The Essence of Today’s Leftism

Youths at a rally during the height of the Red Guard upheaval waving copies Mao's Little Red Book and carrying a poster of Karl Marx on Sept. 14, 1966. The Cultural Revolution set off a decade of violence and tumult to achieve communist goals and enforce a radical egalitarianism. AP Photo

Commentary

When I was a kid in the 1950s, I thought I knew what the left was—and I did, up to a point.