A contemporary political issue that influenced Fahrenheit 451 emerged from Bradbury’s particular American context. This issue was the widespread anxiety about Communism, known as the Red Scare. By the time Bradbury was writing, the Red Scare had already had a long history in the United States, beginning in the years after the Russian Revolution in 1917. The events of the Russian Revolution provoked anxiety among U.S. politicians. After World War I, U.S. culture had grown increasingly patriotic and conservative, and the resulting anti-radical hysteria provoked fear that revolutionaries might rise in the United States. Communism became associated with a threat to core American values.
