It looks like the hysteria over Gabriel Rockhill's expose of CIA funded western marxism has hit Jacobin. Since Rockhill's book was published, he's been living rent free in the heads of critical theorists. A bourgeois Indian academic who lives in the US and considers China "sweatshop socialism" has made at least 20 FB posts about Rockhill over the past month. Katerina Kolozova, a "marxist" from FYROM who wrote an article where she said "real marxists" wanted the breakup of Yugoslavia because it was "fake socialism" and Monkeydonians were "real europeans" unlike "Russians and Ukrainians" also went into meltdown mode. The Jacobin article just ties it all together. The author says we need critical theory and western marxism more than we need another Stalin or Mao. But given how impotent western marxists have been to achieve any kind of revolutionary success, it seems that their main issue with Rockhill is that he accurately diagnoses them as hacks. None of the articles, op-eds, or posts about Rockhill's book actually try to refute the facts he presents (backed up by FOIA requests) but just defend bourgeois liberal democracy as superior to actually existing socialism. The Indian admitted to me he didn't even finish Rockhill's book, and one of my irl friends who's been flipping out about it has refused to even read it. If Rockhill is so wrong, why is it no one can actually refute his truth nukes?
None of the guys mentioned is a self proclaimed marxist tho, people like Foucault were anti marxist and explicitly so, Adorno was doing cultural criticism in the vein of Klages, Spengler, Nietzsche. It's no secret.
>>2786956idk but its kinda hilarious. and im learning who is based and whos a lib over the fight
>>2786956I don't really care about this fight. Supposing Western Marxism was funded by the CIA, you can still take whatever insights they had and contend with them in your practical and theoretical understanding. You can think for yourself instead of covering it up with a fed blanket. On the other hand you should avoid organizations coopted by the CIA. Simple as
Following the money behind a writer is a good idea, but it is no substitute for analyzing the
content. And why is the content accepted by some people? I believe most of those people are not also paid by the CIA.
<Scott Patrick argues that Gabriel Rockhill's Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism substitutes class analysis with conspiracy-focused explanation in its attempt to understand accommodation to imperialism among Marxist intellectuals.https://cosmonautmag.com/2026/04/the-comfort-of-conspiracy-a-review-of-who-paid-the-pipers-of-western-marxism/>>2786988>you can still take whatever insights they had and contend with them in your practical and theoretical understanding.thats literally rockhill's position too kek
>>2786995watch any of rockhill's videos where he explains his whole deal and you will see this scott guy is doing a strawman
>>2786996 (me)
he has even said it would be a form of ultra left mistake to just dismiss the frankurt school or whatever just because of their funding since at the end of the day all these guys had access to the best education in the world with many resources that you cant get anywhere else really, but some of the pro-rockhill people miss this too, some people here are like this and seem to want to start doing book burnings
its hilarious but frustrating the way the stuff he says its received
>>2786996>>2787017So that leads to the question of what the Frankfurt School got wrong and what the Frankfurt School got right.
>>2787027>what the Frankfurt School got wrongbeing anti-USSR
>>2787033What were they wrong about that's also still relevant.
>>2787037Alignment with US imperialism
>>2786963Dear God. That is super faggy. Balkanfags, why are you so cucked?
Oh well we have putin so there is that.
The Baader-Meinhof group and the German RFA also received CIA assistance. Doesn't detract from their gains in killing nazis and businessmen.
>>2787037watering down marx work into a form of liberalism, but you are a lib so you will see this as something good
>>2787027naming themselves after hot dogs was a pretty bad move imo
>>2787048>killing nazis and businessmen.no tankie would have a problem with adorno and horkheimer if they had used their CIA funds to do stuff like this, but they didnt
>>2787059 (me)
actually, let me correct this, some tankies would have a problem if they had done that because of muh adventurism or something
Who gives a fuck about any kind of marxism?
>>2787065the CIA for some reason
>>2787066They need to quit being bored suburban teens
>>2787068its hopeless, they are obssesed
"Western Marxism" wasn't invented by the cia tough.
It was the natural evolution of certain marxist trends outside of state power.
If anyone is responsible it's Stalin for cucking out at Yalta and not continuing on to the shores of the Atlantic with the Red Army.
>>2787228>the reason we didn't have a revolution in le West is because not enough Soviet subhumans lay their lives for our libertyriveting analysis
>>2786956Someone getting criticized for what they write isn’t “hysteria.”
Come on, this is /pol/-tier “ha ha I triggered you” bs
>>2787228>It was the natural evolution of certain marxist trends outside of state power. How is a 'school of Marxism' that 'evolved' within Academia funded by, well, the state and also funded by the CIA 'natural' and 'outside of state power'?
>>2787050Lol, if anything most of these writers were more illiberal than marx.
Shit, Adorno even wrote that introducing women to the workforce was a mistake
>>2786996Ok I might read his book then. If that's his position then he seems much more reasonable than the people who spam his findings
Petty bourgeois academic infighting is incredibly funny.
>>2787249>Someone getting criticized for what they write isn’t “hysteria.”It is if the criticism is inorganic. You can tell this by looking at the arguments which are full of cope and inability to refute the claims made.
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