The first red scare started in 1917 just after the Russian Revolution. The bourgeoisie feared a socialist uprising in America. So they started to arrest workers who went on strike and used brutal force against those who dared to oppose the rule of their bosses. Members of the Socialist Party of America felt the first red scare the hard way. In 1920 the New York State Legislature expelled five democratically elected members. They were socialists and expelled because they oppose US imperialism and capitalism. Some Democrats and Republicans opposed the expelling, but the majority of members supported it. These socialists had no rights in a ''democratic'' nation, according to the anticommunists!
After two years the first red scare ended. It has done its work very well for capitalism. Radical workers were jailed and others did not dare to join a communist party. In those days your boss could easy fire you if he wanted to. The workers knew that they could lose their job, so many kept silence. Eugene Victor "Gene" Debs, a socialist leader was jailed for opposing world war one. He served four years in jail because of his opposition to war!
Anticommunism was high in Spain during the civil war. The Roman Catholic Church supported the anticommunist nationalists against the republican government led by the People's Front. After the nationalist victory in 1939, general Franco ordered the execution of 200.000 anti-fascists. Most of them were members of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party and the Spanish Communist Party. Dictator Franco would later become a close ally of president Eisenhower and a strong supporter of American anticommunism!
One of the first anticommunist laws was the Alien Registration Act of 1940, also called the Smith Act. Under this law, all people who wanted to overthrow the US government were arrested and jailed. Many communist leaders were arrested and trailed under his act. Their trail started in 1959 and it ended ten years later. In total more then 100 leading members of the Communist Party USA, were sentenced to jail for their opposition to US imperialism and their support for a socialist revolution!
At the same time, US senator Jopeph McCarthy started a witch hunt against communism. The conservative senator accused many people of supporting the Soviet-Union. His witch hunt led to a second red scare and the banning of many leftist books and movies. The most famous victim of this second red scare was Charlie Chaplin. After he finished a movie, he was told he could not return to the USA. Chaplin knew that the anticommunist forces were at work and he went into exile in Switzerland, he never return to his homeland!
Anticommunist laws were also put into action in Texas. Here the conservative anticommunists were very strong. The state of Texas banned communists from working in public offices. Even today the state law says that communists are not allowed to work for the government. But Texas is not the only US state that has these undemocratic laws. Many conservative states in the 1950's made sure that communists had little rights. They spread fear and lies, this kept anticommunism strong. Even after the collapse of the USSR, these laws remain in place. Some Democrats are now trying to remove them, yet here and there these laws can still be used against communists!
Outside the USA, anticommunism was used as a excuss to hunt down all opponets of right-wing regimes. In South Korea more then 30.000 leftists were arrested in 1948 by Syngman Rhee's government. After North Korea invaded South Korea, the anticommunists killed 150.000 opponets of Syngman Rhee. These killings were blamed on stalinist; North Korea. While leftist groups told the true, the right-wing political parties kept spreading the lie. Finally in 2005 did the South Korean government accepted responsibility and told the world, that they killed the people in the Bodo League concentration-camps!
The Asian anticommunist nations also used stalinist totalitarianism to ban all revolutionary leftist parties. In Malaya, the communist party was banned as British and Malayan troops arrested tousend party members. This led to a civil war between British imperialism and Malayan communists. Thanks to the support of Malayan nationalists, the British were able to defeat the Malayan Races Liberation Army!
In Thailand, the dictatorial government banned the Communist Party of Thailand after world war 2.The Thai communists founded their party in 1942 and were toleranted for two years, between 1946 and 1948. But as anticommunism rose in Asia, the royal Thai government banned the party. From 1948 till 1989, the communist party was illegal and those who supported it were hunted down and jailed. During the Sino-Soviet split, the Communist Party of Thailand sided with the People's Republic of China and became a dogmatic maoist party. This maoism led them to start a ''people's war'' against the monarchist government. In 1969, the government was able to arrest nine members of the Central Committee, this was crucial victory for the monarchists!
The Communist Party of Thailand lost most supporters in the 1980's. By the end of 1989, the party had collapsed and died a lonely death. The ruling class of Thailand remains in power today. Poverty and corruption still rule and all who oppose the king of Thailand can be send to jail. There is no democracy and elections are mostly a fight between two major capitalist parties. For workers and poor people, there is no alternative!
In Europe anticommunist laws are used against the main communist parties. In The Netherlands the CPN was not allowed access to public television. Only after 1968 the party was allowed to spread its massage.Dutch communists were discriminated against since their party was founded. Only after 1968 did the Dutch government became more tolerant to members of the Communist Party of the Netherlands!
Current anticommunist laws are founded in former stalinist nation. One of the first states to introduce anticommunism were the Baltic republics. These nations were once part of the Soviet-Union, forcefully conquered by Stalin in 1939 and 1945.After the USSR collapsed, the new capitalist rulers wanted to destroy all remants of Soviet life. So Latvia and Lithuania banned the red star and the hammer and sickle. The government call them symbols of totalitarianism. This is very undemocratic and a attack on the freedom of speech. In Estonia, they also tried to ban communist symbols. But here the anticommunists failled, freedom of speech was able to triumph and Soviet symbols are not banned in Estonia yet!
In Hungary they also banned the red star and the hammer and sickle. Very undemocratic since the stalinist; People's Republic of Hungary never used the hammer and sickle as a symbol. They only banned it because of the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary. The government showed how undemocratic they trully were, when they arrested a member of the Hungarian Workers Party in 2006, for wearing a red star. He went to the European Court and the EU said that he was right. A huge blow to the anticommunists as the European Court said that the red star is more then what Stalin made of it. Yet Hungary did not changed its law and communist symbols remained banned!
Another ex-Soviet republic to ban communist symbols is Moldova. This nation banned Soviet symbols after right-wing forces won the elections, defeating the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova. These pseudo-communists won almost every election since 1990, yet never introduced socialism. When the communist party won another victory, anticommunists started to rebel and used violence against the pseudo-communist government. Durning the elections of 2010, the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova lost. The new rulers soon introduced the anticommunist law on banning Soviet symbols. Many anticommunists were very happy with this undemocratic law!
As Barack Obama became president of the USA in 2008, anticommunism rose again. Conservative anticommunists called Obama a ''Marxist'' and a ''Socialist''. Even today many right-wing Americans belive that their president is a leftist. In reality Obama is a right-wing liberal and a supporter of imperialism and capitalism. Yet the Republican Party is spreading anticommunism against a president who is not even left-wing. But the conservatives believe the Republicans and genuinely think that the Democratic Party is some revolutionary leftist force. The stupidity of these conservatives is hardly not to see!
Many American conservatives think that Obama
is a communist ( how stupid! )
