Reading Blog

From 1915 to the beginning of America’s involvement in World War II in 1941, the Soviet Union was being run by Stalin, hence the name Stalin’s Soviet Union. The country was heavily communistic and this is what caused the first red scare after world war I. The first red scare began when the mayor banned the display of red flags in New York in public that supported the year old Bolshevik government in Russia. This caused a widespread panic of “reds”, known as Bolshevik supporters. With this scare on the rise, it led to assumption that all liberal intellectuals were communist supporters and therefore couldn’t be trusted. Although it ended fairly quickly, the scare had made a major social impact on the people of America. The raids stopped, and people went on with their lives. Even though the red scare was over, people were still very skeptical of intellectuals in America. The appetite for communist ideas was big due to the fear of who may or may not be in that category. During this time, Americans were gullible and fearful. These two, when mixed together were a deadly combo. Much like the segregation of African Americans and whites, it caused a huge segregation between those who were supporters and those who were not. This also applied to the intellectuals because many thought that just because they were intellectuals, they were communist. In addition to that, discrimination was extended entering the country as immigrants. I think that liberalism and intellectualism go hand in hand and are synonymous in a sense that intellectuals are mostly all liberal. This connection can be made about the intellectuals in society today.