Classical Marxists always defended liberal democratic rights against the right

Evidence

Of course, to recognize the evacuation of liberal democratic institutions of much of their political content is not to advocate their abolition by the extreme right. Despite Habermas’s sarcastic reference to the ‘nonexistent Marxist theory of democracy’, the classical revolutionary socialist tradition - Marx and Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, Luxemburg and Gramsci - always rejected the idea that Marxists should be indifferent to reactionary attacks on the rights and institutions of liberal democracy. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 456

Categorization

• XREF: Directly engages Habermas’s charge about a ‘nonexistent Marxist theory of democracy’ — connects to the larger Marxism-vs-postmodernism debate and Habermas’s defense of the Enlightenment project. — connects to: Marxists assumed working-class pressure drove all egalitarian gains — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2137; Nazism and Stalinism, not better theory, revived liberal natural rights — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular:…, 285

Broader Connections

• Nazism and Stalinism, not better theory, revived liberal natural rights #corroborates (0.78) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 285
• Marxists assumed working-class pressure drove all egalitarian gains #qualifies (0.75) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2137