From: "Marcus Strom" <MSTROM-AT-nswtf.org.au>
Date:          Wed, 22 Nov 1995 10:40:31 GMT+10
Subject:       Re: Value of Gramsci


Ah! All this talk of whether Gramsci was a stalinist or not seems a 
wee bit silly to me, and not terribly marxist in its construct.

To pose such a question is no thinking dialectically. Both stalinists 
and trotskyists (of the 52 heinz varieties) cannot get their heads 
out of their struggles against one another - the stalinists think 
they have, but haven't and the trotskyists depend on there being 
stalinists in this world - real or imagined.

I think that Gramsci was a revolutionary marxist who had a lot of 
time in gaol to think. He was a supporter of the third international; 
does this make him a stalinist? WHO CARES!

We need to move on from this dichotomy, not in an agnostic way, but 
in a way that has the interests of the class *as a whole* at its core, not the 
interests of this or that groupoid. GET OVER IT! I support the CP 
tradition because they were real *class* parties. However, I support 
Trotsky on China 1927, the united front (largely), and many other 
things. However, I really opposed his oppositional tactics which the 
trotskyists have inherited. Although no maoist by a long shot, I 
appreciated what MIM said a while ago. The trotskyists often say that 
the revolution has been 'betrayed' by the stalinists. "If it wasn't 
for the stalinists, we would've had China 1927, France 1968, etc etc" 
MIM turned this around to say "if the trotskyists had had the correct 
leadership we wouldve had ....."

Trotskyisms approach to these matters is profoundly idealist. 
Communists always start from what is real. Social democracy is real, 
stalinist organisation (not a word I usually use, but useful short 
hand here) is real - THEY EXIST. An analysis that says "if it wasn't 
for [..x + y.....], we would've had [...z+q...]" is not a materialist 
analysis.

I'm rereading the German Ideology at present and it is refreshing 
that there is so much reality in its pages, " if wishes were fishes, 
we'd have a whole sea".

"Where speculation ends, where real life starts, there consequently 
begins real, positive science, the expounding of the practical 
activity, of the practical process of development of men. Empty 
phrases about consciousness end, and real knowledge has to take their 
place" p43

"Communism is not for us a *state of affairs* which is to be 
established, an *ideal* to which reality will have to adjust itself. 
We call communism the *real* movement which abolishes the present 
state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the now 
existing premise" p57

The Geram Ideology


So I agree with this statement below to a large extent, but then it 
falls into that categorical, non-dialectical analysis of "luxemburg 
versus Lenin". If you look at Luxemburg's pamphlet, "Reform and 
Revolution", I think that the fact that the title is "AND" and not 
"VERSUS" is important.

> I think placing Gramsci in one camp or another necessarily limits the 
> utility of his theory.  I think Carl Boggs summed Gramsci's position 
> quite nicely when he asserted Gramsci rejected the spontaneity of 
> Luxembourg and the vanguardism of Lenin and Stalin.
> 
> 
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