Gabriel Rockhill’s “Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism?”
DIGEST: Reviews, interviews, appearances
Controversy, controversy…it’s no surprise that this book is selling very well. See more on this from Bisharat Abbasi, in his post: “In Defence Of Gabriel Rockhill’s Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism: Anti-Imperialist Marxism Versus The Imperial Theory Industry.“
Counterview: “Patronage of dissent? Examining the cold war roots of western Marxist thought’, by Harsh Thakor
“…The narrative begins with the CIA’s pursuit of Che Guevara, using it as an entry point to discuss ideological warfare. Rockhill highlights Guevara’s own belief in the importance of media and ideology, shaped by his experience of U.S. propaganda during the Guatemalan coup. The book is structured in three parts: first, outlining the “imperial intellectual apparatus” of the Cold War; second, a detailed examination of the Frankfurt School’s integration into U.S. and West German institutions, with a focused case study on Herbert Marcuse’s documented ties to U.S. government projects; and finally, a conclusion contrasting what he terms “imperial” Marxism with anti-imperialist traditions. Rockhill’s work challenges the perception that “Western Marxism” emerged organically solely from within the Western workers’ movement or intelligentsia. He proposes that powerful external forces consciously nurtured certain theoretical directions. His ultimate conclusion is that the dominant Marxist tradition inherited in Western academia is a depoliticized one, shaped by the very powers it claimed to critique, and thus ill-suited for building concrete revolutionary alternatives…. Read the rest
MR Online: “An Insider Critique of the Imperial Theory Industry: Gabriel Rockhill Interviewed by Michael D. Yates”
“Michael Yates: Gabriel, what we are as adults is conditioned by our childhoods. Tell us something about where and how you grew up. How do you think this influenced who you are now?
Gabriel Rockhill: I grew up on a small farm in rural Kansas, and manual labor was an integral part of my life from an early age. This included work on the farm, of course, but I also worked construction. My father is a builder and an architect, so when I wasn’t working on the farm, I spent most of my time, outside of school and sports, on construction sites.
Before I even knew the word, I had the lived experience of exploitation (farm work was never waged, nor was construction work early on). This is clearly one of the things that drove me to the life of the mind: I enjoyed school as a welcome reprieve from manual labor.
My father is deeply passionate about design, and his motto is ‘hand and mind,’ meaning that to be a true architect, you need to have the practical knowledge to build (hand) what you design (mind). I was desperate for more of the latter when I was young, but I have also remained deeply attached to the former. In retrospect, this approach obviously had a lasting impact on me, since I have definitely embraced what I would now call the dialectical relationship between practice and theory….”
Excerpt of a book review by Gabriella Golea, RN, MN, CPMHN(C), Ontario, for the Canadian Federation of Mental Health Nurses newsletter:
“The Book as a Psychological Case Study: As a seasoned mental health nurse, the writer of this review was particularly intrigued by some of the psychological perspectives that Rockhill appeared to offer. From a psychological standpoint, Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism?, offers several important lessons about how power, especially institutional power, can shape cognition, identity, motivation, and collective belief systems. Below are some psychological insights that appear to be weaved throughout the book, presented here without judgement, so that readers of the book can form their own opinions….
- Critical Thinking Is Not the Same as Political Agency
•High levels of sophisticated thinking can coexist with low capacity for collective action.
•Intelligence does not immunize people against ideological conditioning.
•Overemphasis on critique can weaken confidence in action (“analysis paralysis”)
•Endless critique can undermine people’s belief in change and alternative possibilities. (Should there be an online link to the CPMHN newsletter, we will link to it here…)
MLT – Marxism-Leninism Today: Joseph Jamison on Rockhill vs. Saunders and the term “Western Marxism”
“’He who pays the piper calls the tune’ is the proverb alluded to in the title of Gabriel Rockhill’s outstanding new book Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism? subtitled “The Intellectual World War. Marxism Versus the Imperial Theory Industry.” [1] The title of Rockhill’s book calls to mind the British title of a well-known earlier book Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and The Cultural Cold War by Frances Stonor Saunders.[2] While rich in factual detail, the Saunders work rarely went beyond liberal outrage about CIA deceit, corruption, contempt for democracy, and brutal violence.
Gabriel Rockhill’s book is a far deeper and more ambitious work. It strives to make a number of advances in Marxist theory, and it focuses on a specific aspect of the Cold War of ideas by concentrating on the capitalist ruling class’s attempt to destroy its communist nemesis by consciously shaping a form of bogus ‘Marxism’ — ‘Western Marxism’ — that would not threaten the capitalist status quo.
Rockhill’s main contention is that much of what is known as ‘Western Marxism’ — especially the strain associated with Frankfurt School and what he calls French Theory — was not a genuine revolutionary or anti-capitalist current. Rather, it functioned as a vehicle of ideological control under capitalism and imperialism. Rockhill shows through a massive amount of archival evidence that powerful capitalist interests — including states, foundations, and institutions tied to imperialist powers — actively funded and promoted this so called ‘critical theory’ tradition. The aim of all this funding and promotion was to produce a ‘compatible left’ — a left-leaning intelligentsia that would appear critical but would ultimately serve the needs of the ruling capitalist order by diverting attention away from systemic class struggle, revolutionary social change, and the achievements of actual socialism.” Read the rest here…
Counterpunch: “When Marxist Intellectuals Collaborated With the CIA“, by Charles Reitz
“In agreement with the highly respected recent work of Daniel Immerwahr and David Vine and other contemporary radical scholars, Gabriel Rockhill’s new book, Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism, The Intellectual World War. reinforces the by now quite widely-held notion that there is a US empire. Following World War II and the establishment of cold war and the US national security state, a global intellectual contest was underway between those promoting and those opposing the political/philosophical hegemony of US imperial interests. A key element in the political economy of the US knowledge production system was (and is) a CIA partnership with elite universities and Cold War scholars, key corporate foundations, federal research projects, and the top leaders of the corporate mass media. Utilizing wide-ranging archival documentation, Rockhill’s book establishes these interconnections anew (previously adumbrated by Parenti, Mills, Domhoff, etc), and he does so in admirable depth. There was a concerted endeavor to draw critical social commentary into the ‘compatible’ (150) Western Marxist camp and away from what Rockhill sees as the incompatible revolutionary Marxism practiced by Che (whom he lionizes in his first several pages and sees as emblematic of a Marxist fighter and leader in Cuba and Bolivia, in the end assassinated by CIA-linked operatives. Rockhill views Che’s legacy as consistent with other leading lights, such as Lenin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, and Fidel Castro (338), who were at the helm of real socio-economic alternatives to capitalism in practice.
Given the accompanying context of ideological contestation, Rockhill investigates the systems of US knowledge production and counterrevolution for what they were [and continue to be]. This is a worthy project, and Rockhill’s skepticism is warranted with regard to radical intellectuals (like Marcuse, Neumann and many others) serving with the intelligence services of the US government during and after WW II, especially in connection with certain New Left criticisms of Old Left policies. He sees himself as defending anti-imperialist Marxism against the ‘imperial theory industry.’ This industry is considered to be part of the US imperial project, and his mission is unveiling the intellectual ‘pipers’ it paid and those who paid them.” Read more at Counterpunch….
Weaponized Information: Who Paid the Pipers? Empire’s Safe Marxism and the War on Revolutionary Consciousness, by “Prince Kapone”
“This book arrives not a moment too soon. Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism? is not a contribution to academic debate. It is an intervention into a global struggle over consciousness, one that determines whether the working classes of the world will recognize their enemies—or continue to fight shadows while empire tightens its grip. Gabriel Rockhill’s work speaks directly to the material reality facing billions of people today: escalating imperial violence, permanent war, economic strangulation, ecological collapse, and an ideological environment carefully engineered to make all of this appear inevitable….” Read more here…
In translation….
Canarias Samanal: “Durante décadas, la lucha de clases no solo se libró en fábricas, calles y frentes militares, sino también en universidades, en las editoriales y en círculos intelectuales. Bajo la apariencia de un “debate teórico” , el imperialismo desplegó una estrategia sistemática para vaciar al marxismo de su potencia revolucionaria y sustituirlo por una “izquierda aceptable” al orden capitalista. El último libro de Gabriel Rockhill desvela con rigor histórico esta ofensiva ideológica…..” Read more…
Batalla de Ideas, “Marxismo occidental e imperialismo: Un diálogo”, John Bellamy Foster y Gabriel Rockhill
Editor of MR Magazine, John Bellamy Foster spoke with Rockhill about his book on the Monthly Review Magazine website, and this was quickly translated into Spanish at Batalla de Ideas. Read here or see below…
WATCH
Marx Memorial Library
Watch their interview with Rockhill, here: https://www.marx-memorial-library.org.uk/events-archive/who-paid-pipers-western-marxism-gabriel-rockhill-interview
Bad Faith
Hakim: “The Latest Developments in Socialist Theory and Analysis (Must-Reads!)”
Critical Theory Workshop book launch
Also! You can follow Rockhill’s substack here.
BACKGROUND
Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism? offers a crash course in the history of imperialist propaganda, as well as in the Marxist method for analyzing culture and ideology. Author Gabriel Rockhill demonstrates the explanatory and transformative superiority of a dialectical and historical materialist approach, while elucidating how the world of ideas is a crucial site of class struggle. He then engages in a meticulous counter-history of the Frankfurt School—which made a foundational contribution to Western Marxism—by situating it within the global relations of class struggle and the imperialist war on actually existing socialism.
With the explicit and direct backing of powerful elements in the capitalist ruling class and the world’s leading imperialist state, the Frankfurt School developed a widely promoted form of compatible critical theory as an ersatz for dialectical and historical materialism. The volume concludes by bringing to the fore the positive project that serves as the guiding methodological framework for the work as a whole: a thoroughly anticolonial and anti-imperialist Marxism dedicated to building socialism in the real world. Drawing on extensive archival research to pull back the curtain on ruling class machinations, Rockhill’s book elucidates how the intellectual world war on the socialist alternative has sought to shore up and promote a “compatible left” intelligentsia while misrepresenting, maligning, and trying to destroy the revolutionary left.
PRAISE
“Gabriel Rockhill’s illuminating and original work offers a crucial historical understanding of twentieth-century critical thought.”~Suchetana Chattopadhyay, author of Voices of Komagata Maru: Imperial Surveillance and Workers from Punjab in Bengal
“Few on the left will not have been uneasily aware, whether from textual disingenuousness or from rumors about capitalist or secret service gravy trains, that there was something fishy about some Western Marxists’ claims to be Marxists or socialists. Few will not have wondered how deeply and broadly this problem extends. Well, wonder no more. In this first book of a planned trilogy, Gabriel Rockhill begins his sensational root and branch exposé. He investigates the political pathology of the ‘theory industry’ dominating Western Marxism in terms of the ‘international relations of intellectual production.’ What emerges is a many-layered apparatus of intellectual counterrevolution. The state and its clandestine agencies such as the CIA or MI6 are its apex and they work through the big capitalist ‘philanthropic’ (really misanthropic) foundations, to wage it in universities, publishing houses, newspapers and magazines by recruiting thousands of scribblers, journalists, scholars, and academics to their service. For decades they have worked to hide the natural alliance of capitalism and fascism, to erase imperialism, to dismiss actually existing socialism and to discredit actually existing socialism and anti-imperialism with dishonest discourses that mislead those seeking ways out of an increasingly decrepit, desperate and destructive capitalism and its imperialism. This first volume deals with the Frankfurt School with volumes on French theory and twenty-first century developments to come. Rockhill must be commended for the sheer scale of his ambition, for taking on not just this book or that argument or the other thinker, but the entire universe of bourgeois ‘Theory’ in Marxist drag. It helps that the book, though it soberly sticks to the facts and arguments, nevertheless ends up, as it must, reading like an extended and particularly salacious gossip column. You won’t be able to put it down!!!”~Radhika Desai, author, Capitalism, Coronavirus and War
“Any global citizen who cares about international affairs, especially intellectuals, must study and ponder the important information and incisive comments in this book if they truly wish to understand and accurately recognize the ‘war in the world of knowledge,’ the ‘truth about ideology,’ and ‘Western Marxism’.”~Cheng Enfu, author, China’s Economic Dialectic
“In his remarkable work, Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism, Gabriel Rockhill has taken Georg Lukács’s famous criticism of the Western Marxist tradition for its “residence in the Grand Hotel Abyss” a step further, demonstrating that admission to the “beautiful hotel…on the edge of the abyss, of nothing, of absurdity” almost invariably came at a price.
Although Rockwill’s book is written in the spirit of critique, the intention is not the absolute rejection of Western Marxism, but the development of an indispensable self-critique within contemporary historical materialism aimed at the reconstruction of the philosophy of praxis for the twenty-first century.”~John Bellamy Foster, editor, Monthly Review; author, Breaking the Bonds of Fate: Epicurus and Marx
“A valuable contribution that exposes the machinations of capital in perverting revolutionary theory. Given that the war of ideas is a key battleground in the class struggle, revealing how empire undermines revolutionary institutions becomes essential for grounding revolutionary organization on a more solid foundation. This book accomplishes precisely that, with the added strength of situating imperialist politics within its broader theoretical framework. It engages in a dialectical dance between observable reality and the dynamics of theory. Essential reading for anyone seeking to grasp the depths of socialism’s ideological crisis.”~Ali Kadri, author, The Accumulation of Waste: A Political Economy of Systemic Destruction
“In these times, where the objective conditions for revolution are excellent, the need to sharpen the ideological weapons of the subjective forces is urgent. Without the right tools to analyze the situation, there can be no correct strategy and effective praxis. Hence the importance of Gabriel Rockhill’s ideological struggle against the Frankfurt School’s and Western Marxism’s anti-communism and their de facto support for imperialism—ideological struggles matter!”~Torkil Lausen, author, The Long Transition Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism
“The most important material history of ideas since The German Ideology.”~Aymeric Monville, author of “Neocapitalism according to Michel Clouscard”
“The Intellectual World War meticulously deconstructs the age-old myth that Western Marxism represents a radical departure from capitalism and imperialism. Instead, we are compelled to reckon with the painful reality that opportunistic Marxist academics are servants of Western imperialism posing no threat to the bourgeois order, but are cyphers of repression and conformity operating in the guise of scholarly respectability. Gabriel Rockhill’s careful and detailed account compels us all to revisit more than fifty years of twisted Marxist prattle purveying unscientific stupor upon generations of sincere students who reproduce and sustain imperialism and capitalist exploitation under the pretense of Marxism.”~Immanuel Ness, author, Migration as Economic Imperialism
“Concepts such as intellectual world war, imperial theory industry, empire of ideas, doctrinal warfare, class struggle in theory are not in common currency. Gabriel Rockhill shows why they should be. From a farm in Kansas, he went seeking enlightenment in Paris, becoming an acolyte of empire, until discovering it to be an imaginary la-la land, paralyzing explanation of actual historical events. From there, he set out to map the maze of knowledge production in which the military-industrial-academic complex has adopted a two-pronged strategy in relation to Marxism. Its preferred line of attack was to discredit it altogether. However, recognizing its attraction, it also promoted an anticommunist version of Marxism to reintegrate potentially insurgent forces into the orbit of the system. Seeing this as a conflict that forces us to take sides, Gabriel Rockhill is a frontline warrior in this intellectual world war. He marshals both philosophical argument and empirical archival research to make his case, revealing the extent to which such radical recuperators as the Frankfurt School have been directly funded and promoted by the capitalist state and its cultural apparatus. This, along with two further books in a trilogy, is essential reading for anyone serious about the historiography of Marxism within the political economy of knowledge of our times.”~Helena Sheehan, author, Until We Fall
“In his exposé of covert funding of critical theory, Gabriel Rockhill asks what the American century sought to hold up, beat down and split apart when it came to culture. Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism? is an illuminating, indispensable chapter expanding work on the CIA penetration—in its decades-long war on the left—of literature, student life, the symphony orchestra, feminism, black movements, and the world of modern art.”~Joel Whitney, author, Finks: How the CIA Tricked the World’s Best Writers
