What Is to Be Done?

1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5095-3860-7
Verlag: Polity Press

Buch, Englisch, 120 Seiten, Format (B × H): 140 mm x 218 mm, Gewicht: 249 g

What is to be done? This was the question asked by Lenin in 1901 when he was having doubts about the revolutionary capabilities of the Russian working class. 77 years later, Louis Althusser asked the same question. Faced with the tidal wave of May ‘68 and the recurrent hostility of the Communist Party towards the protests, he wanted to offer readers a succinct guide for the revolution to come. Lively, brilliant and engaged, this short text is wholly oriented towards one objective: to organise the working class struggle. Althusser provides a sharp critique of Antonio Gramsci’s writings and of Eurocommunism, which seduced various Marxists at the time. But this book is above all the opportunity for Althusser to state what he had not succeeded in articulating elsewhere: what concrete conditions would need to be satisfied before the revolution could take place. Left unfinished, it is published here in English for the first time.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Althusser, Louis

Weitere Mitwirkende

Goshgarian, G M

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Geschichte der Westlichen Philosophie Westliche Philosophie: 20./21. Jahrhundert
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Sozialphilosophie, Politische Philosophie
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Theorie, Politische Philosophie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements vii
Note on the Text ix

1 The ‘What’ in ‘What Is To Be Done?’ 1

2 The Absolute Empiricism of Antonio Gramsci 25

3 Gramsci or Machiavelli? 60

4 Gramsci, Eurocommunism, Class Dictatorship 76

Notes 82

Index 97

Über Autor(innen)

Louis Althusser (1918-1990) was a leading Marxist philosopher and an influential figure in the French Communist Party.  He taught philosophy for many years at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris and his many books include History and Imperialism, For Marx, Reading Capital (with Étienne Balibar and others) and Lenin and Philosophy.