Re: AUT: Re: D&G, Leninism, vanguardism

["Chris Hurl" <munkah@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

hey peeps,

alright, to make this conversation a little more concrete, I thought I'd go
back to our conversations of Leninism and vanguardism and how these relate
to 'Statist thinking'.

Now, Lowe, you refer to State power in the production of signs, the
production of an interior in which an enclosed semiotics can function.  In
Mille Plateau in the "Postulates on Linguistics" chapter, D&G discuss Lenin
and the vanguard party.  They argue,

"Lenin invented or decreed [an] incorporeal transformation that extracted
from the proletarian class a vanguard as an assemblage of enunciation and
was attributed to the "Party," a new type of party as a distinct body, at
the risk of falling into a properly bureaucratic system of redundancy" (83).

Now, D&G talk about the two heads of the State.  One head is juridical,
forming contracts between groups.  The other head is despotic, functioning
through capture, tying together knots and bonds.  As I understand it, this
largely functions through the production of signs, through the production of
the despotic Signifier.

Now, isn't Lenin's vanguardism despotic insofar as it depends on the
production of an interior, a Sate semiotics based on that all-powerful
Signifier, the vanguard "Party"?  As an example, D&G use Lenin's declaration
that the slogan "All Power to the Soviets" would only be valid from Feb. 27
- July 4.  Through the "extraction" of an 'assemblage of enunciation', Lenin
is able to make such declarations.  The constitution of this body is based
on the extraction "from the masses a proletarian class as an assemblage of
enunciation before the conditions were present for the proletariat as a
body" (83).  The vanguard party was a necessarily partial attempt to extract
something that didn't actually 'exist' as of yet.  It was a 'shortcut'
attempting to construct the power of the proletariat through an act of
enunciation.

This is a good example of how Statist 'processes' insinuate themselves
within social movements.  It seems like these processes of insinuation are
always at work.  Groups are always attempting to constitute an 'assemblage
of enunciation'  that is capable of bringing struggle under the despotic
power of their own "Signifiers".

--chris

>From: Lowe Laclau <lowe.laclau@xxxxxxxxx>
>Reply-To: aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>To: aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: Re: AUT: Re: CIA Commandant Harald's interror-gation of Deleuze
>Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 18:19:08 +0100
>
> > I get the sense in D&G that the State exists as a tendency everywhere.
>The
> > State is everywhere a looming threat, even where there isn't a State.
>Thus,
> > the so-called "primitive" societies already encompass a
> > anticipation-prevention mechanism that is constantly warding off the
>State.
> > Likewise, the nomadic war machine is at war against the State, not as a
> > State apart from it, but rather it seems to fend off the development of
>a
> > State within it through embarking on a line of flight.  Is "the State"
> > something that can ever be completely escaped?
>
>I don't think that they would posit that as a possibility. It is
>however something that I think that Guattari would say one could  keep
>in check. Doing so would requite astute attention however to both
>molar and molecular economies. You couldn't erect a state to keep
>another in check. It simply wouldn't work.
>
> > I've been reading through the "Treatise on Nomadology" as a result of
>our
> > conversations, and I came across this line, "We are compelled to say
>that
> > there has always been a State, quite perfect, quite complete".  But what
> > does this mean?  I mean at face value it suggests that the State is
> > ahistorical.  "States always have the same composition".  I assume that
>D&G
> > are getting at a common 'movement', the move to make things interior.
>"The
> > State gives thought a form of interiority, and thought gives that
> > interiority a form of universality".  And here, it seems, there is a
> > connection to Hegel.  They actually state, "if there is even one truth
>in
> > the political philosophy of Hegel, it is that every State carries within
> > itself the essential moments of its existence".  But they seem to part
> > company, as D&G reject this interiority, they reject the sleight of hand
> > that posits the State as universal, whereas Hegel seeks meaning within
>it.
>
>I think you're right. I wouldn't be able to pick out Hegelian themes
>and engagements so well because I'm not sufficiently familiar with
>him.
>
>As for the State and ahistoricity, ahistorical would be inappropriate
>because in each (historical) instance the State is not defined by
>particular properties but by a particular type of function (the state
>as apparatus of "capture"). This means for them at the most immediate
>level, activities of signs and signification (what is one doing with
>the signifier? reality?) and more extensively, with production
>(production presupposing signs (sign-values)).
>
>It is thus that they challenge the conventional wisdom that States
>presuppose a corresponding mode of production. They say instead that
>it is the State that makes production a mode.
>
> > I remain unclear on the State appropriation of the war machine.  Of
>course,
> > this is something that can never be fully accomplished by the State,
>insofar
> > as the war machine is irreducible.  So how does it happen?
>
>The State as an apparatus of capture presupposes this intrinsic power
>of appropriation and incorporation of whatever process. That is
>essentially the States's strength. It can develop this internal
>suppleness and utilize internal antagonisms to guarantee its own
>survival in whatever form.
>
> >And this
> > directly touches on the question of working within parliamentary
>politics,
> > in the heart of the beast as such.  An interesting example that D&G use
>is
> > the "lobby": "there is a very old problem of the lobby, a group with
>fluid
> > contours, whose position is very ambiguous in relation to the State it
> > wishes to 'influence' and the war machine it wishes to promote to
>whatever
> > ends".  It seems as though there is often a blurry line between the
>State
> > and the war machine, an ambiguity which is often taken advantage of.
>
>True, they speak in The Apparatus of Capture of this again:
>
>"..war machines have a *power of metamorphosis*, which of course
>allows them to be captured by States but also to resist that capture
>and rise up in other forms, with other "objects" besides war
>(revolution?). Each power is a force of deterritorialization that can
>go along with the others or go against them (..). Each process can
>switch over to other powers, but also subordinate other processes to
>its own power."
>
>Lowe
> > --chris
> >
>
>
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