Different aspects of the Cold War (including Russia's attempt to control the atomic bomb, added with other Russian conflicts), did not make the spread of communism a worthy cause for Americans at all. Russia continued to spread its communist tyranny all over the world. Because of all the power that the communists won, Americans started fearing that communists would gain power in their own country. There was something of a threat that the Stalinists presented to the American system of government. This didn’t mean that the Communists actually could have fostered a revolution and overthrown the sitting government of the United States. Instead, it meant that the American Communists could conscience the civil and human rights abuses of the Stalin regime, even while decrying their own victimhood.
That’s why in United States, Anti-Communism became virulent and violent following the second World War. Joseph McCarthy, was a senator who interrogated suspected communists in various government agencies.” McCarthy was brutal, uncruspulous, cunning...he hoped to achieve power by exploiting the communist issue. His methods were wild charges, fake evidence, innuendo and lies, appeals to ignorance, prejudice, hatred fear”1
The people suspected of being communists, were blacklisted, making them unable to get jobs, insurance, and loans, among other things. Also anti-Communists startled Americans by leveling their defense by making it seem like all members of communist parties were murderers and terrorists, which is where the term Red Scare was generated from. USA government frightened Americans into believing that all communists and people from countries such as Russia, which had communist leadership, were evil. People who had communists ideas were persecuted , they were put in jail.
The Red Scare nearly destroyed the Communist Party, driving away most of its members. Some of the Washington State leaders were imprisoned, others went underground. Truman Administration paralleled its foreign policy of containment overseas with a full-out anti-Communist crusade at home. Persons accused of being Communists could not cross-examine their accusers nor make their own statements. Moreover, the government also turned to professional anti-Communist witnesses who testified that: “Many of the accused were not active Party members. Some had been members but had left years before. A few may never have been Communists”. But regardless of their relationship to the Party, those targeted would pay a heavy price. . Nearly 200 American professors were dismissed for being communist or "subversive" in the 1950s.The accusations were damaging to reputations and cost many jobs. In 1950 McArthy even signed a bill entitled the "Federal Employee Loyalty Program" which resulted in thousands losing their jobs.
One of the worst things Red Scare did, was suspending the free-expression of opinion, this would be very dangerous to suspend, not because of the sympathy for Communist opinions, because any governmental stifling of the free expression of opinion is a long step toward totalitarianism. It is right to prevent espionage, sabotage, or other actions endangering national security but to violate the rights of liberty of freedom is something that contradict USA traditions.
Were the communists a real threat to justify all this cruel actions? It is a fact that Communists were taking control over the world and that that would have affected quite directly on the United States which, needless to say, supported capitalism and depended on it to continue its growth as a country and to make sure to keep their world power. The USA felt very threatened by the communists who seemed to be in some ways stronger than they are. But Communism was a real threat to the USA only in terms of International competition over the hegemony of world power. The USSR was gaining more and more power and this threatened the USA only because they didn't want to lose power over the world. The thing that should really worried them was the thought of the USSR taking control over the United States no the people with communist ideas in United States, who weren’t a threat at all, The worst thing that the red scare did was draw fear to the "communists" at USA when they should have been worrying about the real communists in the USSR.
McCarthy knew that people were worried because United Sates seemed to be failing in the Cold War so he took advantage of this situation and he became popular by providing a convenient explanation for this supposed failure. He made people believe that America weren’t loosing the cold war, it was being betrayed by traitors in it. He left very clear this position in a speech he gave in Wheeling:
“The reason why we find ourselves in a position of impotency is not because our only powerful potential enemy has sent men to invade our shores, but rather because of the traitorous actions of those who have been treated so well by this Nation. It has not been the less fortunate or members of minority groups who have been selling this Nation out, but rather those who have had all the benefits that the wealthiest nation on earth has had to offer--the finest homes, the finest College education, and the finest jobs in Government we can give”2
Red Scare wasn’t a real threat for the USA, McCarthy used it to became popular and to gain power. Republicans as him, made anti-communism the central theme of their campaign. They said the Democrats weren’t doing anything about communism. They said communists were ruining the United States and that the democrats let them do it. Republicans accused Democrats of being very soft with communism.
“ Washington Republicans made anti-communism the central theme of their 1946 campaign, charging that Democrats had "sold their soul to the Communist Party.(...)The accusations that Democrats aided communism, combined with a mild post-war recession, led Republicans to sweep the elections, regaining controlled of the Washington state legislature for the first time in 16 years.”3
In conclusion I would say the Red Scare wasn’t justified at all, it was the way the republicans found to weakend Democrats. The Red Scare was not really a fight against communism, it was an internal fight of two strong political parties of the United States.
“Thanks primarily to McCarthy, most Americans identify the anti-Communist investigations and hearings of the late 1940s and early 1950s as a shameful episode in American life during which a non-existent communist threat was used to pillory innocent people for their political beliefs. The McCarthy era is routinely portrayed in textbooks as an age of hysteria.”4
1 Morrison and Commager s History of the American Republic, 1970.
2 Senator Joseph McCarthy, Speech at Wheelin, West Virginia.
3 Michael Reese ,
4
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dr. Klehr, Harvey,
Enciclopedia Salvat . Volumen 6.Barcelona.1614-1616
Reese, Michael,
Walsh,Ben(1996).Modern World History. Great Britain. History in Focus.
