Mc Carthyism

2019

McCarthyism is a term strictly associated with another one worth mentioning which is Red Scare. Both of them stand for specific periods in American history, when there was a widespread fear of communism. However, McCarthyism rigidly relates to the Second Red Scare that occurred in the 50’s in the United States of America. It had its origins in a figure of Joseph McCarthy who was a U.S. Senator. He believed American politics and culture was infiltrated by communists. His principal aim was to eliminate all political opponents. Having no limits, he accused a number of significant public and political figures of cooperating with communists or being communists. Specially dedicated committees were created to investigate that alleged infiltratuon. The paper introduces the phenomenon of McCarthyism and examines its social and political impact on the country. It also investigates the links between Joseph McCarthy and Donald Trump rhetoric.

McCarthyism; The Realities, Delusions and Politics Behind the 1950s Red Scare, 2017

Introduction to McCarthyism: The Realities, Delusions and Politics Behind the 1950s Red Scare.

AUC STUDIA TERRITORIALIA, 2016

The paper deals with the era known as McCarthyism in the context of the early Cold War. It focuses on how the Americans perceived the threat of domestic Communists and how their view was linked to the events abroad. Using poll data from Gallup Polls conducted in and around the years in question, it discusses the cause and effect relation between the public opinion and the hearings. The paper concludes that the negative and sometimes hostile opinion of Americans toward Communism was not caused by McCarthyism, but it rather worked as a catalyst for the politicians who wanted to build their career on the issue of Communist subversion. When the external factors helped ease the domestic tension, the careers of McCarthy and others collapsed.

American Studies in Scandinavia

Science &amp Society

Based on the revelation of cold war documents from former Soviet archives there has been a growing body of work that seeks to justify the McCarthy period.

Index on Censorship, 2015

History Compass, 2009

The years immediately following World War II were ones of far-reaching fear in American society and politics that resulted from chilling relations with the then Soviet Union and the fear of the international and domestic spread of Communism. To deal with the Communist threat, perceived, and actual the American government stepped-up an earlier anti-Communist crusade that soon permanently took on the name McCarthyism after its most feared proponent, Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy. Although few sectors of American society were untouched by McCarthyism in the 1940s and 1950s, American labor was hit especially hard, and one of its chief organizations, the Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO) chose to purge its most-left leaning unions, a move that both failed to protect the American labor movement from McCarthyism and cost it its militant edge, all to the long-term detriment of American working people. Nonetheless, historians traditionally defended the CIOs purge as a necessary and even laudable effort to rid the American labor movement of the menace of Communism. As the long-term effects of the taming of American labor have become more apparent, however, historians have begun to take a more critical look at the reasons for the purge, as well as seeking more nuanced explanations for the political climate that made the purge possible.