THE EUROCOMMUNIST wing of the Communist Party around Marxism Today claim their politics on those of Antonio Gramsci the leader of the Italian Communist Party in the mid-1920s whose Notebooks constitute one of the greatest series of writings within Marxism.
Marxism Today seeks to counterpose Gramsci to the views of Lenin and Trotsky. They claim him as the originator of the theory of a 'peaceful transition socialism' 'popular front/broad allance stralegs which forms the core of both wings of the Communist These claims are quite simply factually false — in fact the reverse of the truth. advanced positions explicitly opposed to both the idea of any peaceful transition to socialism and to a popular front The only major first-hand report of Gramsci's immediate views in prison, the Athos recorded clearly themes Gramsci was developing were of the need for organisation capable of taking on the power of the bourgeois state military organisation conceived not in narrowly technical terms, essentially political one, and the importance of the intermediate slogan of a 'constituent assembly' — first as a means of winning allies for the proletariat in its struggle against the ruling class and subsequently as a terrain on which to fight against all the projects of peaceful reform. These were conceived of for demonstrating to the Malan working class possible solution in Italy lay in proletarian revolution. An troduction to Gramsci's period can be found in Quintin Hoare's introduction to Gramsci's Prison Notebooks and his Political Writings 1921 - 1926.
But more important than secondhand accounts of Gramsci's views are his own writings. These essential continuity of the framework of his analysis both before and after he was imprisoned by Mussolini's dictatorship.
In the famous Lyons Theses, written in 1926 after the seizure of power by Mussolini, Gramsci advanced two central slogans for the against the fascist regime. The first was *republican assembly on the basis of workers' and peasants' committees; workers' control of industry; land to thorkers and peasants gecond emas. peasants'. second Prison These slogans are obviously in continuity with the positions reported to be held by Gramsci in prison. They are classic Marxist demands of the struggle against dictatorship - exactly those of a constituent assembly and workers' and peasants' alliance. They. are identical in all fundamentals to the slogans advanced by Trotsky in the fight against fascism.
Far TraNSCI popular front he wrote in the Lyons Theses that: 'The possibility that action by so-called democratic antifascist groups might bring down the fascist regime would only exist if these groups succeeded in neutralising the activity of the proletariat, and in controlling a mass movement that would enable it to break the latter's development. The function of the democratic bourgeois opposition is rather to collaborate with fascism, in preventing. the reorganisation of the class and the realisation of its class programme.
Gramsci understood that the fundamental role of LIC DOUCCOS OD position to Mussolini was to undermine the sole means that could actually practically fight against the fascist regime — ie the mass struggle of the working class and pessants. democratic LAND that the military but that the only excellent inviews both show the Gramsci struggle 'if the caused it to tavourng a beginning fascism down, possible one, struggle of the masses.
tion.' working 'popular front' 22210 Trotsky and Lenin Gramsci explained to the political commission of the Lyons Congress:
Mussolini government had fallen, whatever the means which had fall, an extremely deep political crisis would have opened up in Italy, whose development no one could have forseen or halted. But the Opposition forces too knew this, and they therefore excluded right from the way bringing ie the mobilisation and By excluding this sole possible way to bring down fascism, the Opposition in reality kept fascism upright, and were the most effective prop of the regime in dissoluIn short, far from favouring a against tion.' Mussolini, Gramsci explained that the role of the capitalist opposition was actually to aid Mussolini's regime by restraining the struggle of the working class — the sole force that could practically smash fascism. The bourgeois forces were far more frightened of the working class than of fascism. This, theme which Trotsky outlined in the struggle against fascism in Spain anc The 'popular front' orientation, by attempting to lock the working class within capitalist limits, actually sabotaged the struggle against fascism. Stages As regards the second key view o! Marxism Today and the Communis Party, the 'stages' theory of revolution and the concept of the broad democratic within theses drafted by Gramsci for the Lyons explicitly 'there is no possibility of a revolution in Italy that is not the socialist revoluThe theses argued that, 'In Italy, there is a confirmation of the thesis that the most favourable conditions for the proletarian revolution do not necessarily in those countries where capitalism and industrialism have reached the highest level of development, but may instead arise wibere the fabric of the anitalis system offers least resistance, because the structural an attack by the revolutionary class and its allies.' Gramsci finished Theses by stating that the formula of a workers and peasants government was not an 'intermediate' stage of the revolution.
Gramsci argued, 'The party cannot conceive of a realisation of this slogan (workers and peasants government, except as the beginning of a direc revolutionary war waged by the proletariat, alliance with the peasantry, with the aim of winning power stated, serious deviations from "The leader of the revolution if it were to interpret the workers' and peasants government as corresponding to a rea phase dicated the possibility for the problem terests of the working class in an other form than the dictatorship o tees.
groups nature' Origin and peasants, front" capitalist substantial men" (sic), begin to ment. answered soviets organisation weakness, the Lyons can against struggle: ie of a civil bourgeoisie, peasants' the struggle -could be led into its task as this type ship of the proletariat Gramsci conceived that the necessary alliance of workers and peasants must be realised through 'workers' and peasants' committees'. He advanced as central that "The slogan of workers' and peasants committees must be considered as a synthetic formula for all the party's insolar as ll proposes to create an organised united front of the working class. The workers' and committees are organs of unity or the working class, wnelne mobilised for a struggle of an im mediate nature or for political actions of a broader scope "The slogan calling for the crea tion of workers and peasants commit.. is a political solution and an agitational slogan appropriate for a whole period of the party's existence and activity. It makes evident and concrete the need for the workers to organise their forces, and counter pose them in practice to those of all bourgeois origin Here, once again, Gramsci makes it absolutely clear that this united front based on the alliance of workers was counterposed to "all groups of bourgeois origin'. The role of these workers' and peasants committees was that of: "The "united of anti-tascist and anti struggle which the com munists are striving to create and (which) must aim at being an organis ed united front ie at being based or. bodies around which the masses as a whole can regroup and find a form.
eVCI element to Trotsky famous characterisation of Soviets a 'the highest form of the united front. and his graphic description of the role in the Transitional Programme of the Fourth International.
"The deepening of the social crisi will increase not only the sufferings o the masses but also their impatience persistence and pressure. layers of the oppressed will raise thei heads and come forward with the demands. Millions of toil worn "littl to whom the reformis leaders never gave a wought, wil pound insistently on the doors of the workers organisations The unemployed will join the mor:
The agricultural workers, ir ruined and semi-ruined farmers, it oppressed of the cities, the wome workers, housewives, proletarianise of the intelligensia - all ( these will seek unity and leadership.
'How are the different demand and forms of struggle to be harmoni ed, even if only within the limits c city? History has alread this question: throug 'Soviet are not limited to an priori party programme • They thro open their doors to all the exploiter Throught these doors pass represer tatives of all strata, drawn into th general current of the struggle.
broadening with the movement, renewed again and again in its womb All political currents of the proletaria struggle for leadership of th soviets on the basis of the wides In short on each fundament feature — on the alliance of exploit oppressed against th bourgeoisie, on the inevitable necess: ty of the working class to defend itsel the violence of workers' committees as the fun damental organisations for cementin Gramsci stood no counterposed to but precisely on th basis of the fundamental positions o Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky.
'he attempt by Marxism Today nlist Gramsci in their system of cla alliances is a sheer historical fraud On every fundamental question o Gramsci's positions wer those which Trotskyists defend that is not the alliance of the workin with the bourgeoiste but alliance of all the exploited and o TAL DOS A DEER T
Socialist Action 18 January 1985