American inquisition part 1: The origins
of the Cold War and McCarthyism
Published July 5, 2024
Photo: Sen. Joseph McCarthy (center) during a House Un-
American Activities Committee questioning. Credit: Wikimedia
Commons.
The ghost of “Tail-Gunner Joe” McCarthy is haunting the U.S.
Congress. Republicans, in particular, during their various TikTok
hearings, have resurrected some of his hallmarks in their
questioning of various officials and CEOs over social media and
Israel. Sometimes this even involves variations on the famous
question “Are you now, or have you ever been a member of…”
this or that demonized group. Democrats have also joined in with
their often evidence-free accusations of “misinformation and
disinformation” spread by “revisionist” nations.
The repeat performances are no real surprise, since, now, like
then, they are tied to a broad based effort to prepare the country
for nuclear conflict, creating a boogeyman to make it easier to
mobilize resources and people for a range of unnecessary less-
than-nuclear conflicts. The post-World War II order shaped by communist partisans has “justified” McCarthyism in a large part
the first Cold War is now collapsing. U.S. hegemony is being of the popular discourse through multiple books that have
challenged by rising powers who want more influence in global purportedly “proved” that the Soviet Union operated a massive
affairs. Like the 1950s, domestic opponents of Corporate spy ring that was a major threat to the United States.
America’s worldview represent an impediment to the ruling
class. Similarly today, the attempt to enforce conformity with the Cold
War against Russia and China and the genocide being perpetrated
The real history of this “American inquisition” is crucially in Gaza are aiming their weapons in the same direction. They see
important to grasp for anyone seeking to build a better world. what we see: the Sanders electoral insurgency, the 2020
McCarthyism took its principal aim at the organizations dedicated uprisings, the mass protests for Gaza, the strike waves, the
to that purpose. The most militant civil rights organizations — the growing popularity of unions and socialism. And this makes the
unions who fought the bosses the hardest and opposed racism the ruling elites very worried.
most; the cooperative organizations helping workers achieve a
higher living standard; the newspapers, think tanks and record If we want to avoid a similar fate, understanding the real history
labels building an educational and cultural world that of the purges of the late 1940s and 1950s deserves revisiting.
encompassed these struggles — all were sent six feet deep by the
Red Scare. The world after the war
Even worse, the victims of this very American “purge” have been By 1943, debates over what the world would look like after the
slandered for a second time in the wake of the fall of the Soviet war started to come into sharper focus. The allied coalition had
Union. Dubious “scholarship” produced mainly by anti- created a unique relationship of forces, disparate interests drawn
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together solely by their belief that fascism was the greatest The year 1946, in particular, had seen a huge wave of strikes
danger. British imperialists, Soviet communists and American demanding better wages and working conditions. That same year,
industrialists were all in one boat. Even more, in order to the National Association of Manufacturers — one of the top
prosecute the war, various concessions had been made to anti- lobbyists for big business — released a book, “The American
colonial and anti-racist forces that, while ad-hoc, murky and Individual Enterprise System,” which, among other things, laid
inadequate, portended the possible end to the status quo on these out a blueprint for a new labor law to kneecap unions that would
issues. later be adopted.3 [#ff390be4-fbcd-42c3-832d-ed6233f8eeb5] At one secret
meeting of top capitalists a few years later that included Charles
One broad camp in the U.S. felt that, in general, the wartime E. Wilson, head of General Electric, attendees found “unanimous
alliance was a good outline for relations between nations, and that agreement” on the need to “offset the growing power of labor.”4
[#45aec7d0-ca30-4c87-a35f-7b933354143e]
the New Deal was a good framework for how relations between
classes and class strata could work domestically. This was the Even more, Black workers were particularly restless. The war had
general framework that won the 1944 presidential elections for created leverage that had been used against Jim Crow. The
FDR. Supreme Court had struck down the white primary, and some
Southern states were modifying the poll tax, creating the first real
The other camp was seeing dollar signs. Understanding that “Old political openings for Blacks in the South since Reconstruction.
Europe” was going to be crippled and exhausted, they saw an The civil rights-labor coalition had grown powerful in states like
opportunity for the U.S. to make the rest of the 20th century the New York during the Depression and the war, and an increasing
“American Century.” They saw their opportunity to displace number of Congressmen from those states were becoming more
France, England and Germany as the world’s leading power and, vocal on fighting discrimination. In a sign of the times,
in the words of news magnate Henry Luce, “exert upon the world Mississippi’s fascist senator Theodore Bilbo was essentially
the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit.”1 ejected from Congress for his extreme racism and corruption,
[#2195a600-3385-4ea1-852f-3d865225a4c2]
avoiding official censure only because he died of cancer.
For both sides, this created thorny issues, but particularly for
those in the second camp. Hopes had been raised that the end to Taken as a whole, this created serious issues for big business. If
the war would mean a transition away from colonialism, Jim labor could aggressively challenge efforts to prevent workers
Crow and Great Power conflict. This would not do, for the getting wages and benefits and if it insisted on addressing racial
business class looking to “exert … the full impact” of their inequalities in the labor market — and, on top of all that, also
influence. Internationally, the wealth of the Global North was challenge the central pillar of capital: the fascist Jim Crow
dependent on a continuation of colonial exploitation. So while political machines — then the “American Century” would not be
promoting formal independence was beneficial to U.S. capital all that its advocates hoped for.
because it had the effect of breaking up the exclusive economic
zones of the old imperial system, too much independence was Best laid plans
dangerous because it might result in too many anti-exploitative,
and thus profit-reducing, practices. The ruling elites, however, had a plan that still echoes today:
promote mass hysteria about potential war with Russia. Whether
As Leo Welch, treasurer of Standard Oil, put it: “Our foreign at home or abroad, the principle challengers to American
policy will be more concerned with the safety and stability of our capitalism’s attempts to deepen the exploitation of workers,
foreign investments than ever before,” adding that “proper peasants and oppressed nationalities were communists. Move
respect” for U.S. “capital abroad” was a crucial goal, adding them out of the picture, and busting unions, lowering wages,
further that the U.S. must take on the role of “the majority protecting segregation and continuing old empires under new
stockholder in this corporation known as the world … nor is this ownership would be dramatically easier.
for a given term of office. This is a permanent obligation.”2
[#f2a7de0b-90ac-42c6-b2af-5a2065f48aab]
They also knew that this provided a push for a permanent war
Domestically, the issue was similar. Unions were far too strong. economy that could be tremendously profitable. During World
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War II, profits had exploded as business and the government [#4e56a907-aa51-438e-8cc3-e4e6d753f36d]
Writing about a month later,
fused, jumping to two-times the pre-war average, and four-and-a- Secretary Forrestal noted the U.S. military governor of Germany
half times by the end of the Korean War.5 told him that “the Russians did not want war.” A month after
[#e746bd13-5842-4d84-a717-5eef52f93aa8]
Even more, government funds were that, General Eisenhower told the Secretary that “the Russians
underwriting a number of innovations just handed over to would not take steps leading to immediate war.” Even a couple
corporations and helping big business to shift their production years later, in 1948, when the Cold War was already heating up,
more into non-union areas. This “military-industrial complex” one of America’s top generals told Forrestal that he “is confident
not only offered big profits, but it could also help generate that they do not want a war.”8 [#1854c1c2-2ce5-4927-adde-0fb37cb102ee]
enough economic activity to convince enough of the working
class that the system was working. In 1950 George Kennan, the intellectual architect of much Cold
War policy and then-Ambassador to Moscow, was quoted in the
As the business paper the Journal of Commerce put it at the time, very anti-communist Readers Digest as saying that it was “hardly
“The assurance of continued high level of defense expenditures likely” that the Soviets were “charting a course for an early
under present conditions cannot be underestimated because the military onslaught on the Western World.” In 1952, when the
whole economy pivots around it.”6 [#c91667df-1227-40e1-995b-ad0eefbe67c8] Red Scare was in full-swing, General Alfred Gruenther,
Eisenhower’s chief-of-staff, made his view clear in the press that
The relationship between all these issues is easily comprehended “in my mind, there isn’t going to be any war.” Herbert Hoover,
when one looks at the overall situation 1947. In that year, the who was militantly anti-Soviet as president, angrily told the New
U.S. government established the Defense Department, created the York Times that the militarism emanating out of Washington was
CIA and established the National Security Council to coordinate nothing more than a “war psychosis.”9 [#15bff2e1-22e2-41ff-
the relationship between military, diplomatic and domestic b550-d88fb1de38fc]
affairs. Further, President Harry Truman had announced the
What was really happening?
Truman Doctrine, which pledged the U.S. would support any
movement or government it deemed to be anti-communist with
The real issue between the two powers was not war, but the
essentially unlimited funds and weapons. Also in 1947, Congress
balance of power. U.S. global supremacy depended on
passed the Taft-Hartley Act, which kneecapped trade unions and
Washington being able to manage the changes in Europe.
had been written by corporate lobbyists. Finally, President
Germany was at the center of this process. For the Soviets, the
Truman also initiated the “loyalty program” designed to
memory was strong regarding the way England and France — and
persecute anyone in government service who may disagree with
to some degree the U.S. — had colluded with the Nazis to try to
Cold War policies. Notably, such a loyalty program had been
prompt them to invade the USSR and dethrone Bolshevism. The
high on the agenda of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Soviet government wanted Germany to be totally demilitarized
with limits on its economic production. For the U.S. ruling class,
Was there a Soviet threat?
this was ultimately an obstacle.
U.S. historiography — conservative and liberal, then and now —
A unified, demilitarized Germany would almost certainly be
has maintained that whatever excesses existed, the Cold War was
politically “pluralist,” that is containing communists, capitalists
inevitable and that there was a “Soviet threat.” The problem was,
and everything in between. It would be likely to lean on natural
there wasn’t one. The Soviets had lost 27 million people in
economic ties to form a close alliance with the USSR. Politically
World War II. They weren’t too far removed from losing
and economically this threatened to reorient Europe, especially
millions during the first World War and millions more fighting
Western Europe, away from a U.S.-dominated “Atlantic
Tsarist remnants in a civil war. Not to mention, the USSR has
alliance.”
paid a heavy price between the wars in the march towards
becoming the second-place industrial powerhouse in the world.
Politically, France and Italy were already trending in a “pluralist”
direction. In Yugoslavia and Greece, the Nazis had been defeated
In 1946, Secretary of Defense James Forrestal noted in his diary
by communist guerrillas who were taking power in both places.
that the Soviets “would not move” towards war “at any time.”7
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Seeking security from invasion, the Soviets had installed anti- Enter the Red Scare
fascist, often communist, governments in Poland,
Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania. Economically, control of The lack of any real war threat made the need for a mass panic
German coal was key to the revival of Western European even more critical. Further, it couldn’t seem too remote, but a
economies. present danger. Unable to really conjure the image of an
aggressive USSR, the stenographers for capital had to make
On both counts, then, a unified Germany would make it more peace overtures from communists worldwide seem sinister, just
difficult to profit from European reconstruction, and potentially smokescreens to hide war preparations. To make U.S. citizens
create a Eurasian alliance that could challenge the U.S. desire to believe this, they had to “expose” that the communists were “all
“exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such around us,” from the smallest community group to the highest
purposes as we see fit.” As one key U.S. policy-maker said in councils of government. Since this was all a “hidden plot,” one
1947: “the difficulty under which we labor is that in spite of our could not simply look for the self-declared “card-carrying
announced position we really do not intend to accept German communists,” but also any camouflaged Reds and any
reunification.”10 [#eda2e66f-17c8-4473-8718-9c958bcb5a82] “sympathizers” that might aid them. This meant identifying
anyone who had ever shown any sympathy to “communist front
At the same time, in Asia, the ground was also rapidly shifting. organizations.”
Chiang Kai-Shek’s bankrupt Chinese government was being
steamrolled by the communist forces who had the sympathy of This made sense for the redbaiters because it gave them millions
the majority of Chinese. The Chinese people saw their program — of Americans who they could pick and choose to scapegoat. From
that promised to put an end to the ruinous feudalism of the the Depression on through the war, millions of people had signed
countryside, pursue worker-led industrialization in the cities, and petitions against racism and lynching and demanding freedom for
banish imperial concessions forever — with great hope. Chiang’s victims of the legal lynch mob. Many had also actively engaged
forces, on the other hand, represented the brutal landlord class in opposing the fascist invasion of Ethiopia and the fascist
and the gangster-connected corporate bosses that had presided insurgency in Spain. They had joined and advocated for unions,
over famine and poverty in league with their Western “friends” electrified by the fight back against brutal capitalist policies
for over a century. represented by the CIO. Some of them were Hollywood stars who
sought to use their fame to build support for these causes. Some
In Korea too, the anti-fascist, communist-led forces were the of them had joined the New Deal, hoping to use their skills to
most popular, having been the tip of the spear of the most recent help farmers in the dust bowl or putting people back to work at
manifestation of resistance to many decades of Japanese the WPA.
colonialism. In Vietnam, the same was true, not to mention the
communists had been the primary opponents of the French And, yes, a relatively small percentage of these millions, never
colonial forces that came before the war and wished to return more than 100,000, were official members of the Communist
now that it was over. Party. Of course, none of this was illegal, and most of it, in fact,
was quite positive. To solve that problem, the vast majority of
From India to Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, left- those who had signed a petition, joined a demonstration, joined a
leaning forces that had been leading national liberation union and even taken out Communist Party membership were
movements were also in the lead position politically. This would classed as “dupes,” supposedly providing a respectable cover for
ultimately prompt the U.S. to draw “North Korea” into a conflict the evil purposes of the various “Soviet agents” that were
to, at the very least, bleed China and Russia and weaken the anti- “using” these movements to sow division and recruit spies within
colonial tide in Asia, if not outright invade China and overthrow the government.
the communists. This is despite the fact that in all these places the
new leading parties were hoping to establish a working To figure out who was who, it was crucial to force as many
relationship with the U.S. that, in many cases, was like what was people as possible to “name names” of those who were a part of
happening in Europe, building on the existing wartime alliances the communist conspiracy. In addition to the “Loyalty Program”
against fascism. which expelled anyone who wouldn’t take an anti-communist
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oath from the government, the Taft-Hartley Act established an 5. Marzani, p.68 ↩︎
“anti-communist oath” for all union officials as well. Private [#e746bd13-5842-4d84-a717-5eef52f93aa8-link]
businesses followed suit, but there was also public opprobrium. 6. Marzani, p. 64 ↩︎
[#c91667df-1227-40e1-995b-ad0eefbe67c8-link]
The FBI and others quickly assembled a coterie of former 7. Marzani, p. 23 ↩︎
communists with an ax to grind and were willing to spin lurid and [#4e56a907-aa51-438e-8cc3-e4e6d753f36d-link]
ludicrous tales. Elizabeth Bentley, for instance, publicly stated a 8. Ibid. p. 23 ↩︎
Soviet spy would sit behind a black curtain during Central [#1854c1c2-2ce5-4927-adde-0fb37cb102ee-link]
Committee meetings to hide his identity while he dispensed 9. Ibid. pp. 20-27 ↩︎
guidance from Stalin. Often the information they were peddling [#15bff2e1-22e2-41ff-b550-d88fb1de38fc-link]
was clearly false. Manning Johnson, a frequent anti-communist 10. Christopher Layne, The Peace of Illusions : American
witness at government hearings, when confronted with his own Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present (Cornell, 2006)
multiple perjured statements, told a federal panel he would “lie p.67 ↩︎
1,000 times if the interests of my government are at stake.” Paul [#eda2e66f-17c8-4473-8718-9c958bcb5a82-link]
Crouch, star witness for the witch hunters who was deployed
against Robert Oppenheimer, Charlie Chaplin and dozens of
others high and low, was by 1955 exposed as a fabulist and his
various testimonies widely discredited.
Nonetheless, inconsistencies and obvious falsehoods were
brushed aside by hearings, trials and most media accounts and the
idea of a great communist conspiracy was widely embraced in the
popular consciousness. The “memoirs” of the star witnesses
became bestsellers, with movie and TV adaptations. The end
result was the destruction of the most forward-looking elements
of the country — and the rise of a much more conservative outlook
that energized Jim Crow and kneecapped militant unionism,
lowering the horizons for everyone who wasn’t ultra-wealthy
and/or white in accessing the potential promise of the post-war
world.
1. [Link]
look-back-at-the-american-century/ [[Link]
inion/national-security/539700-a-look-back-at-the-
american-century/] ↩︎
[#2195a600-3385-4ea1-852f-3d865225a4c2-link]
2. Carl Marzani, We Can Be Friends (1952) p. 107
↩︎
[#f2a7de0b-90ac-42c6-b2af-5a2065f48aab-link]
3. Jennifer Delton, The Industrialists: How the National
Association of Manufacturers Shaped American
Capitalism (Princeton UP, 2020). P.140
↩︎ [#ff390be4-fbcd-42c3-832d-
ed6233f8eeb5-link]
4. Marzani. p.72 ↩︎
[#45aec7d0-ca30-4c87-a35f-7b933354143e-link]
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