Red Scare Essay Examples

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. 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.

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 U.S. society and the federal government. U.S. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy became the person most closely associated with the anticommunist crusade – and with its excesses.