Comments on: Peter Coleman on holding the thin anti-red line

By: Alphonse

Alphonse — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:56:08 +0000

So far as I know the people like Peter Coleman who I admire did not advocate heavy handed tactics.

Vietnam wasn’t heavy-handed? What would heavy-handed have been? Nukes?

By: Rafe Champion

Rafe Champion — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:38:21 +0000

Hello derrida, what a pleasure to see you on the list! In the 1970s I was a treasonous anti war protester, and I had little to do with the Quadrant supporters. Howecver they had the correct side of the argument during the Cold War and I should have taken more notice of them. Are you seriously suggesting it was wrong to resist the expansion of the communist empire and the dissemination of the communist ideology?

By: derrida derider

derrida derider — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:38:33 +0000

Rafe, I well remember the Quadrant crowd in the early 1970s. Maybe they started off as lefties, but so did all those neocon Straussians. By my day they were an ugly bunch who acted as attack dogs for tory governments. Advocacy of jailing “treasonous” and “disloyal” antiwar protesters was a stock in trade; not very anti-totalitarian at all. In fact I used to think they looked very like the sort of past-it authoritarian commos we still used to occasionally see (and despise) in those days.

And Chris is right – they would not have stayed afloat witout CIA money.

By: Rafe Champion

Rafe Champion — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 02:39:51 +0000

Chris, on the topic of the angry lynch mob (details unspecified), how do you suggest ordinary decent people should react when they find in our midst people who are committed to spreading the doctrine that was in the process of killing and maiming countless millions of people? Feel free to use your imagination to get a grip on reality of life under communist rule.

By: Persse

Persse — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:59:35 +0000

“The Great War of 1914-18 was a great evil but it spawned another that turned out to be far worse.”
That is nonsense. Utter nonsense. Not only was the cost of the 1914-1918 war beyond devastating, it “spawned” the 1939 – 1945 war. The political repression of the USSR, bad as it may have been, was just that and doesn’t in anyway equate. To say it does is simply bizarre.
You should learn some history – start with the European revolutions in 1848 is my tip.

By: Rafe Champion

Rafe Champion — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:56:40 +0000

I think the idea of pollution of the realm of ideas by totalitarian thinking is quite apppropriate. But whatever, the point is to offer better policies and arguments, like the case for classical liberalism. It is good that you accept that the resistance to communism was justified. If only more intellectuals and other fellow travellers had realised that. So far as I know the people like Peter Coleman who I admire did not advocate heavy handed tactics. They were engaged in a battle of ideas. And of course the hysterical reaction from some anti-communists only created sympathy for the cause and divided the opposition, giving rise to a movement called "anti anti-communism". On heroism, you clearly don't know about the work that had to be done to reclaim the trade unions of Australia from communist influence. Nor do you understand the extent of communist influence in major trade unions in Britain until very recenlty. Remember Arthur Scargill and the miners? Check out some of these revelations of soviet influence in British politics.

By: Chris Lloyd

Chris Lloyd — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:22:54 +0000

Coleman’s article was written in 1989. Very topical post Rafe. The CCF were originally left wing but anti-Stalinist. Good on them but a pity they could not fund their own activities without the CIA. If you are worried about how the communists “polluted both politics and the world of ideas” you have a very different idea of intellectual life than me. The world of ideas cannot be “polluted.” There is no clean, natural state to be sullied. Bad metaphor.

“It is a proud and heroic tale.” Anti-communists in general were not so heroic, unless they were doing it in Russia. They may have been right in being opposed to communism, but they were not heroic. How herioc did you need to be to denounce your rivals to the house of un-american activities? How heroic was it to try and ban the communist party in Australia rather than just pointing out the failure and thuggishness of the Soviet experiment?

How heroic were the ASIO agents who bugged my parent’s phone because my 17 year old brother was a suspected communist? Oh, yeah. These heroes had to “match the influence of the communists and their fellow travellers in the cultural and educational arenas.” Even though communists has about 1% of the primary vote here. OK. The CCF may not have been that bad themselves. But they were the sanitised front end of an ugly lynch mob.

It took no courage at all to be an anti-communist in the 50s and 60s. Communists were almost universally reviled, considered a step below satan worshippers. Heroic were those who argued for freedom to be a communist, against the baying media and church, without CIA funding. They won. Quadrant lost. And the world didn’t end.

By: Rafe Champion

Rafe Champion — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:21:07 +0000

Are there other people on the list who think the same as Alphonse but are too modest to parade their moral and intellectual superiority to the Quadrant crowd?

You need to get out more Alphonse, or learn some history.

By: Alphonse

Alphonse — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:26:45 +0000

Telling the world, post WWII, that communism was bad was as useful as telling the world that the sky was blue.

Excesses of this uselessness gave us McCarthyism, the Vietnam invasion, etc etc.

Coleman could better have pursued useful endeavours.