Louis Althusser - What is to be Done?

1 Cover

2 Epigraph Epigraph For, ultimately, what did Machiavelli urge upon his readers, long before Chernyshevsky and Lenin, if not the problem and the question: What is to be done? Louis Althusser, The Future Lasts Forever

3 Title Page What Is To Be Done? Louis Althusser Edited and Translated by G. M. Goshgarian polity

4 Copyright Page

5 Acknowledgements

6 Note on the Text

7 1 The ‘What’ in ‘What Is To Be Done?’ Notes

8 2 The Absolute Empiricism of Antonio Gramsci Notes

9 3 Gramsci or Machiavelli? Notes

10 4 Gramsci, Eurocommunism, Class Dictatorship Notes

11 Index

12 End User License Agreement

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2 Table of Contents

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For, ultimately, what did Machiavelli urge upon his readers, long before Chernyshevsky and Lenin, if not the problem and the question: What is to be done?

Louis Althusser, The Future Lasts Forever

Louis Althusser

Edited and Translated by G. M. Goshgarian

polity

Originally published in French as Que Faire? © Presses Universitaires de France/ Humensis, Que Faire? , 2018

This English edition © 2020 by Polity Press

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All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-3860-7

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-3861-4 (paperback)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Althusser, Louis, 1918-1990, author. | Goshgarian, G. M., editor.

Title: What is to be done? / Louis Althusser ; edited and translated by G.M. Goshgarian.

Other titles: Que faire? English

Description: Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity Press, [2020] | Originally published in French as Que Faire? in 2018 by PUF. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “A leading Marxist philosopher lays out his practical vision for political struggle”-- Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020012866 (print) | LCCN 2020012867 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509538607 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509538614 (paperback) | ISBN 9781509538621 (epub) | ISBN 9781509544196 (adobe pdf)

Subjects: LCSH: Gramsci, Antonio, 1891-1937. | Revolutions. | Communism.

Classification: LCC HX289.7.G73 A7313 2020 (print) | LCC HX289.7.G73 (ebook) | DDC 335.43--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020012866

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020012867

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G. M. Goshgarian thanks Nathalie Léger, director of the Institut mémoires de l’édition contemporaine, together with the rest of the Imec staff, the Arles Centre international de traducteurs littéraires, and François Boddaert, Fabio Bruschi, Jackie Épain, Luke Épain, Julie Le Men, Vittorio Morfino, Vanessa Roghi, Stefan Schomann, Laurie Tuller, and Fang Yan.

The text on which the present translation is based, an unfinished manuscript titled Que faire? that Louis Althusser wrote in 1978, was first published in 2018 in an edition that I prepared for the Presses universitaires de France/Humensis. The French edition is based on a photocopy of a ninety-five-page typed manuscript bearing many corrections in Althusser’s hand. This photocopy, four pages of which are defective, would appear to be the only copy of the text in Althusser’s archives, housed in the Institut mémoires de l’édition contemporaine (Imec) in Caen. An appeal to Althusser’s collaborators failed to turn up other copies of Que faire?

A list of notes has been preserved at the Imec along with the photocopied manuscript. They bear on passages of Antonio Gramsci’s Quaderni del carcere ( Prison Notebooks ) quoted or referred to in Que faire? However, they contain no note markers pegging them to the text. Some of the notes contain brief comments, all of them in Italian; one includes a handwritten sentence that is not in Althusser’s hand. The references to Prison Notebooks in the present edition are, without exception, taken from this list, which refers to the edition of the Quaderni published in 1975 under Valentino Gerratana’s general editorship. Where possible, I have replaced the references to the Italian edition with references to published English translations. I have also inserted note markers at what seemed to be the right places.

All other notes to the text are mine, with the exception of one note by Althusser. I am responsible for the division of the text into chapters as well as the chapter titles. The general title is Althusser’s. A few minor errors on Althusser’s part have been silently corrected.

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