Mainstream Weeklyby Etienne Balibar
(This is a revised version of a lecture originally written for the Congress Marx International IV, "Guerre imperiale, guerre sociale", Universite de Paris X Nanterre, Plenary Session, Saturday 2 October 2004. It was published in French in Etienne Balibar, Violence et Civilitee, Editions Galilee, Paris, 2010. It is translated here along with a new Afterword.)
The theme I shall address today has all the trappings of an academic exercise.* Still, I would like to attempt to show how it intersects with several major historical, epistemological and ultimately political questions. As a basis for the discussion, I will posit that Lenin and Gandhi are the two greatest figures among revolutionary theorist