What is McCarthyism? And how did it happen? - Ellen Schrecker
Imagine that one day,
you're summoned before a government panel.
Even though you haven't
committed any crime,
or been formally charged with one,
you are repeatedly questioned
about your political views,
accused of disloyalty,
and asked to incriminate your friends
and associates.
If you don't cooperate,
you risk jail or losing your job.
This is exactly what happened in
the United States in the 1950s
as part of a campaign to expose
suspected communists.
Named after its most
notorious practitioner,
the phenomenon known as McCarthyism
destroyed thousands of lives and careers.
For over a decade, American political
leaders trampled democratic freedoms
in the name of protecting them.
During the 1930s and 1940s,
there had been an active but small
communist party in the United States.
Its record was mixed.
While it played crucial roles in wider
progressive struggles
for labor and civil rights,
it also supported the Soviet Union.
From the start, the American
Communist Party faced attacks
from conservatives and business leaders,
as well as from liberals who criticized
its ties to the oppressive Soviet regime.
During World War II, when the USA
and USSR were allied against Hitler,
some American communists actually
spied for the Russians.
When the Cold War escalated
and this espionage became known,
domestic communism came to be seen
as a threat to national security.
But the attempt to eliminate that threat
soon turned into the longest lasting
and most widespread episode
of political repression
in American history.
Spurred on by a network of bureaucrats,
politicians,
journalists,
and businessmen,
the campaign wildly exaggerated
the danger of communist subversion.
The people behind it harassed anyone
suspected of holding
left-of-center political views
or associating with those who did.
If you hung modern art on your walls,
had a multiracial social circle,
or signed petitions against
nuclear weapons,
you might just have been a communist.
Starting in the late 1940s,
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover
used the resources of his agency
to hunt down such supposed communists
and eliminate them from any
position of influence
within American society.
And the narrow criteria that Hoover
and his allies used
to screen federal employees
spread to the rest of the country.
Soon, Hollywood studios,
universities,
car manufacturers,
and thousands of other public
and private employers
were imposing the same political tests
on the men and women who worked for them.
Meanwhile, Congress conducted
its own witchhunt
subpoenaing hundreds of people
to testify before investigative bodies
like the House Un-American
Activities Committee.
If they refused to cooperate,
they could be jailed for contempt,
or more commonly, fired and blacklisted.
Ambitious politicians, like Richard Nixon
and Joseph McCarthy,
used such hearings as a partisan weapon
accusing democrats
of being soft on communism
and deliberately losing China
to the Communist Bloc.
McCarthy, a Republican senator
from Wisconsin
became notorious by flaunting
ever-changing lists of alleged communists
within the State Department.
Egged on by other politicians,
he continued to make
outrageous accusations
while distorting or fabricating evidence.
Many citizens reviled McCarthy
while others praised him.
And when the Korean War broke out,
McCarthy seemed vindicated.
Once he became chair
of the Senate's permanent subcommittee
on investigations in 1953,
McCarthy recklessness increased.
It was his investigation of the army that
finally turned public opinion against him
and diminished his power.
McCarthy's colleagues
in the Senate censured him
and he died less than three years later,
probably from alcoholism.
McCarthyism ended as well.
It had ruined hundreds,
if not thousands, of lives
and drastically narrowed the American
political spectrum.
Its damage to democratic institutions
would be long lasting.
In all likelihood, there were both
Democrats and Republicans
who knew that the anti-communist
purges were deeply unjust
but feared that directly opposing them
would hurt their careers.
Even the Supreme Court failed
to stop the witchhunt,
condoning serious violations
of constitutional rights
in the name of national security.
Was domestic communism an actual
threat to the American government?
Perhaps, though a small one.
But the reaction to it was so extreme
that it caused far more damage
than the threat itself.
And if new demagogues appeared
in uncertain times
to attack unpopular minorities
in the name of patriotism,
could it all happen again?
