The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (111 page)

(1869–1940)
Anarchist and feminist, born in Lithuania, who campaigned throughout America and Europe for political and sexual freedom from the conventions of capitalist society. An effective propagandist, Goldman was vilified in the United States as ‘Red Emma’, and was deported from the United States in 1917 after terms in gaol for incitement to riot, suspected involvement in the assassination of President McKinley , distributing birth control information, and activities against conscription. After returning to Russia in 1919 Goldman became disillusioned with the oppression and persecution following the
Russian Revolution
, leaving the country in 1921, but continued to support anarchist causes through her writing and campaigning, dying in Canada whilst on a tour to highlight the plight of Spanish anarchists in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War.

 
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Republican Party
.

 
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A literature developed in the 1970s which suggested that a number of advanced industrial countries, particularly but not just Britain, were becoming ungovernable, or at least harder to govern. The concept was not well defined, but centred on the idea that, as the range of problems that the government was expected to deal with had increased, its capacity to solve them had been reduced. The government had become more ineffective because its ability to secure compliance with its policies had diminished. This was partly because of the intractability of the problems facing government, and excessive citizen expectations, but also reflected resistance to government authority from a variety of groups, notably trade unions. Critics of the concept argued that most European polities were not designed to be governable in the sense of having a central, unchallenged authority, but rather represented a form of compromise between competing groups in society. The term fell out of favour in the 1980s as governments of the right demonstrated a willingness both to reduce the functions of the state and to assert their authority in what they regarded as core areas of government activity.
WG 

 
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Babeuf , Francis-Noel
.

 
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(1891–1937)
Italian Marxist and journalist. Active in the Italian Socialist party from 1913. Co-founder (1919) and editor of the influential newspaper
L'ordine nuovo
; took an active role in the Turin factory council movement (which he saw as ‘models of the proletarian state’) during the
Biennio Rosso
(‘the two red years’) of 1919–20. In 1921, he became a member of the Central Committee of the new Italian Communist Party (PCI) and in 1922 went to Moscow as Italian representative on the Executive of the Communist International. Returned to Italy in 1924 and was elected deputy for the Veneto constituency. Became Secretary General of the PCI. Arrested by the fascist regime in 1926, sentenced (Mussolini reportedly saying ‘We must keep this brain from functioning for twenty years’), and despite chronic ill health remained in prison until his death in 1937. His most important theoretical work is to be found in
The Prison Notebooks
(1928–37).
Gramsci wanted to understand why the revolution had failed to spread after 1917, how
capitalism
had survived and why the
proletariat
had not acquired
class consciousness
and, follow-ing on from these issues, what strategies should be adopted by revolutionary parties operating in liberal democratic states. This led him to analyse the relationship between the economic base and the political superstructure, and to introduce the concept of
hegemony
.
He argued that in liberal democracies, class hegemony was based upon consent far more than on force. The
state
had ultimate resort to its coercive machinery in periods of exceptional crisis, but generally maintained and justified its control through the intellectual and moral leadership it exercised in
civil society
. The ideological superstructure—politics, education, culture, religion—shaped the framework of perception, understanding, and knowledge. The result of this socialization process was that the governed actively consented to their oppression. Class domination was preserved behind the veneer of social harmony—bourgeois relations were internalized and consequently the possibility of revolutionary activity receded.
How then should a revolutionary party deal with capitalist hegemony? Gramsci identified two complementary strategies: a war of manoeuvre, and a war of position. The former—which he relegated to a subsidiary role as inappropriate in the period of reaction following the October Revolution—represented a rapid frontal assault on the state. The latter involved what he called ‘protracted trench warfare’, that is multiple struggles based upon a variety of organizational forms and with differing political objectives (parliamentary, union, cultural, alliances with other progressive forces) but which would be directed by the Communist Party. This did not imply gradualism; Gramsci never doubted that the question of state power would finally have to be addressed by revolutionary force.
The revolutionary party alone had a total conception of the world and the commitment needed to instil in the masses what he described as ‘critical self-consciousness’, which would lead them to overthrow the existing order and develop a new hegemonic socialist culture. Gramsci did not believe in the pure spontaneity of the working class—it needed the direction of the Communist Party which had the ability to render explicit what was implicit. At the same time, he demanded far greater mass involvement in the formulation of Party policy. In
The Modern Prince
, Gramsci drew an analogy between the way
Machiavelli
employed ‘the Prince’ as a mythic force capable of stimulating mass mobilization and creating community and the Party which represented ‘the collective will’ and acted as the catalyst of revolution. ‘Traditional’ intellectuals were closely linked to the dominant class and performed socializing tasks for it, but ‘organic’ intellectuals had the ability to cut themselves off, universalize their experience, and join the class of the future, the proletariat and its revolutionary party.
Gramsci's discussion of hegemony was grounded in his contention that ‘man is essentially political’. He was critical of what he regarded as the dogmatism which had characterized much of Marxism since the death of Marx. He was influenced by Benedetto Croce's emphasis upon the importance of a subjective and cultural understanding of historical change which led him to reject the crude positivism of revisionist Marxist theory.
He distinguished between organic (long-term, objective trends) and conjunctural (subjective, immediate factors) forces in society. When the two came together they produced an ‘historic bloc’—the coincidence of a prerevolutionary situation and a class conscious movement. The individual/class/party must understand the historical context and then choose from various options for activity—a fusion of theory and praxis, of intellectual rigour and revolutionary commitment (or in Gramsci's most famous aphorism, ‘pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will’).
Gramsci's belief that people could be conscious, deliberate actors in the processes of history had a tremendous impact upon the
New Left
,
Guevara
, and
Castroism
, whilst his theories of hegemony and revolutionary strategy greatly influenced
Eurocommunism
and particularly the evolution of the PCI.
GS