THE ANARCHIST PAPERS
Except from
The Fate of Marxism by Cornelius Castoriadis
For anyone seriously concerned with the social question, an encounter with Marxism is both immediate and inevitable. It is probably even wrong to use the word `encounter,' in that such a term conveys both something external to the observer and something that may or may not happen. Marxism today has ceased to be some particular theory or some particular political program advocated by this or that group. It has deeply permeated our language, our ideas, and the very reality around us. It has become part of the air we breathe in coming into the social world. It is part of the historical landscape in the backgrounds of our comings and goings.
For this very reason to speak of Marxism has become one of the most difficult tasks imaginable. We are involved in the subject matter in a hundred different ways. Moreover, this Marxism, in realizing itself, has become impossible to pin down. For with which Marxism should we deal? With the Marxism of Khrushchev or with the Marxism of Mao Tse Tung? With the Marxism of Togliatti or with that of Thorez? With the Marxism of Castro, of the Yugoslavs, or of the Polish revisionists? Or should one perhaps deal with the Marxism of the Trotskyists (although here too the claims of geography reassert themselves: British and French Trotskyists, Trotskyists in the United States and Trotskyists in Latin America tear one another to pieces, mutually denouncing one another as non-Marxist). Or should one deal with the Marxism of the Bordighists or of the SPGB, of Raya Dunayevskaya or of C.L.R. James, or of this or that other still smaller group of the extreme `left'? As is well known, each of these groups denounces all others as betraying the spirit of `true Marxism,' which it alone apparently embodies. A survey of the whole field will immediately show that there is not only the abyss separating `official' from `oppositional' Marxisms. There is also the vast multiplicity of both `official' and `oppositional' variants, each seeing itself as excluding all others.
There is no simple yardstick by which this complex situation could be simplified. There is no `test of events which speaks for itself.' Both the Marxist politician enjoying the fruits of office and the Marxist political prisoner find themselves in specific social circumstances, and in themselves these circumstances confer no particular validity to the particular views of those who expound them. On the contrary, particular circumstances make it essential to interpret carefully what various spokesmen for Marxism say. Consecration in power gives no more validity to what a man says than does the halo of the martyr or irreconcilable opponent. For- does not Marxism itself teach us to view with suspicion both what emanates from institutionalized authority and what emanates from oppositions that perpetually fall to get even a toe-hold in historical reality?
A Return to the Sources
The solution to this dilemma cannot be purely and simply a return to Marx. What would such a return imply? Firstly it would see no more, in the development of ideas and actions `n the last eighty years, and in particular in the development of social democracy, Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism, etc., than layer upon layer of disfiguring scabs covering a healthy body of intact doctrine. This would be most unhistorical.
It is not only that Marx's doctrine is far from having the systematic simplicity and logical consistency that certain people would like to attribute to it. Nor is it that such a `return to the sources' would necessarily have something academic about it (at best it could only correctly re-establish the theoretical content of a doctrine belonging to the past: as one might attempt to do, say, for the writings of Descartes or St. Thomas Aquinas). Such an endeavor could leave the main problem unsolved, namely that of discovering the significance of Marxism for contemporary history and for those of us who live in the world of today.
The main reason why a `return to Marx' is impossible is that under the pretext of faithfulness to Marx--and in order to achieve this faithfulness--such a `return' would have to start by violating the essential principles enunciated by Marx himself. Marx was, in fact, the first to stress that the significance of a theory cannot be grasped independently of the historical and social practice which it inspires and initiates, to which It gives rise, in which it prolongs itself and under cover of which a given practice seeks to justify itself.
Who, today, would dare proclaim that the only significance of Christianity for history 's to be found in reading unaltered versions of the Gospels or that the historical practice of various Churches over a period of some 2,000 years can teach us nothing fundamental about the significance of this religious movement? A `faithfulness to Marx' which would see the historical fate of Marxism as something unimportant would be just as laughable. It would in fact be quite ridiculous. Whereas for the Christian the revelations of the Gospels have a transcendental kernel and an intemporal validity, no theory could ever have such qualities in the eyes Of a Marxist. To seek to discover the meaning of Marxism only in what Marx wrote (while keeping quiet about what the doctrine has become in history) is to pretend--in flagrant contradiction with the Central ideas of that doctrine--that real history doesn't count and that the truth of a theory is always and exclusively to be found `further on.' It finally comes to replacing revolution by revelation and the understanding of events by the exegesis of texts.
All this would be bad enough. But there is worse. The insistence that a revolutionary theory be confronted, at all stages, by historical reality' is explicitly proclaimed in Marx's writings. It is in fact part of the deepest meaning of Marxism. Marx's Marxism did not seek to be--and could not be--just one theory among others. It did not seek to hide its historical roots or to dissociate itself from its historical countries `Marxism'is represented by `leaders of genius,' whom their successors call `criminal lunatics' without more ado. `Marxism' is proclaimed the ideological basis of Tito's policies and of those of the Albanians, of Russian policies and of those of the Chinese. In these countries Marxism has become what Marx called the `solemn complement of justification.' It permits the compulsory teaching of `State and Revolution' to students, while maintaining the most oppressive and rigid State structure known to history. It enables a self-perpetuating and privileged bureaucracy to take refuge behind talk of the `collective ownership of the means of production' and `abolition of the profit motive.'
But Marxism has also become ideology insofar as it represents the doctrine of the numerous sects, proliferating on the decomposing body of the first `official' Marxist movement. For us the word sect is not a term of abuse. It has a precise sociological and historical meaning. A small group is not necessarily a sect. Marx and Engels did not constitute a sect, even when they were most isolated. A sect is a group which blows up into an absolute single side, aspect or phase of the movement from which it developed, makes of this the touchstone of the truth of its doctrine (or of the truth, full stop), subordinates everything else to this `truth' and in order to remain `faithful' to it is quite prepared totally to separate itself from the real world and henceforth to live in a world of its own. The invocation of Marxism by the sects allows them to think of themselves and to present themselves as something other than what they are, namely as the future revolutionary party of that very Proletariat in which they never succeed in implanting themselves.
Finally, Marxism has become ideology in yet another sense. For several decades now it has ceased to be a living theory. One could search the political literature of the last thirty years in vain even to discover fruitful applications of the theory, let alone attempts to extend it or to deepen it.
We don't doubt that what we are now saying will provoke indignant protests among those who, while professing to `defend Marx,' daily bury his corpse a little deeper under the thick layers of their distortions and stupidities. We don't care. This is no personal quarrel. In analyzing the historical fate of Marxism we are not implying that Marx had any kind of moral responsibility for what happened. It is Marxism itself, in what was best and most revolutionary in it, namely its pityless denunciation of hollow phrases and ideologies and its insistence on permanent self-criticism, which compels us to take stock of what Marxism has become in real life.
It is no longer possible to maintain or to rediscover some kind of `Marxist orthodoxy.' It cannot be done in the ludicrous (and ludicrously linked) way in which the task is attempted by the high priests of Stalinism and by the sectarian hermits, who see a Marxist doctrine which they presume intact, but amend, improve, or bring up to date on this or that specific point, at their convenience. Nor can it be done in the dramatic and ultimatistic way suggested by Trotsky in 1940, who said, more or less: `We know that Marxism is an imperfect theory linked to a given period of history. We know that theoretical elaboration should continue. But today, the revolution being on the agenda, this task will have to wait.' This argument is conceivable, although superfluous, on the eve of an armed insurrection.
Uttered a quarter of a century later it can only serve to mask the inertia and sterility of the Trotskyist movement, since the death of its founder.
Cornelius Castoriadis is widely published in France. His works include Mai 1968 (with Edgar Mortin and Claude Lefort), a multi-volume series Socialisme ou Barbarie, L'Institution imaginaire de la société, Les Carrefours du Labyrinthe, and Devant la Guerre.