Bernhard Stern, Leslie A. White, and an anthropological appraisal of the Russian Revolution

Anticommunism has been a recurring theme in 20th-century American life. McCarthyism pervaded every institution, including academia. Scholars changed the way they wrote and were careful about where they published. The fearful atmosphere is made abundantly clear in the relations between two prominent social scientists, Bernhard Stern and Leslie A. White. Their respective associations with different political groups illustrate the intense infighting between radical groups and highlight the tensions felt not only by those academics called before governmental investigating committees but also by those seemingly unaffected. Stern and White, who would have made logical allies, instead became bitter enemies.