Western Marxist theorists never seriously engaged one another’s major works.

Evidence

Astonishingly, within the entire corpus of Western Marxism, there is not one single serious appraisal or sustained critique of the work of one major theorist by another, revealing close textual knowledge or minimal analytic care in its treatment. At most, there are cursory aspersions or casual commendations, both equally ill-read and superficial. Typical examples of this mutual slovenliness are the few vague remarks directed by Sartre at Lukács; the scattered and anachronistic asides of Adorno on Sartre; the virulent invective of Colletti against Marcuse; the amateur confusion of Althusser between Gramsci and Colletti; the peremptory dismissal by Della Volpe of Althusser. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1098

Categorization

• XREF: This mutual incivility and thinness of engagement parallels Robinson’s earlier claim that Marxist theory was never a finished body of doctrine — always a collection of competing local traditions.