Know Your Communist Enemy: International Communism, Its Teachings, Aims, and Methods
| Author | Office of Armed Forces Information and Education, US Department of Defense |
|---|---|
| Published | December 1954 |
| Format | Report |
| Original | Read the original |
TL;DR — The first pamphlet in a 1950s Defense Department series for US servicemen explaining communist doctrine, aims and methods from a Cold War viewpoint.
Published by the Office of Armed Forces Information and Education with a cover note from the Secretary of Defense dated 9 December 1954, for distribution to all branches of the armed forces; this copy is a library scan stamped January 1955. It is number one of a series that also covered communism in the USA and the USSR, “In the Iron Grip of the Kremlin” and “Who Are the Communists and Why?”.
In sixteen pages it summarises Marxist-Leninist teaching, the stated goal of world revolution, and the tactics the pamphlet attributes to communist parties, presented as material for troop information sessions.
What it is: an official US government Cold War information pamphlet, in effect state propaganda for troops; a primary source on how the military taught anti-communism, not a neutral account of communism.
Where this came from
- A copy saved in October 2026.
- Public copy (whole series) on the Internet Archive.
- Archived copy (Google Drive): Google Drive
16 pages. A copy is archived locally against link rot; the header links the original source.