When USSR leader Vladimir Lenin called for the world-wide destruction of capitalism, he put America at risk for communist infiltration.
Since the United States was the leading exponent of world capitalism, these statements by Lenin alerted both society and the US government. The fear of communist infiltrations in American society led to a period of strong anti-communism, called Red Scare.
The fears of a communist plan to overthrow the US government, triggered by a series of anarchist attacks in June 1919, are considered by many to be the cause that led to the Palmer Raids ordered by Alexander Mitchell Palmer against anarcho-communist and socialist groups, the incarceration of left-wing activists like Eugene V. Debs, the sanction of the Espionage Act in 1917 and the Sedition Act in 1918, and the process and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti.
