The story broke this week that former Brexit minister Suella Braverman had used the term “cultural Marxism” in a speech, suggesting Conservatives were battling this phenomenon which she apparently associated with illiberal activities. Braverman reportedly stood by her remarks despite an audience member highlighting the use of the same phrase by Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik. Her words drew condemnation from the anti-racism charity Hope Not Hate amongst others, but the general consensus appeared to be that Braverman used the term innocently. That may be so, but neither she nor others have sought to explain the term which is, at best, complex.
There were those on the left that found the phrase so inoffensive, they suggested they would happily be branded a cultural Marxist. Across the political spectrum, Spectator editor Fraser Nelson called the term “standard” and not anti-Semitic. Certainly, it has been used in an academic context. Few would suggest that Dennis Dworking’s work Cultural Marxism in Post-War Britain is an anti-Semitic tome. Beyond academia, some use the phrase as a colloquial analogy for political correctness.
However, there is a bit more to the phrase than this. Some suggest that the term originated in the shadow of the 1917 Russian Revolution, by theorists pondering the cultural capacity of other countries to revolt. That thinking was developed by amongst others, Herbert Marcuse. He was one of a group of intellectuals in the inter-war period that, tired of war and seeking an optimistic political outlook, came to study at the Institute for the Study of Marxism at the University of Frankfurt which eventually, through the vision of its pupils, became known as the ‘Frankfurt School’. Marcuse and colleagues investigated Marxism not only in respect of control of the means of production, but of culture too.
Disillusioned by Western culture, Marcuse sought both mobilise people for social action, and to challenge and perhaps destroy many cultural mores. In the midst of this work, Hitler’s rise to power forced Marcuse and colleagues to flee to America, where their thinking developed further. Marcuse became an inspiration for the hippy generation, developing a line of thinking which in over-simplified summary, saw the political right as pathologically problematic, and western culture as fundamentally flawed. So, pleasure was recommended alongside and then instead of work, washing was spurned and so on… think John and Yoko.
Marcuse went further still, suggesting negatives as positive. Tolerance by way of accepting but challenging contrary ideas was, in fact, “repressive tolerance”. So, right-wing groups and thinking was to be censored in favour of a “liberating tolerance” for minority groups. Through this intentional irrationality, cultural capital would undergo a renaissance, so the theory went. Given the benefit of the doubt, this might be the philosophical phenomenon Braverman was discussing, which put in a modern context might include the no-platforming of right-wing campus speakers.
However, the term has a much darker heritage. The feeling that there had been a cultural, and moral collapse in Germany prior to 1933, fed the populism of the Nazis. Kulturbolschewismus (cultural bolshevism) and Jewish bolshevism were used as explanations by the Nazis for a supposed plot to spread sexual, political (communist) and other revolution throughout the Weimar Republic and the west, and to weaken and attack German culture as part of a wider international conspiracy. This idea, building on Mein Kampf and the anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion, has survived, developed, and is now used to suggest that the Jews in the Frankfurt School, Jewish people, other minority communities, or anyone with progressive beliefs are, as communist sympathisers, conspiring through media and academic domination to implement cultural Marxism and undermine western culture or Christian values.
White supremacists cannot, by their nature, accept defeat, and their failure to have ideologically overcome the civil rights movement is blamed on, amongst others, the Jews. So perhaps it is unsurprising that anti-Semitic ‘cultural Marxist’ conspiracy theories re-emerged in the 1990s through attacks on Marcuse and others amongst white nationalists. Wikipedia will tell you cultural Marxist conspiracies find their origins in the Tea Party movement, elsewhere articles point to US far-right politicians such as Pat Buchanan and William Lind, or organisations like the La Rouche movement.
Certainly, the term ‘cultural Marxism’ was appropriated by groups across the far-right, including the BNP. The truth appears to be that nowadays it is used by individuals and groups both on the ‘alt-right’ and beyond that by far-right extremists and antisemites. It has been used in comment in mainstream papers in the UK, formed part of a dossier scribed by a (now former) member of the US National Security Council, is repeatedly cited by Gilad Atzmon and, as was pointed out to Braverman, fed the murderous manifesto of Norwegian terrorist Brevik and, in fact, of the Christchurch terrorist too.
‘Cultural Marxism’ can be used in various ways but more often than not, is now a code for Jewish conspiracy. Public figures must therefore consider this dogwhistle, even if not blowing it. In truth, ‘cultural Marxism’ has become a tainted phrase and at worst, feeds the Trumpist tendency to rail against ‘the other’ through a conspiracy theory tainted by antisemitism. It is beholden on all our public representatives to choose their words wisely and to understand their provenance.
To that end, irrespective of their intention, anyone using ‘cultural Marxism’ has a duty to explain why and to educate about its dangers. Now you know, there is no excuse not to do so.
Danny Stone is the chief executive of the Antisemitism Policy Trust