The Communist Party attracted a wide array of progressives: labor and union organizers, garment workers, farm workers, miners, steel workers, artists, and entertainers. Official membership peaked in the late 1940s, then declined after 1947 during the Cold War. The postwar “Red Scare,” a Communist witch hunt, was concurrent with a “Lavender Scare”—an attempt to purge “sex perverts” from the government.