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Gramsci in France and Italy-a review of the literatureChantal Mouffe & Anne Showstack Sassoon

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Gramsci in France and Italy- review of the literature

Chantal Mouffe and Anne Sho wstack Sassoon

Introduction

Recently interest in Anton io Gramsci 's work has begun to developin England and th e United States , and has been reflected in a num-ber of works in English. Nevertheless most of this literature is in-tended as introductory and has had t o take account of the relativeignorance of Gramsci 's writings in the Anglo-Saxon world. Thereare various objective reasons for the elementary level of the discus-sion in English. Gramsci is still relatively unknown, and only partof his work has been translated in to English. '

The genuinely complex nature of Gramsci 's thought and theform of his work in prison, where a single fragment usually con-tains several intertwined concepts, requires a special kind of effortto establ ish Gramsci 's fundamental problematic . Often theatt em pt t o summarize and to simplify is misleading. Th e fragmen-tary n atu re of Gramsci's prison w ritings lends itself to an eclecticuse of some of his ideas in works whose positions are at variancewith major aspects of his tho ug ht. Gramsci 's earlier works, writ-ten bo th at a different stage in his developmen t and , very impor-tan tly, at mom ents when t he objective situation was very differen t,are not easily integrated with th e Notebo oks.

These objective difficulties are all the more difficult to over-come given the limitations of the English literature which is acertain naivety vis-a-vis he theoretical problems posed by Gramsci 'swork, probably caused to a large extent because the literatureconcerned on the wh ole ignores recent theoretical discussion with-in Marxism. This theoretical weakness is reflected in the tendencyin many quarters to misunderstand the way in which Gramscirelated politics t o consen t and ideology and the nature of therelationship he suggested between the economic base and the~ u ~ e r s t r u c t u r e . ~ne offshoot is the interpretation of Gramsci ascounterposed to a Lenin who is implicitly reduced to the argu-ment that the whole of political reality is dictatorship and to aMarx whose whole rea li ty is e c o n ~ m i c . ~he fact that Gramsci isabove all concerned with the superstructures has often led to the



32 Chanta l Mo uffe and Anne Showstack Sassoon

attem pt to assimilate him into a Lukicsian or generally neo-Hegel ian p r~ b le m a t i c .~ oreover, much of the English l ite ra tureattempts impossible tasks in very short articles, pretending tocome to f irm conclusions withou t demonstrat ing any awareness ofthe complexi ties of the problems in ~ o lv e d .~

On the whole, the political dimension of Gramsci's work hasnot been fully appreciated. The relationship between his concrete

experience as a political activist and th e concrete problem s he wasfacing to the theoretical task he undertook, has generally beenmisunderstood in t he English literature. Gramsci's de bate againstmuc h of th e Italian socialist trad itio n, as well as against Bordiga'spositions, is intimately related to the theoretical problems heposed.6 Furthermore, he was part of an international movementwhich was discussing similar problem s. R eflecting th e relative back -wardness of studies on t he d ebates abo ut Marxism in the ThirdInternational, and overemphasizing Gramsci's intellectual isolationin prison, Gramsci's work is taken c omp letely ou t of its theoreticaland temporal con text . T he vivacity of the poli tical and theoreticaldebate about the building of socialism in Russia, which was notrestricted t o an ex amina tion of econo mic policies, the widespread

nature of the discussion in th e international communist movem entab ou t the d ifferent c onditions in Western Europ e as well as thedebate, particularly in Russia, Germany a nd Austria, about ques-tions of Marxist philosophy, has remained highly obscured or ig-n ored a l t ~ g e t h e r . ~

These areas and the various theoretical questions which areinvolved, or which have been posed more recently, must be con-sidered when posing the question of Grarnsci's originality and histheoretical con tribution. Many of these aspects have begun to beconsidered in F rance and I taly, so tha t t o a large exte nt the workproduced in these countries provides the basis for overcoming

many of the weaknesses in the study of Gramsci in the Anglo-Saxon world. I t is therefore urgent th at students of Gramscibecome familiar with this l i terature in order not t o repeat a phaseof Gramscian studies that has already been superseded. An aware-ness of the different stages through which the interpretation ofGramsci has developed, and of the current level of theoreticaldiscussion, is the necessary condition f or any adv ance in Gramscianstud ies in English.

Fro m a po litical debate to Gramsci as the theorist o f the political

Gramsci in the Italian context. In Italy, Gramsci's writings werepolitically instrumentalized after the war by all sides, and any



34 Chantal Mouffe and An ne Showstack Sassoon

left, which considered this reformist or 'centrist ' or from the right,which considered it Stalinist and anti-democratic.12 The secondposition was t o claim Gramsci as being contradic tory t o th e P C I

and therefore ei ther more revolutionary or m ore social-democratic ,maintaining that there was a break between Gramsci's ideas andcontemporary P C I practice.13 This, of course, was a reaction tothe way Togliatti had presented himself and the P C I as the direct

heirs t o Gramsci. O nce again the discussion w ent o n w ithout ei therside posing the question in its proper theoretical terms. It wasthough t possible to make summ ary assumptions abo ut the lessonswhich Gramsci had to teac h, and to b e able to apply them direct lyto the present without first establishing Gramsci's theoreticalproblem atic and then deciding critically in what terms this proble-matic could be used to analyse the present . Only then could theproblem of the existence of a continuity be addressed properly.

A similar controversy took place around the periodization ofGramsci's work and th e question of whether the re was a breakwithin it. In the middle of t he 195 0s Gramsci's earlier writingsbecame available.14 Written during and after the First World War,the characteristic themes of these writings included the need for a

cultural renewal, contro l of the work place, and new form s oforganizat ion of the masses ( th e factory councils), so th at th e roleof t he party appeared ecl ipsed.

A central aspect of th e debate had t o do with Gramsci's ideason the factory councils and how these related to the concept ofthe party. In the 1919-1920 period, Gramsci was concernedabove all t o translate the So viet experience into Italian reality andto find new institutions which would provide the organizationalframework within which, as he later wrote, the spontaneity of themass movement could be 'educated'. These new institutions werethe factory councils , which w ere to have a certain a utonom y along-side the traditional working-class organizations, the trade unions,th e co-operatives, a nd the Socialist Party, and were t o serve as th e

germs o f a new w ay of organizing no t only production bu t societyas a whole. By emphasizing the early writings it was argued thatGramsci was a theor is t of workers' cont ro l or a syn di ca l i~ t . '~ nysuch at tempt was met by an answer from the PC I based on theassumption th at a Leninist con cep t of th e party was always impli-cit in Gram sci from th e very earliest writings.16

Ano ther posi tion was to consider primari ly the Notebooks, inwhich c ertain othe r them es emerged in a very different for m , andt o ignore Gramsci's earlier life as a political activist and as a leaderof the P C I . The effect was to portray Gramsci as belonging moreto a socialist or social democratic p osition than t o a Leninist orcom mun ist one. ''



Grarnsci in France and I ta ly 35

Thus th e important quest ion of th e elements of cont inui ty andchange in Gramsci's own work, as well as that of a comparisonwith L.enin in terms of their respective problcmatics, was notcorrectly posed. The P C I presented Gramsci's ideas as a more orless homogeneous w hole, th e Italian reflection o f Len in, who wasabove all else interested in cultural and historical questions, whilethe various opposi t ions to the P C I either accepted this analysis and

therefore rejected Gramsci or prcscntcd partial and, to a largcext ent, dog matic argum ents abo ut Gramsci 's significance.

Gramsci and the Co mm unis t t rad i tion . A qualitatively differentphase in the study of Gramsci began with an intervention byTogliatti in 1958. In the aftermath of the 'de-Stalinization' of1956, there had been various at tem pts on the Left to emphasizethe distance between Gramsci and Lenin, attemp ts which werepart of moves to reject the com mu nist tradition entirely. Paradoxi-cal as it may seem, after having portrayed Gramsci as a nationalfigure in th e imm ediate post-war period, Togliatti for the first t imenow asser ted that the most important inf luence on Gramsci wasLeninism and t he example of the Russian Revolution. In this way

Togliatti presented Gramsci 's thou ght as a rupture w ith the Italiansocialist tradition.

It is Togliatti 's explanation of this influence which provided t hekey to a new reading of Gramsci as the theorist of the political.When Togliatti argues that Gramsci's writings must be read as atheoretical reflection on his concrete experience as a politicalleader, he presents Gramsci as the theorist of the transition tosocialism in a precise historical moment - n th e period of im-perialism, which provides the internat ional context of the cbjec-tive basis for a transform ation of so ciety, and in the period follow-ing the experience of Lenin and the Russian Revolution which,Togliatti says, transformed the way reality was understood andwhich demonstrated the nat ional specificity of the modes andforms of a political transformation. Understood in terms of thepotential of political intervention within the possibilities andlimits posed by the concrete situation, in its international andnational aspects, i t is Gramsci 's conception of th e revolutionaryprocess which is his great originality and which demonstrates theinfluence of Lenin upon him. In Togliatti 's reading, the essentialinterrelated features of this influence are th e understanding ofimperialism as providing crucial dete rmin ants of the revolutionaryconjuncture, the need for a precise not ion of the State , and theconcept of the revolutionary party. These aspects are all con-nected in Gramsci 's developm ent of a notio n of the revolutionaryprocess which is not divided into 'pre-revolutionary' and 'post-



36 Chantal Mouffe and Anne Showstack Sassoon

revolution ary' periods in which the revolution itself is presented asa single d rama tic even t, bu t as a process of transition in which thebuilding of socialism begins within the capitalist social formationand continues after a change in S tate power.

The significance of Togliatti 's discussion derives from the wayin which he changed the whole perspective and approach toGramsci, wh o is for t he first time viewed a s a theorist of the poli-

tical, and from the way in which the historical determinants ofGramsci's thoug ht are si tuated in the con text of the experiences ofth e international working-class movem ent. Moreover, Togliatti dis-cussed how Gramsci's ideas developed and changed, no longerimplying homogeneity, and providing suggestions not only for anexamination of th e development of Gramsci's problematic bu t alsoimplicitly for the way in which Gramsci developed Lenin's ideas.It was n o t accidental th at t he discussion of Gramsci's ideas wasposed in such new terms in the new political and ideological spacecreated by th e events and debates of the post-1956 period.

These various aspects are present when Togliatti describesGramsci's originality with regard t o th e Italian socialist tradition -Gramsci's concept of the revolution based on concrete objectives

and perspectives and a particular understanding of the Sta te inrelation to an historical bloc.18 From this was derived Gramsci'sview of political intervention to change th e balance of forces, andhis non-instrumental view of alliances as the basis upon which tobuild an alternative historical bloc. The party was central toGramsci's con cep t of politics, argued Togliatti, wh o maintainedthat the nucleus and originality of Gramsci's conception was theparty as a 'collective in te l le ~t ua l ' . ' ~ onsidera tion of the d i f ferentmodes of domination by a class leads Gramsci, according toTogliat t i , to think the methodological rather than organic dif-ference between dictatorship an d hegem ony, so tha t nei thermo me nt ever disappears entirely and the Sta te is always viewed asa combination of the two elements.

Decisive in terms of posing concrete objectives and perspectivesis Gramsci's development of the concept of war of position in aperiod in which a frontal attack of war of movement is not pos-sible.*' Th e war of p osition, Togliatti maintain s, is no t merely adefensive struggle but an of fens ive one , as it prepares for a war ofmovement . In an interpretation which has implications for thebuilding of socialism, according t o Togliatti the fac t that forGramsci the war of position is always th e decisive fa cto r is a reflec-t ion b oth on the nature of power in a new society and on the dif-ferent ways of preserving power in a society in crisis. Implicitly,man y of these ideas are presented by Togliat ti as contr ibution s notonly to a nat ional t radition b ut t o an international one.



Gramsci in France and Italy 37

Togliatti 's paper would serve to indicate further areas of develop-ment in Gramscian studies. This is evident in Ernesto Ragionieri'scontribution to the second conference on Gramsci in Cagliari in1967, 'Gramsci e il dibattito teorico nel movirnento operaio inter-naziole' (19 69 ). This paper app ears as a defenc e of the strategy ofthe P C I through a rejection of a variety of interpretations whichset Gramsci against th e com mun ist tradition. Th e longer-term

significance of the paper, however, is provided by the argumentthat a correct reading of Gramsci entai ls the understanding that hisworks are a reflection upon concrete political problems, above allthe problem of political intervention.

Following Togliatti, Ragionieri discusses critically the develop-ment of Gramsci 's though t from an international rather thanmerely Italian perspective. In this context he argues against whathe considers a false dichotomy between a communist orthodoxyand heterodoxy while rejecting facile comparisons betweenGramsci and so-called 'non-conformists' such as Luxemburg,L.ukPcs, Korsch or even Lin ~ i a o . " Th e collocation of Gramsci'sideas in the international working-class movement must be deter-mined, according to Ragionieri , by an examination of the method

according to which he sought to study the experiences of thatmovement in order to derive indications for the struggle in Italy,a method which consists in translating rather than merely copyingth e Russian e xperien ce. Ragionieri analyses the long genesis ofGramsci's notes in prison on the differences in the struggle bet-ween East and West locating the origin of this reflection as early as19 20 with G ramsci's discussion of the failure of the revolutionarymovemen t in Hungary, Austria and Germany. He maintains, how-ever, that the decisive experience from the point of view ofGramsci 's development was the period working for the Interna-tional in Moscow and Vienna in 1 922-3, a period of intensedebate abo ut the course of the Russian Revo lution and the correct

strategy f or Western E uro pe, a deb ate in which Lenin made severalimpor tant cont r ibut ionsZZand also a period of intense study forGramsci.

In what are new, if not entirely acceptable, terms Ragionieriemphasizes that the Lenin who influenced Grarnsci was above allthe revolutionary leader who posed the practical problems of

making a revolution which Marx had posed theoretically, specifi-cally the question of w orking-class hegem ony in th e dem ocraticrevolution and more in general the question of the State .23 Theinstrume nt conceived of and actually created in relation to thequestion of the Sta te in bot h Lenin and Gramsci, Ragionieri argues,is the political party. From a general idea of certain tasks whichhad to be fulfilled and which the Italian socialist movement had



38 Chantal M ouffe and Anne Showstack Sassoon

failed to carry ou t , Gramsci eventually develops a co ncep t of theparty as a historically specific expression of the will to build aState. Gramsci's originality, according t o Ragionieri, is his study ofth e multiplicity o f me ans throu gh w hich a class seeks to establishits hegemo ny. Gramsci is interested in th e intellectuals no t becauseof a generic cultural ist or sup erstructural bent in his thoug ht, butrather in order to enable the party to u ndertak e the necessary tasks

centred around the question of the State. The building of analternative hegem ony based o n a concr ete political strategydeveloped by the party, or the 'collective intellectual' is crucial inundermining the present S tate and building a new one.

Ragionieri 's interpretation of Gramsci's work as a theoreticalreflection up on con crete political problems in order t o establish th epoten tial of political interve ntion, is clearest in the last section o f hispaper where h e considers the No t ebook s as a political reflection oncon tem por ary Euro pe an d mo st specifically fascist Italy. In essencehe takes Gramsci out of the poli t ical and theoretical isolat ion inwhich he had normally been viewed, and argues tha t in the Note -

book s , as in t he p revious writings, Gramsci's ideas can on ly be u nder-stood as an at tempt to analyse the poli t ical and economic events

of the epoc h, the defeat of th e revolution in the West, the rise offascism, th e econ omic crisis of 19 29 and the problem of creating as tr at eg y su it ed t o t h e sp ec ific c on d it io n s o f W estern ~ u r o p e . ~ ~h eunity underlying the fragmentary appearance of the Notebooks isprovided by this link with political reality. Ragionieri relates wh athe considers a central them e in th e prison writings, the differencesbetween the war of position and the war of movement, to Gramsci'sparticular interpretation of the 1929 crisis. Ragionieri says thatGramsci was interested above all in the ability of the sy stem to adjustand t o transform itself . Start ing in 192 9, Gramsci develops the ideaso f t h e 'passive r e v o l u t i ~ n ' ~ ~n d of ' ~ a e s a r i s m ' ~ ~s form s of hege-monic affirmation and of unification of the bourgeoisie in themodern period of history in which the organizational capacity of theworking class is one of the structural aspects of any conjuncture. T hefunda men tal questio n which Gramsci was addressing was th e way inwhich a do min ant m od e of pro ductio n and a social class was ableto win historical survival despite political and economic crises.27

Ragionieri 's paper had the merit of expand ing still furt her th eterms in which Gram sci was considered. Developing certain indica-tions from Togliatti, Gramsci is presented as having internationalas well as nationa l relevance and as a theorist concerned with poli-tical problems. Ragionieri 's me tho d con sists mainly in establishingth e historical d etermin ations of Gramsci's w ork. What is still miss-ing is a theoretical discussion of Gramsci's problematic and itsrelat ion to tha t of Lenin.28



Grarnsci in France and ltalv 39

Gramsci the polit ical think er. It was starting in 19 58 with Togliatti 'sintervention that work on Gramsci as a political leader becamecentral, but which itself signalled the beginning of the end of aparty line on Gramsci. By 19 70 Leo nardo Paggi 's bo ok, Ant on i oGramsci and the Modern Prince, published by the PC I publishing

house, was in open polemic with Togliatti , and also on differentpositions from o ne of t he party 's leading historians, Paolo Spriano.

This book represents a fur ther development in the s tudy ofGramsci 's formation and his international collocation, remaining,however, within a predominantly historical perspective. Exhibit-ing a remarkable breadth of knowledge of European cultural andpolitical movements, Paggi traces influences on Gramsci of suchgroups and figures as Barbusse and the Clarte group, Daniel DeLeon, and To m Mann and the Brit ish shop s tewards ' movement aswell as presenting a very com plete and original examination of th einfluence of Salvemini and of the Italian free trade movement.Paggi's method of establishing relationships between Gramsci's

ideas and a varied group of people and intellectual movements isrooted in a very close reading not only of what Gramsci himselfwrote but of the contents of the two newspapers he edi ted in

Tur in , the Grido del pop010 and Ordine Nuovo.In his introduction Paggi argues with Togliatti 's interpretation

of Gramsci between 194 5 and 195 6, especially his stress ongeneral cultural and historical aspects to the detriment of thepolitical, and his presentation of Gramsci 's works as a body ofcont inuous, a lmost homogeneous, thought without markeddevelopm ent. Paggi considers the 19 23-24 period, the beginningof th e struggle against Bordiga, as a critical turning point inGramsci 's development. A qualitative change can be marked,according to Paggi, starting from those years and continuingthrough the ~ o t e b o o k s . ~ ~ne of the themes which Paggi indi-cates as being central t o Gramsci, and which arises from a readingof Gramsci as a political thin ker , is his awareness of th e increasing

distance between the objective revolutionary potential of thesituation and th e subjective possibilities of th e working-class move-me nt as the fascist reaction undertoo k to de stroy its organizationalcapabilities.

This is a lso one of t he centra l themes of a book by Franco DeFelice, Serrati, Bordiga, Grarnsci e il problem a della n'voluzione in

Italia, 1919-1920 (1971 ). This book represents an intervention inthe debate abou t th e his tor iography of the par ty , and i t is a s igni-ficant contribution to a critical discussion of both the originalityand the limitations of Gramsci's analysis in this period. De Felicestudies the three figures who represent the Italian left socialistand communist t radi t ion and the way they each approach the



40 Chantal M ouff e and Ann e Showstack Sassoon

problem of providing a political organization suited to the needs

of the s t ruggle in 1919 -1920. Thus the examinat ion of the PC I

tradition is no longer reduced in a unilinear ma nne r to a Gramsci-Togliat t i ~ o n t i n u i t y .~ ' y considering the problem of the revolu-t ion and the nature of the intervent ion of the mass movement inthe revolutionary process, the question of the forms of organiza-tion of the working class is posed as an intimately political and

historical rather than theoretical q uestion. According t o De Felicethis question can only b e posed b y considering the interconne c-t ion between the concept ion of t he m odalit ies of the t ransi t ionbetween capitalism and socialism, in which the concrete situationof the mass movement is always central, and the conception ofpolitical organization and political intervention .

De Fel ice 's book contr ibutes to the s tud y of Gramsci the pol i-tical thinker by examining the specific nature of his view of therevolutionary process, a process based on the intervention of themasses which ca nno t be sub stituted by or reduced to activities ofthe party. The revolution is conceived of by Gramsci as a processto bui ld a new ty pe of State , and the party as the instrument toenable the mass movement to intervene politically. In these two

aspects lies th e key t o Gramsci 's Leninism of th e period, accordingto De Felice. This is contrasted to th e ideas of the tw o othe r mainleaders of a ' left ' alternative t o the traditional amalgam of socialistpositions, i .e. Serrati 's fundamentally pedagogic view of the roleof th e pa rty and t o B ordiga's schem aticism, as well as providingth e basis for a comparison between Gramsci and othe r left-wingEurop ean curr ent. Neither Se rrati nor Bordiga succeeded in under-standing th e significance of new form s of organization such as thefactory councils which, for Gramsci, not only provided an originalway to organize the mass movement b ut suggested a new relation-ship between the econom ic and th e pol it ical which overcame theseparat ion between the two aspects t radi t ional to the SecondInternational . T he factory counci ls were no t s imply the p romo torsof an eco nom ic struggle, bu t provided a means for the workingclass to train and to assert itself as a potential new ruling class, asth e organizers of a new hege mon y. De Felice argues tha t, far fromneglecting th e role of th e par ty, Gram sci posed its relationship tothe t rade unions and the factory counci ls in an or iginal way andwas, above all, concerned t o transform the interv ention of a divi-ded and often economistic and corporative working-class move-ment into a unif ied, political one. Only Gramsci , according to DeFelice, was thus able to appropriate key aspects of Leninism andgo beyond the economist ic problematic of the Second Interna-tionaL31

A significant aspect of De Felice's book is his description of




the l imitations to Gramsci 's problematic in 1919-1920. Forexample, Gramsci's appreciation of the objective necessity of therevolution is not based so much on an analysis of finance capital as

as on the general crisis of the bourgeoisie in organizing theproductive sphere. He dedicates little atten tion t o the politicalforms of the crisis, sharing a tendency with Bordiga to underesti-ma te t he differences between different political parties and group-

ings, a flaw which marks his analysis of fascism. De Felice alsocriticizes Gramsci's view of the problem of alliances between theproletariat and other popular s trata. The complex nature of thesestrata, above all the peasantry bu t also othe r sections of the pettybourgeoisie, is not fully analysed by Gramsci which prevents himfrom posing correctly the concrete problem of constructingall iances with these groups. Gramsci does not c on si d~ rhe qu alita-tive differences in both their political and strxctural conditions,which he tends to reduce to being only quantitatively differentfrom tha t of the proletariat. De Felice provides, then , a generalrevaluation of this period in Gramsci's development in whichelements for an exam ination of t he way in which Gramsci's proble-matic changed and developed are presented.33

Many of these themes also appear in a collection of essays,Gram sci e il prob lema storico della demo crazia (197 3), by MassimoSalvadori , who maintains that there is a continuity throughoutGramsci's work. In his reading, one aspect of Gramsci's origina-lity consists in the choice of a type of proletarian democracy, achoice made b y Gramsci in th e period following 1 91 7, bu t whichremains constant throughout his thought even when he concen-trates o n t he political party in th at t he necessity of establishingan 'organic' relationship between the party and the masses, andbetwee n leaders and led, as well as the view of rank and file orga-nizations as the embryo of a future proletarian power, is neverabsent from Gramsci's Secon dly, in an interpretationwhich perhaps overstresses superstructural aspects,35 Salvadoriargues that Gramsci's greatest originality probably lies in his con-sideration of the element of subjectivity as thz yardstick of anyrevolutionary interpretation of Marxism. Gramsci the revolu-tionary leader is evaluated in terms of a contrast with laterdevelopments of Stalinism and Togliatti's leadership.

Salvadori is particularly interested in Gramsci's analysis of theexhaustion of the historical role of the bourgeoisie in this periodand the role of the proletariat in preventing the collapse of theproductive system, a theme which is also to be found in theN o t e b o o k s . Somewhat similarly to De Felice, he concludes, forthe whole of Gramsci 's work, that an important l imitat ion con-sists in an exaggeration of the maturity of the objective basis for



42 Chan ta l M ouf f e an d A n n e Showstack Sassoon

th e transition to socialism an d of th e insufficiency of capitalism asa productive system at that t ime. He adds, however, tha t the irra-t ionali ty and contradict ions of lat ter day monopoly capital makeGramsci's analysis of great contem por ary interest. Th e implicationin Salvadori is that the contemporary usefulness in Gramsci'sproblematic lies in the existence of a capitalist crisis. This useful-ness is therefore determ ined by the existence of a certain object

rather than theoretically by an investigation of Gramsci's theoreti-cal tools.

Gramsci the theorist of revolution in the West

Thus by the 1970 s I tal ian studies on Gramsci had provided a richart iculat ion of themes which w ent far beyond the often simple,dogmatic, and at times provincial treatment of Gramsci in thepost-war period. Indeed, the end of the 1960 s marks an impo rtantturning point in Gramscian studies in several ways. Interest inGramsci's work, which up until then had been almost entirelyl imited to I taly, began to be manifest in many other countr ies,

above all in France. In addition, the theoretical aspect of hiswrit ings and the contr ibution i t makes towards the developmentof Marxist theo ry which had previously remained in the back-ground, now came to t he fore.36 Gramsci ceased t o be studiedsolely on the basis of his relationship with the P C I and of his rolein Italian politics in ord er to be presented as the theoretician ofthe revolution in the W est. This thesis was in fa ct already implicitlypresent in Togliatt i 's intervention at the 19 58 conference, but i tis only recently that it has been fully developed and put forwardin a rigorous and sy stema tic way .

Central to this interpretation is the idea that Gramsci's analy-ses, which hinge u po n the role of civil society as a grou p of insti-tutions by means of which a particular class can exercise its

hegemony over sociery as a whole, provide us with a key forunderstanding th e n ature of power in Western society. Thisanalysis also indicates a new strategy for the seizure of power bystressing the importance of the 'war of position' in relation toth e 'war of movement' . According to Togliatti, this new strategycorresponded primari ly t o a new phase of t he struggle l inked to arelative stabilization of capitalism. Later writers, however, seeGramsci as postulating a strategy based on the very nature ofWestern soc iety.

Moreover, recent works have argued th at Gramsci's c ontributionto Marxism is not confined simply to the elaborat ion of a newstrategy for a revolution in the W est. Through his study of Western



Gramsci in France and I ta ly 43

society he has also contributed to the development of historicalmaterialism, above all in th e realm of t he sup erstructures.

Gramsci's contribution to the development of historical material-

ism. Norbe rto B obbio was one of t he f irst people t o insist on theoriginality of Gramsci as a theoretician. In his intervention at the1967 conference Bobbio (1969) discusses Gramsci 's concept of

civil society and at tem pts to dem onstrate how this conc ept differsno t only from tha t of Hegel bu t also from tha t of Marx. Accordingto Bob bio, when Gramsci talks of civil society, he means th e wholecomplex of ideologico-cultural relationships, in other words, allthose so-called 'private' organizations by means of which a parti-cular social class organizes its hegemony over society as a whole.For Gramsci, the refore, civil society is one of the tw o mo ments ofthe superstructure, the other being poli t ical society, or the bodyof coercive organisms. On the other hand, Bobbio claims that inMarx 7s work civil society is th e whole dom ain of eco nomic rela-t ionships and therefore belongs to the economic structure. Look-ing at this from a different point of view, he points out that , al-

though G ramsci and Marx bo th claim t o have found this concept

in Hegel, it has in fact an entirely different meaning in Hegel'sworks. For Hegel civil society includes not only the realm ofeconomic relationships and the formation of classes, but also theadministration of just ice and the police. In othe r words, i t groupstogether some inst i tut ions belonging to the structure and somebelonging to the superstructure.

Basing his observations on this distinction between Gramsciand Marx, Bobbio goes on to draw some important conclusionswhich are, however, quite debatable. He claims that for bo th Marxand Gramsci civil society plays its part as the 'active7 and 'positive'mo men t in any historical development. But since, when speakingof civil society, Marx is in fa ct referring t o t he struc ture and

Gramsci to th e superstructure, according to Bobbio this meanstha t fo r Marx th e driving force of history is to be found in theeconom y, whereas for Gramsci i t is to be foun d in ideology.

Anoth er importan t aspect of Bobbio's in terpretat ion is thedifference which h e p oints o ut between th e meaning of Gramsci'sidea of hegemony and that proposed by Lenin. Bobbio says thatin Lenin hegemony is used purely to signify political direction,whereas when Gramsci uses the word i t means not only poli t icaldirection but also, above all, moral and intellectual reform, i.e.cultural dire ction . Bobbio's analysis is based o n t he relationshipexist ing between the two elements of the superstructure: civilsociety and political society. He claims that for Gramsci the 'posi-tive' and 'determining ' e leme nt is th at of civil society, which he




interprets to mean that Gramsci gives pre-eminence to the momentof consensus rather than to force, whereas for Lenin the 'determin-ing' moment is political society. This accounts for the predominantrole assigned to the moment of force in Lenin.

According to Bobbio we should therefore find in Gramsci'swork a double inversion with respect to the Marxist tradition:

i The claim for the predominance of the superstructure overthe structure.

ii The claim for the predominance of civil society over politicalsociety.

It is precisely this double reversal which constitutes for Bobbiothe originality of Gramsci and his contribution to the developmentof historical materialism. But despite these points of divergencewith Marx, Bobbio still considers Gramsci to be a Marxist, since hebelieves that any theory which in one way or another accepts thedichotomy between superstructure and structure is, in fact, aMarxist theory.37

Bobbio's analysis has served as a model for a type of super-structural reading of Gramsci which posits that his fundamentalcontribution has been to break with the economic determinism

of Marx and Engels, and with the authoritarianism of Lenin, thusallowing the accent to be placed on the role of ideas and humanwill. This kind of reading is undertaken, for instance, by Jean-MarcPiotte (1970). He accepts most of Bobbio's analysis concerningthe divergences between Gramsci's thought and that of Marx andLenin, and on the basis of this superstructural reading he goes onto attempt to systematize Gramsci's political thought around theconcept of the intelle~tual.~~iotte believes that the concept ofthe intellectual is, in fact, the keystone to Gramsci's work since,according to Gramsci, it is thanks to the intellectuals that theethico-political moment finds its concrete expression. Piottestresses the novelty of Gramsci's conception of the intellectualcompared to that of Marx and of Lenin. For Marx the intellectualis nothing more than the ideologist of the dominant class and amember of the bourgeoisie; for Lenin, intellectuals are seen asforming a separate social stratum which is at one and the sametime isolated from the bourgeoisie and from the proletariat, butwould tend t o be linked to the petty bourgeoisie by virtue of itslife-style. Gramsci, by contrast , defines intellectuals by theirposition and function with regard to production and no longer bythe simple distinction between manual and intellectual work.39For Gramsci, each fundamental class 'creates together with itself,organically, one or more strata of intellectuals which give ithomogeneity and an awareness of its own function not only in theeconomic but also in the social and political fields' (Gramsci, 1970,



Grarnsci in F rance and I taly 45

p. 4).40 The term 'intellectual' may be applied therefore not onlyto thinkers and scientists but also to organizers and educators. Theimportance which Grarnsci assigns to the intellectuals' role is con-nected, according to Piotte, to his equally novel conception ofideology. Whereas in Marx ideology is seen as the mystified-mystifying justification of an already existing economic and politi-cal power, for Gramsci it is the terrain in which man becomes

aware of socio-economic structures and of the need to changethem. It is thanks to the intellectuals that this process of becomingaware is able to take place, and it follows that they have a leadingrole to play in the creation of the class consciousness of the prole-tariat and in the eventual establishment of its hegemony. Piotteis also one of the first t o put forward the thesis that the Gramscianproblematic of hegemony is based on an awareness of the struc-tural difference between East and West and the understanding thatin the advanced capitalist countries the moment of the strugglefor hegemony is a necessary step in the search for political power.

Bobbio's thesis has provoked numerous criticisms, the mostdetailed being that put forward by Jacques Texier (1968). In a dis-cussion of Bobbio's paper which also has implications for any

reading of Gramsci influenced by Bobbio such as that of Piotte, heargues that Bobbio's opposition of Marx and Gramsci is in realitythe result of an incorrect interpretation not only of Marx'sthought but of Gramsci's as well. According to Texier, the firstmistake which Bobbio makes is that of presenting the relationbetween structure and superstructure as a dichotomy in which oneof the two elements must of necessity dominate the other. Fromthat point onwards Bobbio has no difficulty in forcing his readingof Marx in an economistic direction and that of Gramsci in anideologistic one, thus paving the way for his claim that in Marx itis the structure which dominates while in Gramsci it is the super-structure. Texier's contention is that both Marx and Gramsci con-

ceived of the relation between structure and superstructure in acompletely different way to that supposed by Bobbio, that is, asa process of dialectical unity in which each element can in turnassume the role of conditioner or conditioned. However, althoughthis dialectical relation excludes any sort of mechanical causality,it does not, according to Texier, prevent both Marx and Gramsciholding the thesis tha t the determining factor in the last instance isthe economy, since for both of them the movement of history isalways dependent on structural conditions. Moreover, when super-structural activity becomes dominant it is always on the provisothat certain structural conditions be present which allow it toadopt tha t role.

According to Texier, therefore, there is no theoretical divergence



46 Chantal M ou ffe and Anne Showstack Sassoon

between Marx's theoretical problematic and that of Gramsci. Theonly difference consists in the fact that Marx primarily studiedstructural condit ions whereas Gramsci devoted the greater part ofhis work t o t he study of the superstructure thus completing theproject undertaken by mar^.^'

A second kind of interp retation of t he Marx-Gramsci relationconcerning the structure-superstructure problem has been put

forward by Hughes Portelli(1972).

According t o Portel l i, t o askwhich is the primordial ele ment, structu re o r superstru cture, isreally to pose a false problem. He contend s tha t the most originalcon tribu tion offered by Gramsci's thou ght is precisely that hesucceeded in overcoming this dichotom y by introducing the no-tion of t he historical bloc. Portelli explains tha t by historical blocGramsci indicates a particular typ e of organic unity which app earsbetween the infrastructure and the superstructure when ideologiescease to be arbitrary and take on an organic aspect, in otherwords, when ideologies organize social groups in a ccorda nce withsocio-economic condition^.^^ This link is forged by the interven-tion of intellectuals, since it is they wh o have th e task of elaborat-ing the organic ideology of the class which the y represe nt. Portelli

goes on to suggest that within the historical bloc neither of thetw o elem ents can be called determining because, even if th e socio-economic structure limits the possibilities for a development ofthe superstruc tures, it is nevertheless on th e level of th e latter tha tthe basic con tradictions are resolved.

Thus, for Portelli Gramsci's originality consists, first, in hisat tr ibuting equally important roles to the socio-economic struc-ture and to the ethico-political superstructure; secondly, in havingestablished a l ink between the tw o by means of th e concept ofhistorical bloc, and finally, in having succeeded in offering a con-crete social emb odim ent of this link - h e intellectual^.^^

Portelli 's thesis on t he role of intellectuals in the fo rma tion ofthe historical bloc has been criticized by Buci-Glucksmann (1974,

p . 319). It is her opinion that the role of the intellectuals is over-stressed by Portelli at the expense of the role of the State. Thisleads him to conclude tha t the intel lectuals have the essential roleto play in the unity of the S tate, which is in fact far from beingconsistently the case. She considers this interpretation by Portellias being co nnected with the fact tha t he systematically under-estimates th e influence of Lenin o n Gramsci's theo retical andpolitical practice which leads him to an interpretation which is' too superstructural of the problematic of the superstructures ' s incehis interpretation avoids the q uestion of th e relations betweenth e S tate and social classes which are in fact th e historical base ofthe superstructures.



Grarnsci in France and Italy 4

This criticism is certainly justified and could equally well beapplied to the works of Bobbio and Piotte who both completelyignore Gramsci's political activity as well as the politico-theoreticalcontext in which his thought developed. This omission has ob-viously very grave consequ ences since, as Paggi so rightly suggests,' the study of G ramsci as a politician is also th e surest way t o con-sider and redefine his collocation in theoretical Marxist research

(1970 , p . xxvi).Indeed, o ne of the mo st im po rtan t aspects of Buci-Glucksmann's

book , G r a m s c i e t l ' d t a t (197 4), is tha t she at tem pts a ' theoret ical-political reading of the Prison Noteb ook s in so far as they are con-nected with his [Gramsci's] militant political activity of the years1914-19 26, using th e St ate as a strategic poin t of depa rture forthis reading' (197 4a, p.

It is her belief t ha t the research un dertak en by G ramsci revolvesaround a central problem: tha t of t he ' search for a new path tosocialism in an advanced capitalist country: the war of positionwhich demands an unprecedented concentrat ion of hegemony'(197 4, p. 19 ). For Buci-Glucksmann then, th e concep t of hege-mony is the central aspect of Gramsci 's thought. Indeed, she

shows how this concept cal ls for a completely new concep tion ofthe superstructures and the role which they fulfil. For instance,the concept of hegemony leads to an enlargement of the conceptof th e Sta te. Th e State is no longer seen simply as a repressiveapparatus once i t has been understood tha t i t is through the Statethat a social class organizes its hegemony over society as a whole.For Gramsci the function of the State is not solely a coercive one,bu t is extended to t hat of cultural direction which accounts for hisdefinition of the Sta te as including both civil society and politicalsociety: 'hegemony + coercion'. Gramsci's 'expanded' conceptionof th e Sta te al lows him to develop a theory of the eff icacy of thesuperstructures. According to Buci-Glucksmann, it is in this way

that Gramsci t ranscends the economism t o be foun d in those at t i -tudes to the State which see in it nothing more than 'an instru-ment in the hands of the dominant class' . This enlargement of theconcept of the State also allows Gramsci to rethink the problemof revolution in the West in terms of the crucial distinction bet-ween th e war of posit ion and the war of movem ent. Because thereexists such a highly developed civil society in Western countries,th e bourgeoisie has been able to im plant its own hegem ony deep ly.The result is that the proletariat is faced with a long and hardstruggle if t he foun datio ns of this hegem ony are to be underminedso that, in the long run, a revolutionary strategy in the West mustgo through a long war of position.45

According t o Buci-Glucksmann, the con cept of hegemony also



48 Chantal Mo uf fe and Anne Showstack Sassoon

leads to the need for a widening of the notion of ideology. Indeed,for Gramsci a fully realized hegemony involves real progress forsociety as a whole. I t is much more than the mere establishment ofcertain mechanisms whereby the masses are made to acquiesce tothe politics of a single class. This notion cannot therefore bereduced to the notion of dominant ideology in the traditionalMarxist sense or to the Weberian mechanism of legitimization.

According to Gramsci, ideology is not just a process of subjection.It also has a positive and progressive role to play when it succeedsin uniting several social groups into a single body, around a hege-monic class which takes responsibility for the direction of societyand undertakes to realize objectives which are not corporative butare in the interest of the whole society.

For Buci-Glucksmann Gramsci's contribution to the develop-ment of historical materialism is, therefore, quite considerable ontwo counts: first, for his conception of the State, and second,because of his views about ideology. Hence the appellation 'theoristof the superstructures' is well deserved, on the condition, however,that we do not adopt an excessively 'superstructural' view of thesuperstructures according to which these are not rooted in speci-fic relations of production and end up by being considered as inde-pendent variables.

Insistence on the importance of the superstructures in Gramsci'swork has recently been criticized by Nicola Badaloni (1975), hoputs forth the argument that although the problem of the super-structures is indeed central to Gramsci's thought, it is because ofhis recuperation of social aspects in relation to the economic ones.It is Badaloni's belief that the basic feature of Gramsci's work isthe novel way in which it deals with the problem of unitingeconomy and politics in a complex project for reorganizing societyaround the producers. He claims that the important role whichGramsci attributes to intellectuals is in no way an indication that

the superstructures are pre-eminent but is rather connected withthe subjective aspect of the productive forces. He also suggeststhat for Grarnsci intellectuals are not a point of departure butthat he is led to consider them because of the need to introducehistorical mediations into a theoretical model which sets ou t toresolve the problem of the superseding of capitalist societythrough direct control of the productive forces by the producers.He concludes from this that Gramsci is in no way the theoristof the superstructures, but could more easily be described as thetheorist of the productive forces. By extension the central figurefor Gramsci would not be the intellectual but the producer.

Although it is important to remember the fact that in Gramscithe problem of the superstructures must not be separated from its



Grarnsci in Fra nce and l talv 49

econo mic an d social roots , nevertheless Badaloni's argum ent leadshim to ad op t qu ite a narrow view of politics seen as an instrumentof dom ination while for Gramsci, as Paggi has shown (1976), poli-tics is the means by which the producers, historically, are able tomaster the produ ctive forces. Badaloni is also running th e risk of a' n e o - h i s t o r i c i s t r e d u c t i ~ n i s m ' ~ ~ince he presents the historicalprocess of the transition to socialism as taking place through the

development of the new productive class, as the process of theemergence of the subjective aspect of the productive forces (agrowth in th e political awareness of the new producers) which im-plies the necessity of socializing the economy and politics andexplains, in Badaloni's phrase, ' the need for co mm unism '.

Another point which Badaloni stresses is the impossibility of

understanding Gramsci by mere reference to the Leninist tradi-tion. He demonstrates (in a very convincing way) how the realbasis of Gramsci's thought was, in reality, the conjunction of cul-tural, political, and moral problems arising from the crisis ofMarxism and the develop ment of revisionism. Witho ut acceptingall its consequences, Gramsci's thou ght evolved within t he Sorelianperspective of an anti-reformist and anti-positivist struggle. He

accepts, for exam ple, Sorel 's idea tha t historical laws do no t auto-matically direct the historical process towards socialism, and thatit is necessary to introduce a subjective and voluntary element.Badaloni's insistence on the need to place Gramsci in a widercontext than Leninism certainly adds an important dimension tothe reading of Gramsci, even though it leads him to overestimatesome what Sorel 's influence. Indee d, this aspect of Badaloni's workcomplements the interpretat ion made by Buci-Glucksmann, whorather onesidedly stressed the importance of the Leninist and theThird International con text of Gramsci's development.

But, even if Gram sci certainly ca nno t really be understood o ut -side this context , i t is none the less true that in order to under-

stand what is peculiar and original about his thought, he must beplaced within t he general cont ex t of th e Italian trad ition. Indeed ,it can be argued that the Gramscian view of hegemony does notowe its origins to Lenin bu t was mo re probab ly inspired by a read-ing of Machiavelli and was enriched by the idea of culture as atype of 'hold ' on society to be found in the wri tings of C r ~ c e . ~ 'In this sense it seems that Bobbio is quite correct to underlinethe difference between th e con cept of hegemony of Gramsci andthat of Lenin, because it is quite true that it is impossible to findin Lenin the same type of sensitivity to cultural and moral direc-tion with which the Italian tradition had imbued Grarnsci. More-over, although the anti-economist reading of Marx effected byGramsci does, in f act , coincide with tha t of Lenin, i t begins to be




worked out before Gramsci came into contact with the latter 'swork and must therefore be explained by readings from othersources as well. It is in this respect th at Badaloni's argum ent ab ou tthe influence of Sore1 is very p ertin ent.

One comm on point emerges from all these different interpreta-tions: one of the principal themes of Gramsci's thought concernsthe relations between structure and superstructure. Moreover, he

attempted to provide a non-economistic answer to this problem,an answer which excluded any sort of mechanical causality. In-deed, one of the fundamental problems of historical materialism isund oubted ly th at of reconciling the two following theses:

1 In the last instance economy is the determining factor.2 Th e primacy of th e class struggle.Th e chief difficulty in reconciling these two ideas derives from a

certain inaccurate and economistic interpretation of the first point.T o ci te Marx's tex t :

In the social production of their existence men inevitably enterinto definite relations which are independent of their will,namely relations of prod uction approp riate to a given stage in

the developm ent of their material forces of produ ction. The to-tality of these relations of prod uction constitutes the econom icstruc ture of society, th e real found ation , on which arises a legaland political superstructure and to which correspond definiteform s of social consciousness. (18 59 , Preface t o a C ontributionto th e Crit ique of Polit ical Eco no m y.)

This has generally been interpreted to m ean:1 It is th e eco nom ic aspec t which determ ines the legal-political

and ideological superstructures.2 It is th e economic level which is the determ inant force in the

reproduction of society as a whole.If we accept this interpretation, even with out holding the idea

of a relation between structure and superstructure that wouldmake the latter an ep iphenomeno n of the forme r, i t is difficult toprovide a theoretical basis for the possibility that politics mighthave a primordial role t o play.

Gramsci's principal merit consists precisely in the fact that byusing the notions of 'historical bloc' and 'hegemony', he expandedth e terrain of politics and posed th e problem of reproduction in anon-economistic way. According t o him, in order f or a particularsociety to reproduce itself on a long-term basis, a historical blocmust be created, that is to say, a fundamental class must becapable of establishing its own hegemon y and th us realize the dia-lectical unity between structure and superstructure. Such a hege-mon y may be ro oted in th e legal-political superstructure or in the



Gramsci in France and lta lv 51

ideological superstructure, or indeed in the eco nomic stru cture asGramsci has shown in his analysis of 'Americanism and Fordism'.The problem of social reproduction is therefore no longer posedin purely economistic terms but rather from the point of view ofthe articulation of the whole ensemble of the various levels ofsociety. The econom ic aspect remains, in the last instance, as thefinal determinant but politics may now play the dominant role

since it is through politics that a historical bloc is created ordestroyed.

Gramsc i and M arx i s t ph i losop hy . If G ramsci's co ntribu tion to his-torical materialism has in general been widely recogn ized, the samecann ot be said with regard to his contrib ution to Marxist philo-sophy. Indeed, his definition of Marxist philosophy as 'absolutehistoricism' has been t he object of ma ny severe criticisms. Probablythe most influential was the criticism m ade by Louis Althusser inReading Capital (1970) .

In th e chapter entitled 'Marxism is no t an Historicism' Althussercriticizes historicism not as a particular school but as a theoreticalmatrix which includes not only self-declared historicism but alsovery different tendencies like the Della Volpian school in Italy.This th eoretical matrix is characterized in the following way: first,i t fa ils to take into account the epistemological break which gavehistorical materialism its s tatu s as a science; secon dly, it erases thedistinction between historical materialism and dialectical material-ism and sees Marxism in terms of a 'world view'; and finally itcollapses all structural levels into an expressive totality, denyingany real efficacy to the superstructures. Although A lthusser recog-nizes that many of Gramsci's expressions are polemical and serveas 'practical c oncepts ' , p ointing a t t he way in which som e prob-lems should be solved, lie declares Grarnsci guilty of the sin ofhistoricism principally in the way he conceives the relation bet-

ween Marxist th eory and h istory and in his identification betweenphilosophy and history an d between philosophy and politics. Th atleads, says Althusser, to a reduction of the different levels of thesocial formation to a unique s tructure and does not a llow theirrelative autonomy to be thought. It is the same kind of reductionthat we find in the economistic interpretation of Marx. For that

reason, Althusser argues tha t th e historicist reading of Marx, whichhe also at tribut es to Gramsci, even if it developed as a reaction t othe mechanicism of the Second International, did not in factsucceed in freeing itself from the theoretical problematic ofeconomism.

In a little book published in 196 5, Jacques Texier unde rtookthe defence of Gramsci's philosophical views. In fact, he was one



52 Chantal M ou ffe and Ann e Showstack Sassoon

of the f irst to put forward the idea that Gramsci 's aim in thePr i son Notebooks was to at tempt a cri t ical reconstruction ofMarxist philosophy. In the N o t e b o o k s Gramsci opposed thegeneral opinion held b y the Second International by claiming thatMarxism is a world view and an integral philosophy. He alsoclaimed that this philosophy is radically original and independent

and cann ot be identified with any othe r philosophical trend of the

past , n ot even w ith material ism. According t o Texier, Gramsciconceived of Marxist philosophy as a new philosophical systemcapable of supplying an answer to all the major philosophicalproblems. His originality consists in presenting a new view of manand knowledge, which he calls historicism, according to whichphilosophy is man 's consciousness of himself, this self-consciousnessbeing inseparable from the se lf-prod uction of man which is his-tory . T hus ph ilosoph y is identified with h istory since it is theprocess by which man comes in to self-consciousness and since manis precisely his own history. As we can see, Texier also presentsGramsci as an historicist, b ut u nlike Althusser h e gives it a positivevalue and postulate s the possibility of id entifying historicism andMarxist philosophy.

Recently there has been a tendency to give greater importanceto Gramsci's philosophical views, but this time from a differen tperspective than th at adop ted by Texier. Most of the contribu tors,starting from Althusser's criticisms, have tried to invalidate someof them by arguing that Grarnsci's conception of historicism isquite different fro m Althusser 's and to argue that his problematicdoes n ot fall un der th e general mode l of historicism as pu t forwardby Althusser. At the same time they have presented Gramsci'sconception of Marxist philosophy as more valuable than the ' the o-reticist' on e defended b y Althusser in Reading Capital.

In this cont ex t Badaloni believes th at Gramsci's 'absolu te histori-cism', far from referring to the theoretical basis of a new philoso-

phical system, on the co ntrary indicates the objective of Marxism:the social ization of poli t ics and ec onom y, and th e absolute contro lof society by the producers. The unity of history and philosophyshould be unde rstood in this light, no t as a me tho d of reflexiveknowledge b ut as the possibil i ty for philosophy t o become a normof collective action, to influence the behaviour of the masses andthus to be equated with history. In other words, Gramsci 's 'abso-lute historicism' is a revolutionary philosophy, and its fundamen-ta l meaning lies in its aim of effecting 'a recomposition ofMarxism', which, through the un ity of Marxist theory and th e prac-tice of the workers' mov eme nt in the struggle for socialism, wouldre-endow Marxism with the revo lutionary charac ter it had lostthrough the scientist ic interpretat ions of t he Second International .




Badaloni poi nts o ut , however, tha t Gramsci's 'ab solute historicism'should no t be seen as th e definitive version of Marxist philosop hy.It only refers to a single phase in the wider context of the revolu-tion in the West, and there fore it can only be the philosophy of atransitional period. Once communism is established, philosophymust have a radically d ifferent role t o play.

For her p art, Buci-Glucksmann defends Grarnscian philoso phy

from the point of view of a problematic influenced by Althusser,but she refuses to accept the latter's interpretation of Gramsci'shistoricism. Indeed, she shows that Gramscian historicism cannotbe called an expressive model of the social whole as in the Hege-lian model, which is the theoretical matrix Althusser proposes forevery form of historicism. Sh e conte nds that Althusser's error isthat he understood some of Gramsci 's statem ents in to o l i teral afashion and that he fai led to und ertake a 'symptomatic ' reading ofGramsci's work which would have revealed a con ception of Marxistphilosophy which has nothing a t all to do w ith Hegel.

Buci-Glucksmann's main thesis he re is th at th e conc ept of hege-mon y does no t simply open up new ways of looking at th e Marxisttheories of th e State and ideology. Over and above this function,i t demand s a completely new conception of philosophy and of therelations between philosophy and politics, a new conceptionwhich she designates by the term 'the gnoseology of politics' . Shenotes t ha t Gramsci begins by dismissing the distinction betweenthe philosophy of the philosophers and the spontaneous philo-

sophy o f the masses, com mon sense. He shows tha t , far from beinga science with a specific ob ject, philosophy is in reality a concep-tion of th e world which is mad e manifest in the entire culture of asociety. This conception of the world is always that of a funda-

mental class, and therefore philosophy has an important part toplay in the establishing of the hegemony of a social class sinceit is throu gh philoso phy th at a social class can impose its vision of

the world on society as a whole. It is also through philosophy t ha ta social class establishes its particular 'definition of reality',which will be accepted by the subordinate classes. From this itcan be con cluded t ha t the role of philosophy in the class struggleis far from being negligible and that it has widespread repercus-sions in the d oma in of politics.

But, according to Buci-Glucksmann, Gramsci did not simplyestablish the political character of philosophy. He goes muchfurther and , in an at tem pt t o resolve th e problem of th e unity oftheory and practice as a dialectical process, he claims that poli-tics also has a philosophical character because it produces know-ledge. It is this dual relation which she seeks to express in theterm 'gnoseology of politics'. However, she never really defines this




term or i ts effects. She at tempts to surround i t with a series ofvague and ofte n contrad ictory fo rmulation s whose overall effect isto render her argument extremely obscure. But her intention isnon e th e less clear and funda menta lly correct: she wishes todemonstrate the political character of philosophy while takingcare not to fall into a reductive identification of philosophy andpolitics, which would lead to 'politicism', viewing philosophy as

mere political ideology. If we can accept easily th e political effectsof a given philosophical position, the same cannot be said of thereverse. The affirmation that politics, as all social practice, isproductive of knowledge is very problematical and requires adevelopment which Buci-Glucksmann does not provide.

There is, nevertheless, a sense in which we might be able toaccept the claim that political practice has philosophical effects.It is with respect to the view that a revolution is a philosophicalevent since the establishment of a new hegemony creates a newideological terrain which provides the basis for a change in con-sciousness and the methods of knowledge. But can that be ex-pressed by saying that politics produ ces knowledge?

There is yet another point which raises problems in Buci-

Glucksmann's in terpretat ion: w hat is philosophy to become andwh at will be the natu re of practice peculiar t o Marxist philosop hy?Fo r if ph ilosophy is n ot t o dissolve into pure politics, it must haveits own dom ain, a field of activity which is specific to itself. Buci-Glucksmann is aware of this proble m, a nd she tries to answer itthus: philosophy produces a body of knowledge at the service ofpolitics. But this is never really ma de explicit and suffers from t hesame lack of theoretical development as does the thesis of the'gnoseology of politics'.

This problem of the definition of the field of philosophy istreated in a clearer way in Paggi's interpretation of Gramscianphilosophy (1 73 ). According to Paggi, Grarnsci's philosphicalundertaking is an at tempt to transfer to Marxist philosophy the

revolution achieved by Lenin in the field of political science. Thebasis for this task is provided by Labriola, who claimed thatMarxism possesses its own completely original philosophy whichcan not be identified with m aterialism. Gramsci went from this toshow that the identif icat ion of Marxist philosophy and material-ism is always connected with an economistic interpretation ofhistorical materialism. It is precisely this economistic interpreta-t ion which Lenin called into question without drawing the fullphilosophical consequences of his achievement in political science.I t was therefore of the greatest importance to comp lete Lenin'swork by developing t he implications in his politics for the field ofMarxist philosophy.



Grarnsci in France and Ita ly 55

It is against this background that we should understand whatGramsci meant by m aintaining that Marxism is a philosophy whichis also a view of th e world. By this he w ants t o stress the definitivebreak that Marxism makes with all the previous conceptions ofphilosophy and show th at, far from being a new philosophy , Marx-ism indicates the necessity of a completely new mod e of existencefor philosophical knowledge. It is to t ha t new 'practice of philoso-

phy' that Gramsci alludes when he uses the expressions 'absolutehistoricism' and 'philosophy of practice'. The first is, argues Paggi,in open polemic with Croce's historicism and intends to show theambiguities of a reference t o 'h is tory ' which does not take ac countof Marx's discoveries and which is based on an idealistic concep-tion of histo ry. The 'philosophy of praxis' refers mo re concretelyto th e inte rpretatio n of historical materialism seen as a 'science ofhistory and politics ' , that is, not as a mere canon of historicalresearch in Croce's terms bu t as an instrum ent by means of whichon e may intervene in th e course of the historical and politicalprocess.

According to Paggi the main task that Gramsci assigned toMarxist philosophy was to provide the concepts which would lay

the theoretical found ations of historical materialism as the scienceof history and politics. In effect, for historical materialism to

beco me a science of politics and be cap able of analysing th e revo-lutionary process, several conditions are required. First, i t needsto free itself from the constraint of a determinist view of the rela-tions between struc ture and superstructure by elaborating aconc ept of dialectic which w ould m ake it possible to consider th especificity of Marxist historical causality. Secondly, it mustrecognize the role of subjectivity through stressing the ethico-political element. And finally, i t has to break with the traditionalpositivist view of the sciences based on the model of the naturalsciences48 and according to which their role consists of establish-ing laws on the basis of given data. The type of scientificity that,according to Paggi, Gramsci wants to endow Marxism with iscompletely different. Marxist theory is, for him, a ' theory ofcontradictions' , a 'critique of political economy' which shouldallow us t o understand the contradictions of a given mod e of pro-duc tion , and indicate, o nly indicate, the way in which they can be

resolved. I t cann ot go further because the verification of thosepossibilities belongs t o th e realm of politics.

When it becomes apparent that what is really at stake in theelaboration of a com pletely auto nom ous Marxist philosophy isthe very anti-economistic interpretation of historical materialism,and its character as a revolutionary science, then it is clear whyGramsci a t tached so much imp ortance to this task. Indeed, without



56 Chantal Mouf fe and Anne Showstack Sassoon

an ade qua te philoso phy historical materialism always runs th e riskof falling back int o economism. M oreover, as Paggi correctly stres-ses, the advance which was made by Lenin's revolutionizing of politi-cal science will never really be consolidated so long as the philoso-phical consequences of his work have not been fully developed.

Paggi's interp retati on of t he Gramscian view of Marxist philoso-phy has a certain similari ty to the view that Althusser put forward

in Reading Capital (but which he subsequently abandoned). In-deed, in both cases it is above all a question of turning Marxistphilosophy into an epistemology. Yet the resemblance goes nofurther. Whereas Althusser was incapable of freeing himself froma positivist view of scientificity and thus created his epistemologyon the same model as that of the natural and exact sciences,Gramsci on the other hand strove to elaborate an epistemologywhich would take into account the radically original nature ofMarxist scientificity and would allow for thought unthinkable in apositivist problem atic. This leads t o th e view th at the Marxistscience of history is a revolutionary science from which on e no tonly can but should deduce political propositions, since it is alsoa strategy for th e transforma tion of so ciety. This position has its

difficulties and more elaboration would certainly be needed, butit may provide an interesting way of solving th e problem of thecomplex nature of Marxist theory.

We can see here h ow it is finally Althus ser's interpre tatio n ofMarxist philosoph y which ends up being on trial. Buci-Glucksmannargues that , far from not al lowing any efficacy to the super-structures, as Althusser had declared, Gramsci's interpretation ofhistorical m aterialism, on the contrary, provided through the con-cept of hegemony the very theoretical basis for thinking thatefficacy. Paggi goes further and suggests that it is in fact thepositivistic interpretation of historical materialism on the lines ofthe natural sciences which is economistic. He does not name

Althusser, but it is evident that his conception of Marxist scienti-ficity falls under this criticism. On the other hand, both Buci-Glucksmann and Paggi consider as one of Gramsci's main achieve-ments his conception of the relation between philosophy andpolitics, which had been Althusser's most important target.Althusser's strong distinction between science and ideology an dhis view of Marxist philosophy as 'Theory of theoretical practice'are thu s implicitly criticized a nd rejected.49

Conclusion

This presentation of the evolution of Gramscian studies indicates



Gramsci in France and I ta l y 57

how, from a figure who was depicted in the post-war period ascontributing mainly t o th e Italian progressive cultural tradition, h ehas now become a major Marxist thinker whose real contributionhas on ly very recently begun t o be adequately analysed. It hasbeen argued, from a variety of points of view, that Gramsci 'sthought is in fact of a remarkable relevance for a great number ofproblems which are currently at the centre of various debates

among Marxists. O ne of the m ost im portant of these is theatte m pt b y a group of Marxist thinkers, mainly in Italy, to rethink

the nature of Marxism and its relation with the working-classmovement in order to overcome the economism not only of theSecond International but also, although generally less recognized,that remaining in the Third International. This new trend-insistson the character of Marxism as the 'science of politics ' and triesto reformu late the foun datio ns of historical materialism in orderto be able to think th e crucial role of politics.s0 I t is an importantat tempt to t ry to recuperate the scient i f ic character of Marx 'sthought , but without doing so at the expense of i ts re lat ion topolitics as had been the tendency of Della Volpe or Althusser,although in d ifferent ways. Gramsci 's work appears extremely use-

ful for this task , since recent studies argue th at h e was on e of thefirst Marxist thinkers to succeed in breaking with economismand to lay the theoretical basis for the efficacy of the superstruc-tures. In this cont ext , the analyses by Buci-Glucksmann a nd Paggi,as well as some indications in othe r presentations of Gramsci suchas those of Togliatti and De Felice, are especially illuminating.

In this perspective, the main task consists in rediscovering thepolitical dimension of the superstructures in their relation to theState and in recuperating the theme of subjectivity and of theethico-political moment in the revolutionary process. For theSecond International, with its crisis theory of the break-down of

capitalism, the political sphere was necessarily seen as an epi-

phenomenon. It was this mechanistic interpretation which Leninhad opposed, yet he retained a rather restrictive conception ofpolitics, not grasping its full nature, and, above all , i ts deep con-

nection with culture. For this reason his conception of hegemonyis limited to the aspect of political direction. Gramsci, on the

other hand, was able to comprehend the phenomenon in al l i tsdep th and , through his enlarged conception of the Sta te as 'civil

society + political society' , to put forward a completely new con-ception of the superstructures and of their relation with politics.

In this way historical materialism may become the 'science ofhistory and politics' (Paggi) and the role of political struggle comesto the fore as a struggle for hegemony which manifests itself in allfields of human activity. A new relationship between economics




and politics is also presented as possible, as suggested by De Feliceand Badaloni. All of this is also relevant to an understanding ofideology as something o ther than false consciousness. In add ition ,as the works of a number of writers suggest, such as Ragionieri,the very concept of political intervention and the scope of activi-ties of a revolutionary party is broadened considerably.

Gramsci 's work also appears to be of g reat relevance for th e cur-

rent debate a bou t the nature of Marxis t phi losophy. Although anumber of ambiguities remain concerning the way in whichGramsci 's th oug ht should be interprete d in this respect, there isnevertheless a cen tral concern which is very im porta nt, his forcefulinsistence on the existence of a relation between philosophy andpolitics. As several auth ors argue, tha t new 'practice of philosop hy'which Gramsci proposes (and h ere he mee ts Lenin and is joinedby the latest works of Althusser) cannot consist in elaborating anew philosophical system, even if it is called dialectical material-ism. I t must become the moment of mediat ion between theoryand history and in this way contribute to establishing the hege-mon y of the proletar ia t . Whether the role of phi losophy m ust s tophere or whether it must also undertake an epistemological reflec-

tion on the main concepts of historical materialism understood asth e science of his tory and politics, as suggests Paggi, is still an ope nquestion whose solution will probably lead us beyond Gramsci,who in reaction against philosophy as a system had the tendencyto underestimate the epistemological element in his conception of

Marxist philosophy.Finally, if i t is understo od th at the State , political strategy,

and a new conception of the revolutionary process is central tothe task which Gramsci set himself, the full implications of hiswritings would seem to go beyond a definition of him as thetheorist o f the revolution in th e West. If th e concep t of hegemo nyclearly has important consequences for the strategy of the transi-tion of w estern countries to socialism, it can also be argued that i tprovides general theoretical tools so th at its field of application isnot restricted to advanced capitalist countries but goes muchfurther. Gramsci allows us to rethink the way in which the prob-lems of revolution have been posed up to now. As Paggi has cor-rectly remarked, what Gramsci is trying to explain is not whyrevolution was possible in Russia, but precisely why it took placein Russia and not where it was expected, in the most highlydeveloped countries. That is to say, Gramsci, following on from

Lenin, and developing new concepts, questions the traditionaleconomist ic problematic according t o which i t is assumed tha t themore capitalism has developed the greater is the proximity tosocialism. For Gramsci history develops in a different way - h e



Gramsci in France and I taly 59

relative autonomy of politics and its characteristic of a struggle for

hegemony explain why a revolutionary situation may never be

developed, or may be blocked and begin to deteriorate if the

working class is incapable of intervening in a correct manner, even

though the possibility for a social transformation may exist.

Thus, his view of history is based on a conception which may

provide indications for a number of areas of research. The history

of the working-class movement, for example, could be studied inthis perspective in order to see to what extent the setbacks before

the Second World War were due to a mistaken strategy based on

a lack of understanding of the full nature of politics and, there-

fore, of the scope of political intervention. In addition, it can be

argued that an understanding of Gramsci's problematic could be

useful t o derive indications for present-day strategy not just for

advanced countries but also for countries in the Third World.

Moreover, Gramsci's notion of the crucial nature of the struggle

for hegemony both before and after the revolution, and his sug-

gestions about a new relationship between economics and poli-

tics, could also be applied to the study of the difficulties met in

the construction of socialism. An analysis of the nature of

Stalinism and its theoretical presuppositions could make use of

Gramsci's theoretical advances.

According to the latest developments in Gramscian studies,

then, Gramsci's work contains important indications both for

developing Marxist theory and for studying its relation to the

working-class movement. To comprehend fully his contribution,

and his limitations, the study of Grarnsci must itself be developed

further and areas hitherto relatively obscure, such as his notion of

economy or the role he attributes to ideology, must be investiga-

ted. Only then can his place in the history of Marxism be properly

evaluated.

Notes

1. Lawrence and Wishart published Select ions from the Prison Not ebo oks in19 70 , an ex cellen t translation of th e political and historical writings whichhas a very good historical introduction and in man y ways the most usefulannota t ion of any edit ion. In I taly the cr it ical edit ion appeared in Jun e 19 75(1975~) . or the f irs t t ime al l the draf ts of al l of Gramsci 's notes are avail-able, and although the usefulness of the first I talian edition (1948-1951),where some order was put in a selection of the 3000 pages of fragments,has been reconfirmed, work can no w begin to reconstruct th e process ofGramsci's thought. Lawrence and Wishart will publish a volume containing aselection of works f ro m the 191 4-1921 period in ear ly 1977 , while a fur thervolume of writ ings f rom 1921-1926 will be published some t ime later in1977. Also forthcomin g is a volume of writings on literatu re and cultu re.



60 Chanta l Mo uff e and Anne Showstack Sassoon

2. Neil McInnes provides an e xtr em e exam ple of a superficial reading ofGramsci when he writes 'In drawing his revivifying transfusion from theItal iw neo-Hegel ians , Gramsci contracts an extreme case of subject iveidealism. . . . Everything, literally everything, is, for Gramsci . . . mere super-s t ructure - . . . he thinks there is no material substructure. ' As quoted inFemia (1975 ), p. 36.3. In trying t o establish Gramsci 's origin ality in an early article on Gramsci 'sconcept of hegemony, which was the only exp osi t ion in Engl ish for man yyears , and which provides a very useful and much-quoted defini t ion of atleast the c ultural and intellectual aspects of heg em ony , Williams (19 60 ) exhi-bi ts a certain tende ncy in this direct ion which h e has s ince repudiated.4. This is t rue, for exam ple, of th e Boggs book (197 5) which, while i t f i lls agap in the l i terature in Engl ish, s ince i t is the f i rs t book to provide an over-view of th e w ritings in prison in so me dep th , is severely limited in its readingof Gramsci because of i ts point of de parture. Piccone 's 1 97 4 art ic le can onlybe called a superficial and slapdash at te m pt to establish 'Gramsci 's HegelianMarxism' and a t the same t ime provide a review of twen t ieth-century Marx-ism, all in 1 3 pages! Zan ardo (19 58) and Paggi (197 3) examine som e of thedifferences betw een G . Luk ics and Korsch .5. Art icles which are indeed con tribut ions to th e bui lding of a bas ic know-ledge of Gramsci, bu t which a t the same t ime demo nstrate a certain amo untof theoret ical naivety to a lesser or greater extent , are those by Bates (1974and 197 5) , Famia (1975) , and To dd (1974) . Ba tes (1975) , for example ,nei ther unders tands Lenin nor the role of the masses in the development of

Gramsci' s ideas on th e factory counci ls and t he pa rty, despi te the exis tence ofa considerable l i terature in this la t ter area: e .g. Spriano (1 967 a), Paggi (1970),De Fel ice (19 71). In w hat is a useful art ic le , Femia s imply at tem pts toomuc h in 19 pages: 'F irs t , there is the problem of determining the precisenature of hegemony. . . . Then there is the ques t ion of how hegemony arises .To answer this , we shal l have to explore Gramsci ' s ideas on the nature ofhistorical m aterialism, the historic role of th e intellectuals, and th e fun ctionsof the revolut ionary party. . . . In th e final part of m y discussion , I shall relatethe c oncept of hegemony to a contemporary controversy in sociology: tha tbetween t he schoo l of thoug ht which h olds a consensual mod el of industr ia lsociety ( i .e . consensus theory) and the school which focuses on confl ic t andvalue d ifferent iat ion ( i .e ., confl ic t , or coercion, theory) ' (p. 28). Tod d pu tsforward some suggest ive ideas about a com parison between Gramsci and Mao,without pretending to undertake the task but nei ther real ly indicat ing thekind of problems involved.

6. Will iams 's (197 5) at te mp t to suggest a synthesis of Gramsci and Bordiga isperhaps the ou ts tanding examp le of th e kind of m is taken conclus ions whichcan com e from no t ful ly appreciat ing the importance of the deb ate with Bor-diga for Gramsci 's theoretical work and for his political activity. Williamsdoes , however, provide a useful summ ary of t he debates abo ut the factorycounci ls and their relation to the party and the S tate , both in the 1912 -1921period and in la ter his toriography , and thu s augments Cammett (196 7),which remains an extremely useful historical introduction as well as provid-ing a brief in trodu ction to som e of Grarnsci 's ideas. Tw o pieces which sta rtfrom a considerable theoret ical awareness and which are probably th e bes tarticles available in English are those by Mart inel l i (1968) and Merrington( 1 9 6 8 ) .7. Christine Buci-Glucksmann's book (1974) clarifies this field and indicatesmany areas s t i ll needing t o b e inves t igated. See below. Zanardo's paper forthe 19 58 Gramsci conference remained unt il recent ly th e only work in this




area. It is a very suggestive comp arison of the crit iq ue of Bukh arin m ade byAus t roGe rman Marxi sm in t he 1 9 2 0 s and b y G ramsci la ter .8 . Ragionieri ' s paper i s a funda men ta l development here . See be low.9 . Examules of these earlv mesentatio ns of G ramsci as well as his later art iclesa re t o be' found in ~o ~l i a ; t ; (1 967 ) .1 0 . The Lombardo-Radice and Carbone biography ( 1 9 5 2 ) a n d t h e O t t i n o

b o o k ( 1 9 5 6 ) are pr ime examples.1 1 . See fo r example Ma t t eucc i (1 9 5 I ) , who mainta ined tha t Gramsci owed

more to Croce and Machiavell i than to a ny o ther th inkers .1 2 . The ar t ic les in the Rivista storica del socialismo by Cortesi ( 1 9 6 5 ) , DeClement i ( 1 9 6 6 ) , and Merli ( 1 9 6 4 ) re jec ted Gramsci and what they consi -dered a 'centrist ' P C I t radi t ion f rom the le f t whi le among those who re jec tedwhat they considered ' to ta l i ta r ian ' tendencies in Gramsci ' s thought wereMondo l fo (1 9 5 5 ) and Vigorelli (1 9 5 5 ) .1 3 . For example mo re r ecen tly Bonomi ( 1 9 7 3 ) and Macciocchi ( 1 9 7 3 ) bo thargue tha t whi le t he PC1 is re formist and oppo rtunis t , Gramsci was a revolu-t ionary thinker .1 4 . L 'Ordine Nuovo 1919-1920 ( 1 9 5 4 ) ; Scritti giovanili, 1914-1918( 1 9 5 8 ) ;Sotto la Nole ( 1 9 6 8 ) ; Socialismo e fascismo, L'Ordine Nuovo 1921-

1922 ( 1 9 6 7 ) . N o t e t h a t t h e v o l um e La Costruzione del partito comunista,1923-1926, covering the period when Gramsci replaced Bordiga as leader ofthe par ty and st rove to t ransform th e ear ly pC1, was not publ ished unt i l1 9 7 1 .

1 5 . Fo r essays wi th a worker 's cont ro l s lant or a le f t socia li s t tendency seeCarraciolo and Scalia ( 1 9 5 9 ) , particularly t he essays by Cicerchia, Caracciolo,Tamburrano. See a lso Caracciolo ( 1 9 5 8 ) .

1 6 . See for example Ferr i ( 1 9 5 7 ) .1 7 . See Tambur rano ( 1 9 5 8 ) a n d ( 1 9 5 9 ) , and la ter his biography of Gramsci( 1 9 6 3 ) . Davidson's 1 9 7 2 ar t ic le provides an int roduct ion to this tangleddebate , a l though distor ted somew hat by a ra ther sha l low ant i-PC1 slant . Wri t -ten f rom a Bordighist v iewpoint , Alcara ( 1 9 7 0 ) t ouches o n t h e d i scuss ion o nGramsci which was p ar t of a much larger debate on th e histor iography of th ep c ~ . he mos t comple te and detached descr ipt ion of th is debate , and of thel i te ra ture on Gramsci in genera l, h ighly recommen ded t o anyon e under taking

a ser ious stu dy of Gramsci , i s Joc tea u ( 1 9 7 6 ) .1 8 . Th e concept of histor ica l b loc expresses both t he uni ty of th e s t ruc tu reand the superst ruc ture a t th e level of theory and a concre te mo de of unif i -ca t ion in the socia l format ion where a dominant histor ica l b loc uni tesdi fferent soc ial forces through th e developm ent of hegemony by th e rul ing

class. The question of an alternative historical bloc and an alternative hege-mon y m us t be posed by t he p ro l e t ar i a t in o rde r t o t r ans fo rm soc i e ty .1 9 . This i s , in fac t , Togl ia t t i ' s phrase , not to be found in so many words inGramsci's writings.2 0 . War of posit ion is Gramsci 's phrase for the kind of prolonged strugglefor hegem ony necessi ta ted in a Sta te wi th a developed c ivi l soc ie ty in order t op repa re fo r t he mo men t o f wa r o f m ovement o r f ron t al a t ta ck when S t a t epower is seized. Gramsci writes that i t is always the war of posit ion which isdecisive both before and after the revolut ion, implying tha t whatever thenature of th e Sta te before the revolut ion and whatever the form of revolu-tionary struggle, e.g. Russia 1 9 1 7 , a war of posi t ion and t he widening of thehegemonic base of the new Sta te must be under ta ken af terwards. Buci-Glucksman n considers th is problem in her book ( 1 9 7 4 ) .2 1 . C a m m e t t ( 1 9 6 7 ) , pp . 1 7 7 -1 7 8 and Nett1 ( 1 9 6 6 ) , p . 7 9 5 , are the speci ficobjects of Ragionieri 's cri t icism.



62 Chantal M ouff e and Anne Showstack Sassoon

22 . For example , t he re was t he pub l i ca t i on fo r t he f i r s t t ime dur ing t h i sper iod of Lenin's Report on War and Peace of 1918, concerning the di f ferentpaths of d evelopmen t in Russia and t he West.23. In this regard Ragionier i d iscusses the ar t ic le which Gramsci wro te uponLenin 's de a th in which Two Tactics of Social Democracy is considered crucialas well as a review of State and Revolution.24. Ragionier i points ou t the need to re la te th e contents of the pol i tica l d is-cussions which Gramsci had in pr ison to th e ideas in the Notebooks. S ee Lay(1973) and Lisa (1973) for accounts by men who were involved in these dis-

cuss ions, and F io ri (1 970 ) who opened up t he deb a t e abou t a poss ib l e spl i tbe tween Gramsci and the par ty in the early 19 30s. Buci-Glucksmann makeseffec tive use of th is mater ia l in her b ook .25 . Passive revolution (often used interchangeably with revolution-restaura-t ion) i s a far f rom unpro blemat ic con cept in Gramsci . I t i s used f i rs t t o indica tea mo de o f t h e e s tab l ishmen t o f t he un i ty and dominance o f t he bourgeoi s ie i nwhich th e fu nct ion of e lements of the previous dom inant c lass is t ransformedso tha t there i s a cont inui t y in the personnel and form s of the Sta te and acompromise wi th these previous dominant c lasses a lbe i t providing a super-st ruc t ure sui ted to t he dom inance of the bourgeoisie. Impl ied i s a l imi ta t ionof th e posi t ive hegemony enjoyed b y th e bourgeoisie over the mass of thepopula t ion. Gramsci gives as examples England, Germany, and I ta ly as con-t rasted wi th F rance where th e bourgeoisie took pol i t ica l power by e l iminat ingth e old c lasses and crea t ing a widely based hegemo ny. A t th e same t ime pas-sive revolut ion i s used to descr ibe a mode of dominance in which the bour-

geoisie a t te mp ts to incorpora te and ren der pol i t ica l ly impoten t th e leadersof the working c lass and o the r popular c lasses, e .g . re formism or in th e I ta l iancase, t ransformism. Gramsci s t resses th a t th e passive revolution i s not a m odeof pol i t ica l s t ruggle which i s sui ted to t he prole tar ia t bu t i s ra ther a not io nwhich i s useful on th e analysis of history. S ee Gramsci (197 0) , pp. 58 f . and5 9 f .26. Caesarism is a for m of polit ical rule in which a stalemat e has arisen in thec lass s t ruggle s imi lar to t ha t examined by M arx in the XV I I I of Brumaire. T h echief d i f ference be tween caesar ism and th e t radi t ional concept of Bo napar t -i sm is tha t caesar ism impl ies the existence of mass organiza tions and is thusappl icable , according t o Gramsci , t o the more moder n per iod. Ragionieri(19 67) mak es th e p oint tha t t he developmen t of a caesar is t solut ion is inevi t -ably in an inver ted re la t ionship to the po tent ia l of organiza t ion of the work-ing class and its polit ical party .27 . In 196 7 the re we re tw o o the r con t r i bu t ions t o t he d i scuss ion o f Gramsci

which should be ment ioned. Fi rst , there was Amendola et al., in which agrou p of a r t ic les abo ut Gramsci appeared. Am endola ' s o wn ar t ic le was apolemic wi th var ious interpre ta t ions of Gramsci and can serve as a summaryof so me of the discussion of those years . Second, the quest ion of pol i t ica lintervent ion by the revolut ionary par ty in Lenin, Gramsci , and Togl ia t t i i sconsidered in an ar t ic le by Calamandre i .28 . This aspect i s developed m uch fu r ther by Buci-Glucksmann, wh o ut il izesman y of the indica t ions of Tog l ia t t i and R agionieri developing th e theore t ica ld imens ion .29. In an ar t icle which examines cr i tica l ly Gramsci ' s exper ience as a pol i tica lleader before 19 26 and the l imi ta t ion of cer ta in aspects of his ideas in tha t

per iod, as well as in th e f i rs t volume of his history of the pel,Spr i ano (196 7and 19 67a ) indica tes cer ta in di fferences be tween Lenin and Gramsci , par t icu-larly wi th regard t o th e process of t he revolution. Spr iano mainta ins tha t thegrea test change in Gramsci ' s development i s be tween the pre-pr ison per iod




a n d t h e No t e boo k s because of th e nature o f these la t ter as a ref lection o n a

great defeat of t he wo rking class , and that there is a quali ta t ive jum p in thee labor a t ion in the No t e boo k s of th e d i f f e r en t s t ra tegy needed in th e W est andof Gr amsc i' s concep t o f democr acy .30 . Spr iano ' s f i r st vo lume ( 1 967 a) had , o f cour se , a l r eady unde r taken th i s k indof ar t iculated s tudy. De Felice ' s book in fact argues agains t the resur rect ion

of a cer tain te nd enc y to claim tha t Bordiga was the only real Leninis t in I ta lyaf ter World War I because of the a t ten t ion he gave to th e pa r ty , a de f in i t ion ofLenin i sm w hich D e Fe l ice a rgues is r cduc tive and schemat ic . Amon g the in te r -

pr e ta t ions which he c r i ti c izes a r e Alca r a ( 1970 ) , and D e Clement i ( 196 6) .31 . De Fe l ice was one of t he f i r s t to invest iga te wh a t he main ta ins i s a new

r e lat ionsh ip be tween th e econom ic and the po l i t ica l in the No t e boo k s as wellas in the ear l ier per iod in an ar t ic le which considered Gramsci ' s notes on

' Amer ican ism and For d ism ' and th e way they suggest tha t the c r ea t ion of anew h egem ony, as well as the ma intena nce of an exis t ing one, increasingly

inves t s a ll r ea lms of soc ie ty , inc lud ing the economic , wi th th e deve lopment ofnew meth ods of o r ganiz ing pr oduc t ion . See De Fe l ice ( 1972) . He had in flu-enced Buc i - Glucksmann ( 1974 ) . Bada loni has a l so conside r ed th i s a spec t . Seebe low.32 . Se r en i ( 197 2) makes th e c r it i ci sm tha t the d i scuss ion of f inance cap ita lamong I ta l ian communis ts in general and by Gramsci in par t icular was very

weak .33 . Another in te r vent ion in the deba te on the h i s tor iogr aphy of the P C I ,

which is of considerable interes t to the s tudy of Gramsci , is Auciel lo (1974) .P r esen ted as an a t tem pt t o con t r ibu te t o a r e f lec t ion o n the theor e tica l f ie ldof po l i t ic s , Auc ie l lo a rgues tha t t he ' s tudy of Gr amsc i a s a po l i ti ca l th inker ,

in th e r edef in it ion of the theor e t ica l f ie ld of the No t e boo k s , [ is ] the levelwhich i s ab le to r ec r ea te a un i ta r y to ta l i ty in a wor k mar ked by a by nowpr oven complex i ty ' ( p . 10) . He a lso suggest s tha t the con cept of h e g e m o n yenables Gr amsc i t o de te r mine t he spec if ic f o rm of a his tor ical ly determined

t r ansi t ion t o soc ia l ism pr oviding a t the s am e t ime th e theor e t ica l l ink be tweenthe na t iona l and in te r na t iona l a spec t s o f tha t p r oces s. Auc ie l lo main ta ins tha tthe S ta t e is the pr ime objec t o f Gr amsc i 's r e f lec t ions, a the me w hich isdeve loped mor e f u l ly by Buc i - Glucksmann. See be low.34 . Spr iano ( 1967 ) makes a s imila r po in t . He main ta ins tha t the we ightwhich Gr amsc i gives to ' molecu la r ' o r ganiza t ions and to ac t iv ity by th e massmov emen t is qu i te d i f f e ren t f r om Lenin .

35 . Sa lvadori accepts Bobbio 's ( 1967 ) in te r pr e ta t ion of the ' p r edominance 'of th e supers tructu re and of c ivil society within i t . See below.

36 . Th e d i scussion o n th e ph i losophica l a spec t o f Gr amsc i 's wr i tings in f ac tf o r m e d a n i m p o r t a n t p a r t o f t h e p r o c e ed i n gs a t t h e 1 9 5 8 G r a m sc i c o n fe r en c e .See in pa r t i cu la r Lupor in i , Bobbio , Cer r oni, G r uppi , and Tr ont i ( Gar in e t al . ,

195 8) . This las t contr i bu tion is especial ly interes t ing because i t is an ear lycr i t ic ism of Gramsci as an his tor icis t . Unti l more recently, however , theoret i-ca l ques t ions in Gr amsc i 's wo r k have no t been explor ed a t any length . For

som e r ecent cont r ibu t ions in F r ench , ma ny of which a r e concer ned wi th th i sa r ea bu t which we have no t been ab le to d i scuss a t any length , s ee Buc i -

Glucksmann e t al . ( 1974 ) and Gr isoni e t al. ( 1 9 7 5 ) .37. Bobbio m akes th i s pa r t i cu la r po in t dur ing th e d i scussion on h i s paper .See 'Replica' , in Garin e t al . ( 1 9 6 7 ) .38 . W hether o r n o t Gr amsc i' s p r ob lemat ic can be under s tood b y e l imina t ingcont r ad ic t ions as P io t te s e t s ou t to do r a the r than by s tudying . these cont r a -d ic t ions in or d e r to un der s tand w ha t they say abo ut the pr oblemat ic i ts el f issomewhat deba tab le .




39. On e of Piot te ' s original contr ibu t ions to an unders tand ing of Gramsciwhich should b e note d is his explanat ion tha t , for Gramsci , th e categories' t radi t ional ' and 'organic ' de pen d on th e point of view of a particular c lass.lntel lectuals who are 'organic' to o ne do min ant class in on e social form ationare ' traditional ' with respect t o a new p rogressive class seeking to establishi ts hegem ony, e .g. pries ts , organic und er feudal ism, are t radi t ional to the newbourgeois ie while those intel lectuals who perfo rm organic funct ion s for thebourgeois ie are t radi t ional with regard t o th e proletariat . We can therefore seetha t w hen Gramsci wri tes th at a new progressive class mus t win over sect ionsof the t radi t ional intel lectuals , for the proletariat this may mean, dependingon the na t iona l con text and the po in t in t ime , winning over, for example , theclergy ( t radi t ional t o bo th bourgeois ie and pro letariat ) and managers in in-dus t ry (organic to the bourgeoi s ie but t rad i tiona l t o the pro le ta ri a t ) . P rob-lems s t il l remain with Gramsci ' s categories , which seem to be defined fu nc-tionally and historically.4 0 . A very interesting discussion of the way in which Gramsci suggests a newrelat ionship between various intel lectual s t rata and what he cal ls the prota-gonism of th e masses in th e period of imperial ism, a relationship based on th e' recomposi t ion' of the s tate of separateness of social c lasses and groupswhich exis ts in capi tal ist society, is to be f ou nd in Vacca (19 76) .41 . Texie r poin t s out th e need t o s tudy th e concep t of s truc ture in Gramsciwhich had been neglected. See discuss ion of th e book b y Badaloni below. Seealso ano ther art ic le by Te xier (1973) for a considerat ion of h is torical causal ityin Gramsci.

42. The re is a deb ate over the d efini t ion of his torical bloc as social total i ty ,particularly with regard to the consequences th i s de fin i t ion has for thes truggle of a class at tempting to create an al ternat ive his torical bloc. Buci-Glucksmann summar izes th i s deba te (197 4, pp . 315-320). I t can be a rguedthat what is essent ial ly miss ing in both Piot te and Portel l i i s the his torical lyspeci f ic and concre te na ture of bo th the dom inant and potent i al a l t e rna t ivehis torical blocs and the concrete s t rategy which is a t the core of the new pro-letarian hegemony.43. In terms of the themes in the books by Paggi , De Fel ice, and Salvadori ,we would suggest that Portel l i does not adequately pose the problem of therelat ionship betw een the 'subject ive a nd the object ive elements , so th at i t canbe argued th at he is unable t o suggest sat isfactorily the concrete terms of theuni ty be tween base and supers t ruc ture . Nor does he unders tand tha t thenotion of organic crisis in Gramsci is b o t h the moment of acute pol i t i ca lcrisis an d th e long-term cris is of a social form ation in which the deve lopmen t

of th e forces of pro duc t ion and periodic econom ic crises provide the con-crete evidence of th e poss ibi l ity of t he t rans i t ion to socialism (the 'actual i ty 'of the revolut ion), a t rans i t ion which, however, mu st be real ized on theterrain of th e pol i tical by the pol i t ical intervent ion of the work ing class . Thu sth e role of t he pol i t ical organizat ion of t he working class in the creat ion ,heightening, and superseding of the cris is is severely underes t imated byPortel li . Portel l i ' s lack of u nders tanding of Gram sci 's con cept of th e party isrevealed in his art ic le on th e ques t ion of Jaco binism in Gramsci ( in Buci-Glucksmann e t a l . , 1974) . He fa il s to s ee tha t t he conten t of Gramsci 's idea ofJacobinism changes as well as his opinion of i t , so that Jacobinism which hadearl ier been defin ed as revolution b y an el i te , is t ransformed in the N o t e b o o k sinto revolut ion with the backing of the popular masses . Similarly, Portel l ireduces Lenin's pos i t ion to th at of violent revolut ion an d dictatorial rule ,ignoring the whol e aspect of Lenin's approach having to d o with bui ldingal liances and winning over th e vas t majori ty of th e populat ion . Bu t wha t is




obscured above a ll in Porte l li is the S ta te . He tends t o port ray the re la t ionshipof hegemony and dic ta torship as an opposi t ion between two separa te e le-men ts instead of an in terre la t ionship between organical ly l inked aspects of asingle phenomenon, the modes of dominat ion and unif ica t ion of a c lass.Therefore he diminishes Gramsci ' s awareness of the e lement of dic ta torshipor force , not ful ly rea l iz ing the way in which th e tw o e lements interact .

44. Developing in an original way certain suggestions of Togliatt i and Ragio-nieri , B uci-Glucksmann d epic ts the con cre te se t t ing of Gramsci' s theore t ica l

endeavours by p l ac ing h im f i rmly wi th in t he con tex t o f t he d i scussion o f t heThird Internat ional as wel l as indicat ing problems contemporary to him,which provided the o bject of man y of his reflec t ions: the p ol i t ica l as well aseconom ic di ff icult ies of bui lding socia lism in Russia, the consol idat ion of the

fascist Sta te , and the consequences of the economic cr isis of 1929-30 ,this last both in terms of the a t tempts by monopoly capi ta l in a var ie ty of

countr ies t o ra t ional ize th e capi ta l ist econ om y and in terms of the dangers ofeconomism for t he working-c la ss movement . She cons ide rs t he way in whichGramsci develops Lenin and a lso the re la t ionship of his concep t of hegemonyto those of Bukharin and Sta l in . In addi t ion she integra tes e lements f romGramsc i' s ea rl ie r works t o i nd ica te bo th con t inu i ty and deve lopment o f ce r-

ta in theme s such as the analysis of th e l ibera l Sta te .45. Buc i -Glucksmann conc ludes t ha t Gramsc i 's r e f l ec tion on the needs o f a

st ra tegy fo r advanced capi ta l ist countr ies w ere never separa te from a genera lref lec t ion on the Sta te and the problems of bui lding socia l ism in Russia aswell as in the West . O ften obscured b y the geographical di fferent ia t ion in thefamous passage o n East and West , Gramsci ' s concerns are in genera l theprob lems of t he t r ans i ti on and the need fo r hegemony to be ex t ended by anynew socia l ist Sta te . A part icular ly interesting aspect of exp anding th e discus-sion in this way is her appl ica t ion of Gramsci ' s problem at ic to th e quest ion ofthe wi ther ing away of t he S t a t e . In t h i s con tex t she con t ra s t s Gramsc i' s con-cept of th e extension of heg emon y af ter th e revolution w i th Sta l in ' s idea ofthe re in forcement o f t he S t a t e . She thus shows how G ramsci p rov ides t heore -t ica l too ls for analysing the l imi ta t ions of th e experience of the Sovie t Union.Of interest in this context is Cerroni 's article, 'Gramsci e i l superamento dellasepa raz ione t r a soc i e t i e S t a to ' (Gar in et al., 1 9 5 8 ) , which is part of a discus-sion of th e problem of t he re lat ionship between dem ocracy and social ism andin pa r t i cu l a r t he cond i t i ons fo r t he wi ther ing away of t h e S t a t e . Ce r ron i p ro-vides a re-reading of Marx and Engels and Lenin o n th e Sta te , inspi red byGramsci' s c onc ept of hegem ony a nd th e way in which th e extension of hege-mony in a fundamental ly democrat ic socia l i st Sta te provides the rea l basis

in th e superstructure fo r t he wi the r ing away of t h e S t a t e . Gramsci , o f course ,argues that th e bui lding of a pol i t ical and ideological supe rst ructure in keep-

ing wi th t he soc i a l i za t ion o f t he means o f p roduc t ion cannot be l e f t t ospon tane i ty bu t mu s t be pa r t o f a consc ious po l i ti ca l e f fo r t .46. This i s the phrase of Giacomo Marramao ( 1 9 7 5 ) . I t could a lso be arguedtha t this kind of c oncept ion of the t ransi t ion to socia l ism is just a moresophist ica ted way of expressing wh at basica lly remains an econ omist ic prob-

lematic. A diff icul ty wi th the Badaloni book in genera l consists in the fac ttha t he does no t by any means express c lea rly h is a rgument which remainsin many po in t s qu i t e obscure t o anyone ou t s ide va r ious cur ren t deba te s i ncon temp ora ry I t al i an Marx i st ph i losophy .47. While t he Crocean inf luence has been extensively invest igated, Machia-vell i' s inf luence has been mu ch less so. Fo r example , w i th regard to the

re la t ionship between subject ive and object ive e lements, i t can be argued thatMachiavel l i ' s concept of the re la t ionship between v i r t i and fortuna were




amo ng tho se aspe cts of his wo rks w hich inf luenced Gramsci as wel l as the re-

l a t i onsh ip be tween fo rce and consen t . (An o the r ex t reme ly im por t an t i n f luenceon Gramsci i s found in Marx 's Theses o n Feuerbach and in the In t ro d u c t i o no f 1857 , an area no t ful ly invest iga ted. See Texier (1973) . ) Gram sci was par-t icular ly interested in th e way in which Machiavel li posed th e problem of th econd i t i ons fo r t he c rea t ion o f a new S ta t e r a the r t han ana lys ing an ex is t ingone. See Gru ppi (19 69 ) and Davidson (19 73) . Aucie llo argues tha t i t is neces-sa ry t o un de r l i ne t he impor t ance o f G ramsc i' s s t u dy o f Mach iave ll i t o unde r -stand the format ion of his pol i t ica l sc ience and in par t icular his concepts of

hegemony and o f t he po l it i ca l pa r ty , a s wel l a s t o comprehend the d i f f e rencesbe tween Gramsc i 's p rob l ema t i c and those o f Marx and Len in (197 4 , pp .124-5) .48. For a discussion of Gramsci ' s v iew of the na tura l sc iences see Rossi

( 1 9 7 6 ) .49. Al thusser ' s concept ion of Marxist phi losophy has changed drast ica l lyaf ter Rea d i n g Ca p i t a l , and he now recognizes i t s re la t ion wi th pol i t ics anddefines i t as ' the class struggle in theory' .50 . Som e o f t hose whose work ha s r e l evan t a spec t s i n t h i s con t ex t a re Cesa reLuporini , Biagio de Giovanni , G iuseppe Vacca , Nicola Badaloni , Lucio

Col le t ti and Um berto Cerroni . There are cer ta in convergences and /or inf lu-ences be tween the i r work and tha t o f A l thusse r o r Del la Vo lpe , bu t on t h ewhole i t is a depa r tu re f rom bo th .

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