1 oct 2012

Communism and culture: what reveals the “Richard Millet” case?

Submitted by Anonyme (non vérifié)

The Richard Millet case is easy to understand. Millet is an editor of a big publishing house in France, Gallimard ; he is a novelist and an essayist, and so a member of the bourgeois intelligentsia, which produces bourgeois ideology in the field of literature, if it is possible to call litterature this production of verbal nonsense books.

Being a reactionary, Millet published a small text called literary praise Anders Breivik, where he presents Breivik as a kind of writer wannabe which failed and became a killer.

With this presentation, there is also an ultra-reactionary presentation of society, where “multiculturalism” would be the cause of all “evil” (Norway deserved Breivik. This is what awaits multicultural society that underestimates the dangers.“ “Breivik is as much a child of a broken family as of an ideological and racial fracture caused by immigration from outside Europe over the last 20 years.”).

There were no reactions on the far left and the far right, excepted in the structures producing culture and ideology. Which means, of course, that on the far left we were the only one.

The reason for that is easy to understand: we understood the lessons of Maoism about culture and ideology. And we have a tradition for this, and by that we don't mean only the great century of the Lumières and the Encyclopédie.

No, we have something else, already. French Maoism of 1970's has done some great work, but only for a couple of years, before to collapse. This is the negative aspect.

But among the positive aspect, we find a great work on the field of culture. French Maoism began with a criticism of the position of the revisionist “Communist” Party on culture, against Garaudy and Aragon, their main intellectuals.

Most of the intellectuals, in a way or another, supported Maoism: the most famous is Jean-Paul Sartre, but it is true even for the young intellectuals of the lycées (schools for the 14-18 years old) or among cinema. There were numerous studies on cinema, its nature and its role, and of course we have to remember about Jean-Luc Godard, the great film director.

Unfortunately, French Maoism did not benefit of a political-journalistic tradition like the one in Germany.

During the 1920's-1930's, the Communist of Parties of Germany and Austria worked very strongly in the building of a structural set able to produce articles, positions, news, novels, movies, etc.

In France at the same period, this existed also through the Communist International which pushed this, but it never really worked. There are for example numerous movies about the Popular Front, the revisionist CP of today has even a website proposing them – but they are amazingly expensive and don't belong to popular culture at all.

Fortunately, there are now numerous videos that can be watched on line.

The reason for this is that in France, we didn't have an Antonio Gramsci, a José CarlosMariategui, or an Alfred Klahr, great thinkers studying and understanding the ideological-culture reality of their own country.

We had a Maurice Thorez, that decided to apply socialism in making a fusion with the popular aspect of the French bourgeois revolution of 1789. This was of course incorrect and not a correct understanding of the contradictions between city and land, between manual and intellectual labor.

But, at least, today, we have a vision of this and so we know what Maoism must do. And it is has nothing to do with others small currents existing in France and pretending that Maoism is only a “revolutionary” method to organize mass agitation.

Maoism is an ideology which leads the working class to take the power of the state, a new state. But for this cadres are needed, and the formation of cadres is not something coming spontaneously. It is a hard work, which can take decades. This is what we do.

This bolshevik reality is sometimes forgotten by Maoists around the world; the cultural-ideological implications are not seen. This is really bad and this leads to failure like in Nepal. Taking power is a great leap, the masses need their Party for this. If the Party is not able to lead society, because it represents the working class, then nothing is possible.

International: