What caused the red scare of the 1920s?
The ‘First Red Scare’ began during World War I in which the United States fought from 1917-1918. Tensions were further elevated during this time frame owing to a widespread campaign of violence by various groups inspired by the Bolshevik revolution in Russia and the ensuing Russian Civil War (1917-1923). Historian Levin B. Murray described the First Red Scare as “a nation-wide anti-radical hysteria provoked by a mounting fear and anxiety that a Bolshevik revolution in America was imminent–a revolution that would destroy property, church, home, marriage, civility, and the American way of life.”[1] In April 1919, a large-scale plot to mail thirty-six bombs to a variety of prominent Americans was uncovered. The intended recipients included immigration officials, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, the chairman of a Senate committee investigating Bolsheviks, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, J. P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller. On June 2 of the same year, bombs exploded in ei
