Communism and Anticommunism

doi:10.1017/9781108913614.016

13 - Communism and Anticommunism

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 May 2025

Andreas Wirsching

Edited by

Mark Roseman and

Dan Stone

Show author details

Mark Roseman: Affiliation:
Indiana University
Dan Stone: Affiliation:
Royal Holloway, University of London

Book contents

Get access

Summary

In past decades, the relationship between fascism and communism was of major interest. The theory of totalitarianism viewed them as different versions of the same phenomenon. Communists saw fascism as a function of capitalism, and communism as its only legitimate opponent. Both views marginalized the Holocaust. As the Holocaust came to the fore in Western scholarship, entanglements with communism slipped out of view. This chapter argues that they deserve closer attention. Though its roots were older, after 1917 anticommunism gave the right a new focus, giving radical fringe groups respectability. Communism exerted a “negative fascination” on the right, encouraging mutually escalating extremes. Anti-Marxism legitimated Nazi violence after 1933, drawing support even from the Churches. For their part, even after the adoption of the popular front strategy in 1935, the KPD continued to believe that the SPD was the main enemy, and long remained silent on the persecution of Jews. Since the end of the Cold War, the question of the relationship between communism, Nazism, and the Holocaust has been expressed above all in the culture of remembrance.

Keywords

Communism totalitarianism fascism anticommunism Russian revolution antisemitism churches Nazi violence memorialization Bolshevism Bloodlands

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge History of the Holocaust , pp. 268 - 287

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108913614.016 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2025

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Select Bibliography

Bayerlein, B. H., “Der Verräter, Stalin, bist Du!” Vom Ende der linken Solidarität (Berlin, Aufbau Verlag, 2008).Google Scholar

Fischer, C., The German Communists and the Rise of Nazism (London, Macmillan, 1991).CrossRef Google Scholar

Furet, F., The Passing of an Illusion: The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2000).Google Scholar

German Federal Archives, The Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ), and the Chair for Modern History at the University of Freiburg (eds.), The Persecution and Murder of the European Jews by Nazi Germany, 1933–1945, 16 vols. (Berlin and Boston, de Gruyter, 2019–).Google Scholar

Hanebrink, P., A Specter Haunting Europe: The Myth of Judeo-Bolshevism (Cambridge, MA, Belknap Press, 2018).Google Scholar

Jones, L. E. (ed.), The German Right in the Weimar Republic: Studies in the History of German Conservatism, Nationalism, and Antisemitism (New York, Berghahn Books, 2014).CrossRef Google Scholar

Pons, S. and Smith, S. A. (eds.), The Cambridge History of Communism, 3 vols. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017).CrossRef Google Scholar

Rosenhaft, E., Beating the Fascists: The German Communists and Political Violence, 1929–1933 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983).CrossRef Google Scholar

Schulze, T., ‘Antikommunismus als politischer Leitfaden des Vatikans? Affinitäten und Konflikte zwischen Heiligem Stuhl und NS-Regime im Jahr 1933’, VfZ 60 (2012), 353–79.Google Scholar

Wirsching, A., ‘Antikommunismus als Querschnittsphänomen politischer Kultur, 1917–1945’, in Creuzberger, S. and Hoffmann, D. (eds.), “Geistige Gefahr” und “Immunisierung der Gesellschaft”: Antikommunismus und politische Kultur in der frühen Bundesrepublik (Munich, Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2014), pp. 15–28.CrossRef Google Scholar