The slogans became widespread during the Cold War, first gaining currency in the United States during the late 1950s, amid debates about anti-communism and nuclear disarmament.
In an editorial criticizing John Edgerton, a Tennessee businessman who had mandated morning prayers in his factories to help keep out "dangerous ideas", The Nation sarcastically wrote: It is high time in any case that the workers learned to live by faith, not work.
"[4] As anti-communist fever took hold in mid-century, the version "better dead than red" became popular in the United States, especially during the McCarthy era.
Folklorist Mac E. Barrick linked it to Lewwer duad üs Slaav ("better dead than a slave"), a phrase used by Prussian poet Detlev von Liliencron in his ballad Pidder Lüng [de].
[6] The opposite slogan, lieber rot als tot ("better red than dead"), was popular among German speakers during the Cold War as well.
"[12] Another version of the phrase took hold in Francoist Spain, adapted to Antes roja que rota ("better red than broken"), in reference to the threat posed by separatist groups in the regions of Catalonia and the Basque Country.