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Paul Kengor

The Communist Hardcover – July 17, 2012

by Paul Kengor (Author)

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“I admire Russia for wiping out an economic system which permitted a handful of rich to exploit and beat gold from the millions of plain people. . . . As one who believes in freedom and democracy for all, I honor the Red nation.” —FRANK MARSHALL DAVIS, 1947

In his memoir, Barack Obama omits the full name of his mentor, simply calling him “Frank.” Now, the truth is out: Never has a figure as deeply troubling and controversial as Frank Marshall Davis had such an impact on the development of an American president.

Although other radical influences on Obama, from Jeremiah Wright to Bill Ayers, have been scrutinized, the public knows little about Davis, a card-carrying member of the Communist Party USA, cited by the Associated Press as an “important influence” on Obama, one whom he “looked to” not merely for “advice on living” but as a “father” figure.

While the Left has willingly dismissed Davis (with good reason), here are the indisputable, eye-opening facts: Frank Marshall Davis was a pro-Soviet, pro–Red China communist. His Communist Party USA card number, revealed in FBI files, was CP #47544. He was a prototype of the loyal Soviet patriot, so radical that the FBI placed him on the federal government’s Security Index. In the early 1950s, Davis opposed U.S. attempts to slow Stalin and Mao. He favored Red Army takeovers of Central and Eastern Europe, and communist control in Korea and Vietnam. Dutifully serving the cause, he edited and wrote for communist newspapers in both Chicago and Honolulu, courting contributors who were Soviet agents. In the 1970s, amid this dangerous political theater, Frank Marshall Davis came into Barack Obama’s life.

Aided by access to explosive declassified FBI files, Soviet archives, and Davis’s original newspaper columns, Paul Kengor explores how Obama sought out Davis and how Davis found in Obama an impressionable young man, one susceptible to Davis’s worldview that opposed American policy and traditional values while praising communist regimes. Kengor sees remnants of this worldview in Obama’s early life and even, ultimately, his presidency.

Kengor charts with definitive accuracy the progression of Davis’s communist ideas from Chicago to Hawaii. He explores how certain elements of the Obama administration’s agenda reflect Davis’s columns advocating wealth redistribution, government stimulus for “public works projects,” taxpayer-funding of universal health care, and nationalizing General Motors. Davis’s writings excoriated the “tentacles of big business,” blasted Wall Street and “greedy” millionaires, lambasted GOP tax cuts that “spare the rich,” attacked “excess profits” and oil companies, and perceived the Catholic Church as an obstacle to his vision for the state—all the while echoing Davis’s often repeated mantra for transformational and fundamental “change.”

And yet, The Communist is not unsympathetic to Davis, revealing him as something of a victim, an African- American who suffered devastating racial persecution in the Jim Crow era, steering this justly angered young man on a misguided political track. That Davis supported violent and heartless communist regimes over his own country is impossible to defend. That he was a source of inspiration to President Barack Obama is impossible to ignore.

Is Obama working to fulfill the dreams of Frank Marshall Davis? That question has been impossible to answer, since Davis’s writings and relationship with Obama have either been deliberately obscured or dismissed as irrelevant. With Paul Kengor’s The Communist, Americans can finally weigh the evidence and decide for themselves.

***

There were hundreds of thousands of American communists like Frank who agitated throughout the twentieth century. They chose the wrong side of history, a horrendously bloody side that left a wake of more than 100 million corpses from the streets of the Bolshevik Revolution to the base of the Berlin Wall—double the combined dead of the century’s two world wars. And they never apologized. Quite the contrary, they cursed their accusers for daring to charge (correctly) that they were communists whose ideology threatened the American way and the greater world and all of humanity. They took their denials to the grave, and still today their liberal/progressive dupes continue to conceal their crimes and curse their accusers for them. We need hundreds and thousands of more books on American communists like Frank, so we can finally start to get this history right— and, more so, learn its vital lessons. To fail to do so is a great historical injustice.

We especially need to flesh out these lessons, which are morality tales in the truest sense of the word, when we find the rarest case of a man like “Frank” managing to influence someone as influential as the current president of the United States of America—the leader of the free world and driver of the mightiest political/economic engine in history. Such figures cannot be ignored.

The people who influence our presidents matter.

—from The Communist: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor

Print length

400 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Mercury Ink
Publication date

July 17, 2012
Dimensions

6.13 x 1.3 x 9.13 inches
ISBN-10

1451698097
ISBN-13

978-1451698091
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Paul Kengor, Ph.D., is a bestselling author whose works include Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century; God and Ronald Reagan; God and George W. Bush; God and Hillary Clinton; and The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism. His articles regularly appear in publications ranging from USA TODAY to The New York Times, plus numerous academic journals. A professor at Grove City College, Kengor is a frequent commentator on television and radio. Kengor earned his bachelor’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh and his master’s from American University.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mercury Ink; 2nd Edition (July 17, 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1451698097
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1451698091
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.4 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.13 x 1.3 x 9.13 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #560,474 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,119 in Social Activist Biographies
- #1,160 in Communism & Socialism (Books)
- #2,801 in Black & African American Biographies

Customer Reviews:
263 ratings

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Puffindoc

"Just the facts, ma'am."

Reviewed in the United States on May 18, 2015

Verified Purchase

"Just the facts, ma'am." Remember Sergeant Friday on Drag Net? Collect the facts before you develop any theory. This is a compendium of facts on the man who mentored an American President. There are also facts on those around the president - facts that make sense when you look at the team as a whole. I read about Lincoln's cabinet in Team of Rivals. This is not as focused on the team, but they are included.

At first I was afraid this might be some screaming right-wing zealot, but I found out differently. Dr. Kengor has been in the habit of researching the mentors of recent American Presidents. He did this for Reagan, Clinton, and both Bushes I believe (correct me if I am wrong.) This is an interesting niche for a historian - 'Study the man who made the man'. It was his work long before this president even thought about running for office.

I was interested to hear our President cite the subject of this book in his own biography. I heard the President speak about how important this man was to him. I heard it in the President's own voice on my audiobook. I buy Kengor's books as hard copies, rather than as audiobooks, because every fact is footnoted with original sources and many documents and photographs are included. You miss these valuable details in audiobooks.

24 people found this helpful

Helpful

donnavaresi

Excellent Book, So Informative.

Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2019

Verified Purchase

Fact based, many references, writes with clarity, not boring at all. Very interesting the approach he takes on Frank Marshall Davis Jr. A non-fiction journal jam packed with so much verifiable referenced information. Highly recommend. The times, communism, historical background in America on how communism wormed its way in plus tremendous insight into Barack Obama growing up.

6 people found this helpful

Helpful

James D. Crabtree

A story too important to miss.

Reviewed in the United States on March 4, 2013

Verified Purchase

This book is about Frank. Frank had a problem: he hated his country. What did he do? He became a member of the Communist Party of the USA (#47544), where people who hated America found a other people they could party with.

Frank Marshall Davis was an African-American born in Kansas in 1905. He would later become a journalist, writing on civil rights issues. Still later, he would fall into a bad crowd, like Paul Robeson (who would be awarded the Stalin Peace Prize) and Ben Davis, associate editor for the Daily Worker. During WWII, a war which saw the CPUSA flop TWICE on orders from Moscow and also saw many American "progressives" quit in disgust, Frank decided to get on board. He edited Red papers in Atlanta and Chicago before suddenly packing up and moving to Hawaii.

Frank never deviated from the Party Line. Even as America revived Europe with the Marshall Plan and Truman rid the Armed Forces of segregation via executive order Frank vilified the United States and praised Stalin and the USSR in the pages of the Honolulu Record. America was the great evil in the world and communism its greatest hope... at least in Frank's mind.

But his thoughts and opinions in the 1940s, 50s and 60s are inconsequential, written as they were in Red newspapers which were only followed by Marx's disciples. It is the 1970s when Frank might have done his worst damage to the United States of America: he began mentoring a young man by the name of Barry Obama. Obama's biological father was in Kenya and his (first) stepfather was in Indonesia, leaving Frank to bitterly warn Obama against "the American Way and all that s***."

Obama would later mention Frank several times in his autobiography.

Well-written and well-researched, this book covers a topic that the mainstream media would rather not talk about. And the proof of this man is available for all to see, thanks to the end of the USSR and the CPUSA records kept in Moscow. Dr. Kengor does not say Obama is a communist. But Frank was there when Obama needed a father figure. And we know what kind of attitude that father had.

16 people found this helpful

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hawaii19

Excellent detailed account about a man who syenites to undo ...

Reviewed in the United States on November 16, 2016

Verified Purchase

Excellent detailed account about a man who syenites to undo America and send it down the wrong path.. Despite him doing that I feel not only malice towards Frank Marshall Davis but pity as well!!! This book goes into detail about the bigotry and racism that he faced!! The racism he faced growing up was inexcusable but so was his unwavering support of the brutal oppressive Soviet Union and its leaders. Frank Marshall Davis was definitely a blind follower to the Soviet Premiere Joseph Stalin. Does not bore you and I believe you will find this book interesting.

8 people found this helpful

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Bill Benson

Modern Communism, USA and Barack Obama

Reviewed in the United States on April 22, 2016

Verified Purchase

Outstanding work exposing the far left in the USA Nd how far this despicable ideology has penetrated the highest halls of our government. But more than that, how they have usurped our culture and educational system. This work is an eye opener. We would be well served to make this required reading in our high schools and colleges.

10 people found this helpful

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Bosco Enterprises, LLC

EXCELLENT

Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2021

Verified Purchase

Professional, documented,insightful.
As the author states, make up your own mind, just read the documented facts of history. If we fail to understand our past how will we know our future
Well done.

Helpful

Pat

Reading it may round out your LIBERAL education.

Reviewed in the United States on January 25, 2015

Verified Purchase

The book tells a not-too-flattering story about influences in life of a one-time resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. There are things you may not want to know, things you may have guessed, things which were whispered but have never been confirmed by mainstream media. The author pulls no punches. It may force you to re-read the U.S. Constitution to see what, if anything, you may have missed.

It's a good book. It may even be true.

6 people found this helpful

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