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Stuart Hall

Gramsci’s Relevance for the Study

of Race and Ethnicity

The aim of this collection of essaysl is to facilitate &dquo;a more sophisticated

examination of the hitherto poorly elucidated phenomena of racism and to

examine the adequacy of the theoretical formulations, paradigms and interpretive

schemes in the social and human sciences...with respect to introlerance and racism

and in relation to the complexity of problems they pose.&dquo; This general rubric

enables me to situate more precisely the kind of contribution which a study of

Gramsci’s work can make to the larger enterprise. In my view, Gramsci’s work

does not offer a general social science which can be applied to the analysis of

social phenomena across a wide comparative range of historical societies. His

potential contribution is more limited. It remains, for all that, of seminal

importance. His work is, precisely, of a &dquo;sophisticating&dquo; kind. He works,

broadly, within the marxist paradigm. However, he has extensively revised,

renovated and sophisticated many aspects of that theoretical framework to make it

more relevant to contemporary social relations in the twentieth century. His work

therefore has a direct bearing on the question of the &dquo;adequacy&dquo; of existing social

theories, since it is precisely in the direction of &dquo;complexifying existing theories

and problems&dquo; that his most important theoretical contribution is to be found.

These points require further clarification before a substantive resume and

assessment of Gramsci’s theoretical contribution can be offered.

Gramsci was not a &dquo;general theorist.&dquo; Indeed, he did not practice as an

academic or scholarly theorist of any kind. From beginning to end, he was and

remained a political intellectual and a socialist activist on the Italian political

scene. His &dquo;theoretical&dquo; writing was developed out of this more organic

engagement with his own society and times and was always intended to serve, not

an abstract academic purpose, but the aim of &dquo;informing political practice.&dquo; It is

therefore essential not to mistake the level of application at which Gramsci’s

concepts operate. He saw himself as, principally, working within the broad

parameters of historical materialism, as outlined by the tradition of marxist

scholarship defined by the work of Marx and Engels and, in the early decades of

the Twentieth Century, by such figures as Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, Trotsky,

Labriola, Togliatti, etc. (I cite those names to indicate Gramsci’s frame of

reference within marxist thought, not his precise position in relation to those

particular figures-co establish the latter is a more complicated issue.) This

means that his theoretical contribution has, always, to be read with the

understanding that it is operating on, broadly, marxist terrain. That is to say,

marxism provides the general limits within which Gramsci’s developments,

refinements, revisions, advances, further thoughts, new concepts and original

formulations all operate. However, Gramsci was never a &dquo;marxist&dquo; in either a

doctrinal, orthodox or &dquo;religious&dquo; sense. He understood that the general framework

of Marx’s theory had to be constantly developed theoretically; applied to new

historical conditions; related to developments in society which Marx and Engels

could not possibly have foreseen; expanded and refined by the addition of new

concepts.

Gramsci work thus represents neither a &dquo;footnote&dquo; to the already-completed

edifice of orthodox marxism nor a ritual evocation of orthodoxy which is circular

in the sense of producing &dquo;truths&dquo; which are already well known. Gramsci

practices a genuinely &dquo;open&dquo; marxism, which develops many of the insights of

marxist theory in the direction of new questions and conditions. Above all, his

work brings into play concepts which classical marxism did not provide but

without which marxist theory cannot adequately explain the complex social

phenomena which we encounter in the modem world. It is essential to understand

these points if we are to situate Gramsci’s work against the background of

existing &dquo;theoretical formulations, paradigms and interpretive schemes in the

social and human sciences.&dquo;

Not only is Gramsci’s work not a general work of social science, of the

status of, say, the work of such &dquo;founding fathers&dquo; as Max Weber or Emile

Durkheim, it does not anywhere appear in that recognizable general, synthesizing

form. The main body of Gramsci’s theoretical ideas are scattered throughout his

occasional essays and polemical writing-he was an active and prolific political

joumalist-and, of course, in the great collection of Notebooks which Gramsci

wrote, without benefit of access to libraries or other reference books, either during

his enforced leisure in Mussolini’s prison in Turin after his arrest (1928-33) or,

after his release, but when he was already terminally ill, in the Formal Clinic

(1934-5). This fragmentary body of writing, including the Notebooks (the

Quaderni del carcere), are mainly to be found now in the Istituto Gramsci in

Rome, where a definidve critical edition of his work is still in the course of

completion for publication.2

Not only are the writings scattered; they are often fragmentary in form rather

than sustained and &dquo;finished&dquo; pieces of writing. Gramsci was often writing-as in

the Prison Noieboob-ander the most unfavourable circumstances: for example,

under the watchful eye of the prison censor and without any other books from

which to refresh his memory. Given these circumstances, the Notebooks represent

a remarkable intellectual feat. Nevertheless, the &dquo;costs&dquo; of his having to produce

them in this way, of never being able to go back to them with time for critical

reflection, were considerable. The Notebooks are what they say: Notes-shorter or

more extended; but not woven into a sustained discourse or coherent text. Some

of his most complex arguments are displaced from the main text into long

footnotes. Some passages have been reformulated, but with little guidance as to

which of the extant versions Gramsci regarded as the more &dquo;definitive&dquo; text.

As if these aspects of &dquo;fragmentariness°’ do not present us with formidable

enough difficulties, Gramsci’s work may appear fragmentary in another, even

deeper, sense. He was constantly using &dquo;theory&dquo; to illuminate concrete historical

cases or political questions; or thinking large concepts in terms of their

application to concrete and specific situations. Consequently, Gramsci’s work

often appears almost too concrete: too historically specific, too delimited in its

references, too &dquo;descriptively&dquo; analytic, too time and context-bound. His most

illuminating ideas and formulations are typically of this conjunctural kind. To

make more general use of them, they have to be delicately dis-interred from their

concrete and specific historical embeddedness and transplanted to new sail with

considerable care and patience.

Some critics have assumed that Gramsci’s concepts operate at this level of

concreteness only because he did not have the time or inclination to raise them to

a higher level of conceptual generality-the exalted level at which &dquo;theoretical

ideas&dquo; are supposed to function. Thus both Althusser and Poulantzas have

proposed at different times &dquo;theorising&dquo; Gramsci’s insufficiently theorized texts.

This view seems to me mistaken. Here, it is essential to understand, from the

epistemological viewpoint, that concepts can operate at very different levels of

abstraction and are often consciously intended to do so. The important point is

not to &dquo;misread&dquo; one level of abstraction for another. We expose ourselves to

serious error when we attempt to &dquo;read off’ concepts which were designed to

operate at a high level of abstraction as if they automatically produced the same

theoretical effects when translated to another, more concrete, &dquo;lower&dquo; level of

operation. In general, Gramsci concepts were quite explicitly designed to operate

at the lower levels of historical concreteness. He was not aiming &dquo;higher&dquo;-and

missing his theoretical target! Rather we have to understand this level of historico-

concrete descriptiveness in terms of Gramsci’s relation to marxism.

Gramsci remained a &dquo;marxist,&dquo; as I have said, in the sense that he developed

his ideas within the general framework of Marx’s theory: that is, taking for

granted concepts like &dquo;the capitalist mode of production,&dquo; the &dquo;forces and relations

of production,&dquo; etc. These concepts were pitched by Marx at the most general

level of abstraction. That is to say, they are concepts which enable us to grasp

and understand the broad processes which organize and structure the capitalist

mode of production when reduced to its bare essentials, and at any stage or

moment of its historical development. The concepts are &dquo;epochal&dquo; in their range

and reference. However, Gramsci understood that as soon as these concepts have

to be applied to specific historical social formations, to particular societies at

specific stages in the development of capitalism, the theorist is required to move

from the level of &dquo;mode of production&dquo; to a lower, more concrete, level of

application. This &dquo;move&dquo; requires not simply more detailed historical

specification, but-as Marx himself argued-the application of new concepts and

further levels of determination in addition to those pertaining to simple

exploitative relations between capital and labour, since the latter serve to specify

&dquo;the capitalist mode&dquo; only at the highest level of reference. Marx himself, in his

most elaborated methodological text (the 1857 Introduction to Grundruse),

envisaged the &dquo;production of the concrete in thought&dquo; as taking place through a

succession of analytic approximations, each adding further levels of determination

to the necessarily skeletal and abstract concepts formed at the highest level of

analytic abstraction. Marx argued that we could only &dquo;think the concrete&dquo; through

these successive levels of abstraction. That was because the concrete, in reality,

consisted of &dquo;many determinations&dquo;-which, of course, the levels of abstraction

we use to think about it with must approximate, in thought. (On these questions

of marxist epistemology, cf.: Hall, Marx’s Notes of Method,&dquo; Working Papers in

Cultural Stradies, no. 6, 1977.)

That is why, as Gramsci moves from the general terrain of Marx’s mature

concepts (as outlined, for example, in Capital) to specific historical conjunctures,

he can still continue to &dquo;work within&dquo; their field of reference. But when he turns

to discuss in detail, say, the Italian political situation in the 1930s, or changes in

the complexity of the class democracies of &dquo;the West&dquo; after imperialism and the

advent of mass democracy, or the specific differences between &dquo;Eastern&dquo; and

&dquo;Western&dquo; social formations in Europe, or the type of politics capable of resisting

the emerging forces of fascism, or the new forms of politics set in motion by

developments in the modem capitalist state, he understands the necessity to adapt,

develop and supplement Marx’s concepts with new and original ones. Firs4

because Marx concentrated on developing his ideas at the highest level of

application (e.g., Capital) rather than at the more concrete historical level (e.g.,

there is no real analysis in Marx of the specific structures of the British

nineteenth century state, though there are many suggestive insights). Second,

because the historical conditions for which Gramsci was writing were not the

same as those in and for which Marx and Engels had written (Gramsci had an

acute sense of the historical conditions of theoretical production). Third, because

Gramsci felt the need of new conceptualizations at precisely the levels at which

Marx’s theoretical work was itself at its most sketchy and incomplete: i.e., the

levels of the analysis of specific historical conjunctures, or of the political and

ideological aspects-the much neglected dimensions of the analysis of social

formations in classical marxism.

’

These points help us, not simply to &dquo;place&dquo; Gramsci in relation to the

marxist tradition but to make explicit the level at which Gramsci’s work

positively operates and the transformations this shift in the level of magnification

required. It is to the generation of new concepts, ideas and paradigms pertaining to

the analysis of political and ideological aspects of social formations in the period

after 1870, especially, that Gramsci’s work most pertinently relates. Not that he

ever forgot or neglected the critical element of the economic foundations of

society and its relations. But he contributed relatively little by way of original

formulations to that level of analysis. However, in the much-neglected areas of

conjunctural analysis, politics, ideology and the state, the character of different

types of political regimes, the importance of cultural and national-popular

questions, and the role of civil society in the shifting balance of relations between

different social forces in society-on these issues, Gramsci has an enormous

amount to contribute. He is one of the first original &dquo;marxist theorists&dquo; of the

historical conditions which have come to dominate the second half of the

twentieth century.

Nevertheless, in relation specifically to racism, his original contribution

cannot be simply transferred wholesale from the existing context of his work.

Gramsci did not write about race, ethnicity or racism in their contemporary

meanings or manifestations. Nor did he analyze in depth the colonial experience

or imperialism, out of which so many of the characteristic ’°racist&dquo; experiences

and relationships in the modem world have developed. His principle

preoccupation was with his native Italy; and, behind that, the problems of

socialist construction in Western and Eastern Europe, the failure of revolutions to

occur in the developed capitalist societies of &dquo;the West,&dquo; the threat posed by the

rise of fascism in the inter-war period, the role of the party in the construction of

hegemony. Superficially, all this might suggest that Gramsci belongs to that

distinguished company of so-called &dquo;Western marxists&dquo; whom Perry Anderson

identified, who, because of their preoccupations with more &dquo;advanced&dquo; societies,

have little of relevance to say to the problems which have arisen largely in the

non-European world, or in the relations of &dquo;uneven development&dquo; between the

imperial nations of the capitalist &dquo;centre&dquo; and the englobalized, colonized societies

of the periphery.

To read Gramsci in this way would, in my opinion, be to commit the error

of literalism (though, with qualifications, that is how Anderson reads him).

Actually, though Gramsci does not write about racism and does not specifically

address those problems, his concepts may still be useful to us in our attempt to

think through the adequacy of existing social theory paradigms in these areas.

Further, his own personal experience and formation, as well as his intellectual

preoccupations, were not in fact quite so far removed from those questions as a

first glance would superficially suggest.

Gramsci was born in Sardinia in 1891. Sardinia stood in a &dquo;colonial&dquo;

relationship to the Italian mainland. His first contact with radical and socialist

ideas was in the context of the growth of Sardinian nationalism, brutally

repressed by troops from mainland Italy. Though, after his movement to Turin

and his deep involvement with the Turin working class movement, he abandoned

his early &dquo;nationalism,&dquo; he never lost the concern, imparted to him in his early

years, with peasant problems and the complex dialectic of class and regional

factors (cf.: G. Nowell Smith and Q. Hoare, Introduction to Prison Notebooks,

1971). Gramsci was acutely aware of the great line of division which separated

the industrializing and modernizing &dquo;North&dquo; of Italy from the peasant, under-

developed and dependent &dquo;South.&dquo; He contributed extensively to the debate on

what came to be known as &dquo;the Southern question.&dquo; At the time of his arrival in

Turin, in 1911, Gramsci almost certainly subscribed to what was known as a

&dquo;Southernist&dquo; position. He retained an interest throughout his life in those

relations of dependency and unevenness which linked &dquo;North&dquo; and &dquo;South&dquo;: and

the complex relations between city and countryside, peasantry and proletariat,

clientism and modernism, feudalized and industrial social structures. He was

thoroughly aware of the degree to which the lines of separation dictated by class

relationships were compounded by the cross-cutting relations of regional,

cultural, and national difference; also, by differences in the tempos of regional or

national historical development. When, in 1923, Gramsci, one of the founders of

the Italian Communist Party, proposed Uhita as the title of the party’s official

newspaper, he gave as his reason &dquo;because ... we must give special importance to

the Southern question.&dquo; In the years before and after the First World War, he

immersed himself in every aspect of the political life of the Turin working class.

This experience gave him an intimate, inside knowledge of one of the most

advanced strata of the industrial &dquo;factory&dquo; proletarian class in Europe. He had an

active and sustained career in relation to this advanced sector of the modem

working class,---first, as a political journalist on the staff of the Socialist Party

weekly, 11 Grido l3el Popolo; then, during the wave of unrest in Turin (the so-

called &dquo;Red Years&dquo;), the factory occupations and Councils of Labour; fmally,

during his editorship of the journal, Ordine Nuovo, up to the founding of the

Italian Communist Party. Nevertheless he continued to reflect, throughout, on

the strategies and forms of political action and organization which could rueite

concretely different kinds of struggle. He was preoccupied with the question of

what basis could be found in the complex alliances of and relations between the

different social strata for the foundation of a specifically modern Italian state. This

preoccupation with the question of regional specificity, social alliances and the

social foundations of the state also directly links Gramsci’s work with what we

might think of today as &dquo;North/South,&dquo; as well as &dquo;East/West,&dquo; questions.

The early 1920s were taken up, for Gramsci, with the difficult problems of

trying to conceptualize new forms of political &dquo;party,&dquo; and with the question of

distinguishing a path of development specific to Italian national conditions, in

opposition to the hegemonizing thrust of the Soviet-based Comintern. All this

led ultimately to the major contribution which the Italian Communist Party has

made to the theorization of the conditions of &dquo;national specificity&dquo; in relation to

the very different concrete historical developments of the different societies, East

and West. In the later 1920s, however, Gramsci’s preoccupations were largely

framed by the context of the growing threat of fascism, up to his arrest and

internment by Mussolini’s forces in 1929. (For these and other biographical

Stuart Hall - Gramsci's Relevance for the Study of Race and Ethnicity.pdf

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