Congress for Cultural Freedom

The Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) was an anti-communist cultural organization during the Cold War that aimed to promote intellectual freedom and combat Soviet totalitarianism. A group of anti-communist intellectuals founded the congress in 1950 at a conference in West Berlin. At its height, the CCF was active in 35 countries and published more than 20 magazines, hosted art exhibitions, and organized conferences with prominent intellectuals. The congress aimed to enlist intellectuals and opinion makers from the non-communist left in a war of ideas against communism. In 1966 former CIA agents confirmed that the Central Intelligence Agency was instrumental in the establishment and funding of the CCF. Through this involvement, the CCF promoted western political ideology while also representing semi-autonomous intellectual movements across Europe.

Historians note the CCF's CIA funding in different contexts. Peter Coleman argues that the CCF was a participant in a struggle for the mind "of Postwar Europe" and the world at large, and was successful at combatting and undermining Soviet totalitarianism. Frances Stonor Saunders argues that the CCF functioned as a covert propaganda network "to ease the passage of American foreign policy interest abroad."

Origins, 1948–1950

The CCF was founded on 26 June 1950 in West Berlin, which had just endured months of Soviet blockade. Formation of the CCF came in response to a series of events orchestrated by Cominform, as part of a campaign to influence public opinion against US war-mongering and aggression. In 1948, the World Congress of Intellectuals in Defense of Peace convened in Wrocław (Poland) on August 1948.