THE RELEVANCE OF ANTONIO GRAMSCI'S CONCEPTS OF

208 Pages·2014·0.85 MB·English

THE RELEVANCE OF ANTONIO GRAMSCI’S CONCEPTS OF
HEGEMONY AND INTELLECTUALS TO APARTHEID AND
POST-APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA

Pravina Pillay

Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in
the Department of English at the University of Zululand.
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DEDICATION

To my children Kalin and Nelisha; husband Thaya; late dad Somasundrum; mum
Gonum and sister Salo
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ORIGINALITY DECLARATION

Full Names and Surname Pravina Pillay

Student Number 201001920
The Relevance of Antonio Gramsci’s Concepts
of Hegemony and Intellectuals to Apartheid and
Title of dissertation/thesis Post-Apartheid South Africa

I acknowledge that I have read and understood the University's policies and rules
applicable to postgraduate research, and I certify that I have, to the best of my
knowledge and belief, complied with their requirements.
I further certify that this thesis is original, and that the material has not been submitted,
either in whole or in part, for a degree at this or any other university, except as
follows:
I declare that this research dissertation is, save for the supervisory guidance received,
the product of my own work and effort. I have, to the best of my knowledge and
belief, complied with the University’s Plagiarism Policy and acknowledged all sources
of information in line with normal academic conventions.
The document has been submitted to the University’s text-matching and similarity-
checking procedures.

Candidate’s signature

Date

Supervisor’s signature

Date
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to many people for assisting me in completing this dissertation. I am
especially thankful to my supervisor and mentor, Professor C. A. Addison, for her
dedication, commitment, enthusiasm and expert guidance. I also wish to thank her for
her constant encouragement and moral support. Without her this dissertation would
not have been completed. She has been inspirational.
I also thank Professor Wait for his insightful comments and helpful
suggestions which helped me to improve my dissertation. His guidance has been
invaluable.
On a personal note I am deeply indebted to my late dad who encouraged my
love of books as a child and whose pride in all my achievements encouraged me to
pursue postgraduate studies. I am very thankful to my mum and sister for their
unconditional support in all my endeavours and for believing that I could undertake a
study of this magnitude. I am grateful to my children who have lovingly supported me
and for their complete confidence in my ability to complete this dissertation. My
deepest gratitude goes to my husband who has always been an invaluable source of
comfort and support to me. I am indebted to him for his constructive criticism,
sharing my ideas and for lots of love when I needed it the most.
Finally, I want to thank the Research Office of the University of Zululand for
generously funding this project.
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ABSTRACT
This dissertation focuses on the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci and the relevance of
his concepts of hegemony and intellectuals to South Africa. Gramsci’s writings have a
strong Italian resonance. The dissertation emphasises parallels as well as differences
between the Italian and South African contexts to demonstrate that his theories on
topics such as the creation of a proletarian state, the Revolutionary Party, passive
revolution and language, in addition to the key concepts of intellectuals and
hegemony, can be successfully applied to apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa –
even though these theories were originally designed to fit the turbulent Italy of
Gramsci’s own time. The argument proceeds through a rigorous textual analysis of
both Gramsci’s pre-prison and prison writings as well as the works of various
commentators on Gramsci. Through interpreting, assessing and analysing Gramsci’s
writings and those of commentators, it becomes evident that underpinning all of
Gramsci’s activities and writings is a vision for an improved society in Italy, a
proletarian state in which the masses were no longer exploited by other social classes.
The dissertation uses this vision to reflect on past and present South African political
and social landscapes, exploring in the process how Gramsci’s thoughts can be used
both to illuminate the problems inherent in apartheid South Africa and to redress the
growing inequities in post-apartheid South Africa. The dissertation also applies
Gramsci’s thought to South African literary texts, especially to Zakes Mda’s Heart of
Redness. Though Gramsci has been used to interpret South African situations before,
there has been to date no detailed study on his theories’ applicability to both the
apartheid and the post-apartheid eras. The dissertation therefore contributes to the
growing reputation of Gramsci’s works as textbooks for promoting and achieving a
better society, free from all forms of exploitation.
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CONTENTS

ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..v
INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................1
0.1 Gramsci in his time and in ours ...................................................................................... 1
0.2 Gramsci’s writings .......................................................................................................... 4
0.3 Gramscian Studies ........................................................................................................ 11
0.4 Nature of the Study ....................................................................................................... 16
CHAPTER 1: PLACING GRAMSCI IN A HISTORICAL, POLITICAL, AND CULTURAL
CONTEXT ................................................................................................................................ 23
1.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 23
1.2 The cultural and political milieu in post-Risorgimento Italy ....................................... 25
1.3 Gramsci in Sardinia ....................................................................................................... 28
1.4 The Ordine Nuovo vision .............................................................................................. 31
1.5 The factory councils ...................................................................................................... 35
1.6 Gramsci’s views on language issues in Italy ................................................................ 38
1.7 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 47
CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL CONSTRUCTS…………………………………………………………………50
2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 50
2.2 Towards a theoretical, conceptual and historical definition of hegemony .................... 51
2.3 Towards a theoretical, conceptual and historical analysis of Italian
intellectuals…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..….61
2.4 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 76
CHAPTER 3: HEGEMONY……………………………………………………………………………………………….78
3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 78
3.2 Passive Revolution ........................................................................................................ 81
3.3 Hegemony, state and civil society ................................................................................. 87
3.4 The Revolutionary Party ............................................................................................... 92
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3.5 South Africa and hegemony ........................................................................................ 101
3.6 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 112
CHAPTER 4: INTELLECTUALS ......................................................................................... 115
4.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 115
4.2 Croce, a traditional intellectual ................................................................................... 118
4.3 Traditional intellectuals .............................................................................................. 123
4.4 Organic intellectuals ................................................................................................... 128
4.5 Intellectuals and the Revolutionary Party ................................................................... 133
4.6 Challenges faced by South African intellectuals ........................................................ 138
4.7 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 154
CHAPTER 5: ZAKES MDA’S THE HEART OF REDNESS ................................................ 157
5.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 157
5.2 Camagu, an organic intellectual in The Heart of Redness .......................................... 160
5.3 Women and hegemony in The Heart of Redness ........................................................ 171
5.4 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 182
CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................... 184
WORKS CITED ..................................................................................................................... 190
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INTRODUCTION

0.1 Gramsci in his time and in ours
Antonio Gramsci (1891 -1937) was a founding member and renowned figure in the
Italian Communist Party, a philosopher, an astute politician, a robust socialist and a
theorist. He was a prominent figure and an organiser of the workers’ movement in
Turin (Italy) in the 1920s. As a fierce and fearless opponent of Fascism he spent the
last eleven years of his life locked up in Mussolini’s prisons. During this time he
wrote a series of notes on literary, political, philosophical and historical subjects. In
these notes he offered fresh perspectives on themes such as hegemony and the
relationship of intellectuals to society.
Gramsci’s life from 1891 to 1937 spanned some of the most tumultuous and
formative events of the twentieth century: the Russian Revolutions of 1917 (February
and October), the growth and development of Fascism in Italy and its spread to
Germany, the formation and mushrooming of communist parties throughout Europe
and the dismal failure of revolution, inspired by the Bolshevik model, to spread
beyond the borders of what became the Soviet Union (Schwarzmantel: 2009:1). The
decade 1927-1937 compelled revolutionaries in every part of the world to choose
between unconditionally approving the Soviet Union’s notorious first five-year plans
and criticising the Soviet Union for steadily moving towards party dictatorship to
which Lynne Lawner (1973:5-:6) claims it was Gramsci who realised during this time
that the chief issue for future decades would be revolution in countries of advanced
capitalism and his unique foresight enabled him to ascertain at once both the
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complexity and the urgency of the problem. This may explain the prestige that
Gramsci enjoys today in so many parts of the world.
Historians and political commentators have praised Gramsci’s contribution to
various fields of study. The British historian James Joll (1977:24) calls him a ‘true
intellectual hero of our time’. John Schwarzmantel (2009:1) sees Gramsci as one of
the most influential writers and thinkers in the area of ‘Western Marxism’, which he
describes as ‘a branch of Marxist thought which seeks to grapple with the complex
characteristics of Western Europe and the prospects for revolution there’. Joseph A.
Buttigieg (2004:viii), in an introduction entitled ‘Reading Gramsci’ in Peter Ives’s
book Language and Hegemony in Gramsci, refers to Gramsci as ‘one of the most
frequently cited and widely translated political theorists and cultural critics of the
twentieth century’. But all this praise begs the crucial question: what did Gramsci
accomplish in his own time to earn these accolades in ours?
When one surveys new developments across the world, one is struck by the
rapid mass emergence of social and democratic movements in numerous civil
societies, which has resulted in many people’s wanting to free themselves from the
shackles of orthodox and established practices and states. It is in this context that
Gramsci’s ideas have gained a wider currency.
There are ways in which Gramsci went beyond orthodox Marxism that have
made his ideas very palatable to Western Marxists. The dichotomy between coercion
and consent in Marxist theory has been a raging debate from as early as the 1960s.
The main point of contention was the Marxist belief that the state in capitalist society
was coercive. This point was emphasised by Ralph Miliband (1969:5) in his claim
that Marxist political theory had become ‘stuck in its groove’ with ‘little capacity to
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renew itself’ precisely because Marx and Engels had never departed from the view that
the state in capitalist societies was above all coercive in character. The main concern
regarding orthodox Marxism was with states which were democratic and enjoyed
significant popular support and which involved an economically dominant class that
ruled by hegemony.
Gramsci’s key concept of hegemony opened the way to a ‘Marxism of the
superstructure’ which rejected the reduction of everything to economics. Gramsci saw
in a way that few other Marxists had done that the dominance of one class over
another did not depend entirely on economic strength but rather on persuading the
ruled to accept the system of beliefs of the ruling class and to share their moral, social
and cultural values. Gramsci’s form of cultural Marxism pointed out, in ways
relatively underemphasised in earlier versions of Marxism, how power could be
extended beyond the state and the economy into civil society, which could become the
site where power and dominance could be challenged by other classes. Gramsci’s
Marxism was unique in that it emphasised a creative view of human agency which did
not see human beings as passive bearers of economic forces.
These are some of the ways in which Gramsci was able to transcend his time
and enjoy a very contemporary currency. I will present a brief overview of his
voluminous writings, looking at the dominant themes of hegemony, intellectuals and
language.