Section outline

  • MON
    9/7
    No class (Labor Day)
     
    WED
    9/9
    Communist Containment and the 1950s Red Scare 
    How did fear of Communism shape American policy, at home and abroad?
    SLIDES [PDF]

    Primary Sources

    • Excerpt from President Harry S. Truman's Address Before a Joint Session of Congress, March 12, 1947 (Truman Doctrine speech) [LINK]
    • Joseph McCarthy speech delivered in Wheeling, West Virginia, 1950 [PDF] 

    Secondary Sources

    • Nick French, "The Red Scare Deformed the New Deal by Purging Its Radical Civil Servants," Jacobin, January 17, 2023. [PDF]

    Optional

    • Joseph L. Locke and Ben Wright, eds., The American Yawp, Chapter 25, "The Cold War" (Stanford University Press, 2019), 256-287. [PDF]

    Reading Questions

    1. In 1947, U.S. President Truman pushed to provide economic aid and military support to the Greek government in their civil war against a Communist uprising after British forces (in Greece since World War II) withdrew from the country. Truman's speech became known as the "Truman Doctrine" and guided the U.S. policy of Communist/Soviet containment. Based on the excerpt from the speech, what are the binaries or oppositions through which Truman defines Communism versus the U.S.? And how does Truman frame the legacy of World War II to justify U.S. military investment in Europe? 

    2. Joseph McCarthy's "Enemies Within" speech articulated much of the logic of the 1950s Red Scare--efforts within the U.S. government to uncover and expel Soviet/Communist spies and sympathizers. What does McCarthy seem to believe is at stake in uncovering Communist sympathizers? And rhetorically, what kinds of arguments, parallels, and language does he use to instill anxiety and support among his listeners? 

    3. Nick French's essay in Jacobin (drawing on work by historian Landon R.Y. Storrs) argues that the 1950s Red Scare (and an earlier Red Scare in the 1930s) has had a lasting impact in how Americans remember the impact of socialism on American policy since the New Deal. In what ways, does French argue, did the Red Scare reshape representations and perceptions of the U.S. government, and why might it matter for our understanding of the Red Scare and U.S. policy in the 1950s? 

    4. The American Yawp chapter is optional but if you do read it: what strikes you as one or two of the most significant shifts in U.S. policy, foreign and/or domestic, during the Cold War? The Cold War has traditionally been conceptualized as "cold" because the U.S. and the Soviet Union never came into direct military combat—the U.S. did, however, build up its military and invest in a series of proxy wars to "contain" Communism. More broadly, how does the concept of the "proxy"—focusing on a substitute or third party--demonstrate the underlying thinking and anxiety of U.S. policy on Communism during the 1950s and 60s?