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Le Monde Libertaire : The “Éditions du Monde libertaire” and the “Éditions libertaires” have co-published a book by René Berthier, Affinités non électives [Non-elective affinities], an answer to Olivier Besancenot and Michael Löwy’s Affinités révolutionnaires, Nos étoiles rouges et noires, published by Mille et une nuits. The book by the two NPA1 militants aims to highlight the alliances and solidarity between the two movements”. However, you say in the introduction that your book is “not strictly speaking a response to Affinités révolutionnaires. Can you explain ?

René Berthier : Besancenot and Löwy’s book did not seem to me to be the kind of work to which one can bring a response. The discourse in this book gives the appearance of a desire for rapprochement and dialogue, but in fact, when I read it carefully, I had the feeling that this was not the case at all.
They have blunted the differences between anarchism and Marxism to such an extent that it is no longer clear. When you read that the Bolsheviks helped the masses to “organise the socialisation of production at the base”, you immediately understand that you are not in a “historical” register but in a “soliciting” register. It’s such an absurd assertion, so out of touch with reality, that we can’t respond to it, except by stringing together countless quotes from Lenin categorically contesting the slightest temptation to “give power to the base”.