Lectures

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  1. Marx Unmasked

  In our introductory lecture, Dr. Paul Kengor opens this course on Marxism with an exploration into the life of Karl Marx. It follows Marx from his birth in a deeply religious German city, through his Christian upbringing and eventual rejection of faith, reflected in unsettling poetry marked by dark and destructive themes. The lecture also examines reports of tension between his revolutionary ideas and his personal life, including financial dependence on family and Friedrich Engels, refusal to maintain steady work, and criticism from contemporaries. It sets the stage for a broader exploration of his legacy, contradictions, and enduring historical impact.
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  2. The Roots of Marxism

  In lecture two, we further examine Karl Marx’s personal life, his evolving atheism, and the intellectual influences that shaped his worldview, focusing on his “opiate of the masses” essay and his relationship with Bruno Bauer and Mikhail Bakunin. The lecture explores contradictions in Marx’s character, including controversial correspondence and financial instability, and connects these to his broader rejection of religion as a tool of oppression. It concludes by tracing how Marx’s materialist framework was later adopted and radicalized by Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Nikolai Bukharin in the Soviet experiment, framing Marxism as a utopian ideology with deeply conflicted outcomes.
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  3. The Communist Manifesto

  In lecture three, Dr. Kengor analyzes Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ The Communist Manifesto, focusing on its structure, arguments, and revolutionary message. The lecture covers its opening claim that “a specter is haunting Europe,” its framing of history as class struggle, and its call for the abolition of private property, alongside critiques of family, religion, morality, and national identity. It also challenges common modern misunderstandings of communism as simple “sharing,” emphasizing instead its explicitly revolutionary character and the historical reality that communist regimes have often risen through force to pursue a classless society.
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  4. The Ten-Point Plan

  In lecture four, we explore the Communist Manifesto's 10-point plan and Marx's concept of the proletariat as a "victim class" destined to become a "redeemer class." We analyze key points which call for the abolition of private property and inheritance, a progressive income tax, and centralization of banking, communication, transport, and education under the state, while highlighting the practical impossibilities, historical consequences, and inherent contradictions of each point. Dr. Kengor concludes with Marx and Engels' explicit call for the "forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions," emphasizing that the Manifesto's ultimate goal was a global communist state achieved through revolutionary means rather than the benevolent wealth-sharing often attributed to it.
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  5. Revolution Abroad

  In lecture five, we study how communism rose in Soviet Russia and expanded globally under Vladimir Lenin, focusing on Lenin's implementation of Marxism-Leninism, his speech to the Communist Youth League defining communist morality as entirely subordinated to class struggle, and the establishment of the Comintern as the headquarters for world revolution. The lecture then turns to the founding of the Communist Party USA in 1919, key figures such as Charles Ruthenberg, William Z. Foster, and Gus Hall, and Soviet influence efforts in the United States, including FBI informant Morris Childs’ infiltration of the party’s leadership.
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  6. American Marxism

  In lecture six, we examine Communist Party infiltration in America through primary documents and congressional testimony. We analyze William Z. Foster's 1930 testimony revealing American communists’ allegiance to the Soviet Union, advocacy of class struggle, atheism, and world revolution. The lecture also explores communist influence in Hollywood through the Hollywood Ten and a network of progressive-sounding front organizations. It concludes with an examination of the Venona Papers, which exposed extensive Soviet espionage in the United States and revealed the scope of communist infiltration.
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  7. Church Infiltration

  In lecture seven, we consider the infiltration of American churches by the Communist Party USA, examining how party leaders shifted from openly ridiculing religion to covertly placing members in seminaries and religious institutions to subvert them from within. Key testimonies from former communists such as Manning Johnson and Bella Dodd are highlighted, describing the party's use of deceptive language around terms like "democracy" and "progress" to advance its agenda. The lecture also traces Dodd's remarkable personal journey from high-ranking Communist Party organizer to her dramatic reconversion to Catholicism, after which she became a fearless public witness warning Americans about communist infiltration of churches, education, and civic institutions.
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  8. The Collapse of Communism

  In the eighth and final lecture, we examine the human toll of communist regimes across the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, North Korea, Cuba, and beyond, drawing on estimates that attribute roughly 100 million deaths to communist rule. The lecture then explores the remarkable partnership between Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II, whose shared opposition to Soviet communism and support for Poland’s Solidarity movement helped reshape world history. The course concludes with the dramatic collapse of the Soviet empire, from Poland’s democratic breakthrough and the fall of the Berlin Wall to the Soviet Union’s dissolution on Christmas Day, 1991—the very holiday the communists had tried to suppress.