Two red squares and our ever-evolving anti-communism – Dailyuw
Students pass through Red Square in between classes on Nov. 30, 2021.
The name Cassandra Amesley may not be well known among current students, but Amesley, former managing editor of The Daily, campaigned for the renaming of Red Square in 1971. Previously known as the Central Plaza, the renaming to Red Square caught on during an era renowned for student protests, anti-communist propaganda, and the Cold War.
Amesley credited the red color of the plaza's bricks for the renaming, quickly busting myths around any connection to the historical Red Square in modern-day Moscow, Russia.
Whether or not the bricks at UW are actually all that red, in the late 60s and early 70s, Red Square in the former Soviet Union continued to serve as a center of power as it did for centuries beforehand. During the era of the Soviet Union, Red Square often represented the ideals of communism and the dream of a secular utopia for communists worldwide.
[Red Square in the Soviet Union] was also the place you went if you wanted to be as bold and courageous as possible in speaking truth to power and in attempting to challenge the political, cultural, and symbolic underpinnings of the system," Glennys Young, chair of the history department, said in an email.
Registered Student Organizations (RSOs) host booths outside of Kane Hall in Red Square on Nov. 30, 2021.
Comparatively, UWs Red Square is more than just a pathway for students to get from one class to another. The plaza functions as a place of gathering for the UW community. Nearly every day, students see RSOs and outside organizations tabling at Red Square, reaching out to passersby. Further, throughout UWs history, Red Square has served as a gathering place for student protests and marches.
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), originally founded as Students for Bernie at UW, tables across campus, including Red Square, to increase engagement with students. After a year of online schooling, this newfound face-to-face engagement extends beyond political discussions and disagreements between student groups.
Its a great place for free speech and for students to congregate and share ideas and just to be around each other, to kind of eliminate that sort of weird alienation that people feel, being at UW especially, Marshall Bender, a founding and current SDS member, said.
Regardless of Amesleys intentions and reasons for choosing the name Red Square, the name does not exist within a vacuum it can't be separated politically or culturally from the original Red Square in Moscow.
Today, I see UWs Red Square serving as a reminder of the legacies of the Cold War era, including the prosperity of anti-communist propaganda as a means to uplift American capitalism and nationalism.
After the Cold War officially ended, some Americans still craved the sense of meaning and purpose that anti-communism gave to American politics when the Soviet Union (during the Reagan era) was portrayed as the evil empire, Young said in an email. The end of that struggle left a void, and one kind of politics that has filled it is a very polarized, binary, black-and-white, good versus evil way of understanding American politics and America's place in the world.
While the Cold War, Vietnam War, and age of Red Scares have passed, they continue to manifest and influence modern-day politics, hindering the dissemination of and education on leftist ideologies, alienating them to the fringes of our elitist two-party political system. In this way, the Red Scares have evolved in its use of anti-communist propaganda and fearmongering in modern-day politics.
Students pass through Red Square in between classes on Nov. 30, 2021.
Many leftists, including myself, find that the stigma and taboo surrounding even just the spoken word communism creates distance and hesitation within the development of left-wing political identities.
So, usually, when people ask me [how I identify politically], Id say I'm left-wing or I make it pretty ambiguous because you can avoid any personal attacks or accusations, Bender said. Coming from a historical perspective, anti-communism has a long history in the West and in the United States, primarily used just to discredit, just to systematically oppress and oppose the viewpoints of people who are critical of American imperialism and capitalism.
In the midst of the Cold War, American politics construed communism and the Soviet Union as a threat to American life. Called the Cold War for a reason, threats of mutual destruction and reductive dualities between capitalism and communism solidified fearmongering from the first and second Red Scare. Later, politicians used this anti-communist rhetoric to rationalize and justify Americans invading Vietnam.
Yet, by dismantling this rhetoric, the justifications for the Vietnam War, exploitation of veterans, and the rationalizations used to excuse the atrocious acts committed by the United States abroad fall apart, leaving a great deal of unaccounted culpability by the United States. In the middle of all the student protests against the Vietnam War, Amesley chose Red Square.
Similar to Bender, I identify with left or leftist, partly due to stigma, and partly due to my miseducation and subsequent unlearning and relearning of leftist ideologies, including communism. However, the history behind this stigma the propaganda, the wrongful convictions, and the systemic oppression invokes the issue of generational politics.
I grew up in the world of, after this filling of a void in American politics, as Young described. Now, in an age of information and communication, I work through this process of untangling anti-communism from my education, principles, and political identity. Not only that, but anti-communism still exists today to counter anyone critical of American capitalism and colonization, continuing to ground American nationalism in the oppression of anything different.
Deconstructing the stigma of leftist ideologies and the oppressive dichotomy of capitalism versus anything else the "good versus evil," god complex driving American politics requires generational, cultural shifts as well as systemic reparations and solutions.
Reach writer Tatum Lindquist at opinion@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @TatumLindquist
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Two red squares and our ever-evolving anti-communism - Dailyuw