The Communist Idea &
The question of Terror

Alain Badiou

 

translated by Susan Spitzer

In the 19th century, the communist Idea was linked to violence in four different ways.

First of all, it went hand in hand with the fundamental issue of revolution. Revolution was conceived of—at least since the French Revolution in any case—as the violent act whereby one social group, one class, overthrows the domination of another group or class. All revolutionary imagery was, and to a great extent still is, focused on the legitimate violence by means of which the people in arms seize the seats of power. The word "communism" thus implied the word "revolution" in the sense of an ideological and political legitimation of insurrection or people's war, and therefore of collective violence directed at the exploiters as well as their police and military apparatuses.

Second, the communist Idea also went hand in hand with the repression leveled by the new popular power against the attempts at counter-revolution led by the former ruling classes. These attempts were based on what remained of the old State apparatus. Marx himself thus considered that a transitional period was necessary during which the new, popular, working-class power would really destroy everything that remained of the apparatuses that constituted the State of the oppressors. He called this period the "dictatorship of the proletariat."[...]

Third, the communist Idea went hand in hand, in this case over a long period of time, with different types of violence linked to the radical transformation not of the State but now of society as a whole[...]

Fourth, and last of all, the conflicts and uncertainties about the birth of an entirely new society without precedent in History were formalized as the "struggle between two ways of life," the way of life of the proletariat and the way of life of the bourgeoisie[...]

Thus, it can be said that the word "communism" has four different meanings related to violence: revolutionary violence, linked to the taking of power; dictatorial violence, linked to the destruction of the remnants of the old regime; transformative violence, linked to the forced—to a greater or lesser degree—birth of new social relationships; and political violence, linked to conflicts within the Party apparatus and the State[...]

Subscribe to Lacanian Ink click here.

Purchase Lacanian Ink click here.