I have here in my hand a list of 205 . . . a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department. – Sen. Joseph McCarthy, February 9, 1950

There’s about 78 to 81 members of the Democratic Party that are members of the Communist Party. – Rep. Allen West, April 10, 2012

Rep. West touched on the Left’s favorite live wire, McCarthyism. Of course West has a long history of pushing the Left’s buttons to gain attention and raise campaign funds, but apart from syntax, his comments are valid and worth consideration. But first, a bit of history on McCarthyism.

Sen. McCarthy did not invent McCarthyism; that falls to House Democrats. From the beginning of progressivism through the end of WWII, House Democrats convened a series of committees aimed at thwarting communist influence and infiltration in the Federal Government and the media. Indeed, these House committees continued, under Democrat control, through the Carter Administration. Hollywood Blackballing, communist baiting, and show trials are all Democrat institutions. The Left enjoys blaming Republicans McCarthy and Pres. Nixon for anti-communist excesses, much as they pretend that slavery and Jim Crow were not exclusively Democrat Party institutions. By pretending that their own failings were really the Republicans, they whitewash history, which explains their excruciating sensitivity to anything communist.

The Left likes to vilify red-baiters not because the allegations were false, but because they were very true. Paul Kengor’s Dupes is a must read for anyone who might trivialize the communist threat and its ties to the US Left. Soviet records unsealed in the 1990s demonstrate an elaborate network of communist agents and secret Communist Party members embedded at the highest levels of the Federal Government and in media. The Communist Party USA was, indeed, illegally funded by the Soviets, and the CPUSA did take direct secret orders from Moscow. The ugly history of US communism and its impact on Democrat politics can only be rebutted by vainly trivializing the threat. McCarthy’s list of communists may have been a fiction, but he was right all along, albeit without much proof.

Most likely West was referring to the Congressional Progressive Caucus whose members represent the most extreme left elements in Washington and number about his tally of Communists. The CPUSA is largely defunct, now that the Soviets no longer pay their bills, and none of the CPC members are actual members of the CPUSA anyway. In that sense, West was wrong, but his error was only semantic. Since the dawn of progressivism (itself a euphemism for socialism), obvious anti-capitalists like Woody Guthrie or John Dewey defended themselves by stating that they were not Communists in the CPUSA sense. At most, they would self-identify as ‘fellow travelers’ with the Communists. The defense that someone who believes in Marxism and is fully anti-capitalist is not a communist only because he never officially joined the CPUSA is a hollow shell.

Such is the criticism of West’s comments. Yes, nobody from the CPC is a member of the CPUSA, but so what? CPC members such as Reps. Maxine Waters, John Lewis, Pete Stark, Ed Markey, John Conyers, Sheila Jackson Lee, and Sen. Bernie Sanders hold the same values as any hardened communist. They despise capitalism, seek complete government control of the mechanisms of wealth creation, and routinely employ class warfare tactics. Former CPC members such as Reps. Alan Grayson, Cynthia McKinney, and Nancy Pelosi further demonstrate the extreme leftist agitprop rhetoric of this body.

The members of the CPC act like communists, talk like communists, agitate the classes like communists, and want to restructure the US into a socialist state. Even if West was wrong on the semantics of an upper vs. a lower case ‘C,’ the point remains that the agenda of communism lives on, whether under the banner of progressivism, or just making “the rich” pay a “fair share.” ‘Communist’ is a fair word to describe anyone who wants to dismantle capitalism and impose a new order of government mandated wealth distribution. The fact that communists are offended by being called communists should not concern capitalists desperately defending the US’s exceptional history of individualism and prosperity.