On December 21, 1919, American authorities expelled nearly 250 left-wing immigrant activists detained during the so-called Palmer raids from the United States. The campaign to combat the “red threat”, initiated by politicians, officials and big businessmen, has led to a significant increase in distrust of leftist ideas in American society.
Revolutionary influence
US authorities took the October Revolution of 1917 cautiously, but not as aggressively as British and French politicians. The United States Embassy in Russia was advised to refrain from direct contacts with the Council of People's Commissars, but already in early March 1918, US President Woodrow Wilson sent a welcome telegram to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets in Moscow.
The American authorities hoped to convince the Bolsheviks to remain faithful to their allied obligations in the First World War, but failed to do this - Soviet Russia signed a separate peace with Germany. In addition, soon the elites of the United States appeared a new cause for concern.
“The October Revolution attracted the attention of the whole world. In the West, her ideas had a lot of fans, including prominent intellectuals, ”said Konstantin Blokhin, an expert at the Center for Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in an interview with RT.
The economic situation of ordinary workers in the United States during the First World War was quite difficult, and the Bolshevik ideas on the reorganization of society attracted intellectuals.
“Against the backdrop of the October Revolution, communist ideology could seriously compete with American capitalism,” Blokhin noted.
In the United States, leftist and union organizations, in particular the Industrial Workers of the World, began to grow in popularity. According to Konstantin Blokhin, the activization of the labor movement did not like the representatives of big business, as it potentially threatened their income.
- "European Anarchism" is trying to destroy American freedom, a caricature of 1919
- © Wikimedia Commons
The Red Threat
The left movement in the United States was quite heterogeneous. Along with organizations that used legal methods of political struggle, it also included radicals and terrorists. In 1919, a series of explosions occurred in the United States. Prior to that, dozens of explosive devices were mailed to politicians, officials and businessmen. However, not a single person who was the target of the terrorists died, but there were casualties.
Anarchists were suspected of organizing the attacks, but sufficient evidence against them was not collected. Nevertheless, even without sufficient evidence in a particular case, the laws “On Rebellion” and “On Espionage” adopted after the United States entered World War I allowed law enforcement officers to take certain measures against people who call for a change in the political regime or who are disloyal about US policy. This, in particular, made it possible for the United States authorities to deport in June 1919, one of the leaders of the American anarchist movement, the Italian Luigi Galleani.
One of those to whom the bombs were sent was US Attorney General Alexander Palmer. His house suffered from the explosion, but he himself survived. After that, Palmer decided to launch a tough fight with all the American left. In this case, the prosecutor general decided to rely on the Bureau of Investigation, established in 1908 under the Ministry of Justice.
At that time, employees of the department did not have the right to carry weapons and make arrests, but Palmer tried to circumvent these restrictions by creating a new structure under the Bureau’s jurisdiction - the General Intelligence Unit (OER). By secret decree, in fact contrary to US law, he expanded the powers of his employees. The department was entrusted with an assistant to Palmer, John Edgar Hoover.
OER employees created a file cabinet that included the personal data of hundreds of thousands of suspicious individuals. They secretly monitored left activists, opened their letters, sent agents to their organizations. In particular, the close attention of the American authorities was attracted by an anarchist organization, the Union of Russian Workers.
At first, the activities of the Attorney General and OER did not change the situation in American society. In 1919, every fifth employee in the United States took part in the strike movement. It got to the point that in Boston, a strike was even declared by police unhappy with their salaries.
- Alexander Palmer
- © Wikimedia Commons
In order to discredit left-wing organizations, provocateurs (including employees of detective agencies) involved in radical propaganda were sent to their ranks. Hoover persuaded the leadership of the Ministry of Labor to abolish legal provisions guaranteeing legal protection for immigrant workers. This unleashed the hands of security forces, putting pressure on activists from among the foreigners who moved to the United States.
Palmer Raids
On November 7, 1919, the so-called Palmer raids began. OER and police officers broke into the offices of leftist, immigrant, and labor organizations and detained activists. At the same time, they grossly violated American law: they used empty warrants, which surnames entered after arrest, resorted to violence during interrogations. According to various sources, during the first wave of raids, from 1 to 3 thousand activists were detained. Some of them were arrested, others were beaten and released.
On December 21, 1919, US authorities brought 249 leftist and union immigrant activists aboard the UST Buford. More than half of them were members of the Union of Russian Workers. 24 hours after the ship went to sea, the captain printed out a package with instructions from the American authorities - to take the deportees to Europe and give them the opportunity to enter Soviet Russia. Obviously, due to the time the envelope was printed, a number of sources indicate that the deportation was actually carried out on December 22.
Prisoners of UST Buford were first delivered to the Baltic states, and then to Finland. When crossing the Russian-Finnish border, the deportees were solemnly greeted by representatives of the Soviet government.
Meanwhile, new raids in the United States took place in January 1920. The total number of detainees reached 6-10 thousand people. The foreigners included in their number were sent to an immigration prison, where people were kept on a stone floor without basic amenities. Some of them, pending a decision on their future fate, were dying of pneumonia.
- UST USF Buford
- © Library of Congress
Palmer’s activities have been widely reported in the media. The broadcast of his position inspired American society and created anti-Bolshevik sentiments in it. The Attorney General has instigated hysteria, promising an attempt to revolutionize the United States on May 1, 1920.
“The creation of the image of the enemy was in full swing. This "enemy of America" was appointed left. Palmer was convincing and, inspiring his audience, decided to transform personal fame into political capital, ”the head of the Department of Political Science and Sociology of the Russian University of Economics named in an interview with RT. Plekhanova Andrey Koshkin.
At the same time, according to the expert, when Palmer began to demonstrate presidential ambitions, he began to lose political support in Washington. In particular, he was ridiculed due to a fictional revolution. To some extent, Palmer’s support was restored after the bombings on Wall Street in September 1920, but he still lost the chance to move to the White House. The Ministry of Labor has restored immigrants' right to legal protection. A significant part of the detained foreigners had to be released.
"The raids stopped, Palmer quit in 1921, but for Hoover, the raid story was the beginning of a big career," said Andrei Koshkin. At the age of 29, Palmer's former assistant became the head of the Bureau of Investigation and led him during the transformation of the agency into the FBI.
“Despite the collapse of Palmer’s raids, leftist movement in the US has been discredited and virtually beheaded. This became an ideological prologue to the Cold War, Vietnam, Chile, Cuba and other conflicts, during which the American authorities were engaged in the demonization of the USSR and leftist forces. It should be recognized that, if there were no Palmer raids, the history of the United States could go a completely different way. There is no guarantee that the existing regime in the United States would survive the Great Depression if there was a powerful left-wing opposition in America, ”summed up Koshkin.