In recent years, a number of excellent books have been published about the history of the Progressive education movement and how its roots are anchored in Marxist and Communist tenets. While Mark Levin reexamines many of the key figures and teachings of Marxism, starting with the German-born Karl Marx himself, his book adds the new concept of an Americanized form of Marxism, which differentiates itself from other forms of the ideology.

Levin asserts that America is steeped in a counterrevolution that “is devouring our society and culture, swirling around our everyday lives, and ubiquitous in our politics, schools, media, and entertainment. Once a mostly unrelatable, fringe, and subterranean movement, it is here—it is everywhere.” He explains that this counterrevolution is Marxist in nature, and rather than protecting American society by instituting representative government, as the first American Revolution did, this counterrevolution “seeks to destroy American society and impose autocratic rule.”

The author notes that, in America, “many Marxists cloak themselves in phrases like ‘progressives,’ ‘Democratic Socialists,’ ‘social activists,’ ‘community activists,’ etc., as most Americans remain openly hostile to the name Marxism....” Moreover, he writes, “they claim to promote ‘economic justice,’ ‘environmental justice,’ ‘racial equity,’ ‘gender equity,’” and they claim “the dominant culture and capitalist system are unjust and inequitable, racist and sexist, colonialist and imperialist, materialistic, and destructive of the environment.”

He explains that the purpose of such false charges is “to tear down and tear apart the nation for a thousand reasons and in a thousand ways, thereby dispiriting and demoralizing the public; undermining the citizen’s confidence in the nation’s institutions, traditions, and customs; creating one calamity after another; weakening the nation from within; and ultimately, destroying what we know as American republicanism and capitalism.”

Levin describes the fallacies of Marxism, and acknowledges that American Marxism “has adopted the language and allure of utopianism,” which is “tyranny disguised as a desirable, workable, and even paradisiacal governing ideology.” It is attractive to many, especially the young, as well as to those who find “Marxism’s oppressor-oppressed class warfare construct appealing because people want to belong to groups, including ethnic, racial, religious, and economic groups.”

The author shows how mass movements have been an integral part of American Marxism. Rousseau, Marx, Hegel, and others who championed the ideology, all argued in their own way that the individual must always subject himself to the collective will, for which he must endlessly fight. In sum, there must always be revolution, uprising, and chaos. Levin asks: “How do we know when we have reached the ‘workers’ paradise’ beyond a theoretical construct?” He then answers: “Marx does not tell us.”

The fomenting of social movements and militant uprisings have been hallmarks of American Marxism since the 1960s. Levin cites as an example the far-left writings of professors Frances Fox Piven and the late Richard A. Cloward, who sought “to advance a strategy which affords the basis for a convergence of civil rights organizations, militant anti-poverty groups, and the poor. If this strategy were implemented, a political crisis [e.g., riots and property destruction] would result that could lead to legislation for a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty.” This is precisely what happened. Levin explains that the intent of the instituted reforms was not only to allegedly relieve poverty — they didn’t, but “to build and strengthen a new Democratic coalition” — they did.

Piven and Cloward recognized that “the progress of mass movements will always be too slow as the American system is too difficult to mold into a truly revolutionary force.” They posited, however, that “there will be opportunities to use the system against the system, and to create turmoil from within and without, bringing pressure for revolutionary change.” As we have seen, these “opportunities” have been realized in recent years with the BLM, Antifa, climate change, and radical LGBT movements.

Levin explains that “social movements, even movements that are not particularly disruptive, can do what party leaders and contenders for office in a two-party system will not do: They can raise deeply divisive issues. In fact, social movements thrive on the drama and urgency and solidarity that result from raising divisive issues.” Even “moderate or reluctant politicians can be pressured into accommodating and embracing radical movements if their own political survival is at stake.”

American Marxism provides a wealth of in-depth detail about the penetration of Marxist ideas into American institutions, starting with our university and college faculties. Levin writes that most professors have “turned their classrooms into breeding grounds for resistance, rebellion, and revolution against American society, as well as receptors for Marxist or Marxist-like indoctrination and propaganda. Academic freedom exists first and foremost for the militant professors, and the competition of ideas is mostly a quaint concept of what higher education used to be and should be.”

He adds that, for Marxists, our existing society and culture, no matter how many souls prosper within, “must be denounced and defamed.” Disillusion with the status quo is key, so that Marxism can sweep in, presenting a “new faith” that promises a new and better society. This new society inculcates “a passion, if not obsession, in future generations—despite its trail of mass death, enslavement, and impoverishment.”

In the end, Levin believes that “it is academia and its rule over the education of generations of students that serves as the most potent force for Marxist indoctrination and advocacy, and the most powerful impetus for its acceptance and spread. And it is these students, the real target of Marxist thought, who form the basis for resistance, rebellion, and even revolution.”

This indoctrination has influenced younger generations, starting with millennials, to “have a passion for justice.” They believe “humanity is not a wide and nuanced spectrum of people, but a few saints and a vast sea of sinners, some redeemable, (most) not.” In other words, they do not believe in compromise, but in the absolutes of good and evil, which “makes Marxism a uniquely alluring ideology wrapped in the language of the underdog and oppressed,” and calling for the eradication of the status quo, which is said to be thoroughly corrupt.

American Marxists characterize our society as full of “structural inequalities,” and “interminably dissolute, unjust, and immoral. There can be no justice or improvement,” they say, because “the entire enterprise was irredeemable from the start, and nothing since has or can significantly improve the society.” But Levin provides a wealth of evidence to the contrary, contrasting the glorious history of American success and prosperity with the dismal, murderous, and failed authoritarian regimes throughout history and currently in power today.

The perspectives Levin provides by quoting those critical of Marxism are enjoyable, such as those of Ayn Rand, who aptly exposed the purpose of the Marxist movement in her book Return of the Primitive—The Anti-Industrial Revolution, published more than forty years ago. Rand cut to the chase when she wrote: “The immediate goal is obvious: the destruction of the remnants of capitalism in today’s mixed economy, and the establishment of a global dictatorship.”

Later, the author exposes Marxist hypocrisy when he writes: “All the talk and proclamations about equality, human rights, indigenous peoples, empowerment of women, as well as the right to health care, jobs, and the like in the Paris Agreement, the Green New Deal, the claims of Critical Race Theory and intersectionality, etc., are essentially ignored when a Democrat administration is faced with a brutal regime like China. Meanwhile, Biden obligates the United States to global economic and financial conditions set by international governments and bureaucrats under the rubric of climate change, without any formal input from our representatives in Congress, which will very likely negatively affect our quality of life, and which countries like China have no intention of adhering to.”

What can everyday, patriotic Americans do to combat the looming threat we face? Obviously, when he wrote this book, the author did not envision another Trump presidency and the mandate the president-elect has been given by the American voters. Nonetheless, the Marxists have not retired and must continue to be resisted.

In the book’s final chapter, Levin writes: “If we are to rally to the defense of our own liberty and unalienable rights, then each of us, in our own roles and ways, must become personally and directly involved as citizen activists. The time has come to reclaim what is ours—the American republic—from those who seek to destroy it. If we expect others to rescue our nation for us, as we go about our daily lives as mere observers to what is transpiring, or close our eyes and ears to current events, we will lose this struggle.”

He provides encouragement for actions all concerned Americans can take, “from boycotts to divestment and sanctions,” and he describes how each of these actions works on a practical level. This reviewer was unfamiliar with the term “divestment,” and it was helpful to learn that it means pressuring “banks, corporations, local and state governments, religious institutions, pension funds, etc. to withdraw investments in and support for the various Marxist movements.”

Sanctions refers to urging “local and state governments to end taxpayer subsidies and other forms of support for institutions with ties to various Marxist movements and policies; and ban the teaching and indoctrination of Critical Race Theory (CRT), Critical Gender Theory, etc., from taxpayer-financed public schools.” In another instance, he describes how parents can use “the power of the purse” by sending their children to colleges less likely to brainwash them, such as Hillsdale, or other less liberal institutions.

Overall, American Marxism is an absorbing read, certain to offer new information and perspectives from the many friends and enemies Levin describes and quotes. It is important to know where the poison infecting our schools and other institutions originated, and how to recognize and combat it. In this book, Mark Levin provides the blueprint.

To read the entire book, go to Amazon.com OR Thrift Books to order!

The Education Reporter Book Review is a project of America’s Future, Inc. To find out more about America’s Future, visit AmericasFuture.net.

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