Slop.

I’m probably missing some bit but from what I gather Gabriel Rockhill wrote a book titled “Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism?” that is about how Marxism in the west has been co-opted on purpose and distorted, specifically focusing on how anti-imperialism has been stripped from the discourse to defang theory in the west. This is probably a much better summary from the publisher, the book is high on my reading list but I haven’t got to it yet.

Now on to this Sebastian Budgen fellow. As if on queue he starts posting incoherent tirades calling Gabriel Rockhill a Stalinist specifically because of Gabriel’s examination of the lack of anti-imperialism in western Marxist thought in his book. Sebastian is a senior editor at Verso Books, a member of the editorial board of Historical Materialism, and a contributing editor to Jacobin. All three publications have a noticeable tendency to do exactly what Gabriel Rockhill’s book is about, remove the anti-imperialist elements of Marxist theory. I find it particularly amusing and not surprising in the slightest that at the slightest hint of criticism Sebastian throws an incoherent tantrum, on Facebook of all places, calling Gabriel an evil Stalinist. Oh and Sebastian bragged that he helped prevent the publication of Gabriel Rockhill’s book in France by using his connections to get a French publisher to stop their publishing deal with Gabriel.