(en) France, Communistes libertaires de Seine-Saint-Denis (AL) - First revolutionary measures Kamo and Eric Hazan: a critical reading (fr)

First, the editor and publisher: if La Fabrique is a publishing house founded in 1998 
whose catalog is one of the incentives that may exist today, Eric Hazan is a man of 
edition (already Hazan), a true (which would be a little, all things being equal, as 
Maspero current time). That is an essential editor which can count on all those who did 
not meet the ordinary capitalist or renunciation of the communist hypothesis. It is known, 
and thanks to the findings prepared by Andr? Schiffrin (including Eric Hazan has just 
published several books), the sphere of publishing in its submission to the 
ever-increasing financial pressure due to increasing economy editors and editorial 
policies that they can defend it.

Alongside other (like eg editions Lines: here and here ), The Factory presents itself as 
the publisher friendly and welcoming enough for thought dissensuelle open without 
dogmatism or sectarianism all communism heterodox, it multiplies editions of essential 
works of Jacques Ranci?re and Alain Badiou to Gregory Chamayou through the many titles 
devoted, sometimes with progressive rereading of the French Revolution, sometimes to the 
(re) discovery of entire and unsung work 'of Antonio Gramsci and Walter Benjamin (last 
missing pieces of his Baudelaire just been revealed). E. add ric Hazan is not enough only 
editing because it is also the author a certain name books showing a perseverance in 
engagement against the consensus police dedicating the existing order. A utant (and this 
is logical) side of the Palestinians in their struggle for national independence (and the 
largest Utopia is that of a common state argued in a recent book co-authored with Eyal 
Sivan ) as the partisans (as Alain Badiou ) the right to criticize Israel without 
automatically undergo antisemitic rhetoric used reflexology to supporters of the status 
quo colonial. With first revolutionary measures (co-signed by the unknown Kamo - a report 
with the Bolshevik activist of the same name, companion Stalin died mysteriously in 1922 
?), Eric Hazan " humbly propose to reopen the issue revolutionary "(p. 8 ) and, as such, 
is inscri would in the same dynamic that Alain Badiou ( The Awakening of the story. 
Circumstances 6 ) and Michael Hardt and Toni Negri ( Declaration. This is not a manifesto 
). All agree at a minimum to say that we have not finished with the story as long as it is 
not confined to draw the cautionary tale of the winners. Uprisings of the peoples of the 
Maghreb and Mashreq 2011 the various social upheavals that have taken (and still capture) 
in many countries (and often among the richest in the world), there are many evidence of 
conflictual which World although uneven , shakes the licensed ideologues and other opinion 
makers obviously not tired when it comes to seriner, despite the crisis of capitalism and 
2007, the catchphrase rewarding neoliberal hegemony. How the authors of First 
revolutionary measures determine the forerunners of their findings? And what measures 
advocated by them do they represent the extent of a need to come out on top of economic, 
social and ecological disaster in which we plunge the contradictions of capital?

The "democratic capitalism"
as allowing government (absence) of people

The first part of the book entitled "It is right to rebel" immediately raises the 
distinction between three ideal-typical forms of government (headed by a single party, 
preserving without guns an authoritarian regime victim of political instability or placed 
in the hands of the liberal oligarchy here called " democratic capitalism ", p. 15). The 
"three pillars" of which supports the latest model presented by States that apply, namely 
the rise in living standards (since the institution of the "Fordist compromise" after 
1945), peace between peoples and respect for democratic freedoms synonymous with civil 
rights, have not ceased to be corrupted by the power of finance. " Nowhere is the power 
belongs to the demos "(p.16) write the authors rightly, which induces the empty popular 
real existing political forms and their corresponding subordination markets in the twin 
principles of lobbying and the revolving door (p. 18). In 1983, the famous "turn to 
austerity" operated by the PS government has retrospectively represented the 
institutionalization of heteronomy in whose name the policy is to identify less and less 
popular and growing needs of economic interests. And the discourse of "crisis" vien 
drained t complete with peoples the status quo ideology in whose name the worst social 
regression should be accepted and supported in the name of bailout capital. Therefore, the 
authors believe, indignation, protest and petition is virtually useless, except to 
maintain the existing imaginary excluding the realm of possibility the idea that people 
could take their destiny in hand by refusing to abandon its sovereignty sacrificed ed 
control and to the expertise of the class of professional politicians .

The ossification of Trotskyism as the effects of the PG handle or the Left Front is not 
thereby limited to the height of political issues when the social emergency is expressed 
in riots and increasingly popular revolts by the media when they affect non-Western 
countries when they fall within the Western world. And if the meaning of communism found a 
certain aura thanks to the work of a few critical philosophers, is still lacking similar 
work to be done on the old Double - the "revolution" - that deserves the same company (re) 
symbolic legitimation. Eric Hazan and Kamo do not share the common view of politicization 
or sluggish masses qu'expliqueraient privatization and individualization of consecutive 
existences to the globalization of capital. The various forms of conflict manifest in 
reality a desire for social and political change that is still yet marked by a " 
skepticism about the idea of revolution "(p. 25). The historic defeat of " barracks 
communism "is not to do with skepticism against which some dialectical thinking is also to 
grasp the positivity as a" denationalization "of communism whose libertarian communists 
have persevered to support the idea ... since Bakunin! And it is a pity it is that too 
little mention in first revolutionary measures of the story ( although admittedly minority 
) that communism there (because there were - and still are - as communism as groups of 
organizations claiming), apart from a quick glance at the " sweet prince Kropotkin "(p. 
55). Communism and heterodox libertarian, as anti-capitalist and anti-liberal he is 
anti-state and anti-Stalinist, whose story juice showed here the true persistence in some 
universal principles, and that the news would appropriately demonstrate that the time 
would come for greater ownership of ideas by people concerned about their self-empowerment.

Create irreversible revolution now

A favorable time revolutionary uprising would therefore come, say the authors in the 
second part of their book "Creating the irreversible", which already manifested by " 
evaporation of power "(p. 31) that marked summer 1789 as the spring of 1968, as he 
recently scored popular evictions of Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt during 2011 . 
But these evictions were also followed an electoral process by which relied authoritarian 
restoration of state power (and the Islamic Maghreb). This cycle is known, that of the " 
popular revolution - Provisional Government - Elections - reaction "(p. 33), returning 
regularly punish the libertarian aspirations of the people, since February 1848 and 
September 1870 the government of social-traitor consecutive Ebert to crushing of the 
German Revolution of 1918-1919 through the Italian Civil War years 1944-1945. Instead of a 
constituent assembly which would maintain the authority of the State and the monotonous 
cycle of electoral scansion, the authors prescribe " immediately create irreversible "(p. 
35) advocating" the dissolution of the body made "(p. 38). Issues regularly discussed by 
all persons, whether organized or not conscious activists exceeded the capitalist impasse, 
the fate of money as "abstract general equivalent" or the abolition of wage labor to 
overcome the economic centrality of work, are certainly not settle in one day, but will 
always remain in the agenda of the debate a truly democratic society give itself in the 
participation of the greatest number of its citizens.

What remains in some cases all, is that the current demand for a "universal guaranteed 
income" (or " unconditional grant of autonomy ", p. 45), as supported by liberal 
economists by some disciples Toni Negri conceptualizing a "cognitive capitalism 
"potentially liberating for" many ", not rule on the merits in any way the domination of 
capitalism in which the centrality of work and money and individualization of common life 
are asked as to 'essential prerequisite. Instead of creating an income dependent opposed 
to socialized salary to feed the machine of "purchasing power" fiscal redistribution, the 
authors advocate of free individuals money and work by creating a "constitutional process" 
(again like Toni Negri) that beyond the strict form of the Constituent Assembly will 
produce the new egalitarian society. One can ask whether from Eric Hazan and Kamo not 
confuse work and employment, the second term inducing capitalist capture of the first 
term. Work should be so free from the shackles of employment (and the accompanying 
structurally subordinate work, namely unemployment and job insecurity) and think Bernard 
Friot (but his views are not here unfortunately Most Discussed those of Lordon evoking 
the institution of " r?communes "synonymous with joint ownership of things abandoned the 
lucrative economic mismanagement ), this release calling empowering employees with 
employers. So the abolition of wage labor may be less than its full extension inducing the 
establishment of an "economic citizenship" (from 18) arise, broadening the base of the 
socialized part of the salary including the employer's contribution and the creation, 
alongside social contribution, "economic contribution" eventually replace the capital. 
Still, it is highly likely that " with the end of democratic capitalism, decrease the 
amount of work "(p. 51). And, therefore, unnecessary to maintain jobs for the circuits of 
capital accumulation and consumption ostentatious rich will disappear to make way for an 
emancipated society dogmas of " forced labor "and the" dictatorship of the economy "(p. 
53). Again, despite the august reference to the Economic Xenophon economy as labor input 
so abstract and ultimately sided (ie: serving strict of domination). A when it would , at 
bottom, to get the economy and work for them: that is to say to the common and not for the 
benefit of some against the others.

However, we must acknowledge the support of anti-humanist writers who have good reason to 
laugh is heard when authoritarian arguments for the existence of the state, intended to 
prevent arbitrary large since the fiction of Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes that "Man" is a 
wolf to the "Man". For this "man" is a modern invention (the classical age precisely, as 
already pointed out at the time of words and things Michel Foucault in 1966) which, in 
addition to fold into a single abstract essence devolved the triumph of universal male the 
female half of humanity, reduces people to dangerous that only the state compulsion 
domesticate animals. " '' The Man'' simply does not exist. If there is something that 
actually happened to be a vile, despicable, lying, miserable, it is the state compulsion 
"(p. 55). This negative anthropology (as it was once a "negative theology") is a political 
fiction dismissing people from their capacity to want to live in a better world. And, on 
behalf of the worst (and only a few) trends he n is not that they did not exist and that 
only the state can suppress authoritarianism while with the authoritarianism of the 
capital, the state supports them . Without going into Rousseau's myth of the noble savage 
(no more evident than the Hobbesian lycanthrope), we would rather bet, because when 
revolution, the real aspirations of the peoples whose application is the first day of 
their dignity violated. And this bet, based on many historical precedents (such as the 
emancipation of going home without pay in the extermination at the time of the Commune in 
1871, the Spanish revolution of 1936 and the Municipality of Shanghai 1967 ) must be able 
to ignore the eternal anti-totalitarian quibble that systematically identifies the 
revolution barbarism to leave untouched the 're misleading s need s of capitalism and 
statism .

Boundaries of discourse on the organization, ecology, militant forces available ...

" To create irreversible, we must avoid that a State is reconstituted "(p. 57) pose the 
authors citing Saint-Just:" A nation is a dangerous enemy, it is his government "( ibid ) 
. And this loss, far from causing chaos, will lead in its implementation fainting this " 
bureaucratic centralism "(p. 60), avatar of bourgeois" democratic centralism "Leninist 
Soviet bureaucracies produced daily at the Nationally disorder social . And 
decentralization will not slyly served to reaffirm a little state presence at all 
territorial levels - municipal regional level, departmental, cantonal. Just for the sake 
of smoking synonymous delegation weight of government debt on the entire society 
austerity, gel overall operating grants that the State "shall" to local communities since 
1984 understand how the territorial autonomy is not an empty word. This is why democracy 
without capitalism called for by the authors of First revolutionary measures will be 
established from a nationwide network, the " scale of villages and neighborhoods, at least 
on a scale localized " (p. 61). And it is at this level that meetings, working groups, 
collectives various , committees heterogeneous bloom (but the authors have probably not 
thought about the "hundred flowers" Mao) guaranteeing themselves the application their 
decision without relying on standard procedures of parliamentary formalism (the secret 
ballot representing only solution ultimately sanctioning a " failure to agree ", p. 63). 
Nevertheless, this decision position does not call the celebration of a classic principle 
advocates of "direct democracy e ", namely the General Assembly. While individuals 
experienced in the exercise can affect their progress and influence decisions, and it is 
true that persist reflexes consisting shirk delegating to those that are so clothes the 
delegate the General Assembly and popular sovereignty it implies seem difficult to 
circumvent in a persistent open-ended in its self-institution democracy process (to 
paraphrase the philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy). Also, the criticism has appropriate social 
networks and the Internet supposed to make possible new revolution (as some media have 
noticed during the " P pring Arab ") n ' is based in reminding the powers of 
inter-subjectivity coupled emancipatory power of the " palaver, contact with the eyes and 
hands, bus glasses in common "(p. 65).

It may, however, criticize this quick inventory possible revolutionary lack of reflection 
devoted to structuring inter or Federal from which to organize the heterogeneous fabric of 
collective on a larger territory than the level local and communal ( a reflection that 
would lead to ensure not to give these new structures no own power by requiring its 
participants to adopt the rigorous imperative mandates turning s) . Imperative and 
rotating delegation, extended to everyone because the egalitarian premise is (to 
paraphrase Jacques Ranci?re ) that everyone is capable of, she automatically leads to 
political representation and thus to reconstruct the small class politician? It is not 
there something more secured e that would guarantee social collapse and barbarity 
consecutive farrowing state. There are still areas (including industrial) requiring that 
they be invested at province (rather than the region of bureaucracy promised to disappear) 
as the whole country, whether energy (nuclear power is immediately referred) to the 
channels of communication through the information channels. Regarding the field of health, 
two enemies are clearly identified: the pharmacy (the " huge unpacking ", p 69.) and 
medical imaging (this" hoax ", p 70.). In the process, the environmental issue is raised 
quickly dismissed (and a little too quickly, as in Alain Badiou elsewhere) to name that 
the environmental registry would be in the dominant policy of citizen guilt. The theses of 
radical ecology or eco-socialism are not even of ?battue s and one " urban sprawl "at risk 
of desertification of the countryside is dotted here as the big problem urgently 
addressed. It is a little short, especially as a critique of productivism is a condition 
sine qua non to overcome organizational patterns of production of a life together. E t 
escape and industry standards, historically shared by the Soviet state capitalism and by 
the mixed or liberal capitalism of western economies, weighed their weight in the 
devastation environmental warming.

The story is not finished , it is written everywhere today ...

The authors cite as evidence to support the sense of rational and egalitarian organization 
capable of exercising the lower classes in their desire to revitalize rural desertified by 
the violence of bureaucratic centralism Tarnac located on the plateau of Millevaches and 
Marinaleda in Andalusia. While this is certainly a " islands in the ocean of bureaucratic 
capitalism "(p. 86) Victims of State offensive aimed at denigrating and disorganized (as 
was seen during the pseudo Tarnac "Julien Coupat case"), these examples also demonstrate a 
desire to thwart the authors actually existing practice of spontaneity potential critical 
mass that could send their " activists n?otrotskystes factions, or n?ol?ninistes 
n?omao?stes offering on the way union processions their written in a language of another 
time newspapers "(p. 107). We may regret here as strict reduction potential strengths 
offered by the extreme left groups critical of their practices certainly still largely 
impregnated sectarianism that exclusion from the scope of the reflection of labor, 
heterogeneous and streaked with contradictions (between the energy of some militant bases 
and ossification of federal and confederal structures) . The final request for a " meet 
us "also requires more than this type of cleavage weighing all their weight on the 
revolutionary future cleavage name which should address the real bigotry of some cynical 
judgment of others, can be unorganized. The repeated unidentified groups of women and 
unemployed residents of neighborhoods and youth a clear reference impressionism, 
pointillism or in the statement of existing forces against which appears to be more 
difficult to break the revolutionary tiger. If we share the idea that we should get out of 
" wait and talkative " (p. 107) own the classic revolutionary organizations still the 
question of organization and structure in the desire of the popular self-emancipation, 
effective revolutionary period, will also affect the structural or organizational level of 
communalism or federalism liaison between, for example, workplaces and places of 
residence, including all as places to live . This is a blind spot proposals authors first 
revolutionary measures which demand is projected revolution, excluding activists that the 
revolutionary meaning remains yet operating on collective that one wonders whether the 
defense of their immediate, legitimate interests as they are, overlaps well the desire of 
communism. And it's usually the problem when reading the book, the dissociation of the 
revolutionary question of communism pushing work in the sense of ownership by the largest 
number of its principles .

Finally, the third and final part of the book, entitled "Let the games begin," is 
primarily a spell on the question of fascism. Except that the apprehension of the problem 
here is contradictory. On the one hand, in fact, it is to distinguish the " fascistic 
impregnation current "militarized fascism of the 1930s (p. 100). On the other hand, 
however, the situation is the multiplication European (Germany, Greece) maintained by the 
anti-immigrant speech relayed by the media and political consensus racist violence. And 
so-called "populist" (the quotes timely given to the term "drift populism "encourage 
legitimate to argue, as did the political scientist Annie Collovald , a catch-all concept 
and consensus regarding identification in the same category left extremist the left and 
right-wing) parties of the whole spectrum politician, instead of devitalized right-wing 
parties do that maintaining consensus leading logically strengthen the legitimacy of their 
nationalist arguments. We do not really understands then the assumption that fascism was a 
" decoy "(p. 103). It is understood even less then what mentioned the despicable murder of 
Clement Meric. The pretext, highly misleading, is that the reaction to fascism as an 
infernal dialectic would reinvigorate while " giving the impression of supporting the 
existing democratic order "(p. 104). But the fake Democrats and Liberals contrefichent 
true today of anti-fascism. The criticism of Impressionism clean the vision of the authors 
of First revolutionary measures are to find easily enhanced, especially as CAPAB (the 
fascist collective Paris-Banlieue which belonged activist murdered), and other 
anti-fascist groups , fight with their means (which can still reasonably discuss) against 
fascism understood as watchdog of capitalism. Among the group designated without further 
clarification by Eric Hazan and Kamo to support the revolutionary effectiveness, it would 
be those and the same will probably will not wait to be part of this dynamic.

The lack of political connection between communism and revolution, lack of strategy backed 
Impressionism reading the existing lack of reflection on the structures to be invented to 
unite the revolutionary forces inventing a new life together, spades without effect 
against the extreme left sectarianism or the impasse of fascism, and the almost forgotten 
the words of anarchist and libertarian communist groups eventually combine and weaken 
somewhat the arguments of the authors of First Steps revolutionary . However, what remains 
is their revolutionary passion, a passion greater than all the sacrifices and all the 
resignations that we are common , and certifies could there are fewer differences than to 
overcome differences in discussions to come ( including next Tuesday, November 5 at the 
Bookstore, 23 bvd. Lenin, in Bobigny , 18:30).