Marxism was forced to retreat into the universities because by its own admission, it is not a threat there. In a way it was meaningless for Marxists to be organizing in the US from 1950 to 2000 (at least in white communities) because white workers were the labor aristocracy that Lenin was able to predict would arise. Materially speaking it would be impossible for them to build an anti-imperialist movement. Some black groups tried to organize, but without the support of white workers it was snuffed by the feds (with the support of many white workers). This is changing though as the contradictions are heightened and the labor aristocracy is slowly being returned to the status of proletariat. We're in a transitional phase now, akin to the Russian Empire of the 1890s (though obviously quite different at the same time). Socialists are broadly discussing and trying to figure out how to build organizations and reach out to normal people. We are testing different strategies and ideas, and within socialist groups (such as the book clubs of the last century), we are discussing. Marx has already laid out our next step.

"It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the Spectre of Communism with a manifesto of the party itself. "