Marxism And Cancel Culture

The Democratic Socialists of America would do well to remember that cancel culture will turn on them. The Soviets canceled Karl Marx himself!

F. Charles Parker IV | October 29, 2026

Marxism is in vogue in popular culture in the United States these days. A growing number of young people are turning against capitalism. But I am not sure the new crop of socialists, the ones who cherish the warm embrace of collectivism—the ones belonging to the Democratic Socialists of America—understand the writings of good old Karl Marx. This is especially true for their “inspirational” leader, Bernie Sanders, who honeymooned in the Soviet Union.

Marx and Friedrich Engels published the Communist Manifesto in 1848, and it’s been in vogue ever since. However, there is a little history lesson in Marxism that resulted in an early and particularly vicious example of true cancel culture. Marx developed a theory that ultimately proved so embarrassing to the Soviets, who claimed to follow his teachings, that the government suppressed it and persecuted scholars who studied it.

Marx modestly claimed to have discovered, scientifically, the meaning of history. And history, so he said, would inexorably proceed from ancient societies through feudalism and capitalism to socialism and finally communism. Five years later, he’d complicated his theory after he “discovered” a societal structure that didn’t fit neatly into that progression. He called it the Asiatic Mode of Production (“AMP”).

Marx discussed AMP in his 1853 article “The British Rule in India” and his 1859 A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Those modern “intellectuals” enamored with socialism should acquaint themselves with this part of Marxism and the sad history that goes with it.

Marx identified the great river valley civilizations of China and India as examples of AMP. Harnessing rivers for irrigation required great armies of workers, producing centralized bureaucratic despotisms with enormous governmental power, limited........

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