Akshat Katoch
Mrs. Hollstein
AP Lang
16 March 2017
The concoction of communist regime caused paranoia within the people which lead to riots. The history of the Soviet Union greatly contributed to this unjustified fear. During the nineteenth century, Karl Marx, a revolutionary socialist, wrote the “Communist Manifesto” which presented the idea of Communism. In this political ideal, property is publicly owned and workers are paid to extent of their abilities and needs. Nowhere does the theory state dictatorship or any type of totalitarian government. This revolutionary speculation remains as Russia’s greatest achievements in history and unforgotten. However when Vladimir Lenin took control of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1917,
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A paranoid author from The Chronicles of Higher Education states how the “government is undermining the peer-review system and the norms of scholarship”. This writer does not realize that the government looks into certain aspects of education to make sure the system is running efficiently. Fear of oppression persists and causes delusion in society where reality becomes a myth. McCarthyism fanatics inculcated fear in Americans through propaganda which fabricated a lie that a Communist society is a dictatorship, while in reality the government symbolizes utopia. Americans need to enlighten themselves from the delusional hate directed at countries with autocratic systems which are labeled as Communists. The American mentality played a major role in the growing support for McCarthyism. They believed America was “stupendous, and mutable” and “it would be the rankest presumption to approach it in a classifying, scientific way”(Afterimage). This mindset set Americans to believe they were above others and no one would attempt espionage. However when soviet spies were caught by officials, this threw society into chaos as they realized they are not impervious to other countries’ influences. Therefore the people understood that Russia was attempting to reveal their secrets and connected this to the Communist ideology. However in addition to the American arrogance, they also lacked historical knowledge to support their paranoia.
McCarthy of Wisconsin, spent years trying to expose communists in the government. During the Cold War, few cases of disloyalty convinced many Americans that the U.S. government was ran by traitors and spies. His thought of anyone being a communist ended up in prison or alienation. Americans were always "fearing what unwise investigators will do to us here at home" (Document A) and what their "hysterical reactions" could end up in. This fear was given insufficient attention to by the Eisenhower Administration, as the communist investigators were backed by the government. A great example of the fears Americans suffered from in the Cold War, American fear of communist investigators in the nation, and the Eisenhower Administration did not attend to
The Article Arthur Miller Mccarthyism shows suspicion because, “America was overwhelmed and concerned about threats of communism growing in Europe and China.” Joseph Mccarthy made a public accusation that over 200 communist had infiltrated the United States Government. Later in life, the accusations were proven to be untrue.
McCarthy scared Americans into thinking they were next to be convicted of being a communist. Many Americans turned against each other by believing their next door neighbor was a communist. According to the article, “Thousands of alleged Communist in the U.S. were arrested and deported during what became known as the Red Scare. Neighbors did not trust one another after this event, imagine living next to a suspected Communist. The article states, “ McCarthy dropped a bombshell:The State Department is infested with Communist.” McCarthy shocked the media and the American people, McCarthy gained instant fame as this accusation sent shock waves through the nation. The tension that was already between America and the Soviet Union made
In the 1950’s fear was installed into american citizens, this fear was known as McCarthyism. Which is known as the practice of making accusations of treason without proper evidence. Sam Roberts was a New York Times journalist who published the article “a decade in fear” in 2010. This published article was written about the crisis that occurred in the 1950s when John McCarthy turned Americans against each other. By the end of World War II in 1945, the Soviet Union controlled most of Eastern Europe and installed Communist puppet regimes in countries like Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and East Germany. The soviet union controlled most of the european continents after the civil war because they wanted to have a lot of power over people.
American fears in the Cold War originated not only from Communism, but what it represented in American culture. After World War II, the popular culture demonizing the fascist regimes, the built-up aggression surrounding the system, began to move against Communism as tension between the USSR and America rose. Communism became viewed as a corruption; an infection that ruined the rugged individualism that Americans defined themselves by. Communism also, though its declaration of the evils of capitalism, decried Americans as living in an unequal society, that the United States lived in hypocrisy through its statements of liberty for all while it existed in a capitalist and segregated society. Americans saw the Soviet Union as the evil its heroic
During the Cold War, one of the main fears of an American was being accused of being a communist. The “red scare” was a government task that made Americans fear losing their jobs and becoming enemies of the nation. In the 1950’s, a man named Joseph McCarthy came up with a list that had the names of “known” communists that invaded the American government. This led to the creation
In 1950 the emergence of the Second Red Scare’s driving force, Senator Joseph McCarthy, appeared and gave a speech proclaiming that America will soon be lost to communism if the people do not stand up to combat it. He revealed that night a list of 205 people working for Soviet Russia in the United States’ State Department whose intentions were to mold America from the inside to become a socialist nation. (Fitzgerald, p. 14) It was thanks to this newfound hysteria that began to break out thanks to McCarthy’s claims that the HUAC and other like-minded organizations began to gain momentum during this time period.
In the long years between 1947 and around 1957, fear of communism froze the very voices of America into unison. A supposedly enlightened country, the United States of America succumbed to the mass hysteria of the Red Scare with shockingly little resistance. Communist “Reds” and Communist sympathizing “Pinks” were seen everywhere and were often persecuted by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (also known by the inaccurate acronym HUAC). Many of these individuals’ only crime was that of sensibility; they saw the truth behind the terrifying chaos. One of the best records of this dark chapter in America’s history is its literature, which expressed opinion when it could be dangerous to do so. The American public’s paranoid fear of
However, some level of caution by the American people was justifiable. The history of American Communism is not back and white, not from the view point of the communist sympathizers or anticommunists: numbers are exaggerated, motivations are altered, and stories will differ
1917-1918, the Russian Revolution emerged centering around two essential events: the February Revolution, in which the Czar was overthrown, and the October Revolution, in which the Bolsheviks took over power resulting in the creation of the world’s first communist country led by Vladimir Lenin. This resulted to the brutal, cruel and bloody Civil War. What was left was an extreme regime that was to rule Russia until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, which also meant the end of communism. Despite the creation of an extreme regime including suppression, forced labor camps, execution of people with different ideologies, bribes etc., the communists had a great goal at first. The Communist Party wanted to achieve social and financial equality in a classless and stateless society in which the fulfillment of human needs including satisfying work and an equal share of benefit derived from labor was essential.
1917-1918, the Russian Revolution emerged centering around two essential events: the February Revolution, in which the Czar was overthrown, and the October Revolution, in which the Bolsheviks took over power resulting in the creation of the world’s first communist country led by Vladimir Lenin. This resulted in the brutal, cruel and bloody Civil War. What was left was an extreme regime that was to rule Russia until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, which also meant the end of communism. Despite the creation of an extreme regime, including suppression, forced labor camps, execution of people with different ideologies, bribes etc., the communists had a great goal at first. The Communist Party wanted to achieve social and financial equality in a classless and stateless society in which the fulfillment of human needs including satisfying work and an equal share of benefit derived from labor was essential.
The promises of state socialism and with it Communism were nothing short of fantasy turned reality for the deeply impoverished working classes of the Russian empire at the beginning of the twentieth century. The uneducated and desperate people of the Russian empire were eager to believe in a social and political system that promised to finally deliver them from the crushing burdens placed on them by the aristocrats, capitalism and the class system. Unfortunately for them the reality of these new systems would be far from the promised utopian society of continuous prosperity and absolute equality. There would not be the freedom from the class system as promised by Communist propaganda instead in its place would be a less obtrusive and more industrialized version the class system that had existed before. Everyone would not share evenly the prosperity and wealth as promised either, instead those who were controlling the government would reap the greater rewards such as choice of living arrangements and top pick of academic endeavors. Those who had seized the government in the interest of the working class would not completely fulfil their promise to educate their working-class comrades to a level sufficient to take control of the government.
The Tsar and his elite began to understand that change was required before they lost complete control. By signing the October manifesto in 1905 Tsar Nicolas II turned Russia into a constitutional monarchy, gave its citizens civil rights and gave the Duma, Russia’s parliament legislative power. It wasn’t long before the 1905 revolution had died down, when Nicholas II disbanded the Duma and violated many of the civil liberties promises in the October manifesto. As a result of the Tsar reneging on his promises, by 1917 another revolution had begun, not only to highlight the lack food and civil rights as in the 1905 revolution but also from the violations of the October manifesto. In March of 1917 workers in Petrograd went on strike. Unlike the protests of 1905, the
In 1917, two revolutions completely changed the constitution of Russia. The Russian Monarchy was removed from power, placing Lenin and the Bolshevik party as the head of the newly formed Soviet Russia, resulting in the formation of the world 's first communist country. Traditional culture of the Imperial Russia was cast aside and a new Soviet culture began to take shape. The rise of the Bolsheviks ensued major reforms which predominantly focused on wide spread cultivation and spreading of Marxist-Leninist ideology throughout the whole of society. One of the most significant was the proclamation of a new philosophical idealism that strove to shape the populace, predominantly the proletariat, to develop a “New Man”. This philosophical notion, paired with the objectives and ideology of the Soviet administration, has been labelled as “The New Soviet Man”. Before 1917, a large percentage of the soviet population was illiterate and still accustomed to the old traditional ways. In order to combat this, the “New Soviet Man” was used as a medium in an attempt to eliminate old social norms which lingered from the former regime, and to try and develop new citizens for a new, communist society. Various means were used to attain this unification of social consciousness. Propaganda through the arts, literature, and education were considered the key channels to creating the ideal human being, the “New Soviet Man”, and so the Bolshevik reforms attempted to establish a Marxist-based
Following World War I the state was left in near ruin and the monarchy was overthrown in favor of a republican leader (O’Neil). This vast change in government was quickly overthrown in 1917 by none other than Vladimir Ilich Lenin. Under Lenin’s leadership the centralized power of the state was expanded, and the country was renamed to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). In the late 1930’s Joseph Stalin’s control over the USSR marks a radical sweep towards further nationalizing the major industries and resources of the country. The firm governance was enforced by a secret-police force, the KGB. Many say that this was the starting block and foundation for much of Russia’s current day corruption and consolidation of power. Russia had turned into a totalitarian state isolated from the west (O'Neil).