You know, retroactively Lucas claiming it was politically left in concept wasn’t what the worldwide audiences got from the films. I certainly didn’t-and I voted for Nixon back then! It was a cynical time, but SW was the old-fashioned good guys beat the bad guys feeling the to which the world reacted. Looking at it now I still can’t see the leftist propaganda and if it had been received that way back in the 70’s I don’t believe it would have been the phenomenon it became- DESPITE, perhaps, Lucas’ intentions.
Technically, it wasn’t retroactive:
https://otnesse.tumblr.com/post/162081709399/this-is-from-george-lucas-1973-notes-for-star
And you’d be very surprised as to how many films get considered popular despite being very subversive. Like Disney’s Beauty and the Beast which was Marxist feminism on steroids by Linda Woolverton’s own admission (and it wasn’t even that subtle either).