Category: McCarthyism

Have you ever been accused of something that you didn’t do just because people fear that they were going to be accused of it? That’s exactly what Arthur Miller wrote in a play called The Crucible during the most fearful and terrifying times for Americans…The Red Scare. This led to a range of actions that had a profound and enduring effect not only on the U.S. government but also the society as well. Federal employees like U.S. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and workers from the House Un-American Activities Committee were analyzed to determine whether they were loyal or a traitor to the U.S government. Arthur uses The Crucible as an allegory to show the parallels between the Salem witch trials, McCarthyism, and the hearings of the house committee on non-American activists.

The Crucible tells a story about a little town in Massachusetts called Salem where false accusations and unjustifiable trials are happening, just like what was happening in the events of The Red Scare. Characters like John Proctor and Giles Cory from The Crucible are accused and imprisoned without solid evidence for their accusation. They were accused because the judges are filled with fear that influenced their decisions and actions they took. The same thing can be said of the U.S Government during the red scare when they started to take innocent citizens into custody without carefully examining or finding proof.

McCarthyism is a term that describes an intense time period in the United States when anti-communist suspicion was at an all-time high. The word McCarthyism gets its name from former U.S senator Joseph McCarthy, a republican of Wisconsin. It also references McCarthy’s practices of making accusations to many people in the U. S of having some sort of connection to communism without having solid proof that they did such a thing (Citation). People who were accused were blacklisted which meant they lost their jobs and were usually sentenced to jail. During this time the public didn’t think anything of it like it was normal. This was also happening to the people in The Crucible when not only the judges, but also the people living in the town didn’t think this was unjust, and those who spoke up were most certainly accused of witchcraft which put fear in the rest of the people (Miller 513). Even the author of the play Arthur Miller was found guilty of contempt in May 1957 because he didn’t want to give names to communists and was sentenced to prison, refused of a valid passport and blacklisted. Something that John Proctor did at the end of the play when the judges wanted him to give the names of those who were working with the devil but refused to do so (Miller 537)

House Un-American Activities Committee or HUAC was founded in 1938 and its role was to find and investigate Communist and fascist organizations that had become active during the Great Depression. They called American citizens to testify before congress to be questioned or provide names of communists that have infiltrated the United States. Those who refused to testify or give any info would be either sent to prison or blacklisted and sometimes even both. Those who were accused of being communists by someone who gave the HUAC their name were also asked to testify and provide the names of other communists. While this was happening the public was split into two groups with one side supporting the HUAC saying ‘its efforts were justified given the grave threat to U.S. security posed by communism'(History. com). The other side opposed the HUAC saying that ‘HUAC’s tactics amounted to a witch hunt that trampled on citizens’ rights and ruined their careers and reputations’ (History.com). The same can be said for the people in the crucible living in Salem were people some people are disgusted but in fear of what the judges were doing. While Others supported them thinking they were ‘cleansing’ the area of evil.

In conclusion, Arthur Miller uses The Crucibles’ unjustifiable and disturbing acts to show the parallels between the Salem witch trials, McCarthyism, and the HUAC all used fear as a tactic to get people talking and doing what they want. This led to many innocent people losing everything and for the people in The Crucible the deaths of so many innocent people. The resemblance of all these events to The Crucible can’t be denied and is a reminder to never do these evil and atrocious acts ever again.

Introduction

The 1920s to late 1950s in the United States saw the emergence of so-called ‘Red Scare’ and McCarthyism. These socio-political phenomena were caused by the birth of Communism and the Soviet Union, as well as by the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. The word commonly used to describe the atmosphere in society at the time is ‘hysteria’ or ‘paranoia’.

As the rivalry with the Soviet Union escalated, emotions ran high, and initial suspicions gradually paved the way for subsequent arrests and trials on charges of spying and providing the Reds (communists) with inside information. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy was involved in the investigations of alleged plots and subversions in the government and cinematography¹. The atmosphere of fear persisted until the late 1950s. Short-term consequences of Red Scare and McCarthyism phenomena involved the atmosphere of repression and hysteria, while the long-term consequences included a certain degree of impact on economic development.

Short-Term Consequences

In 1950, Senator McCarthy publicly claimed that the communists successfully infiltrated the U.S. government structure². According to Storrs, the tendency to suspect communist infiltration appeared during the first Red Scare in the 1920s³. As the Great Depression revealed certain weaknesses of capitalism, the Communist Party grew in numbers. Moreover, the New Deal program, introduced by Franklin D. Roosevelt, extended the federal government’s control of the economy.

The anti-communist structures started emerging at the same time. In 1938, the Special House Committee to Investigate Un-American Activities was created. Alongside with McCarthy’s investigating committees, these structures collaborated with the Federal Investigation Bureau in their efforts to track subversive activities and identify communist spies⁴. Suspicions reached the presidential level when Harry Truman’s administration faced accusations of being linked to Soviet espionage activities.

Thus, the major short-term consequence of Red Scare consisted of its increasingly powerful tendency to spread to all levels of society. After the accusations directed towards Truman’s administration, Red Scare paranoia started spreading to not only local governments and employers but also the media, universities, labor unions, etc. Consequently, various accusations on all these levels resulted in ludicrous situations, interfering with the proper development of the professional areas.

Despite the irony, the idea of protecting democracy by stifling essential democratic values, such as the multitude of opinions, should be considered a short-term consequence as well⁵. The second Red Scare was far more elaborate than the first, as it led to executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg on charges of communist espionage, to multiple cases of imprisonment, deportation, or the most common punishment – long-term unemployment. Storrs stresses the fact that one of the critical consequences of Red Scare was the lively debate that goes on to this day about the proper balance between security and liberty.

Long-Term Consequences

Long-term consequences of Red Scare and McCarthyism pertain to the economic development of the country. Storrs indicates that measures undertaken by McCarthy prevented the American welfare state from developing properly⁶. The author stresses that the impact that McCarthyism had on the U.S. economy is largely underestimated.

A great number of officials were removed from office in the wake of McCarthyism hysteria. More often than not, the eliminated officials were working on certain policies designed to strengthen the democratic system, redistribution, and regulation. Thus, Red Scare had a negative impact on the economic potential of the New Deal, as it removed the people capable of managing the unregulated capitalist system, as well as its anti-democratic aspects⁷.

In their book describing the impact of Red Scare and McCarthyism on the economic development of Texas, Carleton and Faulk claim that even though Red Scare was gradually dissipating by the 1960s, the influence of this phenomenon was visible over the next several decades⁸. Workers, students, and various professionals were obliged to sign loyalty oaths until the late 1960s.

The police structures developed for the purposes of revealing Red espionage continued working in the 1970s. By spying on Texas population, they infringed on the privacy rights of those who could not even remotely resemble Soviet spies. Moreover, the effects of Red Scare were very prominent in public schools, where the ultra-right were the driving force. A great number of teachers were scared into resigning, and the censure of publications and curriculum continued even in the 1970s⁹.

Conclusion

Even though Red Scare phenomenon occurred as a reaction to the rising power of the Soviet Union, the impact it had on the U.S. socio-economic dimension was prominent and long-lasting. McCarthyism, which emerged from the social hysteria and paranoia, albeit based on several proven cases of communist espionage, was a radical response to the problem.

The short-term consequences involved the virulent nature of Red Scare, touching upon nearly every aspect of life in the U.S. The long-term consequences involved certain socio-political and economic obstacles that ensured that democracy and economy face very serious difficulties. Skoll and Korstanje claim that due to Red Scare, a culture of fear started developing in the U.S., with its modern equivalent and a direct consequence – a fear of terrorism, which prompts certain politicians to deliver speeches very similar to those pronounced over fifty years ago by Senator McCarthy¹⁰.

Reference List

Carleton, DE & Faulk, JH, 2014, Red Scare: right-wing hysteria, fifties fanaticism, and their legacy in Texas, University of Texas Press, Austin.

Red Scare n.d. Web.

Skoll, GR & Korstanje, ME, 2013. Constructing an American fear culture from red scares to terrorism. International Journal of Human Rights and Constitutional Studies, 1(4), pp.341-364.

Storrs, LRY 2013, The second red scare and the unmaking of the new deal left, Princeton University Press. Princeton.

Storrs, LRY 2015, McCarthyism and the Second Red Scare. Web.

Footnotes

1 Red Scare n.d., para. 2.

2 Storrs LRY 2015, ‘McCarthyism and the Second Red Scare’, para. 1.

3 Ibid., para. 2.

4 Ibid., para. 2.

5 Ibid., para. 2.

6 Storrs, LRY, 2013. The second red scare and the unmaking of the new deal left. Princeton University Press, p. 2.

7 Ibid., p. 2.

8 Carleton, DE & Faulk, JH, 2014. Red Scare: Right-Wing Hysteria, Fifties Fanaticism, and Their Legacy in Texas. University of Texas Press, p. 305.

9 Ibid., p. 305.

10 Skoll, GR & Korstanje, ME, 2013. Constructing an American fear culture from red scares to terrorism. International Journal of Human Rights and Constitutional Studies, 1(4), p. 341.

Introduction

The Bolsheviks Revolution in Russia in 1917 introduced the concept of communism to the world. Ever since that incident, the American government and the public at large have been hounded by the fear that this movement might take over the country one day. The nation as a whole must have been relieved after the breakdown of the Soviet Union and the unification of East and West Germany. During the period between the Russian Revolution and the fall of communism, two incidents stand out as instances of gross civil rights violations (by the government and public) in their fight against socialism and communism. They are the Red Scare and the era of McCarthyism. This paper is an attempt at comparing the two eras of anti-communist activity in the country.

Red Scare

This incident happened in 1919 soon after the Bolshevik Revolution occurred. This was prompted by a series of incidents that took place in the country during that time. One was the dockyard strike of 35,000 workers in the Seattle port in 1919. A nationwide strike of steelworkers also happened that year. Soon strikes were considered to be a crime against the people of the country. In the same year, the Boston Police Force also went on strike.

Several plots to bomb or kill places and persons were also uncovered. All these incidents were attributed to the work of communists and other socialistic forces. Hysteria gripped the country. “The Justice Department, under Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, started the General Intelligence (or antiradical) Division of Bureau of Investigation on August 1, 1919, with J. Edgar Hoover as its head.” (Burnett). Many innocent victims were considered to be communists and their careers were ruined.

McCarthyism

This happened much later (1940) on the initiative of Senator McCarthy (from Wisconsin) stated that he had a list of confirmed past and present communists. “While the House Un-American Activities Committee had been formed in 1938 as an anti-Communist organ, McCarthy’s accusations heightened the political tensions of the times.” (Joseph and Miller). Like the Red Scare period, many innocent victims were imprisoned and many lost their careers because of this.

Comparison

The reason for both the incidents was the paranoia that communism will take root in the United States and eventually take over the country. This was justified to a certain extent because of stories of injustice shown in the name of communism in communist countries like the USSR and China. Another similarity was that many innocent people were victimized by accusations of unpatriotic activities. They were labeled as communists or as sympathizers. Many civil rights violations happened during both incidents. (Jarmul). The victims included many prominent personalities (film and television, authors, artists) and also ordinary citizens.

But there are many differences as well. The Red Scare happened just two years after the Bolshevik Revolution when many parts of the world were unable to accept such a rule. The fear and shock were great at that time. McCarthyism happened during the 1940s. Red Scare panic only lasted for a little more than a year and had subsided by the late 1920s. McCarthyism and its effect lasted for nearly fourteen years till the year 1954. Red Scare came about because of certain incidents mentioned above. The two prominent government persons were Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and Edgar Hoover, both in charge of The General Intelligence (or antiradical) Division of Bureau of Investigation. Both were only employees of the government.

In McCarthyism, the whole movement was started on the whims of a single person namely McCarthy (for whatever reason). He took advantage of the House of Un-American activities formed in 1938 to pursue his cause. Civil rights violations existed even during this time. McCarthy only made matters much worse. McCarthy was later criticized for his actions and removed from his post while such actions did not take place for Palmer and Hoover.

Whatever may be the similarities and differences both these instances are black periods of gross human rights violations in the history of the United States.

Works Cited

Burnett, Paul. The Red Scare: Red Scare Image Database. 2008. Web.

Joseph, McCarthy., and Miller, Arthur. McCarthyism. American Masters. 2008. Web.

Jarmul, David. America’s Fear of Communism in 1920 Becomes a Threat to Rights. VOA News. 2006. Web.