Gombin - French Leftism

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French LeftismAuthor(s): Richard GombinSource: Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 7, No. 1/2 (Jan. - Apr., 1972), pp. 27-50Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/259756 .Accessed: 20/01/2014 12:40

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r e n c h L e f t i s m

Richard Gombin

The existence in France of a leftist movement is not in itselfnew; there have always been groups, societies, and groupletsof a more radical inclination than the

existing partiesof the

left and extreme left. What is new is that they are attractingattention. I recently counted more than 100 books on thesubject of the events of May and June 1968, and that wasonly six months after the extinction of the revolt. Since then,the committed or descriptive literature must have grown inexponential proportions.

Still, however closely we scrutinize all the textbooks ofpolitical history and political science relating tocontemporary France, the political spectrum comes to reston the left, with the Communist Party. Exceptionally, TempsModernes has been cited as an example of revolutionaryradicalism. All observers (or almost all) agree, however, thatthe Communist Party has lost its revolutionary drive and isbecoming increasingly integrated in global society-in short,it has to all intents and purposes become a bourgeois party.Even so, habits of thought and analysis, and the weight of

traditional concepts, have continued to focus attention onorthodox communism as the true bearer of revolution.Furthermore, the feeble hold which the leftist movement hadup to now on the masses meant that it was classed among theminor curiosities of the political scene. And the politicalscientists were as indifferent to it as the masses.

However, leftism as a revolutionary movement, as areflection on society and its historical evolution, certainly did

exist;I would even

saythat in

regard to doctrine it was mostfruitful before May 1968. But it was only after that date thatit won recognition as an independent phenomenon amongjournalists and social scientists. The reason for this suddenenthusiasm lies in the unforeseen and paroxystic activism of

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CONTEMPORARY ISTORY

the extreme left-wing groups and in the imitation of the

youngrebels methods of contestation in the

factories,offices, and high schools. Today, however, we are witnessinga growing gulf between the student commune and the worldof labour. Is leftism now dead? Is it unalterably restricted tothe world of the university?

To answer these questions we must look more closely atwhat I have called the leftist movement, distinguish betweenthe varying kinds of revolutionary radicalism, describe theiranalytical and programmatic content, and, finally, place the

movement in its position on the chessboard of the Frenchrevolutionary movement. This will enable us to appreciatethe true significance of the movement in the social history ofcontemporary France.

Leftism, in the widest sense of the term, may bedefined as a revolutionary, extra-institutional, oppositionmovement; it is clearly a minority movement in comparison

with the traditional left-wing parties, with their largememberships. Thus defined, the movement is on the left ofthe Communist Party and embraces neither the PSU (PartiSocialiste Unifie), which is more comparable with a typicalparliamentary opposition party, although many of itsmembers are attracted by leftist ideas, nor the trade unionsor student associations. There remains, therefore, aconsiderable number of groups, grouplets, circles andcommittees functioning on a national or local level, or basedin factories, offices, schools and universities.

Despite the infinity of nuances which distinguish the

grouplets from each other, we can divide them into two basicfamilies: those which claim direct descent fromMarxism-Leninism, and those which do not. The firstcategory includes the various Maoist and Trotskyisttendencies and the organized oppositional communists. Thesecond includes all those who reject Marxist orthodoxy

Groups organized on a national scale are those usually cited, such asthe Ligue communiste, L Association des jeunes pour le socialisme, orVive la Revolution. In fact, the great majority of leftists are to be foundin small groups of 10-20 members.

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(however interpreted) as an infallible guide to thought andaction. This family has been subject to diverse doctrinal andhistorical influences which we will attempt to define below.What seems to be central in the development of social andpolitical conflicts in France during these last four or fiveyears is the propagation of methods, ideas, and conceptionsof society which owe very little to traditionalMarxist-Leninist doctrine and practice. The boundarybetween the two families is not simply a faint demarcationline caused by trivial internal squabbles. A real gulf separatesthem: beyond their programmatic differences and allegiancesto different ancestors, there is a total antinomy of twoWeltanschauungen.

Briefly, one could say that the family which has sprungdirectly from Marxism-Leninism adopts an attitude ofconservation (albeit revolutionary conservation): theconservation of a revolutionary ideology and tradition inwhich the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks constitutes the

central point of reference, in which Lenin is the eponymoushero and dialectical materialism the eternal truth. Marxhaunts the background like a revered forebear, a pure theorygiven life and earthly form by the Bolshevik movement andits victory in 1917. Beyond this common source there are asmany variations as there are interpreters of genius : Trotsky,Mao, Stalin, Enver Hodja, Fidel Castro, Ernest Guevara, HoChi Minh or even Yasser Arafat.2 The aim of these groups isto bring about a

Bolshevik-typerevolution in France.

Furthermore, if the members of this family do not mergewith the orthodox communist movement, it isprecisely because they accuse its leaders of having moved faraway from the model, of having betrayed the teachings of thegospel. Thus, all these groups claim that they, and not theCommunist Party (and the organizations which it controls) orthe various parties which claim to be Marxist (Parti socialiste,PSU), are the faithful guardians of the true doctrine. Themost common accusation which they make against the

2 In La cause du peuple (14 October 1970), the organ of theex-Gauche proletarienne, which has Maoist leanings, Geismar is likenedto Arafat, as leader of the popular resistance .

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CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

socialists and communists is that of betrayal : they seek to

bringabout a

thorough-going implementationof a

programme which has hitherto been watered down and onlypartially applied.3 These are extremists rather than leftists:willing to take to their extreme both a theory and a practicecodified once and for all.

Whatever the true role of the extremist groups has been inthe events of recent years, there is no doubt that it has notyet gone beyond the stage of pure activism. I mean that theideas which dominated these events, and the practicesadopted, owed nothing to this movement. It is true that therehas been a rush of new supporters (their members oftenincreased two and threefold, as in the case of the Liguecommuniste; some Maoist youth movements even made theirfirst appearance during the events ), but this is a naturalphenomenon at all times of social upheaval. It even cameabout that once the first activist fervour had died down, theonly groups to remain in evidence were the extremists,

stronger and better organized than they had ever been: thereason for this may be found in their support of principles ofstrict and centralized organization, while, in contrast, the realleftist movement progressively dissolved, since it was hostileto the very principle of central organization.4 At the presenttime, it does not seem that the real influence of the extremistmovement is very great: even where Trotskyists or Maoistsmake the greatest efforts to promote a strike, it escapes theircontrol and follows its own course; extremist ideas never

3 For example, parliamentarism, tactically recommended by Lenin,has become a normal part of the process, whereas clandestinity and theimplacable struggle against the bourgeois regime have long since beenabandoned.

4 The extremists were obliged to pay the price of regained popularityby watering down some of their principles, especially programmatic andtactical ones. Such was the vogue for spontaneity that no group couldafford to reject its premises. Hence the unnatural marriages betweenMaoism and spontaneity ( Mao-spontex , the ex-Gauche proletarienne,Vive la Revolution, etc.). No group was spared contamination by leftistideas except, perhaps, the Lambertists (one of the nuances ofTrotskyism), for whom the organizational question is basic, and theMarxist-Leninist Communist Party of France, which was, incidentally,one of the few which did not increase the number of its supporters.

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manage to take lasting root in the factories or offices in

question.In truth, the role of the extremist organizations is closer tothe surface, and this is why it takes on such a spectacularcharacter. Apart from a few exceptional cases,Marxist-Leninist ideas have not found their way through tothe masses. Indeed, Trotskyism found more favourableground after the Liberation: at that time infiltration(entrisme, the anonymous or open participation in otherleft-wing organizations to gain control of both the rank and

file and the leadership), the underhand capture of theJeunesse socialiste and the temporary unpopularity ofStalinism carried the Fourth International to the crest of thewave.

Present-day indifference to Marxism-Leninism of allvarieties has its reverse side in the tremendous craze,particularly among young people, and not least among youngworkers, for leftism. What does leftism, as defined here,

represent in comparison to extremism? First, there is itstheoretical content, its analysis of society and of revolution;second, spontaneous activity, a means of confronting theauthorities in all spheres, economic, social, political, andcultural. Above all, it is a widespread mood, which is inperfect harmony with both.

In its theoretical content, leftism reflects the desire toreplace Marxism-Leninism as the doctrine of revolution. Inthis sense, it is more than a mere rejuvenation of Marxism-itgoes much further. Above all, it offers an alternative. Assuch, leftism does not date from May 1968-it goes back to1917, perhaps even earlier.

In France, the first attacks on orthodoxy camefrom within the radical movement itself. Immediately afterthe Liberation, young Trotskyists, disappointed by themissed

opportunityof autumn

1944, beganto wonder

whether revolution really was the aim of the CommunistParty; whether Stalinism, as Trotsky claimed, was only abureaucratic deformation of Leninism and the Soviet state

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simply a degenerate workers state.5 The heart of the matterwas the nature of Soviet

bureaucracy,which it is known that

Trotsky, who had written a devastating critique of it,considered to be the ruling stratum of society. In otherwords, a political phenomenon-in Marxist terms asuperstructure. This point of view had already been disputedbefore the war, within the Trotskyist movement itself; it wassuggested that, far from constituting a stratum or caste whichcould easily be swept away, the Stalinist bureaucracy hadbecome a true exploiting class, which could be dislodged onlyby a proletarian revolution.6

These young Trotskyists carried this analysis further byundertaking a detailed study of the social and economicsystem of the Russia of the Soviets; they came to theconclusion that Soviet bureaucracy was not only a class,based on the ownership of the means of production and theexploitation of the mass of workers, but further, that it wasmore firmly rooted than any bourgeoisie. It was the

beneficiary of a more total exploitation than that of theclassic capitalist system, and it had imposed a totalitariansystem of government, which gave it protection from theopposition which a liberal bourgeoisie has to contend with.7Seen in this light, the bureaucratic regime, far from being anhistorical accident , constituted the final stage in the

development of mature capitalism. It was therefore theeconomic-political form towards which all advanced capitalistcountries were bound to evolve; furthermore, it was thesystem to which the property-owning classes aspired:unchecked exploitation, undivided rule, no more oppositionparties, no more independent trade unions, no moredissenting intellectuals.

5 A thesis put forward by Trotsky in, among other works, his classicThe Revolution Betrayed (London 1937).

6Cf. Bruno R[izzi], La bureaucratisation du monde (Paris 1939).James Burnham s book, The Managerial Revolution (New York 1941),

takes up this analysis in a totally different context.7The Trotskyists in question were, of course, obliged to leave theFourth International and founded the Socialisme ou Barbarie group anda journal of the same name in 1949. For their analysis of the Sovietregime cf. its first issue, March-April 1949, especially the lengthy articleentitled Socialisme ou Barbarie .

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To be sure, the Socialisme ou Barbarie group, which

producedthese

analyses,still included itself in the framework

of Marxist analysis (which it later abandoned); nonetheless ithad made a breach in the hard shell of orthodox communismand extremism (Trotskyism, Bordigism, etc.); to the extentthat it showed how contemporary communism was tendingto exploit the potentialities of monopolist capitalism, itthrew doubt on the former as the revolutionaryinterpretation of Marxism. Therefore, all through the fiftiesand in the early sixties the group considered that its chief

task was to bring revolutionary theory up to date.8The critique of Leninism as an ideology of bureaucratic

state capitalism and the analysis of the economic evolution ofmodern societies meant that the breach was wide open; it wasto be made wider still by former members of the CommunistParty who attacked Marxism on philosophical grounds.

What was called philosophical revisionism was not anentirely unheard-of enterprise either: in the early twenties

George Lukacs and Karl Korsch, to name only two, haddared to re-examine Marxist concepts in the light of Hegelianphilosophy. This led to the study, invocation, and venerationof the writings of the young Marx, which was the morestriking since between the wars there were, in France, veryfew Marxian studies worthy of the name. Those who hadattempted such studies (Paul Nizan, Georges Politzer, HenriLefebvre and a few others)9 were soon to espouse the mostexemplary ideological orthodoxy. This glaciation l ? periodwas to last until 1956.

Following the founding of the review Arguments in 1957and the accompanying publication of a number ofrevisionist works, the unorthodox study of Marx s writings

8 Cf., for example, P. Chaulieu: Sur la dynamique du capitalisme(August-September 1953) and especially the series of articles by thesame author: On the content of socialism , which began in theJuly-September 1955 issue of Socialisme ou Barbarie.

9Together with N. Guterman, Lefebvre translated the Economic andPhilosophical Manuscripts of Marx and gave promise of becoming an

outstanding dialectician. He took up philosophical studies again after1956.

1 The term used by Edgar Morin in Autocritique (Paris 1959) toexplain the obedience ac cadaver of intellectuals to the Party.

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blossomed in France. The aim of the Arguments writers wastwofold: to confront Marxism with the

facts;to raise anew

the question of revolutionary theory. 1It was an ambitious undertaking which was bound not to

succeed since it presupossed that Marxism was a science andthat all that was necessary was to test its propositionsempirically. The interest of the review lay elsewhere: itsdemystification of Stalinism as a scholasticism was to have alasting effect on the entire intellectual left. After thisdestructuration , the contributors to Arguments

concentrated on theoretical research, more flexible and lessdogma-ridden in its approach. In other words, on thediscovery (or rather, the rediscovery) of Marx as adialectician, strongly influenced by Hegel and quite remotefrom the dialectical materialism immortalised by Stalinistphilosophy. 2 In fact, there remained very little to revise,but the popularisation in France of the discussions which hadtaken place in Eastern and Central Europe during the

twenties and thirties was of great importance in thesubsequent evolution of the New Left. The French left thendiscovered History and Class Consciousness by Lukacs (thefirst French edition was published in 1960), and the works ofthinkers such as Korsch, Adorno, Marcuse, and Horkheimer.

All these discussions and publications meant that labelscould be rejected, thought freed of dogma, and what wasmost profound in the method and inspiration of Marx and

Hegelrediscovered. 3 These were the

guidingprinciples

behind French revisionism, but in fact it went beyond these

objectives and contributed largely to putting Marxism into

perspective: to seeing it as an expression of the realmovement of society at a given period. The writings of Karl

Korsch, virtually unknown in France at this time, werepublished and discussed; they had considerable influence on

The contributors were chiefly former members of the PCF likeMorin, Duvignaud, Axelos, Barthes and Fougeyrollas, who had left it inthe fifties. For revisionism in France, see George Lichtheim, Marxism inModern France (London 1966).

I 2 To which Lenin had given official approval as early as 1908 in hisMaterialism and Empiriocriticism.

I 3 E. Morin, La r6vision generalisee , Arguments, No. 14, 1959.

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the subsequent radicalisation of revolutionary theory. InKorsch s

view,Marxism is

closelyrelated to the

theoryof

bourgeois revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenthcenturies; hence, in Marxism, traces of Jacobin concepts andan ineradicable attachment to the political forms ofbourgeois democracy (parties, parliaments, etc.). In anyevent, for him Marxism was the theory of the proletarianmovement only during the first phase (until 1848); it laterbecame petrified as an ideology, that is, the expression of afalse consciousness. 4

Revisionism continued to set Marxism in perspective and totreat it as a doctrine which had its place in history, but whichhad therefore to an extent been overtaken; but apart fromthis, revisionism introduced into the debate and, above all,propagated, the concept of alienation. The concepts ofalienation and reification were discussed in the light ofMarxian texts of the period 1843-48 and of Lukacs book,which was central in this respect. Most important, however,

the debate went beyond the Arguments context; an entiresection of Marx s Hegelian heritage was taken up byavant-garde groups and circles, the representatives of theyoung generation. This generation was the first since thetwenties to be unmarked by Stalinism; it had forged its firsttheoretical and critical weapons in the battle fordestalinization, in the context of the Budapest uprising of1956 and of the Algerian war. Thus the period 1957-62 wascentral to the emergence of the New Left in France. It wasduring this half decade that Marxism lost its doctrinalprimacy among an entire generation of young intellectualsand workers concerned with politics.

After this radical (in the etymological sense) critiqueof Marxism, leftism moved on to a second stage: theoreticalelaboration. There were several gaps to be filled. First of all,the revolutionary phenomenon had to be placed in its propereconomic and social context. The orthodox view is that all

4In addition to Marxisme et philosophie (1964), a collection ofarticles which had already appeared in Arguments, see Dix theses sur lemarxisme aujourd hui and the introduction by Axelos in Arguments,No. 16, 1959.

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social changes have their origins in economic contradictions.The leftists began by rejecting this strict economicdeterminism, which they termed pure economism. Theypointed out that Western society was not moving toward theeconomic crisis, the apocalyptic catastrophe which Trotskyhad declared imminent as far back as 1938, in hisTransitional Programme. Furthermore, they maintained thatthe mere modification of structairal factors (such as thenationalization of the means of production) was not enough,on its own, to liberate man or to emancipate society. Theyhad drawn conclusions from the socialist experiments of theUSSR and the popular democracies. 5 The result was ananalysis of the new forms which bondage may take in abureaucratic system: social, cultural, sexual and, of course,economic alienation, without this last achieving the dignityof the final cause.

Thus the spotlight of theoretical analysis moved from thestudy of economic factors (methods of production, the

tendency to a falling rate of profit, concentration ofmonopolies) towards a critique of everyday life. In secondplace, closely linked to this analysis, came considerations onorganization in general and the organization of therevolutionary movement in particular.

The critique of everyday life, as the kernel of the newradical theory, takes the form of an absolute reaction againstStalinist dogmatism and against the efforts of its sycophantsin France. As Henri Lefebvre remarks, the post-wargeneration of left-wing intellectuals showed its utterimpotence in the face of the theoretical problems whicharose: they either sought refuge in party dogma or turned forinspiration to the unreal and the abstract. Concrete everydayreality as it was or as it could be escaped them. 6

This critique marks a total break with the precedinggeneration: it is concerned with the modern world and with

1 On thefading

of these last illusions, see R. Bourt, Voyage enYougoslavie , and H. Bell, Le stalinisme en Allemagne orientale , inSocialisme ou Barbarie, January-February 1951. Cf. also C. Lefort, Letotalitarisme sans Staline , ibid., No. 19, 1956.

6H. Lefebvre, Critique de la vie quotidienne (2nd ed. 1958),250-51.

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academism which became almost mundane after the

Liberation,8 but it did not fail to

producethe contradiction

of its own conformism. Immediately after the second worldwar, there occurred a phenomenon analogous to that whichhad taken place in 1916-20: an attempt to scuttle artcompletely, to find a life-style which would enrich reality.Clearly, these fumbling attempts to sketch a culturalrevolution were, in intensity, a mere pale copy of what Tzaraor Jacques Vache had done, but they did succeed inlaunching some young people (a minimal number, it is true)on a new search for the absolute. The outstanding personalityof those years was Isidore Isou, who was, like Tristan Tzara,of Rumanian origin. In his view, the essential need was theneed to create: through creation man raises himself andbecomes a sort of God. Isou propagated his ideas through theLettriste movement, which he founded in 1946. Fairlyabstruse, they appealed only briefly to the young dissenterswho had followed him. Nevertheless, the movement led to

the formation of the various avant-garde groups whicheventually joined together in the Internationalesituationniste. 9 For some, lettrisme represented an attackon culture; in 1952, breaking with Isou, they founded theInternationale lettriste and concentrated on the destructionof art by rejecting works of art and extolling the liberatingforces of town-planning. To some extent the Internationalelettriste became politicized as the search for a life-style took

shape.Its amalgamation with two other avant-garde cultural

groups led, in 1957, to the birth of the SituationistInternational. In the years which followed, the latterdeveloped a theory of the modern world which stressedeveryday life. The influence of Henri Lefebvre on theformation of concepts (the emphasis on everyday existence,the trivialization of life, alienated leisure activities, etc.)cannot be denied, although his approach is sociological and,

18 See J. L. Bedouin s partisan Vingt ans de surrealisme (1939-1959)(Paris 1961).9 On the Lettriste movement and the Internationale Lettriste see J.L. Brau, Cours, camarade, le vieux monde est derriere toi (Paris 1968),59 et seq.

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according to the contesters, no more than sociological. But inother respects the situationists were continuing andrejuvenating a whole tradition: dada, surrealism, lettrisme;but they completed it-and perhaps carried it evenfurther--with the help of concepts inspired by Hegel, Marx,and Lukacs.

According to situationist theory, life in the modernworld is nothing more than survival (life governed byeconomic imperatives). What matters in industrial societies is

the quantitative, the consumable. Consumption and survivalare assured by the Welfare State; it is the only permittedexistence, and in these societies only the permissible isfeasible.2 0 The consumer society corresponds to theconsumer economy, which has replaced the productioneconomy. It is characterized by the unrestrained productionof commodities. But this accumulated production, despitethe riches which are poured onto the market, means that the

only possible transformation of the world by economicmeans must be a transformation into a purely economicworld. Increased wealth can only bring about increasedsurvival but does not have any qualitative effect. Thequantification of exchange, carried to the extreme, willreduce man to an object and trivialize daily life: both spaceand time have been unified by capitalist production into animmobile monotony .2 1 Even tourism imitates the

circulation of commodities-the package deal, the predictableroutes and the artificial entertainments. Town-planningprovides a concentrated example of the identification of lifewith a mere show, an existence made up of passivity andcontemplation.

The decline and degeneration of everyday life correspondsto the transformation of modern capitalism. In the

2oThe main themes of the situationist analysis are to be found in G.

Debord, La societe du spectacle (Paris 1967); R. Vaneigem, Traite desavoir-vivre d l usage des jeunes generations (Paris 1967); and in the 12issues of the review Internationale Situationniste (published in onevolume by Van Gennep, Amsterdam 1970).

2 1 G. Debord, op. cit., 137.

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production-oriented societies of the nineteenth century,whose rationale was the accumulation of capital, thecommodity became a fetish in so far as it was considered toconstitute a product (object) and not a social relationship. Inmodern societies, where consumption is the ultima ratio, allhuman relationships have been modelled on this pattern;everyone has been impregnated with the rationale ofcommodity exchange. This is why life as actually livedincreasingly resembles a theatrical performance: everything inreal life is a show. This is the phenomenon the situationists

call spectacle (Lefebvre s conception is more neutral: themodern spectacle, in his view, is simply a matter of thecontemplative attitude of its participants). Spectacle takesover when commodity exchange succeeds in totallydominating the life of society. Thus, in the spectacularcommodity economy, alienated consumption is added toalienated production. The modern pariah, Marx s proletarian,is not so much the producer separated from his product as

the consumer. We have reached a point where the exchangevalue of commodities determines their use value. Theconsumer has become a consumer of illusions.

In addition, the spectacular society, originally found in

developed economies, has spread to underdevelopedcountries which, although they lack the material base forsocial organization of this sort, have imitated the techniquesof spectacle of their former colonizers. As a result, in theEast as in the West, in the Third World as in industrialsocieties, the ruling dimension in life is the quantitative:economic imperatives impose their values on the whole oflife. Only objects can be measured-which explains whyexchange reifies. 2 2

Despite this devastating criticism of the consumer society,the situationists deny that they despise consumer goods assuch. In their view it is not the consumption of goods whichis alienating, but the way in which their choice is conditioned

and the ideology which leads to this state of affairs. Foreveryday life is subject to totalitarian manipulation , whichdetermines everything, including the pattern of ourbehaviour.

2 2 R. Vaneigem, op. cit., 89.

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It is clear that in this analysis of alienation, thesituationists, like Lefebvre, are following the writings of theyoung Marx, notably the 1844 economic-philosophicalmanuscripts. Their arguments on reification and on thefetishization of commodities are drawn from the Theses onFeuerbach and from a passage in Capital entitled TheFetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof .2 3 Butthey do not claim in any way that this is the only trueinterpretation of Marx; in fact, their intention is to go furtherthan Marx did, and it may be said that, in the current sense

of the word, they are not Marxists. What is more, theirconception of Marxist theory derives from the writings ofKarl Korsch, which we mentioned earlier. They go furtherbecause, as they see it, the separation which for Marx waslimited to the world of production has now becomeuniversalized; the whole social praxis has been split up intoreality and illusion. Between man and his works, betweenman and his desires and dreams, a great number of barriershave

interposedthemselves. In a

cyberneticized society(towards which we are moving), the power of organizationwill have replaced the power of exploitation: the alienatingmediations will have been multiplied to the point ofsuffocation. In the end, the masters themselves will becomeslaves, mere levers of the organization.

This critique of everyday life is not intended to be just atheory; it is supposed to lead to a revolutionary praxis. Thecontradictions of the modern world make possible thetransition from one to the other. What gives rise to the greatcontradiction undermining consumer societies is thatcumulative production unleashes forces which suppresseconomic needs. The internal rationale of the systemdemands continuous development, and only the quantitativeand the consumable are left for the individual. When primaryneeds are saturated, pseudo-needs are manufactured (asecond car, a more refined refrigerator, the useless gadget).

Increasingly, this process degrades everyday life. But at the2 3Book 1, part 1, chapter I, IV. It is interesting to note that for

orthodox Marxists this passage clashes with the rest of Capital and theworks of the mature Marx. Althusser calls it the last trace of Hegelianinfluence, and very deplorable . Avertissement to Capital (Paris 1969),22.

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same time immense technical progress provides a glimpse ofnew worlds, of satisfactions not yet experienced. Hence thecritique of everyday life, at first, is realized from within: it isthe criticism of what is real as against what is possible.24 Theextent and whereabouts of this internal critique varyaccording to the different views taken: Henri Lefebvre isoptimistic, and declares that it is in and through leisure andrecreation that modern man will revolt against thebreakdown and trivialization of everyday life. Thesituationists believe that leisure itself is alienated and that

therefore it, too, should be challenged. There is agreement,however, on the hard kernel of the inherent contradiction inthis system of everyday life: the outward forms of life are inconflict with their content; they have become divorced fromeach other.2 5

This contradiction produces a consciousness of separation,discontent, and a corresponding revolutionary praxis. Buthere a difficulty arises: opposition to the dominant class is

not straightforward, because that opposition is itself a victimof mystification. The spectacle has invaded not only societybut also its contradiction: opposition has itself become a

spectacle (and thus ideological, in the Marxist sense of the

term). In other words, alongside the pure and simpleacceptance of the system by the silent majority , there is arevolt which is purely contemplative. Dissatisfaction has itselfbecome a commodity, and it is difficult for the dissatisfied to

escape from his role of being dissatisfied. Technologicalcivilization, while making happiness and liberty the order ofthe day, has invented the ideology of happiness and liberty,that is, two essences which are the exact opposite of theirtrue meaning.26 Modern man entertaining himself is not

really happy: he is playing a part which has been imposed onhim, he is conforming to a stereotype.

The radical nature of this conception is clearly apparent.The departure which it marked from the position of the

2 4 H. Lefebvre, Critique de la vie quotidienne, 16.2 5 Nonetheless, Lefebvre s ideas go considerably further than those

of sociologists like Georges Friedmann, who contrast leisure and work,man finding his only true fulfilment today in the former.

2 6 R. Vaneigem, op. cit., 44.

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leftwing movement as a whole of the past half century givesit a millenarian and heretical colouring. On one point,however, it is entirely orthodox: on the question ofrevolution. The bearer of revolution, the emancipator ofhumanity remains, for the Situationist International as forthe other leftists, the proletariat. In this regard, they are along way from the theory of Marcuse, whose marginal man isnot vouchsafed any privileged function-indeed the reverse.

Let us try to define the leftist concept of the proletariat,which is far from clear. The difficulty relates to the break

with the economic interpretation of the class struggle. Thus,in a cyberneticized society, the proletariat will include justabout everyone (since even the masters will beprogrammed).2 7 According to one variant, included in thisconcept are all those who are incapable of modifying thespace and time which society allocates for their consumption(the rulers being those who organize this space and time andwho even dispose of a margin of personal choice in their own

lives).28

Lastly, the proletariat might consist of thehistorical working class plus the majority of white-collarworkers .2 9 Guy Debord, the leader of the SituationistInternational, provides some definitions: the modernproletariat, he writes, is made up of the immense majorityof workers who have lost all control over their lives; it isreinforced by the disappearance of the peasantry and by theextension of the logic of the factory to a large proportion ofthe intellectual and liberal professions.3 0 Thus defined (ornot), only the proletariat can bring about the abolition ofclasses: not because it is made up of producers (no ripeningof objective conditions is foreseen, particularly with regard tothe forces of production and capitalist concentration; theconcept of the proletariat itself has moved away from theessential notion of the producer which is found in Marx andhis spiritual heirs), but because it alone is capable of attainingknowledge of its own alienation.

2 7Internationale Situationniste, April 1962. Cf. also the article byTh. Frey in the issue for March 1966.

2 8Ibid., January 1963, Notes Editoriales .

29 Ibid., September 1969, Le commencement d une 6poque .3 G. Debord, op. cit., 95.

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It is clear that the situationists have completely swunground as regards the conception of Lenin or the later Marx.The subjective, philosophical condition is placed in theforefront: the proletariat will become the power only bybecoming class-conscious. Which is precisely what Lukacsmeant when he wrote that reification puts its stamp on theentire consciousness of man , and that the proletariat alonecan escape the condition laid down for it because it isconscious of its history.3 In the view of the situationists,this subjective factor is fed by the violence of resentment.

The role of the proletariat thus defined is, indeed, anhistorical role. It had always attempted to free humanityfrom its alienation, but always to the advantage of othersocial classes. In this process, alienation became constantlymore oppressive; in the historical struggle against naturalalienation, alienation became social.32 Henceforward, theproletariat must abolish all alienation, that is, abolish allforms of alienation.

Thedialectic,

and the dialecticalone,

allows man to attainto knowledge of all forms of alienation, and particularly ofits most dangerous form, spectacular alienation. Theproletarian is, or will become, a dialectician. Revolutionarytheory will therefore not be a scientific system which statesthe law of evolution for all; it will be comprehension of thestruggle; it is this comprehension which the revolutionary willattempt to broaden. But there is no question of relapsing intoanarchism, for anarchists are concerned only with the resultof the class struggle and not with its method; they cherish theillusion that they can reach their ends by economic strugglealone, and their negation of the state remains ideological.From the anarchists, however, the situationists retain theglobal refusal and the critique, in many ways prophetic, of a

Bakunin.3 3

How will the proletariat, which is the subject of

the revolution, make the revolution? It has no really31 G. Lukacs, Histoire et conscience de classe (Paris 1960), 129, 95.3 2 R. Vaneigem, Banalit6s de base , Internationale Situationniste,

April 1962.33 G. Debord, op. cit., 73.

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revolutionary past, so it will have to reinvent everything inorder that the supreme act be accomplished: the realizationof art and the simultaneous abolition of class.34 Where doesyouth come in? It is commonly believed that the Frenchleftists, under the influence of Marcuse and the radicalAmerican students, reserve a leading role for youth in therevolutionary process. In fact, before May 1968, the entireextreme left was united in rejecting the idea of a privilegedrole for youth as a sociological category; most of thegrouplets of young people saw themselves as junior branches

of the adult parties (often as yet non-existent or information ). The events of May-June 1968 brought about apartial re-evaluation of the role of youth, but there remains asomewhat paradoxical phenomenon- theoretical contempton the one hand, and the active role of the young on theother.

Thus, if we look at contestation in the universities in theyears 1966-68, especially what is generally called the

disorders of the University of Strasbourg or the Strasbourgscandal , we see that these disorders, which were to influencethe evolution of the University of Nanterre in 1967-68, wereto some extent inspired by the situationists. One of them, anevent in itself, was the publication of a pamphlet, signed by

the local section of the UNEF (Students Union), but in factproduced by the situationist Mustapha Khayati, and entitledDe la misere en milieu etudiant consideree sous ses

aspects economique, politique, psychologique, sexuel etnotamment intellectual et de quelques moyens pour yremedier .3 5 In this, as in those writings which evaluate theresults of and draw conclusions from these events,36 the

4 Cf. Internationale Situationniste, June 1958, Notes Editoriales .During the first period of their activity (1957-62), the situationiststreated art as a privileged sphere to be revolutionized, as the mostalienated; cf. Appel aux intellectuels et artistes revolutionnaires in theDecember 1959 issue.

3 5st ed., A.F.G.E.S., 1966. There were several editions and

translations into other languages. The English translation appearedunder the title On the Poverty of Student Life. A Consideration of ItsEconomic, Political, Sexual, Psychological and Notably IntellectualAspects and of a Few Ways to Cure It . An expanded version appearedin Britain under the title Ten Days That Shook the University.

3 6 Nos buts et nos methodes dans le scandale de Strasbourg ,

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situationists assert that the one and only task of students isto

mergewith the mass of workers. The student is

depictedin

a contemptible light and shown to belong to the mostalienated of sociological categories. He is vilified even morefor believing in an illusory autonomy and for elevating hismere survival to the dignity of a life style: he exemplifiesfalse political consciousness in its pure state. In theseconditions he is incapable of making a proper critique of theuniversity, his role in society or his own alienation. In thesame piece, however, Khayati foresees a period of con-

testation, and concedes that youth appears to be itsinstigator.3 7 But he sees youth only as the harbinger of animminent revolutionary eruption. It is simply that theprofound social crisis is more acutely felt by the young.

It is for the proletariat to liberate humanity from thespectacular society. The onus is on the proletariat to invent

a new world in which the realization of poetry is possible.That is, the realization of free creative activity, because

communication will not be manipulated and productivelabour will be abolished, and also because there will be nocompartmentalized specialization and no imposedhierarchical authority.

This cultural and subjective view of the revolutionary actrepresents a complete break with the system of Marx andEngels, which concentrates on economic and objectivefactors. However, it renews a tradition which owes somethingto Romanticism and Symbolism, but whose distant originsare to be found both in chivalry and in the millenariansects.3 8 The will to change life almost takes precedence over

Internationale Situationniste, October 1967. At the beginning of theacademic year 1966-67, students who supported the situationist theseswere elected to the leadership of the local section of the students union

(UNEF). On the advice of some situationists they used the funds of theunion to produce a number of situationist tracts and pamphlets; theythen dissolved their own union section, arguing that all unions are

mystifying and bureaucratic. The whole affair is related in the October1967 issue of the review.3 7 De la misere en milieu 6tudiant . ., op. cit., 15.3 8 Two sentences are significant: Lautr6amont has said everything

(R. Vaneigem, Banalit6s de base , Internationale Situationniste, No. 8),and It is millenarism ... which is a modern revolutionary tendency,

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division between rulers and ruled.4 As a result, nobureaucracy could develop nor any leadership be formed.

According to the opposite view, any organization intendedto help the proletariat would rapidly develop into anordinary party. No factor outside the proletariat can lead itto consciousness of itself. The proletariat can make progressonly to the extent that it achieves consciousness of its rolethrough its own situation and praxis. Parties correspond to aparticular stage in historical development; today the fight isnot only against private property but against exploitation in

all its forms. The proletariat must solve its own problems. If,in the middle of a revolutionary crisis, the workers councilsshould fall into the hands of some authoritarian organization(a hypothesis envisaged by those who advocate organizationto safeguard the autonomy of the councils), that would be asign that the class is not yet ripe for revolution.4 In thesecircumstances, the avant-garde will regroup during the courseof the struggle, within the very heart of the production

process and wherever the need arises. The only conceivablepossibility is the proliferation of small autonomous groupsorganized at the place of their activity: apart from that, therecan be no question of anything but information work,theoretical clarification carried out within groups which arevery loosely organized, without precise structures, withoutpredetermined conditions of membership, and without exactfrontiers to define their activity.

The interest of a study of leftism in France, which thisarticle has far from exhausted, derives from two factors.First, during these last twenty years a theoretical and

programmatic system has been progressively built up, fromthe stammerings of a handful of Trotskyist dissidents to thepriority search by the Situationist International for

4 0 This view has been defended by Chaulieu in a series of articles. Cf.

his Reponse au camarade Pannekoek in Socialisme ou Barbarie,April-June 1954, and Proletariat et organisation , ibid., April-May1959.

41 Cf. C. Lefort, Discussion sur le probleme du partirevolutionnaire , ibid., July-August 1952 (under the pseudonym of C.Montal), and Organisation et Parti , ibid., November-December 1958.

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theoretical-practical coherence. This is not the place to judgethe

validityof the

system;but the

absolutely unprecedentedfact should be stressed that it is the first attempt on this scaleto provide an alternative to Marxism-Leninism. It is true thatdissident interpretations within the communist movementhave been many during the last fifty years. But all left-wingdissension has been in the name of Marxism-Leninism. Theattractive force of organized communism was so strong (bothfor the masses and for the intellectuals) that any renewal ofdoctrine could only be made under the banner of a return to

the source. The ultra-left German-Dutch group which cameout of the German Communist Workers Party is a goodillustration of this phenomenon: when, in the 1920s,Pannekoek, Gorter and Ruhle proposed council communismas an alternative to party communism, it was in the name of aproperly understood and authentic Marxism.

It is true that the Communist Party still attracts themajority of the French workers, but the terrain has changed:

today it appeals to different sociological and intellectualcategories from those of the past. Furthermore, it is nolonger a party of global struggle, but an opposition party,operating within the framework of bourgeois institutions.

This brings us to the second factor which makes the studyof contemporary leftism interesting. Leftism, which isintended to be a revolutionary theory, that is, to expressmodern reality, has in fact found, in the events of recentyears, the first signs of confirmation. Of course, an inventory,analysis, and classification of the forms which social conflictshave taken during the past decade would have to be made.4 2But what one can learn from the press and specializedinquiries indicates a remarkable renewal of the forms ofsocial conflict. The widespread character of the occupationof factories and offices (not to mention the universities), thequestioning of the hierarchical principle, of wagedifferentials, the direct takeover of certain public services

(such as creches), are international phenomena; but in

421 have sketched an outline of this sort of study in The Ideology

and Practice of Contestation Seen through Recent Events in France , inAnarchism Today, ed. Apter and Joll (London 1971).

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France the study of these phenomena is particularly

interestingbecause

theyoccurred on an

unprecedentedscale

in May-June 1968, and this has been interpreted as aprefiguration of a generalized critique of everyday life. Thefestive atmosphere of these events has been remarked upon,as have the freedom of speech and the formation ofautonomous groups which, as at Nantes, even took overcontrol of economic sectors. During these six weeks theoryand practice seemed to meet.

May one conclude from this that communism has

definitely been replaced in the revolutionary firmament?There is no reason to assert that spontaneous contestationhas irrevocably dethroned the classic strike. Similarly, it isdifficult to conclude from the period 1968-70 that leftism, asa praxis, was the last Romantic leap of a world on the way todomestication. The fact remains that the leftist theory, whichsees itself as the systematization of several kinds of dissent,deserves to be known: does it not claim the world as its own?

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Gombin - French Leftism

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