Second Red Scare free essay sample

The two Red Scares The Red Scare refers to two distinctions of anti-Communism sentiment in the US, it resulted from the fear of spreading communism during the early and middle 20th century. The First Red Scare occurred during 1919-1920, the Second Red Scare lasted for decades after World War II. According to Fitzpatrick (2009), during the World War I period, the US Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and Rising Justice Department star J. Edgar Hoover began to take on a â€Å"red menace† to radicals, anarchists and Bolsheviks, and by 1920, they had arrested up to 10,000 alleged subversives. The American fears of the Communist world seemed to be endless in the 20s century, the tensions between the two main powers also kept highly tight all the way. When time went to the post-WWII era, a newly hysteric period came together. With the reorganization of Western power and through various issues like Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, NATO, the Korean War, HUAC and McCarthyism, the post-war world more seemed like an peaceful underway battle, between the two super powers: the United States and the Soviet Union. We will write a custom essay sample on Second Red Scare or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page After the Cold War time, scholars’ opinions on the Cold War and general Red Scare had changed a lot, which can be roughly divided into 3 different stages. At the offset scholars tended to believe that America’s involvement in the armament competition and con? ict was imposed by Communist pressure generated by Soviet Union and other Communist force in the world. In the middle stage, scholars began to change their mind and to believe that all the things the US did is to display its power other than anything else. When stepping into the 1990s and 21th century, academic views became more rational to rethink that the Red Scare and Cold War could not only be owed to each of the US or SU, it’s more complicated than what people thought before, both of them were to some extent drifted into the Cold War under a large scale international diplomatic tension. The essay will focus on the discussion and research over the Second Red Scare in order to ? nd out that the Red Scare couldn’t be avoided in fact, and the measures America had taken were understandable. 2. Conferences Related Even before the end of World War II, the United States and Soviet Union had some fundamental differences already. Some think that the contradictions were sided into two major visions on post-war world. One symbolized the position of Americans, that is to rebuild and organize a new world which needs to be arbitrated by a speci? c international organization. The other, however, represented the position of Soviet Union and somehow Great Britain, it seemed that they prefer a much more vaguer structure which is similar to the tradition European balance of power compared to the one America supported. Brinkley, 2010) The fact is that Tehran Conference held in November 1943 was a big success over the opinion of reorder and rearrangement on territories conquered by Soviet Union, nevertheless, some important issues were hung, especially the question of Poland, which was kept unresolved when the conference had ended. Then it came the Yalta Conference in February 1945 and the ? nal one in Potsdam. According to Ghere (2010), the last two conferences were the virtual panels where previous disputes and competitions reemerged among the Big Three leaders. And there always existed the potential crisis that the Grand Alliance â€Å"resulted not from a natural affinity or shared world view, but from their mutual antipathy for the Axis powers†. (Ghere, 2010). In the Yalta Conference, disagreement remained about the postwar Polish government. While Stalin had already installed a pro-communist government in Poland, he reluctantly accepted to build a regime based on the free and democratic elections. But it turned out to be a delay for more than forty years. Apart from the Poland issue, the Germany issue also hung with disagreements.