McCarthyism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

McCarthyism - Essay ExampleAmericans were shaken and afraid. The Soviet sweeping occupation of Eastern Europe occurred immediately following WWII. In effect, Russia replaced Germany and Japan as the American nemesis. The Godless Communists became a clear and present danger to a nation primed, ready and seemingly fervent to accept the Soviets as the new enemy of the American Way. Senator Joseph McCarthy seized upon this fear for, some would insist, purely political gain. He held hearings designed to weed-out subversives and communist sympathizers so as to keep America clean of communism. Instead, this time in history, the early 1950s, is shamefully known as McCarthyism, a term that has since become a synonym for witch hunt. When macrocosm War II finally ended in 1945 Americans were war-weary and scared of a new affright, the Soviet Union. The Soviets had taken the place of Germany in the hearts and minds of Americans because it was emulating the aggressive, imperialistic tendenci es of the Third Reich. The difference being the Soviets now had a array that more or less matched the strength of the U.S., was a larger country and had a long-established communist philosophical system which it was also spreading rapidly throughout Eastern Europe. The Soviets also had the atomic bomb by 1949 and was change magnitude its rocket capabilities, a move than would ultimately pit the two world superpowers in the space rush of the late 1950s through the1960s. The threat of nuclear annihilation and/or a communist putsch was very real in the minds of 1940s-50s America. The sales of backyard bomb shelters were booming and the propaganda machines left over from the Nazi era was in full production mode. Communists, known simply as Reds were feared and thought to be lurking respectable near anywhere, the guy in the office next to yours, neighbors, long-term friends and family. Communist theories were supposedly hiding indoors the meanings of literary phrases and all type s of media including the news. A curious process of symbolic transference was at work whereby symbols apply to Hitlerite Germany were projected onto the USSR on account of the dangerous Red Fascism promoted by Stalin (Sproule, 208). This era was not the first threat of communism in America. The initial wave of commie paranoia came in 1917 after the Russian Revolution. Anti-communist sentiment subsided during the 1920 and 30s when it was replaced by anti-fascism. The Second Red Scare lasted from about 1947 to 1957. McCarthyism and anti-communist sentiments could not have gained traction without the high-pitched intensity propaganda campaign encouraged by the government to discourage subversives and by corporations in their effort to soften unions. R.J. Reynolds, a large tobacco company, initiated a widespread multi-million dollar campaign to notify the country about the communistic character of labor unions, particularly the union representing tobacco workers. This tactic caught o n rapidly with other industries resulting in plummeting union membership numbers across the country for several decades. This effort continues today only when the fear-based term is now socialism. The U.S. and Soviet Union were firmly engaged in what is famously known as the Cold War. It was a fought on two fronts, a mass military build-up and a propaganda blitz. During this time of the present moment red scare, many local and state governments along with public schools and