The Rise of Anti-Communist Persecution
Seventy years ago, while delivering a speech in honor of Lincoln Day, the American Senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy, attacked the State Department employees because they were members of the Communist Party. This was the beginning of the second wave of anti-communist persecution in the United States. The senator claimed that about 620 million people joined the ranks of the Communists in six years, and at that time, the number of supporters of the USSR in the world was 800 million people (McCarthy, 1950). These figures, the politician claimed, brought Washington closer to defeat in the Cold War.
McCarthy laid the blame for this not on the Soviet Union but on the ‘traitors’ who were generously paid by the USSR (McCarthy, 1950). In his speech, McCarthy defined communist nations as the greatest threat to America, putting the very existence of the American nation in peril (Villeneuve, 2020). The senator also offered specific accusations that affected employees of the US State Department (McCarthy, 1950).
Later, the allegations were extended not only to those who were caught sympathizing with communism but also to those who were suspected of same-sex relationships. I do not see that these accusations were grounded. In fact, I believe that communism as a political ideology does not threaten the existence of the US but rather offers another way of its development. In my mind, people who pursued communist ideas were not traitors; instead, they saw the country’s development differently and wanted to contribute to social justice within the United States.
The Communist Control Act and Its Consequences
McCarthy’s speech led to massive personnel redundancies across the country. About 800 people were suspended from the civil service, and another 600 were left at will (Suponitskaya, 2021). A wave of resignations also swept through the judicial and educational systems, as well as private companies.
On August 24, 1954, the US Congress passed an act outlawing the Communist Party in the country. In particular, it stated that although the Communist Party is considered a political force, in reality, it is an instrument of a conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States. The document, which was called the Communist Control Act, stated that the Communist Party was “an agent of a hostile foreign power.” (Auerbach, 1956, p. 183)
According to congressmen, the party was “a clear and constant threat to the security of the United States.” (Auerbach, 1956, p. 190). The Act led to the growth of anti-communist sentiments during the Cold War era. In my mind, these sentiments were poorly grounded because the Communists did not want the defeat of the US. Still, they defended the idea of equal distribution of resources within the country.
Parallels Between the Red Scare and Post-9/11 Policies
The period that I believe to be somewhat similar to the Red Scare is the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. In this period, laws were passed that significantly expanded the possibility of special services interfering in the lives of civilians without judicial sanctions, including wiretapping of telephone conversations and electronic correspondence, under the pretext of protecting national security (Cooper, 2020). In the Red Scare period, judicial sanctions were also not needed, which shows similarities between the two periods. People who invoked the Fifth Amendment refused to appear or were found in violation of the law as defined by the Congressional Committee, were made redundant, stripped of all privileges, and sometimes a ban on their free movement was imposed. They could also be taken before the court for their so-called anti-American activity.
References
McCarthy, J. (1950). Speech at Wheeling, West Virginia. Advances in the History of Rhetoric, 9.
Auerbach, C. A. (1956). The Communist Control Act of 1954: a proposed legal-political theory of free speech. The University of Chicago Law Review, 23(2), 173-220.
Cooper, P. J. (2020). By Order of the President: The Use and Abuse of Executive Direct Action. Revised and expanded. University Press of Kansas.
Suponitskaya, I. (2021). The Society Against Joseph McCarthy. Novaia i noveishaia istoriia, (2), 135-147. Web.
Villeneuve, H. (2020). Teaching Anticommunism: Fred Schwarz and American Postwar Conservatism. McGill-Queen’s Press-MQUP.