Lukacs and Gramsci on the Revolution

1
Michael Harrison
THE ACT OF LIBERATION, ACCORDING TO GEOG LUKACS
AND ANTONIO GRAMSCI
Marxism is a theory of action – whether deliberate or not. In the years since Marx’s great works
were written, thinkers have interpreted and re-interpreted Marx’s ideas, partly in response to the
occurrences in the world around them. In these debates there was usually a question of what
actions should be taken. I intend to examine the ideas of Lukacs and Gramsci and with regard to
the changes that they want see happen in society, as well as why, how, when and by whom it
should be carried out. Lukacs and Gramsci were both self-proclaimed Leninists who thought that
some kind of leadership is necessary for a successful revolution. However, they disagree on a
variety of matters relating to how and why the revolution can succeed. Lukacs pictures an
enlightened working class1, led by a communist vanguard, overthrowing a deluded bourgeoisie
and the entire system that comes with it, probably with the use of violence. Afterwards, with the
old institutions destroyed, the victors will build a new system in which a new kind of thinking
prevails among both the formerly dominant and subordinate. In a Gramscian revolution,
disparate groups will voluntarily form revolutionary coalitions, they will achieve a revolution
without violence, and in doing so they will use the existing institutions, which can then continue
to be used in a communist system. Because the existing institutions are the venue through which
a revolution occurs, a Gramscian revolution will happen differently in every nation, however
these nations will influence and assist each other, ultimately creating a global revolution.
1 I am not clear whether he and Gramsci arereferring only to the proletariator to the peasantry as well.

2
Lukacs and Gramsci were both writing their most famous works in the interwar period, when
revolutions were occurring with problematic results, meanwhile fascist regimes were also arising
in reaction to popular anxiety. Lukacs’s History and Class Consciousness was written shortly
after the Soviets came to power. The problems with the Soviet system either had not yet occurred
or were not yet apparent. In fact, the Russian Revolution inspired new generations of Marxists,
including both Lukacs and Gramsci. This revolution was different in nature from what many
Marxists were anticipating. In particular, whereas the Russian Revolution was an upheaval led
(eventually) by a communist party, the “orthodox” Marxists were waiting for a revolution to
unfold on its own without political leadership. Lukacs did not consider this expectation realistic.
He thought the vanguard party would need to lead the revolution, remaining “a step in front of
the struggling masses to show them the way.” (Lukacs, 1974, p. 35) In a Lukacsian revolution,
without an effective political leadership, the working class would be utterly incompetent. His
understanding of the leader’s role is not merely practical or strategic – it is teleological.
According to Gottlieb: “Lukacs thought of the party as the moral and intellectual exemplar of the
class.” (Gottlieb, 1993, 122) The leader is a protagonist in the Hegelian story of history – a moral
(if not inevitable) necessity.
It was also important to Lukacs that there be a certain kind of leader. Lukacs does not
favor the kinds of leaders who have represented most of the triumphant “communist” movements
of the 20th century. These leaders have tended to be aloof and disconnected with the needs of the
masses once they come to power. In a Lukacsian scenario, the vanguard party would be “only
one step in front so that it always remain the leader of their struggle.” (Ibid) The leadership
cannot be effective unless it is sufficiently informed about the particular situation of the masses
at any given point in time, which requires a level of intimacy with them as a class. Moreover, as

3
Lukacs realized, the masses possess an enormous wealth of knowledge and original ideas that
aloof leaders might not become aware of. This principle first entered the Marxist canon via
Engels, who observed that during battle, the infantry are often the first to invent new tactics, and
a good general staff is able to learn these tactics from them (Rees, Marxism 2009).
A Lukacsian vanguard party should be a true representative of the masses, while
simultaneously its leader. As such, it is expected to dominate over the working class during the
revolution. Gramsci also considers it important to have an institutionally-recognized leader,
however the nature of the leadership is different from a Lukacsian one. Gramsci still sees a
purpose for domination over the working class during the revolution, however domination is
expected to coexist with dirigente, a softer, more flexible form of leadership. Unlike in Lukacs’s
conception of a successful revolution, Gramsci does not envision the leader of the revolution
dominating, in the same way, his subjects who are carrying out the revolution. Rather, Gramsci
thinks the leader should exercise dirigente towards his followers, while considering domination
the appropriate means of dealing with the revolution’s adversaries. The “‘composite body’ of a
class alliance” is held together and led by consent, while “coercion is deployed against the
excluded other.” (Thomas, 163)
The “rule by consent” that Gramsci wants to employ is, in a sense, a form of cultural
rather than institutional leadership. Gramsci is always a political thinker, however he thinks
culture and politics are deeply intertwined. In order for the revolution to succeed, it will need to
involve schools, the media – institutions of culture. Gramsci has an entire theory for “trying to
think through a revolutionizing of all areas of social formation.” (Thomas, Counterforum) When
this occurs, the result will be hegemony – a tacit recognition of the leadership. Whoever the

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hegemon is, it2 will become the bearer of what Gramsci called the “collective national will.”
(Hobsbawm) A Lukacsian leader would also embody the spirit of his subjects, however Gramsci
has a different understanding of how the leader should attain this.
Gramsci not only has his own understanding of function and operations of the hegemon,
but also of who the hegemon is and what its motivations are. This is another regard in which
Gramsci’s version of a revolution is unlike Lukacs’s. Lukacs anticipates a vanguard party united
in purpose, so much so that whatever the members were before the revolution (their class,
political affiliation, etc.) becomes insignificant. Gramsci had a more nuanced understanding of
the leadership of the revolution (to a greater or lesser extent depending on where the revolution
takes place). Hobsbawm describes a scenario which is especially unlike the one in which
Gramsci expects the revolution to occur. This is the situation in South Africa during the anti-
Apartheid movement, which is a scenario more like what the orthodox Marxists had conceived
of. To those at the losing end of Apartheid, it offered nothing to them and had no legitimacy in
their minds. They accepted the system only on the basis of coercion. A struggle against apartheid
would then be a simple conflict of good versus evil in which everyone knows in advance which
side he or she will be on. By contrast, what Gramsci observed in Europe was that the bourgeoisie
became dominant on the basis of consent (Hobsbawm). There is no dichotomy like in 19th
century Marxism, or Apartheid-era South Africa, because people can revoke their consent and
transfer it elsewhere, whereas in a less consensual system they cannot choose who is governing
them by coercion. Because people can redirect their consent, their political positions are not
determined solely by their class, so there will be a plurality of parties and movements – far more
shades of gray than in a Lukacsian scenario.
2 It seems likethe “hegemon” refers to a revolutionary faction rather than an individual.

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Because Gramsci envisions a more pluralistic political environment, he cautions that a
successful revolutionary leadership should not be too narrow in scope. It should not represent
only one segment of the population. It should represent the interests of more than one class. A
leader should be prepared for the volatility of people’s subjective political convictions. People of
one class might decide to identify with the interests associated with another class. Moreover,
people’s understanding of the interests and concerns of their own class will change over time. To
lead a revolution despite the elusiveness of people’s political thinking might require more than
intelligence and skill. Lukacs anticipates that the revolution will need to be led by a coalition that
is politically heterogeneous and represents the interests of more than one class (Hobsbawm).
A certain type of leadership, during and after the revolution, is expected to result from
this sort of arrangement. Although the leadership of a Gramscian revolution is based on consent,
it cannot be based entirely on consent. In Gramscian theory there is a balance between the
enlightened and unenlightened elements of socialism and revolution which need to coexist
simultaneously (i.e. force and consent, authority and hegemony). To illustrate this concept,
Gramsci employs a metaphor attributed to Machiavelli: a centaur. The human component of the
centaur represents the enlightened aspects of Gramsci’s theory, while the beast comprising the
rest of the centaur represents its more backward aspects (Thomas, 166). In a Gramscian system,
there should be a proper relationship (guisto rapporto) between force and consent (Thomas,
165). The result is “coercion by consent,” which Thomas describes as “coercion of opposed
classes, with the consent of allied social groups, crystallised as ‘public opinion.’” (ibid) This sort
of regime, in which the government mimics society and imposes its creations on the people, is
similar to the democracies in the postwar era

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Lukacs’s revolutionary theory comes from a certain Hegelian tradition, according to
which any new system that comes into being contains within it the seeds of its own destruction.
There are inherent contradictions within the system that ultimately make it unsustainable. Some
of these contradictions are physical and objective while other occur in people’s minds. In the
capitalist system, the bourgeoisie develop certain biases by virtue of their own dominance and
the needs of industry. These faulty ways of thinking include reification, commodity fetishism,
and general capitalist ideology. The inherent contradiction in this system is that oppressed
masses also believe the same delusions that allow for, or even justify, their oppression.
Conditions become ripe for revolution when the masses learn to think for themselves and
develop a more accurate understanding of the situation.
Reification allows for these delusions by atomizing people, preventing them from seeing
the “big picture.” A byproduct of capitalism is reification, by which social relations become
characteristically economic rather than human. This loss of humanity creates atomization, which
“fragments and dislocates our social experience, so that under its influence we forget that society
is a collective process and come to see it instead merely as this or that isolated object or
institution.” (Eagleton, 95) Capitalism, then, narrows our perspectives. It creates a situation that
Adam Smith had observed nearly 150 years earlier, calling it “mental mutilation,” except that in
full-blown industrial capitalism this problem is much worse. According to Starosta: “the
miserable capitalist limits within which the former [the worker] is held mutilate the individual
productive subjectivity of the worker in an even more hideous fashion than was the case” at an
earlier time (Starosta, 45). Capitalism limits people’s perspectives to what they see in their own
idiosyncratic daily routines, which has become narrower than in Smith’s time and continues to
become even narrower.

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The working class transcends reification by undoing this atomization. By learning from
each other their perspectives are broadened, allowing them to see the reality of capitalism as an
unsustainable exploitation of them. When the working class is disabused of bourgeois delusions,
they develop proletarian ideology instead. To Lukacs, working class ideology is better than
bourgeois ideology. Ideology is in everybody’s nature, however some are closer than others to
the truth. The workers’ ideology is an objective one: “Science, truth or theory … are just
‘expressions’ of a particular class ideology, the revolutionary world view of the working class.”
(Eagleton, 95) When this superior perspective is united with praxis throughout the world, all of
humanity will move forward.
Ultimately, the dominant classes will be removed from power and eventually accept
defeat in a good-natured manner. That is, they will not only accept step down from power, but
also accept that the working class ideology is correct. Their relinquishment of bourgeois
ideology is necessary for the progress of society: “a change of society can be brought about only
when the ideological belief of both the ruler and ruled can be smashed.” (Larrain, 80) The
working class will need to be the ones proselytizing the bourgeoisie. Until that happens, the
capitalist system will be reinforcing in their own minds the illusions that they create via
reification.
The abolition of capitalism is more violent in a Lukacsian revolution than in a Gramscian
one. As such, the bourgeois institutions will need to be smashed, at least in a figurative sense.
They will need to be deconstructed and reconstructed. In Lukacs’s Hegelian understanding of
history, this process is not as apocalyptic as some people are inclined to think. Lukacs sees
history as a totality in which all moments and phenomena are connected. In this notion of totality
nothing is what it appears to be, and everything is constantly changing, so no institutions should

8
be taken for granted. Even if the oppressed never unite and arise, society will be changing and
history will be running its course, although probably not in a way that is favorable to the working
class. Therefore, to Lukacs, the timing of the revolution is extremely important, and he thinks
time was running out. With the conditions constantly changing, Lukacs thinks the time to launch
an optimally effective revolution is always now, because otherwise critical opportunities will be
missed.
Like Lukacs, Gramsci considers it important to seize the moment before it escapes
(Hobsbawm). Another similarity is the need to win the revolution in people’s minds before it can
be put into action. However, unlike Lukacs, Gramsci thinks this stage of the revolution is not
only about changing the thinking of the working class. Rather, it is about winning support for the
position represented by the working class. Gramsci’s version of revolution was more
conservative in the sense that it was supposed to be carried out through conventional political
processes rather than a violent upheaval. A Gramscian revolution would take place through the
preexisting government and other institutions, especially those that come under the description
“civil society.” Gramsci differs from Lukacs in his willingness to re-appropriate bourgeois
institutions in a communist system, before, during, and after the revolution. These civil and
political institutions are good for changing both policy and the people’s mode of thinking. This
process is not an imposition of proletarian ideology on the rest of society, at least not quite the
way Lukacs had conceived of. Using the nascent democratic infrastructure of early 20th century
Europe, Gramsci wants the revolution to be as democratic a process as possible. Doing so
requires making compromises, unlike in a Lukacsian revolution.
Even if the revolution thus conceived is not feasible, Gramsci has a backup plan that is
even further from a Lukacsian revolution. Gramsci has a theory of how a “passive revolution”

9
could occur. A passive revolution is what revolutionaries might need to resort to if the ruling
class cannot be shaken from power. The regime would stay the same, and the bourgeoisie might
even, in the short term, maintain a monopoly on power. However, by carrying out a passive
revolution, the working class can create a system of policies that is more in their favor. Doing so
often means meeting the same needs (or perceived needs) that revolutionaries’ adversaries would
be meeting. For example, if the people demand a reduction of taxes, then a Social Democratic
party can satisfy this demand, winning supporters at the expanse of a more free-market party.
The ascent of Europe’s fascists is an example of passive revolution. They rose to power using the
institutions available, coalescing with the dominant political groups at the time (the bourgeoisie,
the clergy, etc.). In doing so, fascists borrowed policies from the leftist parties, using “enough of
the demands of the revolutionaries to disarm them.” (Hobsbawm) In these cases the results were
problematic, however according to Gramsci a passive revolution can achieved by the opponents
of those who want the revolution. If certain policies are needed, such as labor regulations, then
conservatives might be the first to respond, and they might provide essentially the same policies
that socialists would. The creation of these policies can involve left-wing revolutionaries in both
government and civil society (probably in alliance with other political factions).
Because Gramsci wants to use the existing institutions, the manner in which the
revolution occurs will depend on the location, since different nations have different institutional
structures. The differences between nations are more differences of degree than they are of type.
(Thomas, 209) In characteristically “Western” countries there is more of a civil society, and
along with it, “the complex of defensive trenches that a developed and articulated civil society
could provide the state … which helped to ‘resist’ the immediate irruption of conflicts in the
world of production into the political terrain.” (Thomas, 199) In Russia, because civil society

10
was lacking, the revolution went straight to the government without being mediated by civil
society. For the revolution to succeed in Western Europe it would need to take on civil society.
Gramsci therefore used different term to refer to the leadership structure necessary to lead a more
typically Eastern revolution: rather than egemonia necessary in the West, the less “Western”
nations would require gegemoniya (Thomas, 209).
What matters is not only the sheer volume of civil society. Another factor is the
institutions within civil society. In Italy, the revolution is inhibited by the nation’s relatively high
presence of “parasitics.” In the Italian case this word refers mostly to the “traditional” social
elements such as the clergy who are “all too effective, preventing Italian civil society from
playing its properly political role.” (Thomas, 202) Gramsci observes a lack of civil society in the
United States for the opposite reason. The Fordist system of production attempts to “rationalize”
the population, making every segment of the population productive so that there would be no
parasitical elements left. In doing so, Fordists “‘base[s] the entire social life of the country on the
basis of industry,’” detracting from civil society (Thomas, 201).
Although Gramsci thinks that each country’s revolution should be tailored to its
particular circumstances, he also sees the revolution as an international project, in keeping with
to the declaration” “workers of the world, unite!” In this way his understanding of the revolution
is similar to Lukacs’s. The revolutions in each country will inspire each other. According to
Thomas: “Gramsci acknowledges a deeper unity-in-difference regarding the revolutionary
strategies appropriate to each of them, founded upon the fundamental unity of the capitalist state-
form and the necessity for a proletarian united front to oppose it.” (Thomas, 212) The

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contradictions of capitalism were something that all industrial countries had in common, and a
revolution in some form or another was the only solution.3
The age of Lenin was an exciting time for people seeking social and political change.
Lukacs and Gramsci were both acutely aware of the problems with the capitalist system, but they
had different plans of action. Lukacs envisioned more of a revolution, while Lukacs called for a
political struggle more like what would now be considered conventional politics. Lukacs thought
that after the revolution (if it occurs correct and at the right time) the working class would inherit
the earth, dominate over their former oppressors, and reform their thinking. Gramsci has more
conservative understanding of both the manner of the revolution and its objectives. Gramsci
wanted to use the existing institutions and wage a more “conventional” political struggle. The
working class would not be quite as solidly united in thinking as they are in a Lukacsian
revolution. The political landscape during the revolution will, in general, be more pluralistic. The
working class, having triumphed in the revolution, would be able to gradually create a system
more in their favor, although they would need to make compromises, unlike in a Lukacsian
victory. Because Gramsci wants to use the existing institutions, the issue of where the revolution
takes place is of great importance. Both, however, were inspired by what they saw in Russia and
wanted to see it occur, in some form, throughout the world.
3 I am not clear what Gramsci’s plan was for the countries that had not yet started industrializing.

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