From "A Quiet Totalitarian Movement" by
Rod Dreher:
In 1943, a Croatian priest named Tomislav Kolakovic escaped the Gestapo, and took refuge in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. Father Kolakovic began teaching in the Catholic university there, and told his students that after the Germans were defeated, the Soviets would rule their country. The Communists would come after the Church, he said — and he meant to get the young people ready for resistance, while they still had the freedom to strategize.
Slovak bishops chastised Father Kolakovic, saying that he was being alarmist. The priest didn’t listen to them. He knew the Communist mind, because he had studied it to prepare for missionary work in the Soviet Union. Father Kolakovic’s young followers came together in cells scattered across the country to pray, to discuss what was happening in their country, and to lay out plans of action. His method was a simple one: See, Judge, Act. That is, open your eyes to what is really happening in your country, come together to discern the meaning, and what you are all called to do to respond to it — then do it.
In 1948, Czech Communists staged a putsch. Shortly after, they began to persecute the Church, just as Father Kolakovic, who had expelled from the country two years earlier, had prophesied. The network the visionary priest built became the backbone of the underground church, and the only meaningful opposition to totalitarianism for the next forty years.
The salami techniques used to bring Communists to power in Czechoslovakia and other Eastern European countries caught the attention of many people in the free world.
ReplyDeleteThe traditional narrative about the 1954 Guatemala coup, largely or entirely the result of US machinations, is that the US toppled Arbenz because he had nationalized United Fruit land. The Central American Crisis reader has a conversation between Arbenz and the US Ambassador to Guatemala that debunks that narrative. Arbenz stated that the US is against him because he nationalized United Fruit land. The ambassador's reply is that the US had cordial relations with the revolutionary government in Bolivia, that had nationalized the tin-mining companies. The objection the US had with the Arbenz administration was that there were Communists in his government. ( A cynic might add that another reason for US indifference to Bolivia's nationalizing the tin mining companies is that there was no American company involved.)
It is an interesting coincidence that Arbenz moved to Czechoslovakia after the coup.
The US also accepted the Mexican nationalization of oil, which did involve American companies. There was a willingness to accept socialism but not Communism.
ReplyDeleteAnd when the USSR stopped funding the revolutions, the US left as well to let countries do as they pleased, even if they were not so friendly to us. We backed up what we said.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Tex- Read this and immediately ordered the book.
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