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1. 'Cast Away illusions, Prepare for Struggle', "Selected Works of Mao Tse-Tung", Vol. IV, Foreign Languages Press, 1969, p. 248.
2. The allusion is to Louis Aragon's poem "Front Rouge" (1930). *Translators note*.
3. 'Le parti des fusillés' [the party of those who were shot] = the French Communist Party. The *fusillés* were those who were shot as resistance fighters during the Occupation. *Translator's note*.
4. See Xavier Vigna, "Uinsubordination ouvriére dans les années 68. Essai tfhistoire politique des usines", Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2007. *Translator's note*.
5. "Contribution au probléme de la construction d'un parti marxiste-léniniste de type nouveau,"" A. Badiou, H. Jancovici. D. Menetrey, E. Terray; published in 1969 by F. Maspero. *Translator's note*.
6. The occupation of the university buildings at Nanterre marked the beginning of May '68. *Translator's note*.
7. Having stood unsuccessfully against de Gaulle in 1965, Frangois Mitterrand tried to position himself in 1968 as the most appropriate anti-Gaullist candidate in the upcoming presidential elections. However, in practice in 1969, Mitterrand was not able to stand. *Translators note*.
8. The proposed 'Fouchet reforms' would have introduced strict pre-entry selective criteria for university admissions. *Translator's note*.
9. Forerunner of the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire — French section of the Fourth International (United Secretariat). *Translators note*.
10. At the time, the General Secretaries of the PCF and the CGT (Confédération Générale du Travail — the Communist-aligned trade union confederation) respectively. *Translator's note*.
1. From the second conference in the Rouge Gorge series, delivered by Alain Badiou in February 2002 at the Maison des Ă©crivains in Paris. *Translator's note*.
2. Sylvain Lazarus, "Anthropologie du nom", Seuil, 1996, p. 37.
3. On the party-state or parties-state as central figures of politics in the twentieth century, see the previous conference in the series of Rouge Gorge, Les trois rĂ©gimes du sĂcle, presented by Sylvain Lazarus (2001).
4. A book that gives an idea of the general style of the official and 'critical' versions (for once, these strangely agree) of the Cultural Revolution is that by Simon Leys [i.e. Pierre Ryckmans], "The Chairman's New Clothes: Mao and the Cultural Revolution", trans. Carol Appleyard and Patrick Goode, Schocken Books, 1981.
5. With regard to these episodes, and more generally the principal facts of the period, see the chronology included at the end of this chapter.
6. Badiou, as is often the case, does not give textual references here, but elsewhere in his work, when dealing with the Cultural Revolution, he tends to quote from the French translations included in another 'little red book' that also seems to be his source here: "La Grande Revolution Culturelle Prolétarienne: Recueil de documents importants", Beijing: Editions en langues étrangéres, 1970. In English, the corresponding line of the 'Sixteen Points' sounds even more metaphysical: 'The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution now unfolding is a great revolution that touches people to their very souls', in "The Chinese Cultural Revolution", ed. K. H. Fan, Monthly Review Press, 1968, p. 162. All subsequent quotations in the text are from this edition. *Translators note*.
7. Until September 1967, the leading Maoist group comprises a dozen persons: Mao, Lin Biao, Chen Boda, Jiang Qing, Yao Wenyuan, Zhou Enlai, Kang Sheng, Zhang Chunqiao, Wang Li, Guan Feng, Lin Jie, Qi Benyu. Chen Yi, an old centre-right veteran and courageous humourist, is said to have asked: 'Is that it, the great Chinese Communist Party? Twelve persons?' We could nonetheless note that the leading group of the Committee of Public Safety between 1792 and 1794 was far more restricted. Revolutions combine gigantic mass movements with an often very restricted political leadership.
8. The account has been translated and amply commented upon (in Italian) by Sandro Russo, without a doubt the most competent and loyal analyst today of everything to do with the Cultural Revolution.
9. The examples are real, and have given rise to articles translated into French in the magazine "PĂ©kin Informations". There we learn how the Maoist dialectic allows one to grow tomatoes, or how to find the right line in terms of the use of the piano in symphonic music in China. Besides, these texts are extremely interesting, and even convincing, not because of their explicit content, but in terms of what it means to attempt to create *another thinking* entirely.
10. On Mao as paradox, see the wonderful book by Henry Bauchau, "Essai sur la vie de Mao Tsé-toung", Flammarion, 1982.
1. Conference paper delivered by Alain Badiou at the Maison des écrivains in Paris in January 2003. The second half of the chapter, beginning with the section on the ontology of the site, also comprises a small section of "Logiques des mondes", the much-awaited follow-up to Badiou's major work "L'être et l'événement" (Being and Event, originally published in 1988 and in English translation in 2005). The principal change in perspective between these two works, really the only knowledge needed to follow the argument here, consists in the move from ontology, as the science of being, to logic, redefined as the science of appearing, or of being-there. Thus, whereas in "L'être et l'événement" Badiou defines being as a multiple of multiples, so that everything that is must be seen as a pure multiple, in "Logiques des mondes" he makes the cohesion of appearing, or the 'there' of a world, depend on what he calls its transcendental, that is, the structure of order that measures the identities and differences in this world by assigning varying degrees of greater or lesser intensity to the existence of its objects. The following chapter studies the possibility of real change within a given regime of appearing, with specific references to a well-known sequence in revolutionary politics, namely, the Paris Commune of 1871. The result is a complete rearticulation of the conditions in which a given space can become the site of a radically transformative event. *Translator's note.*
2. The French verb apparaître (to appear) is usually better translated as a noun (appearing, appearance). The phrase 'dans l'apparaître' I have most often rendered as 'in the domain of appearing'.
3. The battle of Sedan, September 1870, ended when Napoleon III capitulated to the Prussians, who then proceeded to march on Paris. *Translator's note*.
4. The French adjective 'legitimist' derives from the Legitimists, who were French adherents to the 'legitimate' Bourbon dynasty overthrown in 1830. *Translator's note*.
5. A tradition of dance-halls created under Louis XIV, bals de barrĂre were located on the outskirts of town and frequented by the lower classes. *Translator's note*.
6. Bertolt Brecht, "The Days of the Commune", trans. by Clive Barker and Amo Reinfrank, Eyre Methuen, 1978.
7. "Long Live the Victory of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat! In Commemoration of the Centenary of the Paris Commune", Foreign Language Press, 1971.
8. 'Tous Ensemble!' was a directive of the 1995 winter strikes in France that brought two million workers and their supporters to the streets. They were sparked, among other things, by plans by the Juppé government to attack the national health system and introduce a shaky pension scheme. *Translator's note*.
9. The sans-papiers (undocumented workers) movement is associated with the Saint-Bernard church, which was occupied by hundreds of African workers in 1996 protesting the persecutory effects of French government laws. *Translator's note*.
10. LĂ©on Michel Gambetta (1838-82) was a French statesman and prime minister (1881-82). A parliamentary opponent of Napoleon III, he was Minister of the Interior in the Government of National Defence, and helped form the Third Republic. *Translator's note*.
11. The Assembly of 'Rurals' was the nickname of the National Assembly of 1871, so called because it comprised mainly reactionary monarchists — provincial landlords, officials, rentiers and traders — elected in rural districts. The were about 430 monarchists among the Assembly's 630 deputies. *Translator's note*.
12. cf. Julian Gracq, "Lettrines: Œuvres complètes". Gallimard, 1989, pp. 205-206; and Alain Badiou, "Théorie du sujet", Seuil, 1982, pp. 14.-15.
13. Karl Marx, "Civil War in France", First Draft, Archives of Marx and Engels, 1934, p. 173. Available online at www.marx2mao.com/M&E/CWFdrf71.html#s0
14. Proper-Olivier Lissagaray, 'The Eighteenth of March', "History of the Commune of 1871", trans. Eleanor Marx Aveling, International Publishing, 1898, pp. 78-87. Trans. of 'Le 18 mars', "Histoire de la commune de 1871", La DĂ©couverte, 2000, pp. 111-119.