The Stoic has no party: A reply to Chris Cutrone

Anthony Teso

Platypus Review 188 | July–August 2026

CUTRONE’S CRITIQUE of Rockhill is sharp, but he ends up doing the same thing he criticizes.^[1] He uses the lessons of Marx and the Frankfurt School to defend a position of standing alone, without a party. My main point is that when critique is separated from the group context that Marx stressed, it turns a specific defeat into a permanent way of thinking. This misses the point of Marxist practice and what it leads to. Both Cutrone and Rockhill make the mistake of taking quotes out of context, which weakens the collective and partisan sides of the politics they discuss.

Chris Cutrone’s critique of Rockhill is justified, yet the manner in which he is correct also implicates him. The philological case against Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism? (2025)^[2] is conclusive. Rockhill substitutes a secondary source’s paraphrase of Adorno for Adorno’s own words. He manipulates a Horkheimer passage by inserting four ellipses to fabricate a sentence that Horkheimer never articulated as such. Additionally, he isolates the phrase “best civilizations” from its qualifying clause, “only if we remain ruthlessly critical of this civilization,” and from the surrounding exchange in which Adorno explicitly rejects defending the Western world.^[3] When the full context is restored, Rockhill’s indictment collapses. Cutrone is correct to identify this as slander rather than mere disagreement. However, Cutrone’s own analysis employs a similar method: he also extracts a text from its context, resulting in a comparable distortion.

What Cutrone does next is more important because he uses the same method. It is easiest to see this by comparing the two actions directly.

When these two interpretive acts are juxtaposed, the parallel becomes clear. Rockhill extracts the phrase “the best civilizations that history has produced” from its qualifying context, “only if we remain ruthlessly critical of this civilization,” thereby reversing the intended meaning. Similarly, Cutrone, a few pages later, isolates Marx’s “Dixi et salvavi animam meam” from its context in the “Critique of the Gotha Program” (1875), again inverting the original intent.^[4] The interpretive tool remains the same; only the practitioner differs.

We need to look at what Cutrone wants this idea to mean. His essay starts with a quote from Horkheimer and Adorno: “salvation lies in thinking, and politics lies in thinking . . . we are the Stoics because there is no party.”^[5] Here, “Stoic” does not mean the old philosophy but standing alone and relying on your judgment when group action seems impossible. “Party” means more than just a political group; it is the ongoing work of building and keeping a group together, like the workers’ movement. Critique is not just negative comments or theory but the questioning of ideas and actions, ideally as part of a political group. Cutrone uses the quote to say, “There’s no ‘we’ in socialism, comrades. Everyone has to think for themselves.”^[6] He uses Marx to back this up, saying Marx also stood alone, keeping his conscience outside any party. In this view, critique is most important, the group is not real, and the true Marxist is someone who stands alone. But the document Cutrone uses actually says the opposite. This is the main point Cutrone wants the reader to accept.

The problem is that the document Cutrone uses is actually the most collective and partisan text Marx wrote. This fact runs counter to Cutrone’s reading and is important for what follows.

The “Critique of the Gotha Program” is not a philosophical meditation but an intervention in the context of a party merger. In 1875, the Eisenachers, led by Liebknecht and Bebel, were preparing to unite at Gotha with Lassalle’s General German Workers’ Association, based on a draft program heavily influenced by Lassallean state-socialism: the iron law of wages, state-supported producers’ cooperatives, and the pursuit of socialism through existing state structures.^[7] Marx composed his commentary to prevent this merger or, failing that, to document, in detail, every concession the program made to internal adversaries. The tone throughout is not one of detachment but of ownership and commitment. Marx and Engels repeatedly refer to “our Party,” stating, “Lower than this our Party could not humiliate itself,” and warning that the Party “will have lost its political virginity and will never again be able to come out wholeheartedly against the Lassalleans.”^[8] The plural first-person, which Cutrone claims is absent from socialism, is in fact the grammatical subject of every paragraph in the very text he cites to deny its existence.

Consider also the maxim: the most frequently cited sentence from the “Critique,” familiar to every organizer, is “Every step of real movement is more important than a dozen programs.”^[9] Cutrone’s essay, however, advocates the opposite priority, elevating the primacy of thought over real movement and privileging purified critique over imperfect organization. He bypasses this central sentence to focus on the one that follows at the document’s conclusion, appropriating the benediction while neglecting the doctrine. Marx’s principal objection at Gotha was that his comrades formulated a program of principles prior to the activity that alone could give those principles substance, effectively placing theory before movement. Cutrone interprets the “Critique” as an endorsement of this reversal and attributes it to Marx. The subsequent sign-off reiterates this error in a different form. This inversion is the central issue under consideration.

Consider the conclusion: “Dixi et salvavi animam meam” (“I have spoken and saved my soul”).^[10] Cutrone interprets this as Stoic resignation, suggesting a withdrawal into contemplation because the world is irredeemable. However, despite their contempt for the party’s program, Marx and Engels chose to remain within the organization. Historical accounts indicate that, while they considered leaving the nascent German party, they ultimately did not; it took 15 years of Engels’s efforts for the suppressed critique to be published.^[11] The solitude in which Marx “spoke only to speak” was both tactical and temporary, reflecting the position of someone who had lost a specific internal struggle but refused to abandon the organization. Salvation, in this context, is achieved through speaking — a deed enacted within ongoing struggle, not an act of withdrawal. Speaking is a moral imperative, not the epitaph of one who has forsaken the collective project. Cutrone’s interpretation reverses this logic. Marx signs “dixi et salvavi” after extensive partisan engagement over a collective “we” that warranted defense. Cutrone adopts the signature but omits the struggle.

This is not a minor oversight. It reflects the same evasion present in the epigraph, and tracing it to its source reveals the substance of Cutrone’s argument. The Frankfurt School’s statement, “we are the Stoics because there is no party,” is not a metaphysical claim about the human condition. The 1956 dialogue between Adorno and Horkheimer^[12] refers to a specific historical defeat. The phrase does not describe “the absence of a party” as a neutral or permanent feature of intellectual life; rather, it denotes a situation in which the workers’ movement — socialism as systemic opposition — has been defeated and expelled from the political arena. Horkheimer and Adorno are describing the aftermath of 1956: Stalinism as the internal destruction of the party, bourgeois-democratic restoration as its external defeat, and themselves left isolated, with only a tape recorder and no organization to address. For them, Stoicism is what remains after the party has been destroyed; it is an admission of defeat, not a prescriptive program. This is the crucial distinction that Cutrone overlooks. Recognizing this distinction is essential for the subsequent argument, and it is the premise Cutrone must invert for his conclusion to hold.

Cutrone changes the meaning of the material. He takes a description of defeat and turns it into advice for action. He treats “there is no party” as a rule to follow: since there is no party, critique comes first; since critique comes first, the critic does not need a party, and so the lack of a party is confirmed. This is circular reasoning. What was a loss in 1956 becomes a goal in 2026. Horkheimer’s Stoic view, which came from despair after the party was gone, is taken by Cutrone as the right way for Marxists to act. To see what is lost here, we need to look at the original sources. Horkheimer, in his 1956 talk with Adorno, is saddened by the lack of collective action. He says, “At present, the only hope lies in theory,” but also, “even to maintain theory presupposes some kind of solidarity among men.” Adorno adds, “Our thinking is always already mediated by the reality that has defeated us.” These comments show a strong sense of loss and a wish for group work. Marx, in the “Critique of the Gotha Program,” also puts critique inside the party and says, “It is only possible to achieve something in connection with others. By oneself, nothing at all.” Turning this sadness into a rule is a mistake about what these sources mean.

At this point, Cutrone’s own most incisive analytical category is turned against his argument. He begins by precisely defining Stalinism as the liquidation of Marxism, specifically the dissolution of Marxist self-consciousness, the theory of the proletarian party, and the practical destruction of that party. This definition is accurate.^[13] However, liquidation can occur through multiple mechanisms. Stalinism achieves liquidation by seizing control of the party, hollowing it out, transforming its discipline into an apparatus for internal repression, and converting its theory into state dogma. This is liquidation from above and within.^[14] There is also liquidation from the side: the position that deems organizational questions premature, postpones party-building until theory is sufficiently purified, and indefinitely defers this purification. In this framework, the party question is perpetually postponed in the name of critique, which is always deemed incomplete. The outcome is identical in both scenarios: the absence of a party.^[15] Stalinism produces partylessness through perversion; Frankfurt-Stoicism achieves it through abstention. Cutrone astutely diagnoses the former yet, in his own conclusion, enacts the latter. This parallel constitutes the central argument of the essay.

Cutrone points out that there are hardly any true Marxist critics left and even asks, “Perhaps there is only one?”^[16] This is not just a side note. If you always look for a perfect group and judge every organization by impossible standards, you end up alone. A critic who rejects all political parties does not belong to any party. The person who sets the highest bar finds that only he can meet it. This is not just bad luck; it is the result of the position. The Stoic does not need a party because he becomes a party of one, judging only himself. Horkheimer called this defeat in 1946; Cutrone calls it integrity in 2026.^[17] This is the essay’s main result and its final irony.

I agree with Cutrone on his main point, which helps clarify the argument. He is right that the key question in socialism is about the self-awareness of the workers’ party. Most debates on the Left today focus on smaller issues like campaigns and candidates and do not address this bigger question. In this way, Cutrone is right, and many of his critics are wrong. But after reaching this higher level, he does not come back to real situations. He stays in theory, and from there, every real group looks flawed, every “we” seems fake, and every real action looks like a failure to meet the ideal. This represents a theoretical form of campism that is not loyal to any group, as no group meets its purity standards. It is a kind of third-campism in which the person rejects all groups and stands alone.

This critique matters not just because it follows Marx and the Frankfurt School but because it speaks to real problems facing Marxist theory and groups today. Debates about parties, critique, and the link between theory and practice often lead people to distance themselves from flawed movements to preserve their integrity. My point is that reverting to a partyless critique amounts to repeating an old defeat, as it abandons the collective effort that empowers critique. If Marxist politics is to revive, it requires a connection between critique and organization. If not, theory just becomes another way to withdraw, and real change gets harder. So, this argument is not just about Cutrone and Rockhill but about the future of Left strategy now.

Cutrone sets up a false choice: either you lie for the party, or you stand alone as an honest critic. The “Critique of the Gotha Program” shows this is not true. Marx did not pick between lying for the party or telling the truth outside it. He spoke the hardest truths he could, in the most partisan text he wrote, and he stayed in a party he could have left for good reasons. He kept his integrity by speaking up, but he did it as a member. Cutrone takes this practice and transforms it.

Resolving the party question requires recognizing the group. It is solved, as Marx did at Gotha, by fighting over the program of the real, flawed group in front of you. The other choice is not pure theory, but the absence of a party, which both Stalinism and Stoicism ultimately reach, albeit through different paths.

Dixi. Cutrone may retain his individual integrity; I would prefer that we preserve the collective “we.” |P

^[1] Chris Cutrone, “The Frankfurt School wanted socialism: Contra Rockhill,” Platypus Review 187 (June 2026), <https://platypus1917.org/2026/06/01/the-frankfurt-school-wanted-socialism/>. All quotations of Cutrone are from this source. The Horkheimer and Adorno passages he disputes, and the restorations of their fuller context, are likewise as he reproduces them; my argument concerns his use of them, not their accuracy, which I take to be sound.

^[2] Gabriel Rockhill, Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism? (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2025).

^[3] See Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception,” in Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments, ed. Gunzelin Schmid Noerr, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), 94–136.

^[4] Karl Marx, “Critique of the Gotha Program” (1875), including the appended correspondence, <https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/>. The possessive register (“our Party”) and the warnings about the party’s “political virginity” run throughout Marx’s letter and Engels’s accompanying letter to August Bebel (March 18–28, 1875), <https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/letters/75_03_18.htm>.

^[5] Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, “Rettung der Aufklärung. Diskussionen über eine geplante Schrift zur Dialektik,” in Max Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 12, Nachgelassene Schriften 1931–1949, eds. Gunzelin Schmid Noerr and Alfred Schmidt (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1985), 593–605, <https://jamescrane.substack.com/p/horkheimer-and-adornorettung-der>.

^[6] Cutrone, “The Frankfurt School wanted socialism.”

^[7] On the Gotha fusion and the Lassallean content of the draft program, see sources on the Gotha Program and Lassalleanism, particularly discussions of pursuing socialist aims “by every legal means” and of state-aided producer cooperatives, which Marx regarded as among the program’s most retrograde planks.

^[8] Engels to Bebel (March 18–28, 1875).

^[9] Karl Marx to W. Bracke (May 5, 1875), in Selected Works, vol. 3 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1970), 11–12, <https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/letters/75_05_05.htm>. The line is the standard rendering of “jeder Schritt wirklicher Bewegung ist wichtiger als ein Dutzend Programme.”

^[10] Ibid. See also Peter Linebaugh, “Afterword,” in Critique of the Gotha Program, trans. Kevin B. Anderson and Karel Ludenhoff (Oakland: PM Press, 2023), 79–93. Linebaugh discusses the religious idiom of “dixi et salvavi animam meam,” from Ezekiel, and argues that Marx turns it from a formula of conscience-clearing dismissal into an obligation to speak.

^[11] See Peter Hudis, “Introduction: The Alternative to Capitalism in Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Program,” in Critique of the Gotha Program, trans. Anderson and Ludenhoff, 1–40. See also standard publication histories of the text for Marx and Engels’s consideration of withdrawing from the nascent German party, their decision to remain, and the 15-year delay before the “Critique” appeared in print through Engels’s efforts.

^[12] Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Towards a New Manifesto, trans. Rodney Livingstone (London: Verso, 2011).

^[13] Horkheimer and Adorno, “The Culture Industry.”

^[14] See Hillel Ticktin, “Stalinism—its Nature and Role,” Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory 39, no. 4 (2011): 489–523.

^[15] See Robert Cluley and Martin Parker, “Critical theory in use: Organizing the Frankfurt School,” Human Relations 76, no. 11 (November 2023): 1689–1713.

^[16] Cutrone, “The Frankfurt School wanted socialism.”

^[17] See Pon Chandran, “Culture, Consciousness, and Revolution: Reframing the Debate Between the Frankfurt School, the Traditional Left, and Maoism,” Countercurrents (April 25, 2026), <https://countercurrents.org/2026/04/culture-consciousness-and-revolution-reframing-the-debate-between-the-frankfurt-school-the-traditional-left-and-maoism/>.