Cover art for the book Menace of Our Time. The Long War Against American Communism by Aaron J. Leonard

The Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) has been oft-maligned by those to its left and to its right. To the casual observer the attacks from the right seem obvious while those from the Left might make them wonder why that might occur. Ideally, this curiosity would lead the curious to explore leftism and its multiple nuances more deeply. Usually, however, those curious enough to reach this point tend to back off, deciding in their mind that quarreling is the nature of the Left. This response seems to be especially true in the world’s most powerful and, in my opinion, most reactionary nation—the United States.

The point of this review is not to discuss the multiple debates of the Left or its use of debate in developing strategy. Instead, it is to consider a new book by Aaron Leonard, the best living historian on the topic of political repression of the US Left in the United States. In the book, titled Menace of Our Time: The Long War Against American Communism, Leonard returns once again to exploring the surveillance element of the US police state. After looking at the infiltration and repression of the Revolutionary Union and its successor the Revolutionary Communist Party in his first texts, Leonard wrote three more books before the one being reviewed here. Two of them, titled The Folk Singers and the Bureau and Whole World in an Uproar: Music,........

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