The facade of the building betrays no affiliation—neither hammer nor sickle.

At 235 W. 23rd St. in Manhattan, the lobby is similarly spartan. All the signage is in black and white, the walls various shades of gray. A private equity firm resides on the fifth floor; an A.I. firm takes up the penthouse property on eight. The third and fourth floors have tenants as well. The directory says that on the seventh floor, there is the building’s management company, an education company, two publishers, and something else: the “Offices of the CPUSA”—that is, the headquarters of the Communist Party USA.

On the occasion of America’s 250th anniversary, President Donald Trump took time away from the birthday revelry to warn of a grave and imposing adversary. “Communism is a mortal threat to American liberty. It is the greatest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, or even 9/11,” he said on July Fourth weekend this year, in South Dakota. That’s an awfully big threat, you might think, but the president is way ahead of you. “I think it’s the greatest threat that I’ve ever seen to our country,” he told a Georgia audience a few days before.

In fact, according to the Atlantic, Trump mentioned communism or communist 15 times on that Georgia soapbox, “starting less than a minute into his hour-plus speech.” All summer long he’s been worked up, not over the Antifa anarchists or the DSA socialists but the commies in particular. He’s not alone. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is also riled by the Red hunt—he’s been convening politicians and law-enforcement officers and counterterrorism experts from around the globe to combat the “transnational threat.” And recently confirmed Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin has seen the communists on our very own liberty-loving shores. He went on Fox News with a big-time scoop: He had identified the Communist Party logo on a “No Kings” rally flyer. “No Kings Rally is literally sponsored by the Communist Party,” he ascertained.

Red Scare politics are back, about that there is no question. But where, exactly, are those scary Reds who have infiltrated and organized and outflanked the administration? Certainly, it seems, they are everywhere. But individually, they are extremely difficult to find. They are not doing high-profile sabotage of corporations; they are not shooting it out in the coal mines. One place they definitely are, though, is in this building in Manhattan, right out there in the open for anyone to see. And so, on a late morning in late August, I buzzed the seventh floor and rode the elevator straight into the belly of the beast.

In the middle of the CPUSA office, sitting at a table in a conference room with four walls of glass, was Joe Sims, the party’s co-chair, wearing a black newsboy cap. In front of him stood a walker. Across the table was another comrade, youthful office assistant Brooklyn Crawford. Usually, it would be slightly more bustling than this, Sims assured me. But, as it was late August, these were the only two people in the office, save for the odd delivery guy, dropping off a package.

Already, this was a deeper trip into the inner sanctum than anyone in the Trump administration had managed. CPUSA co-chair Sims told me that despite the president’s pugilism, there had not yet been any Justice Department demands, nor congressional subpoenas, nor even right-wing agitators out front. “It’s not a crime to be a Communist in this country,” he said.

Around the office were vestiges of times gone by. The walls were decorated with a framed cartoon of Josef Lenin sweeping kings and capitalist fat cats from the Earth, and a charcoal drawing of a man with a mallet pointing to a bullseye reading “$60,000,” part of a onetime fundraising drive. There was a stylized poster of Che Guevara celebrating a little-known holiday on Oct. 8—Day of the Heroic Guerilla.

Elsewhere, Soviet realist–style paintings hung. Gifts from Cuba, a plate from the Communist Party of Vietnam (given “with compliments”), and various statuettes and busts adorned the countertops and bookshelves. Framed photos of bygone leadership. There was a small kitchen, with a sign taped to the fridge: “Please clean up after yourself no maid service here!!!” Out of the back windows was a view of the Edge NYC, the flagship high-rise property of Hudson Yards, with its protuberant observation deck. Out of the front windows was the distinctive facade of the Chelsea Hotel.

The office, Crawford told me, had been designed........

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