Since 2010, Republican politicians have gotten elected to public office in this country by winning the support of ultra-conservatives who firmly believe that President Obama is a socialist or a communist (in reality, he isn't a socialist or a communist).
Many of these radical right Republicans have had the backing of Charles and David Koch, two billionaires who are collectively known as the Koch Brothers, through their front group Americans for Prosperity.
In 1929, Fred Koch, the father of the Koch Brothers, signed a $5 million contract to build 15 oil refineries in what was then Joseph Stalin's communist Soviet Union:
The first Winkler–Koch plants were set up in Tuapse in 1930. The cracking unit operated commendably, and would in the future be the type preferred by the heads of the Soviet Union’s petroleum industry when purchasing new cracking equipment.
In 1931, two Winkler–Koch cracking units were launched in Baku, another two in Batumi, and six at once in Grozny; the last had a combined refining capacity of 900,000 tons per year. In 1932, a Winkler–Koch unit commenced operations in Yaroslavl.
As soon as Fred was no longer doing business for the Soviets, he exposed himself as a radical right-winger who accused communists of infiltrating the United States Federal Government:
By the time he got out in 1933, Koch earned $500,000, which was a ton of money for a kid fresh out of college. This nut of money served as the foundation for the family’s future wealth, which Koch no doubt started acquiring at rock-bottom prices. After all, 1933 was one of the two worst years of the Great Depression—all assets were priced to go at 90% off. In the end, the capitalist-hating socialists ended up treating Koch fairly, way better than the monopolistic thrashing he got from his native land. So you’d think he’d at least something good to say about the Soviet Union when he got home?
Nope, not at all. He hated the Commies real bad. But for some reason he kept it to himself until the late 1950s (possibly because he was still doing work for the Soviet Union). Then, after coming back from a trip to the Soviet Union in 1956, he flies off the handle. According to a 1956 AP article, Fred Koch was among eleven prominent residents of Wichita, Kansas, “left for Moscow by plane today in an effort to convince the Russian people that Soviet propaganda about capitalists is untrue.” Sounds like the perfect cover for a business trip.
It’s not clear what he was actually doing there. But whatever the outcome—maybe he didn’t get the contract he was expecting or maybe he got swindled out of some investment or maybe he plain ol’ hated the thaw of post-Stalin Russia—Fred Koch came back a pissed-off anti-Communist freak and joined up with the right-wing Bircher freak show. He bankrolled a John Birch Society chapter in Wichita and attempted to open a Bircher bookstore, which wasn’t too popular and had to close.
In 1967, Charles Koch, Fred's son, took over the family business, and, in 2002, Charles, along with his brother David,
began laying the astroturf for the radical right-wing Tea Party movement while Republican George W. Bush was President of the United States. The Tea Party movement, paid for by the Koch Brothers and other wealthy right-wingers, was unleashed only months after Democrat Barack Obama was sworn into the White House.
So, in short, Fred Koch built oil refineries in Stalin's communist Soviet Union, then Charles Koch, Fred's son, took over the business that built the Soviet refineries, then Charles, as well as his brother David, astroturfed the Tea Party movement with money from the business that built the Soviet refineries. That's how America's radical right-wing is paid for by communist money.