The red scare
The fear of Communism during the Cold War
Do you remember the first Red Scare in the 1920s?
Let’s sum up the facts:
Worried by the revolution that had taken place in Russia, Palmer — the attorney general — became convinced that Communist agents were planning to overthrow the American government. On 2nd January, 1920, another 6,000 were arrested and held without trial. These raids took place in several cities and became known as the Palmer Raids. Palmer found no evidence of a proposed revolution but large number of these suspects, many of them members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), continued to be held without trial.
When Palmer announced that the communist revolution was likely to take place on 1st May, mass panic took place. In New York, five elected Socialists were expelled from the legislature. When the May revolution failed to materialize, attitudes towards Palmer began to change and he was criticised for disregarding people’s basic civil liberties
During the First Cold War the Red Scare rose up again in the US. Shall we try to discover what happened trough the videos of that period or about those years?
Click om this link in order to download the worksheet
The Anti-Communist propaganda
In the 50s and 60s, pop culture media like film and comic books lent themselves particularly well to Anti-Communist propaganda, and they were exploited relentlessly by government agencies, production companies, and corporations. Films and posters offered sensationalized pulpy takes on the red scare. In these peak Cold War decades, Anti-Communist sentiment flourished as the U.S.’s former ally the Soviet Union became its primary enemy.
The red scare propaganda had real effects on the lives and livelihoods of real Americans, particularly those in the arts and academia. Freethinking, left-leaning creative types and intellectuals have long been targets of Anti-Communist paranoia. The American Legion Magazine cover above illustrates the fear — one still very prevalent now — that college professors were bent on corrupting young, malleable minds. “Parents,” the magazine states, “can rid campuses of communists who cloak themselves in ‘academic freedom.’”
More confident, it seems, than the propaganda of previous decades, the Cold War variety shrunk the Communist threat back to human dimensions. But Communists were no less monstrous than before — only more insidious. They looked like your neighbours, your co-workers, and your children’s teacher. Instead of purveyors of brute force, they were depicted as devious manipulators who used ideological machinations to pervert democracy and cripple capitalism. As in the American Legion college professor cover story, education was often posed as the cultural battlefield on which — as the heated Canadair ad above states — “Communism could take the citadel from within” by spreading “doubts about the old ways” and insinuating “ideas of atheism, regimentation and false idealism.”
Analyzing the propaganda short movies
Now you have the main information about the Red Scare, but it isn’t enough; let’s make deeper our knowledge with a more accurate research:
· Split your class group into four groups.
· Each group watches just a part of the assigned movie
· Each group will be provided with a schedule which help them in summing up the contents.
· Then the group has to recapitulate the content of the video in a short speech to the whole class.
1. The Red Scare 1950–1957
Listening to the video and fill the table after downloading the worksheet
2. Are you a communist or a citizen?
Listening to the video and fill the table after downloading the worksheet
3. Make mine freedom
Listening to the video and fill the table after downloading the worksheet
4. How to spot a communist
Listening to the video and fill the table below after downloading the worksheet:
McCarthyism
The conflict between the US and the USSR resurrected the anti-communist paranoia at home, just as anti-communism had swept America during the Red Scare after WW1. In 1947 the president Truman ordered investigations of 3 million federal employees in search for “security risks”. Those found to have a potential Achilles’ heel — either previous association with “known communists” or a “moral” weakness such as alcoholism or homosexuality (which, the government reasoned, made them easy targets for blackmail) — were dismissed without a hearing. In 1949 former State Department official Alger Hiss was found guilty of consorting with a communist spy (Richard Nixon was the congressman mostly responsible for Hiss’s downfall). Americans began to passionately fear the “enemy within”. Even the Screen Actors Guild, then healed by Ronald Reagan, attempted to discover and purge its own communists.
It was the atmosphere that allowed a demagogic senator named Joseph McCarthy to rise from near anonymity to national fame. In 1950 McCarthy claimed to have a list of more than 200 known communists working for the State Department. He subsequently changed that number several times, which should have clued people to the fact that he was not entirely truthful. Unchallenged, McCarthy went on to lead a campaign of innuendo that ruined the lives of thousands of innocent people. Without ever uncovering a single communist, McCarthy held years of hearings with regard to subversion, not just in the government, but in education and entertainment industry as well. Those subpoenaed were often forced to confess to previous associations with communists and name others with similar associations. Industries created lists of those tainted by these charges, called blacklists, which prevented the accused from working, just as a blacklists had been used against union organizers at the turn of the last century. McCarthy’s downfall came in 1954, during the Eisenhower administration, when he accused the Army of harbouring communists. He had finally chosen too powerful a target. The Army fought back hard, and with help from Edward R. Murrow’s television show, in the Army-McCarthy hearings, McCarthy was made to look foolish. The public turned its back on him, and the era of McCarthyism ended, but public distrust and fear of communism remained.
From Cracking the AP US history exam, The Princeton review
The writing activity
After listening to the speeches of each group, you are called to think of the Red Scare and its consequences. Write an essay setting whether the Communism was a real menace for the democracy in the US or not.