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It wasn't illegal, but it was revealed many years later that pretty much every single Communist-leaning organization in the US had been receiving funds from Mos

by chiph 13y ago

It wasn't illegal, but it was revealed many years later that pretty much every single Communist-leaning organization in the US had been receiving funds from Moscow. This doesn't justify what "Tail Gunner Joe" McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover did in persecuting suspected sympathizers (and anyone else they didn't like), of course. Paranoia is "the unreasoning fear that others are out to get you". Only in this case, there was an element of truth to this. In the mid 50's Nikita Khrushchev spoke at the United Nations, banging his show upon the desk as he said "We will bury you!" The threat from the USSR was real.

glurgh 13y ago
The threat was real but it had about as much to do with the mutual distrust and, yes, paranoia of two nuclear-armed superpowers as with anything else. A case in point is the mythology you mention - Khrushchev's shoe-banging incident was separate from the famous 'We will bury you' line and 'We will bury you' means something significantly less aggressive in context rather than when excerpted and literally translated into English. "Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will dig you in" This is an expression of the Communist belief in Communism's inevitable supremacy as a political system all over the world, by 'historical necessity' - it's not Khrushchev threatening the Russians are about to come over, crush their enemies, see them driven before them and hear the lamentations of their women.
scarmig 13y ago
"it was revealed many years later that pretty much every single Communist-leaning organization in the US had been receiving funds from Moscow" This claim needs a bit of elaboration, especially since people have called everything from SDS to the Mattachine Society to SCSC to the Black Panthers to the Union of Concerned Scientists to Greenpeace to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament "Communist-leaning." The broader point is true: McCarthy in his factual assessment that many US institutions, including parts of the government, were infiltrated by agents of and at least in some respects directed from Moscow, was right, although his overall package was very much broken.
tome 13y ago
> Nikita Khrushchev spoke at the United Nations, banging his show upon the desk as he said "We will bury you!" I discovered recently that this conflates two different events http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_will_bury_you http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_will_bury_you http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-banging_incident http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-banging_incident

by chiph 13y ago

glurgh 13y ago

The threat was real but it had about as much to do with the mutual distrust and, yes, paranoia of two nuclear-armed superpowers as with anything else. A case in point is the mythology you mention - Khrushchev's shoe-banging incident was separate from the famous 'We will bury you' line and 'We will bury you' means something significantly less aggressive in context rather than when excerpted and literally translated into English. "Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will dig you in" This is an expression of the Communist belief in Communism's inevitable supremacy as a political system all over the world, by 'historical necessity' - it's not Khrushchev threatening the Russians are about to come over, crush their enemies, see them driven before them and hear the lamentations of their women.

scarmig 13y ago

"it was revealed many years later that pretty much every single Communist-leaning organization in the US had been receiving funds from Moscow" This claim needs a bit of elaboration, especially since people have called everything from SDS to the Mattachine Society to SCSC to the Black Panthers to the Union of Concerned Scientists to Greenpeace to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament "Communist-leaning." The broader point is true: McCarthy in his factual assessment that many US institutions, including parts of the government, were infiltrated by agents of and at least in some respects directed from Moscow, was right, although his overall package was very much broken.

tome 13y ago

> Nikita Khrushchev spoke at the United Nations, banging his show upon the desk as he said "We will bury you!" I discovered recently that this conflates two different events http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_will_bury_you http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_will_bury_you http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-banging_incident http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-banging_incident