Revolutionary Rupture

[RevolverNo9]

I was wondering what people's opinion was on the criticisms of historical materialism that Louis Althusser made.

Althusser was uncomfortable with the notion of economic determinism even 'in the last instance', as Engel so famously wrote to Bloch. He emphasises the autonomy of the superstructure, rejecting any notion of them as mere phenomenal instances reflecting the base, and likewise of national and international conjunctures.


We must carry this through to its conclusion and say that this overdetermination does not just refer to apparently unique and aberrant historical situations (Germany, for example), but is universal; the economic dialectic is never active in the pure state; in History, these instances, the superstructures, etc. - are never seen to step respectfully aside when their work is done or, when the Time comes, as his pure phenomena, to scatter before His Majesty the Economy as he strides along the royal road of the Dialectic. From the first moment to the last, the lonely hour of the 'last instance' never comes.

Although I object to a lot of Althusser's catagories, I think such criticism is compelling. It moves Marxism so far away from economic determinsm as to eradicate the very issue (a positive in my opinion). The question is - is the proposition that revolutionary transformation is the result of a conjuncture of various revolutionary elements which 'fuse' into a 'rupture' a more accurate refinement of Marxian historical analysis?

Althusser explains revolution in Russia as such a rupture. Referencing Lenin who noted that a chain is only so strong as it's weakest link, Althusser applies this to the chain of Western capitalist nations whose weakest link was the backwards Russian Empire. The immense strains of imperial war bore upon this chain, causing a revolutionary element in Russia. Another such element was the tension between the advanced urban proletariat in the cities of Moscow and Petrograd (the latter contained the largest factory in the world, with over 40,000 workers) and its sheer backwardness. These combined with other elements, strucutural and superstructural, currents and circumstances, to fuse together into a 'ruptural unity'.

If, Althusser asks, various, heterogenous elements come into play and merge together, how can we recongnise a unique, solely powerful revolutionary element?

Althusser contrasted the Russian example with Germany.


... the German Social-Democrats at the end of the nineteenth century imagined that they would shortly be promoted to socialist triumph by virtue of belonging to the most powerful capitalist state, then undergoing rapid economic growth, just as they were experiencing rapid electoral growth (such conincidence do occur...).

I would be extremely interest in people response.

[JazzRemington]

Historical materialism does not necessarily mean economic determanism. Basically, we can use historical materialism to make predictions, based on previous historical incidents that bear similarity to current ones, about what course society is taking, not should take. The point is, it's abusing the method to force change along certain lines.

[RevolverNo9]

Historical materialism does not necessarily mean economic determanism.

Jazz, I couldn't agree more. I would catagorically decry all economic determinism as a gross corruption of Historical Materialism and, in the main, the play-ground of vulgar Marxists and old Soviet scholars bound by dogmatism.


Basically, we can use historical materialism to make predictions, based on previous historical incidents that bear similarity to current ones

Is it not more systematic than that? Historical Materialism is a theory informed rigorously by historical observation that may be used to understand history (including our present history) beyond what mere empirical data could tell us alone.

The point here, however, is that Althusser is not just rejecting vulgar economic determinism (anything less would be thoroughly reprehensible) but he is actually criticising the orthodox recognition of a material basis that leads historical change which is inflected by its interplay with the superstructure. His 'heterogenous' conjunctures of cicrumstances and basic and superstructural elemens that 'fuse together' is a marked shift in understanding historical materialism. As a fused whole, Althusser asks, how can we talk of an ultimate economic determinant?

[KC]

Is it not more systematic than that?

No. Engels disagrees with you:

"I saw a review of Paul Barth's book [Die Geschichtsphilosophie Hegels und der Hegelianer bis auf Marx und Hartmann] by that bird of ill omen, Moritz Wirth, in the Vienna Deutsche Worte, and this book itself, as well. I will have a look at it, but I must say that if "little Moritz" is right when he quotes Barth as stating that the sole example of the dependence of philosophy, etc., on the material conditions of existence which he can find in all Marx's works is that Descartes declares animals to the machines, then I am sorry for the man who can write such a thing. And if this man has not yet discovered that while the material mode of existence is the primum agens [primary agent, prime cause] this does not preclude the ideological spheres from reacting upon it in their turn, though with a secondary effect, he cannot possibly have understood the subject he is writing about. However, as I said, all this is secondhand and little Moritz is a dangerous friend. The materialist conception of history has a lot of them nowadays, to whom it serves as an excuse for not studying history. Just as Marx used to say, commenting on the French "Marxists" of the late [18]70s: "All I know is that I am not a Marxist."

There has also been a discussion in the Volks-Tribune about the distribution of products in future society, whether this will take place according to the amount of work done or otherwise. The question has been approached very "materialistically" in opposition to certain idealistic phraseology about justice. But strangely enough it has not struck anyone that, after all, the method of distribution essentially depends on how much there is to distribute, and that this must surely change with the progress of production and social organization, so that the method of distribution may also change. But everyone who took part in the discussion, "socialist society" appeared not as something undergoing continuous change and progress but as a stable affair fixed once for all, which must, therefore, have a method of distribution fixed once for all. All one can reasonably do, however, is 1) to try and discover the method of distribution to be used at the beginning, and 2) to try and find the general tendency of the further development. But about this I do not find a single word in the whole debate.

In general, the word "materialistic" serves many of the younger writers in Germany as a mere phrase with which anything and everything is labeled without further study, that is, they stick on this label and then consider the question disposed of. But our conception of history is above all a guide to study, not a lever for construction after the manner of the Hegelian. All history must be studied afresh, the conditions of existence of the different formations of society must be examined individually before the attempt is made to deduce them from the political, civil law, aesthetic, philosophic, religious, etc., views corresponding to them. Up to now but little has been done here because only a few people have got down to it seriously. In this field we can utilize heaps of help, it is immensely big, anyone who will work seriously can achieve much and distinguish himself. But instead of this too many of the younger Germans simply make use of the phrase historical materialism (and everything can be turned into a phrase) only in order to get their own relatively scanty historical knowledge — for economic history is still and its swaddling clothes! — constructed into a neat system as quickly as possible, and they then deem themselves something very tremendous. And after that a Barth can come along and attack the thing itself, which in his circle has indeed been degraded to a mere phrase."
-Friedrich Engels, Engels to C. Schmidt In Berlin (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_08_05.htm)

[LoneRed]

I think others have said this as well, but HM is not determinism, granted it's easily mistaken for it, but Marx never said that Communism will come no matter what the people do. He said that people make communism, not the other way around

[red_che]

We use historical materialism only as reference or guide to our study of society. My view is that, the determining factor is to have a dialectical analysis of current conditions (social, economic, political) to undertake necessary actions.

[LoneRed]

Ya Marxism (historical materialism) is a scientific process, not a science there is a big difference, It is necessary to understand the historical significance and current day events

[gilhyle]

I am more or less only paraphrasing Engels'comments, but my view is that the concept of determination in the last instance does make sense - but it doesnt imply any fatalism since it includes an implicit assumption of the normal range of human motivations to action.

Althusser's ideas seem to me entirely confused - and incidentally just adaptations of the views of Bachelard.

This concept of a moment as that which is grasped by reflection is what underlies Althusser's position and his metathinking invovlves modelling thinking as something which can rationally add up to an assessment of a moment.

But historical matierialis is, in its form, almost precisely the opposite of the analysis of a moment, it is rather the synthetic conceptualisation of an historical process or period which DOES NOT contain direct implications for moments.

The reason for this is that HM is a critical theory, designed to counter alternative conceptions of history and thus to create a space within which communists can carry out the development of poliical perspectives, unrestrained by ideological deadweight from other conceptions of history. thus its final locus of attention is an abstraction - the period, rather than the moment.

Historical materialism does not dictate but merely facilitates political perspectives - that is why it is not a fatalism. Althusser was attempting to use a conception of historical materialism to intervene in communist party politics against what he saw as a reformist trend and thus trying to legiitimate the concpet of rupture, but he did so onthe basis of an opportunistic distortion of the Marxist conception of history which reflected his complete alienation from any Marxist method.

[JC1]

While I think that historical materialism is valid, im feeling the original posters critisisms.

The problem isnt HM the problem is deterministic thinkers who claim to use HM. Not everything corresponds to base, and your going to have a fucked up analysis if you think that everything corresponds to base.

Basicly its a dilectical relationship; Base produces superstructure, but superstructure can take a life of its own. Superstructure is a refraction of base, not a reflection.

[RevolverNo9]

Engels disagrees with you

Oh, well if Engels disagrees with me...

Besides I'm not so sure that he does. It is undeniable that historical materialism goes beyond what empirical data alone tells us... otherwise it wouldn't be a historical theory - a Marxist historian would be no different from an empiricist historian (note that Marxist history is emprically informed, rigorously so).

Engels is attacking economic determinism (or 'Vulgar Marxism'). As I said originally, anything short of its uncompromising rejection is utterly reprehensible and my own stance on the position is definitely agressive.

However, what I wished to discuss (as I think only Gilhyle has understood) is the validity (or otherwise) of Althusser's criticism of historical materialism. Althusser goes further than Engels' explicit caveat (that the material base is only determinant in the last instant) by arguing that the last instant never comes. Althusser's criticism propones (as I have tried to explain, perhaps not entirely adequately) that a revolutionary rupture is the result of a fusion of heterogenous elements, at which stage it is impossible to characterise as acurate the economy as the ultimate determinant.

[RevolverNo9]

Gilhyle:


Althusser's ideas seem to me entirely confused - and incidentally just adaptations of the views of Bachelard.

Are you able to elaborate how this is the case? I would be interested to understand exactly what it is from structuralist philosophy that Althusser imported into his conception of Marxism. (I should reiterate that I find Althusser's argument compelling and in need of discussion but I am far from sure if I agree with him.)


But historical matierialis is, in its form, almost precisely the opposite of the analysis of a moment, it is rather the synthetic conceptualisation of an historical process or period which DOES NOT contain direct implications for moments.

Can you clarify the sense in which you use 'moment'? I am finding it hard to understand what you say definitely. However, I would argue that historical materialism is not an abstract with no bearing on specific historical phenomena. The theory is (and must be) the result of disciplined, emprical observation. The advantage that the Marxist historian has over others is the insight this subsequent thoery give him in a field where our knowledge is infinitesimal. He is able to understand history beyond the details of arbitrarily available sources of historical knowledge. Historical materialism should strive to understand its subject as rigorously as possible so that our understanding of society is as full as it may be. The data must inform the theory - and not the other way round.


The reason for this is that HM is a critical theory, designed to counter alternative conceptions of history and thus to create a space within which communists can carry out the development of poliical perspectives, unrestrained by ideological deadweight from other conceptions of history. thus its final locus of attention is an abstraction - the period, rather than the moment.

I am not convinced that historical materialism is merely a tool to repudiate competing narratives as a means in itself. Historical materialism is an attempt to understand history as objectively and as accurately as is possible, so that our comprehension of society is at its fullest. (And it should be noted that 'within the space' of historical materialism Marxist historiography has certainly managed to become burdened with its own highly damaging 'deadweight'.)

[gilhyle]

To try to engage with your very purposeful (but for that reason difficult) requests:

To my mind it is important to situate Althusser in the various contexts from which he comes. These are 1) his catholicism (sort of), 2) his project within the French Communist Party and 3) his relationship to French thought - and in particular his place within the Kantian tradition of Leon Brunschivg in which both Althusser and Badiou stand.

There is a lot to say about 3) (Lacan, Canguihelm etc) but for me the key reference is the Berson/AntiBergsonian debate of which the key texts are Time and Free Will by Bergson and The Dialectics of Duration by Gaston Bachelard (both short books - whew !).

For Bergson there was such a thing as real time, a long continuous natural process which we could not directly understand because of the way the mind works. In Time and Free Will he goes in some detail into the various forms of analogical thinking which he believes humans use to replicate a sense of time in our minds (from the perception of Space). All analytical thinking - for Bergson - was based on the understannding of the instant - and was a distortion for that reason.

Bachelard shares the view that we perceive instants, but denies that it is a distortion to do so. His metaphysical gloss is that reality is discontinuous, time is discontinuous.

The background to this is the Kantian idea of reality as constituted by the individual. It makes no sense in this tradition to talk about what reality really is. Reflection and judgement are integral to what reality is, thus Bergson's metaphysical gloss is invalid - for Bachelard. Rather reality is re-constituted by the constituting subject.

This emphasis on the constituting subject and the discontinuity of time both lead Bachelard to rely on an idea of the instant - the instant in which the individual reconstitutes the past - this is the instant which makes the past what it is.

Now turn - at a very different level - to Althusser's emphatic stress on Lenin's political achievement as the analysis of the conjuncture. This interpretation by Althusser is Althusser re-constituting Lenin as a Bachelardian follower of Kant.

What is the significance of that ? By contrast the hegelian tradition - which Althusser despises - believes the particular is always beyond abstract thinking and that the basis for all thinking should be the grasping of discontinuities as features of continuities (totalities). In that tradition, what Lenin would be taken to have achieved is not a superb analysis of the October 1917 moment which saw a possibility that others did not see, but rather what Lenin achieved was a grasp of the geo-political totality of international politics and the significance of Russian events within that.

On this latter view, Lenin - rather than figuring out that victory was possible in 1917 - figured out that victory must be pursued at the cost of gambling everything whether it was attainable or not. Of course this latter view will allow Leninto have assessed that victory was not impossible, but it allows Lenin to think victory possible but unlikely and worth pursuing primarily because of the intensity of the world crisis........

OK, That is at least the beginnings of a comment on your first question. There is a lot more that could be said on it. Come back if the contrast between the two views of Lenin (and political method) dont make sense. But turning to your second question...you may well take a different view than I on what the materialist conception of history is. I believe that the best history writing in the world today is done within the capitalist academy - in the universities by the best of the bourgeois historians and that so-called Marxist history has proven inferior and schematic by comparison.

In my view, that is not surprising because it was never the purpose of the materialist conception of history to inform the practice of historiography but rather to operate as an aid to revolutionary politics. Supporters of the dominant ideology place glosses on historical events to create justifications for the existing order - the materialist conception of history allows us to dispel those in a convincing way relying on the best of capitalist historiography (which is sometimes incredibly good (eg. Braudel) and often times abysmal)

I ask this question - how credible would it be as part of the political project of Communism that it should have a rich enough culture to generate its own science of hstoriography from within capitalist society - couldnt be done, where would communism get the resources to finance the development of such a science while capitalism still rules ? Such a science cannot exist as a part time hobby. It requries full time professionals - the workers movement cant prioritise or finance that no matter how big it gets within capitalist society. Anyway, it isnt needed - what we need is the ability to analyse critically what the capitalist academy produces and pick out the wheat from the chaff.

[gilhyle]

oops Posted twice :blush:

[RevolverNo9]

Gilhyle, thankyou for taking the time to explain this. I loosely grasp your account of the thought that Althusser was influenced by but what exactly do you mean by 're-constituting Lenin as a Bachelardian follower of Kant'? Also, in the more general context of 'overdetermined contradiction' (a horrible phrase, I think) does this mean - you think - that Althusser was expressing historical materialism as a discontinuous chain of 'currents' and 'circumstances' that may fuse in a (presumably static) moment of rupture? Perhaps I am wrong, I don't know.

I understand more clearly what you are saying about historical materialism and you make some important points I think.


I believe that the best history writing in the world today is done within the capitalist academy - in the universities by the best of the bourgeois historians and that so-called Marxist history has proven inferior and schematic by comparison.

I completely agree that the university is the where the most rigorous historical study takes place. There has been a lot of bad Marxist historiography (some of it very damaging due, as you say, to its totalitarian schemata) as well as some truly talented... but that is not the full story.


In my view, that is not surprising because it was never the purpose of the materialist conception of history to inform the practice of historiography but rather to operate as an aid to revolutionary politics. Supporters of the dominant ideology place glosses on historical events to create justifications for the existing order - the materialist conception of history allows us to dispel those in a convincing way relying on the best of capitalist historiography (which is sometimes incredibly good (eg. Braudel) and often times abysmal)

You mention Braudel. The Annalists are an excellent example of historiographers whose project has been endlessly valuable to a conscious analysis of history. Their methods are so astute and they so strive for rational analysis that their results are an excellent resource for Marxists. Of course, they are not the only such historians and the fact is, historical materialism has informed the practice of historiography. Hugely. Just look at how the field was transformed after the war by the dominance of what is called 'social history'. The UK witnessed the massive influence of the British Marxist Historians (who actually constituted historiographical orthodoxies!), the still-felt power of the journal Past and Present and the de facto eminence of anti-individualism and anti-idealism. It is amazing that one such as Richard Southern (a very talented and well respected conservative, Anglican medievalist who specialised in studies on St Anselm) could argue that the Latin Church's invention of purgatory was a result of the first growths of the profit economy!

Historical materialism's role in historiography is not simply academic - it does inform an analysis of society (and therefore, even if very indirectly, society's most active critic, the revolutionary). I am not for a moment suggesting that the workers' movement needs a certain amount of historical understanding before it can hope to guage a revolutionary situation successfully - but it is not entirely irrelevent as a critical weapon. Furthermore it is also part of an ideological war. Just as the dominance of the essentially Marxist historical narrative overturned previous orthodoxies after the war, it wained and was displaced by cultural theory, individualist analyses and - most dangerously - the late invasion of historiography by postmodernism. This was part of the beginning of the rise of reaction in that period and of course historical knowledge is utterly crucial as a part of a soceity's self-knowledge and ideological state. Historical materialism therefore has an important part to play in shaping this historical knowledge both in its own specific production and in its entirely capable (and often very powerful) influence on remaining practioners.


I ask this question - how credible would it be as part of the political project of Communism that it should have a rich enough culture to generate its own science of hstoriography from within capitalist society - couldnt be done, where would communism get the resources to finance the development of such a science while capitalism still rules ?

Well, as you say, it would be - quite literally - impossible. Yet as I have said the constraints on Marxist history are far from making its utility negligible.


Anyway, it isnt needed - what we need is the ability to analyse critically what the capitalist academy produces and pick out the wheat from the chaff.

Yes, to an extent, a highly critical reading of bourgeois history can lead to very informative analysis. Yet there are always limits to what we can read through secondary sources. An actively Marxist force is still important at the level of historiographical production itself and, as I say, you would be amazed at just how Marxist a lot of non-Marxist historians are!

[SPK]

I'm curious about something. How is it that folks, like you'll in this thread, run across Louis Althusser and read his stuff? Obviously, he's discussed on RevLeft occasionally, but is he still taught in universities? (I graduated a long time ago, so I don't know.) :)

[RevolverNo9]

I found out about Althusser just through general reading of Marxist literature I think. What actually prompted me to start reading him though was (in a strange turn of events) one of my English teachers! Before I left school he told me he had something to recommend me to read - it turned out to be Althusser (he explained he thought it was a good way to move Marxism away from economic determinsm). It's quite easy to pick up a copy of For Marx in the UK, most large bookshops sell a Verso edition I've noticed.

I'm on a year out at the moment, starting a history course in October next year so I'm afraid I have no idea about Althusser's place in the undergraduate's world of university!

[gilhyle]

RevolverNo.9 - I think we are, boringly, in agreement.

I came to Althusser in two different ways - firstly,I was looking for 'Marxist' books on the history of philosophy and he has some writings on Montesquieu and Rousseau that I was interested in.

Secondly, in the mid- 1990s I was asked to review a book by a late Althusserian, quickly followed by reviewing his auto biography (never finished that one) and his doctorate on Kant (Spectre of Hegel) which led me to read For Marx and Reading Capital.

On the outstanding question, I find it possible to understand what Althusser means if I see him as someone describing a person analysing a moment/event....then the concept of overdetermination and his view of structure make sense.

Time is an instant for him, and our knowledege is mobilised to understand how we got here. So I suspect every moment is constituted as a moment of rupture by being grasped - ALthusser doesnt say this : im glossing. BUt I cannot otherwise make sense of overdetermination.

You use the term 'current' ....I'm a bit puzzled by that.

BTW if someone does want to read Althusser, the Letters from Inside the Italian Communist Party is a nice read - probably only get it in a library.