Ghostlier demarcations On the posthumous edition of Althusser’s writings

Gregory Elliott

ʻWe do not publish our own drafts, that is, our Corpet, Yann Moulier Boutang and François Math- own mistakes, but we do sometimes publish other eron, they may be classified as follows: peopleʼs.ʼ (1) Two volumes of autobiographical writings issued , 1963 in 1992 – the two memoirs (1985/1976) presented in ʻWhat use is Althusser?ʼ The question rhetorically LʼAvenir dure longtemps, suivi de Les Faits, and the posed on the Left Bank in 1968, as structures took to prison-camp notebooks and correspondence (1940–45) the streets, invites reactions other than the blunt rien assembled in the Journal de captivité. An expanded of (some of) those who recently marked the thirtieth version of LʼAvenir, including other autobiographical anniversary of their Maydays. When a selection from texts as well as three chapters omitted from the ʻconfes- his correspondence is published this autumn, a post- sionsʼ, appeared in 1994. A slack English translation of humous edition of Althusserʼs oeuvre will be nearing the first edition had been marketed in the UK the year completion that provides copious matter for sustained before by a mid-Atlantic conglomerate. Unfathomably, reflection and informed reaction. Yet if, as David the US version renders the Gaullist obiter dictum of Macey observed here three years ago, ʻ[t]he death Althusserʼs title The Future Lasts Forever. of the philosopher has led to a resurrection of his (2) Two volumes of psychoanalytical writings writingsʼ, then it is a cause for regret that the main – Ecrits sur la psychanalyse, from correspondence effect of one of them – the ʻwild analysisʼ of LʼAvenir with Jacques Lacan commenced in 1963 to Althusserʼs dure longtemps – has been more or less to eclipse the interventions in the controversy over the dissolution others. For it has furnished false warrant for aversion of the Ecole freudienne de (1980), published from, or recrimination against, the philosophico- in 1993; and Psychanalyse et sciences humaines, political history in which Althusser was a subject, as the text of two seminar presentations from 1963–64, a deranged process with a murderous telos.1 Redressing released in 1996. An abridged English edition of the the balance of the reception in the English-speaking Ecrits from Columbia came out the same year as the world to date is a task for future work, by many hands. seminars. For now, at the risk of the bland trailing the blind, (3) Four volumes of philosophical and political no more than a rudimentary inventory and overview, writings. The first, Ecrits philosophiques et politiques: with some side glances at the gathering secondary Tome I (1994), retrieved the bulk of the ʻearly writingsʼ literature, will be atttempted. (1946–50), translated by Verso last year; an unfinished manuscript on the ʻcrisis of Marxismʼ (1978); and The philosopher in his laboratory extracts from the late Althusserʼs speculations as to What does the posthumous edition comprise? In sum, a ʻSubterranean Current of the Materialism of the eight volumes, totalling approximately three thousand Encounterʼ (1982). The second, entitled Sur la philoso- pages (or half as much again as Althusser authorized phie (1994), collects interviews and correspondence during his lifetime), about one-third of which has with Fernanda Navarro (1984–87) ruminating on the been translated into English to date. Drawn from the ʻaleatory materialismʼ mooted in 1982. A third volume archives deposited at the Institut mémoires de lʼédition – Sur la reproduction (1995) – is composed of the contemporaine (IMEC) in Paris, and individually or 1969 book on ʻThe Reproduction of the Relations jointly edited with admirable diligence by Olivier of Productionʼ from which ʻIdeology and Ideological

20 Radical 90 (July/August 1998) State Apparatusesʼ was extracted the following year, an imaginary tribunalʼ6 – it would not have exempted together with that article and a retrospective ʻNoteʼ another book, likewise carefully prepared for publica- of 1976. Finally, a second offering of Ecrits philos- tion – that gem of a draft, no mistake: ʻMachiavelli ophiques et politiques (1995), arranged thematically, and Usʼ. Accordingly, if we would do well to heed selects diverse material from 1962–77: in particular, Gramsciʼs cautions about the status of ʻposthumous unfinished works on Feuerbach and ʻThe Humanist worksʼ,7 handle Althusserʼs with a care conspicuous by Controversyʼ (1967); texts related to the ʻPhilosophy its absence in the prevalent shanghaiing of LʼAvenir, Course for Scientistsʼ (1967–68); and an opuscule on and bear in mind that these materials discover the phil- Machiavelli derived from a lecture course in 1972, osopher-general mostly in his laboratory (sometimes scheduled for translation by Verso. in his labyrinth), extrusion of them as unauthorized is So much for the essential details. Before proceed- neither feasible, nor desirable. ing, it is worth mentioning that, under the stimulus of this ambitious programme, in 1996 Presses Universi- Archimedean points taires de France issued a variorum edition of Lire le Althusserʼs own tendentious account of his road to Capital, regrouping the four instalments of the second Marx in LʼAvenir has been amply aired, then queried; edition (1968–73) in the order of the two-volume and a previous article in this journal has skimmed original (1965); while later the same year, Editions the early writings, haunted by the spectres of Hegel la Découverte (formerly François Maspero) reprinted and Stalin.8 The ʻterrible education of deedsʼ9 under- Pour Marx with a remarkable preface and helpful gone by the pre-war royalist Roman Catholic finds its biographical note by Etienne Balibar.2 muffled echo in his Journal de captivité, a testament of Following the premature burial of 1980, then, a lost youth or to the pitiless demarcation of generation. resurrection of sorts has come to pass. The inter- The intrusion of ʻhistorical problemsʼ in ʻa life without est reawakened, albeit often rudely, by the ʻtrauma- historyʼ itself (JC, pp. 70, 245); the vacillation of faith, biographyʼ in 1992 was fuelled by the simultaneous rescued by resort to the wager of Althusserʼs constant appearance of the first part of Moulier Boutangʼs companion, Pascal (pp. 159–60); the volatilization of indispensable biography, covering 1918–56, the com- his , reorientated towards Communism by the pletion of which is eagerly awaited. The aspects of counter-example of Vichy (pp. 349–52), that ʻparade of Althusser disclosed by them, and corrected, corrobor- counter-revolutionary France in which Nazi Germany ated or complemented by subsequent volumes in the took the saluteʼ10 – these helped induce the postwar posthumous edition, have generated a lively literature ʻintellectual in armsʼ, ʻslicing up the world with a of which the colloquia proceedings edited by Matheron single blade, arts, literatures, , sciences and by Pierre Raymond (both 1997) are the most with the pitiless demarcation of classʼ.11 And thus it substantial items.3 was that Althusser, who up to the early 1950s might As to ʻdirections for useʼ, it is only proper to point have maintained that he was a Communist because out that although, on occasion, Althusser appears to he was a Catholic,12 had not done with his instruc- have envisaged a ʻposthumous works and correspond- tion – now courtesy of the PCF, a party of ʻFrench enceʼ,4 on others he expressed misgivings over the chauvinists and Russian patriotsʼ (as Léon Blum had phenomenon. Thus, at two points separated by an it) ranged against the Coca-colonisation of the Fourth interval of fifteen years, he regretted that Marxʼs Republic. Amid the crisis in the international Com- consignment of such drafts as the Paris Manuscripts munist movement after the demise of Stalin, and the and The German Ideology to his bottom drawer (plus unwitting desacralization of the CPSU by Khrushchev, resident mice) had not been accorded due respect by Althusser was obliged ʻto retreat, and, in semi-disar- editors and commentators.5 Since by far the greater ray, return to first principlesʼ.13 part of Marxʼs writings remained unpublished at his ʻI haveʼ, Althusser wrote to Lacan on 26 November death, the paradoxical effect of any consistent applica- 1963, ʻbeen pursuing obscure works on Marx for tion of the implied etiquette would, to look no further, some fifteen years. I have finally, slowly, laboriously have been to deprive posterity of precisely those works emerged from the night. Things are clear to me now. of Marxian maturity – Capital Volumes II and III, That austere inquiry, that long and harsh gestation, was for example – which Althusserianism counterposed to neededʼ (WP, 148). By now, the inquiry ranged beyond Marxʼs youth. In Althusserʼs own case, whilst it would Marx and had assumed a collective shape.14 Prior to have veiled the ʻautobiographical deliriumʼ of LʼAvenir the ʻReading Capitalʼ seminar of 1964–65, which – that ʻplea-indictment-confession … composed for consolidated and deployed their results, a sequence

Radical Philosophy 90 (July/August 1998) 21 of seminars had been held at the Ecole normale definition of psychoanalysis: this is what Lacan supérieure.15 In the wake of Althusserʼs opening salvo gives us. (pp. 71–2) on the subject, that of 1961–62 was devoted to ʻThe Althusserʼs second paper, peppered with references Young Marxʼ. The next academic year, coinciding to Anna Freud and Melanie Klein, evinced antipa- with publication of Lévi-Straussʼs Savage Mind and thy to the discipline seemingly most proximate to Foucaultʼs Birth of the Clinic, attention switched to psychoanalysis – psychology – whose credentials had ʻThe Origins of Structuralismʼ, with Althusser himself been submitted to withering inspection in Georges speaking on ʻFoucault and the Problematic of Originsʼ Canguilhemʼs 1956 lecture, ʻWhat is Psychology?ʼ and ʻLévi-Strauss in Search of his Alleged Ancestorsʼ. (subsequently reprinted in the Althussero-Lacanian At the time of the first exchange of letters with Lacan, journal Cahiers pour lʼanalyse).17 Psychoanalysis had Althusser and his pupils were engaged in a seminar effected an ʻepistemological breakʼ, ʻthe irruption of a on ʻLacan and Psychoanalysisʼ, in the course of which radically new disciplineʼ with the ʻpotential to disrupt Althusser wrote the article on ʻFreud and Lacanʼ the field in which it irruptsʼ (pp. 78–9). Successive eventually carried by La Nouvelle Critique – the very attempts at recuperation of it by psychology rested PCF publication in which psychoanalysis had been upon a conflation of ʻindividualʼ, ʻsubjectʼ and ʻegoʼ officially anathematized as a ʻreactionary ideologyʼ typical of the latter, which occluded the imaginary fifteen years earlier. structure of the ego and the irreducible alterity of the Hitherto, ʻFreud and Lacanʼ has represented the unconscious (pp. 104–6). Freudʼs revolution, ʻwhich sole available evidence of Althusserʼs own input into you have restoredʼ (so Althusser flattered Lacan), the joint enterprise of 1963–64, which featured con- entailed ʻrejection of any homo psychologicusʼ (WP, tributions by (among others) Balibar, Michel Tort, p. 149). Meanwhile, against any absorption of psycho- Jacques-Alain Miller and Yves Duroux. In Psych- analysis by biology, Althusser maintained that Freudʼs analyse et sciences humaines, we now have recon- discovery revolved around the ʻpassage from the bio- stituted versions of the papers he presented – the first logical to the culturalʼ, or the infantʼs entry into the on ʻThe Place of Psychoanalysis in the Human Sci- ʻsymbolic orderʼ via ʻthe defiles of the signifierʼ (pp. encesʼ, the second on ʻPsychoanalysis and Psychologyʼ. 81–2). Surveying the Gallic encounter with Freud, in the The leitmotivs sounded in the seminar papers of former Althusser was concerned to demarcate Freud- 1963–64 resound in the ʻculturalistʼ interpretation ian theory from the ʻphilosophy of intersubjectivityʼ, advanced in ʻFreud and Lacanʼ (later acknowledged and hence from the Sartrean ʻexistential analysisʼ that as such by Althusser [WP, p. 32]), with which Writ- took its ʻconcreteʼ bearings from Georges Politzerʼs ings on Psychoanalysis opens. The remainder of Critique of the Foundations of Psychology (1928).16 the volume records the rise and fall of the alliance At the same time he declined a certain anthropologiza- between Althusserian and Lacanian psycho- tion of Freudian concepts which effectively construed analysis, institutionalized with Lacanʼs relocation of the super-ego as a latter-day ʻpineal glandʼ conjoin- his own seminar to the Ecole normale through Althus- ing biological individual and social collective. (This serʼs intermediation in January 1964. Two themes are equally applied to the identification of psychoanalyst perhaps of particular interest. The first is Althusserʼs and shaman by Lévi-Strauss, said to be ʻbecoming a counterposition of a ʻlogic of irruptionʼ to the problem- specialist in a generalization of the pineal glandʼ: p. atic of ʻoriginsʼ, in conceptualizating the starting 56.) The ʻmethods of intellectual terrorismʼ employed point of a historical process (p. 61). The habitual by Lacan, on the other hand, were motivated by a Althusserian term for the advent of Marxism and ʻradical refusalʼ of ʻmechanisticʼ or ʻintersubjectivistʼ Freudianism alike is surgissement, with its sense of distortions of psychoanalysis, serving a ʻreturn to ʻsudden appearanceʼ or ʻspringing upʼ. Ben Brewsterʼs Freud and a theoretical interpretation of [his] textsʼ otherwise excellent translations of the 1960s and 1970s (pp. 69–70). They thus facilitated specification of the tend to conceal this, since they invariably render the ʻde jure relationship … between psychoanalysis and French by ʻemergenceʼ, with its more genetic-evolution- the world of the human sciencesʼ: ary connotations. In correspondence with his analyst, René Diatkine, dating from 1966, in which Althusser To penetrate this world, we require the point which Archimedes demanded so as to be able to see sought to impress upon him Lacanʼs ʻunique original- further … in my opinion there are two anchorage ityʼ (pp. 48–9), the idiom of surgissement – felici- points. One is the theoretical results of the problem- tiously translated as ʻirruptionʼ by Jeffrey Mehlman atic inaugurated by Marx.… And the other … is – is frequent. Contrary to the ʻnecessarily teleological the possibility of a consistent, rigorous and valid

22 Radical Philosophy 90 (July/August 1998) … structure of every genesisʼ, both Freudʼs theory It is a false conception of the object, and thus of and (more importantly) its object – the unconscious the claims of linguistics, which effectively gener- – were to be conceived as the ʻirruption of a new ates the risk of ʻlosing the libidoʼ. If the formula ʻthe unconscious is structured like a languageʼ is realityʼ – a process which Althusser sought to clarify understood as one which presupposes the deductive by reference to the ʻirruption mechanism of one deter- application of linguistics to an object dubbed un- minate mode of productionʼ, as analysed by Balibar in conscious, then one is indeed faced with a formula Reading Capital (pp. 57–64). In the instance of the which is reductive of its specific object, and with a unconscious, Lacanʼs ʻhypothesis that the structures loss of the libido. (p. 159) of language (say, of the symbolic) play a determining role in the mechanism issuing in [its] irruptionʼ (p. 73), A prophet in his own country? was upheld; the Lacanian ʻlikeʼ – ʻthe unconscious is Of Marxisms real and imaginary structured like a languageʼ – meant that there could be ʻSo many questions… How to respond…?ʼ, Althusser ʻno question of reducing the theory of the unconscious inquired of his interlocutors at the end of his third to a chapter or a subchapter of general linguisticsʼ note (p. 170). But if, according to a letter of 1977 (p. (p. 64). 5), ʻ[e]very question does not necessarily imply an This brings us to a second intriguing aspect of the answerʼ, a decade earlier Althusser was confident that Althusserian liaison with Lacan: the determination he had at least tabled some of the requisite questions; – vain, as it transpired – to obviate his assimilation to and, as he informed a session of the Société française what Althusser disdained as ʻthe idealist aberrations of de philosophie in February 1968, ʻhumanity only finds the “structuralists”ʼ (p. 171), in a letter to Lacan of 11 an answer to the problems which it can pose.ʼ19 Indeed, July 1966, some months before his addresseeʼs Ecrits in his November 1963 letter to Lacan Althusser struck were collected. This is plainly apparent from ʻThree an evangelical note: Notes on the Theory of Discoursesʼ drafted in the I am prophesying, but we have entered, in large second half of 1966 (EPFL, pp. 117–70), regrettably measure thanks to you, into an era in which one can omitted from the English translation of Ecrits sur la finally be a prophet in oneʼs own country. I have no psychanalyse. These initiated a sequence of lengthy merit in running the risk of this prophecy; hence- exchanges over the next eighteen months among a forth we have a right to it, since we possess the means for it, in this country at last become ours. group whose personnel comprised Althusser, Balibar, (pp. 149–50) Duroux, Tort, Pierre Macherey and Alain Badiou, and which Althusser hoped would lead to a collective ʻEle- The intervening years have more nearly vindicated ments of Dialectical Materialismʼ – a ʻveritable work St Matthew. At the time of writing, however, Althusser of philosophy which could be our Ethicsʼ, as he put it had published the majority of the articles whose col- in a letter to Balibar of 14 October 1966 (p. 113).18 lection in For Marx in September 1965 propelled In the ʻNotesʼ to hand, much taken up with the him into the Parisian limelight – but not before they articulation of the unconscious and ideology, the struc- had aroused the political suspicion of his party. Days turalist pretention to unify the ʻhuman sciencesʼ via the after communicating with Lacan, the article which linguistic model was met with a fin de non-recevoir by he had enclosed with his letter – ʻOn the Material- an Althusser insistent upon the differential singularity ist Dialecticʼ – was the subject of a session of the of the sciences. Lacanʼs recourse to Saussure and management committee of La Pensée, presided over Jakobson, fertile in itself, nevertheless indulged the by Georges Cogniot, co-founder of the journal and illict, hegemonizing ambitions of structural linguistics secretary to Communist leader, Maurice Thorez. At a as relayed by Lévi-Strauss (pp. 127–8). The ʻregionalʼ PCF Central Committee meeting the previous month discipline of linguistics, whose object was that par- on the Sino-Soviet split, Althusserʼs work had been ticular discourse known as langue, could function as criticized by Lucien Sève for its Maoist inflections; and an ʻepistemological “guide”ʼ for the missing ʻgeneral rejoinders to ʻContradiction and Overdeterminationʼ theory of discoursesʼ to which psychoanalysis, whose (1962) by party philosophers had taken Althusser to object was the discourse of the unconscious, likewise task on a variety of scores, from the Marx–Hegel pertained (pp. 168–9). Contra linguistic ʻformalismʼ, relationship to the primacy of the economic. In an however, it did not constitute that general theory, and extraordinary ʻReply to a Critiqueʼ (EPP2, pp. 351–91), psychoanalysis was misconceived as a subset of it, formulated in advance of the La Pensée confron- with the attendent consequence of a dematerialization tation on 30 November 1963, Althusser anticipated 20 of Freudian theory: – and repudiated – his criticsʼ objections. Although

Radical Philosophy 90 (July/August 1998) 23 tactically distancing himself from the political line of the Chinese Communist Party, he upheld the ʻtheoretical valueʼ of the categories introduced in Maoʼs On Contradiction (p. 381). As to the accusation of ʻdualismʼ pressed by those who registered a culpable silence on the ʻdialectics of natureʼ, Althusser replied that since he lacked ʻcompetenceʼ on the ʻstructures peculiar to natural processesʼ, he had ʻsaid nothing about themʼ. ʻA scientist who has made a foolish remark … keeps quiet, often for years, for fear of making another. This is not generally the case in our philosophical sphereʼ, Althusser acidly rebuked his comrades (p. 379). ʻAlthusserianismʼs paradoxʼ, Jacques Derrida reflected in 1989, ʻwas that it claimed hardening and transformation simultaneously.… But in both traits … it was playing to lose – more and Foucaultʼs Order of Things in April and Lacanʼs Ecrits faster.ʼ21 If ʻMaoismʼ affords convenient shorthand in November. for the political terms of that paradox, ʻstructuralismʼ ʻImaginary Marxismsʼ: such was Raymond Aronʼs is the appellation mal contrôlée for its theoretical verdict on the Sartrean and Althusserian enterprises terms, Sèveʼs diagnosis of a structuralist ʻcontamina- of the 1960s. Conceded by Althusser in LʼAvenir and tionʼ of Marxism being the moderate expression of elsewhere, it – or rather Althusserʼs construal of it – is a critical consensus perhaps overdue for revision.22 disavowed by Balibar in his preface to the re-edition An astringent text of 1966, ʻOn Lévi-Straussʼ (EPP2, of Pour Marx.24 What he calls ʻThe Quarrel of the pp. 417–32), penned shortly after Maurice Godelierʼs “Real” and the “Imaginary” Marxismsʼ (PM, p. ii) sketch of a Marxist–structuralist synthesis, and cir- incited by For Marx was intensified that November by culated to Emmanuel Terray and others,23 reproved Lire le Capital, where, to underscore Marxʼs putative the ʻfunctionalismʼ of the Lévi-Straussian social rupture with the German ideology, Balibar himself unconscious, the ʻformalismʼ of the structuralist com- ventured to describe historical materialism as ʻa most binatory, and the homologization of words, women unusual structuralismʼ (LLC, p. 650). and goods consequent upon an abusive extrapolation For Marx may be regarded as an anti-History and of Saussureanism to non-linguistic objects. Albeit that Class Consciousness (translated into French in 1960); they were ʻcursoryʼ, Althusser reckoned his criticisms Reading Capital was more than an anti-Critique of had located ʻthe precise point which distinguishes Dialectical Reason (published the same year).25 If the us from Lévi-Strauss and, a fortiori, from all the classification of their results as an ʻimaginary Marxismʼ “structuralists”ʼ (p. 430). designed to turn the flank of the PCF leadership is That demarcation had been publicly signalled in a misleading, the ʻreturn to Marxʼ of their self-concep- lecture, ʻThe Philosophical Conjuncture and Marxist tion is unilluminating. The motto in which the Royal Theoretical Researchʼ (EPP2, pp. 393–415), before Society spurned the authority of the past – Nullius a packed auditorium at the Ecole normale in June in verba (in the words of no one else) – was not an 1966. The grandiose research programme mapped option for Althusser, required by his organizational by Althusser looked for domestic allies to the tradi- allegiance to invoke the founder. Yet in so doing, he tion of historical epistemology (Cavaillès, Bachelard, not only mounted a critique of ʻhistoricalʼ Marxism Koyré and Canguilhem), and to Lacanian psycho- and Communism26 but also deployed Marx against analysis, rather than Lévi-Strauss, let alone ʻvoguish- himself, inducing the anti-humanist and anti-historicist Parisian ideological by-productsʼ (p. 403) – a vogue ʻtheoretical revolutionʼ of the Althusserian reconstruc- raised to fever pitch by two products of that year, tion. Hence, perhaps, another paradox, encapsulated by

24 Radical Philosophy 90 (July/August 1998) Sève: ʻOne of the strongest Marxist thinkers of this Meanwhile, an unfinished counter-polemic on ʻThe century … was doubtless never exactly a Marxian.ʼ27 Humanist Controversyʼ (EPP2, pp. 435–532), in which However that may be, as the introduction to the Althusser demurred at his leadersʼ edict (pp. 438–9), 1996 reissue of Lire le Capital clarifies (pp. v–vi), traversed much of the relevant terrain. A scherzando the twelve seminar sessions on Capital held in the preface evoked Erich Frommʼs commission, and then Salle des Actes from January to April 1965 conju- rejection, of a text for an international symposium on gated several different projects, whose intertwinement humanism (pp. 435–40).31 The article that resulted accounts for the richness of the published record: – ʻMarxism and Humanismʼ (1964) – had elicited a ʻcritical rereading of Marxʼs scientific oeuvreʼ; a numerous critical responses in Communist periodicals. ʻrecasting of the categories and figures of the dia- Whereas it had ʻsettled out of hand the question of lecticʼ, steered by the notion of ʻstructural causal- Marxʼs intellectual evolution in two linesʼ (p. 436), ityʼ and intimately related to a reinterpretation of Althusser now scanned that evolution at some length, the basic concepts of Freudian psychoanalysis; an offering his most extended discussion of the ʻworks of endeavour to substitute a problematic of ʻtheoretical the breakʼ, and emphasizing the centrality for Marx practiceʼ for the ʻtheory of knowledgeʼ; and a ʻfinal and Engels of Stirnerʼs The Ego and its Own (pp. project which, subjectively at least, governed all the 475–6). The ʻnotion of manʼ was an ʻepistemologi- othersʼ – ʻthe search for a communist politics, of cal obstacleʼ to the science of history. In his mature Spinozist inspiration (“theoretical anti-humanism”), works, which would conceive [communism] as the necessary Marx starts from the abstract and declares it. That development of freedom, rather than as the “exit from does not mean that for Marx men, individuals, and the kingdom of necessity”ʼ. their subjectivity have been erased from real history. The Althusserian reversal of alliances against It means that the notions of Man, etc. have been ʻhumanismʼ – sanctioned by the conviction that erased from theory, for I am not aware that anyone has ever encountered man in the flesh and blood in nothing inhuman was alien to it28 – caused a scandal theory, but only the notion of man. (p. 483) within and without PCF ranks. At an assembly of Communist philosophers in January 1966, which the Reaffirming the theoretical anti-humanism of Marx, principal culprit could not attend, Garaudy led an Althusser likewise declared ʻthe anti-historicism, anti- assault, repaid in kind by Macherey. Two months evolutionism, and anti-structuralism of Marxist theoryʼ later, the PCF Central Committee, while conceding (p. 447). But if he was manifestly playing to win, freedom of research, resolved that ʻMarxism is the Althusser was advised that it would be a long game: humanism of our timeʼ.29 Althusser was undeterred; if ʻtheoretical humanism has “happy days” ahead of it his 1985 memoirs are to be credited, ʻaround 1967ʼ he for a long time to come. No more than those of the even risked the ʻawful remarkʼ: ʻwe are in the process evolutionist, historicist and structuralist ideologies, of becoming hegemonicʼ (FLLT, p. 144). Immediately its “account” will not be settled by next springʼ – a after For Marx and Reading Capital, he had set to fortiori since next spring was May ʼ68. work on an alternative manual of Marxism-Leninism The Paris Spring derailed the last major collective to those available from Progress Publishers and/or venture of the Althusserians, the ʻPhilosophy Course Editions Sociales, extracted in the maoisant organ for Scientistsʼ staged in 1967–68. Althusserʼs own of the Communist students of the rue dʼUlm the fifth contribution, anatomizing the ʻinvariantʼ struc- month after the Central Committee meeting at Argen- ture of the classical theory of knowledge, has now teuil.30 In 1967 he delivered a lecture course on The been published (EPP2, pp. 257–98), thus completing German Ideology which began with an examination of Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy of the Feuerbach (EPP2, pp. 172–251), whose ʻphilosophical Scientists (1974). While the course was under way, manifestosʼ of 1838–45 Althusser had translated in complementary private exchanges with Badiou, Balibar 1960 and whose Essence of Christianity he would and co. ruminated on the nature of philosophy (EPP2, publish in the Théorie series in 1968. In turn, he pp. 301–48), endeavouring to stabilize a ʻpoliticistʼ envisaged incorporating this material, in which the redefinition of it.32 In the midst of them, Althusser pon- secret of Feuerbachian anthropology resided in theo- dered the ʻsymptomatic readingʼ of Capital advanced logy, into a work on ʻThe Breakʼ, intending to assume in 1965, querying one of its principal results: responsibility for chapters on Feuerbach, the 1844 I also wonder if it might not be considered that Manuscripts and the Theses on Feuerbach himself, what we treated as irrational residues in Capital (a while Balibar took charge of The German Ideology. discrepancy between the old categories and those

Radical Philosophy 90 (July/August 1998) 25 which would be required by the new scientific prob- with the parties to the dispute are beyond our remit.34 lematic) – that is to say, a certain anthropological But that the contradictory pressures of the conjuncture Hegelianism … – does not ʻrepresentʼ in Capital the post-May prompted a series of ʻautocritiquesʼ, whose ʻphilosophyʼ announced by Marx in the Theses on concessions to critics issued in a ʻbad return of the Feuerbach. (p. 321) repressedʼ, is evident enough.35 This consideration would weigh heavily with the later Esprit de système, esprit de contradiction: even as Althusser, who might have subscribed to Derridaʼs he composed the most dogmatic of his ʻrectificationsʼ detection of the ʻcoup de force of an artificial strategy – the Reply to John Lewis (1972) – Althusser was … an interpretative violenceʼ committed, but not admit- privately parodying the ʻlaws of the dialecticʼ and his 33 ted, in Reading Capital. own declaration of the ʻTheses of Marxist-Leninist The aftershocks of May were soon the order of the philosophyʼ (EPP1, pp. 345–56).36 Matters took a more day. In 1965 Balibar had sought to infer ʻelements for serious turn in the mid-1970s, with the anti-Marxist a theory of transitionʼ from an analysis of the concept Operation ʻNew Philosophyʼ in the wake of Solzhe- of reproduction. Post-May, Althusser embarked on a nitsynʼs immensely influential Gulag Archipelago. And conjoint theory of reproduction and revolution. Signifi- soon enough it was Marxism and Althusserianism that cantly, however, only the first volume, treating the were experiencing a crisis. former, was substantially completed, in March–April 1969; while a second, given over to ʻclass struggle Brief encounters, or a throw of the dice in capitalist social formationsʼ, was seemingly never In an undelivered conference paper of 1976, pub- begun. ʻThe Reproduction of the Relations of Produc- lished without permission in 1983 (WP, pp. 85–104), tionʼ, presented by Jacques Bidet (SR, pp. 5–14), has Althusser had retracted his ratification of Lacan (the finally been released. Space allows no more than points de capiton did not, after all, furnish ʻanchorage three remarks. The first is that Althusser proved to pointsʼ). The following year, he proclaimed the ʻcrisis be his own best editor in singling out the sections of Marxismʼ at an Il Manifesto gathering in Venice. on the ISAs and ideology in general for La Pensée The ʻhour of additionʼ had struck, so a letter of January in 1970. These represent his key innovations and the 1978 confided to a Georgian friend (EPP1, pp. 525–9). full version (as Jean-Jacques Lecercle justly noted in In an abortive manuscript on ʻMarx dans ses limitesʼ RP 87, pp. 41–2) adds nothing to them specifically. (EPP1, pp. 357–524), whose thrust was conveyed in Second, the resonance of not only the May events two Italian publications in 1977–78,37 Althusser took in France but also the Cultural Revolution in China his own cue, lashing out at Glucksmann, Lévy and pervades this didactic exposition of the fundamentals the like, while calling for a ʻlabour of correction and of Althusserian Marxism-Leninism. Notwithstanding revisionʼ of the Marxism of Marx, Lenin and Gramsci. seriatim criticisms of formerly existing socialism, Breaking off in the middle of a discussion of Gramsci Althusserʼs political optimism was unbounded: ʻWe and politics, this manuscript indicates that Althusser are entering an age which will witness the triumph did hasten to address, even if he failed to resolve, the of socialism the world overʼ (p. 24). Contrariwise – a indicated crisis.38 third observation – anarcho-libertarianism, with its The electoral Ides of March 1978 tolled the knell prioritization of ʻrepressionʼ and denigration of knowl- of the phase of French politics opened by May ʼ68, edge as authoritarian (pp. 213–15), was identified as provoking the frontal assault on the PCF leadership the proximate ideological beneficiary of the student in Le Monde with which Althusserʼs public career revolt. (Marcuseʼs One-Dimensional Man, released came to an effective end. As we now know, however, in the very month of May, became an immediate Althusser did not cease to think and write in the best-seller, outstripping a concurrent Althusserian interval between the murder of his wife in November publication: Poulantzasʼ Political Power and Social 1980 and his own death a decade later. Where the Classes.) ʻearly writingsʼ have shed light on the pre-Althus- In this respect, at any rate, May was (as Foucault sur- serian terminus a quo – baldly put, Catholicism and mised) ʻprofoundly anti-Marxistʼ. Of more immediate Hegelianism – the late table the question of the (post-) significance for our purposes, it was explicitly or Althusserian terminus ad quem: is right implicitly anti-Communist, with decisive consequences to identify what, alluding to Heideggerʼs ʻturnʼ, he has for an Althusser trapped between the anvil of Com- dubbed ʻAlthusserʼs Kehreʼ?39 munist discipline and the hammer of ultra-leftist con- Before responding, a word on the extremely uneven testation. The intricacies of Althusserʼs transactions materials themselves, divisible into two groups:

26 Radical Philosophy 90 (July/August 1998) (1) the late writings in the strict sense: ʻThe Subterranean Current of the Materialism of the Encounterʼ, drafted in 1982 (EPP1, pp. 539–79); Philosophy and Marxismʼ, constructed between 1984 and 1987 (SP, pp. 13– 79); LʼAvenir dure longtemps, hastily contrived in 1985; three chapters on Spinoza, Machiavelli and the ʻpoliti- cal situationʼ originally intended for LʼAvenir (ADL, pp. 467–526). (2) ʻMachiavelli and Usʼ (EPP2, pp. 42–168), a lecture series given at the Ecole normale in 1972,40 intermit- tently revised in accordance with the idiom of the late Althusser up until 1986 or so, and manifestly destined for posthumous publication. The first group of texts revolves around the project of what Althusser calls an ʻaleatory materialismʼ, or ʻmaterialism of the encounterʼ, which amounts (in Alex Callinicosʼs words) to ʻan extreme The strictures of Pierre Raymond on the ʻvery rejection of a teleological conception of the historical approximateʼ character of the intuitions in ʻThe Sub- processʼ.41 Supposedly originating with , and terranean Currentʼ and the interviews with Fernanda variously continued by Machiavelli, Hobbes, Pascal, Navarro are difficult to gainsay: ʻAlthusser … accumu- Spinoza, Rousseau, Marx, Nietzsche and Heidegger,42 lates some very different philosophical sources … this ʻ“authentic” materialismʼ is positively contrasted and various heterogeneous themes which he never with an incorrigible ʻdialectical materialismʼ, derided analyses distinctly or precisely.ʼ44 The same cannot as a ʻyellow logarithmʼ (SP, pp. 35, 32). ʻMy essen- be said of his singleminded analysis of the encounter tial thesisʼ, writes Althusser in ʻThe Subterranean of Fortuna and Virtù in The Prince, which confirms Currentʼ, the soundness of Terrayʼs judgement prior to publica- [is] the existence of a materialist tradition almost tion of ʻMachiavelli and Usʼ that there was nothing completely unrecognized in the history of phil- ʻfortuitousʼ about the Althusserian encounter with the osophy … : a materialism of the encounter, hence Florentine Secretary.45 of the aleatory and of contingency, which is op- In LʼAvenir Althusser characterizes Spinoza as posed … to the various registered materialisms, a ʻnominalistʼ, commenting: ʻMarx taught me that including the materialism commonly attributed to Marx, Engels and Lenin, which, like every material- nominalism was the royal road to materialism. In fact, ism in the rationalist tradition, is a materialism of it leads only to itself, but I can think of hardly any necessity and , that is to say, a transformed more profound form of materialism than nominalismʼ and disguised form of . (pp. 539–40) (FLLT, p. 217).46 And in response to Navarro, invok- Acknowledged not to be ʻa Marxist philosophyʼ, it ing Wittgensteinʼs ʻthe world is what the case isʼ, he is proposed as a potential ʻphilosophy for Marxismʼ specifies the ʻfundamental thesisʼ of nominalism as (SP, pp. 37–8) – one to which Marx himself was only the exclusive existence of singular ʻcases, situations, ambiguously affiliated, ʻforced to think in an horizon things … totally distinct from one anotherʼ (SP, p. 46). rent between the aleatory of the Encounter and the Althusserʼs Machiavelli, who demands to be treated necessity of the Revolutionʼ (EPP1, p. 560). In thus at length elsewhere, is a nominalist in the stipulated identifying anti-finalism as the defining characteristic sense: his ʻobjectʼ is not some general theory of the of any consequent ʻmaterialismʼ, the late Althusser was ʻlawsʼ of history or of politics, but the conjunctural resuming the Spinozist critique of Hegelian teleology conditions for the foundation of a durable new prin- summed up in the category of ʻa process without a cipality by a new prince. That the Discourses and subject or goal(s)ʼ.43 The Prince yield ʻMachiavellian maxims, rather than

Radical Philosophy 90 (July/August 1998) 27 Hobbesian lawsʼ47 is the source of their unprecedented ingly in the 1960s, most strikingly in an unpublished power for Althusser: working note from 1966 which reads like an outline for ʻThe Subterranean Currentʼ: Machiavelli is in no way a utopian: he merely thinks the conjunctural case of the [singular] thing, 1. Theory of the encounter or conjunction (= gen- [ʻleaving aside imaginary things, and referring only esis … ) (cf. Epicurus, clinamen, Cournot), chance to those which truly existʼ]. He declares it in con- etc., precipitation, coagulation. 2. Theory of the cepts which are philosophical, and which doubtless conjuncture (= structure) … philosophy as general make him … the greatest materialist philosopher theory of the conjuncture (= conjonction). (quoted of history, the equal of Spinoza, who declared him in EW, p. 10) ʻacutissimusʼ. (EPP2, p. 161) In retrospect, what else was ʻContradiction and Now, the most acute problem posed by all these Overdeterminationʼ – and the correlative ʻunderdeter- materials is that of the discontinuity or otherwise minationʼ belatedly appended to it – but the sketch for between the unknown Althusser of the 1980s and the a theory of the necessary contingency of history?53 (overly familiar) Althusser of the 1960s and 1970s. This was an enterprise whose centrepiece of ʻover- On inspection, as the date of composition of ʻMachia- determinationʼ aimed to supersede the dichotomy of velli and Usʼ might predispose us to think, there are ʻconjunctureʼ and ʻstructureʼ, just as its conception demonstrable elements of continuity between them. of the latter tended towards a refusal of methodo- Thus, ʻnominalismʼ is, as Sève has suggested, Althus- logical individualism and holism alike;54 an enterprise, serʼs ʻmost profound philosophical inclinationʼ – a pursued in ʻOn the Materialist Dialecticʼ and Reading verdict that could be strengthened by reference to the Capital, whose unresolved tension between singular 1966 article ʻOn Theoretical Workʼ, published in La conjunctures and invariant structures Althusser ulti- 48 Pensée the following year. Similarly, as Matheron mately sought to resolve by catching the ʻmoving trainʼ has argued, the category of the ʻencounterʼ of the mid-1980s (SP, pp. 64–6). The metaphor is re- is not a belated discovery of Althusserʼs: it con- employed in his last pathetic ʻPortrait of the Materialist stitutes one of the fundamental tendencies of the Philosopherʼ, drawn in hospital in July 1986: articles collected in For Marx. It is asserted in all The manʼs age has no importance. He can be very the texts whose object is the conjuncture, and which old or very young. attempt to show what it means to think theoretically The essential thing is that he does not know from the standpoint of a task to be accomplished, where he is and wants to go somewhere. and not from the angle of the fait accompli.49 That is why, as in American Westerns, he always takes a moving train. Without knowing whence he ʻThe Subterranean Currentʼ peters out with a contrast comes (origin) or whither he goes (end). And he between two conceptions of ʻmode of productionʼ in descends en route… Marx – ʻhistorico-aleatoryʼ and ʻteleologicalʼ, respec- tively – referring back to Balibarʼs ʻgenealogyʼ of the Without having wanted to, he … becomes a quasi-professional materialist philosopher – not capitalist mode of production in Reading Capital, dialectical-materialist, that abomination, but alea- while maintaining that Marx himself succumbed to the tory-materialist… latter (pp. 569–76). Minus the critical note, however, the project of an alternative logic of the constitution of He can then discuss with the great idealists. He not only understands them, but explains the reasons modes of production – categorized as a ʻtheory of the for their theses to them! And the others are some- encounterʼ or ʻconjunctionʼ, in an unpublished letter of times won round in bitterness – but so what 1966 – pervades Althusserʼs writings.50 Late Althusse- amicus , magis amica Veritas! (EPP1, pp. rian aleatorism, we might conclude, is but a unilateral 581–2) inflection of a recurrent Althusserian tendency. If one theme, explicitly formulated as such, runs Shades of Althusser like a red thread through Althusserʼs oeuvre, then it is Some proposals for future research have been made the ʻnecessity of contingencyʼ,51 tributary to Cournotʼs elsewhere;55 and it would be otiose (not to say dis- definition of chance events as the unpredictable con- courteous) to reiterate them here. It is, however, sequence of the intersection of independent causal scarcely hazardous to propose that the immediate series. Introduced to Cournot by Jean Guittonʼs phil- result of the posthumous edition is to render the osophy curriculum at the Lycée du Parc in Lyon from available syntheses of Althusserʼs thought inadequate 1936,52 Althusser invoked him sparingly but approv- – a fact that should not unduly discountenance their

28 Radical Philosophy 90 (July/August 1998) authors, since they have long been out of print. Its ganized Bibliography, which also offers a list of the wider impact either side of the Channel is imponder- principal secondary literature in French and English since Althusserʼs death. For the sake of convenience, able. Revisiting his critiques of Sartre and Althusser references to Althusserʼs own texts will henceforth be in his memoirs, Aron remarked that for three decades abbreviated as follows: LʼAvenir dure longtemps (second after the Liberation, ʻParisian ideological fashions edition) to ADL; The Future Lasts a Long Time to FLLT; were accompanied on each occasion by a reinterpreta- Journal de captivité to JC; Ecrits sur la psychanalyse 56 to EPFL; Writings on Psychoanalysis to WP; Psychana- tion of Marxism.ʼ In the subsequent quarter-century, lyse et sciences humaines to PSH; Ecrits philosophiques they have been accompanied by re-editions of manda- et politiques I to EPP1; Early Writings to EW; Sur la tory anti-Marxism – often as not by soixante-huitards philosophie to SP; Sur la reproduction to SR; Ecrits turned fifty-somethings, graduates (in Todd Gittlinʼs philosophiques et politiques II to EPP2; Pour Marx to PM; and Lire le Capital to LLC. words) from ʻJʼaccuse to jacuzziʼ. And notwithstand- 3. Apart from the occasional contribution, the four col- ing a government of the ʻplural Leftʼ whose seeming lections in English published since 1990 (Kaplan and commitment to French ʻexceptionalismʼ exasperates Sprinker 1993; Elliott 1994; Lezra 1995; and Callari and Ruccio 1996) either effectively predate the post- transatlantic commentators for whom globalitarianism humous edition, or focus their attention elsewhere (but is the Law and the Prophets, anti-Communism remains see the forthcoming issue of Rethinking Marxism, Winter a potent ideological force in a country where Eric 1998). The same is true of the full-length studies by Hobsbawmʼs Age of Extremes, translated into twenty Resch (1992) and Majumdar (1995), and of two excel- lent earlier French volumes: Balibar (1991) and Lazarus languages, has struggled to find a publisher because of (1993). its insufficiently disobliging account of the Communist 4. In a letter of 18 November 1963 to Franca Madonia experience. For its left-wing critics of thirty years ago, (quoted in EW, p. 11 n. 1). the PCF still served as an ʻinstitutionalized reminder, 5. Cf. the appendix to ʻRéponse à une critiqueʼ (1963), EPP2, pp. 385–87 (from which my epigraph is taken), [a] mnemonic device, … holding the place in the pages and ʻMarx dans ses limitesʼ (1978), EPP1, p. 381. 57 of historyʼ. Today, under the influence of François 6. The apt characterizations of Albiac (ʻAlthusser lecteur Furetʼs Le Passé dʼune illusion (1995) or Stéphane dʼAlthusserʼ, p. 10) and Balibar (ʻAvant-proposʼ to PM, Courtoisʼ Le Livre noir du communisme (1997), with p. v). 7. See ʻProblems of Marxismʼ, in Antonio Gramsci, Selec- its inverted-Marxist innovation of ʻclass genocideʼ, tions from the Prison Notebooks, ed. and trans. Quintin right-thinking people are more liable to apprehend les Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, Lawrence & Wishart, lendemains qui hantent.58 London, 1971, pp. 382–6 (esp. p. 384). Made with ref- In these circumstances, where the terms of intel- erence to the Marxist canon, much of the piquancy of Gramsciʼs comments derives from their immediate per- lectual engagement are now very different, Althusser tinence to the very text in which they feature. – ʻpolitical agitator in philosophyʼ – is doubly suspect. 8. See my review article, ʻFateful Rendezvous: The Young A Marxist and a Communist – the latter because he Althusserʼ, RP 84, July/August 1997, pp. 36–40. was the former – for many his posthumous oeuvre 9. Introduction to For Marx, trans. Ben Brewster, Allen Lane, London, 1969, p. 21. conjures up shades of a past which deserves no future. 10. H.R. Kedward, Fascism in Western Europe 1900–45, From the cooler clime of Britannia a more temperate Blackie, London and Glasgow, 1969, p. 163. response is indicated. The revenant may have ʻsome 11. For Marx, p. 22. In addition to Moulier Boutang (1992), see the illuminating discussion by Stanislas Breton, impartmentʼ: let us not hasten to exorcise him. ʻAlthusser et la religionʼ, in Raymond (1997), pp. 155–66, where François Furetʼs facile observation on Notes the ʻseductionʼ of Catholic intellectualas by the October I am grateful to Peter Osborne and colleagues for the commis- Revolution is reproved (p. 161). Cf. Furet, Le Passé sion; and to Geoffrey Goshgarian for an almost continuous dʼune illusion: Essai sur lʼidée communist au xxe siècle flow of information. (1995), Livre de Poche, Paris, 1997, p. 175. 12. Compare Spenderʼs credo of the thirties: ʻI am a Com- 1. See David Macey, ʻThe Lonely Hour of the Final munist because I am a liberal.ʼ Analysisʼ, RP 67, Summer 1994, pp. 45–7 (here p. 45); 13. For Marx, p. 22. and cf. Gabriel Albiac, ʻAlthusser lecteur dʼAlthusser: 14. Althusserʼs pride in this ʻcollective workʼ was conveyed lʼautobiographie comme genre imaginaireʼ, in Math- in a letter of 17 September 1966 to Franca Madonia, eron (1997) pp. 7–21 (esp. p. 8). My own thoughts on quoted in WP, p. 11. For testimony to the authenticity LʼAvenir can be consulted in ʻAnalysis Terminated, Analysis Interminable: The Case of Louis Althusserʼ, in of his claims, see, for example, Balibarʼs remarks at his Elliott (1994), pp. 177–202. An unhappily representative funeral: ʻAdieuʼ, in Balibar (1991), pp. 119–23, esp. pp. review is David Papineau, ʻThe Philosopher Emperor 120–21. Who Had No Clothesʼ, Independent on Sunday, 14 No- 15. See the presentation of LLC, p.vi and the introduction vember 1993. to WP, pp. 1–2. 2. So as not to overburden the notes, full details of these 16. For Politzerʼs influence, readers are referred to the help- volumes have been consigned to a chronologically or- ful discussion in David Archard, Consciousness and the

Radical Philosophy 90 (July/August 1998) 29 Unconscious, Hutchinson, London, 1984, pp. 38–40. PM, pp. xiii–xiv. 17. With its celebrated conclusion in which the philosopher 25. On For Marx, see Balibar, ʻThe Non-Contemporaneity offers the psychologist a choice of directions: ʻwhen you of Althusserʼ, in Kaplan and Sprinker (1993), pp. 1–16, leave the Sorbonne by the rue Saint-Jacques, you can esp. pp. 5–6. Balibar notes (p. 15 n. 7) that Althusserʼs either ascend or descend. If you go uphill, you reach acquaintance with Lukácsʼ text probably derived from the Pantheon, which is the Conservatory of a few great Merleau-Pontyʼs Adventures of the Dialectic. On Read- men; but if you go downhill you are inescapably head- ing Capital, cf. Jean-Pierre Cotten, La Pensée de Louis ing for the Préfecture de policeʼ (ʻQuʼest-ce que la psy- Althusser, Editions Privat, Paris, 1979, p. 71 n. 33. chologie?ʼ, in G. Canguilhem, Etudes dʼhistoire et de 26. In addition to the texts by Balibar already cited, see philosophie des sciences, Librairie J. Vrin, Paris, 1968, Costanzo Preve, ʻLouis Althusser: la lutte contre le sens pp. 364–81; here p. 381). The lecture was reprinted in commun dans le mouvement communiste “historique” Cahiers pour lʼanalyse, no. 2, April 1966. au xxe siècleʼ, in Lazarus (1993), pp. 125–36. 18. An unpublished circular dated 11 July 1966 indicates 27. ʻAlthusser et la dialectiqueʼ, p. 135 n. 99 (see pp. 135– that a seminar on Spinoza was scheduled for the aca- 6). demic year 1966–67, which Althusser was slotted to 28. See François Regnault, ʻPortrait du philosopheʼ, in La- introduce with a paper on ʻSpinozaʼs Anti-Cartesian- zarus (1993), pp. 161–76, esp. p. 175. Cf. FLLT, pp. ismʼ, and in which Badiou and Macherey were due to 185–6. participate. 29. See EPP2, pp. 523–4; and cf. Jeanine Verdès-Leroux, Le 19. ʻLénine et la philosophieʼ, Bulletin de la société Réveil des somnambules: Le parti communiste, les intel- française de philosophie, October/December 1968; pp. lectuels et la culture (1956–1985), Editions de Minuit, 127–81; here p. 173. The allusion on both occasions is Paris, 1987, pp. 113–27. to Marxʼs claim in the 1859 Preface, dear to Gramsci, 30. An unpublished manuscript of the period on ʻSocialisme that ʻMankind … inevitably sets itself only such tasks idéologique et socialisme scientifiqueʼ (88 pp.) presum- as it is able to solveʼ (Early Writings, Penguin/NLR, ably pertains to the same project. Harmondsworth, 1975, p. 426). 31. Erich Fromm, ed., Socialist Humanism: An International 20. When, a decade later, extracts from his ʻReplyʼ were Symposium, Doubleday, New York, 1965 (Allen Lane, published in Patrick Kesselʼs compendium on Maoism London, 1967). (Le Mouvement ʻmaoisteʼ en France: Textes et docu- 32. See Alain Badiou, ʻQuʼest-ce que Louis Althusser entend ments, 1963–1968, Union Générale dʼEditions, 10/18, par “philosophie”?ʼ, in Lazarus (1993), pp. 29–45 and Paris 1972, pp. 64–6), Althusser disclaimed authorship François Matheron, ʻLa Récurrence du vide chez Louis of the text (see EPP2, pp. 23–4). Althusserʼ, in Matheron (1997), pp. 23–47, esp. 35–7. One of Althusserʼs critics – Guy Besse – was the 33. Cf. Derrida, ʻPolitics and Friendshipʼ, pp. 223–4, where co-author with Maurice Caveing of the official Princi- he declares his belief that ʻonto-theo-teleology is in- pes fondamentales de philosophie (Editions Sociales, eradicable in Marxʼ – a conviction developed in Specters Paris 1954), to which Politzerʼs name was attached. In of Marx (1993), trans. Peggy Kamuf, Routledge, New it the categories of Maoʼs On Contradiction (published York and London, 1995 (on which see the symposium in French in Cahiers du Communisme, nos 7–8, August in RP 75, January/February 1996, pp. 26–41). 1952) had been assimilated to Soviet ʻdiamatʼ: see pp. 34. Suffice it to say that it is irreducible to what Simon 109–32. Clarke once deemed a ʻsordid historyʼ, with a confidence At a colloquium in 1995 Sève returned to the subject in inverse proportion to competence (see his ʻAlthus- of Althusserʼs Maoism: see ʻAlthusser et la dialectiqueʼ, serian Marxismʼ, in S. Clarke et al., One-Dimensional in Raymond (1997), pp. 105–36. ʻ[W]hyʼ, he inquired, Marxism: Althusser and the Politics of Culture, Allison ʻdid Althusser, this inflexible customs officer as regards & Busby, London, 1980, p. 16). concepts in fraudulent transit from Hegel to Marx, from 35. Cf. Balibar, ʻStructural Causality, Overdetermination and Feuerbach to Marx, prove so lax when it came to those Antagonismʼ, in Callari and Ruccio (1996), pp. 110–19 deriving from Mao…?ʼ (p. 129). (esp. p. 112), and in PM, p. xii. The quoted phrase is 21. ʻPolitics and Friendship: An Interview with Jacques from Regnault, ʻPortrait du philosopheʼ, p. 172. Derridaʼ, trans. Robert Harvey, in Kaplan and Sprinker 36. See also the letters of 1972 and 1974 to Jean Guitton, (1993), pp. 183–231; here p. 210. quoted in Guitton, Un Siècle, une vie, Robert Laffont, 22. Postscript to the third French edition (1974), in Sève, Paris, 1988, Part IV, ch. 4, ʻAlthusserʼ; and a psycho- Man in Marxist Theory and the Psychology of Person- analytical burlesque ʻOn the Transfer and Counter- ality, trans. John McGreal, Harvester, Hassocks, 1978, Transferʼ, omitted from WP, in EPFL, pp. 173–86. p. 481. 37. ʻThe Crisis of Marxismʼ, trans. Grahame Lock, in Il 23. Piloted in Aletheia, no. 4, May 1966, Godelierʼs ʻSys- Manifesto, ed., Power and Opposition in Post-Revolu- tème, structure et contradiction dans “Le Capital”ʼ was tionary Societies, Ink Links, London, 1979, pp. 225– published in Les Temps Modernes in November 1966. 37; ʻMarxism Todayʼ, trans. James H. Kavanagh, in L. His Rationality and Irrationality in Economics (trans. Althusser, Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy Brian Pearce, NLB, London, 1972) appeared the same of the Scientists and Other Essays, Verso, London and year. New York, 1990, pp. 267–80. 24. See Raymond Aron, Dʼune sainte famille à lʼautre: Es- 38. Cf. Perry Anderson, In the Tracks of Historical Material- sais sur les marxismes imaginaires, Editions Gallimard, ism, Verso, London, 1983, p. 30. Paris, 1969, esp. pp. 69–276, ʻAlthusser ou la lecture 39. ʻNotes on the Evolution of the Thought of the Later pseudo-structuraliste de Marxʼ. And compare Althusser, Althusserʼ, in Callari and Ruccio (1996), pp. 51–68; FLLT, pp. 148, 221 and SP, pp. 37, 88, with Balibar, here p. 58.

30 Radical Philosophy 90 (July/August 1998) 40. For an evocation of it by one of those who attended, Dialectical Theories of Literature, Princeton University see Timothy OʼHagan, ʻ“Machiavelliʼs Solitude”: An Press, Princeton NJ, 1971, p. 273. Introductionʼ, Economy and Society, vol. 17, no. 4, No- 58. For responses to Furet and Courtois, see, respectively, vember 1988, pp. 461–7. Eric Hobsbawm, ʻHistory and Illusionʼ, New Left Review 41. ʻLost Illusionsʼ, RP 74, November/December 1995, pp. 220, November–December 1996, pp. 116–25 and Le 42–4; here p. 43. Monde Diplomatique, December 1997, pp. 22–3. For 42. In 1989 Derrida pronounced Heidegger ʻthe great una- rejoinders to the revisionist intellectual historiography voidable thinker of this centuryʼ for Althusser – ʻ[b]oth of Tony Judt and Sunil Khilnani, see Fredric Jameson, the great adversary and also a sort of essential ally or ʻExit Sartreʼ, London Review of Books, 7 July 1994, pp. virtual recourseʼ (ʻPolitics and Friendshipʼ, pp. 189–90). 12–14, and my own ʻContentious Commitments: French The late Althusserʼs explicit recourse to him is evidenced Intellectuals and Politicsʼ, NLR 206, July–August 1994, in the correspondence with Fernanda Navarro in SP, pp. pp. 110–24. 92–137. 43. As Callinicos, ʻLost Illusionsʼ, p. 43, notes. Bibliography 44. ʻLe Matérialisme dʼAlthusserʼ, in Raymond (1997), pp. Primary 169–79: here p. 174. Raymond points (p. 172) to his own La Résistible fatalité de lʼhistoire (Albin Michel, Paris, (1992a) LʼAvenir dure longtemps, suivi de Les Faits: Au- 1982) as the source of many of Althusserʼs formula- tobiographies, edited and presented by Olivier Corpet tions. and Yann Moulier Boutang, Editions Stock/IMEC, Paris 45. See his fine essay, ʻAn Encounter: Althusser and Machia- 1992, x + 357 pp; second, expanded edition, Le Livre velliʼ (1993), in Callari and Ruccio (1996), pp. 257–77; de Poche, Paris 1994, 573 pp. here p. 276. And see also Antonio Negri, ʻMachiavel (1992b) Journal de captivité: Stalag XA – 1940–1945, edited selon Althusserʼ, in Matheron (1997), pp. 139–58. and presented by Olivier Corpet and Yann Moulier Bou- 46. On Spinoza, see FLLT, pp. 216–18 and ADL, pp. 467–87, tang, Editions Stock/IMEC, Paris, 1992, xix + 356 pp. where nominalism is adjudged ʻthe only conceivable ma- (1993a) Ecrits sur la psychanalyse: Freud et Lacan, edited terialismʼ (p. 478). On the theses attributed by Althusser and presented by Olivier Corpet and François Matheron, to Spinoza, see Pierre-François Moreau, ʻAlthusser et Editions Stock/IMEC, Paris 1993, 310 pp.; Le Livre de Spinozaʼ, in Raymond (1997), pp. 75–86. And on the Poche, Paris, 1996. theme of ʻnominalismʼ, cf. SP, pp. 46–7, 64–6. (1993b) The Future Lasts a Long Time and The Facts, trans. 47. A phrase borrowed from Alasdair MacIntyre, ʻIs a Sci- Richard Veasey, introd. Douglas Johnson, Chatto & Win- ence of Comparative Politics Possible?ʼ, in Against the dus, London, 1993, xviii + 365 pp. Self-Images of the Age: Essays on Ideology and Phil- (1994a) Sur la philosophie, coll. ʻLʼInfiniʼ, Editions Gal- osophy, Duckworth, London, 1971, pp. 260–79; here p. limard, Paris, 1994, 179 pp. 273. (1994b) Ecrits philosophiques et politiques: Tome I, edited 48. Trans. James H. Kavanagh, in Philosophy and the and presented by François Matheron, Editions Stock/ Spontaneous Philosophy of the Scientists, pp. 43–67. IMEC, Paris, 1994, 588 pp. Cf. Sève, ʻAlthusser et la dialectiqueʼ, p. 133, and the (1995a) Ecrits philosophiques et politiques: Tome II, edited extracts from Althusserʼs letter of 13 September 1966 and presented by François Matheron, Editions Stock/ to Franca Madonia, quoted in EPFL, pp. 114–15. IMEC, Paris, 1995, 606 pp. 49. ʻLa Récurrence du vide chez Louis Althusserʼ, pp. 39– (1995b) Sur la reproduction, introd. Jacques Bidet, coll. 40. ʻActuel Marx Confrontationʼ, Presses Universitaires de 50. ʻSur la genèseʼ, 22 September 1966: an item in the ex- France, Paris, 1995, 316 pp. changes between Althusser et al. of 1966–68, which (1996a) (with Etienne Balibar et al.) Lire le Capital, edited refers to the second letter to Diatkine of August 1966 and presented by Etienne Balibar, Pierre Bravo Gala and (WP, pp. 54–77). Cf., for example, ʻThe Humanist Con- Yves Duroux, coll. ʻQuadrigeʼ, Presses Universitaires de troversyʼ (1967), EPP2, p. 519. France, Paris, 1996, xvii + 665 pp. 51. For an indication of just how ubiquitous it is, see my (1996b) Psychanalyse et sciences humaines: Deux conférenc- ʻThe Necessity of Contingency: Some Notes on a es (1963–1964), edited and presented by Olivier Corpet Themeʼ, forthcoming in Rethinking Marxism, Winter and François Matheron, coll. ʻBiblio-essaisʼ, Le Livre 1998. de Poche, Paris, 1996, 123 pp. 52. Moulier Boutang (1992), p. 141. (1996c) Pour Marx, presented by Etienne Balibar, coll. ʻLa 53. See especially PM, pp. ix, xii–xiii, where the invocation Découverte/Pocheʼ, Editions La Découverte, Paris, of ʻunderdeterminationʼ in ʻIs it Simple to be a Marx- 1996, xiv + 277 pp. ist in Philosophy?ʼ (1975) is cited (Philosophy and the (1996d) Writings on Psychoanalysis: Freud and Lacan, trans. Spontaneous Philosophy of the Scientists, pp. 221–3). Jeffrey Mehlman, coll. ʻEuropean Perspectivesʼ, Co- Cf. the late Althusserʼs allusion to it in SP, p. 121. lumbia University Press, New York, 1996, ix + 194 54. Balibar, PM, p. vii; and see also his ʻLʼObjet dʼAlthusserʼ, pp. in Lazarus (1993), pp. 81–116, esp. p. 94; ʻStructural (1997) The Spectre of Hegel: Early Writings, trans. G.M. Causality, Overdetermination, and Antagonismʼ, p. 115; Goshgarian, Verso, London and New York, 1997, 264 and The Philosophy of Marx (1993), trans. Chris Turn- pp. er, Verso, London and New York, 1995, pp. 30–32, on Secondary Marxʼs ʻontology of relationsʼ. Allouch, Jean, Louis Althusser récit divan: Lettre ouverte à 55. In conclusion to ʻThe Necessity of Contingencyʼ. Clément Rosset, EPEL, Paris, 1992. 56. Mémoires, Editions Julliard, Paris, 1983, p. 579. Balibar, Etienne, Ecrits pour Althusser, Editions La 57. Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form: Twentieth-Century Découverte, Paris, 1991.

Radical Philosophy 90 (July/August 1998) 31 Callari, Antonio and David Ruccio, eds, Postmodern Ma- Pluto Press, London and East Haven CT, 1995. terialism and the Future of Marxist Theory: Essays in Matheron, François, ed., Lire Althusser aujourdʼhui, Futur the Althusserian Tradition, Wesleyan University Press, Antérieur/Editions LʼHarmattan, Paris, 1997. Hanover and London, 1996. Moulier Boutang, Yann, Louis Althusser: Une biographie Elliott, Gregory, ed., Althusser: A Critical Reader, Blackwell, – Tome I: La Formation du myth (1918–1956), Bernard Oxford and Cambridge MA, 1994. Grasset, Paris, 1992. Futur Antérieur, 1993 (special issue on Althusser). Payne, Michael, Reading Knowledge: An Introduction to Kaplan, Ann E. and Michael Sprinker, eds, The Althusserian Barthes, Foucault and Althusser, Blackwell, Oxford Legacy, Verso, London and New York, 1993. and Malden MA, 1997. Lazarus, Sylvain, ed., Politique et philosophie dans lʼoeuvre Pommier, Gerard, Louis du néant: La mélancholie dʼAlthusser, de Louis Althusser, Presses Universitaires de France, Editions Aubier, Paris, 1998. Paris, 1993. Raymond, Pierre, ed., Althusser philosophe, Presses Univer- Lezra, Jacques, ed., Depositions: Althusser, Balibar, Mach- sitaires de France, Paris, 1997. erey, and the Labor of Reading, Yale French Studies 88, Resch, Robert Paul, Althusser and the Renewal of Marxist Yale University Press, New Haven CT, 1995. Social Theory, University of California Press, Berkeley M: Mensuel, Marxisme, Mouvement 43, January 1991 (spe- and Los Angeles, 1992. cial issue on Althusser). Rosset, Clement, En ce temps-là: Notes sur Louis Althusser, Magazine littéraire 304, 1992 (special issue on Althusser). Editions de Minuit, Paris, 1992. Majumdar, Margaret, Althusser and the End of Leninism?,

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