Red Scare


First Red Scare (1917–1920)[edit]

Political cartoon from 1919 depicting the Russian revolution's impact on the Paris peace talks

The first Red Scare began following the Bolshevik Russian Revolution of 1917 and the intensely patriotic years of World War I as anarchist and left-wing social agitation aggravated national, social, and political tensions. Political scientist, and former member of the Communist Party Murray B. Levin wrote that the Red Scare was "a nationwide anti-radical hysteria provoked by a mounting fear and anxiety that a Bolshevik revolution in America was imminent—a revolution that would change Church, home, marriage, civility, and the American way of Life".[1] Newspapers exacerbated those political fears into anti-foreign sentiment because varieties of radical anarchism were becoming popular as possible solutions to poverty, often by recent European immigrants (cf. hyphenated-Americans). When the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) also known as the wobblies backed several labor strikes in 1916 and 1917. These wartime strikes covered a wide gambit of industries including steel working, shipbuilding, coal mining, copper mining, as well as other industries necessary to make wartime necessities. After World War 1 ended the number of strikes increased to record levels in 1919 with more than 3,600 separate strikes that spanned from steel workers, to railroad shop workers, to the Boston police department.[2] The press portrayed them as "radical threats to American society" inspired by "left-wing, foreign agents provocateurs". Those on the side of the IWW claim that the press "misrepresented legitimate labor strikes" as "crimes against society", "conspiracies against the government", and "plots to establish communism".[3] Opponents, on the other hand, saw these as an extension of the radical, anarchist foundations of the IWW, which contends that all workers should be united as a social class and that capitalism and the wage system should be abolished.[4]

In 1917 as a response to World War 1 Congress passed the espionage act of 1917 to prevent any information that relating to national defense to be used to harm the United States or aid her enemies. The Wilson administration used this act to make anything "urging treason" a "nonmailable matter" . Due to the espionage act and the then Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson, 74 separate newspapers were not being mailed.[5]


In April 1919, authorities discovered a plot for mailing 36 bombs to prominent members of the U.S. political and economic establishment: J. P. Morgan Jr., John D. Rockefeller, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, U.S. Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer, and immigration officials. On June 2, 1919, in eight cities, eight bombs simultaneously exploded. One target was the Washington, D.C., house of U.S. Attorney General Palmer, where the explosion killed the bomber, who evidence indicated was an Italian-American radical from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Afterwards, Palmer ordered the U.S. Justice Department to launch the Palmer Raids (1919–21).[6] He deported 249 Russian immigrants on the "Soviet Ark", helped create the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and used federal agents to jail more than 5,000 citizens and search homes without respecting their constitutional rights.[7]

Yet, in 1918, before the bombings, President Woodrow Wilson had pressured the Congress to legislate the anti-anarchist Sedition Act of 1918 to protect wartime morale by deporting putatively undesirable political people. Law professor David D. Cole reports that President Wilson's "federal government consistently targeted alien radicals, deporting them ... for their speech or associations, making little effort to distinguish terrorists from ideological dissidents."[6] President Wilson used the Sedition Act of 1918 in order to limit the exercise of free speech by criminalizing language deemed disloyal to the United States government.[8]

Initially, the press praised the raids; The Washington Post said, "There is no time to waste on hairsplitting over [the] infringement of liberty", and The New York Times said the injuries inflicted upon the arrested were "souvenirs of the new attitude of aggressiveness which had been assumed by the Federal agents against Reds and suspected-Reds".[9] In the event, the Palmer Raids were criticized as unconstitutional by twelve publicly prominent lawyers, including (future Supreme Court Justice) Felix Frankfurter, who published A Report on the Illegal Practices of The United States Department of Justice, documenting systematic violations of the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution via Palmer-authorized "illegal acts" and "wanton violence". Defensively, Palmer then warned that a government-deposing left-wing revolution would begin on 1 May 1920—May Day, the International Workers' Day. When it failed to happen, he was ridiculed and lost much credibility. Strengthening the legal criticism of Palmer was that fewer than 600 deportations were substantiated with evidence, out of the thousands of resident aliens arrested and deported. In July 1920, Palmer's once-promising Democratic Party bid for the U.S. presidency failed.[10] Wall Street was bombed on September 2, 1920, near Federal Hall National Memorial and the JP Morgan Bank. Although both anarchists and communists were suspected as being responsible for the bombing, ultimately no individuals were indicted for the bombing in which 38 died and 141 were injured.[11]

In 1919–20, several states enacted "criminal syndicalism" laws outlawing advocacy of violence in effecting and securing social change. The restrictions included free speech limitations.[12] Passage of these laws, in turn, provoked aggressive police investigation of the accused persons, their jailing, and deportation for being suspected of being either communist or left-wing. Regardless of ideological gradation, the Red Scare did not distinguish between communism, anarchism, socialism, or social democracy.[13] This aggressive crackdown on certain ideologies resulted in many supreme court cases over the debate to free speech. In the case of Schenk v. United States using the clear and present danger test the espionage act of 1917 and the sedition act of 1918 were deemed constitutional.[8]

Second Red Scare (1947–60)[edit]

The second Red Scare occurred after World War II (1939–45), and it was popularly known as "McCarthyism" after its most famous supporter, Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthyism coincided with an increased and popular fear of communist espionage that was consequent of the increasing tension in the cold war through the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe, the Berlin Blockade (1948–49), the end of the Chinese Civil War, the confessions of spying for the Soviet Union that were made by several high-ranking U.S. government officials, and the outbreak of the Korean War.

Internal causes of the anti-communist fear[edit]

The events of the late 1940s, the early 1950s - the trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg (1953), the trial of Alger Hiss, the Iron Curtain (1945–1991) around Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union's first nuclear weapon test in 1949 (RDS-1) - surprised the American public, influencing popular opinion about U.S. National Security, which, in turn, was connected to the fear that the Soviet Union would hydrogen-bomb the United States, and fear of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA).



A few of the events during the Red Scare were also due to a power struggle between director of FBI J. Edgar Hoover and the Central Intelligence Agency. Hoover had instigated and aided some of the investigations of members of the CIA with "leftist" history, like Cord Meyer.[15] This conflict could also be traced back to the conflict between Hoover and William J. Donovan, going back to the first Red Scare, but especially during World War II. Donovan ran the OSS (CIA's predecessor). They had differing opinions on the nature of the alliance with the Soviet Union, conflicts over jurisdiction, conflicts of personality, the OSS hiring of communists and criminals as agents, etc.[16]


Early years[edit]


After the non-aggression pact was signed between Hitler and Stalin in 1939 the communist party in the United States took an anti-war approach and were consequently treated with more hostility than they had been previously by the public because they were seen as to be working with the Nazis, however in 1941, after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, the CPUSA's official position became pro-war, opposing labor strikes in the weapons industry and supporting the U.S. war effort against the Axis Powers. With the slogan "Communism is Twentieth-Century Americanism", the chairman, Earl Browder, advertised the CPUSA's integration to the political mainstream.[18] In contrast, the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party opposed U.S. participation in the war and supported labor strikes, even in the war-effort industry. For this reason, James P. Cannon and other SWP leaders were convicted per the Smith Act.

Increasing Tension[edit]

In March 1947, President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9835, creating the "Federal Employees Loyalty Program" establishing political-loyalty review boards who determined the "Americanism" of Federal Government employees, and requiring that all federal employees to take an oath of loyalty to the United States government. It then recommended termination of those who had confessed to spying for the Soviet Union, as well as some suspected of being "Un-American". This led to more than 2,700 dismissals and 12,000 resignations from the years 1947 to 1956.[19] It also was the template for several state legislatures' loyalty acts, such as California's Levering Act. The House Committee on Un-American Activities was created during the Truman administration as a response to allegations by republicans of disloyalty in Truman's administration.[19] The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) and the committees of Senator Joseph McCarthy (R., Wisc.) conducted character investigations of "American communists" (actual and alleged), and their roles in (real and imaginary) espionage, propaganda, and subversion favoring the Soviet Union—in the process revealing the extraordinary breadth of the Soviet spy network in infiltrating the federal government; the process also launched the successful political career of Richard Nixon, and Robert F. Kennedy,[20] as well as that of Joseph McCarthy.The House committee of un-American activity held a large interest in investigating those in the entertainment industry in Hollywood, they interrogated actors, writers and producers. The people who cooperated in the investigations got to continue working as they had been but people who refused to cooperate were blacklisted.

Senator Joseph McCarthy Stirred up further fear in the United States of communists infiltrating the country by saying that communist spies were omnipresent, and he was America's only salvation. Using this fear to increase his own influence. In 1950 Joseph McCarthy addressed the senate citing 81 separate cases made accusations against suspected communists. Although providing little or no evidence and while being able to not prove anything, this prompted the senate to call for a full investigation.[21]


The Second Red Scare profoundly altered the temper of American society. Its later characterizations may be seen as contributory to works of feared communist espionage, such as the film My Son John (1952), about parent's suspicions their son is a spy. Abundant accounts in narrative forms contained themes of the infiltration, subversion, invasion, and destruction of American society by un–American thought. Even a baseball team, the Cincinnati Reds, temporarily renamed themselves the "Cincinnati Redlegs" to avoid the money-losing and career-ruining connotations inherent in being ball-playing "Reds" (communists).

In 1954 congress passed the Communist Control Act of 1954 which prevented members of the communist party in America from holding office in labor unions and other labor organizations.

Wind Down[edit]

In 1954 after accusing the army, including war heroes, Senator Joseph McCarthy lost credibility in the eyes of the American public. He was formally censured by his colleagues in congress and the hearings led by McCarthy came to a close.[21] After the senate had formally censured McCarthy and he had lost a lot of his standing and political power some of the tension and excitement from a possible communist takeover died down.

From 1955 through 1959 the supreme court made several decisions which restricted the ways in which the government could enforce its anti-communist policies. which includes Limiting the federal loyalty program to only those who had access to sensitive information, and allowed defendants to face their accusers, weakened the strength of congressional investigation committees and weakened the smith act.[19]

In 1957 in Yates v. United States and in 1961 in Scales v. United States the supreme court limited congress's ability to circumvent the first amendment, and in 1967 during the Supreme Court case United States v. Robel the supreme court ruled that a ban on communists in the defense industry was unconstitutional.[23]

In 1995, the American government revealed details of the Venona Project, which when combined with the opening of the USSR ComIntern archives, provided substantial validation of intelligence gathering, outright spying, and policy influencing, by Americans on behalf of the Soviet Union, from 1940 through 1980.[24][25] Over 300 American communists, whether they knew it or not, including government officials and technicians that helped in developing the atom bomb were found to have engaged in espionage.[19]

See also[edit]


  2. ^ "Labour Movements, Trade Unions and Strikes (USA) | International Encyclopedia of the First World War (WW1)". Retrieved 2019-11-01.
  5. ^ May 2019), Deborah Fisher in. "Espionage Act of 1917". Retrieved 2019-10-31.
  6. ^ a b Cole, David D. (2003). "Enemy Aliens" (PDF). Stanford Law Review. Stanford Law Review, Vol. 54, No. 5. 54 (5): 953–1004. doi:10.2307/1229690. ISSN 0038-9765. JSTOR 1229690. OCLC 95029839. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 15, 2011.
  7. ^ "The Red Scare []". Retrieved 2019-10-31.
  8. ^ a b Cowley, Marcie K. "Red Scare". Retrieved 2019-10-31.
  12. ^ Kennedy, David M.; Lizabeth Cohen; Thomas A. Bailey (2001). The American Pageant. Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 978-0-669-39728-4. OCLC 48675667.
  15. ^ Mocking Bird Archived 2006-06-19 at the Wayback Machine, John Simkin, Spartacus Schoolnet
  18. ^ Countryman, Edward (2010). "Communism". In Kazin, Michael; Edwards, Rebecca; Rothman, Adam (eds.). The Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p. 175. ISBN 0-691-12971-1. OCLC 320801248. Retrieved May 3, 2011.
  19. ^ a b c d Storrs, Landon R. Y. (2015-07-02). "McCarthyism and the Second Red Scare". Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.6.
  20. ^ "The Hiss Case in History". The Hiss Case in Story. Harvard, NYU. 2009. Archived from the original on May 14, 2011. Retrieved 2010-07-28.
  21. ^ a b "McCarthyism []". Retrieved 2019-10-31.
  23. ^ Cowley, Marcie K. "Red Scare". Retrieved 2019-11-01.
  25. ^ Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy. "A Brief Account of the American Experience" (PDF). Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy. VI; Appendix A. U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. A–7. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 14, 2011. Retrieved 2006-06-26.

References and further reading[edit]

  • Regin Schmidt (2000). Red Scare: FBI and the Origins of Anticommunism in the United States, 1919-1943. Museum Tusculanum Press. pp. 1–391. ISBN 978-8772895819. OCLC 963460662.

External links[edit]