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Joseph A. Woolcock
INTRODUCTION
For nearly two decades, an unprecedented development
of interest in the theoretical contributions of Antonio
Gramsci and the influence of his thoughts on Marxist enquiry
have become quite intriguing for Marxist scholars. Beginning
with the interventionof Norberto Bobbio1 at the Cagliari
Conference on Marxist Studies in 1967, a new approach to
the understanding of Gramsci's contribution to Marxist
enquiry.
This paper explores the major concepts of Gramsci's
structure and
superstructure meant searching for a dynamic
interpretation of history. It was during his imprisonment that
Gramsci reflected on the cause for the defeat of the working
class movement and the victory of fascism in Italy. And, it
was there he arrived at a thorough understanding of the
nature and role of politics in the historical process.2
Without
doubt, Gramsci's contribution to the under
standing of the nature and role of politics, ideology and hege
mony in historical development has shed new light on Marx
ism. Like Marx, he locates the constitution of social classes
at the structural moment of capitalist societies. However, he
rejects the immediate connection of infrastructure and super
structure which constitutes "... an historical bloc ... the com
plex, contradictory and discordant ensemble of the super
structures reflecting the ensemble of the social relations of
RECONSTRUCTINGGRAMSCI'SPOLITICALTHOUGHT
A reconstruction of Gramsci's political thought must, of
necessity, begin with his conception of civil society because
it is in civil society that the Marxist notion of bourgeois
hegemony is given a central place. Similarly, the way in
which Gramsci uses the concept "civil society" differs as
much from Marx and Engels as from Hegel.
for Gramsci,
Thus, there cannot exist quantity with
out quality, or quality without quantity economy without
culture, practical activity without intelligence. Any attempt
to divide this principle would be breaking the unity of the
historical process by creating a separation between the con
tent from the form. Such an approach would be a rejection
of the role of the superstructures by making them appear as
individual fancies devoid of economic roots. This leads to the
erroneous conceptions of economism and ideologism, the
same mechanistic, views Gramsci himself rejected from the
Second International.
The
second methodological principle concerns the rela
tions between different instances of the superstructures.
Gramsci's concepts which denote a moment or crucial aspect
of historical reality are inseparable from the concepts which
designate the opposite but complementary aspects of that
reality. Thus, in contrast to the state, understood as the
FOOTNOTES
2
For a thorough discussion on the historical background to the devlvelop
ment of Gramsci 's political thought see, "Hegemony and Ideology in Gramsci"
Gramsci and Marxist Theory, Chantal Mouffe, (ed.), Routledge & Kegan Paul,
London 1979.
3
See Chantal Mouffe, "Gramsci Today" in Gramsci and Marxist Theory,
C. Mouffe, (ed.).
4
See Leonardo Paggi, "Gramsci's General Theory of Marxism" in Gramsci
and Marxist Theory, C. Mouffe, (ed.), pp. 113-167.
^On this, see Norberto Bobbio, "Gramsci and the Conception of Civil
Society", in Gramsci and Marxist Theory, C. Mouffe, (ed.).
10
See Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The German Ideology, Internal
Publishers, New York, 1977.
^Marx and Engels, cited in Bobbio, "Gramsci and the Conception of Civil
Society", pp. 29-30.
12
Gramsci, cited in Bobbio, "Gramsci and the Conception of Civil Society ,
p. 30.
14
Antonio Gramsci, cited in Gwynn Williams, "Gramsci's Conception of
11
Op. cit., pp. 178-200.
18
Gramsci, cited in Jacques Texier, "Gramsci, Theoretician of the Super
structures", in Gramsci and Marxist Theory, C. Mouffe, (ed.), p. 58.
REFERENCES