Yesterday I was at a meeting of S. ou B.[1] Someone gave a reading of a magnificent letter from Liege [Belgium]. And at the end of it was your signature. I then said: "But he is a situationist," and the enthusiasm [in the room] was reinforced.
[Paul] Cardan[2] has said that he would respond to you himself. And I have given him your report of 6 January [1961].
Next Saturday in Brussels, there will be (at the house, I believe, of the famous [Robert] Dehoux) a meeting to lay down the bases for the assembly you proposed. I suppose that you will be there?
Among those participating:
1) coming from Paris, me and five or six militants from S. ou B.
2) The Dehoux circle, and thus [the situationist] Attila Kotanyi.
3) Representatives from an extremist group distributed throughout Belgium, which was constituted during the strike and has initiated contact with S. ou B.
I believe that the moment can be decisive for the constitution of a really avant-garde organization, and that its international liaison (which also reaches England and Italy) can free itself from the habits inherited from S. ou B.
I believe that it would be necessary to make this concrete by two actions:
A) A global title for the journal of this international grouping (which can not be the extension of its already very awkward name [Pouvoir Ouvrier Belgique]).
B) The adoption of a clearly revolutionary attitude in culture, this being understood in the largest sense of the word, as we have worked for a while to define it.
Since Canjuers [Daniel Blanchard] is unfortunately still in Guinea, the "situationist current" [in S. ou B.] on which we might count is indifferent to Kotanyi, you and I (there will probably be in attendance a young student from S. ou B. who is very spontaneously open to these necessities). On the other hand, Dehoux is the retarded element. Nevertheless, owing to the facts that the fate of this group will be played out in Belgium, and the day after this impressive strike, we have more weight than Paris does.
Write me quickly (before Wednesday, if possible).
Fraternally,P.S. I believe that the SI might possibly publish your piece in the near future. We will speak of this subject again.
[1] Socialisme ou Barbarie.
[2] One of the pseudonyms of Cornelius Castoriadis, who in 1949 founded the group and journal Socialisme ou Barbarie, which marked his break with Trotskyism.
(Published in Guy Debord, Correspondance, Volume 2, 1960-1964. Footnotes by Alice Debord. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! April 2005.)