Gramsci’s major body of work – his voluminous collection of Prison Notebooks – was not published until the 1950s, long after his death in 1937 and too late for him to exert any significant influence on the Frankfurt School. However, his ideas became increasingly influential in the 1950s and 1960s, and especially in the 1970s with the publication, in 1971, of an English translation of selections from the Prison Notebooks. T]he first comprehensive history of British cultural Marxism conceived as a coherent intellectual tradition. . . . Dworkin writes in a readable and accessible style, providing an excellent guide to those unfamiliar with the byzantine complexities of the postwar British Left.” — Martin Francis , Journal of Modern History More generally, serious intellectual history cannot ignore the complex cross-currents of thought within the Left in Western liberal democracies. The Left has always been riven with factionalism, not least in recent decades, and it now houses diverse attitudes to almost any imaginable aspect of culture (as well as to traditional economic issues). Many components of the Western cultural Left can only be understood when seen as (in part) reactions to other such components, while being deeply influenced by Western Marxism’s widespread criticism and rejection of Soviet communism. Cultural Marxism in Postwar Britain: History, the New Left, and the Origins of Cultural Studies (Post-Contemporary Interventions)

British New Left, cultural studies and Socialist ends: the British New Left, cultural studies and

Schroyer describes the work of the Frankfurt School in analysing the contemporary “culture industry” (including philosophy, social theory, art, music, and literature) and contemporary manifestations of social institutions such as the state and the family. As expounded in The Critique of Domination, this body of cultural criticism, particularly the work of Horkheimer and Adorno, unmasks contemporary culture - and notably mass culture - as a system of social domination of the individual. Stencilled Occasional Papers of the Birmingham CCCS - University of Birmingham". www.birmingham.ac.uk.

Although the term “cultural Marxism” is used by mainstream academic figures, it has obtained greater prominence since the 1990s from its weaponized use by right-wing political commentators such as William S. Lind and Pat Buchanan.

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During that decade, Institute scholars were forced out of Germany (initially to Geneva and then to the United States) by the rise of the Nazi Party. After the end of World War II, however, a number of them returned to Europe. Adorno and Horkheimer, whose major publications were perhaps the most crucial contributions to the Institute’s program of social and cultural critique, returned to Frankfurt in 1949. As he develops his thesis, Schroyer explains the “crisis theory”, shared by the Frankfurt School with other “cultural Marxists”, as identifying a social process of rationalizing endless growth. This forces social-cultural processes to adapt in ways that undermine individual autonomy ( Critique of Domination, p. 171). More specifically, Schroyer explains the central idea of the Frankfurt School as follows: “As advanced industrial societies developed, the individual was more integrated into and dependent upon the collectivity and less able to utilize society for active self-expression” ( Critique of Domination, p. 227). Schroyer opens The Critique of Domination by declaring that, “The critique of domination, or the reflective critique of socially unnecessary constraints of human freedom, is as old as the Western concept of reason” ( Critique of Domination, p. 15). The Roots Of British Cultural Marxism ~ Author Believes It Made A Valuable Contribution To The Nation. As Vesa Oittinen expresses some of this in The Encyclopedia of Political Thought: “The British Marxist tradition has usually been described as ‘cultural Marxism,’ as an attempt to apply basic ideas of historical materialism on the analyses of culture (Fredric Jameson, Terry Eagleton), but Christopher Hill ( 1997 [1965]) and E. P. Thompson ( 1963) stay much nearer the original traditions of historical materialism” (Oittinen, “Historical Materialism,” The Encyclopedia of Political Thought, p. 2).To save this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Google Drive account.

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By using this service, you agree that you will only keep content for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services Schroyer was, and is, a genuine scholar presenting a thesis that was received and reviewed seriously. He seems generally correct in his description of Western Marxism’s departure from Soviet Marxism, with an emphasis on cultural critique and a different set of attitudes to culture itself. More specifically, the unmasking of culture as complicit in social domination of the individual was a central idea within the intellectual ambitions of the Frankfurt School. Similar ideas of unmasking and criticizing the role of culture can be observed more broadly within Western Marxism - and in what we might call “Western post-Marxism” - from at least the 1920s to the present day. Hall, Stuart (1989). "The origins of cultural studies [videorecording]: a lecture at UMass Amherst". All the same, the term is widely used, often without explanation. As I stated in Part 1, it has become a familiar meme. Given the confusion surrounding it, it is worth getting together some information on how the term “cultural Marxism” has been employed – whether by right-wing culture warriors, serious scholars, or occasional individuals who might be mixtures of both – what circumstances and ambitions have motivated its use in different contexts, and what real or imaginary social tendencies it denotes. All of these people had something important in common,they were mostly all secular humanists who promoted causes which championed the right to self-determination, for example, freedom of choice regarding sexual relationships & reproduction (abortions) etc, and they were deeply infatuated with Karl Marx. They were probably well meaning individuals and some of their theorising was quite noble,it had some genuine worth,however Marxism was their opium.They idolized a man who made it his mission to get rid of God [quote] "The Prussian political philosophers from Leibnitz to Hegel have laboured to dethrone God, and if I dethrone God I also dethrone the king who reigns by the grace of God."Dennis Dworkin, an intellectual historian who has written extensively on British Marxist thought, suggests that the writings of Antonio Gramsci and the Frankfurt School were influential in the UK in the 1960s, and that they had a major impact on the development of cultural studies. Gramsci particularly influenced Raymond Williams and historian E.P. Thompson (Dworkin, Class Struggles, pp. 55-58). Cultural Marxism in Postwar Britain is exceptionally well written, lucid, and well organized—and simultaneously accessible and sophisticated, both in its own internal argumentation and in its rendering of often complex and difficult debates.” — Geoff Eley, University of Michigan Turner, Graeme (2002). British cultural studies: an introduction (3rded.). Routledge. ISBN 9780415252287.

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Unfortunate cultural tendencies, including those that manifest a left-wing style of authoritarianism, can usually be labelled in less confusing, more effective, more precise ways. By all means, let’s develop useful terminology to express whatever concerns we have about tendencies on the Left, but “cultural Marxism” carries too much baggage. Dworkin, Dennis (1 June 2012). Cultural Marxism in Postwar Britain. Duke University Press. p.116. doi: 10.1215/9780822396512. ISBN 9780822396512. In this intellectual history of British cultural Marxism, Dennis Dworkin explores one of the most influential bodies of contemporary thought. Tracing its development from beginnings in postwar Britain, through its various transformations in the 1960s and 1970s, to the emergence of British cultural studies at Birmingham, and up to the advent of Thatcherism, Dworkin shows this history to be one of a coherent intellectual tradition, a tradition that represents an implicit and explicit theoretical effort to resolve the crisis of the postwar British Left. Alec Gordon, "The Genesis of Radical Cultural Studies: Contribution to a Reconstruction of Cultural Studies as Counter-Intellectual Critique" [The Intellectual History of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham, England, 1963–1975]. The strengths of Dworkin’s study are legion. He offers an excellent account of the break made by a number of intellectuals with the Communist Party of Great Britain. . . . Moreover, although an ardent enthusiast for the work of the cultural Marxists, Dworkin is not afraid to be critical of that work. . . . But most of all, Dworkin has written an important study insofar as it charts the evolution of a major strand of thought in postwar Britain and does so in part by making excellent use of unpublished papers and various interviews that the author undertook for the study.” — Chris Waters , American Historical Review

Cultural Marxism in Postwar Britain History, the New Left, and the Origins of Cultural Studies PostContemporary Interventions