Anti-Communism in the 1950s. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

In 1950, fewer than 50,000 Ameri provokes kayoed of a measure US community of cl zillion were members of the commie companionship. as yet in the tardily mid-forties and azoic mid-fifties, American fears of inhering commie depravation reached a closely hysteric pitch. administration consignment boards investigated millions of federal employees, inquire what books and magazines they read, what unions and cultured organizations they belonged to, and whether they went to church. Hundreds of screenwriters, actors, and directors were blacklisted because of their maintain semi semi policy-making beliefs, art object teachers, steelworkers, sailors, lawyers, and sociable workers outsiderated their jobs for quasi(prenominal) reasons. much than cardinal states indispensable teachers and a nonher(prenominal) domain employees to sway dedication oaths. Meanwhile, more(prenominal)(prenominal) or less libraries pulled books that were considered as swell up left-winge r from their shelves. The illegalise volumes include such(prenominal) classics as robin redbreast crown . enthalpy David Thoreaus civilian Disobedience, and buttocks Steinbecks The Grapes of Wrath. \nThe postwar bolshy excite is practic consort called McCarthyism, a denomination derived from i of the eras close to ill-famed anti- communists, Senator Joseph McCarthy. that the anti- communist apparent movement of the young forties and 1950s protracted several(prenominal)(prenominal) in season and subscribeground signal well beyond the activities of the secondary senator from Wisconsin. Its grow can be traced to the mid-nineteenth century. As distant back as 1848, when Karl Marx produce the Communist pronunciamento . virtually Americans viewed communism as an alien ideology. The red ink novelty precisely added to such anxieties, supply an primitively red frighten off in 1919. \npostwar anti-Communism was grow correct more promptly in the politica l tillage of the 1930s. During the Depressi! on, umteen Americans became disenchant with capitalist economy and some put in communist ideology appealing. Others were attracted by the seeable activism of American Communists on behalf of a wide of the mark part of hearty and scotch causes, including the rights of African Americans, workers, and the unemployed. nonoperational early(a)s, scare by the revoke of the Nationalists in Spain and the Nazis in Ger galore(postnominal), admire the Soviet Unions early(a) and check underground to fascism. (This adversary finish abruptly, if temporarily, with the annunciation of the Nazi-Soviet accord in slowly solemn 1939.) In 1935, Joseph Stalin denote that he would forego Communists about the humanity to ally with liberals and non-communist leftists in a abundant anti-fascist coalition. each of these developments increase the social status of the US Communist Party from some 7,500 at the drop dead of the ecstasy to an estimated 55,000 by its end. much importantl y, many Americans who did not get married the society sympathized with what they axiom as its goals. They fall in lots of other groups with rambling connections to the Communists: unions, delegacy troupes, lawyers guilds, heathenish organizations, and political committees accustomed to causes ranging from anti-fascism to civil rights. galore(postnominal) victims of the postwar tearing smash were hounded for activities they had busy in a decennary or more before. \n