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U.S. History 1877-Present 10.12: The Real Reds 16 Views
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Description:
Communist Party USA might sound like a killer way to spend a Friday evening, but it was probably something you wanted to steer clear of during the Cold War.
Transcript
- 00:02
Yeah, the Red Scare in America was fueled by a heaping helping of paranoia... but it ["Red Scare" with flames]
- 00:07
was also fueled by the fact that there had been actual socialists, anarchists, and communists [map with groups of people]
- 00:13
in America for a long time.
- 00:14
Yup, that's right, not just made up by McCarthy monsters... [McCarthy monster comes to visit]
- 00:18
Red-blooded Americans who bucked the system and risked everything to stand by their highly [people walk together]
Full Transcript
- 00:22
unpopular political beliefs.
- 00:25
The Communist Party USA was actually founded in 1919, but it stayed pretty low profile [Communist Party logo pictured]
- 00:30
for its first decade of existence.
- 00:31
The 20s were roaring, and it looked to everybody like capitalism was awesome. [20s celebrate capitalism]
- 00:36
Why be a gloomy old communist when capitalism was so obviously the best thing since sliced
- 00:41
bread?
- 00:43
Sliced bread, of course being yet another amazing product of free-market industrial
- 00:47
capitalism. [woman grips good old capitalist sliced bread]
- 00:48
When the Great Depression hit, some people began to think twice. [person rethinks capitalism]
- 00:51
Communist Party USA used this economic calamity to mobilize. [clever communist coughs up a cupcake]
- 00:56
On orders from Moscow, the American communists tried to put a happy face on communism. [happy communists]
- 01:01
They called this the Popular Front strategy.
- 01:04
Instead of talking so much about big, crazy revolutions, they spoke patriotically about [communist speaks]
- 01:09
America and reached out to more mainstream progressive organizations.
- 01:13
The communists became besties with the labor unions, made civil rights a big part of their [communist ties illustrated]
- 01:19
agenda, and supported big chunks of FDR's New Deal.
- 01:22
Of course, while it was busy mainstreaming, the Communist Party USA was also hitting the [communists underground]
- 01:26
underground.
- 01:27
And we don't mean they hit up secret dance clubs in random warehouses.
- 01:31
Nope, the American communists were actually helping the Soviet Union to create a huge
- 01:35
network of Soviet spies all through the U.S., which of course the American government wasn't [U.S. spy network mapped]
- 01:40
all too cool with.
- 01:42
Well, as World War II fizzled and the Cold War heated up, the Communist Party USA was
- 01:47
doomed.
- 01:48
In 1947, Truman launched a purge of communists from the government. [Truman launches purge]
- 01:52
The attorney general got in on the action, too, publishing a list of organizations, including
- 01:57
the Communist Party, that he said were bad news. [attorney general has quite a list for Truman]
- 02:01
In 1948, the anti-communist title wave was on the rise.
- 02:04
11 Communist Party leaders were arrested. [arrest statistics]
- 02:06
See, there was this law called the Smith Act, which made it illegal to conspire to overthrow
- 02:13
the government. [Smith Act explained]
- 02:14
What a concept.
- 02:15
Well, since Marx, the granddaddy of communism, called for a revolution, all communists were
- 02:20
dubbed criminals. [Marx behind bars]
- 02:22
The Supreme Court upheld the conviction of the American communist leaders, unleashing
- 02:25
a flood of Smith Act arrests.
- 02:28
This included Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted of passing atomic secrets [Rosenbergs pictured]
- 02:32
on to the Soviets.
- 02:33
Though it was unclear exactly how much Ethel was involved, both ended up being executed,
- 02:38
becoming the only Americans to get the death penalty in the great communist purge. [Rosenberg deaths announced]
- 02:43
The rash of arrests didn't end until 1957, when the court decided that making it a crime
- 02:48
to simply advocate for an idea was actually against the First Amendment. [court rules]
- 02:53
So, these days, Americans are allowed to go around being communists if they feel like
- 02:57
it. [American communists]
- 02:58
They can also go to conferences where grown men dress in fuzzy animal costumes.
- 03:02
Yup, gotta love the free world. [convention pictured]
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