From Crisis to Communisation

by Gilles Dauvé

“Communisation” means something quite a revolution that starts to change social relations immediately. It would extend over years, decades probably, but from Day One it would begin to do away with wage-labour, profit, productivity, private property, classes, States, masculine domination, and more. There would be no “transition period” in the Marxist sense, no period when the “associated producers” continue furthering economic growth to create the industrial foundations of a new world. Communisation means a creative insurrection that would bring about communism, not its preconditions. Thus stated, it sounds simple enough. The questions are what, how, and by whom. That is what this book is about. Communisation is not the be-all and end-all that solves everything and proves wrong all past critical theory. The concept was born out of a specific period, and we can fully understand it by going back to how people personally and collectively experienced the crises of the 1960s and ’70s. The notion is now developing in the maelstrom of a new crisis, deeper than the Depression of the 1930s, among other reasons because of its ecological dimension, a crisis that has the scope and magnitude of a crisis of civilisation. This is not a book that glorifies existing struggles as if their present accumulation were enough to result in revolution. Radical theory is meaningful if it addresses the How can proletarian resistance to exploitation and dispossession achieve more than aggravate the crisis? How can it reshape the world?

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2015

About the author

Gilles Dauvé has worked as a translator and a schoolteacher. He is the author of essays and books on the Russian, German and Spanish revolutions, and on democracy, fascism, war, morals, crisis, and class.

Reviews

[Mikaellyng · Rating 2 out of 5]

This being Dauvé’s latest book translated into English it presents a more reflected view on communisation theory in the light of past events like May 68. I have read little of Dauvé prior to this book so it’s a bit of a difficult because of references to other communisation groups like Théorie Communiste and SIC, but all in all remains an alright introduction to communisation theory. Communisation draws on many post-autonomist, post-anarchist and libertarian Marxist traditions that emerged around the 60s and 70s, making communisation, in comparison to the broader Marxist tradition obscure and somewhat insignificant.

In this book Dauvé draws on in Marx’s early writings to critique the Leninist tradition of the transitional programmes mediating the advancement of socialism. For Dauvé this transition is nothing more than an authoritarian overtaking of state power which inevitably, sometimes instantaneously returns to the value form, or capitalism. Although critical of Lenin, Dauvé gives credit to some Lenin’s contemporaries, namely Bordiga and Pannekoek. Although Dauvé came up in the the French ultraleft tradition of the autonomists and situationists, he delivers some interesting critiques against them. However, Dauvé's program can't be said to have to much going for it, one might even accuse him of ultraleftism. Ultraleftism in the sense that he is dealing mostly with abstract principles and fostering sectarianism, essentially leaving the working class behind. In fact Dauvé acknowledges the traps of postmodern thinkers but fall into similar traps as them by stating that workers are to focused on the risks of loosing work too the extent that they corrupt communisation with "productionism". Only the proletariat, the class which has nothing to loose, as Dauvé defines it are the ones that can carry through a successful insurrection.
The insurrection and its political tactics are for Dauvé works of smaller leaderless militias, making his strategic approach nothing short of utopian. There is a certain strain of anarchist thought in Dauvé's works which on one side is highly critical to bureaucratization and top-down leadship and on the other is incapable of giving a overarching framework for strategical political networks, because of fears of production and work. This again is sacrificing viable strategy for non-flexible principles.

Although i don't find Dauvé's writings to convincing i have to say that it was an interesting read which contained a lot of recent accounts into the workers struggles globally which is always refreshing, as well as a couple of stabs at some of the liberal politics on the left. He also have some valuable insights on theory and critique towards the end, stating that "when we spot a flaw in a theory, either we don't care or we express disagreement. But whenever a theory really matters, it's because of its kernel of truth, however debatable its expression can be."

[Sam Whitehill · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a somewhat scattered but provacative collection of thoughts on the term “communisation”. It begins with a short history of the 1960s and 70s worker revolts in which new tactics and ideas flourished before giving way to the post-Fordist reaction. These revolts were the roots of the communisation idea.

The middle sections- the bulk of the text- discuss the theory of communisation. The main themes of communisation include an anti work class perspective (the goal is to abolish productivity, value creation, and the working class as such) and immediacy (the communisation process has no intermediate stages). None of this is new but Dauve makes it into an interesting read.

He ends with some critiques of communisation theories from The Invisible Committee and Theorie Communiste. The former conflates drop out culture (“alternativism”) with communist ruptures, while the latter proves too deterministic for Dauve. Both cases provide false optimism, in a way.

[Ike Schell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some sharp stuff here, I deeply appreciate his anti-"communism is destined to happen" stance, something I believe Marxists should more deeply internalize. There is one quote in particular that I really enjoy:
"Revolution is neither the fruit of long-cultivated undermining action, nor of will power. It was off the agenda in 1852, in 1872, or in 1945 (although some comrades mistook the end of World War II for the dawning of a new Red October). Not everything is possible at any given time. Critical moments give opportunities: it depends on the proletarians, it depends on us to exploit these capabilities. Nothing guarantees the coming of a communist revolution, nor its success if it comes. A historical movement keeps developing because its participants make it do so. A revolution withers when people stop believing in it and no longer rise to the challenge they have initiated. History is not to be understood with the mind of the chemist analysing molecular reactions. The closer communist theory gets to “science,” the less communist it becomes. Communism is not to be proved."
I believe this perspective to be totally correct. Marxism as mere science is a degenerate tendency that must be combatted. I found his critique of work valuable, though I may need to reread some of those sections and think more critically on the implications. I also appreciated much of the "creative insurrection" chapter. However, there are many of his arguments that I find rather confusing and strange. Much of this book seems to be written for someone who is an anti-Leninist, which I am not. This book gives glimpses of a good idea, but I found myself disagreeing with many of the basic premises.

[Matteo Escobar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it because it’s french.