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123-614: The Palmer Raids occurred in the larger context of the First Red Scare , a period of fear of and reaction against communists in the U.S. in the years immediately following World War I and the Russian Revolution . There were strikes that garnered national attention, and prompted race riots in more than 30 cities, as well as two sets of bombings in April and June 1919, including one bomb mailed to Palmer's home. During

246-513: A Galleanist radical who died in spectacular fashion when the bomb he placed at the home of Attorney General Palmer exploded in his face. Though not seriously injured, Attorney General Palmer and his family were thoroughly shaken by the blast, and their home was largely demolished. All of the bombs were delivered with pink flyers bearing the title "Plain Words" that accused the intended victims of waging class war and promised: "We will destroy to rid

369-577: A Wobbly and syndicalist , and claimed this was evidence that the steelworker strike was being masterminded by radicals and revolutionaries. The steel companies played on nativist fears by noting that a large number of steelworkers were immigrants. Public opinion quickly turned against the striking workers. State and local authorities backed the steel companies. They prohibited mass meetings, had their police attack pickets and jailed thousands. After strikebreakers and police clashed with unionists in Gary, Indiana ,

492-703: A New York attorney with ties to the Justice Department , probably as a "volunteer spy", testified on January 22, 1919, during the German phase of the subcommittee's work. He established that anti-war and anti-draft activism during World War I, which he described as pro-German activity, had now transformed itself into propaganda "developing sympathy for the Bolshevik movement". America's wartime enemy, though defeated, had exported an ideology that now ruled Russia and threatened America anew. "The Bolshevik movement

615-465: A core group of professional revolutionaries who would devote their full time and energy towards developing the party into an organization capable of leading a successful proletarian revolution against the Tsarist autocracy . The base of active and experienced members would be the recruiting ground for this professional core. Sympathizers would be left outside and the party would be organised based on

738-582: A date chosen because it was the second anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution, agents of the Bureau of Investigation, together with local police, executed a series of well-publicized and violent raids against the Union of Russian Workers in 12 cities. Newspaper accounts reported some were "badly beaten" during the arrests. Many later swore they were threatened and beaten during questioning. Government agents cast

861-536: A few iron balls were displayed to the press they were never mentioned again. All the raids netted a total of just four ordinary pistols. While most press coverage continued to be positive, with criticism only from leftist publications like The Nation and The New Republic , one attorney raised the first noteworthy protest. Francis Fisher Kane, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania , resigned in protest. In his letter of resignation to

984-581: A few reached their targets, and not all exploded when opened. Some people suffered injuries, including a housekeeper in Senator Thomas W. Hardwick 's residence, who had her hands blown off. On June 2, 1919, the second wave of bombings occurred, when several much larger package bombs were detonated by Galleanists in eight American cities, including one that damaged the home of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer in Washington, D.C. At least one person

1107-563: A higher budget. One of the common methods the Bolsheviks used was committing bank robberies, one of which, in 1907, resulted in the party getting over 250,000 roubles, which is the equivalent of about $ 125,000. Bolsheviks were in constant need of money because Lenin practised his beliefs, expressed in his writings, that revolutions must be led by individuals who devote their entire lives to the cause. As compensation, he rewarded them with salaries for their sacrifice and dedication. This measure

1230-633: A huge New York City parade celebrated the return of General John J. Pershing , the hero of the American Expeditionary Force . A report from Washington, D.C., included this headline: "Senators Think Effort to Sovietize the Government Is Started". Senator Henry Cabot Lodge saw in the strike the dangers of the national labor movement: "If the American Federation of Labor succeeds in getting hold of

1353-587: A march that lacked a permit. In the ensuing melee both sides fought for possession of the Socialists' red flags. One policeman was shot and died of his wounds; a second officer died of a heart attack. William Sidis was arrested. Later a mob attacked the Socialist headquarters. Police arrested 114, all from the Socialist side. Each side's newspapers provided uncritical support to their own the next day. In New York, soldiers in uniform burned printed materials at

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1476-521: A mass uprising were commonly invoked by political officials at the time. Repression by the government was also prevalent; two examples include the Palmer Raids and Lusk Committee raids . The period was also marked by anti-Semitic rhetoric. In 1920, the five Socialist members of the New York state assembly were expelled from it by a vote of 140 to 6, partially in response to their support for

1599-461: A more organized revolutionary work. After the proposed revolution had successfully overthrown the Russian autocracy, this strong leadership would relinquish power and allow a Socialist party to fully develop within the principles of democratic centralism . Lenin said that if professional revolutionaries did not maintain influence over the fight of the workers, then that fight would steer away from

1722-692: A new and very independent-minded Acting Secretary of Labor in Assistant Secretary of Labor Louis Freeland Post , who canceled more than 2,000 warrants as being illegal. Of the 10,000 arrested, 3,500 were held by authorities in detention; 556 resident aliens were eventually deported under the Immigration Act of 1918 . At a Cabinet meeting in April 1920, Palmer called on Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson to fire Post, but Wilson defended him. The President listened to his feuding department heads and offered no comment about Post, but he ended

1845-435: A new development in labor unrest. The fears of Wilson and other government officials were confirmed when Galleanists —Italian immigrant followers of the anarchist Luigi Galleani —carried out a series of bombings in April and June 1919 . At the end of April, some 30 Galleanist letter bombs had been mailed to a host of individuals, mostly prominent government officials and businessmen, but also law enforcement officials. Only

1968-723: A new division of the Justice Department's Bureau of Investigation , the General Intelligence Division (GID), with responsibility for investigating the programs of radical groups and identifying their members. The Boston Police Strike in early September raised concerns about possible threats to political and social stability. On October 17, the Senate passed a unanimous resolution demanding Palmer explain what actions he had or had not taken against radical aliens and why. At 9 pm on November 7, 1919,

2091-594: A pamphlet called Americanism versus Bolshevism . The Overman Committee was a special five-man subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary chaired by North Carolina Democrat Lee Slater Overman . First charged with investigating German subversion during World War I, its mandate was extended on February 4, 1919, just a day after the announcement of the Seattle General Strike, to study "any efforts being made to propagate in this country

2214-577: A rigid political structure was needed to effectively initiate a formal revolution. This idea was met with opposition from once close allies, including Martov, Plekhanov , Vera Zasulich , Leon Trotsky , and Pavel Axelrod . Plekhanov and Lenin's major dispute arose addressing the topic of nationalizing land or leaving it for private use. Lenin wanted to nationalize to aid in collectivization , whereas Plekhanov thought worker motivation would remain higher if individuals were able to maintain their own property. Those who opposed Lenin and wanted to continue on

2337-870: A separate Union of Socialists-Revolutionaries Maximalists ) and then again after 1917. The Bolsheviks ultimately became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union . The Bolsheviks, or Reds , came to power in Russia during the October Revolution phase of the 1917 Russian Revolution , and founded the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). With the Reds defeating the Whites and others during

2460-598: A separate party, convincing pro-Bolshevik workers within Russia to follow suit proved difficult. When the first meeting of the Fourth Duma was convened in late 1912, only one out of six Bolshevik deputies, Matvei Muranov (another one, Roman Malinovsky , was later exposed as an Okhrana agent), voted on 15 December 1912 to break from the Menshevik faction within the Duma. The Bolshevik leadership eventually prevailed, and

2583-602: A series of raids on January 2, 1920, with follow up operations over the next few days. Smaller raids extended over the next 6 weeks. At least 3000 were arrested, and many others were held for various lengths of time. The entire enterprise replicated the November action on a larger scale, including arrests and seizures without search warrants, as well as detention in overcrowded and unsanitary holding facilities. Hoover later admitted "clear cases of brutality." The raids covered more than 30 cities and towns in 23 states, but those west of

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2706-515: A tentative agreement, and one of its provisions was to make Trotsky's Vienna-based Pravda , a party-financed central organ. Kamenev, Trotsky's brother-in-law who was with the Bolsheviks, was added to the editorial board; but the unification attempts failed in August 1910 when Kamenev resigned from the board amid mutual recriminations . The factions permanently broke relations in January 1912 after

2829-567: A threat to American political and social stability. Bolshevism and the threat of a communist -inspired revolution in the U.S. became the overriding explanation for challenges to the social order , even for such largely unrelated events as incidents of interracial violence during the Red Summer of 1919. Fear of radicalism was used to explain the suppression of freedom of expression in the form of display of certain flags and banners. In April 1920, concerns peaked with J. Edgar Hoover telling

2952-520: A union, much less one affiliated with a larger organization like the AFL. During the strike, Boston experienced two nights of lawlessness until several thousand members of the State Guard supported by volunteers restored order, though not without causing several deaths. The public, fed by lurid press accounts and hyperbolic political observers, viewed the strike with a degree of alarm out of proportion to

3075-464: A viewpoint that Bogdanov had been exploring and developing as Empiriomonism . Having worked as co-editor with Plekhanov, on Zarya , Lenin had come to agree with the Valentinov's rejection of Bogdanov's Empiriomonism. With the defeat of the revolution in mid-1907 and the adoption of a new, highly restrictive election law, the Bolsheviks began debating whether to boycott the new parliament known as

3198-470: A wave of rent strikes occurred across all of New York City and Jersey City from 1918 to 1920. While it is unclear exactly how many tenants were involved, at least tens of thousands and likely hundreds of thousands tenants struck. In response to the strikes, which was marked heavily by the Red Scare, rhetoric accusing tenant leaders of being Bolsheviks and comments that claimed a fear that there would be

3321-629: A wide net, bringing in some American citizens, passers-by who admitted being Russian, some not members of the Russian Workers. Others were teachers conducting night school classes in space shared with the targeted radical group. Arrests far exceeded the number of warrants. Of 650 arrested in New York City, the government managed to deport just 43. When Palmer replied to the Senate's questions of October 17, he reported that his department had amassed 60,000 names with great effort. Required by

3444-424: Is America – not Russia," one said when denouncing the general strike. The non-striking part of Seattle's population imagined the worst and stocked up on food. Hardware stores sold their stock of guns. Seattle Mayor Ole Hanson announced that he had 1500 police and 1500 federal troops on hand to put down any disturbances. He personally oversaw their deployment throughout the city. "The time has come", he said, "for

3567-413: Is a branch of the revolutionary socialism of Germany. It had its origin in the philosophy of Marx and its leaders were Germans." He cited the propaganda efforts of John Reed and gave many examples from the foreign press. He told the senators that "We have found money coming into this country from Russia." The senators were particularly interested in how Bolshevism had united many disparate elements on

3690-551: Is no right to strike against the public safety, anywhere, anytime." The strike proved another setback for labor and the AFL immediately withdrew its recognition of police unions. Coolidge won the Republican nomination for Vice-President in the 1920 presidential election in part due to his actions during the Boston Police Strike. Following a housing and coal shortage caused by the mobilization for World War I,

3813-673: The Allied powers in order to resolve her internal conflict. Unfortunately for the Bolsheviks, Lenin's assumptions were incorrect. Despite his and the party's attempts to push for a civil war through involvement in two conferences in 1915 and 1916 in Switzerland, the Bolsheviks were in the minority in calling for a ceasefire by the Imperial Russian Army in World War I. Although the Bolshevik leadership had decided to form

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3936-495: The Communist Labor Party . Finally, despite the fact that Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson insisted that more than membership in an organization was required for a warrant, Hoover worked with more compliant Labor officials and overwhelmed Labor staff to get the warrants he wanted. Justice Department officials, including Palmer and Hoover, later claimed ignorance of such details. The Justice Department launched

4059-933: The First World War there was a nationwide campaign in the United States against the real and imagined divided political loyalties of immigrants and ethnic groups, who were feared to have too much loyalty for their nations of origin. In 1915, President Wilson warned against hyphenated Americans who, he charged, had "poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life." "Such creatures of passion, disloyalty and anarchy", Wilson continued, "must be crushed out". The Russian Revolutions of 1917 added special force to fear of labor agitators and partisans of ideologies like anarchism and communism. The general strike in Seattle in February 1919 represented

4182-766: The Immigration Act of 1918 . The Espionage Act made it a crime to interfere with the operation or success of the military, and the Sedition Act forbade Americans to use "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government , flag , or armed forces of the United States during war. The Immigration Act of 1918 targeted anarchists by name and was used to deport Emma Goldman , Alexander Berkman and Luigi Galleani , among others. On January 21, 1919, 35,000 shipyard workers in Seattle went on strike seeking wage increases. They appealed to

4305-547: The Mensheviks . In Germany , the book was published in 1902, but in Russia , strict censorship outlawed its publication and distribution. One of the main points of Lenin's writing was that a revolution can only be achieved by a strong, professional leadership with deep dedication to Marxist theoretical principles and an organization that spanned through the whole of Russia, abandoning what Lenin called "artisanal work" towards

4428-557: The New York Times with evidence of Bolshevist propaganda targeting America's black communities that was "paralleling the agitation that is being carried on in industrial centres of the North and West, where there are many alien laborers". Vehicles for this propaganda about the "doctrines of Lenin and Trotzky" included newspapers, magazines, and "so-called 'negro betterment' organizations ". Quotations from such publications contrasted

4551-473: The Palmer Raids and attempts by United States Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer to suppress radical organizations, it was characterized by exaggerated rhetoric, illegal searches and seizures , unwarranted arrests and detentions, and the deportation of several hundred suspected radicals and anarchists. In addition, the growing anti- immigration nativist movement among Americans viewed increasing immigration from Southern Europe and Eastern Europe as

4674-707: The Provisional Government " and "all power to the soviets ". In the summer of 1917, especially after the July Days and Kornilov affair , large numbers of radicalized workers joined the Bolsheviks, which planned the October Revolution which overthrew the government. The party initially governed in coalition with the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries , but increasingly centralized power and suppressed opposition during

4797-662: The Russian Civil War of 1917–1922, the RSFSR became the chief constituent of the Soviet Union (USSR) in December 1922. The average party member was very young: in 1907, 22% of Bolsheviks were under 20 years of age; 37% were 20–24 years of age; and 16% were 25–29 years of age. By 1905, 62% of the members were industrial workers (3% of the population in 1897). Twenty-two percent of Bolsheviks were gentry (1.7% of

4920-484: The Russian Civil War , and after 1921 became the sole legal party in Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union . Under Joseph Stalin 's leadership, the party became linked to his policies of " socialism in one country ", rapid industrialization, collectivized agriculture, and centralized state control. Lenin's political pamphlet What Is to Be Done? , written in 1901, helped to precipitate the Bolsheviks' split from

5043-551: The Second Party Congress in 1903. The Bolshevik party, formally established in 1912, seized power in Russia in the October Revolution of 1917, and was later renamed the Russian Communist Party, All-Union Communist Party, and Communist Party of the Soviet Union . The party's ideology, based on Leninist and later Marxist–Leninist principles, is known as Bolshevism . The origin of the split

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5166-584: The South Side were destroyed by mobs, and a militia force of several thousand was called in to restore order. In mid-summer, in the middle of the Chicago riots, a "federal official" told the New York Times that the violence resulted from "an agitation, which involves the I.W.W., Bolshevism and the worst features of other extreme radical movements". He supported that claim with copies of negro publications that called for alliances with leftist groups, praised

5289-758: The Third Duma . Lenin, Grigory Zinoviev , Lev Kamenev , and others argued for participating in the Duma while Bogdanov, Anatoly Lunacharsky , Mikhail Pokrovsky , and others argued that the social democratic faction in the Duma should be recalled. The latter became known as " recallists " ( Russian : otzovists ). A smaller group within the Bolshevik faction demanded that the RSDLP Central Committee should give its sometimes unruly Duma faction an ultimatum, demanding complete subordination to all party decisions. This group became known as " ultimatists " and

5412-429: The U.S. Army took over the city on October 6, 1919, and martial law was declared. National Guardsmen, leaving Gary after federal troops had taken over, turned their anger on strikers in nearby Indiana Harbor, Indiana . Steel companies also turned toward strikebreaking and rumor-mongering to demoralize the picketers. They brought in between 30,000 and 40,000 African-American and Mexican-American workers to work in

5535-456: The socialist mode of production path towards complete socialism and disagreed with his strict party membership guidelines became known as "softs" while Lenin supporters became known as "hards". Some of the factionalism could be attributed to Lenin's steadfast belief in his own opinion and what was described by Plekhanov as Lenin's inability to "bear opinions which were contrary to his own" and loyalty to his own self-envisioned utopia . Lenin

5658-414: The 2nd Congress vote, Lenin's faction won votes on the majority of important issues, and soon came to be known as Bolsheviks , from the Russian bolshinstvo , 'majority'. Likewise, Martov's group came to be known as Mensheviks , from menshinstvo , 'minority'. However, Martov's supporters won the vote concerning the question of party membership, and neither Lenin nor Martov had a firm majority throughout

5781-466: The AFL recognized that the strike was damaging labor in the public mind and advised the strikers to return to work. The Police Commissioner, however, remained adamant and refused to re-hire the striking policemen. He was supported by Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge , whose rebuke of Gompers earned him a national reputation. Famous as a man of few words, he put the anti-union position simply: "There

5904-539: The Bolsheviks formed their own Duma faction in September 1913. One final difference between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks was how ferocious and tenacious the Bolshevik party was in order to achieve its goals, although Lenin was open minded to retreating from political ideals if he saw the guarantee of long-term gains benefiting the party. This practice was seen in the party's trying to recruit peasants and uneducated workers by promising them how glorious life would be after

6027-531: The Bolsheviks organised a Bolsheviks-only Prague Party Conference and formally expelled Mensheviks and recallists from the party. As a result, they ceased to be a faction in the RSDLP and instead declared themselves an independent party, called Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) – or RSDLP(b). Unofficially, the party has been referred to as the Bolshevik Party. Throughout the 20th century,

6150-458: The Bolsheviks. He remained a self-described "non-factional social democrat " until August 1917, when he joined Lenin and the Bolsheviks, as their positions resembled his and he came to believe that Lenin was correct on the issue of the party. All but one member of the RSDLP Central Committee were arrested in Moscow in early 1905. The remaining member, with the power of appointing a new committee,

6273-562: The Congress as delegates left or switched sides. In the end, the Congress was evenly split between the two factions. From 1907 onward, English-language articles sometimes used the term Maximalist for "Bolshevik" and Minimalist for "Menshevik", which proved to be confusing as there was also a "Maximalist" faction within the Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party in 1904–1906 (which, after 1906, formed

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6396-526: The Department of Justice's actions. He wrote that "a mob is a mob, whether made up of Government officials acting under instructions from the Department of Justice, or of criminals and loafers and the vicious classes." His decision effectively prevented any renewal of the raids. Palmer, once seen as a likely presidential candidate, lost his bid to win the Democratic nomination for president later in

6519-484: The Department of Labor to ease its insistence on promptly alerting those arrested of their right to an attorney. Instead, Labor issued instructions that its representatives could wait until after the case against the defendant was established, "in order to protect government interests." Less openly, Hoover decided to interpret Labor's agreement to act against the Communist Party to include a different organization,

6642-488: The House Rules Committee on May 7–8, Post proved "a convincing speaker with a caustic tongue" and defended himself so successfully that Congressman Edward W. Pou , a Democrat presumed to be an enthusiastic supporter of Palmer, congratulated him: "I feel that you have followed your sense of duty absolutely." On May 28, 1920, the nascent American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which was founded in response to

6765-550: The Machinery Sold to Them for a Song On the release of the final report, newspapers printed sensational articles with headlines in capital letters: "Red Peril Here", "Plan Bloody Revolution", and "Want Washington Government Overturned". There were several anarchist bombings in 1919. In late April 1919, approximately 36 booby trap bombs were mailed to prominent politicians, including the Attorney General of

6888-529: The May Day marchers for provoking the nationalists' response. The Salt Lake City Tribune did not think anyone had a right to march. It said: "Free speech has been carried to the point where it is an unrestrained menace." A few, however, thought the marches were harmless and that the marchers' enthusiasm would die down on its own if they were left unmolested. More than two dozen American communities, mostly urban areas or industrial centers, saw racial violence in

7011-955: The Mensheviks made an alliance with the Jewish Bund , the Bolsheviks found themselves in a minority. However, all factions retained their respective factional structure and the Bolsheviks formed the Bolshevik Centre , the de facto governing body of the Bolshevik faction within the RSDLP. At the 5th Congress held in London in May 1907, the Bolsheviks were in the majority, but the two factions continued functioning mostly independently of each other. Tensions had existed between Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov from as early as 1904. Lenin had fallen out with Nikolai Valentinov after Valentinov had introduced him to Ernst Mach 's Empiriocriticism ,

7134-520: The Mississippi and south of the Ohio were "publicity gestures" designed to make the effort appear nationwide in scope. Because the raids targeted entire organizations, agents arrested everyone found in organization meeting halls, not only arresting non-radical organization members but also visitors who did not belong to a target organization, and sometimes American citizens not eligible for arrest and deportation. The Department of Justice at one point claimed to have taken possession of several bombs, but after

7257-418: The Philippine Islands a penal colony to which those convicted of an attempt to overthrow the government could be deported. Bolshevik The Bolsheviks ( Russian : большевики , bolsheviki ; from большинство, bolshinstvo , 'majority'), led by Vladimir Lenin , were a far-left faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at

7380-670: The President and the Attorney General he wrote: "It seems to me that the policy of raids against large numbers of individuals is generally unwise and very apt to result in injustice. People not really guilty are likely to be arrested and railroaded through their hearings...We appear to be attempting to repress a political party...By such methods, we drive underground and make dangerous what was not dangerous before." Palmer replied that he could not use individual arrests to treat an "epidemic" and asserted his own fidelity to constitutional principles. He added: "The Government should encourage free political thinking and political action, but it certainly has

7503-433: The Russian 1917 October Revolution , German Revolution of 1918–1919 , and anarchist bombings in the U.S. At its height in 1919–1920, concerns over the effects of radical political agitation in American society and the alleged spread of socialism , communism , and anarchism in the American labor movement fueled a general sense of concern. The scare had its origins in the hyper-nationalism of World War I as well as

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7626-515: The Russian People's House and forced immigrants to sing the Star-Spangled Banner . Cleveland, Ohio saw the worst violence. Leftists protesting the imprisonment of Eugene V. Debs and promoting the campaign of Charles Ruthenberg , the Socialist candidate for mayor, planned to march through the center of the city. A group of Victory Loan workers, a nationalist organization whose members sold war bonds and thought themselves still at war against all forms of anti-Americanism, tried to block some of

7749-439: The Russian Revolution. At the war's end, following the October Revolution, American authorities saw the threat of communist revolution in the actions of organized labor , including such disparate cases as the Seattle General Strike and the Boston Police Strike and then in the bombing campaign directed by anarchist groups at political and business leaders. Fueled by labor unrest and the anarchist bombings, and then spurred on by

7872-500: The Seattle Central Labor Council for support from other unions and found widespread enthusiasm. Within two weeks, more than 100 local unions joined in a call on February 3 for a general strike to begin on the morning of February 6. The 60,000 total strikers paralyzed the city's normal activities, like streetcar service, schools, and ordinary commerce, while their General Strike Committee maintained order and provided essential services, like trash collection and milk deliveries. Even before

7995-815: The Seattle General Strike, arrived early and failed to explode as intended. Seattle police in turn notified the Post Office and other police agencies. On April 29, a package sent to U.S. Senator Thomas W. Hardwick of Georgia, a sponsor of the Anarchist Exclusion Act , exploded injuring his wife and housekeeper. On April 30, a post office employee in New York City recognized sixteen packages by their wrapping and interrupted their delivery. Another twelve bombs were recovered before reaching their targets. In June 1919, eight bombs, far larger than those mailed in April, exploded almost simultaneously in several U.S. cities. These new bombs were believed to contain up to twenty-five pounds of dynamite, and all were wrapped or packaged with heavy metal slugs designed to act as shrapnel. All of

8118-422: The Soviet regime, and contrasted the courage of jailed Socialist Eugene V. Debs with the "school boy rhetoric" of traditional black leaders. The Times characterized the publications as "vicious and apparently well financed," mentioned "certain factions of the radical Socialist elements", and reported it all under the headline: "Reds Try to Stir Negroes to Revolt". In mid-October, government sources again provided

8241-401: The United States is no longer a specter. Boston in chaos reveals its sinister substance." President Woodrow Wilson , speaking from Montana, branded the walkout "a crime against civilization" that left the city "at the mercy of an army of thugs". The timing of the strike also happened to present the police union in the worst light. September 10, the first full day of the strike, was also the day

8364-491: The United States, judges, businessmen (including John D. Rockefeller ), and a Bureau of Investigation field agent, R. W. Finch, who happened to be investigating the Galleanist organization. The bombs were mailed in identical packages and were timed to arrive on May Day, the day of celebration of organized labor and the working class. A few of the packages went undelivered because they lacked sufficient postage. One bomb intended for Seattle Mayor Ole Hanson , who had opposed

8487-458: The beginning of World War I loomed near. Joseph Stalin was especially eager for the start of the war, hoping that it would turn into a war between classes or essentially a Russian Civil War . This desire for war was fuelled by Lenin's vision that the workers and peasants would resist joining the war effort and therefore be more compelled to join the socialist movement. Through the increase in support, Russia would then be forced to withdraw from

8610-446: The concept of democratic centralism . Martov, until then a close friend of Lenin, agreed with him that the core of the party should consist of professional revolutionaries, but he argued that party membership should be open to sympathizers, revolutionary workers, and other fellow travellers. The two had disagreed on the issue as early as March–May 1903, but it was not until the Congress that their differences became irreconcilable and split

8733-435: The country voluntarily, attacks by remaining members continued until 1932. The American labor movement had been celebrating its May Day holiday since the 1890s and had seen none of the violence associated with the day's events in Europe. On May 1, 1919, the left mounted especially large demonstrations, and violence greeted the normally peaceful parades in Boston , New York , and Cleveland . In Boston, police tried to stop

8856-477: The criminal anarchists...set at large among the people the very public enemies whom it was the desire and intention of the Congress to be rid of." The press saw the dispute as evidence of the Wilson administration's ineffectiveness and division as it approached its final months. In June 1920, a decision by Massachusetts District Court Judge George W. Anderson ordered the discharge of 17 arrested aliens and denounced

8979-461: The events, which ultimately produced only about $ 35,000 of property damage. Bolshevism in the United States is no longer a specter. Boston in chaos reveals its sinister substance. — Philadelphia Public Ledger The strikers were called "deserters" and "agents of Lenin." The Philadelphia Public Ledger viewed the Boston violence in the same light as many other of 1919's events: "Bolshevism in

9102-598: The eyes of the American public and Seattle's middle class. Press and political reaction made the general strike untenable, and they feared Seattle labor would lose gains made during the war if it continued. The national press called the general strike "Marxian" and "a revolutionary movement aimed at existing government". "It is only a middling step", said the Chicago Tribune , "from Petrograd to Seattle." As early as February 8 some unions began to return to work at

9225-684: The final report, referring to the Russians as "assassins and madmen", "human scum", "crime mad", and "beasts". The occasional testimony by some who viewed the Bolshevik Revolution favorably lacked the punch of its critics. One extended headline in February read: Bolshevism Bared by R. E. Simmons; Former Agent in Russia of Commerce Department Concludes his Story to Senators Women are 'Nationalized' Official Decrees Reveal Depths of Degradation to Which They are Subjected by Reds Germans Profit by Chaos Factories and Mills are Closed and

9348-616: The formation of Party Schools as Proletarian Universities at a Bolshevik mini-conference in Paris organised by the editorial board of the Bolshevik magazine Proletary . However, this proposal was not adopted and Lenin tried to expel Bogdanov from the Bolshevik faction. Bogdanov was then involved with setting up Vpered , which ran the Capri Party School from August to December 1909. With both Bolsheviks and Mensheviks weakened by splits within their ranks and by Tsarist repression,

9471-462: The horrors of the revolution in Russia and the consequences of a comparable revolution in the United States: the imposition of atheism , the seizure of newspapers, assaults on banks, and the abolition of the insurance industry. The senators heard various views of women in Russia, including claims that women had been made the property of the state. The press reveled in the investigation and

9594-599: The idea of a completely classless society . This pamphlet also showed that Lenin opposed another group of reformers, known as " Economists ", who were for economic reform while leaving the government relatively unchanged and who, in Lenin's view, failed to recognize the importance of uniting the working population behind the party's cause. At the 2nd Congress of the RSDLP , which was held in Brussels and then London during August 1903, Lenin and Julius Martov disagreed over

9717-578: The increase to $ 100,000. An initial raid in July 1919 against an anarchist group in Buffalo , New York, achieved little when a federal judge tossed out Palmer's case. He found in the case that the three arrested radicals, charged under a law dating from the Civil War , had proposed transforming the government by using their free speech rights and not by violence. That taught Palmer that he needed to exploit

9840-402: The intended targets had participated in some way with the investigation of or the opposition to anarchist radicals. Along with Attorney General Palmer, who was targeted a second time, the intended victims included a Massachusetts state representative and a New Jersey silk manufacturer. Fatalities included a New York City night watchman, William Boehner, and one of the bombers, Carlo Valdinoci ,

9963-441: The left, including anarchists and socialists of many types, "providing a common platform for all these radical groups to stand on". Senator Knute Nelson , Republican of Minnesota, responded by enlarging Bolshevism's embrace to include an even larger segment of political opinion: "Then they have really rendered a service to the various classes of progressives and reformers that we have here in this country." Other witnesses described

10086-609: The less significant Moscow Soviet was dominated by the Bolsheviks. These Soviets became the model for those formed in 1917. As the Russian Revolution of 1905 progressed, Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, and smaller non-Russian social democratic parties operating within the Russian Empire attempted to reunify at the 4th Congress of the RSDLP held in April 1906 at Folkets hus , Norra Bantorget , in Stockholm . When

10209-406: The marchers and a melee ensued . A mob ransacked Ruthenberg's headquarters. Mounted police, army trucks, and tanks restored order. Two people died, forty were injured, and 116 arrested. Local newspapers noted that only 8 of those arrested were born in the United States. The city government immediately passed laws to restrict parades and the display of red flags. With few dissents, newspapers blamed

10332-746: The meeting by telling Palmer that he should "not let this country see red." Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels , who made notes of the conversation, thought the Attorney General had merited the President's "admonition", because Palmer "was seeing red behind every bush and every demand for an increase in wages." Palmer's supporters in Congress responded with an attempt to impeach Louis Post or, failing that, to censure him. The drive against Post began to lose energy when Attorney General Palmer's forecast of an attempted radical uprising on May Day 1920 failed to occur. Then, in testimony before

10455-401: The mills. Company spies also spread rumors that the strike had collapsed elsewhere, and they pointed to the operating steel mills as proof that the strike had been defeated. Congress conducted its own investigation, focused on radical influence upon union activity. In that context, U.S. Senator Kenneth McKellar , a member of the Senate committee investigating the strike, proposed making one of

10578-593: The more powerful immigration statutes that authorized the deportation of alien anarchists, violent or not. To do that, he needed to enlist the cooperation of officials at the Department of Labor. Only the Secretary of Labor could issue warrants for the arrest of alien violators of the Immigration Acts, and only he could sign deportation orders following a hearing by an immigration inspector. On August 1, 1919, Palmer named 24-year-old J. Edgar Hoover to head

10701-624: The nation to prepare for a bloody uprising on May Day . Police and militias prepared for the worst, but May Day passed without incident. Soon, public opinion and the courts turned against Palmer, putting an end to his raids and the first Red Scare. In reaction to subversive and militant leftist actions in the United States, the United States Congress passed the Espionage Act in 1917, the Sedition Act of 1918 , and

10824-663: The negroes can bring the white bourbon South to its knees. So go to it." The American Federation of Labor (AFL) began granting charters to police unions in June 1919 when pressed to do so by local groups, and in just 5 months had recognized affiliate police unions in 37 cities. The Boston Police rank and file went out on strike on September 9, 1919 in order to achieve recognition for their union and improvements in wages and working conditions. Police Commissioner Edwin Upton Curtis denied that police officers had any right to form

10947-550: The outbreak of violence. On July 3, the 10th U.S. Cavalry , a segregated African American unit founded in 1866, was attacked by local police in Bisbee, Arizona . Two of the most violent episodes occurred in Washington, D.C. , and Chicago . In Washington, D.C., white men, many in military uniforms, responded to the rumored arrest of a black man for rape with four days of mob violence, rioting and beatings of random black people on

11070-579: The party adopted a number of different names. In 1918, RSDLP(b) became All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and remained so until 1925. From 1925 to 1952, the name was All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and from 1952 to 1991, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. As the party split became permanent, further divisions became evident. One of the most notable differences was how each faction decided to fund its revolution. The Mensheviks decided to fund their revolution through membership dues while Lenin often resorted to more drastic measures since he required

11193-523: The party membership rules. Lenin, who was supported by Georgy Plekhanov , wanted to limit membership to those who supported the party full-time and worked in complete obedience to the elected party leadership. Martov wanted to extend membership to anyone "who recognises the Party Programme and supports it by material means and by regular personal assistance under the direction of one of the party's organisations." Lenin believed his plan would develop

11316-419: The party was the Russian police. The police were able to infiltrate both parties' inner circles by sending in spies who then reported on the opposing party's intentions and hostilities. This allowed the tensions to remain high between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and helped prevent their uniting. Lenin was firmly opposed to any reunification but was outvoted within the Bolshevik leadership. The meeting reached

11439-502: The party's objective and carry on under the influence of opposing beliefs or even away from revolution entirely. The pamphlet also showed that Lenin's view of a socialist intelligentsia was in line with Marxist theory . For example, Lenin agreed with the Marxist ideal of social classes ceasing to be and for the eventual " withering away of the state ". Most party members considered unequal treatment of workers immoral and were loyal to

11562-637: The party. At first, the disagreement appeared to be minor and inspired by personal conflicts. For example, Lenin's insistence on dropping less active editorial board members from Iskra or Martov's support for the Organizing Committee of the Congress which Lenin opposed. The differences grew and the split became irreparable. Internal unrest also arose over the political structure that was best suited for Soviet power . As discussed in What Is To Be Done? , Lenin firmly believed that

11685-478: The people in Seattle to show their Americanism  ... The anarchists in this community shall not rule its affairs." He promised to use them to replace striking workers, but never carried out that threat. Meanwhile, the national leadership of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and international leaders of some of the Seattle locals recognized how inflammatory the general strike was proving in

11808-418: The police in Boston it will go all over the country, and we shall be in measurable distance of Soviet government by labor unions." The Ohio State Journal opposed any sympathetic treatment of the strikers: "When a policeman strikes, he should be debarred not only from resuming his office, but from citizenship as well. He has committed the unpardonable sin; he has forfeited all his rights." Samuel Gompers of

11931-511: The principles of any party exercising or claiming to exercise any authority in Russia" and "any effort to incite the overthrow of the Government of this country". The Committee's hearings into Bolshevik propaganda, conducted from February 11 to March 10, 1919, developed an alarming image of Bolshevism as an imminent threat to the U.S. government and American values. The Committee's final report appeared in June 1919. Archibald E. Stevenson ,

12054-404: The raids and attempts at deportations and the lack of legal process in his 1920 volume Freedom of Speech . He wrote: "That a Quaker should employ prison and exile to counteract evil-thinking is one of the saddest ironies of our time." The Rules Committee gave Palmer a hearing in June, where he attacked Post and other critics whose "tender solicitude for social revolution and perverted sympathy for

12177-572: The raids, published its Report Upon the Illegal Practices of the United States Department of Justice , which carefully documented unlawful activities in arresting suspected radicals, illegal entrapment by agents provocateur , and unlawful incommunicado detention. Such prominent lawyers and law professors as Felix Frankfurter , Roscoe Pound and Ernst Freund signed it. Harvard Professor Zechariah Chafee criticized

12300-492: The recent violence in Chicago and Washington, D.C., with "Soviet Russia, a country in which dozens of racial and lingual types have settled their many differences and found a common meeting ground, a country which no longer oppresses colonies, a country from which the lynch rope is banished and in which racial tolerance and peace now exist." The New York Times cited one publication's call for unionization: "Negroes must form cotton workers' unions. Southern white capitalists know that

12423-477: The revolution and granting them temporary concessions. Bolshevik figures such as Anatoly Lunacharsky , Moisei Uritsky and Dmitry Manuilsky considered that Lenin's influence on the Bolshevik party was decisive but the October insurrection was carried out according to Trotsky's, not to Lenin's plan. In 1918, the party renamed itself the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) at Lenin's suggestion. In 1925, this

12546-433: The right for its own preservation to discourage and prevent the use of force and violence to accomplish that which ought to be accomplished, if at all, by parliamentary or political methods." The Washington Post endorsed Palmer's claim for urgency over legal process: "There is no time to waste on hairsplitting over infringement of liberty." In a few weeks, after changes in personnel at the Department of Labor, Palmer faced

12669-492: The statutes to work through the Department of Labor, they had arrested 250 dangerous radicals in the November 7 raids. He proposed a new Anti-Sedition Law to enhance his authority to prosecute anarchists. As Attorney General Palmer struggled with exhaustion and devoted all his energies to the United Mine Workers coal strike in November and December 1919 , Hoover organized the next raids. He successfully persuaded

12792-452: The steel industry, including almost all mills in Pueblo, Colorado ; Chicago, Illinois ; Wheeling, West Virginia ; Johnstown, Pennsylvania ; Cleveland, Ohio ; Lackawanna, New York ; and Youngstown, Ohio . The owners quickly turned public opinion against the AFL. As the strike began, they published information exposing AFL National Committee co-chairman William Z. Foster's radical past as

12915-420: The street. When police refused to intervene, the black population fought back. When the violence ended, ten whites were dead, including two police officers, and 5 blacks. Some 150 people had been the victims of attacks. The rioting in Chicago started on July 27. Chicago's beaches along Lake Michigan were segregated in practice, if not by law. A black youth who drifted into the area customarily reserved for whites

13038-399: The strike began, the press tried to persuade the unions to reconsider. In part they were frightened by some of labor's rhetoric, like the labor newspaper editorial that proclaimed: "We are undertaking the most tremendous move ever made by labor in this country  ... We are starting on a road that leads – NO ONE KNOWS WHERE!" Daily newspapers saw the general strike as a foreign import: "This

13161-476: The strike the next day. The original strike in the shipyards continued. Though the general strike collapsed because labor leadership viewed it as a misguided tactic from the start, Mayor Hanson took credit for ending the five-day strike and was hailed for it by the press. He resigned a few months later and toured the country giving lectures on the dangers of "domestic bolshevism". He earned $ 38,000 in seven months, five times his annual salary as mayor. He published

13284-511: The strikes. By its end, the wave of strikes had led to the passage of the first rent laws in the country and fundamentally shifted tenant-landlord relations. However, the more radical tenant groups largely were destroyed by raids or slowly dwindled as a result of the new laws addressing the crisis. Though the leadership of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) opposed a strike in the steel industry, 98% of their union members voted to strike beginning on September 22, 1919. It shut down half

13407-520: The summer and early fall of 1919. Unlike earlier race riots in U.S. history , the 1919 riots were among the first in which blacks responded with resistance to white attacks. Martial law was imposed in Charleston, South Carolina , where men of the U.S. Navy led a race riot on May 10. Five white men and eighteen black men were injured in the riot. An official investigation found that four U.S. sailors and one civilian—all white men—were responsible for

13530-443: The total population) and 38% were uprooted peasants ; compared with 19% and 26% for the Mensheviks. In 1907, 78% of the Bolsheviks were Russian and 10% were Jewish ; compared to 34% and 20% for the Mensheviks. Total Bolshevik membership was 8,400 in 1905, 13,000 in 1906, and 46,100 by 1907; compared to 8,400, 18,000 and 38,200 for the Mensheviks. By 1910, both factions together had fewer than 100,000 members. Between 1903 and 1904,

13653-402: The two factions were in a state of flux, with many members changing sides. Plekhanov, the founder of Russian Marxism, who at first allied himself with Lenin and the Bolsheviks, had parted ways with them by 1904. Trotsky at first supported the Mensheviks, but left them in September 1904 over their insistence on an alliance with Russian liberals and their opposition to a reconciliation with Lenin and

13776-410: The two factions were tempted to try to reunite the party. In January 1910, Leninists, recallists, and various Menshevik factions held a meeting of the party's Central Committee in Paris. Kamenev and Zinoviev were dubious about the idea; but under pressure from conciliatory Bolsheviks like Victor Nogin , they were willing to give it a try. One of the underlying reasons that prevented any reunification of

13899-541: The urging of their leaders. Some workers went back to work as individuals, perhaps fearful of losing their jobs if the Mayor acted on his threats or in reaction to the pressure of life under the general strike. The executive committee of the General Strike Committee first recommended ending the general strike on February 8 but lost that vote. Finally on February 10, the General Strike Committee voted to end

14022-460: The world of your tyrannical institutions." Police and the Bureau of Investigation tracked the flyer to a print shop owned by an anarchist, Andrea Salcedo , but never obtained sufficient evidence for a prosecution. Evidence from Valdonoci's death, bomb components, and accounts from participants later tied both bomb attacks to the Galleanists. Though some of the Galleanists were deported or left

14145-528: The year. The anarchist bombing campaign continued intermittently for another twelve years. First Red Scare Progressive Era Repression and persecution Anti-war and civil rights movements Contemporary Active Defunct Publications Works The first Red Scare was a period during the early 20th-century history of the United States marked by a widespread fear of far-left movements, including Bolshevism and anarchism , due to real and imagined events; real events included

14268-400: Was stoned and drowned. Blacks responded violently when the police refused to take action. Violence between mobs and gangs lasted 13 days. The resulting 38 fatalities included 23 blacks and 15 whites. Injuries numbered 537 injured, and 1,000 black families were left homeless. Some 50 people were reported dead. Unofficial numbers were much higher. Hundreds of mostly black homes and businesses on

14391-627: Was Lenin's support for a smaller party of professional revolutionaries, as opposed to the Menshevik desire for a broad party membership. The influence of the factions fluctuated in the years up to 1912, when the RSDLP formally split into two parties. The Bolsheviks' political philosophy was based on the Leninist principles of vanguardism and democratic centralism . After the February Revolution of 1917, Lenin returned to Russia and issued his April Theses , which called for "no support for

14514-724: Was changed to All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). At the 19th Party Congress in 1952 the Party was renamed the Communist Party of the Soviet Union at Stalin's suggestion. Bolo was a derogatory expression for Bolsheviks used by British service personnel in the North Russian Expeditionary Force which intervened against the Red Army during the Russian Civil War. Adolf Hitler , Joseph Goebbels , and other Nazi leaders used it in reference to

14637-458: Was generally allied with the recallists. With most Bolshevik leaders either supporting Bogdanov or undecided by mid-1908 when the differences became irreconcilable, Lenin concentrated on undermining Bogdanov's reputation as a philosopher. In 1909, he published a scathing book of criticism entitled Materialism and Empirio-criticism (1909), assaulting Bogdanov's position and accusing him of philosophical idealism . In June 1909, Bogdanov proposed

14760-641: Was killed in this second attack, night watchman William Boehner, and fears were raised because it occurred in the capital. Flyers declaring war on capitalists in the name of anarchist principles accompanied each bomb. In June 1919, Attorney General Palmer told the House Appropriations Committee that all evidence promised that radicals would "on a certain day...rise up and destroy the government at one fell swoop." He requested an increase in his budget to $ 2,000,000 from $ 1,500,000 to support his investigations of radicals, but Congress limited

14883-599: Was seen even by fellow party members as being so narrow-minded and unable to accept criticism that he believed that anyone who did not follow him was his enemy. Trotsky , one of Lenin's fellow revolutionaries, compared Lenin in 1904 to the French revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre . The two factions of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) were originally known as hard (Lenin supporters) and soft (Martov supporters). In

15006-411: Was taken to help ensure that the revolutionaries stayed focused on their duties and motivated them to perform their jobs. Lenin also used the party money to print and copy pamphlets which were distributed in cities and at political rallies in an attempt to expand their operations. Both factions received funds through donations from wealthy supporters. Further differences in party agendas became evident as

15129-538: Was won over by the Bolsheviks. The lines between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks hardened in April 1905 when the Bolsheviks held a Bolsheviks-only meeting in London, which they called the 3rd Party Congress . The Mensheviks organised a rival conference and the split was thus finalized. The Bolsheviks played a relatively minor role in the 1905 Revolution and were a minority in the Saint Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies led by Trotsky. However,

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