Why is “Communismphobia” Returning to the US?

As the former giants of imperialism witnessed a shrinking of their hegemony represented by the collapse of the conventional colonialism system and the independence of a large number of “third world” countries, in addition to the expansion of influence of emerging powers – the Soviet Union and the liberation movement; they resorted to developing new imperialistic tools and a “softer” colonialism. This later became known as neo / economic colonialism.

This also required, from the perspective of the neocolonialists, setting new ways of managing internal affairs to accommodate the changes and keep populations at home “under control”. Since then, the US, more blatantly than before, thrived and greatly depended on the concept of the “enemy” – enemy of the American people, enemy of the American way of living, enemy of American “values”, enemy of “American” everything and anything.

A Very Brief Historical Review

It was important for the US to keep the greatest majority of its population distracted from and even supportive of all its actions worldwide. This way, and as was evident during WWII, the people would be less likely to pose big questions with regard to all aspects of their lives. Thus, having the US always “at war” would be ideal, but without actual battles this meant always having an “enemy” targeting and waiting to ambush America and Americans, which would mean always being “at war” with this “enemy”, even if this “war” was not always obvious. This reminds us of Engels’ saying that “war is the iron lung through which capitalism breathes”.

Shortly after the end of WWII and until the early 1990s, the main enemy was communism, which took on at the time the name “The Cold War.” It was during this “war” that the US started, among other things, targeting its own citizens and justifying infringement of fundamental rights and freedoms, in addition to its foreign policy that took shape in many barbaric and aggressive actions throughout the world.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it was no longer possible to use countering communism as a pretext, and indeed, for nearly a decade and until 2001, a state of “severe hypoxia” dominated the US as a result of the absence of the “enemy” and “war” in the broad sense.

In 2001, a new “enemy” emerged – terrorism, and with it, Washington resumed breathing through “the War on Terrorism” to mobilize Americans and have them accept measures, regulations, and legislations they would not otherwise accept was it not for being “at war”. This became the new pretext under which the US justified increasing snooping on and bullying its own citizens and infringing their fundamental rights, as well as its highly aggressive foreign policy, in which the militaristic side became blatantly prominent.

This “enemy” continued to be the main one for over a decade, until a few years ago, possibly until Russia’s direct entry into the fight against terrorism, which exposed the deceptiveness of the US’s war on terrorism and turned it into a mostly dismal tool.

It was then we saw the rise of a new-old “enemy” – socialism and communism, with clear ways in which the US has been pushing towards creating again a type of fear from communism, which we will call “communismphobia”.

What Caused the Emergence of the “New Communismphobia”?

The factors that contributed to the revival of the old “enemy” are intertwined and complex and have several dimensions and aspects that feed off of each other. We will lay out here the more prominent of them, which should be understood as headlines, each of which could be studied in much greater detail.

At the international level

The post US unipolarity new international balance, in which the US no longer has a control monopoly in any aspect, whether political, economic, or military, is now a reality and moving in an irreversible direction. This necessarily means a lesser role for the US (and the West in general) on the world stage, and an increasing space for the East – specifically Russia and China.

There is also an increasing isolation of the US at the international level, which is becoming more evident in various aspects (some of this was covered in a previous article: Washington: “I don’t Want this War to End!”). This isolation is one of the features of the changing balance of power and increasing space for others to take a greater role, especially (from Washington’s perspective) “unfriendly” alternatives like Russia and China. One of the most hurtful for the US is probably the economic side of things, with things like the de-dollarization and decentralization of energy on the rise.

At the regional level

If we take as one example what is happening in our region (which is in reality happening in different forms in different regions of the world), we can find several dossiers the main feature of which is a diminishing role of the US (and the West) in favor of the East represented by Russia and China primarily.

We can see in our region the increasing influence of the Astana group, regardless of the positions from any of its parties, an objective view of matters force recognizing that it has become a major influence not only in the Syrian file, but also in the Libyan and the Armenian / Azeri ones too, among others. This contradicts the traditional roles of the EU, US, and NATO, which had previously been the main determinants of the various primary directions of development in the entire region through the “creative chaos” policies, the “large / new Middle East” project, and others.

Domestically, inside the US itself

Along with everything happening abroad, and the chain of losses and defeats that are starting to add up, there are a plethora of worrisome matters happening inside the US. At least during the last decade, the talk about socialism and even demand for more socialist practices has increased in the US, regardless of how socialist this “socialism” they are talking about actually is. These calls were generally ignored. Things began to take a “worrisome” turn in the US during the coronavirus crisis this year, as more and more Americans (and populations in the West in general) looked beyond the government practices to blame for failure in dealing with the pandemic, and voices started rising about recognizing the failure of capitalism as a system  and its inability to achieve stability.

Manifestations of the “New Communismphobia”

All of the above contributed to raising the level of alarm for the US about losing its position in the international system, and to add insult to injury, losing it to Russia and China, two formerly communist systems. That combined with the fact that voices were rising higher internally criticizing capitalism and demanding policies and institutions that are more “socialist”, along with the clear rise of popular movements around the world, signaling at least the proper environment for the inevitable collapse of capitalism. This also has shifted the focus from having terrorism be the people’s main fear, to capitalism and its byproducts, and people realized on their own (and not through government propaganda) that capitalism is their number one and real enemy. Thus, requiring work to be done to bring back communism as the “enemy” and taking the necessary measures to combat it, which requires establishing the foundations to do so, mainly through intensified planting of public fear thereof.

This “new communismphobia” in the US has manifested through several actions and statements:

• The 2018 National Defense Strategy of the USA (link: a summary of the Strategy) states: “We are facing increased global disorder, characterized by decline in the long-standing rules-based international order—creating a security environment more complex and volatile than any we have experienced in recent memory. Inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S. national security… Long-term strategic competitions with China and Russia are the principal priorities for the Department [of Defense].” Moreover, the US has not moved from its alleged war against terrorism towards a war with China and Russia, rather it no longer conceals its work to whitewash terrorist organizations in various places in the world as “civic” organizations. For example, its continuous attempts to whitewash al-Nusra in Syria, and the recent agreement with the Taliban.
• US top officials have been attacking China every chance they can, which is understandable with China’s rise economically and in other arenas, much if not all of it at the expense of the US and the West in general. These attacks took a steeper rise with the coronavirus pandemic. US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, especially has been increasingly making statements about China, but lately has deliberately and repeatedly used the “Chinese Communist Party” when referring to China, to tie the “dangers” of China with communism.
• Over the last few months, as the US elections campaigns started getting more intense, Trump’s main accusation of the democrats and their candidates has been that they want to turn US into a socialist country, which has been countered by the others, including Biden that they do not want to turn the US into a socialist country. Trump has increasingly said, especially lately, that he will not allow the US to become socialist. Neither republicans nor democrats have anything to do with “socialism” but using this as a point of attack and defense contributes to making it an “enemy”.
• The most curious of the manifestations of this new “enemy” is reviving laws relating to association with the Communist party, which is discussed in more detail below. While these legislations were never removed from the law, they had been somewhat dormant for decades. Recently, however, they have resurfaced.

The “Legal” Side

Now that the US is working on creating or reviving this new-old “enemy”, it will create or revive the weapons it will use to combat it, and the most important objective to ensure that internally there is not a chance for any movement that can adopt communism or even socialist ideals.

This had happened in the past in the 1940s, when there was a strong socialist movement picking up momentum among Americans, particularly after the Great Depression, which had the same (maybe slightly less) effect on Americans we are seeing today as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, becoming disillusioned with capitalism and its ideals.

After WWII, the Truman administration started a widespread campaign against communists, driving out official who had leftist tendencies or promoted leftist policies, blacklisting anyone (particularly actors, writers, and others who could be in influential positions) who might be communist or in contact with communists, and expelling labor leaders sympathetic to communism. This period was known as the “Second Red Scare” and its practices took on the name “McCarthyism” in reference to Senator Joseph McCarthy who headed the investigations relating to communist activities in the US.

It was during this period, that the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 was enacted, later becoming codified as Title 8 of the United States Code: Aliens and Nationality. This Act was specifically debated in the context of the McCarty era and the fears it instilled among Americans about communists and Soviet sympathizer infiltrating the US and its institutions and targeting Americans, American values, and American everything. Sounds familiar? It should, because it is, and it has been used with all “enemies” of the US, regardless of the name or type of those enemies.

According to this law, the government can deport immigrants or naturalized citizens engaged in “subversive activities” and also deny “suspected subversives” from entering the country. For example, with regards to grounds for refusing entry to the US, this law enumerates under “Security and related grounds” the following categories: those who have are engaged in terrorist activities, members of communist or any totalitarian party (domestic or foreign), and those who participated in Nazi prosecutions or genocide.

It should be noted that many laws in the US, even if they become obsolete and rarely or even never applied, often stay in effect. The part of this law, which used affiliation in a communist party as grounds to deny aliens entry to the US and naturalization, was rarely applied since the 1970s, and based on our sources even possibly completely disregarded since the mid 1990s. It is curious, however, that despite nothing having changed in the law itself, that on 2 October 2020, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services issued a policy guidance regarding “inadmissibility [into the US] based on membership in or affiliation with the Communist party”.

While this on its face targets mainly non-US citizens seeking entry into the US, the main target of such policy are Americans themselves. One objective from this is to keep out those who could come in and “sabotage the American system and values” from the inside. But more importantly, this is in a way admission that there is inside the US a fertile and ready environment for the kind of change that communism proposes; that is, communism is a very strong alternative that can pick momentum in the US today, and from the point of view of the American elite, that must be stopped and very strictly.

So, can we be at the threshold of another “Red Scare” and another McCarthy era in the US? All indications are pointing to the answer being “yes” to that question.