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The domino theory was a Cold War policy that suggested a communist government in one nation would quickly lead to communist takeovers in neighboring states, each falling like a perfectly aligned row of dominos. In Southeast Asia, the U.S. government used the now-discredited domino theory to justify its involvement in the Vietnam War and its support for a non-communist dictator in South Vietnam. In fact, the American failure to prevent a communist victory in Vietnam had much less of an impact than had been assumed by proponents of the domino theory. With the exception of Laos and Cambodia, communism failed to spread throughout Southeast Asia.

In September 1945, the Vietnamese nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh proclaimed Vietnams independence from France, beginning a war that pitted Hos communist-led Viet Minh regime in Hanoi (North Vietnam) against a French-backed regime in Saigon (South Vietnam).

Under President Harry Truman, the U.S. government provided covert military and financial aid to the French; the rationale was that a communist victory in Indochina would precipitate the spread of communism throughout Southeast Asia. Using this same logic, Truman would also give aid to Greece and Turkey during the late 1940s to help contain communism in Europe and the Middle East.

By 1950, makers of U.S. foreign policy had firmly embraced the idea that the fall of Indochina to communism would lead rapidly to the collapse of other nations in Southeast Asia. The National Security Council included the theory in a 1952 report on Indochina, and in April 1954, during the decisive battle between Viet Minh and French forces at Dien Bien Phu, President Dwight D. Eisenhower articulated it as the falling domino principle.

In Eisenhowers view, the loss of Vietnam to communist control would lead to similar communist victories in neighboring countries in Southeast Asia (including Laos, Cambodia and Thailand) and elsewhere (India, Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, and even Australia and New Zealand). The possible consequences of the loss [of Indochina], Eisenhower said, are just incalculable to the free world.

After Eisenhowers speech, the phrase domino theory began to be used as a shorthand expression of the strategic importance of South Vietnam to the United States, as well as the need to contain the spread of communism throughout the world.

After the Geneva Conference ended the French-Viet Minh war and split Vietnam along the latitude known as the 17th parallel, the United States spearheaded the organization of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), a loose alliance of nations committed to taking action against security threats in the region.

John F. Kennedy, Eisenhowers successor in the White House, would increase the commitment of U.S. resources in support of the Ngo Dinh Diem regime in South Vietnam and of non-communist forces fighting a civil war in Laos in 1961-62. In the fall of 1963, after serious domestic opposition to Diem arose, Kennedy backed away from support of Diem himself but publicly reaffirmed belief in the domino theory and the importance of containing communism in Southeast Asia.

Three weeks after Diem was murdered in a military coup in early November 1963, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas; his successor Lyndon B. Johnson would continue to use the domino theory to justify the escalation of the U.S. military presence in Vietnam from a few thousand soldiers to more than 500,000 over the next five years.

The domino theory is now largely discredited, having failed to take into account the character of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong struggle in the Vietnam War.

By assuming Ho Chi Minh was a pawn of the communist giants Russia and China, American policymakers failed to see that the goal of Ho and his supporters was Vietnamese independence, not the spread of communism.

In the end, even though the American effort to block a communist takeover failed, and North Vietnamese forces marched into Saigon in 1975, communism did not spread throughout the rest of Southeast Asia. With the exception of Laos and Cambodia, the nations of the region remained out of communist control.

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Domino Theory - HISTORY

Rock Against Communism (RAC) was the name of white power rock concerts in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The Rock Against Communism movement originated in the United Kingdom in late 1978, as a response by the british neo-fascist[1] party National Front (NF) to Rock against racism.[2] The first RAC concert was in Leeds, England in 1978, featuring the bands The Dentists and The Ventz. RAC held one concert in 1979 and another in spring 1983, which was headlined by the white power punk band Skrewdriver, led by Ian Stuart Donaldson. After that, RAC concerts were held more often. They were often headlined by Skrewdriver and featured other fascist and neo-nazi bands such as Skullhead and No Remorse. In the mid-1980s, summer concerts were often held at the Suffolk home of Edgar Griffin, a Conservative Party activist and father of Nick Griffin, an National front organiser who later became the national chair of the British National Party. By the late 1980s, the RAC name had given way to the White Noise Club (another National front-based group), and later Blood and Honour, which was set up by Donaldson when they fell out with the NF leadership. As hardcore punk music became more popular in the 1990s and 2000s, many white power bands took on a more hardcore-influenced sound.

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Rock Against Communism - Wikipedia

SINCE the fall of the Warsaw Pact, the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM) has been among the most electorally successful of Europes Communist parties consistently finishing in the top five slots in the Czech Republics legislative elections.

All that changed last month when for the first time since the Nazi-aligned protectorate of 1939 to 1945, the territory which makes up the modern-day Czech Republic found itself with no Communists in Parliament. In the October elections, both the KSCM and the Czech Social Democatic Party (CSSD) finished below the threshold required to enter the Chamber of Deputies.

It was not only a setback: its generally accepted within the party that it was a historical debacle, says Jaroslav Roman, the head of the KSCMs international department. Frankly speaking, people are shocked. We had not expected such a heavy defeat.

Roman is speaking to the Morning Star shortly after an extraordinary party congress, at which MEP and former party vice-chair Katerina Konecna was elected the partys new leader.

In the partys impressive office block in Prague, which it shares with the Communist newspaper Halo noviny, Roman does not mince his words as to the scale of the challenge the party now faces. In these elections we had 193,000 voters. But in [2013] we had 750,000 So in these elections, only the strong base of the party voted for the Communists.

The KSCMs loss has been widely credited to its decision to support the previous Czech government. That was a coalition led by Andrej Babiss ANO 2011 party, a populist force with syncretic but ultimately conservative politics. Roman accepts that this was a decision that angered many. It was a topic of the congress as well, whether it was the correct thingto support the Babis government, he says. Because evidently it cost us votes.

We have been aware in the first instance that if you go into the past, when the French Communists went into the government, the Italian Communists, it cost them very expensively.

As for the Czech Republics Social Democrats, who unlike the Communists entered into a formal coalition with Babis, Roman says they ended up losing all their seats because they lost the confidence of the people. He says they only behaved like a left political force two months before the elections and were ultimately opportunists.

He cautions: Im not negative, the Social Democratic party is the oldest party in the Czech Republic, they have a place on the political map here and Im sure they will restart their activities but it must be with new people and with new policies.

But Roman suggests his own party was stuck between a rock and a hard place when it came to deciding whether to give parliamentary support to Babiss government. From our point of view, its well to remember, there was a problem to form the government. It took seven months. We had to decide, [so] first we insisted the Czech Republic needed a government. We had a choice between the bad and the worse. So we chose the better from the worse.

How can the KSCM come to terms with the unpopularity of this decision? Roman believes that the generational and factional change that took place at the extraordinary congress is part of the answer. I have to admit that in the Communist Party there are different fractions, he says. Although the expression of fractions is forbidden by the statutes of the party, its a matter of fact.

There are two fractions one is widely called like, conservatives, led by [former party vice-chair Josef] Skala and lets say the progressivists, led by Konecna, the MEP. This question has been solved because she overwhelmingly won the election.

And frankly speaking, we respect it. I dont want to judge if it will be successful or not, but shes the only one with a team of people around her its mid-generation, young generation and its without any dispute [that] the party needs rejuvenative change, rejuvenation of its membership, its leadership.

In his 60s himself, Roman does not want to discount the input of the partys older generation but he says the KSCD desperately needs to attract younger voters and activists. In Praguethe median age of the members is 80 years. And [across] the Czech Republic its 70 years. And we have lost not lost, but we have not been successful in attracting young people as sympathisers of the party.

It is also crucial that the Communists represent younger voters, he says, because frankly speaking this generation is being [impacted by] decisions on their future.

The electoral defeat has stark implications for the KSCMs finances, which Roman stresses will not only concern the centre here, the leadership, but mainly the districts, which are the base of the party.

But the international chief is hopeful that the new leadership can attract younger voters. In my opinion, Konecna is a very talented politician. She has the gift of giving straightforward answers and that is what young people want to hear.

In the mean time, Roman is concerned that the lefts lack of representation in the House of Deputies will leave a chunk of the Czech population disenfranchised.

1,000,000 votes fell under the table. All the parties that have not reached the threshold and mainly they are the voters that under normal conditions would support the left. And now their opinions are not represented in the parliament.

That will make it harder for KSCM to advance its programme. Its not a revolutionary situation here, he says, suggesting talk of implementing communism leaves many people nonplussed. What we promote and advocate and try and explain to the people, is that all the structures, the branches of the economy should be under the control of the state.

Now you see its the energy. The main major state-owned company can be influenced by the regulatory intervention of the state. All of our water supplying systems [are in] the hands of the French or Spanish, under very, very bad conditions.

Another fear is that anti-communist forces will now seek to crack down on the party, as well as on supporters of its predecessor, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. In other Eastern European countries, Roman notes, Communist parties have been banned.

The question is, will we hold, he says. Even shortly before the elections there was a proposal in the parliament to include in the law the legislative proposal to decrease pensions to the exponents of the former regime like the members who worked in the central committee of the Communist Party, who worked with security. And this can come on the agenda now, now the right wing has an absolute majority not only in the parliament, but in the senate as well.

Roman is determined that the KSCM does not now experience the splits that have plagued other European left parties following heavy defeats. The KSCM now faces competition from a new party, Levice (the Left), which was formed last year from a merger of the the Real Left Initiative and the Party of Democratic Socialism which previously ran candidates under the KSCM ticket.

Levice is perceived to be modelled on Die Linke in Germany, but recorded mere hundreds of votes in the October elections. Its a very minor party, Roman says. But we are open to co-operation. There is no will for the time being to change the label of the party from the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, but we have communal elections next year, [we] may go as like, United Left. We might not go as like, only the Communist Party, but its a question of negotiation.

Roman is also concerned about the impact of identity politics on fracturing the left across Europe. He is critical of other European left parties for pushing forward such issues and stresses that the KSCM is the party that are trying to advocate the interests of the majority of the people.

Does he not think it is possible to support the liberation of oppressed groups while still maintaining a class-based agenda? Romans response suggests the party is still struggling to accommodate causes that the left in many parts of Europe has placed firmly within its programme. Although we respect the rights of minorities, we do not like and do not support this public show-off, he says.

Instead, he says, Communists should focus on globalisation and how it impacts on the lives of ordinary people. He adds: We have very big problems with the energy increase here, etc and other problems to come with inflation at 5or 6per cent here now. The left forces should unite around the major issues that unite us.

The Czech-language newspaper Hal noviny can be found at http://www.halonoviny.cz.

Follow Conrad on Twitter @conradlandin.

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After the elections: Communism in the Czech Republic - Morning Star Online

From dogs yapping on phones to Brazils radical urinalists taking on McDonalds, heres your weekly roundup of offbeat stories from around the world.

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Marx, Lenin and Ho Chi Minh raised their glasses last weekend to toast their friend Engels as he tied the knot in southern India. Communism may have fallen out of favour elsewhere, but the dream lives on in Kerala where it is not uncommon to name children after its founding fathers.

The Communist Party has governed Kerala for much of the last six decades, and the chief minister of neighbouring Tamil Nadu is called MK Stalin.

A wedding there in June saw Socialism get married in front of his brothers Communism, Leninism and Marxism.All that was missing was a Trotsky to do the drinks.

Shocking news from Brazil where a hammer and sickle has apparently been taken to McDonalds golden arches. The American fast-food chain has been accused of communism for opening non-gendered toilets in a restaurant at Bauru in Sao Paulo state.

Its scandalous. Communism in Bauru! some locals declared, with the mayor giving McDonalds a fortnight to separate the sexes.

The chain said the individual cabins were about inclusion and respect so everyone would feel welcome to use them.

Supporters of the countrys far-right President Jair Bolsonaro clearly urinalists to a man were not amused and have denounced McDonalds slide into pinko political correct porcelain.

A pair of American tourists who broke into the Colosseum in Rome to drink with the ghosts of the gladiators have ended up with the mother of all hangovers.

The young men were spotted drinking beer as dawn broke after climbing up to the second tier of the ancient arena at the end of a night out in the Italian capital.

Both were fined a sobering 800 euros (R14 593) after police arrested them as they left.

Never has the argument for a digital detox seemed more pressing. Scientists have invested the DogPhone, which will allow bored Beagles or yappy Yorkies to call their owners for a chat anytime they feel the need.

The inventors in Scotland and Finland say it will be a lifeline for lonely dogs and pandemic puppies left at home all day. The pet shakes a ball which triggers a video call to the owners phone.

While worried dog lovers hailed the breakthrough others say youd be barking to get one.

With the prospect of prank calls from a Pekinese, you can understand why a man in central France might be driven to get a mobile phone jammer.

Unfortunately, the device he bought to stop his neighbours from stealing his wifi connection ended up knocking out mobile phones in and around the city of Clermont-Ferrand. The man was out when armed and masked police raided his home after tracking down the rogue device, which he had left in a drawer under his television.

Officers said he had no idea he had turned his whole neighbourhood into a mobile phone, wifi and GPS dead zone.

ALSO READ: Encanto and New Material: New cinema releases in SA this week

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This week's offbeat news: From dog phones to toilet 'communism' - The South African

Two skyscrapers are illuminated during a light show to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China on June 25, 2021, in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. (Liu Yan / VCG via Getty Images)

Has the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 100 this year, become capitalist? Since the introduction of Deng Xiaopings economic liberalization reforms 40 years ago, more than 800 million people have been lifted out of poverty and the one-party state now leads the worlds second-largest economythe largest if calculated in purchasing power parity, with 18 percent of global GDP. The introduction of the market economy and the acceleration of growth have gone hand in hand with an exponential rise in inequality: The Gini coefficient, which measures the extent of inequality, rose by 15 points between 1990 and 2015 (latest available figures)

Translated by Hunter Wilson-Burke.This essay continues our exclusive collaboration with Le Monde Diplomatique, monthly publishing jointly commissioned and shared articles, both in print and online. To subscribe to LMD, go to mondediplo.com/subscribe.

These changes have facilitated growth in the private sector, but the state maintains direct control over large portions of the economythe public sector accounts for around 30 percentmaking China a textbook case of state capitalism. Moreover, the CCP has largely succeeded in co-opting the elites produced by this liberalized economy. But if communist ideology no longer informs party recruitment, its Leninist organizational structure remains central to the relationship between state and capital.

The CCP, which continues to grow and now has some 95 million members (around 6.5 percent of the population), has gradually transformed itself into a white-collar organization. In the early 2000s, then-President Jiang Zemin lifted the ban on recruiting entrepreneurs from the private sector, previously seen as class enemies, so that the CCP would no longer represent only the revolutionary classesworkers, peasants, and the militarybut also the countrys advanced productive forces.

The selected businessmen and women become members of the political elite, ensuring that their businesses are at least partially protected from predatory officials. Their enrollment into the CCP has accelerated under President Xi Jinping (from 2013 onward), with the aim of forming a group of individuals from the business world who are determined to march with the Party.

As a result, the CCP has rapidly become more and more elitist. In 2010, professionals and managers with higher education qualifications already equaled peasants and workers in number. Ten years later, they have overtaken them, making up 50 percent of the membership, compared to less than 35 percent of workers and peasants.

While working for communism was one of the main reasons for joining the Party during the Maoist era (194976), todays motivations are more pragmatic: primarily to facilitate ones professional advancement. Indeed, internal training courses show that the CCP presents itself as a neoliberal-inspired managerial structure, aiming at efficient management of the population and the economy.

However, the minimal importance accorded to communist ideology does not lessen the high level of allegiance and Party spirit demanded of CCP members. Similarly to corporate culture, this is focused on ensuring the success of the Party itself by creating a sense of belonging. It is also tinged with nationalism. Members are regularly reminded of the Partys centrality in the transformation of China, either during training sessions or through the development of red tourismvisiting places linked to the history of the revolution. Current Issue

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Under Xi Jinping, internal discipline has also got stronger. The aim is to guarantee the morality and loyalty of both leaders and members through a massive anti-corruption campaign. Not only have potential opponents of Xis personal power been removed, but control over officials has increased, as has the fight against the four bad [professional] styles: formalism, bureaucratism, hedonism, and extravagance.

This injunction to loyalty and professional ethics, in line with the image the CCP wishes to present to the general public, applies to all its members, including those from the private sector. According to Party guidelines, they are expected not only to remain loyal to the party line, but also to regulate their words and actions, cultivate a healthy lifestyle, and remain modest and discreet. And those who do not play the game may suffer consequences. The charismatic Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group, is a prime example. After openly criticizing the states stranglehold on the banking sector, he became the target of an orchestrated attack by Party authorities.

The initial public offering of Ant Group, a financial subsidiary of Alibaba Group, was halted at the end of 2020, and the group was ordered to limit its operations. This incident demonstrates the CCPs willingness to use pressure as a means of ensuring loyalty from entrepreneurs and as a way of maintaining a degree of control over their companies financial and technological resources.

Ant Group holds valuable personal and financial data on the hundreds of millions of people who use its payment tools and online loans; the equivalent of billions of dollars flows daily through its platforms. The increased control over the private sector is in line with the CCPs hegemonic tendencies, characteristic of the Xi era. The Partys charter was amended in 2017 to emphasize that in government, the army, society and schoolsin the east, west, south and norththe Party leads on all fronts.

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In companies, this translates into an increase in the number of grassroots organizations or party cells. As early as 2012, the CCPs Organization Department, whose mission is to manage human resources, issued a directive calling for exhaustive coverage of the private sector, and since 2018 companies listed on the Chinese market have been obliged to set up a Party cell: Now 92 percent of Chinas 500 largest companies have one. Although no precise figures have been made public, regular leaks reveal the high presence of members and cells in foreign companies operating in China.

This presence provides the Party with leverage even beyond the large parts of the economy it owns. The CCPs disciplinary apparatus, embodied by the Discipline and Inspection Committee, is able to hand out extrajudicial punishments to members who have failed to comply with its rules, and its powers have been enhanced by the anti-corruption campaign. Sessions of criticism and self-criticism, known as democratic life meetings, have been revived as a means of rooting out corrupt or disloyal officials. Traditional Maoist practices are thus recycled, no longer focusing on the ideological purity of Party officials and members but on their allegiance to the organization and its leader.

Until now, Party cells played a minor role in companies: They mainly recruited members and organized courses or social and cultural activities. Now, with the aim of developing a modern enterprise system with Chinese characteristics, guidelines have been issued requiring private companies to adhere to the principle that the Party has decision-making power over human resources. It is too early to know what form this will take, but to Ye Qing, vice chairman of the CCP-led China Federation of Industry and Commerce, it is clear that this means the Party will have control over the management of staff.

Party approval would be required for hiring and firing, to stop managers promoting whoever they want, says Ye. He also recommends setting up a monitoring and auditing structure within companies, under the authority of the Party, to ensure that companies comply with the law and to deal with breaches of discipline and abnormal behavior by employees. The Partys disciplinary apparatus is thus expanding to include everyone, even non-communists.

According to the new guidelines, the management of Party cells should be formally incorporated into company statutes, with a specific budget reserved for their activities. This amounts to legally codifying the CCPs requirements so that they become binding, even for companies that are not under its direct control. Thus the CCPs role in the private sector increasingly resembles the one it has in state-owned enterprises. Focused on its own survival, displaying pragmatism, and even an ideological vacuum, it is bringing a growing number of capitalists into its ranks, as it becomes ever more present in companies.

This asymmetrical alliance is found outside national borders: The Belt and Road Initiative is accelerating the internationalization of Chinese companies, both private and public, which are creating party cells abroad to supervise their employees. While it has set aside Maoist internationalism, the CCP is now exporting its organizational mode and disciplinary tools.

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Whats Left of Communism in China? - The Nation