Mitchell Palmer The Case Against The Reds Sparknotes

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'

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