Anticommunism defined the post–World War II political landscape and is perhaps the main reason we regard this era as fundamentally conservative. Conventional wisdom tells us that conservatives were to blame for the anticommunist hysteria that curtailed the New Deal and revived conservative influence in government. Our students learn that conservative opportunists such as Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy exaggerated and exploited the Communist threat, creating an atmosphere of persecution that suppressed rival ideologies and forced liberals to go along with their witch hunt. We may add detail and nuance to this story, but this, basically, is what we tell ourselves about post–World War II anticommunism, otherwise known as McCarthyism. It is the story that liberals have told since Whittaker Chambers accused Alger Hiss of being a Communist spy in 1948.

Yet the most famous and effective anticommunist measures were carried out not by conservatives but by liberals seeking to uphold the New Deal. It was the liberal Truman administration that chased Communists out of government agencies and prosecuted Communist Party leaders under the Smith Act. It was liberal Hollywood executives who adopted the blacklist, effectively forcing Communists out of the movie business. The labor leaders who purged Communists from their unions were, likewise, liberals. Most anticommunism – the anticommunism that mattered – was not hysterical and conservative but, rather, a methodical and, in the end, successful, attempt on the part of New Deal liberals to remove Communists from specific areas of American life, namely, the government, unions, universities and schools, and civil rights organizations. It is true that the FBI and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) helped carry out these measures, but it is a mistake to assume that J. Edgar Hoover or HUAC could have had much power without the cooperation of liberals and labor leaders who wanted Communists identified and driven out of their organizations.