Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism In America
by Ellen SchreckerAnti-Communism in America was started and fuled by multiple causes. It was dependant of actual communism: it began after communism had been a presence in America for over a decade, and Anti-Communism died after it had eliminated all communism in America's workplaces. Anti-Communism also ran on xenophobia and racism, as well as a little anti-semitism. The Communist Party supported equal rights for blacks, and communist unions supported desegregation. Communists were often immigrants, and could be demonized as agents of their counties. Marx was known to have been a Jew. Communist Russia's alliance with the US was strained from its inception, and the greater the US' animosity to Russia was, the greater its animosity to those it saw as Russian agents. Anti-communism was further fuled by greed and avarice. Businesses who saw themselves losing money because of unions were all too happy to persecute communist unions and corrupt and malign noncommunist unions. A dislike of Marxist communism may have spurred others. The atheism proposed by Marx was especially distasteful.
J.Edgar Hoover began the FBI in order to eradicate what he saw as an imminant threat to America. He and his agents were willing to use methods that were legal and illegal, honest and dishonest. The FBI was careful to maintain a positive image while employing blackmail, collecting evidence it knew would not be admissable in court, and sending annonymous notices to employers. It also pushed for legislation matching its ideals.
Schrecker holds that anticommunism destroyed the American left wing. On the contrary, the anticommunist paranoia of the forties and fifties is what made the sixties' backlash possible. This is a long and scholarly book. It does not go into detail on anything, instead briefly presenting a multitude of information important to a full picture. Characters are often mentioned casually after an absense of a hundred or more pages, which is where the index is useful. Notes accompany every paragraph and can be used to find a multitude of other sources; this book could be read as a reference and catalouge of an extensive collection of books on communism.
Edifying reading.
