Communists and Terrorists: From Red Scares to the War on Terror Flashcards
Overview
- “The Communist Menace in our own Backyard”
- Anarchism
- Murrah Building, Oklahoma City (April 1995)
Background of the Red Scares
IDENTIFICATION
1914-1917: allies were at war
Up to 1917, Russia was good (on our side) fighting against Germany
After 1917, Russia became bad (concluded a separate peace with Germany and withdrew from the war). The Bolshevik Revolution (1917) wants to overthrow capitalism.
1939: Russia became very bad (Hitler & Stalin, German/Soviet Non-Aggression Pact). The Russians did not say that they will fight with Germany, they just said they would not fight against Germany.
1941: The German invasion of Russia.
1945: Europe was liberated from both directions.
Western armies from the West and Russian armies from the East met in the middle and decided how to govern Germany, which had no functional government or civil service. They had to divide up the country to get it back on its feet. Germany was divided into occupation zones. Berlin was divided between the 4 powers, each with their own occupation zone.
This meant that Europe became divided between communist and liberal democracy/capitalist, and this is the fundamental division that is behind the Red Scare
SIGNIFICANCE
The fundamental division that is behind the Red Scare: Europe becomes divided between communists and liberal democracy/capitalists in 1946-48. In 1945/46, it was unclear what kind of impact this would have on people’s lives, but in 1946 Winston Churchill (Britain’s PM during WWII) gave a talk at Westminster college in Missouri.
The Iron Curtain Speech
IDENTIFICATION
- Shortly after Europe became divided by communists and democratics/capitalists when Russia and Western Europe divided Germany and Berlin, a speech was given which signified the impact that this was going to have for people
- 1946: Winston Churchill (Britain’s PM during WWII) gave a speech at a convocation at Westminster College, Missouri
- Used the opportunity to give a famous speech: The Iron Curtain Speech
SIGNIFICANCE
- “The Iron curtain has descended across Europe”
- This essentially kicks off the Cold War
The people out to get us in the 1960s and 70s: the Russians (this was depicted in popular culture, too). It was clear that the Russians were the enemy.
The Summit Series (1972)
IDENTIFICATION
- 8-game hockey game between Canada and Russia (USSR)
SIGNIFICANCE
- An important event that taught North Americans to hate the Russians
- Classes were cancelled when the games were on; it was important because they had to be able to express how much they hated the Russians…Why? No idea. Just did.
Events of the Red Scare
Europe becomes divided between communists in 1946-48…
The Iron Curtain Speech (1946) The Summit Series (1972) The Gouzenko Affair (1945) The Minute Women of the USA The Hollywood Ten 1940: Red Channels Senator Joseph McCarthy
The Red Scare Conspiracy
IDENTIFICATION
- The conspiracy that we should fear the Russians, because of communism
- Communist workers (reds) and sympathizers (pinkos) are among us, and they look like us
- They are the enemy among us trying to make us all communists
- And once one state falls to communists, all of them will fall like dominoes
SIGNIFICANCE
Why should we be afraid of the Russians?
The Domino Theory: once one state fell to communism, the rest of the states would fall, as well
This is why the US goes to war in Vietnam…
- In their view, there is a certain geographical logic to that
- The fall of Vietnam in the 1960s to communism would mean the fall of the rest of the states in Southeast Asia
- The same for Europe (Italy, Greece, Austria were vulnerable to falling to Communism)
- And pretty soon we would all be communists, and many American men would be sterilized
- What makes this even scarier at the time, was that the hard work was not going to be done by communists workers, but by enemy agents among us
- There were communist workers (reds) and sympathizers (pinkos)
- These people were dangerous because they looked like us and could fit into society, they might be beside us without us knowing it, but they really want to destroy you
- The idea that they could be anywhere was the root of the panic
- The panic was made much more immediate
Igor Gouzenko: Gouzenko Affair of 1945
IDENTIFICATION
- 5 September 1945: the Cold War comes to Canada with the Gouzenko Affair.
- Gouzenko was a Soviet cipher clerk working for the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa
- He decides he wants to defect to the Soviet Union for Canada (in order to allow Canada to accept him)
- He reveals 109 stolen top-secret documents to Canada on Soviet espionage activities in the West to the RCMP. (he reveals that the Soviet Union has an intricate spy-network in Canada that is spying on the Canadian government)
- The Soviets have been Canada’s ally throughout the War, and so this was a massive shock to Canada
- This shows how naive the Canadian government is, and how unprepared the government is for the new realities of the Cold War
- He is not believed by the RCMP, so he goes to the Press
This news shocks the world.
SIGNIFICANCE
- This intensifies the Cold War, because it instills fear and suspicion that a Soviet espionage could be happening anywhere
- The iron curtain has fallen across Europe, and the world is now divided (as is Germany and Western Europe)
- The Soviet Union is viewed to be the enemy, as declared by Winston Churchill
- The Cold War is a war of rising superpowers, but also of rising ideologies (East vs. West, Communism vs. Capitalism, etc.)
- Canada realizes its ties to America, as a result of the Second World War
- The revelations of the Gouzenko Affair were born out in countries in the West throughout the 1940s and 50s…
- It was revealed that there were Soviet spies in every country
- This confirmed that the enemy was among us; they were trying to undermine us from within
- They are trying to take us over from inside
- They looked normal and average
- SO what starts to appear after this are warnings that the enemy is amongst us
Example: Instructional videos about how to spot the communists among us
J. Edgar Hoover: an anti-communist FBI agent and one of the most prominent figures in instructing about the communist enemy among us: “communism is a many faced monster” and we need to be on guard
Disease Metaphor: communism is a disease that has to be burned out
The Minute Women of the USA
IDENTIFICATION
- Example of a group jumping on the communist bandwagon
- Considered themselves to be the defenders of America, one of the things was Communism
- Strong anti-communists
- Good at pressuring governments to their will
- Anything that involved the UN, even UNESCO, were regarded to spread un-American ideas
- They focused on the educational system
- Teachers are all leftist pinkies and trying to infiltrate the education system with communist ideas
- Opposed fluoride in water because they thought it was a brainwashing chemical
SIGNIFICANCE
The Hollywood Ten
IDENTIFICATION
The Hollywood Ten: these people were essentially erased from Hollywood by HUAC
- Their later successors were done under new names
- They refused to conform to the government
- They denounced HUAC as a violation of their human rights and constitution
- 1947: tried and found guilty, and sentenced to prison and a fine (but even worse, they were blacklisted from Hollywood)
SIGNIFICANCE
- The thought that film may not look communist, but a lot of it was pink
- It encourages people to think like communists and socialists
- A lot of Americans are addicted to television and movie-watching, and the communists have infiltrated Hollywood to brainwash America
- More than 50 people connected to the movie industry were sapinaed and accused of holding communists loyalties
1940: Red Channels
IDENTIFICATION
- Listed 151 people who were communists or communist sympathizers on a national broadcast
- Example: Leonard Bernstein (Westside Story)
- They were accused of such minimal things, but nevertheless blacklisted
- Blacklist lasted until the 1960s, not because people realized it was a bad thing, but because someone sued the blacklist successfully
SIGNIFICANCE
Senator Joseph McCarthy (and the Army McCarthy Hearing)
IDENTIFICATION
- Running for re-election but realized he didn’t have much to present
- So, he became an anti-communist crusader
- He goes public, claiming he had a list of 205 people in the US state department who were communists and people went ballistic
- They believed that this was true and that it was the tip of the iceberg
- Civic servants were questioned: Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?
- As part of his investigations, he engaged in aggressive interrogations in ways that today would be regarded as illegal/blatant violations of civil rights
- He could not produce any evidence, but almost 2000 government employees were fired because they were suspected to be communists
- He saw this as a success, and then moved onto another target: communist sympathizers in the military
- This was a big mistake…
The military was held in very high regard (he attacked the wrong enemy).
The Army McCarthy Hearings: “Are you or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?”
- At one point, the hearings were decided to be broadcast on national television
- People could watch as Arthur McCarthy mistreated people
- In this clip of the hearing, we can see the end of the McCarthy panic
SIGNIFICANCE
- The reason he was so successful initially was because of public paranoia
- People had a general anxiety about the group that was being attacked
(same thing that happened in England with the popish plots)
- Bogus accusations on minimal or no evidence, and eventually there is a backlash that people overreacted, but the backlash usually does not come until many lives and careers have been destroyed
- We see later on that all of this was for nothing, there were only few spies
- Almost everyone targeted by McCarthysim were completely innocent; their only crime was different political views/non-conformism
Anarchism
IDENTIFICATION
- Political force/movement
- Belief in the abolition of all government and the organization of society on a voluntary, cooperative basis without recourse to force or compulsion
- Hatred of ruling classes and wealthy that were profiting off suffering of the people
- Kill off ruling classes and start from scratch
- Attack by anarchists on police building, social elites, etc.
- Eventually moved their targets down social hierarchies to social classes
- Thought that was attacking any of the classes had the same impact; anyone had the same chance to be a potential target
- In 1890s in France, attacks by anarchists in public places terrified them and instilled panic
SIGNIFICANCE
- These series of attacks bred in society a new level of panic and paranoia: a fear of war and terror
- From the 1970s onwards, the US became the target of terrorosim overseas
- Terrorism is not a new invention
- Violence with a political end has a long history
Murrah Building, Oklahoma City (April 1995)
(Oklahoma City Bombing)
IDENTIFICATION
- Federal building was devastated, including the kindergarten; 168 people killed, hundreds more injured
- Within hours, the consensus from experts on TV news was that this was the work of Middle Eastern terrorists
- It had the Middle East connection right away, only on similarities (there was no proof, no evidence)
- The only evidence was “sources” who were never identified, but described suspects as 2 men of “Middle-Eastern appearance”
- So from that point, anyone who looked Middle Eastern became a target
Note: John Doe Sketches
SIGNIFICANCE
The response to the Oklahoma Bombing was both the cause and effect of panic.
- Leads to terrorism indicators, such as (1) National Terrorism Advisory System and (2) Homeland Security
John Doe Sketches
IDENTIFICATION
Eye-witness sketches of the two sought in connection with the bombing
- Problem: neither of them look Middle Eastern
- However, this just convinced people even more that the bombers were Middle eastern
- Everyone, including the task force, was so bent one way, that they could not see it any other way
- It is viewed as a Middle Eastern attack on America
- This leads to the rise of pundits (experts)
SIGNIFICANCE
- People are scapegoating; willing to accept that this was an act carried out by Middle Eastern interests
- The bombers turned out to be extremist white people
- This caused an effective paranoia, and people start looking at indicators in serious times
The first of these was put in force in Britain in the 1970s…
- The Terror enforcement task in Britain was called Bikini
It’s task was to inform people about the terrorists in Ireland
National Terrorism Advisory System
IDENTIFICATION
Scale of Terror Threat: Red, Amber, Black, White
- This was just for governments, not public
- After 9/11, they changed the system to “low, moderate, substantial, sever, critical” and made it public, but many people thought this scale was largely useless
SIGNIFICANCE
