Talk:Socialisme ou Barbarie

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"(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)