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Mitchell Palmer The Case Against The Reds Sparknotes

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The First Red Scare, falling out in the aftermath of World War I, arose due to global upheaval and conflict. From 1917 to the summer of 1920, intense fear spread across the United States as a result of radical political ideologies such as communism and anarchism. The Russian Revolution in 1917 and the rise of the Bolsheviks fueled American societies to be fearful and suspicious. The federal government tasked Attorney General, A. Mitchell Palmer, with leading the investigation. In response to these investigations, the Palmer raids from 1919-1920 were carried out. These law enforcement actions, initiated by Palmer, involved the arrest and deportation of thousands suspected of harboring radical sympathies. To understand his actions Mitchell Palmer wrote an article published in 1920 to the magazine The Forum; Using this as a primary source, significantly enhances readers' …show more content…

Mitchell Palmer describes how “[his] information showed that communism in this country was an organization of thousands of aliens who were direct allies of Putin. Aliens of the same misshapen caste of mind and indecencies of character, and it showed that they were making the same glittering promises of lawlessness, of criminal autocracy to Americans, that they had made to the Russian peasants.” (Palmer) From this readers can gather that he found deep-rooted communist ideologies have spread due to an influx of migrants to the United States. That there are traces of revolution brewing, just like how it was in the USSR. Palmer's reference to the Trotsky Doctrine in his article is significant and is what can lead historians to believe the previous point. Further research shows that Trotsky, a Russian displaced during World War I, “found a ready and waiting audience for him in New York, he spoke to packed halls of Russian émigrés who were finding their new adopted motherland often less abundant with both liberty and wealth than they had been led to expect.”(Shepley

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Since the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, which established a Communist government in Russia, Americans viewed the Soviets as a threat to all capitalistic countries. The revolution left Americans and the government in fear of communism taking over. This view led to anti-Communist hysteria, also known as the Red Scare of 1919. Another anti-Communist movement came about in the 1940s and 50s. This Second Red Scare became known as McCarthyism due to Joseph McCarthy's actions during his campaign.

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During the 1920s like most people A. Mitchell Palmer fear was communism (the Red Scare). Communism is a belief that is based on one political system and a dictator ruling the government. He was afraid the communism would ruin America’s values by using crime and jeopardizing the government. In Russia people didn’t have basic rights and Americans were afraid the same would happen to them since after WW1 Russia had a lot of influence. Most communist were German and Russian during the time.

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Examples of this can be seen many times throughout history, with a clear one being the trial of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti that occurred during the 1920s. America in the 1920s saw vast change and economic growth, yet still faced domestic turmoil. Due to the rise of communism in countries such as Russia, Bavaria and Hungary, a violent wave of anti-communist panic, known as the Red Scare, swept through the United States in the early 1920s. During the Red Scare, many Americans feared that communism would spread to this country and began to resent immigrants for their differences. The Palmer raids, which occurred in November and December of 1919, further demonstrated this fear with the arrests of over 4,000 people, many of who were citizens, because of suspicion that they were radicals.

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However, Palmer was losing his credibility by keep warnings of riots, which never took place. Also regarding to the concern of civil liberties, the hysteria finally ended. Posters "Spies Are Listening" and "Destroy this Mad Brute" increased more terrors between the immigrants and the non-immigrants. Sometimes Immigrants would be accused as spies without evidences and forced into prison without trials. German Americans, who lived in America for centuries, were easy to get persecution during the World War 1.

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How the Results of World War 1 led to the First Red Scare. The 1930s was a time of panic and tension for Americans. After World War One, the American public wanted to be left alone. They were tired of Americans fighting overseas and meddling in other countries’ businesses during the war. This accelerated their hostility towards communists, immigrants, and non-Americans.

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The first Red Scare occurred right after WWI and when the Jazz age and prohibition started. America was a notable economic power, and the KKK dominated the South opposing to the law. The first Red Scare was a fear of communists, socialists, and anarchists. A series of anarchist bombings, innocent people were jailed for sharing their views, and civil rights were ignored. The amount of fear, as fast as it came it went away just as fast.

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This proves that the amount of paranoia during this era led to the mass deportations of immigrants and American citizens from false accusations and the building pressure to rid America of Communistic threat. “Late in the afternoon of Friday, January 2, 1920, agents of the U.S. Department of Justice, in a concerted raid on reputedly communist headquarters, began arresting thousands of persons in major cities

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During the time of the red scare of 1919 and 1920. The red scare was a major threat to United States was plotted by anarchist to overthrow the government and eventually take of the United States. The red scare was not the only threat to society. On September 11, 2001 better known as 9/11 was a series of terrorist attacks on held by suicidal Islamic an attempt to overthrow the government and to get the attention of American citizens. These were great tragedies that had happened over a period of time to American citizens.

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In a similar fashion, the Marxists lured the public in with claims such as equality and free housing. Some of the individuals got a shock when, after they came to power, the government knocked on their door and relocated them to a new apartment because they had been living too well- it was someone else’s turn to have a nice apartment. That was the side of Marxism that the public was not expecting, as Bulgakov hinted to with the Heart of a Dog.

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The Red Scare started right after the civil war was over. There had been many riots to accrue during the time of the red scare. In the term the red scare had been a form of lose to many successful people. It took at huge toll on the government as they tried to stop and contain the many job losses, but as the time went by people start to riot in the streets because the of the cuts from their jobs had really affected them. People were losing their lives and the government did all they could to try and stop it.

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After World War I, America had come across some terror attacks which contributed to the Red Scare and also prompted A. Mitchell Palmer to initiate a campaign that “...targeted men and women who harbored ideas that Palmer believed could lead to violence, even though the individuals may not have done anything illegal. ”(Roark, Pg.738). In his campaign he was determined to find and convict radical immigrants who held “revolutionary conspiracies”(Roark, Pg.738), in order to enforce the American way of life. In Palmer’s eyes, in order to prevent crime in America “...there could be no nice distinctions drawn between the theoretical ideals of the radicals and their actual violations of our national laws. ”(Doc.17, Pg.66), which resulted in the “...500 noncitizen suspects deported.

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One of the arguments here goes on with the communists masses has the value and if the individual cannot produce then the person from the mass is expendable and doesn’t exist no more . The pride in America and the values that were gifted to the people were shown and that Sheen

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In 1848, German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published what would become one of the world’s greatest influential political pieces, The Communist Manifesto. This piece of literature detailed the theories behind communism, an idea where all members of a society are equal. Decades after publication, the ideals affected two countries: Russia (in the late nineteenth century) and China (in the early twentieth century), where communism grew as a result of certain events. The circumstances that led to the growth of communism in Russia and in China were similar in some way, but different in another. While both Russia and China experienced poverty, which led to increased support for communism, Russia experienced World War I, which led to the rise of Vladimir

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This kind of hysteria caused the Red Scare, which was a period that Americans thought communists were working to destroy America. This mass fear of communism ruined people’s lives and made them turn against their own family and friends. Joseph McCarthy played an

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The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, presents ten “commandments” that define a communist society – for example, the abolition of child labor and centralization of communication by the state (Marx, 176). Because of its bold claims for revolution to achieve an ideal society, communism - since its inception in the 19th century - has garnered radical support from every corner of the world, as well as extensive opposition. This paper will focus on three areas of the Communist Manifesto that has led me to support and question communism. These three areas consist of (1) Marx’s accurate critique of capitalism, (2) the lacking evolution of a united proletarian, and (3) the possibility of global communism as imperialistic.

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