Li Jian: The Problem of "Real Movement" in Communist Theory
Understanding and grasping the question of the "real movement" [1] within communist theory—particularly the rich connotations inherent in this "real movement"—is an important task for researching contemporary trends in Marxist thought and innovating 21st-century Marxism. In their representative work elucidating communist thought, The German Ideology, Marx and Engels proposed a vital judgment: "Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things." Although Marx and Engels defined the concept of communism as a "real movement" and explained the process of realizing communism as a historical process of generation that continuously abolishes the present state of affairs, what kind of communism can be termed the communism of the "real movement"? How can communism be grounded in the historical reality of the 21st century? These two questions require further elucidation at both the theoretical and practical levels. Based on this, this article takes influential Western radical leftist scholars as examples to carry out an integrated interpretation of their different understandings regarding the "real movement" of communism. It aims to centrally display the sense in which they have reconstructed communist theory, with the hope of providing certain intellectual references for developing a new form of human civilization.
I. From the "Idea" of Communism to the "Real Movement" of Communism
Western radical leftist scholars differ in their understandings of communism, but they all take the return to communism as a new political discourse to flaunt their radical positions, forming a dual logical approach that interprets the concept of communism through "the Idea" and "the real movement." For them, the "Idea" is important, but the "real movement" is the essential characteristic of communism. How to ground the "Idea" of communism in actual history under changing contemporary conditions, thereby making it truly a "real movement," constitutes the core problem of Western leftist communist theory.
In the view of Western radical leftist scholars, communism refers first to a communist Idea. The Western radical left regards The Communist Manifesto as a key text for elucidating Marx’s communist doctrine. For them, to grasp the original meaning of communism, it is first necessary to return to the period when the doctrine of communism was founded. In Marx and Engels, communism carries multiple meanings. However, its most original and basic definition refers to the idea of achieving human liberation. As early as What Does De Gaulle Mean When We Speak of Sarkozy? [2] and The Communist Hypothesis, Alain Badiou reached an important conclusion: the revival of communism in the 21st century is the revival of the Idea. He maintains that we cannot derive a conclusion of exactly what a real communist society looks like from the dialectics of Marxist philosophy or the critical analysis of political economy; all we can grasp of communism is an Idea, a hypothesis. Slavoj Žižek further points out: "To remain faithful to the communist Idea is not enough: one should locate it in historical reality, in antagonisms which give this Idea a practical urgency."
Secondly, communism is essentially a real movement that breaks the established capitalist order. Starting from a conceptualized understanding of communism, the Western radical left also views communism as a real movement that continuously breaks the established capitalist order by exerting human subjectivity, thereby achieving human liberation. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, in Labor of Dionysus, propose that communism is a "real movement of destruction" based on the analysis of "actually existing things": "Communism is not formal but ontological; not teleology, but reality." Grounded in the era of digital capitalism, the Western radical left proceeds from the new social reality in which immaterial productive activities occupy a dominant position. Starting from capitalist relations of production, they argue that due to the opposition between public and private brought about by the development of capitalist globalization, the capitalist mode of production will create direct material conditions for the realization of communism. Michael Hardt asserts: "With the increasing concentration of 'the common'—the production of ideas, affects, social relationships and forms of life—within capitalist production, the conditions and weapons for a communist project are emerging. In other words, capitalism is creating its own gravediggers."
The Western radical left has clarified the fundamental question of what communism refers to from the dual perspectives of the "Idea" and the "real movement." To them, the "Idea" of communism and the "real movement" of communism are not in a state of mutual separation but are organically integrated—that is, an interactive relationship where the "Idea" is reproduced within the "real movement." This "real movement" of communism is a critique of the reality of capitalist society and a historical movement process of abolishing the present state of capitalism; the goal of this "real movement" of communism is to realize the idea of human liberation and the actual appropriation of the human essence. By activating and transforming concepts such as "biopolitics," "the common," "intellectual equality," and "the proletariat," and by linking these to the changes in the internal contradictions of the capitalist mode of production, the Western radical left hits the mark by pointing out the problem of the "real movement" in Marx’s communist doctrine. They have further formed new forms of critique for abolishing the present state of capitalism and have grounded the reproduction of communism in actual history in the revolutionary subject, providing an innovative perspective and theoretical window that cannot be ignored for our understanding of the "real movement" problem in Marx’s communist doctrine today.
II. From the "Real Movement" of Abolishing the Present State of Capitalism to the "Real Movement" of the Production of Subjectivity
According to the statement by Marx and Engels in The German Ideology, communism is the real movement which abolishes the present state of capitalism. The Western radical left has constructed an interpretive framework for understanding and grasping communist theory in the 21st century through the dual narrative logic of "the Idea" and "the real movement." On this basis, they have advanced the problem to be solved by the "real movement" from the abolition of the present state of capitalism to the production of subjectivity, providing theoretical annotations for the preconditions, main line of development, and value goals of this change. Marx once pointed out: "Of all the instruments of production, the greatest productive power is the revolutionary class itself." As the revolutionary subject, the process of the proletariat carrying out the production of subjectivity is also the historical unfolding of the "real movement" of communism. Some Western radical leftist scholars view subjectivity as a salient feature of communism. Negri argues: "Communism possesses a subjective form and is also a specific practice; in the rapid development of new subjects, no part of capital remains undestroyed. This subject displays a subjective power of upheaval and carries away all remnants of the old order."
First, the precondition for the shift from the "real movement" of abolishing the present state of capitalism to the "real movement" of the production of subjectivity is the change in class relations and the balance of power. With the development of digital and intelligent technologies, capitalism has entered a new round of privatization. This neoliberalism not only plunders common natural wealth but also attempts to further plunder common immaterial wealth, turning cultural products such as information, ideas, and affects into private property. In the view of the Western radical left, there are many understandings of the "real movement" that abolishes the present state of capitalism, but it primarily refers to the question of class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. They provide a view of class struggle based on biopolitical production. For instance, Negri mentions that today’s labor not only produces material products but also produces social relations and forms of life. Biopolitical production no longer relies solely on material production but relies more on the conscious creative labor of the subject. The reason for making this judgment stems from their profound insight into the change in the balance of power between the subject of capital and the subject of labor in the era of digital capitalism.
Today, the structures of capitalist rule and its forms of control no longer stand above the social field to determine the process of exploitation as they once did; rather, they must be rooted in the internal structure of capitalist social production, particularly within the contradictory relationship between the subject of capital and the subject of labor. The reasons are two-fold: on the one hand, class relations are still grounded in the historical definitions of capitalist social reality and the production of subjectivity (of capital and labor); on the other hand, the balance of class power has undergone significant changes. The immense progress in productive forces empowered by digital technology has increasingly brought about a new trend of liberating the subject of labor from the valorization of capital—that is, a development trend toward communism characterized by the continuous self-actualization of the subject. The fact here is that "the history of capitalist development is not a structured narrative of capital's unfolding; on the contrary, the structure of capital is determined by the productivity and organizational power of labor." In this sense, the "real movement" of communism must focus on the changes in class relations and the balance of power in capitalist society, and theoretically re-grasp the proposition that "the subordination of labor to the ruling class is not inevitable," thereby more profoundly revealing the preconditions for the "real movement" of communism to transform from the abolition of the present state of capitalism to the production of subjectivity.
Second, the main line of development in the shift from the "real movement" of abolishing the present state of capitalism to the "real movement" of the production of subjectivity is the mutual promotion between heterogeneous subjects and the community. "If communism takes a transitional form, for us this means we must follow a main line, and this main line is the antagonism of subjects." The Western radical left generally believes that there is a mutual promotion between the revolutionary subject and the community. The revolutionary subject of communism is neither the proletariat in the traditional sense nor a homogenized "people," but rather subjects possessing individual biological heterogeneity. What they call the opening of true politics means the generation of an entirely new community. Jacques Rancière refers to this revolutionary subject as the "part of those who have no part" (part des sans-part), namely, that portion of people excluded from the community. He believes that for today's communist movement, the emphasis is not on analyzing the internal contradictions and tensions of class struggle, but on confirming the capacity for resistance of the "part of those who have no part" and their capacity to build a new community of the sensible. Hardt believes that the working class, in the context of transformed relations of production and political struggle, has generated a new revolutionary subject—the multitude—re-emerging as a heterogeneous collection for establishing a community. Here, the question the Western radical left emphasizes answering is: how can the relationship of mutual promotion between the revolutionary subject and the community be established? That is to say, how can a new communist movement conducive to the association of subjects emerge from the antagonisms of the existing system? Hardt and Negri point out that the essence of the association of the multitude is collective resistance against unfree and unjust control and hierarchy, as well as against forms of exploitation and appropriation in capitalist globalization. Rancière also believes that the association of subjects will form a political community, the result of which is to break the "police" [3] distribution of the sensible regarding what a person is, says, and does, enabling those who have "no part" to achieve subjectivization. This subjectivization is not a simple imitation of the established order, but a redefinition of the self and a verification of equality. In their view, the production of the community and the subject's own production are complementary; the subject needs to penetrate the fog of the false community to confirm their subjective identity, while the community needs to continuously innovate the institutions and motivations of subject association to promote that association. It can be seen that the Western radical left’s interpretation of the communist "real movement" has undergone a logical change—from focusing on the objective scale of critiquing capitalism to focusing on the subjective scale of the production of subjectivity—and the interactive relationship between the collective resistance of subjects and the generation of a political community undoubtedly constitutes the main line of development behind this shift.
Third, let us examine the value-orientation of the "real movement" ranging from the elimination of existing capitalist conditions to the production of subjectivity: the return of human subjectivity and the realization of human liberation. The Western Radical Left shares this fundamental conclusion of Marx’s doctrine of communism—that the return of human subjectivity implies that people living in a community have achieved free and conscious labor. Based on this, they have offered different interpretations of how human liberation is possible. Negri explains communism as follows: "Communism is the end of labor, though this end manifests as a process: communism is a society that takes labor as a constituent part of social production while enabling the liberation of the subject." The action of labor-subjects resisting capital-subjects is not merely a potentiality, but a deterministic necessity. This necessity will take the form of a new social formation—Common Communism—based on common wealth created by "immaterial labor" and implementing self-management. This represents a positive negation of the negative relationship between capital and labor; it is a process in which labor-subjects overwhelm capital-subjects and restore human essence.
Can we therefore conclude that communism is simply a hypothesis about human nature regarding the return of human subjectivity? Rancière provides an answer in Does Communist Art Exist? and Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics. He rebuts those Western scholars who view Marx’s discussions on communism in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 as evidence that communism is a mere human nature hypothesis; instead, he views communism as an empirical, sensible reality. He points out that the question of communism in Marx’s doctrine should be understood from the perspectives of reality and process: "The formulation 'the reality of communism' implies that communism is not only desirable—a response to the violence, injustice, or irrationality of capitalism—but that, in a certain sense, it already exists. The reality of communism is not just a task, but also a process." Here, the result of the "real movement" of communism signifies the achievement of dual goals: first, that a true community is not an ideal but an actual form of life; second, that this form of life realizes intellectual liberation, meaning a common capacity established on the hypothesis of equality for everyone. In this sense, Rancière’s "intellectual liberation" is akin to Marx’s "human liberation."
Broadly speaking, the Western Radical Left has further enriched the value dimension of Marx’s doctrine of communism under changed capitalist conditions. They have not only reaffirmed the return of human essence found in the 1844 Manuscripts, but also revealed that the goal of achieving human liberation through the real movement of subjects continually producing and creating themselves is not a utopia, but a reality. However, the Western Radical Left’s discourses—the confrontation between labor-subjects and capital-subjects unfolded through the production of subjectivity, the mutual promotion of the subject and the community, and human liberation—remain at the level of discursive critique of anti-capitalism and logical argumentation for communism. At their theoretical foundation, there are fundamental differences from Marx’s doctrine of communism. Why reach this conclusion? This requires us to develop a critique from the standpoint, viewpoint, and method of historical materialism.
III. A Brief Appraisal of the Western Radical Left’s Interpretation of the "Real Movement" of Communism
Although the Western Radical Left emphasizes the importance of understanding and grasping the "real movement" of communism in the 21st century and has endowed "real movement" with rich connotations, they have discarded historical materialism in their reconstruction of the preconditions, main line of development, and value goals of communist theory. They fail to understand that "the foundation of the concept of communism is its economic and social theory regarding what capitalist society actually is and how it is developing—namely, historical materialism." Consequently, their interpretation of communist theory cannot produce significant practical effects and even risks degenerating into empty talk.
The Western Radical Left corroborates that communism is a real movement that continually eliminates the dominant relationship of capital-subjects over labor-subjects to achieve the true appropriation of human essence, but they fail to ground this antagonistic relationship in the fundamental issue of the "abolition of private property." In the view of the Radical Left represented by Hardt, Negri, and Žižek, the forms of social labor have changed significantly today; material labor is gradually losing its dominant position, and immaterial labor is increasingly becoming the predominant form of production. Negri mentions in Empire: "Compared to other forms of production, a hegemony of immaterial production has now emerged." Based on the epochal judgment that immaterial labor is dominant, the Western Radical Left uses labor as its ontological basis to re-examine the relationship between labor and capital. They endow labor-subjects with autonomy and cooperativity, repositioning the proletarian social movement at the center of global order construction, which reflects their theoretical persistence regarding the "true appropriation of human essence." Hardt, Negri, and Žižek analyze the new changes in capitalist relations of production in the era of digital and intelligent technology, believing they have found the new form of labor hidden behind capital relations—immaterial labor. However, Hardt and Negri replace historical materialism with a biopolitical research paradigm, grounding the class basis of labor-subjects in a "convergence" [4] of production. When understanding the "real movement" of communism, they avoid discussing the decisive role of economic factors in political revolution and historical development, and they do not acknowledge that the "abolition of private property" constitutes the fundamental cause and ultimate goal of the subject’s revolution. For Marx, the "abolition of private property" constitutes the precondition for the realization of communism and the liberation of the proletariat: "the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property." It is precisely in the sense of the "abolition of private property" that Engels stated "Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat." Although the era of digital capitalism has seen many new changes compared to the industrial era—particularly as immaterial production has to some extent replaced the dominance of material production—the essence has not escaped the background of the logic of capital and technological dominance that has prevailed since the Industrial Revolution. It has not escaped the antagonistic relationship between labor and capital inherent in historical materialism. The goal of the proletarian revolution remains the "most radical rupture with traditional property relations" and the re-appropriation of the means of production. Hardt and Negri propose "Common Communism," but the "common" here is a relationship of "commonality" based on openness and sharing, not the public ownership of the means of production based on appropriation in the sense meant by Marx and Engels. Žižek points out that the reality of communism is manifested in the process of collective action among "the excluded" against capitalist privatization and the "new enclosures." This communist vision of the Western Radical Left lacks the leadership of a proletarian vanguard [5] and the goal of overthrowing the old ownership of the means of production; it is merely a radical fantasy regarding political subjects and thus cannot become a reality.
The Western Radical Left corroborates that communism is a real movement that continually eliminates existing capitalist relations through the association of subjects to achieve human liberation, but they fail to better integrate the inevitable laws inherent in the historical process with actual human agency. Historical materialism "reveals the general laws of human social development and the general process of the evolution of social formations, and demonstrates the historical law by which old social formations are replaced by new ones." The key to interpreting the "real movement" of communism lies in grasping "these tendencies working with iron necessity towards inevitable results." Merely viewing communism as a process of the true appropriation of human essence, without revealing the law of "iron necessity" by which new social formations replace old ones, undoubtedly leads to skepticism regarding the certainty of the concept of communism itself. The Western Radical Left describes the general characteristics of a future society from the perspective of subjectivity, but they do not view the developmental trend of communism as a historical necessity. They mention that communism means returning what is common to the masses, and its essential characteristic is the realization of human liberation through the association of subjects to form a true community. Badiou proposes that in its most general sense—taking the classic Communist Manifesto as a starting point—communism first signifies that the arrangement considered self-evident since antiquity (the class logic where the laboring class is subordinated to the ruling class) is by no means necessary but can be overcome. However, their problem lies in overemphasizing accidental elements such as "events" and "autonomy," failing to recognize that "where on the surface accident holds sway, there actually it is always governed by inner, hidden laws and it is only a matter of discovering these laws." For example, Rancière overemphasizes the role of "sensible liberation" [6] and ignores how the power of sensible liberation can act upon actual history; thus, his theoretical propositions emphasize only subjective human agency without verifying whether they conform to the laws of historical development. From the perspective of historical materialism, the communist theory of the Western Radical Left fails to see the interaction between the revolutionary subject and actual history. When answering whether the proletariat can still serve as the revolutionary subject, their attitude is also ambiguous. Žižek points out: "A new emancipatory politics will no longer emerge from a particular social agent, but from an explosive combination of different agents." Therefore, whether it is the "multitude" constructed by Hardt and Negri, the "part of those who have no part" with revolutionary consciousness in Rancière, or the "excluded" of Žižek—these concepts of the subject are all political discourse constructions that drift outside the concept of the proletariat and ignore the grasp of actual historical laws; they differ from Marx’s "real individuals." Marx defines "real individuals" as practical, living individuals determined by "material conditions of life." Aiming for a revival of communism, the Western Radical Left places its hope in pluralistic and accidental subjects. They fail to fundamentally recognize that the class antagonism behind the new changes in capitalism has not undergone a fundamental shift, and they fail to see that the proletariat remains the truly revolutionary class. This leads to their departure from the path of proletarian revolution. In this sense, only by viewing the question of the revolutionary subject in communist theory through historical materialism can a new path for realizing communism be scientifically elucidated.
The Western radical Left corroborates the view of communism as a "movement of becoming that is understood and recognized," thereby confining this movement of becoming to the realm of ideas and failing to ground this "activity of becoming" in the "act of the birth of empirical existence." As Engels stated, "Modern materialism looks upon history as the process of development of humanity, and its task is to discover the laws of motion of this process." To "discover the laws of motion of this process" is to create the real conditions for the liberation of the proletariat. Answering what the real conditions for proletarian liberation are is equivalent to elucidating the historical premises upon which communism is established. In answering what communism is, Western radical Leftist communist theory often seizes upon the word "movement" while neglecting the importance of "reality," [7] leading to its failure to truly grasp the historical premises for the realization of communism. Marx and Engels once provided a brilliant exposition regarding key formulations such as the "movement of becoming" and the "act of birth": "The entire movement of history, just as its [communism’s] actual act of genesis—the birth-act of its empirical existence—is, therefore, for its thinking consciousness the comprehended and known process of its becoming." From the logical progression of this passage, it is insufficient merely to understand the "movement of becoming that is understood and recognized" within thought; it is also necessary to ground this movement of becoming in the "act of the birth of its empirical existence." The birth-act of empirical existence is the precondition for the movement of becoming in thought. The reason why communism is a real movement and an act of the birth of empirical existence is determined by its real premises. Marx repeatedly emphasized that the proletariat must transform the philosophy in its head into a revolutionary practice that changes reality; if philosophy is not turned into reality, it cannot abolish itself and its real conditions, and thus cannot abolish the bourgeoisie. Facing the developmental trends of communism in the 21st century, while the Western radical Left has not avoided reality, it has fallen into the idealist trap of resolving contradictions within the realm of ideas in its further interpretations. For instance, Gavin Walker has outspokenly criticized Badiou’s conception of communism, arguing that for Badiou, communism can only manifest as "a historicity of thought, in which these two aspects oscillate in a constant movement of dialectical reversal, movement as theory, theory as movement." Although Žižek maintains the research methodology of the Marxist critique of political economy—demonstrating the logical paradox of the internal contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production as the driving force of capitalist development—he nevertheless discards the principles of historical materialism concerning the superstructure's need to adapt to the economic base and the relations of production's need to adapt to the productive forces when arguing the issue of communism as a "real movement." Instead, he highlights the role of ideology in the politics of liberation, confining communism to the ideological sphere.
In short, compared to Marx’s goal of a holistic human liberation oriented toward the future, the goal of human liberation for the Western radical Left is the liberation of the individual. From the perspective of historical materialism, human liberation must rely on the holistic transformation of the social mode of production and its social systems. Yet for Rancière, "liberation can happen at any moment, whenever and wherever an individual produces a disturbance in the existing sensible space"; for Hardt and Negri, if individuals participate consciously in the construction of the community as subjects of life through the form of love, they can obtain freedom and liberation. Consequently, Rancière’s "intellectual equality" and Hardt and Negri’s "liberation of the multitude" weaken the nature of proletarian revolution and the real conditions for the liberation of the proletariat, which results in their subject of liberation remaining at the theoretical level, unable to shoulder the historical mission of human liberation.
IV. The Enlightenment Provided by the "Real Movement" Issue in Western Radical Leftist Communist Theory for Developing the New Form of Human Civilization
The new form of human civilization created by socialism with Chinese characteristics is a stage in the real movement of communism. Today, the Communist Party of China has successfully created a new form of human civilization with Chinese characteristics, presenting a new civilizational prospect distinct from that of capitalist civilization. Although Western radical Leftist communist theory lacks a foundation in historical materialism and its interpretations cannot produce a significant real-world impact, their way of interpreting the problem of "real movement" in communist theory can provide some theoretical references for our development of the new form of human civilization today. It helps us better grasp the foundational issues related to developing the new form of human civilization and answers the key question of how this new form can realize human liberation within a real movement constantly oriented toward communism. Overall, by clarifying to a limited extent the relationships between capitalist and communist civilizations, the historical and value dimensions of communism, and communist thought and communist reality, Western radical Leftist communist theory provides a new perspective for us to examine and develop the new form of human civilization.
First, it helps clarify misunderstandings regarding the concept of communism and provides new viewpoints for understanding capitalist and communist civilizations in the development of the new form of human civilization. Since the beginning of the 21st century, various discourses on the "revival of communism" have been heard incessantly in Western academia, yet many ambiguities persist in people’s understanding of the concept of communism itself. For example, whether communism should be understood from the perspective of a system of thought, historical development, or a social system, and what the ultimate relationship is between these understandings. These confusions stem from an insufficient grasp of the real movement of communism, particularly an unclear understanding of the relationship between communism and capitalism contained within that real movement. From the perspective of historical materialism, if the "real movement" issue in communist theory cannot be correctly interpreted, it will inevitably be difficult to attain a truthful understanding of the concept of communism.
Marx and Engels formed a holistic understanding of communism during the process of founding scientific socialism. Communism is not only a scientific system of thought but also the actual process of the proletariat and the masses struggling to realize the communist ideal under the leadership of a proletarian party; it is also the ideal social system established when that ideal is realized. The concept of communism also contains an understanding of the relationship between communism and capitalism, specifically expressed as the "Two Inevitabilities"—the inevitable demise of capitalism and the inevitable victory of communism. In actual practice, however, people often lack a scientific understanding of these "Two Inevitabilities," either leading the proletarian revolution caused by the fundamental contradictions of capitalism toward the path of reformism, or asserting that capitalism will spontaneously transform relations of production and the superstructure that do not meet the demands of the productive forces, achieving a natural transition to communism without understanding the demise of capitalism and the victory of communism as the real manifestation and final destination of human liberation. The Western radical Left raises the issue of "real movement" in communist theory with the intent of correctly grasping the relationship between capitalism and communism within said "movement," thereby avoiding the severance of the critique of capitalism from the construction of communism. Communist civilization was discovered by Marx and Engels through the process of critiquing capitalist civilization; only by "critiquing the old world" can one "discover the new world." The Western radical Left has inherited Marx and Engels’ essential understanding of communism, viewing it as a "real movement" that abolishes the existing state of capitalism. At the same time, their analytical perspective has further shifted from a "real movement" that abolishes the existing state of capitalism to a "real movement" of subjective production. They view communism as a real movement that continuously abolishes existing capitalist relations through the association of subjects, thereby restoring the essential powers of man and realizing human liberation. This clarifies many one-sided and non-critical understandings of the relationship between communism and capitalism, providing new evidence and viewpoints for the development of a new form of human civilization and for the understanding that communist civilization will inevitably replace capitalist civilization.
Second, it helps return to the original aspiration of Marx’s doctrine of communism, providing new proof for strengthening communist ideals and convictions and for establishing a new communist civilization in the development of the new form of human civilization. Marx’s doctrine of communism advocates not only for "critiquing the old world" but also for "discovering the new world" within that critique. "Critiquing the old world" highlights the historical dimension of communism, while "discovering the new world" highlights its value dimension. If critiquing the old world is taken only as the primary historical task of communism without recourse to establishing a future new society, the critique loses its proper value and meaning, failing to point out the future direction of human society. The theoretical contribution of the Western radical Left lies in their return to the original aspiration of Marx’s doctrine, highlighting the reciprocal promotion of human subjectivity and communal development, and corroborating that communism is a real movement of liberation of the human essence, by the people and for the people.
Basing themselves on the specific historical environment of digital capitalism, the Western radical Left does not simply restate the idea of human liberation but internalizes this idea within the real movement of communism, concretizing it into the restoration of human subjectivity, the association of subjects, and the construction of a true community. Žižek believes that Marx was certain that "the communist 'synthesis' is the overcoming of all history to date," and that communist society means the subject-as-collective re-appropriating its alienated substance. While there are imaginary components in the Western radical Left’s analysis of communism that are detached from material production, they unify the value and historical dimensions of communism. They perceive the new changes in class relations and the balance of power brought about by the transformation of the capitalist mode of production and social structure, and they insightfully observe a new trend in modern society favorable to the development of the laboring subject. They see human society in a transition from the stage of antagonism between labor and capital toward a communist stage of free human development. These views corroborate the value goal of realizing human liberation, helping us to strengthen our ideals and convictions in the realization of communism and our historical confidence in creating a new communist civilization.
Third, it helps profoundly grasp the latest trends in the development of communism, providing theoretical programs for the development of the new form of human civilization. Marx pointed out: "In the case of the practical materialist, i.e., the communist, it is a question of revolutionizing the existing world, of practically attacking and changing existing things." In his view, for communist practice to occur, "it is not enough that thought should seek to realize itself; reality must itself strive toward thought." The theoretical developments of communism by figures such as Žižek, Badiou, Negri, and Hardt have not caused great ripples at the level of practice, but in their logical interpretation of communism, they have implemented the principle of thought manifesting reality and reality striving toward thought, providing new intellectual resources for the development of the new form of human civilization.
The realization of communist civilization cannot be achieved overnight; it requires sufficient subjective and objective conditions. Overall, the Western radical Left’s conception of communist civilization covers both subjective and objective levels. Regarding the objective conditions for constructing communist civilization, Hardt and Negri point out that the key to abolishing the existing conditions of capitalism lies in abolishing the social structures, social systems, and the conditions of proletarian subordination that maintain privilege and power. Only in this way can the foundations of capitalism be fundamentally shaken, creating a favorable objective environment for the birth of communist civilization. Regarding the subjective conditions, Rancière’s influential concept of "intellectual equality" is based on the assumption of equality, holding that all people naturally share a common sensible capacity. This capacity emphasizes the equal status of every individual in perceiving and understanding the world, serving as an indispensable subjective basis for communist civilization. Badiou holds a similar view, believing that the role of communism in reality is to "symbolize" egalitarian principles. Through methods such as encoding and dissemination, it lays the subjective foundation for the collectivization and common ownership of resources, the elimination of inequality and difference, the recognition of the equal rights of subjects, and peaceful development. This means making egalitarianism deeply rooted in the minds of the people at the intellectual level, so that they inwardly identify with and actively pursue the equality and justice advocated by communist civilization.
Developing the New Form of Human Civilization [10] is both a significant theoretical innovation and a great social practice; as such, it should adhere to the principle that ideas reflect reality and reality tends toward ideas. Western radical leftist communist theory offers certain reference value for developing the New Form of Human Civilization, primarily reflected in the following two points: First, in the process of the actual unfolding of the New Form of Human Civilization, we must continuously engage in institutional innovation, guiding the cause of socialist reform with the developmental direction of communism. Through comparison with capitalist countries, we must demonstrate the superiority of the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics and consolidate the institutional foundation for the realization of human liberation. Second, in the process of the actual unfolding of the New Form of Human Civilization, we must actively give play to the historical initiative [11] of the masses, prompting the full exertion of their subjective consciousness and subjective power as creators of history. We must pursue the principles of democracy, equality, and justice to realize the free and well-rounded development of every individual. In short, today we must link the development of the New Form of Human Civilization with Marx’s discourse on communism, critically draw upon the beneficial perspectives of Western leftist scholars, and develop—within the contemporary context of digital capitalism—a new form of civilization that conforms to the laws of human social development, thereby truly achieving the rejuvenation of communism.
(Author's affiliation: School of Marxism, Fudan University) Web Editor: Zhang Jian Source: World Socialism Studies, Issue 3, 2025