Different Marxist thinkers answered who-the-people-is differently across history
Evidence
Przeworski’s dilemma elicited a shifting set of answers across the history of social democracy. For the German party theorist Karl Kautsky, for instance, it implied a policy of land redistribution to appease German peasants. For a reformist such as his compatriot Eduard Bernstein, it meant a tactical alliance between the new middle classes and the working classes—a bridge built from office to factory. For the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, it meant reaching out to Italy’s Southern peasantry, held in check by the fascist state and the industrial North. For French thinkers such as Serge Mallet and André Gorz, in turn, it meant a focus on students rather than on the industrial proletariat of yesterday. All these positions already exhibited a populist temptation, trading “the working class” for “the people.” A rival tradition opted for a different tactic altogether. Rather than acting in the name of the working class, American and Russian populists in the late nineteenth century consciously represented a “people” of small property owners and farmers who sought to secure political rather than economic democracy. — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment, 19
Categorization
- DEFINE: Compactly defines the range of ‘which base’ answers - Kautsky’s peasants, Bernstein’s alliance, Gramsci’s South, Mallet/Gorz’s students.
- ADDENDUM: Contrasts small-property-owner and farmer populism seeking political over economic democracy - the class dimension parallels the ‘Grafting & Growth’ piece’s attention to who controls infrastructure and how class is spatialized.
- XREF: connects to: “The people” is itself a contested construct, not a fixed subject