McCarthyism, an American Product of Hysteria

McCarthyism, shrouded in conspiracy and destroyer of copious lives. How could a country in the mid 20^th century be caught up in mass hysteria that made the Salem Witch trials look pale in comparison? What conspiracies were anti-communist forces like House Un-American Activities Commission (HUAC) and the FBI fighting against? J. Edgar Hoover, the first director of the FBI, believed that the communist party put the United States was at constant threat of attack. He also feared the, “fury with which the party, its sympathizers and fellow travelers can launch an assault.” (1) Hoover was a driving force in the firestorm that swept across the nation that was the second Red Scare. McCarthyism, although named after the now infamous politician Joseph McCarthy, can actually find its roots in the communist revolution in Russia during the end of the First World War. The American right saw communism as a violent ideology that reinforces strict and influential government that manages every-day life. This led to the first Red Scare, with copious people having grave fears of low class worker uprisings that would topple the government and replace it with a communist, oppressive one. The first Red Scare was the first step that primed copious Americans to embrace the communist witch hunts in the 1950’s. Another outside influence that led to the surge in McCarthyism was the first Nuclear weapons test conducted by the Soviet Union. The speed at which the Soviet Union was able to develop a nuclear weapon struck fear in the hearts of many Americans, which in turn led to the fear of communists and leftist ideology. The final nails in the coffin, the discovery of treason of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and the 1950 address by Joseph McCarthy, where he proclaimed the identity of two hundred and five communists in political and financial place of

power. These nails created mass hysteria, in which the Soviet Union and American communists were seen as ideological adversaries secretly infiltrating everything in American life to take America over via revolution. The American people surged to the right of the political system in fear of losing everything they held dear about America. Communism, in the eyes of the anti-communists, was the exact opposite of what America was founded on, where the American Dream and religion go to die, and are replaced by aggressive, tyrannical government. America was founded on the fear of government, and McCarthyism was the sad side effect of such interwoven fears.

1.     http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=3632