Daniel Bensaïd

We never saw the reference to Trotskyism as a way to shut ourselves off from others. For us, it was more like a polemical challenge. We accepted the Trotskyist tag in our conflict with the Stalinists — but without building a neurotic identity out of it or, conversely, downplaying the importance of this heritage. - read article...

This essay was probably among the last written by Daniel Bensaïd. It appears in the latest issue of Contretemps, the journal where Daniel was one of three publishing editors. The piece is a contribution to a series of essays on the meaning of communism put together as part of a symposium on the same topic being held in Paris on January 22nd and 23rd. Daniel was looking forward to the symposium. - read article...

The recent elections in Germany and Portugal have confirmed the emergence of a new radical Left in a number of countries across Europe. In Germany, Die Linke won 11.9 percent of the vote and 76 seats in the Bundestag. In Portugal, the Left Bloc received 9.86 percent of the vote and doubled its number of seats to 16. - read article...

The French philosopher Daniel Bensaïd, a revolutionary of ideas from the anti-capitalist left, has just published his In Praise of Profane Politics, a dense and complex work through which this thinker hopes to contribute to a counter attack by the transformative left which can take ordinary people out of a never ending crisis. - read article...

This contribution was written as part of preparations for the January 2009 congress of the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR). The congress agenda includes the political “self-dissolution” of the LCR, to set the stage for the new challenge of the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA). The authors of this piece belong to the generation of activists from the 1960s and 1970s; so while principally addressed to members of the LCR, it may be of interest to many others. - read article...

Daniel Bensaïd makes a bold attempt to track the theoretical challenges faced by Marxism today. - read article...

Daniel Bensaid reflects on the persistance of resistance and revolution at times when the power of capitalism seems unstoppable and overwhelming. - read article...

Daniel Bensaid continues the debate on whether the left can change the world without taking power. - read article...

How is the issue of the united front and the fight for working hegemony posed today - the the era of increased differentiation inside the working class and the existence of dozens of radical social movements? - read article...

Ernest Mandel’s Introduction to Marxism has been and remains a reference book for many activists. Thirty years after its first publication, in 1974, Daniel Bensaïd looks back at one of Mandel’s most widely read works. - read article...

A long interview on the political project of revolutionary marxists, with an introduction reflecting on the outcome of the first round of the French presidential elections on 20 April 2007. - read article...

In the light of developments in Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil, Italy and France, a new debate is developing. According to Bensaid the ’utopian moment’ of the Global Justice Movement in the early part of the decade is being replaced with a more hard-headed grappling with political strategy. - read article...

The failure of the anti-neoliberal left in France to agree a united candidate for the coming presidential elections has caused great controversy. For some leftists the LCR shares the blame, for refusing to back any candidate who is equivocal about participation in a ’left’ government with the neoliberal Socialist Party. Daniel Bensaïd explains the LCR’s intransigence on this point - and the damage being done to the French body politic by the campaign. - read article...

John Holloway’s book, Change the World Without Taking Power (London, Pluto Press, 2002) has provoked wide-ranging debate on the left. In its new pamphlet the International Institute for Study and Research has collated a number of contributions to the debate, starting with a critique of Holloway’s book by Daniel Bensaïd. - read article...

Daniel Bensaid, in this interview with Socialist Worker, reflects on the current battle of the French students and its comparisons with student movements of the past. - read article...

“We are at a turning point, the moment of transition from one cycle to another” - read article...

This article, written for the Italian magazine Erre, reviews how well Trotsky’s 1937 pamphlet stands the test of time in examining the origins of Stalinism - and discusses what needs to be reformulated today. - read article...

Well-known left intelllectuals reply to Jürgen Habermas, Günter Grass and Wolf Biermann, who in a Le Monde op-ed had called for leftist and progressives in Europe to vote ’Yes’ in Sunday’s French referendum on the European Constitution. - read article...

This letter was sent to the the Brazilian DS at the end of January and subsequently endorsed by the FIs International Committee. - read article...

Daniel Bensaïd makes a bold attempt to track the theoretical challenges faced by Marxism today. - read article...

Only yesterday, French intellectuals overflowed with compassion. From Bosnia to Chechnya, by way of Kosovo, on every front of the new world disorder. Their silence before the imperial crusade in Afghanistan and before the criminal policy of the Sharon government in Palestine is all the more deafening. This inglorious resignation is not, alas, unrelated to the relative weakness of the anti-war mobilizations in France, compared with the demonstrations that have taken place since 7 October 2002 in most big European countries. - read article...

Brazil’s Workers’ Party (PT) has, in the course of the past 20 years, developed a politics of class independence while accumulating a quantity of experiences in social struggles and municipal government, notably through ’participatory democracy’. These founding principles are being flouted in the run-up to the country’s presidential elections. - read article...

Daniel Bensaïd, a central leader of the French Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire (LCR - French section of the Fourth International) spoke on ’Leninism in the 21st century’ at the June ’Marxism 2001’ event organised by the British Socialist Workers Party. IV spoke to him afterwards. - read article...

Our articles on the floods in Pakistan have given details of how to send financial aid to the Labour Relief Fund. If it is more convenient for you, you can also send funds through the Europe Solidaire Sans Frontieres account. - read article...

Pakistan is facing worst ever floods of its history. Torrential rains have unleashed flash floods in different parts of the country since last three weeks. Water levies broke leaving the people exposed to flood water. More than 12 million people have suffered due to these floods. More than 650,000 houses have collapsed, mainly in villages. Thousands of acres of crops have been destroyed due to flood water. Houses, live-stock such as cattle’s and goats, household goods, clothes, shoes and other items have been destroyed. Residents of villages are currently without drinkable water, food, shelter and in need of clothes. In particular, the situation is dire for children and women and they are in desperate need of food and clothing. Disease is spreading fast in the areas affected due to lack of drinkable water. In particular, flu, fever, diarrhea, cholera have been noted and are spreading. - read article...

An unexpected, unthinkable, yet - concerning current circumstances - quite expectable and natural thing has occurred yesterday night. Three public social activists that have always expressed a consistent antifascist attitude and shunned civil indifference have been detained. - read article...

We, the participants at the Istanbul ESF, affirming that we have a strong engagement aganist all war and occupation and that we are for a politial resolution of the Kurdish issue, have made the following resolution : - read article...

Under the impulse of the World Bank and international capitalist institutions, the Moroccan regime started a privatization process of the universities and attacks against the right to studiy. The announcement of the “Emergency plan” to the university at beginning of the academic year, i.e. of the brutal aggravation of these attacks, put a spark to the powder. The class-struggle trade unionists of fight, organised within the UNEM, are at the forefront of the mobilization against the “Emergency plan”. - read article...