Gilles Dauvé

WHAT? WHY? HOW?1

1. 1. This is a slightly modified version of G.Dauvé and K.Nesic's Il va falloir attendre I Bref rapport sur l'état du monde, troploin, 2002 (also available on our site). We've left out nearly all notes that refer to French language books and magazines.

It’s crucial to understand why Russia was capitalist in 1980, or 1930, or 1920, if we wish to understand what capitalism really is, and what can and must be revolutionized in Russia as well as in Britain in the XXIst century.

French left-communist journal Troploin doing exactly what they say on the tin. The social function of religion; "The quest for the supernatural does not stem from an excessive but from a limited imagination built by millenniums of exploitation and oppression: the incapacity to be free on Earth incites humans to situate freedom out of this world. Dreams and desires are displaced persons. This is the stuff religion is made of."

Gilles Dauve's critique of morality, in a pamphlet by Treason.

This pamphlet contains the articles "Whither the World" which was written by two communists from France Karl Nesic and Gilles Dauve in early 2002 and its sequel from September 2003, "The Call of the Void" by Nesic alone.

from Riff-Raff #7

G., March 28, 2004
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Finally I have some personal questions I'd like to ask you. This is however not to ask you for "what you can't deliver".

A historical failure. That could be a blunt but not too unfair summary of the communist movement 154 years after Marx's and Engels's Manifesto.

One interpretation of such a miscarriage canters on the importance or prevalence given to work. From the 1960s onwards, a more and more visible resistance to work, sometimes to the point of open rebellion, has led quite a few revolutionaries to revisit the past from the point of view of work acceptance or rejection.

This is a letter sent by French readers to the authors of Beasts of Burden (Antagonism Press, 1999, c/o BM Mahkno, London WC1N 3XX (www.geocities.com/CapitalHill/Lobby/3909).

This pamphlet has the merit of addressing a vital question: If communism is to transform the whole of daily life, it can't leave out our relation to animals and the way we eat. Beasts of Burden forces to rethink the whole "primitivist" debate. We hope to tackle this some day.

The underpaid washer-up and the overpaid white collar who both died in the World Trade Center died as footsoldiers of a system that exploited their death (treating them as heroes of free trade and the free world) as it had exploited their life. They had little time to appreciate the much vaunted security they'd bought in exchange for their submission.