Situationist International
The SI was a libertarian socialist group founded in France. Famous for its writings on modern culture among other things, it played an important role in sparking the French mass strikes of 1968.
Fredy Perlman's views on the Situationists' membership criteria
Perlman's reaction to his former friends' 'break' with him; an attempt to prove their ideological conformity as a necessary condition of entrance into the Situationist International.
...Militants from Europe also visited us in Kalamazoo. One of them, Roger Gregoire, stayed with us for several months, working with Fredy on an account and evaluation of experiences the two had shared in May and June 1968 while members of the Citroen Worker-Student Action Committee.
Beneath the idol, the bureaucrat
A recently published volume of Guy Debord's early letters provides insights into a singular personality, and the fractious relationships that spawned the Situationist International. But, asks Sam Williams, how does this disenchanting account alter its spectacular legacy?
The SI just refuses to go away', writes Mckenzie Wark in his introduction to Guy Debord's Correspondence. Semiotext(e)'s publication of this book affirms the position. Translated from the French, and subtitled ‘The Foundation of the Situationist International', it is the first of seven volumes of Guy Debord's correspondence.
The Explosion Point of Ideology in China - Situationist International
The Situationists analyse the Chinese Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. The Maoist regime was confronted with both faction fighting within its ruling bureaucracy and with a massive wave of class struggle challenging its power. Written with an unfulfilled optimism typical of its times.
The international association of totalitarian bureaucracies has completely fallen apart.
Psychogeographical Venice
We know Rumney's side of the story: it was unfair that he was kicked out of the SI for not completing his book on Venice in time. But what about Debord's side? He certainly managed to complete his contribution to the project in a timely fashion.
Psychogeographical Venice
Marxism is Dead! Long Live Marxism - Mike Rooke
An examination of the limits of 2nd & 3rd International 'Orthodox Marxism' and the later theoretical contribution of the Situationist Guy Debord.
From; 'What Next' no. 30, 2005
Preliminaries on councils and councilist organization - René Riesel
A look at workers' councils and the historical contexts in which they were created. A useful analysis - which challenges some aspects of the standard anarchist analysis of the events in Spain during the 1936 Revolution.
The Revolution of Modern Art and the Modern Art of Revolution (Clark, Gray, Nicholson-Smith, Radcliffe & others, 1967)
A situationist-influenced critique of modern art by some UK radicals in the days of 1967 when, for many, revolution seemed to be getting close. Despite the occasional silly over-estimation of delinquency and shop-lifting, still a fine critique of its time of art and its limits.
NOT a review of "Guy Debord Is Really Dead"
A free leaflet distributed as a critique of the Luther Blissett pamphlet and its publishers.
The Story Of Our Origins - La Banquise
Some sections of "le roman de nos origines" from La Banquise No. 2 ( 1983 ) in english translation.
Debord, in the Resounding Cataract of Time - David Blanchard
A remembrance of the author's friendship with Guy Debord in the late 1950s and early 60s - with some theoretical reflections.
Written in English by David Blanchard, 1995. First published in Drunken Boat. Also published in Revolutionary Romanticism; edited by Max Blechman, City Lights Books, San Francisco, 1999.
