Florida State University Libraries Honors Theses The Division of Undergraduate Studies 2013 Seeing Red in Double Vision Austin Yost Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact
[email protected] Yost 1 THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES SEEING RED IN DOUBLE VISION By AUSTIN YOST A Thesis submitted to the Department of History In partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with Honors in the Major Degree Awarded: Spring 2013 Yost 2 Seeing Red in Double Vision In recent times, with the fall of the Soviet Union over two decades behind us, it would be very easy to ignore the traditional Marxist-Leninist historical narrative of evolving ideological conflict between the two superpowers. To this day, however, most American students still are educated about the Cold War through the prism of exactly such an ideological conflict, as is made apparent in the title of the classic university course on such matters, “Comparative Political Systems.” But upon further research it becomes harder and harder to justify such an approach to describing the USA’s growing paranoia and fear regarding the specter of communism. While there was an intellectual and psychological angle to both Red Scares, its themes and motifs differed tremendously from what one would expect from a struggle between the haves and the have nots. While the First Red Scare played most of the original Marxist tropes straight – politicians, the wealthy and the religious were in a state of panic, while intellectuals and the working class kept an open mind – the Second Red Scare defied or subverted almost every stereotype regarding what a competition between capitalism and socialism should look like.1 The term “Red Scare” has come to be one of the most recognizable phrases identified with twentieth century American history and political science.