Intellectuals And Social Revolution:A Study Of Gramsci’s Organic Intellectual Problems

The question of organic intellectuals was at the center of Gramsci’s concerns.Gramsci’s concern for the organic intellectuals was not to study a new group of intellectuals,but out of his thinking about the proletarian social revolution.In the face of the predicament of the Italian proletarian revolution,how to form the collective will of the revolution,and how to promote the development of social history in the practical process of dialectical unification of ideology and social reality became the primary issue of Gramsci’s thinking.The formation of organic intellectuals is the key link in this process.In order to deeply understand the issue of Gramsci’s organic intellectuals,it is necessary to trace back the background of the period when Gramsci proposed the organic intellectuals,clarify the connotation and generation of organic intellectuals,explore the specific path of organic intellectuals to participate in the social revolution,and ultimately reflect on the contemporary value of the theory of organic intellectuals in the contemporary repercussions of the organic intellectuals.First of all,the question of Gramsci’s organic intellectuals has a profound background of the times.During the Second International period,the Second International theorists represented by Bernstein,Kautsky and Plekhanov interpreted Marxist theories in a positivistic way and separated the dialectically unified relationship between the revolutionary subjects and the social reality,thus canceling the revolutionary character of Marxism.Critiquing the positivistic interpretation by the Second International,Lukács proposed that social revolution paths should be re-explored through the dialectical unification of class consciousness and capitalist social reification structure.This became the theoretical basis of Gramsci’s thinking of social revolution.Meanwhile,Lenin and the factory committee movement explored the social revolution paths from the aspects of the organizing function of political parties and spontaneous revolutionary movement by the masses.These three social revolution paths all had influences on Gramsci.However,the particular character of the Italian social revolution dictated that Gramsci was not able to emulate the previous revolutionary experiences.He had to critique his predecessors and explore another social revolution path,which was suitable for the Italian context.It was in this historical context that Gramsci raised the question of organic intellectuals.Secondly,the paper explains the connotation and emergence of Gramsci’s concept of "organic intellectuals".Organic intellectuals do not refer to a fixed group of intellectuals engaged in intellectual labor,but rather to a class of intellectuals that has developed together with the social group to which it belongs under specific historical conditions.Organic intellectuals have a dual orientation,on the one hand,intellectuals are dialectically united with the masses.On the one hand,intellectuals are dialectically united with the masses.Organic intellectuals cannot think independently of the concrete production practices of the masses,and their social function is to unify the scattered revolutionary consciousnesses generated by the masses in the concrete production practices and to form the collective will.On the other hand,the organic intellectuals and the political parties are dialectically united.If the organic intellectuals want to be organically integrated with the masses and form a collective will,they must resort to the political parties as a form of organization.Through the mediation of the organic intellectuals,the ideology of the revolutionary subject is unified with the social reality in the process of continuous practice.Such organic intellectuals are produced under specific historical conditions,through social education and the cultivation of political parties.Thirdly,the paper explores in depth the specifics of the social revolution carried out by the "organic intellectuals".Gramsci pointed out that the biggest difference between Western and Eastern societies was that Western society had formed a strong ideological fortress,which Gramsci called "civil society".In order to break through this fortress and win the proletarian revolution,it is necessary to seize the ideological leadership.The organic intellectuals participated in the social revolution by seizing the ideological leadership.This process is mainly manifested in two dimensions: in the ideological dimension,it is the formation of a new worldview,the philosophy of practice,which is the result of the systematization and theorization by the organic intellectuals of the fragmented and spontaneous revolutionary consciousness generated in the proletariat’s production practice;in the political dimension,it is the continuous construction of the primary economic organization into a political party with a complete superstructure.These two dimensions are organically linked,and the process of the formation of the new worldview is also the process of the continuous development and improvement of the political party.This process is at the same time a process of struggle with capitalist ideology in the sphere of civil society.The new worldview is formed through the political parties,and at the same time spread to the masses through the political parties,so as to raise the intellectual capacity of the masses,transcend the constraints imposed by the capitalist ideology on the sphere of the masses’ thought,and form the collective will.In this process,the bourgeoisie’s strong ideological fortress is gradually dismantled,and the proletariat ultimately acquires ideological leadership.In addition,both the ideological upgrading and the political development unfold in a concrete historical process,with the ultimate aim of forming a historical bloc in the sense of dialectical unification of the economic base and the superstructure,and promoting the development of social reality.This type of revolution cannot be carried out by the "forceful attack" of a war of movement,but only by "breaking down one by one" of a war of positions.Finally,reflecting on the contemporary value of Gramsci’s theory of the organic intellectual in its contemporary echoes.After Gramsci,Gramsci’s concern about the relationship between intellectuals and social revolution continues to be paid attention to in contemporary times,and the post-Marxists Laclau and Murphy’s concern about leadership and socialist strategy,as well as the contemporary radical left-wing thinker Rancière’s concern about intellectual equality and human emancipation can be regarded as new reflections on Gramsci’s question of the organic intellectual in the context of a new era,which constitutes a new reflection of Gramsci’s contemporary echoes of Gramsci’s theory of organic intellectuals.However,although these left-wing theorists saw the new changes and forms of contemporary capitalist society,they gave up the revolutionary path of historical materialism,and thus were unable to organize a solid revolutionary force and explore a thoroughgoing path of social revolution.In this sense,Gramsci’s theory of organic intellectuals in rethinking the path of social revolution,reshaping the subject of social revolution,and reconstructing the strategy of social revolution can provide ideological inspiration for contemporary Western left-wing theorists to think about the problem of social revolution.