Commune

May makukuha pa bang matatatag na aral para sa ika-21 siglo mula sa dalawang mapangahas na experimentong panlipunan (sa paglikha ng isang bagong kaayusan) na ginawa ng Paris Commune noong 1871 (sa Pransya) at ng Shanghai Commune noong 1967 (sa Tsina)? Kapwa hindi matagumpay ang mga radikal na tangkang ito. Ngunit ang huling akda ng pilosopong si Alain Badiou (The Communist Hypothesis, 2010) ay may radikal ring pagbabalik-suri sa mga penomenong ito. Post-Maoistang pagbabasa ang isinagawa ni Badiou: isang kakaibang ‘maka-kaliwang’ pagbabasa sa dalawang ikonikong pangyayari sa pagsasakasaysayan ng Kaliwa (when I say ‘our’ history, it has to do with the ‘we’ of a politics of emancipation). Bakit kakaiba? Radikal na paglalagot-tali (rupture) mula sa karaniwang-Kaliwa ang lumilitaw na pagbabasa ni Badiou (it is important to argue that such a rupture is always a rupture with the left, in the formal sense I have given to that term):

Today, the Commune’s political visibility must be restored by a process of dis-incorporation: bom of rupture with the left, it must be extracted from the leftist hermeneutics that have overwhelmed it for so long.

Ang historikal na pag-aaral naman nina Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals (Mao’s Last Revolution, 2006) ay makakatulong sa pagsasakonteksto ng suri-puna ni Zizek (In Defense of Lost Causes, 2008) sa trahedyang nangyari sa Shanghai Commune noong 1967:

In spite of (or, rather, because of) all its horrors, the Cultural Revolution undoubtedly did contain elements of an enacted Utopia. At its very end, before the agitation was blocked by Mao himself (since he had by then achieved his goal of re-establishing his influence and getting rid of the top nomenklatura competitors), there was the “Shanghai Commune”: one million workers who simply took the official slogans seriously, demanding the abolition of the state and even the party itself, and the direct communal organization of society. It is significant that it was at this very point that Mao ordered the army to intervene and to restore order. The paradox is that of a leader who triggers an uncontrolled upheaval, while trying to exert full personal power—the overlapping of extreme dictatorship and extreme emancipation of the masses. The argument that the GPCR was triggered by Mao in order to get rid of rivals in the inner-party struggle and reassert his authority, and that it was tamed by the intervention of the army the moment it threatened to spiral out of control, is irrelevant here, even if true: it simply confirms that the events acquired a dynamic of their own.

Mabibigyang-katwiran ba ang ‘pagsikil’ sa radikal na ‘kapangahasan’ na hinakbang ng Shanghai Commune—paghiling ng mga karaniwang manggagawa/mamamayan na direkta nang likhain ang isang komunal na kaayusang pulitikal at kaya lampasan na ang kaayusang nasa modelo ng ‘estado’ at ‘partido’? Ano ang teoretikal na hamon na dapat mapalitaw sa napakaiksi (halus isang buwan lamang) na kasaysayang ito ng Shanghai Commune? Nasa ganitong daloy na katanungan ang bubuksang perspektiba ng akda ni Badiou: isang paghukay sa potensyal ng Paris/Shanghai Commune na magpahiwatig ng isang anyo ng pulitika na lampas sa ‘estado/partidong’ balangkas. Sa ganyang pagtingin napakahalaga ng ‘Rebolusyong Kultural’ ng Tsina noong dekada-60: para kay Badiou, sentral na lumilitaw bilang teoretikal na problematiko nito ang tensyong commune at partido/estado:

We can therefore say without fear that, in the current phase of revolutionary politics, the Cultural Revolution plays the role that the Paris Commune played in its Leninist sequence. The Cultural Revolution is the Commune of the age of Communist Parties and Socialist States: a terrible failure that teaches us some essential lessons.

Ilang sangang polemiks/kontra-polemiks na maaaring sundan mula sa diskusyong nabuksan: [Raymond Lotta et al.: Alain Badiou's Politics] [Chris Cutrone: Critique of Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP)] [Bill Martin: On Badiou and RCP Assault] [Alain Badiou, The Last Revolution?] [Evaluating the Cultural Revolution]