Daniel Bensaïd: A Brief Introduction

Abstract

Daniel Bensaïd left a prolific intellectual production whose main concern was the discussion of revolutionary strategy and is inseparable from his militant experience. Bensaïd’s work is marked by a peculiar combination of a “classical Marxist” background and a turn towards a secularized messianism under the influence of Walter Benjamin. Bensaïd achieved a certain notoriety in the last decade of his life, although he occupied a marginal position in the French academic world. His voice gained increasing intellectual authority in the ranks of the international anticapitalist left although his works translated into English remain few. Since his death, interest in his legacy, still not yet in full bloom, has been steadily increasing and, slowly, publications on his work have been flourishing. This special issue deals with the Bensaïdian universe in a complementary way to the works already available and hopes to open new discussions about his legacy.

Key Words:

• Bensaïd
• Intellectual Militancy
• Legacy
• Strategy

You pretend for an appeased eternity, for an eternal appeasement, what is only a stretched duration, a crisis prolonged in habit. You take for an assured peace what is merely a prolonged, drawn-out vigil. What has been compressed for too long, too strongly repressed, will eventually release itself. The official evidence and established truths, the established bodies and instituted history will eventually unravel. Beneath this dried-up crust, buried words and stifled virtualities will emerge from memory. Everything will have to be revisited and rediscussed. Rediscuss and redispute everything. Everything will have to be brought back into play, the past and the future, Jeanne and her judges, the People and the State, the Resistance and Algeria, the Republic and me … Only then, only then, will Thermidor be over. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

—Daniel Bensaïd, Moi, la Révolution¹

With those words, in which the (French) Revolution speaks in the first person, Daniel Bensaïd (1989) ended his work Moi, la Révolution, which inaugurated a belatedly prolific intellectual production—until then restricted to articles and books addressed to his most immediate militant circle—that would continue until his death in January 2010.

A revolutionary militant since the mid-1960s, Bensaïd was one of the founders of the French Revolutionary Communist Youth (JCR) in 1966 and of the Communist League (LC) in 1969 (renamed the Revolutionary Communist League in 1973 after it was banned). For many years he was part of the leadership of his international political current, the Fourth International, and shortly before his death he accompanied the launch of the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA) in 2009. It is thus not surprising that militancy and militant experience are inseparable from his intellectual production, whose main concern was the discussion of revolutionary strategy.

In his memoir, An Impatient Life, Bensaïd ([2004] 2013, 17) defined political commitment and militancy not as a sacrifice but as “the opposite of a sad passion. A joyous experience despite its bad moments.” The militant experience is that of collective work, far removed from any individualistic egolatry, which is perhaps why Bensaïd’s (2012, 174) intellectual work had a strong collective dimension and is inseparable from political discussions, training seminars, and militant meetings. In an interview in which he reviewed his trajectory he pointed out: “In collective action, we realize that ideas are the fruit of exchanges and that we never think alone (as the media would have us believe). Everyone thinks. Intellectuals are perhaps privileged when it comes to putting ideas into shape but, and this is another element of satisfaction, activism has been a safeguard, an antibody against the speculative temptations of intellectual work.” Collective militancy thus represented for Bensaïd (2007b) a triple simultaneous principle of reality, modesty, and responsibility: it implies putting ideas to the test of practice and reflecting on them, thinking within a community of equals, and being accountable for one’s own assertions and their consequences.

In this sense, as Traverso (2010) points out, Bensaïd embodied a version of the intellectual different from that of the “sage” who intervenes in public life unequivocally in favor of justice and equality, under the condition of an expert or moral authority, but from a certain intellectual vantage point and without concrete organizational commitment. This is an important model of the intellectual in the French tradition, at least since the Dreyfus affair, which had its main exponents in figures such as Jean-Paul Sartre in the postwar period and Pierre Bourdieu in the late 1990s.

Bensaïd ([2004] 2013, 12–13) was never comfortable with the label of philosopher or with the notion of being a “committed intellectual” (intellectuel engagé). First, because the concept can lead one to consider that militant engagement is the fruit of reason and intellectual activity itself when in fact it is also motivated by passions and emotions. Second, because it presupposes a special status for the “intellectual” (“no one would talk of a ‘committed worker,’ a ‘committed peasant,’ or a committed nurse or teacher”), as well as a suspicion toward the intellectual who commits himself precisely by failing “the sacrosanct ‘ethical neutrality’” and by “straddling theory and practice, truth and opinion.” Bensaïd rather concluded that it would be better to speak of the “intellectually committed” (engagé intellectuel).

As widely noted (Antentas 2016a; Mascaro 2023; Traverso 2016), Bensaïd’s work is marked by a peculiar combination of a “classical Marxist” background, to use Deutscher’s (1973) well-known expression, and by his turn toward a secularized messianism under the influence of Walter Benjamin. His Benjaminian turn is connected, however, with a return to Marx, to whose study he devoted himself during the 1980s, culminating in the publication in 1995 of his Marx l’intempestif, translated into English as Marx for Our Times (Bensaïd 2002). In his own words, in no case did this turn reflect “a mystical temptation to which many others succumbed because of the messianic eclipse” (Bensaïd 2001, 36). In other words, his diversion to Benjamin and return to Marx were part of a double, simultaneous movement. The messianic turn allowed him to rethink his previous theoretical background, and classic Marxism favored a certain political interpretation of messianism (Antentas 2020).

Bensaïd bequeathed a diverse oeuvre in which debates on the Russian Revolution rub shoulders with Joan of Arc, in which the study of Marx shares the limelight with Marranism, and in which Lenin crosses paths with Péguy. Bensaïd’s swift, hasty pen, immersed in a hand-to-hand struggle with illness starting in 1990, stands out for its marked literary style that hints at his strong literary culture and his great interest in literature (Antentas 2016a; Traverso 2010, 2016; Löwy 2012). Indeed, in An Impatient Life, Bensaïd ([2004] 2013) acknowledged a certain frustrated literary vocation. Metaphors and literary references populate his work, and their function is not merely ornamental, as he himself explained in the interview included in this special issue, “La politique et l’histoire,” conducted in 1998 and later republished in Penser agir (Bensaïd 2008). On the contrary, they serve as a resource for affirming “obliquely or by wrapping” things difficult to address directly. Literature appears as a way of going where theoretical concepts do not reach.

In the heat of the revival of social conflict in France after the November–December 1995 strikes against social-security reform, and with the strengthening of the revolutionary Left (Antentas 2016b), Bensaïd achieved a certain notoriety in the last decade of his life, although he was never a media intellectual and always occupied a marginal position in the French academic world. His voice gained increasing intellectual authority among the ranks of the international anticapitalist Left, and some of his books and essays were or have subsequently been translated into several languages, although his works translated into English remain few. As said, his main work, Marx for our Times (Bensaïd 2002), is available in English, as are some of his best-known essays—such as “Leaps, Leaps, Leaps,” on Lenin (Bensaïd 2007a)—and other relevant ones such as “Strategy and Politics: From Marx to the Third International” and “Utopia and Messianism: Bloch, Benjamin, and the Sense of the Virtual” (Bensaïd 2020b, 2016). More recently, in addition to the publication of his memoirs, An Impatient Life and Strategies of Resistance & “Who Are the Trotskyists?” (Bensaïd 2013, 2009), The Dispossessed: Karl Marx’s Debates on Wood Theft and the Right of the Poor was released (Bensaïd 2021), translated and prefaced by Robert Nichols, in which Bensaïd reflected on Marx’s youthful texts on wood theft, relating them to contemporary debates on globalization, commodification of the planet, and the struggles over the commons. This special issue of RM includes a long review of the book, written by Igor Shoikhedbrod.

Since Bensaïd’s death, interest in his legacy, not yet in full bloom, has been steadily increasing, and publications on his work have been slowly flourishing. Apart from the special issue devoted to Bensaïd by the journal Lignes (no. 32) immediately after his passing in 2010, several other special issues have appeared in different languages: “Symposium on Daniel Bensaïd” in Historical Materialism (vol. 24, no. 4, 2016), “Daniel Bensaïd, le militant philosophe” in Cahiers de Critiques de Philosophie (no. 15, 2016), and “A discordância dos tempos: Daniel Bensaïd e a crítica social contemporânea” in Século XXI: Revista de Ciências Sociais (vol. 10, no. 1, 2020). To these special issues must be added the book Daniel Bensaïd: Intelectual em combate (2023), written in Portuguese by Fabio Mascaro Querido, one of the authors included in this special issue of RM (it should also be noted the forthcoming appearance in English of a comprehensive book on Bensaïd written by another contributor to this issue, Australian researcher Darren Roso). Also worth mentioning is the collective volume Bensaïd l’intempestif (Sabado 2012), which brings together essays from a seminar on Bensaïd’s work held at the International Institute of Research in Education (IIRE), which Bensaïd helped to animate over the years. In addition to these publications are a considerable number of individual essays on his work in academic journals and reviews of his books, often on activist journals or websites.

Many themes in Bensaïd’s work have been analyzed in these publications. Alongside general studies (Mascaro 2023; Antentas 2016a) and general overviews of his career (Achcar 2010; Traverso 2010; Budgen 2010), specific thematic analyses of various aspects of his work include those on Benjamin’s influence (Traverso 2016; Mascaro 2016, 2023; Antentas 2020; Karsenty 2018); his conception of temporality, politics, and history (Kouvelakis 2010, 2016; Tombazos 2010, 2016, 2020; McNally 2016; Joshua 2012, 2016; Lafrance and Sears 2016; Menozzi 2019; May 2012); his reading of Marx (Roso 2020a; Dellaï 2020; Renault 2020; Menozzi 2019; May 2012; Nichols, 2021); his interest in Joan of Arc (Antentas 2015, 2022b; Plenel’s preface in Bensaïd 2017; Smyth 2023); on Marranism (Antentas 2022a); his concept of profane politics (Artous 2010; Antentas 2021); his reading of Badiou (Segré 2016); the melancholic wager as a way of understanding political engagement (Löwy 2012, 2020; Antentas 2016a; Corcuff 2010); social classes (Arruzza and King 2020; Tombazos 2010; Mascat 2019); capitalism and private property (Garo 2010); feminism and the relationship between class and gender (Arruzza 2012; Trat 2012); communism (Samary 2012); and revolutionary strategy in general (Palheta and Salingue 2016; Antentas 2017; Roso 2018, 2020b; Roso and Mascaro 2015; Lafrance and Sears 2016; Papageorgiou 2020; Enaa Greene 2016; Mascat 2019). While by no means exhaustive, this list at least shows that there is already a relatively relevant body of scholarship on Bensaïd. To this should be added the 2015 release of the documentary On est vivants, directed by the Chilean filmmaker Carmen Castillo, Bensaïd’s personal friend living as an exile in France. The film is a reflection on the meaning of political commitment and militancy, conceived as a tribute to the memory and career of Bensaïd.

Let me conclude this general overview with further testimony that the interest, even if in slow motion, in Bensaïd’s legacy is still alive with the republishing in France of some of his early works, such as Walter Benjamin, sentinelle messianique (2010; introduction by Enzo Traverso), Stratégie et parti (2016; introduction by Ugo Palheta and Julien Salingue), Moi, la Révolution (2017; with a preface by Arlette Farge), and Jeanne, de guerre lasse (2017; preface by Edwy Plenel). Further evidence is the publication of volumes of previously unpublished material, such as Fragments radiophoniques (Bensaïd 2020a), which brings together a series of radio conversations recorded in 2007–8. Finally, it is worth remembering that the translations of his books, though not exhaustive, have been progressing despite the major shortcomings already pointed out in their availability in English.

It is in this context that this special issue of Rethinking Marxism on Daniel Bensaïd should be framed. Its contents deal with the Bensaïdian universe in a complementary way to those works already available. We have chosen a selection of thematic essays, not general ones, that offer an in-depth look at certain aspects of Bensaïd’s work.

The collected dossier includes an essay by Fabio Mascaro Querido on a classic theme in Bensaïd studies, the influence of Walter Benjamin and messianism on his thought, and three essays on much less common and hitherto rarely treated topics: his relationship with Althusser (Darren Roso), his analysis of the French Revolution (Sophie Wahnich), and his interpretation and implementation of Charles Péguy’s thought (Josep Maria Antentas). The review of The Dispossessed: Karl Marx’s Debates on Wood Theft and the Right of the Poor, by Igor Shoikhedbrod, provides an insight into Bensaïd’s approach to a very specific aspect of Marx’s thought. The special issue also includes a piece on art, the interviews with the Turkish painter Nevhiz Tanyeli (Küçük and Özselçuk), and an essay in the Remarx section (Küçük) on the revolutionary student leader Hüseyin Cevahir. Both articles, although not directly related to Bensaïd, do connect with very Bensaïdian themes: 1968 and the question of the ethical and aesthetic position of a passionate intellectual-militant activist. For its part, Michel Surya’s brief interview with Bensaïd himself, which we have reproduced in this issue, synthetically reviews some of the topics that run through his work: communism; revolution; the transformations of modern politics and identities, under the effects of neoliberal globalization; militant commitment as a melancholic wager; and the relationship between literature and politics.

Indeed, in his Walter Benjamin, sentinelle messianique, Bensaïd ([1990] 2010, 118) offered an eminently literary image of the Revolution, understood as “a cunning messiah, who would have, in the brazen manner of a Marlow or a Sam Spade, mischievously slipped his foot into the crack of the door, into the half-open hinges of the possible.” Undoubtedly, the legacy of Bensaïd, to whose analysis this special issue is dedicated, is good help toward furthering the job.

Notes

1 All translations from French are mine.