Talk:Socialisme ou Barbarie

Untitled
"(Castoriadis) became a Cold War apologist for Western military intervention as the only way such bureaucracies could be defeated."

The phrase "Cold War apologist" when applied to a Left intellectual is definitely not NPOV and may be wholly inaccurate. This is in need of a rewrite, but preferably by someone more knowledgeable about Castoriadis than myself. I know he became critical of anti-Americanism in his later years and took a more nuanced view of the first Gulf War than many in the anti-War movement would have liked, but that in itself hardly makes him a "Cold War apologist".

It should also be noted that the "later years" of Castoriadis' life were well after Socialisme ou Barbarie - perhaps that information should be merged into the Castoriadis biography article.

This article should more strongly emphasize the ideas and activities of Socialisme ou Barbarie during its years of activity. The article needs some mention of other important SOB figures (such as Lyotard), the Pouvoir Ouvrier split, influence upon the Situationists, etc. - Peter Werner - 2005/06/14

The "Cold War apologist" tag presumably results from his 1980 "Facing The War" text. It took a premise that "Russia has become the primary world military power". To sustain this in the context of the visible economic inferiority of the Soviet Union in the civilian sector, he proposed that the society may no longer be dominated by the party-state bureaucracy but by a "stratocracy" - a separate and dominant military sector with expansionist designs on the world. It is not Castoriadis' most durable writing. But as the previous writer said, this has little to do with Socialisme ou Barbarie. It would be useful if some material on this moved out of this article and into the Castoriadis article, which at the moment is very off-balance - covering only his late, wordy books. AllyD 8 July 2005 22:38 (UTC)


 * In Berlin at the hight of Reaganophobia, Castoriadis and "peacenik" Ernst Tugendhat, the top German analytical philosopher, who was very fond of C's philosophy and had invited him, but who was a better red than dead defeatist, had an awful exchange of words over Soviet politics.--Radh (talk) 15:30, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

All known members of SouB listed in Andrea Gabler' s "PhD"
Andrea Gabler's great 2006 dissertation on SouB (from Göttingen University) seems to have a as complete as possible list of members with short biographies if possible. It is online (pdf), but of course written in German.--Radh (talk) 15:21, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Revolutionary party
"rejecting the idea of a revolutionary party" I think this is not true, specially to Castoriadis; at least in the first years, S. ou B. saw itself as the revolutionary party, or at least as its embryo; there was a polemic with Pannekoek about that, and this was the reasons of the temporary scissions by Claude Lefort.

From Socialisme ou Barbarie: A French Revolutionary Group (1949-65) by Marcel van der Linden, Left History 5.1, 1997:


 * Right from the start there was a debate  on  matters  of  organization  in Socialisme  ou Barbarie.


 * What exactly  was  the group's self-definition? Was it  to  be a  collection  of  independently  acting  militants,  with  no  responsibilities  whatsoever,  or  was  it necessary  to  develop  a common  praxis  alongside the journal? If  so,  should  such  activity  assume  the role  of  a vanguard,  or  not? How was  the  organization  to  be  internally  structured? Was  democratic  centralism  finished  or  not?


 * In April 1949 the majority  of  the group  voted  for  a resolution  which was to  serve  as a  programmatic  basis  for  future work. In  it the Leninist conception  of  arousing  political  consciousness  in  the  working  class  from  the  outside  was  rejected,  as was  the idea  that  the  group was  to  be merely "a  collection  of  individuals"  who  would  restrict themselves  to  publishing  a "more  or less academic  journal." Yet  despite  this delineation  of  aims, the group  remained  more  or less 'old-fashioned': Socialisme  ou Barbarie  was  to develop  into  a  revolutionary  party,  capable  of  leading and  co-ordinating  the  independent workers' struggle,  directed  at the  conquest of  state  power.[18] There was  opposition  to  this  resolution,  but  it  was  weak.  It  was  only  in 1951-52,  after  a small group  of  ex-Bordigists had  joined,[19]  and the membership  had  shrunk  further, that the few opponents decided  to  voice their own opinion  more  openly.[20] Claude Lefort,  especially,  opposed  the  attempts  to  form  a  vanguard  party.

--MiguelMadeira (talk) 23:55, 29 December 2017 (UTC)