Communism in Your Own Backyard: Open Letter to the Minnesota Republican Party Chairman

On September 29, the Chairman of the Republican Party of Minnesota, David Hann, emailed his party’s mailing list about the IMT’s Minneapolis Marxist School, saying “We must take action to prevent its [communism’s] spread …” Minneapolis Socialist Revolution responds with the following letter. 

Attn: David Hann, Chairman of the Republican Party of Minnesota

Dear Mr. Hann,

We were pleasantly surprised to see our Minneapolis Marxist School so generously promoted by the Republican Party of Minnesota. The free publicity you provided—complete with a link to our website, a list of the topics we planned to discuss at the school, and, for good measure, a list of some of our programmatic demands—boosted our comrades’ excitement and helped make the school a big success.

In addition to the statement on the homepage of the Minnesota GOP website, which was already thoughtful enough, we learned that you sent an even more detailed email circular to your constituents. In it you shared your concerns about the spread of communism and voiced your alarm about its growing presence “in our own backyards.”

In your words: “The problem of communism did not go away with the fall of the Berlin Wall! It is back and stronger than ever, infiltrating every aspect of our political, cultural, educational, and spiritual institutions.”

You’re right about one thing. The communists are back! We’re more determined than ever, and our movement is growing stronger every day. And the best part of it is that our ideas, the revolutionary ideas of Marxism, resonate with millions of people in a way we’ve never seen before.

Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why it is that 11% of Americans—some 30 million people in the country of capitalism par excellence—consider communism their ideal economic system, despite generations of red scare propaganda and the efforts of politicians like yourself to paint us as evil totalitarian baby eaters?

Here’s a hint. It’s not due to the infiltration of communists into the schools or the subliminal influences of “cultural Marxism” seeping into the media. Quite the contrary. Real communists have only contempt for the postmodern ideas that run rampant in academic circles, including identity politics, and the self-important posing of “Marxist academics” and the so-called “New Left.” We assure you, it’s not college classrooms that are producing communists by the millions.

No, it’s the endless grind of life under the capitalist system that is pushing people toward these ideas. The growing ranks of the communist movement are swelling with working-class people who are drawing conclusions from their own life experiences.

We are the generation that grew up in the aftermath of 2008, who watched our parents thrown out of work, who watched our families thrown out of our homes, while Wall Street was handed billions in public dollars. We are workers who are forced to hold two and three jobs, forced to fork over half of our paychecks to an insatiable landlord. We are young people living in the existential shadow of a climate catastrophe that the capitalists created and denied. We are a generation that has known nothing but a world of crisis, war, instability, and decline.

This is what is pushing millions of us onto the road to revolution. We are a product of this era of history, and our awareness of this fact gives us a profound, unbreakable resolve. We are determined to achieve the socialist revolution in our lifetime, and the propaganda of our opponents only strengthens our determination.

You have attempted to use us as a gimmick to fundraise for your party. It makes sense that the Republican Party is having difficulty securing funds or winning elections in a state like Minnesota. But you’re wrong to associate us with your Democratic Party “friends across the aisle,” who are just another party of Wall Street. We communists stand for uncompromising class independence. Both you and the Democrats represent the interests of one and the same capitalist class. Your two-party monopoly serves only big business and the rich! Your attempt to portray communists as nefarious “elites” moving in the shadows of the halls of power couldn’t be further from the truth. The fight for a mass communist party is the fight to give a voice to the vast majority: the working-class millions who make society run and produce its wealth.

We’re not sure if the repeated appeals to “INVEST TODAY” in your fundraiser email succeeded in encouraging anyone to donate money to you, but it did motivate a handful of your supporters to gather outside our school with protest signs. They were in for a real surprise when, instead encountering bloodthirsty fanatics advocating totalitarian dictatorship, they were greeted by friendly young people eager to discuss the problems facing the working class. It wasn’t what they were expecting. And after a short and rather cordial conversation with a few of us, they decided to pack up their protest and go home.

The dreaded “specter of communism” vanishes into thin air the moment someone enters into a real conversation with a genuine Marxist. As people discover the real meaning of our revolutionary banner, the “communist” strawman you serve up will be exposed for what it is—a figment of your imagination. In the years ahead, genuine communism will take solid form, as millions of workers and young people organize to bring down both your parties and the rotten system they defend. In its place, Americans will enjoy a genuine democracy of the majority—workers’ democracy—and help our brothers and sisters around the world build a world of material superabundance and plenty for all.

— Minneapolis Socialist Revolution