First Red Scare (1917–1920)
The origin of the Red Scare of 1917–1920 was the Russian Revolution of 1917, when Communists, or “Reds” (because of the color of the flags that revolutionaries commonly carried in the nineteenth century), seized control of Russia. In the United States, this event fueled existing prejudice against immigrants, particularly Jews and people from eastern and southern Europe. These people were widely characterized as Bolsheviks, the name of the political party that seized power in Russia after the revolution. Critics of U.S. immigration policy saw these immigrants as a threat to American stability and security, giving rise to the Red Scare, a period of near hysteria when Americans came to believe that Communist immigrants were plotting a revolution in the United States.
Events seemed to confirm Americans’ fears. In 1919 a large number of eastern European workers participated in a violent strike against the steel industry—part of a pattern of labor unrest that rocked the...
