Editorial Introduction to Louis Althusser\u27s \u27Letter to the Central Committee of the PCF, 18 March 1966\u27

As an accompaniment to the translation into English of Louis Althusser\u27s \u27Letter to the Central Committee of the PCF, March 18th, 1966\u27, this note provides the historical and theoretical context necessary to understand Althusser\u27s \u27anti-humanist\u27 interventions into French Communist Party policy decisions during the mid-1960s. Because nowhere else in Althusser\u27s published writings do we see as clearly the political stakes involved in his philosophical project, nor the way in which this project evolved from a \u27theoreticist\u27 pursuit into a more practical one, the note also argues that the letter is of importance to Althusser scholars, to historians of Marxist thought, and to those interested in the relevance of Althusser\u27s work to contemporary Marxist philosophy