What is the Appeal of Communism?

The USSR and Maoist China proclaimed themselves to be communist regimes. In fact, their regimes were socialist dictatorships morally animated by a utopian communist vision they never achieved. For many years after the collapse of communism, Americans remained confident that communism was vanquished.

In recent years, we have seen an upsurge of support in the U.S. for democratic socialism, and at the same time the claim by its supporters that they are democratic and not dictatorial, and socialist and not communist. In fact, today’s democratic socialists are marching along the same economic path marked out by the USSR and communist China: socialism animated by a utopian communist ideal. In a few short years, democratic socialism has gone from a small fringe movement to a serious attempt to go mainstream. What accounts for the continuing appeal of utopian communist ideals within this democratic socialist movement? In this talk, we will consider the ideological and practical arguments for communist utopianism in America in our day, with a view to identifying the core reasons for its resurgence.

Luigi Bradizza, Ph.D., holds a doctorate in politics from the University of Dallas. He is a professor of political science in the department of political science and international relations at Salve Regina University. He has published several scholarly articles and book chapters on American political thought and political philosophy. He is the author of Richard T. Ely’s Critique of Capitalism.