THE FIRST RED SCARE
Shortly after the end of World War I and the ​
Bolshevik Revolution​
in Russia (when Russian communists led by Vladimir Lenin overthrew the czar), the ​
Red Scare​
took hold in the United States. A nationwide fear of communists, socialists​
, and ​
anarchists ​
suddenly grabbed the American psyche in 1919 following a series of anarchist bombings. The nation was gripped in fear. Innocent people were jailed for expressing their views, civil liberties were ignored, and many Americans feared that a Bolshevik­style revolution was at hand. **quick definitions*** communism: ​
system of government in which there is no private property and there are no economic classes socialism: ​
economic system that calls for public rather than private ownership or control of property and natural resources anarchism: ​
radicals who believe in the destruction of the government On April 15, 1921, two Massachusetts warehouse workers were murdered during a robbery. The police investigating the crime arrested two Italian immigrants named ​
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Sacco and Vanzetti​
maintained their innocence, but they already had a strike against them: they were anarchists and socialists. Just a little over two weeks after their arrest, they were found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. Many people, particularly fellow socialists, protested, saying the two men were convicted more on political and ethnic prejudice than on real evidence. Indeed, four years later, another man said he had committed the crime with a local gang. Despite appeals, Sacco and Vanzetti were never granted a retrial. They were executed on Aug. 23, 1927. They claimed they were innocent until the moment of their deaths. Scholars still debate the guilt and innocence of Sacco and Vanzetti, but there is little doubt that the trial was biased against them. *IN YOUR ​
“ROARING tWENTIES”
pACKET, ANSWER THE FOLLOWING
QUESTIONS:
1. What was the First Red Scare? What event caused it? 2. a. What is communism? b.What is socialism? c. What is anarchism? 3. Who were Sacco and Vanzetti? What were they accused of? 4. Given the lack of evidence, do you think Sacco and Vanzetti’s death sentence was right? Could they have been innocent? 5. Overall, do you think the First Red Scare was a positive or negative aspect of the 1920’s? Why?