Ebook: Underground Communists in the Mccarthy Period: A Family Memoir

This title examines the decision of American Communists to go underground during the 1950s' era of McCarthyism. U.S. Communists concluded that the repressive and conformist milieu of the Cold War and McCarthyism would lead to fascism. Expecting to be banned outright, the Party created a reserve of members whom the government could not find or arrest. Those selected left their friends and families, altered their names, moved away from their homes, and changed their occupations. Based on a wide variety of primary and secondary sources, the author weaves personal accounts of the underground into historical perspective. This work will be useful to scholars of history, political science, and sociology and the growing body of readers in the history of U.S. Communism, labor history, the evolution of radical movements and the history of ideas.