The red scare/The cold war

• Who was Joe Mccarthy?


  • The Wisconsin senator
  • Claimed to have a list of 205 communists in 1950
  • Was a member of SISS
• What is SISS?


  Senate Internal Security Sub-committee

  • Senates main committee to investigate communism
• Communist fear of capitalist aggression

  The USSR (Russia) feared that the US would use its economic and military power to destroy communism
• Capitalism fears spread of communism

  • The US feared the spread of communism
  • Believed the USSR wanted communist world domination
• Cold war begins

  • In 1945 the US drops atomic bombs of Japan- Stalin saw the bombs as a direct threat to the USSR - led to the arms race
  • US and USSR disagreed about the future of eastern Europe- Truman wanted free elections and Stalin wanted it to be a 'soviet sphere of influence
• Soviet Expansion into eastern Europe

  • After WW2 the USSR rigs elections, arrests opponents & bans oppositional parties in Europe and takes control
  • Greek civil war - communists vs western backed government
  • US see's this as spread of communism & a threat the the rights and freedoms of the US- led to the red scare
• what was the red scare?

  • US believed communism was threat to the security of the US
  • Mass hysteria and fear of communists infiltrating all aspects of American life
• Truman Doctrine

  • 1947
  • aimed to contain communism by provided military aid to any country under threat by communism (eg. Greece)
  • Stalin saw it as proof the US wanted to destroy communism
  • Americans saw it as as safeguarding US (& allies) interests in western Europe
• Berlin Crisis

  • 1948-1949
  • USSR tried to seize west berlin by preventing food entering- starve them into submission
  • International shock at Stalin's determination to starve 2 million people
  • Example of the threat communism posed to capitalist nations (USA)
• Cold war escalates

  • 1950
  • North korea invades South korea
  • USA backs south Korea
  • cold war spreads to asia
  • Truman Doctrine in action
• The Rosenburg case

  • 1950- Klaus Fuchs was jailed for giving USSR information about how to make an Atomic bomb
  • He confessed and named ither spies including his sister (Ethel Rosenburg) and brother in law (Julius Rosenburg)
  • 1951- Rosenburg's denied all charges but were sentenced to death based on weak and little evidence for espionage
  • Executed on 1953
• The hollywood 10

  • fear of communists spreading propaganda through Hollywood films
  • 1947- HUAC called 41 people in the film industry and questioned them on their links to communism
  • Many were named 'communist sympathisers'
  • 10 refused to answer and pleaded to the 1st amendment
  • Hollywood 10 were jailed for a year and blacklisted from future jobs
  • Huge publicity to HUAC
  • Hollywood started only producing anti-communist films out of fear
• Alger Hiss case

  • Alger Hiss was a member of the state department & had been and advisor to President Roosevelt during WW2
  • He was named as a communist during a HUAC hearing and Nixon insisted he was leaking information to the USSR
  • 1949- trial
  • 1950- Found guilty of Lying to the court - jailed for 5 years
  • American public assumed he was a spy
• Federal loyalty boards

  • FBI director (Hoover) was concerned about spy's working for the government
  • 1947- President Truman allowed people to be fired if there were reasonable ground to suspect they were a communist
  • 3 million people investigated by Federal loyalty boards
  • 3000 people sacked as 'security risks'
  • no evidence is spying was actually found
  • Every company and government started investigated and sacked suspected communists
• What was HUAC?

  House committee on Un-American activities
• HUAC

  • Set up in the 1930s
  • 1947- began public hearings into the communist party of America
  • Hoover (FBI director) saw HUAC's potential to spread capitalist propaganda
  • FBI passed information on suspected communists onto HUAC who then interrogated suspects
• Impacts of the Red scare

  • Many innocent people lost their jobs & were blacklisted causing increased homelessness and poverty
  • Some protests but most people supported Congress
  • Suicide rates increased as people couldn't cope with false communist allegations
  • Democratic President Truman disagreed with congresses extremity against communism - Republicans won next election
  • Many people legally punished based on inadequate evidence