Reading Althusser through [email protected] / March 22,
2015 By DOUG ENAA GREENETo my friend and comrade, Julia, who is not
only the smartest anarchist I know, but who also made me take
Althusser seriously.In his 1973 Essays in Self-Criticism, French
Communist philosopher Louis Althusser penned the following words:If
we look back over our whole history of the last forty years or
more, it seems to me that, in reckoning up the account (which is
not an easy thing to do), the only historically existing (left)
critique of the fundamentals of the Stalinian deviation to be found
and which, moreover, is contemporary with this very deviation, and
thus for the most part precedes the Twentieth Congress is a
concrete critique, one which exists in the facts, in the struggle,
in the line, in the practices, their principles and their forms, of
the Chinese Revolution.1What Althusser says here is something that
is all too often dismissed by both his admirers and detractors,
that the Chinese Revolution especially the Cultural Revolution
provided a living and breathing correction and overcoming of the
limitations of inherited Soviet-style Marxism (including that
practiced by the French Communist Party). Even to many of
Althussers admirers, his flirtation with Maoism is often seen as
something bizarre. In fact, Maoism is widely viewed by large
segments of the Western left as just a variant of Stalinism which
makes it fundamentally flawed for revolutionary practice. And the
supposed Stalinism of Maoism therefore provides one of the
fundamental flaws of Althussers theoretical effort to reconstitute
Marxist Theory. However, the premise defended here is that
Althusser was correct that Maoism represented a revitalization of
the Marxist revolutionary project that he fruitfully utilized to
develop his own ideas. The limit of Althussers project was not his
engagement with Maoism, but that he wasnt to able see that
commitment all the way through and remained bound within the
confines of the (non-revolutionary) French Communist Party.The
Chinese Revolution and Maoism2
The distinctive theory and practice of Mao developed following
the bloody suppression of the Revolution in the urban centers in
1927. Following this defeat, Mao Zedong and the surviving Communist
cadre retreated into the countryside where revolutionary warfare
among the peasantry was organized. Mao, breaking with previous
communist orthodoxy on how a revolution was to be in China, and by
1934 achieving independent leadership from Comintern, developed a
new political and military approach for the Chinese Revolution. For
the next two decades, Maos army was able to go from being a ragtag
force of poor and hunted outlaws to leading a mass movement of tens
of millions that led the worlds second great socialist revolution
to power in 1949. Following the establishment of the Peoples
Republic of China, Mao and the Chinese Communist leadership
initially followed the example of the Soviet Union in building
socialism. However, Mao became increasingly uneasy at the
bureaucratic, conservative and authoritarian tendencies in the
Communist Party, divorce between the party and the masses and the
growth of inequality in China which he feared could lead to a
restoration of capitalism. The Chinese road to communism found
itself at odds with that of the Soviet Union, leading to a split in
the early 1960s. In 1966, the Great Proletariat Cultural
Revolution, initiated by Mao and his supporters saw millions of
workers, students and peasants rise up against capitalist roaders
within the CCP.So what were some of Maos key theoretical
innovations to a revitalization of Marxism and communism in
contrast to Soviet dogmatism that Althusser would later draw on? We
shall touch on three here: dialectics, investigation and its
relation to political practice, criticism of Stalin/USSR,
continuing revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Following this, we will then look at how Althusser developed these
ideas in his own efforts to renew Marxism.
Mao leading the Chinese Revolutiona. On Practice and On
ContradictionMaos major contributions to Marxist theory can be
found in his two philosophical works written in the mid-1930s, On
Practice and On Contradiction. In the former, Mao is concerned with
how do we apply Marxism to achieve knowledge? Mao states that in
order to change the world, we need to understand the world through
the knowledge of a thing by being in contact with it. For
example:If you want to know the theory and methods of revolution,
you must take part in revolution. All genuine knowledge originates
in direct experience. But one cannot have direct experience of
everything; as a matter of fact, most of our knowledge comes from
indirect experience, for example, all knowledge from past times and
foreign lands.3So what are the levels of knowledge that Mao
identifies? The first level of knowledge is phenomenal. At a
phenomenal level of practice, you see the separate aspects and
existential relations of things. For example, say you go to a
factory and see the people who work there. All you see at this
level is merely the external relations of things. This is just a
perceptual stage of cognition where you gain knowledge through
sense perceptions and impressions. At best the knowledge gained
here gives you a rough sketch of a phenomenon.From the first level,
there is the second level of knowledge. Mao identifies this level
as that of rational knowledge. This is where you go deeper, past
the external to the internal. You use the perceptual knowledge
gained from the first level to arrive at a comprehension of the
internal relations of things. Once you see how things operate, you
can understand their laws of motion and how one thing relates to
another. Through understanding the internal relations of something
(the position of classes and their struggle, the development of the
economy and ideology, etc.), you see things in their totality (or
the whole picture).For instance, a Marxist doesnt just look at the
surface relations of capitalism (exchange in the market place), but
the internal relations (i.e. class struggle, the labor process and
the development of capital, etc.). During this whole process, it is
important to remember that a Marxist is looking at things from the
standpoint of the working class and seeking to change the world.For
Mao, rational knowledge is dependent on perceptual knowledge.
Rational knowledge allows one to deepen knowledge and investigate.
Yet Mao says that the movement of knowledge doesnt end at the
second level. It isnt enough to investigate something, but to use
that theory to guide action.But Marxism emphasizes the importance
of theory precisely and only because it can guide action. If we
have a correct theory but merely prate about it, pigeonhole it and
do not put it into practice, then that theory, however good, is of
no significance. Knowledge begins with practice, and theoretical
knowledge is acquired through practice and must then return to
practice. The active function of knowledge manifests itself not
only in the active leap from perceptual to rational knowledge,
butand this is more importantit must manifest itself in the leap
from rational knowledge to revolutionary practice.4 Mao says that
if a correct theory isnt tied to practice, then it is lifeless. It
isnt enough to just debate the laws of capital, but you need to
overturn them. Theory needs to be placed in the service of changing
the world in the midst of the class struggle.There are questions
that should be asked about applying a theory to practice. Does a
theory achieve its objectives? (i.e. is a strike at a particular
factory the appropriate course? The only way to know is to test the
theory) If the theory works, then certain ideas, plans and programs
that correspond to that theory should be applied. (i.e. the methods
used to win a strike could be applied elsewhere) Yet this doesnt
mean that the methods used to win a particular strike can be
applied everywhere and at all times.According to Mao, knowledge
gained from theory can seldom be realized without alteration.
Perhaps at a follow up strike, the union leadership is hostile and
other forces would have to be used. Or the factory owners are using
thugs to impose order and the workers may have to take offensive
action. This change in applying theory results because our
knowledge is limited. A theory may not correspond with reality (in
part or wholly). If a theory doesnt correspond to reality, then it
is incorrect. In that case, there would need to be more
investigation and testing (through the methodological levels Mao
outlines above). This would mean more experimentation and testing
before results can be achieved. In other words, achieving knowledge
is not something achieved once and for all, but is a continuous
process.Central to Maos thinking is that Marxists need to be
involved in the process of revolution in order to change the world.
He attacks those so-called revolutionaries who issue orders from
the sidelines without considering circumstances, the totality of a
situation, or the contradictions. Those who do so are using
one-sided and subjective methods and are bound to fail in changing
the world.Mao sums up his method as follows:Practice, knowledge,
again practice, and again knowledge. This form repeats itself in
endless cycles, and with each cycle the content of practice and
knowledge rises to a higher level. Such is the whole of the
dialectical-materialist theory of knowledge, and such is the
dialectical-materialist theory of the unity of knowing and
doing.5As we can see, applying Maos dialectical method is not
something that can be done statically. In On Contradiction, Mao
says that we need to recognize that The law of contradiction in
things, that is, the law of the unity of opposites, is the basic
law of materialist dialectics.6 Some of the areas that Mao deals
with in regards to contradiction are the following which would find
their way into Althussers work: that in particular social
situations, there is a principal and a non-principal contradiction
and the interaction of the base and the superstructure.For in
applying Marxist theory to our investigation, we need to recognize
thatChanges in society are due chiefly to the development of the
internal contradictions in society, that is, the contradiction
between the productive forces and the relations of production, the
contradiction between classes and the contradiction between the old
and the new; it is the development of these contradictions that
pushes society forward and gives the impetus for the supersession
of the old society by the new.7 This is in line with basic Marxist
theory, however Mao goes on and states that while contradiction is
universal in society and nature (without it nothing can exist),
each form of motion contains within itself its own particular
contradiction.8 And this means in the concrete, we have to identify
a particular contradiction.And in each situation, Mao says there
are many contradictions in the process of development of a complex
thing, and one of them is necessarily the principal contradiction
whose existence and development determine or influence the
existence and development of the other contradictions.9 For
instance, the principal contradiction in capitalism is that between
the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Yet in even in this situation,
there is also non-principal contradictions such as between the
feudal class versus the bourgeoisie along with many others.
Depending on the circumstances though, a different particular
contradiction can be the principal one to tackle. And this means
that the other contradictions Mao says presents a very complicated
picture of reality. Yet Mao emphasized that at every stage in the
development of a process, there is only one principal contradiction
which plays the leading role Therefore, in studying any complex
process in which there are two or more contradictions, we must
devote every effort to funding its principal contradiction. Once
this principal contradiction is grasped, all problems can be
readily solved.10 And of course, solving the principal
contradiction is done through social practice.Yet this is not all
according to Mao, for in every situation while we need to focus on
the principal contradiction, the development of contradictions is
uneven and always in motion. And as Marxists, Mao says we must
always be conscious of this becausethe principal and the
non-principal aspects of a contradiction transform themselves into
each other and the nature of the thing changes accordingly. In a
given process or at a given stage in the development of a
contradiction, A is the principal aspect and B is the non-principal
aspect; at another stage or in another process the roles are
reverseda change determined by the extent of the increase or
decrease in the force of each aspect in its struggle against the
other in the course of the development of a thing.11 For example,
in the case of China in the 1930s was semi-feudal and capitalist
with society dominated by comprador capitalists of Kuomintang,
along with landlords throughout the countryside. This represented a
double burden of oppression on the workers and peasants of China.
However, the whole of China was also threatened by invasion and
conquest from Imperial Japan. In analyzing this situation, Mao and
the CCP believed that the principle contradiction facing China was
the struggle for national liberation from Japan, the other
contradictions being secondary.As we have said, one must not treat
all the contradictions in a process as being equal but must
distinguish between the principal and the secondary contradictions,
and pay special attention to grasping the principal one. But, in
any given contradiction, whether principal or secondary, should the
two contradictory aspects be treated as equal? Again, no. In any
contradiction the development of the contradictory aspects is
uneven. Sometimes they seem to be in equilibrium, which is however
only temporary and relative, while unevenness is basic. Of the two
contradictory aspects, one must be principal and the other
secondary. The principal aspect is the one playing the leading role
in the contradiction. The nature of a thing is determined mainly by
the principal aspect of a contradiction, the aspect which has
gained the dominant position.Thus depending on the circumstances, a
different particular contradiction can be the principal one to
tackle. This allows Mao to break with dogmatic forms of Marxist
thinking that state the principal contradiction In society is
always that between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, and that
the base always determines the superstructurefor instance, in the
contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of
production, the productive forces are the principal aspect; in the
contradiction between theory and practice, practice is the
principal aspect; in the contradiction between the economic base
and the superstructure, the economic base is the principal aspect;
and there is no change in their respective positions. This is the
mechanical materialist conception, not the dialectical materialist
conception. True, the productive forces, practice and the economic
base generally play the principal and decisive role; whoever denies
this is not a materialist. But it must also be admitted that in
certain conditions, such aspects as the relations of production,
theory and the superstructure in turn manifest themselves in the
principal and decisive role. When it is impossible for the
productive forces to develop without a change in the relations of
production, then the change in the relations of production plays
the principal and decisive role.12Mao asserts that sometimes
politics needs to placed in command with correct ideas, there is a
place for the subjective factor. And he insists that Once the
correct ideas characteristic of the advanced class are grasped by
the masses, these ideas turn into a material force which changes
society and changes the world. In their social practice, men engage
in various kinds of struggle and gain rich experience, both from
their successes and from their failures.13Mao believes that if one
is to avoid mechanical materialism, which looks at just how the
base interacts with the superstructure, then we alsoand indeed
mustrecognize the reaction of mental on material things, of social
consciousness on social being and of the superstructure on the
economic base.14
Mao addressing soldiers of the Peoples liberation Army.B. Mass
LineHaving looked at Maos philosophical ideas, how do they
translate into political practice for the Communist Party? It is
here that he develops one of the distinctive practices for
revolutionary organization the mass line. The mass line was the
method of practice that communists implemented to involve the
people in politics. According to Mao, There are two methods which
we Communists must employ in whatever work we do. One is to combine
the general with the particular; the other is to combine the
leadership with the masses.15So what does this mean? For Mao, this
means that communists need to study thoroughly and gain experience
in the process (while doing organizing, you might want to keep
abreast of political economy). Revolutionaries should be learning
theory and history of a general situation, while learning the
strong and weak points of a particular situation (what does the
labor struggle of a whole country mean at a single factory?). All
of this study, which is in fact the general way communists gain
knowledge, is done with a view to changing a particular
situation.In regards to combining leadership with the masses, Mao
discusses the methodology as follows:In all the practical work of
our Party, all correct leadership is necessarily from the masses,
to the masses. This means: take the ideas of the masses (scattered
and unsystematic ideas) and concentrate them (through study turn
them into concentrated and systematic ideas), then go to the masses
and propagate and explain these ideas until the masses embrace them
as their own, hold fast to them and translate them into action, and
test the correctness of these ideas in such action. Then once again
concentrate ideas from the masses and once again go to the masses
so that the ideas are persevered in and carried through. And so on,
over and over again in an endless spiral, with the ideas becoming
more correct, more vital and richer each time. Such is the Marxist
theory of knowledge.16Activists go among the people, they
investigate the conditions which they find there (what are working
conditions in the urban ghettos? How is the state acting?). They
take the scattered and often unsystematic ideas of the masses
(someone speaks of police brutality, another of unsafe working
conditions, racist discrimination). Remember, these ideas are may
not be all that coherent (some people in the ghetto may protest
their conditions, either individually or collectively, yet accept
the basic framework of the system). Revolutionaries need to take
these ideas and via study, turn them into concentrated and systemic
ideas (relating a particular condition to large historical forces).
From this, revolutionaries then go back to the masses and propagate
these ideas until the masses accept them as their own, thus
translating theory into action. This is not a one time deal, but
the process of from the masses to the masses is done again and
again (this process is similar to the theory of knowledge found in
On Practice). All the while, the revolutionaries link the
particular struggle to raising consciousness and fighting for
communism.Mao saw the mass line as not only the core of communist
work, but a way to unite the advanced, win over the intermediate
and isolate the backward. The advanced are those who are struggling
and active in a particular situation. They are also open to
communist ideas (if they havent accepted them already). The
intermediate are those who are wavering to the struggle, but can be
won over. The backward are those who are either hostile or
indifferent to the struggle.What revolutionaries need to do is to
link up with the advanced detachments of the masses. This is a key
point that Mao stressed. If revolutionaries want to be effective,
they have to be active with the masses, not standing on the
sidelines. At the same time, revolutionaries need to raise the
consciousness of the intermediate while seeking to win over or
isolate the backward. Through this process, a revolutionary group
is formed in the process of mass struggle.The philosophical method
of Mao: looking at the development of contradictions in the
development of complex social structures, the dynamic interaction
of base and superstructure, the role of practice and investigation
by communists, and the mass line were all a sharp break with
prevailing forms of Soviet philosophical and political orthodoxy.
And as we shall see later on, they greatly influenced the political
ideas of Louis Althusser.
Soldiers of the Peoples Liberation Army.c. Peoples WarAll this
being said, how did Mao apply his ideas to a study of the
particular contradictions of the Chinese social formation? Mao did
this by developing the theory of the New Democratic Revolution. The
New Democratic Revolution sought to accomplish the basic tasks of
the bourgeois democratic revolution (land reform, independence,
nationalization, economic development). In orthodox Marxist theory,
promoted by the Comintern, this task was supposed to fall to the
national bourgeois. Yet as Mao constantly emphasized, this was a
class which was wrought with contradiction. On the one hand it was
was oppressed by foreign capital like the rest of the nation. The
national bourgeois was tied to landlords and rural property
relations (which were often of a feudal nature). In order for a
democratic revolution to succeed, those property relations would
have to be challenged. Furthermore the national bourgeois was also
an adversary of the proletariat. If the proletariat was playing an
active role in the revolution, would the national bourgeois not
turn its face toward the counterrevolution? Certainly that was a
possibility in the eyes of Mao, the national bourgeois was a
vacillating class. It only had the potential depending on concrete
circumstances to act in a revolutionary way.Mao believed that the
national bourgeois could still be a potential ally of the
proletariat (which was interested in overthrowing foreign capital)
and the peasantry (who desired land reform) and the
petty-bourgeois. Mao argued for an alliance with those forces that
had an interest in the democratic revolution. Yet in this alliance,
the proletariat party was to have leadership and independence.
Considering that when the Chinese Communists were in alliance with
the Nationalist Party in 20s, they had surrendered both leadership
and independence, being slaughtered in the process, Maos ideas make
sense. Mao believed that this four class alliance would establish a
common (or peoples) dictatorship upon liberation.Mao believed, that
at the heart of the New Democratic Revolution was the
transformation of a semi-colonial and feudal society not under the
leadership of the bourgeoisie, but by the proletariat. And even
though Mao recognized that the New Democratic Revolution suppressed
the comprador bourgeoisie (tied with imperialism), and even though
the NDR retained private capitalist enterprise, this was to create
the prerequisites for socialism (indeed the NDR was largely
completed in China by 1956 when many capitalists were simply bought
out). And unlike many in the Communist Party who saw the NDR as a
protracted phase, Mao looked at overcoming.And if the New
Democratic Revolution in China was supposed to be accomplished
under the leadership of the proletariat, how did that manifest
itself in practice? This was done through the development of base
areas in China which were an alternative form of popular power, the
development of a broad hegemonic alliance of oppressed classes, and
a different mode of warfare from the enemy.While Mao believed that
the development of base areas and a Red army was specific to China
and tied to the weakness of the state apparatus, splits in the
ruling class, prolonged wars, the development of a national and
democratic revolutionary movement, and a revolutionary crisis along
with a strong Red Army and Communist Party organization.17 While
Red Political Power was able to exist in these conditions in China,
the ruling class and its state still possessed formidable power and
an army of considerable power. The Red Army by contrast during this
period was quite small and could not directly challenge the armies
of the Chinese state in a frontal war of movement (nor would they
do so until the final phase of the revolutionary war during the
late 1940s).While Mao never disavowed the final goal of the
revolutionary offensive, he understood that the nature of the war
(against both Chiang Kai-Shek and later the Japanese) the
Communists faced was protracted and that they needed to plan for
the long haul. As Mao argued, the first phase of the war was that
of the strategic defensive, when our strategic situation and policy
when the enemy is on the offensive and we are on the defensive; by
strategic offensive we mean our strategic situation and policy when
the enemy is on the defensive and we are on the offensive.18 This
meant recognizing the numerical and military superiority of the
enemy and fighting accordingly.Part of the way, Mao envisioned
fighting the enemy was by adopting a strategy of pit one against
ten and our tactics are pit ten against one this is one of our
fundamental principles for gaining mastery over the enemy.19 This
meant fighting with small-scale guerrilla attacks, surprising the
enemy, luring them to unfavorable ground and ambushing them,
assaulting their rear, and the guerrillas needed to strike the
enemy with overwhelming numbers. The strategy here is to force the
enemy to spread themselves out, harassing him all along the line,
where he is weakest and then to annihilate him one by one. 20While
Mao took his adversaries seriously in a tactical sense, he despised
them all strategically. As Mao explainedWe have developed a concept
over a long period for the struggle against the enemy, namely,
strategically we should despise all our enemies, but tactically we
should take them all seriously. In other words, with regard to the
whole we must despise the enemy, but with regard to each specific
problem we must take him seriously.21 For Mao recognized that
whether his enemy was Chiang Kai-Shek, the Japanese Empire, or US
Imperialism these forces possessed no popular support, its policies
were opposed by the people and they all oppressed and exploited the
masses and the way they waged warfare reflected that.Mao and the
Communists by contrast fought differently. Although Mao never
neglected military matters in terms of war, he believed that the
political came first. And the first priority of the Red Army was
not to defend territory (he was quite willing to retreat if needed)
or stage an offensive, but political mobilization raising the
consciousness of the people and involving them directly in the
war.This was reflected in the class character of Maos peoples army
which was not a traditional army, but a peoples army that is
disciplined, politically conscious, and serves the people. A
peoples army links the military struggle against the enemy to the
process of carrying out revolution and land reform, establishing
new forms of popular power, struggling against oppression, applying
the mass line, and building a new culture in base areas. The base
areas would serve as a pole of attraction for support among the
people while undermining the old regime. As Mao said of the Long
March, it is the first of its kind in the annals of history, that
it is a manifesto, a propaganda force, a seeding-machine.22 The
victory was to be primarily political, creating a pole of
attraction for the masses. Indeed, the experience of the base area
of Yenan was just this type of pole of attraction where the Maoist
forces were away from the state and army, able to establish their
own liberated zone, build up their forces, link up with the people
and prepare themselves to rule.23
Stalin and Mao.
d. Mao on StalinFollowing the triumph of the Chinese Revolution,
as we have discussed, Mao grew increasingly concerned at the road
other members of the CCP were following. The slavish adoption of
Soviet methods in building socialism in China. He saw commandism,
bureaucracy, and a reliance on technology as opposed to the masses.
We will shortly look at how Maos criticism Soviet-style socialism
developed as a left-wing alternative to Stalinism in both theory
and practice to reinvigorate socialism and revolution. Maos
left-wing critique was at odds with Nikita Khrushchevs Secret
Speech of 1956 denouncing Stalin, that he believed was a right-wing
cover for downplaying class struggle and revolution in order to
accommodate western imperialism and leading to the restoration of
capitalism in the USSR.Maos major criticisms of Stalin can be found
most prominently in two major works, On the Correct Handling of
Contradictions among the People and Critique of Soviet Economics.
The first was delivered as a speech to the CCP in 1957 as part of a
rectification campaign and partly as Maos response to Khrushchevs
speech. The speech was described by the Trotsky-influenced author,
Isaac Deutscher as by far the most radical repudiation of Stalinism
that has come out of any communist country so far.24In the speech,
Mao elaborated on his earlier writings dealing with contradiction
by noting that contradictions continue under socialism. But there
are actually two sets of contradictions, those among the people and
those between the people and the enemy, both of which needed to be
handled differently.The contradictions between ourselves and the
enemy are antagonistic contradictions. Within the ranks of the
people, the contradictions among the working people are
non-antagonistic, while those between the exploited and the
exploiting classes have a non-antagonistic as well as an
antagonistic aspect.25 This implied a repudiation of Soviet
practice which handled contradictions among the people as like
contradictions between the people and the enemy. Furthermore, Mao
believed that the class struggle continued under socialism, as
opposed to mechanical communists who believed that with the seizure
of power that the basic class struggle had ended. Yet Mao
emphasized that the class struggle would take different forms under
socialism.The class struggle between the proletariat and the
bourgeoisie, the class struggle between the various political
forces, and the class struggle between the proletariat and the
bourgeoisie in the ideological field will still be protracted and
tortuous and at times even very sharp. The proletariat seeks to
transform the world according to its own world outlook, and so does
the bourgeoisie. In this respect, the question of which will win
out, socialism or capitalism, is not really settled yet.26And the
way Stalin and the Soviets handled contradictions among the people
was also a reflection of the weaknesses of their revolutionary
practice. As the Chinese CP would later say in their polemics with
the USSR, while upholding the positive accomplished under Stalin,
they also stressed thatStalin departed from dialectical materialism
and fell into metaphysics and subjectivism on certain questions and
consequently he was sometimes divorced from reality and from the
masses. In struggles inside as well as outside the Party, on
certain occasions and on certain questions he confused two types of
contradictions which are different in nature, contradictions
between ourselves and the enemy and contradictions among the
people, and also confused the different methods needed in handling
them. In the work led by Stalin of suppressing the
counter-revolution, many counter-revolutionaries deserving
punishment were duly punished, but at the same time there were
innocent people who were wrongly convicted; and in 1937 and 1938
there occurred the error of enlarging the scope of the suppression
of counter-revolutionaries. In the matter of Party and government
organization, he did not fully apply proletarian democratic
centralism and, to some extent, violated it. In handling relations
with fraternal Parties and countries, he made some mistakes. He
also gave some bad counsel in the international communist movement.
These mistakes caused some losses to the Soviet Union and the
international communist movement.27What MaosA Critique of Soviet
Economics (which also criticized Stalins Economic Problems of
Socialism in the USSR) was part of Maos forging a new socialist
path in China in light of the mounting break with the USSR and
following the Great Leap Forward and all the problems associated
therein. Revolutionary fervor in the Communist Party was being
replaced by the creeping winds of conservatism. Those conservatives
in the Party seemed to be eager to copy the Soviet model with its
commandism and bureaucracy. To Mao, those methods smacked of
capitalism, not socialism.While Maos work looked at how the USSR
had engaged in primitive socialist accumulation, or how the nation
built up its industry and collectivized agriculture. To Mao,
although Soviet achievements in these fields were undeniable, they
were largely conducted at the level of economics and neglected
politics, ideology and culture or the superstructure.This textbook
addresses itself only to material preconditions and seldom engages
the question of the superstructure, i.e., the class nature of the
state, philosophy, and science. In economics the main object of
study is the production relations. All the same, political economy
and the materialist historical outlook are close cousins. It is
difficult to deal clearly with problems of the economic base and
the production relations if the question of the superstructure is
neglected.28And Mao also believed that the Soviets denied the role
of contradiction in socialism, stating: In the era of socialism,
contradictions remain the motive force of social development.29
This was something that the Soviets did not recognize. There were
bourgeois survivals in the superstructure (commandism, bureaucracy,
etc.) that conflicted with new emerging proletariat political,
cultural and ideological ideas. It was not enough to just develop
the economy, but the masses had to be involved. To Mao and any
self-respecting communist, the masses wanted revolution and
communism. Therefore, if they were properly led, they would combat
the bourgeois survivals and institute new proletariat modes of
politics, ideology and ideology.This lack of recognition of the
contradictions in socialism meant that the USSR had a one-sided
method of developing the economy through bureaucratic and
commandist methods. These methods were clear in how the Soviets
treated the peasantry were certainly bourgeois holdovers. Mao
recognized that even in socialism that were would be a struggle
between old and new ideas. Yet the Soviets seemed to believe that
as the standard of living improved through economic development
that old bourgeois ideas would simply die out. To Mao, this was not
so. The communist revolution wasnt just about changing the economy,
but about forging new political, ideological, and cultural values
appropriate to communism. These new values would spontaneously
emerge with economic development like Athena from the head of Zeus.
Nor could these new values be commanded or forced upon the people.
Rather, to Mao, these values could only emerge through the
participation of the masses themselves in the process.For instance,
the USSR collectivized the countryside at the expense of the
peasantry. In fact, the peasants were not the driving force of the
collectivization movement, but were simply told that they must be
collectivized by the Soviet party. This was in contrast to the
Chinese partys dealings with the peasantry, which did quite the
reverse. We put a mass lineinto effect, roused the poor and
lower-middle peasants to launch class struggle and seize all the
land of the landlord class and distribute the surplus land of rich
peasants.30 By contrast, the bureaucratic behavior of the Soviets
in dealing with the peasantry caused them to pay a heavy
price.31For Mao, it wasnt enough to simply change the relations of
production in the countryside as the USSR had done (although this
was necessary). You needed to change the ideas of the masses, which
with new communist ideas would in turn increase productivity and
build communism. This was exactly what Mao sought to do in the
Great Leap Forward.During Stalins time, the masses were often
distrusted and handed down their instructions by party fiat.The
relationship between long- and short-term interests has not seen
any spectacular developments. They walk on one leg, we walk on two.
They believe that technology decides everything, that cadres decide
everything, speaking only of expert, never of red, only of the
cadres, never of the masses. This is walking on one leg.32 The
Soviet method of governing and building socialism from above not
only encouraged a technocratic and commandist road to socialism
that neglected putting politics in command, but this method meant
that socialism in the USSR was distorted in favor of heavy industry
to the expense of agriculture and light industry.Flowing naturally
from the above is that the communist revolution is an all-around
process, affecting both the economic base and the superstructure.
Central to the communist revolution was that (communist and mass)
politics be in command. The communist revolution had to recognize
that there were contradictions between base and superstructure,
town and country, worker and peasant, manual and mental labor, and
leader and led during the whole transition period.Building
communism means putting into practice the mass line, investigating
and concentrating the scattered ideas of the masses and
communicating them back until the masses take up as their own. In
the process, the revolutionaries fuse with the masses and involve
them in revolution.Furthermore, in building communism, Mao believed
in line with the Soviet experience that developing heavy industry
was essential. Yet he also believed that the Soviets put too much
emphasis on heavy industry, so that light industry and agriculture
were neglected and the masses suffered because of this. Mao urged
that growth be more balanced with light industry and agriculture
not being neglected in favor of heavy industry. It was necessary to
develop heavy industry because it was in the long-range interests
of the people, but also to combine their immediate needs. Mao
grasped this connection. This was in contrast to Soviet planning
which often didnt put the needs of the masses in the forefront and
was lopsided.Maos critique of Soviet methods of planning also
extended to what he saw as their one-sided reliance on material
incentives. Material incentives to Mao were a bourgeois survival
that did not raise consciousness of the masses. For the Soviets,
planning was about things, not people. For Mao, planning (and
communism) meant that there had to be conscious activity by both
the party and the masses.What Mao would come to recognize as the
1960s wore on was that there were those in the Chinese party (and
in the Soviet), who rely upon bourgeois survivals and seek a return
to capitalism. Yet these ideas were not fully developed when Mao
wrote the Critique, yet he was developing in that direction. If it
was necessary to involve the masses in the building of a communist
society and combating the old ideas of the bourgeois which could
survive even in the party, might that lead to a clash? In China,
that led to more than a clash, but to the beginning of the Cultural
Revolution in 1966.
Poster from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.e. Great
Proletarian Cultural RevolutionIt is not possible to discuss the
Cultural Revolution at length here, but a few words need to be
said. The Cultural Revolution was the culmination of the Maoist
two-line struggle with capitalist roaders within the CCP. And it
brought together the many ideas Mao had developed over the previous
decades: contradiction, the interaction of base and superstructure,
continuing revolution under socialism, reliance on the masses, and
his whole critique of the Soviet experience. The Cultural
Revolution was described in the Decision of the Central Committee
of the Chinese Communist Party Concerning the Great Proletarian
Cultural Revolution (or the 16 Points) to guide the Cultural
Revolution as follows:Although the bourgeoisie has been overthrown,
it is still trying to use the old ideas, culture, customs and
habits of the exploiting classes to corrupt the masses, capture
their minds and endeavour to stage a comeback. The proletariat must
do the exact opposite: it must meet head-on every challenge of the
bourgeoisie in the ideological field and use the new ideas,
culture, customs and habits of the proletariat to change the mental
outlook of the whole of society. At present, our objective is to
struggle against and overthrow those persons in authority who are
taking the capitalist road, to criticize and repudiate the
reactionary bourgeois academic authorities and the ideology of the
bourgeoisie and all other exploiting classes and to transform
education, literature and art and all other parts of the
superstructure not in correspondence with the socialist economic
base, so as to facilitate the consolidation and development of the
socialist system.33In other words, the Cultural Revolution was part
of an attack by the masses on the superstructure to remove
bourgeois forces within the party who threatened to restore
capitalism in order to continue along the revolutionary road.And
while it is common nowadays by many, including the far left to view
the Cultural Revolution as one of persecutions, abuses and economic
stagnation, this was in fact a mass upheaval. There were many
innovative aspects to the Cultural Revolution with factories
reorganized, facilitating greater involvement by the masses and
increases in production. The arts were also transformed. Education
at all levels was revamped to allow for greater mass involvement.
Ordinary people in the Cultural Revolution were encouraged to
experiment, to act, and to think.34The effects of Maoism
revitalization of communism and the Cultural Revolution were not
limited to China however. Following the 1963 breach with the USSR,
the Chinese presented an open challenge to Soviet Marxism and their
allied Communist Parties. And this reached all the way to France
where engagement with Maoism encouraged Louis Althusser in his own
efforts to develop a revolutionary alternative from within the
Soviet-aligned French Communist Party.Louis Althusser
Communist Party of France.a. The French Communist PartyIn 1948,
Louis Althusser, a former member of the right-wing Catholic
Jeunesse tudiante Chrtienne and philosophy student, joined the
French Communist Party (PCF). The relationship with Althusser and
the PCF would be fraught with discord (both open and concealed) for
the next several decades. Although the PCF was the second largest
communist party in Western Europe, commanding a quarter of the
electorate and the allegiance of the organized working class, it
was far from being a revolutionary organization. Although the PCF
had lost thousands of militants and played a leading role in the
anti-Nazi resistance, it had not made any effort to seize power
upon the liberation, giving the party great prestige, but had
followed the leadership of De Gaulle in reestablishing the French
bourgeois republic and surrendered its arms. Despite its militant
rhetoric and resort to extra-parliamentary tactics at times, the
PCF had no intention of making revolution. As Sartre said of the
PCF:When a so-called revolutionary party with five million armed
members or followers refuses to seize power, it can no longer claim
to be revolutionary. By 1947, every Frenchman knew that the CP had
become a traditional party in a bourgeois state, reformist perhaps,
revolutionary certainly not.35Yet for Althusser, Sartre, and so
many other intellectuals, there was no opportunity for real
political engagement outside the PCF, unless one was willing to
work in tiny left sects.Althusser remained within the Communist
Party as the anti-colonial revolts in Indochina and especially in
Algeria revealed the limits of its anti-imperialism. At the
beginning of the Algerian War, the Socialist Party under Guy Mollet
sent conscripts to put down the FLN. Instead of moving into
opposition, the PCF would again support the government, and
declaredPeace must be reestablished in Algeria.36While it is true
that the PCF did come around to supporting Algerian independence,
this support was tepid and half-hearted. The partyrejected the
harmful attitudes of gauchiste [leftist] elements who had preached
insubordination, desertion, and rejection of the very fundamentals
of the national community and the national interest of the working
class in peace. Their irresponsible actions, the party argued in
1962 and in 1968, had only served to assist the policies and the
provocations of the Gaullist regime and the ultras.37Instead of
pursuing a militant antiwar strategy, the PCF was more interested
in staying respectful, something that the growing French New Left
(including Trotskyists and Maoists) took issue with.The PCF was not
willing to entertain oppositional ideas within its ranks either.
The Party, proclaiming its allegiance to the political ideas and
foreign policy of the Soviet Union, maintained a stranglehold on
intellectual debate, enforcing a rigid dogma. For Althusser and
other party critics, it was only possible to conduct debate within
the PCF in code or underground, not in the open (since that risked
expulsion). Althusser bore this all in silence. Yet following the
20th Congress of the CPSU where Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin
and the cult of personality, caused a major shake-up in the PCF.
Initially, the leadership of the French Party bulked at the new
line, but eventually came around to accepting it (since the PCF
leadership hoped to build an alliance with the Socialist Party).
The new Soviet line promoted a line of peaceful coexistence between
east and west, and the possibility of a peaceful transition to
socialism which was soon adapted by the French. According to
Gregory Elliot, thePCFs adjustment to the Khrushchevite line arose
not simply from fidelity to the bastion of world socialism, but
because there was an underlying compatibility between the
imperatives of internationalism and domestic horizons. Regardless
of its official doctrine, the PCF had, in a sense, been pursuing an
analogous line, in impeccably French colours, ever since the
Popular Front.38Philosophically, the new line in the international
Communist Movement was being promoted using the language of
humanism and a return to Hegel and the works of the Young Marx with
their emphasis on alienation. Humanism was being used by both the
Soviets and the PCF to pursue a right-wing revisionist and social
democratic line. The promotion of Socialist Humanism would be one
of the battering rams that the pro-Soviet parties would use against
China following the split in the ICM.39 Yet the liberalization of
the 20th Congress allowed open debate after decades of sterile
orthodoxy. As Althusser would later sayI would never have written
anything were it not for the Twentieth Congress and Khrushchevs
critique of Stalinism and the subsequent liberalisation. But I
would never have written these books if I had not seen this affair
as a bungled destalinisation, a right-wing destalinisation which
instead of analyses offered us only incantations; which instead of
Marxist concepts had available only the poverty of bourgeois
ideology. My target was therefore clear: these humanist ravings,
these feeble dissertations on liberty, labour or alienation which
were the effects of all this among French Party intellectuals. And
my aim was equally clear: to make a start on the first left-wing
critique of Stalinism, a critique that would make it possible to
reflect not only on Khrushchev and Stalin but also on Prague and
Lin Piao: that would above all help put some substance back into
the revolutionary project here in the West.40Althussers claim to
have developed the first left-wing critique of Stalinism is frankly
wrong and shows an ignorance of other Marxists who had undertaken
that project (such as Trotsky). Yet Althusser was working with the
intellectual tools that he had at his disposal within the Party and
the wider Communist Movement. Althussers effort to revitalize
Marxism and (in philosophical language) attack the PCF and USSR
from the left found an echo in China. And in fact, as Althussers
criticism deepened, he developed an increasing affinity for
Mao.
Althusser carrying a banner during a demonstration.b.
Theoretical PracticeAlthusser hoped to put the PCF back on solid
revolutionary foundations so that the Party could fulfill its
revolutionary mission. However, Althusser was not willing at one
point to politically break with the PCF or build an opposition
caucus within it (many budding Maoists, inspired by Althusser, did
both). And this would ultimately constrain both his theoretical and
political practice. As Elliot says,But the price to be paid for a
party card and for theorys immunity was high: assent or silence on
political issues. On the other hand, if at a stroke, Althusser
abolished the problem of the union of theory and practice, it was
in the name of future political practice. The Marxist workers
movement needed scientific theory in order to change the world.
Protected from the ravages of official pragmatism and opportunism,
a detour via theory at this time and in this place was no diversion
from the struggle, but the long-term, practically motivated
continuation of politics by other means.41Althussers engagement
with the ideas of Mao in his effort to put Marxism back on
scientific foundations appears in his essays, Contradiction and
Overdetermination and On the Materialist Dialectic found in For
Marx. And while Althusser builds on Lenins ideas to elaborate the
concepts of conjuncture and key links, he discusses at length
(without mentioning him by name) Maos essay On Contradiction.
Althussers Contradiction and Overdetermination rejects the Hegelian
dialectic and says they have a structure different from the
structure they have for Hegel. It also means thatthese structural
differencescan be demonstrated, described, determined and thought.
And if this is possible, it is thereforenecessary, I would go so
far as to sayvital, for Marxism.42 And while Althusser builds on
Lenins ideas to elaborate the concepts of conjuncture and key
links, he discusses at length (without mentioning him by name) Maos
essay On Contradiction.Althusser follows Mao in stating that
society is made of a number of contradictions, of which one is
primary and the others are secondary (and within the principal one,
one aspect is primary and the other is secondary):Two are concepts
of distinction: (1) the distinction between theprincipal
contradictionand the secondary contradictions, (2) the distinction
between theprincipal aspectand the secondaryaspectof each
contradiction. The third and last concept: (3) theuneven
developmentof contradiction. These concepts are presented to us as
if thats how it is. We are told that they are essential to the
Marxist dialectic, since they are what is specific about it. It is
up to us to seek out the deeper theoretical reasons behind these
claims.43This means that society possesses a complex unity with its
manifold contradictions that develop unevenly under different
contradictions. However, Althusser develops the concept of
overdetermination (from Freudian psychoanalysis) which means the
representation of the dream-thoughts in images privileged by their
condensation of a number of thoughts in a single image.44 Althusser
says that a contradiction is overdetermined is reflection of its
existence in a complex whole where other contradictions exist and
unevenly develop together.In an overdetermined contradiction, there
is displacement and condensation [which]explain by their dominance
the phases (non-antagonistic, antagonistic and explosive) which
constitute the existence of the complex process, that is, of the
development of things45 which ultimately means the various elements
of a complex whole develop unevenly and that different ones are
dominant at a particular moment.Althusser goes and claims,
following Engels, that in a social formation that the economic is
determinant in the last instance. However, Althusser says thatFrom
the first moment to the last, the lonely hour of the last instance
never comes. Althusser is not saying that economics dont play a
determining role, rather he is stating that the economic dialectic
is never activein the pure state; in History, these instances, the
superstructures, etc. are never seen to step respectfully aside
when their work is done or, when the Time comes, as his pure
phenomena, to scatter before His Majesty the Economy as he strides
along the royal road of the Dialectic.46In other words, the
economic is never active by itself, but is active through other
contradictions because the other contradictions of a complex whole
are never able to step aside. Althusser would later develop this
idea in order to critique other Marxists (such as Stalin and the
PCF) for believing in historical and economic determinism based on
the development of productive forces or economism while ignoring
the relatively autonomous role of the superstructure and other
contradictions in social and historical change, which prevented
them from developing appropriate revolutionary strategies. And as
we shall see, Althusser would also use these ideas as part of a
developing critique of Soviet socialism.And Althusser was at pains
to state thatIt is to claim thatthe complex whole has the unity of
a structure articulated in dominance.In the last resort this
specific structure is the basis for the relations of domination
between contradictions and between their aspects that Mao described
as essential. This principle must be grasped and intransigently
defended if Marxism is not to slip back into the confusions from
which it had delivered us, that is, into a type of thought for
which only one model of unity exists: the unity of a substance, of
an essence or of an act; into the twin confusions of mechanistic
materialism and the idealism of consciousness.47This open (and
not-so-open) advocacy of Mao not only helped to sharpen the tools
for the Maoists within the PCF, but it also brought Althusser into
conflict with the party. In 1963, Althussers two essays resulted
him being brought to trial by the Party. Although Althusser managed
to defend his use of Maos ideas by claiming that the CCP was
misusing them, he wound up conceding and defending the PCFs line.48
This highlighted a pattern which would be repeatedly followed by
Althusser: he was brought to heel by the Party for being too
independent, but never enough to leave its orbit in contrast to the
Maoists inspired by him. And ultimately, it would reveal the fatal
defect of his whole project.Althussers elaborations in
Contradiction and Over-determination and On the Materialist
Dialectic had the potential to lead to a revitalization of Marxist
theory and practice beyond anything claimed by the PCF. However,
his idea of theoretical practice which dialectical materialism was
the theory of was bound to hamper his practical efforts. Althusser,
following Marx, viewed society as dissected into four moments:
political, economic, ideological and social (each of which was
relatively autonomous). Each of these practices had a general
method of practice:By practice in general I shall mean any process
of transformation of a determinate given raw material into a
determinate product, a transformation effected by a determinate
human labour, using a determinate means (of production). In any
practice thus conceived, the determinant moment (or element) is
neither the raw material nor the product, but the practice in the
narrow sense: the moment of the labour of transformation itself,
which sets to work, in a specific structure, men, means and a
technical method of utilizing the means.49Theoretical practice was
a form of production divided into three generalities. Generalities
I are abstract concepts that are related to one another and the raw
material of science; Generalities II are a theory of science (i.e.
Marxism) which are used on the raw material at hand; Generalities
III is the end result, or the knowledge produced.50 However,
Althusser made Marxist philosophy the guarantor of Marxist science,
something that was quite dogmatic. Yet as Gregory Elliot says,
Althusser sought to have it both ways:In order to justify his
proposal for a sui generis Marxist philosophy, Althusser invoked
historical precedent, maintaining that philosophical revolutions
were attendant upon induced by scientific revolutions. Thus, just
as Greek mathematics had given rise to Platonic, and Galilean
physics to Cartesian, philosophy, so historical had induced
dialectical materialism. Its advent post festum conformed to the
pattern set by its predecessors. Involved in all of them was the
reprise of a basic scientific discovery in philosophical reflection
and the production by philosophy of a new form of rationality.
Marxist philosophy was, however, primus inter pares. The novelty of
dialectical materialism was that with its arrival philosophy had
passed from the condition of an ideology [to] a scientific
discipline one capable of rendering a scientific account of its
object: the history of the production of knowledge. By virtue of
his double theoretical revolution, Marx occupied an exceptional
position . . . in the history of human knowledge. As a scientific
philosophy, dialectical materialism could function as a guide not
only for the science of history, imperiled as it was by garaudysme
and so on, but, if needs be, for all the other sciences natural and
social alike as well.51 More than that, Althussers schema of the
generalities for theoretical practice could, if taken to their
extreme, lead to a divorce of theory and practice. Yet that wasnt
Althussers intention though, what he was doing was defending the
thesis of the relative autonomy of theory and thus the right of
Marxist theory not to be treated as a slave to tactical political
decisions, but to be allowed to develop, in alliance with political
and other practices, without betraying its own needs.52 In other
words, Althusser was pushing for the relative autonomy of theory in
order for it development outside of the constraints of the PCFs
tactical maneuvers. As Elliot describes, The Marxist workers
movement needed scientific theory in order to change the world.
Protected from the ravages of official pragmatism and opportunism,
a detour via theory at this time and in this place was no diversion
from the struggle, but the long-term, practically motivated
continuation of politics by other means.53 It was a moment that
never came for Althusser.
Breaking with ossified theory and practice.c. Althusser on the
Cultural RevolutionDespite the bind Althusser created for himself,
he remained caught between the PCF apparatus and the Maoist
opposition which came to a head in 1966. In that year, a number of
Maoists were expelled from the PCF many of them Althussers
students, and in December they formed Union des jeunesses
communistes marxistes-lninistes (UJCML). Two months later, they
formed the Union des communistes francais marxistes-leninistes
(UCF-ML), one of the first Maoist organizations in France.54 At the
time of the split, the Cultural Revolution had begun in China and
the UJCML had an article published on it in their journal. The
article, although anonymously authored, was actually written by
Althusser.And it was here that Althussers ideas on
overdetermination, contradiction, and critique of economism found
themselves reflected in Maoism. Althusser hailed the Cultural
Revolution as not, first of all, an argument: it is first and
foremost an historical fact. It is not one fact among others. It is
an unprecedented fact.55 The fact proven by the Cultural
Revolution, in line with claim that the different levels of society
develop unevenly thatMarx, Engels and Lenin always proclaimed it
was absolutely necessary to give the socialist infrastructure,
established by a political revolution, a correspondingthat is,
socialistideological superstructure. For this to occur, an
ideological revolution is necessary, a revolution in the ideology
of the masses.56 While socialist revolution took the means of
production and established a base of nationalized industry, this
did not mean that a socialist superstructure would naturally
follow. To believe this was to fall into economism. Rather, the
Cultural Revolution showed:In socialist countries, after the more
or less complete socialist transformation of the property of the
means of production, there is still this question that remains:
what road is to be taken? Is it necessary to go all the way to the
end of the socialist revolution and gradually pass over into
communism? Or, to the contrary, stop halfway and go backwards
toward capitalism? This question is being posed to us in a
particular acute manner.57Socialism was not a forward march, rather
its development in conditions of capitalist encirclement and the
development of internal contradictions opened up two roads: one
that continued towards communism and another back to capitalism.
Along with the economic and political revolutions which have
established socialism, The C.C.P. declares that in order to
reinforce and develop socialism in China, in order to assure its
future and protect it in a lasting way from every risk of
regression, it must add a third revolution to the prior political
and economic revolutions: a mass ideological revolution.58 The
Cultural Revolutionsultimate aim is to transform the ideology of
the masses, to replace the feudal, bourgeois and petit-bourgeois
ideology that still permeates the masses of Chinese society with a
new ideology of the masses, proletarian and socialist and in this
way to give the socialist economic infrastructure and political
superstructure a corresponding ideological superstructure.59 In
other words, by overthrowing those in the Party taking the
capitalist road, the masses would transform the superstructure
which in turn could influence the base and continue on the road to
communism.The reason for the primacy of ideology in Chinas GPCR was
that it was not to attack just a few bad eggs in the party or
wayward intellectuals, but to transform the ideology of the masses
through struggle: Now, such a transformation of the ideology of the
masses can only be the work of the masses themselves, acting in and
through organizations that are mass organizations.60 The important
role of ideology in the Cultural Revolution essay, is something
that Althusser would emphasize again with more theoretical rigor,
with the Ideological State Apparatuses in his On the Reproduction
of Capitalism. And echoes of that position can be seen in this
earlier essay.When Althusser notes that during the GPCR that it is
young people, particularly students, who are the vanguard, he notes
the importance of education in reproducing the dominant ideology:On
the one hand, in fact, the teaching system in place for the
education of the youth (we should not forget that school deeply
marks men, even during periods of historical mutation), was in
China a bastion of bourgeois and petit-bourgeois ideology. On the
other hand, the youth, which has not experienced revolutionary
struggles and wars, constitutes, in a socialist country, a very
delicate matter, a place where the future is in large part played
out. The youth is not revolutionary solely by the fact of being
born in a socialist country, nor from growing up hearing stories of
the exploits of its elders. If, despite all the energies of its
age, it finds itself, due to political failings, abandoned to an
ideological disarray or void, it is then given over to spontaneous
ideological forms that ceaselessly fill in this void: bourgeois and
petit-bourgeois ideologies, whether inherited from its own national
past, or imported from without. These forms find their natural
points of support in the positivism, empiricism and apolitical
technicism of scholars and other specialists. In return, if a
socialist country assigns its youth a great revolutionary task and
if it educates them for this action, not only will the youth
contribute, in the C.R., to the transformation of the existing
ideology, it will educate itself and transform its own ideology. It
is on the youth that ideology, of whatever sort, has the most
impact.61 This attack on bourgeois survivals of the superstructure
thus opens the road to greater revolutionization of the dominant
ideology and a way to continue the forward motion of the
revolution. It is in the ideological class struggle that the fate
(progress or regression) of a socialist country is played
out.62Althusser also upholds the Chinese concept of regression back
to capitalism because Marxism is not an evolutionary or economistic
philosophy. However, evolutionary forms of Marxism can not
recognize this, because they dont understand that the historical
dialectic allows for lags [dcalages], distortions, regressions
without repetition, leaps, etc.63 Althusser also attacks
evolutionary Marxists who deny the role of the primacy of ideology
and for their limited definition of class. Althussers elaboration
of social class is worth quoting at length:A social class is not
defined, in fact, solely by the positions of its members in the
relations of production and therefore by the relations of
production: it is also defined, at the same time, by their position
in political and ideological relations, which remain class
relations long after the socialist transformation of the relations
of production. There is no doubt that the economic (the relations
of production) defines a social class in the last instance, but
class struggle constitutes a system and is at work at different
levels (economic, political, ideological); the transformation of
one level does not make the forms of class struggle at the other
levels disappear. In this way, class struggle can continue quite
virulently at the political level, and above all the ideological
level, long after the more or less complete suppression of the
economic bases of the property-owning classes in a socialist
country. It is, then, essentially in relation to the forms of
political and especially ideological class struggle that social
classes are defined: depending on the side they take in political
and ideological struggles.64In fact, Althussers attackeconomistic
forms of socialism in his Cultural Revolution essay forms the basis
of his criticism of Stalin and the Stalinian deviation. While
Althusser, like Maoists generally upheld Stalins contributions in
building socialism in one country, industrializing the USSR, and
defeating the Nazis, and transmitting Marxism-Leninism to millions
of communists (albeit in a dogmatic form).65 And yet Althusser also
claimed that Stalin or the Stalinian deviation was a form of
economism that had afflicted the Communist movement since the 1930s
and was the posthumous revenge of the Second International : as a
revival of its main tendency.66
Stalin.d. The Stalinian DeviationFor Stalin and the USSR, from
1930-32 at least, was characterized by the consistent politics of
the primacy of the productive forces over the relations of
production.67 And this effected the whole of Soviet politics that
developed during this period planning, relation to the peasantry,
the role of the party, promotion of breakneck industrialization.
Now while Althusser believed this was perhaps necessary (and
unavoidable) due to the capitalist encirclement of the USSR, it did
have horrifying consequences such as the purges of the 1930s.68 And
on the theoretical level, the Stalinian deviation encouraged
economic evolutionism in pedagogical texts such as Dialectical
Materialism and Historical Materialism, the conjuring away of the
historical role of Trotsky and others in the Bolshevik Revolution
(Short History of the CPSU [B]); the thesis of the sharpening of
the class struggle under socialism; the formula: everything depends
on the cadres, etc. Among ourselves: the thesis of bourgeois
science/proletarian science, the thesis of absolute pauperization,
etc.69So far from promoting a return to the politics of Stalin,
Althusser believed that a Marxist critique of it was necessary, in
both theory and practice. And Althusser argued that the Secret
Speech of Nikita Khrushchev was not actually a left-wing critique
of Stalin, but a rightist one since it attributed all of Stalins
errors to the cult of personality and did not uncover the deeper
issues which caused the deviation:Now this pseudo-concept, the
circumstances of whose solemn and dramatic pronouncement are well
known, did indeed expose certain practices: abuses, errors, and in
certain cases crimes. But it explained nothing of their conditions,
of their causes, in short of theirinternaldetermination, and
therefore of their forms. Yet since itclaimedto explain what in
fact it did not explain, this pseudo-concept could only mislead
those whom it was supposed to instruct. Must we be even more
explicit? To reduce the grave events of thirty years of Soviet and
Communist history to this pseudo-explanation by the cult was not
and could not have been a simple mistake, an oversight of an
intellectual hostile to the practice of divine worship: it was, as
we all know, a political act of responsible leaders, a
certainone-sidedway of putting forward the problems, not of what is
vulgarly called Stalinism, but of what must, I think, be called
(unless one objects tothinkingabout it) by the name of a concept:
provisionally,the Stalinian deviation.70What was necessary in
contrast was to look at the contradictions of socialism that had
produced it. Whereas the Secret Speech just looked at the defects
of the legal apparatus, he neglected to look at the role of the
Ideological State Apparatuses (more below), the Repressive State
Apparatuses, and the existing relations of production, class
struggle, etc. In other words, only external and surface phenomena
were analyzed, not the deeper internal causes which are necessary
for a Marxist critique of Stalin.71However, since the Secret Speech
did not do that, it was a right-wing critique of Stalin and had
inevitable ideological effects encouraging humanism, bourgeois
forms of thought in the USSR, Eastern Europe and Communist Parties.
According to Althusser, Communists werefollowing the
Social-Democrats and even religious thinkers (who used to have an
almost guaranteed monopoly in these things) in the practice
ofexploitingthe works of Marxs youth in order to draw out of them
an ideology of Man, Liberty, Alienation, Transcendence, etc.
without asking whether thesystemof these notions was idealist or
materialist, whether this ideology was petty-bourgeois or
proletarian.72 This was a step backward for Marxists and Communists
around the world.Rather, what was needed was a left-wing critique
of Stalin, USSR and the practice of the Communist Parties. This was
something that the Chinese Revolution, and especially the Cultural
Revolution, did in practice (and what Althusser was doing in
theory). Althusser summed up the Chinese as offering asilent
critique, which speaks through its actions, the result of the
political and ideological struggles of the Revolution, from the
Long March to the Cultural Revolution and its results. A
critiquefrom afar.A critique from behind the scenes. To be looked
at more closely, to be interpreted. Acontradictorycritique,
moreover if only because of the disproportion between acts and
texts. Whatever you like: but a critique from which one can learn,
which can help us to test our hypotheses, that is, help us to see
our own history more clearly. But here too, of course, we have to
speak in terms of a tendency and of specific forms without letting
the forms mask the tendency and its contradictions.73So what made
the Chinese Revolution (and by extension his own theory) the first
left-wing critique of Stalin according to Althusser? Whereas
Althusser rejected Trotskyist criticisms of Stalinism as explaining
nothing,74 the Cultural Revolution, by contrast, had provided in
both theory and practice, a repudiation of the economism, primacy
of productive forces, humanism, evolutionism and rightism that
characterized Soviet Marxism.Thus, it was through the Cultural
Revolution that Althusser saw many elements of his critique of
Soviet and PCF Marxism realized: the over-determined nature of
contradictions in society (in this case socialism), an attack on
evolutionary or economist Marxists, its anti-teleological nature
(that the victory of communism was not guaranteed via the
development of the productive forces), and its bold new forms of
revolutionary practice in the mass organizations, and the central
role of ideology.
Louis Althussere. Ideology and Ideological State ApparatusesWe
have made a brief mention of Althussers discussion of the
importance of ideology during the GPCR, however, let us return to
how he saw ideology operating under capitalism. Althussers idea of
the ISAs were written about most clearly in 1969 in response to the
French student strikes of the previous year. There he discusses
modes of production with their four theses: 1. The dominance of one
mode of production in society, 2. the unity between the relations
and forces of production, 3. In order for the productive forces to
be able to reproduced, this needs to be done within the relations
of production, 4. That the economic base is determinant in the last
instance.75 However, in line with his earlier work, Althusser
emphasized that a mode of production was made up complex and
interacting practices existing in unity. Althusser also highlights
the importance of this understanding not only for capitalism, but
for socialist revolution:The mode of production of a class society
is quite the opposite of a mere technical process of production. At
the same time as it is the locus of production, it is the locus of
class exploitation and of class struggle as well. It is in the
productive process of the mode of production itself that the knot
of class relations and the class struggle bound up with
exploitation is tied. This class struggle pits the proletarian
class struggle against the capitalist class struggle It is easy to
understand the capitalists interest in depicting the process of
production as the opposite of what it is: as a purely technical
rather than an exploitative process It is also easy to understand
that the destiny of every class struggle, the victorious
revolutionary class struggle included, ultimately depends on an
accurate conception of the relations of production. To build
socialism, it will be necessary to establish new relations of
production that abolish concretely, the exploitative effects of the
previous relations of production, together with their class
effects. The construction of socialism can therefore not be settled
with purely legal formulas: ownership of the means of production
plus better technical organization of the labour
process.76Althusser is concerned in this work with how capitalism
is reproduced. Of paramount importance to the reproduction of
capitalism is the role of ideology which Althusser believes are not
mistaken ideas, but exist in definite material practices: Ideology
does not exist in the world of ideas conceived as a spiritual
world. Ideology exists in institutions and the practices specific
to them. We are even tempted to say, more precisely: ideology
exists in apparatuses and the practices specific to them.77
Ideology exists through the Ideological State Apparatuses, which
although private churches, schools, families, etc they reinforce
the rule of the bourgeoisie through ideology. And it is through the
ISAs that capitalist society is reproduced, not in the factory:
Now, however, we are entering a domain in which observing what goes
on in the enterprise is, if not totally blind, then very nearly so,
and for good reason: the reproduction of labor power takes place
essentially outside the enterprise.78 And according to Althusser,
following the GPCR and May 1968, the one Ideological State
Apparatus certainly has the dominant role, although hardly anyone
lends an ear to its music: it is so silent! This is the School.79
Ideology in this conception becomes a lived practice producing
people as subjects who obey the law, do their civic duty, shaping
our beliefs in line with the social institutions we are born and we
live within.Contrary to some critics, Althusser does not believe
that the role of the ISAs denies human agency. Rather, the ISAs are
necessary not only because the rule of the bourgeois can not be
secured only by force, but due to the constant of class struggle.
Just as the class struggle never ceases, so the dominant classs
combat to unify existing ideological elements and forms never
ceases. This amounts to saying the dominant ideology can never
completely resolve its own contradictions, which are a reflection
of the class struggle although its function is to resolve
them.80Just as there is conflict in the workplace, Althusser argues
that there is also struggle within ideology, which is contested by
class struggle. And that imposes specific demands on the communist
movement in dealing with the bourgeois and their ideology.The
working classs great strategic demand for autonomy reflects this
condition. Subjected to the domination of the bourgeois state and
the effect of intimidation and self-evidence of the dominant
ideology, the working class can win its autonomy only on condition
that it free itself from the dominant ideology, that it demarcate
itself from it, in order to endow itself with forms of organization
and action that realize its own ideology, proletarian ideology.
Characteristic of this break, this radical distance taken, is the
fact that it can be achieved only by a protracted struggle which
must take the forms of bourgeois domination into account and combat
the bourgeoisie within its own forms of domination, but without
ever being taken in by the game represented by these forms, which
are not simple, neutral forms, but apparatuses that realize the
existence of the dominant ideology.81What Althusser said of the
danger of being taken in by dominant ideology could easily be
applied to the Communist Party and their role during the May 1968
strikes. It is beyond the scope of this essay to give a detailed
account of the event. However, in May-June, France was hit with a
massive general strike of more than ten million students and
workers. The strike, represented (potentially) a revolutionary
challenge to capitalism in France. However, the PCF did not
champion the strike or make preparations for revolution, despite
their own professed program, rather they did everything withing
their power to keep the movement within bourgeois forms of legality
and economic struggle for better wages. Ultimately, the capitalist
order in France stabilized and the moment passed.Yet there was a
parting of ways between Althusser and the Maoists. While Althusser
was hospitalized during the May Strike, and did not directly
participate, he did later write and justify the PCFs stand drawing
the ire of his former students and the Maoist movement.82 Althusser
could not bring himself to break with the Party. And he remained
within its non-revolutionary orbit as the PCF ultimately embraced
Eurocommunism, formally abandoned any pretense of socialist
revolution and sunk into the electoral margins. The Maoists in
France, whether in the UJC, gauche proletarienne (GP), Vive la
revolution! (VLR) would break out on their own path seeking to keep
the fires of May alive.83 Yet they would do so without
Althusser.Despite Althussers aspirations, his project of developing
a revolutionary praxis for the PCF was doomed because that party
was on a rightward trajectory and had no intention of ever leading
a revolution, as its actions in May 1968 made abundantly clear. The
only chance Althusser had for developing a revolutionary praxis as
outside of the Communist Party, as his Maoist-oriented students
learned, but he never did.ConclusionThe Chinese Revolution, GPCR,
and Maoism, far from being another species of Stalinism, were in
fact a challenge to the inherited forms of Soviet Marxism. Maoism,
in its innovative philosophy, development of the mass line, its
road to revolution and for recognizing the contradictions which
continue to exist under socialism provided a left-wing critique in
both theory and practice of the USSR and their allied Communist
Parties. Louis Althusser saw in the Chinese revolution kindred
spirits to his own effort to reinvigorate Marxism and chart a new
revolutionary road for the French Communist Party. What ultimately
spelled the doom of Althussers project was that he didnt take this
commitment far enough and remained within the confines of the PCF
and was unable to develop a revolutionary practice.Notes1 Louis
Althusser, Essays in Self-Criticism (New Left Books: London, 1976),
92.2 Parts of this section include rewritten portions of my own
essays on Mao, notably: Mao Zedongs OnPractice, Enaadoug.
https://enaadoug.wordpress.com/2011/08/26/mao-zedung%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Con-practice%E2%80%9D/
; Leon Trotsky and Mao Zedong on Revolution: New Democracy and
PermanentRevolution, Enaadoug.
https://enaadoug.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/leon-trotsky-and-mao-zedung-on-revolution-new-democracy-and-permanent-revolution/
; Theory of the Offensive, Kasama Project.
http://www.kasamaproject.org/threads/entry/theory-of-the-offensive
; Enaa review: Maos Critique of Soviet Economics, Kasama Project.
http://kasamaproject.org/political-economy/3299-31enaa-review-mao-039-s-critique-of-soviet-economics3On
Practice, Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung (henceforth SWM) I.300.4
Ibid. 304.5 Ibid. 308.6On Contradiction, MSW I. 311.7 Ibid. 314.8
Ibid. 320.9 Ibid. 331.10 Ibid. 332.11 Ibid. 333.12 Ibid. 335-6.13
Where Do Correct Ideas Come From? Marxist Internet Archive.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-9/mswv9_01.htm14On
Contradiction, MSW I. 336.15Some Questions Concerning Methods of
Leadership, MSW III. 117.16 Ibid. 119.17 See Why is that Red
Political Power Exist in China? SWM 1.65-6.18Problems of Strategy
in Guerrilla War, SWM 2.103.19Strategy in Chinas Revolutionary War,
SWM 1. 237.20 Mao elaborated the Communist guerrilla tactics as
follows:With our tactics, the masses can be aroused for struggle on
an ever-broadening scale, and no enemy, however powerful, can cope
with us. Ours are guerrilla tactics. They consist mainly of the
following points:Divide our forces to arouse the masses,
concentrate our forces to deal with the enemy.The enemy advances,
we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack;
the enemy retreats, we pursue.To extend stable base areas,10 employ
the policy of advancing in waves; when pursued by a powerful enemy,
employ the policy of circling around.Arouse the largest numbers of
the masses in the shortest possible time and by the best possible
methods.These tactics are just like casting a net; at any moment we
should be able to cast it or draw it in. We cast it wide to win
over the masses and draw it in to deal with the enemy. Such are the
tactics we have used for the past three years.See A Single Spark
Can Start a Prairie Fire, SWM 1.24.21All Reactionaries are Paper
Tigers, SWM 5.517.22On Tactics Against Japanese Imperialism, SWM
1.160.23 See in particular: Mark Selden, The Yenan Way in
Revolutionary China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971) and
The Formation of Maos Economic Strategy, 1927-1949 in John G.
Gurley, Chinas Economy and Maoist Strategy (New York: Monthly
Review Press, 1976), 20-93.24 Isaac Deutscher, Russia, China, and
the West: A Contemporary Chronicle, 19531966 (London: Oxford
University Press, 1970), 104.25On the Correct Handling of
Contradictions Among the People, MSW 5.385.26 Ibid. 409.27 On The
Question Of Stalin: Second Comment on the Open Letter of the
Central Committee of the CPSU, Marxists Internet Archive.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/china/documents/polemic/qstalin.htm28
Mao Zedong, A Critique of Soviet Economics (New York: Monthly
Review Press, 1977), 51.29 Ibid. 61.30 Ibid. 93.31 Ibid. 121.32
Ibid. 135.33 Decision of the Central Committee of the Chinese
Communist Party Concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution, Marxists Internet Archive.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/china/peking-review/1966/PR1966-33g.htm34
See for starters: Dongping Han, The Unknown Cultural Revolution:
Life and Change in a Chinese Village (New York: Monthly Review
Press, 2008); Charles Bettelheim, Cultural Revolution and
Industrial Organization in China: Changes in Management and the
Division of Labor (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974); William
Hinton, Turning Point in China: An Essay on the Cultural Revolution
(New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972); E. L. Wheelwright and Bruce
MacFarlane, The Chinese Road to Socialism: Economics of the
Cultural Revolution (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970); Maria
Antonietta Macciocchi, Daily Life in Revolutionary China (New York:
Monthly Review Press: 1972).35 Quoted in John Gerassi, The
Comintern, the Fronts and the CPUSA in Michael Brown and others,
ed., New Studies in the Politics and Culture of US Communism (New
York: Monthly Review Press, ), 84.36 Alistar Horne,A Savage War of
Peace: Algeria 1954-1962(New York: New York Review of Books, 2006),
137.37 Irwin M. Wall, The French Communists and the Algerian
War,Journal of Contemporary History12 (Jul. 1977): 539.38 Gregory
Elliott, Althusser: The Detour of Theory (Chicago: Haymarket Books,
2006), 10-11.39 The Chinese would later criticize Soviet humanism
as follows:It substitutes humanism for the Marxist-Leninist theory
of class struggle and substitutes the bourgeois slogan of Liberty,
Equality, Fraternity for the ideals of communism. It is a
revisionist programme for the preservation and restoration of
capitalism.The Origin and Development of the Differences Between
the Leadership of the CPSU and Ourselves: Comment on the Open
Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Marx2Mao.org.
http://www.marx2mao.com/Other/OD63.html40 Quoted in Elliott 2006,
1.41 Ibid. 52.42 Louis Althusser, For Marx (New York: Penguin
Press, 1969), 93-4.43 Althusser 1969, 194.44 Louis Althusser and
Etienne Balibar, Reading Capital (London: New Left Books, 1970),
311.45 Althusser 1969, 217.46 Ibid. 113.47 Ibid. 202.48 See Elliott
2006, 19-20 and 169.49 Althusser 1969, 173-4.50 See ibid. 183-6.51
Elliott 2006, 73-74.52 Althusser 1976, 169.53 See Elliott 2006, 52.
Althusser himself later retracted the whole notion of theoretical
practice as a form of theoreticism. See ibid. 178.54 For more on
the Maoists see Elliott 2006, 174 and especially Richard Wolin, The
Wind from the East: French Intellectuals, the Cultural Revolution
and the Legacy of the 1960s (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2010).55 Althusser in 1966: Cultural Revolution, Party, State and
Conjuncture, Kasama Project.
http://kasamaproject.org/theory/2141-73althusser-in-1966-cultural-revolution-party-state-and-conjuncture56
Ibid.57 Ibid.58 Ibid.59 Ibid.60 Ibid.61 Ibid.62 Ibid.63 Ibid.64
Ibid.65 Althusser 1976, 91.66 Ibid. 90.67 Louis Althusser, On the
Reproduction of Capitalism (New York: Verso Books, 2014), 215.68 In
the late 1970s, Althusser signed an appeal for the rehabilitation
of murdered Bolshevik Nikolai Bukharin, see Richard Day, ed., N. I.
Bukharin: Selected Writings on the State and the Transition to
Socialism (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 1982), xxi.69 Althusser
1976, 79.70 Ibid. 80-1.71 Ibid. 81.72 Ibid. 83.73 Ibid. 92-3.74
Ibid. 81. According to a comrade of Althusser, the Maoist
influenced economist Charles Bettelheim, what limited Trotskyist
theories of socialist transition, such as those developed by Ernest
Mandel was that they did not hesitate What Mandel actually tries to
do is todeduce, from the most abstract categories relating to
socialist society, the more concrete economic categories that
characterise this society, or the transitional societies, together
with the practical laws that govern the working of these societies.
By so doing, he fails to follow the road that leads from the most
general abstractions to the concrete in thought. In order to
traverse this road one needs to go outside the simple relationships
of formal logic (deduction and reduction), and use the methods of
dialectical synthesis. It is in fact impossible to re-create the
concrete by merely adding abstractions together. It has to be
reproduced by means of dialectics, which is, indeed, the way in
which one gains access to reality. And in order to reach reality in
this way, one has to proceed by mediation,by reconstituting in
concepts the organic totality of a socio-economic formation,
something that can only be done by taking account ofall the
factorsthat make up this totality,including, of course, the factors
of practice,beginning with e