The communist menace in Finsterwolde: conspiring against local authorities? A case study an the Dutch battle against communism, 1945-1951

"Since the municipal elections of 1946 (and before in the period 1935-1939), the Communist party had held an absolute majority of seats in the city council of Finsterwolde, a small municipality in the north of the Netherlands. In 1951, the Dutch parliament adopted a custom bill to dismiss this 'Little Moscow'. This article reconstructs the decision-making process that preceded the bill in order to…