Episode 29: Western Marxism & Anti-Communism with Gabriel Rockhill

Reimagining Soviet Georgia

The history of Marxism in the 20th century, both as a means to interpret the world and as the basis of a politics to transform it, is marked by a profound intellectual and political diversity. Some of this can be attributed to individuals and their specific readings of Marx's thought. Yet other forms of Marxism - such as that which emerged in the global South during the era of decolonization - can trace their origins to particular applications of Marx's ideas and Marxist predecessors (such as Lenin), as well as the historical experience of really existing socialist states to concrete historical and political contexts.

Many different actors and thinkers have historically held up the banner of Marxism and used its ideas to make sense of the world and mobilize people to create a different one.

Anti-communism has a similar history. A range of actors and thinkers have historically sought to oppose Marxism as both a real movement and set of ideas. Various forms of nationalism and liberalism (though not only) as the guiding ideals of nation states, empires and even grassroots movements, have presented Marxism, communism and socialism as their anti-thesis.

Yet History has no fidelity to simple binaries. In the aftermath of World War II, some Marxists in Europe and North America sought to base their theoretical articulation of the world in critiques of "really existing socialism" through a synthesis of Marxism and anti-communism. Who were these people and what were they arguing for? And what material and political foundations guided and shaped them?

On today's episode, we welcome critical theorist, philosopher, and professor Gabriel Rockhill to interrogate the relationship between post-WW2 Western Marxism, the Frankfurt School and anti-communism.

For background on the topic, here is Rockhill's article in the LA Review of Books from 2022 entitled "The CIA and the Frankfurt School's Anti-Communism"

https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/the-cia-the-frankfurt-schools-anti-communism/

Professor Rockhill currently teaches at Villanova, and his extended bio and bibliography can be found here:

https://gabrielrockhill.com/about/