"It's about breaking with the Stalinist tradition!": Interview with Nicos Poulantzas on authoritarian etatism in Western Europe and the strategy of the labor movement - conducted by Rodrigo Vaquez-Prada*

Gelegentlich hat man ihm Formalismus und Abstraktheit vorgeworfen. Dennoch - trotz aller Kritik, die dagegen vorgebracht werden kann - bildet das Werk dieses in Paris niedergelassenen Griechen ohne jeden Zweifel einen der solidesten und originärsten Beiträge zum gegenwärtigen Marxismus.Vor einem Jahrzehnt, bei der Beschreibung seiner eigenen geistigen Entwicklung, hat Nicos Poulantzas geschrieben, daß „in Epochen der Krise die theoretische Revolution in der Geschichte des Denkens wie eine Lokomotive wirkt". Heute wäre die Behauptung nicht mehr übertrieben, daß sein Werk - gegenüber den mechanistischen und dogmatischen Schemata stalinistischen Zuschnitts - eine solche Rolle gespielt hat, während Poulantzas selbst eine bestimmte Form des „politischen Eingriffs" in genau umrissene politische Situationen praktizierte. Und diese Orientierung seiner theoretischen Arbeit tritt mit aller Deutlichkeit in seinen bisherigen Werken hervor. Das gilt auch für seinen erst kürzlich publizierten Essay „L 'Etat, Je Pouvoir, Je Socialisme", deutsch: Staatstheorie (Hamburg 1978), in dem er scharfsinnig und klar über das reflektiert, was er den ,autoritären Etatismus' nennt - eine neue Staatsform, die dabei ist, sich in den Ländern des entwickelten Kapitalismus, in den europäischen Ländern, herauszubilden.Occasionally he has been accused of formalism and abstractness. Nevertheless, despite all the criticism that can be voiced against it, the work of this Paris-based Greek undoubtedly constitutes one of the most solid and original contributions to contemporary Marxism. A decade ago, in describing his own spiritual development, Nicos Poulantzas wrote that "in epochs of crisis, the theoretical revolution in the history of thought acts as a locomotive". Today it would no longer be an exaggeration to claim that his work played such a role - against the mechanistic and dogmatic schemata of Stalinism - while Poulantzas himself practised a certain form of "political intervention" in precisely defined political situations. And this orientation of his theoretical work emerges with all clarity in his previous works. This also applies to his recently published essay "L 'Etat, Je Pouvoir, Je Socialisme", German: Staatstheorie (Hamburg 1978), in which he sharply and clearly reflects on what he calls 'authoritarian etatism' - a new form of government that is in the process of forming in the countries of developed capitalism, in the European countries

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