stylistic:style_transfer
Cold War

When the Cold War commenced in the mid-1940s, the NAACP distanced itself from communists, lest its funding or reputation suffer. The NAACP redoubled its efforts in 1947 after Life magazine published a piece by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. claiming that the NAACP was heavily influenced by communists. Ignoring the NAACP's desires, Du Bois continued to fraternize with communist sympathizers such as Paul Robeson, Howard Fast and Shirley Graham (his future second wife). Du Bois wrote "I am not a communist... On the other hand, I... believe... that Karl Marx... put his finger squarely upon our difficulties...".

In 1946, Du Bois wrote articles giving his assessment of the Soviet Union; he did not embrace communism and he criticized its dictatorship. However, he felt that capitalism was responsible for poverty and racism, and felt that socialism was an alternative that might ameliorate those problems. The Soviets explicitly rejected racial distinctions and class distinctions, leading Du Bois to conclude that the USSR was the "most hopeful country on earth".

Du Bois's association with prominent communists made him a liability for the NAACP, especially since the Federal Bureau of Investigation was starting to aggressively investigate communist sympathizers; so – by mutual agreement – he resigned from the NAACP for the second time in late 1948. After departing the NAACP, Du Bois started writing regularly for the leftist weekly newspaper the National Guardian, a relationship that endured until 1961.

Du Bois was an early supporter of Zionism. He viewed Palestinians as uncivilized and viewed Islam as the main factor in what he saw as a lack of progress. However, he did not express support for Israel during the Suez Crisis, instead backing Gamal Abdel Nasser. Nadia Alahmed contends that Du Bois came to view "Nasser as a Pan-African symbol, a power to resist Western" neo-colonialism and that Du Bois's poem "Suez" influenced Malcolm X and the Black Power Movement in forming Black-Palestinian solidarity.