The Algeria of Daniel Guérin, Libertarian
In December 1965 Daniel Guérin published a pamphlet entitled L’Algérie
caporalisée? which contains a rather bizarre analysis of Boumédienne’s regime.
According to Guérin, nothing happened in June. Faithful to an old schema, he sees only a
“Bonapartism” in power both before and after the coup d’état, struggling
classically on two fronts: against the “counterrevolution of the indigenous
propertied classes” and against the threatening enthusiasm of the workers striving
for self-management. And in foreign affairs he finds “the same desire on the part of
both regimes for an adroit balancing act between capitalist and socialist countries”
(p. 6). “None of the declarations of the so-called ‘Council of the
Revolution’ contains any innovations whatsoever or any hints of an original
program” (p. 10). However, when he drafted his main text, dated November 5, Guérin
thought he detected some potential new developments as the putchists were being
pushed, as if despite themselves, to the “right” — developments that “seem
to foreshadow an antisocialist policy” (p. 11, our emphasis). One might
suppose that Guérin disregards the considerable differences between the two regimes
because he is carried away by the equal contempt that Ben Bella and Boumédienne might
well arouse in a revolutionary who is a declared partisan of “libertarian
socialism” and self-management. Unfortunately, this is not at all the case! He has no
other revolutionary solution to recommend than the restoration of Ben Bella: “To
rally a popular opposition to the colonels’ regime in Algeria today without reference
to Ben Bella, or while making a total political critique of Ben-Bellaism, would be an
undertaking doomed to failure” (p. 17). And before June 19 the Ben Bella
regime’s numerous attacks on the workers, the exploits of its police and army —
the same police and army that are still in place today, in fact — were for Guérin
only “mistakes, weaknesses, and omissions” of an acceptable orientation. The king
was badly advised or misinformed; never responsible. Since Guérin cannot be unaware of
the open struggles of Ben Bella’s regime against the masses (he himself provides some
excellent documentation of them, notably apropos of the Congress of Agricultural Workers),
he has to reconstruct history by totally separating Ben Bella from his regime. Page 12:
“The sabotage of self-management, organized, of course, without Ben Bella’s
knowledge.” Page 2: “As we can see more clearly today, Ben Bella never had his
hands free: for nearly three years he was the tool, the prisoner, the hostage of
Boumédienne.” In other words, people thought Ben Bella was in power, but his
downfall has shown that he wasn’t. Such an astonishing retroactive demonstration
could just as well be applied to the Czar, who was believed to be an autocrat before 1917.
But Guérin overlooks this question: Who besides Ben Bella made Boumédienne, by
hoisting himself into power with the aid of Boumédienne’s arms? That Ben Bella later
made some half-hearted and very inept attempts to get rid of his tool is another matter.
It is because he was above all a bureaucrat that he was at first essentially in solidarity
with, and eventually the victim of, bureaucrats more rational than he.
What, then, is the secret of this aberration of one of our famous leftist intellectuals, and one of the most ostensibly “libertarian” among them at that? With him it is no different than with all the others: it is the decisive influence of their vainglorious participation in high society; their common tendency, even more servile than a lackey’s, to be swept off their feet with joy because they have spoken with the greats of this world; and the imbecility that makes them attribute such greatness to those who have condescended to talk to them. Whether they are partisans of the self-managing masses or of police-state bureaucracies, the “leftist intellectuals” of the period from which we are just emerging always have the same awestruck admiration for power and government. The closer they are to a governmental position, the more the leaders of the “underdeveloped” countries fascinate these ridiculous professors of leftist museology. In Simone de Beauvoir’s memoirs, so revealing of the fundamental degradation of a whole generation of intellectuals, her narration of a dinner at the Soviet Embassy exposes a pettiness so irremediable and so shameless that she isn’t even aware of it.
So here is the secret: Guérin “knew” Ben Bella. He “listened” to him from time to time: “When I had the privilege, at the beginning of December 1963, of a brief audience at the Villa Joly in order to present to the President a report resulting from my month of traveling around the country observing the self-managed enterprises, I had the impression that he had been prejudiced against my conclusions by Ali Mahsas and the Minister of Industry and Commerce, Bachir Boumaza” (p. 7).
Guérin really is for self-management, but, like Mohammed Harbi, it is in the pure form of its spirit incarnated as a privileged hero that he prefers to meet it, recognize it, and aid it with his sage advice. Daniel Guérin met the World-Spirit of self-management over a cup of tea, and everything else follows.
SITUATIONIST INTERNATIONAL
1966
“L’Algérie de Daniel Guérin, libertaire” originally appeared in Internationale Situationniste #10 (Paris, March 1966). This translation by Ken Knabb is from the Situationist International Anthology (Revised and Expanded Edition, PM Press, 2024). No copyright.
A postscript to this article appeared in the following issue. See also Address to Revolutionaries of Algeria and of All Countries and The Class Struggles in Algeria.