American History, Second Red Scare Essay Example
Overview on Second Red Scare
1. The two Red Scares The Red Scare refers to two distinctions of anti-Communism sentiment in the US, it resulted from the fear of spreading communism during the early and middle 20th century. The First Red Scare occurred during 1919-1920, the Second Red Scare lasted for decades after World War II. According to Fitzpatrick (2009), during the World War I period, the US Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and Rising Justice Department star J. Edgar Hoover began to take on a “red menace” to radicals, anarchists and Bolsheviks, and by 1920, they had arrested up to 10,000 alleged subversives. The American fears of the Communist world seemed to be endless in the 20s century, the tensions between the two main powers also kept highly tight all the way. When time went to the post-WWII era, a newly hysteric period came together. With the reorganization of Western power and through various issues like Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, NATO, the Korean War, HUAC and McCarthyism, the post-war world more seemed like an peaceful underway battle, between the two super powers: the United States and the Soviet Union. After the Cold War time, scholars’ opinions on the Cold War and general Red Scare had changed a lot, which can be roughly divided into 3 different stages. At the offset scholars tended to believe that America’s involvement in the armament competition and conflict was imposed by Communist pressure generated by Soviet Union and other Communist force in the world. In the middle stage, scholars began to change their mind and to believe that all the things the US did is to display its power other than anything else. When stepping into the 1990s and 21th century, academic views became more rational to rethink that the Red Scare and Cold War could not only be owed to each of the US or SU, it’s more complicated than what people thought before, both of them were to some extent drifted into the Cold War under a large scale international diplomatic
1. The two Red Scares The Red Scare refers to two distinctions of anti-Communism sentiment in the US, it resulted from the fear of spreading communism during the early and middle 20th century. The First Red Scare occurred during 1919-1920, the Second Red Scare lasted for decades after World War II. According to Fitzpatrick (2009), during the World War I period, the US Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and Rising Justice Department star J. Edgar Hoover began to take on a “red menace” to radicals, anarchists and Bolsheviks, and by 1920, they had arrested up to 10,000 alleged subversives. The American fears of the Communist world seemed to be endless in the 20s century, the tensions between the two main powers also kept highly tight all the way. When time went to the post-WWII era, a newly hysteric period came together. With the reorganization of Western power and through various issues like Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, NATO, the Korean War, HUAC and McCarthyism, the post-war world more seemed like an peaceful underway battle, between the two super powers: the United States and the Soviet Union. After the Cold War time, scholars’ opinions on the Cold War and general Red Scare had changed a lot, which can be roughly divided into 3 different stages. At the offset scholars tended to believe that America’s involvement in the armament competition and conflict was imposed by Communist pressure generated by Soviet Union and other Communist force in the world. In the middle stage, scholars began to change their mind and to believe that all the things the US did is to display its power other than anything else. When stepping into the 1990s and 21th century, academic views became more rational to rethink that the Red Scare and Cold War could not only be owed to each of the US or SU, it’s more complicated than what people thought before, both of them were to some extent drifted into the Cold War under a large scale international diplomatic