Louis Althusser and the Traditions of French Marxism

7/29/2019 Louis Althusser and the Traditions of French Marxism

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Historical Materialism 17 (2009) 121142 brill.nl/hima

Review Articles

Louis Althusser,Warren Montag, Houndmills and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

Louis Althusser and the raditions of French Marxism, William S. Lewis, Lanham, Maryland:Lexington Books, 2005.

Althusser: Te Detour of Teory, Gregory Elliott, Historical Materialism Book Series, Leiden:Brill, 2006.

Abstract

In the past few years there has been a renewed interest in the work of Louis Althusser, although,in some cases, this interest has been one-sided, focusing mainly on his later writings on aleatorymaterialism. Te three books reviewed in this article, however, offer balanced and insightfuloverviews of the totality of Althussers work, placing it in the wider context of Marxist politicaland theoretical debates and stressing both its originality and strengths, but also itscontradictions.

KeywordsAlthusser, Marxist philosophy, ideology, Lewis, Montag, Elliott

Readings of Althusser

Introduction

Over recent years the work of Louis Althusser has once again begun to attract attention,especially since the posthumous publication of his unpublished texts.1 Tis renewed

theoretical interest has largely focused on previously unknown aspects of his theoreticaltrajectory, such as his attempt to articulate an aleatory materialism, which has beenheralded as a salutary exodus from classical-Marxist materialism. Te ideological exhaustionof neoliberalism, the postmodern attack on classical humanism, the continuing academicinterest in what has been labelled French Teory, and a political landscape characterisedby the re-emergence of political and theoretical radicalism, have also contributed tothis new interest in Althusser and have partially at least lifted the anathema that heand most Marxists of his generation had received during the heyday of theoretical anti-

communism.2

1. Althusser 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2003, and 2006.2. It is worth noting that in Greece there has been a continuing interest in Althusser and his

work In the 1970s this interest was evident in influential left wing journals such as Politis but


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122 Review Articles / Historical Materialism 17 (2009) 121142

One of the main tendencies of this work has been the attempt to present an image of another Althusser, especially since the later writings could readily be drawn upon for thispurpose. Te most notable such case was oni Negris conceptualisation of an AlthusserianKehre,3 from an earlier structuralist preoccupation with objective social tendencies towardsa more open confrontation with the potential creativity of the multitude, in the sense of asearch for an open subjectivity that would construct theory and struggle together.4 In thisreading, a new image of Althusser emerges, one with much more in common with Negrisown preoccupation with the potentiality of the subjectivity of new forms of immateriallabour than to the classical communist strategy.

At the same time, one can also note the preoccupation with the later Althusser of thegroup around the French journalMultitudes, where the rejection of classical Marxism andof any attempt to produce a coherent dialectical theorisation of social reality goes hand inhand with the search for a new ontology of constantly re-emerging encounters in an openspace of singular struggles and creative practices, without centre and consequently withoutthe need to rethink political organisation and strategy.5

Te same attempt at presenting an other, post-communist Althusser, is evident in thepostmodernist reading of Althusser proposed by Callari and Ruccio (1996). Tis readingpresents Althussers work as marking a clear break with classical Marxism and modernism.Modernist Marxism is presented as plagued by essentialism and teleology, with productionbeing understood as the causal centre of social reality and the proletariat as the historicalsubject of social change. Callari and Ruccio think that there is the possibility of an otherMarxism, exemplified in the work of Althusser, that counters these essentialist, systemicistand teleological tendencies and offers the possibility of thinking the heterogeneity,complexity and multiplicity of social struggles and of rejecting classical Marxisms premisessuch as the primacy of the struggles in production or the determination-in-the-last-instanceby the economic. As a result, it is also obvious that this postmodern Althusser is also apostcommunistone, refusing the basic tenets of communist politics, such as the politicalcentrality of the labour movement. But this reading also has epistemological consequences.

Althussers insistence on the possibility of treating Marxism as a science and as an attemptto produce scientific explanations is duly discarded.6

On the other hand, G.M. Goshgarians lengthy introductions to the English-languagecollections of Althussers posthumously published works7 offer a much clearer view ofthe political considerations behind Althussers interventions. For Goshgarian, Althussers

also in the fact that political tendencies in the Left such as B Panelladiki, the radical youth of theEurocommunist Communist Party of the Interior that broke away from it in 1978, were openlyAlthusserian in their theoretical orientation. From the 1980s onwards this interest has beenevident especially in the reference to Althusser in influential Marxist journals such as Teseis(directed by John Milios), but also in the publication of monographs on Althusser. On this, seeFourtounis and Baltas 1994, Fourtounis 1998, Baltas 2002, and Sotiris 2004.

3. Negri 1993.4. Negri 1996, p. 59.5. Ichida and Matheron 2005; Matheron 2005; Moulier-Boutang 2005 .6. Of course, Althusser himself did not help matters by invoking such terms as science,

society effect, structural causality, reproduction and so on terms that allude to a sense of closurefor the objects and methods of Marxist discourse (Callari and Ruccio 1996, p. 35).7. Goshgarian 2003; Goshgarian 2006.


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work, from the beginning, was intended not only as a left-wing criticism of Stalinismbut also as a left-wing correction of the political line of the Communist movement, thispolitical orientation being the main element of continuity in Althussers work. As a result,Goshgarians introductions offer us an image of Althusser as acommunistthinker, contraryto a tendency to depict him as either lamenting an irremediable and irreversible crisis of thecommunist project or looking for new movements and subjectivities. Goshgarian has alsosuggested that a closer reading of the totality of Althussers published and unpublishedworks show that a preoccupation with an open conception of the encounter of theelements of the historical situation and an emphasis on the radical break with any form ofteleology is the common thread running through all of his writings, even from the time ofhis small book on Montesquieu.

However, lacking among this renewed interest has been a consideration of the work ofAlthusser in its totality, set against its historical, political and theoretical background. Tatis exactly what makes the three books that are the focus of this article particularly interesting:not only do they offer comprehensive accounts of Althussers main positions, but they alsoconsider Althusser within the broader context of the evolution of Marxism, its debates andits relation to questions of political strategy and tactics.

Rethinking Althusser on art, theory and practice

Warren Montags book is neither a typical monograph on Althusser nor a simpleintroduction. Designed for a book-series that critically explores key-figures in literarytheory, it offers a highly original reading of Althusser, one which insists on the importanceof Althussers work, contrary to traditional criticisms of Althusserian structuralism. It is forthis reason that he distances his approach not only from E.P. Tompsons attack on

Althusser,8 but also from erry Eagletons initial attempt at an Althusserian theory ofliterature9 (one that Montag thinks was closer to Lvi-Strauss than to Althusser), from the

British Althusserianism of Hindess and Hirst,10

from Jamesons criticism of Althusser, andeven from commentators more sympathetic to Althusser such as ed Benton.11 Montagwants to show that the work of Althusser and Macherey, in what concerns literary theoryespecially is a far more complex and contradictory theoretical endeavour than haspreviously been supposed, one that from the beginning included both the theorisationof structures and the confrontation with the open and even aleatory character ofconjunctures.12

In line with the book-series stated purpose, Montag starts by reading Althussers works

on art and the theatre, especially since Althussers most productive period coincided witha new-found interest in contemporary painting and literature, particularly drama (p. 17).

8. Tompson 1978.9. Eagleton 1976.

10. Hindess and Hirst 1977.11. Benton 1984.

12. Montag refers explicitly to Balibar (1993) and his position that, even in For Marx, onecould discern the antagonism between a materialism of the structure and a materialism of theconjuncture.


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Drawing upon not only Althussers published interventions in the 1960s but also hiscorrespondence with Franca Madonia,13 he is able to situate Althussers growing interest innon-realist art within the context of his more general theoretical tendency to think thatsocial structures are never directly present or visible but felt through their effects and traces.He also links Althussers rejection of classical realism to his theoretical anti-humanism, hisnegation of a notion of human essence that is expressed in works of art, and his conceptionof ideology. Consequently, he thinks that, [f]or Althusser the function of art was not somuch to make reality visible as to make visible the myths that govern without our knowledgeand consent, the way we think about and live this reality (p. 21).

In this direction, Montag offers a very careful reading of Althussers interpretation ofBertolazzis El Nost Milan. In particular, he draws attention to the way that Althusser insiststhat the importance of the play lies in a dialectic in the wings,14 makingEl Nost Milan nota depiction of social reality but a critique of the dominant form of consciousness (p. 25).Montag also provides a reading of Althusser on Brecht. For Montag, Althusser sees inBrechts plays a dissociated structure that offers the possibility of a radical critique ofideological consciousness and of any notion of a consciousness that would freely act basedupon a complete knowledge of the situation and the dilemmas it poses. Montag thinks that

Althussers writings on the theatre are an example of his more general preoccupation withstructures as absent causes and of his thoroughgoing critique of the self-conscious subjectof theoretical humanism. Montag stresses the analogies between Althussers reference tomodern theatres ability to bring forward social complexity and conflictuality throughdisplacements and changes in the disposition of the plays and his descriptions ofphilosophical interventions.

Montag carefully presents the diffi culties Althusser faced in his attempts to delineate atheory of the materiality of art, and turns to the introduction to Reading Capitalas hismost comprehensive effort to think the very diffi culty ofreadingand to distance it from aconception of a reading that deciphers the signs that both express and conceal truth(p. 45). According to Montag, Althusser follows Spinoza in his refusal to treat the text ofthe Scripture as the covering of a hidden meaning and in his choice to take the Scriptureas it is, its gaps lacunae, inconsistencies and outright contradictions of doctrine andnarrative, as irreducible (p. 48). In the same way, Althusser thinks that Marx, in his readingof Smith, turns his attention not to what Smiths text fails to see, but to what it sees but isunable to make explicit except in the form of absences and aporiae.

Montag then turns to another important intervention from Althussers circle of thatperiod, namely Pierre Machereys Teory of Literary Production.15 For Montag, the importanceof Machereys text lies in its rejection of any normative approach of literary theory and hisinsistence on the literary text being real and irreducible to something more real than itself.Tis leads Macherey to a rejection of a classical notion of literary creation that has more todo with a theological conception of truth as Gods will than with the materiality of theliterary text. For Montag, when Macherey replaces the notion of creation with that of

13. Althusser 1998.

14. Althusser 2005, p. 138.15. Macherey 2006.


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literary production, he follows Spinoza and his insistence that the method of interpretingScripture is the same with the method of in interpreting nature (p. 56). He also points outthat Macherey was far from simply proposing to do away with the centrality of the author,in the sense proposed by formalist and structuralist theories:

As Macherey points out, although this approach to literature appears to dispensewith the very notion of the author, in fact, it simply displaces the problems posedby the notion of the author to the level of the system as a whole. . . . Neitherformalism, nor structuralism can explain the emergence of the system nor howout of the set of potential narratives, one rather than another is generated. (p. 58.)

In light of the above, it is obvious that, for Montag, Machereys text is proof that even High

Althusserianism was far from being a simple structuralism. Te irreducibility of the literarytext means that multiple meanings exists within the text itself, in the form of faults,inconsistencies and contradictions . . . [that] are not signs of artistic failure but of thehistorical necessity that made the work what it is and no another (p. 60); a position in linewith Althussers notion of symptomatic reading in Reading Capital.

Montag then proceeds to deal with Althussers notion of ideology. He notes that, fromthe beginning, Althussers conception of ideology was different from a traditional Marxistone, not only because the opposition between ideology and science is not symmetrical to

the opposition between the false and the true, but also because the notion of the imaginarythat Althusser uses a notion that has more to do with Spinoza than with Lacan meansthat ideology can be conceived as an unconscious structure that determines both howpeople think and how they will act (p. 63). Montag thinks that Althusser realised thatcentring ideology on representation was inadequate and left open the question of themateriality of ideology. Tat is why in Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses Althussergave a new meaning to both representation and the imaginary, since now the ideologicalprojection of a free individual is considered at the same time a fiction (as an image of the

human condition) and the material reality of the everyday practices, institutions andapparatuses that interpellate and produce human subjects as free individuals. Montag,following recent writings by Macherey on this subject, thinks that that this conceptionof the materiality of ideology offers also the possibility of thinking the materiality of thework of art not only in the moment of its production but also of its reproduction andre-reading, as

Te work itself is constantly reinscribed in other works, perpetually transformed

by its encounter with what it is not, not merely other literary texts, but discoursesof all kinds, and the practices and institutions in which these discourses areembedded. (p. 68.)

Te second part of the book is a presentation of some key concepts of Althussers theoreticalframework and includes passages from texts by Althusser and Balibar on the same. Teseinclude a concept of history demarcated from both Hegel and structuralism; Althusserscritique of humanism and of the idea of a human nature or human essence; the theory

of ideology; the replacement of creation with production by Macherey; the notion ofsymptomatic reading; and the notion of philosophy as intervention.


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Te third part of the book offers some readings of classical literary texts. Te first oneconcerns Conrads Heart of Darkness, where Montag finds clear echoes of the rise of theinternational-socialist movement that manage to intermingle with the narrative:

[A] voice murmurs over and through Heart of Darkness, interrupting it, preventingit from closing upon itself in completion, opening it to other texts, other histories.Te voice is not the whine of those pledging the right of labor to live; it is thevoice of the living power of labor, the power of cannibal crews, armed savages,mutineers and the apocalyptic moment of the mass strike. (p. 101.)

Te second reading concerns Defoes Robinson Crusoe. Montag thinks that the different andcontradictory stances depicted in the book, and the possibility of different readings of the

book, reflect the social and ideological contradictions of that era and result in the particularopenness of the novel:

[F]ar from gathering itself into a coherent whole as it proceeds from beginningto end, the text progresses through a dissociative movement the force of whichpulls it apart, separating from itself. Tis dissociation, however, is not the effectof some primal disorder or indeterminacy; it is historically determined by themultiple and intersecting struggles of Defoes time: not simply the struggle of

citizen against state, but also the propertyless against the propertied, workeragainst employer, slave against master. (p. 117.)

Finally, Montag turns to Althussers autobiographical Te Future Lasts a Long ime, carefullyavoiding both the danger of taking it at face-value something exemplified by the way hepresents Althussers obviously false references to his mediocrity and the temptation ofseeking a psychological or biographical explanation of Althussers uvre, opting instead totreat Althussers autobiography as just another moment in diverse series of texts, each itself

forced apart by the very power imparted to it (p. 131).Montag draws some important conclusions concerning the irreducible materiality ofworks, the conflicts and contradictions proper to them (p. 135) and the always incompleteand unfinished character of any work of art in its constant reappropriation. He alsoconcludes that the contradiction between a materialism of the structure and a materialismof the conjuncture is constitutive of Althussers work and can be considered a dialecticalmotor of contradictions driving his thought forward without any possibility of a finalresolution (p. 133), providing in this sense the very fecundity of his endeavour. But Montag

is also very careful to distinguish his approach form any attempt to present Althusser asoscillating between modernism/rationalism and postmodernism/irrationalism. On thecontrary, he presents Althussers theoretical self-criticism as still centred upon the diffi cultiesand open questions of scientific practices that try to contribute to not only the knowledgeof the social world, but to its transformation (p. 135):

For if Althusser rejected any notion of a logic of scientific discovery or aa priorimethod that would serve to guarantee the truth of a given scientific practice and

its findings, he never did so on the basis of another opposinga prioripostulate,i.e. that there can be no truth, no science, or that art exceeds our capacity to speakor know it. On the contrary, he rejected these alternatives of transcendental reason


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(high postmodernism is transcendentalism in an almost pure form) in favour ofthe primacy of scientific practice over theory, speaking of the necessity of writinga history of the sciences as it was, with its accidents and chance encounters, itsregressions as well as its advances. (p. 134.)

Tere is no doubt that Montag has produced a book that is both insightful and fascinating.Contrary to a recent tendency to over-emphasise Althussers later writings as the canonicaltexts of a new open materialism of aleatory practices and encounters, Montag mainlyrefers to Althussers classical texts of the 1960s, treating them not as examples of structuralistobsession but as efforts to think the very complexity and conflictuality of social practices.His proposal to re-read Althussers writings on art and the theatre as exemplifications of theinherently contradictory character of discursive practices embedded in social antagonism is

also fruitful. Equally important is his treatment of Althussers confrontation with a possiblematerialist theory of reading, one that brings forward the always open, incomplete andconflictual nature of every text and the constant effectivity of social practices and class-struggle. In this way, he offers a welcome correction of the standard accusation that

Althusser in the early 1960s proposed a simplistic science/ideology dichotomy. Montagstreatment of Althussers theory of ideology is also important, stressing the importance ofthe materiality of practices.

Montags treatment of Machereys Teory of Literary Production as a paradigmatic text of

the original Althusserian project, offering it the place traditionally attributed to Balibarsmuch more structuralist intervention in Reading Capital,16 is also of particular interest. Ithink that Montag is right in his choice, especially since Macherey is not only concernedwith questions of literary theory, but also with the more general problems of a materialistepistemology. Machereys refusal of empiricism in favour of a theory of knowledge asproduction,17 criticism of structuralism18 and humanist ideology, and emphasis on thedistinction between necessity and teleology19 provide ample evidence of the importance ofTeory of Literary Production. And it is reading Althusser through Macherey (and vice

versa), and both through Spinoza, that also helps Montag restate the materiality of theliterary text as the irreducibility of the text to anything other than itself,20 a useful correctionagainst all forms of dualism.

Te main criticisms that can be raised against Montag have to do with the limits ofhis attempt to think Althusser through the questions concerning literature and artistic

16. Balibar 1990.

17. Knowledge is not the discovery or reconstruction of a latent meaning, forgotten orconcealed. It is something newly raised up, an addition to the reality from which it begins.(Macherey 2006, p. 6.)

18. [A] historical question (and we might call such a question a structure) not only impliesthe possibility of change but is the incarnation and real inscription of this possibility. [. . .] Tequestion of structure is not the delayed materialization, the late incarnation, of a pre-existingmeaning, it is the real condition of its very possibility. (Macherey 2006, p. 11.)

19. Nor must we confuse necessity with fatality: the work is not the product of chance, butdoes involve novelty, which is inscribed in its very letter. It is this mobility which makes the work

possible, and from which it emerges. Although it is not rigidly subordinated to a model, itsprogress is not random but becomes an object of knowledge. (Macherey 2006, p. 56.)20. On this, see Montags own comments (Montag 2005).


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production. As a result, not enough emphasis is placed upon the political nature ofAlthussers endeavour and his attempt to offer a theoretical correction to the crisis ofcommunist strategy. Tis, for example, might have helped explain why Althusser had, atthe same time, to introduce a theory of knowledgeable social structures, as the prerequisiteof the scientific guidance of political choices in sharp contrast to the theoretical poverty ofthe communist movement, and to insist on the singularity of conjunctures in order toprevent the return to dogmatism.

Te second point of criticism has to do with Montags emphasis on the literary text as acase-study of material production. Although he offers valuable insights on what a materialistapproach might include such as the irreducibility of the text, the conception of the textas the product of multiple determinations, and the consideration of both its productionand reception as material practices the problem is that not all of social reality can bepresented as a text or artefact. Tat is why the question of a materialist conception ofpractice that would take into account the complex and open-to-the-future character ofsocial totality is still indispensable. Montag has partly tried to answer this question throughSpinozas theory of singularities, as the constant possibility of new encounters, effects andmeanings.21 I think that a combination between structural causality and the constanteffectivity of social antagonism (itself both structural and conjunctural) can also offer away forward.

Te final criticism relates to Montags treatment of Balibars insistence on a tensionbetween a materialism of the structure and a materialism of the conjuncture in Althusser.Tree points have to be made here. Te first is that the very notion of structure employedby Althusser had less to do with him embracing structuralism and more with an attempttowards a theorisation of the relational character of social reality (in the sense of theontological primacy of the relation over its elements) and of the tendency of socialforms and apparatuses to reproduce themselves, despite being transversed by socialantagonism a crucial question for critical social theory. Te second is that not enoughattention is paid to the modalities of structural causality. I think that it offers the possibilityof negating at the same time a mechanical, one-dimensional conception of structuralimperatives and an equally one-dimensional conception of a multitude of conjuncturaldeterminations. Te third is that the only way to avoid treating this tension as tragicallyunresolved is to treat it as a dialectical contradiction inherent to Marxism as historicalmaterialism. Terefore, the question is not what side to choose but how to deal with it. Andit here that Althussers own self-critical conception of philosophy as intervention can bemost fruitful. If historical materialism can never be a closed, rigidified scientific system, butis, instead, a constant struggle with the complexity and conflictuality of social reality thatnecessarily leads to such tensions, then there is also a constant need for philosophicalinterventions as (self-)corrections in the form of constantly bending of the stick to theopposite side.

21. Montag 2005, p. 189.


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Placing Althusser in the context of French Marxism

William Lewiss book is not just a monograph on Althusser, but an attempt to situateAlthussers work within a wider historical, political and theoretical context that of the

evolution of French Marxism and its relation to the history and politics of the FrenchCommunist Party (PCF). It offers an historical approach to Althusser that allows histhought to be treated not in isolation but as a philosophy of practice with a history (p. 17).Tis double focus on philosophy and politics illuminates the complex and uneven waystheory and political practice are interwoven. As Lewis notes:

By studying Frances tradition of attempts to understand and practice MarxistPhilosophy and specifically by looking at the French Communist Party as it

attempted to function in a Western democracy, one can observe the evolvinghistory of a mass movement motivated in part by the theory that it was thevehicle of revolutionary political change. (p. 10.)

Lewis notes that originally, despite the evocation of Bolshevisation by the PCF, Marxismwas not the only theoretical tradition in its ranks, and that elements of other, non-MarxistFrench socialist traditions survived.22 Many of those who rallied around the PCF after thesplit at the Congress at ours were more motivated by the radicalism of the Soviet Revolution

and the experience of World War I than by a theoretical acquaintance with the work ofMarx. Lewis notes the minimal number of Marxs or Engelss works published by the PCFin the first half of the 1920s and the simplicity of the PCFs paedagogical pamphlets of thatperiod. Instead, the works of Plekhanov and Stalin are used as references for a conceptionof Marxism as an economic determinism and of historical dialectics as proof of theinevitability of communism.

Tis provides Lewis with the opportunity to discuss the more general problem of therelation between class-position and epistemology. According to Lewis, despite the references

in the German Ideologyto the epistemologically-privileged position of the proletariat, themature Marx does not seem to insist on such a position. On the contrary, he thinks that itwas mainly Engels in his later works who insisted that true knowledge is dependent uponclass position (p. 61). And it is on the basis of such positions that, according to Lewis,Lenin developed his theory of knowledge, later simplified by Stalin, according to which thesocial division between the workers and the bourgeoisie is also the division between thosewho are able to see social reality as it is and those who cling to the illusion that history andthe world are the result of ideas (p. 61).

For Lewis, the necessity of collaborating with Socialists, Radicals and left-wing Catholicsduring the 1930s, in the context of the Front Populairestrategy, led to a change of the PCFsrhetoric and the adoption of a more humanistic conception of communism. But, despitethis change in rhetoric, the canonical texts of this period were those written by Stalin.

According to Lewis, Stalin offers a very very schematic and truncated version of Marxistphilosophy (p. 73) that claimed to have grasped the laws of motion of both nature and

22. Long after it was supposedly totally Bolshevized, French Communism retained

elements from its French Socialist antecedents; the ghosts of Proudhon and Fourier appearalongside Saint-Simons in many of its policy positions, theoretical justifications and pedagogicaltexts (p. 25).


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human society. Although the PCF found in Stalins texts the algebra of revolution (p. 75),the results were disastrous, since the Party defined as theory the the crude distinctionbetween true communist knowledge and faulty bourgeois knowledge, the flawed philosophyof science and of history that went along with this distinction and economism associatedwith the crude infrastructure/superstructure relationships (p. 75).

Lewis distinguishes three schools of Marxism in French intellectual life by the end of the1920s. Te first was that of the Clartgroup, with utopian and Sorelian overtones. Tesecond was that ofLe Cercle de la Russie Neuve, which focused on the Marxist philosophyof science. Te third was that of the Philosophiesgroup, and Lewis studies the group ofyoung intellectuals among them Paul Nizan, Georges Politzer and Henri Lefebvre associated with the series of journals Philosophies, Esprit, La Revue Marxiste,andAvant-posteand their theoretical itinerary from the criticism of French academic philosophy, to Germanidealism and finally, through the discovery of Hegel, to Marxism. He pays particularattention to Lefebvres 1938 Le Matrialisme dialectique, a highly original attempt to thinkMarxism through the re-appropriation of Hegelian notions of mans self-alienation andeventual reunification through his activity (p. 102) and to overcome economic determinismthrough the use of Hegelian dialectic, which, however, failed to establish an alternative tothe emerging Stalinist orthodoxy within the ranks of the PCF.

Lewis then proceeds to examine the three variations of French Marxism after 1945. Tefirst is the offi cial Marxism of the PCF, which, after the War, fully endorsed the Stalinistdistinction between bourgeois and proletarian science and used it as a legitimisation ofits politics and leadership, since the historic role of party leaders has made them thepossessors and the administrators of a science that understands the world in its truth(p. 126). Te second variation was Hegelian Marxism. Lewis notes the importance of

August Cornus treatment of Marx as essentially a Left Hegelian (p. 129) and stresses theimportance of Lefebvres post-WWII Hegelian readings of Marxism as a theory of humanalienation with almost no mention of the class struggle as the process that drives thistransformation (p. 133). Te third variation is existentialist Marxism, which was alsoinfluenced by a certain reading of Hegel, especially that of the Phenomenology of Spiritby

Alexandre Kojve and Jean Hyppolite. Existentialist philosophers such as Merleau-Pontyand Sartre took the work of Kojve and Hyppolite on Hegels dialectic of consciousnessquite seriously (p. 138). But, contrary to the Marxist emphasis on consciousness as theproduct of work and social structures, Sartre takes consciousness as ontologically given. Itwas mainly Merleau-Ponty who rejected this radical separation of the individual fromhimself, from the world and from history (p. 142) and was the first to approach Marxismand communist politics, even to the extent of providing a complex apologia for the Moscowtrials of the 1930s; although, as Lewis notes, in the 1950s he became again critical oftraditional Marxist dialectic. In same period, Sartre became a political ally of the PCF,without abandoning his initial emphasis on individual freedom and self-realisation.

Lewis thinks that all the initial responses of French Marxism to the revelations aboutthe Stalinist period after 1956 the existentialist Marxists attempts to produce aphenomenological Marxism, the re-emergence of Hegelian Marxism and the modestattempts of orthodox Marxists to adapt themselves to the new situation did not reallyoffer an alternative and can be respectively characterised as an interesting retreat, animpotent miscegenation and a dead end (p. 158).

For Lewis, the only real alternative was the intervention of Louis Althusser. For Lewis,Althussers project was primarily a political one: to change the political line of the Party


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required a theoretical break with both humanist and Stalinist readings of Marx. Tat is whyAlthusser insists on the break between the texts by the young Marx, grounded on aconception of the human essence, and the texts of Marxs maturity. Lewis also pays particularattention to the importance of the notion of practice for Althusser; to the way he considersscience as a practice capable of producing new knowledge; to the sharp distinction he drawsbetween Hegelian dialectics and Marxs conception of the dialectic; and to his conceptionof social totality as contradictory, overdetermined, and unevenly developed. He also notesthe contradictions of Althussers notion of the Teory of theoretical practice, and he thinksthat this conception of philosophy in no way provides an adequate response to the criticismthat Althussers description of science and philosophy are both excessively rationalist andexcessively conventionalist (p. 175). Lewiss judgement is that Althussers project wassuccessful in what concerns his differentiation of Marxism from the economism/humanismdyad (p. 178). He also stresses his conception of ideology and his critique of ideologicalstate-apparatuses, and praises Althusser for attributing to Marx the founding of a scienceand an epistemology based on the structural articulation of levels of practice (economic,political, ideological and theoretical) that have no discernible relation one to the other(p. 181).

For Lewis, the fact that Althusser did not produce the real Marx that he claimed tohave been referring to does not diminish the importance and originality of this work. Hethinks that, in his self-criticism of his initial theoreticism, Althusser abandons neither hisconventionalism nor his epistemological realism, but offers a different definition for theintervention of philosophy and its political character:

As ideology runs deep and because it guides and allows social practice andaffi liation its critique by philosophy can be powerful politically. By marking outparts of a discourse as correct and scientific from other parts that are incorrectand ideological, philosophy gives ammunition to that group of people whosepractices are guided by science and it erodes the ideological fortifications of thoseguided by prejudice. (p. 195.)

Lewis thinks that this conception, which rejects classical notions of Marxist philosophyas offering formulae for revolution and human liberation, bringing it closer to culturalcritique, is capable of reconfiguring Marxist philosophy as a practice that is able to suggest,given present realities, what events are possible (p. 198). Lewis suggests rethinking thepossibility of historical materialism as an understanding of social structures, avoiding at thesame time crude scientism and the postmodern negation of scientificity:

Tat the revolution and its end cannot be predicted and implemented accordingto a philosophical understanding of the necessary economic determination ofhistory does not mean that Marxs theory of economic determination, his generaltheory of history, should be abandoned. Tis theory has much explanatorypower, albeit less than Marxist-Leninists believed it to have. (p. 206.)

Lewiss primary achievement is that he presents Althussers texts as a response to the crisisof French Marxism and as an effort to intervene not just in theoretical debate but in thelast instance in the political orientation of the PCF. Te theoretical poverty of FrenchMarxism and the inadequacy of the various attempts to deal with this problem orthodox,


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Hegelian and existentialist stress the originality of Althussers project, which emerges inthis reading as neither a neo-Stalinist turn, nor an exit from Marxism, but a quest for amaterialist reading of Marxism as a means for a left-wing response to the crisis of communiststrategy. Lewiss treatment of the different variants of French Marxism before Althusser iscritical but also respectful, exemplified by the way he emphasises the originality and depthof Lefebvres or Merleau-Pontys texts, at the same time bringing forward their inadequacyto theorise social totality and their distance from Marxs original formulations. Whatemerges is a picture of French Marxism oscillating between the imposition of Stalinistorthodoxy and the quest for an exodus from historical materialism. And Lewis is right topresent the post-WWII turn towards a more humanist reading of Marx as a retreat and aninadequate answer to the limits of the Stalinist simplification of Marxism into vulgareconomism.

Lewiss assessment of Althusser is balanced and insightful, avoiding traditional criticismsof structuralism and treats Althussers theoretical anti-humanism and anti-economism asan attempt to think through the complexity of social structures and the uneven andoverdetermined character of their contradictions. He does not avoid stressing the limits of

Althussers initial characterisation of philosophy as Teory of theoretical practice; he alsostresses the theoretical value of Althussers later redefinition of philosophy as politicalintervention in theory. He is also right to insist that although Althusser failed to producethe Real Marx, he offered an original approach to the development of historical materialism.Te same goes for Lewiss more general position on the continuing necessity of a materialistpractice of philosophy and his refusal to accept neither a view of Marxist philosophy as ascience of sciences nor a postmodern disavowal of scientificity.

On the other hand, I disagree with Lewiss position that we can use Althussers work torefute the epistemological primacy of the proletariat. What Althusser mainly refuted wasthe bureaucratic voluntarism of Lysenkoism and, more generally, any conception of theoryand scientific research being governed by party-diktats. I agree with Lewis that we mustdiscard all simplistic notions of the Communist Party and its leadership as guarantors ofscientific objectivity. But I also think that we must follow Althussers positions in the 1970sand insist that a certain degree of class-partiality is a prerequisite for the theorisation ofsocial reality as an open space of class-antagonism. Tis necessity of an internal position inthe struggle,23 especially in scientific terrains that are, by definition, conflictual, does notundermine the need for scientific standards but stresses the complex interplay of science,ideology and class-struggle in the theorisation of the social. Tis conception of scientificityas a political in the last instance stake remains a fruitful break from positivism, withoutthe historicist or messianic overtones of other conceptions of the epistemologically-privileged position of the proletariat such as Lukcss. And, although Lewis is right in hissharp criticism of the Stalinist conception of science, I think that we should avoid thinkingin terms of a linear development form Lenin to Lysenko. Lenin and we owe to Althusserthis reading of LeninsMaterialism and Empirio-Criticism24 was, at the same time, stressingthe political importance of materialism and defending scientific knowledge, presentingboth political effectivity and scientific objectivity as stakes in social antagonism. Tis was

23. See his insistence that Marxist theory was conceived within and from within theWorkers Movement (Althusser 1976, p. 265).24. Althusser 1971.


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the point of Lenins provocative reference to a partisanship in philosophy,25 which hadnothing to do with the subsequent conception of Marxist Teory as the justification ofthe Partys leadership. Stalinist economism was mainly a right-wing turn exemplified bythe naturalistic conception of the class-neutral and progressive character of the productiveforces, leading to the refusal to revolutionise productive relations and the labour-process during the Stalinist period. In this sense, the proletarian-science/bourgeois-sciencedichotomy and Lysenkoism despite the voluntarist rhetoric were grounded on analready accomplished right-wing theoretical turn.26

Te main criticism that can be raised against Lewis has to do with his treatment ofAlthussers epistemological positions and, more generally, his thinking on the theoreticalstatus of philosophy.27 Lewis seems to suggest that Althussers earlier formulations in thetexts up to 1965 were burdened by a tension between conventionalism and scientificrealism. I do not think this is an accurate description, because it misses the importance of

Althussers definition and subsequent rejection of empiricism. Althusser chooses to defineas empiricist every epistemological position that considers knowledge to be an attributeof reality itself, either as classification of surface raw data and sensory experiences or asextraction of a hidden-beneath-the-surface kernel of truth. We can say that Althusser thinksthat both traditional empiricism and traditional realism represent variations of empiricism.On the contrary, he presents as materialist the position that knowledge of the real issomething different than the real itself, something that is not extracted, but produced. Tisconception of knowledge as production, as a result of processes of transformation anddisplacement, is what provides the originality of Althussers position. Althussers self-criticism, then, has less to do with a hypothetical rejection of conventionalism, but with hisrealisation that he had succumbed to the temptation to define a set of philosophicalguarantees of the knowledge-effect. Te basis of his theoreticism is exactly his insistence ofthe possibility of a science of sciences, which is, at the same time, the absolute limit of theTeory of theoretical practices.28

And, in this sense, Althussers second definition of philosophy is not about a change inepistemological positions, but more like a profound rethinking of the very nature ofphilosophy itself. Althusser seems to suggest not only that scientific practice is transversedby the class-struggle, but also that the effects of this encounter between science and class-struggle are philosophical. Philosophy emerges as a necessary result of the complex interplaybetween science, ideology and class-struggle. What is more, the very notion of scientificityemerges as the stake of theoretical and, in the last instance, political contradictions,in the form of a balance of forces between spontaneous philosophies and theoreticalideologies. Tat is why philosophy cannot be described as something similar to Lockesmidwife or as some form of assistance to the sciences a position that brings us back to a

25. See his various references in Lenin 1972.26. See Dominique Lecourts analysis of the technicist foundations of Lysenkoism and its role

as ideological justification of Stalinist policies in Lecourt 1977.27. For a criticism of Lewiss epistemological positions, see Verikoukis 2007 and Verikoukis

2009.

28. And it is exactly the Introduction to Reading Capital, which chronologically is the lasttext of the book that provides a depiction of this limit, because it falls short from offering theepistemological guarantees it initially promised.


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traditional image of philosophy being able to help or offer guarantees for the extractionof truth. Philosophical considerations and conflicts (even in the form of spontaneousmaterialist or idealist representations) are always already present in scientific practice and itis in this plane that philosophy intervenes. Althusser, after his self-criticism, did notabandon his conception of knowledge as production (despite his flirting with forms ofatomistic empiricism in some of the later writings). What he abandons is any notion ofguarantees of scientificity. As a result, a more open (and, in a way, more tragic) conceptionof science emerges (in line with the evolution of Althussers conception of the communistmovement), one in which there is never a foundation of truth and scientificity, there isalways the possibility of error and deviation, and where philosophy can intervene only inthe form of constant (over)corrections.

A theoretical response to the crisis of the communist movement

Gregory Elliotts book29 remained for many years an important reference in the literatureon Althusser. Tis new edition also includes a postscript on Althussers posthumously-published texts that broadens its scope and makes it perhaps the most comprehensivemonograph on Althusser available in English.30 Although written by someone who is notan Althusserian and remains highly critical of aspects of Althussers positions, it nevertheless

acknowledges the importance of Althussers theoretical and political intervention and treatsit as a theoretical confrontation with the strategic crisis of European communism.Elliott refuses traditional criticisms of Althussers Stalinism and presents his work in

its historical and political context as an attempt at an anti-Stalinist reconstruction ofhistorical materialism. He thinks that two events were of particular importance: thewentieth Congress and its aftermath (1956) and the Sino-Soviet split in the internationalCommunist movement (1960) (p. 2). Althussers work represented the quest for aLeninist alternative to both Stalinism and social democracy:

Te alternative to Stalinism and social democracy alike was a revival of Leninism.Althussers Leninism may have been neo-Maoist, but Marxist/socialist humanismwas, in general, anti-Leninist. o adhere to its positions, Althusser believed, wasto wrench political practice from its orientation towards the class struggle andconsecrate in theory the practical abandonment of the revolutionary project.(p. 23.)

Tis justifies Althussers polemic against historicism and humanism in order to restore thescientificity of Marxism, although Elliott thinks that Althusser is too schematic in hisattempt to assimilate different thinkers to a single problematic of historicism derived fromHegel, reworked by Feuerbach and the young Marx, superseded in Capital(p. 30). ForElliott, Althusser tried to fight the anti-naturalist, historicist trends within Marxism, andtheir relativistic negation of the possibility of a scientific knowledge of social reality.

29. First published by Verso in 1987 and for a long time out of print.

30. Being broader in scope and more thorough in its coverage of Althussers work thanCallinicoss Althussers Marxism (1976) and Bentons Te Rise and Fall of Structural Marxism(1984).


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Althusser was not alone in this attack on theoretical humanism and historicism, and Elliottstresses the parallel rise of structuralist trends in the social sciences, and also Lacans anti-humanist reading of Freud.

Althussers more immediate target was what Elliott describes as the PCFs Stalinist de-Stalinisation (p. 56), exemplified by the work of Garaudy. Elliott provides a detailed andcoherent presentation of Althussers attempt to offer an alternative conception of thematerialist dialectic, which refuted the Marxist tradition of viewing it as a development orinversion of Hegels logic, a position shared by both left-wing historicists and the Stalinistorthodoxy. He avoids schematic rejections of Althussers theoretical anti-humanism andanti-empiricism as structuralism and stresses the originality of Althussers search for aMarxist epistemology and for a non-historicist conception of social totalities and forms.

Te cornerstone of this attempt was to present Marxs theoretical revolution as anepistemological break which brought about a philosophical caesura and a novel conceptionof materialist dialectics, which could be extracted by applying the relevant reading protocolson the work of Marx, especiallyCapital. In this sense, Marxist philosophy existed de jureand was active de facto (p. 74); although, as Elliott notes, it was not clear what madethis (re)construction of Marxs unwritten philosophy more accurate than other. Tis iswhere the notion of a possible Teory of theoretical practice enters and Althusser turnstoward Bachelardian epistemology and Spinoza, leading to an anti-empiricist epistemologyaccording to which [k]nowledge was not vision but production, not abstraction (orpurification) but appropriation(p. 81). Elliott is right to stress both the strengths and thelimits of Althussers epistemology, which entailed the same contradiction and ideologicalillusion that Althusser attributed to classical idealist philosophy: a scientific philosophyable to draw a line of demarcation between the scientific and the ideological. For Elliott,

Althusser tried to think the specificity of science using a combination of a conventionalistinsistence on the historical, social and theoretical character of scientific practice and amaterialist-realist insistence on the independent existence of objective reality. However, therebuttal of the empirical aspect of science and the conflation of the empirical and theempiricist (p. 93) led to an unresolved tension between the realism of Althussers Marxistcommitment and the relativism and rationalism of his non-Marxist references.

Elliott also stresses the lacunae of this reading, especially Althussers refusal to deal withthe Grundrisse, the most Hegelian of Marxs mature works. Elliott thinks that Althussersreconstruction of historical materialism had the cost of alienating the emergence ofhistorical materialism as a novel science from its wider historical context (p. 123). Particularattention is paid to Althussers new conception of the overdetermined contradiction; hisnew topography of the social totality, which emphasised complexity and the lack of acentre; the new conception of structural causality; and the refusal of a one-sided emphasison productive forces. Elliott underlines both the rather schematic character of Althussersand Balibars texts in Reading Capital, but also the fact that, by insisting on the distinctionof mode of production and social formation and the coexistence of different modes ofproduction, they broke new ground for historiography.

Elliott gives a broad picture of the political repercussions within the PCF created byAlthussers interventions, the repudiation of theoretical anti-humanism by the Party, thereaction of the Maoist sympathisers of Althusser, and his own silence on these matters. ForElliott, Althusser was indeed influenced by the Chinese Cultural Revolution and its orientalZhdanovism propagated from Peking in reparation for his aristocratism of theory (p. 179).


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It is this light of his Maoist turn that Elliott judges Althussers redefinition of philosophyas in the last instance class-struggle in theory as a substitution of politicism fortheoreticism (p. 179). Elliott does not deny the merits of this new conception ofphilosophy as an underlabourer to the sciences (p. 186), but thinks that the negation ofany epistemological guarantee reinforces relativistic tendencies and can legitimise formsof political manipulation of theory, reminiscent of classical Stalinist positions. Elliott isalso critical of Althussers second phase tendency to view historical materialism as thetheorisation of proletarian vision (p. 194), compromising its claims to scientificity. ForElliott, Althussers new emphasis in the 1970s on the primacy of the class-struggle (and ofproductive relations over productive forces) betrays the influence of Maoist voluntarismupon him. Elliott offers a detailed account of Althussers theory of ideology and theideological state-apparatuses. He thinks that Althusser failed to solve the questions thatideology poses for Marxist theory, tending to inflate both the role of ideology and theability of the ruling class to dominate, since little effi cacy can be assigned the oppositionalideologies (p. 211). His assessment of Althussers self-criticism is rather negative: Employingan increasingly hortatory rhetoric of the class struggle, he retreated from the highlysophisticated and original versions of Marxist philosophy and historical materialism of19625 into the schematic Marxism-Leninism of 196874 (p. 222).

I think that Elliotts reading of Althussers self-criticism underestimates the depth ofAlthussers attempt to rethink the theoretical and political status of philosophy and thefecundity of his definition of philosophy as, in the last instance, class-struggle in theory which, in my view, is an attempt to think at the same time both the limits and theindispensability of philosophy as a theoretical practice. Redefining philosophicalconstructions as interventions rather than as scientific truths answers the unavoidablecontradictions of any philosophy that claims to be the science of sciences. Elliott alsounderestimates the fact that, for Althusser, philosophical interventions always tend to bendthe stick to the other side and have to be judged by their results in scientific and politicalpractices. In a way, philosophical interventions for Althusser always have to take the formof painful and inherently excessive corrections, in the dialectic of constant self-criticismthat is the only way to counter the recurring effects of the dominant ideology, especiallysince historical materialism opens up a terrain which is by definition contradictory andantagonistic.

Elliott considers Althussers attempt to theorise Stalinism in his Reply to John Lewisastheoretically flawed. He thinks that Althusser failed to fully understand Stalinism, describingit as economism and incorporating in his schema aspects of the Maoist endorsement ofStalin. For Elliott, who seems closer to a classical-rotskyist/Deutscherite position (see, forexample, his criticism of Bettelheims Class Struggle in the USSR), the notion of socialismin one country and not economism must be considered the basic deviation of Stalinism(p. 238). A point of criticism must be raised here. I think that economism remains a fruitfulconcept. It refers to treating socialist construction as a technical process of expandingproductive forces; to the failure to realise that productive forces are not neutral but areconditioned by the relations of production; and to the refusal to revolutionise social formsand the organisation of social production and reproduction. Above all, it treats theemergence of exploitative and repressive relations within the context of the dictatorship ofthe proletariat as the outcome of a complex form of class-struggle, waged both at the


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economic and the political and ideological level; and also one in which, in most cases, theadoption of capitalist forms of labour-process and organisation of production does not takethe form of a conscious decision but that of a constant slippage towards what seems to betechnically viable, in the end leading to an historically original form of state-capitalism.31Tis is a better way to theorise the mutation of actually existing socialism than the classicalanticommunist view of the power-greedy Bolsheviks, the rather undialectical reference to asocialist base with an oppressive superstructure, and the simple critique of violence. Also,there is no doubt that there was a certain degree of mythologisation of China and Maoism.But the Cultural Revolution served as the example of an uneven, contradictory and finallydefeated attempt for aleft-wingself-criticism of actually existing socialism that emphasisedthe necessity of treating the productive process, education, science and culture as non-neutral terrains of the class-struggle.32

For Elliott, Althusser in his later theorisation of the crisis of Marxism not only failed tocounter the anti-Marxist bias of French intellectuals in the late 1970s, but also projected hisown theoretical shortcomings into a new theoretical scepticism (p. 267) that emphasisedthe lacunae in Marxist theory which was depicted as a very different creature from theomnipotent because true doctrine of high Althusserianism (p. 298). On the other hand,Elliott refers approvingly to Althussers public interventions against PCFs positions,especiallyWhat Must Change in the Communist Party, a text characterised by open criticismof the PCFs right-wing turn and Stalinist legacy and by a left-wing turn towards theMarxist traditions emphasis on working-class self-emancipation (p. 286). I think thatElliott tends to underestimate the theoretical extent of Althussers left-wing criticism ofwestern Communism. It is true that he praises Althussers more openly politicalinterventions, but more emphasis is needed on the fact that all of Althussers theoreticaleffort was an attack and criticism of the economism and reformism of the Communistmovement, a fact reinforced by the availability of Althussers unpublished manuscriptsfrom the 1970s.33

In his overall assessment of Althussers theoretical adventure, Elliott praises the originalityof Althussers 19625 interventions; his reading of Marxs texts; his polemic against thetheoretical infatuation with the young Marx; his reconceptualisation of social structuresand totalities; his anti-teleological stance; and his emphasis on the cognitive autonomy ofscientific theory (p. 306), noting the areas in which the Althusserian programme provedtheoretically fruitful. He is critical of Althussers theoreticism, the way his anti-humanismdenied the importance of human agency, and also of the failure of his self-criticism to offeran alternative despite the reference to the deus ex machinaof class struggle (p. 303).

In the postscript on the posthumously published texts, Elliott begins by a reading ofAlthussers autobiography Te Future Lasts a Long ime, a reading which avoids themistake made by many commentators of taking Althusser at his word and consideringit an interpretative key for his other texts. He presents Althussers early texts from the late

31. At least in the sense theorised by Charles Bettelheim in his monumental Class Struggle inthe USSR(19768).

32. And this makes Alain Badious recent appraisals of the Cultural Revolution more thanwelcome. See for example Badiou 2005.

33. On this, see Goshgarian 2006.


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1940s that prove the early influence of Hegel upon him and his gradual distancing fromCatholicism. He also pays attention to Althussers unpublished texts from the 1960s whichshow Althusser tentatively experimenting with a general theory of discourse, influencedby Lacan, criticising Lvi-Strauss and structuralism, and insisting on theoretical anti-humanism.

It is interesting that, for Elliott, Sur la reproduction34 the big manuscript published onlyin 1995 and from which Althusser extracted the famous 1969 text on ideology and theISAs adds nothing of enduring value (p. 352) to the texts Althusser himself had chosento publish. I think that this dismissal of the importance ofSur la reproduction is unjustified,precisely because this text offers a more complete image of Althussers thinking aboutproductive relations and social reproduction, as well as answers criticisms of Althusserstheory of ideology as ahistorical or functionalist.

Reading Althussers later writings on aleatory materialism, Elliott stresses the openquestions they pose, both in terms of interpreting their radically anti-teleological stanceand of configuring the relation of these texts to Althussers earlier formulations. For Elliott,aleatory materialism can be seen as a continuation of Althussers effort to reconstructhistorical materialism in its radical break with historical Marxist orthodoxy.

In other words, aleatory materialism, may be regarded as the continuationby other means of Althussers abiding project from the 1960s onwards: thedeconstruction of historical Marxism or the ideological orthodoxy ofCommunism and the reconstruction of historical materialism. And, in its anti-finalist Althusserian rendition, historical materialism was all along (to extend hisown category) a theory of history as a process without an origin, a subject, a centre,or goal(s). (p. 366.)

Tis reading, along with Elliotts emphasis on the importance of Althussers texts from the1960s, is a welcome deviation from the tendency to discard the main corpus of Althussers

work in the name of the other Althusser of the texts on aleatory materialism.35Elliotts final assessment is that Althusser attempted both a radical critique of Stalinist

Marxism and a critique of the historicist and economist tendencies in historical Marxismand their latent historical teleology; a critique that, despite its historical importance, waslimited by its internal contradictions:

i. its antiempiricism . . . by an unstable compromise between rationalism andconventionalism . . .

ii. its anti-humanism by a paradoxically historicist dissolution of human natureand repetition of the structure / agency dichotomyiii. its anti-historicism by its institution of a theory / history antinomy . . .iv. and its anti-economism by an elliptical resolution of the base superstructure

conundrum via the volatile category of relative autonomy. (p. 368.)

34. Althusser 1995.35. See, for example, Negri 1993.


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On the whole, Elliott manages to avoid both the anathema of most polemics againstAlthusser36 and the eulogy of texts on Althusser written within the Althusserian tradition,providing a criticism of Althusser that is both substantiated and well argued, focusing onthe actual contradictions of Althussers theoretical edifice. Te Detour of Teory is stillindispensable reading for anyone trying to come in terms with Althusser as an importantyet contradictory moment in the history of Marxism.

Conclusion

What emerges from these readings is not just a richer view of Althussers work, but rathera window onto an important part of the history and development of Marxism, its

contradictions, open debates and limits. Althusser did not just produce a set of theoreticalpropositions to be judged independently of historical context. He intervened in a terrainalready defined both by the history of Marxism, the different theoretical and ideologicalcurrents within the labour-movement, the evolution of the world communist movementand the development of actually existing socialism. Althusser intervened at the time of acondensation of contradictions, in which the advance of the popular masses went hand inhand with theoretical poverty and strategic crisis. His answer, the initial attempt at atheoretical rectification that would necessarily lead to political rectification, was schematic

and underestimated the complex dialectical interplay of theory and practice, of politicalaction and theoretical construction. However, it was not unjustified, since he managed toredefine the terrain of Marxist theoretical debate, provoking discussion and promotingresearch in new areas. His self-criticism, despite its limitations and unavoidablecontradictions, is a testament to the uneven and contradictory nature of Marxism itself anda confrontation with the peculiarity of philosophy as a theoretical practice without a properobject, one which remains both necessary and unavoidable. His readiness to revise hisprevious positions is evidence of his theoretical courage, and attests to the fact that, in

philosophy, bending the stick to other side is the only possible intervention.All three books can help us make a more general assessment of Althusser andAlthusserianism in general, in order to evaluate what remains viable today of this theoreticaltrend. However critical one might be, there is no doubt that Althusser insisted on treatinghistorical materialism as a science or a scientific theory. He opened the discussion of apossible Marxist epistemology by insisting on the priority of theoretical construction andthe drawing of a line of demarcation against all forms of empiricism. He foregrounded theimportance of Marxs mature works, being one of the first writers to stress the originality of

Marxs theory of value. He articulated elements of a highly original materialist dialectic,stressing the complex, uneven and overdetermined character of social formations, andthe relative autonomy of ideological and political relations. He re-opened up ideology asa problem for Marxism, distinguishing it from false-consciousness simplifications,emphasising both the subject-formatting role of ideology and the role of state-apparatusesin the reproduction of ideological forms. He tried hard to define the specificity of philosophyas a theoretical practice and the interarticulation of philosophical theses and the class-struggle, giving new meaning to the recurrence of the materialism/idealism dichotomy. He

36. See, for example, Tompson 1978; also Vincent et al. 1974.


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redefined materialism not as naturalism but as radical anti-teleology. He elevated self-criticism to a philosophical (and, in the last instance, political) strategy. He emphasised theimportance of a certain class-partiality on the part of the oppressed as an epistemologicalprerequisite of scientific objectivity in social science.

But there were also limits to this attempt: the theoreticist arrogance of his initialconception of Marxist philosophy; a conception of social reproduction that bordered uponsystemic functionalism; an underestimation of social forms and a tendency to view class-struggle as mainly open antagonism; a growing move from dialectics towards the aleatoryatomism of the encounter; the always open possibility of his conception of science turninginto either a rationalism or a relativistic constructivism; and, finally, his inability to integratehis own self-criticism with his initial positions into a new theoretical synthesis, leadingsometimes to self-negation. But if the importance of a philosopher lies not only in hisachievements but also in his failures and shortcomings, as long as these highlight inherentcontradictions of social reality and social theorising, then a critical return to Althusser isalways necessary, and books like those written by Montag, Lewis and Elliott surely assistthis return.

A final note concerns the actual position of Althussers work in contemporary debates. Asnoted earlier, there has been a renewed interest in Althusser since the 1990s. However, onecannot avoid noticing that this interest has been less pronounced than the one accorded toother philosophers, such as Deleuze, Badiou, or Agamben, to mention only a few examples.

And one might also notice that a great part of this renewed interest in Althusser has hadmore to do with his later writings on aleatory materialism than with the bulk of his work.

I think that the reason for this lies in the very complexity of Althussers work and hisinsistence on the possibility of renewing the Marxist project. It is true that current radicaltheorising focuses on forms of immanent materialism; on the effectivity of social antagonism;on a sharp distinction between liberalism and democracy; and on the possibility of eventsas ruptures and historical singularities. Surely aspects of Althussers work resonate withthese questions. Tere are, however, other aspects of this work that are different and whichrepresent Althussers anomaly, to use the term employed by Negri in connection withSpinoza.37 Tese are: Althussers insistence on the possibility of treating historical materialismand psychoanalysis as sciencesaiming at the same time at both interpreting and changingsocial (and psychic) reality; his insistence on some form ofdialectics(in the form of thenecessarily contradictory character both of social reality and the knowledge process); and,of course, his reference to the communistmovement, in the sense both of the historicity ofthe workers movement and the actuality of communism as the real movement whichabolishes the existing state of affairs. o follow Althussers path means to go beyond simplyreconstructing a materialist conception of singular resistances and refusals. It means to facethe challenge of rearticulating the philosophical, theoretical and political prerequisites of arenewed counter-hegemonic project of profound social change. And this is more necessarytoday than ever.

Reviewed by Panagiotis SotirisUniversity of the [email protected]

37. Negri 1991.


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Louis Althusser and the Traditions of French Marxism

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