The Post–Second World War Red Scare
and McCarthyism
Due in part to the devastating effects of the Great Depression of the 1930s, many Americans were drawn to communism as a political and economic ideology, especially those in academic and labour fields.
During and after the Second World War, however, American society experienced a red scare, during which an intense fear of communism overcame the majority of the American population, influencing everything from movies and television to national security. This fear was fueled by such things as Soviet espionage and infiltration, the rise of communism in China, the acquisition of the atomic bomb by the Soviet Union, and the development of the Soviet iron curtain that divided Europe.
With the red scare came a strong backlash toward American communists and anyone perceived as being sympathetic toward communism or the Soviets. A movement against all things communist was led by an ex-marine and Republican senator from Wisconsin named Joseph McCarthy. In 1950, McCarthy charged that a number of communist supporters were among those working for the State Department. McCarthy’s accusations prompted a hearing to investigate the matter, which ultimately reported that McCarthy’s charges were unfounded. Regardless, McCarthy continued to assert that communism had infiltrated the Democratic government and used his accusations to support Republican candidates during the 1950 senate election. McCarthy gained a strong following among many anti-communist Americans and, as chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Government Operations, he continued to accuse government officials and military leaders of being pro-communist.
On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted to formally reprimand McCarthy due to his zealous and often unfounded accusations. He died three years later, yet the term McCarthyism continued to be used to describe the movement to uncover and persecute those with perceived ties to communism, a movement that divided Americans along ideological and political lines. In 2003, when the records of the 1953 Subcommittee on Government Operations led by McCarthy were made public, senators Susan Collins and Carl Levin wrote the following in the preface to the documents:
Senator McCarthy’s zeal to uncover subversion and espionage led to disturbing excesses. His browbeating tactics destroyed careers of people who were not involved in the infiltration of our government. His freewheeling style caused both the Senate and the Subcommittee to revise the rules governing future investigations, and prompted the courts to act to protect the Constitutional rights of witnesses at Congressional hearings.
—Source: Susan Collins and Carl Levin, “Preface,” Executive Sessions of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations, 2003, p. xi. United States Senate.
http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/Volume1.pdfOne of Senator McCarthy’s most vocal critics at the time was journalist Edward R. Murrow, who said the following during a 30-minute television news report:
We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we dig deep in our history and doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes which were, for the moment, unpopular. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of the Republic to abdicate his responsibility.
—Edward R. Murrow, See It Now, “A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy,” CBS, March 9, 1954.
1. What effects might McCarthyism have had on liberalism in the United States?
House Un-American Activities Committee
During the Second World War, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was formed by the US House of Representatives. HUAC delved into suspected threats of subversion or propaganda that attacked “the form of government guaranteed by our Constitution.” (Source: HUAC, quoted in “McCarthyism during the Cold War.” The War Within, University of California, Irvine Libraries,
http://www.lib. uci.edu/libraries/exhibits/warwithin/index.php?page=section_2, 2008.) In 1947, the committee held hearings to investigate communist subversion in Hollywood and the American film industry, after which they “blacklisted” many people who were uncooperative or unwilling to testify. Those blacklisted could no longer work in the entertainment industry; over 300 actors, directors, film screenwriters, and radio scriptwriters were boycotted by the studios. The “Hollywood Ten” famously refused to answer some questions posed by HUAC (citing their First Amendment right to freedom of speech and assembly), and members were found guilty of contempt. Industry members were asked if they were members of the American communist party or sympathetic to it, and furthermore, they were asked to name others who were or might be—including co-workers, friends, and, in one case, even a spouse. Those who were blacklisted had few options: find work in other countries or in theatre, write under pseudonyms or the names of willing friends, or leave the business all together
2.The Internet has its roots in the Cold War. The United States wanted a communication system that could withstand a nuclear attack. ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), created in 1969, enabled packets of information to travel within a decentralized communications network. What other legacies of ideological conflict and the Cold War do you know of?
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