
Briefly explain ONE way the Red Scare was related to World War I Russia got involved in the First World War. Things did not go so well in the front but even if things got a bit better, the home front collapsed completely, forcing the Tsar to abdicate. Without Russia's involvement in the First world War, you have no communism taking over.
Why was the Red Scare so feared?
The Red Scare, which gained notoriety during the First World War, represented the widespread concern that Americans had developed over the fear of communist (or anarchist, during the First World War era) subversion within society.
Why was it called Red Scare?
The Red Scare During The Cold War. During the Cold War, hysteria in the U.S. ensued over the perceived threat of Communism. This mass hysteria became known as ‘The Red Scare’ due to Communist’s loyalty to the red flag. These fears were not totally unfounded, as the USSR had been spying inside America for a long time.
What are facts about the Red Scare?
Red Scare Facts. The Red Scare is a term used to describe two period in American history during the Cold War. The first Red Scare, which took place from 1917 to 1920, was primarily concerned with the rise of communism in the West, especially in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. The United States government conducted congressional ...
What is the definition of Red Scare?
The term Red Scare denotes the promotion of fear of a potential rise of communism or radical leftism, used by anti-leftist proponents. In the United States, the First Red Scare was about worker revolution and political radicalism.
How was the Red Scare related to WW1 quizlet?
The first Red Scare in the U.S. happened just after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and during WW1, when people were very patriotic and social agitation of left-wingers further aggravated the political, national and social tensions.
How did WW1 affect the Red Scare?
The overt patriotism coming out of World War I, as evidenced by anti-German sentiment in Ohio, helped to fuel the Red Scare. The federal government's fervor in rooting out communists led to major violations of civil liberties. Ultimately, these violations led to a decrease in support for government actions.
Why did America have a Red Scare at the end of WW1?
At the war's end, following the October Revolution, American authorities saw the threat of communist revolution in the actions of organized labor, including such disparate cases as the Seattle General Strike and the Boston Police Strike and then in the bombing campaign directed by anarchist groups at political and ...
Why was the Red Scare important?
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".
Why was the Red Scare significant quizlet?
Terms in this set (16) A period in the United States history when everyone was so caught up in containment of communism, and investigated people within their community for communism. Even people in the government were suspected of being communist spies.
What was the result of the Red Scare quizlet?
What was the impact of the Red Scare on 1920s society? It lead to the deportation of many people, and Americans now feared communists and assumed any immigrant or member of a labor union was one.
What ended the First Red Scare?
1917 – 1920First Red Scare / Period
Which event is considered a consequence of the Red Scare?
Which event is considered a consequence of the Red Scare? Federal agents arrested (often without warrants) thousands of individuals affiliated with radical organizations and labor unions.
What was one effect of the Red Scare quizlet?
What was the impact of the Red Scare on 1920s society? It lead to the deportation of many people, and Americans now feared communists and assumed any immigrant or member of a labor union was one.
What were the causes and effects of the first Red Scare quizlet?
The first Red Scare in the U.S. happened just after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and during WW1, when people were very patriotic and social agitation of left-wingers further aggravated the political, national and social tensions.
What ended the first Red Scare?
1917 – 1920First Red Scare / Period
What events of 1919 caused the Red Scare How did the government respond?
How did the government respond? The Red Scare of 1919 occurred at a time when the American people felt threatened by the rising tide of Communism in Russia, widespread labor unrest, and the often bizarre forms of Anarchism. The most important government response was the beginning of the Palmer Raids.
What was the Red Scare?
Contents. The Red Scare was hysteria over the perceived threat posed by Communists in the U.S. during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, which intensified in the late 1940s and early 1950s. (Communists were often referred to as “Reds” for their allegiance to the red Soviet flag.) The Red Scare led to a range of actions ...
When was the first red scare?
First Red Scare: 1917-1920. The first Red Scare occurred in the wake of World War I. The Russian Revolution of 1917 saw the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, topple the Romanov dynasty, kicking off the rise of the communist party and inspiring international fear of Bolsheviks and anarchists. In the United States, labor strikes were on ...
What was the first effort to investigate communist activities?
House of Representatives, where the House Un-American Activities Committee ( HUAC) was formed in 1938. HUAC’s investigations frequently focused on exposing Communists working inside the federal government or subversive elements working in the Hollywood film industry, and the committee gained new momentum following World War II, as the Cold War began. Under pressure from the negative publicity aimed at their studios, movie executives created Hollywood blacklists that barred suspected radicals from employment; similar lists were also established in other industries.
How did the Red Scare affect Americans?
Americans also felt the effects of the Red Scare on a personal level, and thousands of alleged communist sympathizers saw their lives disrupted. They were hounded by law enforcement, alienated from friends and family and fired from their jobs. While a small number of the accused may have been aspiring revolutionaries, most others were the victims of false allegations or had done nothing more than exercise their democratic right to join a political party.
What was the Sedition Act of 1918?
The Sedition Act of 1918 targeted people who criticized the government, monitoring radicals and labor union leaders with the threat of deportation. The fear turned to violence with the 1919 anarchist bombings, a series of bombs targeting law enforcement and government officials.
What was the Cold War?
Following World War II (1939-45), the democratic United States and the communist Soviet Union became engaged in a series of largely political and economic clashes known as the Cold War. The intense rivalry between the two superpowers raised concerns in the United States that Communists and leftist sympathizers inside America might actively work as Soviet spies and pose a threat to U.S. security.
Where did the Red Scare happen?
Bombs went off in a wide number of cities including Boston, Cleveland, Philadelphia, D.C., and New York City. The first Red Scare climaxed in 1919 and 1920, when United States Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer ordered the Palmer raids, a series of violent law-enforcement raids targeting leftist radicals and anarchists.
What was the Red Scare?
United States. The first Red Scare resulted in laws such as the Sedition Act of 1918 that suppressed many forms of speech. Debs v. United States (1919) was one Supreme Court case from this time. Eugene V. Debs had been imprisoned in 1918 under the Sedition Act, for giving a speech against participation in the First World War.
What was the second red scare?
A second Red Scare came with a revival of anti-Communist feeling after World War II that lasted into the 1950 s. In both periods First Amendment rights providing for free expression and free association were endangered and put on trial.
What was the first anti-communist alarm?
The first anti-Communist alarm, or Red Scare, in the United States occurred between 1917 and 1920, precipitated by the events of World War I and the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. A second Red Scare came with a revival of anti-Communist feeling after World War II that lasted into the 1950s. In both periods First Amendment rights providing for free expression and free association were endangered and put on trial. (Cover of a propaganda comic book from 1947, image via Wikimedia Commons, public domain)
What happened to the perception that those investigating Communism had engaged in excess?
Over time, the perception that those investigating Communism had engaged in excess led to the demise of most of their abuses. Fears eventually diminished as prophecies of imminent Communist takeover proved unfounded. This article was originally published in 2009.
Which branch of government was involved in the Palmer raids?
The executive branch also played a part. Most notably, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, in the so-called Palmer raids, authorized the arrests of several thousand suspected radicals, and many were deported to the Soviet Union. In the 1920s, prosecutions under state syndicalism statutes were upheld in favor of state curtailment of free speech in Gitlow v. New York (1925) and Whitney v. California (1927). Many years later Whitney was overruled by Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969).
Which Supreme Court case was the first to establish the clear and present danger test?
Convictions under the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act were upheld in several Supreme Court cases in 1919, including Schenck v. United States, in which Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. first outlined his clear and present danger test; Debs v. United States; and Abrams v. United States.
What is the red scare?
A Red Scare is the promotion of a widespread fear of a potential rise of communism, anarchism or other leftist ideologies by a society or state. The term is most often used to refer to two periods in the history of the United States which are referred to by this name.
What was the second red scare?
The second Red Scare occurred after World War II (1939–1945), 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 .
What laws were passed during the Red Scare?
The restrictions included free speech limitations. 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. 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.
What did the press portray as a threat to American society?
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".
Why did President Wilson use the Sedition Act of 1918?
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 ." 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.
What industries did the Industrial Workers of the World strike?
These wartime strikes covered a wide range of industries including steel working, shipbuilding, coal mining, copper mining, as well as other industries necessary to make wartime necessities .
Why was the urging treason act not mailed?
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. A "European Anarchist " attempts to destroy the Statue of Liberty in this 1919 political cartoon.
What was the Red Scare?
The Red Scare. Truman’s last years in office were marred by charges that his administration was lax about, or even condoned, subversion and disloyalty and that communists, called “reds,” had infiltrated the government. These accusations were made despite Truman’s strongly anticommunist foreign policy and his creation, in 1947, ...
Who capitalized the Red Scare?
Although he disliked their methods, Eisenhower allowed Republican campaigners, including his running mate, Sen. Richard M. Nixon of California, to capitalize on the Red Scare by accusing the Truman administration of disloyalty.
How many casualties did Eisenhower have in the Korean War?
The talks dragged on fruitlessly, interrupted by outbreaks of fighting, until Eisenhower became president. The United States sustained some 142,000 casualties in this limited war, most of them occurring after China’s entry. U.S. troops preparing for the assault on Inch'ŏn during the Korean War, September 1950.
What was the cause of the fear of communism?
The excessive fear of communist subversion was fed by numerous sources. China’s fall to communism and the announcement of a Soviet atomic explosion in 1949 alarmed many, and fighting between communist and U.S.-supported factions in Korea heightened political emotions as well. Real cases of disloyalty and espionage also contributed, notably the theft of atomic secrets, for which Soviet agent Julius Rosenberg and his wife Ethel were convicted in 1951 and executed two years later. Republicans had much to gain from exploiting these and related issues.
How did the United States attempt to unify Korea?
Not content with this victory, the United States attempted to unify Korea by force, advancing almost to the borders of China and the Soviet Union. China, after its warnings were ignored, then entered the war, driving the UN forces back into South Korea.
Who was the senator who stood out among those who held that the Roosevelt and Truman administrations amounted to “?
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg during their 1951 trial for espionage. Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin stood out among those who held that the Roosevelt and Truman administrations amounted to “20 years of treason.”.
When did the Korean War start?
The Korean War. On June 25, 1950, a powerful invading force from the Soviet-supported Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) swept south of the 38th parallel into the Republic of Korea (South Korea).
What was the isolation of the US during the 1920s?
a disillusionment over the outcomes of the war (The US Senate's rejection of membership in the League of Nations and the Treaty of Versailles are the beginnings of the isolation typical of US foreign policy during the 1920's and 30's. The US also isolates itself economically, curbing international trade and imposing tariffs to exclude foreign goods. A series of isolationist, anti-immigration laws such as the National Origins Act and the Emergency Quota Act also serve to further isolate the US from the rest of the globe.)
What was the opposition of some members of Congress to the Versailles Treaty based on?
After World War I, the opposition of some Members of Congress to the Versailles Treaty was based largely on the idea that the Treaty

Overview
Second Red Scare (1947–1957)
The second Red Scare occurred after World War II (1939–1945), and is known as "McCarthyism" after its best-known advocate, Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthyism coincided with an increased and widespread 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 …
First Red Scare (1917–1920)
The first Red Scare began following the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent wave of Communist revolutions throughout Europe and beyond. Domestically, these were the intensely patriotic years of World War I, with anarchist and other left-wing social agitation aggravating national, social, and political tensions. Political scientist and former member of the Communist Party Murray …
New Red Scare
According to The New York Times, China's growing military and economic power has resulted in a "New Red Scare" in the United States. Both Democrats and Republicans have expressed "Anti-China sentiment". According to The Economist, the New Red Scare has caused the American government and Chinese government to "increasingly view Chinese students with suspicion" on American college campuses.
See also
• American social policy during the Second Red Scare
• Church Committee
• Cold War
• The Crucible
• Espionage Act of 1917
Further reading
• K. A. Cuordileone, "The Torment of Secrecy: Reckoning with Communism and Anti-Communism After Venona", Diplomatic History, vol. 35, no. 4 (Sept. 2011), pp. 615–642.
• Albert Fried, McCarthyism, the Great American Red Scare: A Documentary History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997
External links
• "Political Tests for Professors: Academic Freedom during the McCarthy Years" by Ellen Schrecker, The University Loyalty Oath, October 7, 1999.