Radicalism is defined as the belief or act of change in political and social reform in the forms of anarchy, socialism, and communism. Now communism is defined as a system of government in which the state plans to control the economy and the economic system is characterized by the collective ownership of property and the organization of labor for the common advantage. In World War I, The Red Scare period, and the 1920s the US faced different effects in the 3 different periods due to the fear of radicalism and communism. The 2 biggest reasons why the United States joined WWI were the Zimmerman telegram and the fall of the Russian czar. In the Zimmerman telegram, it states that if Mexico joined with Germany in WWI, Germany will repay Mexico with the land of Arizona and New Mexico. However, the United States intercepted the telegram and used it as to the reason to join the war. And the other reason was the fall of the Russian czar.
At the time Russia was under the control of a leader that harshly ruled the nation. But when the Czar was overthrown and Russia joined back in the war, it gave us a good reason to join. We would join the war with all the other Democracies to fight back communism and radicalism, so we did. During the war, we began to fear that there were foreign agents in our country trying to change our country from within. To combat this there were many government agencies and organizations that were formed. For example, The American Protective League enlisted 250,000 citizens to search and find opponents of the war inside the United States. This group used break-ins, unlawful searches of property, and even opened the mail to come up with evidence of these spies in the US. Another example is 2 acts that were passed by the government, the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act. These acts made it illegal to be a spy for another country and illegal to be apart of any anti-war activities. Shortly after the war, there is a time; which was after the Bolshevik Revolution, with the fall of democracy and the rise of communism in Russia, where there was an increase of fear that outside sources of communism and radicalism began to enter the US and started to change American ways. This period is called The First Red Scare. This scare would begin to spread across the whole US from 1919 to the 1920s. During this time there were many labor strikes where workers demanded change to fix some of the problems they faced, however, people believed that these strikes were influenced by radicals and communists. It got to a point that people were receiving homemade explosives.
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In June 1919, several bombs were detonated at the same time; which concerned many Americans that there is a force that could overthrow the United States government. At that point, U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer believed that the labor strikes and the bombing are apart of a larger more organized conspiracy. At that point, U.S.A.G. Palmer created an anti-radical group called the FBI. The FBI targeted 250 immigrants that were deported and made over 6000 arrests that were affiliated with radicalism. Now the Red Scare ended in the early 1920s, however, some laws were passed because people believed that the immigrants remained loyal to their original country home country. As a result of this belief, 2 federal act was passed. The first was the Immigration Act of 1921. This act reduced the percentage of certain immigrants coming into this country that came from countries that were deemed radical. The next act soon followed the first one; this act was the Immigration Act of 1924. This act reduced the percentage from the first immigration act dropped down to 2%. This pretty much ended immigration from European countries. Now another group that started to gain popularity to fight back the radicals was the renewed KKK. But shortly after a while, they lost their credibility with Americans because they only believe in a straight white America. So overall Americans fought the radicals by passing the espionage act, sedition act, and creating the American Protective League during World War I. Created the Federal Bureau of Investigation to combat the radicals during the red scare. And finally, during the 1920s, they passed the immigration act of 1921 and 1924 to reduce and stop the flow of immigrants coming to the country to stop the spread of radicalism and communism.
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