By Roman Martinez

November 1--The Cold War is over, and it seems obvious that the fascination of Cambridge intellectuals with dreams of socialist utopia would also have ended. Right?

Maybe – but maybe not.

Certainly not at Revolution Books, located at 1156 Massachusetts Avenue. Nestled between the Paint-Your-Own-Pottery Studio and A Taste of Culture, the small bookstore holds several thousand volumes of revolutionary literature. Aside from a life-sized portrait of Lenin, the window display is dedicated to the cause of freeing cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal from death row. Inside, sections are devoted to Black Nation, A Century of U.S. Imperialism, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, and (my personal favorite) The Empire’s Christian Fascist Shock Troops. Also on display are a collection of political buttons. One, sporting a picture of an angry looking black woman, reads, "If You’re Dissing the Sisters, You Ain’t Fighting the Powers."

The store’s proprietor is Ben O’Leary, a heavy set man of around 40 years whose balding head and pointed goatee make him look like a younger, beefier version of Lenin himself. He tells me no one owns Revolution Books, which, for its 20 years of existence, has been staffed solely by volunteers. When I ask how the Soviet Union’s demise affected business, he says, "It caused lots of confusion." Still, O’Leary keeps his chin up – he sees "a real renewal of radical ideas among students seeking out answers to s**t, because the future doesn’t look so hot."

Others Join In

O’Leary’s enthusiasm for the future is echoed by the Spartacus Youth League, whose cheery posters dotted Harvard Yard last week inviting all interested students to come "Meet the Marxists!" at the Science Center Greenhouse on Friday afternoon. Alas, when I arrive at the meeting, I am only one of five Harvard students attending – and three of us are curious from The Salient, Harvard’s conservative campus newspaper.

The meeting is led by Brad, a blond twenty-something who dresses rather curiously for an avowed Marxist. If preppy capitalism had a uniform, Brad would be wearing it – with his tousled blond hair, olive chinos, dangling leather watchband and blue-checked button-down polo shirt, he looks more like an Andover student on the way to class than an engineer of proletarian revolution.

Brad’s rhetoric, however, clears up any confusion – he seems quite earnestly dedicated to the cause of building worldwide socialist revolution, by violence if necessary. After all, capitalism is a system that condemns billions to privation and social misery; and it’s a fat chance that the rich will give up their power without a fight. When the topic turns to American democracy, he tells the group that, "There’s only one political party in the United States – the Capitalist Party, and it has two right-wings – the Democrats and the Republicans." Brad and his band of merry Spartacists are intent on building an alternative, and they have history as a guide: "Our model is the Bolshevik Party, which led the working class to power in Russia," he tells us.

Like Ben O’Leary at Revolution Books, Brad seems to be a nice fellow, and it is hard to imagine him personally taking up arms against the "fat-cat elites" he so thoroughly condemns. Still, both men remain unfazed by historical facts which, on the surface at least, would appear a tad inconvenient – like the 100 million people who have died at the hands of Communist governments this century, or, say, the fact that after dozens of attempts, socialist utopia still remains as elusive a goal as ever. For all their book smarts (no one but a Marxist could manage to fit the word dialectic into everyday conversation), today’s radicals are oblivious to the central lesson of the twentieth century: Totalitarianism stinks. 

Not that all capitalists get the message, either. Consider the People’s Republik bar on Massachusetts Avenue. Located on the way to Central Square, it employs communist chic for its aesthetic much the way Hard Rock cafe uses music and Planet Hollywood appropriates the film industry. The walls of the People’s Republik are hung with Communist memorabilia: Che Guevara smokes a cigar, Fidel Castro speechifies, happy Soviet workers and families smile down at patrons, a red-painted bomb is pointed at a bust of Elvis Presley, etc. There’s even a sign reading "Exile" on the door leading out to the street. How cute. 

The owner of the bar, which is doing steady business on a Saturday evening, is not a Marxist himself, despite the decor: "He did it just for fun," explains the bartender, decked out in a red shirt. Ah yes, fun. Only in a postmodern world incapable of understanding – or, worse, of caring about – the suffering of Communism’s countless victims could posters of the most murderous regime in world history be just a way to get a laugh.

Imagine a Third Reich Cafe, and the Laughter Chokes in your Throat

Thankfully, Communism is dead in Cambridge and around the world. Our own Revolution Books and Spartacus Youth Club are nothing but historical artifacts, museum pieces reminding us of a Cold War long since won. But alongside the remnants of the wacky Left – whose ignorant sincerity at least merits the compliment of pity – also stand such unfortunate establishments as the People’s Republik. They should know better.

Founded in 1981 The Harvard Salient is the second oldest conservative college newspaper in the country. Most recently, The Salient was honored by the Leadership Institute with the John Fund Overall Excellence Award as the best conservative campus publication in the nation.
 

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