It is the very idea of Communism that is to be questioned, insofar as it implies an anti-political view of society whereby all antagonisms would eventually be ruled out, and in which domination, the ...State, and all the other regulating institutions would be deprived of any relevance. Clearly, social divisions and antagonisms are socially constitutive. They demand or aspire to hegemonic order. In consequence, the substance of emancipation does not consist in reconciliation but in a radical democracy, in the extension of democratic struggle to ever larger social fields.
It is not a mere accident if the notion of The Common designates both what is shared by several and something which is banal or trivial. Nothing is more shared than that which is most ordinary. The ...consequence is that the representations of a « Communism »-even if we leave aside the reference to the various regimes which appropriated the idea of « communism »- are so easily charged with the mistrust which is addressed to the idea of levelling, and with the accusation of seeking to liquidate distinction and superiority. What is collective is accused of stifling originality. « Real » communisms did nothing to try to project a different image. However the communist idea need involve nothing that is « common ». On the contrary. It should open upon the denunciation of the vulgarity of individualism.
The following preparatory notes are offered as a reaction to a somewhat surprising event: the renewed interest in « communism » and its symbolism. These remarks seek to define the conditions for a ...genuine debate, one that will avoid confusions and impostures. “Who are the communists?” in a given political conjuncture. That is a question which, today, in the framework of a global capitalist crisis, must be given primacy over the question “what is communism?” We must remind ourselves, furthermore, that this was already the case in the Communist Manifesto. A genealogy must nevertheless be attempted, if we are to trace back Marxian communism to its multifold (Western) background. To conclude, these remarks offer a diagnosis of the theoretical aporias in Marx, which are also the conditions for a critical incorporation of his theory within new emancipatory projects.
It is evident that when Marxist communism achieved its actual realization the State became omnipotent and the Public falsified the Common. Do struggles for communism therefore have to start by ...eliminating Marx’s thought? The answer is no. Communism needs Marx in order to root itself within Common praxis. Contrary to what a few contemporary philosophers think, without historical ontology there is no communism. Without a logic of production, the communist struggle cannot become an “event”.
There are four topics in Rosa Luxemburg’s writings which are of particular importance from the perspective of a refoundation of communism in the 21th century: internationalism, an “open” conception ...of history, the importance of democracy in the revolutionary process, and the interest in the “pre-modern” communist traditions. This last aspect of Luxemburg’s thinking is less well known. By confronting the industrial capitalist civilization with the communitarian past of humanity, Rosa Luxemburg broke with linear evolutionism, positivism, social-darwinism and with all the interpretations of Marxism which tend to reduce it to an advanced version of the philosophy of inevitable progress. The issue, in these texts, is, in the last analysis, the very meaning of the Marxist conception of history.
Communism opposes both Liberalism, which articulates the standpoint of capitalist property, and Socialism, taken as the model of those who incarnate « managerial competence”. So far as Marxism is ...concerned, it conveys the ambiguous design of a Communism understood in terms of Socialism. In this sense, Marxian discourse does entail a certain relation with « real socialism », and also with Western socialisms. The discredit which has fallen upon the latter would appear to be an invitation to take up the banner of Communism or of the “Common” as an alternative to the (socialist) alternative. The approaches of Badiou, Rancière and Negri are here reconsidered in the light of a « metastructural » problematic.
If value, as the abstraction of use value, as real abstraction, is at the very beginning of conceptual thought, it implies an idealistic representation of society. Hegel’s logic is not however that ...of Marx’s Capital. It is rather a mystifying expression of the real inversion, between man and thing, of a subjectivity that is immerged in a substantial totality and which is to be understood in materialistic terms: Spirit is a substance that subsists only through the activity of the subjects engaged in it. Such is the process of capital. Communism emerges only through its failures to actualize itself fully. This is the starting point for a consideration of material labor and rent.
Marx was always extremely reluctant to offer a positive description of a communist society. Communism, for Marx, is neither an ideal nor a utopia. This does not mean that communism is an immanent ...process through which capitalism is to abolish itself, in a quasi-automatic manner. Capitalism sows the seeds of a communist society. However these seeds cannot grow spontaneously. This is because capitalism simultaneously generates obstacles to their full development. Clearly, the idea of communism has no meaning for Marx apart from an action that is consciously and voluntarily opposed to these impediments. Communism is thus a dynamic which already exist. Its only existence is however through the praxis of those who actually struggle for the flourishing of a higher form of life.
This volume brings together an international team of prominent scholars from a range of disciplines, with the aim of investigating the many facets of the Chinese Communist Party's 100-year ...trajectory. It combines a level of historical depth mostly found in single-authored monographs with the thematic and disciplinary breadth of an edited volume. This work stands out for its long-term and multiscale approach, offering complex and nuanced insights, eschewing any Party grand narrative, and unravelling underlying trends and logics, composed of adaption but also contradictions, resistance and sometimes setbacks, that may be overlooked when focusing on the short term. Rather than putting forward an overall argument about the nature of the Party, the many perspectives presented in this volume highlight the complex internal dynamics of the Party, the diversity of its roles in relation to the state, as well as in its interaction with society beyond the state. Our historical approach stresses impermanence beyond the apparent permanence of the Party’s organisation and ideology while also bringing to light the recycling of past practices and strategies. Looking at the Party’s evolution over time shows how its founding structures and objectives have had a long-lasting impact as well as how they have been tweaked and rearranged to adapt to the new economic and social environment the Party contributed to creating.
