Communism, like the Muslim religion, is an ideology founded on the goal of world domination. According to their own writings, "All progressive nations are in one or another stage of socialism. they can only achieve Communism when the entire world has adopted socialism".
The infiltration of America began in the later 1800's with the labor Union movement, which is how Marxists successfully infiltrated European societies, a look through history will show that all countries socialist movements started with the organization of national Trade, and Labor unions, even in places like Vietnam, China, and Peru, were the revolution withdrew to rural areas, it initially started with urban union organizers.
In America we were lucky to forestall the advance because organized crime groups beat (literally) the socialists in the fight for union power. This defeat led America's socialists to fall back on their second choice of infiltrating the Main Stream Media with such apologists as Walter Durante of the New York Times. and the education system, with a plethora of leftist Professors. The next step was to infiltrate the halls of power which they accomplished between the world wars with direct Soviet assistance through legendary "Comintern", or Communist International, an allegedly independent, international, socialist organization that was known even at the time to be nothing more than an arm of the Soviet state security apparatus (Eventually known as the KGB) these ideologically inspired infiltrators had their greatest success in America during the FDR administration when the Depression and rising tensions with more Nationalistically oriented aggressors in Italy, Germany , and Japan led to the wide spread (by the already infiltrated media and Academia )myth that "Fascism" was a more serious and immediate threat than socialism, ( expansionist totalitarian states are an equal threat no matter what they are called, and ALL the "fascist" governments espoused and applied much of the socialist program ) This distraction allowed FDR to begin his program of radicalizing America through his socialist inspired "New Deal" policies which in the years since have been proven to have actually lengthened and worsened the depression with things like the previously unconstitutional graduated income tax, and the issuance of fake money no longer backed by any intrinsic value of gold or silver. He also allowed his administration to be over run with not only convinced socialists but actual Soviet agents, such as Laughlin Curry and Harry Dexter White.
Churchill in a post war speech in Fulton Mo. issued a wake up call to an America who's prosperous upper class was still enamored with "Uncle Joe" Stalin when he said "From Stettin on the Baltic to Trieste on the Adriatic, an Iron curtain has descended across the map of Europe ". Unfortunately this alarm, which triggered the so called "Red Scare" of the late 40's and 50's came to late to do more than slow the advance of American socialism. Attempts to protect America, and reverse the erosion of our core values, such as the House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC) were decried by so called "Agents of Influence" in the media and groups like the ACLU and an already heavily infiltrated Hollywood. When in entirely separate hearings Sen. Joseph McCarthy claimed to have a list of 51 known communists working at the State Department and demanded to know why known security risks were given access to the upper echelons of Americas National Security organizations, He got no answers, instead he was vilified in the press, accused by the diversity loving left (ironicly enough by a known Homosexual ) of being a homosexual and accused (also falsely ) of being responsible for numerous deaths by suicide of "persecuted" witnesses, this was not a distortion it was another out right lie by the media and leftist members of an already infiltrated democratic party. In fact the only person involved who died by suicide or any other unnatural cause was one witness, a McCarthy supporter and source who, breaking under the stress of mud slinging and personal attacks in the press leapt from a rather high window. (For the record, investigations based on declassified code intercepts made against orders, and examination of contemporary Soviet records shows that the actual number of code named Soviet agents and sources in and around the administration was in fact not the 50 or 100 claimed by McCarthy, but 301,including Ethel and Julius {code name "Liberal"} Rosenberg who were executed for their part in the Atomic Bomb spy ring and like other traitors have since become a "Cause Celebre" in leftist circles) The Damage was done however and the creeping advance of Marxism was not to be stopped. During the 60's the Soviets allowed thier minions in academia and the media to be used to undermine our efforts against a brutal communist regime in Southeast Asia, that, in the face of communist inspired, and often financed, Demonstrations, led to the abandonment of our Allies and much of southern Asia to the doubtful joys of socialism.
Seeing the success of their anti war campaign the forces of socialism continued their campaign against freedom by such useful tools as "the Peace movement" which protested every defensive move by the US or it's NATO allies, but remained noticeably silent in the face of such naked communist aggression as the suppression of the Hungarian, German, Czech, and Polish independence movements and the Killing fields of Cambodia, they continued their activities, by vilifying Reagan's activities to beef up America's defenses and support anti communist Govts in Central America with more protests and fear mongering such as Carl Sagan's spurious "Nuclear winter" research, which has since been proven to have been A) false, and B) funded though cut outs by the KGB.
Even though the Soviet Union has perished the it's own ideological inconsistencies the minions of the left continue to work against America, their minions are still deeply entrenched in the MSM, Our colleges, universities and schools, politics, and unions. Ever wonder why the National Pediatrics group is so actively anti 2A despite the ridiculously small number of actual "children" killed by firearms ? Simple, like the Nation Education Association, and the AMA, their leadership contains a significant number of people who are Socialists and followers of the failed Marxist Ideology.
We will never regain lost ground or be safe from further encroachment as long as these misguided people retain positions of influence from which to advance their treasonous agenda.
If you think I'm wrong on this consider, FQ, a gun owning self proclaimed "good ole Boy" who I tear up nearly every time he posts on history or politics (His majors). What is the major difference that leads to this division ? He learned his subjects and was influenced in a left leaning Academic environment while I since before I quit school in the 9th grade have read subjects that interested me and applied what I read to the things I saw around me, with little or no influence from any one else directing me toward a desired conclusion, I did not need to come up with "right answers" for a standardized test, I simply wanted workable answers to make sense of the world around me.