Those intersted in all of this might find the essay "The Legacy of Mao and Althusser" by Liu Kang interesting. It is in <i>Critical Perspectives on Mao Zedong's Thought</i> edited by Arif Dirlik, <i>et al</i> (1997). Actually, the entire volume is pretty fascinating.

Hello Kasama comrades,

I wanted to let you all know about a lengthy new reflection on Althusser by Don Hamerquist, long-time revolutionary and former member of the Sojourner Truth Organization. Since his piece was inspired by some of these discussions here on Kasama, I wanted to make sure people knew about it. Some teasers:

<blockquote>”One skeptical participant commented on the recent Kasama website discussion of Althusser’s impact on Avakian’s theoretical posture as follows:

“Althusser and Avakian do not matter much.”

To the contrary, I think that both “matter” a good deal, although in different ways. However, in the case of Althusser, my appreciation has some different content than what I’ve seen expressed in these discussions.

…

I’m sure that I haven’t seen everything that’s been included in these Kasama discussions, but what I have seen is short on a critical treatment of Althusser’s basic positions and frequently appears to discount the possibility of a Marxist theoretical position that is opposed to Althusser’s, but is neither dumb nor liberal. Maybe I’m wrong about this and I would certainly be willing to be corrected. Despite full knowledge that I don’t have Althusser’s intimidating grasp of the intellectual terrain, and many qualms because his arguments are so dense and complex that I have never been completely sure that I have a good handle on them, I’d like to indicate where I think Althusser made important mistakes, mistakes that are not only important for “Theory”, but also for current issues of revolutionary strategy.”</blockquote>

You can check the rest of it out <a href="//sojournertruth.blogsome.com/" rel="nofollow">here</a>. Comments are more than welcome, either here or there.

Solidarity,
Mike

PS. Thanks for the “<a href="/http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2009/02/20/geek-skills-for-kasama-commentators/" rel="nofollow">Basic Geek Skills</a>” post. If this comment doesn’t look totally messed up, that post is the reason why!

Oops, a here’s a more precise <a href="//sojournertruth.blogsome.com/2009/02/25/althusser/”" rel="nofollow">link</a>.

Mike S,

Thanks so much for that link. I have enormous respect for STO's theoretical work in general and Don Hammerquist's in particular and really look forward to reading the whole piece. (BTW your first link worked for me while your second one didn't.) I think it would be great to see Don's piece up on Kasama where it might recieve even wider attention (not to suggest that your site devoted to the history of STO doesn't get massive traffic of course ).

As someone who has done a lot to promote Althusser here I want to be clear that my view of him is not uncritical. Rather I think he is important and needs to be engaged by anybody who is serious about developing revolutionary theory in the 21st century. As Don notes Althusser has come up a lot because his work is such a good example of work that has obviously influenced Avakian but that he wierdly refuses to cite. "Althusser" thus has become here a sort of marker Avakian's intellectual shoddiness for those who need one. Whether Avakian really understands Althusser, whether Althusser's own work should be viewed as internally coherent and consistent, and which particular contributions of his are of value is a whole different matter.