"Marx said that philosophers have hitherto tried to understand the world; now they must try to change it," Purdy says.

Harvard's socialists of today are interested in change, but most pursue it through established politics, not revolution.

"There's a tendency for liberals to pursue more moderate policies," says Joshua A. Feltman '95, president of Perspective. He says Bill Clinton's crusade for universal health care is an example of seeking socialist goals through moderate means.

Feltman's personal views are typical. He considers himself a Marxist in his social criticism, but says he doesn't "advocate social revolution in the Marxian sense."

To Marx, however, reform is a completely unacceptable alternative to revolution. Reformers, he argues in The Communist Manifesto, "deaden the class struggle and reconcile the class antagonisms" by making the working class satisfied with the existing order.

Cambridge

Most at Harvard have rejected this literal interpretation of Marxism, but small pockets of hard-core Marxists remain in the Cambridge area.

Rachel Adler, a volunteer at Revolution Books and a supporter of the Revolutionary Communist Party, distinguishes her views from the "mainstream" socialism that Feltman supports.

"Where we're coming from is a fundamental critique of capitalism," Adler says. "The only thing that's going to push society forward is revolution."

To Adler, electing "reform" candidates to government is largely futile. "The fundamental problems in this country aren't going to be solved through politics," she says.

She says the goal of Revolution Books is to bring revolutionary politics into the Boston area, but she denies any kind of grand conspiratorial scheme. Instead, she says her organization keeps an eye out for pockets of revolutionary activity.

"We did lots of stuff to support the 'L.A. rebellion,'" she says, referring to the outbreak of violence after the Rodney King verdict in 1992.

But she says that support for Revolutionary Communist Party isn't exactly pouring in. Revolutionary sentiment, she says, "largely depends on where the youth is."

Adler says she and other volunteers were greeted heroically at an information table they sponsored this summer at the Woodstock '94 concert, but interest from the general public is much rarer.

Adler and some Harvard students say it's sometimes hard holding Marxist ideas. "It's a contentious position," Adler says.