Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays by Louis Althusser Search Amazon for other books by or about Louis Althusser. Rating: Reviewed by: John Walsh

Louis Althusser was a central (and often divisive) figure in the intellectual circles of the left in the 1960s and 1970s. In common with the ideas and analyses he studied, his work became unfashionable during the brief period after Gorbachev's liquidation of the Soviet system in which it appeared liberal-democratic capitalism had conquered the world both intellectually and in really existing terms. The man himself suffered from mental illness and ultimately murdered his wife of many years, apparently as a result of that mental illness. Yet as the 2008 global financial crisis has made even more clear, global capitalism still suffers from the overwhelming instability brought about by unavoidable periods of boom and bust. The NICE decade (non-inflationary and continuously expanding) that persuaded many people who should have known better that the world economy would proceed on a path of endless growth, has of course come to an end, made more untimely by the disastrous repeal of regulations to control the financial industries in many western countries. Transnational studies of public opinion show majorities unhappy with the capitalist system and desirous of introducing some alternative - the problem is that finding a workable alternative has proven extremely difficult. Is it not time, then, to return to the ideas of Althusser with a view to determining whether he has useful lessons for us today? The answer is that Althusser, whether he is useful or not, is provocative and intelligent and should be taken seriously. Only by understanding the lessons and methods of the past are we, in the words of Sir Isaac Newton, able to stand on the shoulders of giants. However, Althusser is not an easy read: he had little interest in making the concepts with which he is concerned simple or simplistic. Indeed, in common with most writers who urge us to read Marx, he is clear that it is necessary to study the text, reading and re-reading it several times before the meaning emerges and that this process of learning and understanding is vital in helping the individual escape from the state-mandated ideologies that exist to persuade people that reality is other than it is. Thus, with Althusser, it is necessary to consider carefully what he is saying and why. In this volume, many of Althusser's most important works are combined and it is possible to witness the way in which he (at least in this edited version) sets out his principles and ideas and then applies them to different fields of study. The first piece is the transcript of an interview conducted in 1968 in which he outlines his approach to philosophy and, hence, to life. The principal point to take from this interview is, I think, the insistence on Marxist thought as a scientific body of work, specifically regarding history. If it is scientific, then it operates according to strictly determined rules and it is possible to adjudicate what is correct and what is incorrect. The science of history, which Althusser considers to be the third great intellectual revolution in human history after the opening of the "continents" of mathematics and physics, necessarily relies upon the work of Hegel but has been demonstrated properly by Marx, largely by eliminating the extraneous religious elements on which Hegel insisted. As a science, it may be set against the ideologies that try to obfuscate reality but it is also a weapon for exposing and highlighting the truth.

The book then continues with the central essay entitled "Lenin and Philosophy." Here, Althusser is concerned with in one sense redeeming the legacy of Lenin as an important intellectual of the Marxist tradition in his own right. Leninism is, according to Althusser, to be separated from the horrors of Stalinism but not to be confused with the kind of humanist Marxism favoured by contemporaries such as Jean-Paul Sartre. He also argues that, while he has demonstrated that Marxism is a science, it is also necessary that it should have a philosophy as well and that the role Lenin was instrumental in contributing towards that philosophy. The third central piece is the essay Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus (Notes Toward an Investigation), in which Althusser observes that for capitalism to continue, to sustain itself endlessly, it is necessary not only for labour to learn certain elements of "know-how" in addition to the rules of good behaviour (through religion, school, politics, media, society and so forth) but also for the ruling classes to learn how continually to reinvent their positions and their own centrality. This seems obvious in retrospect but, like all important ideas, it had to be expressed and portrayed for the first time.

There are other important essays in this excellent collection, which is edited with a very useful introduction by Fredric Jameson and translated from the French by Ben Brewster, which must itself have been a formidable undertaking: consider this passage from the initial interview. Why does philosophy fight over words? The realities of the class struggle are "represented" by "ideas," which are "represented" by words. In scientific and philosophical reasoning, the words (concepts, categories) are "instruments" of knowledge. But in political, ideological and philosophical struggle, the words are also weapons, explosives or tranquilizers and poisons. Occasionally, the whole class struggle may be summed up in the struggle for one word against another word. Certain words struggle amongst themselves as enemies. Other words are the site of an ambiguity: the stake in a decisive but undecided battle (p.8). So, no pressure on the translator then.