ANTI-COMMUNISM AS A CIVIL RELIGION CRUSADE

Lecture Notes of Dr. Nikolas K. Gvosdev

In the course of class discussion, it has become clear that a number of the features of "American civil religion," such as the National Prayer Breakfast, the addition of the words, "under God," to the Pledge of Allegiance, etc., occurred in the context of the Cold War. The struggle for supremacy with the Soviet Union was an excellent incentive for the development and strengthening of the American civil religion, usually defined as "Americanism" or "the American way of life."

Some key features:

Communism was the enemy--a particular ideology that seemed to strike at the heart of the American way of life. It was materialist and collectivist; it denied God and denied "freedom" (or "liberty"); it took away property and incentive. Generally, the enemy was conceived of in ideological rather than ethnic terms. Most Communist states were deemed to be "captive nations", and while the Russians to some extent were identified with Communism, thus giving an "ethnic" face to the enemy, a number of prominent Americans insisted that America had no quarrel with the Russian people, but with Communist ideology. Conversely, Americans were not "safe" by virtue of their birth or citizenship. Americans too could be seduced or "led astray" by Communism just as the devil tempted the faithful into destruction. During the Rosenberg trial, for example, a number of commentators questioned how it was that Americans could be tricked into exchanging the virtues of "freedom" for the harshness and cruelty of Communist doctrine.
The struggle against Communism allowed for a dualistic world view in which there was little middle ground between the forces of good and the forces of evil. A great deal of religious imagery could then be safely appropriated to describe the American struggle with the Soviet Union, especially universalist and apocalyptic themes. Communism threatened America in a way that the British or other enemies had not. If America stood firm, one potential outcome was nuclear destruction. If America buckled, however, the entire "American way of life" could be destroyed.
The urgency brought about by the threat of nuclear destruction caused a great deal of authority to be concentrated in the hands of the president, reinforcing his role as the "image" of American democracy and as the chief spokesman of the American people, contributing further to the decline of shared sovereignty in America and a lessening of the role of the Congress (contributing, ultimately, one can argue, to the "imperial presidency" of Richard M. Nixon). The president was expected to rally the nation and keep up the morale and resolve of the American people.
The "godless" nature of Communism and the persecution and harassment by Communist states of all forms of religion--Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Confucianists--was a boost to American civil religion and the creation of a sense of a common front of all religious people to defend "God" against the inroads of Communism. In many ways, anti-communism was one of the first real areas of "ecumenical" cooperation among Catholics and Protestants in the United States. Anticommunism forced diverse religions to define what they had in common in opposition to the Communist worldview; these commonalities could then be used to reinforce the "civil religion."

5. Anticommunism was a way to provide a sense of unity between native-born and immigrant Americans by helping to further redefine American-ness as a set of shared values rather than an accident of birth. Anticommunist immigrants and refugees could thus be portrayed as being "spiritually American" in their outlook, their love of liberty (and/or the free market), and thus to be welcomed to America (as happened for Cubans, Vietnamese, Laotians, etc.)

Anticommunism transformed the struggle between the US and the USSR from solely a geopolitical one to something based on transcendental values. The president appealed to a higher source to justify American domestic and foreign policy actions and in doing so was able to tap into previous strains of the American civil religion (or civic patriotism) and reshape earlier strains through anti-communism to unleash a new American crusading spirit. In previous epochs, America was content to be the "city on the hill", an EXAMPLE to the rest of the world. The Cold War unleashed an American crusade to "defend peace and freedom" THROUGHOUT THE WORLD and extend the blessings of American liberty around the world. Consider that no sitting president from George Washington to Woodrow Wilson (1789-1918) EVER left American soil; but how commonplace it became during and after World War II for US presidents to travel abroad to marshall the forces of the "Free World." Anticommunism also strengthened the position of the president in American society, as we discussed last week, not solely because the decision to unleash nuclear war was transferred from the hands of the Congress to that of the president, but also because the president came to personify American democracy and values, especially in one-on-one summit meetings with Soviet leaders. Variations of the anticommunist crusade helped to inspire the creation of the Peace Corps, another presidential intiative. It is also important to recognize the origins of American involvement in the Vietnam War in this crusading spirit, of defending Vietnamese against Communist insurgents and helping to reshape Vietnam in the American image. Moreover, the anti-war movement got its start in a sense of an idealism betrayed; that America was not living up to its rhetoric and was engaged not in some idealistic crusade but a very cold and calculating intervention (as documented by such items as the Pentagon Papers). Thus, the anti-war movement can be seen as an outgrowth and reflection of the same idealistic fervor that led America, under the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, to make the first major commitments to Vietnam. It is not a contradiction that President Kennedy, in creating the Peace Corps, also escalated American armed military intervention in SouthEast Asia and faced down Soviet threats in Berlin and Cuba. To some extent, it was these actions--rooted in American idealism, combined with his assassination--that gave JFK his immortality within the American pantheon (as opposed to being a successful president, since any sober analysis of his legislative record between 1961 and 1963 does not record any great achievements; it was up to President Johnson, the consummate Congressional insider, to move the pieces of legislation with regard to civil rights and welfare that constituted "the Great Society"). JFK ended up a an American hero precisely because of his ability to tap into the idealistic strain of American patriotism that encouraged Americans to support the "crusades" called for by the presidents.