Socialist Register 1984 Preface

Abstract

Germany from 1945 onwards; and Alan Wolfe presents an interpretation of the reasons which made anti-communism the central element in the shaping of American foreign policy. The following two articles are concerned with anti-communism in Central America: Philip Brenner surveys American policies in the region, while James Petras and Morris Morley examine the consequences which American intervention in Guatemala in the name of anti-communism have had in that country since the coup which overthrew the Arbenz government in 1954. Xavier Zeebroek provides a close analysis of Soviet and American nuclear strength, and exposes the myth of Soviet superiority. Roland Lew and Jean Pierre Garnier analyse the ways in which the disappointment of the hopes which many left intellectuals in France placed on the 'Third World' in the sixties and early seventies have helped to feed the extreme anti-communism of parts of the left which has been such a notable feature of French intellectual and political life in recent years; and Pascal Delwit and Jean- Michel Dewaele document this phenomenon by reference to the political trajectory of two prominent and prolific French ex-Communists, Annie Kriegel and Pierre Daix. Last but not least, Franqois Houtart reflects on a subject of great and growing importance, the attitudes of the churches to anti-communism. Among our authors, Reg Whitaker is Professor of Politics at York University, Toronto. Rudi van Doorslaar is a Research Fellow at the Centre d'Etudes sur la Second Guerre Mondiale in Brussels. Jon Halliday is well known for his writings on the Far East. William Graf teaches politics at Guelph University, Ontario, and Alan Wolfe is in the Department of Sociology at Queen's University, New York. Philip Brenner teaches foreign policy at the American University in Washington and is a Fellow of the Institute of Policy Studies. Morris Morley is also at the American University and James Petras is Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York, Binghamton. Xavier Zeebroek is engaged in research and writing on the arms race. Roland Lew is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Sociology, Brussels, Jean Pierre Garnier is a Research Fellow at CNRS and Franqois Houtart teaches at the Catholic University of Louvain. Pascal Delwit and Jean-Michel Dewaele are graduate students at Brussels University. We are very grateful to our contributors for their help; to David Macey for his translations; and also to Martin Eve, of Merlin Press, who also appears in this volume as a contributor. As usual, we wish to stress that neither the editors nor the authors should be taken to agree with everything that appears in the following pages.