Gramsciand whatis his essentialcontributionto
Marxism?
Gramsciwas22 yearsold whenhe joinedthe Italian
Socialist Party,whichwasto associateitselfwiththe
ThirdInternational. He roserapidlyto become a prom-
inentleaderwithinthatparty. Gramsci wasa great,active
supporterof the Worker’sCouncilMovementin the in-
dustrial cityof Turin.He ofteninvokedLenin’sfamous
slogan“Allpowerto the Soviets”in his argumentsagainst
criticsof the movementandin the hopethatthe councils
wouldbecomethe nucleusof a future communistforma-
tion.Later,in 1921,he emerged as oneof the key founders
of the ItalianCommunistParty[PCI] andthenbecame
the party’schiefleader in 1924.Meanwhile,he hadspent
timein Moscow,fromwherehe returned withinstruc-
tionsfromthe Bureauof the ThirdInternationalto form
an anti-fascist front of all left-wingparties andforces
withthe PCIat its epicentre,a positionthatwasresisted
by manyof his colleaguesin the party.He wasarrested
andsentencedto prisonfor 20 yearsas theleaderand
chieftheoretician of the PCI.
Thereare twofundamentalthemes underlying all his
reflectionsin theapproximately30,000pagesof the
PrisonNotebooks: whatwerethe structuralcauses—his-
torical, cultural, social, religious causes—for the defeat of
the Leftandthe victoryof fascismin Italy; and,howto
reconstructa communistparty—for whichhe usedterms
like“theModernPrince”and“thecollectiveintellec-
tual”—in a waythatwouldaddress the specificities of the
Italiansituation.Givenall thishistory,it is simplyabsurd
to try anddetach Gramsci’s thoughtfromits basiccom-
munistgrounding.
In a sense,Gramsci’sessential undertakingwasnot
verydifferentfromthatof Maoin China.Whenthe party
wasin disarrayafterthedefeatof theShanghaiprolet-
ariatin 1927,Maoaskedhimselfa simplequestion:how
to reformulateMarxism-Leninismfor revolution in the
conditions of a vast,semi-colonial, mainly peasant coun-
try likeChina?Hissolutionwasingenious:to execute the
logicof a proletarian revolution but witha peasant army,
developingtherevolutionary forcenotso muchin the
industrial citiesas in theagrarianhinterlands,with
strategy not of a frontal attackon citadelsof stateauthor-
ity—asin the caseof the storming of the Winter Palace—
butby surrounding the citiesfromthe countryside.Mao
introduced an entirelynovelcorpusof thoughtintothe
Marxist-Leninisttradition.
ThePCIwasbarelyfive yearsoldwhen Gramsci
entered a fascistprison,whichhe wasto leaveonlywhen
he wastoo ill, too closeto death. Wehaveto remember
thatGramsciwasseverelyill most of his life anddiedat- As such,his highlyoriginalapproach to the problem
of revolutionarypracticein a majorEuropeancountry
remainedconfinedto the realmof thought,neverallowed
to be testedin actualpractice.Thus,he cannotbe com-
pared to Mao,but the undertakingwassimilar: thinking
concretelyaboutone’sownnationalsituationin orderto
arriveat an adequatecommuniststrategy.
BASEANDSUPERSTRUCTURE
Gramsci wasa keenstudentof Marxandwasvirtually
obsessedwithsomeof thepassagesin Marx’sfamous
1959 preface.Oneof thosepassagesreadsas follows:
“The changesin the economic foundations lead
sooner or laterto thetransformationof thewhole im-
mense superstructure.In studying suchtransformations
it is alwaysnecessaryto distinguishbetween the material
transformationof theeconomicconditions of produc-
tion,whichcanbe determinedwiththeprecisionof
natural science,andthe legal,political,religious,artistic
or philosophical—inshort,ideologicalformsin which
menbecomeconsciousof thisconflict andfight it out.”
Gramsci drewseveralconclusionsfromthis.First,
thatthe relationbetweenstructure andsuperstructureis
dialecticalin natureandneither is reducibleto unitary
determinationby theother.Second,thatthescientific
method withwhichwe cananalyse“theeconomiccondi-
tionsof production” withgreat“precision”cannotgiveus
an equallypreciseunderstanding of “ideologicalforms”;
for thatwe needa complementary butsomewhatdiffer-
entscienceof thesuperstructures.Third,that “ideolo-
gicalforms” are multipleandhaveoverlapping butalso
relatively autonomous histories.
Thelegalsuperstructureof bourgeoisEuroperepres-
entsnot onlyits capitalistpresentbut is alsopremisedon
layered, highlysedimentedfoundations thatdatebackto
theCannon Lawof theCatholicChurch as wellas the
Roman Lawof the old Empire.Thereligioussuperstruc-
turethatis specific to CatholicItalyis not the sameas in
AnglicanBritainor the Saudivariant of Wahhabi Islam;
eachhas a historicityandconcretenessof its own.Fourth,
andmost important, that whereasthefundamental
factorsandcrises thatopenup the possibilityof revolu-OSAMA BINLADEN.Hewas a CIAasset beforehe
turnedagainsttheU.S.
MAZHAR ALIKHAN/AP