bill of goods, then Irnmust respectfully dissent. The Sovietrnseizure of power in 1917 was every bit asrnladen with ugly consequences as the Europeanrnwar from which it came. It resultedrnnot only in a gruesome bloodbath,rnbut ironically helped pave the way forrnHitler’s successes. German communists,rnunder orders from Moscow, collaboratedrnwith the Nazis in destroying the anti-rnNazi opposition; and French communistsrnin 1940 undermined French militaryrnefforts to resist a German invasion,rnowing to Stalin’s alliance with Hitler. Inrnthe 30’s, moreover, the Nazis gained activernand tacit support from those whorntook seriously their claim to being a bulwarkrnagainst communist violence. Andrnmany of those who were repelled by thernNazis were even more appalled by thernSoviet regime, which by the I930’s hadrnalready carried out their holocaust.rnThose who, unlike Churchill, hesitatedrnto grasp the Soviet hand, nettles and all,rnagainst Hitler, were not being overlyrnsqueamish. Decent statesmen were disgustedrnb’ the thought of an alliance withrna murderous regime and a subversive ideologyrnfor the purpose of forestalling arnthen less-obvious mass murderer. If thernSoviet Union had not been a continentalrnpower and the leader of the antifascistrnPopular Front in 1934, a grave geopoliticalrnand moral obstacle to dealing withrnHitler would have been removed.rnContrary to Lukaes’s suggestion,rnmoreover, the Western powers until thernlate 1930’s could have disposed of thernNazis without Soviet help. Before thenrnthe German Wehrmacht was no matchrnfor combined Anglo-French forces, assistedrnby Czechoslovakia and otherrnFrench allies in Eastern and Central Europe.rnEven afterward there was no justification,rnas Kennan points out, for lyingrnabout Soviet intentions and actions—includingrnthe Katyn Woods massacre—inrnwhich both Churchill and Roosevelt engaged.rnThe United States could have assistedrnthe Soviets in fighting their formerrnNazi allies without embracing Stalin andrnhis henchmen as trusted friends.rnFinally, the Soviet lockhold on Easternrnand Central Europe in 1945 and Sovietrnsubversive activities elsewhere acceleratedrnthe transformation of the UnitedrnStates from a constitutional republic to arncentralized administrative monolith.rnWhile this metamorphosis might havernoccurred in any case, the Cold War madernit a certainty. Conservatives joined liberalsrnin favoring governmental expansion,rnproviding it could somehow be related torn”national security.” Under that proteanrnterm were grouped such diverse activitiesrnas road-building, the subsidization ofrnmentally distraught graduate studentsrn(most of the hysterically pro-communistrnmembers of this category whom I taughtrnin the late 1960’s held National DefensernFellowships), the provision of “butterrnwith guns,” in LBJ’s memorable phrase,rnand the mobilization of federal bureaucratsrnto fight prejudice and discrimination.rnThe long-term beneficiaries of thisrnwelfare-warfare state have not been fascistrnrednecks, or other predictable targetsrnof liberal polemics. They have been, byrnand large, the multinationals, the publicrnsector, international labor unions, andrnprofessional global democrats. Thesernvictors over “Red Fascism”—not rightistsrnor traditionalists—wrote the official evaluationrnof the common enemy, andrnshaped the battle against him.rnThe future first became clear to mernin the 1970’s, when I began noticingrnthe growing indistinguishability betweenrnanticommunists and anti-anticommunists.rnBoth talked about socialrnreform and civil rights, but one side associatedrnthem with the continuingrnprogress of American democracy whilernthe other, by contrast, thought that ourrninvolvement in the Cold War had becomernan obstacle to domestic improvement.rnAs early as the 1970’s fierce anticommunismrnmixed with economicrnlibertarianism or traditional Catholicismrn(as featured in National Review) was becomingrna sideshow, assummg it had everrnbeen anything more. The main architectsrnof an antieommunist foreign policy,rnat least since the 60’s, had been ColdrnWar liberals, typified by Eugene andrnWalt Rostow, Scoop Jackson, HubertrnHumphrey, and Dean Rusk; now a newrnideological development occurred.rnThose who had been identified as “conservative”rnanticommunists began sound-rn40/CHRONICLESrnrnrn