Posted on 10/31/2002 10:52:43 PM PST by manfromlamancha
Antonio Gramsci was a co-founder of the Italian Communist party, one of the leaders of the 1920 "Ordine Nuovo" Turin factory occupation movement, and author of the Prison Notebooks. He was a revolutionary journalist and mass working class organizer and one of the great communist intellectual theorists of the twentieth century. His marxism was unorthodox, controversial and still not fully understood today. His prison notes were an in depth study of Italian culture and history for the purpose of understanding and defeating italian fascism and launching an italian proletarian cultural revolution. His thinking about fascism, marxism and cultural revolution was full of insights that are still relevant to our struggles today as we try to defeat a resurgent fascistic culture and build a totally new socialist world culture.
Along with Mao, he was one of a handful of early 20th century communists who fully appreciated the central importance of cultural revolution in the struggle for socialism. His insights on the importance of cultural, intellectual as well as political autonomy for working class liberation helped lay the intellectual foundations for the rebirth of revolutionary anti-capitalist working class struggle in Italy in the 60's and 70's. The "Autonomist" New Left in Italy, France and Germany as well as the US New Left with their distinctive emphases on counterculture were all Gramsci's intellectual children. Gramsci is a central part of who we are as revolutionaries in the US and Europe are today. In addition Gramsci has influenced the thinking of many 3rd world revolutionaries in Latin America, as well as new left activists in China, Russia and Eastern Europe looking for new, non-oppressive models of revolutionary struggle. I believe that Gramsci's ideas are one of a number of bodies of new thinking that we will need to synthesize to create a new revolutionary theory for the 21st century.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we need to study Gramsci to fully understand Fascism, how and why it was born in Italy and spread like a plague through out Europe in the 20's and 30's and is now a permanent and central feature of imperialist world culture. Unlike most other marxist and democratic opponents of fascism Gramsci wrote about fascism from inside the belly of the beast, as a historical and cultural eyewitness, from the sobering surroundings of a fascist prison cell. If we are ever to get to the dark and complex heart of the phenomenon that is fascism I'm convinced we have to study Gramsci's prison notebooks for that deeper take on fascism we all need.
Marx and Lenin taught that power flows from control of the means of production and the State. Gramsci argued that in addition to control of the economy and the State, in modern Capitalist society control of the culture was essential to seize and hold power. Gramsci's insights on the critical importance of cultural revolution certainly seem to have been borne out by the history of the last 60 years. Mass politics today have, more than ever, become culture wars between the Left and the Right. The historic defeat of socialism and the reemergence of mass rightwing secular and religious movements on a world-wide scale parallels Gramsci's and the italian working class's defeat by fascism in the 1920's in many ways.
OVERVIEW OF THE PRISON NOTEBOOKS
"The proletarian revolution cannot but be a total revolution. It consists in the foundation of new modes of labor, new modes of production and distribution that are peculiar to the working class in its historical determination in the course of the capitalist process. This revolution also presupposes the formation of a new set of standards, a new psychology, new ways of feeling, thinking and living that must be specific to the working class, that must be created by it, that will become 'dominant' when the working class becomes the dominant class. The proletarian revolution is essentially the liberation of the productive forces already existing within bourgeois society. These forces can be identified in the economic and political fields; but is it possible to start identifying the latent elements that will lead to the creation of a proletarian civilization or culture? Do elements for an art, philosophy and morality (standards) specific to the working class already exist? The question must be raised and it must be answered. Together with the problem of gaining political and economic power, the proletariat must also face the problem of winning intellectual power. Just as it has thought to organize itself politically and economically, it must also think about organizing itself culturally..."
Antonio Gramsci - QUESTIONS OF CULTURE JUNE 14, 1920, AVANTI
Also From:http://library.thinkquest.org/3376/Gramsc.htm?tqskip1=1&tqtime=1101
Italian communist Antonio Gramsci's thought has been little-known to most of the world, but has been some of the most original and prolific Marxist writing in Europe. Although he never was able to express all of his highly regarded thinking into writing due to his premature and tragic death at the hands of Italian fascist Benito Mussolini, Gramsci's magnum opus, Prison Notebooks, still remains an original insight into the nature of socialism in Europe. Although much of his theory is presented unsystematically and in fragments in this work, Gramsci contributes some prolific ideas and critical insight into the socialist movement of the West. His contribution was especially important to Italy, which has embraced many of his ideas and uses much of his ideology in its government today.
ramsci was another philosopher who critically assessed Marxism per se in Europe. Like German socialist theoretician Eduard Bernstein, he was not a blind follower of Marxian ideology. For one thing, he rejected the economic-determinist view of Marxism (a view which was based on the preconception that history would progress inevitably in one direction due to prevalent economic conditions and trends). Gramsci believed that social and economic systems are not based solely in economic control and physical coercion as Marx had said; there was much more to it. Such complex systems were also grounded in the hegemony (dominance of leadership) of the ruling class. This was the vehicle by which a ruling elite could persuade a given populace to accept its system of values, attitudes, and beliefs to support the established order (status quo).
He also believed that there would be several key differences in the revolutionary struggle for socialism in the West than in other areas due to several prominent circumstances it had to deal with unique from any other region. Revolution would not be based on the idea of an immeidate crisis or quick overthrow as it could in an autocratic and stagnant nation as the Russian Empire because of the generally more tolerant and progressive nature of these nations. In addition, the industrialization Western Europe was experiencing opened up more opportunities for change than do the reverse. "Revolution" would merely be the ideological process by which a counter-hegemony (dominance of leadership of an opposing view) could lead to the transformation of the people's consciousness, not having any violent part to it. This would gradually change all social relationships: economic, social, and political. Gramsci especially stressed the role of (and advocated the importance of) politics in this "struggle" for leadership. Intellectuals would have the role of preparing change within the country, the party would have the role of leading and educating the people about the struggle, and there would have to be a broad coalition of the party and other social forces in order to realize socialist change in the country.
Marx and Lenin taught that power flows from control of the means of production and the State. Gramsci argued that in addition to control of the economy and the State, in modern Capitalist society control of the culture was essential to seize and hold power. Gramsci's insights on the critical importance of cultural revolution certainly seem to have been borne out by the history of the last 60 years. Mass politics today have, more than ever, become culture wars between the Left and the Right.
Good point.
May be, but only particular tactic schemes... as to the philosophy and ideology, why to borrow something that is anyway yours? Fascism and communism are closer to each other then the closest of cousins.
Hitler was the leader of the party which was (national)socialist and workers' (or labour?) not only by its name.
Mussolini, before leaving Italian Socialist party (because it wasn't radical enough for him) was its best orator, as well as No 1 writer and editor of the party's mouthpiece "Avanti!".
One of the most successful deceptions of the Left was their campaign of blaming the Right for Nazism and Fascism, the two inherently communistic movements.
Free Republic thread with many Gramsci links.
Just another reason it's sad our side's been dumbed down such that they not only take Onion articles for the real McCoy but must be 'protected' from reading the enemy.
This is a new piece to me .... might be to others.
I wish I had the time to construct a correlation between W. Cleon Skousen's famous list of communist goals and Gramsci's plan to destroy Western culture.
Thanks. You might also be interested in lenghthy, related testimony to House Ways and Means Committe by Bill Wood:
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/hearings.asp?formmode=view&id=954&keywords=
Communism & fascism - two rabid socialist dogs fighting over one collectivist bone.
"By hegemony, Gramsci meant the permeation throughout society of an entire system of values, attitudes, beliefs and morality that has the effect of supporting the status quo in power relations. Hegemony in this sense might be defined as an 'organising principle' that is diffused by the process of socialisation into every area of daily life. To the extent that this prevailing consciousness is internalised by the population it becomes part of what is generally called 'common sense' so that the philosophy, culture and morality of the ruling elite comes to appear as the natural order of things."
We see Gramsci's principles in action daily. Look at the incremental changes in American thought that have already taken place. Some are good, others, harmful. Just look at the ACLU's constant assault on public recognition of everything to do with Christmas.
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