ABSTRACT
This conclusion reflects on the Dutch Reformed Church’s (DRC) role in creating, shaping, and maintaining an anticommunism platform in twentieth-century South Africa. It was not always the main driver, nor was its influence consistent. However, as a vessel of moral anticommunist propaganda, the DRC fulfilled a critical role in legitimising overt opposition to and suppression of ‘communism’ in all its perceived manifestations, while also creating an Afrikaner imagination – even at times a moral panic – in which the volk remained convinced of the ever-present communist threat, and of its own role as a bulwark against communism. Three overarching characteristics of DRC anticommunism in the twentieth century are identified: First, anticommunism, in all its guises, played a major role in unifying Afrikanerdom; second, characteristic of DRC anticommunism was the manner in which it became a conceptual framework for Afrikaner identity; and lastly, it was the DRC’s identity and function as a moral legitimiser of anticommunism. Anticommunism therefore functioned as a vehicle for nationalist unity, a paradigm for Afrikaner identity, and a legitimiser of the volk’s moral high ground.
