Embracing Marxism

This chapter examines how James Burnham first gained prominence as a thinker in the 1930s when he embraced Marxism in the wake of the Great Depression. Revolutionary Marxism—the idea that human salvation required the activity of leading individuals—seduced Burnham, like it did so many others, because it gave him a cause to fight for, a way to change the world. The newly minted Marxist trumpeted Trotskyite positions to the American working class. Parroting Leon Trotsky, Burnham claims that the seemingly backward Russian nation became the vanguard of the proletarian revolution because its working class was most affected by the imperialist war of 1914–1918. The chapter shows how the two James Burnhams manifested themselves during this time because according to cynical Marxists, the United States is a sham democracy in which the wealthy and powerful conspire against the masses. Violent revolution would sweep away this decrepit system, however. From 1933 to 1940, Burnham wrote dozens of articles for socialist journals expressing these viewpoints while attempting to foment socialist revolution.