Cinco de Marx? A Karl Marx birthday message

Today, May 5 (Cinco de Mayo for those who celebrate), is also the 208^th birthday of Karl Marx. Born 42 years after Adam Smith became history’s first great apologist for capitalism, Marx became instead the first great critic of capitalism and prominent apologist for the inevitability and superiority of communism.

While the Soviet Union, still the most successful implementation of Marx’s ideology has already been dead for 37 years, Marx’s influence lives on in places such as academia, the American nonprofit sector, and even our politics. (Some of them may point to Cuba as the most successful Marxist state.)

The current American fans of Marx’s ideology and those from our history have been well-documented in InfluenceWatch profiles. Examples include, but are not limited to the following:

Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)

Historically, the DSA was not a Marxist or communist group, as explained in the InfluenceWatch profile:

In his 1988 book Far Left of Center: The American Radical Left Today, historian Harvey Klehr wrote that the DSA had “continuously denounced Marxism-Leninism and those regimes founded on its principles,” and that it was “committed to democratic values and democratic society.

But the profile also notes that the times have changed:

The DSA is governed by a 16-member national political committee, elected every two years. In 2023, a majority of those elected to the national political committee came from the DSA’s left wing, and at least five represented internal DSA ideological caucuses that were explicitly revolutionary Marxist and/or communist.

Examples of DSA Marxist and/or communist factions with InfluenceWatch profiles include the Marxist Unity Group and Red Star.

Politicians known to have affiliated with DSA that have InfluenceWatch profiles include: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Zohran Mamdani.

Hammer & Hope

This is an avowedly communist online magazine. In a report two years ago, Capital Research Center senior research analyst Robert Stilson briefly profiled its funding history and the meaning of the name:

In 2022, the Marguerite Casey Foundation gave $1 million to the Arabella Advisors–managed New Venture Fund, three-quarters of which was earmarked for a group called the Black Radical Project, which produces a revolutionary Marxist online publication called Hammer & Hope. Drawing inspiration from the Black Panther Party and with a self-described focus on “Black politics and culture with roots in radical political traditions,” Hammer & Hope’s name was derived from the Communist Party’s activities in the mid-20th century American South and ultimately from the Bolshevik hammer and sickle—though the publication’s pages openly debate whether the “masculinist” hammer remains a suitable symbol for the modern proletariat.

We also have a historical profile of the Black Panther Party at InfluenceWatch.

And, as I wrote last September, the Margarite Casey Foundation was not the only donor foundation with billions of capitalist dollars in the bank yet giving big bucks to communists. The Ford Foundation has given at least $1.25 million to Hammer & Hope since January 2025.

Jacobin

This is the summary that begins the InfluenceWatch profile:

Jacobin magazine is an explicitly Marxist publication founded in 2010 by Bhaskar Sunkara. Sunkara has said his goal in creating Jacobin was “the broader political project of rebuilding the socialist movement in the US…” Jacobin produces a quarterly print publication with 50,000 subscribers and a website with 2 million monthly views. Sunkara initially recruited colleagues from the Democratic Socialists of America to write and edit the magazine.

Examples of Jacobin‘s radical content include headlines such as “Burn the Constitution,” ⁴ “There’s No Such Thing as Good Philanthropy,” ⁵ and “Yes, a Planned Economy Can Actually Work.” ⁶ Jacobin has received praise from left-leaning public figures such as radical academic Noam Chomsky and MSNBC host Chris Hayes. ^7 8 David Sirota, a left-leaning journalist and political consultant frequently employed by the U.S. Presidential campaigns of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I—Vermont), has also been an editor-at-large for Jacobin. ⁹

The Jacobin Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit foundation, operates Jacobin. In 2018, the Jacobin Foundation had total revenues of $1.52 million, with $1.34 million coming from subscriptions, $107,000 from contributions and grants, and $69,000 from advertising. ¹⁰ In 2017 the Jacobin Foundation received a $100,000 grant from the left-of-center Annenberg Foundation. ¹¹

Ramparts

Ramparts, published until 1975, was a New Left, communism-curious glossy journal published until 1975. The summary at the top of the InfluenceWatch profile explains:

Ramparts was a frequently controversial and influential radical-left American news journal produced from 1962 through 1975. ¹ A January 1967 criticism from the editors of Time accused Ramparts of placing a metaphorical “bomb in every issue.”  ²

Ramparts opposed American involvement in the Vietnam War, with one report claiming this was “an equal or greater evil” than “racism in America.” ³ A 1969 cover featured a small American boy holding a Viet Cong flag, under a caption that read “Alienation is when your country is at war and you want the other side to win.” ^4 5 Martin Luther King, Jr. credited Ramparts coverage for his decision to publicly oppose the war and claimed the United States had become “the major purveyor of violence in the world.” ¹ An April 1966 scoop revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency, using professors at Michigan State University, secretly had been responsible for creating the government of Ngô Đình Diệm, the first president of South Vietnam. ^1 6

Ramparts produced sympathetic reports on other communist regimes and individuals. A 1970 first-person commentary from a member of the first Venceremos Brigade wrote that Cuban dictator Fidel Castro was “totally fantastic—completely overwhelming.” ⁷ In 1968, David Horowitz (who has since affiliated with the political right-of-center) wrote that North Korea had become “one of the most successful and independent countries of the Sino-Soviet bloc.” ⁸ In 1966 and 1973 issues Ramparts promoted the work of journalists who proclaimed the innocence of Soviet spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. ^9 10

In 1972 Ramparts produced the first comprehensive exposé of the work of the National Security Agency. ^11 12 In 1967 the magazine broke the news that the Central Intelligence Agency had been covertly funding the National Student Association (previously considered an independent, left-leaning student group) since the 1950s. ^13 1 Despite the animosity of the some of the publication’s left-of-center readers, Ramparts also produced favorable reviews of the work of Soviet dissidents such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and criticisms of the Weather Underground, a radical-left domestic terrorist group. ^14 15 16

Ramparts covered the early animosity towards carbon dioxide emissions, ¹⁷  the creation of several climate policy groups, ¹⁸ and early electric vehicles. ¹⁹ Opposition to corporations and capitalism was a recurring theme of the magazine’s coverage of climate and energy issues. ^20 21 Ramparts ran hostile coverage of the first Earth Day, ²⁰ the oil and gas industry, ²² nuclear energy, ^19 23 and genetically modified crops. ²⁴

A prescient 1967 Ramparts report analyzed the potential for shale oil production to revolutionize the American petroleum market. ²⁵ The magazine also published contributors who were skeptical “peak oil,” the theory that the world was running out of petroleum, ²⁶ and one regular energy writer who conceded that natural gas was “clean burning.” ²⁷

Venceremos Brigade

This is the summary that begins the InfluenceWatch profile:

Founded in 1969 by members of the radical New Left activist group Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), ² the original objective of the Venceremos Brigade was to help Cuba produce 10 million tons of sugar during the 1970 harvest, though this goal was ultimately not achieved. The first two brigade contingents, which traveled to Cuba between November 1969 and April 1970, primarily worked in sugarcane fields, ³ while later contingents have performed a variety of other work such as housing construction, building maintenance, small-scale manufacturing, and agricultural labor. ⁴ Though individual beliefs varied, brigadistas generally adhered to some form of radical-left political ideology, supported the communist Cuban Revolution, and favored broadly similar revolutionary changes in the United States. ⁵

Particularly in its early years, the Venceremos Brigade was extensively investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Congress, and local law enforcement. Investigations focused on whether the brigade was functioning as an instrument of pro-Cuban propaganda within the United States, whether brigade members were secretly being trained in guerrilla warfare, and whether the Cuban government was using the brigade for espionage purposes. ⁶ The FBI ultimately produced at least 23,000 pages worth of files on the group, though no brigadistas were ever convicted of crimes related to having traveled to Cuba. ⁷

Numerous prominent left-wing academics, activists, and political figures have been affiliated with the Venceremos Brigade, including Los Angeles Mayor and former U.S. Representative Karen Bass (D-CA), ⁸ former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D), ⁹ prominent labor union official and Clinton administration appointee Karen Nussbaum, ¹⁰ former Spelman College and Bennett College president Johnnetta Cole, ¹¹ Georgetown University professor and former Dissent magazine co-editor Michael Kazin, ¹² former Center for Constitutional Rights president Michael Ratner, ¹³ Pueblo Action Alliance director Julia Bernal, ¹⁴ and former member of the domestic terrorist group May 19th Communist Organization and Thousand Currents board member Susan Rosenberg. ¹⁵

Approximately 10,000 brigadistas have traveled to Cuba with the Venceremos Brigade since 1969. ¹ The 50th anniversary contingent in 2019 featured 155 participants, 60 of whom had traveled with at least one previous contingent. ¹⁶

InfluenceWatch also has extensive historical profiles for Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the Weather Underground (a violent terrorist successor to SDS), the Communist Party USA, and the FBI (which spent a lot of its history working against domestic communists).

Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation

The InfluenceWatch profile covers BLMGNF’s Marxist affiliation:

BLM Global Network Foundation has been noted for its links to communist ideology. In 2020, video of an interview from 2015 resurfaced in which BLM Global Network Foundation co-founder Patrisse Cullors declared that she and fellow co-founder Alicia Garza were “trained Marxists.”¹⁸ When Cuban dictator Fidel Castro died in 2016, the organization published an article on Medium that declared “we must push back against the rhetoric of the right and come to the defense of El Comandante,” and ended with “Fidel Vive!”¹⁹ Susan Rosenberg, the vice-char of the board of directors of BLM Global Network Foundation’s former fiscal sponsor Thousand Currents, was a convicted member of the May 19th Communist Organization responsible for multiple bombings in the 1980s.²⁰

Several Black Lives Matter chapters have made statements in opposition to capitalism on their official websites, including Black Lives Matter DC²¹ and Black Lives Matter Chicago.²²

Susan Rosenberg, Patrisse Cullors, and Alicia Garza have InfluenceWatch profiles.

Slavoj Žižek

The InfluenceWatch profile introduces Žižek as follows:

Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian Marxist-Leninist philosopher who has achieved celebrity status among the radical left. In 2012, the magazine Foreign Policy listed him 92^nd on its list of the top 100 “global thinkers.” ¹ He has placed a picture of former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in his living room² and advocates for the overthrow of capitalist democracies and their replacement with a communist dictatorship.³ An admirer of the Reign of Terror leader Maximilien Robespierre and Soviet state founder Vladimir Lenin,⁴ he believes that a non-democratic – likely violent – Leninist-style revolution is necessary and considers the defeated communist regimes from the 20^th century to have been “a kind of ‘liberated territory.’

Other InfluenceWatch profiles academics and philosophers with past or current histories of promoting Marxism and communism include: Silvia Federici, Jodi Dean, Richard Wolff, Vijay Prashad, Bernardine Dohrn, Bill Ayers, and Angela Davis.

Others

The following are InflueneWatch profiles of individuals, political parties and nonprofits that have currently or historically promoted Marxism or communism:

Transnational Institute

Tricontinental Institute for Social Research

Revolutionary Communist International

Institute for Policy Studies

Revolutionary Communist Party USA

Bob Avakian

National Lawyers Guild

Workers World

Workers World Party

League of Young Communists

Freedom Socialist Party

Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP)

By Any Means Necessary (BAMN)

James “Fergie” Chambers