Communism and America

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Introduction: Throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, before the Cold War ended in 1991, there was a hysterical fear of communism in the United States. Joseph McCarthy, a senator in the 1950’s, fed the hysteria by accusing Americans of being communist agents. Americans feared, with good reason, that if they were suspected of being communists, their careers and lives could be ruined. Americans could see propaganda that suggested that anyone they knew could be a communist. The fear of a nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union only helped to escalate the fears Americans had of communism. Public service videos were made to show what to do in the event of a nuclear explosion going off near them, as if any day a bombing would happen.
The hysterical fear of communist insurgency in the United States was unfounded and resulted in the lives of Americans being ruined, and American and foreign lives being lost. There was never any evidence to back the claims of McCarthy or anyone else that America and the world could fall to communism. The general American public was anti-communist, and there was never any great plot to subvert the nation form within and turn it communist. The Domino effect turned out to carry no weight, as it turned out that a few countries converting to communism would not spread across the world like a virus. Americans could have disagreed with and resisted communism in their own country without mass hysteria or jumping into the Vietnam War.

How to Spot a Communist
JFK's Senate Speech 1952
Joseph McCarthy: "Enemies from Within"
McCarthyism and the Academic Mind
The Red Nightmare

Conclusion: Overall, Communism and communists quickly evolved in the United States from a legitimate political party to one that was seen as an insidious, treasonous movement. There was a fear that anyone in either the government or in your own life could be a communist, the belief that there only goal was to take over the world and destroy the freedoms that Americans enjoyed. Joseph McCarthy has played an enormous role in spreading this hysteria by attempting to start witch hunts against opponent politicians and others in public life, with many people living in fear of their careers and livelihoods taken from them.
Fear of communism was a fear truly held by Americans, including those in the upper echelon of government. It lead to the Containment policy, which would lead America into conflicts that did not actually further America’s interests, most notably the Vietnam War, where thousands of Americans were drafted and sent to be killed. Conflict with Cuba almost resulted in Cuba sending a nuclear bomb at the United States, which could have sparked nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
The actual threat of communist infiltrators was not a credible one. There were some Americans who believed in communism, but they were considered outcasts and had to be secretive about their beliefs. Futhermore, there is no evidence that there was a grand plot to overthrow the U.S. government. The closest that came to this was the Soviet Union funding various groups in the United States, but these groups were often civil rights groups that did not have the priority of furthering communism.

Secondary Sources:

Curwick, Stephanie. “Chapter 7 War and Red Scare 1940-1960.” Communist Party in Washington State: History, University of Washington, 2002, depts.washington.edu/labhist/cpproject/curwick.shtml.