Marxist ideology resurges as 3 activist movements converge

A Wall Street Journal reader letter warns that Marxist ideology, which brought mass death to the 20th century, is finding new adherents among young people who never learned its history.

A Wall Street Journal reader letter invoking Fyodor Dostoevsky's warning that "if there is no God, then all is permissible" argues that Marxist ideology, which replaced the divine with political force, brought mass murder on an unprecedented scale — and is now finding new adherents among young people.

"Marx's ideology, by replacing the divine with the political as the central force of history, was supposed to bring about economic and social 'heaven on earth' through human action alone," Joseph C. Kuhns of Oakland, N.J., wrote in the letter published May 27. "Instead it brought hell on earth."

The letter responds to Robert Orlando's op-ed "The Gospel According to Karl Marx," which examined how Marxist thought functioned as a secular religion. Kuhns cited Dostoevsky's line from "The Brothers Karamazov" — "If there is no God, then all is permissible" — arguing that removing the divine opens the door to the belief that ends justify any means. "Alarmingly, many of our young people, never having been taught about the real consequences of Marxist ideology, are ready to go down the same road," he wrote.

The warning comes as activist movements with Marxist underpinnings gain traction. A network linked to U.S.-born tech tycoon Neville Roy Singham, living in Shanghai, funneled roughly $285 million into six activist nonprofits accused of promoting anti-American protest movements, according to a Fox News report. In New York, a Democratic Socialists of America-backed candidate for state Assembly has publicly advocated for sending convicted rapists and murderers to treatment programs instead of prison, citing reverence for Karl Marx and Che Guevara.

The convergence of once-distinct activist movements under an anti-American umbrella reflects what Hudson Institute fellow Zineb Riboua calls "Third Worldism" — an ideology dividing the world into oppressors and oppressed, casting the United States and the West as the primary source of global problems. This framework unites climate activists, anti-Israel protesters, communists and Islamist movements under a shared anti-Western banner, she said.

Energy expert Brenda Shaffer of the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School described the phenomenon as a "red-green-green alliance" — communist movements, Islamist activism and environmental protest groups increasingly coordinating around anti-American causes. The alliance has extended into campaigns targeting America's artificial intelligence data centers, with activist groups helping delay or block dozens of projects worth billions of dollars over energy and environmental concerns.

Cold War Playbook Repeats With AI Infrastructure

The pattern mirrors Soviet-backed anti-nuclear activism during the Cold War, when adversarial powers funded opposition to Western energy infrastructure to maintain dependency. Shaffer warned that the West risks falling behind China in the AI race as activist opposition drives up energy costs and delays infrastructure projects, while China continues expanding coal production and manufacturing capacity.

Youth Embrace Ideology Without Historical Context

Kuhns' letter points to a deeper concern: young people, never taught about Marxism's real-world consequences, are drawn to its simplified framework of oppressor versus oppressed. The Democratic Party's post-2024 election autopsy, released this month, acknowledged the party's failure to connect with voters but omitted any mention of the ideological shifts driving younger voters toward more radical positions, according to a Los Angeles Times column.

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