Insurrection and Gramsci's 'War of Position'

One of the most important features of Gramsci's social theory was his analysis of the distinction between war of maneuver and war of position. In the context of a relatively underdeveloped civil society such as is found in the 'East,' he argued, revolutionary strategy required a direct frontal assault-a war of maneuver-against the principal form of bourgeois political power: the state. In the 'West,' however, with its more fully developed civil society, such a direct, lightning frontal assault against the state must be a slower, more protracted process of siege warfare, a war of position, in which subordinate classes wear away the existing civil society and, through their self-organization, create a new one (Gramsci 1971). Adapted from the source document.