Cold War Dbq Essay

Immediately after World War II, Americans were as happy as ever; the unemployment rate was cut, families were expanding, and America became the most powerful country. However, after just a short time period, this all changed. With the outbreak of the Cold War, Americans began to grow paranoid and apprehensive, convinced that Soviets would eventually invade. It redefined what it meant to be an American because people started to worry that Communists lurked behind every corner, waiting to bounce. Even worse, people could no longer trust others, even their neighbors, because “it was not always easy to determine just who is a Communist” (Document 4). It simply became a way of life. However, shortly after, magazines such as LOOK were published, providing descriptive characteristics that Americans can use to identify communists.

Americans had the mindset that if one did not truly believe in a democracy, they automatically defined them as a Communist.
Loyal citizens waged war against Communism by accusing those who they speculated were communist sympathizers.

In fact, occasionally, there were some serious accusations, forcing thousands of people to give testimony before Congress. If one were incriminated with being a communist sympathizer, he or she would be rejected by the entire neighborhood. Regularly, to prove that one is a loyal citizen, they could not socialize, by any means, with probable communists. Additionally, while Americans were having difficulty determining who the communists were, a man named Joseph McCarthy was an exception. He would often identify those he thought were communist, and usually, he would be accurate. Although Americans assumed that the communists were sent by the United States enemy, the Soviet Union, he believed that it was actually people from within the nation. As a matter of fact, in his speech “Enemies from Within,” he asserts that “the bright young men who are born with silver spoons in their mouths are the...most traitorous” (Document 6). To spread the word, the film industry published political cartoons that centered around Communist

sympathizers.
In the political cartoon “You Read Books, Eh?” Herb Block mocked Americans in their witch hunt for Communist. As depicted in this cartoon, Block indicated that potential communists could be anyone with an educated background and is informed on information regarding the Soviet Union (Document 5). Those who were falsely accused of being associated with communism ended up with a broken career and a lifetime of rejection by the community. In addition, the McCarthy era also noted the Second Red Scare, persists to influence American society in various ways. Although Americans are no longer constantly fearful of an invasion by communists, they are still fearless nonetheless. In fact, every nation has its own fear, and that does not exclude the United States. All in all, the McCarthy era continues to impact American society because there is little room for separate political views.