I want to preface this by saying that I am still extremely ignorant of Marxist theory. Currently working to catch up but I am very open minded to different perspectives. However, I also want to add that I come from a Chinese family with strong communist sympathies and I feel that I have certain insights into China and the history of communism in China that many in the west do not. My grandfather as well as my father were Marxist philosophers. My father did not push communist theory onto me as a child (which I appreciated), hence my late introduction to theory.

Since I grew up primarily in the West, access to Marxist theory was limited. Richard Wolff was one of the people who helped reignite my interest in Marxism. I realize Wolff has some opinions that do not align well with Marxist or ML theory, but I’ve always thought that he was a good gateway to leftist theory as most of what he teaches is rooted in Marxism.

I decided to look up what /r/communism thought of Richard Wolff and while I saw many comments that echoed my thoughts there were also many comments that were virulently anti-Wolff, some of which left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.

Example: https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/h8mosl/what_are_your_thoughts_on_richard_wolff/ Specifically the comments by /u/ah-gou.

I don’t know enough to form an opinion on most of his comment but the part about Wolff propagating a socialist market economy as “true communism” seems damning, but I also have never heard Wolff say this before either. Another user also replied that while Wolff may not be correct on all the theory, he ultimately teaches Marxist related theory, which cannot be said for most political or economic educators in the West. I thought there was a lot of merit in that.

I previously mentioned that reading these old threads and especially u/ah-gou’s comments left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. That wasn’t because I didn’t agree with his theory based opinion, rather it was mostly because of the strong and almost hateful reaction he had against Wolff. It reminded me of the stories that my aunt used to tell me of the most radical red guards back when she was a red guards. To my understanding, these kind of bottom up radical sectarian actions are what led to most of the violence and suffering seen in the cultural revolution. My initial reaction is that people like /u/ah-gou are exactly why the cultural revolution has been completely and utterly disavowed by the CCP today. Which is interesting given that most of my family who are knowledgeable about the cultural revolution do not absolutely disavow the cultural revolution.

In my view Richard Wolff plays a very important role of educator and usher of Marxism within liberal society. He plays up certain areas that he doesn’t necessarily believe wholeheartedly (such as co-ops) in order to move liberals towards the left. I think he has been an important factor in moving Western political discourse in the past 20 years towards the real left. He may not be right in all things theory, but his impact is important nonetheless. Discussing and criticizing Wolff’s theory is absolutely necessary but the way I have seen him being criticized is too akin to the sectarianism that has plagued and hurt socialist movements around the world, and especially reminiscent of the mistakes seen in China. I think Wolff is a vital part of the socialist movement and is exactly the type of educator we need to see more of in the West. Once you have a basic understanding of Marxist theory you can move on past him, but he is a keystone figure in moving any anti-capitalist towards Marxism.

Thoughts? I am happy to be wrong. Would love to see more discussion on lemmy.