marxism

Worthy article to post, and useful for its contextualization of the discourse around Rockhill's recent book.

I disagree with the main points, which I summarize like this:

• theoretical plurality is good
• pragmatism should not overshadow theoretical development, nor should the former be used as a cudgel against the latter
• Rockhill's argument is reminiscent of "Stalinist" "heresy hunting" used to purge political adversaries, which has weakened socialism
• we all should self-crit, we're all trying here, the solution isn't to attack others

I want to be fair to the author, Donald Parkinson. On the one hand, I don't know much about him. On the other hand, his view feels like a slightly refined, but still recycled, version of old Trotskyist complaints about Stalin and the alleged repression of intellectuals. I think my vibes are pretty close because as far as I can find out, Parkinson is a "neo-Kautskyian" ex-Trotskyist. That's not to dismiss the article out-of-hand, but it does give me some basis for understanding his angle. My view is much more aligned with Rockhill.

In my view, Parkinson does not succeed in answering his own question, "What is at stake in the Western Marxism Debate?". His answer is that we might slip into old "bureaucratic paranoia" alleged of the Soviet Union, thus falling into the same trap of the last century.

Instead of attempting to reframe Rockhill's project, Parkinson should start from Rockhill's own description of his project, "anti-imperial Marxism." That is, in my opinion, the correct framing for 21st century socialism. But Parkinson, working from what I guess is a "post-Trotskyist" point of view, and unsure of how else to interpret Rockhill's point of view, immediately retreats into the safety of more litigation of the Stalin era:

"Understanding the logic being deployed by Rockhill will require a detour in an exercise in Stalinology."

Sorry, why is that required to understand the state of socialism in 2026, a year witnessing the continued ascent of the Global South and a PRC that has successfully spurned US imperialism? This reads to me like someone who has little to add, not someone introducing "theoretical pluralism."

If you venture outside the confines of Trotskyist litigation of Stalin, it is plain to see that there has always been a tension of "theoretical pluralism" within anti-capitalist theory and organizations. This was the case during Marx's time; even earlier still, going back to the earliest utopian socialism and anarchism arising in western Europe. The Communist Manifesto was itself, according to Engels, a triumph of unification of a variety of socialist tendencies present in the 1840s:

Marx, who drew up this programme to the satisfaction of all parties, entirely trusted to the intellectual development of the working class, which was sure to result from combined action and mutual discussion. The very events and vicissitudes in the struggle against capital, the defeats even more than the victories, could not help bringing home to men’ s minds the insufficiency of their various favorite nostrums, and preparing the way for a more complete insight into the true conditions for working-class emancipation.

It seems that we are faced not with a problem of "Stalinist" intellectual repression. Instead, the problem of today is whether we forget about the incredible achievements of Marx and Lenin who managed to identify the correct path for socialism amidst a sea of contradictory ideas emanating from the diverse class origins of those ideas. Not only did Marx unify the socialists under the banner of the Manifesto, but he wrote thousands of pages of critique (and polemic) against other socialists — not only against capitalism! Marx, himself a bourgeois class traitor, was interested in extracting the useful insights from bourgeois theory, and appropriating it for the purpose of the working class.

Lenin dedicated the first chapter of What Is To Be Done?, in fact the opening paragraph, under the heading: "Dogmatism and 'Freedom of Criticism'". Already in 1901, when the radical social democrats (out of which the Bolsheviks would later form) were a minority and not-at-all possessing the power to enforce theoretical purity, Lenin encountered charges from certain camps of an intolerance and unfreedom of speech. I won't repeat the arguments here because Lenin expressed it perfectly. But is it not obvious that this same situation continues today, in this article? Here we see the same charges of intolerance and unfreedom of speech, this time leveraged against Rockhill's contribution that can help us identify latent imperial ideology within our own theory.

Rockhill is correct: the question for socialism today is whether you allow imperial-chauvinist thought to infect your theory, or if you recognize the revolutionary aspect present in every Actually Existing Socialist nation.

I don't think the author reads losurdo,--his dismissal is the worst thing you could try to claim: that losurdo isn't valued for reading those he disagrees with. Reading Losurdo, his most prominent method is reading his enemies, understanding them, and then using their own words to show their failures (or at least their friends' words).

I enjoyed reading it despite disagreements, but I dont think the writer has understood those he's critiquing

This totally misrepresents Rockhill. His project is much broader and stands firm on sound dialectics: actually analysing the historic material prerequisites for producing theory. No more, no less. The incredibly well researched stories about the CIA, the Frankfurt school and so on: all those are merely examples (incredibly well sourced examples) for applying dialectics to theory production itself. From this clear analysis, it is to be expected that a compatible left will form within capitalism. Rockhill is so obviously correct on this core thesis, it's really no question: he is right at least on this. And it's just as clear, that a honest left that is actually interested in achieving what it claims as it's aims, need to avoid being deemed "compatible" by the CIA who invented the term "compatible left".

Having recognized that Rockhill is at the heart of his thesis correct, it's a natural scientific question as well as a pressing strategic necessity to identify who were part of the compatible left historically as well as today. And here the anti-communist sources cited by Rockhill really speak for themselves.

The problem that people have with Rockhill is, that all his work has led him to the conviction, that imperialism is the principal contradiction of today. So that explains all of this controversy around his work. It has been here long before and it is simply the controversy between the anti-imperialist left and, well, the rest.

If we could find a way to build communism where I don't get purged, that would be ideal really.

Criticism expressed too sharply can be seen as doubt, as vacillation in one's historical task, and then as sabotage. It is easy to see how the capacity for genuine critical and scientific discussion, when put under such pressures, becomes muted, if not impossible. What does one expect when the political whims of the party-state can run roughshod over the protestations of actual experienced technical bureaucrats for fear of being tried as saboteurs?

Dont have time to find the quote this second, but James Harris' The Great Urals has a great bit on this wrt ~~copper~~ coke production in the urals. If anyone is interested i'll find the actual excerpt, but tldr: local (bourgeois specialist) geologists said local ~~copper~~ coke was too shit for use in industry; local party arrested them for wrecking and hired other scientists who said the ~~copper~~ coke was fine; the ~~copper~~ coke was not fine and ~~millions~~ billions of rubles of machines were damaged by using sub par ~~copper~~ coke and the whole investment ended up failing

Edit: coked coal, not copper, billions not millions

Along with Anwar Sheikh and Vijay Prashad, I rank Gabriel Rockhill as one of the most important corrective intellectuals of Western Marxism in the last century

We have not seen theoreticians of this caliber since the first half of the twentieth century

I won’t have time to give this a full read until later in the week but so far it’s looking like a valuable contribution to this debate. From what I’ve seen around Hexbear, this book, or perhaps just Rockhill himself, seems to be very popular. I haven’t gotten to it yet (Losurdo’s book on Western Marxism is higher on my list and I’m currently going through the rest of his bibliography to meet my Theory dietary needs) but from excerpts and other reviews I’ve read, I’m a little wary, even if many of the negative reviews also seem way off in certain ways.

I’d love to discuss this further (at some future date) with comrades here.

Does theoretical pluralism mean “anything goes”? Is this not the intellectual “anarchism” that Kautsky feared so much in party life? Let us not forget that Kautsky also saw as his ideal for the future society “communism in material production, anarchism in intellectual”. Perhaps as a transitional phase, rather than anarchism in intellectual life, we can have democratic-republicanism: not freedom from interference, but freedom from arbitrary domination. The Marxist intellectual should not be free to join with the CIA, to join with the bourgeoisie, and do propaganda for the class enemy, to become a useful idiot. Yet they should be free to pursue their work regardless of whether the party at any given moment finds it convenient for its tactical maneuvers. There shall be duties, but there shall also be rights, and the right to disagree and to question must be protected.

i would counterpose to this: either a marxist theorist is a worker and not in academy (l'intellectual organique) or they can instantly tell you the rate of exploitation in any broad industry (so an accountant, not sociologist) in their country. the rest will evolve into cultural circlejerk anyways.

Incidentally i think rockwell thesis (basically fruit of poisoned tree, eg getting cia money sometime somewhere as academic) is not good, but not in dismissive way, but rather that of course cia/ngos will find intellectuals that are compatible or obfuscatory, that's their job as arm of capitalism. thus for me rather simple cleavage is: have opinions about culture - irrelevant pontification, talks about ownership, money and goods flows and production - worth engaging in, even if they surface skimming.

free marketplace of ideas is rather apt descriptor, intellectuals are shopping their wares to willing buyers (capitalists), and if there is no capitalist buyer for marxist theorist - too fucking bad huh.

Hot take but I think communists have masturbated over theory for long enough that people need to accept you're not going to intellectualize or theorize your way into a revolution happening. Like, this shit? There's some debate about western Marxism? Some guy is mad about some criticism? who cares, we are all gonna die

Overall an interesting point that could have been waaay shorter and better if instead of the digressions into kautsky, stalin and althusser etc he just went back to marx's 1840s article about prussian censorship and bureacracy, and in particular how the biggest issue with censorship is when/because the censor is a non-expert in the subject theyre censoring and the censoree is an expert in the subject, he could have made his point much quicker and more effectively

I don't have much to add to this piece, since you could fill a library with the Marxist literature and historiography/history I haven't read. I did find this to be an interesting perspective though. I have read very little "Western Marxism", only some core readings from Lenin, Marx, and Engles, supplemented by the ML textbook translations from noncompete. Therefore much of "my own" opinions are not backed by much reading, or praxis on the matter. So this was an interesting view into this conflict I see all around me in spaces like this.