Delarueism

Delarueism or communism is a political philosophy oriented around the establishment of a society that enables an authentic and existential freedom of the individual, through elucidating this fundamental freedom and abolishing material-historical fetters on it such as class and state. It emerged in the early 20th century as the culmination of developments in Calesian existentialist philosophy, providing and combining it with a concrete yet radical political platform.

Name

'Communism' was originally coined by Hyacinthean author Merzherian Delarue for his science-fiction novel L'incarnation du Diable écarlate, in which a movement of young, idealistic secessionist terrorists known as 'communists' overthrow the governments of the world through the use of a biochemical weapon taking the form of a red mist. Delarue was still in the middle of working on L'incarnation when the Hyacinthean Revolution broke out in 1922; fearing for his life, he decided to first publish the manifesto of the communists in the novel, the only part of the book he had finished writing. This would be done in the avant-garde magazine Projet d'Orient, controlled by revolutionaries, which decided to present and distribute the manifesto as if it was a completely sincere pamphlet. The manifesto, taken at face value, proved shockingly popular for its rousing language and enchanting futurist vision of the world, with factions of the Hyacinthean Revolutionary Alliance soon declaring themselves to be 'communists'. When Delarue finished L'incarnation in 1926, the book became a best-seller, and further popularized the use of 'communism' among various contrarian movements in a spirit of aesthetic avant-gardism.

The term 'Delarueism' postdates 'communism', and was first used in the aftermath of the Hyacinthean Revolution among the revolutionaries to more taxonomically designate the family of beliefs that had aesthetically rallied themselves around Delarue's fictional manifesto, characterized at the time by specifically advocating the abolition of class, private property, and capitalism as the main pillars of 'serial' society and economy — all views espoused by Delarue's fictional communists, even if these positions had actually been formulated in detail by other theorists. Though treated well in revolutionary Hyacinthe, Delarue himself did not participate significantly in the communist movement and hinted in private correspondence that he held this association in contempt; nevertheless, his name and portrait is widely used in communist iconography to today.

History

Delarueism emerged from the synthesis of the existentialist philosophical tradition and the contrarian political movement in Calesia at the turn of the 20th century. These had been both concerned with the radical transformations of Calesian society amidst industrialization and revolution in the 19th century. The primary theorist of what would become known as Delarueism, preceding the invention of that term, was actually Amable Roquentin, who introduced a perspective of historical materialist analysis to existentialism as a means to answer the question of why most did not recognize their existential freedom. Roquentin furthermore praised the syndicalist ideas of Adrian Larvor as a path towards conscious social action. The combination of a claim to an existentialist grand narrative and an appropriation of Larvorism as a political strategy became hugely influential among contrarian-secessionist movements; most 'Delarueist' groups that emerged as such in the 1920s already espoused a Roquentinist platform from earlier.

In the long global economic slump following the Recession of 1924, inflamed social tensions emboldened the grand ambitions of Roquentinist philosophy, which took the broader movement of Calesian worker-oriented contrarian socialists and syndicalists by storm, as well as entrancing earlier-established socialist states such as Equatoria and fashionable national liberation movements in Abaria. The Great War unleashed communism as a global revolutionary force, uniting a wide range of movements with a claim to fighting for the very idea of human freedom. Engaging with the philosophical 'communist project' became a preoccupation of all new political movements, while politically this was paralleled by the massive reach of the Global Socialist League and the Lisieux Pact that every country had to contend with.

Theory

Following the tradition of existentialist secessionism, Delarueists identify human freedom as being oppressed and occluded by the pressure of social institutions that impose and produce bad faith. For Delarueists, this situation is specifically produced by the sedimentation of the work of previous human 'praxes', attempts by individuals to overcome their needs, into inertial and institutional elements of society, or the 'practico-inert', which have grown beyond their origins as exercises of individual humanity, and instead now subordinate that freedom. Individual praxes in this situation are bound through 'seriality', where through imposed roles and expectations people are alienated, rendered unable to recognize each other as humans first and foremost, and made cogs in a rampant machine of 'society' for its own sake, abandoning responsibility for one's existential freedom through passivity. Though originally targeting Calesian capitalism, seriality classifies any set of social institutions that Delarueists deem contrary to human freedom, including ostensible, erstwhile attempts at communism.

Delarueist revolutionary action seeks to re-ignite a mutual awareness among members of society, taking action as 'groups in fusion', and through this allow them to reflect and realize their own freedom to do so; this is the role and meaning of 'socialism' as envisioned among Delarueists. This establishes the basis of a society where existential freedom is recognized and taken responsibility for, with individual praxis taken out of such awareness rather than passive inertia. A relapse into inertial institutionalism may be inevitable, but the persistence of communist ideals allows the emancipatory act of existentialist revolution itself to always remain a possibility.

Following the tradition of contrarianism, the act of abolishing, or more precisely 'throwing off', that which had formed the practico-inert — what would be unthinkable to those enthralled under seriality — is in itself an important exercise of conscious agency, alongside the subsequent coming-together of 'fused' society in devising its ethical and agreeable replacement; in some formulations, revolution is freedom, and there is no significance of an end-ideal beyond what the revolutionaries' immediate subjectivities are fulfilled by. But separating Delarueism from existentialist contrarianism at large and charges of 'voluntarism' levelled against the latter is the existential revolution's inseparability from efforts at abolishing material inequality and need, which is necessary in order to fully remove human praxis from contortion by objective necessities; the full freedom of the individual requires a material and economic basis, but also to tackle these fundamental issues is the greatest means to recognize one's own humanity.

Originally Larvorism was considered to embody the Roquentinist ideal of a group in fusion par excellence, and communists advocated the model of socialism through trade unions where all could be cognizant of their own labor. The exact political vehicles for Delarueist existential self-actualization have since diversified considerably: a technocratically directed economy providing maximum leisure for citizens to engage in humanist pursuits has been typified by developments in Equatoria, while influenced (controversially) by national syndicalism communism as practiced by national liberation movements in Abaria identify the existential moment with participation in a holistic national struggle against colonialism and imperialism.