ipl-logo

The Second Red Scare

936 Words4 Pages

The 1950s harbored one of the largest witch hunts in world history, the second Red Scare. This brutal political movement targeted Communists, Socialists, and members of subversive groups, physically and socially maiming those citizens. Led by Joseph McCarthy, innocent members of society were figuratively “burned at the stake” in public trials and accused them of Communism and espionage. McCarthy’s ruthless tactics sparked the development of “McCarthyism,” which today refers to any unfounded accusation of a person with immaterial evidence. The second Red Scare is comparable to Salem Village, Massachusetts where the original witch hunt began, based off of mass hysteria, just like the Red Scare. These two events can be compared and contrasted …show more content…

Both situations spiraled out of control because of ignorance and the use mob mentality. A person who sympathized with Communists was persecuted, just as if someone tried to defend the accused witches of Salem. Parallel to the Salem Witch Trials, the McCarthy Trials accused hundreds of innocent people of being Communists without any proof. Like Salem, if the accused confessed to communism, they would be blacklisted from their community, but not jailed. Sir William Phips was the Governor of Massachusetts at the time of the salem Witch Trials, and he refused to stop the trials until one of the accusers targeted his wife. This is comparable to Joseph McCarthy’s horrific attacks against innocent people, where President Eisenhower never spoke out against him in public, only privately criticized him.These political and social stains on American history provide insight to the past, and a warning for the future on how easily American society lets fear sway them into unwise …show more content…

Prejudice towards people of German, Russian, and Chinese descent is still felt today, when an ignorant person calls them a “Communist”, because of the damaging affects the Second Red Scare had. The Salem Witch Trials affected society by realizing that not all those who cry victim should be believed, especially when ulterior motives, such as the girls in The Crucible.These horrific events demonstrate how mass hysteria, mob mentality, and corrupt politicians created an atmosphere of substantial coercion that caused the destruction of innocent people’s

Show More
Related
399 Words | 2 Pages

This shocking announcement propelled the senator into the national spotlight, and McCarthyism gained a foothold in the United States.” This announcement led to widespread panic, with individuals fearing communism

Read More
572 Words | 3 Pages

The Salem Witch Trials and the 1950’s Red Scare are easily relatable considering that the two events killed several innocent lives, when that individual did nothing wrong. The community around has always been a place where secrets and grudges are held against someone. During the Salem Witch Trials, according to Arthur Miller’s play “The Crucible” and the Red Scare, it focused on how much power a character could have, and that one character also can lead to convincing the community to be with them or against their personal thoughts. Furthermore, the power that is lead to one's head could destroy the thoughts of other about yourself as an individual.

Read More
286 Words | 2 Pages

A young senator named John McCarthy, made a public accusation that more than 200 “card carrying” commies infiltrated the U.S. government. Eventually his accusations were proved to be untrue. The delusional girls made unsubstantiated claims of the existence of witches in Salem, though they had no proof. These claimed ruined lives and increased hostility.

Read More
1917 Words | 8 Pages

The breeding ground for McCarthyism was fertile. Paranoia permeated. In Arthur Milers parable of contemporary life, The Crucible depicted Salem, a religious community, mired in evil. The forest was the devil’s domain, and Salem was encircled by forest. Paranoia permeated.

Read More
1039 Words | 5 Pages

There is one thing that is made, always different along being the same. That is history, it can either be good or bad with every passing minute. A recurring pattern has been seen, throughout time and history. The Salem Witch trials and the McCarthy trials is one of these patterns. They both hold an event of accusing others of being something with dubious evidence.

Read More
1267 Words | 6 Pages

In today’s court system, you are innocent until proven guilty. However, this is not how it always was, and in the times of the Salem witch trials, many innocent people were accused of witchcraft and unjustly punished. This event repeated itself during the “Red Scare” that took place in America due to the cold war. During that time, people were not accused of witchcraft, but rather siding with the communists; an equally heinous crime for the time period. Whether proven guilty or not, the accused people lost their jobs and way of life.

Read More
672 Words | 3 Pages

In The Crucible, the Salem residents were afraid of the devil and his influence on their community, while in McCarthyism, Americans were afraid of Communist infiltration and the perceived threat it posed to their way of life. This fear led to suspicion that anyone could be a witch or a communist and anyone could be accused and punished without fair trial or evidence. The Miller Center has claimed that “American leaders repeatedly told the public that they should be fearful of subversive Communist influence in their lives. Communists could be lurking anywhere, using their positions as school teachers, college professors, labor organizers, artists, or journalists to aid the program of world Communist” This suggests that anyone, even high-looked people in society may be communists, which lead people to be fearful and paranoid. This is seen in the Crucible as well for example “The witch hunt was a perverse manifestation of the panic which is set in among all classes when the balance began to turn toward greater individual freedom” (Miller 13.)

Read More
1039 Words | 5 Pages

In times of fear and hysteria in the U.S. it is mass chaos and it only gets worse and worse. During the time of both the witch-hunt eras, whether for communist or actual witches, they prove to have many similarities between them. Both of these times were full of confusion and lying which lead to the temporary downfall of the authority at that time. Joseph McCarthy proved to be a factor in this time and add on to the chaos that was America. Arthur Miller wrote about these times in a book called The Crucible, based on the witch trial era.

Read More
1446 Words | 6 Pages

The worst quality in humanity is the instinct to find scapegoats—to cast blame on others for the occurrence of misfortunes. In 17th century Salem, residents lived in the constant fear of smallpox and war with the Native Americans. To subdue the fear, witch hunts were initiated, and more than a hundred people were accused of practicing witchery. After the Salem Witch Trials, people regarded the witch hunts as inane hysterias; however, 200 years later, Americans did not learn from the unjustified accusations cast in the witch trials. The Red Scare in the 1900s was the mirror image of the Salem Witch Trials in 1692, and we made the same mistake and reacted unreasonably in response to fear.

Read More
1303 Words | 6 Pages

Hector Navarrete Mr. Glorfield English 11A 16 December 2022 Relations Between the Salem Witch Trials and the Red Scare For so long we have been traumatized by our past as a nation. There have been so many things that are not right for us, and we need to change that. A major problem back then was Communism. Communism rose after WW2 in Russia and later Communism started to rise in America.

Read More
1009 Words | 5 Pages

History repeating itself:The Crucible and McCarthyism The Crucible and McCarthyism is like history repeating itself. Both events are very parallel in many ways! The Crucible consists of how people were treated during the Salem witch trials in the 1690s and McCarthyism took place in 1940s/1950s it consists of how people were accused and treated as a threat to the government. The Crucible and McCarthyism both are parallel by accused people making sacrifices to prove innocence,abuse of great power and the effects of hysteria in both events. Looking back, One similarity on how the Crucible and McCarthyism are parallel is because of the sacrifice people made because they did

Read More
1141 Words | 5 Pages

Each authoritative body during the real thing, the McCarthy trials, and the interpreted version of the political standpoint, The Crucible, used Witch hunts to find every last culprit of either witchcraft or communism. Every last one of them had to be found in order to save the government from being overthrown or the small town of Salem to be cursed by the devil: “Investigators were launched into the activities of various people suspected of being affiliated with the communist Party. These people included government officials, Hollywood actors, and writers, leftists, members of the armed services, and others.” (McCarthyism) This shows that the U.S. government used the metaphorical term, “Witch Hunts” to search for those who were a part of the testimonies and plans to overthrow the government.

Read More
790 Words | 4 Pages

Hysteria, paranoia, and delusion was what drove the Salem Witch trials in 1692. Many people were executed by decision of the court because it believed in absurd false allegations. Justice in the court was perverted by fear and delusion (Johnson 9). In the 1940s and 1950s, many people in the United States were living in fear of communism; similar to those who feared “witches” in Salem. In the 1953, Arthur Miller came out with a play: The Crucible based on the Salem Witch Trials tackling McCarthyism; accusing others of being communists trying to overthrow democracy in the United States (9-10).

Read More
906 Words | 4 Pages

However, during the time of McCarthyism, people suddenly believed if a person went against the government thoughts, they were a communist. Similarly, this is like a time in The Crucible when a mass amount of women were arrested for witchcraft. After Mary Warren comes home from watching the witchcraft trials, John Proctors asks if it is true if only fourteen women arrested. Instead Mary Warren replies, “No, sir. There be thirty-nine now” (Miller, Act II).

Read More
469 Words | 2 Pages

Sarah Paroya D period I hate MUSH The end of World War II should have marked a period of relief in America but instead, it lead America into a completely different type of war called the Cold War. The Cold War was an ongoing state of political and military tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. This constant state of tension and fear had been embedded deep in the American public.

Read More

More about The Second Red Scare

Open Document