The Red Scare

The end of the fighting in Europe did not bring peace and security to the United States. Shortly after the end of World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the Red Scare began in the United States.
The nation was wrapped up in the fear of communists, socialists, anarchists, and other rebels. Innocent people were jailed for expressing their views, freedoms were ignored, and many Americans feared that a communist revolution was in sight. This revolution suggested that the working class would overthrow the middle class.
Both the federal and state governments reacted to that fear by attacking potential communist threats. And they used acts passed during the war to prosecute suspected communists. Then, in the early 1920s, the fear left just as quickly as it had begun, and the Red Scare was over.