The Red Scare

[the Left™]

I guess just tell me about... Im not sure how to ask but was it really true bolsheviks blew up buildings in this period? I just saw J. Edgar and he references the violent radical leftist threat during his youth....

[Smyg]

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/commiecomic.jpg

Comic books never lie.

[the Left™]

:s

is this its own type of revisionism? does anyone want to offer me anything or actually answer my question?

[Art Vandelay]

I have no idea what the red scare was, unless you are reffering to Mcarthyism, but if the bolsheviks blew up some buildings then they just went up a couple notches in my books. :cool:

[socialistjustin]

Maybe you're talking about the first world war? Hoover was FBI director for a long time and he could've been around during the heyday of the IWW and the early 1900's.

The big bombing that occurred was the wall street bombing in 1920. It was probably done by Insurrectionary Anarchists rather than Bolsheviks. It was never solved though. This was the first red scare and a period of radical struggle.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Well, the period from around the turn of the 20th century to about 1925 (this is the date that labor historian David Montgomery cites as being basically the end of American labor's most militant phase) was hectic, both with collective activities like strikes, and individual activities like "revolutionary terrorism". As was said above, a "Galleanist" detonated a bomb on Wall Street, killing almost forty people in 1920 (Galleanists were followers/admirers of Italian insurrectionist Luigi Galleani, who had a following internationally, and in the USA among the radicalized Italian immigrant population. Sacco and Vanzetti were also Galleanists). Another good example is the LA Times building being blown up with dynamite in 1910 by unionists. A good example of the collective action of the time was the 1919 Seattle general strike.

There was a book I checked out in a library once about the year 1917, which everyone on the left of course knows was the date of the Russian revolution. But it was also a big year for labor internationally, including in the USA, which experienced tens of thousands of lost work hours due to strikes. I unfortunately can't remember the name of the book, though.

edit: actually, I think the book may have been about 1919, not 1917.

[robear]

From what I remember in History class back in high school was that there were two "Red Scares." One occurred after WWI following the revolution in Russia. The second took place after WWII as a result of Soviet expansion into Eastern Europe and the Chinese Revolution/Civil War.

Both times can be characterized by mass hysteria and anti-communist fear created by the U.S. government. (As far as I'm concerned, it was just a way for the government to maintain power.) The second red scare really had a profound impact on the average American's thinking. In fact you can still see the impact it had today. So many people are brainwashed into thinking that communism is evil, and equate it with the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea. It's quite unfortunate, and one of the biggest obstacles we face.