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    The following ad supports maintaining our C.E.E.O.L. service

    Antonio Labriola, Evolutionist Marxism & Italian Colonialism

    Antonio Labriola, Evolutionist Marxism & Italian Colonialism

    by Geoffrey Hunt

    Source:

    PRAXIS International (PRAXIS International), issue: 3+4 / 1987, pages: 340-359, on www.ceeol.com.

    http://www.ceeol.com/http://www.ceeol.com/http://www.dibido.eu/bookdetails.aspx?bookID=9e4d6499-94a7-47c0-b6d3-48244233281fhttp://www.ceeol.com/
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    ANTONIO LABRIOLA, EVOLUTIONIST MARXISM& ITALIAN COLONIALISM*

    Geoffrey HuntIf Marxism is to be creatively extended to 20th century problems ofauthoritarianism, bureaucracy and neocolonialism and recuperate its status asa theory and praxis for human emancipation it has to reckon with its ownhistory. For it is a fact that in the minds of very many, Marxism itself standsfor authoritarianism, bureaucracy and colonial expansion. Thus, in the Third

    World, there is the widespread suspicion that Marxism is an alien Eurocentricdoctrine implicated in colonialism. This suspicion needs to be sympatheticallyconsidered and addressed rather than avoided or dismissed as groundless.Antonio Labriola, prominent Italian philosopher and the most significantItalian Marxist theorist of the pre-war period, was an advocate of Italianimperialism in Africa. Labriola (1843-1904) was professor of Philosophy atRome University from 1874 to 1904. He began as a Hegelian, moved on to therealism of I.F. Herbart and at a late age discovered Marx's writingswhereupon he devoted his remaining years to expounding Marxism and wasthe individual largely responsible for introducing Marx's theory to Italians. 1He profoundly influenced the development of Italian thought including thephilosophical idealism of Benedetto Croce and Giovanni Gentile and theMarxism of Antonio Gramsci.Most Italian commentators have noted Labriola's pro-imperialism but havefailed to pinpoint it in his theory and practice. Sbarberi correctly indicatesthat Labriola's position on colonialism barely separates him from Bernstein,but he does not explain it. 2 Sebastiano Timpanaro speaks of "those colonialistabberrations which remain the most disconcerting and negative aspect ofLabriola's thought and action."3 But one purpose of this essay is to show thatthey are not "abberrations", but cohere with an evolutionism (theory) implicitin Labriola's position and with the dominant social conditions (practice) inwhich he was located.(I) Marx, Darwin and SpencerCharles Darwin's biological theory of evolution made its impact in everysphere of intellectual life by the late 19th century, and the motto 'survival ofthe fittest' became so embedded in Western culture that it is still widely andpopularly taken as the ultimate principle of human society. Darwin's On the

    * The first draft of this paper was presented at a UNESCO-sponsored conference on 'Philosophy inAfrica' at Ibadan, Nigeria. I am grateful to Oladipo Fashina and William L. McBride for theircriticisms.Praxis International 7:3/4 Winter 1987/8 0260-8448 $2.00

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    Praxis International 341Origin ofSpecies by Means ofNatural Selection: Or the Preservation ofFavouredRaces in the Struggle for Life of 1859 was not on the face of it presented as atheory of human society, it is true, but those who ruled and still rule, werequick to see the advantages of a broad interpretation. Certainly it is not clearwhich came first: social evolutionism or biological evolutionism. Marx maywell have been right to claim that the biological theory was suggested toDarwin by the ideology of the contemporary competitive capitalism.4 Darwinhelped himself to the phrase 'the survival of the fittest' from HerbertSpencer's philosophical vocabulary and one can doubt neither Spencer'slaissez-faire political views nor the precedence of his metaphysical evolutionary ideas. 5 The difference between 'might makes right' and 'might (usefulvariation) makes for survival' may have been clear enough in Darwin's mindbut 'Darwinists' were not so careful.

    The truth is that the atmosphere of nineteenth century Europe was thickwith evolutionary ideas even before Darwin set sail in the 'Beagle' in 1831.6How could it have been otherwise? For this was the century of the globalexplosion of Western capitalism. Colonial might bloodily crushed resistancewherever it appeared in Africa and Asia. What could be more necessary for aEuropean ruling class which claimed to be civilized than to make it right?'Progress' was being made, society was evolving, and there seemed to be noend to the glorious possibilities. Human paradise on Earth was not only seenas possible, but as inevitable. The basis of it all was 'technology', theomnipotent machine, the ever-growing forces of production. If there was aprice to be paid in human suffering then those who spoke of the inevitabilityof Progress also spoke of the inevitability of suffering for those who proved tobe 'inferior'; whether a peasant in the Italian Mezzogiorno, a seven-year-oldchild slaving 14 hours a day in a Yorkshire coalmine, or Zulus and Ashantimowed down by English Gatling guns. Thus it can be said that Darwin's bookwas timely. It not only made an impact on the 19th century, the 19th centurymade an impact on it. 7Eight years after the publication of Darwin's theory there appeared anothertheory which has lived in uneasy symbiosis with evolutionism ever since: KarlMarx's first volume ofCapital. 8 Marx himself initiated the alliance. In a letterto Ferdinand Lassalle he asserted with glee:Darwin's book is very important and it suits me well that it supports the classstruggle in history from the point of view of natural science. One has, of course,to put up with the crude English method of discourse. Despite all its deficiencies,it not only deals the death-blow to 'teleology' in the natural sciences for the firsttime but also sets forth the rational meaning in an empirical way ... 9However, the kind of "support" Marx spoke of here was not meant to suggestthat his theory awaited Darwin's before it could gain an adequate epistemological and methodological basis. We should keep in mind that Marxrejects Darwin's "method of discourse".Marx's problems were obviously quite different from Darwin's.WhatMarxwanted to understand was the connection between the tremendous progressive lease of productive forces since the bourgeois revolutions and the

    cessviaCEEOL NL Germany

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    342 Praxis Internationaldeepening exploitation and misery ofmillions of human beings. Marx was onthe side of progress, but not the 'Progress' spoken of by the intellectualapologists for the plunder of Africa and Asia. His 'progress' was that of theexploited and enslaved. If he could agree that human betterment wasimpossible without the expansion of the forces of production he could notagree that it was sufficient. The oppressive social relations, both necessitatedby and making necessary this expansion, were historically transitory: theywere to be transformed, "burst asunder", by the productive forces themselves. And this is precisely where the bourgeois evolutionists or socialDarwinists and Marx part company. For the former could not envisage an endto a social system in which they ruled, and rightly ruled because they were'superior', the 'fittest'.However, it is the misunderstanding by some 'Marxists' ofMarx's presentation of the relative historical 'necessity' of exploitation and suffering thatresulted in the irony that bourgeois evolutionism was able for so long toswallow up Marxism, resulting in the spectacle of 'Marxists' who were barelydistinguishable from bourgeois evolutionists. lo Friedrich Engels may haveindirectly facilitated this process. Newly impressed by the evolutionaryanthropology of L.H. Morgan,lI he announced at Marx's funeral that "AsDarwin discovered the law of evolution in organic nature, so Marx discoveredthe law of evolution in human history."I2 Now, although Engels wasunquestionably the champion of the proletariat and the enemy of thebourgeoisie and colonialism, his manner of conceiving and expressing Marx'sideas often made things altogether too easy for those subtle antagonists whoappreciate that it is often more effective to distort than to confront. "Yes,"said the bourgeois socialists, "capitalism is necessary right now, and so iscolonialism, otherwise how are we ever going to reach the stage when theforces of production will have matured to the point at which capitalistrelations must be transformed?" Thus whether exploitation is eternallynecessary', as the bourgeois evolutionists claimed, or only necessary relative toa specific mode of production as Marx claimed, proved to be a nicety of theoryeasily dispensed with. In actual day-to-day practice what difference did itmake?(11) Imperialism, Social-Democracy and ItalyTowards the close of the 19th century the European working class wasgreatly improving its standard of living, partly due to the success of thepiecemeal demands of its burgeoning trade union organisation and, moreimportantly, by the success of capitalism itself in its new imperialist phase. 13What the Ashanti or Hindus lost, large sections of the European working classgained. The possibility of making more and more piecemeal gains, and theshrewd willingness of a Bismarck, Joseph Chamberlain or Giolitti to providesome degree of social welfare, greatly over-shadowed the possibility ofstructural transformation: a possibility never spelt out more trenchantly thanin The Manifesto of the Communist Party on the eve of an earlier revolutionarycrisis. What was needed in the socialist intellectual realm was a theory which

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    Praxis International 343justified colonialism, maintained changes within the bounds of reformism,without entirely ruling out total transformation on the distant horizon.Evolutionist socialism was the answer.Eduard Bernstein, the leader of German socialism of the period, did notonly invent reformism by the 'revision' of revolutionary Marxism, but theconditions which favoured reformism invented Eduard Bernstein. FromMarxist revision there followed, by the beginning of the 20th century,'Marxist' pro-colonialism. Bernstein had no difficulty in asserting by 1907:

    The working class is, in its economic situation, tightly bound to society and hasan interest in its development; it is false to pretend that the possession of coloniesruns counter to the interests of the proletariat, except when it acts as a fetter oneconomic development. 14Thus Lenin could complain a decade later, "The leaders of the present-day,so-called 'Social-Democratic' Party of Germany are justly called 'socialimperialists', that is, socialists in words and imperialists in deeds ... "ISIndeed, for many of the reformists of the Second International colonialismwas to be supported because it was conceived as a historically necessarystage. 16 It was the same ambivalence which resulted in the tragedy of theEuropean working classes massacring each other in the First World War. 17In Italy, a nation only unified in 1870 and therefore a straggler in thecompetition of European capitalist nations, the demand for ambivalence wasparticularly acute. Italy was very much left behind in the European 'scramblefor Africa' and failed miserably in its attempt to subjugate Abyssinia(Ethiopia) in 1896. 18 The level of development of Italian productive forcesand of the proletarianization of the population was still very low by the end ofthe 19th century compared with the nations to Italy's northwest. The weakbourgeoisie was anxious to catch up. Many trade union leaders and socialistintellectuals, already ambivalent by virtue of their predominantlyintermediary class position, did not require much persuasion to believe thatItaly had to become thoroughly capitalist before it couJd take any stepstowards socialism. Filippo Turati, the leader of Italian socialism, wasthoroughly reformist, and Enrico Ferri, a leading intellectual of the movement, backed up this reformism with a positivist version of evolutionism.Ferri explained the backwardness of the Italian Mezzogiorno by the biologicalinferiority of its population. In fact the Mezzogiorno was commonly describedas una palla di piombo (a lead weight) around the neck of the industrialnorthern provinces. 19 Ferri argued during a visit to Argentina that Argentinian socialists were an anachronism; only when an Argentinian industrialworking class had developed could such a movement have any real meaning.20Besides the common situation of all advanced European nations in theinternational economy in the late 19th century there is the question, whichErnesto Ragionieri has ably treated, of the strong influence on Italiansocialism of German social democracy, the leading socialist movement inEurope of the period. 21 Italian socialism consequently imbibed the sameimplicit reformism in its attitude to the capitalist state as that adopted by theGotha Programme, on which the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) was

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    344 Praxis Internationalfounded in 1875, and by the Erfurt Programme of 1891.22 Both Turati andLabriola were deeply impressed by the electoral success of the SPD inFebruary 1890 and were constantly in touch with developments in theGerman movement. Labriola, who was fluent in German and for decades astudent of German culture an.d philosophy, was closely connected with themovement. He supported SPD electoral campaigns from Italy, rallied Italiansocialists to send a message of solidarity to the SPD conference at Halle inOctober of that year, wrote articles for the socialist newspapers Der Sozialdemokrat, Vorwiirts and the Leipziger Vo lk szeitung , corresponded with theGerman socialist leaders, and took important political initiatives on behalf ofItalian immigrant workers in Germany. Yet if Labriola was ambivalent, hisambivalence theoretically veered towards the side of revolution rather thanreform, although his ideas and words were never put to the final test of theFirst World War. When the Bernstein-Debatte broke loose in 1896 Labriola,after a brief period of receptivity to Bernstein's views, became vigorouslyanti-revisionist, despite the clear tendency of Italian socialists to acceptBernsteinian ideology.23

    It is true that Labriola saw some importance in Marx's Critique of the GothaProgramme when it was belatedly published and wrote to Engels about it. Buthe seems to have missed the full import of its essential point about the need forthe overthrow of the capitalist state and did not see clearly that the Critiquecould be directed against the trends internal to the SPD itself.24 It was notuntil the end of 1894 when Liebknecht turned to Ferri in preference toLabriola to render account of Italian events that doubts began to appear inLabriola's mind about the leadership of the SPD. 25 But these doubts nevermatured into a critique with the clarity of, say, Rosa Luxemburg's. Still,Labriola constantly criticized Turati's version of socialism, rejected Ferri'svulgar evolutionism, and gradually distanced himself from the Italian socialistparty, if indeed he can be said to have ever been close to it. 26 While it was onlyin 1887 that Labriola could describe himself as "theoretically socialist", onlythree years later, having by then declared himself a "Marxist", he began toengage in a nagging critique of the shortcomings of Italian socialism,expressing deep pessimism about its potential.27 His criticisms were howeverdirected more against philistinism and demagoguery than against reformistand evolutionist ideas.If Labriola's political position appeared to be in line with that outlined byEngels in his 1895 introduction to Marx's Class Struggles in France he still didnot show any awareness of how Engels' position was distorted, within theSecond I n t ~ r n a t i o n a l , towards reformism. Neither did he recognise how therejection of what he calls the "old tactic of revolts" in favour of a long termpreparation of a working class majority movement was to be clearly distinguished from reformism.28 He did not succeed in putting "war of position" and"war of movement", to use Gramsci's terms, into proper relation. It is in thisfailure that we must locate the Achille's heel which allowed in pro-imperialistideas. Labriola truly held a borderline position between reform and revolution, and if he had lived longer it is not unlikely, given his tendencies tonationalism and colonialism, that like that other more famous borderline case,

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    Praxis International 345Karl Kautsky, he would have become a "renegade" (as Lenin put it). Apro-colonialist cannot consistently be whole-heartedly against the bourgeoisstate.The evidence for Labriola's pro-colonialism is unambiguous.29 In a speechof 1897 on the Turkish-Greek conflict Labriola, announcing his support forthe "Hellenic Risorgimento" against "Turkish barbarism", said that what heconsidered important to Italy in the matter was "that which still belongs toTurkey in Africa: namely, Tripolitania." What he suggested was that Italycolonise Tripolitania (Libya):The socialists would not grumble; rather they would have their feet plantedfirmly on the ground of politics. We need colonial territory, and Tripolitania isvery suitable. They would recall that 200,000 workers emigrate from Italy everyyear, without direction or support, and that there can be no progress in theproletariat where the bourgeoisie is incapable of progressing. 30

    In a 1902 interview Labriola asserted that, "The interests of socialists cannotbe opposed to national interests, rather they must promote them under allforms." He argued that "The expansionist movement of nations has itsprofound causes in economic competition," and if Italy were to withdrawfrom this European movement "it would remain backward in Europe."31Italy, in short, must invade Tripolitania to assert itself in internationalpolitics. He recognised that some democrats and socialists might object butbrushed this aside with the assurance that they would in any case be quitepowerless. 32He distinguished between "active and passive peoples" and for him thisdistinction seems to have had a fundamental explanatory role. 33 Not surprisingly, then, he thought that "backward peoples" could be made to advance bythe expansion of capitalism into their territories from outside. He wrote,That a process of transformation of people who are backward or arrested in theirdevelopment can be realised and hastened through external influences is provedby India's case which, already lively in its own life, re-enters now, under theaction of England, with vigour into the circulation of the international system,even in its intellectual products. 34

    Africa is backward, Labriola explained, although the reasons for thatbackwardness are not immediately evident, and do not appear to be a result ofnatural conditions:. . . for ethnic and geographical reasons all of Africa remained impenetrable andup until the last attempts at conquest and colonisation appeared incapable ofceding to the action of civilization anything but its perimeter; like we [Italy] weretoo, but at the time of the Portuguese, Greeks and Carthaginians. 35

    (Ill) Naturalism: The Absolute Autonomy ofMaterial ConditionsLabriola tended to view the conditions which bring about socialist revolution as autonomous; as independent of consciousness. The way in which thistendency was linked to his pro-colonialism may not be immediately obvious,but I will argue for a definite connection.

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    346 Praxis InternationalFor Labriola revolution was an event which occurs when "material conditions" (never clearly defined in Labriola's thought-which is part of theproblem) have matured. He maintained that one could say that revolution ismade to happen (an action), but only in so far as consciousness and action are

    themselves determined by material conditions. Historical materialism"objectivizes and I would almost say naturalizes the explanation of historicalprocesses. "36 Consciousness is the expression or "result" of the "selfmovement of things", and this applies equally to the political consciousness ofthe proletariat.37 The theme of his first Marxist essay, In Memoria delmanifesto dei comunisti (1895), is the need to understand the genesis of TheManifesto of the Communist Party itself as a "historical necessity".38 Thesocialist outlooks articulated before Marx and Engels came along (Chartism,Fourier, St. Simon, Proudhon) are all necessary stages in the growth ofpolitical consciousness determined by the "underlying structure", by the"intuitive lesson of things". 39 He wrote, "That which had appeared possibleto sects of conspirators as something which could be drawn up to design andprepared,at will, became a process to be favoured, supported and followed."40Marxism, Labriola believed, was not "a seminary in which is formed theGeneral Staff of the captains of the proletarian revolution, but is only theconsciousness of such a revolution ... "41In Labriola's conception one cannot force into being what can only be "thesimple outcome of the development of things."42 If Italian socialism wasbackward that was due to the fact that the material level of Italian capitalism

    was low:The periods of development cannot be jumped over . . . but circumstances canhowever accelerate them. Anyway, favourable circumstances do not depend onthe good will of socialists, whether immature, or very mature, but on thedevelopment of the proletariat. And this development is only at the beginning inItaly.43Labriola attached little or no significance to agitation, to leadership and the"General Staff'. Indeed, this is probably a reflection of his own reluctance tobe actively involved in the socialist movement of the time, although hepresented it the other way around: he justified non-involvement on thegrounds of the backwardness of the movement. One could only wait for'conditions' to ripen of their own accord. At the same time he was engaged inwriting and talking about Marxism and socialism. A professional intellectualis not likely to believe that this is pointless.At certain points, then, Labriola moves from an economic causalism to adualism of "material conditions" and "consciousness"; how otherwise doesone "favour and support" the autonomous process? Not surprisingly, he has aplace for propaganda even though he does not have one for agitation; in aletter to Turati of 1890:

    The workers' party must come into being through the spontaneous action of theworkers placed in opposition to capitalism by the very conditions of fact and bypropaganda conducted with caution. We socialists, I will put it this way,

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    Praxis International 347theoreticians, cannot and must not disturb the proletarian movement withpremature, anticipatory and abstract proposals.44

    In a letter to Engels a couple of years later he declared:At this time practical action in Italy is not possible. It is necessary to write booksin order to instruct those who would claim to be teachers. Italy lacks ahalf-century of the science and experience of other countries. It is necessary to fillin this gap.4S

    In Discorrendo di socialismo e di filosofia (1899) Labriola said that it is not thequantitative increment of votes that is important about German socialdemocracy but its value as "social pedagogy" .46 This idea is one of thehallmarks of his thought.It seems to me that Labriola clearly failed to appreciate the advanceachieved by Marx's dialectical method in conceiving history neither as anabsolutely autonomous 'material' process (materialism, causal determinism)nor as the entirely free creation of consciousness (subjective or objectiveidealism), but as a process which is a unity of 'material' content and consciousform. To grasp the development of capitalist society requires a creativedialectical movement between the essential structures of the whole, independent of individual will, and the consciousness which reflects and constitutes,legitimates and challenges those structures. To hypostatize the generalstructure of capitalist society as rigid economic laws is to make the outcome ofhuman activity inevitable. The Manifesto of the Communist Party, Labriolaclaimed, reveals how capitalism creates the conditions of "its inevitable death.Death, here in the social form, as has been found in another branch of sciencein the case of natural death, has become a physiological matter ."47 It is nolonger simply a question of "willing" the socialist revolution, as theconspiratorial or utopian socialists had thought, but ofrecognizing or failing to recognize a necessity in the actual course of humanaffairs which transcends all sympathy and all subjective approval. Does or doesnot society now find itself so constituted in the most advanced countries thatcommunism must succeed it through the immanent laws of its own becoming,given its present economic structure and given the frictions which it necessarilyproduces in itself, till a fissure appears and it breaks up?A break-up, he added, which will be carried out by the "inevitably revolutionary" action of the proletariat. Historical materialism, then, allows a"morphological" prediction.48Labriola's belief in the possibility of social prediction, while not as crude as,for example, that of Nikolai Bukharin in his Historical Materialism: A SystemofSociology, was quite marked and is a theme which is especially manifest inthe first two Marxist essays. In Del materialismo storico: dilucidazionepreliminare (1896) he stated that,critical communism ... does not tell or foretell as though speaking of anabstract possibility nor like one who takes it into his head to bring into being astate of things which he hopes for or yearns for. But it tells and foretells as onewho pronounces that which must inevitably occur through the immanent

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    348 Praxis Internationalnecessity of history, seen and studied in this case on the basis of its economicsubstruction.49

    The difficulties which arise from such a naturalistic conception of humanhistory are many and intricate. To begin with, Labriola assumed a level ofconsciousness in himself which his own theory does not allow. Thus hedivides society into two parts,50 putting himself in the epistemologicallyprivileged part: a characteristic illusion of the 'detached intellectual'. Then, aprocess which has an inevitable outcome is a process in which humanintervention is impossible. An eclipse of the sun is inevitable and so is "naturaldeath". But human beings consciously intervene in the historical process, orrather, since that is also a dualistic way of presenting the matter, humanhistory is in one dimension a conscious creation.It is true that the dominant aspect of history to date has been moving in a

    direction not fully understood and not controlled, as a whole, by humanity tocollective ends. In fact, humanity's attempt to understand it has itself beenformed and limited by the nature of earlier modes of production and theveiling surface of competitive capitalism. We know that things do not justhappen to human beings, human beings make them happen. At the sametime, "Men make history, but they do not make it just as they please ... butunder circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from thepast."51 Marx does demonstrate that there is a tendency towards theself-destruction of capitalism. But even if Labriola were right in asserting thatthe death of capitalism is inevitable due to the "contradictions" within itsstructure it by no means follows that the advent of communism is inevitable.Bureaucratism is a perfectly plausible alternative, as is nuclear annihilation,and there may be other alternatives. And thus we return to the concept of'historical necessity'.Marx had no concept of 'necessity' in the sense that human beings have nochoice but to follow a predetermined course of history, an incoherent ideawhich absurdly separates human beings from 'history'. However, he doespresent history in such a way that at any particular point components of thesocial whole are necessary to the maintenance of the essential features of thatwhole. For example,Without slavery North America, the most progressive of countries would betransformed into a patriarchal country. Wipe North America off the map of theworld, and you will have anarchy-the complete decay ofmodern commerce andcivilization. Cause slavery to disappear and you will have wiped America off themap of nations. 52

    This appears to be one of the strongest statements of historical necessity inMarx's work, yet there is nothing here which suggests the absolute necessityof slavery to world history. Equally, no one could in principle have predictedthe advent of slavery under capitalism in the sense in which an eclipse can bepredicted.

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    Praxis International 349(IV) The Nature of Imperialism

    As Labriola conceived history as a natural process which passes throughcertain stages (by analogy with the processes of biological evolution andembryology) he tended to regard capitalism as a stage which will give way tocommunism of its own accord and in its own time. On this basis there can beno ground either for supporting or challenging capitalism. But, as I alreadymentioned, Labriola's naturalism necessarily slips into dualism at somepoints. Thus it is no surprise that he should base support for capitalism on theground that one is 'speeding up' its inevitable death. Support imperialism andyou hasten the coming of socialism. Lenin reasoned otherwise:It is the revisionists who have long been asserting that colonial policy isprogressive . . [but] . . Resistance to colonial policy and international plunderby means of organizing the proletariat, by means of defending freedom for theproletarian struggle, does not retard the development of capitalism but acceleratesit, forcing it to resort to more civilized, technically higher methods of capitalism.S3

    Furthermore, Labriola does not appear to have grasped the qualitativetransformation that occurs within the development of capitalist society; heseems to have regarded imperialism merely as competitive capitalism madeglobal. In fact, as Lenin was to explain in his 1917 work Imperialism: TheHighest Stage of Capitalism, imperialism is a necessary concomitant ofmonopoly capitalism, that is, the reactionary and declining phase of capitalism.Socialist alliances with the earlier anti-feudalist bourgeoisie may, under theconditions of a certain period, have been progressive. But already by the endof the 19th century there was no progressive bourgeoisie in Europe. By 1905the Bolsheviks made clear that in backward countries the proletariat andpeasantry had to perform the bourgeoisie's task. It is this inadequate notion ofimperialism which allowed Labriola to think that Italian colonialism wouldpromote Italian capitalism. He should have seen that a bourgeosie too weak toindustrialize was also too weak to colonize. Capitalist development is in fact aprecondition for colonialism, and colonialism the means by which capitalistdevelopment can continue beyond an already highly developed but limitedpoint. But not grasping this Labriola seems to have thought that colonialismcould ab initio act as a condition for capitalist development.54On the basis of Lenin's work (and Lenin had the theoretical advantage overLabriola of two or three decades more of capitalist development, ofcourse) onewould have to reject, therefore, Labriola's notion that imperialism acceleratesthe development of "backward" nations.55 Nowadays it is obvious to all exceptthe most rigid apologists for imperialism that the "backwardness" of so-called'under-developed nations' is not their original condition but a product ofimperialism itself. We may compare Labriola's remarks on India with Marx's.It may be true that Marx overestimated the progressive impact of England'scolonialism in India (he was writing at amuch earlier time), but he certainly didnot underestimate its destructive aspect, nor did he support colonial enterpriseitself, which he thought manifested "the profound hypocrisy and inherentbarbarism of bourgeois civilization." What Marx concluded was that,

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    350 Praxis InternationalThe Indians will not reap the fruits of the new elements of society scatteredamong them by the British bourgeoisie till in Great Britain the new ruling classesshall have been supplanted by the industrial proletariat, or till the Hindusthemselves shall have grown strong enough to throw off the English yokeal together. S6

    It is obvious to Marx that English colonialism destroyed Indian industry: "Itwas the British intruder who broke up the Indian hand-loom and destroyedthe spinning wheel.,,57 Nor was the destruction of industry and industrialpotential by imperialism restricted to India. The whole of Africa, Asia andLatin America underwent the same process. 58Antonio Gramsci perceived the evolutionist trend of Labriola's Marxismand its political implications (or antecedents). While Gramsci had tremendousrespect for Labriola's insistence, against the prevalent current, that Marxismis an autonomous and original "philosophy", he rejected in uncompromisingterms his evolutionist assumptions. Gramsci recalled in his Prison Notebooksthat when a student asked Labriola in his course on pedagogy, "How wouldyou morally educate a Papuan?" Labriola replied, "Provisionally I wouldmake him a slave: and this would be pedagogy in this case, although onemight see if for his grandchildren and great grandchildren one could begin toapply something of our own pedagogy."59Gramsci immediately connects this answer with Labriola's advocacy of theItalian conquest of Tripolitania and, surprisingly perhaps, with GiovanniGentile's support for religious education at primary level because of hisconviction that religion expresses the infancy ofmankind, a necessary stage. 60Gramsci said of Labriola's remark: "It appears to be a case of a pseudohistoricism, of a rather empirical mechanism very close to the most vulgarevolutionism." He added, "The mode of thought implicit in Labriola's replydoes not appear therefore to be dialectical and progressive, but rathermechanical and reactionary . . . ". Gramsci emphasized that the 'necessity'here is a "contingent" one, that is, it is a necessity relative to definite historicalconditions which will change and will be changed: to rebel against such a'necessity' is therefore "also a philosophico-historical fact." By this lastexpression Gramsci would appear to have been drawing attention precisely tothe conscious, creative dimension of human history, which is what Labriola'snaturalist evolutionism leaves out of account. It is substantially the samestandpoint in Lenin's answer to the revisionists in terms of "resistance",which I mentioned above.Labriola seems to have assumed that every country must pass through thesame stages. 61 But this again overlooks the fact that capitalism develops as aglobal system, creating a global division of labour, so that capitalism,especially in its late imperialistic phase actually 'under-develops' parts of theworld. At the same time, an exploited people in Papua or Nigeria, India orBrazil, can benefit from the experience of the proletariat of the capitalist'metropolis', in particular by making use ofMarxist analysis itself. So whenGramsci says that contact with more "advanced" peoples can "accelerate" theeducational development of exploited peoples "universalizing and translating

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    Praxis International 351in an appropriate fashion its new experience," this is not at all the same pointas the apparently similar one made by Labriola, but its very antithesis.(V) Against Vulgar EvolutionismI must briefly deal with Labriola's apparent rejection of social evolutionism,a rejection which he himself felt distinguished his thought from that ofmanysocialists of his time. 62 Firstly, what Labriola actually rejected was crude'survival of the fittest' explanations of human history. In the Dilucidazione(1896) he wrote:... reasonable and well-founded is the inclination of those who aim to subordinate the whole totality of human things, considered in their process of change,to the rigorous conception of determinism. On the other hand, lacking in anyfoundation is the identification of such derived, reflected and complex determinism with that of the immediate struggle for existence, which is exercised andtakes place in a situation unmodified by the continuing transformations oflabour. 63

    The vulgar evolutionists' 'struggle for survival', said Labriola, "does notproduce ... that continuative, perfective and traditionary impulse which isthe human process." What political and social Darwinism overlooks is thathuman beings are different from other animals because they make their ownhistory, in the sense of being "the experimental animal, par excellence,"64 onewhich has created "by means of labour, an artificial environment."65His conception of the difference between human beings and animals, whichis the basis of his refutation of vulgar social Darwinism, is clearly stated in thispassage:Producing successively various social environments, that is, successive artificialterrains, man has produced at the same time modifications of himself; and in thisconsists the real kernel, the concrete reason, the positive basis of that which,through various imaginary combinations and various logical architecture, givesrise among ideologists to the notion of the progress of the human spirit.66

    The idea Labriola put forward here is quite clearly correct. Although manyanimals modify their environments, human beings are the only animal specieswhich progressively modify themselves in modifying their environment.However, it does not appear that Labriola departed from naturalism inadmitting self-modification, because he did not frame this self-modification interms of the mediation of consciousness and the interpretation of reality. Inthat case it is not certain that he had in fact found the key fault in the socialDarwinist position at all, namely the manner in which humanity modifiesitself, as a collective entity which is at once object and subject. A societyalways has a conception of itself and the world upon which it acts.Vulgar evolutionism was, for Labriola, a form of conceptual hypostatization, in which everything is explained a priori in terms of a single principlerather than examining "the empirical circumstances of the rat and the cat, thebat and the insect, the grass and the clover."67 Thus he rejected Spencer'smetaphysical evolutionism which, he said, "is schematic and not

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    352 Praxis Internationalempirical ... phenomenal not realistic."68 There is a tendency in all suchtheories to locate the origin or motive force of history outside human activity,so that Spencerian evolutionism actually abandoned the most progressiveaspects of Darwin's theory, namely its immanentism, which is precisely whatMarx appreciated as a great advance. Thus Labriola's real quarrel with vulgarevolutionism was that it is not true, scientific, Darwinian evolutionism.(VI) Dialectical Method & Genetic Method

    It is in this quarrel with metaphysical evolutionism that we may gain adecisive understanding of how Labriola's conception of Marxist methodcoincides with Darwin's evolutionism. For Labriola the essence of Darwin'stheory was its genetic method. Darwin did not presuppose any design or plan innature but showed how the appearance of design arose, by empirically tracingthe way in which a series of interacting conditions naturally has a certainresult: the struggle for life (itself the result of certain conditions: scarcity,population pressure, etc.) combined with the occurrence of variation results in'natural selection'; not a conscious selection but a natural one. Darwin offereda great weight of empirical evidence to demonstrate that evolution has takenplace and that it can be accounted for by natural selection (among otherpossible mechanisms).Labriola was convinced that Marx used essentially the same method, andthat is why he preferred to call Marx's method "genetic" rather thandialectical. The importance of The Manifesto of the Communist Party, he said,is that i t "finds the genesis of this struggle [of classes], determines the rhythmof its evolution, and foresees the final outcome."69 And in the Dilucidazione heexplained that historical materialism "is directed to conquering the multiformspectacle of immediate experience so as to reduce the elements of it to a geneticseries" (My emphasis).70 It is important to note that when he thought ofMarx's method Labriola generally had Engels' account of dialectic in mind,although nowadays many have questioned whether Engels' account corresponds to Marx's actual method. When Sorel asked for an exposition ofdialectical method Labriola could do no better than refer him to the section on'Negation of the Negation' in Engels' Anti-Duhring. Tronti has observed thatLabriola "does not attack in the least tllat eclectic pastiche, that strangemixture of Hegel and Spencer, that has so little in common with Marx'sscientific method."71

    In a letter to Engels of 13th June 1894 Labriola explained why he preferredthe term 'genetic method' to 'dialectical method'. He asked Engels whether'dialectic' really expresses what he meant:that is, the form of thought which conceives things not in so far as they simply are(facts, fixed types, categories, etc.) but in so far as they become: and whichbecause of this must itself, as thought, be in the act of movement? I should thinkthat the name genetic conception is clearer, and is certainly more comprehensive,because it embraces the real content of things which become as well as thelogical-formal activity of understanding them as processes. The word 'dialectic'represents only the formal aspect (which for the ideologist Hegel was

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    Praxis International 353everything). By using 'genetic conception' Darwinism as well as the materialistinterpretation of history [Marxism], and every other explanation of things whichbecome and are formed, are properly characterized. I mean that the expression'genetic method' does not prejudice the empirical nature of each particularformation which is what the generalizers of Darwin and the admirers of theGrand Eunuch Spencer do not understand.72

    The interpretation of the Marxist method as genetic method was suggested toLabriola not only by Darwin's method but by the contemporary theory ofepigenesis. Labriola saw an analogy between the way the embryo develops andthe way society develops.73 Embryology, the theory of biological evolutionand Marxism all share the genetic method. He states that he saw in Darwin'stheory "a case analogous to the epigenetic conception of history. "74 Thus it isthat Labriola could speak of "morphological prediction", a sure sign ofevolutionist thinking. 7SIn chastising those who regard Marxism as a direct derivation of Darwin'stheory he admitted that "only in a certain way, but in a very broad sense, is it[Marxism] an analogical case of it [Darwinism]."76 But elsewhere he notedthat "In the Anti-Duhring . . . Engels had already acquired all the fundamental notions of Darwinism which are necessary to the general orientation ofscientific socialism ... ". Marx and Engels, he went on, never soughtexplanations ofhistory outside history itself, but "always understood the valueof orienting themselves to that prosaic Darwinism of The Origin of Species(1859) which is a group of theories drawn from a group of observations andexperiences in a circumscribed field of reality . . . In those theories they couldnot help but perceive a case analogous to the epigenetic conception ofhistory . . . "77Again, in the Dilucidazione he stated,

    Our doctrine does not pretend to be the intellectual vision of a great plan ordesign, but is only a method of research and conception. Not by accident didMarx speak of his discovery as a guiding thread. And for precisely this reason is itanalogous to Darwinism, which is also a method and is not, nor could be, anupdated version of the constructed and constructive Naturphilosophie, as inSchelling and colleagues.78

    Two things are quite clear here. Firstly, as far as Labriola was concerned, thedefining feature ofMarx's method is not dialectic at all, but rather the mannerin which it considers things as 'functions' in a causal process, as opposed tometaphysical and transcendental thought which considers things as "fixedentities".79 Secondly, Labriola here lapsed once again into a dualism of'things' and 'thought' and preferred 'genetic method' to 'dialectic method'because the former suggested that the movement is in things as well as inthought, whereas 'dialectic' suggested the movement of thought only and thus"prejudices" empirical data.In a second letter to Engels on the question of dialectical method thisdualism is expressed in terms of a distinction between 'abstract' and 'concrete'at work in Capital: "Concrete genesis (e.g. English accumulation); abstract

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    354 Praxis Internationalgenesis (analysis of the market etc.); the contradiction which strives to emergefrom the ambit of a concept or of a fact (e.g. the formula M-C-M)."80Now, it is true that it is one feature of dialectic that it is a way of conceivingreality in movement, as a process. But this is not to be understood as therecognition of an objective dialectical 'law' which happens to operate in anobjective social reality. There are not two 'dialectics', one in reality and one inthought, for dialectic is the general form of the relation of social consciousnessand social reality. The structure of society (including the stresses and tensionsin that structure) and the general form of consciousness at any point form acircle the limits of which the revolutionary thinker cannot traverse any morethan anyone else. A revolutionary thinker may however expose, explore anddelineate those limits, thus going well beyond the ideas of ordinary, fragmented and superficial common sense. Vulgar Marxists often lapse into thedualism of consciousness and 'material conditions' in which their own positionis not only epistemologically privileged but inconsistent with their 'historicalmaterialist' account of the production of ideas. Labriola too betrays anEngelsian tendency to dualism and a naive reflection theory of knowledge.

    It would appear from Labriola's first letter that he regarded dialectic asnecessarily idealist in character. In fact the whole thrust of Labriola's Marxistwork is against idealist and theological interpretations of history; which isunderstandable given the pervasiveness of Catholic theology in Italy and giventhe fact that Labriola had only recently emerged from Hegelianism himself.The simple assertion of a realist approach to history was in itself a sufficientlydifficult task and a great advance at the time. While Labriola also criticizedpositivism his attitude towards it was somewhat ambivalent, and he himselfstated that positivism was an ally of socialism. As with evolutionism, it is thephilistine vulgarization of positivist theory that Labriola rejected, not thetheory itself.Marx's 'inversion' ofHegelian dialectic, according to Labriola, simply givesus genetic method. But this does not accord with Marx's own treatment ofhuman history and institutions. Consider Marx's position on morality, forexample. For Darwin 'fittest' meant whatever happens to survive. Thus anyappeal to Darwin's 'survival of the fittest' to support or challenge a certainsocial arrangement is mistaken, because 'fittest' is not an ethical evaluation.But Labriola transcribed this idea into the social realm, so that history moveswithout any impetus of a moral kind (in a broad sense of 'moral'). However,while for Marx socialism was not only or primarily a moral question, it wasstill a question with a 'moral' dimension. Marx situates the moral within thehistorical, so to speak.

    It is true that Marx wrote that once society has discovered "the natural lawsof its movement ... it can neither clear by bold leaps, nor remove by legalenactment, the obstacles offered by the successive phases of its normaldevelopment. But it can shorten and lessen the birthpangs."81 But whileLabriola interpreted this condensed statement of Marx as a conception ofhistory as a natural process to be externally supported (dualism), Marx'sconception actually is dialectical in the sense I have suggested, as his fullelaboraton of the idea shows. That is, the 'support' is internally related to the

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    Praxis I ntemational 355process itself. If history is a natural process, when seen in terms of thestructural constraints on thought and action, it is also a 'moral' process, aseries of plans, challenges and actions. In this regard Marxism is notevolutionism. As Marx pointed out, it was an advance to expunge teleology ofan idealistic and theological kind from explanations of physical and biologicalhistory as Darwin did. Still it is a serious error to go to the other extreme andsee human history as nothing but a natural process like biological evolutionand expunge teleology entirely. History is human purpose, but purposedefined and limited, moulded and provoked by the structural conditions ofthe developing social whole.In conclusion, I hope to have shown that Labriola's theoretical assumptions, his interpretation of Marxism, his policy proposals, expecially withregard to Italian colonialism in Africa, and his practice constitute a coherentwhole. Those commentators who would dismiss Labriola's colonialistproposals as abberrations or anomalies are mistaken. His theory is anevolutionist or naturalist Marxism which is typical of a strong current in themovement organized in the Second International. In turn, the latter should beunderstood as one kind ofmass response in the labour movement as a whole tothe impact of the newly emergent corporate, welfarist and imperialist form ofcapitalism at the turn of the century.The perspective I have presented on Labriola's thought and practice, andby implication on that of other pro-colonial Marxists, clears a major obstacleto identifying and creatively extending what is still of value for the ThirdWorld in the theory of capitalist society initiated by Marx.

    NOTES

    1. The standard work on Labriola in Italian is L. Dal Pane, Antonio Labriola: La Vita e i l Pensiero(Rome, 1935). I know of no adequate study of Labriola in English. There is a long introduction in P.Piccone's translation of Socialism and Philosophy (St. Louis, 1980).2. A. Labriola, Scrittifilosofici e politici, ed. Franco Sbarberi, two volumes (Turin: Einaudi, 1976), p. xc.

    Hereafter referred to as Scritti: all translations are mine.3. S. Timpallaro, On Materialism (London: NLB, 1975), p. 50. Togliatti, on the other hand, did see theconnection between Labriola's "one-sided, limited and ultimately fatalistic interpretation" ofMarxism and his pro-colonialism; quoted by Paggi in C. Mouffe (Ed), Gramsci and Marxist Theory(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979) pp. 130-31.4. Marx & Engels, Selected Correspondence (Moscow: Progress, 3rd edn., 1975) p. 120. Engels repeatsthis in his Dialectics of Nature (Moscow: Progress, 2nd edn., 1954), pp. 307-08.5. Spencer's Social Statics appeared nine years before Darwin's Origin. His voluminous System of

    Synthetic Philosophy appeared between 1860 and 1896.6. Biological evolution had already been suggested by Buffon and Bonnet in the 18th century and byLamarck, Chambers and Wallace before 1859.7. Characteristic of the evolutionistic justification of imperialism of this period was Benjamin Kidd's

    Social Evolution of 1894 which was so popular that it went through 19 editions in four years. Kiddargued that Teutonic racial superiority was based on the subordination of immediate interests to faithin the collective future. The motives of his class are rather more transparent in his The Control of theTropics of 1898.

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    356 Praxis International8. Coincidentally Marx's A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, which he regarded as anintroduction to Capital, was published the very same year as Darwin's Origin.9. Marx to Lassalle, 16th January 1861, Selected Correspondence, p. 115. It now seems that Aveling, notMarx, was the recipient of the oft-quoted letter from Darwin of 13th October 1880 declining a requestfor the dedication of Volume 11 of Capital to Darwin. See "The Case of the 'Darwin-Marx' Letter,Lewis Feuer & Encounter," Monthly Review, 32 (8), 1981. On the Darwin-Marx relation also see V.Gerratana, "Marx and Darwin," New Left Review, No. 82, 1973.

    10. Not only did part of the bourgeoisie appropriate evolutionism to justify its rule, and Marx ally with itto theorize the end of its rule, but some conservatives thought the greatest damage they could dosocialism was to link it with the new doctrine of Darwin. I t is also noteworthy that Marxismswallowed up bourgeois evolutionism to some degree. So that Gramsci regarded the widespreaddiffusion of a popular, vulgarized and evolutionistic variant of Marxism as a necessary stage in thedevelopment of socialist ideas and forces.11. L.H. Morgan (1818-81), upon whose work Engels based many ideas in his The Origin of the Family,

    Private Property and the State, published in 1884. Marx himself appreciated Morgan's work andintroduced Engels to it. Labriola clearly admired Morgan as well as Engels' interpretation of hiswork.12. F.S. Foner (Ed), When Karl Marx Died: Comments in 1883 (New York: International 1973), p. 39. Seealso Engels' remark in his preface to the English edition (1888) of The Manifesto of the CommunistParty.

    13. Between 1870 and 1900 real wages rose by about 50%, although there were slumps at periodicintervals. Wolfgang Abendroth says that in Germany, for example, "Between 1890 and 1900, theaverage wage rose eight to ten percent, constituting a genuine improvement in the standard of living."A Short History of the European Working Class (London: New Left Books, 1972), p. 55.14. Eduard Bernstein (1850-1932) said this at the 1907 Stuttgart Congress of the Second Internationalduring a debate on colonialism; quoted in M. Harrington, Socialism (New York: Bantam, 1973), pp178-79. See Bernstein's Evolutionary Socialism (New York, 1961). An excellent account of the politics

    of this period is to be found in L. Colletti, "Bernstein and the Marxism of the Second International,"in his From Rousseau to Lenin (London: New Left Book, 1972).15. V.l . Lenin, "Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism," Selected Works in Three Volumes(Moscow: Progress, 1970), VoI.I, p. 753.

    16. Admittedly, the Second International was ambivalent on the matter. In 1896 for example the LondonCongress of the International stated its support for the "full right of self-determination for all nations"and added that "whatever manner of religious or civilizing pretext colonial policy might have, it isalways only in the interest of capitalists," quoted in Harrington, op.cit., p. 175.17. The British Independent Labour Party and the Italian Socialist Party were alone among legal socialistparties in opposing the 1914 war. Bernstein, surprisingly perhaps, did refuse to support his party's

    pro-war policy.18. Italy already had a foothold at Assab Bay, Eritrea in 1882. In 1885 it occupied Massawa (Eritrea) and

    went on to control Somaliland. Emperior Menelik's forces defeated the Italians in 1896 in Abyssinia(Ethiopia) which Italy did not conquer until 1936. Tripoli was occupied in 1911-12 and civiliangovernment established in 1919. Emigration was encouraged but a constant battle against the Senussiin 1922-30 made the whole colonial enterprise a failure.

    19. See A. Gramsci, Selectionsfrom the Prison Notebooks (London: Lawrence &Wishart, 1971) p. 71. "Lapalla di piombo" is clearly a variant of the "white man's burden" argument. Note that Mussolini, whomoved from the Italian Socialist Party to fascism, used the "white tnan's burden" argument as late as1935 in ideological preparation for the invasion of Ethiopia.20. See E. Ferr i, Socialismo e scienza positiva: Darwin, Spencer, Afarx (Rome, 1894) and in English asSocialism and Positive Science (London: Independent Labour Party, 1906). See Labriola's commenton Ferri's evolutionism in Scritti, pp. 731-32.21. E. Ragionieri, Socialdemocrazia tedesca e socialisti italiani: 1875-1895 (Milan, 1976).

    22. Marx criticized the former in his Critique of the Gotha Programme and Engels criticized the latter in hisCritique of the Draft Social-Democratic Programme of 1891.23. For example, see the letter to Bernstein of 1899, in 5 ~ c r i t t i , pp. 1012-13 in refernce to Bernstein'sbook. See also CoUetti, op.cit., p. 60 n. 27.24. Ragionieri, op.cit., p. 314.

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    Praxis I ntemational 35725. Ibid, pp. 346-47. Cf. doubts abut the whole socialist movement in a letter to Kautsky, Scritti, pp.1018-19.26. Labriola did not participate in the founding congress of the P.S.I. at Genova in 1892 on the grounds ofits theoretical immaturity. His estimation of the party was very low: "i t is simply mystification" hesaid to Adler; quoted in Sbarberi's Introduction, Scritti. The failure of the party to correctly assess

    and link with the spontaneous peasant uprisings and Sicilian sulphur miners' protests of 1891-94confirmed his estimation.27. Ragionieri, op.cit., p. 231.28. Engels argued in the introduction that the old tactic of insurrection had to be abandoned because ofchanges in the structure of capitalist society. He proposed an enlightened mass-based movementwhich would have for a long period to restrict itself to exploiting legal possibilities in order to expand.29. I have not been able to research Labriola's 1890 discussion with Turati about the Eritrean colony. SeeRagionieri, op.cit., pp. 237-3930. "Per Candia" in Scritti, pp. 911-13. Candia is Iraklion in Crete. Tripolitania is now the northernprovince of Libya. The P.S.I. rejected the invasion of Tripoli, in 1911. Bissolati and Bonomi,supporters of the annexation, were expelled from the party. See Abendroth, op.cit., p. 65.31. "Sulla questione di Tripoli ," Scritti, p. 957.32. Scritti, p. 961.33. See his final essay, incomplete at his death, "Da un secolo all'altro," Scritti, esp. pp. 826, 850, 854.34. Dilucidazione, Scritti, p. 555.35. Ibid, p. 556.36. Ibid, p. 537. Note his qualifications, p. 545, which I do not consider fundamental however.37. This naturalism and inevitabilism is more evident in theMemoria and Dilucidazione. Qualifications areintroduced in his third Marxist essay, Discorrendo, but do not cohere with his main ideas.38. Memoria, Scritti, p. 483.39. Ibid, pp. 492, 499 for example.40. Ibid, p. 485.41. Ibid, pp. 502-03. Cf. Discorrendo, Scritti, p. 688 in the same vein.42. Memoria, Scritti, p. 506.43. Ragionieri, op.cit., p. 446, in his useful appendix: "Quattordici articoli sconosciuti di AntonioLabriola."44. Quoted in Sbarberi's introduction, Scritti, pp. xlviii-xlix.45. Letter of 3rd August 1892, Scritti, p. 306.46. Discorrendo, Scritti, p. 691.47. Memoria, Scritti, p. 489. It is undeniable that The Manifesto of the Communist Party also has strongsuggestions of causalist determinism and inevitability, but this is easily explained from its popular andagitational form.48. Ibid, pp. 476-77 and 497.49. Dilucidazione, Scritti, pp. 635-66; "substruction" is my rendering of Labriola's peculiar neologism"sostruzione". In the Discorrendo he introduces certain qualifications and regards Marx as having

    made certain errors of prediction, Scritti, pp. 777-80. The statement about "vulgar evolutionism"which Gramsci makes (Selections, p. 426) could well have been aimed at Labriola, although he seemsto have had certain positivist sociologists in mind.50. Marx, third 'thesis ' on Feuerbach, which identifies the same general error in the 'materialists' ,including utopian socialists such as Robert Owen.51. Marx, "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte," in Surveys from Exile (Harmondsworth:Penguin, 1973), p. 146.52. Marx, The Poverty ofPhilosophy, in Marx& Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 6 (Moscow: Progress, 1976)p. 167.53. Lenin, letter to Gorki of 1911, in Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 34 (Moscow: Progress), pp. 438-39.54. It is doubtful whether Italy gained much economic advantage from its colonial enterprises. It certainly

    did not export much capital. It has often been said that Italian colonialism was more of a politicalmatter than an economic one. On the other hand, one would have to look at the profit-loss account ofthe Italian Benadir Co., set up in 1892 to exploit Somaliland. Poulantzas has remarked on the politicalrather than economic motivation of Italy's Libyan war; see his Fascism& Dictatorship (London: NewLeft Books, 1974). See also Gramsci, op.cit., pp. 67-68.

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    358 Praxis International55. However there is a sign that Labriola glimpsed the fact that the development of one capitalist nationdistorts the development of another, that is when he considered Italy's own case, Scritti, p. 130 et seq.56. 1853 article, in Marx & Engels, On Colonialism (Moscow: Progress, 1968), pp. 85-86.57. [bid, p. 38.58. For Africa see Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (London: Ikenga, 1982) and B.Davidson, The Africans (London: Longman, 1969) esp. pp. 211-17. See also my "Two Methodological Paradigms in Development Economics," The Philosophical Forum, forthcoming, 1987.59. Quaderni del carcere (Turin: Einaudi, 1975), pp. 1366-68 (not in the English Selections). Gerratanapoints out in his notes in Vol. 4 of the Quaderni that Gramsci repeats this remark as reported byCrocein his Conversazioni critiche, Vol. 11 (Bari: Laterza, 1918), pp. 60-61. Note that G. Mastroianni in his

    Antonio Labriola e lafilosofia in italia (Argalia, 1976) p. 63, seems to pass off Labriola's remark aboutthe Papuan as a "witticism made for effect, of many years before, round about 1885." In 1885Labriola was not yet a Marxist. It could be that Gramsci attaches too much importance to it; anywaymy own thesis does not rest on it.60. For Gramsci's comments on the views of Croce and Gentile on the supposed necessity of religion forthe illiterate masses, see for example Quaderni, p. 1295. On p. 1370 Gramsci recalls that "Hegel hadaffirmed that servitude is the cradle of liberty," but he approves ofB. Spaventa's ironic comment that"some people would like us always to be in the cradle."61. He may have misunderstood Marx's statement in the Preface to the 1st edition of Capital, Vol. I that"the country that is more developed industrially only shows, to the less developed, the image of itsown future," (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976) p. 91. Marx was referring to one advanced capitalistnation compared with another-Germany with Britain-and no doubt simplifying his own position,as was his wont in prefaces.62. In a letter to Turati of 1891 Labriola said he had a good grasp of proletarian strategy because he is"neither positivist, nor evolutionist," Sbarberi's Introduction, Scritti, quoted on p. xlix.

    63. Dilucidazione, Scritti, p. 552.64. Memoria, Scritti, p. 511.65. [bid, p. 520. Also Dilucidazione, Scritti, pp. 545-49.66. Dilucidazione, Scritti, p. 550. See the whole section, pp. 545-51.67. Discorrendo, Scritti, pp. 710-11.68. Ibid, p. 734. See also his remark in "L'Universita e la liberta della scienza," Scritti, p. 874 and pp403, 735 on metaphysical evolutionism. Note also his pre-Marxist review of a book on Spencer'sethics, referred to in Mastroianni, op.cit., pp. 43-44.69. Memoria, Scritti, p. 476.70. Dilucidazione, Scritti, p. 573.71. M. Tronti, "Tra materialismo storico e filosofia della prassi: Gramsci e Labriola," in A. Caraccioloand G. Scalia (Eds), La CittO: futura (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1976), p. 79. Labriola wrote to Croce: "Iadvise you to read Engels' book against Diihring ... It is the greatest book of general science whichhas come from the pen of a socialist, and is objectively of great value in its general conception of

    philosophy," quoted in Mastroianni, op.cit., pp. 85-86.72. The Preformation Theory of embryonic development of the 17th and 18th centuries had postulatedthat the adult organism was simply an enlarged version of a microscopic organism in the sperm or eggwith the same features as the adult . Although Aristotle and the 17th century physician WilliamHarvey had put forward the rival theory of epigenesis, that the embryo passes through morphologically different stages, this was not generally accepted until Labriola's time as a result of carefulobservation and experiment. See R.S. Westfall, The Construction ofModern Science (Wiley, 1971), pp.98-104. Note Labriola's epigenesis as an analogue in his pre-Marxist essay "I Problemi della filosofiadella storia," Scritti, p. 15, but here it appears as an idealist concept.74. For this analogy see also Scritti, pp. 727-28.75. Memoria, Scritti, p. 497.76. [bid, p. 478. Ferri stated in a footnote to the French edition of his Darwin, Spencer, Marx that

    Labriola believed socialism and Darwinism to be irreconcilable. Labriola corrected him by admittingthat he denied that Marxism is derived from Darwin's theory and added, "I t seems to me that to denythe derivation and admit the analogy does not mean to deny the compatibility," Scritti, p. 731 n. 2.77. Discorrendo, Scritti, p. 735.78. Dilucidazione, Scritti, p. 708. Labriola informs Engels that he is not satisfied with the term

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    Praxis International 359'metaphysical' either because many claim to be anti-metaphysical, including Comte and Spencer,when they are really metaphysicians. Labriola offered no alternative term.80. Letter of 11 th August 1894, Scritti, p. 402.81. Preface to first German edition of Capital Vol. I (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976) p. 92. Note that itis another prefatory remark.


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