Red Scare

The term "Red Scare" has been applied to two distinct periods of intense anti-communism in United States history: from 1917 to 1920 and in the early 1950s. Both periods were characterized by widespread fears of communist influence on US society and communist infiltration of the US government. These fears spurred aggressive investigation and (particularly during the first period) jailing of persons associated with communist and socialist ideology or political movements.

The term generally refers to the political atmosphere surrounding domestic political persecutions and violations of civil rights, as well as the Cold War fears of imminent attack on the United States or its allies by the Soviet Union or the People's Republic of China.

The first Red Scare

Origins

The first major Red Scare in American history occurred directly after the Russian Revolution of 1917 which brought the downfall of the czars and rise of Lenin. Fears of a communist plan to similarly overthrow the government of the United States created paranoia in some government officials. This fear merged itself with another longstanding worry of establishment white Americans – the large Southern European immigrant population in the United States. To many, the little Polands and little Italies that were forming in the big cities were associated with atheism, anarchism, and communism, values seen as antithetical to those of the United States. Directly following World War I, much of the nation was still in a frenzy of patriotism and anti-German sentiment. Many historians view the replacement of anti-German sentiment by anti-Bolshevik sentiment as the product of the need of a victorious country to continue defining itself by hatred of its enemies.

Causes

1919, to many Americans, was a time of uncertainty and fear over the status of labor in the United States. In the first half of that year alone, the city of Seattle had been paralyzed by strikes, the police struck in Boston, and a violent strike occurred in the iron industry.

A series of anarchist bombings in June of 1919 were the spark that started the fire. The mayor of Seattle received a homemade bomb in the mail on April 28, which was defused. Senator Thomas R. Hardwick was the victim of the next day – the only casualty was the servant who discovered it, who lost her hand. The following morning, a New York City postal worker discovered sixteen similar packages addressed to famous persons like John D. Rockefeller. The final straw came on June 2, when a bomb partially destroyed the front of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer's house.

Reactions

In response to the bombings, the public flared up in a surge of patriotism, often involving violent hatred of communists, radicals, and foreigners. Senator Kenneth D. McKellar proposed sending radicals to a penal colony in Guam; general Leonard Wood called to place them of "ships of stone with sails of lead"; evangelist Billy Sunday clamored to "stand [radicals] up before a firing squad and save space on our ships." In Centralia, Washington, a radical was dragged from a town jail and hanged in a murder reminiscent of the lynching of German-Americans during World War I.

The largest government action of the Red Scare was the Palmer Raids against anarchist, socialist, and communist groups. Left-wing activists such as Eugene V. Debs were jailed using the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. Section Four of the Sedition act empowered Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson to slow or confiscate all Socialist material in the mail, a task that he took on readily. In a spectacle that exposed the paranoia, xenophobia, and fear of anarchism of much of the United States, Sacco and Vanzetti, two Italian anarchists, were executed for robbery in a trial seen as unfair and protested around the world.

The second Red Scare

During the late 1920s through the 1930s, anticommunism in America died down, especially when the Soviet Union became an ally of America during World War II. As soon as the war ended, however, another Red Scare began in the McCarthy era from 1948 to the mid-1950s.

Causes

During the late 1940s several sensational news events caught the public attention, including the trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg for treason (which resulted in their heavily publicized executions); the acquisition of an atomic bomb by the Soviet Union which spelled the end of the United States' monopoly on nuclear weapons technology; and the beginnings of the Korean War. Events such as these had a noticeable effect on the opinions of Americans in general about their own safety and security, and they gave rise to a subtle feeling of paranoia that centered upon a supposedly inevitable nuclear war with the Soviet Union, and the fact that a large number of communist spies and sympathisers were constantly working to bring the downfall of the United States. Anti-communists of the era would also point to the many millions killed in the Soviet gulags, Stalin era purges, deportation of over one million Polish to Soviet labor camps in Siberia, and the killing of hundreds of thousands in China. This in addition to the fact that the Soviet Union had rapidly and forcefully spread its influence into Eastern Europe since the end of the Second World War.

Reactions

The Red Scare manifested itself in several ways, notably through the actions of the House Un-American Activities Committee, the rise of Senator Joseph McCarthy, and the acceleration of the arms race. Propaganda films like Red Nightmare were commissioned to further popular fears of communism and the Soviet Union.

It also had subtle effects on America's way of life, contributing to the popularization of fallout shelters in home construction. It can also be seen as one factor that contributed to the rise and popularity of science fiction films during the 1950s and beyond. Many thrillers and science fiction movies of the period used a theme of a sinister, inhuman enemy that was planning to infiltrate society and destroy the American way of life. (One of the best examples of this is the classic film Invasion of the Body Snatchers.)

To test the strength of the influence of the Red Scare, the Capital-Times in Madison, Wisconsin (on July 4, 1951) drafted a petition made up entirely of quotes from the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence. A reporter was sent out to collect signatures. 111 out of 112 people on the street refused to sign the petition. Other papers around the U.S. (such as the New Orleans Item) tried the same experiment and encountered similar results. Many people went as far as urging that the FBI be called in to investigate the subversive petition. Most people did not want to get involved in any controversial statements. Most people thought that the phrases must have been written by Communists.

Other uses of the term

Today, the term Red Scare is sometimes used to refer to any anti-communist program. This term is viewed by many as pejorative. For details, see Contemporary reactions to McCarthyism.

See also

• Anti-Communism
• Reaction to McCarthyism
• VENONA Project