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Communist Party And The United States

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“I have here in my hand a list of two hundred and five people that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping the policy of the State Department.
-Senator Joseph McCarthy, West Virginia Communism in the early 1950’s in the United States was something that everyone feared. People did not know how to handle the topic of communism. Everyone was a suspect. So when Senator Joseph McCarthy claimed that he had a list of people that the United States government knew to be communists but were not being thrown in jail or even questioned about their ties to the communist party people freaked out. Everyone was turning their trust towards Senator McCarthy, and going along with anything he said. This turned to be a dangerous time for anyone even associated with the Communist Party.
Historical Context In the 1920’s the United States went through its first communism phase labelled as a Red Scare. A Red Scare is a period where people fear the thought of rising communism power. When people feel fear they act in a dangerous way. Fear can cause people to do things that they would never do when they are in the right frame of mind. In the 1920’s people feared communism, so they started to accuse and point fingers at people. Immigrants were deported back to their home countries without just reasons and any immigrant in some people’s eyes could be a communist.
World War I ended in 1918 causing a decline for the

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