ABSTRACT
The Communist movement shaped civil liberties in the United States both by the positions it championed and by the police measures it inspired. The Communist Party inspired fear throughout American society due to its roots in the Russian Revolution, its allegiance to Soviet communism, and its penchant for conspiracy. The American Communist Party accepted the Leninist principle of democratic centralism, and for many years it advocated overthrow of the government. Communist support for union activism and the redistribution of wealth proved popular during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Infringement of civil liberties reached its zenith in the post-World War II years, when world events triggered an atmosphere in which any citizen could be suspected of Communist sympathies. The Supreme Court was inconsistent in its defense of Communists' civil liberties. Communists have played an ambiguous role in the history of American civil rights.
