Which of the following best describes the Red Scare? Americans were suspicious of immigrants and political radicals. The United States increased its armed forces and weapons supplies. Americans enjoyed a higher standard of living and increased productivity.

There were two Red Scares. One went from 1917 - 1920, and the other went from 1947 - 1957. Here we're focusing on the 1947 - 1957 Red Scare. It is popularly known as "McCarthyism" after Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthyism coincided with increased and popular fear of communist espionage that was consequent of the increasing tension in the Cold War through the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe, the Berlin Blockade (1948–49), the end of the Chinese Civil War, the confessions of spying for the Soviet Union that were made by several high-ranking U.S. government officials, and the outbreak of the Korean War. The events of the late 1940s, the early 1950s — the trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg (1953), the trial of Alger Hiss, the Iron Curtain (1945–1991) around Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union's first nuclear weapon test in 1949 (RDS-1) — surprised the American public, influencing popular opinion about U.S. National Security, which, in turn, was connected to the fear that the Soviet Union would hydrogen-bomb the United States, and fear of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA).