Editing Red Scare (section)

=== History ===
{{See also|Smith Act trials of Communist Party leaders}}

==== Early years ====
By the 1930s, communism had become an attractive [[economic ideology]], particularly among labor leaders and intellectuals. By 1939, the CPUSA had about 50,000 members.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=99389227 |title=A Documentary History of the Communist Party of the United States: Volume III Unite and Fight, 1934–1935 |last=Johnpoll |first=Bernard K. |publisher=Greenwood Press |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-313-28506-6 |location=Westport, Connecticut |pages=xv |oclc=27976811 |access-date=2017-09-10 |archive-date=2009-10-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091010023023/http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=99389227 |url-status=dead }}</ref> In 1940, soon after World War II began in Europe, the U.S. Congress legislated the [[Alien Registration Act]] (also known as the [[Smith Act]], 18 USC §&nbsp;2385) making it a crime to "knowingly or willfully advocate, abet, advise or teach the duty, necessity, desirability or propriety of overthrowing the Government of the United States or of any State by force or violence, or for anyone to organize any association which teaches, advises or encourages such an overthrow, or for anyone to become a member of or to affiliate with any such association"—and required Federal registration of all [[alien (law)|foreign nationals]]. Although principally deployed against communists, the Smith Act was also used against [[right-wing]] political threats such as the [[German-American Bund]], and the perceived racial disloyalty of the [[Japanese-American]] population (''cf.'' [[hyphenated-Americans]]).

==== World War II ====
[[File:People Demand Peace.jpeg|thumb|300px|The Washington Commonwealth Federation newspaper after the signing of the [[Molotov-Ribbentrop pact]] (original scan)]]
After the Soviet Union signed the non-aggression [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact]] with [[Nazi Germany]] on August 23, 1939, negative attitudes towards communists in the United States were on the rise. While the [[Communist Party USA|American communist party]] at first attacked Germany for its September 1, 1939 [[Invasion of Poland|invasion of western Poland]], on September 11 it received a blunt directive from [[Moscow]] denouncing the Polish government.<ref name="ryan162">{{cite book | vauthors=((Ryan, J. G.)) | date= 1997 | title=Earl Browder: the failure of American communism | publisher=University of Alabama Press | url=http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/39933 | isbn=978-0-585-28017-2 |page =162}}</ref> On September 17, the [[Soviet invasion of Poland|Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland and occupied the Polish territory assigned to it]] by the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, followed by co-ordination with German forces in Poland.<ref name="stalinswars43">{{cite book |last=Roberts |first=Geoffrey |title=Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953 |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-300-11204-7 |page=44}}</ref><ref name="sanford">{{cite book|authorlink=George Sanford (scholar)|last=Sanford|first=George|year=2005|title=Katyn and the Soviet Massacre of 1940: Truth, Justice And Memory|location=London, New York|publisher=[[Routledge]]|isbn=0-415-33873-5}}</ref> The CPUSA turned the focus of its public activities from [[anti-fascism]] to advocating peace, not only opposing military preparations, but also condemning those opposed to [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]]. The party did not at first attack President Roosevelt, reasoning that this could devastate American Communism, blaming instead Roosevelt's advisors.<ref name="ryan164">{{cite book | vauthors=((Ryan, J. G.)) | date= 1997 | title=Earl Browder: the failure of American communism | publisher=University of Alabama Press | url=http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/39933 | isbn=978-0-585-28017-2 |pages = 164–165}}</ref>

On November 30, when [[Winter War|Soviet Union attacked]] Finland and after [[Occupation of the Baltic states|forced mutual assistance pacts from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania]], the Communist Party considered Russian security sufficient justification to support the actions.<ref name="ryan166">{{cite book | vauthors=((Ryan, J. G.)) | date= 1997 | title=Earl Browder: the failure of American communism | publisher=University of Alabama Press | url=http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/39933 | isbn=978-0-585-28017-2 |page = 166}}</ref> Secret short wave radio broadcasts in October from Comintern leader [[Georgi Dimitrov]] ordered CPUSA leader [[Earl Browder]] to change the party's support for Roosevelt.<ref name="ryan166"/> On October 23, the party began attacking Roosevelt.<ref name="ryan168">{{cite book | vauthors=((Ryan, J. G.)) | date= 1997 | title=Earl Browder: the failure of American communism | publisher=University of Alabama Press | url=http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/39933 | isbn=978-0-585-28017-2 |page = 168}}</ref> The party was active in the [[United States non-interventionism|isolationist]] [[America First Committee]].<ref>Selig Adler (1957). ''The isolationist impulse: its twentieth-century reaction''. pp. 269–270, 274.{{ISBN|9780837178226}}</ref> The CPUSA also dropped its boycott of [[Nazi Party|Nazi]] goods, spread the slogans "[[The Yanks Are Not Coming]]" and "Hands Off", set up a "perpetual peace vigil" across the street from the [[White House]] and announced that Roosevelt was the head of the "war party of the American bourgeoisie".<ref name="ryan168"/> By April 1940, the party ''[[Daily Worker]]'''s line seemed not so much antiwar as simply pro-German.<ref name="ryan186">{{cite book | vauthors=((Ryan, J. G.)) | date= 1997 | title=Earl Browder: the failure of American communism | publisher=University of Alabama Press | url=http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/39933 | isbn=978-0-585-28017-2 |page = 186}}</ref> A pamphlet stated the [[Jews]] had just as much to fear from Britain and France as they did Germany.<ref name="ryan186"/> In August 1940, after NKVD agent [[Ramón Mercader]] killed [[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]] with an [[ice axe]], Browder perpetuated Moscow's fiction that the killer, who had been dating one of Trotsky's secretaries, was a disillusioned follower.<ref name="ryan189">{{cite book | vauthors=((Ryan, J. G.)) | date= 1997 | title=Earl Browder: the failure of American communism | publisher=University of Alabama Press | url=http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/39933 | isbn=978-0-585-28017-2 |page = 189}}</ref>

In allegiance to the Soviet Union, the party changed this policy again after Hitler broke the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact by [[Operation Barbarossa|attacking the Soviet Union]] on June 22, 1941. The CPUSA opposed [[labor strike]]s in the weapons industry and supporting the U.S. war effort against the [[Axis Powers]]. With the slogan "Communism is Twentieth-Century Americanism", the chairman, Earl Browder, advertised the CPUSA's integration to the political mainstream.<ref>{{Cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4hqpJEJp7cUC&q=%22Communism+is+Twentieth-Century+Americanism%22+1941&pg=PA175 |title=The Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History |last=Countryman |first=Edward |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-691-12971-6 |editor-last=Kazin |editor-first=Michael |location=Princeton, NJ |page=175 |chapter=Communism |oclc=320801248 |access-date=May 3, 2011 |editor-last2=Edwards |editor-first2=Rebecca |editor-last3=Rothman |editor-first3=Adam}}</ref> In contrast, the [[Trotskyism|Trotskyist]] [[Socialist Workers Party (United States)|Socialist Workers Party]] opposed U.S. participation in the war and supported labor strikes, even in the war-effort industry. For this reason, [[James P. Cannon]] and other [[Socialist Workers Party (United States)|SWP]] leaders were convicted per the Smith Act.

==== Increasing tension ====
{{See also|US Strike wave of 1945–1946}}
In March 1947, President [[Presidency of Harry S. Truman|Harry S. Truman]] signed [[Executive Order 9835]], creating the "[[Executive Order 9835|Federal Employees Loyalty Program]]" establishing political-loyalty review boards who determined the "Americanism" of Federal Government employees, and requiring that all federal employees to take an oath of loyalty to the United States government. It then recommended termination of those who had confessed to spying for the Soviet Union, as well as some suspected of being "Un-American". This led to more than 2,700 dismissals and 12,000 resignations from the years 1947 to 1956.<ref name=":2" /> It also was the template for several state legislatures' loyalty acts, such as California's [[Levering Act]]. The House Committee on Un-American Activities was created during the Truman administration as a response to allegations by Republicans of disloyalty in Truman's administration.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Storrs |first=Landon R. Y. |date=2015-07-02 |title=McCarthyism and the Second Red Scare |url=https://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-6 |journal=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History |language=en |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.6 |isbn=978-0199329175 |access-date=2019-11-01 |archive-date=2018-07-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180703191049/http://americanhistory.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-6 |url-status=live }}</ref> The [[House Un-American Activities Committee|House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC)]] and the committees of Senator [[Joseph McCarthy]] ([[U.S. Republican Party|R.]], [[Wisconsin|Wisc.]]) conducted character investigations of "American communists" (actual and alleged), and their roles in (real and imaginary) espionage, propaganda, and subversion favoring the Soviet Union—in the process revealing the extraordinary breadth of the Soviet spy network in infiltrating the federal government. The process also launched the successful political careers of [[Richard Nixon]] and [[Robert F. Kennedy]],<ref name="NYUhistory">{{Cite web |url=http://homepages.nyu.edu/~th15/history.html |title=The Hiss Case in History |year=2009 |website=The Hiss Case in Story |publisher=[[Harvard]], [[NYU]] |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110514090830/http://homepages.nyu.edu/~th15/history.html |archive-date=May 14, 2011 |access-date=2010-07-28}}</ref> as well as that of Joseph McCarthy. The HUAC held a large interest in investigating those in the entertainment industry in Hollywood. They interrogated actors, writers, and producers. The people who cooperated in the investigations got to continue working as they had been, but people who refused to cooperate were [[blacklist]]ed. Critics of the HUAC claim their tactics were an abuse of government power and resulted in a witch hunt that disregarded citizens’ rights and ruined their careers and reputations. Critics claim the internal witch hunt was a use for personal gain to spread influence for government officials by intensifying the fear of Communists infiltrating the country. Supporters, however, believe the actions of the HUAC were justified given the level of threat Communism posed to democracy in the United States.

Senator McCarthy stirred up further fear in the United States of communists infiltrating the country by saying that communist spies were omnipresent, and he was America's only salvation, using this fear to increase his own influence. In 1950 Joseph McCarthy addressed the senate, citing 81 separate cases, and made accusations against suspected communists. Although he provided little or no evidence, this prompted the Senate to call for a full investigation.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |url=http://www.ushistory.org/us/53a.asp |title=McCarthyism [ushistory.org] |website=www.ushistory.org |access-date=2019-10-31 |archive-date=2019-10-31 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191031232152/http://www.ushistory.org/us/53a.asp |url-status=live }}</ref>

Senator [[Pat McCarran]] ([[Democratic_Party_(United_States)|D.]], [[Nevada|Nev.]]) introduced the [[McCarran Internal Security Act]] of 1950 that was passed by the U.S. Congress and which modified a great deal of law to restrict civil liberties in the name of security. President Truman declared the act a "mockery of the Bill of Rights" and a "long step toward totalitarianism" because it represented a government restriction on the freedom of opinion. He vetoed the act but his veto was overridden by Congress.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/americanprivacy40000lane |url-access=registration |quote=long step toward totalitarianism. |title=American Privacy: The 400-year History of Our Most Contested Right |last=Lane |first=Frederick S. |publisher=Beacon Press |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-8070-4441-4 |location=Boston |page=[https://archive.org/details/americanprivacy40000lane/page/130 130] |access-date=May 3, 2011}}</ref> Much of the bill eventually was repealed.

The [[Proclamation of the People's Republic of China|formal establishment]] of the People's Republic of China in 1949 and the beginning of the Korean War in 1950 meant that [[Asian Americans]], especially those of [[Chinese Americans|Chinese]] or [[Korean Americans|Korean]] descent, came under increasing suspicion by both American civilians and government officials of being Communist sympathizers. Simultaneously, some American politicians saw the prospect of American-educated Chinese students bringing their knowledge back to "Red China" as an unacceptable threat to American national security, and laws such as the China Aid Act of 1950 and the [[Refugee Relief Act]] of 1953 gave significant assistance to Chinese students who wished to settle in the United States. Despite being naturalized, however, Chinese immigrants continued to face suspicion of their allegiance. The general effect, according to [[University of Wisconsin-Madison]] scholar Qing Liu, was to simultaneously demand that Chinese (and other Asian) students politically support the American government yet avoid engaging directly in politics.<ref name="heqliu">{{cite journal |last1=Liu |first1=Qing |title=To Be an Apolitical Political Scientist: A Chinese Immigrant Scholar and (Geo)politicized American Higher Education |journal=History of Education Quarterly |date=May 2020 |volume=60 |issue=2 |pages=138–141, 144 |doi=10.1017/heq.2020.10|doi-access=free }}</ref>

The Second Red Scare profoundly altered the temper of American society. Its later characterizations may be seen as contributory to works of feared communist espionage, such as the film ''[[My Son John]]'' (1952), about parents' suspicions their son is a spy. Abundant accounts in narrative forms contained themes of the infiltration, subversion, invasion, and destruction of American society by un–American ''thought''. Even a baseball team, the [[Cincinnati Reds]], temporarily renamed themselves the "Cincinnati Redlegs" to avoid the money-losing and career-ruining connotations inherent in being ball-playing "Reds" (communists). In 1954, Congress passed the [[Communist Control Act of 1954]], which prevented members of the communist party in America from holding office in labor unions and other labor organizations.

==== Wind down ====
Examining the political controversies of the 1940s and 1950s, historian [[John Earl Haynes]], who studied the [[Venona project|Venona]] decryptions extensively, argued that Joseph McCarthy's attempts to "make anti-communism a partisan weapon" actually "threatened [the post-War] anti-Communist consensus", thereby ultimately harming anti-communist efforts more than helping them.<ref name=":4" /> Meanwhile, the "shockingly high level" of infiltration by Soviet agents during WWII had largely dissipated by 1950.<ref name=":4" /> Liberal anti-communists like [[Edward Shils]] and [[Daniel Moynihan]] had contempt for McCarthyism, and Moynihan argued that McCarthy's overreaction distracted from the "real (but limited) extent of Soviet espionage in America."<ref name=":3" /> In 1950, President [[Harry S. Truman|Harry Truman]] called Joseph McCarthy "the greatest asset the [[Kremlin]] has."<ref name="Wheatcroft 1998">{{cite news|last=Wheatcroft|first=Geoffrey|date=12 May 1998|title=Anti-Anticommunism Again|work=The Wall Street Journal|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB894939271693861000|issn=0099-9660|accessdate=8 March 2021|archive-date=13 November 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221113005355/https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB894939271693861000|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:Welch-McCarthy-Hearings.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Senator [[Joseph McCarthy]] (right) with a map of Communist Party organizations, 1954]]
In 1954, after accusing the army, including war heroes, Senator Joseph McCarthy lost credibility in the eyes of the American public and the [[Army–McCarthy hearings|Army-McCarthy Hearings]] were held in the summer of 1954. He was formally censured by his colleagues in Congress and the hearings led by McCarthy came to a close.<ref name=":1"/> After the Senate formally censured McCarthy,<ref>{{Cite web |title=U.S. Senate: The Censure Case of Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin (1954) |url=https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/censure_cases/133Joseph_McCarthy.htm |access-date=2022-04-05 |website=www.senate.gov |archive-date=2010-01-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100107030754/https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/censure_cases/133Joseph_McCarthy.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> his political standing and power were significantly diminished, and much of the tension surrounding the idea of a possible communist takeover died down.

From 1955 through 1959, the Supreme Court made several decisions which restricted the ways in which the government could enforce its anti-communist policies, some of which included limiting the federal loyalty program to only those who had access to sensitive information, allowing defendants to face their accusers, reducing the strength of congressional investigation committees, and weakening the Smith Act.<ref name=":2"/> In the 1957 case ''[[Yates v. United States]]'' and the 1961 case ''[[Scales v. United States]]'', the Supreme Court limited Congress's ability to circumvent the First Amendment, and in 1967 during the Supreme Court case ''[[United States v. Robel]]'', the Supreme Court ruled that a ban on communists in the defense industry was unconstitutional.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1063/red-scare |title=Red Scare |last=Cowley |first=Marcie K. |website=www.mtsu.edu |language=en |access-date=2019-11-01}}</ref>

In 1995, the American government declassified details of the Venona Project following the [[Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy|Moynihan Commission]], which when combined with the opening of the USSR [[Comintern]] archives, provided substantial validation of intelligence gathering, outright spying, and policy influencing, by Americans on behalf of the Soviet Union, from 1940 through 1980.<ref name="NYUvenona">{{Cite web |url=http://homepages.nyu.edu/~th15/venona.html |title=Venona and the Russian Files |year=2010 |website=The Hiss Case in Story |publisher=[[Harvard]], [[NYU]] |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110514090916/http://homepages.nyu.edu/~th15/venona.html |archive-date=May 14, 2011 |access-date=2010-07-28}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/commissions/secrecy/pdf/12hist1.pdf |title=A Brief Account of the American Experience |last=Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy |website=Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy. VI; Appendix A |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |page=A-7 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110514040131/http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/commissions/secrecy/pdf/12hist1.pdf |archive-date=May 14, 2011 |access-date=2006-06-26}}</ref> Over 300 American communists, whether they knew it or not, including government officials and technicians that helped in [[Atomic spies|developing the atom bomb]], were found to have engaged in espionage.<ref name=":2" /> This allegedly included some pro-Soviet capitalists, such as economist [[Harry Dexter White]],<ref>{{Cite web|last=Rao|first=Ashok|date=2014-08-24|title=This Soviet spy created the US-led global economy|url=https://www.vox.com/2014/8/24/6057119/harry-dexter-white-ben-steil|access-date=2021-11-07|website=Vox|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|title=How a Soviet spy outmaneuvered John Maynard Keynes to ensure U.S. financial dominance|language=en-US|newspaper=Washington Post|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/03/14/how-a-soviet-spy-outmaneuvered-john-maynard-keynes-and-ensured-u-s-global-financial-dominance/|access-date=2021-11-07|issn=0190-8286|archive-date=2022-03-17|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220317034134/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/03/14/how-a-soviet-spy-outmaneuvered-john-maynard-keynes-and-ensured-u-s-global-financial-dominance/|url-status=live}}</ref> and communist businessman [[David Karr]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-09-19 |title=Rich and red: The USSR's prize assets {{!}} Harvey Klehr |url=https://thecritic.co.uk/rich-and-red-the-ussrs-prize-assets/ |access-date=2022-11-02 |website=The Critic Magazine |language=en-GB |archive-date=2022-11-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221102061113/https://thecritic.co.uk/rich-and-red-the-ussrs-prize-assets/ |url-status=live }}</ref>