ABSTRACT
This chapter explores Alain Badiou’s claim from his 1982 work Theory of the Subject that Maoism is Marxism’s third period, following a second Leninist period and a first period identified with the foundation of the First and Second Internationals. It delves into Badiou’s reading of Mao’s writings to find resources for thinking Marxism as an irreducibly periodised phenomenon, with ruptures between its various stages. It also examines the historical context of French Maoism and of Badiou’s position within it, showing how Badiou and his erstwhile political group, the UCFML, drew on this periodised account of Marxism to contest the legitimacy of the existing French Communist Party. Beginning with Badiou’s Maoist reading of Hegel, it then looks to Badiou’s demonstration of the formal bases of a circular dialectic, against which his preferred periodised dialectic will be defined. It then moves on to examine his borrowings from the Greek Atomists, the history of mathematics and finally psychoanalytic theory to build a compelling account of Marxism as a periodised and thus discontinuous and detotalised tradition. It concludes with an assessment of Badiou’s achievements in the context of the fall of the Soviet bloc and the failure of Marxism.
