I might summarize by joining Kaliayev in noting that “though the revolution is (often, we should add) a necessary means, it is not a sufficient end” (R, 172).
The controversy surrounding the publication of The Rebel, and most particularly as it bears upon this point, led Camus to return with even greater clarity to this issue. In his unpublished
“In Defense of The Rebel” he sought to make explicit the dialectical relation that binds revolt and revolution together.
Today everyone would like to take credit for die revolution without paying the price, or wear revolt in his button-hole while true revolt is without adornment. In order to avoid this temptation I have preferred to follow up the consequences of the rebellious and revolutionary attitudes. I believed mat I could then say that these notions really only had reality in opposition to one another; and it was not possible to place absolute revolt in face of all historical reality in an attitude of exquisite sterility, nor, with revolutionary orthodoxy, to suppress the spirit of revolt solely for the benefit of historical efficacy. The position which I have tried to define cannot be taken, therefore, as a refutation of revolt nor as a blanket condemnation of the revolutionary attitude (E, 1706-7).
If revolt is rooted in the deeply personal demand for dignity, in the feeling that one has a right, it requires objective transformation of an oppressive condition in order to actualize that need.
And such transformation—that “full circle, which passes from one government to the other after a complete transition” (R, 106; L’HR, 136)—inevitably encounters the resistance of established structures of power, calling for an institutional as well as a personal reordering. In short, practical efficacy is a necessary means to the recapturing of human dignity: Revolt must at least become radical reform, if not revolution.
If the transformation of structures of power, wealth, and status that is revolution is to be legitimized, however, revolution must answer to the deepest human needs for dignity and self-respect, thus remaining true to the original demands of revolt.
Revolt without revolution ends up logically in a delirium of destruction, and the rebel, if he does not rebel on behalf of everyone, ends by reaching an extremity of solitude where everything seems permitted. Inversely, 1 have tried to show that revolution, deprived of the incessant control of the spirit of revolt, ends by tailing into a nihilism of efficacy, resulting in terror. The nihilism of the solitary individual like
that of historical religions one day consecrates terror, on the level of the individual or of the State. This conjunction is fatal from the moment that a subversive movement —whether solitary or collective—
whose principle is to place everything in question, refuses to place itself in question.
Now, only rebellion is justified in posing questions to revolution, as revolution alone is justified in questioning revolt. It is fair that Lenin give lessons in realism to the solitary terrorists. But it was, and is, indispensable that the rebels of 1905 call to order the revolutionaries who were marching toward State terrorism. Today, where this State terrorism is in place, the example of 1905 must be incessantly held up before twentieth century revolution not in order to negate it, but in order to make it once again revolutionary (E, 1707).
Here then, in this dialectical union of rebellion and revolution, lies the dramatic center of the Camusian vision around which the doctrine of The Rebel is sculpted. Committed to a diagnosis of the pathology of the intellect that has led rebellion down errant pathways for the last 200 years of Western history, this volume is dedicated to rescuing the rebellious outrage from its destructive furies. Not an attack upon revolution, but an attempt to salvage it from a process of betrayal that has its roots in a misguided effort to replace a failed transcendent absolute by its historical incarnation.
This is why it seemed to me good and useful to proceed with a reasoned criticism of the only instrument which claims to liberate the workers in order that this liberation might be something other than a long and disillusioning mystification. This criticism does not end up with a condemnation of revolution, but only of historical nihilism, which, by committing revolution to the denial of the spirit of rebellion, has succeeded in contaminating the hope of millions of men. The effort and success of free trade unionism, like the endurance of the libertarian and communal movements in Spain and France, are the examples to which I refer in order to show, on the contrary, the fruitfulness of a tension between revolt and revolution. … In order to reject organized terror and the police, revolution needs to keep intact the spirit of rebellion which has given birth to it, as rebellion needs a revolutionary development in order to find substance and truth. Each, finally, is the limit of the other (E, 1708-9).10
OF LIBERTY AND JUSTICE
Nevertheless, criticism, however effective, is still not a program. The major task still remains to contribute effectively to developing that renaissance in human living that is, after all, “the only task worth undertaking and persevering in” (E, 1715). The critical analysis has suggested a frame of reference. It thus has pointed us in the direction of a still uncharted terrain wherein we must, with fits and starts, endeavor to brush away a pathway to that “relative Utopia” for whose achievement we may legitimately struggle and hope.
Such efforts must begin with the realization that
virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principle of evil. Nor can it identify itself completely with reality without denying itself. The moral value brought to life by rebellion, finally, is no farther above life and history than history and life are above it. In actual truth, it assumes no reality in history until man gives his life for it or dedicates himself entirely to it (R, 296).
Our engagements take place within the confines of the relative. Truths are not certain, and vision is limited by the temporal and spatial confines of our situation. “Approximate thought is the only creator of reality” (R, 295).
A revolutionary action which wishes to be coherent with respect to its origins would embody itself in an active consent to the relative. It would express fidelity to the human condition.
Uncompromising as to its means, it would accept an approximation as far as its ends are concerned and, so that the approximation might be able to define itself better and better, it would allow free reign to speech. It would thus maintain that common being which justifies its insurrection. In particular, it would preserve in law the permanent possibility of self-expression (R, 290; L’HR, 358-9).
Rebellion itself only aspires to the relative and can only promise an assured dignity coupled with a relative justice. It takes its stand for a limit within which the community of men may be established. Its universe is that of the relative (R, 290; L’HR, 358).
It opened the way to a morality which, far from obeying abstract principles, discovers them only in the heat of insurrection, in the incessant movement of contestation. Nothing justifies the assertion that these principles have existed eternally; it is of no use to declare that they will one day exist. But they do exist, in the very period in which we exist. With us, and throughout all history, they deny servitude, falsehood, and terror (R, 283; L’HR, 349-50).
Having thus made clear the relative path along which we must find our way, Camus suggests some of the constraints to be placed upon our actions, as well as some of the guidelines to be followed. These issues are dealt with when considering his views on art and politics. Here it is enough to clear up a misunderstanding about Camus’s supposed pacifism, thus suggesting the significant transformation in the understanding of his thought that follows from placing it clearly in its appropriate context. This will help to clear the air and set the stage for an appreciation of his constructive proposals.
While Camus is concerned with exploring and refuting the logic that leads to and justifies murder, it is wrong to think of him as a pacifist. However much he may have been repelled by killing, he never rejected the need of people to fight in their own defense, whether individually or collectively. He
was an active participant in the French resistance and never suggested that it could have proceeded nonviolently. Similarly, he was a lifelong supporter of the cause of republican Spain. He always recognized that there are conditions in the world—far too many—that call for liberation struggles. All these engagements would be incomprehensible had he been a pacifist. No, his commitment and concern were different. He distinguished between the right to defend oneself and the right to condemn another person to death. It was the latter he rejected. Killing an enemy in self-defense or in the struggle for liberation is unfortunate but understandable. But capturing your opponents and then condemning them to death cannot be justified.