Gabriel Rockhill - Western Marxism and the Colonial Question

Western Marxism, the Colonial Question, & the Non-Communist Left

This talk examines how Maurice Merleau‑Ponty’s embrace of non‑communist “Western Marxism” was a direct ideological reaction to the Korean War, marking his explicit refusal to support anti‑imperialist national liberation against Western colonialism. By condemning victorious socialist revolutions as “regimes,” he forged a model of critique that severed the Western intelligentsia from solidarity with actually existing anti‑colonial struggles. This accommodationist politics objectively served the US national security state’s psychological warfare campaigns to divide the left, while also establishing an intellectual blueprint that would help shape French Theory’s enduring function as a domesticated, empire‑friendly alternative to revolutionary Marxism.