First, did you bother reading the article? He is the opposite of an activist these days. He goes out of his way not to preach to anybody to the point where there are longtime conservative volunteers there that have no idea about his personal politics. He is just living his life according to his personal ideals.
Secondly, what is your issue with communist activism? If someone genuinely thinks that's the best way forward and wants to try and spread the word, power to them.
Yes I read the whole article, I thought it was interesting.
Does that mean we should never again root for radical change? Because Stalin effectively murdered millions of people? If that's what you're implying, then I would have to disagree completely.
The activism of socialists and communists that you're labelling as "utopian" involves working on community problems, fighting for local progressive legislation, practicing mutual aid, showing up in solidarity with unions, and so on. And that's how it's been for a very long time. Where is the utopianism in that? And how on earth do you look to that and see a specter of genocide?
American capitalism has plenty of genocide on its hands, from the Trail of Tears to Wounded Knee to all of the stuff that Kissinger did in multiple countries.
You realize that there are plenty of communists who don't believe in violence or authoritarianism, right?