Diverging Paths: Nazism,the National Civic Federation,and American Anticommunism,1933—9

Abstract

This article examines the development of anticommunism in the United States in the Depression years. It argues that the rise of nazism on the international stage had profound repercussions for domestic anticommunist groups in the United States, forcing them into making strategic decisions about the content of their own ideology. By closely associating anticommunism with fascism, the spectre of nazism damaged those anticommunist groups such as the National Civic Federation (NCF) that sought to stress the nationalist origins of their politics. This in turn produced splits and realignments in the anticommunist community, but in time led to the emergence of a new kind of anticommunist rhetoric that — instead of being damaged by associations with fascism — legitimated itself within a broader framework of anti-totalitarianism.