Red Scare in America, 1919
Problems of the 1920s, pg. 18
Russian
Revolution
KKK Rises
Again!
Sacco &
Vanzetti
Union
Strikes
The Red Scare
Rise of the Bolsheviks
American Reaction
• Americans worried about a new
enemy.
• Many Americans were frightened by
communism.
• The Bolsheviks, a revolutionary
group led by Vladimir I. Lenin, gained
control of Russia during World War I.
• Americans embraced capitalism and
feared a rise of the working class.
• Five years later Russia became part
of a new nation called the Soviet
Union.
• The picture of “the Hun,” a German
symbol, Americans focused hatred
on during WWI, was replaced by a
new target: communists, known as
Reds.
• The Bolsheviks wanted communism,
a new social system without economic
classes or private property.
• Lenin believed all people should share
equally in society’s wealth.
• Soviets called for the overthrow of
capitalism and predicted communism
would inspire workers to rise up and
crush it.
• Communist parties formed in the
U.S. after the war, some advocating
violent overthrow of the government.
• A Red Scare, or widespread fear of
communism, gripped the nation.
Russian Revolution
• Food riots caused many soldiers to
mutiny, desert, and caused the Czar to
abdicate.
• Bolshevik (Communist) Revolution
started in Russia on Nov. 1917.
• Communist government was established
in Russia.
• Communism: an economic and social
system that advocated for single party
and state ownership of property.
‘Sickle and Hammer’ became symbols
of communism and the tools of the
proletariat--working class.
Economic Systems and Cows
Pure Communism
You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all
share the milk.
Real World Communism
You share two cows with your neighbors. No one works, no one gets any
milk, and the cows drop dead of starvation.
Russian Communism
You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes
all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the black
market.
Cuban Communism You no longer have any cows. They sailed to Miami. You still
have no milk - but you do have Fidel.
Capitalism
You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull and build a herd.
KKK Rises Again!
• As a result of the Red Scare and rise of
immigration, KKK came to rise.
• KKK devoted to 100% Americanism:
White,non-immigrant, Protestant, etc.
• By 1924, it boasted over 4.5 million White
male members.
• Membership included states from
Arkansas, California, Indiana, Ohio,
Oklahoma, Oregon & Texas.
In 1925, nearly 25,000 KKK members marched
along Pennsylvania Ave. in Wash. D.C. to show
the group’s power & determination.
The rise of the KKK was a direct result of
nativist views in the US: overt favoritism
to native-born Americans.
Sacco & Vanzetti
• Red Scare raised suspicion of
foreigners.
• Nicola Sacco & Bartolomeo Vanzetti are
Italian immigrants who are accused
killing a paymaster and his guard for
their $15,000 payroll.
• The evidence against Sacco & Vanzetti
was circumstantial & the judge made
prejudicial remarks.
• Jury found them guilty and sentenced
them to death.
Sacco & Vanzetti were judged for being
anarchists—people who opposed any and all
forms of govt– and for avoiding the draft
during WWI.
Worldwide demonstrations were held in the
US, Europe and Latin America in protest
of their executions.
Last statement made by Vanzetti before he was
executed by the electric chair on Aug. 23, 1927…
“In all my life I have never stole, never killed,
never spilled blood…We were tried during a
time…when there was hysteria of
resentment and hate against the people of
our principles, against the foreigner…I am
suffering because I am a radical and indded
I am a radical; I have suffered because I
was an Italian and indeed I am an Italian…If
you could execute me two times, and if I
could be reborn two other times, I would live
again to do what I have done already.”
Plots, Laws, and Raids
• Radical communists might have been behind a failed 1919 plot, in which bombs were
mailed to government officials, including U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, a
former Progressive.
• Though the communism threat was probably not very great, the government took it
seriously.
• New York legislatures voted to bar five legally elected socialists from office and
passed a law making it a crime to call for government revolution.
– The Supreme Court found the law unconstitutional in the 1925 case of Gitlow v.
New York.
• Palmer was a key leader in the government’s anti-Communist campaign,
attacking radicals in the Palmer raids and justifying them with wartime laws
that gave the government broad power against suspected radicals.
• For aliens, or citizens of other countries living in the U.S., just belonging to certain
groups considered radical could lead to deportation, or being sent back to one’s own
country.
• In late 1919 Palmer's forces arrested thousands and deported hundreds.
• In time, the Red Scare died down, as overseas communism began to fail.
Union Strikes
• PALMER RAIDS: In Aug. 1919, Attorney General
A. Mitchell Palmer orders government agents to
hunt down and arrest suspected Communists,
socialists, and anarchists.
• Suspects were deported to foreign countries with
no real evidence.
• BOSTON POLICE STRIKE: In 1919, Boston
Police went on strike for increase in pay. The
remaining police were fired.
• STEEL MILL STIKE: In 1919, 350,000 workers
from the US Steel plant went on strike. Steel
company hired private police and used militia to
end strike, and killed 18 workers.