An Exploration of the Evental Conception of History in Western Marxist Theory

In the “Preface” to *A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy*, Marx states: “At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or—this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms—with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution.” In reality, however, the timing of social transformation does not fully synchronize with the development of the contradiction between productive forces and relations of production; the asynchrony between the superstructure and the economic base creates a dislocation between social contradictions and the occurrence of social revolution. Therefore, how to understand transformation in history becomes a key issue for understanding Marx’s historical materialism.

马克思在《政治经济学批判〈序言〉》中说道：“社会的物质生产力发展到一定阶段，便同它们一直在其中运动的现存生产关系或财产关系（这只是生产关系的法律用语）发生矛盾。于是这些关系便由生产力的发展形式变成生产力的桎梏。那时社会革命的时代就到来了。”但是在现实中，社会变革的时机并不与生产力—生产关系发展的矛盾完全同步，上层建筑与经济基础之间的不同步导致社会矛盾与社会革命的发生之间存在错位。因此，怎样理解历史中的变革，就成为理解马克思历史唯物主义的关键问题。

Revolution is a sudden event completely different from the preceding society; it creates a rupture in history. People usually divide history into pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary periods after a revolution occurs, in order to show the historical discontinuity it produces. Thus, thinking about historical transformation actually raises the question of how to handle the relationship between contingent rupture and continuity in history. On this issue, within the history of Western Marxist thought, some scholars have highlighted the priority of discontinuity over continuity in historical events, emphasized human agency, attached importance to historical contingency, opposed historical teleology and evolutionism, and attempted to use a “new” dialectic to seek a perfected historical materialism. What this article traces is the genealogy of the evental conception of history in Western Marxist theory.

革命是与先前社会完全不同的突发事件，它在历史中造成了裂隙。人们通常在革命发生后把历史划分为革命前的与革命后的，以显示它所造成的历史的不连贯。因此，对历史变革的思考实际上提出了如何处理历史中的偶然断裂与连续性的关系问题。对于这一问题，在国外马克思主义思想史上，有一部分学者突出了历史事件的不连续性相对于连续性的优先地位，强调人的能动作用，重视历史偶然性，反对历史目的论与进化论，并尝试用“全新”的辩证法来寻找一种完善的历史唯物主义。本文所要追溯的就是国外马克思主义理论中的事件史观谱系。

I. Benjamin and “Now-Time”

一、本雅明与“当下”时间

To explore the evental conception of history in Western Marxist theory, we must return to the source of the problem—Hegel. For Hegel, history is the unfolding of absolute spirit; every individual’s action in world history is seen as a moment in which reason realizes its actuality. Thus, world history appears as a teleological process of alienation and the overcoming of alienation, culminating in the highest unity. Hegel’s dialectic of the concept has been implicitly embedded in the theoretical logic of many Western Marxist theorists. This often prevents people from correctly understanding the radicality of Marx’s historical materialism, leading them to comprehend history through a logic of a presupposed totality (which Jean-Paul Sartre called totalization). But we know that Marx’s historical materialism not only grasps the laws of historical development in thought but also changes the world in actual history. In the *Communist Manifesto*, Marx’s call for the proletarians of the world to unite was precisely an appeal for the proletariat to break the continuity of history and create its own history.

要探讨国外马克思主义理论中的事件史观，需要回到问题的源头——黑格尔。对黑格尔来说，历史是绝对精神的展开，世界历史中的每个人的行动都被看作理性实现其现实性的各个环节，因而世界历史就展现为异化与克服异化并达到最高统一的目的性过程。黑格尔的观念辩证法一直隐含在很多国外马克思主义理论家的理论逻辑之中。这通常会让人们不能正确理解马克思历史唯物主义的激进性，而以一种悬设的总体性（让-保罗·萨特将其称为总体化）的逻辑来理解历史。但我们知道，马克思的历史唯物主义不仅要在思想中把握历史的发展规律，更要在现实历史中改变世界。马克思在《共产党宣言》中高呼全世界的无产者联合起来，就是在号召无产阶级改变历史的连续性而创造出属于自己的历史。

The success of the October Revolution proved the bankruptcy of the linear evolutionary conception of history. From a purely theoretical perspective, Eduard Bernstein’s criticism of Lenin might seem meaningful: Russia’s bourgeoisie was still in its infancy, the relations of production had not yet constrained the productive forces, and many remnants of feudal relations of production remained, so the time for revolution appeared not yet to have arrived. However, Lenin’s revolutionary practice powerfully refuted this criticism of a “premature” revolution, demonstrating that historical development is not entirely linear and progressive but contains the possibility of rupture. It was precisely for this reason that revolution could triumph in Russia, the weak link in the capitalist world.

十月革命的成功证明了线性进化史观的破产。如果只是从理论上看，爱德华·伯恩斯坦对列宁的指责看似是有意义的：俄国的资产阶级还处于刚刚起步的阶段，生产关系还未对生产力产生制约，封建社会的生产关系还有着很多的残留，因而革命的时机看起来还未到来。但是，列宁的革命实践恰恰有力地反驳了这种“过早”革命的批评，证明历史的发展不完全是线性进步的，而是存在着断裂的可能，正因如此，革命才能在俄国这个资本主义世界的薄弱的一环取得胜利。

The development of reality drives theoretical reflection. It was the opportunity provided by the October Revolution that led Western Marxist thinkers to begin considering historical development from the perspective of discontinuity. Walter Benjamin was the first Western Marxist scholar to think about historical discontinuity. In 1939, as the atrocities of fascism grew increasingly rampant and the hoped-for revolution remained distant, Benjamin, sensing that he could not escape his fate, wrote his final work, *On the Concept of History*. Michael Löwy called this text “one of the most radical, most groundbreaking, and most fruitful revolutionary ideas since the *Theses on Feuerbach*.” The radicality of *On the Concept of History* lies in its first-time proposal of a rupture between revolutionary time and everyday time. In Benjamin’s view, history does not necessarily develop in a desirable direction; it is by no means teleological or evolutionist. Vulgar materialism (Benjamin’s main target of criticism was the Second International and the German Social Democratic Party) believed that as productive forces develop, revolution would automatically occur—a view that, in his eyes, was tantamount to handing weapons to the enemy. He asked rhetorically: “How can the product of labor benefit the worker when it is not yet under his control?”

现实的发展推动着理论的思考。正是十月革命的契机，让国外马克思主义思想家开始从非连续性视角思考历史的发展。瓦尔特·本雅明是国外马克思主义者中第一个思考历史非连续性的学者。1939年，法西斯主义的暴行日益猖獗，期待中的革命遥遥无期，本雅明自觉难逃厄运，写下了绝笔之作《历史哲学论纲》。迈克尔·洛维称这篇文献是“自《关于费尔巴哈的提纲》以来，最激进、最有开创性、最有发展性的革命性思想之一”。《历史哲学论纲》的激进性在于，首次提出了革命时间与日常时间的断裂。在本雅明看来，历史并非一定朝着理想的方向发展，决不是目的论与进化论的；庸俗唯物主义（本雅明主要的批评对象是第二国际和德国社会民主党）以为，随着生产力的发展，社会就会出现革命，此种看法无异于自动把武器送到敌人手中。他责问道：“当劳动产品还没有由工人支配时，它又怎么能使工人受益呢？”

Benjamin proposed that the materialist conception of history should be based on a “constructive principle.” “History is the object of a construction whose place is formed not in homogenous and empty time, but in time filled by the presence of the now [Jetztzeit].” Now-time replaces the empty, continuous time; past, present, and future are condensed into the construction of the now.

本雅明提出，唯物主义历史观应该建立在“构造的原则”（constructive principle）上。“历史是一个构造的对象，这种构造所立足的并非同质的空洞时间，而是被当下（Jetztzeit）充满的时间。”当下的时间取代了空洞的连续性时间，过去、现在与未来被凝聚在当下的构造之中。

First, history is ruptured. In the historical time-consciousness of progressivism, revolution is an expected future event, but it is also infinitely postponed. Benjamin, by contrast, emphasizes that in every moment of the now, the oppressed can produce revolution. A true historical materialist should not focus only on the continuous totality of history but should fix attention on every “now” that holds the potential for transformation. He states: “The awareness that they are about to make the continuum of history explode is characteristic of the revolutionary classes at the moment of their action.”

首先，历史是断裂的。在进步论的历史时间意识中，革命是被期待的未来事件，但同时也被无限地拖延了。本雅明则强调，在每一个时间的当下都能够产生被压迫者的革命。真正的历史唯物主义者不应该只关注历史的连续性总体，而应该着眼于每一个具有变革可能的“当下”。他提出：“在行动的当下意识到自己是在打破历史的连续统一体，是革命阶级的特征。”

Second, historical time is oriented toward the past rather than the future. This point draws our gaze away from the analysis of overall trends and focuses it on each concrete event as it occurs within the “monad” spatial structure constituted by the now and the past. Benjamin argues: “To Robespierre, ancient Rome was a past charged with the time of the now which he blasted out of the continuum of history. The French Revolution viewed itself as Rome reincarnate.” Marx also said that the French Revolution reappeared on the historical stage in Roman costume. Now-time is a retrospective repetition; failed revolutions of the past have not vanished into dust but have instead become the driving force for revolutionary action in the present. Benjamin does not mean that history simply repeats itself, but rather that, in the sense of Nietzsche’s conception of history, the lost discourse of the oppressed must be recovered. This is inextricably linked to the historical consciousness of genealogy. The historicism that Benjamin criticizes lists various historical facts and forcibly imposes on them a predetermined causal thread—this is clearly a Whig historiography written from the perspective of the victors. Benjamin, by contrast, re-presents the past as now-time; this is precisely a “politics of time” that reveals the “truth” hidden in history. Benjamin and Marx agree on the following point: if a true historical narrative exists, it can only unfold from the perspective of the proletariat. Thus, we can see that the truth of history is manifested not only in Marx’s *Capital* and *A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy* but also vividly in the concrete revolutionary events discussed in *The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte* and *The Civil War in France*.

其次，历史的时间朝向的是过去而非未来。这一点将我们的目光从对整体趋势的分析中抽离出来，而在当下与过去构成的“单子”空间结构中注视着具体发生的每一个事件。本雅明认为：“对罗伯斯庇尔来说，古罗马是一个被他从历史的连续体中爆破出来的、与现在的时间有关的过去。法国大革命视自己为罗马的化身。”马克思也曾说过，法国革命穿着罗马的服装再现在历史舞台上。当下的时间是回溯性的重复，曾经失败的革命并没有消失在尘埃中，反而成为如今的人们采取革命行动的原动力。本雅明的意思不是说历史一直在重复，而是要在尼采历史观的意义上重新找回受压迫者丢失的话语。这与谱系学的历史意识有着千丝万缕的关联。遭到本雅明批判的历史主义罗列出各种历史史实，并强行赋予其一条注定的因果线索，但这显然是一种以胜利者的姿态书写历史的辉格史学。而本雅明重新将过去当下化，这正是一种揭示历史中被隐藏的“真相”的“时间政治”。本雅明与马克思在如下这一点上是一致的：如果存在一种真正的历史叙事，那它只能是以无产阶级视角展开的。因此，我们能够发现，历史的真理不仅仅体现在马克思的《资本论》和《政治经济学批判》中，也在《路易·波拿巴的雾月十八日》与《法兰西内战》所论及的具体革命事件中得到了生动展现。

Finally, history is related to subjective action. In the famous “Thesis VIII,” Benjamin states: “The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ‘state of exception’ in which we live is not the exception but the rule. We must attain to a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight. Then we shall clearly realize that it is our task to bring about a real state of exception.” [4]4 Karl Marx, *The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte* (1852), in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 11 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1979), p. 130. The “real state of exception” is the event. Unlike interpretations that emphasize the objective structure of history, the conception of history as event places greater emphasis on historical creation achieved through subjective agency. Thus, Benjamin’s conception of history as event ultimately promotes the revolutionary aspect of human beings making history within historical materialism. Slavoj Žižek strongly agrees with Benjamin on this point. In Žižek’s view, revolution is entirely an act of creation (i.e., Benjamin’s historical materialism—author’s note), “it erases the dominant text and creates a new text out of nothing.” “Out of nothing” is precisely the core concept of Žižek’s philosophy of the event, and he clearly regards Benjamin as a precursor of event theory.

最后，历史与主体行动有关。在著名的“第八论纲”中，本雅明说道：“被压迫者的传统告诉我们，我们生活在其中的‘例外状态’并非例外，而是常规，我们必须要获得一个与此事实相符的历史概念，我们的任务是引发一个真实的例外状态。”“真实的例外状态”就是事件。与强调历史客观结构的解释不同，事件史观更强调通过主体能动性实现的历史创制。可见，本雅明的事件史观最终弘扬了历史唯物主义中人创造历史的革命面相。斯拉沃热·齐泽克在这一点上极为赞同本雅明。在齐泽克看来，革命完全是创世论（即本雅明的历史唯物主义——笔者注）的行动，“它抹除了处于统治地位的文本，无中生有地创造了新的文本”。“无中生有”正是齐泽克事件哲学的核心概念，他显然把本雅明看作事件理论的先驱。

Benjamin’s unique “dialectics at a standstill” points precisely to the action of the subject breaking through false continuity. When thought pauses because of a certain image, memory, or imagination, the subject begins to reflect on the compulsion imposed upon it by society’s ideology and aesthetic forms—a compulsion that is a politicized aesthetic operation. Drawing on Bertolt Brecht’s concept of the “alienation effect,” the defamiliarization of everyday things opens up the possibility of creating new meaning. Thus, dialectics in the present moment is no longer Hegelian synthesis but emphasizes the contingency and rupture of the “state of exception.” We can say that this mode of thinking, which stretches opposition and contrast to their limits, is a radical anti-Hegelianism.

本雅明独特的“停顿的辩证法”指向的就是主体打破虚假连续性的行动。当思维因为某个意象、记忆、想象停下来时，主体就开始反思社会的意识形态和审美形式给予自身的强制，这种强制是一种政治的美学化操作。根据贝托尔特·布莱希特提出的“间离感”这一概念，日常事物的陌生化带来了创造新意义的可能。于是，辩证法在当下的时间中不再是黑格尔式的综合，而是强调“例外状态”所具有的偶然性与断裂性。我们可以说，这种将对立与反差拉伸至极限的思考是一种激进的反黑格尔主义。

Benjamin opposes viewing historical progress as continuous and linear; this conception of history restores the vitality that historical materialism should possess. He focuses on concrete historical events rather than applying historical materialism as a rigid law, and he forcefully points out the limitations of a linear conception of progress. This view is rich in revolutionary and emancipatory significance. Benjamin opened up two directions for Western Marxist thinkers to reflect on the ruptured nature of history. First, his historical materialism emphasizes events in history, no longer presupposing a totalizing trend of history, thereby shifting the theoretical focus of Marx’s historical materialism and explaining historical development and change through rupture by focusing on monadic historical objects. Second, if the “real state of exception” is completely ruptured from everyday events, then it itself seems to become absolute contingency. To overcome this contingency, Benjamin turns to Jewish messianism. He says: “every second of time was the strait gate through which the Messiah might enter.” [5]5 Ibid., p. 131. This is where Benjamin’s conception of history as event becomes incompatible with historical materialism. Therefore, we will see that if history is regarded as consisting of events, then how to handle the relationship between contingency and necessity becomes a challenge that the conception of history as event must confront.

本雅明反对将历史进步看作连续的和线性的，这一历史观恢复了唯物史观应有的活力。他关注具体的历史事件，而并非将唯物史观作为僵死的规律予以应用，并有力地指出了线性进步史观的局限。这种观点富有革命和解放的意义。本雅明从两个方面开启了国外马克思主义者对历史断裂性的思考。其一，他的历史唯物主义强调了历史中的事件，不再以历史的总体化趋势为预设，转变了马克思历史唯物主义的理论焦点，通过关注单子式的历史对象，以断裂性解释历史的发展与变化。其二，如果“真正的例外状态”是与日常事件完全断裂的，那么它本身似乎也就成为绝对的偶然，为了克服这种偶然性，本雅明求助于犹太教的弥赛亚主义。他说：“时间的分分秒秒都可能是弥赛亚侧身步入的门洞。”这是本雅明的事件史观与历史唯物主义无法相容的地方。因此，我们将会看到，如果将历史看作事件的，那么如何处理偶然性与必然性的关系就成为事件史观必须面对的挑战。

II. Althusser’s Theory of Conjuncture

二、阿尔都塞的情势论

People usually explore the connection between Louis Althusser and Benjamin in terms of materialist aesthetics, but in fact they are closer in historical consciousness. Both Benjamin and Althusser reject Hegel’s conception of history, oppose a homogeneous conception of time, and emphasize the structural analysis of the present moment. The difference is that Althusser pays more attention to the materialist conditions under which change or revolution can occur. In the genealogy of Western Marxist thought, he is classified as a structuralist Marxist, but looking at the development of his theory, such a definition is inappropriate. The author prefers to regard him as a theorist of conjuncture. Althusser continued Benjamin’s historical thinking and placed historical contingency above necessity, a theme that runs from his early works *For Marx* and *Reading Capital* all the way to his late materialism of the encounter.

人们通常在唯物主义美学方面探寻路易·阿尔都塞与本雅明的关联，其实两人在历史意识上更为接近。本雅明和阿尔都塞同样都拒绝黑格尔的历史观念，反对同质的时间观，重视对当下时间的结构性分析。不同的是，阿尔都塞更加关注变化或革命得以产生的唯物主义条件。他在国外马克思主义思想谱系中被划归为结构主义马克思主义者，但纵观其理论发展史，这样的定义并不合适。笔者更愿意将他看作一名情势论者。阿尔都塞延续了本雅明的历史思考，并将历史的偶然性置于必然性之上，这个主题从其早期的《保卫马克思》《读〈资本论〉》一直持续到晚年的偶然相遇的唯物主义。

Conjuncture (*conjoncture*) refers precisely to the original form from which an event arises. It carries contingency but determines the future of the event. Conjuncture cannot be theorized; it is an aggregation of concrete historical content, “constituted by various opposing and intermingling forces.” The “tendency” (*shi*) of conjuncture reflects the trend in history, but the trend does not possess necessity; rather, it contains an empty place. “It only has meaning if it arranges or contains a place, an empty place: only the empty can be filled, only the empty can provide a field for action for individuals or collectives, allowing them to occupy it, so as to regroup and form forces, to accomplish the political task assigned by history—the empty, for the future.” The empty place is contingency; its meaning is undetermined (Benjamin’s “monad” is similar in this sense), and the answer can only be provided by historical action. From the 1970s onward, Althusser returned to Machiavelli’s thought to seek the beginning of historical materialism. He regards Machiavelli as a representative of the theory of conjuncture, believing that his analysis “is entirely and strictly subordinated to the problems raised and imposed by the concrete circumstances of the conjuncture… it is not raised by mere intellectual comparison, but by the confrontation of existing class forces and their unevenly developed relations—in fact, by their contingent future.”

情势（conjoncture）指的就是事件产生的原初形态。它带有偶然性，却决定了事件的未来。情势不能被理论化，它是具体的历史内容的聚合，“是由各种对立和混合着的力量所构成的”。情势之“势”体现了历史中的趋势，但是趋势并不具有必然性，而是包含了一个空位。“它只有安排或包含了一个位置、一个空位，才会有意义：只有空的才能被填补，只有空的才能为个人或集体提供用武之地，才能让他们占领那里，以便重新结合和形成各种力量，完成历史所指定的政治任务——空，是为了将来。”空位就是偶然，它的含义未定（本雅明的“单子”在这个意义上与之类似），答案只能由历史行动来提供。从20世纪70年代开始，阿尔都塞回到马基雅维利的思想中去寻找历史唯物主义的开端。他将马基雅维利看作情势论的代表，认为他的分析“完全严格地服从于情势的具体情况所引起和强加的难题……它不是由单纯理智上的比较提出来的，而是由现存阶级力量的抗衡和它们不平衡发展的关系——实际上，就是由他们偶然的未来——提出来的”。

Regarding the understanding of historical contingency, it would be unfair to regard Althusser as a complete contingentist, but we can indeed feel the tension contained in the temporal consciousness of the conception of history as event from his exposition. In his early essay “Contradiction and Overdetermination,” Althusser points out: “The general contradiction is sufficient to determine the situation in which the revolution is ‘on the agenda,’ but it cannot by itself directly create a ‘revolutionary situation,’ still less the situation of the revolutionary outbreak and the victory of the revolution.” The contradiction between the contingency of the event and the laws of history appears in Althusser as a contradiction between the historical structure (mode of production) and the elements of the conjuncture. We know that Althusser intended to use a new dialectic, namely overdetermination, to solve this problem.

就理解历史的偶然性而言，如果我们将阿尔都塞看作完全的偶然论者，那是不公平的，但是我们从其论述中的确能够感受到事件史观的时间意识中蕴藏着的张力。阿尔都塞在早年的《矛盾与多元决定》一文中指出：“一般矛盾足以确定革命被‘提上议事日程’时的形势，但它本身却不能直接创造‘革命的形势’，更谈不上促成革命爆发的形势和革命的胜利。”事件的偶然性与历史规律之间的矛盾在阿尔都塞这里呈现为历史结构（生产方式）与情势要素之间的矛盾。我们知道，阿尔都塞是打算用全新的辩证法即多元决定论来解决这个问题的。

Overdetermination holds that the structure of the event is fundamentally uneven, and this unevenness is determined by the immanence of the social formation. Within a totality of contradictions, there is always a dominant structure, and within this dominant structure there is a principal contradiction and several secondary contradictions. Under certain conditions, the principal and secondary contradictions transform into each other, promoting the continued development of history. Only by analyzing the existing contradictory relations of the “complex already-given” (*déjà donné*) totality can one judge whether history is developing toward “historical stagnation,” “the braking of contradiction,” or “the outbreak of revolution.” Although Althusser admits that the conjuncture at a given moment is ultimately determined by the dominant structure of productive forces and relations of production, he places greater emphasis on the specificity of each moment. He believes that we are “always in the particular,” and that “the analysis of labor and capital… is always specifically determined by the concrete historical situation and historical environment in which the contradiction operates.”

多元决定论认为，事件的结构在根本上是不平衡的，此种不平衡是由社会形态的内在性决定的。在一个矛盾整体中始终存在着一个主导结构，这个主导结构中存在着一个主要矛盾和若干次要矛盾，主要矛盾与次要矛盾在一定的条件下相互转化，促进了历史的继续发展。只有分析“复杂既与”（déjà donné）总体的现存矛盾关系，才能判断历史是朝着“历史的停滞”“矛盾的刹车’”还是“革命的爆发”的方向发展下去。虽然阿尔都塞承认一个时刻的情势总体上是由生产力与生产关系的主导结构最终决定的，但他更加强调每一个时刻的特殊性。他认为，我们“始终处在特殊之中”，对“劳动与资本的分析……始终是由矛盾在其中起作用的具体历史形势和历史环境特殊地规定的”。

Althusser’s overdetermination is far from “deterministic”; rather, it consistently retains the tension of the conception of history as event. “The determination in the last instance by the economy is exercised precisely in real history through the alternating primacy of the economic, the political, the theoretical, etc.” In fact, Althusser never truly resolved the problem of historical necessity—“determination in the last instance by the economy”—which also led him to move completely toward the materialism of the encounter in his final years.

阿尔都塞的多元决定论远非“决定性”的，反而一直保留着事件史观的张力。“归根到底由经济所起的决定作用在真实的历史中恰恰是通过经济、政治、理论等交替起第一位作用而实现的。”事实上，阿尔都塞从没有真正地解决“归根到底由经济所起的决定作用”这一历史的必然性问题，这也让他在生命的最后几年彻底走向了偶然相遇的唯物主义。

Thus, the causal chain of history is replaced by Althusser’s structural causality. The former is Hegel’s dialectic, in which each link of the whole “is nothing but the concept’s real existence in itself at a given historical juncture”; the latter is Spinoza’s dialectic, in which when “the existence of the whole structure consists in its effects,” the logic of the occurrence of events is entirely the product of struggles and conflicts internal to the structure. And after abolishing the distinction between superstructure and economic base, Althusser’s conception of history as event also abolishes any possible predetermined conclusion. He writes: “The ontology of real existence opposes…all future knowledge.” Faced with such a history, Althusser calls it “the necessity of contingency.” In this way, history, as an open process, is filled with conflicting tendencies, and only relatively and temporarily stable reference points become contingent yet concrete events.

于是，历史的因果性链条被阿尔都塞的结构因果性所取代，前者是黑格尔的辩证法，即整体中的各个环节“都不过是概念在一定的历史环节上在自身中的现实存在”；后者是斯宾诺莎的辩证法，当“全部结构的存在在于它的作用”时，事件发生的逻辑就完全是结构内部斗争和冲突的产物。而在取消了上层建筑与经济基础的区分后，阿尔都塞的事件史观也就取消了任何可能的预先结论。他写道：“现实存在的本体论反对……一切未来的知识。”面对这样的历史，阿尔都塞称之为“偶然性的必然性”。如此一来，历史作为开放的过程，充满了相互冲突的趋势，只有相对和暂时稳定的参照点成为一个个偶然而又具体的事件。

Now let us re-examine Althusser’s famous assertion: “History is a process without a subject.” This does not mean that Althusser denies the creative role of human beings in history; he merely denies treating the empirical individual or the abstract human being as the subject of history. In his view, “who the subject is” is a question answered by the historical conjuncture. If, conceptually, we replace “subject” with “agent” in society, it might reduce misunderstandings of Althusser. What Althusser’s theory of the conjuncture seeks to narrate is the dialectical movement between the agent and its cultural, social, and economic environment within a specific historical conjuncture.

现在让我们重新审视阿尔都塞的著名论断：“历史是无主体的过程”。这并不是说阿尔都塞否定人对历史的创造作用，他只是否定将经验个人或者抽象的人看作历史主体的做法。在他看来，“主体是谁”是一个由历史情势来回答的问题。如果在概念上我们用社会中的“行动者”来代替“主体”，或许能减少人们对阿尔都塞的误解。阿尔都塞的情势论想要叙述的，是在具体历史情势中行动者与其所属的文化、社会、经济环境之间的辩证运动。

So, what kind of history does Althusser’s conception of history as event actually depict? It should be said that its intention is to grasp the problem of revolutionary situations, which can also be called “Lenin’s problem.” Althusser constantly cites Lenin’s analysis and decisions in the face of the Russian revolutionary situation, because in his view, only revolutionaries can fully understand that Marx’s dialectic, in its affirmative understanding of existing things, simultaneously contains a negative understanding of them. For Althusser, revolution always takes place in concrete history; overdetermination does not attempt to depict the structural whole, but rather tries to depict the structural movement of contradictions. The economic base, ideological apparatuses, climatic and geographical factors, cultural practices, and the subject are all simultaneously converged in the force field of the conjuncture, contending with one another. Revolution does not occur within certainty, but rather “realizes historical necessity through the individual’s ‘contingency’…according to this necessity, the future necessarily and naturally replaces its ‘present’.”

那么，阿尔都塞的事件史观究竟描绘了怎样的历史？应该说，其意图是为了把握革命形势的问题，也可以说是“列宁的问题”。阿尔都塞总是不断列举列宁在面对俄国革命情势时所作的分析与决断，因为在他看来，只有革命者才能充分理解马克思辩证法在对现存事物的肯定的理解中同时包含对现存事物的否定的理解。对阿尔都塞来说，革命总是在具体的历史中进行的，多元决定没有试图描绘结构整体，而是尝试描绘矛盾的结构性变动，经济基础、意识形态机器、气候地理因素、文化实践、主体被同时汇聚在情势的力量场中，相互角逐。革命并不发生于确定性之中，而是以“个人的‘偶然性’实现历史的必然性……根据这种必然性未来必然自然而然地代替它的‘现在’”。

Althusser wants to emphasize that any revolution is a concrete practical activity in the present time. The contingency of the present conjuncture opens up the space for our action; the only weapon we possess is the method of analyzing multiple contradictions. Under contemporary capitalist conditions, the resistance of the proletariat has become extremely complex. Relying solely on the subject’s conviction of victory is insufficient to cope with the constantly changing transformations of capitalism. We must find the limits of individual action within the concrete conjuncture. The Messiah will not descend at any moment, but is only latent within the most concrete struggles. Therefore, when Althusser’s students successively criticized his structuralist tendencies for leading to his inaction in 1968, they precisely misunderstood the radicality of Althusser’s theory. The temporality of multiple contradictions challenges all dogmatic historical materialism; it calls upon those who truly grasp the truth to act according to the circumstances.

阿尔都塞想强调，任何革命都是在当下时间内的具体实践活动，当下的情势偶然性敞开了我们行动的空间，我们唯一拥有的武器就是多元矛盾的分析方法。在当今的资本主义条件下，无产阶级的反抗变得无比复杂，只凭借主体的必胜信念不足以应对不断改变的资本主义变革，我们必须在具体的情势中找到个人行动的界限，弥赛亚不会随时降临，而只潜藏在无比具体的斗争之中。因此，当阿尔都塞的学生纷纷批评其结构主义倾向导致了他在1968年的碌碌无为时，恰恰误解了阿尔都塞理论的激进性。多元矛盾的时间性挑战了所有教条的历史唯物主义，它号召真正掌握真理的人相机而动。

III. Badiou’s Theory of the Event

三、巴迪欧的事件理论

In contemporary radical left-wing thought, both Benjamin and Althusser are repeatedly invoked in different guises. Žižek’s appeal to divine violence, Giorgio Agamben’s exploration of the state of exception, and Alain Badiou’s inheritance of the aleatory encounter all belong to theoretical creations that return to the sources to open up new paths. This reflects the trajectory of the theoretical logic of Western Marxism shifting from necessity to contingency.

在当今的激进左翼思想中，不论是本雅明还是阿尔都塞，都以不同的面貌被反复提起。齐泽克对神圣暴力的呼吁，吉奥乔·阿甘本对例外状态的探讨，阿兰·巴迪欧对偶然相遇的继承，都属于返本开新的理论创造。这体现了国外马克思主义的理论逻辑从必然性向偶然性转换的路径。

We have already, from the perspective of the conception of history as event, reshaped the “undercurrent” of this transformation. It is precisely the state of exception proposed by Benjamin and the theory of the conjuncture by Althusser that laid the foundation for the above-mentioned logical shift toward historical contingency. However, both Benjamin’s appeal to the Messiah and Althusser’s “determination in the last instance by the economy” attempt to retain historical necessity. In contemporary radical left-wing thought, the truth of history has become a nominalist concept in the Platonic sense. Consequently, the problem of historical contingency is no longer an epistemological question of which takes priority, but has become the ontology of history. That is to say, what is now needed is not to construct an epistemological principle of contingency, but to construct a dialectic of history with contingency as its principle. It can be said that the “event” has transformed from a conception of history into an “event materialism.”

我们在前面已经从事件史观的角度重塑了此种转变的“潜流”，正是本雅明提出的例外状态以及阿尔都塞的情势论为上述向历史偶然性的逻辑转换奠定了基础，但无论是本雅明诉诸的弥赛亚，还是阿尔都塞所讲的“归根到底由经济所起的决定作用”，都尝试保留历史必然性。而在当今的激进左翼思想中，历史的真理已经成为柏拉图意义上的唯名论观念。于是，历史偶然性问题不是一种认识论意义上的何者优先的问题，而成为历史的存在论。也就是说，现在需要的不是构筑偶然性的认识原则，而是以偶然性为原则构筑历史的辩证法。可以说，“事件”从一种历史观摇身一变成为“事件唯物主义”。

Badiou uses mathematical ontology to explain the ontological status of the event. In his view, the event is a “non-being” multiplicity that cannot be accommodated within the current state of being; it is the “void” of the present situation. Therefore, we have no means to express this event that does not belong to the present situation. Badiou borrows Jacques Lacan’s statement that “the Real is absolutely unsymbolizable” to highlight the rupture and unpredictability of the event. The event that Badiou speaks of is absolute contingency; it parts ways with all ontological philosophy. The event is not a forgotten “being,” but a void that can only be described after its occurrence. In this sense, Badiou indeed has what Žižek criticizes as a miracle complex. Žižek says Badiou is perhaps “the last great author of the French Catholic tradition, from Pascal and Malebranche onwards.”

巴迪欧用数学本体论说明事件的本体论地位。在他看来，事件是不容于当下存在状态的“非—存在”的多，是当下情境中的“无”。所以我们没有任何能够用来表达这个不属于当下情境的事件。巴迪欧借用雅克·拉康提出的“真实界绝对无法象征化”的说法，凸显了事件的断裂和不可预测。巴迪欧所讲的事件是绝对的偶然，它与所有存在论的哲学分道扬镳。事件不是被遗忘的“存在”，而是只有在其发生之后才能被描述的空无。在这个意义上，巴迪欧的确有齐泽克所批评的奇迹情结。齐泽克说巴迪欧也许是“法国自帕斯卡与马勒布朗许以降，法国天主教义传统的最后一位伟大作家”。

If this is the case, how can the event be a “truth-event”? How can the event, as “non-being,” embody the truth of history? Badiou’s answer is that truth is not epistemological truth, but practical ethical truth. Only when a specific subject, that is, the interventionary action of the proletariat, touches upon the fundamental social contradiction of class struggle, does it become a truth-event. The event itself contains the “biased” perspective of the subject; from this we see the tradition of the oppressed that Benjamin spoke of resurrected half a century later. Thus, it can be seen that the subject, the event, and truth mutually constitute one another. At a certain moment, the agent intervenes in the situation by virtue of conviction. After an event occurs, the agent completes their subjectivation by naming this event, and also establishes an event. The reason this event is truth is determined by the nature of the subject that intervenes in the event.

既然如此，事件又如何是“真理—事件”呢？作为“非—存在”的事件又怎么能够体现历史的真理呢？巴迪欧的回答是，真理不是认识论的真理，而是实践的伦理性真理。只有特定的主体，也就是无产阶级的介入行动触及了阶级斗争这一社会根本性矛盾，才成为真理性事件。事件本身就包含着主体的“偏见”视角，我们从中看到本雅明所讲的受压迫者的传统在半个世纪后复活了。由此可见，主体、事件、真理乃是相互成就的，行动者在某一时刻凭借信念介入情境，在一个事件发生后，行动者凭借命名这个事件而完成自己的主体化，也确立了一个事件，而这个事件之所以是真理，乃是由介入事件的主体的性质决定的。

To guarantee the contingency of the event, Badiou deliberately redefines the universality of truth. He argues that truth is generic. Generic truth is not a being as being, but an operation relative to the elements within a situation; this prevents truth from falling into the rut of transcendent traditional metaphysics. The truth Badiou speaks of is a category adapted to the “irreducible multiplicity of being.” Through truth procedures, generic truth, by seizing the opportunity of the event, creates a pure multiplicity that is not presented in a specific situation. Since inconsistency and the void necessarily exist within any set, the operation by which the subject makes truth manifest in the process of creating the event is, in this sense, necessarily universal. However, the “multiplicity” that is repressed by each situation differs; each recurrence of truth is therefore different. Thus, Badiou’s truth can guarantee formal equivalence among events while leaving room for diverse forms of resistance in different fields. History always repeats itself, but never identically.

为了保证事件的偶然性，巴迪欧特意重新定义了真理的普遍性。他认为，真理是类性的（the generic）。类性真理并不是一种作为存在的存在，而是一种相对于情境内部元素的操作，这就使真理避免落入超验性的传统形而上学窠臼。巴迪欧所谓的真理是与“存在的不可还原的多”相适应的范畴。通过真理程序，类性真理借助事件的时机，创造出特定情境中未被展现的纯多。由于任何集合内部都必然存在不一致和空无，主体在创造事件的过程中使真理显现的操作在此种意义上必然是普遍的，但是被每个情境所压抑的“多”则各有不同，每次真理的复现便各不相同。因此，巴迪欧的真理能够保证诸事件间的形式化等同，又为不同领域的多样化的反抗留下了余地。历史总是重复，但并非完全等同。

After pushing the contingency of the event to its extreme, Badiou severs all connection between contingency and necessity. It is no longer “the necessity of contingency,” but “the absoluteness of contingency.” Thus we see that synthesis within dialectics is no longer possible; borrowing Benjamin’s formulation, history becomes a discrete, fractured constellation. Badiou’s dialectics is a dialectics of division, with no connection between the beginning of the event and its end. The form and content of things are completely separated (as evidenced by Badiou’s linking the universality of truth to the exception of the event); being no longer transforms into its opposite through the contradictions inherent in the development of things themselves, but is rigidly juxtaposed among fractured events. Badiou himself calls his historical dialectics an “anti-dialectical dialectics.” Thus we see his return to Kant: the split between the thing-in-itself and the phenomenal world. In his stubborn rejection of the idealist elements of Hegelian dialectics, Badiou throws out the baby with the bathwater.

巴迪欧在把事件的偶然性推到极致后，偶然性与必然性切断了一切关联。不再是“偶然性的必然性”，而是“偶然性的绝对性”。所以我们看到，辩证法中的综合不再可能，借用本雅明的说法，历史成为离散的、断裂的星丛。巴迪欧的辩证法是分裂的辩证法，事件之初与事件之终没有关联。事物的形式与内容彻底分离了（巴迪欧将真理的普遍性与事件的例外联系在一起就是例证），存在不再从事物本身发展的矛盾中向其反面转变，而是在断裂的诸事件之中被僵硬地并置在一起。巴迪欧也将自己的历史辩证法称为“反辩证的辩证法”。于是，我们看到了他向康德的回返：物自体与现象世界的分裂。在坚持拒绝黑格尔辩证法的观念主义因素时，巴迪欧将婴儿和洗澡水一起倒掉了。

Rather than situating Badiou’s evental conception of history within Heidegger’s philosophical thought on “the happening of Da-sein” (doing so would dissolve the radicality of the evental conception of history through vulgar postmodern philosophical critique and would lack a basic dialectical perspective), it is more fruitful to develop relevant reflections within the practical issues of revolutionary events inaugurated by the October Revolution. In the view of Badiou, Žižek, and others, the moment of revolution is not deduced from the objectivity of history, but is brought about by the decisive intervention of the subject. As the debate between Lenin and the Mensheviks in the second half of 1917 demonstrated, only Lenin saw that the moment for revolution had arrived; what was needed was not waiting, but a “leap of the tiger.” [10]10 “Leap of the tiger” (虎跃, hǔ yuè) is a phrase used by Lenin, drawn from Marx’s characterization of revolutionary action as a leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom, and later invoked by Walter Benjamin in his “Theses on the Philosophy of History” to describe a revolutionary break with the continuum of history. Therefore, the evental conception of history is not merely a purely philosophical reflection on history; it carries a strong political connotation, and it has also brought about a revival of the idea of communism within contemporary left-wing thought.

与其将巴迪欧的事件史观放置在海德格尔关于“缘在发生”的哲学思想中加以考察（这样做会以流俗的后现代哲学批判消解事件史观的激进性，而且缺乏基本的辩证法视野），不如在十月革命开启的有关革命事件的实践问题中来展开相关思考。在巴迪欧、齐泽克等人看来，革命的时机并不是从历史的客观性中推演出来的，而是由主体的介入带来的决定性改变。正如1917年下半年列宁与孟什维克的争论所显示的那样，只有列宁看到了革命的时机已经到来，现在需要的不是等待，而是一次“虎跃”。因此，事件史观并不只是纯粹的历史哲学思考，而是具有强烈的政治内涵，它也在当代的左翼思想中造成了共产主义观念的复兴。

In Badiou’s view, the sole state of exception in politics is communism, because it respects the equality of every individual. Hence, political action adhering to the conviction of communism is a generic procedure that creates truth. He states: “Marx called the human being in the process of self-emancipation ‘man as a species-being,’ and ‘the proletariat’ is the name for those who can potentially become species-beings.” The scope of the proletariat is not fixed, but is revealed in the eternally evolving truth procedure. Therefore, the communist movement Badiou calls for has no fixed model. Forms of communism that did not previously exist can emerge from various political movements. Žižek also calls for mobilizing the people to “generate their own actuality” by struggling for the idea of “communism.” At a time when Western leftist movements are at a loss, the theoretical aim of the evental conception of history is a conception of history as the action of permanent revolution. Events are forever unexpected, and thus our actions for our own liberation are destined to be arduous.

在巴迪欧看来，政治中唯一的例外状态就是共产主义，因为它尊重每个人的平等，所以秉持共产主义信念的政治行动是创造真理的类性程序（procedure generique）。他说道：“马克思将处于自我解放过程中的人称为‘类本质的人’，而‘无产阶级’是可能成为类本质的人的名称。”无产阶级的范围并不是固定的，而是在永远演化的真理程序中展现出来的。所以巴迪欧呼唤的共产主义运动没有固定模式。各色政治运动中都有可能产生从前没有的共产主义形态。齐泽克也呼吁，动员人民通过为“共产主义”观念奋斗而“生成自己的现实性”。在西方左翼运动无所适从的当下，事件史观的理论旨归乃是一种不断革命的行动的历史观。事件永远出乎意料，于是我们为了自身解放而采取的行动也注定充满艰辛。

At this point, the author has traced the evental conception of history in the history of Western Marxism from Benjamin to Althusser to Badiou. In terms of historical background, each proposal of the evental conception of history occurred during periods when the international communist movement encountered obstacles. Theoretically, they share the same worldview: they all hold that the world is essentially non-closed, that any attempt to patch up social contradictions is the “master signifier” of the victor, and that the event is precisely the action that acts upon the fundamental fissure. Consequently, their dialectics all reject the Hegelian logic of identity and totality, no longer pursuing the transformation of contradictions through “negation of the negation,” but instead absolutizing social contradictions and oppositions, relying on the active role of the subject to achieve a ruptural transformation of the social structure.

至此，笔者梳理了国外马克思主义发展史上从本雅明到阿尔都塞再到巴迪欧的事件史观。从历史背景看，每一次事件史观的提出都发生在国际共产主义运动受到阻碍的时期。而从理论上说，他们的事件史观共享着同样的世界观，都认为世界在本质上是非封闭的，任何尝试弥合社会矛盾的操作都是胜利者的“主人能指”，而事件恰恰是那个作用于根本性裂隙之上的行动，于是他们的辩证法全都拒绝了黑格尔意义上的同一性和总体性逻辑，不再追求“否定之否定”的矛盾转化，而将社会中的矛盾对立绝对化，借助主体的能动作用，实现社会结构的断裂性变革。

Their evental conception of history highlights reasonable elements within historical materialism, such as humans making history and history not being linear development. Its construction of the basic principles of historical materialism is suggestive, revealing another theoretical path within Western Marxism beyond cultural critique. However, their evental conception of history also invariably falls into the same problem. We know that the transformation of quantitative change into qualitative change is a reasonable element in the dialectics of the development of things; revolution, as qualitative change, can be understood as an event completely different from the current situation. The evental conception of history reasonably sees this factor in the occurrence of events, but it exaggerates this difference to the point of treating it as pure contingency and rupture, ultimately mystifying the event itself and thus distancing itself from historical materialism. What we must do is to remove the metaphysical coloring of the event, return to Marx’s analysis of events, re-place humans in their actual environment, and focus on how humans make history within basic social structures and the overall truth of history, thereby dialectically understanding the tension between contingency and necessity, subject and structure in history.

他们的事件史观突出了历史唯物主义中的人创造历史、历史并非线性发展等合理因素，其对历史唯物主义的基本原则的构筑富有启发性，展现了国外马克思主义中文化批判之外的另一条理论路径。但是，他们的事件史观又不约而同地陷入了同一个问题。我们知道，量变向质变的转化是事物发展辩证法中的合理因素，革命作为质变可以被理解为与当下情境完全不同的事件。事件史观合理地看到了事件发生中的这一因素，但是又将这种不同彻底夸大，以至于将其视为纯粹的偶然和断裂，最终将事件本身神秘化，从而远离了历史唯物主义。我们要做的是，去除事件的形而上学色彩，回归马克思的事件分析，重新将人放到现实的环境中，在基本的社会结构与历史的总体性真理中关注人如何创造历史，从而辩证地理解历史中偶然与必然、主体与结构之间的张力。

IV. The Evental Conception of History in *The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte*

四、《路易·波拿巴的雾月十八日》 中的事件史观

When discussing his conception of history, Marx famously said: “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.” The tension expressed in this statement between “men making history” and “making it under given circumstances” has been repeatedly argued, but people often overlook that this assertion comes from Marx’s concrete analysis of a historical event—the 1851 coup d’état in France. Therefore, we need to return to Marx’s analysis of concrete historical events to resolve this tension. Marx’s analysis in *The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte* fundamentally follows a class perspective. He first views the Brumaire coup as the result of the movement and development of class relations. In his description, the revolutionary character of the proletariat, the petty-bourgeois democrats, the bourgeois republicans, the Party of Order, and Bonaparte’s armed forces regresses in turn, and conflicts between classes are ultimately conditioned by the economic circumstances of each class.

马克思在论述其历史观时有一句著名的话：“人们自己创造自己的历史，但是他们并不是随心所欲地创造，并不是在他们自己选定的条件下创造，而是在直接碰到的、既定的、从过去承继下来的条件下创造。”这句话所表达的“人创造历史”与“在一定条件下创造”之间的张力已经被反复论证，但是人们往往忽视了这句论断出自马克思对历史事件——法国的1851年政变——的具体分析。因此，我们需要回到马克思对具体历史事件的分析中才能破解这一张力。马克思在《路易·波拿巴的雾月十八日》中的分析从根本上遵循着阶级的视角。他首先将雾月政变这一事件看作阶级关系运动发展的结果。在其描述中，无产阶级、小资产阶级民主派、资产阶级共和派、秩序党、波拿巴的武装力量的阶级革命性是依次倒退的，而阶级之间的冲突归根到底受到各阶级所处的经济状况的制约。

However, Marx does not mechanically transplant the class perspective into his explanation of the historical conjuncture; otherwise, it would be a simple linear historical narrative. He is not afraid to fully present the tragicomedy of history as “living contemporary events” before people’s eyes. He not only affirms contingency in history, but also seeks to demonstrate from the perspective of historical materialism how to scientifically integrate the dialectical relationship among macroscopic historical trends, concrete historical conjunctures, and contingent historical events.

但是，马克思并没有生硬地将阶级观点移植到对历史情势的说明之中，否则那将是一种简单的历史线性叙事。他并不怕将历史中的悲喜剧作为“活生生的时事”完全展现在人们面前。他不仅肯定历史中的偶然性，更要从历史唯物主义的角度展现如何科学地整合宏观的历史趋势、具体的历史情势以及偶然的历史事件之间的辩证关系。

Marx begins with the historical conjuncture. The historical conjuncture shapes the possibility of the event’s emergence and creates the historical events in which various subjects act within that conjuncture. Marx says: “I, on the contrary, demonstrate how the class struggle in France created circumstances and conditions that allowed a mediocre and ridiculous figure to play the role of a hero.” [11]11 This is Marx’s own summary of his argument in *The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte*, contrasting his method with that of Victor Hugo and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Regarding the French historical conjuncture, the outbreak of two world economic events intensified social discontent. The first was the potato blight and crop failure of 1845 and 1846; the second was the general commercial and industrial crisis in England. The English crisis caused factory closures in English industrial districts, forcing French factory owners and big merchants who had been doing business abroad to return to the domestic market, leading to the bankruptcy of the Parisian petty bourgeoisie and sparking discontent—this was the historical conjuncture of the February Revolution. But the conjuncture does not completely determine the course of the event; it is precisely here that the event itself possesses contingent elements.

马克思是从历史的情势入手的。历史的情势塑造了事件出现的可能，并造就了各色主体在此情势中行动的历史事件。马克思说：“我则是证明，法国阶级斗争怎样造成了一种局势和条件，使得一个平庸而可笑的人物可能扮演了英雄的角色。”就法国的历史情势来看，两起世界性的经济事件的爆发加剧了社会不满。其一是1845年和1846年的马铃薯病害和歉收，其二是英国普遍的工商业危机。英国的危机让英国工业区的工厂倒闭，使原本在国外做生意的法国工厂主和大商人只能回到国内市场，导致巴黎的小资产阶级破产并引发了不满，这便是二月革命的历史情势。但情势并不完全决定事件发生的走向，正是在这里，事件本身具有了偶然的因素。

The political demands of the petty bourgeoisie did not develop according to the original script. The original demand of the February Revolution was for the petty bourgeoisie to call for electoral reform, and the proletariat was not the main factor in bringing about the event. However, “when the people had thrown themselves into street fighting, when the National Guard had adopted a passive attitude,” the development of this situation exceeded original expectations. Such an action, which aimed to “expand the scope of those within the possessing classes who enjoyed political privileges and to overthrow the exclusive rule of the financial aristocracy,” was compelled by the development of the revolution to proclaim itself a “social republic.” [1]1 Karl Marx, *The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850* (1850), in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 10 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1978), p. 56. This development clearly exceeded the stipulations of the prior situation, manifesting as an unexpected reversal. “The February Revolution was a sudden assault on the old society, an unexpected event, and the people proclaimed this sudden blow as a world-historical feat, believing it had opened a new epoch.” [2]2 Ibid., p. 57.

小资产阶级的政治诉求并没有按照原有的剧本发展下去。二月革命原先的诉求是小资产阶级要求选举改革，无产阶级在其中并不是促成事件发生的主要因素，但是“当人民已投入街垒战，当国民自卫军采取消极的态度”时，这一情势的发展超出了原来的想象，这样一场“扩大有产阶级内部享有政治特权者的范围和推翻金融贵族独占的统治”的行动，就不得不按照革命的发展而把自己宣布为“社会共和国”。这一发展显然已经超出此前情势的规定，表现为一种意想不到的逆转。“二月革命对于旧社会是一个突然袭击，是一个意外事件，而人民则把这个突然的打击宣布为具有世界历史意义的壮举，认为它开辟了一个新纪元。”

In such a description, Marx’s historical materialism reveals the dimension of contingency within the event-based view of history. The contingent consequences caused by individual actions often overflow specific historical situations, and Marx further emphasizes the necessity of the emergence of the dimension of contingency within history. In his letter to Kugelmann, he points out: “If ‘contingency’ played no role at all, world history would be of a very mystical nature. These contingencies themselves naturally fall within the general course of development and are compensated for by other contingencies. But the acceleration and retardation of development depend to a large extent on these ‘contingencies,’ including the ‘contingent circumstance’ of the character of those who initially stand at the forefront of the movement.” [3]3 Karl Marx, Letter to Ludwig Kugelmann, April 17, 1871, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 44 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1989), p. 137. Here, even the contingency of personal character is taken into account! This shows the breadth of social affairs that Marx’s event-based view of history can grasp.

在这样的描述中，马克思的历史唯物主义展现了事件史观中偶然性的维度。个体行动所造成的偶然后果往往会溢出特定的历史情势，而且马克思还强调偶然性维度在历史之中出现的必然。他在致库格曼的信中指出：“如果‘偶然性’不起任何作用的话，那么世界历史就会带有非常神秘的性质。这些偶然性本身自然纳入总的发展过程中，并且为其他偶然性所补偿。但是，发展的加速和延缓在很大程度上是取决于这些‘偶然性’的，其中也包括一开始就站在运动最前面的那些人物的性格这样一种‘偶然情况’。 ”在此，连人物性格的偶然性都被考虑在内!可见，马克思的事件史观所能把握的社会时事的范围之广。

Although the development of events is full of contingency, Marx, unlike the aforementioned foreign Marxists, did not allow this logic to develop to its extreme. Instead, he further “refined” contingent events. Marx’s narrative involves subjects with “different characters” and their actions: Bonaparte, Cavaignac, Barrot, Fould, Changarnier, and others. However, they are all presented within the structure of party classes, shown as spokespersons or intermediaries of their respective classes. From the February Revolution to the June Revolution, and then to the alternating fall of the Republicans, Democrats, and the Party of Order, culminating in Bonaparte’s restoration, Marx unfolds his narrative along the thread of parliamentary party struggles. The contingency of events is manifested in the facts of the gradual splits and failures of the petty-bourgeois Democratic Party and the Party of Order. Here, Marx unifies the diverse specific figures and events within a fixed period into the framework of class analysis, allowing us to grasp more accurately the meaning and trends of contingent events. Thus, we see the dialectical developmental relationship between subjects who may not have conscious class consciousness on the historical stage and the irresistible trends of history. These actors on the stage unconsciously represent the interests of their own classes, but their different characters and styles of action cause the motives behind them to manifest in a myriad of strange events. The most prominent example is the Democratic Party (the Montagnards), which exaggerated its own strength: “The Democrats considered themselves completely above class antagonisms. They believed that what opposed them was a privileged class, while they, together with all other strata of the nation, constituted the people.” [4]4 Karl Marx, *The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte* (1852), in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 11 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1979), p. 130. Therefore, when they failed, they could only attribute the cause to “some contingent accident.” [5]5 Ibid., p. 131.

虽然事件的发展充满偶然性，但是马克思没有像上述国外马克思主义者一样，放任这个逻辑发展到极端，而是对偶然的事件进行了进一步“提纯”。马克思的叙述涉及了“不同性格”的主体及其行动：波拿巴、卡芬雅克、巴罗、富尔德、尚加尔涅等人，但是他们都是在党派阶级的结构之中得到展现的，被呈现为自身阶级的代言人或者说中介。从二月革命到六月革命再到共和派、民主党以及秩序党的交替下台，最后到波拿巴复辟，马克思以议会党争为线索展开自己的叙述，事件的偶然性呈现在以小资产阶级民主党、秩序党的逐渐分裂与失败的事实之中。在此，马克思将一个固定时间段内的形形色色的具体人物与事件统一纳入阶级分析的框架，从而让我们能够更加准确地把握偶然事件的意涵和趋势。由此，我们看到了历史舞台上未必有自觉阶级意识的主体与历史不可抗拒的趋势之间的辩证发展关系。舞台上的这些演员不自觉地代表了自己所属阶级的利益，但是不同的性格和做事风格又让他们背后的动机以千奇百怪的事件展现出来。最突出的例子是民主党（山岳党）过度夸大了自己的力量，“民主党人自以为完全超然于阶级对抗之上。民主党人认为，和他们对立的是一个特权阶级，而他们和全国所有其他阶层一起构成了人民”。所以当他们失败时，只能将原因归结为“某个偶然的意外事件”。

Behind class analysis lies the necessity of the development of contradictions. The development and failure of the February Revolution and the June Revolution are manifestations of the internal contradictions of the determining factor of classes—economic conditions. The February Revolution was a premature revolution. “The workers believed they could achieve their own liberation alongside the bourgeoisie, just as they believed they could realize a French proletarian revolution within other bourgeois nations. But French relations of production were conditioned by French foreign trade, by France’s position on the world market, and by the laws of this market. How could France break these relations of production without a European revolutionary war that would defeat England, the tyrant of the world market?” [6]6 Karl Marx, *The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850*, p. 123. It is precisely in the contradictory movement of productive forces and relations of production that contingent events in history receive a necessary explanation. It is also because it is based on historical materialism that Bonaparte’s coup d’état is not merely interpreted as a manipulative trick of political maneuvering but can be scientifically predicted. The Bonapartist dynasty represented the interests of the small peasants. With the increasingly accelerating dissolution of small-scale landownership, the state edifice built upon it would also collapse. “If the imperial mantle finally falls on Louis Bonaparte, then Napoleon’s bronze statue will fall from the top of the Vendôme Column.” [7]7 Karl Marx, *The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte*, p. 198. History has indeed proven this to be the case.

在阶级分析的背后隐藏着矛盾发展的必然性。二月革命和六月革命的发展与失败是阶级的决定因素——经济状况——的内在矛盾的表现。二月革命是早熟的革命。“工人们相信能在资产阶级旁边谋求自身解放，同样，他们也认为能够在其他资产阶级国家旁边实现法国国内的无产阶级革命。但是，法国的生产关系是受法国的对外贸易制约的，是受法国在世界市场上的地位以及这个市场的规律制约的。如果没有一场击退英国这个世界市场暴君的欧洲革命战争，法国又怎么能打破这种生产关系呢？”正是在生产力与生产关系的矛盾运动中，历史中的偶然事件得到了必然的解释。也正是因为以唯物史观为基础，波拿巴的政变才没有被仅仅解读为政治权术的操纵诡计，而能够得到科学的预测。波拿巴王朝代表小农利益，随着小块土地所有制日益加剧的解体，建立在它上面的国家建筑物也将倒塌下来。“如果皇袍终于落在路易·波拿巴身上，那么拿破仑的铜像就将从旺多姆圆柱顶上倒塌下来。”历史也证明的确如此。

The interconnection and mutual constraint among the three levels—economic base (longue durée), class perspective (historical conjuncture), and historical events (short duration)—constitute the foundation of Marx’s event-based view of history. Each level is constrained by the other two. Because of this, Marx’s event-based view of history simultaneously explains the interweaving of historical contingency and necessity, of the longue durée and the short duration. It depicts inversions, regressions, and contingencies occurring within the short duration. Yet, because these inversions, regressions, and contingencies are subsumed under the synchronic structure of the class perspective, they still do not escape the perspective of the necessity of historical development—productive forces and relations of production. Or, conversely, precisely because it accommodates contingent events in history, Marx’s historical materialism is not a Hegelian totalizing view of history. It reminds us to fully recognize the open perspective inherent in historical materialism. And this openness requires delving into concrete events.

经济基础（长时段）、阶级视角（历史情势）、历史事件（短时段）三个层次之间的相互联系与制约构成了马克思事件史观的基础，其中任何一个层面都受到其余两个层面的制约。正因为如此，马克思的事件史观同时说明了历史偶然性与必然性、长时段与短时段的交错。它描绘了短时段内发生的倒错、退步与偶然，但是这些倒错、退步与偶然又因为被阶级视角的共时性结构所统摄，便仍然没有脱离生产力与生产关系这一历史发展的必然性视角。或者倒过来说，恰恰因为包容了历史中的偶然事件，所以马克思的历史唯物主义并非黑格尔意义上的大全式历史观，它提醒我们要充分认识唯物史观所蕴含的开放性视角。而这种开放性需要深入具体的事件中。

Looking back at the aforementioned foreign Marxists’ event-based views of history, we can raise two criticisms. First, their event-based views of history grasp only the level of historical conjuncture and historical events, without understanding the contingency of events over a longer time span, thus confusing historical contingency with openness. For example, Badiou often emphasizes that the French May 1968 revolution was a completely independent event. However, he fails to see that this event was merely one link in world history, occurring simultaneously with large-scale anti-capitalist movements worldwide, such as student protest movements in various countries, the global movement against the Vietnam War, and the American civil rights movement. Only with a world-historical perspective can one grasp the historical necessity of the occurrence of revolutionary events within the basic contradictions of capitalist world development. Second, revolutionary movements are not equivalent to the arbitrary actions of subjects. The proletariat remains the fundamental subject of revolution. The generalization of class inevitably leads to neglect of the fundamental contradictions, economic conditions, political conditions, and the resulting boundaries of action within specific historical situations. If the subject lacks a strong party organization, its resistance actions can only be “single-point explosions,” incapable of sparking a true world revolution. This also leads to an understanding of events that either falls into voluntarist decisionism or into a messianic miracle view of history.

反观前述国外马克思主义者的事件史观，我们能够提出两点批评。第一，他们的事件史观只把握了历史情势—历史事件的层面，而没有在更长的时间段内理解事件的偶然性，因而混淆了历史偶然性与开放性。比如，巴迪欧经常强调1968年的法国五月革命是完全独立的事件，但是他没有看到，这一事件只是世界历史中的一环，它与世界各地的学生抗议运动、全世界的反对越战运动、美国的民权运动等大规模反资本主义运动同时发生。只有具备世界历史视野，才能在资本主义世界发展的基本矛盾中掌握革命事件发生的历史必然性。第二，革命运动并不等于主体的任意行动，无产阶级仍然是革命的根本主体，阶级泛化必然导致对具体历史局势之中的根本矛盾、经济状况、政治状况及其带来的行动界限的忽视。主体如果缺乏有力的政党组织，其反抗行动只能是“单点爆破”，而无法掀起真正的世界革命。这也导致对事件的理解要么陷入唯意志论的决断主义，要么陷入弥赛亚的奇迹史观。

Online Editor: Zhang Jian

网络编辑：张剑