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Constructing the Monolith: The United States, Great Britain, and International Communism, 1945-1950
As the cold war took shape during the late 1940s, policymakers in the United States and Great Britain displayed a marked tendency to regard international communism as a "monolithic" conspiratorial movement. The image of a "communist monolith" distilled the messy realities of international relations into a neat, comprehensible formula. Its lesson was that all communists, regardless of their native land or political program, were essentially tools of the Kremlin.
Marc Selverstone recreates the manner in which the "monolith" emerged as a perpetual framework on both sides of the Atlantic. Though more pervasive and millennial in its American guise, this understanding also informed conceptions of international communism in its close ally Great Britain, casting the Kremlin's challenge as but one more in a long line of threats to freedom.
This illuminating and important book not only explains the cold war mindset that determined global policy for much of the twentieth century, but reveals how the search to define a foreign threat can shape the ways in which that threat is actually met.
- GenresHistory
318 pages, Hardcover
First published February 16, 2009
19 people want to read
About the author
Marc J. Selverstone
4 books5 followersMarc J. Selverstone is a professor at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.
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December 9, 2021
Marc J. Silverstone's work is a concise study of the process through which the idea of International Communism as an organized force under the command of the Soviet Union developed in the years before, during, and after the Second World War.
According to Silverstone, it all began during the social upheaval of the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s, and especially during the First World War. The American Protective League, the National Security League, and the American Defense Society sprang up to promote “100 percent Americanism" – a modern name for the good, old American exceptionalism the Puritans brought to New England from the Old World. It reinforced the conviction that America was destined to be the world's leading power propelling historical change. It juxtaposed American beliefs and policies with socialist ones and concluded that the former were inherently good, while the latter were inherently bad. Federal authorities cracked down on labor agitation, which was widespread in the post-war years, because it aggravated an already tense environment, and Americans became increasingly suspicious of movements that seemed to them to be conspiratorial and alien-inspired. With the return of the Ku Klux Klan, the anti-immigrant law of 1924, and the Prohibition propaganda portraying foreigners as drunkards, American xenophobia became virulent.
Aside from heightening American fears of outsiders and radicals, the Great War had a profound effect on socialism itself. As Silverstone explains, many European Socialists preferred to identify with national and bourgeois interests, rather than with international and proletarian ones, and this split the movement in two, convincing its extremists that only a more confrontational and revolutionary socialism could establish "a workers' paradise." Vladimir Lenin sought to establish that paradise in Russia, so he and the Bolsheviks cohorts overthrew the Provisional Government in October 1917 and founded the world’s first Socialist state. This development of events alarmed many an observer in America and Europe. "Communism now had a territorial and ideological home, a development that cast ties between Russian and foreign Socialists —especially those living in the capitalist bastions of Great Britain and the United States — in an entirely new light," writes Silverstone. That is how the Bolshevik experiment deepened the anti-socialism, and later anti-communism, that characterized American culture in the period before the Second World War and afterwards.
The unconventional title of Silverstone's work gives away the argument on which it focuses: that the "Communist monolith" – the myth that all Communists, regardless of their native land or political philosophy, were first and foremost tools of the Kremlin – was misleading and created by American policy-makers themselves to help them navigate the messy realities of international relations. It was far easier to think of all nationalist-Communist movements around the world as led by Moscow puppets than coming to terms with the fact that most local Communist parties were indeed nationalist and state-controlled, and Moscow could not control them all.
This misconception led to such failures with grave consequences as the American government's severing of relations with Ho Chi Minh. Blind to the fact that Ho Chi Minh was a nationalist fighting for his long-suffering Third World country's independence, American policy-makers labeled him a radical Communist, a Soviet puppet, and lost an ally worth having.
Of course, the monolith myth was not sustained only by heightened fears of foreigner and socialism in America. The notion that the Soviet Union was a totalitarian and reactionary state received an additional boost from Soviet behavior during the Second World War. Stalin formed a pact with Nazi Germany in August 1939, and Comintern head Georgi Dimitrov ordered the Communist parties of America and Great Britain to soften their lines toward the Nazis. Now we know that Stalin's actions were probably a defensive measure – he knew Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union was just a matter of time, so he did what he could to postpone it by appeasing Germany. However, at the time, his policy was perceived by America as pro-fascist in nature and further increased fears.
Those fears lay dormant during the war itself, for Stalin became Roosevelt's ally. A more positive image of the Soviet Union was promoted by the news media and Hollywood. The Soviet Union's aggressive foreign policy was justified by security concerns.
After the Second World War, however, as fundamental differences in ideology pitted the United States against the Soviet Union, the monolith myth was brought back and actively promoted by Soviet propaganda itself. In order to look stronger and more threatening, the Soviet Union pretended it actually controlled the Communist movements all over the world. This was, of course, not the case – Communism was replete with internal tensions and schisms (for instance, the wrangling between Italian Communist leader Palmiro Togliatti and Yugoslavia’s Tito over control of Trieste) – but the American fear of a movement foreign and conspiratorial had already been awaken. America began believing the monolith myth once again, and this misconception gave rise to the Red Scare and persisted until the end of the Cold War, causing often disastrous decision-making in foreign policy.
What I did not like about CONSTRUCTING THE MONOLITH is that most of the time it is overly vague. I think specific examples would have made Silverstone's narrative more engaging and persuasive. The topic itself is theoretical and unusual, which makes this book suitable mostly for specialists in the field. Although it was useful at times and I agree with the author's main argument, this book did not appeal to me.
According to Silverstone, it all began during the social upheaval of the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s, and especially during the First World War. The American Protective League, the National Security League, and the American Defense Society sprang up to promote “100 percent Americanism" – a modern name for the good, old American exceptionalism the Puritans brought to New England from the Old World. It reinforced the conviction that America was destined to be the world's leading power propelling historical change. It juxtaposed American beliefs and policies with socialist ones and concluded that the former were inherently good, while the latter were inherently bad. Federal authorities cracked down on labor agitation, which was widespread in the post-war years, because it aggravated an already tense environment, and Americans became increasingly suspicious of movements that seemed to them to be conspiratorial and alien-inspired. With the return of the Ku Klux Klan, the anti-immigrant law of 1924, and the Prohibition propaganda portraying foreigners as drunkards, American xenophobia became virulent.
Aside from heightening American fears of outsiders and radicals, the Great War had a profound effect on socialism itself. As Silverstone explains, many European Socialists preferred to identify with national and bourgeois interests, rather than with international and proletarian ones, and this split the movement in two, convincing its extremists that only a more confrontational and revolutionary socialism could establish "a workers' paradise." Vladimir Lenin sought to establish that paradise in Russia, so he and the Bolsheviks cohorts overthrew the Provisional Government in October 1917 and founded the world’s first Socialist state. This development of events alarmed many an observer in America and Europe. "Communism now had a territorial and ideological home, a development that cast ties between Russian and foreign Socialists —especially those living in the capitalist bastions of Great Britain and the United States — in an entirely new light," writes Silverstone. That is how the Bolshevik experiment deepened the anti-socialism, and later anti-communism, that characterized American culture in the period before the Second World War and afterwards.
The unconventional title of Silverstone's work gives away the argument on which it focuses: that the "Communist monolith" – the myth that all Communists, regardless of their native land or political philosophy, were first and foremost tools of the Kremlin – was misleading and created by American policy-makers themselves to help them navigate the messy realities of international relations. It was far easier to think of all nationalist-Communist movements around the world as led by Moscow puppets than coming to terms with the fact that most local Communist parties were indeed nationalist and state-controlled, and Moscow could not control them all.
This misconception led to such failures with grave consequences as the American government's severing of relations with Ho Chi Minh. Blind to the fact that Ho Chi Minh was a nationalist fighting for his long-suffering Third World country's independence, American policy-makers labeled him a radical Communist, a Soviet puppet, and lost an ally worth having.
Of course, the monolith myth was not sustained only by heightened fears of foreigner and socialism in America. The notion that the Soviet Union was a totalitarian and reactionary state received an additional boost from Soviet behavior during the Second World War. Stalin formed a pact with Nazi Germany in August 1939, and Comintern head Georgi Dimitrov ordered the Communist parties of America and Great Britain to soften their lines toward the Nazis. Now we know that Stalin's actions were probably a defensive measure – he knew Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union was just a matter of time, so he did what he could to postpone it by appeasing Germany. However, at the time, his policy was perceived by America as pro-fascist in nature and further increased fears.
Those fears lay dormant during the war itself, for Stalin became Roosevelt's ally. A more positive image of the Soviet Union was promoted by the news media and Hollywood. The Soviet Union's aggressive foreign policy was justified by security concerns.
After the Second World War, however, as fundamental differences in ideology pitted the United States against the Soviet Union, the monolith myth was brought back and actively promoted by Soviet propaganda itself. In order to look stronger and more threatening, the Soviet Union pretended it actually controlled the Communist movements all over the world. This was, of course, not the case – Communism was replete with internal tensions and schisms (for instance, the wrangling between Italian Communist leader Palmiro Togliatti and Yugoslavia’s Tito over control of Trieste) – but the American fear of a movement foreign and conspiratorial had already been awaken. America began believing the monolith myth once again, and this misconception gave rise to the Red Scare and persisted until the end of the Cold War, causing often disastrous decision-making in foreign policy.
What I did not like about CONSTRUCTING THE MONOLITH is that most of the time it is overly vague. I think specific examples would have made Silverstone's narrative more engaging and persuasive. The topic itself is theoretical and unusual, which makes this book suitable mostly for specialists in the field. Although it was useful at times and I agree with the author's main argument, this book did not appeal to me.
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