Better Dead than Red pretty much means that it is better to die than to be communist. It was used a lot during the western side of the Cold War. It will sometimes be used in the modern-day but mainly online.

An american saying about communism. As they used to think that communism was taking over the world. the saying basically means the americans would rather die than be communists, the red bit comes from the belief that red is a communist colour! this phrase was also used with the J F Kennedy murder.