I wrote recently about one of the
cuckoo-for-Cocoa-Puffs conspiracist narratives that the Trumpista right has been channeling for years. It goes like this:
There was a group of German Jewish Marxist intellectuals known as the Frankfurt School who migrated to America after the Nazis took over Germany. (This is the only part of this conspiracy story that has some visible contact with reality.)
Then: The Frankfurt School’s Jewish commies begat “Cultural Marxism.” (There have been Marxists and political theorists of many other types who have written about culture. I can’t think of anyone who actually defined themselves as a “Cultural Marxist.” Maybe there was someone. But I think for the Trumpists, “cultural Marxism” is just another synonym for “Jews.”)
Next step: “Cultural Marxism” begat “political correctness” - a term normally used to refer to something the speaker thinks is politically incorrect. (Why, yes, it does often seem like rightwing clichés are some kind of random intrusions from another dimension. Why do you ask?)
Along the way it also begat “postmodernism” which is another form of political correctness. Or maybe it was postmodernism that begat political correctness? Which is strange enough since those are two very different ways of understanding the world. Conspiracist genealogies of ideas can get kind of murky.
Next step: Political Correctness begat critical race theory, aka, CRT. (The Trumpista faithful were happy with that, but it was kind of a fuzzy idea. It was sort of like DEI – diversity, equity and inclusion - which is also often used to mean “scary black people!” – and that may have pushed “CRT” out of their vocabulary, because I haven’t heard it in a while.
And finally: CRT begat Wokeism. That one seems to be functioning fine as a bogeyman among conservatives in the US and Europe who are apparently fans of Asleepism.
Maybe if they wake up from this phase they’ll forget about that particular kooky theory. But don’t count on it. It’s been around a while. Bill Berkowitz reported on it for the SPLC back in 2003:
“Cultural Marxism,” described as a conspiratorial attempt to wreck American culture and morality, is the newest intellectual bugaboo on the radical right. Surprisingly, there are signs that this bizarre theory is catching on in the mainstream. …
The theory holds that these self-interested Jews - the so-called “Frankfurt School” of philosophers - planned to try to convince mainstream Americans that white ethnic pride is bad, that sexual liberation is good, and that supposedly traditional American values — Christianity, “family values,” and so on - are reactionary and bigoted. With their core values thus subverted, the theory goes, Americans would be quick to sign on to the ideas of the far left.
The very term, “cultural Marxism,” is clearly intended to conjure up xenophobic anxieties. But can a theory like this, built on the words of long-dead intellectuals who have little discernible relevance to normal Americans’ lives, really fly? As bizarre as it might sound, there is some evidence that it may. Certainly, those who are pushing the theory seem to believe that it is an important one. (1)
I thought about this again when I came across a recent review article by Russell Jacoby, who actually has a reality-based expertise in this area, just published by the social-democratic site
Jacobin. (2) It’s a review of a book that argues that “Western Marxism” – which actually is A Thing and includes the Frankfurt School’s “critical theory” trend, though Critical Theory includes thinkers that don’t necessarily consider themselves Marxists.
The book is by Gabriel Rickhill,
Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism? (2025). And, according to Jacoby, the book is a defense of the Soviet version of Marxism – which also evolved a lot over the existence of the USSR – against what Rickhill, sees as a deficient “Western Marxism.”
It sounds like a real walk down the leftie nostalgia lane! Jacoby isn’t impressed with Rockhill’s effort:
Its author, Gabriel Rockhill, draws a sharp contrast between the supposed virtues of Soviet-inspired Marxism and the supposed failings of the New Left’s leading intellectuals, notably those associated with the Frankfurt School. But he fails to deliver a fair criticism of his subjects. Rather, he resorts to innuendo and guilt by association in a bid to demolish their reputations. He might be viewed as a Marxist-Leninist in the school of Donald Trump: use any means to defame your foe. [my emphasis]
“Marxist-Leninist in the school of Donald Trump” is a bit too much of a reach for my limited brainpower!
He also gives this helpful brief definition of the term Western Marxism:
The phrase “Western Marxism” first emerged in the 1920s as an insult used by Soviet spokesmen who lambasted some European Marxists, accusing them of being too philosophical and too little invested in the ideas of Lenin and vanguard party–building. The term is a misleading one in as much as the line of demarcation does not denote geography but ideas. “Soviet Marxists” existed aplenty in the West, while dissident “Western Marxists” popped up in the Soviet Union itself.
Even during Marx’ lifetime, there were debates in the various socialist parties over what was the correct Marxist positions on politics, history, economics, etc. The pre-World War I Socialist International of socialist/social-democratic parties of various countries split after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 into a Communist International and a social-democratic Second International (called the Labour and Socialist International, LSI), who spent decades accusing each other of betraying the true Marxist cause.
There was a third group headed by Austria Social Democratic leader Friedrich Adler, called the International Working Union of Socialist Parties (IWUSP), also known as the Vienna Union and (mockingly) the Two-and-a-Half International. It included “the Independent Social Democrats in Germany (still a party of 340,000, even after the majority left for the Comintern), Britain’s Independent Labour Party, and most socialist parties in the Balkans.” (3) It also included the Austria Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) – which still exists, btw, and is currently the junior partner in the national government coalition headed by the conservative People’s Party (ÖVP). There was even a debate in the 1920s over the concept of the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” which the SPÖ continued to advocate in a radical-democratic form different from that of the Soviet Union.
Jacoby goes on to give a helpful description of the meaning of “Western Marxism” and how the Frankfurt School relates to it. And makes some salty criticism of what appears to be downright hackery by Rickhill. I’m a bit surprised that Monthly Review Press would let some of this stuff from Rickhill get pass their editors. But I’ll have to admit I enjoyed Jacoby’s dissection of those bloopers.
Like I say, it’s like a nostalgic blast from the 1970s to read Jacoby’s article. And, not surprisingly in an article of seven pages or so covering a very broad subject, a lot of nuances inevitably get left on the digital cutting-room floor.
In pointing out one of the broad areas of his criticism, Jacoby comments: “What Maoism, a program of peasant insurgency, meant in urban New York or London was always a mystery, even while Mao was alive, but Rockhill cannot be bothered to explain it.”
Jacoby has been covering this turf for a while. He did a pamphlet back in 1976, when those now-long-ago ideological hairs were being enthusiastically split, on
Stalin, Marxism-Leninism and the Left. (4) Essentially, he argued there that the seeming failure of the New Left of The Sixties “redoubled the attraction of the Chinese Revolution, and of a successful model of revolution in general. The left is in search of a successful theory of revolution and nothing seems more successful than Marxism-Leninism.” (Keep in mind, this was 1976, not 1999!)
Part of the Maoist ideology at that time was that it defended the images and ideas of Joseph Stalin. That had to do in large part with the Sino-Soviet split. The post-Stalin Soviet leadership denounced Stalin, so China was happy to take him as a symbol to denounce Soviet “revisionism.” (Those polemics over the true interpretation of Marxism didn’t end in the 1930s!) He argued there that what many Maoist fans outside of China saw in the image they had of Mao and the Chinese Revolution was a more flexible, even more “democratic and non-authoritarian manner” than what the USSR had done during the Stalin years.
Of course, today even the official Communist Chinese narratives would criticize at least the “excesses” of the Cultural Revolution. And presumably there are few historians now who would describe that period without reference to the large number of lives lost in both the political struggles and in the economic disruptions caused by the Cultural Revolution - and earlier by the Great Leap Forward.
The information about internal events in China was exceptionally limited for the public in most of the world in those pre-digital days, certainly compared to today. And left-leaning activists in the US and elsewhere had good reason to be skeptical of the claims their governments were making about the villainy and danger represented by peasants in Vietnam and China. Also, by the early 1970s, there was a major shift in US policy under Nixon and Kissinger toward treating China as less of an enemy. Which also meant that the US government and media were tending to promote a much more benign and less threatening image of “Red China.” Everyone in America to the left of the John Birch Society was trying to look on the bright side about China.
It was the “Nixon goes to China” moment.
Snapshot of Mao and Nixon meeting (from the
Chinese CGTN)
The Nixon
Presidential Library has a 45-minute documentary on the event. (5) This is a
reminder than once upon a time, even Republican Presidents were actually
capable of conducting competent diplomacy. Seems like a long time ago now,
though.
Götz Aly, one of Germany’s leading historians, in a book of his on The Sixties in Germany, was critical of his contemporaries back then for not being more aware of the ugly sides of the Cultural Revolution period, citing some of the scholarly research available in Germany at the time about contemporary China. (6) But German New Left types of that time also had good reason to be skeptical of accounts that fit smoothly with Cold War official posturing by Western governments.
And it was not only people in 1965 or so that drew very different lessons from the experiences of Mao Zedong’s version of revolutionary theory. I did
a series of posts in 2024 on Julia Lovell’s 2019 book,
Maoism: A Global History on the varied forms it took in practice in other countries.
Notes:
(1) Berkowitz, Bill (2003): ‘Cultural Marxism’ Catching On.
SPLC Intelligence Report 08/15/2003. <
https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/cultural-marxism-catching/> (Accessed: 2024-23-04).
(2) Jacoby, Russell (2026): No, Western Marxism Wasn’t a CIA Plot.
Jacobin 04/18/2026. <
https://jacobin.com/2026/04/review-rockhill-western-marxism-cold-war> (Accessed: 2024-23-04).
(3) Balhorn, Loren (2022): Why the Three Internationals Couldn’t Agree.
Jacobin 04/02/2022. <
https://jacobinmag.com/2022/04/conference-three-internationals-1922-division-communists-social-democrats> (Accessed: 2024-23-04).
(4) Jacoby, Russell (1976):
Stalin, Marxism-Leninism and the Left. Somerville: New England Free Press. The publisher has helpfully made this and several other pamphlets available for free in PDF format: <
https://www.nefp.online/_files/ugd/63d11a_815e8b77de244ff4932553135154db03.pdf>
(5) Nixon in China (The Film). Richard Nixon Presidential Library YouTube channel 02/23/2012. <
https://youtu.be/4cfsI4ZjTbU?si=xmwTmDq_Bf-9gqXl> (Accessed: 2026-23-04).
(6) Aly, Götz (2008):
Unser Kampf 1968 – ein irritierter Blick zurück. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer.
