page_title: Card-carrying Communist
section_title: History of communist membership cards
hierarchical_section_title: Card-carrying Communist / History of communist membership cards
context_page_description: "Card-carrying communist" is a term popularised in the United States during the Second Red Scare as a label for members of communist and far-left organisations, especially the Communist Party of the United States. The term is still considered derogatory when used in its Cold War context.
context_section_description: Early in the Cold War, there were Communist Party members who kept membership cards, although many also hid their membership. Possibly the earliest mention of the phrase comes from a 1912 article in the Daily People, which mentioned "'Union-card' carrying members". A closer reference to the modern term was a 1918 piece in the New York Tribune, which described members of the Industrial Workers of the World, a prominent socialist union, as "red-card-carrying 'wobblies'".
  Because of the advent of digital technology, the contemporary Communist Party USA does not issue membership cards.
caption: A membership card of the Industrial Workers of the World, a left-wing internationalist union.
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