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.
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Louis Althusser. What is to be Done?
Table of Contents
Guide
Pages
Epigraph
What Is To Be Done?
Copyright Page
Acknowledgements
Note on the Text
1 The ‘What’ in ‘What Is To Be Done?’
Notes
2 The Absolute Empiricism of Antonio Gramsci
Notes
3 Gramsci or Machiavelli?
Notes
4 Gramsci, Eurocommunism, Class Dictatorship
Notes
Index
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Отрывок из книги
For, ultimately, what did Machiavelli urge upon his readers, long before Chernyshevsky and Lenin, if not the problem and the question: What is to be done?
Louis Althusser, The Future Lasts Forever
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Louis Althusser, The Future Lasts Forever
All other notes to the text are mine, with the exception of one note by Althusser. I am responsible for the division of the text into chapters as well as the chapter titles. The general title is Althusser’s. A few minor errors on Althusser’s part have been silently corrected.