CONCEPT
The Long March Through the Institutions
The strategic phrase coined by Rudi Dutschke for Gramscian war of position — the patient infiltration and transformation of the institutions of civil society as the path to structural change in societies with dense civil societies.
The phrase captures the practical implication of Gramscian strategy for social movements: transformation requires sustained institutional work rather than dramatic confrontation. The march proceeds through schools, media organizations, research institutions, regulatory agencies, professional associations — each transformed from within by intellectuals and organizers who understand the institutions' hegemonic function and work to redirect it. In the AI age, the institutions of intelligence — universities, research laboratories, technology corporations, standards bodies, regulatory agencies, media organizations — constitute the contemporary terrain of the long march.
In The You On AI Field Guide
Rudi Dutschke coined the phrase in 1967-1968 at the height of the West German student movement, consciously adapting Gramscian strategy to contemporary conditions. The phrase captured the movement's recognition that the revolutionary confrontations of 1917 Russia could not be replicated in societies where hegemonic common sense was reproduced through thousands of institutional points. Transformation required the patient work of entering those