ABSTRACT
The broad brush of anti-Communism assumed McCarthyist form during the Depression when radical politics emerged to offer solutions to the era's ills. The more famous cases involved International Brigade veterans during World War II and Hollywood 10 defendants Alvah Bessie and Herbert Biberman, both of whom were actively involved in activities for the Spanish Republic. The activities in question stemmed from the political effort to raise relief aid for the embattled Spanish Republic. The Medical Bureau and North American Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy emerged as the forerunners of the effort, though there were other organizations as well. The Roman Catholic anti-Communist impulse was officially sanctioned as the Vatican had re-iterated its historical position on Communism in Pope Pius XI's 1937 encyclical under the self-explanatory title, 'On Atheistic Communism'. On the night of February 6, 1940 the FBI coordinated home raids in Detroit and Milwaukee to arrest a dozen activists who had been involved in the Medical Bureau.
