Pacifists and Communists

Does it matter politically if four obscure pacifist organizations embark on a search for "communism with a human face," march with the American Communist Party and its fronts in demonstrations against U.S. foreign policy, and become cheerleaders for Marxist-Leninist guerrillas and regimes from Vietnam to Nicaragua? It probably does matter a great deal. The American pacifist community is numerically small, but its political influence reaches well beyond its own membership. Pacifist ideas have become influential in the political thinking of the mainline Christian churches. The so-called religious Left, to which most pacifist groups belong, today has considerable leverage with Congress in regard to our Central American policy in particular. A better understanding of who these groups and their leaders are and what constitutes their ideology and political agenda is therefore of more than academic and historical interest. Learn more in this article, made available by The World & I Online.