American society and United States policy were affected by the Cold War in various ways. The Red scare built fear towards communism, the government grew a fear towards the use of bombs, and the concern of the government using money towards military purposes instead of social reasons. The Red Scare was one of the effects the Cold War had on American society with the fact the people grew fear of communism and spies within the country, and there is panic within the country among the people. If you look at Document 5 you can see people scared and with signs protesting rather than saying they’re innocent or burning all red. These are their reactions to the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Some people are saying all of the Rosenberg traitors …show more content…
When the Cold War began, a great fear of the use of bombs struck the government. The United States feared this and took many steps to be ready for the event bombs get used. In document 4 it says “Within the past week unmistakable evidence has established the fact a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island”. When the government learned this information, they understood the danger of what these missiles could do because they were ballistic missiles and had the power of a nuclear bomb. It talks about where these bombs could attack and also states just how dangerous they are. They saw this as a definite threat to peace. The source of this document is from President John F. Kennedy, October 22, 1962. This document shows the definite use and making of missile sites capable of nuclear damage and the fear the government had towards them. Next in document 7 there is a picture showing the government starting the construction of bomb shelters. This represents the government's fear of the bomb use and suspecting it, so they’re beginning to build bomb shelters around the country. This picture comes from Loomis Dean, Life Magazine, 1951. This document is so important because you can actually see what the government was doing in the fear of bombs and see them building the bomb shelters. This is one of the steps they were taking because of the fear they had in the emergency and just the thought of the use of these
The United States and The Soviet Union were originally joined together by the want to defeat The Nazi army, in 1941-1945. The alliance remained, and strengthened, among the two until the end of World War II. At the end of World War II, a rupture between the two occurred. The differences began earlier, but there was a straw that broke the camels back. The reason The United States and The Soviet Union’s alliance did not work out is because The Soviet Union and The United States were complete opposites, The Soviet Union proved to be faulty, and they were never truly allies.
...that people can yet again fear that the communists might attack and send spies within to destroy their beloved country. Take the evidence from the Ohio County Women’s Republican Club when McCarthy stimulated the fear that Communism will spread and their spies will overthrow the democracy through traitorous means. Take the evidence of the Truman’s Response to McCarthy, Truman stated that the Kremlin must have put McCarthy there to cause turmoil and that must be a reason why he must have caused the country to go into a red scare. Take the evidence of the cartoon from Herb Block, which showed McCarthy drive his car into innocent people who had no influence of the communist and were scared by McCarthy’s ways of finding communists. McCarthy wanted to be well known and decided to start the red scare so that everyone else can fear and be aware of the communist everywhere.
A war does not necessarily require physical weapons to fight. From 1947 to 1991, military tension and ideological conflicts held place. Cold War is defined as a state of political hostility existing between countries, characterized by threats, violent propaganda, subversive activities, and other measures short of open warfare, in particular. The causes of the Cold War between United States and the Soviet Union were the mutual distrust that had taken place in World War II, intense rivalry between the two super powers, and conflicting ideologies. The two superpowers differed in views of political and economic principles and were eager to spread their ideologies to other countries. The United States were in favor of democracy and capitalism while the Soviet Union sought for the chances of influencing communism. Cold War did not involve the use of physical arms but was intensely fought. Propaganda, economic aids, Arms Race, and the creation of alliances were the main methods to fight the war. The use of propaganda played a crucial role in containment by criticizing the other power and raised the morale and spirit of their nation. The economic support for nations helped them recover from the desperate situation after World War II, which prevented the nations from falling under communism. Also, the Arms Race and forming alliances between the two main powers were important weapons for competition and rivalry in Cold War.
The Red Scare was given its name because everyone feared the idea of communism (“Red”) in America. Fear, especially spread out among a group, is a dangerous and chaotic thing that can cause people to do things that they would not normally do. It can cause people to betray others close to them or not trust some people they would normally trust.
The Red Scare happened during the Cold War when the US and Russia were threatening each other by trying to build more power than the other. At the time, Americans were very fearful of communists, so when one man named Joseph McCarthy, a Senator from Wisconsin, starting telling people that there were communists living among them, many people believed him (Westlund). The composition of The Crucible is about the Salem Witch Trials, but there are clear parallels that can be connected to the McCarthy Hearings. The people in Salem were afraid of witchcraft and many people believed accusations because they were afraid. The comparison was very controversial and ended up getting Arthur Miller accused of communist affiliation. The Salem Witch Trials and the McCarthy Hearings are compared in The Crucible and there are clear parallels seen in the story
Red Scare was the label given to the actions of legislation, the race riots, and the hatred and persecution of "subversives" and conscientious objectors during that period of time. At the heart of the Red Scare was the conscription law of May 18, 1917, which was put during World War I in order for the armed forces to be able to conscript more Americans. This caused many problems in the recollection of soldiers from the war. For one to claim that status, one had to be a member of a "well-recognized" religious organization which forbade their members from participating in war. As a result of such unyielding legislation, 20,000 conscientious objectors were inducted into the armed forces.
The origins of the Red Scare have been debated and studied for nearly a century. Most historians believe that the Red Scare was the product of a public hysteria linked to the patriotic fever remaining after the war, the social unrest, and the fear that Bolshevism would spread from Russia. Urbanization, industrialization, and immigration of the previous decrease also brought social and cultural changes which added to the anxieties. Thus, it was concluded that the First Red Scare was cultural in its origins. Attempting desperately to avoid communism takeover, Americans deported “radical aliens”, barred socialists from holding office, and passed laws that made it a crime to speak critically about the government. However, there is much evidence to believe that the First Red Scare, a cultural movement, was not only cultural in origin – but economically.
The rise of the Red Scare, McCarthy, and McCarthyism as a whole, was due to a combination of the secrecy of the Communist Party, the misinformation about the party spread by McCarthyism’s proponents, and the extremely aggressive tactics McCarthy himself adopted. Red Scare as a whole gained prominence because Communism was a secretive new movement that Americans knew little about, its associations with Stalinism, and the actual Russian spies in the country. The movement known as McCarthyism started as a response to the Red Scare soon after World War II and was an attempt by various government officials to find Communists in America and then get those Communists removed from the country by any means necessary. The government’s problem was that their overzealousness often led to subversion of the law and American Constitution, mistaken accusations, and false convictions of people who were not Communists. McCarthy himself contributed by fundamentally changing the tactics of the movement to be much more vigorous and allowing other people who shared his extremist beliefs to take positions within the movement.
The entire Red Scare was meant to keep communism out, and the main reason they wanted to do that is so they could remain free. What really ended up happening was the opposite. When just normal Americans were accused of being a communist their life was over, guilty or not. Even if there weren't a communist they stood a very tiny chance of ever finding a good job without leaving the country. Some people were accused of being Russian spies. Some of these people were actually spies, but some were innocent, and yet they were put in jail, or even put to death for their "crime" against America. There were other instances like this happening all the time. People always expected their neighbor of being a communist, so they started to distrust them, which didn't make anyone lose rights, just caused conflicts among normal people.
In his book Cold War: The American Crusade against World Communism, James Warren discusses the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, its causes, its consequences, and its future. Warren also analyzes why the United States was so afraid of communism and how this fear controlled both U.S. domestic and foreign policy. In George Washington’s Farewell Address, he warned future leaders to avoid foreign entanglements. However, the United States strayed away from this policy in 1941 after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. From then on, the United States realized that with its great power came great responsibility. The U.S. felt the responsibility to develop a strategy to combat the spread of world communism, which was viewed as the “Red menace.” The U.S. believed that communism would spread from the Soviet Union, across all of Europe; the U.S. understood that the spread of communism would not be very difficult because the destruction caused by World War II left many nations vulnerable to communism. Also, the Soviet Union had a highly-trained army, a ruthless leader, and a nation committed to Marxist-Leninism, which was a belief that human progress is the destruction of Western democracy and capitalism. The Cold War was a military, diplomatic, economic, and scientific struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States. The rivalry between these two nations also affected places such as Korea, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Malaya, and Vietnam. The Cold War controlled many of the crises that occurred the last half of the 20th century. The major conflict of course was the threat of nuclear weapons. Thomas Larson wrote that “the vulnerability to weapons that could destroy entire countries...heightened fears and antagonisms and made th...
The Cold War affected everyone in different ways. Adolescents beginning to find their voice during these times. These young men and women had their way of life changed dramatically because of the war. School was now a bigger priority, delinquency was on the rise, and the world of entertainment was starting anew. These new teenagers were a start of a new time.
The effect the Cold War had on the world is astounding. Good things came out of the Cold War, as well as bad things. Economic breakdowns, amazing technological advances (Such as during the Arms Race), political rewiring, proxy wars, millions of lives lost, and a higher interest in security than ever are just a few of the ways countries have been affected. The legacies of the Cold War continue to shape and influence our lives today, and it’s important to not only understand the significance of this war-that wasn’t really a war, hence “Cold War”- but to learn about what caused it, so that we can try our best not to repeat it again in the future. There isn’t a simple cause, or just one reason, because so many events piled up onto one another to cause the clash. Let’s take a step back, and look at the background events going on that ultimately led to a period that changed the world.
The Cold War put us on the brink of war with the Soviet Union. This could have possibly been the one thing that started the fear of communism. Russian spies are everywhere. People suspected each other, even their neighbors. Since the soviet Union was a communist country that was spreading it’s influence in Europe. America had to do something about it. America felt that the people living in the Soviet Union were being oppressed and needed to be free. This so called war was basically seeing how far both the countries, (America & Soviet Union) could go without going into war. Examples of this would be the Truman doctrine, which was Truman’s way of making sure Greece and Turkey would not become a communist country (N.N.787). Another example would be the Marshall Plan, which asked the countries that needed help request it and the US would help. America did not want the Soviets to spread their ideas to other countries by exploiting the dissatisfaction of their country. So we helped because we thought that our country was in trouble from the communists (N.N.787). An even better example of clashes between the US and the Soviet Union would be the Berlin Airlift. Soviets blocked off all land into Berlin and we airlifted supplies into Berlin. Now during this at home, there were many people scared of communism also. Many were accused communists due to the Red Scare.
The red scare was brought upon by men like Joseph McCarthy, who were eager to exploit people’s fear of Russia for personal benefit and power. Anyone who was associated with communism was highly scrutinized to be a Russian spy. Instead of fighting for the rights of the accused individuals, many social action groups ridded themselves of these very people. Durr realized that red baiting would destroy liberal groups which were fighting for justice. The NCAPT refused to dismiss people who were believed to be communist, but other groups were driven by fear and fired large numbers of people. “Everybody began to purge. The NAACP purged, the unions purged, everybody purged” (191). Instead of fighting stereotypes many groups fell prey to them, and in doing so lost their ability to challenge the status quo. Therefore “the whole liberal movement of the United States died...(because) it became exclusively anti communistic” (186).
The fear of nuclear destruction had a big part to do with higher education, economy, immigration policy, civil rights and civil liberties .As seen the cold war had a profound effect on a huge aspect of American life. It sparked the revision of the academic pursuits of Americans and had government influence encroached into education. The smith act both affected limited the first amendment and affected immigration policy. This cold war some say has not ended but continued and might be at a boiling point.