McCarthy+&+Red+Guards

= = =Question: Compare and contrast McCarthy and the Red Guards.= = = =Introduction= Joseph McCarthy was the prominent American crusader against Communism during the Cold War era. His bold, yet baseless, accusations of many government employees led to a wave of national Communism hysteria. Red Guards, on the other hand, were a bunch of secondary and university school students, who were politically active during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Through their relentless efforts, the normal routine of the Chinese society was greatly interrupted. Though the two seemed to have few connections, their rise and fall were strikingly similar. With perfect timing and the right approach to address and enlarge the fear and zeal deep inside human nature, McCarthy and Red Guards managed to wield sensational influence in their own society. However, their downfalls were a little different: McCarthy’s fall was caused by people’s realization of his true colors, while the Red Guards were chased away, when Mao judged them to be a threat to the society. The two were also different in the ways they impact the societies: American society was changed in fundamental ways both domestically and internationally, while the Chinese society suffered mostly on the aspect of education. __In short, McCarthy and the Red Guards were similar in the way they rose to prominence and the methods they used to maintain that status. But the two different in their fall to relative obscurity and the ways they impacted their own society.__

= = = = = = = Overview =
 * McCarthy || Red Guards ||
 * In 1946, McCarthy became a Republican Senator by labeling his opponent as “communistically inclined”. When faced with reelection, McCarthy decided to stage a public speech to cancel out his weak record in Senate. As it turned out, the famous[| Wheeling speech] did grab the public’s fear with the irresponsible accusation that the State Department was infiltrated with a Communist spy ring. The obscure Senator from Wisconsin soon rose to national fame. Although many Democrats tried to undermine the groundless accusations with congressional investigations, McCarthy was capable of turning the hearings into “a personal forum” (“McCarthy”), on which he actually enlarged his publicity. After many ferocious attacks on a variety of public figures, McCarthy was appointed, by the Eisenhower administration, chairman of the Senate Committee on Government Operations and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Attempting to rein McCarthy with the new positions, the Eisenhower administration did not foresee the villain claiming that a Communist spy ring operated in the Army. With the President’s request, __the Army-McCarthy hearings__ were “conducted before a television audience” (“McCarthy”). In the end, the public’s sentiment was turned against the Senator, for he seemed to have “no sense of decency”. In June 1954, McCarthy was kicked out of the Senate for his “conduct unbecoming a Senator”. Three years afterwards, the “crusader against Communism” drank himself to death. (“McCarthy”) || The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), or more commonly known as the Chinese Cultural Revolution (CR), was ten years of economic and political turmoil. __Started after the Great Leap Forward__, a disastrous attempt to industrialize the agrarian China, with the friction between China’s two most important leaders, Mao Zedong and Liu Shaoqi, on economic policies, CR soon developed into a series of radical activities with supports from Chairman Mao. In May 1966, the mass student body organized itself in to groups called Red Guards, whose mass rallies were later cordially reviewed by Mao and other CR leaders. Since the factions of the Red Guards were trying to out do each other in their demonstrations of devotion to Mao, their __crusade against old culture and habits__ often went wild. Fearing that the escalating chaos may lead the country into civil war, Mao ended the situation by condemning the Red Guard leaders and by “sending large numbers of Red __Guards to the countryside__, thereby reducing the level of conflict and violence in cities” (“Cultural”). Although the furies of the Red Guards subsided, the chaos in China continued. ||

Timing