"The State Department is infested with communists," McCarthy is reported to have said, speaking at a Republican fundraising event in February of 1950. The senator produced a piece of paper which he said contained the names of known communists in the employ of then-president Harry Truman's State Department. There is no audio or video recording of the speech and there is some dispute over whether McCarthy alleged that there(were)57 communists in the State Department or 205; many of those present reported that McCarthy said "205," although others report that he said "57," which is the number McCarthy cited both in communications to Truman and in the congressional record.

McCarthy's allegation came at a time when communism was broadly recognized as a threat to the US Klaus Fuchs, a German scientist working for the Manhattan Project, had recently confessed to being a Soviet agent and providing predatory Soviet secret police chief Lavrentiy Beria, who was managing the Soviet atomic project, with information regarding the American creation of the atomic bomb. The Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear weapons test in 1949 and rapidly began assembling even more destructive hydrogen bombs, sparking an arms race between the US and the Soviet Union. Manhattan Project architect J. Robert Oppenheimer was also later accused of communist sympathies, related to his affiliation with left-wing and communist front organizations in the 1930s and his sexual relationship with Communist Party USA (CPUSA) member Jean Tatlock.

The year before the Soviet Union developed nuclear weapons, US State Department official Alger Hiss, who was intimately involved in the founding of the United Nations and served as a top advisor to Truman's Secretary of State Dean Acheson, was accused of being a Soviet agent by former communist Whittaker Chambers, among others. The statute of limitations for bringing espionage charges against Hiss had already expired, but the spy was convicted of perjury relating to his espionage work. Shockingly, Hiss was defended by a number of high-profile government officials, including future Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson and former Democratic presidential candidate John W. Davis, in addition to Truman and Acheson. Following the Hiss conviction, Acheson is reported to have stated, "I do not intend to turn my back on Alger Hiss." McCarthy delivered his speech two weeks later.

Over the next several years, concerns over the threat of communist influence would rise sharply, with men like future President Richard Nixon, law enforcement guru J. Edgar Hoover, National Review founder William F. Buckley, Jr. and his editorial team, including his brother-in-law L. Brent Bozell and conservative intellectual Russell Kirk, attorney and New York City fixer Roy Cohn, and even some Democrats, notably future Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, leading the crusade.

History has not been kind to the anti-communist crusade of this era. McCarthy has rightly been derided over the past 70 years as a browbeating bully slinging baseless accusations, steamrolling opposition in his pursuit of fame and power, and ruining the lives and careers of innocent Americans. But the backlash over McCarthy's failures has eclipsed the reality of the threat posed by communism and the work of others who fought against it. It turns out, Americans were right to fear communist influence and try to root it out at every turn. Communism—wearing a variety of masks, from charitable and nongovernmental organizations to ideological labels like "progressive" or "liberal"—has infiltrated the American government, and now threatens a new phase of its shadow war against the American people.

War on America

In a social media post Friday, President Donald Trump warned against the rise of open communism. While communist ideals have long percolated in the Democratic Party and the multiplicity of NGOs funded by the American taxpayers by way of Democratic presidents and congressmen, McCarthy did his job well. Though short-lived, the "red scare" ensured that communism was afraid to show its face in public for decades. Instead, communist sympathies and principles were laundered through political parties, academics and institutions, and a veritable "red army" of NGOs, all masquerading as liberal, progressive, left-wing, or some similar non-communist variant.

Now, outspoken communists are seizing control of the Democratic Party, where their machinations have been at home to varying degrees since the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have enjoyed several recent wins in Democratic primaries for federal offices, in addition to seeing the rise of self-declared socialists as mayors of New York City and Portland.

"Communism is very easy to sell. I'd be the Greatest Communist in History. I'd give free rent, free houses, free food, everything is free," the president said on Truth Social, addressing the advance of avowed communists in the Democratic Party. "Unfortunately, after two or three years, the Country where this is taking place would fail. It always does, and then you'll start living in squalor. There will be no food, there will be no housing, there will be no Military, there will be no nothing. You'll be Third World every way, and everyone will suffer or die."

"They're animals!" Trump added, noting that communists, when not in power, tend to rely heavily on political assassinations, murdering those who oppose their policies. "These are not social Dumocrats, these are hard core, godless Communists. This is the most serious threat to our Country since its existence 250 years ago," he continued. "Isn't it ironic, we're celebrating a very important Birthday, and instead of speaking about Christ, Freedom, and Victories of all different kinds, we're speaking about yet another threat to the Foundations of America."

"These ruthless Communists will attack all Religions but, in particular, Christianity—They always do. All Communist Countries attack Religions violently," the president warned. "They will close your Churches, they will kill your people. This is what they're about. This is the Greatest Threat to our Country since its Founding 250 years ago!"

In a subsequent speech just hours later, Trump derided Democrats as "godless communists," warning, "They want to completely destroy the traditional American way of life." He characterized communism as a failed belief system hostile to the Christian faith. "These are, in many ways, stupid people, in some ways, and intellectually probably pretty smart, but they're people that want to destroy our country. They hate our country. They hate our people," he said. "These ruthless communists will attack all religions, but in particular Christianity," the president continued. "They will close your churches in this country. They want to end religion. They have to end religion because their ideology doesn't work." He urged American Christians to vote against Democrats in the midterm elections, stressing, "We have to win this election. ... This election's very vital."

Trump is right. Sure, he may be pandering to Christian voters, trying to drum up support for Republicans ahead of November's midterms, but he's not wrong. Trump is right, McCarthy was right: communism is a threat to the very foundations of the US.

Enemies of God

The 1917 October Revolution in Russia toppled the unpopular and short-lived provisional government and brutally murdered Tsar Nicholas II and his family, even though the Tsar had abdicated the throne months before. Led by Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and the Bolsheviks, the revolution sparked the Russian Civil War and ushered in an era of ruthlessly-enforced state atheism.

Between 1917 and 1922, more than 1,200 priests of the Russian Orthodox Church were murdered, along with more than 25 bishops. Monasteries and convents were forcibly shuttered, hundreds were liquidated, and the assets and properties of churches were confiscated. Any Christians who dared to defend their churches, their altars, their tabernacles were shot and killed. When Joseph Stalin came to power, religious persecution worsened. Tens of thousands of churches were destroyed. At the dawn of the 20th century, Russia boasted more than 50,000 Orthodox churches alone; by 1940, there were fewer than 500 left standing. (Image: Public Domain /via VictimsofCommunism.org)

Between 1927 and 1940, some 170,000 priests were arrested, and more than 100,000 were shot and killed. (Just for an idea of scale, there are currently roughly 40,000 Catholic priests active in the US at present. Stalin's regime killed more than twice that many in a 13-year period.) In 1937 alone, during the Great Purge, an estimated 85,000 Orthodox priests were shot and killed. Lay Christians faced arrest, imprisonment, exile, and even death for defending their churches, praying in public, or even just publicly acknowledging their faith.

The suppression of Christians—including executions, mass arrests and imprisonment, and the mobilization of left-wing paramilitaries— continued for decades, until President Mikhail Gorbachev introduced liberalization practices in the 1980s, easing restrictions as the Soviet Union's power waned.

In China, communist leader Mao Zedong launched a repressive, violent campaign against Christianity that is still ongoing today. Starting at the end of the 1940s, the state took control of numerous religious organizations, forcing subservience to the state and deporting missionaries and other clerics as foreign agents. Christian leaders who resisted, such as Protestant pastor Wang Mingdao or Catholic Archbishop Dominic Tang Yiming and Cardinal Ignatius Kung Pin-mei, were arrested and imprisoned for decades. Kung was imprisoned for 30 years; after being released in 1986, he was exiled to the US. Mao's "Cultural Revolution" of the 1960s saw churches sacked and looted, burned and destroyed. Bibles were burned and clergy were arrested, often to be sent to forced labor camps, but sometimes simply tortured and executed, even publicly.

Today, the situation is just as dire. Churches are forced to display Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda and submit to the state, while "underground" churches are strictly prohibited. Religious leaders and practitioners are singled out for persecution, from state surveillance and arrests to forced disappearances and torture.

Grove City College political science professor and author Paul Kengor, an expert on the history of Marxism and communism, has estimated that communist regimes were responsible for over 100 million deaths over the course of the 20th century alone.

Enemies Within

The communist persecution of Christians has not been relegated to the Eastern hemisphere. Covert communists in the US have employed similar, although usually less violent, methods. A recent report from the US Department of Justice (DOJ) revealed that ...Joe Biden and his administration routinely violated religious liberty protections and unjustly targeted American Christians.

The Biden DOJ weaponized the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act to prosecute pro-life and Christian Americans, colluding with abortion industry personnel and pro-abortion NGOs to identify and target pro-life Americans. Abortion NGOs would provide the Biden DOJ's FACE Act task force with "dossiers" on pro-life leaders and activists, including home addresses, photos of the individuals, and even photos of their children and other family members.

The Biden DOJ withheld evidence and documents from defense attorneys, sought heightened sentences for pro-life defendants, and even rejected deals for peaceful surrenders in favor of armed pre-dawn raids at Christians' homes. At one point, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) even warned the DOJ that it was likely violating pro-lifers' constitutional rights, but the Biden administration forged ahead anyway. Notably, the FACE Act also provides protection for pro-life pregnancy resource centers (PRCs) and churches, but the Biden DOJ routinely failed to prosecute the numerous attacks against churches and PRCs, which ranged from vandalism and property destruction to arson and death threats.

The Biden FBI also illegally spied on American traditionalist Catholics, infiltrating at least one parish and erroneously labelling American Catholics "potential racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists." FBI agents in the Richmond field office crafted a memo detailing plans to infiltrate and spy on Catholics, which was subjected to rigorous review and approved at the highest levels, which was slated to be circulated nationwide, before it was leaked and public backlash prompted the removal of the memo.

Christian charities and nonprofit organizations were also targeted by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Biden's Attorney General Merrick Garland ordered the targeting and prosecuting of parents who protested gender ideology at school board meetings, and Christian universities and colleges were fined astronomical sums on the basis of minor or trumped-up violations of varying regulations.

Should communism gain a serious political foothold in the US, it will continue to aggressively pursue power. Since the 1950s, communism has worn many masks in an effort to hide in the heart of America. The rise of DSA-backed candidates and politicos across the country is not a mask-off moment, but it is a bolder, more threatening step by the power-hungry, atheistic, anti-Christian ideology. The real mask-off moment will come once communism has gained control of the state. "They will close your Churches, they will kill your people." It isn't prophecy, it isn't political pandering, it isn't fearmongering, it's just history. Subscribe for free to Breaking Christian News here

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

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