Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia. It reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when United States and the Soviet Union engaged in an intense rivalry.
Most modern anti-communists point out that centrally planned economies have under-performed free market economies and that communism results in the subjugation of human freedom. Anti-communists note that communists caused many famines, such as the Russian Famine of 1921 and the much more severe famine in China during the Great Leap Forward.
Some anti-communists refer to both communism and fascism as totalitarianism, seeing similarity between the actions of communist and fascist governments.
Opponents argue that communist parties that have come to power have tended to be rigidly intolerant of political opposition. Communist governments have also been accused of creating a new ruling class (a Nomenklatura), with powers and privileges greater than those previously enjoyed by the upper classes in the non-communist regimes.
Since the split of the Communist Parties from the socialist Second International to form the Communist Third International, democratic socialists and social democrats have been critical of Communism for its anti-democratic nature. Examples of left-wing critics of Communist states and parties are Boris Souveraine, Bayard Rustin, Irving Howe and Max Shachtman. The American Federation of Labor has always been strongly anti-Communist. The more leftist CIO purged its Communists in 1947 and has been staunchly anti-Communist ever since. In Britain, the Labour Party strenuously resisted Communist efforts to infiltrate its ranks and take control of locals in the 1930s. The Labour Party became anti-Communist.