Gramsci: On the Party (original) (raw)
1968, Australian Left Review
GRAM SCI'S VIEW of the role of the socialist party in preparing for the revolution was quite novel. This was to be expected given his novel view of m arxism and of the tasks of socialists in ad vanced capitalist countries. T his point has had to be m ade at the outset because other writers from both the com m unist party and outside have m aintained that Gramsci, on party questions, was in the Leninist trad itio n .' T hey have had both ideological and scholarly reasons for asserting this. T h e P.C.I. has still, to the best of my knowledge, not given up democratic centralism, al though factional activity is quite open to its ranks, and therefore has emphasised the continuity in Gramsci's writings between the Qrdine N uovo period and the Prison N otebooks period. T he second period has been seen in the light of the former. T hus it is m aintained th at w hat Gramsci wrote while in prison con stituted only a revision of earlier ideas which were strongly demo cratic centralist and inspired by Leninism.2 T h e same inter pretation has been m ade for scholarly reasons by non-communist writers who view Gram sci's theories on the party in 1919-20 and 1927-37 together and extract a synthesis.3 Presumably, though this is not stated by the writers, they are not prepared to risk asser tions that this or that part of Gramsci constitutes the essence of his work. In refusing to do so they are avoiding a cardinal point of Gramscian m ethodology which was brought ou t in the third article in this series; always to seek for the essence of the writings of a m an and to disregard obiter dicta and writings not really the product of his own thought but borrowed from some where else. Since Gramsci himself emphasised the need to do this they are being unjust to him by ignoring his own directions on how to interpret philosophy.
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