Redefining Revolution

Cardan, Paul (Cornelius Castoriadis)
http://libcom.org/library/redefining-revolution-cornelius-castoriadis-paul-cardan-solidarity

Publisher:  Solidarity, London, United Kingdom
Year Published:  1974   First Published:  1963
Pages:  24pp  
Dewey:  301.6333
Resource Type:  Book
Cx Number:  CX6526

Modern society certainly remains profoundly divided. It constantly functions against the immense majority of working people. In everyday life the exploited defend themselves against exploitation by part of every single one of their everyday gestures. The present crisis of humanity, it is true, will only be solved by a socialist revolution. But these ideas risk remaining empty abstractions, pretexts for sermons or for a blind, spasmodic activism if one doesn't try to understand the new ways in which the division of society assumes concrete form today, how modern capitalism functions, the new forms taken today by the working class struggle against the ruling classes and their system, and unless one seriously tries to understand what — under these conditions — a new revolutionary activity integrated to the real struggle of people in society might mean and how it could be linked to a coherent and lucid understanding of the world. To achieve this what is needed is nothing less than a radical theoretical and practical renewal.

Abstract: 


A translation of 'Recommencer la révolution' by Cornelius Castoriadis. It was published in early 1974 by Solidarity (London) as pamphlet No. 44.

'Recommencer la révolution' was first circulated inside the group 'Pouvoir Ouvrier' in March 1963 during the arguments which led to a split in July 1963. It represented the viewpoint of the Castoriadis tendency in these arguments and it was published as an unsigned editorial in the first post-split issue of 'Socialisme ou Barbarie' - No. 35 (January-March 1964).

Castoriadis did not publish under his own name until the 1970s and like the other Solidarity translations of his work this was published as by Paul Cardan the pseudonysm he used in France from 1959.

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