Marxism and Tradition
Grayson S. Walker
Abstract
This article challenges the Western liberal and “Western Marxist” assumption that Marxism is inherently antagonistic to tradition, arguing instead that historical Marxism–Leninism represents the true preservation and renewal of humanity’s civilizational heritage. Delivered as a keynote at the 2024 Multipolarity Forum in Moscow, the paper critiques the Western metaphysical framing of Marxism as a purely secular and progressivist ideology divorced from the concrete historical life of peoples. Through engagement with Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and the Sinification of Marxism in China, Grayson S. Walker contends that Marxism’s historical maturation was marked by its reconciliation with the national and civilizational forms from which revolutionary movements emerged. Rather than erasing tradition, Marxism purified it — distilling what was genuine, antifragile, and enduring in human culture through the crucible of modernity. By contrast, the so-called “reactionary traditionalisms” of fascism and liberal conservatism are shown to be abstract idolatries of form divorced from real Being, ultimately serving the same modern capitalist nihilism they claim to resist. The article concludes that Marxism–Leninism, as a scientific worldview and “real movement of history,” uniquely sublates modernity by preserving the perennial essence of civilization amid industrial and technological transformation. In doing so, it positions Communism not as the negation but as the culmination and defender of mankind’s living traditions.
Keywords
Marxism–Leninism, tradition, modernity, civilizational socialism, Western Marxism, Grayson S. Walker
