Revolutionary Left Radio

For over a century, the U.S. ruling class has waged war on communists, anarchists, and radicals. From the Palmer Raids of 1919 to McCarthyism in the 1950s, from COINTELPRO in the Cold War to today’s MAGA rhetoric about “woke communists" and his crackdown on "Antifa Radicals", state repression has always sought to crush revolutionary politics before they could take root; especially in times of capitalist crisis.  In this episode, historian Aaron J. Leonard joins us to discuss his new book Menace of Our Time: The Long War Against American Communism. We trace how the U.S. developed its arsenal of anti-radical laws and FBI surveillance programs, and how these were deployed against generations of activists, workers, and organizers. We talk about the Communist Party USA’s early growth, its leaders like William Z. Foster and Earl Browder, and its contradictory relationship with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who both advanced social reforms hated by capitalists and cracked down on communists in his time. Leonard explain