Young County Republicans Chair Kyle Milam Speaks: The Red Scare

Anyone that was in school in the 1960s will remember the drill of hiding under the desk to protect yourself from an atomic blast; as if a school desk was enough to shield you from a thermonuclear warhead delivered by a Russian intercontinental ballistic missile. As absurd as that seems, we were in the grips of a Cold War with the Soviet Union (USSR) and the threat of a Communist attack on the U.S. was very real and could happen at any time. Our radios and TVs regularly scheduled emergency broadcast system tests to ensure the capability of providing information should an attack occur. Sirens were tested and civil defense placards directed us to emergency shelters. Our proximity to Shepherd Air Force Base raised concern as a target and caused discussion of the impact of radioactive fallout for Young County. In those days Communist aggression was a real and significant threat. After WWII, Russia gained part of Germany, all of Poland and invaded Yugoslavia, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The U.S. fought wars in Korea and Vietnam to stem the invasion of Communist forces in Asia.

Communism, as professed by Karl Marx and adopted by Vladimir Lenin, was achieved only by the violent revolutionary overthrow of capitalistic governments which swept from Eastern Europe to China, Korea, Vietnam, South America and Cuba from 1917 to the 1960s. During the 1950s–1980s, the USSR built significant armed forces, weapons, missiles and with allies from Communist China and Cuba posed the greatest threat to American sovereignty. The response of the U.S. was to counter the threat with our military developments from missiles to space exploration. And if you were alive in those days, you know that everything we did militarily was done to repel or defeat Russian aggression. Politically, the Communist Party in America took hold from the rising tide of the Russian Revolution of 1917 which overthrew czar Nicholas II and established the Soviet Union. While gaining notable memberships through the years, the party has not been much of a factor in electing candidates. Where they have been effective though is by infiltrating the F.D. Roosevelt administration as well as the film and media industries and perpetrating espionage within government agencies.

I believe the main reason the communists and socialists were not as successful in American politics is that the Red Scare was such a threat. In actuality, the overt aggressiveness of communist regimes kept socialist and communist candidates at bay. No candidate wanted to be labeled Red. Any shred of communist/socialist leanings would derail a candidate for major office. Americans were just not going to vote for such a person. In fact, being a hawk against communism was the No. 1 position taken by successful candidates. But that threat has now vanished with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. We no longer have an ‘evil empire’ to rail against and rally the troops.

It took Lenin some 20 years of activism to reach the point of overthrowing the czar and look where we are since the fall of the Soviet Union. Some 20-plus years later of no existential communist threat, we now see the rise of socialists from Alexandria Cortez to every candidate the Democrats will run for President in 2020. Think about it. One and maybe two generations of Americans have no experience whatsoever with what we faced from communism, and so they do not see the reality of socialists in charge. Communism and socialism take whatever wealth there is and redistributes to the masses to make everyone ‘equal.’ The fallacy is that whoever is in charge lives well above the rest of the peons and it only works until you have run out of someone else’s money. Case in point, the Soviet Union, expended its wealth trying to maintain military supremacy over everyone else in the world and could not produce enough food for its people. Socialism has failed to deliver prosperity everywhere it has been tried. It failed in the Plymouth Colony and all you have to do today is look at Cuba and Venezuela. The ruling class lives in luxury while the ‘equally’ poor are driving 1955 Chevy cars and donkey carts. And that is where the socialist Democrats want to take us- to bicycles and donkey carts. But no cows! Planet Earth can’t handle methane gas! How can they be taken seriously?