Portrayals of Communists
Those who sought to justify McCarthyism did so largely through their characterization of Communism, and American Communists in particular. Proponents of McCarthyism claimed that the CPUSA was so completely under Moscow's control that any American Communist was inevitably a puppet of the Soviet Union. As J. Edgar Hoover put it in a 1950 speech, "Communist members, body and soul, are the property of the Party." This attitude was not confined to arch-conservatives. In 1940, the American Civil Liberties Union ejected founding member Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, saying that her membership in the Communist Party was enough to disqualify her as a civil libertarian. In the government's prosecutions of Communist Party members under the Smith Act (see above), the prosecution case was based not on specific actions or statements by the defendants, but on the premise that a commitment to violent overthrow of the government was inherent in the doctrines of Marxism-Leninism. Passages of the CPUSA's constitution that specifically rejected revolutionary violence were dismissed as deliberate deception.
In addition, it was often claimed that the Party did not allow any member to resign, so a person who had been a member for a short time decades previously could be considered as suspect as a current member. Many of the hearings and trials of McCarthyism featured testimony by former Communist Party members such as Elizabeth Bentley, Louis Budenz, and Whittaker Chambers, speaking as expert witnesses.
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Famous quotes containing the words portrayals of, portrayals and/or communists:
“We attempt to remember our collective American childhood, the way it was, but what we often remember is a combination of real past, pieces reshaped by bitterness and love, and, of course, the video past—the portrayals of family life on such television programs as “Leave it to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best” and all the rest.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)
“We attempt to remember our collective American childhood, the way it was, but what we often remember is a combination of real past, pieces reshaped by bitterness and love, and, of course, the video past—the portrayals of family life on such television programs as “Leave it to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best” and all the rest.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)
“The believing mind reaches its perihelion in the so-called Liberals. They believe in each and every quack who sets up his booth in the fairgrounds, including the Communists. The Communists have some talents too, but they always fall short of believing in the Liberals.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)