Comrade by Jodi Dean

Author:Jodi Dean
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Verso Books

Thesis Three: The Individual (as a locus of identity) is the “Other” of the comrade.

Comrade designates a relation, not an individual identity. A 1925 obituary in Pravda eulogizes the deceased: “Comrade Nesterenko had no personal biography and no personal needs.”43 The film Ninotchka shows that an issue should not be made of the comrade’s womanhood; all have work to do. On the left, comrade is a term of address that attaches to proper names—Comrade Yakushova. The proper name carries the individual identity; the term of address asserts a sameness. Following a large, daylong demonstration against white supremacists, a comrade of mine joyfully noted, “We don’t even need to know each other’s names—we’re comrades.” “Comrade” takes the place of “Sir,” “Madam,” and “Citizen.” It negates the specificity of a determined title, a title that inscribes differentiation and hierarchy, and replaces it with a positive insistence on an equalizing sameness. At the same time, comrade requires a decision and inscribes a cut. Because not everyone is a comrade, calling someone a comrade marks a divide: Are you with us or not?

Oxana Timofeeva emphasizes that in comradeship identity vanishes.44 She gives the example of the masquerade used by Bolsheviks undercover. Anyone could be under that mustache. Schrecker provides a further example, a statement from General Herbert Brownell, attorney general under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Brownell’s suspicions of Communists were heightened because, in his words, it was “almost impossible to ‘spot’ them since they no longer use membership cards or other written documents which will identify them for what they are.”45 In these examples, it’s the generic comrade who appears, masking an individual person, yet one of many; it could be anyone. Schrecker quotes Herbert Philbrick, an undercover informer: “Anyone can be a Communist. Anyone can suddenly appear as a Communist Party member—close friend, brother, employee or even employer, leading citizen, trusted public servant.”46

Bertolt Brecht’s cantata The Measures Taken (Die Massnahme) similarly explores the antithetical relation between individual identity and the comrade. Four agitators are on trial before a party central committee (the Control Chorus) for the murder of their young comrade. The agitators describe how they went undercover in order to reach Chinese workers they are trying to organize. Each agitator had to efface their identity, to be “nameless and without a past, empty pages on which the revolution may write its instructions.”47 Each agitator, including the young comrade, agreed to fight for communism and be themselves no longer. They all put on Chinese masks, appearing to be Chinese rather than German and Russian. Instead of following instructions and carrying out the plan, however, the young comrade repeatedly substituted his judgment for that of the party, encouraging action before the time was right. He could see with his own two eyes that “misery cannot wait,” so he tore up the party writings. He tore off and up his mask. He sought to hasten the revolution and his impetuosity set the movement back. Forced to flee from the Chinese authorities, the agitators and the young comrade raced to escape the city.

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