.m:2
5.5 The mass vanguard and the ambiguities
of worker centrality
On the theoretical
plane, as we have seen, Negri attempts to
rejuvenate
Lenin's concept of the revolutionary subject by updating it
with
respect to the contemporary socio-political conditions. When we
turn to
examine how these ideas are played out within the Italian
political
context of this period, however, we find a clear disparity
in
Negri's thought and the persistence of certain Leninist
propositions
which he seemed to have rejected earlier.
Negri
advocates
in his political circles, for example, the theoretical
centering
of the revolutionary subject on the typical factory worker
and
hence the organization of a vanguard party to lead the movement.
We should
be very careful, however, in interpreting these positions
because
they are so closely tied to the political contingencies
specific
to the Italian situation in this period.
Therefore, with one
eye on
the turbulent political scene we will try to position these
practical
propositions in order to clarify this stage of Negri's
thought.
Negri was one of the
founding members of Potere operaio [Workers'
Power]
a political organization which existed roughly from 1969 to
1973. The status of the organization was
continually in flux, but one
of
Negri's central and most problematic texts of this period, "Partito
operaio
contro il lavoro", which was circulated in various forms among
militants
in the movement, constituted his proposition of a programme
to
transform Potere Operaio into a revolutionary party. As a party,
Potere
operaio would be the central point of focus or the vanguard for
the
various struggles and thus lead the path to revolution. The most
problematic
element of this proposition, given the theoretical
framework
which we have established, is the conception of the priority
of a
revolutionary subjectivity centered around the factory workers:
the
mass worker is presented as the paradigm subjectivity and hence as
the
vanguard for the entire working class.
The concept of a vanguard
party
persists here in Negri's thought, even though we have seen that
the
conditions for its existence have been taken away. Negri does
have a
coherent means of explaining this seemingly paradoxical
position,
but to be adequately understood these arguments have to be
situated
in the context of rapid social change and intense political
violence. Once we position Negri's argument, in
fact, the call for
proletarian
unity appears designed principally to fulfill a role of
moderation,
mediating between the extremes active in the workers'
movements.
The foundation for
the proposition of a vanguard party in Negri's
theoretical
investigations is a highly problematic one. His
periodization
of labor relations and production presents this in
perhaps
the simplest terms. Capitalist
production of the late 19th
century,
Negri has argued, tended toward the development of highly-
skilled
factory production as its central factor.
Correspondingly,
through
the conditions of these relations of production, a paradigm
workers'
subjectivity, the professional worker, progressively matured
to the
point that it constituted a independent threat to the existence
of
capital through its organization in the professional vanguard
party. The capitalist transformation, then, to
mass factory
production
both destroyed the conditions for the professional worker
and
created the conditions for a new worker subjectivity, the mass
worker. The formal schema is logically
completed, then, by the mass
vanguard
party as the form of organization adequate to the mass worker
subject.
.m:1
dominant capitalist | paradigm class | adequate
structure
of production | subjectivity | organization
________________________|______________________|________________
|
|
specialized
industrial | professional | professional
production
| worker
| vanguard party
|
|
mass
industrial |
mass
| mass vanguard
production
| worker
|
party
.m:2
Therefore when Negri
says "Š inimaginabile una ripresa della
teoria
del partito (dentro la composizione attuale di classe) che
ripete
in maniera predissequa la teoria leninista" [Fabbrica 63] he is
not
rejecting the contemporary validity of a vanguard party tout
court,
but rather he is arguing for a "mass" rather than a
"professional"
class vanguard: "In realt… il concetto di avanguardia
si Š
modificato, Š divenuto concetto di ®avanguardia di massa¯ ...."
[61] The ambiguities here are all contained
in the paradoxical
concept
of a mass vanguard. The first
component of the concept, its
"mass"
character, attempts to bridge any possible gap or destroy any
externality
between the political elite and the masses of workers. In
his
critique of Lenin, we have already seen that Negri believes that
the
distinction between the particular and the general, between the
economic
and the political which Lenin theorized is no longer adequate
to the
class situation. Therefore, it
follows that political
organization
must construct a unification of the working class not
from a
position external to the masses (as Lenin imagined it) but
rather
from an internal standpoint within the masses: "Non
'dall'alto',
bens¡ dal basso, dal di dentro, questo processo di
unificazione
pu• solamente darsi." ["Partito" 130] Revolutionary
organization,
then, should be a "mass" organization in that it is
situated
within the class. Through the
power of this mass
subjectivity,
the working class rejects any form of representation
through
external leadership and presents itself as the unmediated
subject
of power. "Il potere, la
classe pu• delegarlo solo a se
stessa."
[147] However, this first
component of the concept seems to
be
contradicted (or at least, problematized) by the second: this
internal
organization is nonetheless unified and centered around a
vanguard,
which is in some sense distinguished from the masses. The
distinction
is made, on a theoretical plane, principally on the basis
of
productive labor: the mass workers in the large factories are given
the
political task of a vanguard because they constitute the heart of
capitalist
production. Through this political
priority and relative
autonomy,
the factory worker vanguard is privileged with an hegemony
over
the rest of the working class and indeed the entire society. In
this
sense, Negri reproposes revolutionary centralization and the
political
need for a party. In a perfectly
paradoxical fashion, Negri
proposes
that the party be both internal and external to the class.
Here, however, we
find the reappearance in Negri's thought of
the
traditional Leninist distinctions between the economic and the
political
in the concept of a mass vanguard.
"Il concetto di partito
delle
avanguardie di massa Š quello della unificazione fra lotta per
il
salario e lotta rivoluzionaria per il potere." [135] The mass
economic
struggle (for wages, against work) and the vanguard political
struggle
(for power) must be seen as both separate and united. This
analysis
of the two struggles corresponds perfectly to organizational
strategies. The communist tradition of anti-fascist
resistance
(dating
back to WWII) proposes organization on "dual levels": a mass
level
and an elite (or clandestine) level.
The proposition of the
mass
vanguard is an attempt to maintain the power of this strategy but
supersede
its duality in a synthetical unity.
Negri tries to work his
way out
of this theoretical dilemma, in other words, on both the
analytical
and organization planes, with a dialectical slight of hand:
the two
struggles are dialectically united in the mass vanguard party;
the
passage from the plural subject of the economic struggles to the
unified
subject of the political struggle is a passage from quantity
to
quality. "Solo un uso
marxiano della dialettica materialistica ci
pu•
permettere di approfondire e di chiarire il concetto di
avanguardia
di massa, quindi il concetto di partito operaio contro il
lavoro."
[136] The appeal to the dialectic,
however, does not give
Negri a
convincing solution to this problem.
The concept of mass
vanguard
remains a paradox. Nonetheless,
Negri's objective here is
quite
clear: he wants to discover a social synthesis to produce a
coherent
revolutionary subject strong enough to meet the contemporary
needs
of the class struggle.
5.6 Political violence and terrorism.
We can only really
clarify this theoretical morass when we
recognize
the practical pressures which Negri felt at the time and the
mediating
role he attempted to fill as an intellectual in the
movement. There was a wide-spread belief among
the militants that in
the
early 70s they were nearing the final stages of the overthrow of
the
Italian State, a period of civil war.
The time had come for
insurrection. Political violence was no longer a
matter of question;
in
Italy such violence was so general that it had become the normal
state
of political exchange, from both sides of the conflict. Giorgio
Bocca,
one of the journalists who attempted to investigate Negri's
career,
tries to situate the discourse of armed struggle in this
turbulent
period. "Si fa una operazione
astorica, di pura
inquisizione
formale se si isolano la violenza e l'insurrezionalismo
di
Potere operaio, dal loro tempo, dalla situazione nazionale e
internazionale. [...] A noi come storici importa dire che negli anni
fra il
1969 e il 1974 la violenza politica Š un dato di fatto,
largamente
tollerato, diciamo pure, quasi normale." [70] Violence,
then,
was a given element of the political scene. From the workers'
point
of view, the State had been pushed to its limit by the power of
the
workers' movements and now in desperation the State looked
consistently
to violence as the only effective weapon through to
maintain
its control. The 1969 conflicts in
Turin (in Corso Traiano)
and in
Battipaglia are the most commonly cited examples. [cf. "Do You
Remember
Revolution" 233] The struggle
against capitalist command,
then,
according to this view, had no choice but to adopt some sort of
policy
of armed struggle. Therefore,
Negri is not expressing a
marginal
position when he says "solo la lotta armata parla oggi di
communismo."
[136] We should be careful keep in
mind here, since we
are now
venturing on to some of the most problematic and provocative
terrain,
that our purpose here is merely to explain Negri's
theoretical
and practical positions.
Within the context of
political violence, then, Negri's position
is
defined by two polemics: on one side against the "populists" or
"narodniks"
and on the other against the "subjectivists". The
populists,
he argues, do not sufficiently appreciate the need for
central
organization in the context of civil war.
This is true for
two
reasons. Firstly, when political
dialogue has been reduced to
violence,
the working class must be able to defend itself and wield a
force
equal to that of the State; the party must be "il rovesciamento
speculare
ed opposto" of capitalist command and State power. [142] If
the
proletariat is to take the offensive in this context (as a para-
military
force), it must have a centralized and coherent leadership.
Every
act of class violence should be directed in a concerted project
to
further the goals and organization of the working class. [152]
This
leads to the second reason for centralized leadership: in a
situation
of widespread violence, lack of organization will result in
senseless
damages, to the workers and to the society at large. Negri
and
many other intellectuals associated with the workers' movements
saw
their roles as moderating filters which could protect against
random
violence and senseless excesses.
Negri's other polemic,
on the other side, is against the
"subjectivists"
or "voluntarists". This
position, Negri argues, should
not be
critiqued for the use of violence in itself, but rather "di non
sapere
stringere un organico rapporto tra soggettivit… del potere
operaio
e soggettivismo dell'uso della violenza." [139] The
"subjectivists"
are those who propose the direct action against the
State
and capital conducted by an armed vanguard which was external to
the
working class, but acting in the interest of the class. This was
obviously
a very strong faction in the movement and one which could
not be
ignored. It was grounded to a
large extent in the heritage of
the
Italian anti-fascist tradition of the partisan combattents. (7)
The
theoretical appraisal of the contemporary nature of the capitalist
State,
therefore, takes on a tactical importance, and the stakes are
extremely
high. "Taluno, nel movimento,
sostiene con qualche
efficacia
di pressione e convinzione sui quadri militanti, la tesi di
un
processo di fascistizzazione dello Stato." [154] Since the State
has
adopted a fascistic form relatively autonomous from capital, these
militants
argue, the workers' movement needs to combat it in
traditional
anti-fascist fashion with armed brigades relatively
autonomous
from the class. Negri counters, on
the basis of his
juridical
and economic critiques of the capitalist constitution, that
the
contemporary State is not bent on destroying the power of the
working
class as the fascists were, but rather on containing the
working
class and putting in to use in development. [150] Therefore,
given
the nature of the adversary of the working class, the political
direction
and the use of violence must arise organically from the mass
class
subjectivity. "There is no
place ... for the liberatory
sacrifice
of the vanguards .... There is no
space in our organization
for
outdated forms of voluntarism: we are within the mass movement,
developing
a scientific (and thus practical) understanding of its
composition
and its desires." ["Crisis" 141-2, modified] In the
context
of civil war, Negri finds no condemnation for the violence of
the
masses. The use of violence,
however, must never be fetishized;
it must
always be subordinated to the advancement of the movement.
["Do
You Remember Revolution" 233]
The abuses come when an armed
military
movement is detached from the real movements of the masses
and the
actual political composition of the working class. The
"subjectivists",
Negri argues, propose a reductionist reading of State
fascism
which leads to the minoritarian practice of violence outside
of the
context of the masses: "quando se ne forzi una pratica, l'esito
Š
inevitabilmente terroristico." ["Partito" 100]
Once again we should
recognize that Negri's discourse on violence
is most
coherent when we bring it back to his theory of the subject.
The
mass vanguard is a subject with two faces: one face is the
disperse
and plural behavior of the masses grounded in their rejection
of the
work relationship and in their desire for freedom; the other
face is
the coherent leadership of the factory worker vanguard which
constitutes
the specular antagonist of the State.
The first face
alone,
in the context of civil war and confronted by the violence of
the
State, would represent a "narodnik", defeatist position; the
second
face alone, detached from the masses, could only lead to
terrorism. The synthesis of the power of the
masses and the direction
of the
vanguard would provide, in Negri's thinking, the adequate
revolutionary
subject. (8)
Remark
-- Lenin and Nietzsche: the c‚sure subjective and the c‚sure
ontologique.
The intensity of the
social struggles in Italy forced the
question
of subjectivity to the top of the theoretical agenda. In
this
context, the theory of political organization appears as only a
more
practical and more volatile form of the theory of the subject.
Negri
tries to meet the challenge posed by the social movements in its
fullest
form; he attempts to accept the emerging subject into his
theorizing,
and grasp it at the summit of its power.
We must come to
recognize
the working class, Negri claims, not only as the object of
exploitation
but as the subject of power, not only as a passive
subject
constructed through dispositifs of capitalist domination, but
also as
the active subject which constitutes itself and projects a new
society
on the basis of its own needs and desires. The intense impact
of the
social struggles as a subjective force marks a rupture in the
development
of Negri's thought. The scholarly
approach of critical
theory,
striving for an "objective" reading of the social and
historical
movements, now has a role which is subordinated to the
desires,
to the project of the working class as subject.
This reorientation of
Negri's thought, this inversion of the
approach
of critical Marxism, does not by any means signify a
departure
from Marx in Negri's mind: it is rather a deepening of the
Marxist
problematic and an attempt to recognize the emergence of the
working
class subject as central to Marx's mature thought. The
approach
of operaismo is perhaps better suited than other currents of
critical
Marxism as a point of departure for this reorientation
because
of its attempts to ground the critique in the actual
standpoint
of the working class: the favorite Marx of operaismo has
always
been the Marx of 1848 and of the Paris Commune, the Marx that
is
theorizing with an intense enthusiasm, buoyed by the hope and power
of the
proletariat. Negri makes his leap,
though, to his new approach
to Marx
with the aid of Lenin. The working
class rises up in Negri's
thought,
through an interpretation and critique of Lenin, as a strong
social
subject which, at its base, is rooted in the material
conditions
of labor and the concrete subjective expressions of the
masses
and which, at its peak, is aspiring toward power and refining
its
capacities of self-expression and self-organization in society
society.
Some have suggested
that this return to Marx and Lenin in the
Italian
context is parallel to the theoretical developments of Louis
Althusser
in France. ["Le cheminement politique de Negri" 17] This
prima
facie similarity, "le retour … un Marx et … un L‚nine
r‚volutionnaires,"
reveals on closer analysis, in fact, substantial
differences
which are indicative of the great gap between Negri's
thought
and the major contemporary currents of Western Marxism,
specifically
on the question of the subject.
Negri's confrontation
with
Althusser can be seen most clearly in terms of their readings of
the
evolution of Marx's thought; Negri cannot accept Althusser's
proposition
that the major turning point in Marx is the progression
from a
youthful humanist phase to a mature structuralist phase which
poses a
critique of the classical economists.
"Se di `cesure
epistemologiche'
si vuole parlare in Marx, se ne parli dal momento in
cui la
definizione di una struttura mostra non solo il rapporto fra
esistenza
di una crisi capitalistica e movimenti di class operaia, ma
soprattutto
quando l'analisi si emancipa dall'esistente per farsi
programma,
ed il rapporto di forza dato si svolge in proposta
organizzativa. La cesura epistemologica Š la nascita
dell'organizzazione
...." ["Partito" 102, emphasis his] By trying to
frame
Marx's thought strictly on a structuralist horizon of the
critique
of political economy, Negri claims, Althusser empties the
power
of the analysis by detaching it from the revolutionary,
subjective
grounding of the organization of the working class. The
structural
critique of political economy proceeds on a sterile,
depopulated
horizon. But this is not Marx:
"Ben lungi dal concludersi
in un `processus
sans sujet' l'evoluzione del pensiero marxiano
aderisce
sempre maggiormente alla realt… organizzativa del soggetto
rivoluzionario. Il vero risultato della critica
dell'economia
politica
Š proprio e sempre questo radicamento soggettivo...." [103
note] The revolutionary subject is both the
driving force and
theoretical
result of Marx's endeavor.
If it is true, as we
have claimed, that Negri is forced to
recognize
the central role of the subject in Marx's theory by the
explosive
expression of the Italian working class in the period
following
1968, it is equally true that Negri could not have grasped
the
theoretical importance of this subjective emergence without the
aid of
Lenin's reading of Marx. Lenin
discovers the means to bring
the
revolutionary subject (in its material desires and concrete
practices)
into the heart of theory. Here, in
the theoretical
appreciation
of Lenin, we can see even more clearly the vast distance
between
the paths outlined by Althusser and Negri. Althusser's
polemical
point of departure is his charge against the academics that
they
have never accepted Lenin and never sufficiently recognized his
contribution
as a philosopher. [L‚nine et la philosophie] He invites
us to
appreciate, that is, not Lenin's practice per se, but rather the
ways
that Lenin has brought practice into theory and hence renovated
the
theory of revolution (or rather, the revolution in theory). This
is how
Althusser reads Lenin's famous motto, "sans th‚orie pas de
pratique
r‚volutionnaire": issues of revolutionary practice must be
founded
on, or subsumed within the theoretical horizon. The genius of
Lenin,
according to Althusser, is to bring the class struggle into
philosophy;
Althusser wants to admit Lenin into the honored halls of
the
university. Negri, on the
contrary, appeals to Lenin to help him
move
out of the university and into the factory -- he does not look to
Lenin
to bring the class struggle into philosophy but to put it in
practice. His favorite Leninist motto shows his
distance from
Althusser:
it is more interesting and more useful to make revolution
than to
write about it. [from the postface to State and Revolution,
cf. Fabbrica
129,152] In Negri's mind, Lenin
can never be extracted
from
his concrete practice. The study
of Lenin, accompanied by the
explosion
of the social struggles, marks a rupture, a turning point in
Negri's
work: a c‚sure subjective. The
strong subject appears in his
theorizing
as the driving force which overturns and reorients the
structures
which constitute the entire conceptual horizon.
Althusser's work on
Lenin, in fact, is a very poor point of
comparison
for understanding the importance of Lenin in Negri's
thought. If we are to look to the French scene,
we could gain a much
more
adequate understanding by comparing Negri's Lenin to the
Nietzsche
which was "rediscovered" by French theorists such as Gilles
Deleuze
and Michel Foucault. (9) When
viewed through the
interpretations
of these thinkers, the similarities between Lenin and
Nietzsche
are, to my mind, as striking as they are unexpected: 1) the
centrality
of the philosophy of the will; 2) the material constitution
of
subjectivity; 3) the terrifying destructive power of the total
critique
and terrific constructive power of subjective affirmation; 4)
and
hence the refoundation of ontology in freedom. We have argued
above
in Chapter 2 that when Deleuze turns to study Nietzsche he
transports
the positive logical dynamism developed in the study of
Bergson
on to a new horizon, a material field of forces where all the
logical
issues are now posed in terms of sense and value. In effect,
Deleuze
finds in Nietzsche the logic of will and value which animates
the
field of subjective forces.
Nietzsche operates a materialist
reduction
of philosophical inquiry relating all issues back to
questions
of power and subjectivity. In
Deleuze's terms, he
transforms
the questions "Qu'est-ce que?" into the question "Qui?":
the
question Nietzsche asks, for example, is not "What is justice?"
but
"Who is just?", or better "Who wants justice?" The similarity
with
Negri's Lenin lies in the fact that subjective forces animate all
issues;
the terrific power of the will is the pillar which supports
the
theoretical horizon for both Nietzsche and Lenin. We can see this
most
clearly in terms of the "total critique" which we described in
Chapter
2. Nietzsche and Lenin, driven by
extraordinary conceptions
of
antagonism, present a concept of critique which is initiated by a
pars
destruens, a destructive force so violent that it rases the
entire
present horizon, completely destroying the state of things as
they
are. The following moment of the
critique, the pars construens,
constructs
a new horizon, with no reference to a metaphysical point of
support,
but strictly on the constructivity of the immanent subjective
forces. The terrifying absolute destruction of
the Nietzschean
negation
is followed by the terrific creative power of the Nietzschean
affirmation:
the art of insurrection and the art of organization. The
essential
point here is the interdependance of the two moments: the
second
moment, the power of future construction, frees each author to
pose an
unlimited destruction of the present; and likewise, after the
first
moment has cleared the terrain, the second moment is free to
construct
a new world with unlimited creativity.
This is the radical
and terrific vision which comes with the
c‚sure
subjective for both Negri and Deleuze: it is a refounding of
ontology. In this context, the opposition between
necessity and
freedom
is broken down, as being is continually destroyed and remade,
refashioned
according to the movements of subjective forces. The
conflictual
material field of power constitutes the only terrain of
ontology,
so that being, if it has lost its transcendental fixity,
gains a
dynamic plasticity. We can herald
an unrestricted assault on
the
world, an absolute destruction of being, because we know that, on
the
basis of the power of the will, of our material subjective forces,
we can
construct a new world and re-make being: we will deconstruct
the
nature presented us to create a second, a third, an n-th nature in
line
with our desires and needs. In
fact, in the context of this view
of
ontology, nature is always already artificial, in that it has been
constituted
by subjective forces: the being which is presented to us
and
which constitutes us is already conditioned, and susceptible to
our
remaking. The theoretical
exclusivity of the field of power and
subjectivity
in Nietzsche and Lenin permits a transformation of the
conception
of ontology. Rather than any c‚sure
‚pist‚mologique, this
rupture
in Negri's and Deleuze's thought constituted by the emergence
of
subjectivity represents a c‚sure ontologique. As we repeated so
often
in our study of Deleuze, once again here, in typically
Scholastic
fashion, ratio essendi is given priority over ratio
cognoscendi. Why should we continue to use the term
"ontology",
though,
after this rupture, after being has been torn from the realm
of the unconditioned? Would it not be more appropriate, after
we have
posited
absolute plasticity, to abandon the discourse of being and
admit a
pure relativism? Is this a
post-modern twist? Not at
all!
On the
contrary, there is a wide and varied tradition, from Leopardi
to
Luk cs, which proposes a materialist reading of being, in the realm
of the
conditioned, of second nature. For
Negri and Deleuze alike,
the
intervention of subjectivity only makes the ontological discourse
more
important and more adequate to their projects. That the being
facing
us has been constituted by previous relations of force does not
make it
any less substantial for us; that we have the power to destroy
and
recreate being does not make it any less real. As Nietzsche says,
"no
longer the humble expression, 'everything is merely subjective,'
but 'it
is also our work!' -- Let us be proud of it!" [The Will to
Power
545] In this context, the
traditional opposition between
necessity
and freedom ceases to make sense, but the terms still carry
their
meaning. In fact, our freedom
relates directly to our power to
make an
incision into being, to destroy and create nature, to
constitute
necessity! The subject, in Lenin
as in Nietzsche, is no
longer
merely natura naturata, but now it is also natura naturans.
We see only the
sketchy beginnings of Negri's ontological
discourse
in this period and in the study of Lenin.
It will take on a
more
comprehensive and substantial vision in his later works on
Spinoza
and Leopardi. It is important to
recognize, nonetheless, that
the
genesis of the ontology is here, in the explosion of social
struggles,
in the emergence of the strong subject, in the radical
power
of the total social critique. The
power of the working class as
subject
will always constitute the pillar of Negri's ontology.
5.7 The subject which destroys the State:
Lenin and Pashukanis.
Earlier we divided
Negri's study of Lenin into three phases and
subsequently
discussed the first two: the spontaneity of the workers
(1890-1900)
and the organization of the proletariat (1900-1910).
These
two phases constituted two complementary paths to a Leninist
theory
of the subject. Now we will return
to the third phase (1910-
17)
which constitutes in many respects the practical payoff of the
developed
theory of the subject. The central
theme of this third
period
is the abolition of the State and the primary text is State and
Revolution. Negri devotes ample time to this text
and treats it in
great
detail, but we will focus principally on two arguments which are
essential
for our discussion: 1) what does it mean to destroy the
State;
2) how is such radical destruction possible. Here, in Lenin's
revolutionary
vision, we see the constitutive ontology which links
Lenin
and Nietzsche, put to work on a material, political terrain.
The destruction of
the State is the first condition for the
real
construction of proletarian power, for the constitution of
communism.
[Fabbrica 152] Lenin is very clear
in this affirmation.
However,
according to Negri, Lenin's theory of the State has often
been
misinterpreted because the State has been considered too
narrowly,
as merely an instrument of repression.
Before we can
consider
the task of the destruction of the State, then, we have to
analyse
what the State is, or rather we have to delimit the real
object
of the antagonism of the workers.
"Lo Stato Š potenza esterna
alla
societ…, frutto dell'inconciliabilit… dei conflitti ...." [135]
We can
start from an Engelsian definition (10) which poses the State as
a
coercive force transcendental to society, employed to impose
capitalist
domination and negate the tension of class struggle. It is
the
over-awing power which rules over social conflict. The State,
however,
does not only function as an organ of capitalist command, it
also
conducts the organization of social labor through juridical
mechanisms:
the State is a complex nexus of command and organization.
The
State, then, involves not only a repressive weapon but also a
juridical
mechanism, which what Negri has described as functioning in
"the
constitutionalization of labor" and in "the law of value." Lenin
recognizes
very explicitly that the State must be destroyed not only
as a
transcedent power but also in its material bases (cf. Chapter 5
of State
and Revolution), so that the destruction of the State is
above
all the destruction of work, or of the capitalist work relation.
[156] Therefore, Negri complements Lenin's
analysis of the
destruction
of the State with a reading of Marx's argument for the
destruction
of the law of value in the Grundrisse [164-9]: in Negri's
view
the two issues are not only compatible, but they are only
coherent
when considered together.
Negri treats the same
issue, the material bases of the State and
its
destruction, in greater detail in another work from this same
period:
"Rileggendo Pasukanis: note di discussione" (1973).
Pashukanis,
one of the leading Soviet jurists during the 1920s who was
subsequently
purged by Stalin, is one of the very few who extended
Marx's
and Lenin's intuitions in legal philosophy, according to Negri.
(11) It is worthwhile to take this detour
and delve into Pashukanis'
theory,
then, because in Negri's mind his analysis makes most clear
the
amplitude involved in the discourse of the abolition of the State.
Pashukanis'
point of departure is that contemporary law is neither an
indifferent
rational schema nor merely an abstract imposition of
command
and violence, but rather law is intimately tied to the the
organization
of the commodity-exchange relationships of capitalist
society:
"As the wealth of capitalist society takes on the form of a
vast
accumulation of goods, so the society itself seems to be an
endless
chain of juridic relationships." [Soviet Legal Philosophy 140]
Pashukanis,
then, attempts to develop a theory of law by following
Marx's
lead and reading the juridical logic of social relations of
exchange. Negri argues that Pashukanis is
fundamentally correct in
posing
law as the combination of two functions, the organization of
social
production and the authority or command over social relations,
but he
insists that we should link this concept of law not only to the
domain
of commodities but also to the law of value. [170] Law tends,
through
the developments of capital, from its organizational function
in
production toward its command function: through this combination,
law is
intimately tied to the production of surplus value. [172]
Relative
surplus value is the Marxian concept which locates the
normative
capacity of capitalist relations of production, and which
qualifies
that normativity as exploitation and domination. "Diritto e
processo
del plusvalore. E' dunque
soprattutto sulla duplice faccia
del
processo di sviluppo del plusvalore relativo, sull'articolazione
di
organizzazione e violenza, di produzione e comando, che la forma
del
diritto borghese, nella sua complessit…, viene affermandosi."
[174] Bourgeois law is the other face of the
capitalist production of
surplus
value. Here we can recognize the
enormous scope of Lenin's
call to
the destruction of the State. The
operation does not merely
involve
the abolition of State authoritative apparatuses of power and
violence,
but also an abolition of bourgeois law and the social
relations
of production which constitute it.
"Marxianamente Pasukanis
non
aveva alcun dubbio che il diritto fosse non solo una forma della
societ…
del capitale ma, esclusivamente, una forma della societ… del
capitale. Non si d… diritto proletario."
[188] The total critique of
capital
has to go the root of the problem: the destruction of the
State
requires the destruction of law and the destruction of law
requires
the destruction of the law of value, of the work relation
itself.
[191] "La lotta comunista
diviene coerentemente lotta contro
il
lavoro, contro lo Stato, contro il diritto che costituisce la
forma
autoritaria specifica del rapporto fra Stato ed organizzazione
del
lavoro." [192] The Soviet
Union which Pashukanis saw in the 1920s
had of
course only accomplished the very first steps in this
operation:
he called contemporary Soviet society "proletarian State
capitalism." Indeed, the pars destruens of the
revolution and the
transition
to communism, which we find in both Lenin and Pashukanis,
is much
more radical and much wider in scope. With an inversion of
Hegelian
logic, we can say that the abolition of the State is also the
abolition
of the civil society which supports it.
The depth and breadth
of Lenin's pars destruens begs the question
which
constitutes our second point: how is it possible. Is it not
completely
utopian to propose that we can destroy in such a profound
sense
the bourgeois and capitalist mechanisms of social order? Would
not
such an operation, if it were possible, lead merely to anarchy and
random
violence, regressing from the civil state to a state of nature?
This
issue alludes to a profound alternative which has been central to
political
theory since the 17th century and which has often been
posed
in terms of democracy. (12) The
Leninist perspective, the
standpoint
which argues for the abolition of the State, can only be
maintained
on the power of a material social subject, capable of
constituting
and managing society from below.
The State does not
wither
away of its own accord, nor through the functioning of any
objective
laws of contradiction; there must be a subject which
destroys
the State after having prepared its destruction.
Specifically,
in terms of our investigation here, the third phase of
Lenin's
thought, which culminates in State and Revolution, is only
possible
on the basis of the first two, which have established the
power
of the working class and its capacity to create a new social
order. In other words, the ferocious pars
destruens can only be
unleashed
after the power of the pars construens, of the autonomous
social
subject, has been verified. The
proposal to destroy the order
and
social organization provided by the "rule from above" of the
capitalist
State is in fact utopian and anarchistic unless it is
backed
by the foundation of a subjective social capacity to "rule from
below." Lenin claims that as long as the State
exists there will no
be
freedom and when there is freedom the State will no longer exist.
This
Leninist freedom is perhaps best defined as a developed anarchy,
an
anarchy which is ordered and organized by the fully-expressed
subjectivity
of the working class. "Il
communismo militante e
rivoluzionario
invera l'anarchismo." [163]
Leninist freedom raises
anarchy
to the level of truth, or perhaps better, it raises anarchy to
the
level of democracy.
This analysis has
played itself out to an endpoint: we have
reached
another turning point in Negri's research. He has revived a
revolutionary
tradition and posed the issue of insurrection in full
and
potent form, but the completion of this exposition forces him to
move
on. The questions are all latent
in the insurrectional
discourse. If we are to destroy capital, its
State, its valorization
processes,
its social organization -- in short, the entire state of
things
as they are -- what, then, will fill this void? What are the
internal
mechanisms of this radical, proletarian democracy? What are
the new
means of creating value and norms to organize society? What
is the
internal and autonomous consistency of this new subject and
what
will it propose as the constitution of social power? In other
words,
once being is destroyed, in what shape will it be remade? At
this
point is his work Negri does not have an adequate answer to these
questions. All he can say is "alle masse la
prima e l'ultima parola,
sempre."
[Fabbrica 162] Certainly, it is a
good beginning to assert
that
any answer must arise in a democratic forum, but this does not
exhaust
the issue by any means. The
subject, power and being: these
remain
the fundamental axes of Negri's thought, but in the next phase
of
research he has to shift his focus from the pars destruens to the
pars
construens, to the issue of their constitution.
Notes
1 - Here Negri presents the classic
Marxist argument. Surplus value,
in
Marx's view, can only be extracted from living labor. As the
living
labor of the workers is increasingly replaced with machinery,
capital
will be faced with a shrinking pool from which to extract
surplus
value. Capital, then, will be
forced either to increase the
rate of
surplus value produced by this smaller pool of living labor
(through
higher productivity or lower wages) or to face falling
profits. For Negri's explanation see
"Partito" 107-15.
2 - I am not suggesting, of course, that
Sabel and Piore have read
Negri's
work, but merely that they have interpreted the same
conjunctural
conditions in this capitalist restructuration. Sabel and
Piore
argue that US capital is still mourning the end of mass
production
and stuck in a crisis of identity.
The new model which
they
find most promising is that of Italy and the recent economic boom
brought
on through the flexible production of relatively small-scale
industries. Following the tenets of operaismo, one
might argue that
Italy
developed this new model more quickly than other countries
because
in the 1970s it faced the most intense pressure from social
struggles. However, extensive study would be
required to substantiate
this
thesis.
3 - Here, in Negri's study of Lenin, we
find all of the historical
difficulties
of interpretation which we mentioned above: Negri is
clearly
attempting to appropriate the voice and the analysis of the
militants
directing it toward coherent goals.
Extricating his
personal
propositions from those generally diffuse in the movement
would
require extensive and detailed historical study. We will
attempt
merely to navigate as best we can by recognizing the focus of
Negri's
polemics and the direction of his argument.
4 - I would like to refer to Foucault's
usage of "dispositif" here,
but an
English equivalent is difficult to find.
In Discipline and
Punish
the translator has chosen "mechanism", in The History of
Sexuality,
"deployment" has been used and in Power/Knowledge,
"apparatus"
has been chosen. I would define a
"dispositif" as a
mechanism
or apparatus which has both material and immaterial
components
working in concert.
5 - We can certainly recognize the
Hegelian resonances in Negri's
Leninist
proposition of working class subjectivity, of the party as
the
interior and reflective subject, but let us postpone the analysis
of the
dialectic of organization until later in the text.
6 - This distinction is posed in a text
which Marx once intended to
include
in Capital but which long remained unpublished. It was first
published
in Italian in the early 70s with the title Capitolo VI
inedito
and English it was included as an appendix to the 1976
translation
of Capital [949-1084] under the title "Results of the
Immediate
Process of Production". Negri
and his Italian colleagues
regarded
this new text, along with the Grundrisse, as a major
contribution
to Marxist studies. We will see
later how the
publications
of these texts allow Negri to reorient his study of
Marxism.
7 - The clearest example of a group with
this analysis which was
active
in this period is the GAP, Gruppi di Azione Partigiano, named
after
one of the historical partisan groups from the struggle against
fascism
during WWII. The group was small
but very well-known partly
because
of the active participation of Giacomo Feltrinelli, a wealthy
and
famous publisher. Feltrinelli died
while attempting to plant a
bomb.
8 - In "Partito operiao contro il
lavoro", Negri does propose "basi
rosse"
and "brigate rosse" as part of a concerted proletarian action
programme. One could imagine that this would
constitute sufficiently
incriminating
evidence for the charges of involvement subsequently
leveled
against him. However, one should
keep in mind that this text
is
written before the real and full formation of the historic "Brigate
Rosse"
and that during this period the terms were being used within
the
movement by various authors with diverse connotations.
9 - We are told, in passing, by Louis
Fischer (The Life of Lenin)
that
Lenin did in fact read Nietzsche.
The question of influence,
though,
is completely beside the point here.
It is not so important
to us
either that the Lenin and Nietzsche are very similar thinkers;
what we
find interesting, however, is that the two play a similar role
in the
intellectual evolutions of Negri and Deleuze. It seems to me
that
the study of Nietzsche constitutes a similar turning point for
Foucault,
moving him away from the structuralist framework and forcing
him to
pose questions of power and subjectivity as central. In other
words,
perhaps we could locate a similar passage from ratio
cognoscendi
to ratio essendi in the period between The Archeology of
Knowledge
(1969) and Discipline and Punish (1975).
This hypothesis,
however,
deserves serious and careful consideration.
10 - Negri notes that Lenin treats
Engels' analysis of the State, but
with a
certain distance. Indeed Engels'
work is not very useful
neither
for Lenin's nor for our purposes: it sets out from an
inappropriate
naturalist perspective and relies heavily on highly
suspect
anthropological arguments. The
important aspect which Engels
fails
to treat is the role of the State in the organization of labor