Download The Coils of Cold War

The Coils of Cold War
In the immediate aftermath of World War II,
the United States took a turn to the
economic and political right. Nothing
demonstrated this shift more than the
Second Red Scare. The trials,
denouncements, black lists, and paranoia
about Communism in the Second Red
Scare showed the domestic face of the
Cold War--the international struggle
between the Soviet Union and the United
States for world dominance.
Karl Marx
(1818-1883)
German economist, philosopher, and revolutionary. He
wrote The Communist Manifesto (1848) and Das Kapital
(1867-1894). These works established Marxism, the
fundamental theory of Communism. Basically, Marxism
explains political, social, historical, and economic
development in terms of the class struggle between
capitalists and the workers, or proletariat. Marxism
predicted that capitalism would inevitably destroy itself
and bourgeois oppression would make way for the rule
of the proletariat. This new age would be classless and
free of economic exploitation, as all means of production
would be owned in common rather than individually.
Vladimir Lenin
(1870-1924)
In Russia, the doctrines of Marx were further developed and
applied by Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik Revolution
(1917) and first leader of the U.S.S.R. Unlike some Marxists,
Lenin stressed revolutionary action rather than waiting for the
inevitable fall of capitalism. Another distinction between
Marxism and Leninism is where the action takes place. Marx
held that Communism could only come about in capitalist
nations that had achieved a high level of industrial
development. Russia, of course, was largely an agrarian
nation at the turn of the century, so Lenin adapted Marxism to
apply to under developed countries. Lenin also believed that a
strong Communist party was necessary in a Marxist nation to
direct the efforts of the workers. Eventually, according to
Lenin, the state would "wither away" and rigid governmental
structures would disappear.
Josef Stalin
(1879-1953)
After Lenin's death in 1924, the Soviet Union
was led by Josef Stalin. His rule was
marked by a purge of the government
andmilitary, the forced collectivization of
agriculture, a policy ofindustrialization, and
the rigid control of the economy by the
state.Stalin led the Soviet Union in its
costly victory in World War II, (known in
the Soviet Union as the "Great Patriotic
War").
The Second Red Scare
House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)
Investigate American Fascists and Communists
HUAC concentrated on labor unrest, but after the war's end, it
gained strength and began to investigate left-wing Americans
who might be communist sympathizers.
This search led HUAC to Hollywood in 1947, where left-leaning
actors, writers, and directors were allegedly spreading
subversive communist messages through their movies.
One young actor who was ready to name names was future
President Ronald Reagan.
HUAC did not uncover any of the systematic subversion it had
alleged in Hollywood.
BLACKLISTING!!!
The Trial of Alger Hiss
Hiss was a Harvard-educated New Dealer who had come to Washington during the
Roosevelt administration. His accuser was a self-described "dumpy, middle-aged,
unhappy scoundrel" named Whittaker Chambers, who would go on to become a
senior editor of Time magazine. Chambers accused Hiss of having spied for the
Soviet Union in the 1930s when Hiss had been employed at the State Department.
Chambers claimed that he and Hiss had belonged to the same espionage ring and
that Hiss had given him copies of secret State Department documents. A young
California Congressman named Richard M. Nixon took up the case and soon
captured national attention. When Chambers claimed that a he had hidden a
microfilm of the secret documents in a pumpkin field near his farm, Nixon took
members of the press with him to document the uncovering of the microfilm. The
statute of limitations for an espionage charge had expired, so the federal government
prosecuted Hiss was for perjury. The result of the first trial was a hung jury. After the
second trial, a jury found Hiss guilty and sentenced him to five years in prison. When
Hiss was finally released from prison, he struggled to prove his innocence for
decades. That moment finally came in 1992, when Hiss was 87. A Russian general in
charge of Soviet intelligence archives declared that Hiss had never been a spy, but
rather a victim of Cold War hysteria. Hiss died on November 15, 1996, just four days
after his 92 birthday.