https://socialistaction.org/2019/10/10/philosopher-antonio-gramsci-how-revolutionary/
Philosopher Antonio Gramsci: How revolutionary?
/ 15 hours ago
Oct. 2019 Gramsci
By MARTY GOODMAN
???The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is
the time of monsters.????? ???I???m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an
optimist because of will.??? ???To tell the truth is revolutionary.??? ???
Antonio Gramsci, Italian communist leader and philosopher (1891-1937).
???We must stop this brain working for 20 years.????? ??? Prosecutor at Antonio
Gramsci???s 1928 trial in fascist Italy.
Google the name of Antonio Gramsci, the Italian Marxist philosopher,
Communist leader, and a prisoner of fascism, and you will find an
amazing 16 million results. Gramsci has been used and misused by
revolutionaries, reformists, and even bourgeois politicians, including
rightists.
Say what they will, Gramsci viewed himself as a working-class
revolutionary???a communist???for his entire life.
Interest in Gramsci began with the posthumous publishing of his ???Prison
Notebooks??? in Italy in 1948-51. It then exploded worldwide in the 1960s
until today. Buoyed by scholarly studies, his writings are frequently
read to demystify social control under capitalism.
Gramsci???s concepts of ???hegemony,??? ???war of maneuver,??? and ???war of
position??? were used recently by two long-time U.S. radical writers, Carl
Davidson and Bill Fletcher Jr. (Links International, July 2019). For
decades they???ve urged activists to work for change within the Democratic
Party. Hegemony in this case would mean securing working-class dominance
within a rich man???s party, the Democratic Party???a goal that is
impossible to achieve. But, that highlights Gramsci???s contradictions as
a theoretician.
Background: Gramsci and Italian Marxism
Gramsci was born into poverty in 1891 on the Italian island of Sardinia.
His college years were spent in the working-class hotbed of Turin in
Italy???s industrialized north. Gramsci was an admirer of Turin???s militant
workers??? ???factory councils.??? The Fiat autoworkers, 40% women, struck
massively in 1920 and occupied Fiat plants???some with arms in hand???but
were sold out.
In 1923, the German revolution was likewise defeated due to indecision,
ultra-leftism, and Moscow???s bureaucratic intervention. Both defeats
heavily influenced Gramsci. Mistakenly, Gramsci viewed these failures
and others as mere facts, not betrayals.
In October 1922, the ???March on Rome??? signaled the triumph of Benito
Mussolini???s Italian fascism. By that time Gramsci had become a leader
within the left of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) and, in 1924, the
head of the Italian Communist Party (PCI).
Gramsci was also a PCI representative in parliament. He chose to remain
in Italy, bravely defying Mussolini???s repression.
Strategically, the PCI???s ultra-left leader Amadeo Bordiga and Gramsci
refused any united anti-fascist front with the PSI. The PSI had signed a
pacification pact with Mussolini and shamelessly told workers, ???Do Not
Resist!??? Nevertheless, the position of the Communist 3rd International
was in favor of a united front of all working-class forces, a concept
Gramsci came around to in 1923. Mussolini banned all opposition parties
in autumn of 1926 and arrested Gramsci in November. Gramsci spent 11
years in a fascist prison.
Gramsci was nearly immobile due to a deformed spine after being dropped
when very young and suffered additional torments. In the end, ???His teeth
fell out, his digestive system collapsed ???[he] vomited blood ???
[suffered] chronic insomnia ??? and headaches so violent he beat his head
against the wall??? (Antonio Gramsci, ???Selections from the Prison
Notebooks, Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, eds. International
Publishers, 1971, p. xcii). Released to a sanatorium, Gramsci died in 1937.
He nevertheless managed to write 33 notebooks on capitalist society, in
a dim prison light, under prison censorship and extreme deprivation.
Gramsci frequently used coded language to evade censors.
Gramsci???s notebooks, the PCI believed???falsely???endorsed their political
trajectory toward a parliamentary strategy and loyalty to the capitalist
order. Gramsci???s writings gave the PCI an intellectual gravitas as it
cynically moved rightward.
Postwar Italy saw the PCI disarming its mass-based, anti-fascist
partisans and entering a capitalist government. The rightward drift
continued in the 1970s and ???80s as the party embraced an
unapologetically reformist trend known as ???Euro-Communism,??? an
ideological embellishment for parties educated in Stalinist
class-collaboration. In the 1970s, the PCI supported the Christian
Democratic government???s austerity measures in the wake of the 1974
recession. Moreover, the PCI opposed abortion rights. Once the largest
Communist Party in the Western world, the PCI dissolved in 1991 and its
leadership formed the Democratic Party.
Gramsci???s ideas and their meaning
???Hegemony???: The term was used in the 19th and 20th centuries by Marxists
Karl Kautsky and Vladimir Lenin and in communiqu??s of the Communist
Third International. Gramsci made ???hegemony??? a more central concept than
his predecessors.
Gramsci said hegemony manifests itself socially in two ways, as
???domination??? and as ???intellectual??? and ???moral leadership??? (???Selections,???
p. 57). Simply put, hegemony functions in society as both consent and
coercion, within civil society (the media, the church, schools, etc.)
and the state (police, army, courts).
???War of maneuver??? and ???war of position???: Gramsci viewed society in the
East as more unstructured, less complex and rigid, enabling the
Bolsheviks to ???easily??? topple capitalism in Russia in 1917. In the East,
the ???state is everything,??? Gramsci wrote. He called the class struggle
there a ???war of maneuver.???
In the West, society as more multi-layered, complex and surrounded by
fortifications, ???trenches,??? an ???outer ditch??? of civil society that
surrounded and protected the capitalist class from frontal assault. The
class battles in the West were usually incremental and more a battle of
???persuasion??? and ???consent,??? mediated within ???civil society.??? In the
West, said Gramsci, ???[The] actions of the masses [are] slower and more
cautious??? (#4 p. 40). Thus a ???war of position??? was an aspect of Gramsci
that tended to be ???defensive,??? in contrast to Trotsky???s aggressive
prognosis.
In any case, Gramsci argued that a revolutionary hegemony must be
achieved before a revolution, itself problematic.
Gramsci???s reformist (non-revolutionary) interpreters mistake the
extension of working-class hegemony to deny the need for revolution
entirely. Such misinterpretations envision a traditionally incremental,
reformist path to socialism. But, Gramsci never denied the need for
revolution in the East or West.
Gramsci???s conception of the social dynamics between coercion and
persuasion changed many times. Early on, Gramsci gave first importance
to civil society over the state. Much later he wrote, ???Civil society and
state are one and the same,??? sensing society as essentially a monolith
of repression and persuasion.
Gramsci???s vision of change included a central role for the ???subaltern???
or popular classes, meaning the voices of the working classes, including
the peasantry concentrated in Italy???s impoverished South.
In the culture of the oppressed were ideas Gramsci labeled ???common
sense,??? which congealed over time into concepts at a fundamental level.
Those ideas were circulated by ???organic intellectuals,??? whom Gramsci
said, were the ???repository of revolutionary values??? and ???a permanent
persuader??? throughout the working class. Gramsci uniquely extended his
concept of ???the new intellectual??? to the vast number of those performing
industrial work. Gramsci even claimed that all men (and women ??? MG) are
???philosophers??? (Peter D. Thomas, ???The Gramscian Moment,??? Haymarket Books
2010, p. 411).
Gramsci also philosophically battled a vulgarized theoretical model of
Marx???s famous ???dialectical materialism??? [???dialectics??? refers to
interaction and change ??? MG] emanating from a growing Soviet
bureaucracy. Intellectual pursuit, including science, was measured by
loyalty to the increasingly authoritarian Stalin regime and his cult of
mediocrity. Unfortunately, Gramsci left unexamined bureaucratic hegemony
in the worker???s movement, Trotsky???s forte.
Gramsci did criticize, for instance, Communist leader Nikolai Bukharin???s
book ???The Popular Manual.??? Counterposed to Bukharin (later executed by
Stalin) was what Gramsci called ???Historical Materialism,??? a more
???objective??? historical method that was grounded in practical activity
(praxis), rather than a distorted, turgid ???dialectics??? that excused
every twist and turn of Stalin???s policies.
Concerning Stalin and Soviet leader Trotsky, just before his
imprisonment, Gramsci addressed a letter to Stalin to be delivered by
the PCI???s Stalinist leader Togliatti. The letter objected to the
persecution of Trotsky, but was never delivered.
Imprisoned, Gramsci was largely unaware of the battle against Stalin???s
class-collaboration and repression. Nevertheless, Gramsci did attack
Trotsky for ultra-leftism, but without possession of Trotsky???s documents.
The Gramsci discussion
Marxist historian Perry Anderson accurately described the shortcomings
of the book, ???The Gramscian Moment,??? this way: ???There is scarcely one
concrete reference to what is known of his politics, let alone to the
politics of his reception, in Italy or elsewhere.??? More: ???It???s not our
task to pass judgement??? on the treacherous PCI leadership (Perry
Anderson, ???The Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci, Verso 1976, p. 13, p. 105).
Another disappointing disconnect was a Gramsci panel at the 2017 Left
Forum in New York. Speakers addressed concepts like ???hegemony,??? but not
the hegemonic grip of the Democratic Party and the urgency with which
workers must break with both parties of capital (see
https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtO34uc8UxM).
In all of the works about Gramsci that I cite???with the useful exception
of ???Trotsky and Gramsci??????embarrassingly little is said about the
fundamental cleavage between Stalinist and Trotskyist strategies.
Stalinist parties sought multi-class ???popular fronts,??? in which workers???
movements submerged themselves or even joined ???democratic??? capitalist
parties and/or governments, with disastrous results???i.e. Spain, France,
Italy, and elsewhere worldwide. Trotsky proposed united fronts of
workers??? organizations to fight fascism while organizing for revolution,
never trusting the capitalist enemy. Different dynamics of ???hegemony???
would result between an electoral-reformist approach and revolutionary
tactics, i.e., general strikes, factory occupations, and/or the seizure
of state power.
Lenin, unlike Gramsci, has not been subject to as much
misinterpretation. To be honest, the concept of hegemony is so vague
that it cannot become an actionable, concrete strategy or tactic other
than to simply increase one???s influence.
As Perry Anderson noted in ???The H-Word??? (Verso 2017, p. 96), ???The result
has been to detach ideas and demands so completely from socio-economic
moorings that they can in principle be appropriated by any agency for
any political construct ??? everything becomes articulation [political
action ??? MG]. First hegemony, then populism, are presented as a type of
politics, among others ??? and they become the definition of all politics
as such.???
After decades of discussion, one may still wonder, ???What are the actual,
practical applications of Gramsci???s Marxism???? In my view, unfortunately,
not too many. Gramsci wrote under the watch of prison guards, his
analysis was mostly of what Marx called the ???superstructure,??? that is,
the culture of capitalism. Would he have written differently if he were
free? All we have are the notebooks.
Admittedly, Gramsci???s works lend themselves to misinterpretation???and are
eagerly seized upon by reformists. Lenin also wrote about philosophy,
but also brilliantly and in voluminous detail???as did Trotsky???concerning
the dynamics of revolution. Why these two revolutionary giants do not
receive the same volume of study as do Gramsci???s contributions says much
about the sad state of so-called Marxist academia today.
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October 10, 2019 in Marxist Politics and Philosophy, Marxist Theory &
History.
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