Introduction

The purpose of the following article and its sequel (which will appear in
NLR 103) is simply to add a further exploratory contribution, once again
partial and full of gaps, to my long-standing research on the genesis of
contemporary Marxism.* Apart from obvious personal limitations,
which naturally play some role, this adoption of a multilateral approach
rather than a systematic form of research may be justified by the fact that
the method I have chosen is to some extent dictated by the very character
of the investigation. I have in mind the difficulties that must be taken into
consideration when one tackles a subject like the relationship between
Stalinism and Leninism. We are here faced not with two clearly definable
categories, between which a systematic opposition may be established,
but with a complex of inter-related and mutually conditioning problems,
which resist simplistic attempts to draw precise lines of demarcation. The
fact that Leninism was transmitted and consolidated through the
mediation of Stalinism is not something that can be erased by a simple
sponge-stroke of intellectual reasoning. Even when it is thought to have
been refuted and discarded, this mediation continues to operate
indirectly in mental categories and structures which have taken such deep
root in habits of thought that it is often not possible to recognize their
origin. For this reason, the method of exploratory soundings seemed
preferable to more ambitious, but perhaps still premature endeavours;
their function is to prepare the ground for the recomposition of a
homogeneous conceptual apparatus lacking in contemporary Marxism.

In the first article, the sounding is designed to test the validity or

weakness of Althussers various attempts to grapple with the theoretical
problems posed by Stalinism and its crisis. In the second, I look more
directly at the relationship between Stalinism and Leninismwhich, it
seems to me, Althusser essentially evades. I attempt to examine the
possible modes of recuperation of Lenins thought and work, if one
rejects that myth of Leninism which served as an ideological prop in the
construction of the Stalinist system of power. V.G.

*Some provisional conclusions are contained in my Ricerche di storia del marxismo,

Rome 1972).

110
Valentino Gerratana

Althusser and Stalinism

The problem of Stalinism has been ever-present in all Althussers theoretical

work, perhaps qualified but never marginal. In fact, all his philosophical
contributionsfrom the collection of essays For Marx to his recent preface to
Lecourts book on Lysenkomay be regarded as attempts to answer the burning
questions raised by the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU and the ensuing crisis in
the international Communist movement. By stressing this point in his polemic
with John Lewis, Althusser seems himself to have indicated the vantage-ground
from which the central axis of his developing thought can best be viewed.
Althusser justifiably claims that he has never given in to the rightist wave that
was released among most Marxist intellectuals by the Twentieth Congress.
Moreover, he did not confine himself to a dogged assertion of defensive positions,
as happened in other cases. On the contrary, he threw all his energies into the
search for a positive answer to the problems left unresolved by the denunciation
of the personality cult. In the first stage, stretching from For Marx to Reading
Capital, he concentrated almost exclusively on the need to open up the path of
111
Marxist philosophy left blocked by Stalinist dogmatism. To be sure, this
task was held in common with other Marxist philosophers, including
those who had been blown to the right by the violent shock-waves of the
Twentieth Congress. But whereas the latter were taking the easier road of
a return to the philosophy of the young Marx, where it was possible to
meet up comfortably with the humanistic traditions of bourgeois
ideology, Althusser chose the directly opposite courseone which was
at once more difficult and more radical and original.
In the preface to For Marx (1965), Althusser has himself described the
difficulties of this first period, when he was still groping his way along.
The principal conclusion he reached was that, in order fully to settle
accounts with Stalinism and produce a positive alternative to it, it was not
enough to free Marxism from the grip of Stalinist dogmatism: it was
necessary to draw up a Marxist balance sheet of Marxism itselfof its far-
from-linear history and its largely unexplored potential for further
development. The main stress was on the philosophical aspects of the
undertaking. The end of Stalinist dogmatism had not set Marxist
philosophy free, since after all, it is never possible to liberate, even from
dogmatism, more than already exists; and what then existed of Marxist
philosophy was only a bud, a beginning, a still meagrely elaborated
suggestion.1 The task then was to nurture this bud, to construct that
edifice of Marxist philosophy of which Marx had left only the founda-
tions.
Nevertheless, the radical originality of the project was no guarantee
either of its success or of the clarity of its results. Althusser realized this
himself after he had elaborated in For Marx and Reading Capital a complex
machinery of theses and formulae that would have allowed any decent
traditional philosopher to live quietly on the proceeds. The weakness of
this machinerywhich Althusser later attributed to a theoreticist
deviationemerged with particular clarity in its effective avoidance of
the confrontation with Stalinism. The legitimate concern to rethink the
conceptual structures of Marxist philosophy had been situated within the
quest for a positive alternative to Stalinist dogmatism; but in the end,
political problems were separated off from philosophical ones and left in
the background unexamined. It is this theoreticism (that is to say, one-
sided insistence on theory or speculative rationalism) which explains
the strange indulgence initially shown by Althusser to the historical-
materialist content of Stalins political science. It is true that he deplored
Stalins contagious and implacable system of government and thought,
but it is as if this crust of dogmatism need only be scraped away, and the
errors and crimes placed between brackets, in order to rediscover the
pure gold of a healthy political practice. Thus one can find in For Marx a
characterization of Stalins famous Foundations of Leninism as a faithful and
particularly lucid summary of Lenins thought (even if formal
reservations are expressed on its pedagogical dryness).2 In this way, one
1
Louis Althusser, For Marx, London 1969, pp. 3031 (NLB paperback edition 1977).
2
Ibid., p. 97. There is perhaps no need to point out that this characterization of Foundations
of Leninism marks a return to a tradition that arose in the Stalin period, and that lingers on in
the post-Stalin period among those who have never felt the need to go more deeply into the
study of Lenin. It was precisely the deepening of Althussers study that enabled him to
distance himself from that whole canonical tradition.

112
of the principal aspects of the problem of Stalinism was evaded, or rather
completely ignored: namely, its relationship on the one hand to the real
theoretico-political elaboration of Lenin, and on the other to the
consecrated mythology of so-called Marxism-Leninism.
Stalin as a Philosopher

Paradoxically, this same theoreticist deviation made possible even a

revaluation of Stalin as a philosopher, author of Dialectical Materialism
and Historical Materialism, the well-known chapter of the Short Course
History of the CPSU. Althusser did not hesitate to recognize a real theore-
tical discernment in Stalins expulsion of the Hegelian category of the
negation of the negation from the field of the Marxist dialectic.3 The
theoreticism here lay in the attachment of inordinate significance to the
presence or absence of a philosophical formula, independently of the real
presuppositions underlying its absence or presence. Theoretical discern-
ment requires sufficient knowledge to make a conscious evaluation of
what is accepted or rejected; but there is no reason to believe that Stalin
ever had more than the most superficial, dilettante acquaintance with
Hegel, based on a few elliptic ideas hastily acquired at second or third
hand. In Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism, Stalin does
not actually reject the Hegelian category of the negation of the negation,
he simply ignores it; just as he had done in a text of his youth written in
19067 (Anarchy or Socialism?), where he maintained that Hegels dia-
lectical method was from beginning to end scientific and revolutionary,
and that consequently there is a perfect identity between the dialectic of
Marx and that of Hegel.4
Although it would certainly be stupid to place the results of Stalins
philosophical dilettantism on the same level as his criminal methods of
government, it is perhaps not absurd to consider these two sides of the
Stalin phenomenon as in some way interconnected, rather than as
separated by a Chinese wall. What is immediately striking about the
former is above all the comical aspectcomical in the sense that
Althusser himself has described as the fate of philosophers who delude
themselves that they are merely following the profession of philosopher.5
Thus even in the West, where it was possible during the Stalin period to
engagewell or badlyin Marxist philosophy without having to limit
oneself to commentary on Stalins philosophical pronouncements, even
there Communists could be found who had all the tools of the
philosophical trade, including official papers that recognized them as
practitioners of their discipline, and who still felt the need to invoke
Stalins philosophical authority to defend sometimes diametrically
3 Ibid., p. 200. Althusser makes the same point in a 1968 text, Sur le rapport de Marx

Hegel, which was republished in 1972 in the new edition of Lnine et la philosophie (cf. Louis
Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy, London 1971, p. 91). Elaborating on this, an Italian
Althusserian philosopher could write recently that Stalin showed a veritable philosophical
genius by his consistent exclusion of the negation of the negation from the laws of
dialectics (cf. R. Guastini, Sulla dialettica, in Rivista di filosofia, I, 1975, pp. 11920).
4 Stalins text Anarchy or Socialism? may be found in Joseph Stalin, Collected Works, vol. 1,

London 1953, pp. 297391. See especially p. 308.

5 Cf. Louis Althusser, Philosophie et philosophie spontane des savants, Paris 1974, pp. 1617:

You cannot go wrong with philosophers: sooner or later they are bound to fall flat on their
faces.

113
opposed positions. For example, Galvano della Volpe in Italy could
quote the Stalin of Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism in
support of the thesis that the Marxist dialectic is incompatible with the
Hegelian dialectic; simultaneously, in Germany, Ernst Bloch could quote
the Stalin of Anarchy or Socialism? in support of the substantive
identity of the two dialectics.6 Were these simply gratuitous exercises,
devoid of political import? Up to a certain point that was doubtless true.
Stalins philosophy remained quite alien to both della Volpe and Bloch,
and elimination of their purely marginal references to Stalin would
neither weaken nor strengthen their positions. But acceptance or
sufferance of Stalins philosophical authority, which fuels the myth of a
Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin continuity, deprives one of the necessary
means to analyse the Stalin phenomenon.7 Althusser began to realize this
when he criticized his own theoreticist deviation, sensing the need for a
new approach to Stalinism. He understood that philosophy is never
innocent, never separable from politics, and that what is philosophically
harmless or superfluous is ipso facto not politically harmless.
The problem of Stalinism, which had previously been touched upon only
incidentally (even if it always hovered in the background), was at last
tackled directly and extensively in the Reply to John Lewis (1973) and
Elements of Self-Criticism (1974). Nevertheless, we should ask
ourselves whether Althussers research has not remained caught up even
now in a residue of the old theoreticist vice, and whether this has not
obstructed his analysis. In particular, is it not a theoreticist way of posing
problems to start from concepts and move to scientific analysis, rather than
to start from the analysis, in the course of which the concepts needed to
deepen it are produced? It would seem that, for Althusser, a Marxist
analysis of Stalinism is only possible after the Marxist concepts capable of
explaining the phenomenon have been isolated. But what if some or all of
these concepts have not yet been produced? Must they necessarily be
discovered and elaborated before the analysis can be undertaken?
Clearly, no analysis is possible without real presuppositions, amongst
which must be counted the concepts we use. It is quite correct to test the
validity of these concepts, since they guide our practice (including
theoretical practice), and the choice of certain ones rather than others may
harm the course of the analysis. Is it then legitimate to employ the concept
Stalinism? For a long time, we Communists felt a certain repugnance for
this term, which is so widely used by bourgeois anti-Communist
ideology. For anti-Communists, the term not only designates a reality; it
also corresponds to an explanatory concept. It advances what Althusser
calls theoretical pretensions, and claims to explain the bankruptcy of
Marxism and Leninism (for anti-communism naturally has nothing

6 Cf. Galvano della Volpe, Logica come scienza positiva, 2nd ed., Messina-Firenze 1956; Ernst
Bloch, Subjekt-Objekt, Erluterungen zu Hegel, Berlin 1949 (2nd ed. Frankfurt-am-Main 1962).
7
It is startling to find today among the writings of Mao Tse-tungwhose thought in many
respects developed outside Stalins influencea 1941 text motivating the fundamental
importance of Stalins Short Course for the study of Marxism-Leninism in the following way:
The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Short Course, is the best synthesis and
summary of the world Communist movement of the past hundred years, a model of the unity of
theory with practice, and the only perfect model of its kind in the whole World. (Selected Works
of Mao Tse-tung, vol. 4, London 1956, pp. 1920.)

114
against the series Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin). Evidently, a Marxist
cannot but reject that explanatory content of the concept.
Concept and Reality
But repugnance for the term Stalinism is often associated with another
tendency, that is inevitably damaging to a Marxist: namely, reluctance to
admit the scope and extensiveness of the real phenomena indicated by the
term, and thus the temptation to reduce, limit and circumscribe the range
and significance of the reality denounced by the Twentieth Congress.
Linked to that, I think, is another, unhappy temptation to replace the
concept of Stalinism by the more muted one of personality cult: as a
result, analysis of the phenomenon is braked and blocked. I think,
therefore, that Althussers reservations about the legitimacy of the
concept Stalinism have to be overcomeso long as it is made quite clear
that it is not an explanatory concept (since it explains nothing), but one
which indicates a problem. In other words, it designates not only a reality
associated with a particular historical period of the international workers
movement, but also the contradictory character of that reality: the
presence within it of difficulties which we are not yet able to overcome,
and which precisely for that reason represent a problem that remains to
be analysed.
Even legitimate mistrust of the concept of personality cult should not be
taken beyond a certain point. Once we have identified the obstacles which
gave rise to this pretentious substitute for the term Stalinism, and once
we have identified the poverty and inadequacy of its explanatory content
(it explains much less than it claims, and itself requires explanation), we
cannot ignore the fact that the concept designates a reality that was not at
all marginal to the complex phenomenon of Stalinism. Moreover, it does
explain one thing at least: how Stalinist dogmatism was disseminated so
widely and consolidated so thoroughly that its remnants survived even
the Twentieth Congress. Stalin was not in the least personally inclined to
dogmatism; that is to say, he did not, in his political practice and
theoretical elaboration, feel himself bound by immutable dogmas. His
thought was rather of a dogmatizing kind: theses and formulae were
imposed with the force of indisputable dogma, until some new decree
from above declared them to be outdated and surpassed, and put others in
their place. They were imposed, moreover, not only by means of
terror, but alsothanks to the widespread personality cultby a
spontaneous process of acceptance. This involved huge masses; it also
involved even sophisticated intellectuals or prestigious political leaders
who, albeit not devoid of originality, were reduced to exercising a purely
subaltern thought by the myth that unity of theory and practice had
finally been achieved in Marxism-Leninism. It is thus hard to see how one
could undertake an analysis of Stalinism while still usingas Althusser
doesthis notion of Marxism-Leninism in an unqualified sense: that is
to say, without a critical demolition of the substance, not just the external
form of the whole dogmatic construction.
In his Reply to John Lewis, Althusserdisplaying far greater
misgivings than in the past about the use of Marxist concepts not
established by traditionproposed, for his analysis of Stalinism, to
115
utilize the concept of deviation, which can readily be found in Marxist-
Leninist theory. However, if by Marxism-Leninism is understood not
just the Stalinist version of Leninism but Lenins own thought, then the
objection could be made that the concept of deviation can be found with
rather diverse meanings, which give rise to a number of ambiguities. The
concept of deviation about which Lenin spoke is quite distinct from the
same term as used by Stalin. In his report to the Tenth Congress, On
Party Unity and the Anarcho-Syndicalist Deviation, Lenin defined
clearly the sense in which he used the term. A deviation is not yet a full-
blown trend. A deviation is something that can be rectified. People have
somewhat strayed or are beginning to stray from the path, but can still be
put right. That, in my opinion, is what the Russian word uklon means. It
emphasizes that there is nothing final in it as yet, and that the matter can
be easily rectified; it shows a desire to sound a warning and to raise the
question on principle in all its scope.8 For Stalin, by contrast, a deviation
is a well-defined currenta line that is clearly opposed to that of the
party; it is not something that can easily be rectified, but a mortal danger
that must be condemned and combated by all possible means.9
In his use of the concept of deviation, Althusser oscillates between these
two senses. When he speaks of the Stalinian deviation as a capitulation
to dominant bourgeois ideology, revolving around the pair
Economism/Humanism, and as a resurgence or form of posthumous
revenge of the Second Internationals general tendency, he seems to
draw near to Stalins usage. But when later, in Elements of Self-Criti-
cism, he speaks of his own former theoreticist deviation, he seems
closer to Lenins concept. It is inconceivable that Althusser would want
to bracket together his own theoreticist deviation and the Stalinian de-
viation. If a conceptual unity were asserted between these two types of
deviation, the resultant concept could only be so general as to be unuse-
able. In Lenin and Philosophy (chapter 3), Althusser had already described
deviations, however trivial they may be as failures of theory. But
according to that definition, deviations can be found in all great
theoreticians, beginning with Marx and Engels; to include Stalin in such
a framework hardly clarifies matters, and actually leads to an under-
estimation of the seriousness of the Stalin phenomenon.
What then of the content that Althusser attaches to the Stalinian
deviation, namely, the pair Economism/Humanism? Here the
argument becomes more complex, more difficult to define by a rapid
overview. At all events, however, it is easy to see that this content is too
broad to clarify the specificity of the Stalin phenomenon; in other words,
it does not serve to identify the essential differences. Althusser himself
admits this after a fashion, but nevertheless stresses that his analysis is
situated beyond the most obvious phenomenawhich are, in spite of
their extremely serious character, historically secondary.10 The tragedies
8
See Lenin, Collected Works, London 1962, vol. 32, pp. 2512. Lenin added that he was not
especially attached to the term, and that he was prepared to change it if another could be
found that better expressed the concept.
9
See, for example, The Right Deviation in the CPSU(B), in Stalin, Collected Works, Moscow
1954, vol. 12, pp. 1113.
10
See Louis Althusser, Reply to John Lewis, in Essays in Self-Criticism, London 1976,
p. 89.

116
of Stalinismmass terror, arbitrary repression, judicial outrages and
monstrous trials, forced dogmatization, theoretical swindles and rampant
bureaucratizationthus become superficial, secondary phenomena not
worthy of the philosophers attention. It is possible, on the other hand,
for Althusser, on this basis, to distinguish the merits of Stalin from the
Stalinian deviation, even if on closer examination those merits turn out
to be nothing other than the ones Stalin attributed to himself (from the
construction of socialism in one country to the tanks of Stalingrad).11
It is true that, in comparison with certain of his earlier theoreticist
naivities, Althusser is now more circumspect regarding the merits of
Stalin. Thus he has dropped his recognition of Stalins supposed
theoretical discernment concerning problems of the Marxist dialectic,
and talks instead of the economist evolutionism of Dialectical
Materialism and Historical Materialism. He is also no longer inclined to
treat Stalins Foundations of Leninism as a faithful summary of
Lenins thought, but is content to range among Stalins historical merits
the fact that millions of Communists learned, even if Stalin taught
them in dogmatic form, that there existed principles of Leninism.12 What
this amounts to is an ambiguous conclusion, perhaps tentative, but one
which in any case oscillates between criticism of the Stalinian deviation
and partial rehabilitation of Stalins historical role. When all is said and
donelet us state franklyreplacement of the explanatory concept
personality cult by the more ambitious one of deviation has not been of
much assistance in resolving the problems and overcoming the difficulties
of a scientific analysis of Stalinism.
The Last Phase

Apparently Althusser himself has become aware of this in the most recent
phase of his reflection on the subject: I am referring to his preface to
Lecourts book on Lysenko. This exhibits both a higher degree of
theoretical concision (though it is weakened rather than strengthened in
places by the tone of polemical exaggeration), and a conceptual
elaboration more appropriate to the object of investigation. In Elements
of Self-Criticism, Althusser, drawing a distinction between the concepts
of error and deviation, had given primacy to the latter, seen as a key concept
for tackling the problem of Stalinism (whereas the former was affected by
mistrust of the rationalist opposition between truth and error). Now,
however, the concept of error has once more become central. The term
deviation is still used, but only as a subordinate variant of the concept of
error.
We are presented in effect with the rough outline of a Marxist
phenomenology of erroran outline which perhaps deserves to be
further developed and enriched.13 The statement that the class struggle is
11
Ibid., p. 91.
12
Ibid.
13
Among other things, Althusser here rejects the prejudice according to which Marxist
analysis may employ only those concepts which can be found in the tradition of Marxism-
Leninism. If, in the course of analysis, it is necessary to produce new concepts, who is there
to forbid it? (Cf. Dominique Lecourt, Lyssenko. Histoire relle d une science proltarienne
Avant-propos de Louis Althusser, Paris 1976, p. 10. NLB edition forthcoming.)

117
never conducted in a transparent form does illuminate a fundamental
point, without which the theory of class struggle is reduced to a
rhetorical and voluntaristic banality.14 Such transparency could
appear only if a class were to attain definitive unity, once and forever; but
what Althusser stresses is precisely the fact that the working class must
continually forge its own unity in a process of contradictory relations that
dominate it (the same could be said, it seems to me, of every social class,
even the bourgeoisie). That is why, caught in a system of relations that
dominates it, the class struggle is necessarily studded with errors, which
at times may be dramatic or tragic. These errors cannot be regarded as
the work of the Hegelian ruse of reason, which makes use of them to
achieve its own aims without ever dirtying its hands. For, whatever the
level of consciousness reached in the course of the struggle, it unfolds in
the absence of a higher organ empowered to pass judgment from above.
Althusser can thus speak of error without truth, deviation without a
norm. An uncontrolled rift, hesitation, aberration, defeat or crisis,
which slowly develops or suddenly gapes in reality, a reality without
truth or norm: that is error or deviation.15
By itself, this conceptual framework is naturally not sufficient to account
for the historical content of Stalinism; but it seems to me an excellent
instrument for establishing precise criteria for judgement that will be of
use in the analysis. If an error is any rift that gapes in reality, whatever
its nature or extent, then how can we characterize the specific rift of
Stalinism? Today, Althusser is not in any doubt: it involved a colossal
error. Let us say then: an aberration. This feature may have something to
do with the difficulties of analysis, but Althusser would rather not take
that into account. He prefers to follow a course which, on the one hand, is
not at all consistent with his premisses and, on the other, paradoxically
risks leading to an implicit, if partial revaluation of Stalinism. Here, too,
there appears a remnant of the old theoreticist deviation. If error is a rift
that gapes in reality, in the absence of an immutable normative truth, then
analysis of error must be derived from analysis of reality, rather than from
supposed general rules on the handling of errors. Althussers whole line
of reasoning hinges instead on a rule formulated by Lenin, and here given
an absolute status, according to which failure to analyse an error may be
more serious than the error itself. It follows (or there is a risk that this
conclusion will be drawn) that failure to analyse Stalinism, even after the
denunciations of the Twentieth Congress and the corrective measures
that succeeded it, is more serious, something worse than Stalinism itself.
Is it legitimate to draw that conclusion?
The Chinese Communists have adopted a more forthright position. For
them, it was not Stalinism but its denunciation at the Twentieth Congress
that constituted a colossal error; hence they openly call for the
rehabilitation of Stalin and of his talents as a Marxist-Leninist.
14 Lecourt does not seem to have understood this when he judges Marxs Preface to the

Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy to be theoretically ambiguous since it gives

an account of historical evolution, without saying a word about social classes! In reality,
there is no text which provides a clearer and more concise explanation of the origin of classes
and class struggle (provided, of course, that one abandons the idea that Marxs
philosophical texts have a purely ostensive character). See Lecourt, op. cit., p. 145.
15 Ibid., p. 12.

118
Althussers silence on this false historical perspective is certainly
ambivalent and, in some respects, disturbing; but I shall not go so far as
to say that it is more serious than the Chinese error. I shall simply say that
the exaltation of Stalin by the Chinese poses a problem that cannot be
ignored or evaded, as Althusser has done till now. Especially since he is
now coming to reject what he wrote in the Reply to John Lewis:
namely, that the only left-wing critique of Stalinism had been a concrete
critique, one which exists in the facts, in the struggle, in the line, in the
practices, their principles and their forms, of the Chinese Revolution. A
silent critique, which speaks through its actions, the result of the political
and ideological struggles of the Revolution, from the Long March to the
Cultural Revolution and its results.16 Today, Althusser rightly rejects the
method of silent critique, drawn without analysis solely from the facts,
from practice; and it is in this context that he invokes Lenin.
The Correction of Errors

The meaning and scope of Lenins position are perfectly clear. In the
course of the struggle, errors are inevitable, and they must be corrected if
defeat is to be avoided. But an error cannot be corrected unless it is
recognized, and it can be corrected only by an analysis that uncovers its
roots. Otherwise, the error grows bigger, producing ever worse effects,
until it becomes irreparable. That is why failure to analyse an error can be
more serious than the original act. Of course, all this refers to errors
which analysis proves capable of correcting before they degenerate. But
what is to be done when an inadequate analysis does not allow the roots of
an error to be extirpated, and the error grows to colossal size, thus
making its correction in practice correspondingly more difficult. Should
we rule out completely partial corrections, which at least make it possible
to eliminate the most harmful aspects of the error and to prevent the rift
that gapes in reality from turning into an abyss capable of swallowing up
everything that has been built? Lenin did not have to deal with this
problem, and so we shall have to get by on our own.
Althussers polemical exasperation leads him to attribute the inadequacy
of analysis of Stalinism to a straightforward political resolve on the part of
the Soviet leaders. The existence of such a resolve would have to be
clearly demonstrated, but is in principle doubtful. If it is true that the
handling of error is always political and calls politics into play, we should
nevertheless bear in mind what Althusser has himself explained so
clearly: that the class struggle is dominated by a process of contradictory
relations, by reason of which it is never conducted in a transparent form.
Political resolve is not enough to establish what can be done: to think
otherwise leads to a form of self-delusion, which even Stalins ruthless
determination could not escape. Moreover, as Althusser well knows, a
right-wing critique of Stalinism is always possibleand precise social
roots have made it actual. As an ideological critique, it is independent of the
subjective intentions of its proponents. It is not enough to dismiss it or
counterpose a left-wing critique, which is often nothing more than a
simple statement of subjective aims. The contradictory character of this
process must be overcome by political means which are capable of
16 See Reply to John Lewis, op. cit., p. 92.

119
effectively correcting errors without replacing them with still worse ones.
Such means are not easy to find, and results are often deceptive, but the
problem cannot be resolved by a simple act of political will. Althusser can
himself testify that it was not lack of political resolve that led him to
advance theoretical formulae which he later found it necessary to discard.
The above argument is not a justification of Stalinist practices, still less of
their clumsy ideological disguise. It is impermissible to present the
difficulties of an analysis of Stalinism as a pretext to take refuge in a
renunciation or suspension of criticism. Althussers propositions on the
state of Marxist philosophy seem to me to reveal a serious commitment to
critical analysis; even if some of them are unacceptable, they cannot be
simply ignored.
Just as Althusser no longer finds room in his new theoretical construction
for ambiguous concessions regarding Stalins historical merits, so does
he seem to have left behind his earlier tendency to accord him theoretical
talents in such fields as dialectics. Today he openly talks of a reactionary
caricature of Marxist philosophy and of the collapse of philosophy into
ideological practice. According to this conception, the legacy of
Stalinism is expressed in the persistent inclination to cultivate a servile
philosophy that accepts its subordination to political practice, and that
specifically functions as a technique of legitimation of power (at best
allocating to the most inoffensive intellectuals autonomous regions of
lifeless academicism, to be used for international cultural exchanges).
This ideological function of dialectical materialism is perhaps more
extensive, and also more sterile, than Althusser seems prepared to admit.
Following Lecourt, he suggests the thesis of a corporate internal party
ideology, whose function is to bind to the state power social layers of
intellectuals destined to occupy subordinate roles in the organization of
the masses. Historical materialism here risks being tied to the Procustean
bed of the sociology of knowledge, which reduces all science to the
ideology of social groups. As against this, the possibilities of a direct mass
use of this state ideology of dialectical materialism seem to be
confirmed by its spontaneous resurgence in other lands, wherever the
need of simplifying formulae is felt.
Finally, we must still consider the rather summary procedure whereby
Althusser, describing as ontological the version of Marxist philosophy
given by Stalin in the chapter of the Short Course already cited, traces the
roots of this phenomenon to certain earlier contradictions of Marxist
philosophy, already apparent in the texts of Marx and Engels. There is a
danger in this of under-estimating what is most significant in the Stalinist
version of Marxist philosophy: its philosophical dilettantism. Shored up by
the force of dogma, this dilettantism has had and continues to have a most
pernicious political function. It must be subjected to fundamental
criticism by anyone concerned to restore to Marxist philosophy both its
theoretical stature and its real political power. For it is this dilettantism
which enabled Stalin to cause the greatest harm, and not only in the field
of philosophy. For example, it blackened the very idea of socialism, and at
once the concept and the practice of a society which, in so far as it is
striving to build socialism, cannot but have the characteristics of a
transitional society, based on transitional social relationsin other
120
words, as Lenin understood, relations in which elements of socialism and
of capitalism are intertwined.

Althusser is right to think that inadequacies in the analysis of Stalinism

are basically linked to the question: What then are the social relations
that constitute the present-day Soviet social formation?17 But ever since
Stalin proclaimed overnight that the Soviet Union, though not yet a
classless society (which is what, until then, socialist society had meant),
had nonetheless completed the construction of socialism, we have found
ourselves in the following situation. Recognition of the fact that Soviet
society has not yet gone beyond the historical period of transition is
tantamount for some to a disgraceful attack on the ideological prestige
of a consolidated power, while for others it amounts to an admission that
a new form of conflict-ridden society has appeared which deserves to be
overthrown in the name of the class struggle. There are few Marxists who
are convinced that only upon the basis of such a recognition is it possible
to move forward in analysing the specific contradictions of a transitional
society, and that only in this way will it at last be possible to sever the
roots of the colossal error of yesterday and of its tentacular
contemporary survivals.

Althusser is certainly not to blame if the difficulties of analysing Stalinism

do not seem on the point of being overcomeif this history has not yet
ended. But we shall be able to say we have contributed to the renewal
and development of Marxist philosophy only if we do our share to
prevent this history from being endless.

Translated by Patrick Camiller

17
Avant-propos, Lecourt, op. cit., p. 16.

Acknowledgement
Valentino Gerratanas article appeared in Problemi del Socialismo, January 1977, and is
translated here by permission, with our thanks.

Omission
The extract from Volume 2 of Jean-Paul Sartres Critique de la Raison Dialectique published in
NLR 100 was translated by Jonathan Re, whose name was omitted in error: our apologies.

121