Reading Capital, 50 Years Later

309 Pages·2015·13.24 MB·English

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Volume 2 /
Issue 2
CRITIQUE
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READING CAPITAL: 50 YEARS LATER a
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CRISIS & CRITIQUE i
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Volume 2/Issue 2, 2015 e
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ISSN 2311-5475
1 The Concept of Structural Causality in Althusser
CRISIS &
C 86 C
R R
Vittorio Morfino, The Concept of
I I
S Structural Causality in Althusser S
I I
S S
108
& Natalia Romé: What Colour is &
Theoreticism? Faust Reading
C C
Althusser
R R
I 124 I
T T
Geoff Pfeifer, On Althusser on
I I
Q Science, Ideology, and the New, or WhQy
U We Should Continue to Read ReadingU
E E
Capital
CRISIS & CRIT/ IQUE /
143
Volume 2 / Volume 2 /
William Lewis, Is There Less Bullshit in
Issue 2 Issue 2
For Marx than in Reading Capital?
166
Panagiotis Sotiris, Althusserianism and
Value-form Theory: Rancière, Althusser
and the Question of Fetishism
195
Ted Stolze, Althusser and the Problem
of Historical Individuality
CRITIQUE
217
4 Adrian Johnston, Humanity,
A. Hamza & F. Ruda, Introduction That Sickness: Louis Althusser and
The Helplessness of Psychoanalysis
8
Étienne Balibar, Althusser and 262
“Communism” Agon Hamza, Fidelity that is not
Interpellation: Reading Althusser’s
24 Misreadings
Robert Pfaller, Althusser’s Best Tricks 292
Roger Establet, On Althusser
Reading Capital: 50 years later EDITORIAL BOARD: 46
Slavoj Žižek
CRISIS & CRITIQUE Étienne Balibar Fernanda Navarro, Celebrating 296
Volume 2/Issue 2, 2015 Joan Copjec Althusser’s Legacy Interview: Pierre Macherey with
ISSN 2311-5475 Adrian Johnston
Ted Stolze Agon Hamza and Frank Ruda
Robert Pfaller 62
EDITORS Gabriel Tupinambá
Jacques Bidet, The Interpellated 306
Agon Hamza Sead Zimeri
Frank Ruda Catherine Malabou Subject: Beyond Althusser and Butler Notes on Contributers
Domenico Losurdo
Jelica Šumi(cid:0)
Roland Boer 3 The Concept of Structural Causality in Althusser
Yuan Yao
Srdjan Cvjetićanin
CRISIS &
C 86 C
R R
Vittorio Morfino, The Concept of
I I
S Structural Causality in Althusser S
I I
S S
108
& Natalia Romé: What Colour is &
Theoreticism? Faust Reading
C C
Althusser
R R
I 124 I
T T
Geoff Pfeifer, On Althusser on
I I
Q Science, Ideology, and the New, or WhQy
U We Should Continue to Read ReadingU
E E
Capital
CRISIS & CRIT/ IQUE /
143
Volume 2 / Volume 2 /
William Lewis, Is There Less Bullshit in
Issue 2 Issue 2
For Marx than in Reading Capital?
166
Panagiotis Sotiris, Althusserianism and
Value-form Theory: Rancière, Althusser
and the Question of Fetishism
195
Ted Stolze, Althusser and the Problem
of Historical Individuality
CRITIQUE
217
4 Adrian Johnston, Humanity,
A. Hamza & F. Ruda, Introduction That Sickness: Louis Althusser and
The Helplessness of Psychoanalysis
8
Étienne Balibar, Althusser and 262
“Communism” Agon Hamza, Fidelity that is not
Interpellation: Reading Althusser’s
24 Misreadings
Robert Pfaller, Althusser’s Best Tricks 292
Roger Establet, On Althusser
Reading Capital: 50 years later EDITORIAL BOARD: 46
Slavoj Žižek
CRISIS & CRITIQUE Étienne Balibar Fernanda Navarro, Celebrating 296
Volume 2/Issue 2, 2015 Joan Copjec Althusser’s Legacy Interview: Pierre Macherey with
ISSN 2311-5475 Adrian Johnston
Ted Stolze Agon Hamza and Frank Ruda
Robert Pfaller 62
EDITORS Gabriel Tupinambá
Jacques Bidet, The Interpellated 306
Agon Hamza Sead Zimeri
Frank Ruda Catherine Malabou Subject: Beyond Althusser and Butler Notes on Contributers
Domenico Losurdo
Jelica Šumi(cid:0)
Roland Boer 3 The Concept of Structural Causality in Althusser
Yuan Yao
Srdjan Cvjetićanin
Introduction With this issue of Crisis and Critique, we want to celebrate the fiftieth
birthday of the publication of Louis Althusser’s Reading Capital and For
Marx. The publication of these books marked something close to what
one may call an event, both within the French philosophical scene, as well
as Marxist thought, or more specifically in Marxist philosophy in general.
Setting new standards for the very reading of Marx, they established,
maybe for the first time in Europe, what one may call a Marxist philosophy
that marked a break with the past (as much with former orthodox ways of
reading Marx as well as with the traditional Marxist orthodoxy). Opening
up entirely new horizons of how to think and, materially speaking, of how
to read Marx’s work, by inventing an entirely new way reading, Althusser’s
project and with it the 1960’s in France can legitimately be given the name
of an epoch, maybe that of the Althusserian years in Marxism, in philoso-
phy and in the thought of emancipatory politics.
This ambitious project embodied both in Reading Capital and For Marx
had a decisive as well as divisive effect in and on the history of politi-
cal thinking because it proposed one single answer to what appeared
to be two separate problems, one being of a political and the other of a
philosophical nature. The political problem concerned communist mili-
tant practice and its two deviations, sectarianism and dogmatism - the
philosophical problem was linked to the theoretico-philosophical stag-
nation of Marxism, equally entrenched in existential subjectivism on the
one hand and a methodological reapplications of a worn down objectivist
matrix onto new contents that at the same time had no influence on this
very matrix, on the other. In order to simultaneously deal with these two
issues, and in bringing together a renewal of the theory of ideology, able
to conceive of the limitations of any practice that relies on identifications
(of the subject of revolutionary change, for example), and a new presen-
tation of Marx’s dialectics as the first theory of history (that remained
fundamentally determined by contingency), Althusser and his students
did not simply attempt to offer yet another reading of Capital, but placed
their very own access to this work under the conditions of the historically
specific impasses of political agendas, parties and movements and of
the philosophical and scientific novelties of their time. The philosophi-
cal, political and scientific conjuncture in France, which determined the
publication of these two books is profoundly complicated to oversee.
Post-War French philosophy was dominated by phenomenology, reaction-
ary appropriations of Hegel, humanism, yet also by rationalist epistemol-
ogy, the emergence of Lacanian psychoanalysis, and so on. Politically, it
was a decade of great and profound political experiments, revolutions,
Introduction With this issue of Crisis and Critique, we want to celebrate the fiftieth
birthday of the publication of Louis Althusser’s Reading Capital and For
Marx. The publication of these books marked something close to what
one may call an event, both within the French philosophical scene, as well
as Marxist thought, or more specifically in Marxist philosophy in general.
Setting new standards for the very reading of Marx, they established,
maybe for the first time in Europe, what one may call a Marxist philosophy
that marked a break with the past (as much with former orthodox ways of
reading Marx as well as with the traditional Marxist orthodoxy). Opening
up entirely new horizons of how to think and, materially speaking, of how
to read Marx’s work, by inventing an entirely new way reading, Althusser’s
project and with it the 1960’s in France can legitimately be given the name
of an epoch, maybe that of the Althusserian years in Marxism, in philoso-
phy and in the thought of emancipatory politics.
This ambitious project embodied both in Reading Capital and For Marx
had a decisive as well as divisive effect in and on the history of politi-
cal thinking because it proposed one single answer to what appeared
to be two separate problems, one being of a political and the other of a
philosophical nature. The political problem concerned communist mili-
tant practice and its two deviations, sectarianism and dogmatism - the
philosophical problem was linked to the theoretico-philosophical stag-
nation of Marxism, equally entrenched in existential subjectivism on the
one hand and a methodological reapplications of a worn down objectivist
matrix onto new contents that at the same time had no influence on this
very matrix, on the other. In order to simultaneously deal with these two
issues, and in bringing together a renewal of the theory of ideology, able
to conceive of the limitations of any practice that relies on identifications
(of the subject of revolutionary change, for example), and a new presen-
tation of Marx’s dialectics as the first theory of history (that remained
fundamentally determined by contingency), Althusser and his students
did not simply attempt to offer yet another reading of Capital, but placed
their very own access to this work under the conditions of the historically
specific impasses of political agendas, parties and movements and of
the philosophical and scientific novelties of their time. The philosophi-
cal, political and scientific conjuncture in France, which determined the
publication of these two books is profoundly complicated to oversee.
Post-War French philosophy was dominated by phenomenology, reaction-
ary appropriations of Hegel, humanism, yet also by rationalist epistemol-
ogy, the emergence of Lacanian psychoanalysis, and so on. Politically, it
was a decade of great and profound political experiments, revolutions,
riots, national-liberation-movements and anti-colonial struggles, partially C sustain an institutional framework (a society, a school and the field). With C
R R
inspired by the spirit of Maoism. It is under these conditions that Read- Althusser, given the very nature of his project and intervention (interven-
I I
ing Capital and For Marx emerged and must be situated. Furthermore, S ing philosophically and politically in particular philosophical and political S
I I
his project precisely therefore presented an on-going struggle between S conjunctures), formalization looks almost impossible. Also an institu- S
philosophy and its conditions, that at the same time made this very philo- tional framework of “Althusserian Studies” or “Althusserian Society” is
& &
sophical thinking possible - it constantly and paradoxically struggled with equally unimaginable – one only has to think of ‘overdetermination’ and
C C
its own conditions of possibility (that thereby were also its conditions of such a school would immediately be dissolved. Here we encounter the
R R
impossibility). I second invariant of his project: as a communist, he was an inventor of a I
T T
Clearly, the philosophical, political and scientific conjuncture today new methodology of philosophical thinking, as probably the literally first
I I
changed drastically after Althusser, one may just think of all the revolu- Q (in both senses of the term) collective philosopher. This methodology, no Q
U U
tionary attempts and experiments that led to failures or, at least, have matter how naïve and simplistic it may sound at certain points, is none-
E E
become saturated. So, why do we still read Reading Capital? Why might theless properly and practically communist.
/ /
one nonetheless claim that there is a persistent actuality to this book Having all this in mind, every attempt which proposed to return to Read-
such that it seems to persist in the contemporary debates in philosophy, Volume 2 / ing Capital and For Marx today, fifty years after, implies, first of all, that we Volume 2 /
Issue 2 Issue 2
politics, economy, etcetera, transcending the immediate philosophical answer the very Althusserian questions anew from the proper historical
and political conjunctures in which it was unfolded and by which it was and conjunctural perspective of the contemporary situation: what are the
determined? political and scientific impasses and novelties conditioning our return (to
Reading Capital is the first truly collective enterprise in the history of phi- emancipatory thinking and thus - ultimately - to Marx)? And, finally, in the
losophy (of course there have been author couples before and after, fa- face of such novelties, what remains new in Marx’s magnum opus today?
mously Marx and Engels, Deleuze and Guattari, Adorno and Horkheimer, The present issue of Crisis and Critique gathers philosophers who work
and others). Yet, the structure of this very book gives a clear idea of what on the “Althusserian Field”, in the “Althusserian country” of thought – his
one may call the Althusserian methodology (that may not be limited to the students, co-authors of Reading Capital, thinkers and scholars who work
historico-socio-politico-scientific circumstances in which it emerged). through and with Althusser’s work. The aim is to think of the legacy and
This is why there may be fundamental (and good) reasons for remaining contemporary importance of his two monumental books. We are very
faithful to this very methodology, and thereby maybe even to Althusser proud to have these authors in the present issue. Although every philoso-
himself, working continuously on and elaborating further the philosophi- pher has a different take on the relevance and legacy of his work, they all
cal horizon rendered possible by his books. And is this not how Althusser agree on one fundamental point: on the contemporaneity of Althusser’s
himself understood Marx? Not as a finished stable project, hindering all opus. And that the question of how to determine his contemporaneity
alteration, a canon to which we dogmatically stick and which only ena- may create further divisions, ultimately proves his actuality even further.
bles us to mechanically repeat his theses. For Althusser, on the contrary,
being a Marxist in philosopher equals advancing further the “continent Agon Hamza/Frank Ruda
opened up by Marx.” The future of Althusser and his legacy depends on Prishtina/Berlin, November 2015
the work that remains to be done on this continent of thought. Althusser’s
philosophical project will live on only if this continent will also include
an “Althusserian field or country” rather than an orthodox and scientific,
philological department of “Althusserian studies”. Having said this, we
should bear in mind that there was never such a thing as an “Althus-
serian school,” and most likely there will never be one. This is where, for
example, his difference with Lacan resides: Lacan was very interested
in formalizing his thought such that it could constitute and immanently
6 The Concept of Structural Causality in Althusser 7 The Concept of Structural Causality in Althusser
riots, national-liberation-movements and anti-colonial struggles, partially C sustain an institutional framework (a society, a school and the field). With C
R R
inspired by the spirit of Maoism. It is under these conditions that Read- Althusser, given the very nature of his project and intervention (interven-
I I
ing Capital and For Marx emerged and must be situated. Furthermore, S ing philosophically and politically in particular philosophical and political S
I I
his project precisely therefore presented an on-going struggle between S conjunctures), formalization looks almost impossible. Also an institu- S
philosophy and its conditions, that at the same time made this very philo- tional framework of “Althusserian Studies” or “Althusserian Society” is
& &
sophical thinking possible - it constantly and paradoxically struggled with equally unimaginable – one only has to think of ‘overdetermination’ and
C C
its own conditions of possibility (that thereby were also its conditions of such a school would immediately be dissolved. Here we encounter the
R R
impossibility). I second invariant of his project: as a communist, he was an inventor of a I
T T
Clearly, the philosophical, political and scientific conjuncture today new methodology of philosophical thinking, as probably the literally first
I I
changed drastically after Althusser, one may just think of all the revolu- Q (in both senses of the term) collective philosopher. This methodology, no Q
U U
tionary attempts and experiments that led to failures or, at least, have matter how naïve and simplistic it may sound at certain points, is none-
E E
become saturated. So, why do we still read Reading Capital? Why might theless properly and practically communist.
/ /
one nonetheless claim that there is a persistent actuality to this book Having all this in mind, every attempt which proposed to return to Read-
such that it seems to persist in the contemporary debates in philosophy, Volume 2 / ing Capital and For Marx today, fifty years after, implies, first of all, that we Volume 2 /
Issue 2 Issue 2
politics, economy, etcetera, transcending the immediate philosophical answer the very Althusserian questions anew from the proper historical
and political conjunctures in which it was unfolded and by which it was and conjunctural perspective of the contemporary situation: what are the
determined? political and scientific impasses and novelties conditioning our return (to
Reading Capital is the first truly collective enterprise in the history of phi- emancipatory thinking and thus - ultimately - to Marx)? And, finally, in the
losophy (of course there have been author couples before and after, fa- face of such novelties, what remains new in Marx’s magnum opus today?
mously Marx and Engels, Deleuze and Guattari, Adorno and Horkheimer, The present issue of Crisis and Critique gathers philosophers who work
and others). Yet, the structure of this very book gives a clear idea of what on the “Althusserian Field”, in the “Althusserian country” of thought – his
one may call the Althusserian methodology (that may not be limited to the students, co-authors of Reading Capital, thinkers and scholars who work
historico-socio-politico-scientific circumstances in which it emerged). through and with Althusser’s work. The aim is to think of the legacy and
This is why there may be fundamental (and good) reasons for remaining contemporary importance of his two monumental books. We are very
faithful to this very methodology, and thereby maybe even to Althusser proud to have these authors in the present issue. Although every philoso-
himself, working continuously on and elaborating further the philosophi- pher has a different take on the relevance and legacy of his work, they all
cal horizon rendered possible by his books. And is this not how Althusser agree on one fundamental point: on the contemporaneity of Althusser’s
himself understood Marx? Not as a finished stable project, hindering all opus. And that the question of how to determine his contemporaneity
alteration, a canon to which we dogmatically stick and which only ena- may create further divisions, ultimately proves his actuality even further.
bles us to mechanically repeat his theses. For Althusser, on the contrary,
being a Marxist in philosopher equals advancing further the “continent Agon Hamza/Frank Ruda
opened up by Marx.” The future of Althusser and his legacy depends on Prishtina/Berlin, November 2015
the work that remains to be done on this continent of thought. Althusser’s
philosophical project will live on only if this continent will also include
an “Althusserian field or country” rather than an orthodox and scientific,
philological department of “Althusserian studies”. Having said this, we
should bear in mind that there was never such a thing as an “Althus-
serian school,” and most likely there will never be one. This is where, for
example, his difference with Lacan resides: Lacan was very interested
in formalizing his thought such that it could constitute and immanently
6 The Concept of Structural Causality in Althusser 7 The Concept of Structural Causality in Althusser
Althusser and C Abstract: C
R R
This paper aims at examining the relation of Althusser to communism, its
I I
S levels and instances, as well as the transformations of his thought with S
I I
S regard to the communism. It explores the possibilities of communism as S
understood and theorized by Althusser himself.
“Communism”
& &
C C
Keywords:
R R
I Althusser, Marxism, Communism, theory, politics. I
T T
I I

Q Q
U U
I must begin with some preliminary remarks, caveats if not warn-
E E
ings. The first is that I am too directly implicated in the history which I am
/ /
going to discuss to see it from an external and objective point of view.
Étienne Balibar Volume 2 / This entails both advantages and disadvantages. Among the advan- Volume 2 /
Issue 2 Issue 2
tages, I would include, to speak as Nicole-Edith Thévenin recently has,
the engagement of the subject in its object, which means that there is an
interest in its truth and not only a concern for the possibility of objectivity.
Among the disadvantages I would include the inevitable inadequation of
my ideas on the question, in the Spinozian sense of a knowledge “of the
first kind,” “mutilated and confused,” because it is based in a large part
on memories and mostly subject to the illusion that I am able to maintain
by virtue of having been the contemporary of certain facts and events,
which in reality have to a great extent eluded me and without doubt
continue to elude me. This is particularly true of Althusser’s facts and
gestures, intentions, even obsessions. I was his student and close friend
from 1961 to his death, but I am very far from having having known every-
thing, including what concerns his political and philosophical ulterior mo-
tives. The published texts, including the enormous mass of posthumous
publications, only partially alleviate my uncertainties. Moreover, unlike
others, I have not done any research in the archives. Memories, thus, can
continue their work of concealment.
The second remark is more fundamental. Any reflection on the
relations between Althusser and “communism “ by definition refers to
our current perception of what is or what was communism, as a political
and ideological phenomenon inscribed in history, at the same time that it
can contribute to enlightening it. Likewise, it is based on the perception
that Althusser himself had, or rather it attempts to elucidate it. Between
these two perceptions, ours and his, both of which are evolving, there is
necessarily a discrepancy [décalage], and a temporal discrepancy begins,
resulting in an intellectual discrepancy. For Althusser, communism, as a
8 Althusser and “Communism” 9 Althusser and “Communism”
Althusser and C Abstract: C
R R
This paper aims at examining the relation of Althusser to communism, its
I I
S levels and instances, as well as the transformations of his thought with S
I I
S regard to the communism. It explores the possibilities of communism as S
understood and theorized by Althusser himself.
“Communism”
& &
C C
Keywords:
R R
I Althusser, Marxism, Communism, theory, politics. I
T T
I I

Q Q
U U
I must begin with some preliminary remarks, caveats if not warn-
E E
ings. The first is that I am too directly implicated in the history which I am
/ /
going to discuss to see it from an external and objective point of view.
Étienne Balibar Volume 2 / This entails both advantages and disadvantages. Among the advan- Volume 2 /
Issue 2 Issue 2
tages, I would include, to speak as Nicole-Edith Thévenin recently has,
the engagement of the subject in its object, which means that there is an
interest in its truth and not only a concern for the possibility of objectivity.
Among the disadvantages I would include the inevitable inadequation of
my ideas on the question, in the Spinozian sense of a knowledge “of the
first kind,” “mutilated and confused,” because it is based in a large part
on memories and mostly subject to the illusion that I am able to maintain
by virtue of having been the contemporary of certain facts and events,
which in reality have to a great extent eluded me and without doubt
continue to elude me. This is particularly true of Althusser’s facts and
gestures, intentions, even obsessions. I was his student and close friend
from 1961 to his death, but I am very far from having having known every-
thing, including what concerns his political and philosophical ulterior mo-
tives. The published texts, including the enormous mass of posthumous
publications, only partially alleviate my uncertainties. Moreover, unlike
others, I have not done any research in the archives. Memories, thus, can
continue their work of concealment.
The second remark is more fundamental. Any reflection on the
relations between Althusser and “communism “ by definition refers to
our current perception of what is or what was communism, as a political
and ideological phenomenon inscribed in history, at the same time that it
can contribute to enlightening it. Likewise, it is based on the perception
that Althusser himself had, or rather it attempts to elucidate it. Between
these two perceptions, ours and his, both of which are evolving, there is
necessarily a discrepancy [décalage], and a temporal discrepancy begins,
resulting in an intellectual discrepancy. For Althusser, communism, as a
8 Althusser and “Communism” 9 Althusser and “Communism”
“movement” (I will return to the connotations of the term), thought itself C by the real course of history in which he attempted to intervene, like every C
R R
in the present, a present which was at the same time, as Leibniz would Marxist since Marx without exception, even if only by thought and theory,
I I
say, “pregnant with the future.” The more this present was troubled, S but it is very difficult to resist the impression that all this thought, like a S
I I
uncertain, contradictory, the more its reality was affirmed and, in a way, S bird which crashes into the glass wall of its cage, constitutes a defensive S
perceived, because the contradiction could be thought of as an intrinsic reaction against real history, in which the treasures of inventiveness (“di-
& &
characteristic, it could even serve to specify the modalities of the future alectical” or not) that it often deploys merely affords a more tragic dimen-
C C
which the present would bear. For us on the contrary (and here, I obvi- sion. It is true that one can also attempt to read things upside down (and
R R
ously take sides under the innocent appearances of an “us,” which does I I do not rule out that an intention of this type is behind the symposium I
T T
not oblige the reader), communism is not a real movement, it is at most that we are holding, or in the minds of those who are attending): if it was
I I
(which as a matter of fact is not anything), a hope against all odds, that is, Q proven that, fighting against not only the “crisis of Marxism,” but, what Q
U U
an idea or a subjective conviction. Sometime around 1989, a little before is more serious, against the crisis of historical communism, and seeking
E E
or a little after, it appeared to us that the “meaning” of history of which we gradually to understand the causes, Althusser pinpointed some “ab-
/ /
were the witnesses or the inheritors was not and could not be the “transi- sent cause” which is nevertheless real, some disordering mechanism of
tion” toward communism, in any case not in the form imagined by Marx- Volume 2 / “encounters” or “combinations” which—very “aleatorialy”—sometimes Volume 2 /
Issue 2 Issue 2
ism, even if the political movement or movements claiming this name had provides individuals, caught in the history of the modes of domination, the
played a big role in history, bearing consequences that were completely collective capacity to alter the course—whether it is called communism
paradoxical in regard to their objectives, such as the preparation of a new or something else. Thus, perhaps the weakness that in the past belonged
phase and new hegemonies in the development of capitalism and of rela- to him, may metamorphose into a resource for today or for tomorrow. That
tions of power in the world. remains to be seen.
Thus there is a great temptation retrospectively to interpret the But all this being said, I am aware of the absolute necessity—even
period in which Althusser’s communism is inscribed as the period of the for interpreting the work of Althusser himself—of providing a factual
acceleration of decline and decomposition, whose “contradictions,” lo- corrective to the representation of the history of the 20th century as the
cally as well as globally, were the warning signs, and by contrast to record history of a decline and decomposition more or less deferred for a long
his repeated assertions of the irreversible nature of the fusion of the time, contrary to what was the communist imagination. The projection of
Workers’ Movement with Marxist Theory (in capital letters), or of the en- an “end,” which is ambiguous by definition, onto the process that pre-
try into the phase of the death pangs of imperialism, of the proven inabil- ceded it is mystifying, in the same way that term-by-term inversions from
ity of bourgeois ideology to seize the masses and to control their actions, one historical mythology into another are. The big question that seems
as so many pathetic illusions.1 Even in the 1978 text from Venice, 'The to me must dominate the interpretation of Althusser’s elaborations and
Crisis of Marxism’, in which Althusser notes that Marxism was incapable interventions in the field of the “communism” of his time, is the question
of understanding its own history and integration into history—which was of knowing whether or not the intermediary period, say from 1960 up to the
not for him an extrinsic limitation, a simple “insufficiency,” but what af- milieu of the 70s, when—for a short time—the “eurocommunist” perspec-
fects the interior, at its core, its scientific pretension—he still claims that tive was being outlined, contains a revival of challenges to capitalism,
the revelation of this crisis (and by the same token the possibility, even and more generally to the dominant social order, the bearer of historical
an “aleatory” one, of its resolution) is due to “the power of an unprece- alternatives of which we no longer have any idea of today. If one accepts,
dented mass worker and popular movement” of which we were the con- all too quickly, that the soviet regime of the Stalinist type was intrinsically
temporaries.2 Thus, Althusser was not only completely taken by surprise part of the established order, under the appearance of a radical challenge
to it, does this mean that “de-Stalinization” would, ultimately, only lead
to prospects for the restoration of capitalism? And if one accepts that the
1 On the “fusion,” see the Goshgarian correspondence. anti-imperialist movements of any sort, from the Arab world to Africa and
from South East Asia to Latin America, contained within themselves the
2 Althusser, 1978
10 Althusser and “Communism” 11 Althusser and “Communism”