The First, Second Red Wars and McCarthyism were among the most challenging historical events. They have affected every significant aspect of American society, and their common denominator is blaming communists and communism for all hardships. Thus, under the guise of their anti-communist sentiments, the McCarthys fought the liberal intelligentsia, the cultural and scientific workers, and the advanced labor unions. The First and Second Red Wars are associated with the suppression of dissent, the attack on Americans’ civil rights, the infringement of democracy, and the attempt to establish a totalitarian regime in the country. For example, hundreds of people were forced out of their positions during these times: large-scale sweeps took place in government agencies, trade unions, and even universities (Schrecker, 2020). As a result, many distinguished professors lost their jobs due to mythical suspicions of ties to the Communist Party.
Moreover, during the McCarthy years, public libraries even seized books deemed suspicious by their supporters. The activities of the McCarthyists took unbelievable proportions and forms. For example, they accused and condemned anti-Americanism and treason; anyone who gave the slightest reason for suspicion, and even for the slimmest contradiction, people were imprisoned (Brenes, 2018). The McCarthyists furthermore interpreted the amendments and judicial concepts in their way to eliminate radicals and communists without too much difficulty.
Moreover, before the Red War, there was a powerful movement for black equality that included the left, primarily the Communist Party. However, the anti-communist campaign of the late 1940s, which began under the Truman administration, damaged that movement, sowing fear among the population and narrowing the movement’s focus to legal equality, leaving its broader ambitions unrealized. For example, black militants were marginalized and displaced from leadership, caught between state repression and an opportunistic liberal union offensive, and quickly crushed (Morgan, 2020). Fear of losing everything meant that people of color who fought for their rights virtually ceased to be active. Subjected to investigations, prisons, dismissals, and deportations, the people who made up the movement for racial equality were isolated from one another. Thus, the First and Second Red Wars, as well as McCarthyism, were the events of history that prevented the struggle for equality, thus slowing down the process of democratization.
References
Brenes, M. (2018) The Cold War. In A. Cushner (Ed.), The American Yawp (pp. 1-9). Stanford University Press.
Morgan, T. (2020). Reds: McCarthyism in twentieth-century America. Random House.
Schrecker, E. (2020). McCarthyism vs. Clinton Jencks by Raymond Caballero. Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 123(4), 486-487.