Editing Louis Althusser (section)

===Major works, ''For Marx'' and ''Reading Capital'': 1960–1968===
Althusser resumed his Marxist-related publications in 1960 as he translated, edited, and published a collection directed by Hyppolite about [[Ludwig Feuerbach]]'s works.{{sfn|Stolze|2013|p=8}} The objective of this endeavour was to identify Feuerbach's influence on Marx's early writings, contrasting it with the absence of his thought on Marx's mature works.{{sfn|Lewis|2014|}} This work spurred him to write "On the Young Marx: Theoretical Questions" ("Sur le jeune Marx&nbsp;– Questions de théorie", 1961).{{sfn|Lewis|2014|}} Published in the journal ''La Pensée'', it was the first in a series of articles about Marx that were later collected in his most famous book ''[[For Marx]]''.{{sfn|Balibar|2005b|p=267}} He inflamed the French debate on Marx and Marxist philosophy, and gained a considerable number of supporters.{{sfn|Lewis|2014|}} Inspired by this recognition, he started to publish more articles on Marxist thought; in 1964, Althusser published an article titled "Freud and Lacan" in the journal ''La Nouvelle Critique'', which greatly influenced the [[Freudo-Marxism#Althusser|Freudo-Marxism]] thought.{{sfn|Balibar|2005b|p=267}} At the same time, he invited Lacan to a lecture on [[Baruch Spinoza]] and the fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis.{{sfn|Balibar|2005b|p=267}} The impact of the articles led Althusser to change his teaching style at the ENS,{{sfn|Lewis|2014|}} and he started to minister a series of seminars on the following topics: "On the Young Marx" (1961–1962), "The Origins of Structuralism" (1962–1963; it versed{{clarify|date=May 2023}} on Foucault's ''[[History of Madness]]'', which Althusser highly appreciated{{sfn|Roudinesco|2008|pp=105–106}}), "Lacan and Psychoanalysis" (1963–1964), and ''Reading Capital'' (1964–1965).{{sfn|Balibar|2005b|p=267}} These seminars aimed for a "return to Marx" and were attended by a new generation of students.{{efn|This include [[Étienne Balibar]] (1942–), [[Alain Badiou]] (1937–), [[Pierre Macherey]] (1938–), [[Dominique Lecourt]] (1944–), [[Régis Debray]] (1940–), [[Jacques Rancière]] (1940–), and [[Jacques-Alain Miller]] (1944–).{{sfn|Schrift|2006|p=86}} }}{{sfn|Schrift|2006|p=86}}

''For Marx'' (a collection of works published between 1961 and 1965) and ''[[Reading Capital]]'' (in collaboration with some of his students), both published in 1965, brought international fame to Althusser.{{sfn|Balibar|2005b|pp=267–268}} Despite being criticized widely,{{sfn|Balibar|2005b|p=268}} these books made Althusser a sensation in French intellectual circles{{sfn|Levine|1999|p=23}} and one of the leading theoreticians of the PCF.{{sfn|Stolze|2013|p=8}} He supported a [[structuralism|structuralist]] view of Marx's work, influenced by Cavaillès and Canguilhem,{{sfn|Schrift|2006|p=87}} affirming that Marx laid the "cornerstones" of a new science, incomparable to all non-Marxist thought, of which, from 1960 to 1966, he espoused the fundamental principles.{{sfn|Ferretter|2006|p=3}} Critiques were done to [[Stalin's cult of personality]] and Althusser defended what he called "theoretical [[anti-humanism#Structuralism|anti-humanism]]", as an alternative to [[Stalinism]] and the [[Marxist humanism]]—both popular at the time.{{sfnm|1a1=Balibar|1y=2005b|1p=267|2a1=Lewis|2y=2014}} At mid-decade, his popularity grew to the point that it was virtually impossible to have an intellectual debate about political or ideological theoretical questions without mentioning his name.{{sfn|Cotten|1979|p=150}} Althusser's ideas were influential enough to arouse the creation of a young militants group to dispute the power within the PCF.{{sfn|Lewis|2014|}} Nevertheless, the official position of the party was still Stalinist Marxism, which was criticized both from [[Maoist]] and humanist groups.<!--{{sfn|Jay|1984|p=394}} --> Althusser was initially careful not to identify with Maoism but progressively agreed with its critique of Stalinism.{{sfn|Jay|1984|p=394}} At the end of 1966, Althusser even published an unsigned article titled "On the Cultural Revolution", in which he considered the beginning of the [[Chinese Cultural Revolution]] as "a historical fact without precedent" and of "enormous theoretical interest".{{sfn|Elliott|2006|p=174}} Althusser mainly praised the non-bureaucratic, non-party, mass organizations in which, in his opinion, the "Marxist principles regarding the nature of the ideological' were fully applied.{{sfn|Elliott|2006|p=176}}

Key events in the theoretical struggle took place in 1966. In January, there was a conference of communist philosophers in [[Choisy-le-Roi]];{{sfn|Kelly|1982|p=142}} Althusser was absent but [[Roger Garaudy]], the official philosopher of the party, read an indictment that opposed the "theoretical anti-humanism".{{sfn|Balibar|2005b|p=268}} The controversy was the pinnacle of a long conflict between the supporters of Althusser and Garaudy. In March, in [[Argenteuil]], the theses of Garaudy and Althusser were formally confronted by the PCF Central Committee, chaired by [[Louis Aragon]].{{sfn|Balibar|2005b|p=268}} The Party decided to keep Garaudy's position as the official one,{{sfn|Schrift|2006|p=87}} and even [[Lucien Sève]]—who was a student of Althusser at the beginning of his teaching at the ENS—supported it, becoming the closest philosopher to the PCF leadership.{{sfn|Balibar|2005b|p=268}} General secretary of the party, [[Waldeck Rochet]] said that "Communism without humanism would not be Communism".{{sfn|Ferretter|2006|p=69}} Even if he was not publicly censured nor expelled from the PCF, as were 600 Maoist students, the support of Garaudy resulted in a further reduction of Althusser's influence in the party.{{sfn|Schrift|2006|p=87}}

Still in 1966, Althusser published in the ''[[Cahiers pour l'Analyse]]'' the article "On the 'Social Contract'" ("Sur le 'Contrat Social'"), a course about Rousseau he had given at the ENS, and "Cremonini, Painter of the Abstract" ("Cremonini, peintre de l'abstrait") about Italian painter [[Leonardo Cremonini]].{{sfn|Balibar|2005b|p=269}} In the following year, he wrote a long article titled "The Historical Task of Marxist Philosophy" ("La tâche historique de la philosophie marxiste") that was submitted to the Soviet journal ''Voprossi Filosofii''; it was not accepted but was published a year later in a Hungarian journal.{{sfn|Balibar|2005b|p=269}} In 1967–1968, Althusser and his students organized an ENS course titled "Philosophy Course for Scientists" ("Cours de philosophie pour scientifiques") that would be interrupted by [[May 1968 events in France|May 1968 events]]. Some of the material of the course was reused in his 1974 book ''Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy of the Scientists'' (''Philosophie et philosophie spontanée des savants'').{{sfn|Balibar|2005b|p=269}} Another Althusser's significant work{{sfn|Stolze|2013|pp=8–9}} from this period was "Lenin and Philosophy", a lecture first presented in February 1968 at the {{interlanguage link|French Society of Philosophy|fr|Société française de philosophie}}.{{sfn|Balibar|2005b|p=269}}