ab origine, about coercive force but based on an analogy with navigation and
technical expertise.
Gradualism
Gradualism is, very broadly, a version ofsocialismwhich denies the need for
revolution, and argues instead that the ordinary and ‘slow’ means of compe-
titive democratic politics can, in time, produce the needed changes in social
and economic organization (seeparliamentary socialism). Thus gradualism
is the creed of parties espousingsocial democracy, and of all socialist and
communist parties which are prepared to compete against liberals and con-
servatives in normal elections. The Italian Communist Party, with a long
tradition of democratic participation, eventually reorganized itself as a mass
social democratic party in 1991, and changed its name to the Democratic Party
of the Left, in what might be seen as a logical conclusion of its gradualism. The
Fabiansrepresented the voice of intellectual gradualists in the early British
Labour Party. These approaches would be despised as ‘selling out’ socialism or
beingrevisionistby revolutionary communist and extreme-left parties, which
would have included theParti Communiste Franc ̧aisuntil at least the
1960s.
Theoretically the difference hinges on arguments about the possibility of
teaching the public to want socialism by example, by minor changes when a
socialist government can get elected, as against forcibly creating a socialist
society as soon as power can be won, peacefully or otherwise, and producing
immediately the sort of state that people ‘ought’ to want (seedictatorship of
the proletariat). The concept of gradualism has become somewhat redundant
with the collapse of Soviet communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern
Europe, so clearly is it now in the ascendant as the chosen path towards
socialism. It still has a theoretical value, however, as it raises the question of
whether a society could ever transform itself markedly without a violent break
from its past. To those who opposed a gradualist approach, it seemed very clear
that the gradualist shrank from the violence, physical or otherwise, of rapid
transition because they were still too committed to the values of the society to
be overthrown.
Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) was the founder of the Italian Communist
Party, after it split from the Italian Socialist Party in 1921. When the party had
to go underground during the fascist period, Gramsci underwent a long term
of imprisonment, and died in prison. During this period, however, he laid the
foundation for the specifically Italian brand of communist tactics and thought
Gradualism