What is McCarthyism? Why is it Bad?

Faiz Ahmed

---“The domestic anti-communist crusade of the 1940s and 1950s was essential during a time of great peril. American communists posed a legitimate threat to national security and the American way of life. Indeed, many American communists were spies and traitors. Although it is possible that some innocent people suffered, that was a relatively small and necessary price to pay to defend American freedoms. Those who fought communism at home deserve our nation’s highest praise”----

McCarthyism was a phenomenon in the history of the United States at the time of the Cold War, when elected officials used extremely exaggerated fear mongering tactics to marginalize Socialists, Communists, Leftists and even Liberals. Many patriotic Leftist, centrist and even conservative people suffered because of the actions of a few members of the communist party.

McCarthyism brought about a lot of repression and many of the constitutional rights of people were trampled upon.

Senator Joe McCarthy is the namesake of the phenomenon of McCarthyism. It was because of his eccentric and dramatized behavior and allegations that people today look at the period in history as something unpleasant.

What McCarthyism did was that it made the allegation of Communism, the ultimate allegation against a person. Even if a person was a Communist because of their leftist ideology and was still loyal to the United States, it was assumed that their loyalty was with the USSR.

The notion that American Communists posed a legitimate threat to the nation is true. There were many members of the Communist party who were spies for the USSR. However to say that those Americans who fought Communism at home deserve the nation’s highest praise is not something I can digest because in trying to fight Communism, many of these heroes, descended to the level of authoritarianism and betrayed the Constitution of the USA and betrayed the universal principles of justice and of personal privacy.

Every organization has more than one level of hierarchy. There is the intellectual leadership and there is the rank and file membership.

The rank and file membership of the Communist party were made up of many good hearted, law abiding citizens. For instance the narrative of Howard Johnson in Ellen Schrecker’s ‘The Age of McCarthyism’ mentions that, “Most of the black intellectuals joined the party because they were attracted to it for the same reasons I was. It was an organization that was really doing something, that was there. That was picketing, that was demonstrating, that was getting jobs for blacks in this union and that union…” (Schrecker 111)

The Communist party invited many people who were struggling for civil rights. This was a local focus that the communist party had. These were people who were loyal to the USA.

David Friedman’s narrative also shows that he joined the party because of the local impact that the party had. The communist party was involved heavily in the rejuvenation of the educational system and the restoration of businesses and shops. This was also a local focus on trying to revive the community. He also was pretty incensed by certain things done by big businesses like “burning wheat and spilling milk in order to keep the prices from going too low … creating an artificial scarcity.”(Schrecker 114)

The Communist party also was an anti-Nazi, anti-fascist hub of political organization and activity. This also brought many people to join the Communist party. (Schrecker 114)

However the intellectual leadership of the Communist party changed its party line after the WW2. The speeches of William Foster, fostered a lot of anti-American and pro-Soviet feelings in the Communist party membership. An example of this is in Foster’s speech after WW2, “Besides this economic fear, the big American capitalists also have profound political fear. They view with the greatest fear, the alarming democratic tide throughout Europe and the world, and they know that the USSR is the main bulwark of this new world democracy.” (Schrecker pg 121)

The Communist movement did pose some threats such as espionage and spying. Delivering or the intent to deliver nuclear and military secrets to the USSR were some of the glaringly obvious signs of anti-Americanism and betrayal of the USA by the hands of some American Communists.

Covert operations and espionage were carried out by both sides and both sides had the right to punish their traitors. The Americans went after their traitors which was natural. Some of the most prominent cases were that of Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss. Hiss was an employee of the state department. Chambers was the transmitter of information to the soviets. Chambers provided evidence of secret documents that Hiss had given him from the state department to transmit to the Soviets. (Schrecker 148-151)

The other case was of Klaus Fuchs who was a physicist who was involved in providing the USSR with information regarding the atomic bomb. (157-158)

There was also the long roster of names of government employees who spied on the USA for the USSR. The list was furnished by Elizabeth Bentley who was a spy and divulged names. This was how Chambers was apprehended and through him Hiss. (Schrecker 138-139)

The fact is that there were many people who were spying on the government for the USSR who were members of the Communist party. This in effect lent legitimacy to the anti-Communist witch hunt. It legitimized the repression against the Communist party.

However there were many instances of injustice carried out by the Congress, the Supreme Court and the House committees, and even unofficially government sponsored harassment that citizens suffered.

The Rosenberg case was the most intense case. Julius Rosenberg was accused of having given nuclear and military secrets to the Soviets and his wife Ethel was accused of having supported him. They were both sentenced to death. (Schrecker 156, 168)

The problem here is that in the official memorandum from J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI to the Attorney General, it is apparent that they both knew that Ethel Rosenberg was innocent. They decided to use Ethel Rosenberg as “leverage” to get Julius Rosenberg to confess and since he did not confess, they were sentenced to death.(Schrecker 164,165)

Another issue that came up was the federal loyalty security program. Federal employees were required to go through a political screening process and the investigators and interrogators exceeded their limits by intruding into the private lives of those being interrogated. (Schrecker 177-178)

A good example of this is the case of a substitute postal employee. The employee was a member of a union which was linked to another organization which was communist-dominated. The particular employee moved his union away from communist infiltrated organization, quit his position and then joined the federal government as an employee. Despite his loyalty, the employee was accused repeatedly and brought before the federal loyalty committee repeatedly and finally even lost his job. (Schrecker 178-182)

There was another case of a meat inspector who was fired from his job. Character witnesses all said that he was either democrat or republican or even centrist in his political outlook. Yet the man lost his job. (Schrecker 183-187)

The repression became more intense when the Attorney General’s office created a list of numerous organizations that the attorney general’s office ‘felt’ were against the USA and were working from within to destabilize the country. This list was huge and comprised of all types of organizations. (Schrecker 191-196)

There was also the case of the Hollywood ten. These were members of the movie industry who were brought before the HUAC committee (Congressional committee), “they argued with the committee”, they were charged with contempt of congress, and they served short prison sentences and were “blacklisted by the movie studios”. So much for the first amendment. (Schrecker 229-230)

Many people in the entertainment business also suffered because of the unofficial blacklisting for reasons of political expediency on part of production houses and advertising agencies. Advertising agencies took special precautions to protect themselves. According to David Susskind’s and Mark Goodson’s testimonies, it was becoming increasingly difficult to hire talent which was politically clear of the taint of Communism. Goodson describes the problem in his testimony in the Faulk vs. AWARE litigation. Goodson said, “… All I can say is there were no differentiations made between Communists, Communist sympathizers, those who had lunch with Communist sympathizers, those who knew somebody who had lunch with Communist sympathizers, and so forth, but there was an overall list and the differentiation was not made for us … sponsors and their agencies wanted to keep out of trouble with the public and, therefore, wanted to eliminate anybody that might be accused of anything which could involve the sponsor in controversy.” (Schrecker 250-254)

There was another instance where 11 top leaders of the Communist party were dragged into court and were accused of trying to overthrow the government by subscribing to the Marxist-Leninist philosophy. The court used the Leninist concept of ‘Aesopianism’, the art of “writing in a roundabout, protective language”, to point out that the American communist party was using Aesopian language and that even if they swore loyalty to the USA they were secretly planning to try and bring about violent revolution. (Schrecker 204-205)

There was a fundamental problem with the court using the excuse of ‘Aesopian language’, because “Aesopian language is a way of making revolutionary and political statements by way of hints”. America was not an authoritarian government, at least before this court case. American society spoke about giving freedom of speech and did not clamp down in its citizens for voicing alternate political philosophies at least in principle until then, so in all practicality, the Communist party did not need to resort to Aesopian language, because they did not have to fear censorship. (Schrecker 205)

However Edgar Hoover in his testimony to the HUAC, a few years before, spoke of this same Aesopian language and charged that “Lenin used it for the purpose of avoiding censorship, Communists today use it to mislead the public.”(Schrecker 129-130)

However, in all of the speeches and testimonies of the Communist leaders, they were pretty much plain and straightforward and made it clear that they did not like capitalism and they intended to try to change the system of government by legal and constitutional means.

Another of Lenin’s statement that was commonly expounded by the anti-communist leaders such as Sydney Hook and J. Edgar Hoover was Lenin’s call to “resort to all sorts of devices, maneuvers and illegal methods, to evasion and subterfuge”, “to penetrate the trade unions, to remain in them and to carry on communist work in them at all costs”. (Schrecker 130,265)

In the narrative provided by David Freidman he mentions that, “People would reveal themselves [as Communists] when they saw that I was an active union member … I realized that the people that I later found out and subsequently or almost immediately found out were party people, certainly sympathetic to the party, were the most active and the most dedicated…”(Schrecker 113)

This narrative could give some credibility to the concerns that the Communists were trying to infiltrate the unions secretly.

However the top leadership of the American Communist party, who were tried in 1949 Smith Act Trial, always maintained their adherence to peaceful and constitutional methods, and were never accused of anything illegal or even of promoting violent revolutionary ideas. Rather, they were accused of following the Marxist-Leninist ideology that promoted violent revolution.(Schrecker 197)

Therefore the first part of my starting statement stands true, that “The domestic anti-Communist crusade of the 1940s and 1950s was essential during a time of great peril. American Communists posed a legitimate threat to national security and the American way of life. Indeed, many American Communists were spies and traitors.”

However the second part of that statement, “Although it is possible that some innocent people suffered, that was a relatively small and necessary price to pay to defend American freedoms. Those who fought communism at home deserve our nation’s highest praise.”

This part of the statement, I would differ with. The function of the ‘Department of Justice’ is to provide justice, not to help the government gain cheap political points by executing Ethel Rosenberg and thereby breaking up her family and orphaning her children, otherwise it should be named the ‘Department of Injustice’. It was also the Department of Justice’s duty to uphold the First Amendment rights of the ‘Hollywood Ten’ but this was also disregarded.

There was another point, that it is unjust to punish a person for a crime and not give the same punishment to another person for the same crime just because they confessed or named names. The Crime of all those charged with spying should have been the same including Whittaker Chambers, Alger Hiss, Julius Rosenberg and all other Americans who were betraying the USA.

Those men who fought Communism do not deserve the nation’s highest praise for they betrayed the constitution of the USA and they betrayed the universal principle of justice.

In trying to repress the Communist movement, the US government and all those who contributed to the many injustices did indeed bring the standard of the USA down to that of an authoritarian monolithic society.

The ultimate question remains that if the USA is a democracy, is there room for dissenting and different political philosophies?

If there is room for allowing dissenting philosophies to take part in society and in the discourse, then the dissenters will not have to resort to anything illegal or sinister or even Aesopian. If, however, dissenters are persecuted for their heresy, then they might resort to covert means to get their work done, as was witnessed in the era of McCarthyism.

First Published with East West Link News - www.ewlnews.com