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| Midwestern Marx | |
|---|---|
 | |
| YouTube information | |
| Website | Midwestern Marx |
| Years active | 2020–present |
| Subscribers | 50,700 (September 2024) |
| Total views | 4,996,039 (September 2024) |
| Ideology | Marxism-Leninism (claimed) MAGA "Communism" patriotic socialism |
The Midwestern Marx Institute for Marxist Theory and Political Analysis (MWM) is a US-based revisionist online publishing house created in 2020. Its content includes online articles, book series, academic journals, and online videos. The organisation pushes patriotic socialism, and thus tacitly supports U.S. imperialism in at least some form.[1][2] Several members of its editorial board are prominent figures within the American Communist Party (ACP),[3] which the organisation helped to found in July 2024.
Midwestern Marx maintains the Journal of American Socialist Studies (JASS; ISSN 2769-1055), an annual journal which purports to be peer-reviewed and "aim[s] [...] to highlight the rich and eclectic traditions of radicalism in the U.S."[4]
Staff[edit | edit source]
The staff consists of 6 members of the editorial board, more than 30 writers, and 3 Spanish-English translators. Additionally, there are more than a dozen writers for the Youth League.[5]
Editorial board[edit | edit source]
- Thomas Riggins: Chief Editorial Counselor, retired philosophy teacher, and 1960s-era activist and writer
- Carlos L. Garrido: Cuban philosophy graduate student focused on Marxism, Hegel, and early 19th century US socialism
- Edward (Eddie) L. Smith: Director, US political scientist.
- Mitchell K. Jones
- Calla Winchell
- Noah Khrachvik
Other members[edit | edit source]
- Alex Zambito
Chauvinistic and reactionary behavior[edit | edit source]
Midwestern Marx agreed with Jackson Hinkle, a notorious patriotic socialist and Revisionist, that Marxism-Leninism was compatible with loyalty to the United States.[6] A number of members have been noted for having a history of bullying.[7]
One of its directors, Eddie Liger, frequently engages in tailist and class collaborationist tactics by defending association and partnership with open fascists akin to the Black Hundreds, rather than trying to win over misguided proletarians away from their leadership.[8]
Eddie deliberately misrepresents Marxism. For example, in a February 3 Twitter post, he said that "[he] had 10 farmers on [his] college wrestling team, and they all f**** love Trump".[9] User @bidetmarxman replied to this post, noting there is a difference between farm owners and farm workers that Eddie didn't make, and that "farmers" usually refers to farm owners specifically. Owners are a "petty bourgeois reactionary group", while workers are "are much more numerous and are proletariat, thus forming part of the revolutionary subject". They go on to explain that Eddie, being a director of Midwestern Marx, should or would not be making such a basic mistake if he were not being disingenuous on purpose to cater to the reactionary tendencies of his audience.[10]
Danny Shaw, one of the Institute's staff, engaged in Hitlerite anti-semitism structured rant on Instagram.[11]
Homophobia and transphobia[edit | edit source]
In the past, Midwestern Marx has defended the LGBT+ community and condemned homophobia and transphobia in clear terms, for which it deserves unequivocal praise. Ever since the organisation began to openly align itself with the socially conservative "MAGA communist" movement, however, it has turned a blind eye to and even directly engaged in harmful homophobic and transphobic rhetoric.
In October 2024, Midwestern Marx published an article which falsely equated being female with womanhood, stating that they are "inextricably linked" (meaning that the author doesn't view trans women as women) and denouncing "gender ideology" (i.e., the notion that trans people are the gender they say they are).[12]
In a December 2024 livestream with Haz Al-Din of the Infrared Collective, when asked if the ACP would "use the state as a cudgel to oppress gay people or trans people who didn't wanna enter the bourgeois family structure", as was the case in the Soviet Union as well as the modern Russian Federation, Haz replied by stating that "I don't even think Russia today is doing that. I think Russia today is banning propaganda targetted toward children."[13] Not only is this blatantly false (as spreading "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships" to any age group is prohibited under the amended anti-LGBTQ law), but by spreading this malicious lie, Haz was in effect associating homosexuality with paedophilia, a common homophobic tactic. Eddie Liger for his part not only failed to provide any pushback to Haz's rhetoric, but actively nodded along to what he was saying.[13]
Most damningly in February 2025, Noah Khrachvik began a livestream on the Midwestern Marx YouTube channel (which, at the time of writing (August 2025), still hasn't been taken down) with the following transphobic statement, which set the tone for the rest of the discussion:
So, [I've] been researching gender ideology and what they call "queer theory" lately, uh, in order to write a paper on it for Red America, sort of tryin' to understand it on a scientific level, right? Uh—a-and that should be ready by next month's issue, by the way, for anyone interested—um, anyway, I've been doing this research and forcing myself to read all of this sort of wild idealist psychobabble, right? And as I have, I've discovered that this stuff grinds my gears even more than I thought it would. Like, uh, what—what we see on the surface is bad, but once you start digging into it a little, it gets so, so, so much worse; like, major foundational theorists being mostly paedophiles, sex offenders, and emotionally-disturbed fetishists' works. So, that's what we're going to talk about tonight. Are you guys ready? I-I-I mean, I assume you are, since the NGOs pushing this stuff and—a-a-a-and, uh, y-you know, uh, spending millions and millions of dollars, really, to push it on our children—uh, by the way, they've been incredibly vicious and sleazy, the way they go after everyone who refuses to toe the line—a-and what's up with that, by the way? That's a whole 'nother bag of bananas that we don't even have time for—why it's pushed with such vitriol. But anyway, like, if—if you say "reality is real," "water is ret [sic]—wet," and "up isn't down" in response to their directives from on-high, they will literally try to ruin your life![14]
Class Struggle[edit | edit source]
Midwestern Marx vulgarizes class struggle by describing it in a one-sided economics-only terms.[15] While Midwestern Marx correctly identifies that the struggle between men and women is not primary in the fight for socialism, it nevertheless is one of the major pillars of class struggle; a lightning rod that, if unaddressed, absorbs energy from the proletariat that would otherwise be directed at the bourgeoisie.
Class struggle comes many forms. These include between men and women, between oppressed and oppressor nations, between serfs and lords, the struggle against the family, and so on. In particular here Midwestern Marx is rejecting the oldest, and first class struggle. The oppression of women by men, a form of class struggle that predates even slavery.[16]
Ideology[edit | edit source]
Midwestern Marx generally supports patriotic socialism and is against the decolonisation of the United States.[17] It accuses the opponents of patriotic socialism of being American exceptionalists[1] even though they also oppose patriotism in other imperialist countries.[18][better source needed] It also incorrectly defines nationalism as loyalty to the state and patriotism as loyalty to the people and absurdly claimed the Statesian settler state is not a product of genocide.[1]
Censorship[edit | edit source]
In 2020, after the CIA-connected company Oracle bought TikTok, it banned Midwestern Marx's account that had 375,000 followers.[19] In 2022, the video sharing platform TikTok banned Midwestern Marx's second account,[20][21] and it has banned five more accounts since then.[19]
Content[edit | edit source]
Midwestern Marx covers many different topics. They have discussed how the CIA was involved in promoting the Frankfurt School's Critical Theory ideology.[22]
Links[edit | edit source]
- YouTube
- LinkTree (Their curated list of links)
- @EddieLigerSmith on TikTok (censored)
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 “Put simply, the United States, as every country, is not a product of genocide and slavery, nor is it a product of freedom and liberty, it is a product of class antagonisms and struggle, in this regard it is not exceptional.”
Kayla Popuchet (2021-12-05). "In Defense of U.S. Proletarian Patriotism: A comradely response to Danny Haiphong’s “Marxist” Polemic on Patriotic Socialism." Midwestern Marx. Archived from the original on 2023-06-02. - ↑ Roderic Day (2023-06-06). "Untitled Twitter Thread" Twitter.
- ↑ @EdbieLigerSmith (2024-07-22). "Proud to announce that I've been selected to the executive board of the American Communist Party." Twitter. Archived from the original on 2024-09-09. Retrieved 2025-08-22.
- ↑ Journal of American Socialist Studies (JASS)
- ↑ Midwestern Marx (2024-01-23). "Midwestern Marx Staff" Midwestern Marx. Archived from the original on 2024-01-23. Retrieved 2024-01-23.
- ↑ @MidwesternMarx (2021-09-06). "The ultra-left reactions to this tweet show they’ve never read any Marx, Engels, or Lenin - and perhaps worst, they’ve never met a working class American in their life." Archived from the original on 2024-1-10. Retrieved 2024-1-10.
- ↑ Comrade Confucius (27-01-2024). "The Social Chauvinists of America are now Marxists (don't laugh)". YouTube.
- ↑ “If Modern day Western communists lived in Russia they would have tweeted pictures of the Bolsheviks reaching out to the black hundreds and demanded that people cancel them for it.”
@EdbieLigerSmith. "If Modern day Western communists lived in Russia" Archived from the original on 26 Jun 2023. - ↑ @EdbieLigerSmith (2024-). "This person does not live in Iowa lol. I think I had 10 farmers on my college wrestling team alone 😂" Twitter.
- ↑ ““Farmers” is typically short hand for farm *owners* (or in Eddie’s case the sons of farm owners). They’re a petit bourgeois and reactionary group. Farm *workers*, otoh, are much more numerous and are proletariat, thus forming part of the revolutionary subject.
Confusing the two is a very basic error that you might expect from someone first grappling with Marxist concepts of class and relations of production. But not from someone positioning themselves as the director of an org teaching Marxist theory.”
Professional hog groomer (2024-02-04). "“Farmers” is typically short hand for farm *owners* (or in Eddie’s case the sons of farm owners)" Twitter. Retrieved 2024-02-05. - ↑ Danny Shaw. "Who runs Hollywood?" Instagram[deleted]. Archived from the original.
- ↑ Kayla Popuchet (2024-10-29).: "Women, Communism, and, the ACP". Midwestern Marx. Archived from the original on 2024-11-08. Retrieved 2024-12-01.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Midwestern Marx (2024-12-01).: "Legendary Marathon Debate Stream With Haz Al-Din & Eddie Liger". Retrieved 2025-08-22.
- ↑ Midwestern Marx (2025-02-04).: "Noah's Show | Call-in LIVE RIGHT NOW! | Discussing Trump, 'Queer Theory' and MORE!" YouTube. Retrieved 2025-08-17.
- ↑ “It is crucial to clarify that rejecting feminism as an ideology does not mean Marxists are indifferent to the role of women in society and the economy. The radical liberal left often reduces any critique of their ideology to a simplistic liberal-versus-conservative framework, but this is a profound misunderstanding. Marxists reject feminism because it misidentifies the primary antagonism as one between men and women. In contrast, we understand the true conflict to be between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Feminism mistakenly suggests that bourgeois, capitalist women share common interests with working-class, proletarian women. Even more troubling, it implies that the bourgeois woman is oppressed by the working man, further perpetuating the myth that the antagonism between the sexes is irreconcilable—that men and women are inherently and perpetually in opposition to one another.”
Kayla Popuchet (2024-10-29). "Women, Communism, and, the ACP By: Kayla Popuchet" Midwestern Marx Institute. Archived from the original. - ↑ “In the recent literature on this subject, the sexual division of labor in hunting and gathering societies is often defined as a relation of complementarity, reciprocity, cooperation. [...]the division of labor[between the sexes] is due to “objective, material, impersonal conditionings, imposed by nature and by the limitations of productive forces”; the division of labor “destines men to hunting and making war, women to gathering, to transporting goods, to cooking and to the care and education of the young. … Big-game hunting apparently became the prerogative of men less for reasons of greater physical strength than for reasons of greater mobility, individual and collective, in comparison to women” subject to the biological constraints of pregnancy and childcare. According to Godelier, “this distribution of tasks is what renders men, more than women, capable of incarnating and defending the interests of the group … and, therefore, as well, capable of dominating women politically, culturally, and symbolically.”
Paola Tabet (1982). Hands, Tools, Weapons. Republished on RedSails.org, Original Publisher La main, les tooles, les armes. - ↑ “That is because the mass of the direct producers in the USA are not from the indigenous population. Under these circumstances where [sic] they to acquire ownership of all land[,] they would inevitably become and [sic] exploiting minority.”
Paul Cockshott (2021-10-03). "Marxism and the Nationalisation of Land" Midwestern Marx. Archived from the original on 2023-06-06. - ↑ “The specific content of patriotism is determined by historical conditions. There is the "patriotism" of the Japanese aggressors and of Hitler, and there is our patriotism. Communists must resolutely oppose the "patriotism" of the Japanese aggressors and of Hitler. The Communists of Japan and Germany are defeatists with regard to the wars being waged by their countries. To bring about the defeat of the Japanese aggressors and of Hitler by every possible means is in the interests of the Japanese and the German people, and the more complete the defeat the better...For the wars launched by the Japanese aggressors and Hitler are harming the people at home as well as the people of the world. China's case, however, is different, because she is the victim of aggression.”
Mao Zedong (1966). Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung: 'Patriotism and Internationalism'. [PDF] Beijing: Foreign Languages Press. [MIA] - ↑ 19.0 19.1 Carlos L Garrido (2023-06-02). "The U.S. censors Dissenting Voices: On the attacks against the Midwestern Marx Institute" Monthly Review. Retrieved 2023-06-01.
- ↑ Eddie Smith (2022-03-03). "Tik Tok BANNED us. Freedom of Speech under Capitalism."
- ↑ @MarxMidwest on Twitter: "Tik tok banned our second account today. They are completely silencing us. Not letting us have any kind of voice on their platform. Creating a neoliberal echo chamber." (Archived)
- ↑ "The Frankfurt School and the CIA - Interview W/ Gabriel Rockhill". Midwestern Marx.
