Red Scare America 1920 World War I was finally over, however, there was a new threat to the Americans. That threat was communism, greatly feared by most of the United States. citizens. Communism is “a system of social and economic organization in which property is owned by the state or a group, to be shared in common or distributed among members of the community equally or in proportion to their respective needs. »* In 1919, no more than a tenth of the American adult population belonged to the newly formed communist movement, and even this small percentage was severely persecuted. Although the American "Reds" bore most of the fury of the raids, it was not just the Communists who sowed national panic. Emotions that had been building since the turn of the century were heightened during World War I, then erupted into “xenophobic” repression (fear and hatred of foreigners). Late in the afternoon of Friday, January 2, 1920, agents of the Department of the Interior Justice raided a communist headquarters and began arresting thousands of people in major American cities across the country . They invaded private homes, clubs, billiard halls and cafes, arresting citizens and foreigners, communists and non-communists, devastating meeting halls and destroying property. Officers put their victims in jail, held them without lawyers, and interrogated them. Prisoners who could demonstrate that they were American citizens were released. Foreigners were released a few days later, unless they were members of the Communist Party or the Communist Labor Party. These are the two groups formed from the American communist movement. Over two days, nearly five thousand people were arrested, and nearly five thousand were captured in the cleanup that followed over the next two weeks. The arrests were carried out with total disregard for the rights of the prisoners. Some psychological views might help explain why the events of 1919-1920 took place. At that time, some Americans were still on the verge of attacking. They were hostile to minorities, extremely patriotic, and ready to rid their nation of any intruders who seemed to threaten them. The postwar push for “one hundred percent Americanism” may have left our citizens with a desire to keep our country pure. The Russian Revolution of the fall of 1918 also contributed to unrest in America. In an explosion of violence, communists took control of the Russian government and assassinated the Tsar and his entire family.