Chi ha ucciso Majakovskij? Romanzo rivoluzionario

by Franco "Bifo" Berardi

94 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Franco "Bifo" Berardi (born 2 November 1948 in Bologna, Italy) is an Italian Marxist theorist and activist in the autonomist tradition, whose work mainly focuses on the role of the media and information technology within post-industrial capitalism. Berardi has written over two dozen published books, as well as a more extensive number of essays and speeches.

Unlike orthodox Marxists, Berardi's autonomist theories draw on psychoanalysis, schizoanalysis and communication theory to show how subjectivity and desire are bound up with the functioning of the capitalism system, rather than portraying events such as the financial crisis of 2008 merely as an example of the inherently contradictory logic of capitalist accumulation. Thus, he argues against privileging labour in critique and says that "the solution to the economic difficulty of the situation cannot be solved with economic means: the solution is not economic." Human emotions and embodied communication becomes increasingly central to the production and consumption patterns that sustain capital flows in post-industrial society, and as such Berardi uses the concepts of "cognitariat" and "info labour" to analyze this psycho-social process. Among Berardi's other concerns are cultural representations and expectations about the future — from proto-Fascist Futurism to post-modern cyberpunk (1993). This represents a greater concern with ideas and cultural expectations than the determinist-materialist expression of a Marxism which is often confined to purely economic or systemic analysis.

(via Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honestly a very fun book to read, a real mirror into exactly the kind of weird and bizarre political and cultural change was going on in 1977. In many ways it is reminiscent of Vogliamo Tutto by Nanni Balestrini, at least in its stylistic choices, but goes the step further and incorporates the book itself as part of the reading experience by playing around with the position of the words on the page itself. It's very non-linear and follows several different stories which honestly made it hard to really follow in a cohesive manner, definitely deserves more than one read.

I would describe this as a mix of a narrative novel with literary and political theory sprinkled around here and there, following the kind of ideas that the figure of Mayakovsky was famous for using in his work. In fact the main narrative piece follows Mayakovsky himself (or really a made up version of him) mostly discussing literature and revolution, talking about the role of literature in the russian revolution, the ultimate incompatibility of the state form with the newly emergent working-class subjectivity, and the oppressive turn of the Soviet State against the very class it claimed to liberate. By asking who Killed Mayakovsky? Bifo isn't looking to blame a singular person or figure, he seeks to find out what pushed this poet to take his own life, and I think the answer is found in the state. Again I'm probably gonna have to read it again to fully understand it but my reading was that his suicide was symbolic of that of the working class. After taking power, the party failed to abolish the working class as class and instead reaffirmed it to preserve its own existence as mediator between class and state. Instead of liberation this just seemed to reproduce the same or similar oppressive dynamics on a different scale, the same bourgeois violence that was oppressing the working class was being wielded to oppress the new emerging subjectivities of the post-revolutionary USSR, perhaps leading to a conception of working class that was too restrictive.

Overall I had a lot of fun reading this, but I think I'm still far from understanding it so I'm more than happy to say I'll be reading this again, this time treating it as a work of theory instead of one of literature and we'll see how my experience changes.