Plan for “De la misère en milieu étudiant” by Guy Debord written to Mustapha Khayati (1966?)

There is a lot of correspondence between Guy Debord and Mustapha Khayati starting in 1965, with their collaboration on “Address to the Revolutionaries of Algeria and of all Other Countries,” and continuing through to the 1970s. In 1966, they begin collaborating on what will become “De la misère en milieu étudiant” (On the Poverty of Student Life), printed in 10,000 copies by the co-opted Association Fédérative Générale des Étudiants de Strasbourg (AFGES).

It is hard to say what suggested Khayati as a collaborator for this document aside from the fact that he and Debord had collaborated previously. In any case, this plan as set out by Debord was largely followed into the final manuscript by Khayati (also in the Khayati Collection at the Beinecke) and the pamphlet as printed.

The collaboration also brings into question the degree to which Debord was coordinating all SI publications in the mid-1960s. Certainly one finds evidence of his notations and central role throughout his correspondence with Khayati as well as with figures like Raoul Vaneigem and Andre Bertrand.

One remarkable aside: one line of the plan states, “lisez Marx, ne lisez pas Althusser.” Evidence of an era when orthodox Marxism as translated by the large labor unions was falling into disfavor.