World of the Continued United Front
* Second Sino-Japanese War
*
Chinese Leaders, 20s and 30s
* Asia after the Second Sino-Japanese War, around 1940
* Sino-Soviet relations, 1930s to 1950s
* United States Politics, 1952-1960
* Indochina and the Second Indochina War
* Indonesia, 1965 to 1989
* Russia, 1990s and 2000s
United States Politics, 1952-1960
In the 1930s, the American public largely focused inward and embraced isolation. After the Second World War, and establishment of Soviet control over Eastern Europe, American politics began to turn outward, motivated by anti-communism to coordinate more with other western capitalist countries
In the 1930s and 1940s, the Communist Party of China took a gradualist stance, emulating the NEP of Lenin and intending to maintain it for a longer period of time than the USSR under Stalin did, with their own "Socialist Market Economy". As part of this, the Socialist Republic of China pursued a policy of significant trade with the West. The USA and other western countries were more than willing to engage in this trade, out of hopes of sowing division between the Chinese and Soviets, as well as in hopes of undermining Chinese (and Korean) socialism. The 1940s, however, saw an increase in voices criticizing the trade relationship as merely aiding Chinese economic growth, and criticizing the broader isolation of the 30s and failure to stop the spread of socialism in Europe and Asia
In the 1940s, the force of anti-communism had not yet come to dominate American politics, with incumbent Harry Truman managing to win a surprising victory in 1948 despite heavy criticism from Thomas Dewey. Even in the early 50s, it wasn't necessarily certain how things would later end up - in the 1952 Republican primaries, conservative Robert Taft only narrowly beat moderate Dwight Eisenhower
Taft did beat Eisenhower, however, and in the general election, the Taft-McCarthy ticket was able to solidly beat the Stevenson-Sparkman ticket. After 5 consecutive losses, the Republicans had finally taken back control. Taft himself was a solid conservative, but when he died just months into his Presidency, his successor pursued an even more strongly conservative agenda, and used the bully pulpit (and federal forces) for very aggressively anti-communist rhetoric and action
McCarthy was far from the sole figure responsible for the "Second Red Scare", but he and his administration were a major factor in letting it reach the heights it did. The aggressive rhetoric encouraging an atmosphere of paranoia, federal agencies playing dirty with numerous denials of due process, encouragement and cooperation with heavy-handed state and local government efforts, and public support for the militias all played notable roles in spurring on the Red Scare. Of course these acts also played on already existing sentiments among the general population - many dissidents or suspected dissidents would die in the poor conditions of the government detention camps and asylums, or would be executed judicially or killed by law enforcement, but many more would be killed by patriotic militias or by spontaneous acts of violence in communities or by individuals
Support for McCarthy and the Red Scare was far from unanimous . Even before the period of highest intensity, in McCarthy's second term, Estes Kefauver was able to present a strong challenge to the President, with McCarthy winning in 1956 by a much narrower margin than Taft had won four years earlier. But it was only partway through his second term that the opposition was able to really gain momentum, and when the general public began shifting in a big way against McCarthy and the Red Scare. McCarthy was able to narrowly avoid impeachment, but ended up censured by Congress, and ended up a lame-duck in the latter 1950s, with a coalition of Democrats and Republicans cobbling together a veto-proof supermajority to largely bypass the embittered President, and force some federal reforms to try and prevent the excesses of the Red Scare from happening again in the future
The total death toll from the Red Scare would not be determined. Though there was a broad recognition that things had gone too far, opinions varied wildly, from those who thought that there was certainly excess but that strong action against communism was nonetheless justified by the insurgencies, to those who held that the whole thing was a massive overreach of authority and militant zealotry that proved that far more reforms than those that were passed were needed, with some even suggesting that the leftist insurgents were justified by the oppressive cultural and political atmosphere. As such, due to hopes of moving forward and avoiding harsh political conflict over the particulars, an official, in-depth government inquiry was not launched until years later, at which point the passage of time had made it hard or impossible to determine a very clear image of the particulars and numbers. Modern official and academic numbers for those killed in the Red Scare, and for how, vary significantly from source to source and methodology used
Going into the 1960 elections, both parties found themselves with significant concerns and weaknesses.
The Republicans found themselves with major popularity issues due to their association with Joseph McCarthy (himself term-limited, still loudly commentating on politics, but increasingly ignored in the years before his 1962 death from liver failure brought on by alcoholism), as well as conflict within the party on the way forward. Richard Nixon, California Senator, early supporter of McCarthy who later shifted to a strong critic, with a strong Cold War rhetoric but also a fairly moderate domestic policy, was able to restore some respectability to the Republican Party, avoid causing too much controversy with any of the wings of the party, and make things competitive. Also helping make things competitive was the conflict within the Democratic Party
The party was facing conflict from the conservative and segregationist wings of the party who were relatively more favorable to Red Scare policy and the Cold War on one hand, and the left-wing of the party who were strongly critical of McCarthy, strongly pro-civil rights, and generally supportive of a less aggressive Cold War with more diplomatic efforts and an arguably more isolationist bent. Nominee John F. Kennedy, a moderate liberal taking a hard stance on Cold War foreign policy and taking Senate leader LBJ as his running mate to try to keep the south in line, while also endorsing a moderately left-leaning, pro-civil rights and liberties domestic platform, was ultimately unable to fully please either wing fully, and just like in 1948, the Democrats would see not one but two third party candidacies that largely took votes from their party. Leftist William H. Meyer, on the revived Progressive Party ticket, was able to pull away a sizable chunk of the left-wing vote out of dissatisfaction with the relatively moderate stances the Democratic Party took in the wake of the national crisis, getting nearly 10% of the total vote and failing to win any states but playing 'spoiler' in multiple states. The segregationist Dixiecrats took a much smaller amount of the vote, but that vote was concentrated in several southern states, and the Dixiecrats were thus able to win several electoral votes
The election results were extremely close. Indeed, due to the particulars of how the state of Alabama carried out their elections,
it isn't even certain which candidate won the popular vote. As the results came in on election night and the day after, the winner was unclear, with the Progressives acting as something of a 'spoiler' for Kennedy, letting Nixon win various states like Illinois and California with well below 50% of the vote, and with Dixiecrats winning 15 electoral votes in the South and potentially sending the election to the House of Representatives with no majority winner in the electoral college. Kennedy, however, was able to very narrowly win a majority of electoral votes outright. Afterward, seeing the close results in Alaska, Nixon would express bitter regret in taking the advice of his advisors to not carry out his initial '50-state strategy' plan (though pundits would later point out that even if he did take time to campaign in Alaska and won the state, it could have cost him states like Illinois that he was able to narrowly win with his more targeted approach). At any rate, Kennedy was sworn in, speaking of a New Frontier for a new decade, poised to push ambitious foreign and domestic policy to tackle problems at home and abroad, though also facing the potential for struggles with getting his agenda through Congress