In his 1968 text The Anticommunist Impulse, Michael Parenti wrote that “Our fear that communism might someday take over most of the world blinds us to the fact that anti-communism already has.” He argued that anti-communism commanded the budget, military, and foreign and domestic policies of the United States, with consequences for the entire globe. Parenti did not ascribe anticommunism to either the political right or left; rather, it was a centrist ideology, a bipartisan dogma that infected the thinking of conservatives and liberals; but it was not confined to thought processes. It was, and remains, a driving ideology that frames US political and social realities. Anticommunism has had a long and durable life not confined to specific time frames. It is a foundation in the American body politic, and it continues to drive public policy.
This is evidenced in the Donald Trump and MAGA movement of the twenty-first century. In both Trump’s first and second terms, he and his supporters have wielded the threat of communism against liberals and conservative Democrats using “communism” as what W.E.B. Du Bois once called a “witchword.” Communism is a word that taints anyone accused of it, and it has never required any actual communists to be a useful and powerful weapon. Donald Trump and his supporters are merely drawing on a long and storied American tradition that can be dated to Reconstruction. Anticommunism has not found new life; it is an ever-present boogey-man, a structural ideology, in US culture and a useful tool of social control.
In popular historical narratives red scares are depicted as anomalous, confined to specific time frames, that disappear leaving behind consequences that are lamented, but easily forgotten. Scholars have instead argued that anticommunism and its concomitant hysterias are deeply ingrained in US political and social life and they exist to limit progressive goals. Ellen Shrecker, a historian of the so-called McCarthy period, argues that there are “Many McCarthyisms” and that the pejorative used to describe the period unfairly credits Senator Joseph McCarthy when he neither acted alone, nor was he the only politician intent on staging anti-radical purges. More recently Beverly Gage has argued that Joseph McCarthy is hardly the person that deserves credit for the mid-century purges; rather, J. Edgar Hoover, the maniacally paranoid anticommunist and head of the FBI deserves the lion’s share of the credit. She suggests calling the time and the purges “Hooverism,” because it more accurately describes the Bureau’s single-minded focus on targeting communists and progressives, communist or not, as treasonous threats to national security.
Nick Fischer has shown that anticommunism has been wielded against Black Americans since emancipation to circumscribe their political and social rights and their physical safety. Fischer argues that capitalist and state interests worked in tandem to repress Black emancipatory efforts as well as the force and power of organized labor to advocate for working people. Charisse Burden-Stelly argues that anti-communism and anti-Black politics are kin and “durable modes of governance” that ensure wealth accumulation. The state does not protect capitalist interest; rather the state and capital are the same agent wielding enormous military power to prevent liberation. Other scholars have shown that anticommunists also police gender and sexual boundaries by deploying anti-woman and anti-homosexual hysteria and arguing that communists seek gender chaos. Anticommunism is a totalizing politics that remains a deterministic and systemic force in US policymaking preventing lasting progressive change.
The theme issue for American Communist History would expand on this historiographical tradition by exploring the persistent and structural life of anticommunism in US politics – at the federal, state, local, grassroots, and personal level. The editors seek essays that address some of the following topics but would not be limited to these and are open to ideas from potential contributor. Topics include anticommunism and:
- American Labor
- Conspiracism and conspiracy theories
- Popular Culture
- Anti-radicalism including US intelligence operations
- Anti-Black political organization
- Gender and Sexuality
- Liberals
- Conservatives
Proposed Timeline:
July 15, 2026 — 250-500 word chapter abstract due
November 12, 2026 – Essay drafts due
April 1, 2027 – Edits/suggestions for revisions sent to contributors
July 1, 2027 – Final articles due
A paper draft is due by November 12 and final revisions must be completed by July 1, 2027. If you are interested, please send a 250 word abstract to Willie Mack wmack@missouri.edu and Denise Lynn dmlynn1@usi.edu. Abstracts will be considered until July 15.