DOCSLIB.ORG

Civil Liberties and Mccarthyism

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Civil Liberties and Mccarthyism Civil Liberties and McCarthyism In this lesson, students will use primary source documents to examine and analyze the anti-communist ESSENTIAL QUESTION behaviors that characterized American public life How did laws enacted during following World War II. national security crises affect liberty and security in America? Objectives • Students will learn the historical background of the Cold War and McCarthyism. • Students will analyze documents related to anti- CONSTITUTIONAL communist legislation. PRINCIPLES • Students will evaluate the threats to civil liberties, • Inalienable rights especially free speech, free press, and freedom of • Limited government association, during national security crises. • Common defense Recommended Time 120-180 minutes Liberty and Security in Modern Times Civil Liberties and McCarthyism Overview and Lesson Plan: Page 2 Lesson Plan Materials Background • Handout A: First A. Review the text of the First Amendment on Handout A: First Amendment, U.S. Amendment, U.S. Constitution, 1791 and discuss the ques- Constitution, 1791 tions provided. • Handout B: Liberty and B. Have students independently read the following documents Security: Civil Liberties and conduct a whole-class discussion of the documents and and McCarthyism the questions provided. • Handout C: House 1. Handout B: Liberty and Security: Civil Liberties Un-American Activities and McCarthyism Committee Mission 2. Handout C: House Un-American Activities Statement, 1948 Committee Mission Statement, 1948 • Handout D: The Alien Registration Act of 1940, also called the Smith Act Activity • Handout E: Internal A. Assign students to small groups and distribute one pair of the Security Bill of 1950, also remaining Handouts to each group as shown. Allow time for called the McCarran Act students to analyze their assigned pair of documents and then have each group report on their work. Recommendation: make • Handout F: Truman’s groups small enough that you have at least two of each of the Veto of the Internal groups. This will encourage a higher level of participation Security Bill, September within the small group. It also allows groups who worked 22, 1950 with the same document pair to compare and contrast their • Handout G: Dennis v. reasoning with one another. United States (1951) 1. Smith Group: Chief Justice Vinson; a 6 - 2 Decision a. Handout D: The Alien Registration Act of 1940, also called the Smith Act • Handout H: “McCarthy Cries Again,” Collier’s, b. Handout G: Dennis v. United States (1951) Chief August 2, 1952 Justice Vinson; a 6 – 2 Decision • Handout I: Edward R. 2. McCarran Group: Murrow, See It Now, a. Handout E: Internal Security Bill of 1950, also March 9, 1954 called the McCarran Act • Handout J: Follow-up b. Handout F: Truman’s Veto of the Internal Security Bill, September 22, 1950 Liberty and Security in Modern Times Civil Liberties and McCarthyism Overview and Lesson Plan: Page 3 Lesson Plan (continued) 3. Journalist Group: a. Handout H: “McCarthy Cries Again,” Collier’s, August 2, 1952 b. Handout I: Edward R. Murrow, See It Now, March 9, 1954 B. After all groups have reported and answered any questions posed by classmates, then provide Handout J: Follow-up for whole-class discussion. Extension Have students compare and contrast Cold War Era restrictions on civil liberties with those that were enacted by the Patriot Act in 2001. Liberty and Security in Modern Times First Amendment, U.S. Constitution, A 1791 Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Critical Thinking Question 1. What is the role and importance of First Amendment liberties in maintaining government by consent? Liberty and Security in Modern Times Liberty and Security: Civil Liberties and B McCarthyism Directions: Read and discuss the following essay and then answer the questions at the end. The Alien Registration Act of 1940, more commonly or war. Congress appropriated money to construct known as the Smith Act, made it illegal to be a detention camps where, without due process, the member of the Communist Party. It provided fines federal government could hold suspected subversives and other punishments for attempting to undermine indefinitely during such an emergency. During the the morale of the armed forces, speaking or writing 1950s, the government’s anti-communist campaign anything that advocated the violent overthrow of the accelerated, and in Communist Party v. Subversive government, and organizing or joining any group Activities Control Board (1961) the Supreme Court that engaged in any of these activities. In 1941, upheld the registration requirements. members of the Socialist Workers Party in Minnesota What events set the stage for these laws that severely were prosecuted under the Smith Act, and in 1948 restricted the speech, press, and assembly rights of twelve members of the Communist Party’s Central Americans, and what were the results for liberty and Committee were convicted of violating the law. They security in America? raised a First Amendment free speech challenge to the law, but in Dennis v. United States (1951), the Cold War and Red Scare Supreme Court upheld those convictions. After Born in 1908, Joseph McCarthy was one of nine that, 141 Communist Party leaders were indicted children belonging to a farming family in Wisconsin. throughout the country. He completed elementary school and then went In 1950, Congress enacted (over President Truman’s into business for himself selling chickens and eggs. veto) the Internal Security Act, also known as the At the age of twenty, he enrolled in high school, McCarran Act. This law created the Subversive completing the full high school course of study Activities Control Board to administer the registration in less than a year. He then enrolled at Marquette process that it required for the Communist Party University, studying engineering and then law. After and all related groups that advocated “certain enjoying limited success as an attorney, McCarthy un-American and subversive activities.” Such was elected a Wisconsin circuit judge, but left that associations were to submit to the attorney general’s position in July 1942 to join the U.S. Marines. He office lists showing names and addresses of their served as an intelligence officer stationed in the officers and members, as well as the groups’ sources Pacific theater during World War II. While still on of income and expenditure reports. Members were active duty, he announced his surprising decision prohibited from working for the U.S. government, to run for U.S. Senate in 1944. Failing to win the labor unions, or defense facilities. They were Republican primary, he began an early campaign denied passports and restricted from entering or for 1946. In this campaign, McCarthy inflated his leaving the U.S. They were required to label all war record, calling himself “Tailgunner Joe” and broadcasts, publications and mailings as sponsored he was elected U.S. Senator from Wisconsin. In the by “a communist organization.” The president Senate, McCarthy became known as loud, impulsive, was authorized to declare an “internal security dishonest, opportunistic, and ruthless. emergency” in the event of insurrection, invasion, Liberty and Security in Modern Times Handout B: Page 2 Following World War II, American foreign policy fervor swept the country, hyper-vigilant people turned intensely against communism. During what eager to inform on their neighbors and co-workers, became known as the Cold War, the United States submitted “evidence” of disloyalty built in some and the Soviet Union vied for influence around the cases on unsubstantiated hearsay, mistaken identity, world, and by 1950, the communists appeared to or an old grudge. Though the boards discovered only be winning. Soviet puppet governments had been a few employees whose loyalty could reasonably established in Albania (1946), Poland (1947), and be questioned, charges and rumors of communist Czechoslovakia (1948). Beginning in June of 1948, affiliation destroyed the reputations of many people. Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin imposed what would A donation to a “suspect” group, a conversation with be a year-long blockade of West Berlin. In 1949, the a “questionable” individual, a visit to a foreign film, Communists won China’s civil war, and the Soviets a piece of “communist literature” in one’s home or tested their first atomic bomb. Espionage convictions office—all these and more were grounds to call one’s of Klaus Fuch in England and Judith Coplon in the loyalty into question. United States further powered the building Red In a campaign speech just a week before Election Scare. In June 1950, the communist government of Day in 1948, President Truman appealed to fear of North Korea invaded South Korea. Joseph McCarthy communism in the United States, proclaiming, “I had an explanation for all of these setbacks of U.S. want you to get this straight now. I hate communism. foreign policy goals: Communists had infiltrated the I deplore what it does to the dignity and freedom of U.S. State Department where they carried out their the individual. I detest the godless creed it teaches. plans to advance communism around the world. He I have fought it at home. I have fought it abroad, fueled—and rode—a virulent Red Scare, the wave of and I shall continue to fight it with all my strength. anti-communist hysteria that ensued. This is one issue on which I shall never surrender.” Though there were many examples of state and President Eisenhower employed a similar process federal anti-communist legislation prior to 1945, the of fighting communism through loyalty hearings post-World War II Red Scare may have begun with in which witnesses who pled the Fifth Amendment the Truman Administration’s loyalty program and before a loyalty board were dismissed from their its lists of people scrutinized for possible subversive federal jobs.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications: How One Interagency Group Made a Major Difference by Fletcher Schoen and Christopher J
    STRATEGIC PERSPECTIVES 11 Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications: How One Interagency Group Made a Major Difference by Fletcher Schoen and Christopher J. Lamb Center for Strategic Research Institute for National Strategic Studies National Defense University Institute for National Strategic Studies National Defense University The Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) is National Defense University’s (NDU’s) dedicated research arm. INSS includes the Center for Strategic Research, Center for Complex Operations, Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs, Center for Technology and National Security Policy, Center for Transatlantic Security Studies, and Conflict Records Research Center. The military and civilian analysts and staff who comprise INSS and its subcomponents execute their mission by conducting research and analysis, publishing, and participating in conferences, policy support, and outreach. The mission of INSS is to conduct strategic studies for the Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Unified Combatant Commands in support of the academic programs at NDU and to perform outreach to other U.S. Government agencies and the broader national security community. Cover: Kathleen Bailey presents evidence of forgeries to the press corps. Credit: The Washington Times Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications: How One Interagency Group Made a Major Difference Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications: How One Interagency Group Made a Major Difference By Fletcher Schoen and Christopher J. Lamb Institute for National Strategic Studies Strategic Perspectives, No. 11 Series Editor: Nicholas Rostow National Defense University Press Washington, D.C. June 2012 Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Defense Department or any other agency of the Federal Government.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Cold War Contested Truth
    Cold War Contested Truth: Informants, Surveillance, and the Disciplining of Black Radicalism, 1947-1957 Charisse Burden-Stelly, PhD Africana Studies and Political Science Carleton College [email protected] (510) 717-9000 Introduction During the height of the era of McCarthyism, roughly 1947-1957, Black radicalism was surveilled, disciplined, discredited, and criminalized through a multitude of anticommunist technologies. These included “parallelism,” red-baiting, infiltration, and guilt by association. McCarthyism was constituted by a range of legislation meant to fortify the U.S. security state against the Communist threat, starting with the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, and including the Alien Registration Act of 1940 (commonly known as the Smith Act); the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 (often referred to as the Taft-Hartley Act); Executive Order 9835 of 1947 (the “Loyalty Order”) and its supersession by Executive Order 10450 in 1953; the Attorney General’s List of Subversive Organizations; and the Internal Security Act of 1950 (also known as the McCarran Act). It was under this legal architecture that scores of activists and scholars who defied Cold War statist pedagogy were indicted, deported, incarcerated, surveilled, and forced underground. This paper uses the examples of the the Peace Information Center (PIC) the Sojourners for Truth and Justice (STJ), and the Council on African Affairs (CAA) to elucidate that career confidential informants, “stool pigeons,” and “turncoats” were instrumental to the Cold War state apparatus’s transmogrification of Black radicals committed to anti-imperialism, anticolonialism, antiracism, peace, and the eradication of economic exploitation into criminals and subversives. Black 1 radicalism can be understood as African descendants’ multivalent and persistent praxis aimed at dismantling structures of domination that sustain racialized dispossession, exploitation, and class-based domination.
    [Show full text]
  • "The Crisis in the Communist Party," by James Casey
    THE CRISIS in the..; COMMUNIST PARTY By James Casey Price IDc THREE ARROWS PRESS 21 East 17th Street New York City CHAPTER I THE PEOPlES FRONT AND MEl'tIBERSHIP The Communist Party has always prided itself on its «line." It has always boasted of being a "revolutionary work-class party with a Marxist­ Leninist line." Its members have been taught to believe that the party cannot be wrong at any time on any question. Nonetheless, today this Communist Party line has thrown the member­ ship of the Communist Party into a Niagara of Confusion. There are old members who insist that the line or program has not been changed. There are new members who assert just as emphatically that the line certainly has been changed and it is precisely because of this change that they have joined the party. Hence there is a clash of opinion which is steadily mov­ ing to the boiling point. Assuredly the newer members are correct in the first part of their contention that the basic program of the Communist Party has been changed. They are wrong when they hold that this change has been for the better. Today the Communist Party presents and seeks to carry out the "line" of a People's Front organization. And with its slogan of a People's Front, it has wiped out with one fell swoop, both in theory and in practice, the fundamental teachings of Karl Marx and Freidrick Engels. It, too, disowns in no lesser degree in deeds, if not yet in words, all the preachings and hopes of Nicolai Lenin, great interpretor of Marx and founder of the U.
    [Show full text]
  • The South Mrican Communist Party and the Collapse of the Soviet Union
    144 MARXISM'S RETREAT FROM AFRICA II lit 51. Angop Document, No.72 (19 Nov. 1990), p.5; Projectos de Teses, p.15. ;\; The South Mrican Communist Party and the jl' H• 52. Africa Economic Digest, Vol.12 (12 Aug. 1991), p.8; Vicki Finkel, 'Angola's Rough Road to Revival', Africa South, No.14 (Sept. 1991), p.12; Financial Times, 26 Sept. Collapse of the Soviet Union ! ·~ 1991. 53. Emanual Carneiro, reported on Radio Nacional de Angola, 16 Nov. 1991, in BBC j , .. ..,.;.> I SWB ME/W0207 A2/1-2 (26 Nov. 1991). STEPHEN ELLIS r·1 54. Angola, Siio Tome and Principe: Country Profile, 1990191 (London: Economist iff! Intelligence Unit, 1990), p.37; Financial Times, 26 Sept, 1991. 11!1 55. Author's interview with Angolan commercial attache, London, Nov. 1989. I!" i.l 56. Angop News Bulletin, No.150 (22 Oct. 1990), p.3, and No.160 (25 April1991), p.17; Facts and Reports, Voi.21(M), 28 June 1991, p.23; Financial Times, 26 Sept. 1991; Angola Economic Notes, Vol.l, No.3 (Oct. 1991), p.l. For 40 years (1950-90) the South African Communist Party (SACP) was banned 57. Jose Eduardo DosSantos, 'There Will be Peace in Southern Africa', World Marxist by a government that represented international communism as the source of all Review, 1989, No.10, p.14. political evil. The conditions of exile go some way to explaining the SACP's 58. Information on Angola's relationship with the communist countries is derived from continuing attachment to Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy. The practical conse­ Webber, op.
    [Show full text]
  • Report on Civil Rights Congress As a Communist Front Organization
    X Union Calendar No. 575 80th Congress, 1st Session House Report No. 1115 REPORT ON CIVIL RIGHTS CONGRESS AS A COMMUNIST FRONT ORGANIZATION INVESTIGATION OF UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN THE UNITED STATES COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ^ EIGHTIETH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION Public Law 601 (Section 121, Subsection Q (2)) Printed for the use of the Committee on Un-American Activities SEPTEMBER 2, 1947 'VU November 17, 1947.— Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union and ordered to be printed UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON : 1947 ^4-,JH COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES J. PARNELL THOMAS, New Jersey, Chairman KARL E. MUNDT, South Dakota JOHN S. WOOD, Georgia JOHN Mcdowell, Pennsylvania JOHN E. RANKIN, Mississippi RICHARD M. NIXON, California J. HARDIN PETERSON, Florida RICHARD B. VAIL, Illinois HERBERT C. BONNER, North Carolina Robert E. Stripling, Chief Inrestigator Benjamin MAi^Dt^L. Director of Research Union Calendar No. 575 SOth Conokess ) HOUSE OF KEriiEfcJENTATIVES j Report 1st Session f I1 No. 1115 REPORT ON CIVIL RIGHTS CONGRESS AS A COMMUNIST FRONT ORGANIZATION November 17, 1917. —Committed to the Committee on the Whole House on the State of the Union and ordered to be printed Mr. Thomas of New Jersey, from the Committee on Un-American Activities, submitted the following REPORT REPORT ON CIVIL RIGHTS CONGRESS CIVIL RIGHTS CONGRESS 205 EAST FORTY-SECOND STREET, NEW YORK 17, N. T. Murray Hill 4-6640 February 15. 1947 HoNOR.\RY Co-chairmen Dr. Benjamin E. Mays Dr. Harry F. Ward Chairman of the board: Executive director: George Marshall Milton Kaufman Trea-surcr: Field director: Raymond C.
    [Show full text]
  • The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate" the Cia and Mind Control
    THE SEARCH FOR THE "MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE" THE CIA AND MIND CONTROL John Marks Allen Lane Allen Lane Penguin Books Ltd 17 Grosvenor Gardens London SW1 OBD First published in the U.S.A. by Times Books, a division of Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Co., Inc., and simultaneously in Canada by Fitzhenry & Whiteside Ltd, 1979 First published in Great Britain by Allen Lane 1979 Copyright <£> John Marks, 1979 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner ISBN 07139 12790 jj Printed in Great Britain by f Thomson Litho Ltd, East Kilbride, Scotland J For Barbara and Daniel AUTHOR'S NOTE This book has grown out of the 16,000 pages of documents that the CIA released to me under the Freedom of Information Act. Without these documents, the best investigative reporting in the world could not have produced a book, and the secrets of CIA mind-control work would have remained buried forever, as the men who knew them had always intended. From the documentary base, I was able to expand my knowledge through interviews and readings in the behavioral sciences. Neverthe- less, the final result is not the whole story of the CIA's attack on the mind. Only a few insiders could have written that, and they choose to remain silent. I have done the best I can to make the book as accurate as possible, but I have been hampered by the refusal of most of the principal characters to be interviewed and by the CIA's destruction in 1973 of many of the key docu- ments.
    [Show full text]
  • Doherty, Thomas, Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, Mccarthyism
    doherty_FM 8/21/03 3:20 PM Page i COLD WAR, COOL MEDIUM TELEVISION, McCARTHYISM, AND AMERICAN CULTURE doherty_FM 8/21/03 3:20 PM Page ii Film and Culture A series of Columbia University Press Edited by John Belton What Made Pistachio Nuts? Early Sound Comedy and the Vaudeville Aesthetic Henry Jenkins Showstoppers: Busby Berkeley and the Tradition of Spectacle Martin Rubin Projections of War: Hollywood, American Culture, and World War II Thomas Doherty Laughing Screaming: Modern Hollywood Horror and Comedy William Paul Laughing Hysterically: American Screen Comedy of the 1950s Ed Sikov Primitive Passions: Visuality, Sexuality, Ethnography, and Contemporary Chinese Cinema Rey Chow The Cinema of Max Ophuls: Magisterial Vision and the Figure of Woman Susan M. White Black Women as Cultural Readers Jacqueline Bobo Picturing Japaneseness: Monumental Style, National Identity, Japanese Film Darrell William Davis Attack of the Leading Ladies: Gender, Sexuality, and Spectatorship in Classic Horror Cinema Rhona J. Berenstein This Mad Masquerade: Stardom and Masculinity in the Jazz Age Gaylyn Studlar Sexual Politics and Narrative Film: Hollywood and Beyond Robin Wood The Sounds of Commerce: Marketing Popular Film Music Jeff Smith Orson Welles, Shakespeare, and Popular Culture Michael Anderegg Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema, ‒ Thomas Doherty Sound Technology and the American Cinema: Perception, Representation, Modernity James Lastra Melodrama and Modernity: Early Sensational Cinema and Its Contexts Ben Singer
    [Show full text]
  • Disinformation in the Reagan Years and Lessons For
    CONTENTS Introduction 1 Disinformation in Perspective 2 Declassified: The Reagan Years 3 What’s Old is New Again 7 About the Author 8 America is an enemy; and second, that Russia is a “besieged fortress, surrounded by enemies.”3 At least partially, Russian eforts to undermine the United States and the West in general are a predictable consequence of those narratives. With respect to the 2016 election, using disinformation as a primary means to sow derision has clear benefits for Russia in that it is efective and remarkably low cost.4 And, perhaps more importantly, modern Russia does not need to develop a new strategy for this kind of attack, as its Soviet predecessors left a well-developed playbook from which to borrow many methods and objectives. R STREET POLICY STUDY NO. 164 February 2019 Using these low-cost disinformation campaigns to divide America, undermine the West and undercut the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) efectively serves the greater purpose of increasing Russia’s power relative to the West. Russian President Vladimir Putin and his circle are making use of the underlying nature of democracy to turn DISINFORMATION IN THE REAGAN these objectives into reality. For example, people within YEARS AND LESSONS FOR TODAY1 democracies ultimately decide what happens in their soci- eties, including the future of foreign and military policy.5 By Megan Reiss Accordingly, if it can successfully divide the people or per- suade them to push for what are, in fact, Russian policy pref- INTRODUCTION erences, Russia may be able to gain power while weakening elatively speaking, after the end of the Cold War, the the United States.
    [Show full text]
  • From AFIO's the Intelligencer © 2016 AFIO - Association of Former Intelligence Officers, All Rights Reserved Journal of U.S
    The Intelligencer Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies Volume 22 • Number 2 $15 single copy price Fall 2016 Volume 22 • Number 2 • $15.00 single copy price Fall 2016 • From AFIO's The Intelligencer © 2016 AFIO - Association of Former Intelligence Officers, All Rights Reserved Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies AAcAcAcAcAcctctctctttiiiivevevevevevevvveeMMMeeeeeeaeaeaaasssssuuurrerererereeeeesssss CoCoCouunntnttteerinringg FFFaaalsselsehoodslsehohooooododsss,,, DDiisstttooorrtrttteeedd Meeesssssaaaggeesess,,, • They excuse, exonerate, and distract attention and PrPProrooppapagaaggananddaa Attention to InInformationWaWa Wnfoformrmaattion arfare/Activerrfafarere/e/A/AcAccttiviveve Measasurerees—Measures — OvOveveOverdueOverduerdrdue ••• Countering CouCounterntnteterring thetthe VirtualVViirtrtutuaal CaliphaliphaatteteCaCa ••A SA StratStrtrarategyratatteegyegy forgy foforr WinninWiWinningnningg WWWoWoorldorldrrldWWWaWaar ar IVIVIVV••• StSSttalin'staalialin'sn's's DiDiscDisciplissciplplee: Ve:Vladaddimimir VladVl ir PPutin and We"WPututineeett Affairs"AAffffafairAffairs" rs"aandnds" •••"""WW CIACIAIACIA ClandClandestineeesstiClandestinene BroadcastingBroBroadroadcastingaddccasassting•• • Early EEaEaarlyrrlyly WWaWaarningarningtornrningo tot PoPoland TeTe•eaching acachingTPoland Intntetelligencce:Intelligence: • FivFiveiveveFive CCoursrsCoursersese GuidesGGuuididesees •••KeKeepeping Keeping SecretsSSecSecrecrereetstss•• • from aggression (Russia) and expansionism CCCompeetCompetitivepetitiveititiviveve IIntelligencentntetelligencce • PProrootetecProtectionction
    [Show full text]
  • Building Political Power: 2016-2018 FRSO Strategic Orientation
    Building Political Power: 2016-2018 FRSO Strategic Orientation 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1. This document presents FRSO's three-year (2016-2018) strategic orientation, as well as the analysis and strategic thinking the plan is based on. Its purpose is to translate our 2016 Main Political Report's general analysis of conditions into a specific plan of action. It should be read by every member of the organization and discussed by every district. 1.2. The MPR argued that the united front we need to build is composed of three layers: the strategic alliance at the core, progressive allies, and tactical allies. The argument in this document is that the key intervention for advancing the struggle and building the united front in this period is developing the strategic alliance through the building of independent political organization. Further, we argue that in order for this to happen, our organization must promote a deepening of theory and practice around building independent political power and organization. 1.3. This is not a task separate from building the united front against the New Confederacy. Rather, our task is to strengthen the united front by developing the strategic alliance such that it can win over our progressive allies and take tactical advantage of splits among our enemies in order to isolate and defeat them one by one. Without an independent political instrument it would be impossible to lead the struggle through its various twists and turns and at the same time maintain initiative and carry out struggles against neoliberal Democrats within the united front. Building this independent political organization is essentially building the capacity of the strategic alliance to assert its leadership.
    [Show full text]
  • Neo-Socialism and the Fascist Destiny of an Anti-Fascist Discourse
    "Order, Authority, Nation": Neo-Socialism and the Fascist Destiny of an Anti-Fascist Discourse by Mathieu Hikaru Desan A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Sociology) in the University of Michigan 2016 Doctoral Committee: Professor George Steinmetz, Chair Professor Howard Brick Assistant Professor Robert S. Jansen Emeritus Professor Howard Kimeldorf Professor Gisèle Sapiro Centre national de la recherche scientifique/École des hautes études en sciences sociales Acknowledgments Scholarly production is necessarily a collective endeavor. Even during the long isolated hours spent in dusty archives, this basic fact was never far from my mind, and this dissertation would be nothing without the community of scholars and friends that has nourished me over the past ten years. First thanks are due to George Steinmetz, my advisor and Chair. From the very beginning of my time as a graduate student, he has been my intellectual role model. He has also been my champion throughout the years, and every opportunity I have had has been in large measure thanks to him. Both his work and our conversations have been constant sources of inspiration, and the breadth of his knowledge has been a vital resource, especially to someone whose interests traverse disciplinary boundaries. George is that rare sociologist whose theoretical curiosity and sophistication is matched only by the lucidity of this thought. Nobody is more responsible for my scholarly development than George, and all my work bears his imprint. I will spend a lifetime trying to live up to his scholarly example. I owe him an enormous debt of gratitude.
    [Show full text]
  • Mccarthyism and the Second Red Scare
    McCarthyism and the Second Red Scare Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History McCarthyism and the Second Red Scare Landon R. Y. Storrs Subject: 20th Century: Post-1945, Political History, Cultural History, Labor and Working Class History Online Publication Date: Jul 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.6 Summary and Keywords The second Red Scare refers to the fear of communism that permeated American politics, culture, and society from the late 1940s through the 1950s, during the opening phases of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. This episode of political repression lasted longer and was more pervasive than the Red Scare that followed the Bolshevik Revolution and World War I. Popularly known as “McCarthyism” after Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin), who made himself famous in 1950 by claiming that large numbers of Communists had infiltrated the U.S. State Department, the second Red Scare predated and outlasted McCarthy, and its machinery far exceeded the reach of a single maverick politician. Nonetheless, “McCarthyism” became the label for the tactic of undermining political opponents by making unsubstantiated attacks on their loyalty to the United States. Page 1 of 25 PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, AMERICAN HISTORY (americanhistory.oxfordre.com). (c) Oxford University Press USA, 2016. All Rights Reserved. Personal use only; commercial use is strictly prohibited (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). date: 16 April 2018 McCarthyism and the Second Red Scare The initial infrastructure for waging war on domestic communism was built during the first Red Scare, with the creation of an antiradicalism division within the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the emergence of a network of private “patriotic” organizations.
    [Show full text]