Nicole D. Nottingham High School
Wiki-Joseph McCarthy and Communists
Persecution in general:
Joseph McCarthy was a Republican U.S. Senator. between 1947 and 1957. Joseph McCarthy pressed accusation onto communist during the 1950’s. This persecution was the presistant mistreatment of the communists by the anti-communists; McCarthy and his followers. He was anti-communist, and anyone who was a communist was wrong. Participating in the American Communist party was never illegal, but many saw the participation as an act of treason. McCarthy accused many various government participants of being communists. He also accused many of passing information back to the Soviets. Many of the accused had supporters sticking up for them, but McCarthy accused their supporters of being communist also, so they were soon shut down. McCarthy delivered countless speeches against the communists, and suspected communists. He made many places of business have employee oaths where they would be required to rat out any communists or communist sympathizers. McCarthy’s mission was a Communist-Free America.
Major and Specific Event:
In the Late 1940s the cold war escalated between the Unites States, the Soviet Union and the Peoples Republic of China. This main event was the reason for all the hostility and aggressive convictions of the communists in the United States. The Soviet acientests were making great advances during the time or McCarthy. They developed an atomic bomb which was attributed by many to the cleverness of communist spies in stealing American secrets. Two who were accused of leaking the atomic bomb data to Moscow were Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. They were convicted in 1951 and went to the electric chair in 1953. They were the only people in the history of the US to be excecuted in a peace time. McCarthy and his followers also ransacked school libraries for subversive textbooks and drove debtors, drinkers, and homosexuals, all alleged to be security risks from their jobs.
Key Facts:
The Cold War= Basically the period of time where there was major conlict and competition between the United States and the Soviet Union from the 1950s- 1980s. The two competed in military, nuclear arms race, and proxy wars. here never was a major battle between the two.
Joseph McCarthy= A Republican U.S. Senator from Wisconsin between 1947 and 1957
Communism= the idea to make a classless, stateless social organization, based on common ownership of the broader socalist movement. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist)
