Preface

This book has two distinct purposes. The first is to present a radical critique of the existing social order in its various facets. Since the book is aimed primarily at radical activists, I have assumed that the reader has at least a passing acquaintance with the social movements and points of view being discussed here.

On the other hand, this book is intended as a critique of the prevailing “Marxist-Leninist” theory of social revolution, from the point of view of left-wing Marxism. It is my belief that the traditional “Communist” point of view which currently dominates the Left is incapable of providing a useful framework for examining existing society, and that a broader, more inclusive point of view must be adopted by radicals everywhere.

This is not a book for academics, for those who are content to analyze, dialecticalize and pontificate. This book is intended for activists—for those who are actively organizing people to change the actual circumstances under which we live. Although I have found it necessary to present and critique the theoretical presumptions under which many modern revolutionaries operate, this book is an attempt to begin a serious debate about revolutionary tactics and actions, not ideology or theory.

I am sorry that the book presents as many quotations from the Marxist sources as it does. This was not done because I consider the Marxist canon to be the ultimate authority on everything—quite the opposite. The quotations are simply an attempt to avoid pointless pedantic arguments over “what Marx really said”. And, in order not to turn the book into a research project or theoretical treatise, I have not burdened the reader with endless source notes and explanatory footnotes. Marx’s works are widely enough available that researchers should have no problem finding them.

I have chosen the viewpoint of left-wing Marxism or council communism because it is the point of view that has the greatest effect on my own personal position, as a white, straight male worker living in the United States. While I can (and do) give my support to other social justice movements, I have chosen to focus my efforts on the struggle which I know best and can fight most effectively. I expect that other activists with different situations will do the same. All I ask is that we coordinate our efforts together against our mutual enemy.

Introduction

To most people, the terms “Marxism”, “Communism” and “Marxism-Leninism” are synonymous. These terms have been used interchangeably to refer to a specific set of social, economic and political doctrines, a set of doctrines that draws from theorists as diverse as Karl Marx, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, and Che Guevara. In the United States, the label “Marxist” has been applied to organizations as different from each other as the Communist Party USA, the Socialist Worker’s Party, the Revolutionary Communist Party, the Progressive Labor Party, and the Spartacist League.

All of these people and parties come from the Leninist tradition, which completely dominated Marxist thought from the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 until the collapse of the Communist Bloc in the 1990’s. The Bolshevik tradition has become so inextricably intertwined with radical socialism that even today, when most people speak of “Marxism”, they are actually referring to the doctrines of Leninism.

In the years after the Bolshevik Revolution, however, a completely different trend of thought had briefly flowered before succumbing to the Leninist purges. This tradition, known as “council communism”, also traced its precepts to the philosophical outlooks of Karl Marx, but found itself in bitter opposition to the disciplined, centralized Leninists. By the time of the Second World War, the council communist movement had been all but eliminated, and the Leninists reigned supreme.

Today, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its empire, we can see that the Leninist critique of industrial society is incomplete as well as a failure. Economics is not the sole determinant of social relationships, as the Leninists claim. Any social mode of production must not only produce and distribute the economic means of existence, but also all of the various social institutions and relationships which make up the social framework. All modes of production must determine, not only how the needs of life are produced (economics), but also how different members of society relate to each other and to other societies (race, sexual roles, religion, ethnicity, nation, gender, etc.), and the form of the power and authority structures which hold this social framework in place (law, police, state, education, etc.).

Taken together, all of these various social constructions make up the total mode of production, as well as the means by which the ruling elites maintain and protect their positions of privilege. The council communist school of Marxism refers to this vast interconnecting web of social relationships as a “hegemony”.

Radical critics have examined modern industrial society from a number of different points of reference, with each critique emphasizing the particular concerns of the criticizer. Radical feminists, for example, view society in terms of patriarchy—the subordination of women to men—and thus use “sexism” as a means to explain human society. Gay and lesbian activists frame their critiques in terms of sexuality and sexual roles. Radical environmentalists focus their attention on the relationship between industrial society and its surroundings. African-American, Latino, Native American and other activists use racial and national viewpoints to examine social relationships. Anarchists see society through the lens of power and authority structures, and thus focus their point of view on an anti-authoritarian critique of the state. Traditional Marxists and Leninists focus on the economy, and conclude that economic class factors determine the structure of society.

In reality, however, it can be seen that the dividing lines between these outlooks are blurry, and that each of these factors—economy, authority, race, sexuality, nation and gender—interact with each other to form modern industrial society. In every sphere of bourgeois society, these “sub-structures” reinforce and reproduce each other. Marx referred to the interaction of these interpenetrating entities as a “dialectic”; a dialectical relationship is one on which both elements co-determine each other through simultaneous interaction. Marx concluded that human society interacts with itself in a dialectical way.

Towards the end of his life, Marx intended to write a series of books examining the dialectical roles of non-economic factors in the reproduction of bourgeois society. Unfortunately, he died before that work could be completed. Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony is an attempt to begin a new analysis in this direction.

However, as Marx wrote, it is not enough to interpret and understand the world; the point is to change it. We cannot change the existing social order, though, unless we first understand how it protects and reproduces itself, and how it maintains its position of hegemony.

Overtly repressive societies such as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union depend upon blunt police force and military power to maintain their social relationships. Challenges to the existing social structure are simply hunted down and liquidated.

In modern bourgeois society, however, the use of armed force is unleashed only in the rarest of instances, after all other methods have failed. One of the most remarkable things about capitalism has been its ability to compel people, without using overt force or repression, to conform to the social roles which allow the bourgeois class to exist and prosper. If the bourgeois mode of production is a dictatorship, it certainly appears to be a benevolent one.

The concept of “hegemony” explains this ability to reproduce unequal social relationships without resorting to physical coercion. Through a series of intertwining social relationships, bourgeois society is able to maintain the conditions for its existence and to reproduce these conditions.

The purpose of this book, then, is to examine this interconnecting web of social relationships from the points of view of its most prominent critics—feminists, anti-racists and national activists, environmentalists, gay and lesbian activists, anarchists, and socialists. Together, these outlooks provide a critique of bourgeois hegemony. They also provide clues as to how this hegemony can be broken, and how new, egalitarian, social relationships can be put in its place.

The bourgeois social order is thus like a hydra, a many-headed dragon. Try to cut off one head, and the others will kill you. The only way to kill the beast is to cut off all of its heads at once. In this book, we examine the capitalist beast’s heads one at a time, in order to determine how best to lay the dragon in its grave.