Cover art for the book Menace of Our Time. The Long War Against American Communism by Aaron J. Leonard

The Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) has been oft-maligned by those to its left and to its right. To the casual observer the attacks from the right seem obvious while those from the Left might make them wonder why that might occur. Ideally, this curiosity would lead the curious to explore leftism and its multiple nuances more deeply. Usually, however, those curious enough to reach this point tend to back off, deciding in their mind that quarreling is the nature of the Left. This response seems to be especially true in the world’s most powerful and, in my opinion, most reactionary nation—the United States.

The point of this review is not to discuss the multiple debates of the Left or its use of debate in developing strategy. Instead, it is to consider a new book by Aaron Leonard, the best living historian on the topic of political repression of the US Left in the United States. In the book, titled Menace of Our Time: The Long War Against American Communism, Leonard returns once again to exploring the surveillance element of the US police state. After looking at the infiltration and repression of the Revolutionary Union and its successor the Revolutionary Communist Party in his first texts, Leonard wrote three more books before the one being reviewed here. Two of them, titled The Folk Singers and the Bureau and Whole World in an Uproar: Music, Rebellion and Repression – 1955-1972, examined the attitudes and actions by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other US intelligence agencies against popular music, especially in the 1950s and 1960s. The attempted destruction of the careers of left-leaning musicians like the Weavers and the dirty tricks and threats against the music industry and various artists opposed to the US war in Vietnam and US apartheid are the substance of both of these texts. The material discussed presents what is best termed an extremely paranoid and consequently dangerous surveillance regime.

As he did for his previous books, Leonard spent hours poring over documents from FBI surveillance, Congressional committees and other such material for his latest. The result is a damning look at the attacks on the first amendment rights of thousands of US residents. It is also a somewhat chilling reminder of the intense anti-communism that is part and parcel of the American dream. While this reminder is not necessary for those of us who remain politically to the left of the Democratic Party, it is useful in that it prompts us to never underestimate the interest the government and its masters in the halls of capital has in the people opposed to their profiteering, racism and warmongering. Likewise, it reminds us of the damage those forces can inflict on individuals, their loved ones and the politics they struggle for.

This damage is often inflicted by those one has trusted the most; the cadre leader or the party scribe who for reasons personal or political changes sides. In other words, the snitch. In Menace of Our Time, Leonard discusses the cases of two such men, Morris and Jack Childs. These men were brothers whose reach inside the CPUSA went all the way to the top. Their dirty tricks against fellow members who trusted them with their lives and their secrets included an endeavor that involved the Bureau planting false rumors that a top party member in New York named William Anderson was actually an informer for the FBI. This action resulted In Albertson being kicked out of the party and the loss of most of his friends in the party. The reason for the FBI’s move was solely to protect Morris Childs, who was running an operation inside the Party known as Operation SOLO. Both Childs were being funded by the US government, which was also providing the CPUSA with hundreds of thousands of dollars. Given that the Party counted only a couple thousand members at the time, it could be argued that it was the US government that was keeping party going. Reading this, I was reminded of a joke we used to repeat when I was working with leftist groups in the 1970s that it was the FBI that actually funded the party. Little did we know the relative truth of that statement at the time.

The first summer job I ever had was in 1971 at a US Army facility in Frankfurt am Main, (West) Germany. I mention this because of the loyalty oath I had to sign to get the job. My friends and I joked about the oath mostly because it seemed archaic and absurd. Of course, it was. Among the numerous organizations one could not be a member of and work for the US government (even in a ninety-day temporary position like the ones we had) were the CPUSA, the Socialist Workers Party, and the Bund. I have to be honest, although I never would have even considered joining the Bund because it was fascist, the fact that the CPUSA was on the list did help return it to something of an outlaw status in my mind. Of course, the fact that Angela Davis was a member added to that perception.

In today’s USA, Aaron Leonard’s chronicles of political repression become even more important than before. As US residents watch federal troops occupy their cities while gestapo-like agents kidnap, detain and deport their neighbors, the truth of the modern surveillance state is made physically real. At first uncertain what to do, many still sit stunned and others succumb to the dragnet and the illegal occupations, deciding to believe it’s in their best interests to join in. Although it’s been a long time since I believed the US was a free country, it seems that most residents still do. The history told in Menace of Our Time leads to a far different truth about those freedoms and their fragility. Indeed, this book could not have come at a better time, given the intensifying authoritarianism of the trumpist state.

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