Curiously, communism provokes in communists their most ruthless traits. It supplies them with the rationalisation for the practice of their intolerance, their impatience, their deceptions, and their violence. On the historical evidence, it is to be inferred that the discursive domain assigned to communists is itself structurally anti-communism, and thus impedes all would-be communist speech acts. Those who would express their affiliation with communism by this very intention disqualify themselves from doing so. Therefore, where the communist seeks to articulate gemeinwesen, and despite all the precautions he might take, he succeeds only in rendering a hamfisted portrait of barbarity. Each successive attempt at freshly presenting communist principles irrigates an inescapable mire of associations which smear his ideals with memories of labour camps, and the realpolitik of repressive consciousness. Just as it is a commonplace to observe that the pursuit of power is erotically charged, and contrariwise every sex act assumes a latent stratagem, it should not strike the interested bystander as very surprising that every theoretical formulation, every practical undertaking, also brings forth that which was specifically not intended. Of all the things in the world, the communist is forbidden only the one that he has named; that which he most desires is that which eludes him; the goal which he works for, is the one which he cannot achieve. And whichever room the communist enters, communism must depart by the other door. The presence of communists precludes the outbreak of communism. Where they are, it isn’t. For this reason, their historical task is thus transformed – if communism is to undertake its traumarbeit, communists must absent themselves from its place. Communists may address themselves to any thing, but they must not talk of communism.
