Page Text: January 28, 2014 at 16:29
This sounded like an interesting reading group. Sorry I couldn’t make it.
‘Recommencing the Revolution’ (RTR) was published in Socialisme ou Barbarie (SB) in January 1964. That’s a few months after the July 1963 split. Even though a draft of the article was circulated in the group in March 63 it’s still too much to say the circulation of the draft provoked the split.
The split had a longer lineage. It went back to at least the split of Lefort and others in 1958. But its more ‘proximate’ and ‘theoretical’ source is Castoriadis’ article ‘Modern Capitalism and Revolution’ published in SB in 3 parts from December 1960 to December 1961. A draft f this article also circulated in the group in 2 parts in 1959 and 1960.
It is this article that provoked considerable debate and consternation in the group that ultimately resulted in the 1963 split between Pouvoir Ouvrier (PO) and SB. Certainly Castoriadis is very critical of Marx and Marxism in this earlier article, but he presents his perspective still in terms of ‘renovation’ rather than rejection.
Interestingly it is at this same time, 1960-61, that Debord and other members of the Situationist International are engaged directly with SB. Certainly Debord and others found much of interest in Castoriadis’ ‘Modern Capitalism and Revolution’. However they opposed his critique and rejection of Marx (more than Marxism) in RTR and ‘Marxism and Revolutionary Theory’ (1964-65). Indeed RTR is more a result of the developing split, rather than its cause. And MRT is a result of Castoriadis coming to grips with the implications of his new position after the split. Debord and the SI went on to develop their own critique of Marxism which can be found in Chapter 4 of Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle.
An interesting post script to RTR can be found in Castoriadis’ 1974 ‘Postface to “Recommencing the Revolution”’, available in the David Ames Curtis translated ‘Cornelius Castoriadis Political and Social Writings Volume 3’. Curtis also provides a very interesting commentary on the split in a footnote to this piece, particularly with regards to JF Lyotards ‘orthodox Marxism’ and fairly pathetic opposition to Castoriadis during the split.
Of further interest is a ‘situ tendency’ that developed in SB between 1960 and 1963. Castoriadis called them ‘Dadao-clochards’ which roughly translates as ‘Dada-bums’! Unfortunately the only good account so far of the SI and SB’s intersection is in a so far untranslated French text: Phillipe Gottraux’s ‘Socialisme ou Barbarie, un engagement politique et intellectuel dans la France de l’après guerre’. This book also has an excellent account of the split and its context, amongst other interesting stories of SB.