why was america so threatened by communism and what was the effect?

Question

i am looking at this through McCarthy and need some potential ideas on a thesis, this is required for my disseratation

Answer 1

Americans beleive in absolute Capitalism - ie every man for himself

(sod everyone else although when your conscience pricks at you, chuck a few dollars to charity and console yourself with the thought that the poor are poor because they are "lazy" and "won't work")

Communism being the opposite of absolute Capitalism, they mistrust and hate it.

I've heard Americans say they'd rather starve on the streets than give up their "freedom". I guess these Americans have never been starving on the streets.

Answer 2

Does anyone really know? Different people have different motivations. Having a common enemy makes people come together, stifles dissent, controls populations, holds something over people's heads and hate/fear mongering gets you elected. The Liberal couldn't be outdone by the conservatives or they would be called soft on Communism. The official story was that Russia believed in violent overthrow of governments and would take over one country at a times, or a few, and where a threat to the US and democracy for that reason. I suppose some feared atheism and economic success, 'stealing' 'our' markets. Maybe we even thought a government for the people was a good idea and might catch on and personal wealth was out in Communism. Not good for the wealthy. Capital is for Capitalists. That's all I heard.

Answer 3

Through the eyes of people alive in the early 20th century there is little doubt that the spread of Communism seemed a genuine threat. Just geographically, Russia is huge, the largest country on Earth, and its population is huge as well. The Lenin and Stalin regimes proved successful in building an economy based on command. Stalin was willing to starve millions in order to get foreign exchange so he could afford to industrialize the USSR. It seemed like the police state was working.

Bad foreign policy decisions in the West drove nationalist liberation movements into the Communist camp. By the late 1940's the USSR's armies still occupied eastern Europe after WW2 and Communist governments had been installed there. China adopted Communism after its revolution. Vietnam was driven into the Communist orbit by French insistance on reestablishing their colonial empire there, and the US supported France because the US feared France would itself adopt Communism. To anyone looking at all of this, it must have seemed that Communism was on the march. It was a reasonable conclusion. Not until economic statistics were developed and analyzed was it apparent that Communism could not succeed; that it was only a matter of time until the Communist economic system collapsed. Yet in the 1950's, just looking at the map, one could see that Communism controlled half of Europe and most of Asia, and it was still growing. Fear was a predictable result.

Answer 4

America was the only country to stand up to them Y'all were the go alone to get along,co-exist,make nice nuclear free zone, talk nice,no missile's in Europe And Joe McCarthy was right with the freedom of information act,we now know They were in our Gov He just about it wrong Mr'Reagan and America WIN the cold war END of discussion

Answer 5

I don't understand. The 1.6 billion Chinese are Communists and they are considered by the government as a Most Favored Trading partner, and by the American people as their primary supplier for their material junk addiction. I'm not seeing that Americans are threatened by Communism. They do 90% of their business with them. Of course you can't underestimate the Commie threat from Anorexic Cuba.

Answer 6

Communism kills! This is not debatable. The record is crystal clear. The U.S. Senate Internal Security Subcommittee conducted investigations into the number killed in the Soviet Union and China. Their report stated that 35 million to 45 million had been killed in the Soviet Union and 34 million to 62.5 million in Communist China.

Even these figures are considered inadequate by authorities on the Soviet Union such as Solzhenitsyn and Antonov Ovesyenko. The latter, whose father led the Bolshevik storming of the Winter Palace in 1917, has recently published the book entitled The Time of Stalin-Portrait of a Tyranny. He calculates those killed as a result of the Communist conquest of Russia at 100 million.

Why does communism kill?" is-because the founder of Communism, Karl Marx, told them it was necessary to kill a large segment of the population in order to attain the basic objective of Communism.

Marx states in the Manifesto of the Communist Party:


You must, therefore, confess that by "individual" you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible. (Published by Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1973 edition, page 66)

Answer 7

indoctrination by the leading political parties influenced by the rich

Answer 8

Read about the mass poverty, corruption, famine, death, war, and misery created by it and you'll understand.

-You would be a slave right now if the USA hadn't won the Cold War.

Answer 9

some would have more Big Macs than other

Answer 10

Its not freedom, isnt that good enough for you