A witch-hunt typically results from mass hysteria and targets a group of people for a crime they may or may not be guilty of. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, men and women living in Salem who spoke about spells and curses, acted aggressively, or went against social norms were commonly accused of witchcraft and sometimes executed for their “crimes”. A witch-hunt of the modern era was the search for Communists living in the United States from 1947 to 1957 (“Second Red Scare”). Throughout World War II, the United States and Soviet Union aided one another to bring down the powerhouses of Germany and Japan. After the war was won for the Allies, the US and USSR each tried to spread their respected political beliefs, Democracy and Communism, to the rest of the world. In The Cold War, the US and USSR were locked in a race to advance technologies, weapons, and defense to demonstrate which society was more powerful (“Cold War History”). Following World War II, American hysteria concerning Soviet Union infiltration prompted Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee to enact a witch-hunt against possible Communists living in the United …show more content…
Communism began to spread during World War II due the success of the Soviet Union Army and the defeat of the Nazi Party. After the war, the Soviet Union wanted to convert more countries to Communism in order to protect themselves from potential attacks of common neighboring Fascist or Democratic nations. The United States and their Western allies worried that the Soviet Union, along with its satellite states, were attempting to over-expand their territory and force Communism on to the world. The political and military tension that resulted between these powers is commonly known as “The Cold War”, which lasted from 1947 until 1991 (“Cold War