ABSTRACT
A specter haunts Europe —the specter of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance in order to lay this specter: pope and tsar; Metternich and Guizot; French radicals and German police. A specter —here is freedom's Anti-Communist Manifesto to answer 1848 —a specter haunts the Communists. All the powers of left and right totalitarianism have entered into an unholy alliance in order to lay the specter: Commissar and Fuehrer; Mao and Peron; French Communists and German neo-Nazis. To outlaw the military conspiracy known as communism does not mean to deny the obvious fact that a free society needs dissent. On the contrary —in American and European intellectual life today, the most independent and fruitful and challenging dissent comes from conservatives and even from ornery, crotchety reactionaries. Conservatism and liberalism, as here used, are not clear or primary criteria for the American electoral scenes of 1952-56.
