Episode 22
Confronting Communism: Russian Literature, Leninism & Faith
Featuring Dr. Gary Saul Morson
August 4, 2026
Gary Saul Morson, Lawrence B. Dumas Professor of Arts and Humanities at Northwestern University and author of Wonder Confronts Certainty, joins host Gerson Moreno-Riaño on Cornerstone University’s Wisdom and Influence podcast to examine the moral and political lessons of Russian literature for understanding communism’s enduring appeal. Morson traces the renewed attraction of Marxism in American culture to failures in historical education and introduces the concept of Leninthink to explain how Leninist ideology made cruelty itself a virtue. Drawing on Dostoevsky’s Demons, he shows how 19th-century Russian writers foresaw totalitarian violence and warned against destructive leveling carried out in the name of equality. The conversation also considers the role of faith and transcendent morality in resisting ideological extremism, pointing to Solzhenitsyn and religious believers in the Soviet Gulag as evidence that moral courage requires a standard beyond the state. Listeners will gain a deeper understanding of how Russian literary history illuminates the dangers of ideological certainty and why defending free inquiry remains essential to American education and civic life.