Socialisme ou Barbarie (SouB; "Socialism or Barbarism") was a French-based radicallibertarian socialist group of the post-World War II period whose name comes from a phrase which was misattributed toFriedrich Engels byRosa Luxemburg in theJunius Pamphlet, but which probably was most likely first used byKarl Kautsky.[1][2] It existed from 1948 until 1967.[3] The animating personality wasCornelius Castoriadis, also known as Pierre Chaulieu or Paul Cardan.[4]Socialisme ou Barbarie (S ou B) is also the name of the group's journal.
In 1948, the group experienced their "final disenchantment with Trotskyism",[6] leading them to break away to form Socialisme ou Barbarie, whose journal began appearing in March 1949. Castoriadis later said of this period that "the main audience of the group and of the journal was formed by groups of the old, radical left:Bordigists,council communists, someanarchists and some offspring of the German 'left' of the 1920s."[7]
They developed parallel to, and were in dialogue with, theJohnson–Forest Tendency, which developed as a body of ideas within American Trotskyist organisations. One faction of this group later formedFacing Reality. The early days also brought debate withAnton Pannekoek and an influx of ex-Bordigists into the group.[citation needed]
The group was composed of both intellectuals and workers, and agreed with the idea that the main enemies of society were the bureaucracies which governed modern capitalism. They documented and analysed the struggle against that bureaucracy in the group's journal. The thirteenth issue (January–March 1954), as an example, was devoted to theEast German revolt of June 1953 and the strikes which erupted amongst several sectors of French workers that summer. Following from the belief that what the working class was addressing in their daily struggles was the real content of socialism, the intellectuals encouraged the workers in the group to report on every aspect of their working lives.[citation needed]
Socialisme ou Barbarie was critical ofLeninism, rejecting the idea of a revolutionary party,[8] and placing an emphasis on the importance ofworkers' councils. While some members left to form other groups, those remaining became more and more critical ofMarxism over time.Jean Laplanche, one of the group's founding members, recalls the early days of the organization:
the atmosphere soon became impossible. Castoriadis exerted hegemony over the journal (he wrote the main articles) and his central idea in the mid-1950s was that athird world war was inevitable. This was very hard for people in the group to stand: to continue our lives, while thinking there would be an atomic explosion in a few years' time. It was an apocalyptic vision.[9]
TheHungarian Revolution and other events of the mid-1950s led to a further influx into the group. By this time, they were proposing the fundamental point as
the necessity for capitalism on the one hand to reduce workers to simple executors of tasks, and on the other hand, in its impossibility to continue functioning if it succeeds in so doing. Capitalism needs to achieve mutually incompatible objectives: the participation and the exclusion of the worker in production – as of all citizens in relation to politics.[10]
This became characterised as a distinction between thedirigeant andexécutant in French, usually translated asorder-givers andorder-takers. This perspective enabled the group to extend its understanding to the new forms of social conflict emerging outside the realm of production as such. That was also the case for the1960–1961 Winter General Strike inWallonia.[citation needed]
After theMay 1958 crisis and an influx of new meeting attendees, disagreements on the organisational role of a political group led to the departure of some prominent members including Claude Lefort and Henri Simon to formInformations et Liaison Ouvrières.[11]
By 1960, the group had grown to around 100 members and had developed new international links, primarily in the emergence of a sister organisation in Britain calledSolidarity.[12]
In June 1963, disputes within the group around Castoriadis' increasing rejection of Marxism led to the departure of the group around thePouvoir Ouvrier journal – the group of the same name existed from 1963 to 1969 and believed that a revolutionary organisation was necessary to help bring about the establishment of workers' councils.[citation needed]
The main Socialisme ou Barbarie journal continued publishing until a final edition in 1965, after which the group became dormant and announced its indefinite suspension in June 1967.[3] An attempt by Castoriadis to revive it during theMay 1968 events failed.[citation needed]
TheSituationist International was influenced by Socialisme ou Barbarie throughGuy Debord (who was a member of both), as too was Socialisme ou Barbarie influenced by Debord and the Situationists.[13] The Italian social movement ofAutonomia were also influenced, but less directly.[citation needed]
Various reprints, Union Génerale d'Éditions,10/18 series, 7 Vols., 3 in 2 books, Paris, 1973 to 1979;Political and Social Writings, David Ames Curtis (editor, transl.), 3 Vols., Minneapolis, 1988, 1993.
Benno Sternberg (as Hugo Bell, Sarel, Barois), member from 1949 to 1967. He died in 1971. As Benno Sarel:La classe ouvrière en Allemagne orientale, Éditions Ouvrières, Paris 1958 (Turin, 1959; Munich, 1975).
Translated for SouB: Paul Romano and Ria Stone:The American Worker, Bewick, Detroit, 1947.
Source: Andrea Gabler:Arbeitsanalyse und Selbstbestimmung. Zur Bedeutung und Aktualität von "Socialisme ou Barbarie", Göttingen, 2006. This is a dissertation for theDoktor (Ph.D.) in social sciences from theGeorg-August-Universität Göttingen. Her many biographies are in Anhang C, pp. 210–223.
The forty issues ofSocialisme ou barbarie have been digitised and there have been numerous reprints ofSouB articles under the name of their authors, especially of Castoriadis' texts.
ASocialisme ou Barbarie Anthology: Autonomy, Critique, and Revolution in the Age of Bureaucratic Capitalism. London: Eris: 2018. A complete translation of the 2007 AcratieAnthologie, plus additional translations ofSocialisme ou Barbarie texts dealing with American and British workers' struggle.
Hastings-King, Stephen (1997). "On the Marxist Imaginary and the Problem of Practice: Socialisme Ou Barbarie, 1952-6".Thesis Eleven.49 (1):69–84.doi:10.1177/0725513697049000006.
Hastings-King, Stephen (1999). "L'Internationale Situationniste, Socialisme ou Barbarie, and the Crisis of the Marxist Imaginary".SubStance.28 (3):26–54.doi:10.1353/sub.2006.0007.
Gottraux, Philippe (1997).Socialisme ou Barbarie, un engagement politique et intellectuel dans la France de l'après guerre (in French). Editions Payot Lausanne.
Claude Lefort (translated by Dorothy Gehrke and Brian Singer) (1977). "An Interview".Telos (30).
Rémy Rieffel [fr],Les intellectuels sous la Ve Republique (1958–1990), vol. 2, Hachette-Pluriel, 1995, pp. 89–95.
How the Situationist International became what it was, PhD thesis, Australian National University, 2017. Substantial discussion of the relationship between Socialisme ou Barbarie and the Situationist International.
