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 of the first Red Scare

Political cartoon depicting a European Anarchist bent on destroying liberty

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, little Polands and little Italies were associated with atheism, anarchism, and communism, values seen as antithetical to those of the United States. Directly following World War I, the nation was in a frenzy of patriotism and anti-German sentiment. Many historians view the Red Scare as an extension of this trend towards violent patriotism in America. They see the relpacement 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.

The 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 occured in the iron inudstry.

Damage done by the bomb on A. Mitchell Palmer's house

A series of anarchist bombings in June of 1919 were the spark that started the fire. The mayor of Seattle recieved 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 adressed 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.

The 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 reminescent 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 4 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 anarchim of much of the United States, Sacco and Vanzetti, two Italian anarchists, were exectued for robbery in a trial seen as unfair and protested around the world.

The McCarthy period

The Red Scare reappeared during the McCarthy era from 1948 to the mid-1950s.

The causes

During the late 1940s several sensational news events caught the public attention, including the trial and execution for treason of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg; the development of a Soviet atomic bomb, ending the United States' monopoly on nuclear weapons; the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War; the rise of a number of Communist-dominated regimes in Europe and the developing world; and the establishment of the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact. These events helped to increase Americans' fear for their safety and security, and gave rise to a subtle feeling of paranoia, centered on the prospect of a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Growing public fear made anti-communism a hot-button issue in American politics and enabled public figures to run for election on the strength of their anti-communist stands, even when they had no influence over foreign or military policy whatsoever. However, public officials' encouragement of this climate of fear was a major contributing factor in red scares of the 1940s and 1950s.

The reactions

The Red Scare hysteria 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.)

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.