The Continuing Appeal of Communism in the West

From Ron Radosh, at PJ Media:

The OWS crowd certainly don’t call themselves “communists.” If anything, those who get the most comment are self-proclaimed anarchists and others are socialists, radicals of various stripes, demagogues, anti-Semites, members of various fringe ultra-left groups like the Workers World Party and International Answer, and others of that ilk. But put together, they form a sometimes incoherent but nevertheless group of radical activists bent on overthrow of the system — not banking reform, political change in Washington, or anything remotely possible. Unlike the Tea Party activists, who moved to try and have a political influence, these protestors demand “revolution,” an all-encompassing phrase that means little but which reveals their favored stance.

Even Paul Berman, whose comments in The New Republic reveal the brilliant and subtle thinker succumbing to the revolutionary romanticism of his youth, writes the following:

Yes, yes, at Occupy Wall Street the madmen, the madwomen, the Groaners and the neo-Muggletonians will eventually have their day, and the movement will be ruined. Already the Maoists of the Revolutionary Communist Party are at work, together with Ron-Paul-ists, according to another of my informants. Visiting the demonstration on Thursday I noticed that the Workers World Party (which secretly controlled some of the big anti-Iraq War demonstrations, in the name of advancing the cause of North Korea) was already in evidence. The costumed neo-hippies and neo-anarchists will prove to be no match to the fanatics of Leninist discipline. Sooner or later the screw-ball groupuscules will wreck the whole thing. “Creative destruction” is originally Bakunin’s phrase, but the destructiveness of the Revolutionary Communist Party will not be creative. So the movement will stumble and fall, and a lot of young people will feel a little embittered and distraught.

I can excuse Berman for hoping that the message of Wall Street’s failures is the main concern of the occupiers — rather than the foolish remedies they are demanding. Yes, as he correctly writes, “Wall Street has led the country and the world over a cliff.” But OWS is doing very little to pressure for the kind of meaningful political change that will put them in their place.