Dmitry Olshansky

ANOTE ON POST-MARXIST IDEOLOGY

AND INTERTEXTUALITY FROM ALTHUSSER
TO KRISTEVA
American Marxism in many ways draws on the method deve-
loped within the French structuralism and Russian formalism. Philip
Goldstein in his book Post-Marxist Theory: an Introduction (New
York: SUNYPress, 2005) focused only on French Marxismignoring
post-Marxists doctrines developed in other parts of the world. The-
refore, a more adequate title for his book would have been
Post-Althusserian Theory, because he focused mainly on a very
local reading of Marx by Louis Althusser and his French and Ameri-
can disciples E. Balibar, P. Macherey, S. Resnik and R. Wolff.
Tony Bennet in his Formalism and Marxism (London: Me-
thuen and Co., 1979) following French rewriting of formalist me-
thod noted R. Jakobsons and M. Bakhtins influence on both Mi-
chael Foucaults method of archeology, on Barthess semiology and
on Lacans structural analysis.
John Frowin his book Marxismand Literary History (Cam-
bridge, 1986) repeats Bakhtins thesis of active position of the reader,
who discovers a context of reading rather than any obvious meaning,
supposedly intended by the author. Intertextuality is a system of tex-
tual references, codes and correlations, created through the very pro-
cess of reading. Therefore it belongs neither to the reader nor to the
author. Hence, Julia Kristeva compares intertextuality with uncons-
cious, which also does not belong to the subject nor is it rooted in his
previous traumas. It should rather be discovered, and invented in a
process of speech. In Lacans words, the unconscious is the speech of
the Other. The same polysemy is essential for dream-work, which
also realizes the signifying process ability to pass from one sign
system to another, to exchange and permutate them.
1
Intertextuality
discovers a field of references, makes a context of reading, opens up a
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1
Kristeva J. La rvolution du langage potique. Paris: Seuil, 1974. P. 60;
place for reading, i.e. any order, in which the texts are arranged,
which Lacan calls phantasm.
According to Kristeva, Marx makes an epistemological break
when suggesting immanent method of formalization or production of
models
2
; Marxian method was developed by the Formalists, whose
criticismfollows the object under criticism. In other words, to interpret
a text we should follow its own logic and its own way of self-interpre-
tation. In Marx, there are no critiques of history outside of history, be-
cause social being determines social consciousness
3
; any critique is
bases and follows the logic of the history. Both Marx and Freud reject
(1) any predominant truth that is outside of history, (2) common kno-
wledge that could explain all the singular details and (3) ego-centered
discourse. They look instead for the peculiarities, singular events and
details, which could reconstruct for us the logic of history. To interpret
a dream or a mistake, according to Freud, does not mean to include it
into previous knowledge or reduce it to the common meaning and col-
lective symbols, but follow its own strange logic. The text of a dream
should not be explained by another text as history should not be explai-
ned in a new manner, but it should rather be reconstructed.
Although, Kristeva argues that Freud provides that immanent
method far better than Marx, we can find the same conclusions in
Louis Althussers rejection of humanism and in Michel Foucaults
writings, who described Marxism (together with psychoanalysis) as
an open-ended discourse, which not only refers to a number of analo-
gies, but also constitutes the field of difference. They open up the
space for something different, which, nonetheless, belongs to that
discourse, which was established by them.
4
Therefore to think in the
language of contemporary philosophy and to deal with its conceptual
field means to belong to Marx discourse. Foucault himself, who was
neither a direct Marxist nor a psychoanalyst, belongs to their discour-
ses; although he almost did not quote Marx and Freud in his key
works on Madness (1961), Archeology of Knowledge (1969), and
History of Sexuality (19761984) and does not have special works of
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2
The Kristeva Reader. Ed. by Toril Moi. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986. P. 76;
3
Marx K. Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Ecomony
(1859) / Marx K. and Engels F. Selected Works in One Volume. London: Lawrence &
Wishart, 1968. P. 181;
4
Foucault M. Quest-ce quun auteur? / Bulletin de la Socit franaise de
philosophie, juillet-septembre 1969, pp. 73 104. [P. 94].
them, Philip Goldstein considers Foucault and I share his opinion
to be one of the key post-Marxist thinkers in France.
Thanks to Foucault who discovered Marx as an inventor of
a newdiscourse Marxismhas been separated fromboth the applied
socioeconomic studies and fromscientific discourse and consequen-
tly could not be reduced to the dialectical and historical materialism
only. It became not only a new theory, but a new way of theorizing,
[it] constitutes the object, including the human object, which it
purports to uncover
5
. Like psychoanalysis, which has no scientific
grounds, but could produce as many conceptions as there are analy-
sands. Like psychoanalysis, Marx avoids academic discourse, which
(1) always has an institutional determination, (2) looks for the com-
mon truth that belongs to the other, and therefore (3) is based on
master-slave relations; Laclau and Mouffe dismiss both the concep-
tual truth and scientific neutrality defended by rationalist philosophy
and the discourse of power/knowledge disciplining the subject.
6
Together with Freud, Marx argues that the subject is ex-cente-
red with regard to the meaning, which has been placed at the uncons-
cious or to the class-consciousness and remains unknown for the
self.
7
According to Marx, class being determines the consciousness,
one exists in history, because one has been counted by the class, be-
cause one has been included to the symbolic order of production,
distribution, and consumption; the unconscious thinks of us (in
Freud), or the class interests stipulate the being of the self (in Marx).
Althusser further emphasizes that passive position of man, which is
neither the center of social structures nor a criterion of analysis.
Even though they were interested in structures that are beyond hu-
man beings and that determine the self, Marx and Freud, according
to L. Althusser and J. Lacan were not humanists.
Foucault also pays attention to a split of the subject and ar-
gues that history in Marx is neither accidental nor obvious move-
ment, but it follows unconscious logic and acts like desire
8
, which
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5
Goldstein P. Post-Marxist Theory. An Introduction. N.Y.: SUNY Press,
2005. P. 38;
6
Idib. P. 54;
7
Jameson F. The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic
Act. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981;
8
On desire in history in French Marxism see also: [1] Rancire J. Les Noms
de lhistoires : Essai de potique du savoir. Paris: Seuil, 1992; [2] Rancire J., Co-
according to Lacan has no object and is alienated from the Other.
Nevertheless, it acts upon, and rules personal lives. No one knows
the end of history, but it could be recognized by its results the
change of the socioeconomic formations; history should bot be un-
derstood and described, but constructed in social practice. Like the
desire that has no object, but has the effects that could be recognized
in a discourse only: desire is not repressed or subversive; it is a nor-
mal construct of modern discourses
9
, history in a similar way is
known to be an effect of socioeconomic movement rather than its
cause; it has no aim, but it has results.
Kojvian reading of Marx has stimulated research of several
themes in the humanities: first, the subject has been understood as a
subject of desire, not a subject of consciousness, like in Descartes.
Therefore, self-consciousness is impossible, because consciousness
is determined by the class desire and historical necessity.
Second, since Kojve introduced a splitting subject, which is
beyond the imaginary unity: it is alienated from the humanity by the
class relations (in Marx) or decentered in its relations with the Other
(in psychoanalysis). Lacans position coincides with Marxian
thought when he concludes that le dsir de lhomme est le dsir de
lautre
10
, i.e. desire has a mimetic nature and has to be a collective
product; one borrows the Others / class desire and follows it as if it
were his own. Kojve was the first to investigate the master-slave
dialectic from the point of view of the alienated desire. He concep-
tualized the class struggle as search for the recognition from the
Other. In his research on desire Lacan follows Kojves reading and
considers Marx to be a predecessor of mirror stage,
11
when Marx ar-
gues that any commodity circulation presupposed a measure of the
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K
Ymolli J.-L. Arrt sur histoire. Paris: Centre Georges-Pompidou, 1997; [3] Touraine
M. Un dsir dhistorie. Paris: Stock, 1977;
9
Goldstein P. Post-Marxist Theory. An Introduction. N.Y.: SUNY Press,
2005. P. 48;
10
Lacan J. Le seminaire, Livre I: Les crits technique de Freud. Paris: Seuil,
1975. P. 252; See also [1] chapter Le dsir de lAutre in: Lacan J. Le seminaire, Livre
V: Les formations de linconscient. Paris: Seuil, 1998. P. 387 404; [2] Lacan J. Le
seminaire, Livre VI: Le dsir et son interprtation. Paris: lAssociation freudienne in-
ternationale, 2003;
11
Lacan J. Le Sminaire. Livre V: Les formations de linconscient. Paris:
Seuil, 1998. P. 81;
exchange value and that any change of identification is motivated by
the desire of the Other.
Eventually, Kojve proposed that history is a systemof rewri-
ting of the past and producing of the being, following the Hegels
thesis that any being is the history of [that] being. Like Bakhtin, he
insists on the productive role of the subject, who should make his
history, because history is not the cause, but an effect of subject. His-
tory should be produced, or like in Bakhtin, context of reading
should be discovered, invented in the process of reading. Therefore
Kojve looks for realization of the ideal state and strong leader, who
could be the master of historical movement, who does not think
about the reality, but who changes it (therefore it is not surprising
that in different times he supported Hitler and Stalin); because for
him, there is no essential difference between a philosopher and a ty-
rant .
12
History is not already made, but, according to Marx, should
be done by the subject or should be completed, according to Kojve.
He considers history to be an order of the being of the subject rather
than a blind chronological background of that being. Lacan follows
that idea and argues that the aim of psychoanalysis is re-historizing
the past, re-writing of the history of being [rcrire lhistoire]
13
, i.e.
the relations of symbolization of the subject with regard to the
Others desire, which make the present of the subject. To be the sub-
ject means to become a narrator of history.
Such Lacanian reading of Marx Ernesto Laclaus calls for stu-
dies of identity formation. Both psychoanalysis and Marxismpropo-
sed a way to avoid social or psychical predetermination, and to un-
derstand identity as reducible neither to the frameworks of image of
the self nor to its social status. Laclau and Mouffe proposed the
means to return a singularity of the being to the subject and recons-
truct his reality. Identity is rather a system of relations and represen-
tations, it is a product of contradictions between social structure and
autonomy of the self, or, in Lacanian words, between symbolic and
imaginary orders.
14
Therefore, identity appears to be a part of the
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12
Kojve A. Tyrannie et segesse. Paris: Gallimard, 1954. P. 252;
13
Lacan J. Le seminaire, Livre I: Les crits technique de Freud. Paris: Seuil,
1975. P. 22;
14
Jameson F. Imaginary and symbolic in Lacan: Marxism, psychoanalytic cri-
ticism, and the problem of the subject. / Yale French Studies. No 55/56. New Haven,
1977. P.338 395;
phantasm of the subject, which makes possible social activity of the
subject and realizes the dialectic relation to the absent object.
Marxists efforts to release the identity from the frameworks
of social determinism seems to be very close to the psychoanalytic
practice that allows both a split of any imaginary identity and rewri-
ting of the history of the subject in a new manner, including the sub-
ject into the new system of differences and desires, and making the
world possible [rend un monde possible]
15
; psychoanalysis, as a
practice centered on subjects position in the real,
16
wants to in
Marxs words not only interpret the world, but also to change it.
The question of the real appears again in Jacques Derridas in-
terpretation of Marx, which focused on the relations to the spectral
other, whose presence reasserts itself as the revolutions spirit or in
other ways.
17
Or, in Freuds mind, the other, which always exists
[Kommt ganz regelmig] in human life as an example, object or an
opponent.
18
Derrida deconstructs not only the opposition between
flesh and the spirit, because the flesh never fully manifests the spirit,
but also following Lacan between ones own desire and the de-
sire of the Other,
19
between the objective and spectral reality, and
between life and death, when arguing that they are two parts of one
and the same. Humans should always direct the question about their
life to the Other and link their own being to that of the Other. But at
the same time there is no common being with the Other
20
, because
the Other who witnesses life is himself out of life or, according to
Freud, the Other is like a dead father, whose law comes to power
only after the murder; the Other comes as a law. Derrida contradicts
knowledge and the being: who possesses the knowledge does not
exist in the world. The Other comes as a transcendent instance, that
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15
Lacan J. Le Seminaire, Livre II: Moi dans la thorie de Freud et dans la
techniques de psychanalitique (1954/55). Paris: Seuil, 1978. P. 241;
16
Lacan J. Le Seminaire, Livre XIII: Lobjet de la psychanalyse (1965/66). Pa-
ris: Seuil, 1988. P. 237;
17
Goldstein P. Post-Marxist Theory. An Introduction. N.Y.: SUNY Press,
2005. P. 63;
18
Freud S. Masspsychologie und Ich-Analyse. / GW. XIII, S. 71 161 [S. 73];
19
Le dsir de lhomme est le dsir de lAutre: Lacan J. crits II. Paris: Seuil,
1999. P. 106;
20
Derrida J. Spectres de Marx. LEtat de la dette, le travail du devil et la nou-
velle Internationale. Paris: Galile, 1993. P. 14;
is present as if it is absent; like Lacans gaze of the Other, history ac-
cording to Marx possesses the subject, but remains invisible to him
and he could not predict and programit. History appears like a ghost,
which is out of life, but always obvious and claims its logic. It ap-
pears like law which legitimates the time.
21
Like analytic process,
historical being produces new forms of consciousness and new sub-
jects and new reality and looks like a narrative.
22
That is why Jacques Rancire and Pierre Macherey (in their
Object of Literature. Cambridge UP, 1995) compare politics and
aesthetics they could not simply represent the reality, but had to
change it: literature produces new outlooks and contexts, parodies
and deforms ideology, exposing its limits and gaps, but does not re-
cognize or condemn it.
23
In Rancire, disintegration of common
reality is the way to create a new symbolic order, new system of co-
ordinates, and in Derridian manner, to make history more spectral,
both in politics and aesthetics. The art is not establishing generali-
zed world through absolute peculiarity of form, but is a rearrange-
ment of the objects and images, which compose already generalized
world or it is a situation that could change our views and our approa-
ches to that collective environment.
24
Although Marx idea of the struggle between working class
and bourgeoisie, the theory of socioeconomic formations and teleo-
logical conception of history that in Kojvean words should be
over with the end of the totalitarian communism, today seems fo-
reign in a vocabulary of both contemporary social studies
25
and phi-
losophical research and they could be interesting for radical revolu-
tionaries and historians of philosophy only. But Marxs idea that the
being defines a way of thinking and intention to make philosophical
discourse an actual social force (philosophers have only interpreted
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21
Derrida J., Guillame M. Marx en jeu. Paris: Descartes & Cie, 1997. P. 12;
22
After Foucault, Jacques Rancire calls history a fiction: Rancire J. La ficti-
on de mmoire. propos du Tombeau dAlexandre de Chris Market. / Trafic, Prin-
temps No. 29, 1999. P. 36 47;
23
Goldstein P. Post-Marxist Theory. An Introduction. N.Y.: SUNY Press,
2005. P. 82 83;
24
Rancire J., Malaise dans lesthtique. Paris: Galile, 2004. P. 18;
25
[1] Gorz A. Farewell to the Working Class: An Essay on Post-Industrial So-
cialism. Boston: South And Press, 1982; [2] Wood E.M. The Retreat from Class: A
New True Socialism. London: Verso, 1986;
the world in various ways the point is to change it
26
) is still at the
issue; contemporary philosophy is still inspired by Marx turn from
abstract philosophizing to social practice, following his thesis that
the truth is proved in practice.
27
Post-Marxist philosophy does not
classify different knowledge about truth, but it became a practice of
making a body of the truth; fromgeneral knowledge it turns to a sin-
gular truth of the subject and his being in the world. That is why,
materialism of Marxian discourse which has really become an
alibi word for Marxism
28
is still topical for post-modern intellec-
tual space.
In conclusion I would like to pose a question about one of my
observations. Today Marxist discourse moved from social studies
and political vocabulary to literary critisism, aesthetics and psychoa-
nalysis; we could more easily find Post-Marxists theories in art jour-
nals than in newspapers and politicians speeches. It shifts its interest
from socioeconomic formations to reading formations (T. Ben-
nett), from critiques of capitalist politics to research of cultural-ca-
pitalist state (T. Miller). Should we interpret that movement as a fai-
lure of Marxism as a real political force or conclude that it its
inadequate to describe of social relations in contemporary society?
Or should we turn to Marxist discourse questioning the reality?
What means to be real? Or should we consider Marxism to be a way
of exposing the imaginary world of politics and manipulative me-
chanisms of postindustrial society, claiming that reality consists of
symbolic representations only? Or should we be looking for trans-
formation in the Marxist discourse itself, which discovers new sym-
bolic resources in structuring the reality and makes the world pos-
sible beyond historical materialism, socioeconomic formations and
class struggle theory, which were merely previous versions of
Marxism?
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26
Marx K. Theses on Feuerbach. / Marx K. Earlier Writings. Harmindsworth:
Penguin, 1981. P. 422.
27
Ibid.
28
Spivak G.C. The New Historicism: Political Commitment and the Postmo-
dern Critic / The New Historicism. Ed. by H. Aram Veeser. New York: Routledge,
1989. P. 277 92 [P. 285].