Andor is a Marxist story

Little mistake here: Cyril Karn isn’t petty bourgeoisie. He owns no means of production. Petty bourgeoisie would be more akin to the owner of a small business on Ferrix. As you can imagine, this subclass is often more revolutionary than reactionary in certain instances such as this. Cyril is more akin to a cop. Also not sure if this is what you meant but Mon Mothma’s political position is not what makes her bourgeoisie, but rather whatever wealth of the Chandrillan elite she was born into. Also, Marxists oppose labelling communism as “utopian”. To learn more you can read Engels’ Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. The Aldhani heist is also highly reminiscent of the storming of the Moncada Barracks during the Cuban Revolution. I also don’t think Foucault was Marxist but his work often fits well into Marxism. Otherwise really cool video! I’m glad Andor’s Marxism is being discussed!

As a Marxist, the ideological orientation of Andor was quite obvious to me when I watched it. What I also noticed was the complete absence of contemporary culture war signals, whether woke or anti-woke, which probably is the reason why conservatives don’t have any problem with it. So when you create something that is REALLY left-wing, as opposed to the standard woke moralistic fake left Hollywood nonsense, many conservatives actually like it. I find that fascinating.

My first thought when listening to Nemik's first lines out of his manifesto. I could picture him in Russia in 1918, or in Italy in 1944, central america in the 80's. You name it. Pure revolution vibes

The dessert to this, I find, is all the right-wing youtube creators out praising Andor completely oblivious to their own irony.

I know it was just a name that sounded cool when Rogue One was written, but I now can't unsee that 'And or' makes a good pun on the medieval dialectic upon which Hegel, Marx, and Engels later ruminated! :-)

You are absolutely right. Gilroy basically confirmed it when he said that Nemik was based on Trotsky and that he wanted a character who could explain revolution in a "dialectic" fashion. You can't get any more blatant than that.

I totally agree. You can also notice most of the bourgeoisie and Imperialists in the starwars universe have British accents.

"This was the thing that nearly had us mastered; don't yet rejoice in his defeat, you men! Although the world stood up and stopped the bastard, The bitch that bore him is in heat again." Bertolt Brecht, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui

I got out of the military 5 years ago (now mid-20s), and have since been compensated by the military for disabilities ive made tremendous healing. Since 2020 ive been travelling fulltime in an RV, basically retired for life. I use mostly my words & education to be revolutionary, but am disconnected from the means of production. Does that make me a lumpenproletariat? Also i was shocked to see the manifesto & quotes like "the pace of oppression outstrips our ability to understand it" from Disney itself, it's like someone planted a seed in the beast to eventually to its demise, almost like a thermal exhaust port in the Death Star

Nemik is Space Antonio Gramsci

Gilroy’s said they’re pulling from all over history and that Luthen will go the way of other revolutionary OGs, so that probably means he’ll be killed by his own people or die sacrificing himself (then be left out of the history books in favor of more appealing figures like Mon Mothma, Leia, and Luke). Also, while he’s based off of figures like Stalin, he’s denied sharing that ideology, only specifying anti-Empire. That ‘drawing from all over history’ comment also relates to what Gilory meant about the show ‘not being political’: depicting based on precedent but trying to avoid showing one solution as superior. You’re giving the writers too much credit for political messaging over simple depiction. This is written by Americans, more specifically the writers of House of Cards, Michael Clayton, Wall Street, the Bourne Series, the Ides of March, Nightcrawler, etc. They specialize in picking apart American capitalism and democracy, but clearly do not support Marxism in its place. It’s the typical “fascism is bad, but we won’t take a side beyond that” but done intelligently, since we have yet to find that answer. Too many people are conflating criticism of capitalism or western democracy with full disavowment of it. However, considering how Marxist many of the characters in Andor are, I’m curious if they’ll address the difference in beliefs between our leads and how things end up politically in the original trilogy. We know the rebellion ends in a conventional western democracy (which then gives way to another wave of fascism), so will there be any addressing of that? It may simply be that extremists fight the war and moderates get the spoils, or something along the lines of the conversation with Saw, where all non-fascists simply have to band together now and in-fight later. A great bookend would be a drama depicting the fall of the government created by Leia, Luke, Han, and Mon Mothma. It would presumably parallel what’s been going on the past decade (and on many other occasions throughout history) with the rise of populism and the right-wing as liberals become complacent. I don’t doubt Star Wars/Disney’s will cash in on this period of history, but I do doubt anyone with the Andor team’s level of writing will tackle it. As for why anti-woke people like Andor, they probably see themselves as revolutionaries fighting woke oppressors. They see themselves as a persecuted minority, same as Hitler, even though they themselves are persecuting others. The anti-woke crowd tend to make surface readings of media then bend the rest to fit their agendas.

This is why so many people find Andor so much closer to "real" Star Wars than the algorithmically driven fan service guff of their other recent shows and films.

To highlight how similar the Republic and Empire are... the crashed ship in Andor's backstory was a Republic ship, and the mining operation was either Republican or Separatist.

Maarva's holographic message is reminiscent of the opening lines of The Communist Manifesto, "A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of communism."

"anarchy is truly a seductive concept"

To me it seems that "woke" really means social progressivism and not really economic leftism. The anti woke people seem to in many instances enjoy media that have economic leftist messages.

I think the teasing out of the societal layers in Andor is something star wars desperately needed. Im still not entirely convinced this show will save SW from its kiddie friendly merchandising agenda but it's certainly painting in a corner of the universe that warranted it. It's a case of time will tell as to how much influence this show has on the future of the franchise. Great vid.

Excellent video. I feel prior to Andor, most people would argue that the "rebellion" in Star Wars was a bourgeois revolution, lead mostly by the "good" elites that were overthrown by the Empire (see the Jedi, Princess Leia and Mon Motha). Kind of like the "white army" in post revolutionary russia in 1917-1922. This show (and Rogue One- its predecessor) really is the first to posit a Leninist Vanguard that used very anti-"good guy" means of fermenting the rebellion. And although not deliberate, Andor and Luthen did "Accelerate" the rebellion on Ferrix. The debacle of the Morlana officers in trying to capture Andor gives rise to the Empire establishing control over the region. What is interesting to me is the security officers at the beginning for Morlana were really more of a non political typical police force. They are not trying to capture Andor for unethical reasons, but because he killed two of their own officers. They do not seem to "oppress" Ferrix in any meaningful way, and in fact Andor's friend states that the "blue" (their name for the Morlana police) rarely come out there. The residence of Ferrix seem to help Andor more out of a sense of tribalism than any politics.

1. The Soviet film - Aelita Queen of Mars (1924) - was one of the earliest science fiction films. Most science fiction films deal with social conflict. 2. Social Conflict Theory is an established academic observation in Sociology. 3. There is an Italian nobility figure that was involved in the film industry, not in the science fiction genre, he was a communist member of the Italian communist party. He was a Visconti Italian nobility family member - Luchino Visconti. 4. Point is that social conflict naturally has elements of Marxism-leninism (dialectical historical materialism) - basically, two sides fighting over political-material management of a physical area. 5. Star Wars did not end in a one party rule of the galaxy but rather a bourgeois multi-parties governing of the galaxy. One party governing is an end product of a Marxism-leninism manifestation over a physical area (a galaxy for the Star Wars universe). M-L strategy and theory is particular because the idea is that one party governing will reduce unemployment and reduce social conflict. Therefore, businesses will be owned by the party and independent entities will cause more conflict not less. Marx' 'Poverty of Philosophy' goes into this and leads to the term - economic variations - the thing Marxism-Leninism is trying to reduce. Bourgeois multi-parties liberal democracy is the halfway point into full communism. The theory is that Bourgeois multi-parties democracy will become corrupt also which will lead slowly into Marxism-Leninism one party governing body. It becomes corrupt because of the various independent economic players in the system of Bourgeois multi-parties democracy.

I'd have some nitpicks to make about the exact understanding of marxist line of thinking and how it relates to the series exactly but overall very cool video! Thank you for making it^^