Red Spectre: The Dissonance of Cold War Anti-Communism in 21st Century America
Americans and expatriate Cubans protest outside of the White House the 2021 Cuban food and medicine shortage, which was spurred on by continuing U.S. sanctions on the country since 1960. Photo by Joe Flood.
Karl Marx, co-author of the ever-controversial Communist Manifesto, posited at the very start of capitalism’s enduring economic hegemony that the “spectre of communism” haunted a newly-industrial Europe. He likely did not foresee the proletariat attempt to exorcise said spectre at the expense of their fellow workers across the Western World, as his ideals rooted in mutual aid and liberation would be lost in a flurry of propaganda and anti-leftist rhetoric during the Cold War.
The American public has been made to believe that leftism should be feared rather than welcomed over the past seventy-five years by organizations ranging from independent news publications to its own government, and anti-communism is alive and well—especially in the United States. Organizations such as Fox News and the Washington Post—a publication owned by foremost billionaire Jeff Bezos—would like viewers and readers to believe that liberal Americans preach communism with little understanding of it and that post-communist societies are more susceptible to “left authoritarianism.” As a result, public opinion on communism remains widely negative.
A 2019 Pew Research Center survey of 10,170 Americans revealed that over half of the United States views socialism negatively, and two-thirds support capitalism. Tack on the concept of communism, which is the goal of socialism according to communist theory, and only 18 percent of Gen Z and 13 percent of Millennials prefer communism to capitalism according to a survey taken by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in 2020. Clearly, a culture of fearmongering left over from the Cold War maintains a firm grip on the American worldview in an era where the consequences of late-stage capitalism demand the incorporation of the core tenets of the very ideologies America vilifies.
The 21st century has arguably seen the most egregious forms of capitalism since Marx’s era of a bourgeois-dominated Europe and 16-hour workdays; although moderate government regulations on economic affairs and forms of social welfare exist in the form of government initiatives like labor laws and Medicaid, loopholes are available to large, profit-seeking corporations and the government does not extend adequate aid to its citizens. Amazon complies to labor laws by proclaiming neutrality to unions but fires labor organizers under wraps. Poverty in the U.S. increased from 10.5 percent to 11.4 percent during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic following five years of steady decline, despite the disbursement of three rounds of stimulus checks. Why, then, are Americans so collectively fearful of the progression toward a more equitable, dependable society in the form of socialist, and potentially communist, reform?
The answer lies in the United States’ historical contest with communism. In the time period between the first Red Scare in America, which first disseminated fears of the end of the capitalist system that flourished in the U.S. during the era of the Russian Revolution, and the beginning of the Cold War, the United States established itself as a world power through its victory in World War II alongside the Soviet Union. Despite the two countries’ alliance during the war, the United States was threatened by the power the Soviet Union held—exhibited by the country’s rapid industrialization and imperial expansion under Stalin—and, notably, the rush to expand nuclear arsenals and technology to establish themselves as a global superpower. This struggle for power in 1945 led to the continuing legacy of weaponizing anti-communism against those seeking to better the conditions of the masses in America.
The parallels between the 20th century era of McCarthyism and demonization of communist revolutionaries like Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton, and our 21st century era are staggeringly apparent today. In a society where moderate Democrat President Joe Biden can be negatively labeled a “tool of the extreme left,” the lasting stigma around leftist ideologies is no surprise. The modern fear of leftist politics can be found within the anti-communist narrative perpetuated for more than a century by the United States. Using the mostly failed communist experiment (and actual state capitalism) of Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union, the media has in the American psyche the idea that communism and leftist ideologies are inherently authoritarian, promote genocide, and diminish the opportunity which capitalism apparently provides. Moreover, the United States government has systematically excluded communist thought from political affairs, with some officials going as far as continuing to fight against communist free speech in America.
The dismissal of successful communist states, such as Vietnam, is reductive, as it displayed remarkable recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 under a lockdown policy Americans view as “repressive”. The refusal to consider socialist policies including free education in Sweden at the cost of high living expenses (which are circumvented by highly satisfactory levels of government welfare in the country) is detrimental to Americans, as it leads us continue to blindly perpetuating the narrative that capitalism outcompetes communism, or all leftist economic systems, for that matter. These lines of thinking demonstrate a lack of introspection and foresight, for the incremental movement toward a state that can provide for its people requires moderate government centralization and an increase in the value of individual labor. After all, it is difficult to establish multi-layered social and economic welfare systems with widely unregulated socioeconomic reign and easily-overturned federal laws. The remediation of these structural issues requires the implementation of higher worker compensation in the form of a higher minimum wage.
This anti-communist sentiment has also been harmful abroad. Take American anti-communist interference in Cuba and its debilitating effects on the country’s economic standing. The relatively recent food and medicine shortage in the country during the COVID-19 pandemic is one instance of the misguided dismissal of communism. Both Cuban and American protestors gathered outside of the White House this summer to protest the crisis in Cuba, a predicament widely believed to have been the fault of the state’s communist regime that has been in power since 1959, and revolutionized healthcare. Responsibility for the situation is, however, undoubtedly shared by the United States government. Suffocating sanctions against Cuba have been in place since 1962 and only worsened in the past decade under the Trump Administration, which toughened economic pressure on the country. Additionally, the Biden Administration has done little to remedy the situation, and continues to inhibit Cuba’s economic progress by preventing the state from supporting its own citizens, especially during the pandemic.
Many use the Cuban government’s crackdown on protests to justify the corruption of communist regimes, but Cuban government officials’ actions are not representative of leftist values. Their troubling abuse of authority goes directly against the core concepts of progressive ideologies. Criticism should only be addressed to the Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Cane’s dictatorship, which orchestrated the brutalization of Cuban citizens. At a first glance, Cuba appears to be more problematic than successful, a belief supported by American capitalist ideologues; however, upon closer examination, the country would likely thrive without American economic restrictions. Cuba is capable of enforcing an effective lockdown, exhibits generous social and economic welfare policies, and displays remarkable self-sufficiency and autonomy thanks to its nationalized industries. Cuba illustrates the negative effects of capitalist interference in communist political structures in the name of extreme anti-communism and fear of socialism. If the U.S. had not handicapped the socioeconomic functioning of the country to maintain global hegemony, Cuba’s situation would undoubtedly not be as dire as it is today and might have remained as successful as it was in the latter half of the 20th century following the Cuban Revolution.
When capitalist countries do not interfere with the affairs of communist and socialist countries, these nations can achieve an aspirational standard of living. It is important to take into account that pure socialist countries do not functionally exist and are manifested as democratic socialist states, and pure communist countries have never existed in the long term. Countries that combine both the capitalist and communist or socialist model are interesting to consider and often successful examples of governance. Vietnam, in addition to its admirable coronavirus pandemic response, has been able to provide basic education to most citizens despite some inequalities among ethnic minorities and impoverished groups, nationalize healthcare, and also maintain some privatization in order to compete economically on a global scale. Democratic socialist states such as France and the countries of Scandinavia enjoy far-reaching environmental reform policies, open unionization, broad workers’ rights, and countless trade unions aimed at maximizing profit equitably. Some consideration may be given to communist policies left over from the 20th century in China, which have maximized the country’s labor power and elevated it to the status as a global economic competitor, though it is functionally a state capitalist country and demonstrates intolerable abuses of human rights today. Vietnam, China, and certain European countries have been able to pick from leftist ideologies and capitalism to slowly move toward more socially and economically-sustainable societies. These countries are further evidence that leftist reforms and policies should not be inherently feared: they clearly offer substantial benefits for the population of the countries they are implemented in and can elevate economic production. It is important that we separate the ideologies of socialism and communism from the injustices they have been associated with throughout history.
As such, the American economy could substantially benefit from the incorporation of policies that approach socialist and communist ideals. The power of leftist values is most apparent when considering issues of wealth. As it is generally agreed upon that trickle economics—or the concept of the wealth of a small number of individuals eventually trickling down to the masses—does not work, the past few decades have been characterized by a will to implement a more reasonable and appropriate wealth tax in an effort to more evenly distribute assets. Though it does not yet exist, a wealth tax in the U.S. would promote economic equality in the country, prevent the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few, and could be the general governmental economic cushion needed in the Federal Reserve to create new jobs. Existing American leftist economic policies include the minimum wage, which, if increased, would allow for the allocation of federal funds toward supporting low-wage workers, encouraging economic growth. A push toward more radical forms of economic collectivity could improve the United States and its citizens' autonomy just as Cuba has been able to since its revolution.
21st century United States citizens can no longer afford to fear socialism and communism because they pose a threat to the old order or have been used in name, historically, to establish oppressive regimes. It is imperative that we examine these ideologies for what they can concretally offer in terms of improving our current economic and political models rather than maintain our biases—we may find that the social reforms we desire most can be achieved by taking pieces from them.
Alexia Vayeos (CC ‘25) is a first-year at Columbia College and writer for CPR who plans to study history. She is interested in twentieth-century United States history and politics, United States foreign policy, and the history of leftism.