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POLITICS AS CULTURE: STUART HALL

and, on this basis, to implement economic policies which had the capacity
to address the central problems of the day.
A similar misreading may have occurred in drawing on Gramsci’s
critique of economism. One of the most important but often unacknowl-
edged features of Gramsci’s thought lies in the political context in which
it arose. This was not simply a matter of the specifics of Italy and the rise
of Mussolini. Of course, these were vital aspects of his context but to con-
fine oneself to these is to be too narrow and, in fact, makes it difficult to
really appraise Gramsci’s thought accurately within the general body of
the socialist thought of the period.
The point to remember is that Gramsci, like all Marxists of that time,
was primarily influenced by the Russian Revolution of 1917. His writ-
ings, however, are from the period of so-called ‘War Communism’
(1917–21) and after. In particular, Gramsci worked for the Comintern in
Moscow and Vienna from 1922 till 1924 and his thought was greatly
influenced by the struggles both of Bolsheviks against Mensheviks and
within Bolshevik ranks themselves. 29 To understand his thought in con-
text therefore requires a brief delineation of this context.
Gramsci’s critique of ‘economism’ more or less adopts the famous
critique made by Lenin in What Is to be Done? This is a critique which
argued that the economic determinism of the Second International –
primarily Kautsky and Bernstein – relied on the economic evolution of
capitalist society to achieve socialism, without the direct intervention of
a revolutionary party to overthrow the capitalist state. The point being
made was that such an approach of economic determinism was passive
and at its core defeatist. It failed to provide for an independent role for
ideological and political activity and simply relied on the automatic
unfolding of economic events.
Gramsci repeats this Leninist critique. Here is Sassoon quoting
Gramsci on the dangers of ‘economism’:

An appropriate political initiative is always necessary to liberate the eco-
nomic thrust from the dead weight of traditional policies – i.e. to change the
political direction of certain forces which have been absorbed if a new
homogenous politico-economic historical bloc, without internal contradic-
tions, is to be successfully formed. 30
Gramsci’s concept, writes Sassoon, is that ‘while material structural
conditions are given, as a product of the past, an earlier stage of the class
struggle, and while in decisive moments the elements of physical force or
“military” preparedness is vital, the subjective political dimension is the
most crucial’. 31 Whatever one may think of such ideas – especially the

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