a marxist intellectual: interview with michael löwy · he gave this interview to professors...

A Marxist intellectual:

Interview with Michael Löwy*1

* Translated by V. S. Conttren, February 2020, with minor corrections and, hopefully, minor mistakes.

1 Michael Löwy is a researcher at the Centre National des Recherches Scientifiques (CNRS) in Paris. He gave this interview to professors Ângela de Castro Gomes and Daniel Aarão Reis on September 11, 1996, at the Fluminense Federal University, in Niterói.

huebunkers.wordpress.com V. S. Conttren

Your name is very well known throughout the academic circles of Brazil, the country where you were born, but we do not quite know your intellectual trajectory. Where did you graduate, where did you begin to structure your own conceptions?

Let's start from the beginning. I was born in São Paulo on May 6, 1938, into

a family of Jews emigrated to Brazil in the 1930s. My family came here essentially

because my father was unemployed, facing a crisis, and here there was

opportunity for work. I suspect that there was also some connection with the

near civil war that took place in Austria in 1934, with social democracy being

crushed, but fundamentally for economic reasons. My father had contacts in São

Paulo, mainly with his family, and he settled there. I did my gymnasium and my

scientific studies in a public school, and then joined a social science course at the

Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters of the University of São Paulo, on

Maria Antônia Street, in 1956. Some of my classmates were Roberto Schwarz,

Francisco Weffort and several others.

Why Social Sciences?

I already had a socialist militancy, and for me the social sciences were what

had more to do with my concerns: the workers' movement, Marxism, and

socialist ideas. Weffort came first in the admission exam. I came second, together

with a girl named Evelyn. In our class I think we had between 25 and 30 students.

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Who were the teachers?

Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Otávio Ianni, who at the time were very

close to each other; Florestan Fernandes, who at the time did not appear to be

the most politically advanced, was perhaps one of the most eclectic, so to speak;

Azis Simão, to whom I felt closest. Azis Simão was the only one who was most

directly interested in the workers' movement, especially the sociology of the

workers' movement. I had a very strong connection with him. My first works were

more or less inspired by Azis Simão.

And what were those first works?

My first study was about class consciousness among metallurgical workers

in the state of São Paulo. I did this research with the help of DIEESE,2 where I

worked as a volunteer. DIEESE did a survey on the cost of living by distributing

consumer notebooks to working families, and I collaborated with them. With

their help I elaborated a questionnaire that I distributed in a congress of the

Metallurgical Union of São Paulo. There were several questions that tried to

assess levels of class consciousness, besides questions about where the

syndicalists came from. There was also a more direct political question, about

which were the best union leaders: the trabalhistas,3 socialists, anarchists or

communists? The answers were anonymous and many answered on the DIEESE

2 T.N.: Inter-Union Department of Statistics and Socio-Economic Studies.

3 T.N.: Trabalhistas were those who followed the theoretical and practical tendencies aligned with Getúlio Varga’s governance—predicated on a sort of national developmentalism, corporatist state structures, and “populism,” regarding the ‘modernization’ process of Brazil.

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official letterhead. Cross-checking the data, I started the work. Another question

was about the Union: is the Union intended to provide dental and hospital care,

or is it an organ of workers' struggle in defence of their own interests? If the

union delegate answered that the union served to give assistance, I no longer

qualified him. It was a first attempt at sociological research on the subject. And to

my great satisfaction and eternal glory, I received the first prize from the Social

Science Students' Research Center, or something like that. Then I made a slightly

more sophisticated version of the same material, which was published in France

at the Cahier International de Sociologie. The Brazilian version was published in the

Revista de Estudos Políticos in the early 1960s.

Did the results of this research, besides pleasing your colleagues, please your militant conscience at the time? Did the working class emerge as a promising class from a political point of view?

Yes, one could see that there were several levels of consciousness, and that

there was also a political consciousness. Political conscience, for me, had all

those who identified with either communists or socialists or anarchists. These

had class consciousness. Those who said they were in favour of the trabalhistas,

no. That was the opinion I had, inspired a little by Azis Simão.

Was Azis Simão a good professor?

He was a very good professor, very friendly, pedagogical. The teachers we

got along with best were him, Fernando Henrique, Otávio Ianni and Antonio

Cândido, these four. Florestan too, although already further away. It was a

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question of generation. And curiously, he seemed to be the least politically

committed to Marxism. I say curiously because afterwards he would be the

opposite, but at the time that was how we saw him.

The climate in the Social Sciences course was very politicized, people participated in social movements?

No. Few of them participated. And those were seen as curiosities by the

other students. There was political interest, there was interest in Marxist theory,

but political militancy, no, it was very limited.

Who were the political participants?

Weffort and another one or two who were also communists, I can't

remember their names now. And I think that' s all. In the next group came the

Sader brothers, Eder and Emir.

Wasn't Leôncio Martins Rodrigues in the class?

Leôncio was a few years older, he was a few classes above. When we joined,

he was still a Trotskyist militant. I remember he was distributing the Fourth

International magazine in French.

Did your classmates meet outside the university?

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Yes, but not all of them. We were three friends: Roberto Schwarz, Gabriel

Bolaffi and me. We saw each other often and we were always together. They

called us “The Three Musketeers.” Some participated in a course given by Anatol

Rosenfeld on the history of philosophy, if I am not mistaken, at Roberto

Schwarz's house. I attended a few times.

Did you have any magazines at school?

No. There was a magazine, I don't remember the name, of students who I

don't think were even from the Social Sciences. It was a small magazine, which

had a vocation for politics and aesthetics. I remember I wrote an article there

about FIARI: International Federation of Independent Revolutionary Artists. In

1938, when Trotsky, Diego Rivera and Breton met in Mexico, the surrealists

decided to create a federation of revolutionary artists, independent from the

Third International. Trotsky and Breton wrote the text, which was signed by Diego

Rivera. This document is interesting because it seeks to analyze the revolutionary

role of the artist.

You told us that when you entered college you were already a socialist militant. What kind of militancy was that?

Before entering university I participated, for a short time, in the Socialist

Party and after in the famous Independent Socialist League. It was a very small

group—minuscule, microscopic—inspired by Rosa Luxemburg, of which Paul

Singer, Rocha Barros, Sachetta, Sader were part at the beginning. In fact, I

considered myself a disciple of Paul Singer. It was he who initiated me in the

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work of Rosa Luxemburg. I remember that around 1953-54 he was in the Socialist

Party and distributed a pamphlet protesting against the invasion of Guatemala.

But after a year he was disappointed with the Party, and there discussions began

to form a new group, the Independent Socialist League. I have the impression

that in conversations and discussions with Paul Singer I learned as much as at

the university. From the point of view of an intellectual and political Marxist

formation, he was something of a private university to me.

How would you define Paul Singer in intellectual terms at the time?

Someone who at the same time had a solid Marxist economic background,

knew Marx perfectly well, Rosa Luxemburg too, and had a very strong union,

worker, and political commitment. He was concerned with maintaining a link with

the Union and the trade unionists, with the workers' struggles and with the left,

seeking a Marxist political alternative outside the cadres of the Communist Party

and of Social Democracy, as it was exotically represented by the Socialist Party.

What ties did Paul Singer maintain with the unions and trade unionists?

He was mainly in contact with the Metallurgical Union, with an opposition

tendency towards the leadership. There was a small tendency that aimed to

reform the union structure, to unbind the union from the State, to put an end to

the union tax. Nevertheless, my relationship with the Union went through the

student's movement, through the State Students Union (UEE). I integrated there a

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kind of syndicalist secretary and I attended union meetings as a student

representative. I remember going to several assemblies of striking workers,

bringing the students' word of solidarity.

It was during your time as a university student that this group, which has a certain importance in the intellectual trajectory of several Brazilian professors and politicians, was formed, the so-called "Capital Group"?

The “Capital Group” appeared at that time. When we were finishing college,

in 1959 or 1960, those responsible for the group, Fernando Henrique and Paul

Singer, invited us. We were considered to be sufficiently mature to participate.

However, we caught the trolley moving already. When we joined, I think they

were already at the end of the first volume or at the beginning of the second. I

attended the meetings for a year or so. There were teachers from various

disciplines, it was an interdisciplinary group: philosophers, economists,

historians, sociologists. Fernando Novais, Giannotti, Rui Fausto, Otávio Ianni,

Fernando Henrique…

Where did your meetings take place?

At Giannotti's house, if I'm not mistaken. Every week a chapter of Capital

was read. Those who knew German read it in German, the others read the

Spanish translation. One person made the summary and commentary of the

chapter, and then it was discussed. I started in the middle, as I said, and left for

France before finishing. But I was able to catch a decent piece.

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Regarding the theoretical references, you spoke about Marx and Rosa Luxemburg. Lenin and Trotsky were not common currency between yourselves?

No. Lenin was seen as an authoritarian character, who had been criticized by

Rosa Luxemburg for the authoritarian bias he had brought to the revolutionary

movement, and as the one responsible, to some extent, for what happened

afterwards in the Soviet Union. Within my strictly Luxemburgist political

background, Leninism was seen as something at least ambivalent and

objectionable. And Trotsky was criticized for being a Leninist. Although several of

our companions were of Trotskyist origin, such as Sachetta, we had reached a

critical assessment regarding Trotsky.

Outside the Marxist camp, was there any other theoretical references for the “Capital Group”?

There was. To most of my colleagues there was a very wide openness to

sociology and all forms of thinking. In fact, the most dogmatic was me. The idea

that a non-Marxist thinker could bring something interesting, for me, was hard to

accept. I remember some very violent discussions with Roberto Shwartz because

he would say that Huizinga was right in saying that, deep down, what

determined human beings was more a game than an economic infrastructure.

That was totally absurd to me. I also remember another episode with a political

science teacher of ours named Paula Beiguelman. She had given us a text from

Mannheim about conservative thinking, which she herself translated,

mimeographed and distributed. At first, I resisted, but she told me: "You don't

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have to stop being a Marxist. You read Mannheim and then you go back to

reading Marx. No problem. But see if there are other things outside of Marxism

too." I was very sceptical, but I ended up reading Mannheim and even found it

interesting. My state of mind was a bit like that: there's still so much to read in

Marx, Engels and other Marxists, for me to waste my time reading Durkheim,

Mannheim... I thought it was a waste of time. I read because I was obliged to, but

with the controversial intention of deconstructing these authors, to prove them

all wrong from the Marxist point of view.

Did your non-Marxists colleagues become enamoured with these other references?

They were interested. They were more open, more eclectic. They didn't have

this concern, this animosity against bourgeois thought. Their attitude was

different. It generated a certain tension between me and even my closest friends.

Still on the “Capital Group:” was the objective to study Marx only for academic development, or was there the intention to form an intellectual advisory group or to participate in some political project?

It was not an academic spectacle, nobody was there because of their thesis

or their academic career, but neither was it something with a common political

objective, advisory or whatever. It was neither one nor the other. There was a

desire for self-illustration of each person according to their own objectives. Some

were more academic, others more theoretical in the broad sense, and others with

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proper political objectives. There was a great diversity, but everyone there agreed

that it was important to return to the source and read The Capital.

Did the friendship between the participants remain beyond the “Capital Group”?

I think so. There were already friendship ties between us before, Fernando

Henrique, Otávio Ianni, Paul Singer, Giannotti. Those who were invited already

had ties of friendship that naturally were strengthened later in the group. And

they remained. For me maybe less, because I walked away, I went away, but for

those who stayed I think so. Although naturally there were ruptures, like that of

Fernando Henrique with Otávio. Even then, somehow a kind of intellectual

community was created.

You graduated in 1959 and then went to France. Before that did you have any professional experience in Brazil?

Yes. When I was still finishing university, during the last year, I was invited by

Wilson Cantoni, a sociology professor, whom I met through the Socialist League,

to be his assistant at the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters of São José

do Rio Preto. It was a very interesting experience. I met a very friendly group and,

among others, I encountered my former philosophy professor, I don't remember

his name now, who had been a Trotskyist and was teaching there. But what

struck me the most at the time was the relationship with the peasant movement.

A Peasant League was being organized in the region of Santa Fe do Sul, whose

leader was called Jofre Correia Neto. This man was constantly being persecuted,

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in and out of prison. Me, Wilson Cantoni and other colleagues were very

interested in this movement. We went to Santa Fé do Sul to support it and

brought a delegation of several hundred peasants to São José do Rio Preto to

participate in an act in defence of public schools. There was a very strong

relationship between us and this movement in Santa Fé do Sul.

Why did you go to France?

My idea of going to France first arose from a fascination with French culture

from my teenage years. Surrealism had always been a strong influence on me. I

also had a certain mythical image of Paris as the city of revolutions. But, more

concretely, for me it was a capital discovery to read the work of Lucien Goldmann,

something I owe to Gabriel Bolaffi. Indeed, I will never forget this scene: one day,

I think we were in the second or third year of college, Gabriel Bolaffi said to me

like this: “I'm reading an interesting book and I won't tell you which one, because

you're already annoying, but if you read this book you'll become an intelligent

annoyance, it'll be unbearable.” Bolaffi and I were arguing because I was a

nagging Marxist, and he was much more eclectic, more open, uncompromising.

He ended up confessing that the book was Lucien Goldmann's La Ciencia humana

y la filosofia. Naturally, I hurried over the book to see if it made me an intelligent

annoyance, and I was dazzled. I was dazzled because it was a very different style

of Marxism than the one I had seen hitherto. There was a strong criticism of

bourgeois sociology, but at the same time a rather non-dogmatic, open Marxism.

To me it was enlightening. From then on I began to read other things by Lucien

Goldmann and decided: I am going to France to do my doctoral thesis with

Lucien Goldmann. I asked for a French scholarship and when I was already

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working in San José from Rio Preto came the positive response. So I went to Paris.

I went in 1961, shortly after Jango took over.

What was the moment of Jânio's resignation and João Goulart's inauguration like for you, a political militant?

I remember that we were very sympathetic to Brizola. We went out in the

street shouting: ”Brizola, get them!” At that time I was already in another political

organization, because in 1960 a part of the staff that was in the Independent

Socialist League united together with other little groups and created an

organization called Polop4—this one is more well-known. I think the Independent

Socialist League was only known by our friends... I participated in the foundation

of Polop together with Paul Singer, the Sader brothers, Juarez Brito, Teotônio dos

Santos and Rui Mauro Marini.

Was going to France an aspiration that you shared with other people or was it something unusual in your group?

I think France was an interest for many in the group. Some had already

studied there. Philosophy students were more interested than sociologists. Those

who studied philosophy automatically would continue their studies in France, the

relationship was very strong. In sociology, it wasn't that strong. I think it was just

me and Rui Fausto.

4 T. N.: Revolutionary Marxist Political Labour Organization.

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When you left for France to do your doctoral thesis with Lucien Goldmann, did you also have the idea of fulfilling a political mission? How was it defined in your head?

I had the idea of doing a thesis on Marx and going back to Brazil. I had

already started working on Marx in Brazil. I even wrote three articles for Revista

Brasiliense, one on the agrarian question, “Notes on the agrarian question in

Brazil”—which was not lacking in pretension—another on the young Marx and

the other on the Marxist Party theory. A classic discussion between Rosa

Luxemburg and Lenin. Going to Paris to do a doctorate on Marx was a task both

political and intellectual.

How was your intellectual trajectory in France?

I wrote my thesis with Goldmann. At the time I remember Althusser was

starting to emerge, and the students split up. Rui Fausto, for example, was more

attracted to Althusser; I, to Goldmann. At Goldmann's seminar there were figures

like Herbert Marcuse. He spent a year by Goldmann's invitation giving seminars

at the School of High Studies. Other times Goldmann invited Henri Lefebvre to

give some lectures. Anyway, it was a place where interesting things happened.

Aside from Goldmann's seminars, I attended other courses, such as Touraine's. I

attended both philosophy and sociology courses. I went to the courses, for

example, of Hippolyte on Hegel and Raymond Aron and Gurvitch, who taught

sociology at the Sorbonne. I followed their courses with great reserve. They were

two teachers who were insufficiently Marxist for my taste, but, anyway, I learned

things, especially with Aron, who was a very intelligent guy, who taught Marx

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very well. There was another interesting seminar, that of Georges Haupt,

historian, on international socialism.

While you were there, did you follow the events in Brazil?

Yes, I followed very closely and had a correspondence with my friends in

Brazil, Paul Singer and the Sader brothers. I followed the internal discussions at

Polop. I considered myself a Polop militant in Paris and took part in the activities

of the French left, particularly the Unified Socialist Party, in the Sorbonne cell.

Was there the idea of establishing a link between the PSU and Polop? There was an analogy between them, from the point of view of questioning Party orthodoxies, wasn't there?

If there was any idea, nothing ever materialized. Anyhow, I read the rest of

Goldmann's work that I didn't know yet and developed my thesis on the theory of

revolution in Marx's work, methodologically inspired in Goldmann. But Goldmann

did not agree. To summarize the thesis: I related Marx's work to the workers'

movement at the time, trying to show that the theory of revolution in the young

Marx was a formulation based on the concrete experiences of the workers'

movement, of which Marx considered himself to be somewhat of a

spokesperson. To my understanding, there was a relationship between the class

and its intellectual, whilst Goldmann was very sceptical about this. For him, there

is no working class in the 19th century, there were artisans, and Marx

represented indeed the left-wing of the bourgeoisie. Then, I would joke that I

considered myself a left-wing neo-Goldmannian. On the day of my thesis defence,

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Goldmann criticized me a lot. In one of his articles he wrote that a student tried

to demonstrate Marx as the class expression of the proletariat, and that he was

not very convinced. But finally, methodologically my thesis was strictly

Goldmannian, in the sense of trying to articulate social classes, ideology and

culture: it was a kind of sociology of culture.

When did you defend your thesis?

In March 1964. I finished my thesis and at this moment a rather strange

parenthesis opens up in my itinerary: I end up in Israel due to circumstances

neither political nor intellectual, but strictly family related. My father had passed

away, my brother already lived in Israel and my mother moved there. So I

decided to try the future in Israel. After finishing my doctorate, I spent a year

studying Hebrew in a kibbutz and working half the day. After a year of study, I

was invited to teach History of Political Ideas, first at the University of Jerusalem,

then at Tel-Aviv University. I spent four years in Israel, one year as a student and

three as a professor. I also had some contact with Brazil, especially with the Sader

brothers. Then came May 68 and it gave me a great desire to return to Europe. At

that time I also came into political conflict with the director of the Department of

Political Sciences of the University of Tel-Aviv, where I worked. A small scandal

was staged at the university, with many protests. Even the newspapers discuss

whether the professor's discharge was for political reasons or not. A friend of

mine who had lived in Israel but was in England, the historian Theodor Chamu,

writes an article in the New Statement denouncing what he calls “McCarthyism at

Tel-Aviv University.” A friend of Chamu, a teacher in Manchester named Peter

Worsley, called him a few days later saying: “We read your article and decided, in

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solidarity with your friend who is a victim of discrimination, to invite him to teach

here in Manchester.” For me it was the opportunity to leave, because I was

already feeling suffocated in Tel-Aviv.

In those four years that you spent in Israel, was there any growth from an intellectual or living point of view?

The important growth was that, in order to be able to give the course I gave,

I learned very well the history of political ideas: Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke,

Tocqueville, Hegel. It was a good learning experience.

Confirming that adage that says that the professor is the one who learns the most…

He's not the one who learns the most, he's the only one who learns.

How was your contact with Jewish culture?

Interestingly enough, throughout my stay in Israel I was never interested in

any aspect of Jewish culture. I never studied, I never wrote anything! Total

indifference. I only became interested in Judaism and Jewish culture ten years

after I left Israel.

Was there any investment in terms of valuing Jewish culture within your family?

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My family was enthusiastically Zionist. So much so that my brother and

mother went to Israel. My education had a lot of Zionisms and socialism, but my

decision to go to Israel was not because of Zionism, it was, as I said, for family

reasons.

During this period when you were in Israel, Brazil was becoming more and more closed. Did you nurture the desire to return to Brazil at some point?

Yes, in the four years that I lived in Israel I had the strong conviction that I

would return. I remember that in 1968 I wrote to Azis Simão saying that I was

thinking of going back and asking if there was any chance to work in any

university. Azis wrote back saying, “Don't come back, don't set your feet here.

Arriving here you're going to be arrested right away. Your name is well-known,

several of your friends have already been arrested. Don't come back! Please, stay

there in Europe!” I was frustrated, but I thought he was right. Years later, when I

first came back to Brazil, Azis Simão was under the impression that I had broken

up with him because of his negative statement. He tried to apologize, but I said,

“You were right!”

Did you ever think of going back to Brazil to join the Polop as a clandestine political leader? That's what Sader was doing, isn't it?

Yes, but the idea of going back clandestinely was complicated. There wasn't

much structure. There was even a split in the Polop. The people I was most

connected to had created a new organization called POC (Communist Workers

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Party) and were approaching the Fourth International. At that moment Emir

Sader came to Europe. We both discussed and came to the conclusion that the

Fourth International was interesting. But the idea of returning to Brazil was not

there, as far as I can remember.

Besides the teaching activity, did you develop any other research after you left France?

I concluded my thesis on the theory of revolution in the young Marx in 1964,

but unfortunately I could not publish it because I went to Israel. That was a great

frustration. Six years later, when I returned to France, I looked for an editor,

François Maspero, talked to him and Georges Haupt, and my thesis was

published. I did very little research in Israel. The climate was not very favourable

to research. My greatest effort was in teaching, in preparing classes on the

history of political ideas. I even wrote a few articles in Israel, but the only

interesting research work was one on Kafka and anarchism. It's a study in which

I've been working for years and never really finish. In Manchester, I worked on a

political sociology course with Peter Worsley and started studying Max Weber.

Anyone who gives a course on Max Weber has to study Max Weber. I started

researching him and even wrote an article that was a Marxist criticism of Max

Weber. But my main research at that time, 1968-69, was really more political than

academic: a book about Che Guevara's thought. As a matter of fact, I started this

work by writing articles about Guevara in Israel. I continued my research in

Manchester, and the book was published in 1970.

Before going to England, still in Israel, I had already applied for a

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scholarship in France. A year later my application was accepted. I left Manchester

in 1969, landed in Paris and met my old friend Emir Sader, who was working as

an assistant in Paris-VII with Professor Nicos Poulantzas. He introduces me to

Poulantzas and says he is leaving for Chile. Poulantzas then had me hired as an

assistant. From then on I started to work as a course administrator, chargé de

cours, a person who did not have a contract, who earned by the hour. It was a bit

precarious, but I was able to maintain myself.

What did you think of Poulantzas?

A very friendly guy. We got along very well, but we didn't agree on anything.

Neither politically nor theoretically. He was a Maoist, I was a Trotskyist; he was an

Althusserian, I was a Kantian. Total divergence and perfect friendship. In the first

or second year he proposed that we made a course together. It was funny,

because every week one spoke and the other criticized. The students loved to see

us disagreeing, though very amicably. Each class was a total disagreement.

The students must have learned a lot.

They might have. I think the first course we made together was about

Marxism and the national question. I remember from that course I had the idea

to prepare an anthology on Marxism and the national question. I went to talk

about it with Georges Haupt, who had published my book on Marx, he said that

he had the same idea and suggested that we should do it together. This

anthology was published in 1974. Meanwhile, Goldmann died, unfortunately,

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leaving me orphaned. When I was in Israel I had little contact with him, but when

I returned to Paris I resumed contact, and attended his seminars again. Through

Goldmann I met Lukács, decided to do my second doctorate, the State thesis, on

Lukács, and would do it with Goldmann, but he passed away. In the 1970s, I

worked on my thesis on Lukács and wrote some articles: one was a polemic

against Althusser, called “The historicist humanism of Marx or To Read The

Capital.” I bought the Lukácsians' fight against Althusser. Another article I wrote

was “Objectivity and Class Viewpoint in the Social Sciences.” It was the embryo of

a work on the sociology of knowledge. These articles and several others were

first published in Brazil by a friend of mine, Reginaldo de Piero, under the title

Dialectical Method and Political Theory, by Paz e Terra.

After all, I did this thesis on Lukács, travelled to Hungary several times,

worked in the Budapest archive, met Lukács' disciples. The thesis was published

in France with a somewhat strange title: For a sociology of revolutionary

intellectuals. Here in Brazil it also came out with this title.

At the moment you come back to France many people are also arriving from Brazil.

Exactly. And I integrate directly into the colony of Brazilian exiles. Although I

was not an exile, I identify with them and try as much as possible to make my

small contribution to the defamation of Brazil abroad. I remember that in 1970

me and a Brazilian friend went to visit Sartre and ask him to launch a protest by

French intellectuals against the tortures in Brazil. Since we were still very naive,

instead of taking a ready-made text, we took only the idea. He was the one who

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had to sit down and write the text. Then he called the other intellectuals to sign it,

and the protest came out. I was at every meeting with Violeta Arraes, who was

the main organizer.

You revealed to us that from university onward you had a rather orthodox thought. Years later, while studying in Paris, having contact with this rather heterogeneous group of Brazilian exiles, how would you evaluate your intellectual positions? Was there any change?

The big change for me was the discovery of Goldmann and Lukács. I went

from an orthodox Marxism to a more open Marxism. As for the exiles, there was

a kind of unity against the dictatorship, a general sympathy for the armed

struggle. My political reference was the POC, which no longer existed in Brazil—it

was therefore a more imaginary than real reference. The last attempt to

reorganize the POC failed in 1971, when a friend of ours returned to Brazil from

Paris and was killed by the dictatorship.

Did you still think, at that time, that you would return to Brazil?

Frankly, less and less. Among other reasons, there was a personal one: I had

got married. I mean, I didn't completely dismiss the idea, but it got even more

complicated. Then two children were born in France and my return became more

and more unlikely.

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Your professional commitment to France should also count.

Yes, but that wasn't the biggest obstacle. Eventually, if the Brazilian regime

changed, I would get a job at a Brazilian university. It was more this personal

problem. And at that time they also confiscated my Brazilian passport. I went to

the embassy to renew my passport, and they explained to me that I was persona

non grata. I had no legal way to return to Brazil.

After they confiscate your passport, how do you stay in France?

In a tight spot. I had applied for French naturalization at the same time,

which was refused. In 1975, I found myself without a Brazilian passport and

without French naturalization. Then I remember my Austrian ancestors. I go to

the Austrian embassy with my father's birth certificate and I get an Austrian

passport. For several years I was Austrian. It was only after many years that I got

French naturalization. I went to see a lawyer, and he said to me: “Give up, if the

presidency changes and the left wins, we will return to the subject.” After

Mitterrand's election in 1981, I went to see the lawyer again, and he finally

succeeded, but it wasn't easy. A lot of branches had to be broken.

In the 1970s there was a resumption of intellectual production in Brazil with the implementation of post-graduate courses. Did you accompany this process?

No. My accompaniment of the academic activity in Brazil is zero! The last

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thing I followed was at the end of the 60s at USP, when the left-wing guys

published that magazine Teoria e Prática. I sent them a chapter of my thesis on

Marx, and they translated and published it. They were Rui Fausto, Sader, Schwarz.

Later, most of them went into exile. Roberto Schwarz was in Paris; Emir was in

Chile and then went to Cuba; Rui Fausto went to Chile and then came to Paris,

where I got him a job. Many of my friends were in Paris, I was no longer at USP.

So I had no idea what was happening.

Did you have any contact with the CEBRAP5 experiment? CEBRAP is from 1969, Fernando Henrique Cardoso was there.

Of course, I heard about the CEBRAP, but there was no direct connection. I

was more familiar with the latest splits at VAR-Palmares...6

From when did you resume contact with Brazil?

In 1980 there was a chance to visit Brazil. I don't know how, someone here

in Brazil set up a business for me to go on a UNESCO mission to help set up a

post-graduate program in the city of Belo Horizonte. Thus, in 1980, after 19 years

of absence, I resumed contact with Brazil. It was a culture shock. I felt that

everything in Brazil had changed and everything was still the same. Everything

changed because everything got bigger, everything expanded. Things that were

references to me no longer existed. My house had been demolished, my

gymnasium had been demolished, Maria Antônia was no longer Maria Antônia.

5 T. N.: Brazilian Center of Analysis and Planning.

6 T. N.: Palmares Armed Revolutionary Vanguard

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From that point of view I was really feeling kind of lost. But the people and the

Brazilian lifestyle were the same, it was the old Brazil.

And you liked it?

I liked it and I felt like going back. I didn't come back soon because the

occasion didn't come up, but from 1984 on I started coming back regularly every

two years and resumed university, personal, family contacts.

In which way does Brazil hold a place within you today?

Being Brazilian has always been a fundamental part of my identity. If my

identity is a kind of brick building, the foundation is Brazilian. But in this building

also comes France. After so many years in Europe we end up Europeanizing

ourselves. But now, for the first time, I am working with Brazilian themes: the

issue of religion and politics in Brazil and Latin America, surrounding Liberation

Theology.

Before getting to that point, let's pick up on your trajectory: Marx, Goldmann, Lukács... Starting from when is there a broadening of horizons?

There's a moment that I think it's important to highlight, which is my work

on the sociology of knowledge. There I finally read Mannheim again—my dear

friend Paula Beiguelman was right, we need to read Mannheim—and I did a

contest project to enter the CNRS—Centre National des Recherches Scientifiques.

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Miraculously, I was accepted. I say miraculously because in order to enter the

CNRS projects had to be based on empirical research, social phenomena were

studied empirically. And I was the only one who submitted a project on

sociological theory. Apparently they liked it. I joined the CNRS with this project

and did a study on the sociology of knowledge that was published in France and

translated in Brazil with the pompous title, half ironic, of The Adventures of Karl

Marx against the Baron of Münchhausen. It is the only book of mine that has had

a certain success in Brazil. It was also published in France, but had much less

impact. During this period I took a step beyond Goldmannian-Lukácsian

Marxism. This step was taken with the discovery of Walter Benjamin in 1979-80.

He gives me tremendous enlightenment, and a new horizon opens up for me: the

Frankfurt School and the theme of romanticism, which I had already been

working on from Lukács, but which is beginning to interest me more. This forces

me to review a number of things from Marxism and to have a much more

heterodox vision. The interest in the relationship between religion-Christianity-

revolution also begins, hence that book of mine, Redemption and Utopia.

Do you establish any relation between your inclination for Walter Benjamin and the recognition of the failure, at least in the short term, of the revolutionary project in Brazil?

No. Only in a very indirect way, in the sense that Walter Benjamin is

someone very concerned with the history of the defeated and has a very strong

sensitivity towards it. This can subjectively correspond to the feeling of sympathy

for the victims of the repressive process, and for Brazil itself. Only if it is very

indirectly.

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There is a clear correlation between Gramsci's discovery and the rediscovery of the subject of democracy by the Brazilian left from 1974 onward. Already from the 80's there is a general inclination toward Walter Benjamin. That is, at the moment when the revolutionary project is considered closed, Benjamin's works are translated in Brazil and everyone reads Benjamin.

It may be that the choice for Benjamin in Brazil was made in this context,

but my personal was not like that. On the contrary, I took Benjamin from his

messianic and revolutionary side. On the question of democracy, for me, the

reference was still Rosa Luxembourg. There was no need for that passing

through Gramsci.

Walter Benjamin also helps you reach the referential universe of Jewish culture?

Yes, of course. It is through Benjamin that I discover Judaism and religion.

Both Jewish messianism and religion in general, religion as a revolutionary

culture. My current affiliation with the CNRS passes through a centre that studies

the sociology of religion. Obviously, from the point of view of someone who is not

religious, but observes the phenomenon with great interest.

How do you position yourself in relation to the critique that views Marxism as a secular religion?

Put in those terms, of critique, I think it's a punctured, superficial thesis. It

does not realize what Marxism is as a materialistic theory. However, on another

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deeper level, no longer as a critique, but as a positive claim, I find the thesis

legitimate. I refer to the level that is studied by Lucien Goldmann in that book of

his about the hidden God, when he compares Pascal's bet with Marx's bet. He

says that both in the case of religion in Pascal and in the case of socialism in Marx

there is an element of faith, that is, an element that cannot be demonstrated

empirically. Both rely on a wager. Pascal bets on the existence of God; Marx bets

on the possibility of the realization of communism. And that bet necessarily

implies the risk of not succeeding. But the individual has to bet, he is already

onboard, there is no escape. As Pascal says, “we're already onboard,” you can't

look from the outside.. You are obligated to bet on one thing or another. If you

don't bet on God's existence, you guide your life according to that hypothesis.

The Christian, on the other hand, directs his life according to the other one. The

same goes for socialism, we all have to bet. In this sense there is an affinity, or a

structural homology, between religion, at least a certain type of religion, which is

that of Pascal, and the socialism of Marx. There is an element of faith, an ultimate

principle that cannot be scientifically demonstrated and is based on a wager.

Therefore, I find the comparison between religion and Marxism legitimate, but

not in the superficial, journalistic sense.

In closing, I would ask you to assess the current state of Marx's thought. You, who have always had the reference of Marxism, how do you face this current movement that claims that Marx was a great author, but from the 19th century, and that it is an anachronism to keep him as a reference?

I'd start by remembering an old quote: “Marx died to humankind.”

Benedetto Croce, 1960. This thesis that Marx is finished is not very new. In fact,

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what we are seeing today in France and elsewhere is a phenomenon that the

press itself calls “the return of Marx.” And I think it is quite predictable, because

to try to understand capitalism and, even more, to try to transform this world,

Marx is necessary. Inevitably, sooner or later, he will return to the agenda, until

the moment when it is no longer necessary, when capitalism no longer exists. As

Rosa Luxemburg and Gramsci had already said, in a post-capitalist, socialist,

classless society, the categories of Marxism will be overcome.

Having said that, I think that a criticism of Marx is obviously in order. The

two aspects of criticism that seem to me the richest to explore are the libertarian

and the ecological approaches. Any libertarian criticism of Marx's conception of

the State and Marx's illusions about the State deserves to be explored, it is a

fertile problem. And the other criticism that seems interesting to me is the

ecological one. It calls into question the whole doctrine of progress, the whole

conception of history based on the development of productive forces, that is, the

core elements in terms of Marxism, particularly a certain Marxism which, to sum

up in one sentence, I would describe as “the Marxism of the Preface of 1857.”

Therein lies an element that needs to be relocated, and it is not a mere detail, it is

a rather central element of Marx's theory. I think that a critical revision of

Marxism passes through this, but in the sense of deepening its radical nature

and negativity in relation to capitalist modernity. The majority of criticisms or

revision proposals made to Marx today go in the opposite direction, trying to

dilute radicality and reconcile Marx with capitalist modernity. In my opinion, what

is interesting is precisely to deepen the critical dimension, putting into question

those elements of Marx's work that are insufficiently critical in relation to the

model of Western, industrial and patriarchal civilization.

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a marxist intellectual: interview with michael löwy · he gave this interview to professors...

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