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Red Scare
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- Red Menace redirects here. For the 2007 Wildstorm Productions comic book series see Red Menace (comics).
The term Red Scare has been retroactively applied to two distinct periods of strong anti-Communism in United States history: first from 1917 to 1920, and second from the late 1940s through the late 1950s.
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- Red Menace redirects here. For the 2007 Wildstorm Productions comic book series see Red Menace (comics).
The term Red Scare has been retroactively applied to two distinct periods of strong anti-Communism in United States history: first from 1917 to 1920, and second from the late 1940s through the late 1950s. These periods were characterized by heightened suspicion of Communists and radicals, and the fear of widespread infiltration of Communists in U.S. government.
First Red Scare (1917–1920)
The First Red Scare began during World War I in which the United States fought from 1917 to 1918. Tensions were further elevated during this time frame owing to a widespread campaign of violence by various groups inspired by the Bolshevik revolution in Russia and the ensuing Russian Civil War (1917-1923). Historian Levin B. Murray described the First Red Scare as "a nation-wide anti-radical hysteria provoked by a mounting fear and anxiety that a Bolshevik revolution in America was imminent--a revolution that would destroy property, church, home, marriage, civility, and the American way of Life."
In April 1919, a large-scale plot to mail thirty-six bombs to a variety of prominent Americans was uncovered. The intended recipients included immigration officials, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, the chairman of a Senate committee investigating Bolsheviks, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, J. P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller. On June 2 of the same year, bombs exploded in eight different cities within the same hour. One of the intended targets was again Attorney General Palmer, whose Washington, D.C. home was bombed. The man planting the bomb at Palmer's home was killed in the explosion, and evidence indicated that he was an Italian man living in Philadelphia.
This occurred during a time of heightened xenophobia in America. Various brands of radical anarchism were acquiring some notoriety, and their advocates were often recent immigrants to the U.S. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was responsible for several prominent strikes in 1916 and 1917, and this too was seen as a threatening form of radicalism largely inspired by foreign born "agitators". By 1919, hundreds of strikes were occurring every month nation-wide, and the conservative press was commonly referring to strikes as "crimes against society," "conspiracies against the government," and "plots to establish communism."
As a result, even before the bomb plots of 1919, a series of immigration, anti-anarchist, and sedition laws (including the Sedition Act of 1918) were passed and widely exercised as a means to remove putatively undesirable elements from the country. In the words of David D. Cole, "the federal government consistently targeted alien radicals, deporting them[…] for their speech or associations, making little effort to distinguish true threats from ideological dissidents."
After the bombings, Attorney General Palmer initiated what came to be known as the Palmer Raids. These were a series of mass arrests and deportations of immigrants who were suspected of being leftists or radicals. A total of between 4,000 and 10,000 individuals were arrested over two years. Palmer placed J. Edgar Hoover, then 24 years old, in charge of this operation. At Hoover's specific direction, prisoners were questioned without access to attorneys and their bail was set prohibitively high. Many were beaten during their arrest or questioning.
The raids were initially highly praised by the public and press. The Washington Post proclaimed "There is no time to waste on hairsplitting over infringement of liberty," and the New York Times referred to the injuries inflicted on a group of suspects as "souvenirs of the new attitude of aggressiveness which had been assumed by the Federal agents against Reds and suspected Reds"
Eventually there was criticism of the raids. A group of twelve prominent lawyers that included future Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter published "A Report on the Illegal Practices of The United States Department of Justice," citing violations of the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution and accusing Palmer of "illegal acts" and "wanton violence." Palmer then issued a series of warnings that a revolutionary plot to overthrow the government was to be launched on May 1, 1920. When the date passed without incident, Palmer was widely ridiculed. Adding to the criticism was the fact that evidence sufficient for deportation could be found for less than six hundred of the thousands who were arrested. In July 1920, Palmer's once-promising bid for presidential office was squelched when he failed to win the Democratic nomination.
As a result of the fear and oppression around the First Red Scare, membership in the Communist Party of the United States and similar Marxist/Communist groups was reduced by some 80 percent.
In 1919–1920, a number of states passed "criminal syndicalism" laws that made the advocacy of violence to secure social change unlawful. Traditional American ideals of free speech were restricted.
Second Red Scare (1947–1957)
The Second Red Scare took place in the United States after World War II. It coincided with increased fears of espionage by Communists and heightened tension from Soviet oppression in Eastern Europe (beginning in 1946), the Berlin Blockade (1948–1949), Chinese Civil War (1949), and the Korean War (1950–1953). These fears spurred aggressive investigations and the red-baiting, blacklisting, jailing and deportation of people suspected of following communist or other left-wing ideology.
Causes
During the late 1940s several events caught the public's attention, including the trial, conviction and subsequent execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg for espionage (specifically passing atomic bomb secrets to the Soviet Union), the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe, and the acquisition of an atomic bomb by the Soviet Union. These events influenced the opinions of many Americans regarding their own security, and connected the fear of a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union with a fear of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA). In testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee, former CPUSA party members Elizabeth Bentley and Whittaker Chambers testified that Soviet spies and Communist sympathizers had been successful in penetrating several U.S. government agencies during and after World War II.
The testimony of Bentley and Chambers was cited as evidence of active Soviet and Communist infiltration of the United States government. Anti-communists also criticized the history of the Soviet Union and China as evidence of Communism's destructiveness, asserting that Stalin's purges, the creation of the gulag system and other examples of oppression were a function of the Communist ideology.
History
Due in part to the privation of the Great Depression, communism was an attractive ideology to many in the U.S., especially among intellectual and labor circles. At the height of American communism's popularity in 1939, the party had 50,000 U.S. members.
After the beginning of the war in Europe, Congress passed the Smith Act in 1940, which made membership in any organization advocating the violent overthrow of the government of the United States illegal and required all foreign nationals to register with the federal government. The Act was aimed not only at Communists, but also at members of the German-American Bund and the general Japanese-American population. After Germany invaded the USSR, the CPUSA shifted from an anti- to a pro-war position. During the war, while the USSR and America were allies, the Communist Party opposed labor strikes as detrimental to the war effort and supported an aggressive U.S. military policy. Under the slogan "Communism is Twentieth Century Americanism", CPUSA Chairman Earl Browder advertised that the party had been integrated into the mainstream of US politics. In contrast, the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party opposed World War II and supported strikes even in war industries. SWP leaders including James P. Cannon were convicted under the Smith Act, with the approval of the CPUSA, whose members were not prosecuted.
In 1947, Harry S Truman signed Executive Order 9835, creating the Federal Employees Loyalty Program. The program created review boards to investigate federal employees and terminate them if there were doubts as to their loyalty. The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) and the committees of Senator Joseph McCarthy began investigations of actual or alleged American Communists and their role in espionage, propaganda, and subversive activities, real and imagined.
The Red Scare also profoundly affected the American way of life. It contributed to the increased popularity of science fiction films and thrillers sharing the theme of a sinister, inhuman enemy planning to infiltrate society and destroy the American way of life. Even a sports team was affected by the red scare; the Cincinnati Reds temporarily changed their team name to "Redlegs" to avoid the association of "Reds" and Communism.
See also
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