Review
Title: Marxism: A Latter-day Saint Perspective
Author: Dan Ellsworth
Publisher: Self-published
Genre: Religious nonfiction
Year Published: 2024
Number of Pages: 195
Binding: Paperback, ebook
ISBN: 979-8991157902
Price: $11.99; $9.99
Reviewed by Ryan Ward for the Association of Mormon Letters
A spectre is haunting the US–the spectre of Marxism.[1] Or at least this is what a significant portion of the American public believes. To hear them tell it, Marxists have taken over the universities, the government, and the media. These Marxists would like nothing better than to indoctrinate our children with false ideologies about racism, sexism, and transgenderism. If given full rein, they will turn the US into Stalinist Russia or Maoist China, packing off all conservatives into concentration camps. You see, they hate the US, they hate Western Civilization, they hate capitalism, they hate rationality, civility, the rule of law, human rights, all the stuff that makes America great. They even hate… are you ready for it? They even hate God. Shudder. Faint.
It appears that Marxism has even begun to infiltrate the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A whole new generation of social justice warriors are being converted to Marxism via the “woke” leftists who populate their TikTok feeds and their university classes. Even BYU professors are Marxist. And once you begin to subscribe to Marxism, the slope is steep and slippery indeed. You will almost certainly lose your testimony and leave the church.
What can be done? How can we stop these hordes of people from buying into such an obviously flawed ideology? How can we save our children from being brainwashed by the woke left? How can we help them to hold onto the true beliefs and principles of the gospel in the face of this Satanic onslaught?
This is the kind of frenzied discourse that surrounds Marxism in the conservative US and the LDS church today. The hysteria has reached a fever pitch. So, it is definitely time to examine Marxism from an LDS perspective. It is time to cut through the hysterics and examine the philosophy and theory of Marx and, what he really said, how his movement has evolved, and what it looks like today. More importantly, it would be worth examining the compatibility of Marxism with LDS doctrine and theology. So in this sense, Dan Ellsworth’s book Marxism: A Latter-day Saint Perspective comes along at the right time.
Unfortunately, his book will do little to aid in an accurate, substantial, or thought-provoking study of Marxism and the church. It will instead fan the flames of conspiracy theorism that has engulfed the concept of Marxism in the past few years and is the bogeyman du jour of the right-wing media. This conspiracy theorism has reached a fever pitch in the age of podcasts and alternative media, fueled by self-styled experts on “post-modern neo-Marxism” such as Jordan Peterson and James Lindsay, packaged in slick-looking videos by Prager U, and repeated by an increasing number of LDS podcasters.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. Ellsworth states he wrote the book in part because:
my mind turns to Latter-day Saint parents who are worried about their children being indoctrinated into Marxism in schools and other places… My hope is that when a young Latter-day Saint student gains exposure to Marxist ideas in their university studies, parents can utilize tools in this book to respond with love and confidence instead of fear. (pp. 3-4)
He even goes as far as to assure these parents of wayward Marxists in embryo that if their child buys into Marxism, it does not mean they are a failed parent. The position being taken here, notwithstanding the calm and careful writing and language in the book, is very much of the same piece as the hysteria that pervades the social media feeds of right-wing political actors and commentators. Marxism is clearly an ever-present political, social, existential, even eternal threat, and it’s coming for our children.
Ellsworth states up front that his book is not meant to be an academic treatment and is instead meant to provide an analysis of the “life and work of Karl Marx, and also some key figures who formed Marxist intellectual and political movements after his death” (p. 5) as well as some of his own commentary and personal observations. He rightly states that the evolution of Marxism and Marxist thought is complex and fraught, and there are many strands to untangle. He is not interested, or able to do this in his short book. What he hopes to do is to frame his discussion by using a metaphor that will be familiar with LDS readers, that of a tree, to explore the roots, branches, and fruits of Marxism and compare these to the gospel of Jesus Christ as found in the church.
The book is broken down into three parts, each dealing with one part of the tree of Marxism (i.e., roots, branches, fruits) with a further part that addresses the relation of Marxism to the LDS church. Chapter 1 is titled “What is Marxism?” Ellsworth states
When we use the word Marxism, it is important to be clear as to what we are talking about. And for the purposes of this book, I am going to use a simple definition for that term: Marxism is the set of assumptions that Karl Marx held about the world in which we live. The assumptions that Marx held about our world were extensive in their scope. Marx assumed very specific things about human nature, about society, and also about God and the nature of religion. His life’s work was to make those assumptions into a set of theories that he imagined would change the world (p. 10).
Ellsworth is correct that he should start by defining terms. But unfortunately, he falters right out of the gate. Marxism can’t be defined however Ellsworth chooses. It has a very specific definition. Marxism is not the set of assumptions that Marx held about the world. This is far too vague of a definition. Marxism is a political philosophy and an empirical methodology for conducting socioeconomic analysis. Marx was not interested in developing theories with which he could change the world. He was interested in understanding the workings of the world, specifically the nature of the capitalist economic system and the class structure that it created and reinforced. He was a historical materialist, meaning that he viewed history as progressing inexorably towards a specific point: freedom for all humankind. Moreover, he viewed this progression to be driven by the material and economic conditions present at any given age. It is true that he believed that capitalism would end and socialism would rise in its place, but he viewed this as an inevitability given the internal contradictions of the capitalist system. He was less interested in fomenting revolution than in understanding the internal mechanisms of the capitalist economy that would bring on revolution as a natural occurrence.
Ellsworth’s definition of Marxism betrays the kind of vague, slippery wordplay that characterizes the discourse of the right-wing commentariat. Marxism is anything you need it to be. The vagueness makes it malleable and able to conform to anything you need it to conform to. The lack of specificity is purposeful. Thus, in the opening paragraphs of this very first chapter, Ellsworth reveals himself as an unserious interrogator of Marxism.[2]
It would be unfair to expect a thorough academic exploration out of what is essentially an introductory lay treatment. But it should not be too much to expect an appreciation of Marx’s basic ideas as Marx conveyed them, rather than as summarized by a propagandist website. At every turn, Ellsworth commits the same errors that his sources commit. He selectively quotes something that Marx or someone else said out of context, doesn’t really explain it, and then makes assertions about what it means without providing any evidence. For example, he states:
There is another assumption underlying Marxist theory and activism, and it is an extremely powerful one: There exists an ideal society, and it is possible to achieve that ideal society without God. This particular assumption is at the heart of socialism, the idea that governments can allocate resources better than individuals in markets. (p. 12, italics in original)
This statement is just one of many times that Ellsworth makes an assertion based on what he would like (or has been told) Marxism or socialism to mean, rather than making an accurate statement about what it actually means. Whether through ignorance or misunderstanding, the line of reasoning that follows is necessarily flawed. In this way, Ellsworth does not come across as an objective interlocutor but as a polemicist who uses the veneer of objectivity to make wild and unsubstantiated claims in the service of conspiracy theorism.
Nowhere is this more clear than in his section in chapter 1 titled “Marxism Stems from Marx’s Personal Life.” After having set the stage with a quote by Freiderich Neitzche that asserts that every philosopher’s philosophy is a confession, a sort of intellectualizing of their subconscious, Ellsworth goes to great lengths to portray Marx as a seriously disturbed individual who wasn’t just an atheist, but actively hated God, and in fact, was probably literally possessed by some type of evil spirit.
He quotes liberally from Robert Payne’s biography of Marx, published in 1968 (the only biography he references in his book despite there being many other treatments of Marx and his life), to make these points. It should be noted that this biography has been criticized as a hagiography because of its explicit omission of any discussion of Marx’s intellectual thought in historical context or its evolution and its bizarre reliance on depictions of his infighting and squabbling with his fellow revolutionaries and an obsession with his temper and irritability.[3] And yet, this is the source that Ellsworth relies on for his biographical sketch of Marx. In his pillorying, he is sure to mention Marx’s father’s letter, which queried whether he might be possessed by a demon, his revolutionary colleagues’ anti-Christian sentiments, and Marx’s own poetry, which he juxtaposes with biblical passages from Isaiah to prove that Marx was an admirer of Satan, although:
It is hard to say definitively whether the admiring of the Satan figure from the Old Testament was something that Karl Marx learned from his revolutionary colleagues or whether he brought it to their conversations as a perspective he acquired on his own. However, it is clear that Satan-admiration was a shared element of a revolutionary worldview held by Marx and his colleagues. (p. 24)
So, by the end of chapter 1, we are left with the notion that Marx, because he rejected Christianity in his university years, had no real way to productively cope with his life’s challenges, and so he descended into a number of negative coping strategies, including drinking and violence. Ellsworth goes so far as to assert that Marx and his revolutionary colleagues had personality disorders, although it’s unclear whether they were drawn to their ideologies because of their personality disorders or whether engagement with these ideologies produced their personality disorders.
It must be stressed that nowhere in this foundational opening chapter does Ellsworth actually discuss any of the fundamental notions and ideas of Marx’s thought and theory in any but the most cursory way. He states that Marxism is comprised of three basic ideas. First, the world is divided into oppressors and oppressed. Second, workers in capitalist society are alienated. Third, society is formed by a base, which is the material reality of oppression experienced by workers, and a superstructure, which is the institutional and ideological framework that maintains the system as it is.
While these ideas are found in Marx’s writing, they are not self-evident realities. They can only be understood in the context of the capitalist mode of production and the concept of class struggle, which Ellsworth entirely omits in favor of vague notions of oppression and unfairness. Thus, he fails to address the most important aspect of Marx’s thought and is more interested in convincing the reader that Marx was a fundamentally flawed and evil person, and so anything that came from him should also be self-evidently flawed and evil.
Ironically, in this section, Ellsworth quotes Brigham Young favorably as recognizing the same moral and ethical issues with industrial capitalism that Marx identified. Some readers might ask if anyone would view Young as inspired if they were exposed only to his worst character traits and choices: his temper, atrocious treatment of his plural wives, espousal of blood atonement, vehement racism, involvement in the Mountain Meadows massacre, and others. Would anyone believe Joseph Smith was called of God if they read only about his fraudulent treasure-digging? Or his failed bank? Or his polygamy? Ditto for any of the modern-day prophets’ racism (which Ellsworth perfunctorily waves away in a later chapter).
In the church, these uncomfortable truths are used as evidence to argue that our prophets and leaders are inspired, notwithstanding their flaws. If God could use these imperfect men, the church must be true. Yet Marx is rhetorically tarred and feathered as proof he was possessed and evil. The irony could not be more stark.
This lack of intellectual honesty and rigor and problematic framing of arguments is, unfortunately, continued throughout the rest of the book.
Having explained the roots of Marxism, Part 2 goes into the branches. Anyone familiar with Ellsworth’s sources will recognize the progression of ideas and arguments here. By the beginning of the 1900s, it had become so abundantly clear that Marxism was an abject failure that his adherents needed to find another way to package their ideas so they could successfully infiltrate society. The list of usual suspects from the Frankfurt School are here, as well as a smattering of critical and gender, and queer theorists, and one postmodernist. These folks hatched a plan to take over the superstructure so they could spread their Marxist ideology to the masses.
Thus, in one chapter, Ellsworth moves from an actual, though severely deficient, discussion of Marxism to the real focus of his book, which is the danger to the Western world and the LDS church posed by the “activist fruits–what we sometimes call neo-Marxism” (p. 43). It is again worth noting here that in this comment, Ellsworth has betrayed his source material because no serious scholar of Marxism–even cultural or neo-Marxism–would refer to activist activity in this way. But for right-wing conspiracy theorists, this activism, around racism, sexism, and LGBTQ issues, is a direct result and evidence of the neo-Marxist conspiracy which began in the Frankfurt School and was carried on by the postmodernists in the 1960s and is currently reaching its goal of controlling universities and the ideological superstructure, with the overall goal of overthrowing Western Civilization. Thus, Ellsworth can’t help but betray his leanings, despite the seemingly objective tone he writes with.
Part 3 deals with the fruits of Marxism. It is broken down into four chapters dealing with intersectionality and identity politics, critical theory, gender and queer studies, and the historical fruits of Marxism. I had a difficult time following the arguments in these chapters. They are heavy on anecdotes and examples of activist statements from social media paired with assertions that these examples provide evidence of some general overarching principle that Ellsworth finds important. Some of these assertions seem like non-sequiturs that have little to do with the ongoing discussion. For example, rather than engaging in any serious discussion of intersectionality and identity politics and how they relate to Marxism, a discussion that is very important to both current political understanding and understanding of modern Marxist movements,[4] One of Ellsworth’s take-home messages from this chapter is that buying into identity politics makes people argue with one another and engage in bitter rivalries, and this is somehow a fruit of Marxism because Marx and his contemporaries argued a lot. This conclusion, based on his character assassination of Marx from chapter 1, undercuts any substantive contribution his discussion of these issues could have made.
An overarching theme of these chapters seems to be that “neo-Marxist” fruit is bitter because modern progressive movements are characterized by infighting, virtue signaling, language policing, gatekeeping, and jockeying for position as to who can be the most woke. While this criticism is correct and is a significant barrier to any workable left politics, Ellsworth fails to tie any of these discussions to Marxism in any substantive way, instead framing the movements in terms of ever-expanding and shifting ideas of oppression and property. For example, in the chapter on critical race theory, Ellsworth substitutes “Whiteness” for the property that Marxists would like to abolish under communism. In another chapter, “Privilege” is the property. In another “Heteronormativity”. Only someone steeped in the ideological world of Ellsworth’s right-wing sources or who takes his word for it will be able to connect the threads between any of this and Marxism. For those in the know, it’s obvious. Any discussion of oppression is Marxist. Anyone who talks about inequality, or worse yet, inequity, is Marxist. Actual intellectual rigor is unnecessary, as the connections are self-evident. He even argues, citing another right-wing propagandist, that fascism is really neo-Marxism and that fascists and Marxists need one another because they both have no purpose in life without God.[5]
Ellsworth also is sure to enumerate the atrocities carried out under the banner of Marxism and communism in Russia, China, and Cambodia. This is well-trod and horrific territory and Ellsworth focuses on the cultural and ideological aspects of these regimes. What he doesn’t say is that Marx’s analysis predicted that these revolutions would fail because in none of these countries was the capitalist economy sufficiently advanced to ensure a smooth transition to socialism. It takes a substantial accumulation of capital to fund a transition to socialism. Both Russia and China attempted to industrialize their feudal agrarian economies rapidly in a series of Five Year Plans or “Great Leaps Forward”. It was the centralized implementation of these reforms without sufficient standing capital that led to widescale expropriation of peasant lands, exploitation, and death. This crucial fact is not mentioned or understood in Ellsworth’s discussion and analysis.
The last part is entitled “Marxism and the Church”. Here, Ellsworth builds on his treatment in the previous chapters to show how “Marxism is incompatible with the restored gospel” (p. 120). Taking us through several chapters, he attempts to show the relationship between Marxism and deconversion (anyone who falls to Marxist ideology will leave the church) and Marxism and scripture (liberation theology is a corruption of scripture; Marxism is a secret combination that aims to secure wealth and power; Marxism is the great and abominable church).
The final chapter is entitled “Marxism and Satanism.” Here Ellsworth builds on the foundation laid in chapter 1 to present the case that Marx was a Satanist. He painstakingly goes through scriptural stories and examples of Satan’s behavior, which he then compares to Marx’s (using some handy quotes from the biographer Payne to emphasize Marx’s personal failings and similarities with the Satanic worldview) and again reminds us that several people thought that Marx was literally demon-possessed. The conclusion is that Marx was a Satanist and Marxism is Satanic in that it leads us to reject God’s law and place ourselves at the center of the universe.
Ellsworth finishes the book with a short section in which, ironically, he finally begins to explore some interesting and challenging questions related to Marxism and capitalism. He can’t help getting sucked back into his old views though, and so undercuts any nuance he may have explored. This epilogue is heavy on quotes from Ezra Taft Benson, the most rabid anti-communist ever to serve in church leadership.[6] Benson was a raging conspiracy theorist who viewed the Civil Rights and feminist movements as a front for communism. He spread his conspiracy theories widely in public addresses and conference talks despite being chastised by the First Presidency, who finally assigned him to Eastern Europe to get him out of the US in an unofficial attempt to muzzle him. It is Benson who is in large part responsible for the right-wing political turn and affiliation of most US members of the church and his conspiracy theorist laid the groundwork for the current Marxist hysteria. It is perhaps unsurprising that Ellsworth has such an affinity for his perspective.
In conclusion, I find it very difficult to know what to make of this book. I admit to having a personal pet peeve of people mischaracterizing Marxism in the public sphere. I want to make clear that I’m in no way impugning Ellsworth’s motives here. He seems to be a very genuine and caring person who is deeply concerned with the influence of so-called Marxism in society and the church. It is, unfortunately, very difficult to take his arguments seriously because his foundational understanding of Marxism is so flawed. For that reason, this review may come across as a pile-on. In some ways, my criticisms in this review could be construed as being off base given the audience Ellsworth is clearly writing to, an LDS audience who is sympathetic to his characterizations of Marxism and scared as he is of it. He is, by his admission, trying to provide some perspective for these people.
I was hopeful that Ellsworth would engage these topics seriously and from an informed position, though I admit to being unsurprised at his treatment based on some of his podcast interviews (though not definitive, the fact that the book was self-published does not inspire confidence in the quality of scholarship here). My hope in writing this lengthy critical review is to provide an objective lens through which to view this characterization of Marx and Marxism. One not filtered through sources that do not understand Marx or his thought and instead label anything vaguely progressive as Marxist. These are people who claimed that Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris are Marxist. These individuals clearly have no understanding of either Marx or his thought and unfortunately, are unlikely to be swayed by anything written here. Ellsworth’s book will be read with appreciation and gratitude by this audience. They will find their fears confirmed and will be ever more sympathetic to those loudly decrying Marxism in the US today. It is a shame that the loudest individuals screaming about Marxism are also the most factually incorrect and ignorant.
Unfortunately, for anyone not already steeped in this ideological worldview, and most members of the church who may not know anything about Marx but are aware of the church’s history of anti-communist sentiments and rhetoric, the book offers little in the way of a reasoned or serious discussion of these topics. For more perspective and accurate information, I would recommend reading Isaiah Berlin’s biography of Marx or “Why Marx Was Right” by Terry Eagleton for a summary and response to some common critiques (please avoid James Lindsay). As for the compatibility of a Marxist worldview with that of the restored gospel, this is an important question that awaits a more serious and informed treatment and interrogation.
[1] This is a tongue-in-cheek paraphrase of the opening line of Marx and Engels’ The Communist Manifesto.
[2] His first footnote indicates that his thinking and framing of the issues in his book are heavily drawn from The New Discourses, which is a website created by James Lindsay to provide classes and content to spread his ideas and conspiracy theories about neo-Marxism and cultural Marxism.
[3] https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/robert-payne-24/marx/
[4] See https://marxist.com/marxist-theory-and-the-struggle-against-alien-class-ideas.htm; https://marxistleftreview.org/articles/the-failure-of-identity-politics-a-marxist-analysis/; for modern Marxist approaches and responses to identity politics and the current obsession with intersectionality by the left.
[5] By way of a content warning, I will note that there is some explicitly transphobic language and discussion in these chapters and some less explicit but problematic racism.
[6] For an indispensable treatment of Benson’s right-wing political activism, see Matthew L. Harris’s book Watchman on the Tower: Ezra Taft Benson and the Making of the Mormon Right.