Gramsci Matters

Apparently the only way to get debate going on this site is to say the "A" word. Ahem. But in the mega-thread on the importance and problems of "Bob Avakian" as man and signifier, Red Flags regular Christopher Day took up the tangent of explaining why Antonio Gramsci (and by implication a whole host of other thinkers beyond the "five heads") is necessary for those concerned with revolutionary transformation.

Christopher Day writes:

Gramsci is concerned with developing a revoluitionary strategy appropriate to the conditions of more advanced capitalist countries.

The Russian Revolution revealed the importance of a disciplined revolutionary party oriented towards the seizure of state power. Some aspects of what occurred in Russia were generalizable to more advanced industrialized countries, others less so.

In Russia, Lenin's simple characterization of the state as bodies of armed men, was largely adequate to the political situation. Russian absolutism had greatly restricted the development of civil society making it possible for a comparatively small party like the Bolsheviks to really seize power and begin the reorganization of society in a manner that would be much more difficult in capitalist core countries. (continued)

Gramsci argues that in countries with developed civil societies like those of Central and Western Europe the ideological power of various institutions of civil society (media, schools, associations, etc...) made the question of the seizure of power much more complicated than it was in Russia where such institutions were weak or non-existent. In order for the proletariat to take power it would need to wage what he called the War of Position for hegemony within various institutions and spaces and establish itself as the core of a counter-hegemonic bloc of forces before it could shift into the War of Movement. In order to do this ist needed to develop its own organic intellectuals rooted in teh lives of the proletariat but no less masters of knowledge than their bourgeois competitors.

A good place to start reading Gramsci is The Modern Prince.

Gramsci was responding to the opportunism of Social Democrats during WW1 and the effective defeat of the revolutionary upsurges across Europe in the wake of the war and the Russian revolution. He attempts to understand what it is about the advanced capitalist countries that has made it so difficult to launch effective revolutionary challenges within them. The importance of this discussion to our own situation is hopefully self-evident.

Gramsci is also important because he produced a conceptual vocabulary for talking about problems specific to revolutionary strategy in advanced capitalist countries that has been taken up by many others who take it in various directions. Understanding Gramsci is very useful, for example, in making sense of Althusser who is profoundly influenced by Gramsci.

Althusser can be difficult, but not everything he wrote is equally difficult. A good place to start with Althusser IMHO is his article "Ideological State Apparatuses" which appears in "Lenin and Philosophy." This article is not too difficult and very heavily influenced by Gramsci. Its a better place to start than say "Contradiction and Overdetermination" which however lays the philosophical foundations for "Ideological State Apparatuses."

Althusser is important in his own right, but also because of his wide influence on other thinkers, including of course Foucault. (In an earlier incarnation, Subcomandante Marcos wrote his doctoral dissertation on Althusser and pedagogy.)

Comments

[Christopher Day]

I'd like to thank Burningman for leaving all the typos from my original posts when he decided to re-post them at the top of the blog. They should convey the essentially quick and dirty quality of summation produced between putting the tea on and the baby waking up.

The only qualifying comment I'd like to make is that reading Gramsci involves more interpretation than most canonical ML theorists because Gramsci's most important work was written under conditions of imprisonment under fascism. I don't think any of my interpretations here are likely to be particularly controversial, but there is considerable room for differences in emphasis in doing a short summation. Gramsci wrote extensively on cultural matters that should also be important to revolutionaries, but on which I commented not at all. I strongly encourage people who may have read Gramsci more closely than me to offer their corrections or elaborations.

[leftclick]

Kudos to Christopher Day for asserting Gramsci's importance as a political thinker. For too long, his legacy has been reduced to that of cultural theorist by postmodernists. Unfortunately, this has also happened to Fanon.

I'm as familiar with Gramsci as I would like, but Day seems to have provided a pretty useful starting point.

I'm looking forward to this discussion.

[leftclick]

Correction: I'm NOT as familiar with Gramsci...

[Mark]

This is exactly what I've been thinking lately, Gramsci and Althusser, they are the important thinkers now.

BTW the correct title of the Althusser article is "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes toward and investigation)."

[the burningman]

Thanks for recognizing the conscious decision you quick and dirty summationer.

Gramsci indeed provided a vocabulary. I'd argue that leaders such as Ella Baker provided a practice that can also be discussed in reference to ideas of "organic intellectuals," hegemony and all the other buzzwords that really do buzz.

[Repeater]

Who is Ella Baker?

[celticfire]

Repeater:
http://www.ibiblio.org/sncc/baker.html

[Christopher Day]

The notion of "organic intellectuals" is often taken to mean intellectuals of proletraian class origin who retain their class allegiance. The critical thing from Gramsci's point of view, as I understand it, however, is their rootedness in the class regardless of their individual class origin. Its a term that would include Ella Baker but also many folks of middle class origin who consciously (and successfully) transplanted themselves in the class and have sought to express its revolutionary perspective.

[the burningman]

I'm re-reading Fanshen now because I keep referencing it even though it's been over a decade since I first encountered it. But, taking a cue from this discussion, I dug up The Modern Prince and it's mos def next in the queue.

[r graves]

i just got a copy of the priso notebooks and i'm about to take a look. chris, you recommend starting with "the modern prince" and "state and civil society". is the rest of the stuff in the book also worth a look? i just read "history and class consciousness" straight through andfound about half of it pretty useless.