Red Scare - Wikipedia

Jump to content

Contents

move to sidebar hide

• (Top)
• 1 History Toggle History subsection
  • 1.1 First Red Scare (1917–1920)
  • 1.2 Second Red Scare (1940s–1950s)
    • 1.2.1 Internal causes of the anti-communist fear
    • 1.2.2 Early years
    • 1.2.3 World War II (1939–1945)
    • 1.2.4 Increasing tension (1945–1954)
    • 1.2.5 Wind down (1954–1957)
• 2 New Red Scare
• 3 Outside the United States
• 4 See also
• 5 References
• 6 Further reading
• 7 External links

• Article
• Talk

English

• Read
• Edit
• View history

Tools Tools move to sidebar hide Actions

• Read
• Edit
• View history

General

• What links here
• Related changes
• Upload file
• Permanent link
• Page information
• Cite this page
• Get shortened URL
• Download QR code

Print/export

• Download as PDF
• Printable version

In other projects

• Wikimedia Commons
• Wikidata item

Appearance move to sidebar hide From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Any of several events in which widespread fear of communism or leftism developsNot to be confused with Red Terror. For other uses, see Red Scare (disambiguation). For broader coverage of this topic, see Anti-communism.

Part of a series on
Anti-communism
HistoryConflicts and military engagements Revolutions and violence after 1917 Russia White movement Basmachi Finland Whites Hungary Germany Chinese Civil War Spanish Civil War Bando nacional World War II and aftermath Axis powers Anti-Comintern Pact Collaboration Eastern Front Anti-Soviet insurgencies Yugoslav Front Chetniks Post-war period in Germany Resistance in Poland (1944–1989) Greek Civil War Reverse Course Malayan Emergency Korean War Indochina wars Vietnam War Central American crisis New Order Afghan conflict Afghan mujahideen Operation Cyclone Revolutions of 1989 Repression and mass killings White Terror Russia Pogroms Hungary China Spain Greece Taiwan Finnish Civil War prison camps[citation needed] First Red Scare Palmer Raids Kantō Massacre Shanghai massacre The Holocaust Bodo League massacre Guatemalan genocide Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66 Operation Condor 1981–1982 Iran Massacres East Timor genocide Miscellaneous McCarthyism Decommunization Russia Ukraine Embargo against Cuba
Ideologies Anti-Marxism Anti-imperialism PRC Soviet Christian democracy (factions) Class collaboration Conservatism Authoritarian Neo- Libertarian Fascism Nazism Neo- Para- Post- Islamism Liberalism Classical Cold War Neo- Personal ideologies Chiangism Fujimorism Khomeinism Metaxism Orthodox Peronism Pinochetism Reaganism Thatcherism Nationalisms Afghan American Americanism Chinese French Révolution nationale Hong Kong Hungarian Szeged Idea Indonesian Pancasila Korean Ilminism Polish Romanian Russian Spanish National Catholicism Taiwanese Huadu Ukrainian Natsdems Vietnamese Person Dignity Theory
Prominent figuresIntellectuals Benedict XVI Buckley Chambers Friedman John Paul II Kristol Orwell Pius XII Rand Sakharov Savarkar Solzhenitsyn Sowell Politicians Adenauer Antonescu Bandera Batista Begin Bolsonaro Boris III Bordaberry Brzezinski Bush Castelo Branco Chiang Churchill Dollfuss Dulles Duvalier (François) Duvalier (Jean-Claude) Eisenhower Franco Fujimori Goldwater Habre Habyarimana Hácha Havel Hitler Hoover Horthy Jackson Johnson Kennedy Khomeini Kishi Kohl Kolchak Lee K. Y. MacArthur Mannerheim Marcos McCarthy McNamara Médici Metaxas Mihailović Milei Montt Mulroney Mussolini Nedić Ngo Nicholas II Nol Pahlavi II Palmer Papadopoulos Park Pavelić Pétain Piłsudski Pinochet Poroshenko Reagan Rhee Sann Saakashvili Salazar Selassie Smith Stroessner Suharto Thanom Thatcher Tiso Truman Tunku Videla Wałęsa Weinberger Yeltsin Activists Cohn Welch
Political parties Croatian Democratic Union Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Progressive Party Democratic Republican Party (South Korea) European People’s Party European Conservatives and Reformists FET y de las JONS Free Costa Rica Movement Golkar Greater Japan Patriotic Party Herstigte Nasionale Party Independent Anti-Communist Party of the West Kataeb Party Katipunan ng Demokratikong Pilipino Khmer People's National Liberation Front Khmer Power Party Khmer Serei Kuomintang (historical, now factions) Law and Justice Liberal Democratic Party (Japan) Liberal Party Brazil South Korea Liberty Korea Party National Fascist Party National Will Party Nazi Party ORJUNA Progress of the Fatherland Party Ratniks RENAMO Republican Party of Chile Republican Party (United States) Social Republican Party SUMKA Tacuara Nationalist Movement Turkistan Islamic Party UNAMO Union of Bulgarian National Legions VMRO-DPMNE
Organisations Anti-Communist Action Anti-Communist Volunteer Militia Argentine Anticommunist Alliance Armata Neagră Black Cat group Brigade 2506 Bugojno group CIA activities Indonesia Italy Japan Vietnam Chetniks Chushi Gangdruk Citizens' Home Army Contras Democratic Revolutionary Alliance Eagles of the Central Hills EOKA European Economic Community Falun Gong The Epoch Times Forest Guerrillas Free Joseon Freedom and Independence Association Freikorps International Anticommunist Entente International Democracy Union Iron Front John Birch Society League of Ukrainian Nationalists Lithuanian Activist Front Lithuanian Liberty Army Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution Organization Mongoose Gang Muslim Brotherhood IICC Mano Blanca NATO National Anti-Communist Front National Committee of Defense Against Communism National Revolutionary Army Nawaphon New Guard NTF-ELCAC Paix et Liberté Pancasila Youth Patrianovism Pro Libertate Propaganda Due Royal Lao Government in Exile Secret Anti-Communist Army Slovene Chetniks Slovene Home Guard Society Guard Taiwan Foundation for Democracy Taiwan Garrison Command Ukrainian Galician Army Ukrainian Insurgent Army Ukrainian People's Militsiya United Nations Partisan Infantry Korea Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation Vullnetari World League for Freedom and Democracy
By region China Central and Eastern Europe Japan Tenkō Uyoku dantai Taiwan "Green Terror"
Laws and systems Bans on communist symbols Domestic laws Anti-Socialist Laws Peace Preservation Law Temporary Provisions (Taiwan) National Security Act (South Korea) Decree against Communism Communist Control Act of 1954 Ukrainian decommunization laws Anti-Infiltration Act Crucial Communism Teaching Act
See also Anti-LGBTQ rhetoric Lavender Scare Anti-national sentiments Chinese Jewish Judeo-Bolshevism North Korean Russian Vietnamese Anti anti-communism Anti-Stalinist Left Atheophobia Capitalism Authoritarian Cold War Post Second Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism Totalitarianism Western Bloc "Free World" Pro-Americanism Pro-ROC sentiment "Free China" Red Scare Red-baiting Red triangle U.S. policy toward authoritarian governments
Communism portal Politics portal
v t e

A Red Scare is a form of moral panic provoked by fear of the rise of left-wing ideologies in a society, especially communism and socialism. Historically, red scares have led to mass political persecution, scapegoating, and the ousting of those in government positions who have had connections with left-wing movements. The name is derived from the red flag, a common symbol of communism and socialism.

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. The First Red Scare, which occurred immediately after World War I, revolved around a perceived threat from the American labor movement, anarchist revolution, and political radicalism that followed revolutionary socialist movements in Germany and Russia during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Second Red Scare, which occurred immediately after World War II, was preoccupied with the perception that national or foreign communists were infiltrating or subverting American society and the federal government.

Following the end of the Cold War, unearthed documents revealed substantial Soviet spy activity in the United States, although many of the agents were never properly identified by Senator Joseph McCarthy.[1][2]

History

[edit]

First Red Scare (1917–1920)

[edit] Main article: First Red Scare

The first Red Scare in the United States accompanied the Russian Revolution (specifically the October Revolution) and the Revolutions of 1917–1923. Citizens of the United States in the years of World War I (1914–1918) were intensely patriotic; anarchist and left-wing social agitation aggravated national, social, and political tensions.[citation needed] Political scientist and former Communist Party USA member Murray 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".[3] News media exacerbated such fears, channeling them into anti-foreign sentiment due to the lively debate among recent immigrants from Europe regarding various forms of anarchism as possible solutions to widespread poverty. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), also known as the Wobblies, backed several labor strikes in 1916 and 1917. These strikes covered a wide range of industries including steel working, shipbuilding, coal mining, copper mining, and others necessary for wartime activities.

After World War I ended (November 1918), the number of strikes increased to record levels in 1919, with more than 3,600 separate strikes by a wide range of workers, e.g. steel workers, railroad shop workers, and the Boston police department.[4] The press portrayed these worker strikes as "radical threats to American society" inspired by "left-wing, foreign agents provocateurs". The IWW and those sympathetic to workers claimed that the press "misrepresented legitimate labor strikes" as "crimes against society", "conspiracies against the government", and "plots to establish communism".[5] Opponents of labor viewed strikes 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.[6]

In June 1917, as a response to World War I, Congress passed the Espionage Act to prevent any information relating to national defense from being used to harm the United States or to 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.[7]

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 2 June 1919, in eight cities, eight bombs exploded simultaneously. 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).[8] He deported 249 Russian immigrants on the "Soviet Ark", formed the General Intelligence Unit – a precursor to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) – within the Department of Justice, and used federal agents to jail more than 5,000 citizens and to search homes without respecting their constitutional rights.[9]

In 1918, before the bombings, President Woodrow Wilson had pressured 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".[8] President Wilson used the Sedition Act of 1918 to limit the exercise of free speech by criminalizing language deemed disloyal to the United States government.[10]

Initially, the press praised the raids; The Washington Post stated: "There is no time to waste on hairsplitting over [the] infringement of liberty", and The New York Times wrote that 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".[11] In the event, twelve publicly prominent lawyers characterized the Palmer Raids as unconstitutional. The critics included future Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, who published Report Upon 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".[12] 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.[13] Wall Street was bombed on 16 September 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.[14]

In 1919–20, several states enacted "criminal syndicalism" laws outlawing advocacy of violence in effecting and securing social change. The restrictions included limitations on free speech.[15] 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.[16] This aggressive crackdown on certain ideologies resulted in many Supreme Court cases over free speech. In the 1919 case of Schenk v. United States, the Supreme Court, introducing the clear-and-present-danger test, effectively deemed the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 constitutional.[17]

Second Red Scare (1940s–1950s)

[edit] Main article: McCarthyism

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 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 drop nuclear bombs on the United States, and fear of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA).

In Canada, the 1946 Kellock–Taschereau Commission investigated espionage after top-secret documents concerning RDX, radar and other weapons were handed over to the Soviets by a domestic spy-ring.[18][19]

At the House Un-American Activities Committee, former CPUSA members and NKVD spies, Elizabeth Bentley and Whittaker Chambers, testified that Soviet spies and communist sympathizers had penetrated the U.S. government before, during and after World War II. Other U.S. citizen spies confessed to their acts of espionage in situations where the statute of limitations on prosecuting them had run out. In 1949, anti-communist fear, and fear of American traitors, was aggravated by the Chinese Communists winning the Chinese Civil War against the Western-sponsored Kuomintang, their founding of the Communist China, and later Chinese intervention (October–December 1950) in the Korean War (1950–1953) against U.S. ally South Korea.

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.[20] 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.[21]

Historian Richard Powers distinguishes two main forms of anti-communism during the period, liberal anti-communism and countersubversive anti-communism. The countersubversives, he argues, derived from a pre-WWII isolationist tradition on the right. Liberal anti-communists believed that political debate was enough to show Communists as disloyal and irrelevant, while countersubversive anticommunists believed that Communists had to be exposed and punished.[22] At times, countersubversive anticommunists accused liberals of being "equally destructive" as Communists due to an alleged lack of religious values or supposed "red web" infiltration into the New Deal.[22]

Much evidence for Soviet espionage existed, according to Democratic Senator and historian Daniel Moynihan, with the Venona project consisting of "overwhelming proof of the activities of Soviet spy networks in America, complete with names, dates, places, and deeds." However, Moynihan argued that because sources like the Venona project were kept secret for so long, "ignorant armies clashed by night". With McCarthy advocating an extremist view, the discussion of communist subversion was made into a civil rights issue instead of a counterintelligence one.[23] This historiographical perspective is shared by historians John Earl Haynes[24] and Robert Louis Benson.[25] While President Truman formulated the Truman Doctrine against Soviet expansion, it is possible he was not fully informed of the Venona intercepts, leaving him unaware of the domestic extent of espionage, according to Moynihan and Benson.[26]

Early years

[edit]

By the 1930s, communism had become an attractive economic ideology, particularly among labor leaders and intellectuals. By 1939, the CPUSA had about 50,000 members.[27] In 1940, soon after World War II began in Europe, the U.S. Congress legislated the Alien Registration Act (also known as the Smith Act, 18 USC § 2385) making it a crime to "knowingly or willfully advocate, abet, advise or teach the duty, necessity, desirability or propriety of overthrowing the Government of the United States or of any State by force or violence, or for anyone to organize any association which teaches, advises or encourages such an overthrow, or for anyone to become a member of or to affiliate with any such association"—and required Federal registration of all foreign nationals. Although principally deployed against communists, the Smith Act was also used against right-wing political threats such as the German-American Bund, and the perceived racial disloyalty of the Japanese-American population (cf. hyphenated-Americans).

World War II (1939–1945)

[edit]

After the Soviet Union signed the non-aggression Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany on 23 August 1939, negative attitudes towards communists in the United States were on the rise. While the American communist party at first attacked Germany for its 1 September 1939 invasion of western Poland, on 11 September it received a blunt directive from Moscow denouncing the Polish government.[28] On 17 September, the Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland and occupied the Polish territory assigned to it by the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, followed by co-ordination with German forces in Poland.[29][30] The CPUSA turned the focus of its public activities from anti-fascism to advocating peace, not only opposing military preparations, but also condemning those opposed to Hitler. The party did not at first attack President Roosevelt, reasoning that this could devastate American Communism, blaming instead Roosevelt's advisors.[31]

On 30 November, when Soviet Union attacked Finland and after forced mutual assistance pacts from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the Communist Party considered Russian security sufficient justification to support the actions.[32] Secret short wave radio broadcasts in October from Comintern leader Georgi Dimitrov ordered CPUSA leader Earl Browder to change the party's support for Roosevelt.[32] On 23 October, the party began attacking Roosevelt.[33] The party was active in the isolationist America First Committee.[34] The CPUSA also dropped its boycott of Nazi goods, spread the slogans "The Yanks Are Not Coming" and "Hands Off", set up a "perpetual peace vigil" across the street from the White House and announced that Roosevelt was the head of the "war party of the American bourgeoisie".[33] By April 1940, the party Daily Worker's line seemed not so much antiwar as simply pro-German.[35] A pamphlet stated the Jews had just as much to fear from Britain and France as they did Germany.[35] In August 1940, after NKVD agent Ramón Mercader killed Trotsky with an ice axe, Browder perpetuated Moscow's fiction that the killer, who had been dating one of Trotsky's secretaries, was a disillusioned follower.[36]

In allegiance to the Soviet Union, the party changed this policy again after Hitler broke the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact by attacking the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941. The CPUSA opposed 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.[37] 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 (1945–1954)

[edit] See also: US Strike wave of 1945–1946

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.[38] 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.[38] 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 careers of Richard Nixon and Robert F. Kennedy,[39] as well as that of Joseph McCarthy. The HUAC 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. Critics of the HUAC claim their tactics were an abuse of government power and resulted in a witch hunt that disregarded citizens’ rights and ruined their careers and reputations. Critics claim the internal witch hunt was a use for personal gain to spread influence for government officials by intensifying the fear of Communists infiltrating the country. Supporters, however, believe the actions of the HUAC were justified given the level of threat Communism posed to democracy in the United States.

Senator 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, and made accusations against suspected communists. Although he provided little or no evidence, this prompted the Senate to call for a full investigation.[40]

Senator Pat McCarran (D., Nev.) introduced the McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950 that was passed by the U.S. Congress and which modified a great deal of law to restrict civil liberties in the name of security. President Truman declared the act a "mockery of the Bill of Rights" and a "long step toward totalitarianism" because it represented a government restriction on the freedom of opinion. He vetoed the act but his veto was overridden by Congress.[41] Much of the bill eventually was repealed.

The formal establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 and the beginning of the Korean War in 1950 meant that Asian Americans, especially those of Chinese or Korean descent, came under increasing suspicion by both American civilians and government officials of being Communist sympathizers. Simultaneously, some American politicians saw the prospect of American-educated Chinese students bringing their knowledge back to "Red China" as an unacceptable threat to American national security, and laws such as the China Aid Act of 1950 and the Refugee Relief Act of 1953 gave significant assistance to Chinese students who wished to settle in the United States. Despite being naturalized, however, Chinese immigrants continued to face suspicion of their allegiance. The general effect, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison scholar Qing Liu, was to simultaneously demand that Chinese (and other Asian) students politically support the American government yet avoid engaging directly in politics.[42]

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 parents' 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 (1954–1957)

[edit]

Examining the political controversies of the 1940s and 1950s, historian John Earl Haynes, who studied the Venona decryptions extensively, argued that Joseph McCarthy's attempts to "make anti-communism a partisan weapon" actually "threatened [the post-War] anti-Communist consensus", thereby ultimately harming anti-communist efforts more than helping them.[24] Meanwhile, the "shockingly high level" of infiltration by Soviet agents during WWII had largely dissipated by 1950.[24] Liberal anti-communists like Edward Shils and Daniel Moynihan had contempt for McCarthyism, and Moynihan argued that McCarthy's overreaction distracted from the "real (but limited) extent of Soviet espionage in America."[23] In 1950, President Harry Truman called Joseph McCarthy "the greatest asset the Kremlin has."[43]

In 1954, after accusing the army, including war heroes, Senator Joseph McCarthy lost credibility in the eyes of the American public and the Army-McCarthy Hearings were held in the summer of 1954. He was formally censured by his colleagues in Congress and the hearings led by McCarthy came to a close.[40] After the Senate formally censured McCarthy,[44] his political standing and power were significantly diminished, and much of the tension surrounding the idea of 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, some of which included limiting the federal loyalty program to only those who had access to sensitive information, allowing defendants to face their accusers, reducing the strength of congressional investigation committees, and weakening the Smith Act.[38] In the 1957 case Yates v. United States and the 1961 case 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.[45]

In 1995, the American government declassified details of the Venona Project following the Moynihan Commission, 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.[46][47] 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.[38] This allegedly included some pro-Soviet capitalists, such as economist Harry Dexter White,[48][49] and communist businessman David Karr.[50]

New Red Scare

[edit] Further information: Chinese espionage in the United States, List of Chinese spy cases in the United States, Anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States § 21st century Anti-Chinese sentiment and presidential campaigns, and China–United States relations

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.[51] According to The Economist, the New Red Scare has caused the American and Chinese governments to "increasingly view Chinese students with suspicion" on American college campuses.[52]

The fourth iteration of the Committee on the Present Danger, a United States foreign policy interest group, was established on 25 March 2019, branding itself Committee on the Present Danger: China (CPDC).[51] The CPDC has been criticized as promoting a revival of Red Scare politics in the United States, and for its ties to conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney and conservative activist Steve Bannon.[51][53] David Skidmore, writing for The Diplomat, saw it as another instance of "adolescent hysteria" in American diplomacy, as another of the "fevered crusades [which] have produced some of the costliest mistakes in American foreign policy".[53] Between 2000 and 2023, there were 224 reported instances of Chinese espionage directed at the United States.[54]

Outside the United States

[edit]

The American Red Scares, combined with the general atmosphere of the Cold War, had a marked influence on other Anglophone countries. Anticommunist paranoia occurred in Australia,[55] Canada,[56] and the United Kingdom.[57] In other parts of the world, such as Indonesia, fear and loathing of communism has escalated to the level of political violence.

See also

[edit]

• American social policy during the Second Red Scare
• China threat theory
• Church Committee
• Cold War
• The Crucible
• Espionage Act of 1917
• Eugene Debs and Debs v. United States
• Fear mongering
• Foley Square trial
• History of Soviet espionage in the United States
• Hollywood blacklist
• Jencks Act
• Jencks v. United States
• Kellock–Taschereau Commission
• Lavender scare
• McCarthyism
• Moral panic
• Pentagon military analyst program
• Propaganda in the United States
• Psychological operations (United States)
• The Reagan Doctrine
• The Red Decade
• Red-tagging in the Philippines
• Rooi gevaar ("red danger" in Afrikaans)
• Subversive Activities Control Board
• Tankie
• Terruqueo
• US intervention in Latin America
• White Terror (Taiwan)
• Witch-hunt
• Yellow Peril

References

[edit]

1. ^ Haynes, John Earl; Klehr, Harvey (1999). "Venona and the Cold War". Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America. Yale University Press. pp. 8–22. ISBN 978-0-300-07771-1. JSTOR j.ctt1npk87.
2. ^ Isserman, Maurice (9 May 1999). "They Led Two Lives". The New York Times Book Review. ISSN 0028-7806. Retrieved 10 December 2024.
3. ^ Levin, Murray B. (1971). Political Hysteria in America: The Democratic Capacity for Repression. Basic Books. p. 29. ISBN 0-465-05898-1. OCLC 257349.
4. ^ "Labour Movements, Trade Unions and Strikes (USA) | International Encyclopedia of the First World War". encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net. Archived from the original on 6 November 2022. Retrieved 6 December 2022. The strike surge of 1919 featured unprecedented levels of industrial conflict. Acting as the capstone to the long strike wave of 1915–1922, it involved nearly one out of every four workers — over 4,160,000 in total, 20 percent of the labor force — walking out in more than 3,630 work stoppages, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
5. ^ Political Hysteria in America: The Democratic Capacity for Repression (1971), p. 31
6. ^ "Industrial Workers of the World: Constitution Preamble". www.iww.org. 2021. Retrieved 28 October 2022.
7. ^ Fisher, Deborah (May 2019). "Espionage Act of 1917". MTSU. Retrieved 31 October 2019.
8. ^ a b Cole, David D. (2003). "Enemy Aliens" (PDF). Stanford Law Review. 54 (5): 953–1004. doi:10.2307/1229690. ISSN 0038-9765. JSTOR 1229690. OCLC 95029839. Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 August 2011.
9. ^ "The Red Scare [ushistory.org]". www.ushistory.org. Archived from the original on 1 November 2019. Retrieved 31 October 2019.
10. ^ Cowley, Marcie K. "Red Scare". www.mtsu.edu. Archived from the original on 16 October 2019. Retrieved 31 October 2019.
11. ^ Farquhar, Michael (2003). A Treasury of Great American Scandals. Penguin Books. p. 199. ISBN 0-14-200192-9. OCLC 51810711.
12. ^ To the American People: Report Upon the Illegal Practices of the United States Department of Justice. The League. 1920. Retrieved 6 April 2025.
13. ^ Hakim, Joy (1995). War, Peace, and All That Jazz. New York, New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 34–36. ISBN 0-19-509514-6.
14. ^ Gage, Beverly (2009). The Day Wall Street Exploded: A Story of America in its First Age of Terror. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 160–161. ISBN 978-0-19-514824-4. OCLC 149137353. The Day Wall Street Exploded.
15. ^ Kennedy, David M.; Lizabeth Cohen; Thomas A. Bailey (2001). The American Pageant. Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 978-0-669-39728-4. OCLC 48675667. The American Pageant.
16. ^ O. Dickerson, Mark (2006). An Introduction to Government and Politics, Seventh Edition. Toronto: Nelson. ISBN 0-17-641676-5.
17. ^ Cowley, Marcie K. "Red Scare". MTSU. Archived from the original on 3 December 2022. Retrieved 6 December 2022. 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 [...].
18. ^ Government of Canada, Public Services and Procurement Canada (1 July 2002). "The report of the Royal Commission Appointed under Order in Council P.C. 411 of February 5, 1946 to Investigate the Facts Relating to and the Circumstances Surrounding the Communication, by Public Officials and Other Persons in Positions of Trust of Secret and Confidential Information to Agents of a Foreign Power / Robert Taschereau and R.L. Kellock, commissioners. : CP32-103/1946E-PDF ; Z1-1946/2E-PDF - Government of Canada Publications - Canada.ca". publications.gc.ca. Retrieved 15 June 2025.
19. ^ Wright, Barry; Binnie, Susan; Tucker, Eric (1 November 2022). Canadian State Trials, Volume V: World War, Cold War, and Challenges to Sovereignty, 1939–1990. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-1-4875-4604-5.
20. ^ Mocking Bird Archived 19 June 2006 at the Wayback Machine, John Simkin, Spartacus Schoolnet
21. ^ See for example Wedge: The Secret War between the FBI and CIA, by Mark Riebling
22. ^ a b Powers, Richard Gid (1998). Not without honor : the history of American anticommunism. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 214, 225. ISBN 0-300-07470-0. OCLC 39245533.
23. ^ a b Moynihan, Daniel Patrick (1998). Secrecy: The American Experience. Yale University Press. p. 15-16. ISBN 978-0-300-08079-7.
24. ^ a b c Haynes, John Earl (February 2000). "Exchange with Arthur Herman and Venona book talk". JohnEarlHaynes.org. Archived from the original on 24 February 2021. Retrieved 11 July 2007.
25. ^ Benson, Robert Louis; Warner, Michael (1996). Venona Soviet Espionage and the American Response 1939–1957. National Security Agency. p. xxxiii. Archived from the original on 26 October 2022. Retrieved 17 September 2021.
26. ^ "Did Truman Know about Venona?". fas.org. Archived from the original on 30 July 2021. Retrieved 12 June 2021.
27. ^ Johnpoll, Bernard K. (1994). A Documentary History of the Communist Party of the United States: Volume III Unite and Fight, 1934–1935. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. pp. xv. ISBN 978-0-313-28506-6. OCLC 27976811. Archived from the original on 10 October 2009. Retrieved 10 September 2017.
28. ^ Ryan, J. G. (1997). Earl Browder: the failure of American communism. University of Alabama Press. p. 162. ISBN 978-0-585-28017-2.
29. ^ Roberts, Geoffrey (2006). Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953. Yale University Press. p. 44. ISBN 978-0-300-11204-7.
30. ^ Sanford, George (2005). Katyn and the Soviet Massacre of 1940: Truth, Justice And Memory. London, New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-33873-5.
31. ^ Ryan, J. G. (1997). Earl Browder: the failure of American communism. University of Alabama Press. pp. 164–165. ISBN 978-0-585-28017-2.
32. ^ a b Ryan, J. G. (1997). Earl Browder: the failure of American communism. University of Alabama Press. p. 166. ISBN 978-0-585-28017-2.
33. ^ a b Ryan, J. G. (1997). Earl Browder: the failure of American communism. University of Alabama Press. p. 168. ISBN 978-0-585-28017-2.
34. ^ Selig Adler (1957). The isolationist impulse: its twentieth-century reaction. pp. 269–270, 274.ISBN 9780837178226
35. ^ a b Ryan, J. G. (1997). Earl Browder: the failure of American communism. University of Alabama Press. p. 186. ISBN 978-0-585-28017-2.
36. ^ Ryan, J. G. (1997). Earl Browder: the failure of American communism. University of Alabama Press. p. 189. ISBN 978-0-585-28017-2.
37. ^ 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 978-0-691-12971-6. OCLC 320801248. Retrieved 3 May 2011.
38. ^ a b c d Storrs, Landon R. Y. (2 July 2015). "McCarthyism and the Second Red Scare". Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.6. ISBN 978-0199329175. Archived from the original on 3 July 2018. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
39. ^ "The Hiss Case in History". The Hiss Case in Story. Harvard, NYU. 2009. Archived from the original on 14 May 2011. Retrieved 28 July 2010.
40. ^ a b "McCarthyism [ushistory.org]". www.ushistory.org. Archived from the original on 31 October 2019. Retrieved 31 October 2019.
41. ^ Lane, Frederick S. (2009). American Privacy: The 400-year History of Our Most Contested Right. Boston: Beacon Press. p. 130. ISBN 978-0-8070-4441-4. Retrieved 3 May 2011. long step toward totalitarianism.
42. ^ Liu, Qing (May 2020). "To Be an Apolitical Political Scientist: A Chinese Immigrant Scholar and (Geo)politicized American Higher Education". History of Education Quarterly. 60 (2): 138–141, 144. doi:10.1017/heq.2020.10.
43. ^ Wheatcroft, Geoffrey (12 May 1998). "Anti-Anticommunism Again". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Archived from the original on 13 November 2022. Retrieved 8 March 2021.
44. ^ "U.S. Senate: The Censure Case of Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin (1954)". www.senate.gov. Archived from the original on 7 January 2010. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
45. ^ Cowley, Marcie K. "Red Scare". www.mtsu.edu. Retrieved 1 November 2019.
46. ^ "Venona and the Russian Files". The Hiss Case in Story. Harvard, NYU. 2010. Archived from the original on 14 May 2011. Retrieved 28 July 2010.
47. ^ 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. p. A-7. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 May 2011. Retrieved 26 June 2006.
48. ^ Rao, Ashok (24 August 2014). "This Soviet spy created the US-led global economy". Vox. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
49. ^ "How a Soviet spy outmaneuvered John Maynard Keynes to ensure U.S. financial dominance". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Archived from the original on 17 March 2022. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
50. ^ "Rich and red: The USSR's prize assets | Harvey Klehr". The Critic Magazine. 19 September 2020. Archived from the original on 2 November 2022. Retrieved 2 November 2022.
51. ^ a b c Swanson, Ana (20 July 2019). "A New Red Scare Is Reshaping Washington". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 20 July 2019. Retrieved 3 January 2022.
52. ^ "The new red scare on American campuses". The Economist. 2 January 2020. ISSN 0013-0613. Archived from the original on 25 July 2023. Retrieved 3 January 2022.
53. ^ a b Skidmore, David (23 July 2019). "The US Scare Campaign Against China: The political calculations behind exaggerating the 'present danger' – from the Cold War to today". The Diplomat. Archived from the original on 14 October 2019. Retrieved 31 December 2020.
54. ^ "Survey of Chinese Espionage in the United States Since 2000 | Strategic Technologies Program | CSIS". www.csis.org. Retrieved 21 January 2024.
55. ^ Fischer, Nick (November 2003). "An Inspiration Misunderstood: Australian Anti-Communists and the Lure of the U.S., 1917–1935". Eras Journal (5). Archived from the original on 26 September 2023. Retrieved 15 September 2023.
56. ^ "The Red Scare: Canada searches for communists during the height of Cold War tension". CBClearning. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 25 September 2023. Retrieved 21 September 2023.
57. ^ Little, Douglas (1988). "Red Scare, 1936: Anti-Bolshevism and the Origins of British Non-Intervention in the Spanish Civil War". Journal of Contemporary History. 23 (2): 291–314. doi:10.1177/002200948802300208. S2CID 153602436.

Further reading

[edit]

• Caute, David (1979). The Great Fear: The Anti-Communist Purge Under Truman and Eisenhower. New York: Touchstone. ISBN 978-0671248482.
• Cuordileone, K. A. (September 2011). "The Torment of Secrecy: Reckoning with American Communism and Anticommunism after Venona: The Torment of Secrecy". Diplomatic History. 35 (4): 615–642. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7709.2011.00970.x. JSTOR 24916335.
• Fried, Albert, ed. (1997). McCarthyism: The Great American Red Scare; A Documentary History. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-509701-6.
• Hakim, Joy (1999). War, Peace, and All That Jazz (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-512767-6.
• Haynes, John Earl (1996). Red Scare Or Red Menace? American Communism and Anticommunism in the Cold War Era. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. ISBN 978-1-56663-090-0.
• Haynes, John Earl; Klehr, Harvey E. (1999). Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America. New Haven (Conn.): Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-07771-1.
• Levin, Murray B. (1971). Political Hysteria in America: The Democratic Capacity for Repression. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-05898-3.
• McDaniel, Rodger E. (2013). Dying for Joe McCarthy's Sins: The Suicide of Wyoming Senator Lester Hunt. Cody, Wyoming: WordsWorth. ISBN 978-0-9830275-9-1.
• Morgan, Ted (2003). Reds: McCarthyism in Twentieth-century America. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-0-679-44399-5.
• Murray, Robert K. (1955). Red Scare: A Study in National Hysteria, 1919–1920. University of Minnesota Press.
• Powers, Richard Gid (1995). Not Without Honor: The History of American Anticommunism. New York: The Free Press. ISBN 978-0-684-82427-7.
• Risen, Clay (2025). Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America. New York: Scribner. ISBN 978-1982141806.
• Schmidt, Regin (2000). Red Scare: FBI and the Origins of Anticommunism in the United States, 1919–1943. Museum Tusculanum Press. ISBN 978-8772895819. OCLC 963460662.
• Schrecker, Ellen (1998). Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-04870-3.
• Storrs, Landon R. Y. (2013). The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1-4008-4525-5.
• Wiecek, William M. (2001). "The Legal Foundations of Domestic Anticommunism: The Background of Dennis v United States". The Supreme Court Review. 2001: 375–434. doi:10.1086/scr.2001.3109693. ISSN 0081-9557. JSTOR 3109693.

External links

[edit] Listen to this article (12 minutes)

This audio file was created from a revision of this article dated 11 July 2012 (2012-07-11), and does not reflect subsequent edits.(Audio help · More spoken articles)

• "Political Tests for Professors: Academic Freedom during the McCarthy Years" by Ellen Schrecker, The University Loyalty Oath, 7 October 1999.

v t e Cold War
United States Soviet Union NATO Warsaw Pact ANZUS METO SEATO NEATO Rio Pact Non-Aligned Movement
1940s	Morgenthau Plan Jamaican political conflict Dekemvriana Guerrilla war in the Baltic states Operation Priboi Operation Jungle Occupation of the Baltic states Cursed soldiers Operation Unthinkable Gouzenko Affair Division of Korea Chinese Civil War Chinese Communist Revolution Indonesian National Revolution Civil conflicts in Vietnam (1945–1949) Operation Beleaguer Operation Blacklist Forty Iran crisis of 1946 Greek Civil War Baruch Plan Corfu Channel incident Hukbalahap rebellion Turkish Straits crisis Restatement of Policy on Germany First Indochina War 1947 Polish parliamentary election 1947 Paraguayan Civil War Truman Doctrine Asian Relations Conference May 1947 crises Partition of India Indo-Pakistani war of 1947–1948 1947–1949 Palestine war 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine 1948 Arab–Israeli War 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight Marshall Plan Comecon 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état Incapacitation of the Allied Control Council Al-Wathbah uprising Tito–Stalin split Berlin Blockade Annexation of Hyderabad Madiun Affair Western betrayal Iron Curtain Eastern Bloc Western Bloc Malayan Emergency March 1949 Syrian coup d'état Operation Valuable
1950s	Bamboo curtain McCarthyism First Indochina War Korean War Arab Cold War (1952–1979) Egyptian revolution of 1952 Iraqi Intifada (1952) Mau Mau rebellion East German uprising of 1953 1953 Iranian coup d'état Pact of Madrid Bricker Amendment 1954 Syrian coup d'état Petrov Affair Domino theory 1954 Geneva Conference 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état Capture of the Tuapse First Taiwan Strait Crisis Jebel Akhdar War Algerian War Kashmir Princess Bandung Conference Geneva Summit (1955) Cyprus Emergency Vietnam War "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences" 1956 Poznań protests Hungarian Revolution of 1956 Polish October Suez Crisis "We will bury you" Operation Gladio Syrian Crisis of 1957 Sputnik crisis Ifni War Iraqi 14 July Revolution 1958 Lebanon crisis Second Taiwan Strait Crisis 1959 Mosul uprising 1959 Tibetan uprising Kitchen Debate Cuban Revolution Consolidation of the Cuban Revolution Sino-Soviet split Night Frost Crisis
1960s	Congo Crisis Laotian Civil War Simba rebellion 1960 U-2 incident John F. Kennedy Bay of Pigs Invasion 1960 Turkish coup d'état Albanian–Soviet split Iraqi–Kurdish conflict First Iraqi–Kurdish War Berlin Crisis of 1961 Berlin Wall Annexation of Goa Papua conflict Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation Sand War Portuguese Colonial War Angolan War of Independence Guinea-Bissau War of Independence Mozambican War of Independence Cuban Missile Crisis El Porteñazo Sino-Indian War Communist insurgency in Sarawak Ramadan Revolution Eritrean War of Independence North Yemen civil war 1963 Syrian coup d'état Assassination of John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Johnson Aden Emergency Cyprus crisis of 1963–1964 Shifta War Mexican Dirty War Tlatelolco massacre Guatemalan Civil War Colombian conflict 1964 Brazilian coup d'état Dominican Civil War Rhodesian Bush War Indonesian mass killings of 1965–1966 Transition to the New Order (Indonesia) ASEAN Declaration 1966 Syrian coup d'état Cultural Revolution Cambodian Civil War Argentine Revolution South African Border War Korean DMZ Conflict 12-3 incident Greek junta 1967 Hong Kong riots Years of Lead (Italy) Six-Day War War of Attrition Dhofar rebellion Al-Wadiah War Nigerian Civil War Protests of 1968 May 68 Prague Spring USS Pueblo incident 1968 Polish political crisis Communist insurgency in Malaysia Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia 17 July Revolution 1968 Peruvian coup d'état Revolutionary Government 1969 Sudanese coup d'état 1969 Libyan revolution Goulash Communism Sino-Soviet border conflict New People's Army rebellion Note Crisis
1970s	Détente Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Black September Alcora Exercise Corrective Revolution (Syria) Western Sahara conflict Communist insurgency in Thailand December 1970 protests in Poland Koza riot Realpolitik Ping-pong diplomacy 1971 JVP insurrection Corrective revolution (Egypt) 1971 Turkish military memorandum 1971 Sudanese coup d'état 1971 Bolivian coup d'état Four Power Agreement on Berlin Bangladesh Liberation War 1972 visit by Richard Nixon to China North Yemen-South Yemen Border conflict of 1972 First Yemenite War Munich massacre 1972–1975 Bangladesh insurgency Eritrean Civil Wars Paris Peace Accords 1973 Uruguayan coup d'état 1973 Afghan coup d'état 1973 Chilean coup d'état Yom Kippur War 1973 oil crisis Carnation Revolution Ethiopian Civil War Vietnam War Spanish transition to democracy Metapolitefsi Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Second Iraqi–Kurdish War Turkish invasion of Cyprus 15 August 1975 Bangladeshi coup d'état Siege of Dhaka (1975) Sipahi-Janata revolution Angolan Civil War Indonesian invasion of East Timor Cambodian genocide June 1976 in Polish protests Mozambican Civil War Oromo conflict Ogaden War 1978 Somali coup attempt Western Sahara War Lebanese Civil War Sino-Albanian split Third Indochina War Cambodian–Vietnamese War Khmer Rouge insurgency Operation Condor Dirty War (Argentina) 1976 Argentine coup d'état Egyptian–Libyan War German Autumn Korean Air Lines Flight 902 Nicaraguan Revolution Uganda–Tanzania War NDF Rebellion Chadian–Libyan War Second Yemenite War Grand Mosque seizure Iranian Revolution Saur Revolution Sino-Vietnamese War New Jewel Movement 1979 Herat uprising Seven Days to the River Rhine Struggle against political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union
1980s	Salvadoran Civil War Soviet–Afghan War Eritrean Civil Wars Summer Olympic boycotts (1980 · 1984 · 1988) Gera Demands Peruvian Revolution August Agreements Solidarity 1980 Turkish coup d'état Ugandan Bush War Gulf of Sidra incident Martial law in Poland Casamance conflict Falklands War 1982 Ethiopian–Somali Border War Ndogboyosoi War United States invasion of Grenada Able Archer 83 Star Wars 1985 Geneva Summit Iran–Iraq War Somali Rebellion Reykjavík Summit 1986 Black Sea incident South Yemeni crisis Toyota War 1987 Lieyu massacre Operation Denver 1987–1989 JVP insurrection Lord's Resistance Army insurgency 1988 Black Sea bumping incident 8888 Uprising Solidarity (Soviet reaction) Contras Central American crisis Operation RYAN Korean Air Lines Flight 007 People Power Revolution Glasnost Perestroika Bougainville conflict First Nagorno-Karabakh War Afghan Civil War United States invasion of Panama 1988 Polish strikes Polish Round Table Agreement 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre Revolutions of 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall Fall of the inner German border Velvet Revolution Romanian Revolution Peaceful Revolution
1990s	Mongolian Revolution of 1990 Min Ping Yu No. 5540 incident Gulf War Min Ping Yu No. 5202 German reunification Yemeni unification Fall of communism in Albania Breakup of Yugoslavia Dissolution of the Soviet Union 1991 August Coup Dissolution of Czechoslovakia
Frozen conflicts	Abkhazia China-Taiwan Korea Kosovo South Ossetia Transnistria Sino-Indian border dispute North Borneo dispute
Foreign policy	Truman Doctrine Containment Eisenhower Doctrine Domino theory Hallstein Doctrine Kennedy Doctrine Peaceful coexistence Ostpolitik Johnson Doctrine Brezhnev Doctrine Nixon Doctrine Ulbricht Doctrine Carter Doctrine Reagan Doctrine Paasikivi–Kekkonen doctrine Rollback Kinmen Agreement
Ideologies	Capitalism Chicago school Conservatism American conservatism Democratic capitalism Keynesianism Liberalism Libertarianism Monetarism Neoclassical economics Reaganomics Supply-side economics Socialism Communism Marxism–Leninism Fidelismo Eurocommunism Guevarism Hoxhaism Juche Ho Chi Minh Thought Maoism Stalinism Titoism Trotskyism Other Imperialism Anti-imperialism Nationalism Ultranationalism Chauvinism Ethnic nationalism Racism Zionism Anti-Zionism Fascism Neo-Nazism Islamism Totalitarianism Authoritarianism Autocracy Liberal democracy Illiberal democracy Guided democracy Social democracy Third-worldism White supremacy White nationalism White separatism Apartheid Finlandization
Organizations	NATO SEATO METO EEC Warsaw Pact Comecon Non-Aligned Movement NN States ASEAN SAARC Safari Club
Propaganda	Pro-communist Active measures Izvestia Neues Deutschland Pravda Radio Moscow Rudé právo Trybuna Ludu TASS Soviet Life Pro-Western Amerika Crusade for Freedom Paix et Liberté Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Red Scare Voice of America
Technologicalcompetition	Arms race Nuclear arms race Space Race
Historians	Gar Alperovitz Thomas A. Bailey Michael Beschloss Archie Brown Warren H. Carroll Adrian Cioroianu John Costello Michael Cox Nicholas J. Cull Norman Davies Willem Drees Robert D. English Herbert Feis Robert Hugh Ferrell André Fontaine Anneli Ute Gabanyi John Lewis Gaddis Lloyd Gardner Timothy Garton Ash Gabriel Gorodetsky Fred Halliday Jussi Hanhimäki John Earl Haynes Patrick J. Hearden Tvrtko Jakovina Tony Judt Harvey Klehr Gabriel Kolko Walter LaFeber Walter Laqueur Melvyn P. Leffler Geir Lundestad Vojtech Mastny Jack F. Matlock Jr. Thomas J. McCormick Timothy Naftali Marius Oprea David S. Painter William B. Pickett Ronald E. Powaski Yakov M. Rabkin M. E. Sarotte Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Ellen Schrecker Giles Scott-Smith Shen Zhihua Timothy Snyder Athan Theoharis Andrew Thorpe Vladimir Tismăneanu Patrick Vaughan Alex von Tunzelmann Odd Arne Westad William Appleman Williams Jonathan Reed Winkler Rudolph Winnacker Ken Young
Espionage andintelligence	List of Eastern Bloc agents in the United States Soviet espionage in the United States Russian espionage in the United States American espionage in the Soviet Union and Russian Federation CIA and the Cultural Cold War CIA MI5 MI6 United States involvement in regime change Soviet involvement in regime change MVD KGB Stasi
See also	Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War Soviet Union–United States relations Soviet Union–United States summits Russia–NATO relations War on terror Brinkmanship Pax Atomica Second Cold War Russian Revolution
Category List of conflicts Timeline

v t e Soviet Union–United States relations
Diplomatic posts	Embassy of the Soviet Union, Washington, D.C. Ambassadors of the Soviet Union to the United States Soviet ambassador's residence Embassy of the United States, Moscow Ambassadors of the United States to the Soviet Union Spaso House Consulate-General of the Soviet Union, New York City John Henry Hammond House Consulate-General of the Soviet Union, San Francisco Elmcroft Estate Lothrop Mansion Pioneer Point Permanent Mission of the Soviet Union to the United Nations Killenworth Russian Soviet Government Bureau Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs
Diplomacy	Lend-Lease Lend-Lease Sherman tanks Moscow Conference (1941) Moscow Conference (1942) Moscow Conference (1943) Declaration of the Four Nations Moscow Conference (1944) Yalta Conference Potsdam Conference Tehran Conference Moscow Conference (1945) Stalin Note Berlin Conference (1954) Geneva Summit (1955) Lacy-Zarubin Agreement United States restitution to the Soviet Union State visit by Nikita Khrushchev to the United States United Nations Security Council Resolution 135 Dartmouth Conference Vienna summit Eighteen Nation Committee on Disarmament Moscow–Washington hotline Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Glassboro Summit Conference Détente Linkage Bion program Kosmos 782 Kosmos 936 Kosmos 1129 Kosmos 1514 Kosmos 1667 Kosmos 1887 Kosmos 2044 TOPAZ nuclear reactor Moscow Summit (1972) Washington Summit (1973) 1973 United States–Soviet Union wheat deal Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions Geneva Conference (1973) Moscow Summit (1974) Vladivostok Summit Meeting on Arms Control NATO Double-Track Decision Zero Option Geneva Summit (1985) Reykjavík Summit Washington Summit (1987) Geneva Accords (1988) Moscow Summit (1988) Governors Island Summit US/USSR Joint Statement on Uniform Acceptance of Rules of International Law Governing Innocent Passage Malta Summit Helsinki Summit (1990) Madrid peace conference letter of invitation European Advisory Commission Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls Council for American–Soviet Trade Council of Foreign Ministers
Cold War	Origins Timeline 1947–1948 1948–1953 1953–1962 1962–1979 1979–1985 1985–1991 Espionage Cold War in Asia Cold War tensions and the polio vaccine Nuclear arms race Space Race Timeline United States war plans (1945–1950) U.S. Army Field Manual 30-31B American espionage in the Soviet Union and Russian Federation Active Measures Working Group Air-to-air combat losses between the Soviet Union and the United States CIA activities in the Soviet Union Containment Rollback Red Scare The Moscow rules Seven Days to the River Rhine Sheldon names Strategic Defense Initiative United States aerial reconnaissance of the Soviet Union Bomber gap Missile gap NSC 68 Smolensk Archive Soviet Military Power Operation Shocker Plan Totality Nitrophenyl pentadienal Venona project Operation Anadyr Operation Breakthrough Operation Cedar Operation Chrome Dome Operation Cyclone Operation Dropshot Operation Giant Lance Operation Gold Operation Denver Operation Ivy Bells Operation Keelhaul Operation Lincoln Operation Monopoly Operation RYAN Operation Safe Haven (1957) Operation Sunrise 7th Air Escadrille Project Azorian Project Coldfeet Project Dark Gene Project Genetrix Project Grab Bag Project HOMERUN Project Moby Dick Project Mogul Project Hula
Incidents	Sisson Documents Turkish Straits crisis Welles Declaration Gorin v. United States Atomic spies Baruch Plan Iran crisis of 1946 Niš incident Berlin Blockade Kasenkina Case Shostakovich v. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp. Hollow Nickel Case Moscow Signal Capture of the Tuapse We will bury you Kuzma's mother Sputnik crisis Berlin Crisis of 1958–1959 1958 C-130 shootdown incident 1960 U-2 incident 1960 RB-47 shootdown incident Transfermium Wars Arrest of Mark Kaminsky and Harvey Bennett Martin and Mitchell defection Shoe-banging incident Berlin Crisis of 1961 1961 F-84 Thunderstreak incident Cuban Missile Crisis Crateology SS Metallurg Anosov Ich bin ein Berliner 1964 T-39 shootdown incident Pan Am Flight 708 Seaboard World Airlines Flight 253A Dymshits–Kuznetsov hijacking affair Aeroflot Flight 244 Gambell incident Project Azorian Soviet submarine K-129 (1960) Feodor Fedorenko Siberian Seven United States grain embargo against the Soviet Union 1980 Summer Olympics boycott Yellow rain Urengoy–Pomary–Uzhhorod pipeline Evil Empire speech Korean Air Lines Flight 007 1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident Able Archer 83 Autumn Forge 83 1984 Summer Olympics boycott We begin bombing in five minutes Arthur D. Nicholson John Anthony Walker 1986 Black Sea incident Soviet submarine K-219 Karl Linnas Tear down this wall! Yeniseysk-15 1988 Black Sea bumping incident Chicken Kiev speech
Military relations	Allied Control Council Allied Kommandatura Allied technological cooperation during World War II ALSIB Arctic convoys of World War II Berlin Victory Parade of 1945 Elbe Day Four Policemen Four Power Naval Commission Four-Power Authorities GIUK gap Line of Contact Military liaison missions Northwest Staging Route Pacific Route Persian Corridor Persian Gulf Command Warsaw airlift Tripartite Naval Commission Eisenhower Doctrine Truman Doctrine Reagan Doctrine Stimson Doctrine Bell P-63 Kingcobra Belorussia-class cargo ship SS Dakotan SS Indigirka SS Iowan Tupolev Tu-4 Tupolev Tu-70 Tupolev Tu-80 USCGC Southwind USS West Bridge United States and the Russian Revolution American Expeditionary Force, North Russia American Expeditionary Force, Siberia North Russia intervention Siberian intervention
Legislation	Russian Famine Relief Act Executive Order 8484 Jackson–Vanik amendment Soviet Nuclear Threat Reduction Act of 1991 Former Soviet Union Demilitarization Act of 1992 FRIENDSHIP Act of 1993
Treaties	Moscow Declarations Potsdam Agreement Wanfried agreement McCloy–Zorin Accords Outer Space Treaty Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space Four Power Agreement on Berlin Agreement Concerning Cooperation in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes U.S.–Soviet Incidents at Sea agreement Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War Threshold Test Ban Treaty Strategic Arms Limitation Talks National technical means of verification Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty 1990 Chemical Weapons Accord USSR–USA Maritime Boundary Agreement Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany START I Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe
Organizations	American Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia Ark Project American National Exhibition Kitchen Debate American Peace Mobilization American Relief Administration American Russian Institute American University speech American–Soviet friendship movement American-Soviet Peace Walks Amerika (magazine) Amtorg Trading Corporation And you are lynching Negroes Androgynous Peripheral Attach System Anglo-American School of Moscow Anglo-American School of St. Petersburg Ansonia Clock Company Apollo–Soyuz Apollo-Soyuz (cigarette) Center for Citizen Initiatives Communist Party USA Dewey Commission Institute for US and Canadian Studies International Conference of Laser Applications International Cospas-Sarsat Programme International Publishers Kennan Institute Kersten Committee Freedom Sunday for Soviet Jews Friends of Soviet Russia Foundation for Social Inventions Gennady Alferenko Friendship Flight '89 Friendship Flight (Alaska Airlines) Fund for Armenian Relief National Committee for a Free Europe National Council of American–Soviet Friendship Organization for Jewish Colonization in Russia Russian-American Industrial Corporation Russian War Relief Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry Society for Technical Aid to Soviet Russia Soviet Government Purchasing Commission in the U.S. U.S. Commission on the Ukraine Famine U.S. Peace Council
Related	Russian Empire–United States relations Russia–United States relations Russian Embassy School in Washington, D.C. 1972 Olympic men's basketball final 1976 Philadelphia Flyers–Red Army game 1989 visit by Boris Yeltsin to the United States Baltic Freedom Day Bush legs Captive Nations Captive Nations Week GAZ Goodwill Games Glasnost Bowl Little Joe Miracle on Ice New world order (politics) Pushinka Refusenik SAGE Self-propelled barge T-36 Shvetsov M-25 Super Series Sovereignty of Puerto Rico during the Cold War Sovfoto Triangular diplomacy U.S.–Soviet Space Bridge US vs. USSR radio chess match 1945 USA–USSR Track and Field Dual Meet Series Uzel White Coke World Chess Championship 1972 X Article Yardymly Russian Life Soviet Interview Project Soviet submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Comparison of the AK-47 and M16 Bobby Fischer Georgi Bolshakov Samantha Smith Roswell Garst Suzanne Massie Who's Who in the CIA Eagles East The Admiral's Daughter Deep Black The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks Stalingrad Free to Be... a Family "In Soviet Georgia" Red Wave "Ordinary People"
Category:Soviet Union–United States relations

Authority control databases	NARA

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Red_Scare&oldid=1327770070" Categories:

• Red Scare
• Aftermath of World War II in the United States
• Anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States
• Anti-communism in Australia
• Anti-communism in Canada
• Anti-communism in the Philippines
• Anti-communism in the United Kingdom
• Anti-communism in the United States
• Anti-Russian sentiment
• Anti-Sovietism
• China–United States relations
• Communism in the United States
• Conspiracy theories involving communism
• Far-left politics in the United States
• History of the Communist Party USA
• History of the Industrial Workers of the World
• History of the Socialist Party of America
• Political and cultural purges
• Political history of the United States
• Political repression in the Philippines
• Political repression in the United Kingdom
• Political repression in the United States
• Russia–United States relations
• Scares
• Socialism in the United States
• Soviet Union–United States relations
• Counter-revolution

Hidden categories:

• Webarchive template wayback links
• CS1:Vancouver names with accept markup
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from December 2025
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from November 2025
• Articles with unsourced statements from December 2022
• Articles with hAudio microformats
• Spoken articles

Search Search Toggle the table of contents Red Scare 31 languages Add topic