"A specter is haunting America; the specter of communism!"
Until recently this re-writing of the opening of The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels might have sounded like a sour joke. Now, however, we have in the United States politicians who describe themselves alternately as the Democratic Socialists of America or straight communists.
Their morale boosted by the election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City and the nomination of Abdul El-Sayed as a candidate for a Senate seat from Michigan in the upcoming elections, they openly talk of seizing control of the Democrat Party and reshaping it as an instrument for creating an "egalitarian" system in the US. One of their stars, US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is even putting out teasers about a possible presidential run in the 2028 elections.
This is not the first time that the Democratic Party, which is based on a coalition of ethnic, religious and cultural minorities, is taking a sharp left turn. In 1972, the party nominated George McGovern for presidency on a platform inspired by European social-democrat parties. In those days, however, it was Scandinavian social democracy that was hailed as the ideal form of government.
Though communism never became a major force in the United States, it often lurked in the background like the specter drawn by Marx.
A case could be made for an older history of communism in America.
In his 19th century "ancient society" theory, the American ethnographer Lewis Henry Morgan wrote of confederations created by Native Indian tribes in parts of the US and Canada.
In the Iroquois Confederacy, there was money, farmland was managed collectively by clans and food was shared, and a concept similar to "from each according to his/her ability, to each according to his/her needs" was applied.
Benjamin Franklin admired the unity of the Iroquois Confederacy, and in 1754 he suggested the 13 colonies form something similar.
After the crushing failure of European revolutions in 1848, many communist leaders, among them Friedrich Adolf Sorge, sought refuge in the US to escape European police. Though some morphed into capitalists, they gave local politics a leftist accent that is still there.
Nevertheless, Communism never became a major force in American politics.
Some historians suggest that this was due to the America's success in portraying communism as a military-security or even an existential threat illustrated by the "reds under the bed" witch-hunt of the 1950s rather than a rival view of the world. Thus, paradoxically, the USSR by its very existence helped the US avoid communism.
While communism was a taboo word until now, some American politicians used code words such as "social" and "collective" instead.
Fast forward: President John Kennedy's "ask not" rhetoric, perhaps inspired by Mao Zedong's "Little Red Book," designated the individual as one who ought to do something for the state rather than query what the state does for him.
President Bill Clinton's election slogan "It's the economy, stupid!" was a rehash of Marx's belief that the economy provides the infrastructure of society with politics as the superstructure.
In his 780-page autobiography, President Barack Obama praises "the collective spirit, a thing we all wish for, a sense of connection that overrides our differences."
He adds: "The 'regulatory state' conservatives complained so bitterly about had made American life a hell of a lot better." Some might compare this to Benito Mussolini's declamations about the big corporatist state that redistributes the fruits of national endeavor.
The gospel of American neo-communists is riddled with contradictions. They want to defund the police and virtually abolish the armed forces, while all communist systems so far did the opposite by creating a police state backed by a huge military machine.
American neo-communists talk of collective ownership of land while the federal government owns almost 30 percent of the total territory. Add to that land owned by the 50 states, and you already have a collective ownership similar to the Iroquois Confederacy.
They also talk of collective ownership of "the means of production and exchange." Yet those "means" are owned by 58 percent of Americans who hold stocks and won't be happy to be dispossessed in the name of "collective control."
And that's not to mention countless Americans who own small- and medium-sized businesses.
Mamdani's housing officer, Cea Weaver, suggests a freezing of rents and the creation of "powerful blocs of tenants", a recipe to deepen the great city's housing crisis. In such a situation, who would want to invest in building housing for rent?
The neo-communists' internationalist profile consists of unconditional support for Hamas, sympathy for the Khomeinist regime in Tehran and systematic opposition to the United States' projection of power, regardless of the context.
Various forms of crypto-communism have been present in many US elections. This autumn's midterm elections may be the first in which cryptos discard their masks. And that is good news. Cryptos base their hopes on Marx's prophecy about the "law of history," under which primitive communism leads to advanced communism after passing through feudalism, capitalism and imperialism.
However, don't tell anyone: there is no law of history, only tendencies, circumstances, contingencies, accidents, and good and bad luck.
Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987. He graciously serves as Chairman of Gatestone Europe.
Gatestone Institute would like to thank the author for his kind permission to reprint this article in slightly different form from Asharq Al-Awsat.
