The Red Scare

The Red Scare and McCarthyism had begun Paranoia, disloyalty, people losing jobs. The Red Scare and McCarthyism both made everything else worse. Communism is a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs. At the end of the month when they get their paychecks they both end up with the same amount of money it is not fair, right? but that is more or less what McCarthyism is. During the 1950s, there was a great amount of paranoia and the government technically speaking did not confide in anyone else and falsely accused other people (Essay). The government was so paranoid that they had

McCarthyism is defined as the practice of making accusations against someone who is believed to be associated with the Communist party. In February 1950, Senator McCarthy rose to the public eye when he gave a speech at

The Red Scare represented the widespread concern that Americans had developed over the fear of communist subversion within society. Americans believed, especially during the Cold War, which was a period of tension between the United States and Soviet Union, that communism was attempting to infiltrate every aspect of their lives. While this is not necessarily the best analogy, you can relate the widespread fear of communism during the Cold War as being similar to the heightened alert Americans had toward terrorism and suspected terrorists during the beginning of the modern century.

Joseph McCarthy falsely accused many people in our government of being a communist. Document one states, “I have in my hand 57 cases of individuals who would appear to be either card carrying members or certainly loyal to the Communist party, but who nevertheless are still helping to shape our foreign policy.” This text is showing that the government was accused of having members of the communist party. With McCarthy and these accusations, people began to worry about if there were really communists in our government or if there were other communists they didn’t know about. Thus causing, The Red Scare. Document 6 is an image of people in a car and

Congress also created the House on Un-American Activities Committee in 1947, the goal of HUAC was to investigate Hollywood for communism and communist propaganda being broadcasted to the American public. They hauled movie stars, screenwriters, directors, up and interviewed them to the thrill of the national press corps, they pressed them to implicate others in Hollywood and name names. Ten of those interviewed refused based on the unconstitutional nature of and violation of the First Amendment for this many of them were blacklisted from Hollywood. Joseph McCarthy despite his renown for anticommunism, he was not part of the HUAC. Later he held his own committees based on his secrete list of 205 plus names that were communists or communist sympathizers in the US government. Communism was not and has never been a major threat in the United States. It was not in the 1950’s it is not now. Anyone that brings up red scare is doing so trying to invoke fear to distract you from whatever domestic problems actually need confronting. The biggest reason that can be said was that the American Communist Party was extremely tiny and the fact that we have a two party system effectively neuters any third party from gaining real power either through legal or illegal

Senator Joseph McCarthy took advantage of the massive nationwide fear to accelerate his own political career. McCarthy accused thousands of people, in a wide variety of different occupations, of being loyal to the Communist Party. A copious amount of the people accused of being communists suffered after losing their jobs, even though there was no evidence proving that they were communists. He also incited massive paranoia by claiming that there were Soviet spies working inside the United States government, and were working to destroy it. This, later became known as McCarthyism: “the political practice of publicizing accusation of disloyalty or subversion with insufficient regard to evidence,” as defined by the American Heritage Dictionary. Regardless of Senator McCarthy’s inability to recognize a single solitary communist in the federal administration, a few national reinforcements supplied his accusations validity with the general public. The histrionic espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, in 1951, energized McCarthy’s charges. The Rosenbergs were executed in 1953 after being indicted for passing U.S. government nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union. “Also fueling McCarthy’s charges were a series of trials of American Communists between 1949 and 1955 for violation of the 1940 Smith Act, which prohibited Americans from advocating the violent overthrow of the government.

From 1949 to 1954, the citizens of the United States were overcome with terror of the possibility of being accused of Communism. Joseph McCarthy was an anti-communist zealot consumed with rooting out perceived Communist spies and activities in the United States. Public opinion indicated that McCarthy was a bully and a liar. The Senate condemned him for it because at the time, there was no evidence to support him. However, in recent years, evidence has appeared that confirms the basis of what McCarthy said. There were Communists infiltrating America, and it seemed McCarthy was the only one who actively trying to find it. McCarthy governed the U.S. people with fear for three year, the Senate censured him, and now is being proven correct,

The accused were then the subject of belligerent and intense investigations and questioning before government or private-industry committees and agencies. This ability of accusing people became known as McCarthyism. McCarthyism is the making of unfair allegations or using unfair investigative techniques, especially to restrict dissent or political criticism (Dictionary.com). McCarthyism came about once World War II ended and the cold war began as the US and the Soviet Union were still allies. Many people are still unaware of the impact and in fact how many people were affected by the McCarthy era and Senator Joseph McCarthy's accusations.

McCarthyism, gave America an exaggerated look at how communism is very popular in America and everyone involved should be persecuted. This gave mass hysteria when it came to communism and a lot of grief that did not need to happen. Communism was an issue in the Cold War but it was very far off from taking over America or affecting it and no one seemed to understand that. The government was also very worried about this because of other European countries who had revolutions and have become full communist countries from it. Overall the “Red Scare” was a lot of confusion between authorities that caused a lot of damage to many entertainers’ careers in Hollywood and is known as a period of confusion and exaggeration. The estimate for the amount of communists was 0.01 percent of the population and one journalist said, “The whole lot were about as dangerous as a flea on an elephant.” People began to notice that this wasn’t as bad as it seems and soon enough the crisis in America died down and people became more focused in the foreign affairs of the Cold

Sam Robert’s article, “A decade of Fear” explains how McCarthyism turned Americans against each other by depicting how he generated mass hysteria. In the article, it describes how Senator Joseph McCarthy was highly disliked before the attention he received over communism. Robert himself writes, “After all, Senator Joseph McCarthy had only recently been voted by the capitol press corps as the worst Senator in Washington.” (para 2)Additionally, he gained his popularity by stating “The State Department is infested with communists” (para 3), putting the whole nation in awe. Not to mention, the fact that the U.S was in the middle of the Cold War against the Soviets arousing paranoia among the general public. Furthermore, investigations

McCarthyism was practiced during the Cold War. People would report someone who was allegedly a communist and they would be put on trial in front of a court. In the United States, communism was feared and many people grew wary of neighbors due to this fear, as they didn’t know who was a communist. Panic was widespread across America because of this. However, most of the time, whenever someone was accused of being a communist it was to get back at that person for one reason or another. Victims of McCarthyism included government employees, famous actors and directors, homosexuals, voices behind radio talk shows, union activists, teachers, and people with relations to a “communist.” Even in the event that the trial ended up concluding that the

     FOR ALMOST fifty years, the words "McCarthy" and "McCarthyism" have stood for a shameful period in American political history. During this period, thousands of people lost their jobs and hundreds were sent to prison. The U.S. government executed Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, two Communist Party (CP) members, as Russian spies. All of these people were victims of McCarthyism, the witch-hunt during the 1940s and 1950s against Communists and other leftists, trade unionists and civil rights activists, intellectuals and artists. Named for the witch-hunt's most zealous prosecutor, Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.), McCarthyism was the most

McCarthyism, also known as the second red scare, was primarily common in the 50s, and it was called as such because of the main influencer and creator of McCarthyism was senator Joseph McCarthy. Joseph McCarthy was a senator who conducted different hearings, or more practically ‘search parties’ to hunt down communists in the american peoples. He was responsible for the conviction of many people because of their ‘unloyalty’ to America. Anyone who was found to be unloyal was immediately accused of affiliation with communists. He was able to do such things because of the executive order passed by president Truman to screen all workers across the country for ‘loyalty’. Everyone was afraid of the spread of communism, and they all fought to get rid of any infectious communists.

After the McCarthy trials, a new ideology came called McCarthyism, It were somebody accuses somebody else of something that they didn’t commit. Often times McCarthyism is wrong and has no sense of decency.

McCarthyism, named after the U.S senator Joseph McCarthy, is a practice of making false accusations without proper evidence. It used fear and prejudice to alienate people who were thought to have communist beliefs and ideas. On February 9 1950, McCarthy claimed that he knew some officials of U.S Department of State