Red Scare

Cultural  

1. The rounding up and deportation of several hundred immigrants of radical political views by the federal government in 1919 and 1920. This “scare” was caused by fears of subversion by communists in the United States after the Russian Revolution.

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Example Sentences

The Red Scare followed—the government arrested and deported radicals, breaking unions like the IWW and hobbling labor for a decade.

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 30, 2025

By the time Hofstadter wrote that, the Red Scare had subsided, its loudest voices pushed to the fringe of U.S. politics.

From Slate • Mar. 17, 2025

“Spartacus” screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, blacklisted during the Red Scare, may have identified with the shrewd Thracian gladiator who led a slave revolt against the crushing overlords of the Roman Republic.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 11, 2025

This Red Scare was better known as the McCarthy Era or simply McCarthyism.

From Salon • Mar. 23, 2024

Perhaps most revealing of all the hysteria propelling the Red Scare were laws passed by local and state governments throughout the nation that restricted parades and what they termed “radical activity.”

From "1919 The Year That Changed America" by Martin W. Sandler