richard-day-gramsci-is-dead

114 Gramsci is Deadperiod’, until the dawning of the day when ‘the triumph of [theprinciple of social revolution] throughout the world removes itsraison d’être’ (1973/1866: 64). So, although he is known primarily as aviolent revolutionary, and was certainly dismissive of the expectationthat radical change could be achieved by peaceful means, 6 his theoryof social transformation in fact includes a period after the revolutionin which reform becomes viable, leading finally to a period in whichneither revolution nor reform is necessary. Thus Bakunin simultaneouslydeploys and confounds the revolution/reform dichotomy, therebyopening up—perhaps for the first time—the theoretical possibilityof disposing with it altogether.Despite his best efforts to avoid authoritarian practices, however,Bakunin’s vision contained elements that were clearly hegemonic.A ‘popular social revolution’, he declared, ‘destroys everything thatopposes’ its flow (1990/1873: 133). It is a totalizing global force,beginning with the free association of workers in unions and communes,which are then linked to span regions and nations, to culminate in‘a great federation, international and universal’ (1973/1871b: 206).There are important differences, though, between Bakunin’s worldtransformingvision and those of Fourier, Owen or Saint-Simon. InFederalism, Socialism, and Anti-Theologism he complained that Fourierand Saint-Simon, despite their important contributions to socialistthought, were ‘authoritarian’ and ‘prescriptive’ (1973/1895: 100),‘doctrinaire’ rather than ‘revolutionary’ socialists (99). 7 Bakunin thendrops Proudhon onto the stage as the first truly anarchist socialist,whose doctrine was ‘based on individual and collective liberty andupon the spontaneous action of free associations … excluding allgovernmental regimentation and State protection’ (100). This is not,as I have shown, what Proudhon actually advocated, and it may bethat Bakunin should get much of the blame for installing this falsebut pure Proudhon in the anarchist canon. 8 None the less, Bakuninshould be given credit for the notion that he stuffed into the headof his predecessor—the idea of a non-statist (but still hegemonic)mode of social transformation and organization.Bakunin also contributed much to the anarchist conception ofthe relationship between social science and social change. Like everyprogressive thinker before him, and many after, he was committedto the basic tenets of Western reason and the Cartesian project. The‘mission’ of science, he solemnly declared, is