Intended to contribute, in his own words, to a left-wing critique of Stalinism that would help put some substance back into the revolutionary project here in the West, they are the record of a shared history. At the same time they chart Althusser’s critique of the theoretical system unveiled in his own major works, and his developing practice of philosophy as a revolutionary weapon. Attesting to the unique place which Althusser has occupied in modern intellectual history-between a tradition of Marxism which he sought to reconstruct, and a post-Marxism which has eclipsed its predecessor-these texts are indispensable reading.