Right about now you might be thinking that the United States was totally on the right side of this whole communism debacle and that Cold War era U.S. politicians should all be canonized as world-saving, puppy-rescuing saints with halos and harps.

If so, prepare to have your bubble burst. Even back then, the U.S. was imperfect. When you've recovered, read on.

During the Cold War there were politicians and citizen groups who took an understandable fear of communism way, way, way too far. While most people had a healthy skepticism for the economic and political idea of sharing money and wearing red stars, some Americans went loony-tunes.

When they said, "better dead than red," they meant it literally. Like, people died. Or went to prison. Or had their lives ruined. And the loudest, most obnoxious of these misguided Americans was Senator Joseph McCarthy.

This is a dude who famously went looking for communists all throughout America—like in labor unions, the arts, Hollywood, and writers' circles. If you were (or ever had been) a member of the Communist Party, you could easily have your life ruined. And here's the thing: many, many left-leaning people joined the Communist Party in the 1930s, when Roosevelt's New Deal seemed like a hopeful start to a rosily communist American future.

Basically, peoples' lives were gutted because they'd believed in communism a few decades prior.

But you should take a peek into the workings of McCarthyism over on our "McCarthyism and the Red Scare" page. It's truly a scare.