Copyright is owned by the Author of the thesis. Permission is given for a copy to be downloaded by an individual for the purpose of research and private study only. The thesis may not be reproduced elsewhere without the permission of the Author. A POST-MODERN SOCIALISM?: THE PROMISE OF A REVIVED LEFT COMMUNISM A thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology at Massey University Chamsy OjeiJi 1999 11 ABSTRACT The emergence of the post-modem heralds the eclipse of the two dominant modes of socialist orthodoxy in the twentieth century - social democracy and Leninism. These developments are often taken as signalling the exhaustion of socialism in general. The demise of orthodoxy, however, encourages a reconsideration of long marginalised strands of socialist thought and practice, the left communist tradition. Socialist orthodoxy was a statist project, conquered by the goals of capital accumulation, nationalism and social security. Breaking from this mode of politics and vision of the good society, post-modernism today stands as an inescapable intellectual and political horizon for socialists. Of particular note are the post-modem rejections of scientific guarantees, vanguardist representation and the vision of social transparency. Similar rejections figure within the left communist tradition. However, some aspects of post-modernism work against socialist aspirations; notably the tendency towards uncritical pluralism, a retreat from any explicit theorisation of capital and the state, and an often fragile utopian dimension. Left communism addresses these shortcomings. Believing that freedom and community can be achieved only through a collective project, left communists are committed to a radical extension of popular sovereignty against domination by the state and capital. They adhere to cosmopolitan values and to the goals of classical social theory, while rej ecting vanguardism in all its forms. Most importantly, seeking a life beyond proletarianisation, left communism retains a robust sense of utopian possibilities. On these grounds, this thesis argues that a negotiation between left communism and post-modem leftism promises a future for socialism in the contemporary period. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would firstly like to extend my immense gratitude to my two supervisors, Brennon Wood and Gregor McLennan. Brennon's tremendous intellectual energy has never waned, and a significant chunk of this thesis developed through our Wednesday meetings, which I will miss horribly. With great sensitivity and generosity, Brennon has guided me through a rather drawn-out finishing-off period. Gregor, too, has been amazing. Never betraying any exasperation at having to read yet another of my long and tedious drafts, Gregor has always been able to extract himself from the tiresome detail of my text to "hit the cause". The level of encouragement and inspiration that Brennon and Gregor have offered me has been astounding and invaluable. I find it hard to imagine another PhD candidate being able to boast of supervision by two such impressive intellectuals and fantastic human beings. Thanks must also go to the general and academic staff at the Massey Sociology Department - a great bunch of people. I would especially like to single out Associate Professor Peter Beatson whose sense of humour and intelligence have enriched post-grad life in the Department. Warmest thanks, too, to the following post-grads whose camaraderie has aided my work immensely and made my three years at Massey so wonderful: Grant Alien, Helen Cain, Bruce Cronin, Francisca da Gama, Lincoln Dalhberg, Sarah Donovan, Becca Etz, Sheryl Hann, Jonathan Thell, Angela Jury, Steve Kemp, Ruth McManus, Maureen O'Malley, Nick Roelants, Matt Shepherd, and Deb Thien. Finally, special thanks to my terrific family - Hicham el-Ojeili, Margaret Cummins, Hana el­ Oj eili, Craig Wattam, Serafine and Arshile - and to Kirsty Wild. -- ---- -------- CONTENTS Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Contents iv Chapter One Introduction 1 Chapter Two The Post-modern Condition and the Retreat of the 9 Socialist Project • Introduction • "The liberation from capital is nowhere on the agenda of politics" - The Defeat of Socialism and the Rise of Post-Modernism • "Making socialist values count" - Socialist Orthodoxy Restated • "Radical and plural democracy" - The Post-Marxist Alternative • "To shed light on an existing historical movement" - The Left Communist Tradition • Conclusion Chapter Three What is to be done? Intellectual, Party, Theory 45 • Introduction • "Yes, the dictatorship of one party!" - From the Second International to Bolshevism • "Revolutions do not allow anyone to play schoolmaster with them" - Left Communism on Parties and Intellectuals • "Social truth is not a fixed quality" - The Function and Content of Theory • Conclusion Chapter Four Left communism and the Crisis of Socialist Values 91 • Introduction • "A remarkable consensus?" - Victorious Liberalism and its Discontents • "A superior level of moral culture" - Left Communism and Socialist Morality • "A struggle to realise freedom" - Individuality and Community in Communist Liberty • Conclusion Chapter Five The Problem of "Really Existing Socialism", and the 130 World Without Wages • Introduction • "A new form of dictatorship" - Communist Autocracy and its Orthodox Critics • "How not to impose communism" - Initial Enthusiasm and Growing Disillusionment • "The last garb donned by a bourgeois ideology" - Leninism as Capitalism • "The abolition of the wages system" - The World Without Wages • Conclusion Chapter Six The State, Revolution, and Socialist Democracy 170 • Introduction • "The dictatorship of the proletariat is also a state" - The State Conquers Socialism • "Radical Marxism merges with anarchist currents" - Marxism, Anarchism, and the State • "Statism is the exact opposite of socialism" - Left Communism and the State • "The battle of democracy" - Post-Capitalist Organisation • Conclusion Chapter Seven The Turn to Culture, and Utopia at the End of History 216 • Introduction • "A single gigantic industrial concern" - Socialist Orthodoxy and the Interpretation of Culture • "We are in an era of regression" - The Pessimistic Moment • "Warm communism" - The Politics of Everyday Life • "The partisans of possibilities" - Left Communism and Utopia at the End of History Bibliography 260 Chapter One Introduction "It is not what is, but what could be and should be, that has need of us" (Castoriadis, I 997a:4I7). The advent of the post-modem appears to signal the eclipse of the socialist project. Post­ modernism is incredulous before socialism's totalising and teleological narrative that posits liberation, harmony, and societal transparency at an approaching end of history. Post­ modernists reject the totalising, determinist, and scientific approach to social theorising so characteristic of socialist thought. And, emphasising "the contingent, precarious, limited character of what remains" (Laclau, 1994: 1,3), post-modernists have jettisoned the socialist belief in identity as mere recognition. Indeed, the two modes of socialist orthodoxy that have dominated the last eighty years - social democracy and Leninism - seem today to be "definitively exhausted" (Beilharz, 1993:3), leaving those on the left "bewildered and uncertain of the future" (Eberstein, Eberstein, and Fogelman, 1994:32). However, this is only a part of the story. Contrary to the early anxieties of many Marxist thinkers, it is now clear that the socialist urge is far from dead within post-modernism. Pre­ eminent post-modem thinkers such as Said, Foucault, Derrida, Spivak, Baudrillard, Deleuze, Guattari, Lyotard, and Butler remain(ed) left-progressive intellectuals, committed to the extension and deepening of democracy, and the post-modem mood or cultural orientation is decidedly gauchiste. More generally, as Beilharz (1993:54) notes, "socialism remains one of the narratives of modernity". The ideals associated with the French Revolution and given radicalised content by the socialist project - liberty, equality, fraternity, and the "sovereignty of the people" - still preside in the post-modem imagination. Rejecting, then, the commonsensical assumption that socialisml is finally deceased, in the following thesis I identify a still relevant tendency of communist thought - "left communism" - that is historically, politically, and philosophically separate from (though hardly unscathed by the failures of) social democracy and Leninism. Left communism offers a distinct alternative to the two dominant modes of socialism, and, moreover, it addresses 2 itself to a consciousness that is still extant. I thus argue that left communism demands a hearing from progressive-left thinkers who, with the breakdown of socialist orthodoxy, have taken up political and philosophical positions of a broadly post-modem variety. In his Postmodem Socialism, Peter Beilharz (1994:3,9) seeks to "rub" post-modernism and 2 socialism against each other, to stage a conversation between these two broad fields. According to Beilharz, such a coupling would mean an articulation of the substantive socialist elements that are still with us with the modest post-modem sensibility that demands a differentiated, skeptical, culturally-oriented, and "negative but persistent" socialism without illusions. I agree with Beilharz on the necessity and the result of such a conversation. It seems to me that this would be best achieved by a negotiation between left communism and post-modernist