The Communist Challenge: Ideals, Failures, and Lessons

Communism promised a new civic order and liberation from inequality - yet ended in collapse. This course investigates the intellectual and cultural foundations of communism, the principal ideological rival to the United States for much of the twentieth century, and the American dissent that opposed it. We will examine communism's moral and political aspirations, how they fell short, and how its legacy informs our contemporary thinking about justice, democracy, and civic obligation. Working with primary source documents, we will specifically encounter the Soviet regime's forerunners, founders, defenders, and most trenchant critics.