American anticommunism stems from a history of fear, and want of control over individuals, and groups of people who are defined as “others”. In this case “others”, is a term attributed to American citizens who were a part of, or held any relation or affiliation with the American Communist Party. Before them, it was immigrants; and before them it was African Americans, and Native Americans (Schrecker, 13). This fear and want of control over the American Communist Party, which immediately started after WWI in America, during the Red Scare of 1919-20; was used by the Republican and Democratic Parties, and their constituents, to gain and hold support in the United States government, and to attempt to shape American domestic and foreign policy in the 1930’s-50’s and beyond to their liking. The American Communist Party was not the huge threat that it is commonly made out to be. Contrary to conceptions at the time, the Communist Party in America was never really under direct control and orders from Moscow after the war. The Soviet spy threat- although real during WWII, was only marginally successful and was rendered virtually non-existent postwar. In addition, its members were not all subscribers of the popularized hardliner- Soviet Communist paradigm. The majority of the escalation of the Cold War can be seen as a direct effect of the actions of the United States political parties feuding, feeding off public fears, and dealing with the reality of another atomic-equipped superpower, opposed to capitalist and democratic ideals trying to gain power, prestige, and ideological legitimacy in the world.
Immediately following the culmination of WWI, stories and fears of the Bolshevik Revolution led to radical demonstrations and labor moveme...
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...recker, 47)
Due to the acts of the American Government, dwindling support due to the Korean War, the revelation of Stalin’s genocidal actions, and the Smith Act trials of 1948 and their aftermath, the American Communist Party was effectively incapacitated. Just like the American public paranoia, the Communist Party leadership purged unreliable members, stopped its recruitment programs, restructured the organization of the Party, and was ultimately forced to go underground, which only hurt what was left of it. (Schrecker, 57). Anticommunism, domestically, was a facade which Republicans and Democrats operated under to diminish the support and image of one another, during a fragile and tumultuous time in history, socially, culturally, and politically.
Work Cited
E. Schrecker The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History With Documents (New York: Palgrave, 2002)
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.
No war is fought without the struggle for resources, and with Russia still rapidly lagging behind in the international industrialisation race by the turn of the 20th century, the stage was set for social unrest and uprising against its already uncoordinated and temporally displaced government. With inconceivable demands for soldiers, cavalry and warfare paraphernalia, Russia stood little chance in the face of the great powers of World War One. Shortages of basic human necessities led to countless subsistence riots and the eventual power struggle between the ruling body and its people. From the beginnings of WWI to 1916, prices of essential goods rose 131 percent in Moscow and more than 150 percent in Petrograd. Additionally, historian Walter G. Moss stated that in September 1915 that “there were 100,000 strikers in Russia; in October 1916, there were 250,000 in Petrograd alone.” Moss continues to exemplify the increasing evidence of social unrest and connects the riots to a lack of resources when he goes on to point out that “subsistence riots protesting high prices and shortages… also increased.” ...
America and the USSR both had different opinions on communism and how a country should be run. The USSR believed communism was the perfect way to run its country and people. Communism consisted of a one party state which owned the whole of the industry business and the agricultural business too. There would be no individual profit making and everyone was equal and received an equal amount of money. America, however was a capitalist state which meant that there was freedom of speech, free elections and more than one political party.
A Documentary History (Paperback). Oxford University Press, USA, 1996. Scott, Peter Dale, Deep Politics, University of California Press; Reprint edition (June 22, 1996). Mitgang, Herbert Lillian Hellman's FBI File, Dangerous dossiers: exposing the secret war against America's greatest authors, New York: D.I. Fine, 1988, retrieved from a href="http://www.writing.upenn.edu/afilreis/50s/hellman-per-fbi.html">http://www.writing.upenn.edu/afilreis/50s/hellman-per-fbi.html/a>. Ted Morgan, Reds: McCarthyism in Twentieth-Century America, New York: Random House, 1st edition, 2003.
Benson, Sonia, Daniel E. Brannen Jr., and Rebecca Valentine. “Joseph McCarthy.” UXL Encyclopedia of U.S. History. Eds. Lawrence W. Baker and Sarah Hermson.
President Eisenhower implemented policies in order to keep Communism and Communist threats of war out of the United States, but these policies caused much fear in the American people concerning Soviet bombings and Communist spies. One such fear-inducing policy was McCarthyism, which was began by U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, and involved blaming innocent people for Communist activity in America, and President Eisenhower did not stop this incrimination of guiltless U.S. citizens. Eisenhower states in Document A that investigators either implementing McCarthyism or working for groups such as HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee) were spreading hysteria among Americans, as they feared spies and deceit, as well as being accused as such by people who implemented McCarthyism. Paranoia of being thought of as, or blamed for being a Communist caused much conformity among Americans in order to seem “normal”, as well as a return to religion and traditional family values. Desp...
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 itself 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.
“Despite American affluence, the spread of communism and the threat of global atomic war plagued Americans with a sense of constant threat both from within and without” (Prono). Many Americans were being taught that communists were the enemy from when they were young, so it created a generation that had so much hate and were so scared of the communist influence.
In addition to these street demonstrations, there were massive waves of workers’ strikes in the mines and steel mills. At first, the government tried to threaten the protesters; the Committee of National Defense announced preparations for a national state of emergency. By the determination of the workers the Communist reali...
The attitude of the citizens of the United States was a tremendous influence on the development of McCarthyism. The people living in the post World War II United States felt fear and anger because communism was related with Germany, Italy, and Russia who had all at one point been enemies of the United States during the war. If the enemies were communists then, communists were enemies and any communists or even communist sympathizers were a threat to the American way of life. "From the Bolshevik Revolution on, radicals were seen as foreign agents or as those ...
Schmidt, Regin. Red Scare: FBI and the Origins of Anticommunismin the United States, 1919-1943. Denmark: Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum P, 2000.
American policy was a mess from 1946 through 1950. The Cold War had begun, and there was a lot of conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. American forces were small however, and the defense budget was too small to meet the Soviet threat. American decision makers didn’t think the Soviets were necessarily seeking a war, but almost no one thought the peace would last. There was an overall gloomy outlook, however the Soviets were counting on several years of peace. Even though the Soviets were not actively seeking conflict, they were still using political means to achieve their goals. No one knew how a war might start and there was fear of miscalculation:
Story, Ronald and Bruce Laurie. The Rise of Conservatism in America, 1945-2000: A Brief History with Documents. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. Print.
In February of 1917 a group of female factory workers and led a revolt in which the Tsar was dethroned, only to be replaced by a provisionary government composed of the Russian elite. When this government did not live up to its promises of an end to Russian involvement in World War I, the Bolsheviks (“majority”), a revolutionary movement led by Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the provisionary government in what bacame known as the October revolution.
The discontentment of industrial workers in Russia was an important factor behind the 1905 revolution in Russia. The conditions in the factories left a lot of workers dissatisfied with how they were treat, with many factories completely forsaking anything resembling health and safety regulations and others making their employees work 11 hours a day throughout the week and 10 hours on a Saturday. However, there were several other important factors that led to the 1905 revolution such as the Russo Japanese war in 1904-1905, The policy of Russification and the events of Bloody Sunday. All of these factors will be discussed in the