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Short paragraph on the red scare
The red scare essay
Short paragraph on the red scare
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In the era of both Red Scares, from the 40s to the 60s, anti-communism ideals were running rampant; during this time, many government actions and actions from the people either enhanced or degraded the fear of communism, and it is truly expressed by Richard M. Freeland, M. J. Heale, and Landon R. Y. Storrs describing this period of U.S. history. They take a stand about what caused it and what contributed, with Heale seeking more of a government approach, Freeland with a broader aspect focusing on how the world brought about this change in the United States, and Storrs being more akin to civilian actions which ultimately affected the entirety of the United States and the issues with the New Deal era. Whereas all of these issues that the authors …show more content…
This belief can best be seen through his thesis statement, as he says “These emotions [About the Red Scare] were aroused and these patterns of belief developed, it is argued, as the result of a deliberate and highly organized effort by the Truman administration in 1947-48 to mobilize support for the program of economic assistance to Europe called the European Recovery Program, or Marshall Pan.” Throughout his writing, based on what he said in his thesis, he gives the premise that the Red Scare was primarily influenced by powers abroad, and how the Truman Doctrine had effects on how American people saw the threat of Communism. He delves into that aspect, by giving the actual speech from Truman about the plans that the U.S. government had to combat Communism in Europe. Their plans, in fact, were to try and halt geopolitical expansion of the Soviet Union in particular, and fed off that fear to fuel what the American people felt about it already. Unlike Heale and Storrs, although the state level and civil level are just as important, he puts and importance on the U.S. ties to Europe and the devastation that occurred after World War II. Freeland calls this a common “theme” when it comes to the Truman Doctrine, as the actual doctrine mentions it many …show more content…
In all of his writing, he tends not to mention the bigger picture, but focuses more on the smaller, more state level of issues. He believes that with states creating their own HUACs, known as “little HUACs,” and regulating themselves with who to charge for communist ideas, that they ultimately had the power, and that all of this roughly began before the actual Red Scare took place, mainly during the 1930s to 1950s. Thus giving time for the states to enact their own views on how to deal with anti-communistic
With the onset of the Cold War, a growing Red Scare would cripple American society – effectively plunging the nation into mass hysteria and unrest over the fallacious threat of communist infiltration. This reaction was precipitated by Republican senator, Joseph McCarthy, in his speech, “Enemies from Within”, delivered in Wheeling, West Virginia, on 9 February 1950. McCarthy paints communists in a particularly harsh light to generate anti-Soviet sentiment within the American public. He uses juxtaposition to engender both indignation and fear in the audience to achieve this effect.
Almost instantly after the end of World War Two, the tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union began to tear away at the thin bond formed by the two counties' alliance in the war. McCarthy and many other republican politicians believed that the democratic party, along with President Harry S. Truman, were not harsh enough on the communist party and they strongly opposed Roosevelt's New Deal. When the Republicans took control of the presidency in 1952, "McCarthyism," as it is now known. This new movement, McCarthyism, accused some Americans of being communist’s sympathizers and people that were suspected o...
...that people can yet again fear that the communists might attack and send spies within to destroy their beloved country. Take the evidence from the Ohio County Women’s Republican Club when McCarthy stimulated the fear that Communism will spread and their spies will overthrow the democracy through traitorous means. Take the evidence of the Truman’s Response to McCarthy, Truman stated that the Kremlin must have put McCarthy there to cause turmoil and that must be a reason why he must have caused the country to go into a red scare. Take the evidence of the cartoon from Herb Block, which showed McCarthy drive his car into innocent people who had no influence of the communist and were scared by McCarthy’s ways of finding communists. McCarthy wanted to be well known and decided to start the red scare so that everyone else can fear and be aware of the communist everywhere.
One of the biggest fears of the American people is that the concept of communism contrasts drastically from the concept of capitalism, which the United States was essentially founded upon. The United States, as the public believed, was not a land of perfect communal equality, but rather a land of equal opportunity. However, what made communism so dangerous can be succinctly described by Eisenhower who compared the spread of communism as the domino effect. As his secretary of state, Dulles, put it, the propagation of communism “would constitute a threat to the sovereignty and independence” of America (Doc B). In addition, the Cold War also planted the seeds of rational fear of a global nuclear war. As Russia caught up to the United States in terms of technological advancements, they successfully developed the atomic bomb as well as the hydrogen bomb, which caused Americans to believe that the USSR would use these weapons of mass destruction to forcefully extend their ideologies to the USA. In fact, Americans were so frantic about a potential nuclear disaster that it...
With the 1960s and 1970s, came a growing need for change among the American people. A previously dominant liberal government was not taking a hard enough stance on the fight to end communism. All it took, was a final nudge to shift the vote from democratic to republican.
Doherty profiles the 1950's Red Scare, also known as McCarthyism, and its vast effect on
The United States was in a state of scare when they feared that communist agents would come and try to destroy our government system. An example of this scare was the Cold war. During the cold war the U.S. supported the anti-communist group while the Soviet Union favored the communist party. Many people who still supported the communist party still lived in the U.S. When the U.S. joined the Cold war, trying to rid the communist party from Europe and Asia, the U.S. were afraid that the people living in the United States that still supported communism were spies that would give intel back to the Soviet Union to try to destroy their government. If anybody was a suspected communist, if somebody just didn’t like somebody, or if they were even greedy they could accuse the person of communism and the person would be thrown in the penitentiary, thus, starting the second red scare.
The Red Scare in the 1950’s was actually America’s second red scare. The 1920’s red scare was what helped start suspicion over Communists, but was put off during World War 2. It was no coincidence that what many people called the second red scare ignited after World War 2, during the Cold War, in the 1950’s. The 1920’s red scare started because Americans were paranoid over the fact that Russia may seek revenge after they had overthrown a royal Russian family in 1917. What started Communist ideas in the U.S at the time was the fact that since the war was over many of people were out of jobs which caused people to ask how efficient was the government. The most successful and noteworthy of all the Soviet parties in the 1920’s had to be the International Workers of the World, which was also called the I.W.W or the Wobblies. The Wobblies first strike was on January 21 1919 where about 35,000 shipyard workers struck. They were immediately labeled reds, or Communists. After the first strike mass panic struck the U.S and many major chain stores had to reassure their customers that their workers would not revolt. A mayor named Ole Hansen from Seattle took the Wobblies strikes personally. Strikes continued over the next 6 months and were labeled as “crimes against society”, “conspiracies against the government” and even “plots to establish Communism”. This was when Attorney General A. “
Former U.S. President Richard Nixon once said, “Communism is never sleeping; it is, as always, plotting, scheming, working, fighting.” From 1919 – 1921, a hysteria over the perceived threat of communism spread like wildfire across the nation. Known as the First Red Scare, the widespread fear of Bolshevism and anarchism quickly invaded the infrastructure of the U.S. government and radically influenced the American people. American citizens, such as Sacco and Vanzetti, were convicted and found crimes that evidence showed otherwise only because they supported anarchism. The US government arrested and deported radicals only because of their political standing. Although The First Red Scare may have begun as a cultural movement, private business owners actually catalyzed and facilitated the wide spread hysteria over communism.
"The Red Scare: McCarthyism." Essortment Articles: Free Online Articles on Health, Science, Education & More... Web. 29 Dec. 2011. .
The Second Red Scare The McCarthy era, which generally spanned from 1947 to 1957, brought to the forefront of American politics the question of civil rights. At issue were controversies about both First Amendment rights to assembly and free speech and Fifth Amendment rights to due process and freedom from self-incrimination. Anti-Communist actions often involved restrictions on these rights, and heading the anti-Communist movement was the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). This committee, which consisted of government officials from Congress, was formed to investigate the threat of Communism in America. In doing so, the committee brought in witnesses, usually individuals thought to have, or to have had, Communist affiliations.
The First and Second Red Scare of the United States paved the way for a long standing fear of communism and proved to be one of America’s largest periods of mass hysteria. Throughout the years authors and analysts have studied and formed expository albeit argumentative books and articles in an attempt to further understand this period of time; the mindset held during this period however is shown to be completely different compared to now.
The ideas promoted by McCarthyism and the anti-communistic sentiment of the times were meant to push people away from non-conventional ways of thinking. Anything that was the slightest bit left or radical or even new could be construed as communistic. After Russia’s rejection to the Marshall Plan, a strong wave of communist fear began to sweep the nation and was being promoted by the U.S. government and the media. The early development of the Russian nuclear weapon brought grounds for suspicions of leaked information and the discovery and conviction of espionage for the Rosenbergs only fanned the flames of fear. The 1940’s were plagued with endless magazine articles like “How Communists Get That Way” and “Communists Are After Your Child.” Even President Truman’s Attorney General stated “There are today many Communists in America. They are everywhere--in factories, offices, butcher shops, on street corners, in private businesses--and each carries in himself the germs of death for society.” The Cold War had created a fear that democracy was in danger and that the American people must take drastic measures to ensure the continuance of their way of life. The first step taken in searching out “Communists” in the U.S. was the development of the House on Un-American Activities Committee or the HUAC. The HUAC was formed in the 1930’s but didn’t really become active until the Cold War controversies began in the forties and fifties and would assist Senator Joseph McCarthy in rooting out the “Reds”. The HUAC distributed millions of pamphlets to the American public cautioning: “One...
The purpose of this document is to inform and draw attention to the real intentions of the communists and how it represented a threat to the “American way of living”. He believed that the greatest advantage of the communist on their quest to conquer the United States was the ignorance of American people; “I fear for ignorance on the part of all our people who may take the poisonous pills of communist propaganda.” His intended audience consisted not only of the House Un-American Activities Committee, but also of the rest of the American
Coming off of World War 2 and going into the cold war many people across the nation grew the fear of communism. This fear was made a lot bigger when the Cuban missile crisis was going on. As the tension grew between America and Russia and democracy and communism, the penalty grew for being a part of the communist party.