Gramsci and the Emancipation of the Subaltern Classes (Marx, Engels, and Marxisms) [1st ed. 2022] 9783030907761, 9783030907778, 3030907767

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MARX, ENGELS, AND MARXISMS

Gramsci and the Emancipation of the Subaltern Classes

Marcos Del Roio

Marx, Engels, and Marxisms

Series Editors Marcello Musto, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada Terrell Carver, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

The Marx renaissance is underway on a global scale. Wherever the critique of capitalism re-emerges, there is an intellectual and political demand for new, critical engagements with Marxism. The peer-reviewed series Marx, Engels and Marxisms (edited by Marcello Musto & Terrell Carver, with Babak Amini, Francesca Antonini, Paula Rauhala & Kohei Saito as Assistant Editors) publishes monographs, edited volumes, critical editions, reprints of old texts, as well as translations of books already published in other languages. Our volumes come from a wide range of political perspectives, subject matters, academic disciplines and geographical areas, producing an eclectic and informative collection that appeals to a diverse and international audience. Our main areas of focus include: the oeuvre of Marx and Engels, Marxist authors and traditions of the 19th and 20th centuries, labour and social movements, Marxist analyses of contemporary issues, and reception of Marxism in the world.

More information about this series at https://link.springer.com/bookseries/14812

Marcos Del Roio

Gramsci and the Emancipation of the Subaltern Classes Revised and expanded for the English edition. 2021

Marcos Del Roio Department of Political and Economics Sciences São Paulo State University Marilia, São Paulo, Brazil

ISSN 2524-7123 ISSN 2524-7131 (electronic) Marx, Engels, and Marxisms ISBN 978-3-030-90776-1 ISBN 978-3-030-90777-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90777-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Archive Collection/Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Titles Published

1. Terrell Carver & Daniel Blank, A Political History of the Editions of Marx and Engels’s “German Ideology” Manuscripts, 2014. 2. Terrell Carver & Daniel Blank, Marx and Engels’s “German Ideology” Manuscripts: Presentation and Analysis of the “Feuerbach Chapter”, 2014. 3. Alfonso Maurizio Iacono, The History and Theory of Fetishism, 2015. 4. Paresh Chattopadhyay, Marx’s Associated Mode of Production: A Critique of Marxism, 2016. 5. Domenico Losurdo, Class Struggle: A Political and Philosophical History, 2016. 6. Frederick Harry Pitts, Critiquing Capitalism Today: New Ways to Read Marx, 2017. 7. Ranabir Samaddar, Karl Marx and the Postcolonial Age, 2017. 8. George Comninel, Alienation and Emancipation in the Work of Karl Marx, 2018. 9. Jean-Numa Ducange & Razmig Keucheyan (Eds.), The End of the Democratic State: Nicos Poulantzas, a Marxism for the 21st Century, 2018. 10. Robert X. Ware, Marx on Emancipation and Socialist Goals: Retrieving Marx for the Future, 2018. 11. Xavier LaFrance & Charles Post (Eds.), Case Studies in the Origins of Capitalism, 2018. v

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TITLES PUBLISHED

12. John Gregson, Marxism, Ethics, and Politics: The Work of Alasdair MacIntyre, 2018. 13. Vladimir Puzone & Luis Felipe Miguel (Eds.), The Brazilian Left in the 21st Century: Conflict and Conciliation in Peripheral Capitalism, 2019. 14. James Muldoon & Gaard Kets (Eds.), The German Revolution and Political Theory, 2019. 15. Michael Brie, Rediscovering Lenin: Dialectics of Revolution and Metaphysics of Domination, 2019. 16. August H. Nimtz, Marxism Versus Liberalism: Comparative RealTime Political Analysis, 2019. 17. Gustavo Moura de Cavalcanti Mello and Mauricio de Souza Sabadini (Eds.), Financial Speculation and Fictitious Profits: A Marxist Analysis, 2019. 18. Shaibal Gupta, Marcello Musto & Babak Amini (Eds.), Karl Marx’s Life, Ideas, and Influences: A Critical Examination on the Bicentenary, 2019. 19. Igor Shoikhedbrod, Revisiting Marx’s Critique of Liberalism: Rethinking Justice, Legality, and Rights, 2019. 20. Juan Pablo Rodríguez, Resisting Neoliberal Capitalism in Chile: The Possibility of Social Critique, 2019. 21. Kaan Kangal, Friedrich Engels and the Dialectics of Nature, 2020. 22. Victor Wallis, Socialist Practice: Histories and Theories, 2020. 23. Alfonso Maurizio Iacono, The Bourgeois and the Savage: A Marxian Critique of the Image of the Isolated Individual in Defoe, Turgot and Smith, 2020. 24. Terrell Carver, Engels Before Marx, 2020. 25. Jean-Numa Ducange, Jules Guesde: The Birth of Socialism and Marxism in France, 2020. 26. Antonio Oliva, Ivan Novara & Angel Oliva (Eds.), Marx and Contemporary Critical Theory: The Philosophy of Real Abstraction, 2020. 27. Francesco Biagi, Henri Lefebvre’s Critical Theory of Space, 2020. 28. Stefano Petrucciani, The Ideas of Karl Marx: A Critical Introduction, 2020. 29. Terrell Carver, The Life and Thought of Friedrich Engels, 30th Anniversary Edition, 2020. 30. Giuseppe Vacca, Alternative Modernities: Antonio Gramsci’s Twentieth Century, 2020.

TITLES PUBLISHED

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31. Kevin B. Anderson, Kieran Durkin & Heather Brown (Eds.), Raya Dunayevskaya’s Intersectional Marxism: Race, Gender, and the Dialectics of Liberation, 2020. 32. Marco Di Maggio, The Rise and Fall of Communist Parties in France and Italy, 2020. 33. Ryuji Sasaki, A New Introduction to Karl Marx: New Materialism, Critique of Political Economy, and the Concept of Metabolism, 2020. 34. Kohei Saito (Ed.), Reexamining Engels’s Legacy in the 21st Century, 2021. 35. Paresh Chattopadhyay, Socialism in Marx’s Capital: Towards a Dealienated World, 2021. 36. Marcello Musto, Karl Marx’s Writings on Alienation, 2021. 37. Michael Brie & Jörn Schütrumpf, Rosa Luxemburg: A Revolutionary Marxist at the Limits of Marxism, 2021. 38. Stefano Petrucciani, Theodor W. Adorno’s Philosophy, Society, and Aesthetics, 2021. 39. Miguel Vedda, Siegfried Kracauer, or, The Allegories of Improvisation: Critical Studies, 2021. 40. Ronaldo Munck, Rethinking Development: Marxist Perspectives, 2021. 41. Jean-Numa Ducange & Elisa Marcobelli (Eds.), Selected Writings of Jean Jaurès: On Socialism, Pacifism and Marxism, 2021. 42. Elisa Marcobelli, Internationalism Toward Diplomatic Crisis: The Second International and French, German and Italian Socialists, 2021. 43. James Steinhoff, Automation and Autonomy: Labour, Capital and Machines in the Artificial Intelligence Industry, 2021. 44. Juan Dal Maso, Hegemony and Class Struggle: Trotsky, Gramsci and Marxism, 2021. 45. Gianfranco Ragona & Monica Quirico, Frontier Socialism: Selforganisation and Anti-capitalism, 2021. 46. Tsuyoshi Yuki, Socialism, Markets and the Critique of Money: The Theory of “Labour Notes”, 2021. 47. Gustavo Moura de Cavalcanti Mello & Henrique Pereira Braga (Eds.), Wealth and Poverty in Contemporary Brazilian Capitalism, 2021. 48. Paolo Favilli, Historiography and Marxism: Innovations in Midcentury Italy, 2021.

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TITLES PUBLISHED

49. Levy del Aguila Marchena, Communism, Political Power and Personal Freedom in Marx, 2021. 50. V. Geetha, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar and the Question of Socialism in India, 2021.

Titles Forthcoming

Vesa Oittinen, Marx’s Russian Moment Kolja Lindner, Marx, Marxism and the Question of Eurocentrism Adriana Petra, Intellectuals and Communist Culture: Itineraries, Problems and Debates in Post-war Argentina George C. Comninel, The Feudal Foundations of Modern Europe Spencer A. Leonard, Marx, the India Question, and the Crisis of Cosmopolitanism Joe Collins, Applying Marx’s Capital to the 21st Century Jeong Seongjin, Korean Capitalism in the 21st Century: Marxist Analysis and Alternatives Marcello Mustè, Marxism and Philosophy of Praxis: An Italian Perspective from Labriola to Gramsci Satoshi Matsui, Normative Theories of Liberalism and Socialism: Marxist Analysis of Values Shannon Brincat, Dialectical Dialogues in Contemporary World Politics: A Meeting of Traditions in Global Comparative Philosophy Francesca Antonini, Reassessing Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire: Dictatorship, State, and Revolution Thomas Kemple, Capital After Classical Sociology: The Faustian Lives of Social Theory Xavier Vigna, A Political History of Factories in France: The Workers’ Insubordination of 1968

ix

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TITLES FORTHCOMING

Attila Melegh, Anti-migrant Populism in Eastern Europe and Hungary: A Marxist Analysis Marie-Cecile Bouju, A Political History of the Publishing Houses of the French Communist Party Peter McMylor, Graeme Kirkpatrick & Simin Fadaee (Eds.), Marxism, Religion, and Emancipatory Politics Mauro Buccheri, Radical Humanism for the Left: The Quest for Meaning in Late Capitalism Rémy Herrera, Confronting Mainstream Economics to Overcome Capitalism Tamás Krausz, Eszter Bartha (Eds.), Socialist Experiences in Eastern Europe: A Hungarian Perspective Martin Cortés, Marxism, Time and Politics: On the Autonomy of the Political João Antonio de Paula, Huga da Gama Cerqueira, Eduardo da Motta e Albuquer & Leonardo de Deus, Marxian Economics for the 21st Century: Revaluating Marx’s Critique of Political Economy Zhi Li, The Concept of the Individual in the Thought of Karl Marx Lelio Demichelis, Marx, Alienation and Techno-capitalism Dong-Min Rieu, A Mathematical Approach to Marxian Value Theory: Time, Money, and Labor Productivity Salvatore Prinzi, Representation, Expression, and Institution: The Philosophy of Merleau-Ponty and Castoriadis Agon Hamza, Slavoj Žižek and the Reconstruction of Marxism Kei Ehara (Ed.), Japanese Discourse on the Marxian Theory of Finance Éric Aunoble, French Views on the Russian Revolution Terrell Carver, Smail Rapic (Eds.), Friedrich Engels for the 21st Century: Perspectives and Problems Patrizia Dogliani, A Political History of the International Union of Socialist Youth Alexandros Chrysis, The Marx of Communism: Setting Limits in the Realm of Communism Stephen Maher, Corporate Capitalism and the Integral State: General Electric and a Century of American Power Paul Raekstad, Karl Marx’s Realist Critique of Capitalism: Freedom, Alienation, and Socialism Alexis Cukier, Democratic Work: Radical Democracy and the Future of Labour Christoph Henning, Theories of Alienation: From Rousseau to the Present

TITLES FORTHCOMING

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Daniel Egan, Capitalism, War, and Revolution: A Marxist Analysis Genevieve Ritchie, Sara Carpenter & Shahrzad Mojab (Eds.), Marxism and Migration Emanuela Conversano, Capital from Afar: Anthropology and Critique of Political Economy in the Late Marx Marcello Musto, Rethinking Alternatives with Marx Vincenzo Mele, City and Modernity in George Simmel and Walter Benjamin: Fragments of Metropolis David Norman Smith, Self-emancipation: Marx’s Unfinished Theory of the Working Class José Ricardo Villanueva Lira, Marxism and the Origins of International Relations Bertel Nygaard, Marxism, Labor Movements, and Historiography Fabio Perocco (Ed.), Racism in and for the Welfare State Marcelo Badaró, The Working Class from Marx to Our Times Tomonaga Tairako, A New Perspective on Marx’s Philosophy and Political Economy Matthias Bohlender, Anna-Sophie Schönfelder, & Matthias Spekker, Truth and Revolution in Marx’s Critique of Society

Contents

A Gramsci’s Journey

1

Some Sources of Gramsci’s Theorical Categories Autonomy and Antagonism in Rosa Luxemburg and Gramsci

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Gramsci’s Rosa

39

Gramsci and Lenin: Hegemony and Philosophy of Praxis

69

Gramsci and Sorel: Scission Spirit and Intellectual and Moral Reform

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Gramsci and Machiavelli: Jacobinism Mediating the Prince’s Movement

109

Translations of the Passive Revolution Passive Revolution and the Nature of Our Time

131

The Particularity of the Passive Revolution in Brazil: Translating Gramsci

167

Education and Hegemony Gramsci and Educating the Educator

185

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CONTENTS

Education as Reproduction of Hegemony and Its Antihesis

201

Gramsci and Labor as a Foundation for Hegemony

215

The Construction of Praxis Class and Party in Gramsci

233

Gramsci and the Emancipation of the Subaltern Classes

263

Organic Crisis, Neoliberalism and Barbarism

291

Gramsci’s Edition in Italian

303

Gramsci’s Editions in English

305

Bibliography

311

Index

317

A Gramsci’s Journey

The journey towards the publication of Gramsci’s writings is well known, especially The Prison Notebooks. A journey that involved widespread disclosure of Gramsci’s name and work until he became the most renowned Italian author in the world. But this journey that has not yet reached completion and has only recently reached Africa and Asia, while reaches increased depth in Europe, North America and Latin America. The letters and Notebook note that Gramsci wrote from prison became public after World War II. In 1947, and in the first decade after Antonio Gramsci’s death, a selection of his Letters from Prison appeared in Italy, with some minor excisions in some. The book was worthy of Viareggio’s important Literary Award, and Gramscian writings were starting to be published in Italy, with the aim of educating the ICP and attracting intellectuals to the party’s orbit of influence, but also to broaden its presence in the international communist movement. Under the leadership of Palmiro Togliatti, this initiative was related to a broader ICP policy of organizing institutes, publishers, bookstores, book publications, magazines and newspapers as essential instruments in the struggle for hegemony. The publication of Prison Notebooks should be considered within these circumstances, with 6 volumes that grouped up Gramsci’s texts according to topics. These books were launched between 1948 and 1951. The texts from the period before Gramsci was in prison © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Del Roio, Gramsci and the Emancipation of the Subaltern Classes, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90777-8_1

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were subsequently published, mostly between 1951 and 1954, starting with some topics related to southern issues, a text that anticipates important elements that were further developed in Prison Notebooks. Gramsci’s writings read within this format also served to support the so-called Italian path to socialism, conceived by Togliatti in 1956, right after the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Chiarotto 2011). Gramsci was acknowledged as a great Italian intellectual, popular national, however sparsely referenced abroad. Although Eric Hobsbawm considers the hypothesis that The Modern Prince, an anthology of texts by Gramsci, organized by L. Marks and published in the UK in 1956, is the first time Gramsci’s work was published out of Italy, one may notice a certain level of disregard or difficulty to access other European countries, aware of their own tradition. The actual weakness of the British Communist Party may have contributed to the spread of Gramsci’s writings in the UK (Hobsbawm 1987). It is surprising that the Prison Notebooks were already translated in Argentina in 1950 and that the first translated edition of the Notebooks was published there. The crisis that affected almost all communist parties in 1956, due to the impacting CPSU congress and the shocking events in Hungary, opened up more room for the dissemination of Gramsci’s work, and between 1958 and 1962, 4 of the 6 volumes of Prison Notebooks were published in Argentina. The initiative came from Hector Agosti, who soon found himself forced to withdraw from the Communist Party in Argentina, which did not welcome the news that he was representing Gramsci. Not by chance, soon he began producing a magazine called Past and Present , the title of one of the volumes of Prison Notebooks that was previously published in Italy. Texts by Gramsci and various Italian authors appeared in the magazine, which only lasted two years from 1963 to 1965 (Burgos 2004). Interest in Gramsci migrated to Brazil from Argentina, partially due to correspondence between Hector Agosti and Astrojildo Pereira who directed Estudos Sociais (Social Studies) (1958–1964), a magazine that was linked to the Brazilian Communist Party. In Brazil, Letters and Papers from Prison and 4 volumes of Prison Notebooks were published between 1966 and 1968. However, both in Argentina and Brazil, interest aroused by Gramsci in the 1960s was limited: the influx of the Cuban revolution and guerrilla strategy where on the spotlight, a moment when Mao and Guevara were more relevant (Coutinho and Nogueira 1988).

A GRAMSCI’S JOURNEY

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However, I am certain that Gramsci’s spread in English deserves to be discussed here as well, albeit briefly, even if due to obvious reasons such as the fact that it is the native or language adopted in several countries, the main language for contemporary science and the main second language within the intellectual sectors in most countries of the world. The first book in English was published in 1967, by John M. Cammet, Antonio Gramsci and the Origins of the Italian Communist Party. This book was perhaps more about studies on the history of the communist movement— in vogue at the time—than actual studies on the concepts and work of Gramsci (Cammet 1967). In the 1960s, the New Left Review played an important role in presenting Gramsci amidst some of the problems it proposed. Thus, authors such as Perry Anderson and Edward P. Thompson came to the fore, but the most important milestone was the publication in 1971, of Selections from the Prison Writings, as an initiative of the British Communist Party. In London 1977, a significant scientific event took place in dedication to Gramsci’s work. Perry Anderson published Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci in the New Left Review, which garnered intense criticism in Italy but essentially influenced the debate. At that time, Gramsci was already a well-known character in Europe thanks to the political successes of the Italian Communist Party, which considered Gramsci a strategic guide. At this moment Gramsci’s name was widespread, largely linked to the so-called Eurocommunism which interpreted him as a radical democrat. The ideological political defeat of this Gramsci, especially since it meant clear ideological retreat in relation to the cultural matrix present in Marx’s work, did not last long when faced with a liberal-democratic offensive that anticipated the era of neoliberal globalization that would soon begin. Given the BCP’s—British Communist Party—debility, “Eurocommunism” could only generate weak political impact. In fact, as is well known, in most of the English-speaking world the communist movement never gained much strength. What marked the intellectual production in this large part of the world, particularly the UK, was the intersection of Gramsci’s writings with the deep-rooted concern of Marxist historians towards the topic of popular culture, which Gramsci would call the subaltern classes. From Maurice Dobb and Christopher Hill to Edward P. Thompson and Eric Hobsbawm, then Stuart Hall and Perry Anderson, all these are authors that can be included in this group.

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In the absence of a clearer connection, we must recall the importance of Subaltern Studies, an initiative by Indian intellectuals associated with the Communist Party. These intellectuals had the intention of understanding the situation of the dominated social strata in the situation of colonialism that still submerged India, which could point towards directions for revolutionary political action. The first writings on this topic came out in 1946, before Gramsci’s texts were published. Subsequently, once Gramsci’s texts became more well-known and important representatives from the Indian group established themselves as academics still distant from Marxism, Cultural Studies gained prominence, highlighting Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall. Thus, one may say that there is a certain use of Gramsci, perhaps an abuse, that clearly escapes a more rigorous reading, although Hall had this concern. These were the paths made available for a post-modern focus of post-colonial studies (Vacca et al. 2008). A recovery of Gramscian studies occurred after the publication of a new edition of Prison Notebooks in Italy, the alleged critical edition, edited by Valentino Gerratana. Published in 1975 close to the climax of the ICP, its intellectual impact was not so immediate and occurred gradually amidst the decline and death of the organization to which its name referred. An important example was the J. V. Femia’s book Gramsci’s Political Thought, published in 1981. The collapse of the experiences of state socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe was a severe event that called into question all things Marxist or Communist. Studies on Gramsci, perhaps as a reflection of this historical defeat situation, seemed less and less “political” and more “cultural”, despite the fact that Gramsci considers politics and culture, although distinct, as systems with mutual forms of identification. An important attempt to articulate Gramscian scholars was in 1989, right before the fall of the Berlin wall, with the foundation of the International Gramscian Society, an initiative led by the Italian Giorgio Baratta and the Maltese American Joseph Buttigieg. Along with Antonio Callari, Joseph Butthieg translated part of the Prison Notebooks into English, following the critical edition by Valentino Gerratana. The first volume was published in 1992, an initiative that contributed greatly to the dissemination of Gramsci’s name and works in the USA and in the English-speaking world in general, however within a very specific context of a “Marxism crisis”. It is true that this crisis results from opponents’ or evaders’ interpretations of this cultural/ideological field and not from Marxism itself.

A GRAMSCI’S JOURNEY

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The sequence of the MEGA2 publication and the continued spread of Gramsci’s work are signs of unmistakable vitality. The serious problem is that this knowledge has not been able to achieve praxis. In the 1990s, with new publications and a new generation of scholars, Gramsci’s name was consolidated as a research instrument and object in the strategic English-speaking world. It is not of minor importance to highlight some authors and works that were (and are) important in Gramscian studies, starting with Joseph Buttihieg, The Legacy of Antonio Gramsci (1986), followed by Maurice Finocchiaro’s Gramsci and the history of dialectical thought (1988), which, in a way, anticipate the phase which began in the 1990s. Another author of Italian origin, Benedetto Fontana, published an especially useful interpretation, which was Hegemony and Power: On the Relation Between Gramsci and Machiavelli (1993). Kate Grehan provided a powerful reading of Gramsci from an Anthropological perspective, attempting to redefine of the concept of culture and common sense in Gramsci, Culture and Anthropology (2002). Peter Ives’ work, Language and Hegemony in Gramsci (2004), to some extent, anticipates a very present-day trend in the readings of Gramsci according to the canon of translatability. A magnificent example of Gramsci’s appropriation of an understanding towards the contemporary world can be considered through the book by Adam David Morton, Unravelling Gramsci; hegemony and passive Revolution in the global economy (2007). This book and Adam Morton’s research on Mexico stimulated an interesting debate on the passive revolution category, which takes place in the pages of the journal Capital & Class, although referring to articles or collections therein is not our focus. This study was continued in 2019 with Global capitalism, global war, global crisis. Finally, Peter Thomas’ book The Gramscian Moment: Philosophy, Hegemony and Marxism (2009) should be considered a breathtaking effort in providing a broader interpretation of Gramsci’s thoughts in opposition to Perry Anderson and Althusser, highlighting Anderson’s mistakes and defending Gramsci’s timelessness and exhausting the Algerian-French writer’s philosophy. In fact, it constitutes a remarkable effort to interpret Gramsci’s work using philological and diachronic criteria, without losing sight of the political core of Gramsci’s work. These and some other works provide a reasonable profile of Gramscian studies in the English-speaking world, which multiplied after the second decade of the twenty-first century.

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One may notice how the English-language editors have paid attention to works produced in other languages, logically in Italian at first, but in other languages as well, such as Spanish and Portuguese, which adds a wealth of interpretative contributions to Gramsci’s writings. Finally, it is worth remembering how the publication of Edizione nazionale degli scritti di Antonio Gramsci, an initiative aimed at publishing Gramsci’s complete work and simultaneously implied a review of his previous work (which includes texts and questions the other author’s questions), leans towards reinforcing trends towards philological and diachronic studies with strong reference to translatability. Certainly, access to this material translated into other languages will take a while, with the aggravating factor of the relative slowness in the publishing processes (due to the difficult working conditions of the team involved). ∗ ∗ ∗ This preamble was written to present the proposed book to readers. It includes twelve essays written over time on a variety of occasions and with different objectives, with a certain level of organicity among each other. However, each one resulted from research carried out in Italy, during different periods. This explains (and justifies) the wide use of primary sources and bibliography that is mainly available in Italian. At first sight, readers may notice repetitions and overlaps, but these are only apparent due to the diachronic analysis of certain themes. In fact, the intention was to deal with the essential themes of Antonio Gramsci’s reflections, which may imply repetitions and overlaps in different ways, however, brings to light new perspectives as the themes quickly intersect and create new oppositions. Crucial categories that can help structure Gramsci’s thoughts are herein presented, some on more than one occasion but in different contexts. This is the case with Jacobinism and the passive revolution, for example, which is intersected and contrasted to itself at the same time. These categories are observed with various meanings yet still within the same line of thought upon which they are built and supported, to apprehend the concrete reality with perpetual movement. The first part consists of five chapters which analyze the relationship established by Gramsci with some of the authors that contributed to his intellectual and political development. The first three chapters refer to the relationship between Gramsci’s thoughts and other essential

A GRAMSCI’S JOURNEY

7

authors in the cultural tradition Marx initiated, such as Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin, who likewise contribute to establishing the path Gramsci followed through his own reflections. Analyzed here in two chapters, the relationship between Gramsci’s thoughts and Rosa Luxemburg has only recently been approached in greater depth and is at least unprecedented (Caloz-Tschopp et al. 2018; Liguori 2020). The previous relationship between Rosa and Lenin presented here is far from consensual. The negative assessment regarding Rosa’s work was marked by the anathema she suffered in 1924, during the V Congress of the Communist International—Comintern, when she was once again labeled spontaneous and her imperialism theory was criticized. Thus, this author was excluded from Marxist-Leninist lines of thought. The opening chapters defend the thesis that there is a dialectical, political and theoretical relationship between Lenin and Rosa, conditioned by the diversity of concrete conditions, which is also valid for Gramsci’s relationship with these two authors. This means that despite differences, they all stem from the same developing cultural strand, which although curtailed, was carried on by Gramsci and Lukacs (in very different situations as well). There has been a long-time debate on Lenin. Togliatti, as the main leader of the ICP and promoter of Gramsci’s work for twenty years, always insisted that Gramsci would have been a Leninist, or rather a MarxistLeninist, and that he never strayed from the mainstream communist movement (Togliatti 2001). Alfonso Leonetti and others who accompanied Gramsci since the of the Factory Councils (1919–1920) experience and who were expelled from the party in 1930 and then joined the Left Opposition defended Gramsci’s affinity with the type of politics advocated by Trotsky, especially concerning the united front topic (Leonetti 2004). In recent decades, Lenin has been minimized or even excluded as a source of elaboration for Gramsci’s thought. Perhaps to be synthetic, it would be correct to say that Lenin and Russian Marxism have been just one of the sources used by Gramsci to elaborate his own concepts on the philosophy of praxis within the theoretical continent constructed by Marx. Although Lenin is considered an example of an author that articulated political theory and practice, Gramsci didn’t intent to expose the profound differences in relation to the philosophy of the science of knowledge as the author of Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (Lenin 1909). In relation to Russian Marxism, Gramsci preferred to return to the critical verve against Trotsky and Bukharin. Therefore, claiming that Gramsci

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would have been a Marxist-Leninist, as Togliatti did, would constitute a reductionist and simplistic vision that distorts and exhausts reality. Sorel has been an author incorporated into Italian culture since the debate on revisionism which had the participation of Croce and Labriola in the last years of the nineteenth century. Its impact on Gramsci’s theory (and perhaps practice) may have been greater than taken into consideration by the vast existing bibliography. Through critical dialogue with Sorel, Gramsci elaborates his concepts on autonomy, antagonism, the scission spirit, intellectual and moral reform, myths and the historical block. In the chapter presented here, the objective is to present Sorel as someone who establishes theoretical perspectives based on various influences such as Vico and Renan. These authors alone will be discussed here given their contributions towards the Gramscian categorical universe (Badaloni 1975; Santarelli 1977; Medici 2000; Galastri 2015; Cospito 2019). Certainly, another powerful source that flows into the composition of Gramscian thought is the Italian cultural tradition itself, with emphasis on Machiavelli. Within a debate that had gone on for 4 centuries, Gramsci presents an innovative interpretation of Machiavelli’s work, which made its translation into the twentieth century possible. The theoretical category of Jacobinism enabled this temporal transposition. In a diachronic movement, the category of Jacobinism crosses several spaces and temporalities: Machiavelli, the French Revolution, and the Russian Revolution, cross-cutting Sorel’s meanings towards a broader reconfiguration of this category, in dialogue with the category of myth and Prince (Medici 1990; Fontana 1993). Readers may wonder about Gramsci’s relationship with Francesco de Sanctis, Benedetto Croce and Antonio Labriola, all of which are Italian authors crucial to Gramsci’s theoretical development and to understanding Italian specificities. Furthermore, one may inquire on Gramsci’s relationship with Hegel and Marx. This possible gap or these gaps in this book evidence the enormous complexity of Gramsci’s theoretical universe, which although understood as a block, cannot be exposed in its entirety in any single volume. Even magnificent works that attempt the interpretation of The Prison Notebooks fail to wholly capture Gramsci and his influences because they must choose a focus, an argument or a movement (Frosini 2003, 2010). The effort to apprehend Gramsci in his entirety would be better undertaken in an intellectual biography or through a topic-based reading, which could then be referred to this line of study (d’Orsi 2018; Fresu 2020).

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We can say that this is as far as the first part of this book goes, leaving no considerations as final, open to be rediscussed in the future. After clarifying the meaning adopted by Gramsci, the passive revolution category serves as an instrument to assist in understanding its significance for our times, understood here as (a working hypothesis) the organic crisis of capital. Nonetheless, this same category can also be mobilized, without losing its operationality, to understand the bourgeois revolution and its process in Brazil, in an attempt to translate Gramsci. Understanding the history of the twentieth century through Gramsci’s lens is our guiding factor: history of passives revolutions or the organic composition of capital since the recompositing of bourgeois hegemony after the defeat of the socialist revolution in 1921. The next a topic approached is one that is arousing growing interestthe school system crisis. This crisis is inherent to both public schools and private schools, obliges us to conceive other forms of learning, in a multidimensional and comprehensive manner. The UK’s journey in pedagogical experiences have come a long way, however, the incorporation of Gramsci’s thoughts is quite recent (note, just here I suggest two or three examples of books in English) Even in Italy, more specific reflections on educational perspectives are also recent (Metta 2019). In Brazil, pedagogical research frequently takes Gramsci’s thoughts into consideration, often articulated with concepts approached by catholic author Paulo Freire (Nosella 2016; Silva 2020). The chapters that address Education from a Gramscian perspective are linked to other concepts such as autonomy, self-education, educator’s education, producer’s education and moral and intellectual reform as paths towards constructing a new order. Education from a Gramscian perspective deals with the issues involved in educating educators, moral and intellectual reform, the construction of an alternative hegemony based on work, and the hegemony of the working class. Finally, we will deepen the focus initiated in the previous section on the construction of revolutionary subjectivity and collective willpower. Although discussed in different sections beforehand, the political Party problematic gains specificity in one chapter, even if only until 1926. However, it is the essay that entitles and unites the whole work, demonstrating the permanent objective of historical praxis that permeates the entirety of Gramsci’s life and work. In fact, the construction of this historical mission as a process of humanity’s emancipation and unification was what gave Gramsci’s life meaning and the main focus of his will and

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intellectual capacity. Readers will notice that this book is political, just as Gramsci considered philosophy, history, economics and life to be. As a final note, readers should be aware that most of the preceding writings are Gramsci’s own words. There are a few references to contemporary authors in the text, as per academic norms, and are cited in the footnotes to contextualize readers in regard to what is being presented.

Some Sources of Gramsci’s Theorical Categories

Autonomy and Antagonism in Rosa Luxemburg and Gramsci

Introduction During the last quarter of the twentieth century, a propagated conviction was that Karl Marx’s social theory and practice had reached exhaustion, not only because of its possible intrinsic weakness, but as a result of a series of crimes that emerged from the structures of Stalinism. Furthermore, the technical scientific revolution, productive restructuring, and ultimately, the neoliberal globalization of the market and culture would be eliminating the actual material substrate of Marxist theory: the industrial working class. The most diverse ideological concepts (partly including left-wing schools of thought) contributed to erase the memory of the labor movement’s emancipatory struggles in the imperialist period—which we can denominate as “classic” (1880–1980)—strongly permeated by resistance struggles and the mimetic formation of national states. The end of the twentieth century watched the Fordist labor movement and its institutions’ collapse and a crisis of the national resistance struggle. Although this statement may seem paradoxical when considered against the disintegration of the USSR and its imperial field, the fact is that the neoliberal regimes imposed in these countries made the Western imperial option prevail and enforced a renewed colonialist perspective which aims to

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Del Roio, Gramsci and the Emancipation of the Subaltern Classes, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90777-8_2

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establish a universal empire centered upon the uncontested domination of capital (big corporations) under the mediation of the American state—unipolar imperialism, despite the fact that achieving this objective is literally impossible.1 However, according to another perspective, this phase that began around 1980 can be seen as an offensive attempt from capital amidst an accumulation crisis against the world of labor and its autonomy and antagonism. The attempt, through globalization and productive and managerial restructuring, was to break the bonds of solidarity generated by social cooperation in labor, which had been previously demanded and imposed by capital itself in its reproduction process. The resistance from workers was manifested (in corporate terms) through unions and the party, with worker’s social and political organization spheres becoming stronger towards the end of the nineteenth century. But the resistance also found new ways and topics with which to manifest, such as self-governance, issues related to the environment, and “racial”, sexual and age diversity. The crisis of capital brought to the surface other aspects that are its developmental intrinsic and external contradictions relating to work and the environment. Nonetheless, the political culture and ideology of the labor movement had severe trouble in apprehending the entirety of these ongoing contradictions, to the point that these struggles began to manifest themselves as partial or sectoral struggles. Labor unions and political parties succumbed to neoliberal regimes and adapted to the impositions of capital. Thus, it heedlessly collaborates to reproduce social cooperation in labor focused on capital accumulation and the exacerbation of alienation. The theoretical-political limits of the twentieth century labor movement and socialist theory overall can be based on (and not without great controversy) the idea that the social cooperation in labor generated by the actions led by capital would turn against domination and take on an

1 The work by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. Empire (Harvard University Press, 2000) had a lot of repercussion when it argued that life was subject to a decentralized transnational Empire, in which the antagonistic force would be an indistinct multitude. At the other extreme, in several works, Domenico Losurdo defended the current nature of the national issue and anti-colonial struggles. Cfr Domenico Losurdo. Il marxismo occidentale: come nacque, come morì, come puó rinascere. Bari: Editori Laterza: 2017. It is also important to highlight the works of Ellen Meikisins Wood, such as The Empire of Capital. London: Verso, 2005.

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emancipatory role. An addition to this concept would be that the occupation of the capitalist state power would have the power to cool down the rage of predatory accumulation towards socialist solutions. At the turn of the new century, more recent social movements began to steal the scene, somewhat filling in for the positions left by the twentieth century labor movements. Not that they were anything new, as they had been germinating for a long time, since the 70s, as actions of resistance, autonomy and antagonism to the harm caused by capital domination. They might even be an embryo of a new, broader and more universal workers’ movement, guided by effective internationalism. However, the centralization of struggles through a revolutionary party, although distant, remains essential, just as essential as the need to update theory.

Communist Refoundation: Lenin and Rosa There is a tendency within the movement of resistance towards the imperial domination of capital to underestimate, if not obliterate, the communist refoundation’s contribution from the beginning of the twentieth century within the context of the so-called classical Marxism. While in the West Marx’s social theory was subsumed to democratic liberalism and high bourgeois culture (especially after the death of Engels in 1895), in Russia, particularly with Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg, communism was reformulated and a critical reflection towards capitalism resumed. Both authors experienced and thought about the limiting situation of the impact of the spread of capitalism in Poland and Russia, and both also lived and absorbed most of the critical culture generated in central Europe. The difference is that Lenin experienced a Swiss (and French) exile and Rosa Luxemburg, after a brief exile in Switzerland, adopted Germany as the center of her political and ideological struggles. As a result, each one fought side by side with a labor movement that had different characteristics and had contrasting political groups organized as allies or close representatives. Lenin struggled with the heart of the imperialist contradiction, at the periphery, the chain’s weakest links. Rosa fought in Russia and Poland, but most of her activities took place in Germany, the cradle of communist theory (when Germany was on the outskirts of the bourgeois revolution) but also the decisive center for the development of the reformist theory that would later permeate

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the labor movement. The difference in perspectives determined by the cultural political environment was always offset by the internationalist perspective that both authors had been influenced with. The outbreak of the imperialist war resulted in serious moral and theoretical impacts on the concepts presented by both authors and brought them deeper into their theoretical-practical refoundation of communism, which would reach its peak during the international socialist revolution originated in Russia that later spread throughout Central-Eastern Europe. As is well known, the revolution soon flowed back to its Russian cradle and was isolated there after 1921, with the revolutionary movement defeated throughout Europe. Lenin’s early death (1924), limiting objective conditions, strategic indefiniteness and split of the Bolshevik ruling group all contributed to the exhaustion of the communist refoundation. The defeat of the international socialist revolution in Central-Eastern Europe (Germany, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Italy) and the even earlier death of Rosa Luxemburg (1919) often places her theoretical reflections in the background and her influence is considered undecisive in the continuation of the communist refoundation. The second phase of the communist refoundation boasted of great names such as Lukács and Gramsci at its forefront. Both came from peripheral regions impacted by the spread of capitalism. Lukacs was from Hungary, the easternmost part of Habsburg’s imperial power, and soon became involved in high bourgeois German culture. He was led to meet Marx and Lenin through Rosa Luxemburg and leftist critical culture. Gramsci came from Sardinia, an island in southern Italy—which had been incorporated into the kingdom of Piedmont—a symbol of an outdated peripheral context, where he had also experienced a bit of the autonomist and anti-capitalist leftist culture in Germany. This text intends to underscore aspects of Rosa Luxemburg’s elaboration and possible influence (or congruence) towards Gramsci in order to identify among these authors the emphasis on autonomy and antagonism in the political and cultural struggle towards the socialist revolution. This may indicate the contemporaneity of these authors and the possible contributions they offer to our present-day emancipatory social struggles (Modonesi 2019).

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Rosa Against Revisionism At the end of the nineteenth century, the strategic crisis of the workers’ and socialist movement was latent, further aggravated by the new expansion phase of capital (after 1895) and by the signs of democratization of the liberal-imperialist states. The Preface that Engels wrote for the edition of Marx’s book on The Class Struggles in France (1848–1850) was not only an indication of this crisis, but also an initial attempt to suggest a feasible path for the movement in those historical conditions, especially the German context. Engels knew that betting on the path of insurrection in the short term would only involve a small fraction of the working class and the clear outcome would be a defeat with catastrophic proportions, such as what happened in France with the Paris Commune (1871) (Engels 2012). The concrete analysis of the situation indicated that the working class should undergo a long phase to strengthen its social institutions—the union and the party—in order to organize and educate the class for socialism. Participation in liberal-bourgeois institutions, particularly the Parliament, would have its importance in this process, as they were instruments to achieve the wider objective of organizing and educating the masses. From this perspective, the socialist revolution would be an unprecedented phenomenon in history, occurring as a broad movement among enlightened masses aware of the objective. Only this kind of insurrectionary movement would have the capacity to paralyze and defeat the repressive bourgeois apparatus. Despite the prestige they had at the SPD—the German Social Democratic Party—the group of Marx’s followers was small and split up after Engels’ death. Bernstein one of Engels’ beloved counterparts and followers—that benefited from a certain ambiguity and inadequacy of his master’s suggestions—sought to develop a sophisticated theoretical concept that would end the strategic crisis of the labor movement. The starting point was to consider the capitalist expansion and state’s democratization process as long-lasting. In these circumstances, the working class’ social institutions should be included in the state in order to accentuate democratization and deconstruct its classist nature. Through partial struggles by the unions and the party, control over production and better distribution of social wealth could be achieved and would satisfy the demands of citizenship and justice. Within this reasoning, the very notion of the socialist revolution loses its meaning, devoid of nothing more than

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an abstraction. This was the start of revisionism and reformism (Bernstein 1974). Although it jeopardized the party’s official discourse, Bernstein’s elaboration rationalized and systematized the political culture that would spread throughout not only the party’s mass, but also in the union and among parliament leaders who had already manifested inclinations in this direction, making this conception predominant over time, although it lacked its predecessor’s clarity and sincerity. Initially, the “orthodoxy” was defended by Kautsky, but it was Rosa Luxemburg who had recently arrived from Switzerland in 1897, that courageously endeavored to refute Bernstein’s theses. Rosa’s fundamental criticism, exposed in the collection of texts called Social Reform or Revolution? focused on the method problems. Bernstein’s critique of dialectics and his adherence to neo-Kantianism transported him into bourgeois culture. Rosa insisted on the Marxian thesis of cyclical and aggravated capitalism crises and the intrinsically classist nature of the state and the unavoidable need for socialist revolution. In the situation it was in, however, the socialist movement had to fight for the education of the masses through partial objectives linked to the ultimate objective of socialism, and in order to do so, democracy was indispensable. Whereas Bernstein saw in the constantly expanding bourgeois democracy as a process to render the revolution superfluous, Rosa, on the other hand, considered democracy necessary and indispensable for proletariat’s conquest of power (Luxemburg 1976a: 196). Rosa is nonetheless still on the same ground as Engels and she recognized this limitation. Engels’ reflection (mentioned above), she said, referred to the behavior of the proletariat vis-à-vis the capitalist state as a dominated class, not as a victorious proletariat. But neither did Rosa herself manage to set clear strategic guidance for the victory of the proletariat. She only suggests that class struggle must be carried out in order to avoid both the opportunism claimed by Bernstein, and the Blanquism which Engels had already warned about. Rosa’s important intuition in this debate is that she immediately understands the socialist revolution as a long-term process, and that the socialist revolution presupposes a long and bitter battle, and during this process, most likely, proletariat will be pushed back more than once, so that the first time, from the perspective of the end of the struggle, will have arrived at power “too soon”. (Luxemburg 1976a: 198)

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In order to defend her statement, Rosa had to cling to the role that the objective laws of capitalist development would play in this process, which would lead the bourgeois order to an even more dramatic crisis and the proletariat would be left with no option other than full seizure of power. Although Bernstein was momentarily defeated by those who defended the “doctrine”, the truth is that the events in the beginning of the century seemed to confirm his perspectives. To oppose the movement of reformism established in France in 1904, the CGT—General Confederation of Labor—was established, condensing the revolutionary strand of the union created after the anarchists were expelled from Socialist International in 1896. A decisive new impulse in the labor movement took place in Russia, which was undergoing an upward trend since the beginning of the new century. Revolutionary syndicalism spread from France to Italy, Germany, the Iberian Peninsula and Iberian America. Georges Sorel’s conception of revolutionary syndicalism emphasized autonomy and antagonism towards the order of capital. In summary, revolutionary syndicalism advocated workers’ self-organization into unions, which would serve as schools for an emancipated life and as the embryo of a new form of economic organization. The ideal stimulus would emerge from the growth of the myth of a general strike against the established order. The workers’ struggle should be directed against all forms of power, which explains its refusal towards politics and the political party as an instrument of labor emancipation. Revolutionary syndicalism also refused to create a layer of intellectuals or leaders, as this would constitute discrimination and hierarchy among men. It should be noted that the revolutionary union’s reflections thus reproduced the rupture posed between the bourgeois order and liberal ideology and between the economic and political dimensions, however, did not accept the notion of political guidance proposed by the Jacobin Blanquist vanguard (Sorel 1999).

Rosa and the Mass Strike The rise of the Russian labor movement and the general strike of the Belgian proletariat in 1902 indicated the path to be followed in the search for a strategic design where workers’ emancipation could be the fruit of their own doing. In Rosa’s understanding, the logical consequence would be to insist on self-organization and self-activity of the masses and on the

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autonomy and antagonism of their anti-capitalist struggle. The debate about the mass strike was already posed before the leaders of the labor movement when the Russian revolution broke out in 1905. This offered practical examples for the unfolding of the mass strike, but the majority of Social Democracy discarded the arguments it raised based on the conception that Russia was an eastern country that had outdated concepts and that was dealing with a bourgeois revolution, a situation quite distinct from Germany and the West which already consolidated their democratic parliament institutions. Rosa’s theoretical-ideological struggle had to take place on two fronts: against revolutionary syndicalism and against SPD reformist syndicalism. Against both sides, she considered the concept of a mass political strike as a long-term strategy for the socialist revolution. There is no doubt, however, that Rosa was closer to revolutionary syndicalism when she defended the autonomy and self-activity of the masses and the permanent antagonism towards the order of capital, with mass strike as a method of social struggle. The need for politics and for a revolutionary political party structured around the social struggles of the working masses placed her on a different path, where she stood out above revolutionary syndicalism and was considered as part of the revolutionary Marxist field of thought, refoundation of Marxian communism. She was contrary to reformism and had to develop her critique of bourgeois democracy and the congruence of workers’ struggle against capital, which meant defending the broad validation of the mass strike strategy, whether in Russia or Germany, against feudal-absolutism or bourgeois liberalism. It was important to emphasize the autonomy of the workers’ struggle against capitalist exploitation. It was the mass strike that would indicate victory over the dialectical contradiction posed to the labor movement, which opposed popular willpower established during the daily struggle within the limits of order towards a popular desire to overcome the limits of that order and build new forms of sociability. During the daily workers’ life under the rule of capital, struggles occur through unions and at the parliament, but the workers’ discipline “is not only imposed on the proletariat by factories, but by the barracks, by modern bureaucratism, and throughout the mechanism of the centralized bourgeois state” (Luxemburg 1976b: 223). Workers’ cooperation and their collective awareness is built in the active and practical struggle against capital, that surfaces when the daily routines at the factory, barracks and bureaucracy are broken. It is the movement as a whole that

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determines the struggle’s direction, as Rosa considers that centralism is only the imperative moment in which the will of the conscious and militant vanguard of the working class is unified amidst isolated groups and individuals, and this is the ‘self-centralism’ of the leading layer of the proletariat, the domination of the majority within the organization of the party itself. (Luxemburg 1976b: 223)

Worker cooperation and discipline arising from their self-activity and antagonism is therefore different from the cooperation and discipline imposed by capital, so that it is not by joining the discipline imposed (on the worker) by the capitalist state, by simply passing on the baton of command from the bourgeoisie’s hand to the social-democratic central committee, but only by rooting out that enslaving spirit of discipline will the proletariat be educated by a new discipline, the volunteering self-discipline of social democracy. (Luxemburg 1976b: 224)

What is essential for Rosa is the rupture of daily routines imposed by capital acts of occupational rebellion, which is expressed centrally through abstaining from the surplus value production process. It is through practical and collective action that awareness and transformative collective will is forged, and it is through experience that the embryos of new socialist democracy institutions of are formed, including the revolutionary working masses’ party. There is longer any point in talking about a minimum program (within the bourgeois order) and a maximum program (for an abstract socialist revolution deployed in the future), since it is now a matter of making the transformation through a sequence of intermediate objectives. The mass strike is the means by which the daily order is broken, it is the means that adds pressure for the achievement of established objectives. As a precaution measure, Rosa tries to disassociate herself from the notion of a general strike or a mass strike, a classical anarchism characteristic (Bakunin, for example) and accepts Engels’ criticisms as a precedent. The method of mass strike in Russia was defended as an adequate means to achieve the objectives of political emancipation of the masses however with emphasis on the idea that mass strike cannot be an action to be

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decided upon by the trade union or political leadership of the worker’s movement. In certain situations when the masses self-activity is predominant, it leads to the breakout of a mass strike. It is during these situations that the movement indicates political tactics and when the democratic centralization of the socialist struggle is imposed upon the leaders that must coordinate actions. If mass strikes were to produce revolution, the political leadership would have to be closely linked to the masses’ disposition with political tactics always be at the forefront, at a level more advanced than the actual relationship between the political forces present. Rosa’s assessment of the Russian experience demonstrates that from 1896 onwards, mass strikes were mainly for economic reasons, however, in the course of the 1905 revolution, strikes emerged in response to the guidance from Social Democratic leadership. If a mass strike with insurrection characteristics were to take place all over Russia and suffer setbacks, it should lead to a coordinated strike and mass insurrection. The specific case of the Russian revolution shows the diversity of ways and means by which a mass strike can be achieved, but also indicates that mass strikes are methods for popular and worker struggles that can be generalized in different social realities. Rosa states that “mass strikes, as the Russian Revolution shows us, is such a malleable phenomenon that it reflects all sides of a political and economic struggle, and all stages and moments of the revolution” (Luxemburg 1976c: 326). Rosa considers mass strike as a strategy that was finally incorporated into the socialist revolution, a strategy that should not be confused with anarchism or revolutionary syndicalism and social-reformism. The mass strike is the method of the working-class struggle either to achieve democratic goals or to overthrow the rule of capital. It is also the strategy for partial struggle, wear and tear, accumulation of experience and strength since the revolution can be a long-term process. As the mass strike is “the means of the proletarian mass movement, the method for manifestations among the proletarian struggle in the revolution”, it is “the concept that sums up an entire period of class struggle that may last during years and perhaps decades” (Luxemburg 1976c: 327). If the mass strike frays the domain of capital, it also makes room for an increasingly autonomous and antagonistic organization on behalf of the proletariat, a space for emancipation that creates its own institutions.

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The mass strike is guided towards the creation of a dual power: an antiproletarian power is established, which harasses and corners the power of capital. Another feature that Rosa draws attention to is that the mass strike tends to dissolve the scission in the bourgeois world (and reproduced by revolutionary or reformist syndicalism) between the economic and political dimensions. The mass strike may start for economic reasons that result in political dispute or due to political reasons that feed economic demands, but in the end this dichotomy is false, as the focus on the totality that emerges in the revolutionary struggle promotes a strong intertwining and merge of the struggles. In fact, “the economic struggle is the driving force from one political center to another; political struggle is the periodic fertilizer for the soil of economic struggle” (Luxemburg 1976c: 331).

Rosa and the International Socialist Revolution Rosa further developed a few notions touched upon by Engels, but at the moment of the Russian revolution in 1905 and after uncovering the route that would lead to the refoundation of communism in the West, Rosa had already anticipated notions of power duality, hegemony and the war of positions developed later through Lenin and Gramsci’s reflections. Amidst the outbreak of the international socialist revolution in Russia in 1917, Rosa deepened and shed more light on issues based on the common thread she had uncovered in 1905 and which she never abandoned. In 1910, she defended the mass strike towards expanding suffrage rights and the proposition of a democratic republic in Germany in an intense debate that also involved the Russian Marxists. From then on, the theoretical and political rupture with Kautsky and all forms of reformism had reached consummation. Rosa had also resisted against the organic scission of the German workers’ movement, despite the very serious betrayal of all Socialist International principles which had been perpetrated by the vast majority of the political and union leaders upon becoming attached to imperialist interests. This position is explained by the fact that Rosa perceives reformism as the product of a contradiction inherent in the labor movement: the contradiction between the daily life conditions under the order of capital, with possible partial gains and the objective of transposing the order through the socialist revolution.

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From 1916 onwards, the quasi-consensus that existed regarding the imperialist war in various belligerent countries broke down and strikes multiplied until March 1917 when the international socialist revolution broke out in Russia. Rosa knew, as much as Lenin or Trotsky, that the revolution in Russia could not remain within the framework of the bourgeois-democratic revolution or within the limits of the Russian Empire, and thus, the revolution would soon be forced to spread across Germany. With the victory of the Russian revolution, Rosa values Jacobinism and the leadership capacity of the Bolsheviks by stating that “the path runs not from the formation of a majority to revolutionary tactics, but from revolutionary tactics to the formation of a majority”, but insists that “Socialist democracy begins with demolishing the domain of class and the construction of socialism. This starts at the exact moment when the socialist party gains power” (Luxemburg 1976d: 571 and 593). The revolution’s spread throughout Germany made it possible for Rosa to escape from prison, where she had been for most of the time since the beginning of the imperialist war which she had fought against with courage and passion. The fall of the Prussian monarchical regime and establishment of the workers’ and soldiers’ councils soon prioritized the creation of a new revolutionary party that would organize and represent the most advanced working masses in the struggle, resulting in the organic split with reformist social democracy. Social Democracy— which was already divided into two parties—controlled the Republican Provisional Government and also the workers’ and soldiers’ councils, which decided during a Congress to support a National Constituent Assembly based on political parties which would establish a parliamentary democratic republic. This decision hastened the gathering of political forces that defended the socialist revolution and creation of a state based on Councils. Thus, whether from the left of the USPD—Independent Social Democratic Party, where Rosa Luxemburg’s Spartacus Leage stood out, or from small regional groups of the revolutionary left, a convergence was created towards the creation of the KPD—Communist Party of Germany. During the Discourse on the Program, Rosa essentially clarifies the concept of long-term socialist revolution, a revolution that depends fundamentally on the antagonism and self-activity of the proletarian masses, “a revolution that still required immense effort and has a long way ahead” (Luxemburg 1976e: 617). Rosa understands that

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it is in the very nature of this revolution that strikes increasingly occur, and that they must become the central point, the fundamental moment of the revolution. This is then an economic revolution which then becomes a socialist revolution. But the socialist revolution can only be brought about by the masses, immediately facing capitalism, in every company and by every proletarian fighting against company owners. Only then will it truly be a socialist revolution. (Luxemburg 1976e: 618)

Thus, for Rosa Luxemburg the socialist revolution is a profound modification of the social relations of production, the rupture of reproductive mechanisms of surplus value. The mass strike is the main instrument to guarantee the paralysis of capital reproduction. The struggle of labor against capital, through production management, is the basis and foundation of the socialist revolution, linking this destructive action of the bourgeois social order to an action of building a new order and an actual public/social power. The workers’ and soldiers’ council is therefore not only the means for reorganizing production, but also for managing public affairs in radically democratic and socialist structures. The construction of the new socialist order involves the dissemination and strengthening of councils, which implies the articulation of social alliances that include the agricultural proletariat and small peasants. The spread and strengthening of councils, their capacity to manage production and public affairs by removing administrative functions from private enterprises and the bourgeois state, are part of the revolutionary process. Thus “the conquest of power must not be achieved all at once, but progressively, inserting wedges into the bourgeois state, until it occupies all positions and defends them by tooth and nail” (Luxemburg 1976e: 629). The masses’ antagonism and self-activity are expressed by the mass strike and in the organization of a new public/social power, which is therefore anti-capitalist through the workers’ councils, in a process that can be shorter or longer according to the unfolding of the class struggle and how forces are balanced. In this process, there is a progressive substitution of the bourgeoisie’s political power by a new anti-capitalist public power. It is not exactly related to a seizure of the state’s power, as if it centralized and nucleated all power, or even as if power was something indistinctive to be seized by a political force or another. Especially since the public power defined in the councils promoted the dilution of false boundaries between economic and political dimensions, those that are private and abstractly public.

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Gramsci and the Councils The defeat of the socialist revolution in Germany and the experience of the councils, which reached a distinctive episode upon Rosa Luxemburg’s murder, did not prevent the process, with other particularities, from persisting in Hungary and Italy. It is not surprising that Rosa Luxemburg was one of the most important theoretical references for the next moment of the communist refoundation and that she had a fundamental influence on Lukács and Gramsci. Rosa’s influence on Lukács is clearer, not only because it is made explicit in several essays in the important book History and Class Consciousness, published in 1923, but also because it can eventually be perceived through the Hungarian experience of a councilbased republic and its relative underestimation of the role of the party as a leader and organizer (Lukacs 2003). The Italian experience with the councils did not become the actual state power as in Hungary, but it lasted longer and presented more significant specificities. In the group at L’Ordine Nuovo, with an emphasis on Antonio Gramsci, the theoretical-political influence of Georges Sorel and Rosa Luxemburg, among others must be scrutinized. The nodal point of the theoretical-political stance that ties these authors together is the rupture between labor facing the order of capital and the rejection of exploitation and alienation. This rejection is manifested as antagonism and a struggle for producer’s autonomy and self-governance an action that practically is manifested through mass strikes and changes in the social relations of production. However, the fundamental difference existing between Sorel and Rosa’s concepts of mass strike must be taken into consideration. Sorel considered that mass strike is a cultural representation of the anti-capitalist rupture and antagonism, a possible final act of a struggle developed against capital through the autonomous organization of workers through production and culture. Rosa, as seen above, considered mass strike an expression of the autonomy and antagonism of the workers and a form of political and economic struggle against capital as well as a process for revolution and the construction of a new order. In the Turin working class’ political practice, the lines between these two concepts were blurred. In the decisive and seminal editorial of the L’Ordine Nuovo, n. 07, Gramsci develops a theme proposed by Rosa Luxemburg in 1903 concerning anticipation, although not in the same sense (Luxemburg 1963). Then he asks himself about “how to weld the present into the

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future, satisfying the urgencies of the present and working usefully to create and ‘anticipate’ the future?”. Gramsci considered that the socialist state potentially already exists in the institutions of social life that are characteristics of the exploited working class. Gathering, coordinating, and subordinating these institutions through a hierarchy of competences and powers, with strong centralization, while respecting the necessary autonomies and articulations, means creating from now on a true workers’ democracy, through efficient and active opposition of the bourgeois State, prepared from now on to replace the bourgeois State in all its essential functions related to the management and domination of national heritage. (Gramsci 1954a: 10)

Gramsci and Rosa Luxemburg both considered the socialist state as radically democratic, especially since its foundations are based on the productive process’ self-governance, in order to avoid separating economic and political aspects. It is a state that emerges from the conquest of the working class’ autonomy in the struggle for selfgovernance, in irreconcilable antagonism against capital in its preparation to overthrow the bourgeois state. The factory productive process is the foundation of the workers’ democratic state because the “revolutionary process takes place in the field of production, in the factory, where the relations are established between oppressor and oppressed, between exploiter and exploited, where workers have no freedom, no democracy; […]” (Gramsci 1954b: 124). Hence, the factory council is the ultimate foundation for the new state of workers’ self-governance, autonomously developed and in antagonism to the state of capital. The factory council is capable of controlling production and to express the demands of the class throughout the process of managing public affairs. Thus, the professional union, political party, and institutes born under the aegis of liberal-bourgeois political freedom, should only establish the general conditions for the emancipation of labor and “should not position themselves as tutors or superstructures that are already established in this new institution [the factory council] in which the process of revolution takes on a controllable historical form, […]” (Gramsci 1954b: 127). As they are constitutive institutions of the liberal-bourgeois order, Gramsci perceived that the union and the party tended to only play a reformist role, reproducing the rupture between the economic and the

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political, a characteristic of the bourgeois order. On the contrary, Gramsci perceived the need for politicization within the productive process of capital, as well as the urgency to make the struggle for the state an economic struggle. The Union and party could, if pushed to its limits, withstand the revolution, as had occurred in Germany and would later occur in Italy. In fact, the desperate occupation of factories in September 1920 guaranteed workers’ self-management and the transfer of authority in opposition to capital and the bourgeois state, but also in opposition to the union and socialist party. It turns out that the defeat—and the responsibility attributable to the union and party—makes it evident that the perspective that Gramsci had previously defended of a possible “renewal of the socialist party”, was unfeasible.

Gramsci and the Founding of the Communist Party Gramsci’s history was similar to Rosa’s experience regarding the problem of the organic split between the movement and party. Both delayed this initiative as much as possible, believing that the revolutionary strand could still reach predominance in the existing workers’ party, thanks to the initiative and pressure of the masses. Gramsci would say that we simply have the defect of believing that the communist revolution can only be carried out by the masses and that a party secretary or a president of the republic would not be capable of carrying that out through a decree; it seems that this was also the opinion that Karl Marx and Rosa Luxemburg shared, as it was in Lenin’s opinion. (Gramsci 1954c: 489)

After the Communist Party in Italy was founded,2 amidst a convergence of different groups and tendencies, there was a large predominance of the group aligned with Amadeo Bordiga, and Gramsci and L’ Ordine Nuovo in a secondary position. In any case, for some time the guidance towards the need to fight the socialist party as the organizing element of the working class under bourgeois hegemony and the need to establish a workers vanguard endowed with a clear revolutionary perspective was

2 The name was Partito Comunista d’Italia and the acronym PCd’I. It was renamed Partito Comunista Italiano—ICP, after 1945, during the V Congress of the Party. In this book, the option was to use the acronym ICP for references since its foundation, in 1921.

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unanimous. The deconstruction of the ISP would take place at the workplace through union actions attracting workers to the revolutionary strand that was opposing the petty-bourgeois incrustation that had then taken over the workers’ party, as well as a crude positivist ideology. Just a few weeks before the new party was founded, Gramsci noted that “no Italian socialist has ever had the precision, originality and capacity to penetrate and adapt as Sorel has” (Gramsci 1974a: 13). Amidst the fascist repression and the ICP’s contention with the leadership of the Communist International—Comintern, absorbing the lessons of the Russian revolution, Gramsci emerged as the leader capable of thinking about the autonomy and antagonism of the masses as a process of self-education and self-governance. It was a complex of ideas that he acquired from Sorel and Rosa, with the vanguard party concept which would lead and educate the masses, but nonetheless be originated from and educated by the masses that created it. His main insight, however, was that only a party could be the organizing instrument for the working class’ hegemony. In this sense, he distanced himself from Sorel’s perspectives that were still indebted to liberalism that separated economics and politics. However, he returned on another level to the perspective already present in the experience of the Factory Councils with the need to confront the political power of capital within the production process itself. It broadened the vision of the need to embrace intellectuals and culture as a theme that significantly expresses the reproductive subjectivity of the order of capital. That would be the only way for the working class to subtract its basis of support from the bourgeois order and attract allies upon whom it would exercise its hegemony. The historical objective of the socialist revolution could only be achieved through the unification of the working class and its alliance with the agricultural proletariat and poor peasants. He moved away from Sorel, although not from Rosa. What happened was that the concept of a revolutionary struggle that Gramsci was developing for Italy translated the concepts defended by Rosa and Lenin into the circumstances of Italian social formation. It was essential to have a revolutionary party that was an organic expression of the working class, composed by its most organized and educated portion from a revolutionary praxis point of view. But this party could not cease to be the expression of the working class’ self-organization or cease to be the class constituting a party, for it is the self-activity and self-organization of the

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working masses that are capable of building a new hegemony and a new state. Gramsci gradually came to realize that the guidance from the Communist International Comintern—designed after the III World Congress (1921)—centered on the political formula that only the united front could provide the key to the theoretical elaboration of a socialist revolution strategy at an indefinite time horizon, as it depends on the power relations and conditions of the class struggle at a national and international level. Enriched by the experience of the international socialist revolution period from 1917 to 1921 and by the debates held within the Comintern, Gramsci set out to develop a theoretical base that relied heavily on the contributions of Rosa Luxemburg (and Korsch) and Lenin (Del Roio 2017). Less from an observation made by the exegesis of texts, this statement can be deduced from the assessment of different national particularities that these revolutionary theorists were amidst. The massive demographic predominance of peasants and strong feudal heritage made Lenin emphasize the unavoidable necessity of the worker-peasant alliance in the establishment of a new state. Rosa, however, faced with the great degree of industrial advances in Germany and union organization, had to emphasize the unity of the working class creating a party. Italy was much less industrialized than Germany and had a largely peasant working mass, but it had developed a bourgeois revolution, although somewhat curtailed and which Gramsci would later call a passive revolution. Furthermore, the agrarian and peasant issues in Italy were strongly marked by the southern issues, in other words, territorial problems, which also affected the material organization of the state and its ideology. Thus, based on Germany and Rosa Luxemburg, Gramsci obtained elements to value the need for workers’ unity, which was not abstract and solely based on principles, but unity based on the antagonistic struggle against the order of capital, unity built from the self-activity and self-organization of the masses. Rosa, however, thought that reformism could be defeated as the workers struggle progressed, while Gramsci had absorbed the thesis of the existence of a ‘workers aristocracy’ from Lenin, as a differentiated social stratum incorporated into the bourgeois state. But like Rosa, Gramsci noted that only the autonomous and antagonistic struggle against capital could produce the emancipation of labor, and also that the control and organization of the production process of material life was the foundation and core of this political struggle. This

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is why the Factory Council should play an essential role in shaping the workers’ state. On the other hand, as in Lenin’s Russia, notwithstanding specificities, the problem of the alliance with the agricultural proletariat and the poor peasants was also paramount. During the political crisis arising from the assassination of the socialist parliament member Giacomo Matteotti in June and July 1924, Gramsci had the opportunity to explain how the political formula of the united front was posed as a strategy for revolutionary struggle. He began by saying that “the first task of the proletariat, even in this situation, is to take on an autonomous attitude” (Gramsci 1978a: 462). Autonomy and antagonism did not imply social isolation since Gramsci understood that in this scenario the alliance between the proletarian revolutionary forces and the petty-bourgeois forces was indispensable to overthrow fascism. Gramsci was scrutinizing a serious economic crisis that could seal the end of fascism for Italy and capitalism, which would momentarily delay the revolutionary advance although would not be able to stop it definitely. In fact, “it has contributed to broadening and deepening the terrain of the proletarian revolution, which after the fascist experience will be truly popular” (Gramsci 1978b: 31). The notion of a popular revolution would later be placed at the center of the ICP’s political discourse, until the IC forced its withdrawal. Still, the theoretical meaning was quite innovative, since it considered proletariat as the leading nucleus of social forces that could assume an anti-capitalist stance. The issue with the autonomy and antagonism of the working class was transformed into hegemony and the foundation of a new social order. A new social order that was built from the struggle for control of production and the creation of a united front based on workers’ and peasants’ committees. Here, the development of the united front presupposes the generation of autonomous bodies of the working class and its allies, which are antagonistic to capital domination in production and in the state. The united front fulfills the role that the mass strike played in Rosa Luxemburg’s reflections.

Mass Strike and a United Front Gramsci considered that the socialist revolution presupposed the “scission spirit” of the world of labor facing the political and cultural domination of the bourgeoisie and its intellectuals, in order to achieve the reorganization of the productive process and extinction of capital. The revolutionary

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party is a construction of this scission spirit through coordinated actions from a portion of the class, which, in turn, is the historical process that is the stage of the anti-capitalist struggle. This means that the working class is only such as long as it is autonomous and antagonistic, otherwise it is merely an instrument of capital production, ordered by capital for this purpose and subordinated to bourgeois hegemony. Gramsci’s permanent concern is towards centrality of the factory and the production process and the power relations within this context. In the self-activity of the masses, which generates an antagonistic consciousness and an intellectuality of its own, Gramsci identifies the ontology of the party, a party that is part of the class, but that intends to merge with the totality of the class in order to extinguish forms of domination. Between party and mass, a dialectic relationship is established between the party as an educator and the mass as its source of origin, which in turn, educates the party. The proximity between this perspective and Rosa Luxemburg’s views is quite evident, and the echoes of Sorel’s ideas are still perceivable. It turns out that the developments from the KPD’s (Communist Party of Germany) internal struggles led to the growing marginalization of Spartacists who shared the ideas presented by Rosa Luxemburg, and as a consequence, the great Polish revolutionary’s theoretical formulations at the V Congress of the Comintern (1924) regarding imperialism and political struggle theory were stigmatized. Thus, the influence of these ideas on Gramscian reflection became increasingly obscured, especially since the fractional struggle unleashed by Amadeo Bordiga in the ICP and the persistent fascist repression highlighted the need to guarantee centralized and disciplined political organization similar to the Leninian pattern: the Communist Party ‘represents’ the interests of the entire working mass, but only ‘acts’ according to the desires of a certain portion of the masses, the most advanced portion, that one (proletariat) that wants to overthrow the existing regime with a revolution in order to establish communism. (Gramsci 1978c: 239)

In any case, the issue of class autonomy and antagonism has always remained at the heart of Gramsci’s theoretical and practical elaboration. During the harsh fascist consolidation process, Gramsci also indicated that

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the fundamental problem that the Communist Party should commit to resolve now is how to bring proletariat back to an autonomous revolutionary class position, free from all influence of counterrevolutionary classes, groups and parties, capable of gathering them around and guiding all forces that can be gathered in the struggle against capitalism, [....]. (Gramsci 1978d: 84)

The proximity between the mass strike proposed by Rosa Luxemburg and Gramsci’s elaboration on the united front seems to be quite plausible. The united front of anti-capitalist social forces maintaining the scission spirit and facing the state of capital would be strong insofar as it materialized antagonistic subjectivity in the factory and all workplaces, in unions and in the organization of education and culture. To observe how this could be attainable, Gramsci worked with the idea of a (spontaneous?) organic capacity identifiable in the working class that would appear through the 1) capacity for self-governance of the working mass…; 2) the capacity of the working mass to maintain and surpass the level of production of the capitalist regime…; 3) unlimited capacity for the initiative and creativity of the working masses. (Gramsci 1978e: 346–347)

Once again, as Rosa considered, Gramsci also defended that the proletarian democracy would begin as soon as the working class and its allies demonstrated the capacity—within the united front—to constitute autonomous institutes that were antagonistic to the order of capital and in opposition the political power of capital in production and in the state. In her last interventions—as presented previously—Rosa realized that the socialist revolution could be a longer-term process than the apparent fulminating outbreak that had taken place in Russia. In some of his writings, Gramsci seemed to expect an anti-fascist, anti-clerical and anti-capitalist revolution in a short term, but the fact is that his entire theoretical elaboration already pointed towards a long-term socialist revolution, the period necessary for the united front to become a workers’ state, a new state that would replace the bourgeois capitalist state. On more than one occasion, Rosa relied on Engels to support her reflections. The perspective of a different rhythm in the revolutionary movement was already suggested by Engels, when he saw the deep changes in the geopolitics of bourgeois power and also of the workers

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movement after the defeat of the Paris Commune (1871). The uncompromising armed force of a Jacobin-type insurrection, the expansion of the bourgeois capacity to organize the working class according to its purposes, imperialism and reformism, all of this made it difficult for workers to organize themselves autonomously with an antagonistic approach towards the established order, demanding a longer period to achieve the socialist revolution conditions with an emphasis on the education of the masses. But even when the revolution was on the agenda (as in 1919), the timeframe topic was still important. As it would turn out, the mass strike for Rosa and the united front for Gramsci were the strategic solutions to confront the rule of capital.

Gramsci in Prison Gramsci was arrested on November 8, 1926, and he only left prison a few days before he died—a little over 10 years later—on April 27, 1937. Between 1929 and 1935, he produced the notes that became known as The Prison Notebooks, where he went deeper into several of the problems linked to the development of the united front strategy and the socialist revolution as a long-term historical phenomenon. In fact, this is when Gramsci achieved clearer awareness of the socialist revolution as a longterm phenomenon and overcame the perspective he had held on to until 1926 of a permanent revolutionary situation in Italy. Gramsci’s method while writing these notes was to establish a form of dialogue with all of the main authors who had influenced his cultural and political education and also, of course, with important opponents such as intellectuals supporting the order. He himself declared that it was a “living philology” (Gramsci 1975: 7 6 856).3 The question regarding the persistence or how much Rosa’s influenced Gramsci’s reflections while in prison is not easy to answer, but it can eventually be identified through the common struggle against the vulgarization of Marxism and in the defense of Marxism as an integral and autonomous philosophy, which should serve as a cultural foundation for a new civilization. These two aspects of the same problem are perfectly articulated with the previous premise on the need for the autonomy and

3 In this book, we opted for use the next refer for Gramsci Notebooks of Prison: X Y Z where X = Notebook number, Y = paragraph, Z = page.

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antagonism of the working class in the struggle against the exploitation and domination of capital. It is rather understandable that Marxism would become vulgar or stagnant during the struggle and resistance against capitalism when the forces of the labor movement began to gather. The political practice of the socialist movement could fall short of theory, as Rosa suggested when relating Marx’s work and the German labor movement in the early twentieth century, which placed Marxism in a paradoxical situation: “an incomparable spiritual instrument remains sterile, for it is inadequate to the class culture of the bourgeoisie, while far surpassing the needs of the working class’s weapons of struggle” (Luxemburg 1963: 265). In the early 1930s, Gramsci once again identified a moment of stagnation in Marxism, but now the situation could no longer be tolerated, as the USSR carried out efforts to build socialism and elaborate the beginning of a new civilization. Hence, rescuing the best elements that Marxist philosophy had generated was essential. This was the scenario that Antonio Labriola found himself in as the author of an essential book, since he did not share the visions present in the two currents that prevailed in Marxism: on the one side, a group that had an incorporated mechanism and on the other, a group that had adopted the neo-Kantian idealism. Based on Rosa’s text, Gramsci states that in the romantic period of struggle, from the popular Sturm und Drang, all interest is devoted to the most immediate weapons, to the problems related to political tactics. But as soon as a new type of State exists, the problem with a new civilization arises (concretely) and thus arises the need to elaborate general concepts and more refined and decisive weapons. (Gramsci 1975: 3 31 309)

Thus, to explain the stagnation or theoretical regression of Marxism and its different combinations with other philosophies, Gramsci relies on Rosa (and also on Sorel) and concludes: In the philosophical field it seems to me that the historical reasoning must be sought based on the fact that Marxism has had to ally itself with strange tendencies in order to fight against the elements of a pre-capitalist world among the popular masses, especially in the religious field. (Gramsci 1975: 4 3 422)

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While reflecting in prison, Gramsci even noticed differences between Engels and Marx, considering the hypothesis that the mechanism present in Bukharin’s thought process could have been originated by Engels “Anti-Dühring ” (1878) (Cospito 2011). Gramsci then states that the origin of most of the nonsense contained in the [Bukharin’s] Essay should be sought in the Anti-Dühring and in the overly external and formal attempt to create a system of concepts within the original nucleus of the philosophy of praxis, that would satisfy the scholastic need for completeness. (Gramsci 1975: 15 31 1786)

Likewise, as previously suggested, Gramsci develops a concept for the socialist revolution as a long-term process and the common source for this, along with Rosa, could have been Engels. It is important to add that Rosa presented objections towards Engels’ concepts expressed in the 1895 Preface, which were partially unfair, as the text she had at her disposal was “censored” by Wilhelm Liebknecht (father of Karl Liebknecht), who cut out the parts referring to the struggles on the streets and popular insurrection. At the time, the idea that Engels favored institutional struggles and considered struggles on the streets to be a mistake prevailed in the SPD. So Rosa, after quoting several sections from Engels’ text, continues: And Engels begins a detailed criticism towards the illusion that, under the modern conditions of capitalism, the proletariat could achieve anything on the streets with the revolution. As we are in the middle of the revolution, a street-based revolution with all that it entails, I think it is time to debate a concept that was officially common until recently in Social Democracy and which is responsible for what we went through on August 4, 1914. (Luxemburg 1976e: 611)

In fact, Rosa’s criticism was aimed at the SPD’s leadership but it was not fair to Engels, who had envisioned a revolutionary strategy that would culminate in struggles on the streets with the involvement of large masses. Even if struggles on the streets could define an advance or a retreat, it could be a long haul episode. The real issue to be criticized in Engels’ concepts was different and of supreme importance: the philosophical concept presented synthetically in the same Preface, which risks to slip into mechanistic materialism.

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We can observe a few indications regarding the issue of the long-term revolution in Gramsci’s accurate analysis of the French Revolution as a revolutionary process that involves several moments with advances and retreats, marked by countless popular uprisings in an organic movement that ends up leading to the civil hegemony of the bourgeoisie. In 1789 the seeds of the revolution emerged and unfolded in successive periods until the Paris Commune (1871), when not only the new class that struggles for power defeats the representatives of the old society that does not want to confess it has been definitively overcome, but also defeats the brand new groups that consider the new structure that emerged from the transformation that begun in 1789 as already outdated and thus demonstrates its vitality equally when related to the old structure and when related to the extremely new structure. (Gramsci 1975: 13 24 1581)

But Gramsci had not noticed this facet of Rosa’s reflection, which was in fact only developed after 1906 when she gradually put aside the predominant tradition in German Social Democracy of the accumulation of forces within the order and the prominence of economic development. Gramsci evaluates Rosa’s booklet, Mass Strike, Party and Trade Unions as an excellent analysis of what would be a maneuvered war, but criticizes the author for her presumed faith that economic crises could on their own generate revolutionary possibilities. The Rosa that Gramsci criticizes is the theorist who believes that the revolution is an explosion generated by the economic crisis. In fact, Gramsci indirectly seemed to criticize the theoretical involution that took place in Communist International and in the USSR, which were then guided by an economic-corporate and voluntarist concept and political strand. In his analysis of the Russian revolution of 1905, Gramsci considered that Rosa neglected the ‘voluntary’ and organizational elements that, in those events, were much more widespread and efficient than Rosa believed, as she was conditioned by a certain ‘economistic’ and spontaneous level of prejudice. (Gramsci 1975: 13 24 1613)

In the long-term socialist revolution, the essential element was that the autonomy and antagonism of the working class should not be weakened. The strategy of the revolution, which Rosa had developed since 1906, was

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mainly based on mass strike as a means to progressively nullify the power of capital. This strategy demanded self-education and an education of the masses that already anticipated elements of the new civilization, just as the bourgeoisie had done. For Gramsci, the long-term revolution would develop with the expansion of the united front, through a battle fought in search of positions that anticipated a new hegemony, a new historical block, a new civilization that would overcome the relations of domination and exploitation. In the long-term revolution, the anticipation that Rosa indicated in her 1903 text regarding Marxism should change its meaning and overcome the paradox through vigorous mass intellectual progress and an intellectual and moral reform (which cannot stand apart from a profound reform that affects the productive process of capital). Under these conditions, Marxism and the philosophy of praxis should itself be a weapon at the disposal of the struggle for the workers’ movement towards communism to enable the replacement of the power of capital. Marxism, whether vulgar or intertwined with other strands of thought, would not be effective in this struggle. An antagonistic culture must be an essential element in the anti-capitalist struggle, hence the need for a communist refoundation towards a living and radically critical Marxism.

Gramsci’s Rosa

War The outbreak of the imperialist war in 1914 at first was proof of the strength of the bourgeois hegemony, so much so that most of the intellectuals and the world of culture observed the war with sympathy, if not with enthusiastic support. The preponderance of nationalist ideology in its various nuances was evident and support for the war could be manifested through a variety of points of view, that were at times even conflicting. Not only were conservatives and liberals enthusiastic about the war, but most of the labor movement was also dragged down or neutralized. In fact, the reformist currents, within their strategic vision, considered that a war would be a means for approaching or making their way up to government or, at worst, a way of expanding the citizenship status within the nation. But the war also provided the relative strengthening of Rosa Luxemburg’s revolutionary and internationalist left, which at the SPD— the Social Democratic Party of Germany—emerged as a bottleneck for the reformist strategy (Haupt 1978). For the bourgeoisie (or bourgeoisies), the war was aimed at two complementary scopes: the resolution of disputes between national factions and the establishment of a new hierarchy between the imperialist states and the neutralization of the labor movement as a social force that was antagonistic to the state. The process of incorporation © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Del Roio, Gramsci and the Emancipation of the Subaltern Classes, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90777-8_3

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of workers’ culture and institutions into the bourgeois order was about to be completed, but the question on why the socialist workers’ movement allowed itself to be cornered remains unsolved. The answer must be sought, of course, in the dynamics between leaders and masses which failed to rise to the moment of dispute for hegemony. The leadership and the masses remained subordinate to the bourgeoise and its ideological complex. The numerical and institutional strengthening of the socialist movement went hand in hand with the lag in antagonism towards the order of capital, expressed in the revision of the understanding towards imperialism, seen from 1913 onwards as a peaceful trend. When the war broke out, the pacifist spirit of the masses and of the leaders themselves had cooled down and the main issue became the preservation of workers’ organizations. In practical terms, specifically in Germany, the path that could lead these organizations to achieve full citizenship within the bourgeois state was starting to be established, while the relative strengthening of the revolutionary and internationalist left guided by Rosa Luxemburg in the SPD—the Social Democratic Party of Germany was starting to look like an obstacle in this strategy (Haupt 1978). Indeed, Rosa Luxemburg’s Neu Links, which had been defeated at the 1913 SPD Congress, insisted on the assessment of the bellicose characteristic of imperialism and the approaching war which the socialists and the working class should oppose tenaciously. The annulment of the Socialist International and in practical terms, of actual internationalism considered almost as if it were a foreign element itself, fragmented the whole movement. Rosa Luxemburg was arrested in February 1915 and remained so until the beginning of the revolutionary process in Germany in November 1918, but before that she helped organize the small group from Internationale, a publication that intended to report on the war and unite the working class (Ettinger 1996). The outbreak of war had a profound moral and political impact on Rosa Luxemburg and on the entire internationalist left. The faith in the capacity that the labor movement would have to resist chauvinism and withstand the war fell to the ground. She realized that mass education was gaining complexity, although praxis was still the best school, since there’s nothing like a class struggle to promote the awareness and selfdiscipline of the workers. Rosa believed that reformism was a political and ideological phenomenon, and its implication was the incorporation

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of the working class into the bourgeoise state through its own institutions such as unions and parties. Finally, she recognized the large preponderance of bourgeoise ideology not only among the SPD leaders, but also among the masses, and thus, the struggle should be directed towards the “spiritual emancipation of the proletariat from the tutelage of the bourgeoisie, externalized through the flow of nationalist ideology” (Luxemburg 1976f: 551). For Italy, the impact of the war outbreak perplexed Gramsci amidst the decisive stand against barbarism that was noisily announced. Although he was linked to the PSI—Italian Socialist Party, Antonio Gramsci’s cultural background placed him in the philosophical context of Italian neo-idealism with its neo-Hegelian and democratic liberal approach. Benedetto Croce initially took a position in favor of Italy’s neutrality, explained by the country’s unpreparedness and military weakness. But he defended the alliance with Austria and Germany, if Italy were to enter the war. The ideological support offered to the war by Croce and Gramsci’s understanding that the conflict derived from the economicpolitical competition between England and Germany, distanced the young Sardinian from his intellectual preceptor, who was left with the influence of Georges Sorel, the theorist of revolutionary syndicalism, an important counterpart for Croce. This text invests in the hypothesis that, in his process of separation from the Crocean neo-idealism, Gramsci’s line of thought followed Sorel’s path, with the idea of a rupture, as he was effectively entering the theoretical field of Marxism—as well as Lukàcs’s— through the strong presence of the council-based left-wing references in Germany, especially Rosa Luxemburg. The call to action, a characteristic of Sorel’s thought, may have influenced Gramsci’s refusal of the ISP’s position towards the war, which had previously chosen neutrality and then non-support and then to the non-sabotage of the Italian war efforts. The controversial article written by Gramsci on October 31, 1914, above all did not admit the paralysis, passivity and suspension of the class struggle, as the majority of the Socialist International and especially the SPD—Social Democratic Party of Germany defended. Gramsci considered that the Italian bourgeoisie could even follow its nature and join the war, but that would not mean

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that ISP, as an Italian proletariat party, should refrain from carrying out the revolution, if the right conditions presented themselves.1 Gramsci was concerned about the autonomy of ISP as an antagonistic force, as this is a potential State, which is maturing, is antagonistic to the bourgeois State, and through the daily struggles and development of its internal dialectic, seeks to create the bodies to overcome and absorb it. (Gramsci 1973a: 56)

Gramsci considered that revolutionaries who prepare for entirely favorable conditions towards a definite rupture (the revolution) must not be satisfied with the provisional formula of ‘absolute neutrality’, but must transform it into another ‘active and operative neutrality’. (Gramsci 1973a: 57)

This formula, according to Gramsci, would oblige the bourgeoisie to recognize its failure, upon being placed at a dead end which would in turn result in the re-establishment of the dualism of classes, hidden in the envelopment of the nation and “the socialist party will free itself from all bourgeois encrustations that the fear of war has placed on its back […]” (Gramsci 1973a: 57). The contemptuous behavior that Gramsci had towards the political and cultural institutions of the state, particularly the University and intellectuals, also indicates the incidence of Sorel’s thoughts on the young Sardinian, who was amused when satirizing professors. However, the negative repercussion of this paper, as if it were a call for the bourgeoisie to enter the war bearing the standard of the nation, provoked a feeling of withdrawal in Gramsci for about a year. As Rosa, Gramsci’s concern with the education of the masses became ever more emphatic, but the education of the masses began by itself

1 This article is part of a controversy triggered by Mussolini, who on October 18, in the Avanti journal, proposed a shift from absolute neutrality to active and operative neutrality. Shortly after, on October 22, Amadeo Bordiga, with “For an active and operative antimilitarism”, published in Il Socialista and Angelo Tasca, with “The myth of war”, published in Il Grido del Popolo, harshly attacked Mussolini’s position. Gramsci’s article is a response to Tasca, who defended the official position of the PSI, “for absolute neutrality”. Mussolini was kicked out of PSI on November 24 and Gramsci was silent for about a year.

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once they reached class awareness. Separating the working mass from clerical influence was a decisive element for the scientific and spiritual development of the Italian workers. It was essential to combat the educational system and the university, as it had become a method for training machine-men and spreading a dilettante culture. It was decisive to emphasize that “it was through a critique of capitalist civilization that the unique consciousness of the proletariat was formed or is still being formed, and a critique implies culture, not simply spontaneous and naturalistic evolution” (Gramsci 1973b: 70). For the proletariat there is a need for “a school of freedom and free enterprise and not a school of slavery and mechanical actions” (Gramsci 1973c: 83), since the class has will, the class has character. Based on this will, this character, its entire life is shaped, without any residues. As a class its solidarity is class-based, just as its forms of struggle and views towards the nation, ie the International. (Gramsci 1973d: 108)

Revolution The “spontaneity” that most of Rosa Luxemburg’s work is identified with is at the same time an anti-Jacobin stance. Jacobinism is thus understood not as the Jacobin revolutionary group of 1793, the vanguard of the masses with popular organic political mediation, but as an intellectual political group that replaces the masses themselves and acts on their behalf. Gramsci’s position is the same, although Sorel’s influence is more likely than Rosa’s or of the German left. Gramsci’s reading of the initial moments of the Russian revolution of 1917 indicates the value given to the action of the proletariat as an act of culture and of radical antagonism. Gramsci values the Soviet experience, but still doesn’t perceive it as the embryo of the new state. For him, the scission spirit manifests itself mainly through the achieved cultural and political freedom. It is true that the revolution was carried out by proletarians, but in order to be effectively a proletarian act “the revolutionary attributes must be demonstrated, which beyond representing elements of strength are also a phenomena of customs, demonstrating moral fact” (Gramsci 1973e: 109). In Gramsci’s assessment,

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the Russian revolution ignored Jacobinism. The revolution must overthrow the autocracy, it must not conquer the majority with violence. Jacobinism is a purely bourgeois phenomenon: the bourgeois revolution in France is its representation. (Gramsci 1973e: 110)

In its revolution “the bourgeoisie imposes its strength and its ideas not only on the formerly dominant caste, but also on the people it is preparing to dominate” (Gramsci 1973e: 110). In turn, “because the Russian revolutionaries are not Jacobins, they did not replace the dictatorship of one voice by the dictatorship of a bold minority, determined to make their program triumph”, and Gramsci believes that the outcome of the process should be a socialist revolution because the industrial proletariat is already prepared for the cultural transition: the agricultural proletariat, that knows the primitive forms of communal communism, is also prepared for the transition to a new form of society. (Gramsci 1973e: 110)

This implies that, in Russia the revolution has created a new custom. It not only substituted power with power, it substituted customs with customs, it created a new moral atmosphere, it established freedom of spirit in addition to bodily freedom. (Gramsci 1973e: 110–111)

Months later, in July, Gramsci emphasizes once again that the greatest virtue of the revolution underway in Russia was that it had ignored Jacobinism, so much so that the revolution does not stop, it does not close its cycle. It devours its men, it replaces one group with another that is more daring, and because of this instability, because of this never-achieved perfection, it is truly a and only a revolution. (Gramsci 1973f: 116)

Bourgeois Jacobinism is the autonomy of politics, it is the dispute for power between reduced groups, but as the Russian revolutionary process is an expression of universal tendencies, it is an act of collective culture,

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and the revolution is continuous. All of life becomes truly revolutionary; it is an ever-present activity, it is a continual exchange, a continual excavation in the amorphous block of the people. New energies arise, new force-ideas propagated. Thus, men are finally the artisans of their destiny, all men. It is impossible for despotic minorities to be established. (Gramsci 1973f: 117)

Although the idealization of the Russian revolution is quite evident, in this writing Gramsci highlights the role played by Lenin and the Bolsheviks as the group that looked farther and deeper into the socialist transformation, since they are convinced that it is possible to achieve socialism at every moment. They are nourished by Marxist thought. They are revolutionaries, not evolutionists. And revolutionary thought denies time as a factor of progress. (Gramsci 1973f: 116)

In January of the following year, Gramsci returned to the topic of the Russian revolution, with the Bolsheviks now in power. Gramsci’s polemic style provokes readers by claiming that the revolution was made against Capital, the great lesson taught by Marx. In fact, Gramsci addresses his critiques to the economistic analyses that were broadly present in the worker’s movement at that time, and thus, a statement that is seemingly his, deep down isn’t, with the exact opposite being true. Since the Bolsheviks reject concepts of Economism, they do not deny “immanent, life-giving thought” in Marx’s Capital (Gramsci 1973g: 131). The essential element was that in Russia a collective social will had been created and the backwardness of material conditions could be quickly overcome, without the need for a whole capitalist phase of development. Qualifying Gramsci at that moment as part of the internationalist Marxist left would be tremendously difficult even if it would eventually be his fate given the misfortune of war and the outbreak of the international socialist revolution from 1917 onwards. Rosa, in turn, even in prison, was an eloquent member of the international socialist left and was a lot more capable than Gramsci of analyzing what was going on in Russia. In 1918, in prison, Rosa wrote her pamphlet on The Russian Revolution, in which she awarded scathing criticism towards Lenin and Trotsky’s perspectives regarding agrarian and nationalities question, peace with Germany and the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly.

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What must be especially highlighted here is how Rosa observed Jacobin tendencies (in the deteriorated sense mentioned above) in Bolshevik power, from their use of terror and the stifling of democracy. Rosa strongly insists on the essential link between democracy and socialism and that democracy is the only plausible way of applying the proletarian dictatorship. Rosa considers that “the praxis of socialism demands total spiritual transformation of the masses degraded through centuries of domination by the bourgeois class”, and “the only path towards rebirth is the actual school of public life, the widest and most unlimited democracy, the public opinion” (Luxemburg 1976d: 590). Shortly after the dissolution of the constituent assembly, in Gramsci’s writings he considered that this act “is not just an episode of Jacobin violence”, since “Jacobinism is an all-bourgeois phenomenon, of such minorities also potentially”. But if there is “a minority that will certainly become an absolute majority, or that will represent the totality of citizens, it cannot be Jacobin, it cannot have a perpetual dictatorship as a program” (Gramsci 1973h: 152–153). Although limited information was available, it is evident how Gramsci hesitates and refuses to identify the appearance of Jacobinism with the essence of events and justifies the Bolsheviks’ action to end the constituent assembly, since this is how “the Russian proletariat offered us a first model of direct representation of the producers: the Soviet. Now sovereignty has been returned to the soviets” (Gramsci 1973h: 152–153). While Rosa was writing her critical pamphlet on the political work of the Bolsheviks, Gramsci wove praises tainted with ideality. He said freedom would only be guaranteed in Russia if a spontaneous hierarchy was formed, guaranteeing social unity and the expression of a spiritual, if not otherwise, moral authority. Gramsci considered that the living cores of this hierarchy are the Soviets and popular parties. The Soviets are the primordial organization to be integrated and developed, and the Bolsheviks become the governing party because they defend that the powers of the state must depend on and be controlled by the soviets. (Gramsci 1973i: 207)

Based on this reasoning the soviets and the Bolshevik party would represent “the progression of consciousness” and the “organicity of Russian society”. Thus, “the Russian revolution is the domain of freedom:

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the organization is based on spontaneity, not on the will of a ‘hero’ that is imposed through violence” (Gramsci 1973i: 208). The importance given to self-organization and self-education of the masses in the heat of public life is the starting and ending point of socialist democracy for both Rosa and Gramsci. Through different paths, approximated by anti-Jacobinism, in terms of perspective, there were remarkable convergences between these authors and militants of the international socialist revolution, although it is difficult to prove an important influence of Rosa upon Gramsci, since the written references are scarce. Worker Councils The Spartacus League was established in 1916 with Rosa in prison, organized within the SPD. The split of the party in April 1917 carried the group to the USPD—Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany. When Rosa got out of prison in November, the Bolsheviks’ expectations of spreading the revolutionary process beyond the borders of the fallen Russian Empire seemed to be fulfilled. The revolution spread through the territories of the central empires (Germany and Austria-Hungary) and became present through the workers’ and soldiers’ councils. This is what had occurred before in Russia, although there were specific characteristics, as it could not be otherwise. As a result, the problem emerged of organizing a revolutionary party and resolving the issue of the relationship between council, union, party and political representation. The council-based left understood that sovereign power should be in the council and that it should organize social life, reducing the mediating role of the party; others, like Lenin, understood the leading role of the party to be essential; finally, there were those who thought of a subordinate role for the councils, so that democratic parliament-based political representation would predominate. Rosa’s position appears to fluctuate between these positions, depending on the moment. Her vaunted spontaneity brought her very close to the councils, her defense of democracy in the form of representation slightly brought her closer to them as well, but in the last days of her life under the fire of open combat, she noticed the importance of the existence of a cohesive and disciplined political party force to drive the creation of a state structure based on councils. The spread of the socialist revolution throughout Central and Eastern Europe tended to generalize the workers’ council as a standard for the construction of workers’ and popular counterpower. In Hungary, Austria,

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Czechoslovakia, Germany and Italy, the workers’ council was formed, albeit with organizational variations and differences regarding perspectives on its purpose and role. There were council experiences in France and the UK as well, but without the same level of importance as they failed to even question the bourgeois hegemony. In Germany, councils had appeared since November 1918. A little over a month later, the congress of councils confirmed the position that they should play an advisory role in a possible state socialism structure to be led by the workers’ party(ies). Rosa Luxemburg and other councillors such as Anton Pannekoek, despite theoretical differences, anticipated that the revolution in central Europe would take a long time, as it would be necessary for the masses to realize that the council could be an instrument of struggle against capital, at the same time in which it configured workers’ power and created the foundation of the socialist state. The council now appeared as an essential corollary in the Luxembourg strategy for mass strike. In a minority position, for communists, as mentioned by Rosa in her Discourse on the Program (of the KPD), “above all else, we have to extend, in the future, the system of workers’ and soldiers’ councils, especially of workers councils, in all directions”. Rosa considers that the council is the source of workers’ power and the means by which “we pull down the bourgeois state, no longer by dividing, but by unifying public power, legislation and administration, broadly present through the hands of the workers’ and soldiers’ councils” (Luxemburg 1976e: 628–629). Rosa insisted that “workers’ councils must have all the power of the state”, but that we must first educate the masses that the workers’ and soldiers council should function as the lever for state machinery in all possible directions, that the council has to take control of all forms of state authority, and has to guide all these forms into the fairway of socialist revolution, [until] the workers’ and soldiers’ councils feel called to and learn how to be the only public power in the whole Reich. (Luxemburg 1976e: 629–630)

The assassination of Rosa Luxemburg amidst the defeat of the communist uprising of January 1919, which she opposed, truncated a political reflection of utmost importance for the fate of the German and European labor movement. However, the experience of the councils continued to spread and in the first half of 1919 the international socialist revolution

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reached its peak, with moments of power in Bavaria, with the organization of the Republic of Councils in Hungary and the foundation of Communist International, which paid homage to the great revolutionary who had fallen in the struggle. Rosa Luxemburg’s 1906 book, The Mass Strike, the Political Party and the Trade Unions, was translated into Italian that same year. Thus, when the experience of the councils also exploded in northern Italy, the last chapter of the international socialist revolution had begun. Of course, the incidence of concrete revolutionary experiences and the theoretical formulations occasioned also impaired Gramsci’s thought, including those by Rosa Luxemburg, and Gramsci most likely read at least some of her texts. In the climate of the socialist revolution in progress, Gramsci and other former students of the University of Turin, such as Angelo Tasca, Palmiro Togliatti and Umberto Terracini, took the initiative to create a journal that, according to the forces involved, would influence that local scenario of workers and socialist struggle, participating in the Italian and European revolution, especially since Communist International had just been founded in March. This journal was L’Ordine Nuovo, which was launched on May 1, 1919. Gramsci said that “Communist International was born and developed from proletarian revolutions and with proletarian revolutions. Three great proletarian States, the Soviet republics of Russia, Ukraine and Hungary, form its historical base”. Furthermore, the Comintern bears the ideals and principles unraveled by Marx, “drawn up according to the program of the Spartakus League of Germany and the Communist Party (Bolshevik) in Russia” (Gramsci 1954d: 228). Gramsci discussed the situation in Germany with the negotiations taking place in Versailles, mentioning that after the military defeat, the German diplomatic defeat was imminent, given that the SPD’s political surrender had implied the defeat of the German people. The elimination of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg had been an attempt to “assassinate the world revolution”, since Spartacism was aware of the antagonism existing between the German working class and the Entente bourgeoisies and that the objective could only be “to save the people from enslavement and barbarism through the international revolution” (Gramsci 1954e: 249). Just before completing its first two months, L’Ordine Nuovo takes on the role of being the body of expression of the factory councils

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and its attention is mainly focused on the problems of labor organization, workers’ knowledge and the possibilities of emancipation amidst the exploitation of capital. The cultural political action of this group of young communists is therefore aimed at valuing the working class as a productive force that is antagonistic to capital, which organizes and educates itself at the heart of the contradiction in social life: the factory. And from this point forward, becomes a state. L’Ordine Nuovo on June 21, 1919 (the day of the international general strike called upon by the Comintern) argued that (and it is worth repeating the quote). The socialist state already exists potentially in the institutes of social life that are characteristics of the exploited working class. Gathering these institutes, coordinating and subordinating them to a hierarchy of competences and powers, and strongly centralizing them, while respecting the necessary autonomies and articulations, means creating from now on a true and proper workers’ democracy, that is efficient and active against the Bourgeois state, prepared from now on to replace the bourgeois state in all its essential functions of managing and controlling national heritage. (Gramsci 1954a: 10)

For Gramsci (and Togliatti) it was a matter of locating in the Italian workers’ experience the embryo of workers’ councils, “which shall tomorrow be the bodies of proletarian power that replace the capitalist power in all its useful administration and directing roles” (Gramsci 1954a: 12). Gramsci fully adheres to the trend that observes the embryo of a new state in workers’ councils and criticizes both anarchism that wants the immediate abolition of politics and the state, and reformism that insists on acting from within the bourgeois liberal institutions. Here Gramsci already understands how the professional union, useful for the defense of workers’ interests within the scope of capitalism, can be an obstacle towards the construction of a new state insofar as it is not suitable for the construction of the democracy of producers. In the same way, the socialist party, present in the parliament scenario, conceives politics only from the point of view of bourgeois representation. Instead, says Gramsci,

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we are persuaded, after the experiences of Russia, Hungary and Germany, that the socialist state cannot be incarnated in the institutions of the capitalist state, but is a fundamentally new creation in relation to it, or even in relation to the history of the proletariat. (Gramsci 1954f: 17)

Gramsci considers that the foundation of the new state is based on the construction of bodies of direct democracy, of direct management of the productive process and of public life, as well as the radical change of the social relations for production. Thus, the autonomy of the working class towards bourgeois rights, as well as its capacity to organize and educate itself, is an essential condition. The party and union arise under the conditions of capitalism and must survive only as long as the conditions that gave rise to them survive during the entire historical period of transition and proletarian dictatorship. However, along with these institutions of the working class, state-type institutions must emerge that replace the capitalist roles in administrative functions and industrial power, and exercise the autonomy of the producer in the factory; institutions capable of leading all of the functions inherent to the complex system with production and exchange relations that link the divisions of a factory to each other, establishing the elementary economic unit, linking various agricultural industry activities, which through horizontal and vertical plans should set the foundation for a harmonious national and international economy structure, free from the encumbering and parasitic tyranny of private owners. (Gramsci 1954g: 272)

Through the class struggle, the autonomy and self-education of the workers, in a “spontaneous” manner, the organization of the factory council emerges, the seed of the workers’ state, which should replace the bourgeois state and its institutions. The workers’ state is the proletarian dictatorship articulated with socialist democratic planned production based on councils. In socialism, the union must become a labor school, but in capitalism the union is simply an institution that organizes the hiring of salary-based work. The union does not organize the worker as a producer of material wealth and a manager of production, “syndicalism has revealed itself to be nothing more than a form of capitalist society, instead of a potential overcoming of a capitalist society” (Gramsci 1954h: 45). This thought process by Gramsci distances him from revolutionary syndicalism, which he claimed to be inspired by Sorel. Gramsci preserves

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the “scission spirit” from Sorel, the conviction of the importance of autonomy and the antagonism of the working class towards capital, but the theory and practice of the council now brought him closer to Bolshevism and the German left, Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg and Korsch. Although it is not a proven fact, Rosa may have inspired Gramsci’s brief paper on working-class participation in the November 1919 elections. Gramsci’s argument is significantly similar to Rosa’s defense of the possible participation of the KPD—Communist Party of Germany—in the elections for the National Constituent Assembly. Rosa defended the participation of communists in the National Assembly for the purpose of educating the masses and imploding parliament itself. Gramsci considered that a significant socialist electoral result would be important to make it impossible for any leader of the bourgeoisie to establish a stable and strong government, in order to constrain the bourgeoisie to desist of democratic wrongdoings that waver from legality, and to determine an uprising of the deepest and vastest strata of the working class against the oligarchy of the exploiters. (Gramsci 1954i: 307)

Both believe that the founding institution of the new state is the council. Gramsci considers that the proletarian revolution is the process of development of the proletariat as a socio-economic force, which at some point finds itself obstructed by the institutions of the bourgeois ruling class. The replacement of the bourgeois state by another that guarantees the continuity of the development of the proletariat as a productive force of social wealth is in itself the revolutionary act. Therefore, the real process of the proletarian revolution cannot be identified with the development and action of voluntary organizations that are contractual such as the political party and professional unions: organizations born amidst bourgeois democracy, in the field of political freedom, as statements and as the development of political freedom. (Gramsci 1954b: 123)

The party and union are mere agents of a revolution that manifests itself elsewhere, since “the revolutionary process takes place in the field of production, in the factory, where relations are based on the oppressor and oppressed, the exploiter and the exploited, where workers have no freedom, where there is no democracy; […]” (Gramsci 1954b: 124).

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Here the similarity with Rosa’s thought in the Discourse on the Program is very clear. Rosa says: “But the battle for socialism can only be fought out through the masses, breast to immediate breast against capitalism, in every workplace, by every proletarian against his employer. Only then can this become a socialist revolution”, and further on, “Where the chains of capitalism are forged, there must the chains be broken” (Luxemburg 1976e: 622). The proletarian revolution for Rosa and Gramsci is a product of the immanent capitalist movement, but, according to the Sardinian, its currentness can be seen “when the entire working class becomes revolutionary, […], but in the sense that the whole of the working class, in a factory, initiates an action that must necessarily lead to the foundation of a workers’ state, […]” (Gramsci 1954b: 124–125). Revolutionary action begins when the working class becomes aware that industrial power, the material foundation of political power, must return to the factory, to the worker as a conscious productive force, “as the cell of a new state, the workers’ state, as a base of a new representative system, the system with councils” (Gramsci 1954b: 126). This enlightening paper by Gramsci was published in the same issue as another text that argued with Tasca about the meaning of the council and its relationship with the union. Gramsci insists on perceiving the factory council as an absolutely original institute, which emerges from the situation created by the working class in the current historical period of the structure of capitalism, as an institute that cannot be confused with the union, [...], but which, to the contrary, [...] determines radical changes in the structure and format of the union. (Gramsci 1954j: 130)

The structure of capitalism that Gramsci refers to is the predominance of financial capital and “this economic thesis was supported by the theorists of the III International (Lenin, Zinoviev, Bukharin, Rosa Luxemburg, A. Pannekoek, etc.), even before the world war” (Gramsci 1954i: 130). Workers’ Party Since 1904, Rosa had fueled the controversy with Lenin regarding the problem of workers’ organization and had already diagnosed a JacobinBlanquist tendency in Bolshevik political reflection and practice. Here the

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interest is solely on Rosa’s position, suggesting its proximity to Gramsci’s perspective. Rosa considers that organization is “a historical product of class struggle” (Luxemburg 1976b: 218), and that “the social-democratic movement, in the history of societies divided into classes, is the first which, in all its phases, is cross-cut by the organization and the direct and autonomous action of the masses” (Luxemburg 1976b: 221). Thus, “social democracy is not linked to the organization of the working class, but is the specific movement of the working class” (Luxemburg 1976b: 223). Rosa had a clear “scission spirit” with an emphasis on the autonomy and self-organization of the masses against the political power of capital, from which the party emerged. Hence, the party is understood as a superior product of class struggle, self-organization and conscious centralization. Bearing this in mind, centralism is thus the imperative moment that unifies the will of the conscious and militant vanguard of the working class amidst its singular groups and individuals, and this is, so to speak, the “self-centralism” of the leading layer of the proletariat, the domain of the majority within the party organization itself. (Luxemburg 1976b: 223)

But the party—as well as the union—could even play a conservative role in the movement. Perhaps it was this vision of the party as a product of the movement that imposed so many restrictions on Rosa and should have finally embraced the need for an organic scission between the SPD/USPD and the foundation of the KPD. Until the mid-1920 Gramsci also harbored illusions about the ISP’s ability to join an actual revolutionary path. When he realized that both the union and the party—turning their backs on the Turin factory workers movement, behaved as internal institutions of the bourgeois order— Gramsci preferred to emphasize the importance of factory councils, this time as the organizational and subjective foundation of a new party. In fact, Gramsci tried to provide revolutionary political content to the Sorelian “scission spirit”, while leaning on Rosa’s views on the party being the superior product of the working class’ autonomy and antagonism against capital. Gramsci speaks of the presence, amidst contradictions in the capital process, of the

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‘seeds’ for a proletarian civilization that must exist, if it is true (as it is true to Sorel) that the proletarian revolution is immanent within modern industrial society, and if it is also true that it will result in an original rule of life and a system of absolutely new relations, which are characteristics of the revolutionary class. (Gramsci 1954k: 154)

Sorel had understood that the union was the specific workers’ institution that could contain the origins of the new order. In the imperialist era, however, according to Gramsci, through the factory council “the proletarian movement, in its current phase, tends to carry out a revolution in the organization of material things and physical forces”, but the features of the proletarian revolution can be sought only in the party of the working class, in the communist party, which exists and develops as the disciplined organization of the desire to establish a state, the will to provide a proletarian systematization to the order of existing physical forces and to set the foundations of popular freedom. (Gramsci 1954k: 156)

In fact, “the communist party, even as a mere organization, revealed itself as a particular form of the proletarian revolution” (Gramsci 1954k: 158), especially considering that “the masses push and ‘educate’ the working class party and it is not the party that guides and educates the masses” (Gramsci 1954k: 161). In any case, the party must also embody a new revolutionary subjectivity, relying on a culture that opposes the ruling classes. Through an analogy with early Christianity, Gramsci evokes that “Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht are greater than the greatest saints of Christ” (Gramsci 1954k: 156). The council movement and its intellectuals were described as syndicalists (Sorelians) and Bergsonians. Gramsci refuted both accusations stating that we are simply wrong to believe that the communist revolution can only be carried out by the masses, and that no party secretary or president of the republic can do such through a decree; it seems that this was also the opinion of Karl Marx and Rosa Luxemburg and that it is the opinion of Lenin, all of whom are considered, by Treves and Turati [reformist ISP leaders], anarchist syndicalists. (Gramsci 1954c: 489)

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In the revolutionary period in particular, the class educates the party through its own organizational bodies of productive life and public space. During the period of retraction and disarticulation, the party organizes resistance and trains cadres. The defeat of the factory council movement in Italy made Gramsci turn to the problem of the workers’ party organic scission. A party that was the expression of an alternative social structure was necessary to contain the seeds of socialism. Gramsci and Rosa were both slow to understand the need for an organic split in the workers’ party, and they later admitted how fatal this delay was for the class struggle. On January 15, 1921, the opening day of the XIX ISP—Italian Socialist Party congress, Gramsci wrote a brief paper exalting Karl Liebknecht, who had passed away two years earlier. In this chapter, Gramsci highlights the European characteristics of the revolutionary process, which according to his assessment, had lost its impetus although it hadn’t reached exhaustion. He draws attention to the counterrevolutionary role played by German Social Democracy as a warning to the ISP, but announces that the coincidence of dates would mean that “the origin of the Italian Communist Party” would be supported by Karl Liebknecht (Gramsci 1974b: 49). It is also curious and even inexplicable why there is no reference to Rosa Luxemburg, who was murdered on the same occasion. The concrete conditions for the foundation of the communist party, demonstrating the council-supporting group was almost isolated in Turin, a heterogeneous group of the socialist left in Milan, and the broad predominance of the abstentionist strand of Amadeo Bordiga, forced Gramsci to make serious concessions. In exchange for overcoming Bordiga’s abstentionist principle, Gramsci prioritized the importance of the factory council. However, he continued to insist on the need for workers’ control over production, a topic dear to the German council-supporters. (Spriano 1967). What brought Gramsci closer to Bordiga was the identity around the “scission spirit”. Bordiga conceived the construction of the workers’ party as a long course of class organization, which became a reality as the revolutionary theory disseminated by the party flourished, notwithstanding at all times radical opposition to the order of capital. Bordiga considered that the party was the class body and its historical and social representation and, as a political subject endowed with the knowledge of the contradiction during the process, would be responsible for spreading science and

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knowledge among the developing working class. This may be an exasperation of the party theory presented by Lenin in What is to Be Done? and quite different from the position defended by Rosa Luxemburg. Despite the fact that the Spartacist Paul Levi had declared himself against the political split of the labor movement in Italy during the Congress that resulted in the creation of the ICP, in March Gramsci once again demonstrated his affinity with the German political strain at the very moment in which the so-called March action was developed, yet another failed revolutionary attempt by the German working class. At the time Gramsci recalled that in 1919, Spartacus’ attack seemed to strike the heart of the bourgeois state and the social-democratic lie, the revolutionary militants all over Europe felt that Spartacus was fighting for them, they felt that a victorious German revolution would have established a definite bond with the workers and peasants in Russia, all the proletarian forces of central Europe and the beginning of the liberation struggle in the West. (Gramsci 1974c: 121)

The defeat of the proletarian revolution in Germany and throughout Europe forced the communist movement to rethink its strategy. While in Russia the priority of re-establishing the political alliance between the workers’ power and peasants gave rise to the so-called NEP— New Economic Policy, in Europe the dispute with Social Democracy for supremacy in the workers’ movement and the concomitant struggle against capital attacks must be considered from a new perspective. This fierce discussion received two decisive contributions: from Lenin and from the Spartacists who continued to follow Rosa Luxemburg. Since 1920, Lenin had matured his thoughts on the different mediations present in Europe in order to advance the socialist revolution, and he also realized that Russia was once again becoming a specific case in the national/international context of defeat. In early 1921 the Spartacists launched the design of what would be called a united front policy (Del Roio 2017). Rosa’s resistance to the organic split movement of the workers’ party was largely due to her interpretation of the meaning of reformism. She considered reformism to be a cultural aspect that was opposing the Marxian concept, but the unity of the class/party was essential for the revolutionary advance. Reformism should be overcome in the self-education movement through struggle and ideological debates, as

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the revolutionary movement progressed, and social alliances grew. Rosa joined the split when the surrender of the trade union and party bureaucracy to the bourgeois order disguised as state socialism had already taken a clear counter-revolutionary position in the national and international context. From 1921 onwards, however, the defeat of the international socialist revolution once again raised the problem regarding workers’ unity, albeit in different terms. Capital’s offensives demanded that the working class unite in the resistance struggle and seek allies among other social strata jeopardized by capital. The complexity of the specific Italian situation involved international dimensions, such as the policy defined by the Communist International and the rise of fascism, which would be confronted by the ICP—Italian Communist Party. Comintern pressed for a merge between the ICP and the ISP, considering that both parties referred to this political body, but this position was accepted by only a small fraction on the ICP’s right, while the majority were against the merger and united front tactics. Gramsci developed a different position, which accepted and encouraged the united front, but was against the merger and even against the ISP as an organization. Gramsci emerged as a theoretical and practical alternative to communist politics in Italy amidst the ICP and Comintern contention. Thus, from 1923 onwards while remaining in Moscow and Vienna, Gramsci develops a political formulation that preserves the “scission spirit” of Sorel, Rosa and Bordiga, recognizing all the very significant differences between these authors, but incorporates Machiavelli and Lenin. Gramsci’s Moscow internship allowed him to contact the Bolshevik experience and assimilate Lenin’s reflections, as a founder of a new state. Gramsci then considers the worker-peasant alliance as the social basis for the socialist revolution in Italy and the political formula of the united front, uniting the working class and the subaltern classes as a whole towards the new social order. The concept of the workers’ party must be linked to this overall vision. It is very difficult to identify specific features of Rosa Luxemburg at this stage of Gramsci’s thought. There is mix of different influences that contributed to Gramsci’s reflection on the workers’ party theme. However, Gramsci clearly considers the party to be an organic expression of the proletariat struggle against capital, whereas the factory is the foundation of the party. The self-activity of the masses generates consciousness and produces intellectuals, who are part of the party.

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Gramsci considers the party is part of the class, the better part, that is more aware, more disciplined and more intellectualized. The bureaucratization of the union and the party, its incorporation into the social and institutional order of the bourgeois state, its ideological expression materialized through reformism, make the party an offshoot of the class. The class becomes a party that seeks to build the proletarian dictatorship, enabling class, class politics, and the party cannot be dissociated from its ultimate goal. Gramsci considers that “the dictatorship of the proletariat is expansive, not repressive. A continual movement takes place from the bottom up, a continual change across all social fronts, a continual circulation of men” (Gramsci 1978f: 15). In this frame of reference, the party is an anticipation of the new order, an anticipation that grows and spreads through the united front of the proletariat and its allies. The proletarian dictatorship can only be led by an anticipatory party that is the emanation of class, not the excrescence of the class, a party that educates itself by the classes’ self-activity that educates the class itself, culturing and intellectualizing the working class, capable of postulating hegemony in civil life. This vision of the party, no doubt, comes very close to Rosa’s view on the workers’ party, but it was clearly expressed in Gramsci’s paper dedicated to the memory of the recently deceased Lenin, denominated Chief. The circumstances of the V World Congress of the Comintern held in July 1924, ensured Gramsci’s group in ICP leadership and the development of the theory of socialist revolution in Italy and in the party’s theoretical framework. But these same circumstances, after the definite defeat of the revolution in Germany and the beginning of the split process of the Bolshevik ruling group, brought elements of theoretical regression to the Comintern. Close criticism towards the Spartacist group, which lead the KPD, resulted in a true anathema towards the name and work of Rosa Luxemburg. From then onwards, Gramsci and the communist movement as a whole were forbidden to refer to this great theoretician of the workers’ struggle. Gramsci’s theoretical perspectives continued under the influence of Sorel and Rosa, even though this couldn’t be said. However, in addition to these circumstances, the situation of confronting fascist repression meant that Gramsci’s concept towards the party was also increasingly nourished by the example of the Bolsheviks, so much so that

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the Communist Party ‘represents’ the interests of the entire working mass, but only ‘acts’ according to the desires of a certain part of the masses, the most advanced part, that part (proletariat) that wants to overthrow the existing regime with revolutionary means in order to establish communism. (Gramsci 1978c: 239)

In prison, Gramsci would once again establish dialogue with Rosa Luxemburg and Sorel.

Prison In Prison Notebooks, written between 1929 and 1935, Gramsci establishes critical dialogue with the main authors who contributed to his ideological theoretical education. Rosa Luxemburg is quoted a few times, however, is only explicitly referenced in two texts: one from 1903, Stagnation and Progress of Marxism, and another from 1906, Mass Strike, Party and Trade Unions. However, the presence of Rosa Luxemburg in Prison Notebooks is evident in countless quotes and problems addressed by Gramscian reflections. A nodal problem that brings Gramsci closer to Rosa again is the issue of the universal historical meaning of Marxism, the relationship with the labor movement and the explanation for moments of theoretical stagnation. In the paper called Stagnation and Progress of Marxism, cited by Gramsci, Rosa considered that at the beginning of the twentieth century Marxism appeared to be a research method in the social sciences, but the spread of this method and the results presented after the publication of volume III of Capital, 1894, appeared to be insignificant. The reason for this was that this theoretical advance in that historical period did not serve the struggle of the labor movement, since in bourgeois society the working class is prevented from forging its own culture and art, reducing Marxism to sterility. Only with the emancipation of the working class would Marxism develop as a new culture: “the working class will be able to create its own science and art after the emancipation of its current class condition has been accomplished” (Luxemburg 1963: 263). The conclusion of Rosa’s reasoning is that Marxism, even though it is a general conception of the autonomous world regarding bourgeois philosophies, has its theoretical development limited by the cultural conditions of the working class, subject to bourgeois domination,

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and only with the liberation of the working class from its existing conditions will the Marxian method of research be socialized with other means of production as well, to be developed, in favor of all humanity, to its full capacity. (Luxemburg 1963: 265)

Gramsci, in Prison Notebooks, encounters the same problem Rosa had identified, namely the mismatch between the social practice of the struggling proletariat and Marxist political and cultural theory. But now the situation is more complex, since, on the one hand, there is the effort to build a workers’ state and, on the other, the workers’ movement suffered terrible defeat throughout Europe. The stagnation of Marxism had explanations that Gramsci considered as follows: In the philosophical field it seems to me that the historical reasoning must be sought based on the fact that Marxism has had to ally itself with strange tendencies in order to fight against the elements of a pre-capitalist world among the popular masses, especially in the religious field. (Gramsci 1975: 4 5 422)

It so happens that now Marxism was also stagnated due to its subordination to theoretical and philosophical conceptions arising from high bourgeois culture, such as neo-Kantianism and positivism. This situation made the problem much more serious and complex, since Marxism, in the romantic period of struggle, from the popular Sturm und Drang, all interest falls on the most immediate weapons, on problems of tactics, politics, and cultural problems in the philosophical field are considered to the least extent. But from the moment that a subaltern group becomes truly autonomous and hegemonic, giving rise to a new type of State, the demand to build a new intellectual and moral order is concretely born; ie a new type of society and thus the requirement to elaborate the universal concepts. (Gramsci 1975: 13 17 1508–1509)

It was precisely because of his awareness of the situation with Marxism that Gramsci devoted a significant part of his research to combating Bukharin’s positivist vulgar Marxism, which also served to disguise Italian socialism and to oppose neo-idealist revisionist tendencies, which in its concrete situation considers Croce as its essential focus. The labor movement maintains a dialectical relationship with Marxist culture and theory, at times advancing in its social practice over a stagnant Marxism and at

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other times falling short of theoretical reflection. In the 1930s, Gramsci noticed the urgent need to resume theoretical reflection, at the price of a regression not only of the workers’ movement, but also of the Soviet Russian workers’ state amidst the difficult task of confronting fascism. Following Antonio Labriola’s suggestion, Gramsci considers the philosophy of praxis an autonomous vision of the world, which is sufficient in itself for its development. It was born to confront, on the one hand, the higher concepts of the ruling classes and, on the other, fragmented popular culture with religious origins. Thus, Gramsci considered that orthodoxy should not be sought in this or that follower of the philosophy of praxis, in this or that trend linked to currents outside the original doctrine, but in the fundamental concept that the philosophy of praxis is ‘sufficient in itself’, containing all of the fundamental elements to build a total and whole worldview, a philosophy and theory of the natural sciences. And not only that, but also to grant life to an integral practical organization of society, that is, to become a total and integral civilization. (Gramsci 1975: 11 27 1434)

Gramsci suggests that on this argument, Rosa’s essay on Progress and delays in the development of the philosophy of praxis should be considered [actually named Stagnation and Progress of Marxism], which notes how the parties involved have developed to a different extent, constantly following the needs of practical activity. (Gramsci 1975: 16 9 1857)

He seeks to advance the explanation provided by Rosa and says that in order to combat medieval residues, the philosophy of praxis had to join other theoretical conceptions and that for ‘educational’ reasons, the new philosophy was combined with a form of culture that was slightly superior when compared to the popular average (which was very low), but absolutely inadequate to combat the ideologies of the educated classes, whereas the new philosophy was born exactly to surpass the highest cultural manifestation at the time, the German classical philosophy, and raise a group of intellectuals belonging to the new social group conceiving the world. (Gramsci 1975: 16 9 1858)

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Gramsci considered that the vulgarized philosophy of praxis was also transformed into superstition, a subaltern class ideology. Only with the capacity to raise intellectuals capable of confronting the high bourgeois culture and stimulating a true moral and intellectual reform could the subordinate working class aspire to the hegemony and domination of the state. Rosa’s brief essay also served as an inspiration and analogy to explain the cultural Reform and Renaissance movements. One had a very low level but overtook the masses until it was able to produce its own very high standard intellectuals at the levels of the classical German philosophy, while the second, with high cultural standards, remained alienated from the popular masses due to its connections with feudal nobility and Catholic clergy. In addition to the relationship of the class with its intellectuals and its culture, there is also a dialectical relationship between the labor movement in its social essence and its organizations. When organizations fail to lead the movement, they are overtaken by it. Rosa interpreted the outbreak of mass strikes in the Ruhr in Germany and the Russian revolution of 1905 as notable examples of how the mass movement exceeded its organizations or intellectual expectations. Here, the spontaneity of the masses may or may not be connected with the trade union and political organizations of the working class. In the controversy unfolding in Germany, organizations tended to position themselves as the movement’s stopping force, while in Russia the political organization placed itself at the head of the movement, seeking to direct it towards more or less advanced revolutionary objectives. Since 1902 according to Rosa, the mass strike has been a form of struggle for socialist revolution in both Russia and Germany. As a form of struggle and tactic, in Rosa’s point of reference, mass strike is “a phenomenon that is changeable and reflects in itself all of the phases of the political and economic struggle, all stages and moments of the revolution”, just as it is “the means of the proletarian mass, the form of manifestation of the proletarian struggle in the revolution” and, finally, it is “the concept that summarizes an entire period of class struggle, which may last for years or even decades” (Luxemburg 1976c: 326–327). For Rosa, the origin of the mass strike lies in the class struggle itself, insofar as it forges spontaneous consciousness and organization, which, when generalized, creates a popular movement, creating a political and intellectual leadership. It is up to political leadership and the party, to

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lead, guide and speed up the movement. This is the party’s way of establishing itself as vanguard. Gramsci, in his discussion of the relationship between spontaneity and conscious direction, clarifies in a position close to Rosa’s, that spontaneity is multilateral and must, therefore, be observed in its concreteness. The spontaneous movement of the masses must be educated so that this unity of ‘spontaneity’ and ‘conscious direction’, that is, of ‘discipline’, is precisely the political action of the subaltern classes, as a mass policy and not a simple adventure of groups claiming the mass. (Gramsci 1975: 3 48 330)

In her last interventions, during the revolution in Germany, Rosa emphasized the need for a mass strike with economic characteristics to be transformed into a political strike and struggle against the bourgeois power, to dilute the distinction between economic and political strike and to be the foundation of the council-based state. The closeness towards a catharsis presented by Gramsci is evident: The term catharsis can be used to indicate the transition from a merely economic (or passionate selfish) moment to the political ethical moment, the superior elaboration of the structure into a superstructure in human consciousness. This also means transitioning from objective to subjective, from necessity to freedom. (Gramsci 1975: 10 6 1244)

The revolutionary strategy outlined by Rosa Luxemburg around the events of the Russian revolution of 1905 was seen by her critics as an expression of spontaneism derived from economic determinism. Gramsci notes by the way that Bronstein’s [Trotsky] theory can be compared to that of certain French syndicalist on the general strike and Rosa’s theory in the pamphlet translated by Alessandri: Rosa’s pamphlet and Rosa’s theory also influenced the French syndicalists as it appears in certain articles by Rosmer in Germany in the “Vie Ouvriere” (first series in fascicles): it depends in part also on the theory of spontaneity. (Gramsci 1975: 7 16 866–867)

Gramsci’s criticism turned to the illusion, which does not seem to suit Rosa, that the labor movement could produce political and intellectual leaders in a short period of time, simply through an economic-political

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crisis. In the analysis of the Russian revolution in 1905, Gramsci considered that Rosa despised the ‘voluntary’ and organizational elements that were much more widespread and efficient in those events than Rosa was led to believe by her certain ‘economist’ and spontaneist prejudice. (Gramsci 1975: 13 24 1613)

Gramsci, in his critique of economism coupled with spontaneism, brings Sorel closer to Rosa as he had done in other occasions regarding the tactic of mass strikes. However, in this portion, it seems that the scope of Gramsci’s criticism is much more related to the tactic applied by the Communist International at a time that exposed the advance of fascism amidst a serious capitalist crisis, as it did not exactly apply to Rosa, as we can see right above. Gramsci continued discussing Rosa’s reflections: however, this booklet (and other essays by the same author) is one of the most significant documents for the theorization of maneuvered war applied to the art of politics. The immediate economic element (crisis, etc.) is considered to be field artillery in war opening a gap in the enemy’s defense, a gap sufficient for the troops themselves to break out and obtain definite (strategic) success or at least important strategy success. (Gramsci 1975: 13 24 1613–1614)

Gramsci harshly concluded that was not fair to Rosa’s text, however, it was a correct observation compared to the understanding that prevailed in the Comintern, which emphasized the role of the economic and social capitalist crisis in generating conscience and revolutionary action in the short term. Gramsci then mentioned that the war of maneuver: Was a form of iron economic determinism, with the aggravating factor that the effects were conceived as extremely rapid in time and space; so it was a true ‘historical mysticism’, with the hope of a miraculous fulguration. (Gramsci 1975: 13 24 1614)

In many other quotes by Gramsci, he is dedicated to combating economism, particularly present in the so-called theoretical Italian syndicalism, and considers that

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it is undeniable that the independence and autonomy of the subaltern group that they supposedly represent are actually sacrificed to the intellectual hegemony of the dominant group, since it is certain that theoretical syndicalism is not more than an aspect of liberalism, justified with some mutilated, and therefore trivialized, statements of the philosophy of praxis. (Gramsci 1975: 13 18 1590)

We can therefore observe how Gramsci uses interlocution with the dialogic method to face theoretical problems that are not always the same as those presented by recipients of controversy. He selects different authors to debate the same topic without clearly distinguishing their differences.

Conclusion Rosa Luxemburg stood out in the rich and heterogeneous political cultural scene of the so-called Second International Marxism as the one that, in Germany, carried the flag of self-sufficiency in the philosophy of praxis as a revolutionary concept of the world, an instrument of labor emancipation and the origin of a new universal culture. This vision was also shared by Gramsci, one generation of revolutionaries later. Due to the incidence of a broader cultural environment or even the direct influence of Rosa, Gramsci adopted a vision of autonomy and antagonism as central axes of action and theoretical reflection. In many of Gramsci’s thoughts where Rosa’s presence is felt, he is also brought closer to Sorel, even though he knew that the differences between these authors were remarkable. What seemed to interest Gramsci was that both authors embodied the “scission spirit” when facing the order of capital. Although they expressed different interpretations of what was happening in Soviet Russia, Rosa and Gramsci were against expressions of Jacobinism-Blanquism, precisely because they considered that the emancipation of labor was developed from the productive process, from labor as a productive force fighting against the production relations of capital. Based on this, class consciousness and the organization of class into a party are both the advanced product of class development itself, which must also generate its culture and raise its intellectuals. The workers’ state itself would have to derive from the workers’ subjectivity materialized in the factory and in the democracy that organized public life.

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Since he come from a later generation as a member of the Communist International, it is true that Gramsci received a strong influence from Lenin’s thought, which allowed him to create a more advanced thought process regarding the party and intellectuals. It is interesting that in Prison Notebooks, Gramsci explicitly cites only two texts by Rosa, from 1903 and 1906, however, when his belief in the laws of historical development was troublesome, he does not mention Rosa within a context of war, prison, revolution or councils. Perhaps because the texts he cites are likely to reach, with their criticism, other hidden counterparts, since Gramsci’s criticism against Rosa, even upon considering that the texts were not available and that he could be betrayed by his memory, strictly speaking, were not correct, as occurred other authors he established dialogue with.

Gramsci and Lenin: Hegemony and Philosophy of Praxis

Introduction 1937 was a very important year for the Communist International and for the Italian Communist Party. Gramsci’s death had a tremendous impact on Italian communists. The popular front policy demonstrated its limits in the struggle against fascism and fascism, which in turn, consolidated its internal political power and focused on imperial construction. Italy had already occupied Abyssinia and the civil war in Spain continued. Nazi Germany was already preparing to occupy Austria. The international spread of fascism dragged the USSR and Communist International into an extreme defensive situation, where it ceased to exist in practical terms. The so-called Moscow processes—which led to the elimination of what was left of the original Bolshevik ruling group—were unfolding in those dark days. The Communist Party of Poland, considered to be virtually taken over by infiltrators, was dissolved. The ICP had police infiltration suspicions and had limited drive in the fight against “Trotskyism”, until its leadership was dissolved in 1938. In the March/April 1937 editorial in Lo Stato Operaio, the ICP was considered “Gramsci and Togliatti’s party” and he was considered “the head of the party”. In fact, Gramsci and Togliatti’s names had already appeared together in 1936, but after Gramsci’s death it was reinforced, certainly aiming to guarantee the legitimacy of leadership vis-à-vis the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Del Roio, Gramsci and the Emancipation of the Subaltern Classes, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90777-8_4

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popular masses of Italy, but also towards Comintern. In this unfortunate scenario for the communist movement, Palmiro Togliatti, who was already considered the most important Italian communist leader, wrote a paper for Lo Stato Operaio, in which he commended Gramsci as the “head of the working class” (Togliatti 1937). After a rally honoring Gramsci held in Marseilles, June 1937, Ruggiero Grieco, in the same issue of the communist journal, wrote a document which he claimed was inspired by Gramsci, but that exposed the general political1 guidance resulting from the VII Congress of the Comintern (which Gramsci would have most likely agreed upon, at least in general) (Grieco 1937). At that time, being a Leninist meant supporting the USSR and its political leadership without complaint. To position Gramsci as the head of the working class and as a Leninist signaled that the ICP was a Leninist party and therefore faithful to Soviet leadership embodied through Stalin. It was an attempt to defend the ICP and the memory of its leader martyred in a fascist prison, despite the fact that at various times this loyalty could be brought to question. In fact, in the following years, Togliatti—or even anyone within the ICP—never entertained doubts about Gramsci’s Leninism, upholding him as a Leninist national-popular Italian, solidifying the and confirming the notion of perfect continuity between Gramsci and Togliatti among the political and intellectual leadership of the ICP and its relationship with Leninism. It is true that there is the hidden figure of Stalin which makes the issue much more complex; however, it will not be addressed here. The issue that will be addressed here is not the relationship between Gramsci and Togliatti mediated by Lenin or Stalin, but the intellectual relationship between Gramsci with Lenin, a matter difficult to solve through an introductory study. As mentioned previously, there are various mediations where it is clear that extreme interpretations—such as those that consider Gramsci merely a Leninist or an author that is entirely innovative and detached from Lenin, or in short, a Gramscist—are not correct. Furthermore, it is worth mentioning that a recent publication containing results from a seminar on that period of Gramsci’s life did not include any comment on Gramsci’s relationship with Lenin and Bolshevism (Giasi et al. 2008). However, it is undeniable that Gramsci was inserted in a very complex Italian and European cultural and intellectual environment and his thought process underwent various influences and counterparts,

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which were constantly reviewed in his permanent task of reassessment and self-criticism. Gramsci’s decisive and fundamental encounter with Lenin and Bolshevism was supported by an original intellectual and political background, which began with meridionalism and neo-idealism. Even after the outbreak of the revolutionary process in Russia in 1917, beyond Lenin, the theoretical and political influences on the elaboration process by Gramsci were perhaps Georges Sorel and Rosa Luxemburg, as well as Karl Korsch.

The Russian Revolution, the Councils and a Rapprochement with Lenin In April 1917, Gramsci disclosed his first comments on the Russian revolution and did not refer to Lenin or Bolshevism. His empathy towards the revolutionary process is quite clear, but his theoretical support is based on Sorel. From the limited information he had taken only from the newspapers, he said “we know that the revolution was made by proletarians (workers and soldiers), we know that there is a committee of proletarian delegates that control the administrative entities’ actions, which necessarily had to fulfill conventional affairs” (Gramsci 1973e: 109). In the wake of the Sorelian notion on Jacobinism, he says: “the Russian revolution ignored Jacobinism. The revolution must overthrow the autocracy, it must not conquer the majority with violence. Jacobinism is a purely bourgeois phenomenon, characterizing the bourgeois revolution in France” (Gramsci 1973e: 110). Three months later Gramsci seems to be more well-informed, but he still refers to the Bolsheviks as “Massimalists”, as the socialist left in Italy was called. He insists that in Russia there is no Jacobinism and that Lenin in the Russian Revolution did not have the same fate as Babeuf. His thought process was capable of converting him into an operating force in history, a force to be reckoned with that will never cease to exist. Him and his fellow Bolsheviks are convinced that socialism can be achieved at every moment. They are nourished by Marxist thought. They are revolutionaries, not evolutionists. (Gramsci 1973f: 116)

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After the Bolsheviks political victory in November 1917, Gramsci spoke again, and this time he published a controversial paper. He described the situation as follows: The Bolshevik revolution was installed definitively as the general revolution of the Russian people. The massimalists, who until two months ago were the necessary leaven to avoid the stagnation of events and to keep the race to future from stopping, paving the path to a definitive settlement a bourgeois settlement - seized power, established their dictatorship, and are establishing a socialist foundation upon which the revolution should finally be based on, in order to continue to develop harmoniously, without to excessive confrontation, starting with the conquests at last achieved. (Gramsci 1973g: 131)

This paper is proof of Gramsci’s enthusiastic support for the Russian revolution and the Bolsheviks although his basis stems from the theoretical maturing perspectives. Gramsci considered that the Bolsheviks were not Marxists as the majority of the international socialist movement understood them to be. They didn’t compile Marx’s texts to be conformed into dogmas, however, he then stated, “they live Marxist thoughts, which never dies, and is the continuation of Italian and German idealist thought, which had been contaminated by positivist and naturalist incrustations” (Gramsci 1973g: 131). Shortly thereafter, Gramsci once again determines that he does not perceive in Jacobinism aspects of Bolshevism, insisting that it is an essentially bourgeois phenomenon, the method of a minority’s to rule the majority through force, also a persistent mindset in line with Sorel. In this text he declares his support for the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly in Russia and that the Soviet priority should be, “an initial model to directly represent producers” (Gramsci 1973g: 131). Throughout 1918, the presence of Sorel and Italian idealism continued vividly in Gramsci’s reflections. To him, Marx is the culmination of this line of thought. It comes from classical German philosophy and considers Jacobinism, as does Sorel, a bourgeois ideology, which expresses the will of a violent minority. In Russia he identified the beginning of a new order and a new hierarchy, from the disorganized and suffering masses they become workers and peasants organized at the service of the Soviets, the Bolshevik Party and to one individual: Lenin. It is the hierarchical grading of prestige and trust, which

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was formed spontaneously and maintained through free elections. (Gramsci 1973i: 207)

The attempt on Lenin’s life, which took place on August 30, 1918, prompted Gramsci to write an article that in fact was a tribute to the founder of the new order. Here Gramsci seems endowed with much more information about the Russian revolutionary process and Lenin’s role and philosophy. Now Lenin appears as someone who applies the method forged by Marx, and Gramsci (apparently after reading Lenin’s book, Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution, April 1905) he notes that based on an in-depth critical study of Russian economic and political conditions, the characteristics of the Russian bourgeoisie and the historical mission of the Russian proletariat since 1905, Lenin reached the conclusion that according to the high degree of the proletariat’s class consciousness and the development of the class struggle, the whole political struggle would have been transformed into a social struggle against the bourgeois order. (Gramsci 1973j: 211)

In the following months Gramsci wrote papers demonstrating solidarity towards the Soviet Russia, attacked by the counterrevolution and the forces of imperialism, momentarily unified by the cause to stifle Soviet power. With the foundation of the Communist International in March 1919, it was clear that the best way to demonstrate solidarity towards the Bolsheviks was spreading the revolution in Italy itself. In June 1919, through a L’Ordine Nuovo editorial, Gramsci (and Togliatti) summoned the Turin working class to make internal factory commissions, using and adapting the Russian experience in the Soviet way, into “organs of proletarian power to replace capitalist power in all its useful functions of leadership and administration” (Gramsci 1954a: 10). The defeat of factory council movement which had lasted until the end of 1920 was a decisive experience Gramsci’s entire theoretical elaboration. The theoretical and practical reference was inserted in the revolutionary process that took place in Russia, Hungary, Germany, whose organizational base was the council which in many ways should overlap with the revolutionary party itself.

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A suggestive article by Gramsci indicates how far his political theory still is from the Leninian formulation of The State and Revolution, for example. In a debate against anarchism, Gramsci says that communism can be fulfilled in the proletarian International. Communism will only get there when, and as long as, it is international. In this sense, the socialist and proletarian movement is against the State, because it is against capitalist national states, because it is against national economies, which from their source of life provide the national state. (Gramsci 1954l: 378)

However, as Gramsci explains, “We work is developing our cultural activity to demonstrate that the socialist State is an essential link in the chain of efforts that the proletariat must fulfill for their emancipation and freedom” (Gramsci 1954l: 382). Through this observation, in Gramsci the notion of state anticipates what would later be developed in The Prison Notebooks, where an integral state is the historical objective. But overall, as can be seen, Gramsci’s theoretical elaboration from 1919 to 1920 absorbed a lot of Sorel and Rosa Luxemburg’s thoughts regarding the emphasis on autonomy and antagonism of the working class towards the capital and its state—the “scission spirit”—through crucial importance given to self-education and control of production, as well as a relative underestimation of the party’s role. In the second half of 1920, however, the growing difficulty of the council movement to position itself and expand and the conflicting relations with the leadership of the Italian Socialist Party and the GCL— General Confederation of Labor, which preferred to negotiate with employers, accelerated the maturity of organic scission efforts in the Italian labor movement. Certainly, the II CI Congress in July contributed to this and thus the concepts regarding Lenin and the Bolsheviks became more widespread, with special importance to Lenin’s booklet Leftism: Childish Communist Disorder (1920). Gramsci had already received critical praise from Lenin, in a statement he transcribed: in regards to the Italian Socialist Party, the Second Congress of the III International considers the criticism and practical proposals published as a stance from the Turin section of the Council of the Italian Socialist Party, in

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the L’Ordine Nuovo journal on 8 February May 1920 to be fundamentally fair, which fully correspond to all the fundamental principles of the III Communist International. (Gramsci 1954m: 483)

Still towards the end of 1920 when the council movement was in decline, Gramsci wrote an ironic passage that clearly indicates his ideological stance when referring to the L’Ordine Nuovo group as a whole: we simply are mistaken in believing that the communist revolution can only be carried out by the masses, and that neither a party secretary nor a president of the republic can carry it out by a decree; it seems that this was the opinion that Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin shared. (Gramsci1954c: 489)

With Lenin and with the International The split of the Italian Socialist Party was disconsidered as a fact during the XVII congress of the organization met in January 1921. Lenin and the Comintern pressed for the split but assumed the exclusion of the reformist trend and the unification between communists and massimalists, even though these segments were distinct and heterogeneous. Finally, the split took place with a rather leftist trend where only the communists, divided into three segments, established the communist party. The Italian Communist Party quickly faced the difficult task of confronting the fascist movement on the rise to power. Gramsci intended to spread the concepts and ideas of the L’Ordine Nuovo group within the party, but with Bordiga he learned the importance of party organization, as well the perspective on socialists as insidious adversaries. The problem was that the new party organization was not strong enough to stand up to fascism at a moment when the working class as a whole was suffering defeat. Under these widely unfavorable conditions, Bordiga decided to confront the Comintern leadership for not agreeing with the decisions of the III congress. Gramsci, on the contrary, had already perceived the decisive importance of the party’s international participation in order to gather the strength to resist fascism. At the end of May 1922, as a ICP envoy, Gramsci left for Moscow, where he would remain for about a year and a half. During this period, he joined the Comintern management, having participated in several important and decisive events for the

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Comintern’s general policy, as well as for the specific policies in Italy. The experience and observation of what was done in the USSR brought him even closer to Lenin’s philosophy and to the political culture of the Bolsheviks. Gramsci had a personal meeting with Lenin on November 25, 1922, when they discussed the Italian situation and strategies to change the political directions of the ICP. Lenin’s opinion was that the party establishment had taken place too far to the left and that it was important to incorporate the internationalist division of the Socialist Party. Gramsci thought that leftist trend was necessary, making room for the struggle against Bordiga while the eventual merger with the socialists was out of the question. Later while in Vienna, through intense correspondence Gramsci defended his stance and clarified his opinion on Lenin’s political role within the Bolshevik’s leading group. Gramsci actually considered that Lenin had a role to mediate and synthesize between the Bolshevik right which included Zinoviev, Kamanev and Stalin, on the one hand, and the left with Trotsky, Radek and Bukharin. Gramsci understood that Lenin’s and Trotsky’s positions had reached a deeper approximation to the detriment of the Bolshevik right during 1917. Gramsci’s sympathy for the left in the open conflict at the end of 1923 was justified by the importance given by this trend, which in his interpretation demanded greater intervention from the working class in the party’s daily routine and a reduction in the powers of the bureaucracy who want, in essence, to ensure the socialist and labor aspects of the revolution in order to prevent the democratic dictatorship from slowly materializing disguised as capitalism in development, which was the program defended by Zinoviev and his companions in November 1917. (Gramsci 1992: 224)

After being absent for almost two years, in May 1924 Gramsci returned to Italy as a newly elected parliament member and as the main leader of the ICP. What was different in comparison to when he had left? First of all, there was an expressive rupture with Bordiga’s views and a definite distancing from Croce, who had chosen to consider fascism as a lesser evil than Bolshevism. He also had certain level of affinity with Trotsky regarding industrial management and concerns with Fordism, along with the idea that the revolution had been persistent since 1917. However,

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Lenin’s influence was the most outstanding of all, and at Gramsci’s death he wrote a paper honoring Lenin’s capacity as a leader: The Russian Communist Party, with Lenin’s leadership, was closely connected to the entire development of the Russian proletariat and the whole Russian nation, so much so that one cannot be imagined without the other-proletariat as the ruling class without the Communist Party being the governing party and thus without the Party’s Central Committee inspiring government policy, without Lenin as chief of state. (Gramsci 1978f: 15)

Gramsci learned from Lenin on concerns with party organization and issues regarding the strategic elaboration of the united front, the workerpeasant alliance, the challenge of conquering and maintaining power through the construction of a new state, along with issues involving the cultural elevation of the masses. In the intellectual traditions of the Italian peninsula, it was possible to identify Machiavelli as a classical author, who had many similar concerns. Later, in Gramsci’s prison writings (as will be discussed), in order to connect Lenin and Machiavelli’s philosophies, Gramsci discussed the possibility of translating languages from different spaces and times. In immediate political praxis, as the main party leader, Gramsci focused energy towards party developments and the establishment of the workerpeasant alliance. Based on this agenda, the hegemony issue emerged, understood as the political orientation of the proletariat. Soon after the Conference, held in May 1924, Gramsci considered that for the first time, our party explicitly posed the problem of becoming the party of the broader Italian mass, a party that achieves hegemony of the proletariat within the vast framework of the working class’ alliance with the peasant masses. (Gramsci 1978g: 182)

With this task in mind and with Lenin as inspiration, Gramsci set out to deepen his knowledge on the specificities of how capitalism had established itself in Italy and the unfolding of its bourgeois revolution. The reason for the persistence of the ideological influence of reformist socialism and Catholicism upon the popular masses had to be understood, and even more paramount was understanding the particularities of Italy’s agrarian and peasant issue. Basically, it would be the means to critically apprehend the reality of the movement in this contradictory and specific

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context. Thus, he sought to translate Lenin into the concrete historical condition in Italy, essentially a matter of method. Gramsci observed many analogies between Italy and Russia. He noticed the regional concentration of industry and in a few cities, large peasant masses located on the islands and in the South, and the strong national presence of the petty bourgeoisie. The socialist revolution in Italy would therefore depend on attracting most of the agrarian and urban petty bourgeoisie and the poor peasantry to the proletariat. For the success of the movement, it was of extreme importance to attract intellectuals somehow connected to these masses. In this aspect, we can notice similarities between the Bolsheviks attracting a considerable portion of the Narodiniks (populists) to the Soviet revolution, which implied in the isolation of the Mensheviks (reformist socialists). The III ICP Congress held in January 1926 in the French city Lyon established the theoretical and political orientation for the revolution in Italy considering its national specificities. The meridionalist issue, essential in this context, appeared as a concrete expression of agrarian and peasant issues. Regarding the revolutionary party concept, in an initial approximation, one may say that Gramsci absorbed elements from Lenin and Bolshevism, especially regarding organization, but when it comes to party/class connections and class consciousness, it seems his ideas were closer to Rosa Luxemburg and even Sorel given the emphasis on the “scission spirit” and factory organization. Bear in mind that this party would be dedicated to an anti-fascist and anti-capitalist revolution, in other words, a socialist revolution. The events at the party congress underscored Gramsci’s concerns. Most of his time would be consumed by the political crisis in Russia and intensifying issues relating to the meridional problem as a particularity of the agrarian and peasant affairs in Italy. In an important intervention regarding Russia, he criticizes the left opposition conceptions: it is impressive that the opposition bloc’s stance is positioned against the entire CC, approaching the very heart of Leninist doctrine and the political action of our Union party. It is the principle and practice of proletariat hegemony that is under discussion, the fundamental alliance between workers and peasants that are disturbed and endangered, i.e., the very pillars of the workers’ State and of the Revolution. (Gramsci 1999: 409–410)

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In this letter, Gramsci’s political distancing from Trotsky (which had been going on since the 5th CI congress in July 1924) is quite clear, including his understanding of the formulation of the NEP as a longterm strategy in the socialist transition linked to the united front efforts, with the worker-peasant alliance as a central element. In Gramsci’s understanding, this orientation had already been transmitted by Lenin between 1921 and 1923.

Lenin in The Prison Notebooks: Hegemony and Translating Languages Gramsci’s incarceration on November 8, 1926, is only one element within a more serious historical moment: the consolidation of fascism as a political regime, which condenses the interests of the propertied classes and the defeat of the so-called left opposition in the USSR, which collided with the split of the Bolshevik ruling group. From that moment on, Gramsci was forced to remain silent about the political life of the party and Comintern. The few letters he could send were subjected to prison censorship. When—after his final conviction when he was sent to the Turi prison— he received permission to write and from February 1929 onwards, Gramsci was obliged to encrypt his letters and study notes, especially when he referred to the Bolsheviks and the debate within Comintern. Lenin’s name appears only in a bibliographical reference on page 446, Q. 4, § 29 of The Prison Notebooks and is then repeated on page 1602, Q. 13, § 22. It was a book by a certain Vorländer called Von Macchiavelli bis Lenin. Certainly, this approximation between Machiavelli and Lenin was also of Gramsci’s doing (Gramsci 1975). The explicit references to Lenin in The Prison Notebooks are actually unfrequent and Gramsci identifies him as Ilici or Vilic (as Lenin’s name was Vladimir Ilici Ulianov). Lenin is mentioned more frequently in section 7, although this is reproduced later in other sections. Contrary to common assumption, Gramsci considers Lenin more a philosopher than an author directly linked to political action. This can easily be explained given that in Gramsci’s reflections Lenin was seen as the most important philosopher of praxis in the early twentieth century, precisely because he contemplated a significantly broad universal historical transformation. In a passage from Q. 10, in the context of a critical dialogue with Croce, Gramsci says that

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One may say that not only does the philosophy of praxis not exclude ethical-political history, but that the most recent phase of its development consists precisely in the claim of the moment of hegemony as essential in its conception of “valuing” cultural facts, cultural activity, and the cultural front as necessary efforts in addition to mere economic and political actions. (Gramsci 1975: 10 7 1224)

Gramsci suggests that Lenin’s great practical theoretical contribution is the development of the notion of hegemony. Starting from a statement from Marx on men becoming aware of structural conflicts in the ideological field, Gramsci affirms that a clear political historical phase occurs when an ideology (or an ideological complex) imposes itself “by determining that intellectual and moral unity is beyond economic and political unity, and based on a non-corporate but universal hegemonic plan towards fundamental social grouping over subaltern groups” (Gramsci 1975: 4 38 458). In this case, the notion of hegemony also acquires a gnoseological value and, therefore, it would be considered Iliic’s maximum contribution to Marxist philosophy, to historical materialism, an original and creative contribution. Based on this perspective, Illic would have advanced Marxism not only in political theory and economics, but also in philosophy (i.e., having made progress in political doctrine and philosophy as well). (Gramsci 1975: 4 38 465)

This quote will be rewritten again in NB 10 with more clarity: the theoretical-practical principle of hegemony also has a gnoseological approach and, therefore, in this field it is necessary to research Ilici’s maximum contribution to the philosophy of praxis. Ilici would have (effectively) advanced philosophy (as a philosophy) as much as he advanced political doctrine and practice. The fulfillment of a hegemonic apparatus, while creating a new ideological foundation, determines a renewal of consciences and methods of knowledge. This is knowledge and philosophical fact. (Gramsci 1975: 10 12 1249–1250)

It is not difficult to perceive that Gramsci is referring to strategic conceptions on the socialist transition to the New Political Economy

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mentioned in Lenin’s latest writings. To locate the historical and philosophical importance of Lenin’s work, Gramsci compares him to Marx, with the following question: “Marx is the creator of a Weltanschauung, but what is Ilici’s stance? Is it purely subordinate and submissive?”. The answer immediately follows: “The explanation is in Marxism itself -- its science and action. The passage from utopia to science and from science to action (remember Karl Radek’s pamphlet). The foundation of a ruling class (i.e., of a state) is equivalent to the creation of a Weltanschauung ”. Then a new question follows: On how should the expression be understood that the German proletariat is heir of classical German philosophy: – didn’t Marx want to indicate the historical office of his philosophical theory of a class that would become the State? To Ilici this really happened in a specific territory.

In sequence he concludes that Marx and Lenin “are the expression of two phases: ‘science-action’, which (are) homogeneous and heterogeneous at the same time” (Gramsci 1975: 7 33 881–882. Another paragraph elucidates Gramsci’s dialectical reasoning. In the equality/inequality dialectic that permeates philosophy and the real historical process, equality between equals and inequality in relation to others, equality or equation between “philosophy and politics” may be reached, between thought and action, i.e. to a philosophy of praxis. Everything is politics, even philosophy or philosophies (confronting notes on the characteristics of ideologies and the only philosophy is history in action, i.e. life itself). (Gramsci 1975: 7 35 886)

If philosophy, history and politics are interrelated, the thesis of the proletariat as heir of German classical philosophy can be explained, and “we can say that Ilici’s theorizing and achievement of hegemony were also “metaphysical” events (Gramsci 1975: 7 35 886). In NB. 7, in a very short note, a crucial observation captures Gramsci’s relationship and his theoretical elaboration regarding Lenin’s work. This note, later transcribed with a modification in NB.11, said: “In 1921, while dealing with organizational issues, Vilici wrote (approximately) the following: we did not know how to ‘translate’ our language into European languages” (Gramsci 1975: 7 2 854; 11 46 1468).

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Based on the issue of whether or not this is a specific problem in the philosophy of praxis, Gramsci seeks to recover the “translation” problem, as had been posed since the French Revolution and discussed by Heine and Hegel in German classical philosophy, which Marx and Engels republished in The Holy Family, where they compare Proudhon’s French socialist political language with the language of classical philosophy. The idea is that these languages are mutually translatable, but not only that: it also considers that the German is theoretical and French is practical, and the synthesis of both results in the philosophy of praxis. Gramsci elucidated “the legal-political language of France and the philosophicaltheoretical-doctrinal language in Germany. To a historian, civilizations are considered reciprocally translatable, reducible to each other” (Gramsci 1975: 11 48 1470). However, for Gramsci, the issue doesn’t end there. His question was whether the problem of translating those languages could also refer to languages that coexisted in the same historical time, such as those prevalent in France and Germany at the beginning of the nineteenth century, as well as diachronic languages. This is decisive when framing Gramsci’s concepts, since his intention had been to translate Machiavelli’s language to twentieth century Italy and, at the same time, translate the Leninian language in contemporary Russia to Italy. The essential mediator of this operation, in space/time, could be none other than Marx, as founder of the philosophy of praxis.

Translating Lenin for Italy With Machiavelli, Gramsci’s intention was sharing Lenin’s “language” with Italy. Based on this dialogue, Gramsci highlighted the importance of making peasants the protagonists of history in order to establish a new state endowed with broad social consensus. The problem of the Modern Prince is the problem of forming a collective will and program for the socialist revolution, which presupposes a cultural revolution or an intellectual and moral reform. Alongside this problem are issues related to intellectuals and Jacobinism. On Jacobinism, Gramsci’s formulation is radically different from what he supported during the European war (1914–1918) when he was guided by Sorel’s understanding. Now, in The Prison Notebooks, Gramsci advances a positive formulation on Jacobinism, understanding that the French

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revolutionaries of the late eighteenth century were the organic expression of the popular masses and their democratic demands. Based on this observation, to Gramsci Machiavelli is a precursor of Jacobinism, given Machiavelli’s creation of an image of a Prince who was the expression of popular demands in Italy. If Jacobinism is now interpreted as the action of a ruling political group with organic ties to their class, then Bolshevism is its most significant contemporary expression. The Jacobin group would have to rely on a theoretical, intellectual elaboration that would surrender to the demands of the rising social group as organic class intellectuals, circumventing the imposition of the class’ interests, deflecting the establishment of the Sorelian vision on Jacobinism and finally curbing the establishment of an “elite”. Hence the need for the Modern Prince from the start as part of the class, projecting peasants into the historical scene and “organizing the intellectual and moral reform” (Gramsci 1975: 13 1 1560). The conscious leadership of the working class is no doubt indispensable. In Notebook 3, while opposing De Man, Gramsci recalls that in Lenin’s reflection there is an indication that “in every ‘spontaneous’ movement there is a primitive element of conscious leadership, of discipline, indirectly demonstrated by the fact that there are strands and groups that defend spontaneity as a method” (Gramsci 1975: 3 48 329), but only through the education and discipline of the masses spontaneous activity will the Modern Prince be formed at last, as conscious leadership organically linked to the class. Yet another important element that Gramsci brought from the experience of the Bolsheviks, also linked to the education and discipline of the masses, was his reflection on the unitary school, especially present in NB.12. In fact, the theory and pedagogical practice that developed in the USSR in the 1920s greatly contributed to Gramsci’s elaborations on the educational process, a topic that had accumulated since the Turin period. The strongest incidence of Lenin on Gramsci’s prison writings come from the Russian revolutionary’s most recent reflections, in the 1920s. Based on a few concepts from Lenin—and nourished by a series of other counterparts—Gramsci was able to develop a much more strategic thought process aimed at conquering the working class’ hegemony towards the socialist transition. Note that one may consider that the philosophy of praxis does not exclude ethical–political history, but its most recent phase of development consists in claiming the moment of hegemony as essential for the conception of the state and for “valuing”

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the cultural fact, where a cultural front is necessary in addition to merely economic and political actions (Gramsci 1975: 10 7 1224). Supported by theses previously developed by Sorel and Rosa Luxemburg, Gramsci tries to advance the idea of the united front’s political formula connected to notions of war of position and hegemony. In a passage where he opposes Trotsky and Lenin, Gramsci suggests that Bronstein (Trotsky), who appears as an “Occidental”, was in fact a cosmopolitan, i.e., superficially national and superficially Occidental. “In turn, Lenin was profoundly national and profoundly European”. In this sense, Lenin understood that after the defeat of the international socialist revolution which unleashed a series of passive revolutions in 1921, Russia should implement a specific, popular national strategy for the socialist transition (which would become the NEP), constituting the united front for Europe, a war of position at last. Gramsci says: “It seems to me that Ilici understood that there was a change from the maneuvered war applied victoriously in the East in 17, to the war of position as the only possibility for the Western, […]” (Gramsci 1975: 7 16 866). He goes on to say that “This seems to represent the formula of the ‘united front’, which represents the single front concept by Intesa [Entente] under the sole command of Foch”. The difference was that in the East the State was everything, society was primordial and gelatinous; in the West between State and civil society there was a fair relationship, and when the State failed one could immediately see a robust civil society structure. The state was simply an advanced trench, with a stout chain of fortresses and bunkers supporting it; more or less, from state to state, but this required an exact and careful national acknowledgement. (Gramsci 1975: 7 16 866)

Gramsci considered that in Western Europe the war of movements and the permanent revolution formula we exhausted after 1870 and were gradually being replaced by the war of position in the dispute for civil hegemony. Gramsci notes that the massive structure of modern democracies, whether as a state organization or as a complex of civil life associations, represent the “trenches” in the art of politics and the permanent fortifications of the front in the war of position: these make the movement element only a partial aspect, which was previously considered the “entire” war, etc. (Gramsci 1975: 13 7 1567)

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In the Russian East, given the weakness of civil society, the war of movement and permanent revolution could still have been victorious in 1917, but after 1921 when a series of passive revolutions moved by the war of position began, it was clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that the political strategy that should have prevailed in the West (and in the Russian East as well) was the united front from the war of position and the struggle for a new hegemony. Gramsci notes that Trotsky’s intuition had led him to this conclusion, although he didn’t focus on it and instead resumed his formulation on permanent revolution, which would later result in historic defeats. Lenin, however, had only formulated his first conclusions about how the revolutionary process could be resumed. We can observe, in turn, that Gramsci visibly changes his stance towards the political moment he experienced in the USSR and as leader of the ICP, in 1923–1924. Based on this approach, Gramsci’s elaboration while in prison can be understood as an effort to create a theory for the resumption of the socialist revolution, based on the strategy of the subaltern classes’ united front under the leadership of a Modern Prince, fighting a war of position imposed by the ruling class, during which elements of economic reform and intellectual and moral reform would be developed. In other words, the very elements of a new civil society and a new hegemony. This hardly represents any sort of reformist formulation, as one might be led to believe; it is simply a strategy posed by historical conditions. Besides reapproaching Lenin and developing some of his last theses, Gramsci, particularly in this regard, resumes and develops a thesis proposed by Engels in 1895, which helps to elucidate this issue. Engels had said: the times of surprise attacks, of revolutions carried through small conscious minorities at the head of unconscious masses, have long past. Whenever the complete transformation of society´s organization is at stake, the masses themselves must cooperate, once they have understood that purpose, and thus give their blood and lives to achieve it. (...). But long and tasking work will be necessary for the masses to reach that conclusion; (...). (Engels 1895 [2012]: 26)

A few lines earlier, he elaborated on his conviction regarding the reinforcement that bourgeois domination had achieved, stating that

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Struggles on the streets cannot, therefore, be victorious in the future unless this inferior situation is offset by other factors. Thus, this will occur more rarely at the beginning of a great revolution than in the course of its development and must be undertaken with greater forces. (Engels 1895 [2012]: 26)

Rosa Luxemburg in 1919 had also anticipated a war of position as the best strategy for the revolution in Germany. She highlighted how the revolution in Germany “still has immense efforts to accomplish and a long way to go” (Luxemburg 1976e: 617). The strategy that Rosa envisioned indicated the need for the creation of workers’ councils as the basis for the step by step construction of a new state, as “the conquest of power should take place progressively, not all at once, by creating wedges in the bourgeois state, until all of its positions are occupied and defended tooth and nail” (Luxemburg 1976e: 619). In conclusion, Gramsci’s work seeks to go deeper into the theoretical and political reflections that Marx initiated towards a socialist revolution. Gramsci’s work critically absorbs this entire revolutionary tradition, including Engels, Rosa Luxemburg and especially Lenin, without, however, failing to learn from and contribute with the controversies that arose within the Communist International and the ruling group of the Russian revolution, with an emphasis on Trotsky and Bukharin. This would be the only means to gather subsidies to confront the high bourgeois culture prevalent during his time, which was of uttermost importance in the class struggle, and conceive of a new dialectic that would make the philosophy of praxis come to life.

Note 1. Togliatti, Palmiro. La morte di Antonio Gramsci. In: Lo Stato Operaio, maggio / giugno 1937 (FIG). Grieco, Ruggiero. Conquistare una nuova democrazia. In: Lo Stato Operaio, maggio/giugno, 1937 (FIG).

Gramsci and Sorel: Scission Spirit and Intellectual and Moral Reform

Introduction The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate how the theoretical category of intellectual and moral reform is malleable and may have variable meanings. The idea is to rescue the notion of intellectual and moral reform connected with the notions of common sense and a historical bloc through an elaboration that begins with Vico. Although rarely addressed in literature, the hypothesis is that the influence of Vico’s historicism is relatively strong in Gramsci’s work, with Sorel’s sensitive mediation. Studying the influence that Hegel and Marx had on Gramsci’s thought is unquestionably fundamental, however, it would require far more than a chapter. Nowadays, when the need arises for an intellectual and moral reform, it is usually coupled with Antonio Gramsci’s theory, although frequently with culturalist distortions, where in general reference to this category is only briefly mentioned in a footnote. However, the history of this category may contribute to a better understanding of the re-elaboration perpetrated by Gramsci in his Prison Notebooks. Of course, it is always useful to remember that the theoretical categories used by Gramsci, besides forming a re-elaboration of those used by other authors he established dialogue with, are also constantly reelaborated in his own thought process, like a vivant philology. Thus, it is © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Del Roio, Gramsci and the Emancipation of the Subaltern Classes, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90777-8_5

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important to note that the Gramscian categories are supported in relation to each other, which requires an analytical approach within this theoretical universe permanently in movement. As to which category would represent the main pillar of this building, there are different answers depending on the interpretation of the author’s writings, despite the complex notion of hegemony seemingly being the favorite. In this essay, the categories of common sense, historical bloc and hegemony should revolve around the notion of intellectual and moral reform, since without them the comprehension on the role of the first notion would be lost.

Vico and Common Sense In the eighteenth century, the divorce already been consolidated between common sense, culture and popular wisdom on one hand and Cartesianbased rational science on the other. While common sense was based on previous customs and religion, the ideological complex that supported the historical rise of the bourgeoisie was embodied through the natural and political sciences (Burke 2009; Thompson 1993). From Naples, Giambattista Vico realized that the emergence of philosophical thought in classical antiquity had already separated theory and practice and common sense and scientific knowledge, whereas the latter was only appropriated by a few. Common sense is defined as a memory with ethical implications. In the third version of Scienza Nuova (1744), § 142, Vico states that “Common sense is judgment without reflection, shared by an entire class, an entire people, an entire nation, or the entire human race” (Vico 1844 [2006]: 236). Vico also states that “vulgar traditions must have had motivations that were real and public when they were born and have been preserved among entire peoples and for long periods of time”, and he completes this perspective with the following: “this will be another great task of this Science: to rediscover the reasons for the truth, which over the years and with the evolution of languages and customs, appears to have been obscured in falsehood” (Vico 1844 [2006]: 238). Vico conceives history as a triadic sequence of periods, which begins with barbarism: the age of gods, heroes and humans. Each of these eras is well defined within blocks of images conceived by the social man, according to three types of nature, customs, natural law, governments, languages, character, law, authority and reason. This concept is based on

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the sparse documentation available on the history of Greece, which effectively sets the historical timeline with these phases, although also present in Roman history. Mythical language is therefore fundamental, because myths create practical common sense, a certain truth, a praxis. It turns out that myths are eroded as knowledge of the world advances, which forces changes in the ways the world is understood and forms of appropriation. These changes in social praxis stimulate the historical movement of ricorso, the possibility of starting over. The age of humans, as a Philosophy that separates itself from common sense emerges, it signals the rise of barbarism ahead. The language of men no longer understands the language of the gods and even of the heroes, the demigods. Common sense is diluted, languages are confused. The barbarian invasions and Christianity mark the beginning of a new historical cycle, the ricorso: the age of the barbarians represents a new age of the gods (the Christian god, in this case) and of the conquering saints and heroes. It is important to insist that ricorso does not mean going back to the beginning, but to the beginning of a new cycle, of a new epoch. The barbarity of the senses, the ricorso, reveals poetic wisdom, creates myths, exposes fantasy and sheds light upon the woods through collective work, and everything converges to the creation of a common sense, a practical form of apprehending the world. Vico valued the historical role of the plebs and barbarians (who are poets and philosophers at the same time) in the ricorsi, at the beginning of the historical cycle, as the yeast for the new era would emerge from their knowledge and common sense. Vico’s conception of common sense reveals the importance of the masses’ leading role which can either stabilize an epoch or trigger a new historical phase. Vico considers that “the plebeians, always and in all nations, were responsible for changing states from aristocratic to popular, from popular to monarchic, and like Hellene, established the vulgar languages […]” (Vico 1844 [2006]: 617). Vico considered that the age of the return to barbarism had ended in the fourteenth century. Then, with the establishment of monarchies, the age of Man reappeared. But towards the middle of the eighteenth century, Vico glimpsed that he was standing at the door to a new beginning, a new barbarism, considering the direction that Europe was taking back then. It was the barbarity of reflection, with the distortion of common sense, with the loss of fantasy and the notion of common productive work and the predominance of deception, lust and voracity. Barbarism takes place with the improvement of civilization, when rationality is no longer articulated

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with other forms of intellect, such as imagination, fantasy, memory, when common sense is no longer the foundation of truth. Vico realized that a new era was approaching, which in the nineteenth century would be called capitalism or the bourgeois epoch. Even though he criticizes the abstract ideas of philosophers, detached from historical practice, Vico admired Plato’s concept of the Republic, but he concretely admired the Roman popular republic, as Machiavelli did. However, just as Machiavelli, Vico understood that his time was the time of the humanized absolute monarchy which could be preserved for longer if he considered common sense, in other words, popular culture. In Vico’s words Over the years, as human minds become more open, plebeians realized the futility of heroism [of the nobles], and understood that they were part of the same human nature as the nobles; and also desired to be part of the city’s civil order. (Vico 1844 [2006]: 662)

However, if common sense were to be disregarded in exchange for the refinement of culture and science, opening a gap between those endowed with power and exclusive knowledge, a new barbarism would have to begin. Vico’s intuition was how work is a human foundation as well as humanity’s ability to discover and transform the world (man as the sum of his own actions). He considered common sense to be a means of appropriating and discovering the world according to specific historical conditions, with language and images created to adapt to these conditions, and the plebs would fight for this right through their specific praxis.1 How would Gramsci translate Vico through Sorel? There are three ages in history, each one has its own characteristics which conform to the characteristics of the historical bloc. The passage from one to another occurs through the protagonism of the producers of common sense—the plebs—which includes the knowledge that guides productive work and thus produces a social praxis. Intellectual and moral reform is therefore, in

1 Cfr. Burke, Peter. Vico. São Paulo: Unesp, 1997; Sanna, Manuela. Vico. Roma, Carocci editore, 2016; Jennings, J. R. Sorel, Vico y Marx in: Vico y Marx: afinidades y contrastes. México, Fondo de Cultura Econòmica, 1990: 297–310. Ungari, Grazziela Pagliano. Sorel e Vico in: Bollettino del centro di studi vichiani, IV, 1974: 105–125; Cospito Giuseppe. Dialética e Storia in Vico. Milano: Ibis, 2019.

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Sorel’s conception, a shift in common sense that drives a new beginning, a new way of seeing and relating to the world, a new historical bloc. Although indications signal the veracity of this understanding, we cannot know for sure, given the insufficiency of available texts. Gramsci in the Prison Notebooks rarely mentions Vico, a brilliant intellectual at the periphery of Europe at that time. However, Gramsci observes that the Vichian notion of “verum ipso facto” derives, in Hegel and Marx, from the understanding of the dialectical relationship between knowing and doing, between the brain and the hand, which is at the origin of historical materialism (Gramsci 1975: 199 1060). It seems that Vico reached Gramsci after being heavily filtered by the interpretations from other subsequent intellectuals, nonetheless with impetus. The notions of common sense, of intellectual and moral reform, of the historical bloc, of hegemony are possibly deeply rooted in Vico’s historicism.

Vico at the Time of the Risorgimento and Liberal Monarchy (from Cuoco to Sorel) Vincenzo Cuoco, also from Napoli, was inspired by Vico but inverting his meanings and tried to explain the defeat of the Neapolitan revolution in 1799, arguing that popular common sense preferred to remain governed by the Church and the monarchy rather than support Jacobin revolutionaries. The revolutionaries carried the ideas of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, elements beyond common sense, which they were unable to establish dialogue with. Hence, it was a passive revolution, a revolution in which the political and intellectual ruling tiers should learn from the Enlightenment and still promote changes that respect the common sense of the masses and thus avoid turmoil. As is well known, common sense and passive revolution were important categories in Gramsci’s theoretical elaboration, although certainly in a different political and philological context (Cuoco 1999). Hegelian philosophy overlapped with Vico’s historicism in Italy’s Risorgimento as reasoning in opposition to common sense. The phenomenon of opposition between common sense and intellectual reason was manifested through popular resistance on the annexation of the Kingdom of Naples under Piedmont in 1861. Intellectuals agreed that the unification would be positive for the peninsula, however the peasants seemed to understand the colonial situation better providing a new

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meaning to the meridional issue. To them, Garibaldi was a conqueror, not a liberator of southern peasantry. The Vichian notion of common sense would constitute a reasonable definition for “culture”, the cement that holds people together, as the “religion of the layman”. Vico supported both the theologians’ religion and the Enlightenment’s reasoning, arguing that the knowledge of historical truth would exist in popular memory and imagination, in common sense. Francesco De Sanctis—Gramsci’s essential reference—in his Storia della letteratura italiana (1871), wrote about Vico giving him high value interpreting this author essentially as a critic of his time, who valued the protagonism of the masses despite the cloistered lifestyle he led. Vico’s historicism demonstrates the need for events, as “each historical age has its way of starting and existing, its own nature, by which it proceeds through the force of events, the vulgar wisdom of the human race, the common sense of the peoples, and the collective strength. (…)”. The artificer of history is “human agency regulated by vulgar wisdom” (De Sanctis 1963: 665–666). While De Sanctis published his history of literature (rather a history of Italian culture) for an Italy that was finally unified and in need of critical reasoning, in France the impact of the experience of the Paris Commune (1871) and the new phase of industrialization and urbanization—resulting in the growth of the working class—forced the ruling classes to invest in stabilizing their domain. From a liberal, conservative, Catholic sector, the discussion on facing the problems posed by bourgeois domination and the loss of the Church’s political power was also underway. The solution identified was to invest in social power and adaptation to capitalist conditions. Positivism and functionalism were very useful for the French bourgeoisie, but Catholic conceptions were also attentive to the new times. Ernest Renan was one of the intellectuals who intended to restore the Old Regime in an updated version, not necessarily going back to before 1789 or even to the period of the Bourbonic restoration from 1815 to 1830, a period which he admired. He intended to propose a constitutional monarchy strongly inspired by Prussia/Germany, to whom France had just lost a war. As a recognized scholar of the history of Christianity, Renan wrote a short essay entitled The Intellectual and Moral Reform (1871), in which he outlined a new beginning for France. The expression was very successful, but for some reason it does not appear in the text.

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He intended to instill a French national renaissance, which would only be possible in his conception, through serious opposition to democracy, socialism, as well as Catholicism, incapable of recognizing the new conditions of the time. The resumption would need to rescue military power in France and the principles of the aristocracy. France should be a monarchy with political representation chosen in two different levels and university education should have emphasis on science aimed at creating a new type of aristocracy and a cultured and qualified ruling class. Educational reform at all levels would be indispensable in this project of recycling the ruling class. The clergy would be responsible for adapting the common sense of dominated masses and urge their conformity. Besides Renan’s aristocratic origin, he was a racist and colonialist. The consolidation of the Third Republic implied the defeat of Renan’s aristocratic perspective and the victory of the “American” bourgeois perspective, as he defined it (Renan 1972). Renan’s vast work on the history of Christianity focused heavily on Georges Sorel, a French thinker and important reference in the labor movement of his time. In Sorel’s analysis of Renan’s work, he highlights the revolutionary significance of the rupture in Judaism from which Christianity emerged as an intellectual and moral reform that altered common sense. Renan was calling for a new intellectual and moral reform capable of rescuing primitive Christianity that perceives need for charity. This would be one of Vico’s corso and ricorso theory views, the beginning and resumption of the historical process. In 1864, Pope Pius IX described the “80 errors of modernity”—called the Syllabus of Errors—which under this rational would tend to spread in the wake of the French Revolution, including the “errors” of rationalism, scientism, liberalism and socialism. This manifestation from the Church was completed in 1870, at the Vatican Council declaring Papal infallibility. The Church reacts as it did in the counter-reformation of the sixteenth century and the liberal secular reform fails. Thus, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, a clear opposition between the Republic and religion appears in France, just as in Italy the liberal national state opposes the Church. There is also a reaction against scientific positivism, the so-called religion of humanity. The myth of the nation, nationalism, thus begins. Sorel opposes both the Church and the bourgeois Republic. The ricorso should not carry dogma, it should result from the creativity of the masses, from their practical common sense, as a scission spirit, as an intellectual

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and moral reform. Primitive Christianity would inspire a new order more than scientism will be able to (Sorel 1905). Before that, within the context of the so-called debate on revisionism (Galastri 2015), Sorel placed Vico in the discussion he had with Croce and Labriola. These were two important writings for the subsequent development of his conceptions and a definite rupture with the reformism of “orthodox Marxism”. In 1896, in Devenir Social, Sorel published a series of three texts about Vico, highlighting the conception of history as a product of man himself. Soon after, in June 1898, he published another paper in the German revisionist journal Sozialist Monatshefte, when the distance he nurtured towards the economistic understanding of Marx’s work becomes more evident. Vico was rescued by Georges Sorel as an instrument of criticism towards the Cartesian subjectivism and the Enlightenment, and especially of what he considered to be mistakes or limitation in Marx’s conceptions, including his theory on values and dialectics. It is possible that Vico aroused Sorel’s interest through Marx or Labriola, but the fact is that Sorel’s revisionism turned to the importance of organizing the proletariat from a material and moral point of view relying on common sense as a starting point, including religious beliefs and values, in order to highlight the split against the bourgeoisie and wage the class struggle, which would be nurtured by the myth of the general strike for the implementation of the advocated moral and intellectual reform. Socialism could not be seen as a science, but as a “social poetry”, a new language of a heroic era, according the Vichian interpretation. Fantasy, customs and economy should be the foundations of moral and intellectual reform. The violence implicit in ricorsi would lead the proletariat into a historical cycle ruled by conscience and morality, where reason and duty would harmonize. The social practice of the unions, driven by the myth of the general strike, would be the means for the self-organization and self-education of workers with the creation of new historical images and a new morality for producers, towards a new social order (Jennings 1990: 297–310). The content of Sorel’s elaboration on moral and intellectual reform is much more suited to Vico than to Renan, as can be seen in the preceding lines, but Sorel’s characteristic polemic style indicates a new elaboration in this category. New beginnings could be attempted through the split and class struggle and a new morality could be built around the myth of the general strike. Sorel, in 1905, mentioned the following about ricorsi:

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“it happens when the popular soul returns to its primitive state, and everything in society becomes instinctive, creative, poetic” (Sorel 1919: 66). The reform topic was strong in the Italian intellectual scene, encouraged by Croce and Sorel. In fact, Missiroli pointed out the limits of Risorgimento in the absence of an intellectual and moral reform, a Protestant-style religious reform. The problem was discussed by authors such as Guido Dorso and Piero Gobetti, who proposed a secular, liberal and democratic reform. In fact, it was the late content of the French debate after the Franco-Prussian War. Sorel’s influence was quite important in Italy, but translations of his writings are scarce. Among many books, the following appeared in Italian: Considerazioni sulla violenza, Bari, Laterza, 1909, which received a new edition in 1926, and Le illusioni del progress, Milano, Sandron, 1910. In 1936, under the fascist dictatorship, La decomposizione del marxismo, Turin, UTET was published. The number of papers, however, was very significant, including two posthumous papers: “Ultima meditazione (Unpublished posthumous script)”, Nuova Antologia, 1928, and “Germanesimo e storicismo di Ernesto Renan”, La crìtica, XXIX, 1931.

Gramsci and Sorel Before Prison In Notebook 14, § 26, page 1682–86, Gramsci recalls that Sorel’s writing published in 1931, in the La critica journal should have been a preface to Renan’s book, La Réforme intellectuelle et morale, which Missiroli had committed to translate and which would be published in 1915. With the beginning of the war, the publication was suspended due to Renan’s philo-germanic stance. In the same paragraph, Gramsci summarizes the origin of the discussion on intellectual and moral reform, which, according to Sorel, began with Proudhon. In any case, this debate took place in the Italy of the Risorgimento, albeit from a strand that mixed the political and religious affairs of the Church. Luckily, the moral and intellectual reform conception seems to have been familiar to Gramsci for quite a while. In Italy, appointing the period of the bourgeois revolution as the Risorgimento clearly suggests the ricorso concept, signaling a new beginning for the Italians, as if the Italian people had existed since ancient Rome.

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Gramsci was certainly closer to Sorel’s thought in his Turin period (1911–1921) and perhaps may have read many of Sorel’s original reflections in French. Mainly from 1917 to 1919, with Sorel’s lenses, Gramsci interpreted the revolution unfolding in Russia. With the experience of the factory councils, Gramsci’s predominant understanding was that the working class, their knowledge, and experience, as well their protagonism, would be the basis for the emergence of a new social order based on the emancipation of labor. Moral and intellectual reform would find impetus through the common sense forged by the experience of work. The intellectuals in favor of this new beginning should join the movement and strive to provide an organic nature to the set of often disconnected existing ideas and thus reinforce the scission spirit towards the existing order. On the path to Lenin and Marx, Sorel and Vico’s echoes can be heard! (Del Roio 2017). Thus, an expression used by Renan was reestablished by Sorel and once again by Gramsci as a theoretical category, which was ultimately articulated around Vico’s historicist concepts, and especially his understanding of the importance of common sense as a platform for a new beginning in history. In a brief paper from early 1916, Gramsci references Vico. Based on an expression from Solon and later adopted by Socrates, the “know thyself”, Vico suggests—according to Gramsci—that Solon wanted to advise the plebeians who believed they had bestial origins, while the nobles had divine origins, to reflect upon themselves and recognize themselves as beings with equal human nature when compared to the nobles, which would therefore include them equally in civil law. And then he places this awareness of human equality between plebeians and nobles as the basis and historical reasoning for the emergence of democratic republics in Antiquity. (Gramsci 1973b: 67–68)

The proletariat’s awareness and establishment of a new culture, considered as self-discipline and higher consciousness, appear to be the very condition for socialism. Gramsci does not distance himself from this perspective in Prison Notebooks, but develops a more elaborate and sophisticated reflection, re-elaborating this reflection with more substantial support from Marx. But, in fact, it is possible that more from Vico and Sorel persisted than is generally estimated. From common sense, Gramsci still envisions the possibility of creative and critical elements pointing

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towards the future (or to a new beginning). Considering the need to establish the worker-peasant alliance in Italy, Gramsci focused on the meridional question, which implied the resolution of the agrarian matter and also decisively highlighted the problem with the intellectuals. In the draft essay on this topic, Gramsci did not exactly cover the themes of common sense and moral and intellectual reform, except for quick references (and he did not use these terms). In the prison letters, especially in the first few months, Gramsci pays more attention to the cultural diversity of prison groups. It is probable that at this point, the elaboration presented in the draft by Lenin influenced Gramsci’s reflection. In 1921, Russia was devastated and isolated. Economic and social regression was a fact. Lenin then noticed the possibility of guaranteeing the revolutionary course by rescuing the peasant tradition of community life and self-governance. The proposal to organize Russian social life in cooperatives had this meaning, but the leap to the future would depend on the gradual introduction of machines in agriculture and cultural elevation of the peasant masses. The construction of hegemony among the working class would depend to a great extent on the success of this endeavor (Lenin 1923).

Gramsci and Common Sense In a letter written in Moscow, dated March 29, 1923, of which only a fragment is available, Gramsci suggests that the Party prepare a biweekly publication. of political content of the English type “Common Sense” (common sense), which deals with the national and international problems of the working class from a substantially communist point of view, but with an objective form, of information and disinterested discussion. The title “Senso Comune” could be your title and it could be …. a program. (Gramsci 1992: 114)

This publication failed to materialize, but the simple Gramsci’s suggestion Gramsci is enough to show the importance of this issue, even if the indicative of common sense as a program remains obscured. Perhaps could be helpful to explain this question to highlight a letter sent by Gramsci to his sister-in-law Tatiana Schucht, on March 19, 1927, where he states that the element that unifies his study plan is “the popular

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creative spirit” (Gramsci 1996: 57). Now even if it wasn’t repeated in this way, how could someone not see Vico and Sorel’s echoes in this expression? In Prison Notebooks, even though the exact expression did not return, the “popular creative spirit” topic that reorganizes cultural tradition is addressed in several passages, as if it were the search for an answer to the question of how to scrutinize common sense for the elements to kick off towards the moral and intellectual reform that would produce a new hegemony within a new historical bloc, or that could link the spontaneous action of the masses towards conscious direction. Gramsci’s answer clearly indicates that an opposition should not exist between common sense and scientific and critical consciousness, just as there should not be an opposition between spontaneous consciousness and conscious guidance. Thus, Gramsci considers that there is a fundamental theoretical question in this regard: can modern theory be opposed to the “spontaneous” feelings of the masses? (“spontaneous” in the sense that the feelings have not come from systematic educational activity by an already conscious leading group, but that were formed through everyday experience enlightened by “common sense”, i.e., according to popular traditional concepts of the world, which can prudently be called “instinct”, although this is also a primitive and elementary historical acquisition). (Gramsci 1975: 3 48 330–331)

Leaders emerge from spontaneous awareness, they arise from the creative capacity of the masses—in summary, the popular creative spirit. But leadership means the capacity for self-discipline and the capacity to generate discipline, an indispensable element for creating a “scission spirit” towards the dominant social order. Gramsci explains: The scission spirit is the progressive acquisition of awareness of one’s own historical personality, a scission spirit that should be extended from the protagonist class to the potential allied classes: all this demands complex ideological work, and the initial condition for this is the exact knowledge of the field to be emptied of its mass element. (Gramsci 1975: 3 48 333)

Conscious direction and the scission spirit are rooted in common sense (or a specific common sense) and appear in a “spontaneously”. Gramsci suggests that “The ‘spontaneous’ movements of the broader popular strata make it possible for the more advanced subaltern class to come

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to power, due to the objective weakening of the state” (Gramsci 1975: 3 48 332). Common sense is, therefore, the ideological complex of the subaltern classes, which can trigger “spontaneous” rebellious movements based exactly on cultural elements with a religious and prophetic background, which generate their own leaders. However, he perceives common sense through another view, since most often it is a disconnected set of beliefs that have accumulated and suffered disfiguration over time, which can represent a religion and a worldview that conditions a restrictive and conservative social practice. For Gramsci, strictly speaking, folklore corresponds to the study of popular culture seen from the outside, as a scientific object, as a cultural manifestation of subaltern social groups. In fact, it should be studied as a “conception of the world and of life”, implicit to a large extent, of certain layers (determined in time and space) of society, in contrast (also implicit, mechanical, objective) with the concepts of the “official” world (or in a broader sense, of the cultured parts of society that are historically determined). (Gramsci 1975: 27 1 2311)

Although the subaltern classes cannot go beyond common sense—their own ideological complex—it is through folklore or cultural manifestations that the memory and history of these groups can be observed, even if in a fragmented and contaminated manner. Especially regarding morals and customs, Gramsci considers that in this sphere, several layers can be distinguished: fossilized layers that reflect past life conditions and are conservative and reactionary, and layers that represent a series of innovations, often creative and progressive, spontaneously determined by forms and conditions of life in the process of development and that are in contradiction, or simply different, from the morals of the ruling layers. (Gramsci 1975: 27 1 2313)

It is therefore a matter of criticizing common sense (and folklore) and developing the moral and intellectual reform based on popular culture and then promoting mass intellectual progress, with the purpose of diluting the division between intellectuals and non-intellectuals.

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Gramsci and Bourgeois Intellectual and Moral Reform Regardless of the origin of this expression, the fact is that the intellectual and moral reform topic was recurrent in Europe after 1870. Sorel himself supported the idea that this notion was present in Proudhon. The existing proposals in Italy for a reform were present in the Catholic world, but the debate mainly criticized the Church and Catholicism as its main expression. The idea of a late Protestant reform in Italy proposed by Missiroli was unfeasible. Liberalism seemed to be the only possible reform, a secular reform. The fundamental problem pointed out by Gramsci was that this would be a reform limited to the ruling classes, an ideology inducing some sort of passive revolution, since it would not have any reasonable connection with the common sense of the masses, unless it yielded to Catholicism and maintained the duality of ruling class ideology and subaltern class ideology. In fact, historical experience reveals other partial but more successful cultural reforms. Although the Renaissance had an initially progressive strand, always present in Gramsci’s analysis, the conservative strand prevailed, and thus, the Renaissance was a cultural reform of a late feudalism and did cause a ricorso. The counter-reformation ensured that the Renaissance in Italy was limited to aristocratic strata and that the positive effects of this movement were manifested in other countries, including the contributions from the Italians. This resulted from the fact that the medieval Italian bourgeoisie did not know how to leave the corporate phase to enter a political phase because they did not know how to be free from the medieval-cosmopolitan conception represented by the Pope, clergy and the secular intellectuals (humanists), i.e., they did not know how to create an autonomous state, but instead remained within the feudal and cosmopolitan medieval framework. (Gramsci 1975: 5 127 658)

It was outside of Italy that the Renaissance was joined by the religious Reformation and acquired a popular and progressive meaning. The Protestant Reformation unfolded as a change in common sense. The principles supported by Luther and Calvin were not expressed through high culture or sophisticated philosophies but spread to various regions of

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Europe. Valuing labor and an austere lifestyle encouraged the principle of accumulation, which would be crucial for the emergence of capitalism. Likewise, with the defeat of Machiavelli’s theoretical political perspective and the subsequent stagnation of the Italian peninsula, commerce, states, science, and culture developed elsewhere. Changes in common sense and intellectual and moral reform culminated in classical German philosophy, English liberalism and the French Revolution. The spread of liberal secularism was considered heresy by the Church of Rome. Bourgeois hegemony became stronger where the Protestant religion and liberalism became rooted in common sense and an organizer of civil society. However, because the bourgeois order presents an intrinsic contradiction, hegemony also means class domination and moral and intellectual difference. In spaces where common sense has had difficulty in absorbing the ideal worldview of the bourgeoisie, hegemony tends to be much weaker and sensitive elements of ancient common sense prevail. However, Catholic intellectuals tend to seek the reconciliation between religious faith and modern science, as per the bourgeois perspective, so that the Church can adapt and survive. The Italian Risorgimento turned out to be a passive revolution, a reflection of the French revolution. In a passive revolution, there is no intellectual and moral reform setting the foundation for a new era, as that demands a fundamental change in common sense which only occurs if intellectuals are linked to the popular masses, if they understand and develop their language and practical knowledge and if the transition from knowing to understanding occurs. A historical bloc, a theoretical category suitable for understanding reality, rarely appears in Prison Notebooks, but is still of great importance. Gramsci even says he follows Sorel’s reflections, although the term is not found in Sorel’s writings. Gramsci may have rescued the following passage from the book Reflections on Violence from his memory, which, while referring to the myths of the modern age, says one should not try to analyze such image systems as objects that are decomposed into elements. They must be considered a bloc of historical forces, and above all, one should avoid comparing them to facts that occurred with representations that were accepted before the action. (Sorel 1909 [1993]: 26)

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In Q. 11, the historical bloc describes a democratic situation, in which there is a noticeable relationship between leaders and those they direct. Those leaders are based on popular common sense, providing the link between intellectuals and the people. Gramsci argues that If the relationship between intellectuals and people-nation, between leaders and the led, between rulers and the ruled, occurs through organic adhesion in which the feeling-passion becomes understanding and knowledge (not mechanically, but in a manner that is alive), there lies the true representation of the relationship, and the exchange of individual elements between those governed and their governors, between leaders and those led, and thus the collective life which is the only social force, the “historical bloc” is created. (Gramsci 1975: 11 67 1505–1506)

Gramsci thus presents the conditions for a historical bloc to be structured around a solid hegemony. Since the bourgeois epoch—even in the regions where it was most deeply implanted—did not achieve this feat of an extreme democracy, one can imagine that Gramsci already considered the beginning of the construction of a new hegemony, a new historical bloc, requiring profound intellectual and moral reform based on changes in the social relations of production. The notion of a historical bloc is once again mentioned in Q. 13 § 10, this time as an alternative to oppose the Crocean understanding of politics as an element of the superstructure. Croce, in his attempt to tell an ethical–political story, considered infrastructure only a “hidden god” and in fact, according to Gramsci, the story he tells is speculative. Therefore, Croce cannot frame science and political action as anything other than a moment of the spirit. Following this train of thought, Gramsci considered that in a philosophy of praxis, the dialectical position of politics must be apprehended between the degrees of the superstructure and “that political activity is in fact the first moment, the first degree, when the superstructure is still in the immediate phase of mere indistinct and elementary voluntary affirmation” (Gramsci 1975: 13 10 1569). But this truth is partial, as the philosophy of praxis considers that there is an identity between politics and history, as history cannot be made only as an ethical–political, spiritual history, but also as infrastructure, as an economy. For this reason, politics is both history and economics. Therefore, the concept of a historical bloc is more explanatory, encompassing structure and superstructure as a dialectical unit.

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In a letter written on May 9, 1932, to Tatiana Schucht, Gramsci wrote a critical comment on Croce’s ethical–political conception of history, which would be a speculative story in fact. However, If a story about Europe can be written as the formation of a historical bloc, this cannot exclude the French revolution and the Napoleonic wars, which in the European historical bloc are the “economic-legal” premise, the moment of strength and struggle. (Gramsci 1996b: 573)

Croce and Sorel participated in the revisionist debate of the late nineteenth century, and both these authors had a great deal of influence on Gramsci’s thought. In Prison Notebooks, he maintains critical dialogue with both, but Croce was chosen as his main adversary, appointed as the great intellectual of the bourgeois order. It is worth noting how Gramsci almost always anchors himself in Sorel when criticizing Croce and how he consistently defends Sorel. In fact, his criticism towards Sorel is presented differently as someone who is in the same field of class struggle. Gramsci, considers that Sorel’s greatest limit is his denial of revolutionary politics, limiting himself to the economic-corporate dimension of the class struggle and thus falling back into the bourgeois liberal conception of the separation between civil society and the state, which ends up contradicting the notion of a historical bloc developed by Gramsci (1975: 13 18 1590–1591). But it is important to notice this criticism to Sorel and syndicalism, however, was not new, as Gramsci already realized the problem in 1918, when he stated that The division between politics and economics, between organism and social environment, for us is nothing more than a theoretical abstraction of the empirical, all-practical need to provisionally break the active social unity to better study it, to better understand it. When analyzing a phenomenon, we see constricted, by need of study, to reduce the so-called elements, each, which are actually no more than the same phenomenon seen at one moment before another, with the worry of one particular end rather than another. (Gramsci 1973k: 154)

So, it is remarkable how Gramsci makes use of theoretical categories elaborated or re-selected by Sorel to criticize him and move on with a new category version, as a living philology. This management of Sorel’s

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thought even created a counter-contraction in the theoretical lye, considering that the notion of historical block aims to make up the social totality in which the separation between economy and politics dissolves. This is also an evidence of the continuity of the Gramsci’s thought against who suppose the Notebooks Prison be a kind of rupture.

Gramsci and the Struggle for a New Intellectual and Moral Reform Gramsci believed that social practice and common sense generated in the world of labor could be the origin of a new beginning. More than any other ideology, Marxism could establish this new common sense, admittedly quite vulgar at first, but capable of nurturing the collective will under development with a transforming myth, a myth of a new beginning, carried on by the “Modern Prince”, the anticipator of the new order. The destruction of subaltern common sense in its various facets and the construction of a new hegemony would be the mission of intellectual and moral reform that would overcome the separation between the common sense of the subaltern masses and the culture and science of intellectuals from privileged classes. The new hegemony, based on the emancipation of labor, would represent the vision of man as part of the world which is in turn man made (and known), such as the philosophy of praxis. Gramsci discusses how the labor movement gained organizational strength with the Socialist International and how Marxism spread as an ideology of the proletariat. However, Gramsci openly criticizes this ideology, noticing some intrusions in it whether from philosophical materialism or idealism, although the mix with traditional materialism is more important. Thus, Marxism continued to be a subaltern class ideology, a subaltern ideology. But how could this trajectory of the philosophy of praxis be explained? Gramsci attempts to explain it: A historical reason might exist in the fact that the philosophy of praxis had to establish an alliance with strange trends in order to fight against the residues of the pre-capitalist world among the popular masses, especially in the religious field. The philosophy of praxis had two tasks: to fight against modern ideologies in their most refined forms, to establish their

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own group of independent intellectuals, and educate the popular masses, whose culture was medieval. (Gramsci 1975: 16 9 1857–1858)

The task of educating the masses absorbed a lot of energy, so the new philosophy was combined into a form of culture that was slightly higher than the popular average (which was very low), but inadequate to fight against the ideologies of the educated classes, while the new philosophy was born precisely to overcome the highest cultural manifestation of time, classical German philosophy, and to raise a group of intellectuals belonging to the new social group establishing a worldview. (Gramsci 1975: 16 9 1858)

This is how a vulgar Marxism emerged, with the essential characteristics of naturalism, mechanism, economic determinism and elements representative of a subaltern ideology. While fighting against idealism, Gramsci turned to criticizing Croce’s thought and positioned himself against the mechanism and economism that was evidenced in Bukharin’s Saggio Popolare. Regarding Bukharin’s book, Gramsci highlights a decisive element which is the absence of a discussion on dialectics. He yields to common sense and vulgar thought because the problem was not posed in exact theoretical terms and thus is practically disarmed and powerless. The inadequate and crude environment dominated the educator, the vulgar common sense imposed itself on science and not vice versa: if the environment is the educator, it must in turn be educated, as Marx wrote, but Saggio Popolare does not understand this revolutionary dialectic. (Gramsci 1975: 729 877)

In fact, for the philosophy of praxis, the required contact between intellectuals and simple [people] is not intended to limit scientific activity and maintain a low-level unity of the masses, but to build a moral intellectual bloc that may politically enable mass intellectual progress, not merely among small groups of intellectuals. (Gramsci 1975: 11 12 1384–1385)

Therefore, mass intellectual progress bridges the gap between intellectuals and the people, between those who know and those who do not, and points towards an understanding among individuals and social groups of themselves. This occurs “through a struggle of political ‘hegemonies’

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of contrasting directions, first in the field of ethics then in politics, to achieve a superior elaboration of the very conception of reality” (Gramsci 1975: 11 12 1385). Gramsci recognizes that even as vulgar Marxism spreads among the masses they may come to believe that socialism is inevitable and that it is the future, even though the present consists of pain and suffering, it has a positive bias and resembles the Protestant Reformation that began with discussions of low cultural and intellectual level, but reached its peak in German classical philosophy and, to a certain extent, in French Jacobinism. The issue Gramsci posed is how to proceed with an intellectual moral reform that would involve the popular masses from the start. Of course, this intention requires using common sense as a starting point, the science of common sense from practical experience, precisely with the purpose of making the philosophy of praxis a new common sense, where there would no longer be opposition between the knowledge of the wise and the knowledge of the simple people. A complex process of building a new hegemony, a new vision of how to discover and build the world of men, the content of a new historical bloc. But what would be the subject of this transformation? To discuss this issue, Gramsci summons Machiavelli and Sorel as his main counterparts. First, he suggests that the Machiavellian Prince can be seen as a myth capable of gathering the collective will aimed at establishing a new state, for a new beginning, even if it isn’t real, just as the myth of the general strike is not real for Sorel. The Prince is therefore a concrete fantasy. Gramsci tries to interpret Machiavelli through Sorel’s (corrected) lenses, a Sorel that was heavily influenced by Vico. Sorel understood that in the union, there was the expression of a collective will that was antagonistic to the order, which promoted an intellectual and moral reform and would gain more and more strength with the practical action encouraged through the myth of the general strike. However, there would be no way to predict and plan the profile of this new order to be built after an explosive event (even if primitive Christianity was seen as the previous recourse where a new recourse was about to begin, due to the action of the proletariat). Gramsci’s criticism is precisely aimed at Sorel’s theoretical stance that denies the need for the prediction/program dialectic. Gramsci considers this to be decisive as the knowledge of reality means knowledge of the movement of reality where collective will is an essential element, and may,

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to a certain extent, condition how things move. This measure represents the correlation of contradictory forces that dictate the movement. The question then becomes how to erect the collective will. The prediction/program, the knowledge that understands and transforms the world in practical terms, is political. The collective will develops spontaneously, but in terms, as it actually develops as consciousness based on elements existing in common sense. The dialectical movement that forms corporate and group consciences occurs or should occur, even within the existing order, until the issue of hegemony is theoretically and practically posed, in other words, how a social group establishes a new way of gathering other groups with other forms of organizing production and comprehending the world, conceiving and producing science. This dialectical movement must, however, be guided towards overcoming the existing hegemony and establishing a new hegemony, a new historical epoch. This movement is intertwined with the achievement of “integral autonomy” as “a manifestation of the Sorelian ‘scission spirit’” (Gramsci 1975: 25 5 2288). The historical movement can be guided by a myth like The Prince. The myth is the representation of a collective will under construction. The defeat of Machiavelli’s program/prediction was decisive for the defeat of the popular strand of the Renaissance, but French Jacobinism would be the most notable moment for popular national expression. Here, once again, it can be underscored as an ideology that binds and transforms common sense, as it appears as capable of manifesting itself as a new beginning, even though it undergoes a phase of subordination. The myth of a new Prince, of a modern Prince, must result from collective action. Thus, the revolutionary party appears to be the result of a historical experience of the working class’ struggle, which expresses “the will as an active awareness of historical needs, as the protagonist of a real and effective historical drama” (Gramsci 1975: 13 1 1559). The modern Prince representing organized collective will must be the expression of a historical experience, he must be the operator uniting experience and conscience, with the objective of unleashing an intellectual and moral reform which overcomes the ideologies that preserve the masses’ subordination through religion or metaphysical philosophies. At the heart of intellectual and moral reform is the transformation of social relations and the material production process. Economic reform is the means through which the intellectual and moral reform is carried out. Furthermore, intellectual and moral reform builds a new hegemony and

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a new historical bloc. The philosophy of praxis arises from the critical common sense of the masses, from the “popular creative spirit”, but a new common sense is created by appropriating high culture and science to promote a new way of knowing and understanding the world. Gramsci indicated that intellectual and moral reform should be a synthesis between the Reform and Renaissance constituting a popular movement with the highest cultural standards.

Conclusion The intention of this chapter was to outline how the categories of common sense, the historical bloc and intellectual and moral reform have significant importance in Gramsci’s theoretical construction. This importance can be demonstrated by the relationship established with other categories, such as hegemony, and by analyzing the origins of these categories, with strong noticeable presence of authors such as Vico, Renan and Sorel. It is true that other categories also appear in this movement transiting from the simplest to most complex, such as the Modern Prince, Jacobinism and the organic intellectual. Although they are only mentioned superficially during this section, they will be further discussed ahead.

Gramsci and Machiavelli: Jacobinism Mediating the Prince’s Movement

The Problem Gramsci lamented that four centuries after Machiavelli’s death, the teachings of his short book The Prince, produced in 1513, hadn’t yet become common sense, in other words, had not yet been incorporated by the popular masses. He would say that It should be noted, however, that Machiavelli’s stance on the issue of politics (the implicit statement in his writings that politics is an autonomous activity and that its principles and laws differ from those of morals and religion, a proposition that has great philosophical dimensions because it implicitly innovates the conception of morals and religion, it innovates the entire conception of the world) is still discussed and contradicted till this day, and it has not managed to reach the “common sense”. (Gramsci 1975: 13 20 1599)

In fact, this meant that the Catholic Church’s widespread view of Machiavelli and his work still predominated among the popular masses. For the Church, Machiavelli’s scientific and literary work confronted Christian morality, and its conception of power and his writings were considered amoral, cynical and evil (when in fact these were attributes of the Church of Rome at least in the beginning of the sixteenth century), as

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Del Roio, Gramsci and the Emancipation of the Subaltern Classes, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90777-8_6

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if to say that politics was not for the masses, for the common man. Liberalism partially accepted Machiavelli insofar as he observes the existence of man as selfish and proud, who as a merchant, anticipates and expresses the virtues of the bourgeoisie and the nation state. However, the Machiavelli that favors revolutionary violence and discipline of the powerful is unacceptable. Gramsci draws various elements for his initial reflection on Machiavelli from Hegel and Croce, include the state as a fulfillment of ethics and freedom and the concept of political autonomy. But why is Machiavelli so important to Gramsci after all? Machiavelli has been a central character in Gramscian reflection since before his time in prison and his prison work. The decisive role played for centuries by the Church as the political and ideological power made the issue of the intellectuals and their relationship with the people essential for Gramsci, and Machiavelli’s contribution was indispensable for this purpose. The persistent domination of Catholic ideology over the popular masses and the moderate liberalism of the ruling classes made the possibility of a popular democratic revolution in nineteenth-century Italy very difficult. This persisted under fascist period of domination and Machiavelli could indicate paths for a project that would transcend the problems and vices accumulated after two successive waves of passive revolutions, the Risorgimento and Fascism. Machiavelli had been an intellectual who opposed the political and ideological power of the Church and was a greater reference more than any other in Italy. Machiavelli’s defeat had been the defeat of Italy, which had slipped into a state of feudal regression and persistent ecclesiastical power. The defeat of the factory councils in 1920 and the Communist Party thereafter led Gramsci to establish dialogue with Machiavelli about the reasons for successive defeats, including Machiavelli’s own defeat, starting with Jacobinism in the Risorgimento and now with the revolutionary political movement of the working class. Gramsci’s comprehension of Machiavelli highlights the establishment of a new state and the revolution. Thus, Machiavelli is not only a defeated character in the concrete historical circumstances Italy was undergoing at the beginning of the sixteenth century, but he is an author, a philosopher of praxis, who anticipates French Jacobinism, Marx and Lenin, where the latter represent a contemporary example of a philosopher of praxis capable of conducting a revolutionary process and establishing a new state. Gramsci interrogates Machiavelli about the defeats in Italy as well the reasons for the victories in France and Russia. The mediation point is

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present in Jacobinism, in space and time, as it presents historical defeats in Italy and victories in different times and spaces in other countries. The choice of the Jacobin prince theme as the object of this chapter is explained as a possible route to subtract universal elements of influence for Gramscian reflection.

Gramsci About Jacobinism and the Russian Revolution Jacobinism appears as a strong theme for Gramsci as he monitors the revolutionary process in Russia. In 1917, Gramsci was still in the theoretical field of left-wing revisionism, which criticized the Marxist ideology that was crystallized in most of the Second International. It is worth remembering that Marxism had been established as a workers’ movement ideology as a subaltern class as it failed to overcome the high bourgeois culture and still incorporate elements from it that we could consider positivists in a broad sense. Even among socialist intellectuals, neo-Kantianism was also successful in propagating socialism as a movement that was limited to a single ethical possibility. Gramsci, in turn, in addition to the influence of Croce’s philosophy, was very close to Sorel’s conception of class struggle. In sum, for Sorel, the state, the bureaucracy, the army, the Church, the parties, the political class, the intellectuals, would all be agents of the bourgeoisie’s class domination over workers. Therefore, it would be necessary to nurture the “scission spirit” among workers towards capital and its instruments of domination and anything related to politics. Thus, the workers would gather and cultivate their antagonistic autonomy to conceive a new productive format and a new culture. The fundamental mechanism in the struggle to gather the class would be the myth of the general strike. The difference was that Gramsci accepted and even conceived the workers’ party as the embryo of a new state, an idea that later, while in prison, would be developed with the modern prince concept. Gramsci was concerned about the autonomy of ISP as an antagonistic force, as it is, like cited before, a potential State that is maturing, antagonistic to the bourgeois State. In its daily struggle against the latter, it intends to create the bodies to overcome and absorb it, through the development of its internal dialectic. (Gramsci 1973a: 56)

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Gramsci’s understanding of the revolutionary events in Russia and the Bolsheviks’ action is influenced by this background of anti-Jacobinism. Jacobinism at the time was not considered a revolutionary group in 1793, as the vanguard of the masses, as an organic political mediation for popular purposes. Instead, Sorel’s vision was considered it an intellectual political group that replaces the masses and acts on their behalf, establishing the foundations for a new form of domination. Gramsci’s understanding of the Russian revolution in 1917 from the very start indicates the value given to the action of the proletariat as an act of culture and radical antagonism. In Gramsci’s assessment, “the Russian revolution ignored Jacobinism. The revolution must overthrow the autocracy, it must not conquer the majority with violence. Jacobinism is a purely bourgeois phenomenon, which characterizes the bourgeois revolution in France”. In this revolution, “the bourgeoisie imposes its strength and its ideas not only on the formerly dominant caste, but also on the people it is ready to dominate” (Gramsci 1973e: 110). On the other hand, “because the Russian revolutionaries are not Jacobins, they did not replace the dictatorship of a single leader by the dictatorship of a bold minority, determined to do what it takes to make their program triumph”. Gramsci believes that the outcome of the process must be a socialist revolution because “the industrial proletariat is already prepared for the transition culturally as well: the agricultural proletariat knows the primitive forms of communal communism and is also prepared for the transition to a new form of society”. In other words, in Russia the revolution created a new culture. It not only substituted power with power, it substituted customs, it created a new moral atmosphere, established freedom of spirit in addition to the freedom of bodies. (Gramsci 1973e: 110–111)

Months later, in July, Gramsci emphasizes once again that the greatest virtue of the revolution underway in Russia was that it had ignored Jacobinism, so much so that the revolution never stops, it’s cycle never ends. It devours its men replacing one group with another that is more daring. It is because of this instability, this never-achieved perfection solely that it is truly a revolution. (Gramsci 1973f: 116)

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Bourgeois Jacobinism is the autonomy of politics, it is the dispute for power between subdue groups, but as the Russian revolutionary process is an expression of universal tendencies, it is an act of collective culture, and the revolution is continuous. All of life becomes truly revolutionary; it is an ever-present activity, a continual exchange, a constant excavation in the amorphous block of the people. New energies emerge, new force-ideas are propagated. Thus, all men are essentially artisans of their destiny. It is impossible for despotic minorities to be established. (Gramsci 1973f: 117)

Although the idealization of the Russian revolution is quite evident, in this text Gramsci underscores the role that Lenin and the Bolsheviks had as the group that looked beyond and more deeply towards socialist transformation, since they are convinced that it is possible to achieve socialism at every moment. They are nourished by Marxist thought. They are revolutionaries, not evolutionists. And revolutionary thinking denies time as a factor of progress. (Gramsci 1973f: 116)

In January of the following year, Gramsci returned to the topic of the Russian revolution, now with the Bolsheviks in power. Gramsci’s polemic style provokes the reader by claiming that the revolution was against Capital, the great lesson taught by Marx. In fact, Gramsci addresses the economistic readings critically, broadly present in the socialist movement at that time, and thus, the statement that seems to be his, is actually not, and the exact opposite is true, since the Bolsheviks reject concepts of Economism, they do not deny the “immanent, life-giving thought” in Marx’s Capital (Gramsci 1973g: 131). The essential element was that in Russia a collective social will had been created and the backwardness of material conditions could be quickly overcome, without the need for a whole phase of development in a capitalist manner. And the great virtue of the Bolsheviks was that they avoided Jacobinism. In Gramsci’s writings shortly after the dissolution of the constituent assembly, he considered that this act “is not just an episode of Jacobin violence”, since “Jacobinism is an all-bourgeois phenomenon, of such minorities also potentially”. But “a minority that is sure that it will

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become an absolute majority, if possible even the absolute majority of citizens, then it cannot be Jacobin, it cannot have a perpetual dictatorship as a program” (Gramsci 1973h: 152–153). Although limited by the information available, it is evident how Gramsci hesitates and refuses to identify the Jacobin appearance with the essence of events and justifies Bolshevik action. He considered that this is how it was possible to recognize that “the Russian proletariat offered us an initial model for the direct representation of the producers: the soviet. Now sovereignty has returned to the soviets” (Gramsci 1973h: 152). In the wealthy experience of the nucleated factory councils in the city of Turin, Gramsci’s conception of the scission spirit continued to be present, but his distrust and discomfort towards the socialist party increased, which had become entangled in the meshes of institutional politics in the bourgeois state. Gramsci’s practical experience, from a theoretical point of view, kept him closer to Sorel and Rosa Luxemburg than to the Bolshevik influence, which would later become stronger and more decisive due to the severe defeat of the Italian labor movement.

The Issue with the Revolutionary Party Gramsci’s problem now was how to merge the establishment of a revolutionary party with its previous intellectual tradition and associate this act with the experience of the Russian revolution. Gramsci and the L’Ordine Nuovo group were a minority in the establishment of the Italian Communist Party at a time when the strand led by Amadeo Bordiga prevailed. However, Gramsci was appointed to be part of the Italian delegation at the IV Congress of the Communist International held in Moscow at the end of 1922 and would remain so for about a year. 1923 was crucial for Gramsci’s theoretical elaboration. The experience he acquired in the USSR allowed him to become better acquainted with the theory and practice developed by the Bolsheviks and especially by Lenin. Gramsci had experienced part of the efforts in establishing new state through revolutionary violence and the permanent search for consensus among the popular masses. When looking at the Italian reality, it was only through Machiavelli that Gramsci identified a meritorious approach to this issue. It then became necessary to learn from the experience of the Bolsheviks, but at the same time, to reread Machiavelli in order to have a fair relationship between what was particular and what

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was universal, between the past and the present. In this phase, his political rupture with Croce is completed and his critical stance towards Sorel is accentuated (even though he supported revolutionary action in Russia). The theoretical discussion on party organization opposing Amadeo Bordiga (the main leader of the ICP at that moment) was decisive for Gramsci to develop a new interpretation of Jacobinism and elaborate a revolutionary theory. Bordiga understood that the revolutionary party should be the brain of the working class, the locus where revolutionaries would gather (without importance given to social origins) aware of the historical future and their task of educating the class for the revolution. However, the class would only be mature for revolution when it became a relative majority in the mass of workers. As a result, Bordiga did not conceive any kind of alliance with other social groups. Therefore, he did not accept the workers’ and peasants’ alliance, but conceived a party organization that was strongly inspired by Lenin in 1903, in his booklet What Is to Be Done? (Lenin 1903). Gramsci conceived the revolutionary party quite differently, concerned above all with avoiding the reproduction of leaders and those led within the party and within the class itself, a concern derived from Sorel and from Rosa Luxemburg. Even before the founding of the Communist Party, Gramsci expressed a different conception of the Party in relation to Bordiga. In an article published in September in L’Ordine Nuovo, II, nº 15, Gramsci starts from the Sorelian hypothesis that “the proletarian revolution is immanent to modern industrial society” and that “from this will result an original norm of life and a system of relationships absolutely original, characteristics of the revolutionary class” (Gramsci 1954k: 154). The anti-Jacobin perspective still seems to remain (in the Sorelian sense), just as Bordiga’s conception bears strong traces of this type of Jacobinism. Thus, for Gramsci, the workers’ party should be composed of the bestprepared fraction of the class, with theoretical and political capacity. The party’s duty would be to educate the class and itself through its struggle experience and would grow to the extent that it would be able to incorporate each outstanding new revolutionary militant. Thus the party is a class nomenclature, the party is organically linked to the class and cannot be detached from it, running the serious risk of becoming bureaucratized, of being involved by the bourgeois liberal institutionality and of becoming a reproducer of leader-led relationships, as happened with the ISP. The Sorelian scission spirit remains present, but it is not clear how much of the notion of Jacobinism could have undergone reformulation.

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However, it is quite possible that French Jacobinism and Machiavellianism contributed to Gramsci’s reflection on peasant issues in Russia and Italy. As is well-known, the peasant workers’ alliance topic was crucial in both countries (in addition to many others) to overthrow power and to establish a new state. Thus, in 1926, the year in which he was arrested, Gramsci had a sufficiently clear view on the strategy for the socialist revolution in Italy, as well as the sociopolitical organism that should lead it.

Jacobinism and Passive Revolution In the opening chapter of Prison Notebooks, on February 8, 1929, Gramsci lists the topics he would like to address in his studies as a political prisoner of fascism. This list does not include the name of Machiavelli, but it is certain that he would be an important character in the works on the Creation of Italian intellectual groups. At the tenth note of the first Notebook, Gramsci refers to Machiavelli for the first time, simply by indicating the importance that this author would come to gain during the course of his reflection. In fact, Machiavelli was mentioned 511 times in the Prison Notebooks and was the center of the reflection in Notebook 13, one very dear to Gramsci which was written between 1932 and 1934. Jacobinism, in turn, is implicit in the point referring to The development of the Italian bourgeoisie until 1870 and was notably covered in Notebook number 19, where the so-called Italian Risorgimento is analyzed. It is precisely the discussion on the reasons for the weakness and defeat of the popular democratic movement in Italy in the nineteenth century that leads Gramsci to confront Jacobinism. Still without an evident rupture with his previous vision, Gramsci generically defines Jacobinism as a certain party within the French Revolution, which conceived the revolution in a certain way, with a certain program, based on certain social forces which explained its party and government action with a specific methodical approach characterized by extreme energy and resolution, relying on the fanatical belief of goodwill of that program and method. (Gramsci 1975: 1 44 44; 19 14 2017)

In Italy, a party with this bias did not materialize and the bourgeois revolution in the peninsula ended up taking place with the hegemony of moderate liberals, who proved to be capable of unifying the Italian

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ruling and ruled classes, of co-opting the leadership of the popular movement and to making specific concessions to their demands. Starting with Vincenzo Cuoco, Gramsci called this historical movement a passive revolution, one where the pressure coming from the subaltern classes is insufficient, because there is no collective national/popular will, in other words, making it Jacobin. In fact, the Partito d’Azione and Garibaldi and Mazzini’s leadership were not in a position to act as an effective Jacobin political leadership. However, “If in Italy a Jacobin party was not formed, the reasons for this can be found in the economic field, in the relative weakness of the Italian bourgeoisie and in the distinct historical climate in Europe” (Gramsci 1975: 1 44 53). Following Antonio Labriola’s rationale, Gramsci advances the idea that the class relations created by industrial development, after reaching the limits of bourgeois hegemony and reversing the position of the progressive classes, have induced the bourgeoisie to not struggle with all its strength against the old regime, but to allow a part of the latter’s facade to subsist, behind which it can disguise its own very real domination. (Gramsci 1975: 1 44 54)

This situation made it easier for the moderates to play a leading role in the process, since on the other hand, the Azionisti were not able to attach themselves to the popular masses by refusing to place the solution of the agrarian issue at the heart of a national/popular revolution. This leads Gramsci to interpret that in Italy, the bourgeois revolution had unfolded as a passive revolution, precisely because the constitution of a national/popular Jacobin force was not possible. We can thus see that Gramsci remains within his reflection confronting Jacobinism as an organized will with bourgeois character. However, unlike the previous text, with Sorelian inspiration, he now considers that Jacobinism is a force organically linked to the popular masses with the necessary conditions to establish a nation and hegemony. Bourgeois Jacobinism as a concrete revolutionary force was exhausted in 1848– 1850, with the permanent revolution elaboration. After that, common sense according to Jacobinism tended to only understand the political man endowed with energy and will, or otherwise or an abstract and detached analysis of reality.

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Machiavelli’s Jacobin Strategy The social economic limits to the emergence of a national-popular Jacobin force in nineteenth-century Italy and the resulting passive revolution had already been pointed out by Gramsci. The issue now turns to the reflection on whether or not there was any other similar concrete situation in the peninsula’s historical trajectory and, mainly, whether this had been undertaken in the Italian context. Despite noting the presence of Vico’s historicism, confronting the jusnaturalism strand predominant in Europe during the Enlightenment and obviously of the feudal regression conducted by the Church in Italy and elsewhere, the possible reference should be at the dawn of modernity, at the Renaissance and then in Machiavelli. If Jacobinism had not been possible in Risorgimento of Italy, would there have been something similar in the Renaissance Italy, which suffered a historic defeat with such far-reaching implications? As Gramsci himself indicates, One must consider Machiavelli, to a greater degree, as a necessary expression of his time and closely linked to the conditions and demands of his time, which resulted from: 1) the internal struggles of the Florentine republic and the particular structure of the State, which did not know how to free itself from communal-municipal residues, i.e., in order to block feudalism; 2) the struggles between the Italian States for a balance in the Italian sphere, which was hindered by the Papal presence and other feudal, residues of municipalism of the urban and non-territorial state form; 3) the struggles of at higher or lower levels of solidarity from Italian States towards reaching a European balance, in other words, the contradictions between the needs of an internal Italian balance and the demands of European States struggling for hegemony. (Gramsci 1975: 13 13 1572)

The Medici family seized power in Florence from 1434 onwards, establishing a princely power instead of the Republic. Those were glorious years, but they were nonetheless filled with political opposition. The French invasion in 1494 enabled the Medici power to be overthrown and the Republic restored, but not before the city went through the political experience of monk Savonarola. Only with Pier Soderini did Florence seemingly regain republican stability, which nonetheless only lasted for a bit more than a decade, until the Spanish armies in 1512 came to drive the French out of Italy and once again impose Medici rule in the city. In the following year, with the choice of Leo X, the Medici also took over the Papacy.

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In 1454, the so-called Peace of Lodi established a relative balance between the Italian states after a long period of conflict that dragged on at least since the return of the Papacy to Rome (1378). The transformation of Italy into a terrain of struggle between the territorial states that were developing in Europe in the second half of the fifteenth century brought this balance to its knees. A new phase of disputes then began, which, in the end, subordinated the Italian states to what was happening in the European context. This historical phase, from the end of the fifteenth century to the first decades of the sixteenth century, marks the emergence of politics as an autonomous theoretical and practical field of action, as it witnesses the condensation of political power in the state. This process takes place while mercantile capital tends to become autonomous, however, without contesting the economic political power of the feudal nobility. Machiavelli is thus a remarkable expression of this crucial historical period for Italy, Europe and the world. Born in 1459, Machiavelli had a solid humanist background and was called to work in the chancery of the Florentine Republic in 1498. He was thus a statesman between 1498 and 1512 while Soderini’s government lasted. With the Medici’s return to power, Machiavelli was forced to become an intellectual in the narrow sense—a scholar and writer—without ever masking his feelings of internal exile, of imprisonment. During this period more than any other, Machiavelli became aware of the historical situation in which Italy and perhaps all of Europe found itself. The second half of the fifteenth century watched the emergence of three great territorial states: Spain, with the joining of Aragon and Castile and the conquest of Granada; France after the victory in the “Hundred Years’ War”; England after the so-called Wars of the Roses. The organization of territorial states indicated the path to be followed by Italy as well. At the end of the fifteenth century, Italy was the most advanced region in Europe regarding trade, luxury manufacturing and cultural standards. The impact that the overseas expansion would cause—as Portugal was already carrying out—was still obscure. Even at the beginning of the sixteenth century, Spain, which was already starting to venture out to the Americas, remained as a Mediterranean power with strong interests in the Italian peninsula. European geopolitics then pointed to the strengthening of France and Spain, the latter still in alliance with the fragile German Empire for dynastic reasons, and England, which was trying to break ties

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with the other two powers. The German Empire had the same problem as Italy: it was the seat of a universal power that contradicted any possible effort to unify and establish a territorial state. In Italy, Machiavelli was the one who best understood that the peninsula’s historical destiny would depend on its capacity to become a territorial state capable of facing up to the other powers being established in Europe. The situation was evident since 1494, with the French invasion, when Italy became a disputed territory and a battleground between foreign armies. Considering the fundamental existence of the Papacy as a universal power, the presence of foreign occupiers and the dispute between fractions of the feudal nobility within and between the city-states, there was a scenario of incredible difficulty to at least suppose the creation of a vector that addressed the unification of the territory. On the other hand, there was the virtual dissolution of feudal serfdom and the eagerness for the rise of the mercantile bourgeoisie, which indicated possible forces to support political action with the aim of turning Italy into a French or Spanish-style monarchy. It is quite possible that Machiavelli clearly understood this incredibly difficult scenario and its necessity. If Italy were not to form a strong monarchy to guarantee the unity and independence of the territory, economic and cultural decline would be inevitable. How to prevent the historical cycle from closing again implying the return to anarchy? It is undoubtedly worth mentioning that for Machiavelli, history unfolded in cycles of ups and downs, but not through inevitably successive curves. In fact, for Machiavelli, human subjectivity was a decisive element in history, which he called virtu, when referring to successful political action conducting fortune, reality in movement. Virtu, human will appropriately be navigated by duty, could delay the objectively inexorable historical decline movement. That was the question posed to Machiavelli: how to establish a will that reversed the declining trend, envisioned through the concrete conditions in Italy at the beginning of the sixteenth century? There were two possibilities: unleashing a religious reform or a farreaching political-military initiative with a clear strategic vision. Religious reform seemed unlikely, despite Savonarola’s experience in Machiavelli’s own Florence. The religious reform unleashed in Germany took place after The Prince was written in 1513, but in any case, even though it

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mobilized the peasants, it was incapable of uniting Germany. A politicalmilitary initiative that united the Italians against foreign occupation would be more desirable and feasible, since there were two great successful contemporary examples: Castile and Aragon had united to promote the expulsion of the Muslim Grenadines, and even before that, France had united to defeat the English occupiers. In both cases, a political and military power had been consolidated, with royal power strengthened and the establishment of armies that included peasants. It is a fact that Machiavelli looked for lessons among the ancients as well as modern references, in his search for political scientific orientation valid in the definition of future outcomes. The fundamental political issue presented in The Prince is the foundation of a new state, a possible Kingdom of Italy. How could this come about? A political and military leadership would emerge capable of organizing a people’s army, in fact an army of peasants, capable of uniting Italy and expelling foreigners. This would, however, have to result from fortune, from the movement of things, which could generate an organized will with the virtu of knowing and leading fortune towards expected duty. The concrete prince could be one of the existing rulers in Italy, but more desirable would be if he were an adventurer possessing weapons and with an embryonic army capable of generating a collective will. This would be the process of establishing a new state, or, in Machiavelli’s words, a New Principality. In the conditions Italy was in at the time the book was concluded, Machiavelli imagined that the Medici family might achieve this glory, since they had dominated Florence, Rome and Romagna. In any case, the prince could be anyone, as long as it meant the union of the Italian peoples. At the conclusion of this gem of political literature, Machiavelli slips into two mistakes, which he might have been aware of, but which the contingent necessity impelled him to make. Machiavelli judged that the fortune was favorable, and that the Medici family could have the necessary virtu. Hopeful, he expressed himself through the following: Thus, considering the abovementioned, and considering the present moment in Italy, and if honoring a new prince would be timely, and if there would be an opportunity for someone prudent and virtuous to introduce an honorable means to do such and towards the benefit of the university

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of men, it seems to me that so many elements contribute towards the existence of new prince, and I am unaware of a more suitable moment for such. (Machiavelli 1513 [1969]: 115–116)

Machiavelli died in 1527, in a scenario of consolidation of a foreign presence, with small states and, above all, the power of the Papacy deeply concerned with immunizing Italy from Protestant heresies. In this context, Machiavelli was a defeated political reference, nonetheless he left behind an extraordinary work as his legacy. With this synthetic reading of the meaning of The Prince, in the context of its historical time, can we consider that Jacobinism is present before its own time? The French Jacobins, with their vision of the world and their political passion, put into practice a revolutionary program that went beyond the interests of the bourgeoisie, as they embodied the collective will of a people/nation that emerged in harsh opposition to the hierarchical power that had been established since the beginning with the origins of feudal times. The Jacobins were organically linked to the demands of the peasants, urban workers, small businesses, and they advocated for the establishment of a new state, a democratic republic. Their defeat was in part the defeat of those who would be prepared to be the new subaltern classes of the bourgeois epoch, within the representative liberal state. In Gramsci’s words: The Jacobins, consequently, were the only party of the revolution in progress, in as much as they not only represented the immediate needs and aspirations of the actual physical individuals of the French bourgeoisie, but they also represented the revolutionary movement as a whole, as an integral historical development. For they represented future needs as well, and, once again, not only the needs of those physical individuals, but also of all the national groups which had to be assimilated to the existing fundamental group. (Gramsci 1975: 19 24 2028)

In what ways could Machiavelli’s Prince be considered Jacobin? In the sense that it would be the expression of a collective will under development, in the sense that it would be the concrete expression of a program, which would place peasants as protagonists in history, as people with the weapons and objective needed to establish a new state. He was, however, a pre-bourgeois Jacobin prince, since he did not envision the end of the

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nobility, but only assumed the concentration of state power in a monarchical figure, perhaps in a manner analogous to what had occurred in France. Perhaps it is still possible to assess whether the image of Machiavelli’s Prince was not much more like that of Caesar, who would restore order, a classic image of the ancient Roman tradition (Antonini 2020).

The Prince Myth and a New Jacobinism Gramsci considered, however, that Jacobin aspect of the Prince had to be highlighted because of the historical connection with the Risorgimento. Jacobinism in Italy’s Renaissance and Risorgimento, which preceded and followed the French Revolution, was defeated. A defeat in two stages that had prevented the establishment of a unified republican and democratic Italy. Italy was arriving at the bourgeois epoch after a feudal regression of more than two centuries and after a passive revolution that preserved much of its past. It is clear, therefore, that Gramsci is highly interested in the study of Machiavelli’s work. His objective is to think about the applicability of Jacobinism and The Prince in current times, certainly used as a metaphor. After the Jacobin democratic bourgeois revolutions, with only the bourgeois revolutions representing passive revolutions remaining, the usefulness of the Jacobin nomenclature in political praxis would demand an alteration/expansion of its meaning. Jacobinism should now be coupled with revolutionary political action of a socialist and democratic nature. But the theoretical movement that Gramsci undertakes is highly complex. Jacobinism can no longer be understood as mere revolutionary political praxis from the beginnings of the bourgeois epoch. Jacobinism must now be seen as a collective intellectual base that is organically linked to a class that strives for hegemony. The revolutionary political praxis of Bolshevism was then the incarnation of modern, post-bourgeois, or rather, anti-bourgeois Jacobinism. Thus, the communist party would be the expression of a collective will be guided towards a new state, which would rearrange the hegemony of the working class. The communist party, associated with other social institutes created by the subaltern classes, would be the Modern Prince. Even though the fact that Lenin’s revolutionary party theory was not frozen in 1903 is fairly considered in What is to Be Done? (1903), it did undergo changes over time, especially in the revolutionary phase and

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during the construction of the Soviet state, and the problem is therefore far from simple. The fact is that the Bolshevik party, the communist party, as elaborated by Lenin, is not equivalent to the Modern Prince, not constituting a mere adaptation of Lenin’s reflections. Perhaps it can be considered a translation in the sense understood by Gramsci, that is, the possibility of translating scientific, philosophical and political languages from one particular culture to another within the same universality, in time and space. Gramsci considered that “it thus seems that one can say that only in the philosophy of praxis is ‘translation’ organic and profound, while from other points of view it is often a simple game of generic ‘schematics’” (Gramsci 1975: 11 47 1468). Thus, the Gramscian elaboration of the Modern Prince had to assume not only the distinct particularities of the Italian (and Western) social foundations, but also consider its cultural and intellectual tradition. In this case, it is certain that Machiavelli is a decisive reference, but he needs to establish dialogue with the present, certainly with Lenin, but also with the theoretical elaborations/revolutionary practices in France and Germany. Thus, Gramsci establishes a privileged dialogue with Machiavelli and Sorel while elaborating the image of the Modern Prince, without, of course, disregarding other fundamental contributions, such as those from Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg, with all possible differences that affected these authors at different times. However, these authors appear rarely, however surreptitiously, in this discussion. As previously highlighted, especially in Notebook 13, Gramsci engages in this decisive dialogue, during which he simultaneously interprets or reinterprets Machiavelli and criticizes Sorel, pointing out the corrections and limitations of his perspectives. In the first lines of Notebook 13, Gramsci summons (inexplicitly) Vico and the ideas of living philosophy and Sorel with the image of the myth, to establish an interpretive dialogue with Machiavelli. Gramsci then says: “The fundamental characteristic of The Prince is that he is not a systematic treatise, but a ‘living’ book in which political ideology and political science merge in the dramatic form of the ‘myth’” (Gramsci 1975: 13 1 1555). Gramsci considered that the prince is the symbolic expression of a collective will under construction, a representation that unites movement towards duty, towards a historical project. So,

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Machiavelli’s Prince could be studied as a historical example of the Sorelian “myth”, that is, of a political ideology that presents itself not as a cold utopia nor as doctrinal reasoning, but as a creation of the concrete fantasy that acts upon a dispersed and fragmented people, to awaken and organize their collective will. (Gramsci 1975: 13 1 1555–1556)

Gramsci’s suggestion is that the myth vanishes as soon as the collective will materializes and he also envisions the Prince as its concrete expression, its effective and real representation. The myth, in fact, vanishes with the catharsis, when the consciousness find itself. Thus, those who become protagonists in history are organized as the Prince, who leads the historical process towards a determined purpose. In Gramsci’s analysis, in the evolution of The Prince, people and author are distinct, but as a conclusion they become a single materiality: the collective will, endowed with virtu to condition an eventually favorable fortune. If in the course of the book Machiavelli demonstrates how the Prince should lead the people to establish a new state, in conclusion, Machiavelli himself becomes part of the people, he is confused with the people, but not with a “generically” understood people, but with the people that Machiavelli convinced with his previous actions, and thus he becomes and feels conscience and expression, and is identified with these: it seems that all of his “logical” work is no more than a self-reflection of the people, an interior reasoning that takes place in the popular conscience and ends up representing a passionate, immediate cry. (Gramsci 1975: 13 1 1556)

This passage indicates how the myth of the prince becomes the reality of the collective popular will, how subjectivity and objectivity are articulated, how will organizes itself to determine the movement of reality. Gramsci continues to observe the dialogue between Machiavelli and Sorel, always seeking clarification for his own theoretical and political stances. The immediate, dispersed rebellion gradually rises, organizes itself and becomes collective by orienting itself towards the signs of the Prince. The collective will be formed is antagonistic to the existing order, but this collective will be already doing something else, until it explodes into the propositions and concrete action of a new order, a new state, when the collective will identify itself and is confused with the Prince, with reason endowed with passion.

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However, as Gramsci interferes, Sorel is only partially correct, as he does not understand the need for the Prince. No doubt Sorel was right while defending the “scission spirit”, the antagonism towards the social order based on exploitation, but the perspective of the myth of the general strike was limited, as it would be the peak of practical action, of a collective will already active in the union. Gramsci states that the general strike would only be a “passive activity”, so to speak, with a negative and preliminary characteristic (the positive characteristic is only granted through the agreement reached upon associating wills) of an activity that does not foresee its own “active and constructive” phase. In Sorel, therefore, two needs clashed: the myth and the criticism of the myth, since “every pre-established plan is utopian and reactionary”. The solution was abandoned to the impulse of irrationality, that which is “arbitrary” (in the Bergsonian sense of “vital impulse”), or “spontaneity”. (Gramsci 1975: 13 1 1556–1557)

Gramsci then contests the spontaneity in Sorel’s perspectives of myths, where they are seen as something that exhausts spontaneity. The explanation for this because Sorel feared the recomposing of political power in other terms, but the fact is that it also ends up denying any possibility of prediction where subjectivity and objectivity intertwine, and passion and science meet. In short, Sorel denies the need for the Prince myth, which leads to Gramsci question: But can a myth be “non-constructive”, one can imagine, through Sorel’s intuitions, that it is a producer of realities, an instrument that leaves the collective will in its primitive and elementary phase of development, by distinction (a “split”), even if through violence, in other words, destroying existing moral and legal relations? But can this collective will thus be established in an elementary way, not immediately cease to exist, becoming fragmented into an infinity of singular wills, which in their positive phase follow different and contrasting directions? And that is not to mention that there cannot be destruction, denial, without an implicit construction, affirmation, and not in a “metaphysical” sense, but practically, that is, politically, as a party program. (Gramsci 1975: 13 1 1557)

As Gramsci concludes, the Prince myth in contemporary times must be the revolutionary party, which is articulated around a prediction and program. But still, Gramsci states:

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The modern prince, or the myth of the prince cannot be a real person, a concrete individual, it can only be an organism; a complex element of society in which the realization of a recognized collective will has already begun and is partially affirmed through action. This organism is already provided by historical development and is the political party, the first cell in which seeds of collective will tend to become universal and complete are synthesized. (Gramsci 1975: 13 1 1558)

The party would not be acting based upon dispersed consciousness but from a collective will already under construction. The working mass is already headed towards becoming a class and establishing a party, a collective will that seeks hegemony. Note however, how the prince myth dissolves when the new collective will historically impose itself and puts its program into practice. On this subject, Gramsci says: Thus, because each party is nothing more than a class nomenclature, evidently if the party proposes nullifying its division between classes, perfection and completeness, then the party cancels its own existence, because there are no more classes, and therefore, neither their expressions. (Gramsci 1975: 14 70 1732–1733)

The modern prince must carry out the immense historical task that the sixteenth century was unable to articulate, namely the confluence of a cultural renaissance with intellectual and moral reform, which would create a new order, resulting in socialism. Its complete realization would imply the end of the prince myth and of politics itself as a relationship between rulers and ruled.

Translations of the Passive Revolution

Passive Revolution and the Nature of Our Time

The Problem In recent decades, political and social sciences, as well as literature disseminated by the media, has extensively discussed “globalization” (the preferred expression in the Anglo-American world and bearer of greater ideological value) or “mondialization” (used mostly among the French), with varied theoretical approaches and focusses. Somehow, there was a generalized idea or widespread perception that the change in our historical epoch began in the late 1970s. The most evident elements in this change which first engaged intellectuals were the rapid rise of the global financial market, the strength of large transnational corporations and the remarkable spread of information and communication media. In fact, many other elements also stood out, such as the globalization of mass culture and the cultural political consolidation of environmentalism and feminism. Furthermore, in important regions of the planet, the decline of social institutions in the labor movement and left-wing culture is seemingly evident, fueled by the discourse of the end of labor, the end of the working class, the crisis of Marxism, etc. Many other apparently sparse elements could be recalled in order to demonstrate that the common sense of the occurrence of “globalization” or “internationalization” was crystallized upon an effective movement of reality. The fundamental © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Del Roio, Gramsci and the Emancipation of the Subaltern Classes, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90777-8_7

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issue—so we can understand, explain and guide this movement of reality, critically elevating common sense itself—is knowing the nature and content of this historical phase and its economic-social basis and dynamics. In fact, the theoretical-ideological position that privileges the topic of the fragmentation of subjects and the end of labor as the foundation of human sociability has considerable influence, but this problem exists even in the field unfolding from Marxism. Through this perspective, some of the main questions that arise in the interpretation of the current epoch is whether a capitalist stage beyond imperialism can be observed or whether we are in a new phase within capitalist imperialism. If imperialism is a reasonable designation for this phase, whose Empire would it be: the USs, or the large corporations? Is it effectively an Empire recomposing hegemony through a passive global revolution, or is it a matter of capital domination and organic crisis? The discussion on this issue engaged various important authors, with different interpretations and political implications. Michel Hardt and Toni Negri also interpret current times as a moment of major historical rupture. We would have entered an Empire phase, a decentralized empire where large corporations circulate, where there is extensive computerization of production, and the weakening of states, however, consolidating a society of control. Based on this understanding, despite its weakness in historical comprehension which is not worth mentioning here, the class of the most valuable producers also disappears. It is substituted by an indistinct “crowd”, who would be responsible for building the counter-empire (Hardt and Negri 1999). David Harvey considered the beginning of the 70s in the twentieth century as the beginning of a post-modern condition, a milestone within an important rupture in the history of capitalism, identified through computer technologies and the flexibilization of labor. The author defends that this current imperialism accumulates capital through financialization, or rentism, and the dispossession of natural resources and labor force as a means of expropriation, leveraged through the privatization of state companies and activities. Thus, he understands that there has been a clear exhaustion of the labor movement’s institutions due to the fragmentation of the labor force (Harvey 1989). Harvey’s interpretation presents some problems related to historical periodization, which arise from his understanding of what capitalism is and which lead to the thesis of imperialism through expropriation, as if

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the logic of accumulation of surplus-value was weakening. That is how antagonistic subjectivity can be located in the plurality of social movements that emerged in the post-modern condition and that have flexible organizational forms (Harvey 2003). With a sharp historical perspective, Ellen Wood analyzes our time as the empire of capital. Her meaning is the simplest and most correct. Capitalist and imperialist expansion reached a moment when capital controls everything that is produced on the planet, including other pre-capitalist forms of production. The control exercised by capital requires the existence of states, as they guarantee the interests of imperial capital. The state is the only non-economic instance needed by capital at this stage, to control the popular masses and faltering states that visualize following an autonomous agenda. Finding a good explanation for the current crisis in Marx seems to bear fruit. Chris Harman is an example of an author who followed this path. He discusses how capital reaches its limits as its contradictions worsen. But the fundamental question he raises is who, or which subject can prevent capitalism from advancing into a world of endless wars and environmental, food and energy crises. His analysis shows how the proletariat grows and expands, especially in the so-called South of the world, with the working class understood as the entire laboring humanity that contributes in some way to capital appreciation. It makes no sense, then, to restrict the working-class nomenclature only to manual or industrial workers: workers are also those appointed in the services field. If the proletariat grows and diversifies around the world, the biggest existing problem is the issue of collective subjectivity, the lack of a class that becomes both a class and party (Harman 2009). Istvan Mèszàros interprets our time as a structural crisis of capital, which means that it is a crisis that has no solution within its selfmovement. Capital is no longer able to confront its decline and its attempts tend to generate even more barbarism. The capacity to generate civilization and humanization is exhausted. The alternative implies overcoming the metabolic reproduction of capital and this can only be done through self-activity and emancipatory self-organization of the entire labor force, by all those who are exploited by globalized labor. Mèszàros, in a way, rescues Rosa Luxemburg and establishes a long critical dialogue with Lukàcs to present his thesis (Mèszàros 1995). The question on how Gramsci can be useful in understanding our times is a problem proposed by Adam Morton (and Bieler). Morton proposes

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an articulation between a passive revolution and unequal development to understand the relations between states and capitalist development. The extension of the Gramscian category of passive revolution, seen as a strategy of capital, makes it possible to see passive revolution as a permanent revolution in the movement of capital. This would be key to understanding the global crisis. On the other hand, Morton analyzes our time as the complete expansion of capital produced from a socially enlarged factory intertwined into social relations. Thus, the emancipatory struggles of labor must also be perceived in broader terms, especially struggles against the exploitation of women and against environmental destruction (Morton 2007; Morton and Bieler 2018). These are a few examples within a vast amount of literature that seeks to understand our times by recognizing that a new historical phase began around the 70s of the last century. Some points converge, such as the fact that it is a long-term crisis in which capitalism has reached its limits and generalized production of goods, generalized the exploitation of labor and, therefore, the proletariat. However, regarding ways in which to overcome the crisis by leaving capitalism, the discussion only points towards a few possibilities. The issue that this chapter proposes to consider is whether the theoretical contributions of Antonio Gramsci, one of the most important exponents of the referred tradition, have something to offer effectively, not only to explain this phase of development of imperialism, but also towards communist revolution. Particularly, the question is whether the category of passive revolution can be useful in the attempt to understand/transform the world at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The answer requires identifying the meaning (or meanings) that Gramsci assigned to this theoretical category. Or, in a different perspective, the passive revolution category may not be appropriate, and Gramsci’s contribution may appear differently and perhaps even unprecedented. Accepting the Empire category for the epoch of global imperialism forces us to ask whether in this context there is hegemony or if everything occurs through domination relations amidst the organic crisis of capital? Bearing this in mind, the category of organic crisis is expanded enabling an explanatory scope wider than the expansion of the passive revolution category as an effect of class struggle, of the correlation of forces, as Morton seems to present it. Perhaps this hypothesis tends to hide the gravity, and specificity of the crisis humanity is trapped in. On the other hand, the explanation proposed by Istvàn Mèszáros better converges with an expanded the Gramscian conception of organic crisis.

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Origin and Significance of the Category of the Passive Revolution One of the great problems that Gramsci studied in prison was understanding the Risorgimento as a specific process in achieving the bourgeois revolution in Italy, specifically regarding the relationship between intellectuals and the masses. It was immediately clear to Gramsci that the problem of the bourgeois revolution in Italy was not strictly a national matter, and it could not be understood apart from a broader understanding of the French Revolution, which in its turn could not only be understood as a national revolution either. The international context of the bourgeois revolution was essential even to understand the creation of national states and capitalism itself. Gramsci acquired this theoretical framework from a text written by Vincenzo Cuoco, a classic political scientist in Italy, namely the Saggio storico sulla rivoluzione di Napoli (Cuoco 1806 [1999]). This text was initially published in 1801 and had a revised edition in 1806. Cuoco was a Neapolitan jurist and public administrator, who endeavored to bring Machiavelli and Vico into the historical conditions of the new era the French Revolution was inaugurating. Cuoco’s fundamental thesis was that the Neapolitan revolution in 1799 had only taken place because of the impact of the French Revolution and particularly the actions of Napoleon. This impact mobilized part of the Neapolitan ruling classes, who saw the advantages of making Napoli a state guided by French ideas and even of being part of the French empire that this phase of the revolution aimed to create. Cuoco notes that the Neapolitan ruling classes lacked coherence and determination, but that in the end, the decisive element was the non-participation of the popular masses in this historical contingency. Hence, the Neapolitan revolution was a passive revolution, since it was imported from France and it divided the ruling classes, including the intellectuals, where its Jacobins were not attached to the popular masses. And thus, the creation of an Italian-Neapolitan nation became impossible. This interpretation by Cuoco guided Gramsci in his understanding of the entire process of the Risorgimento as a reflection of the French Revolution. However, it required a broader vision in above all, considering the French Revolution as a long-term phenomenon with a worldwide impact, going beyond a manifestation limited to the history of France from 1789 to 1799. Gramsci considered that the French Revolution broke out in

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France, stretching out over time and spreading through space, in a process to build bourgeois order. Gramsci actually says: In fact, only in 1870-1871 with the attempt at the Commune where the seeds of 1789 were historically exhausted, is when the new class struggling for power defeats the old society representatives that do not want to admit they have been overthrown, as well as the extremely new groups that consider this new structure that began with the transformation in 1789 to be outdated, thus demonstrating its vitality over the old and the very new. (Gramsci 1975: 13 17 1582)

These eight decades that gave rise to and consolidated the bourgeois order can be divided into phases or “even longer waves”. Altogether, regarding science and political ideology, the epoch of the French Revolution is identified as a permanent revolution, a war of movement and of Jacobin political action. This means that revolutionary episodes are almost recurrent due to the action of small vanguard political groups that confront the state. However, it is precisely the study of these varying waves that enables the reconstruction of the relationships between structure and superstructure, on the one hand, and, on the other, between the course of organic movement and the course of the structure’s scenario. (Gramsci 1975: 13 17 1582)

The expansion of Gramsci’’s perspective also takes into consideration a contribution by the French historian Edgar Quinet, who understood that the period of the Bourbon restoration (1815–1830) was a “revolution/restoration” moment. Note that Cuoco spoke from southern Italy, from the periphery, so to speak, while Quinet speaks from the epicenter of the revolution. Gramsci approaches these elaborations in an attempt to understand the Risorgimento, suggesting that both would express the historical fact of the absence of popular initiative in the development of Italian history, and the fact that “progress” would occur as a reaction of the ruling classes to the sporadic and inorganic subversivism of the popular masses with “restorations” that accept any part of the popular demands, thus, “progressive restorations” or “revolution-restorations” or even “passive revolutions”. (Gramsci 1975: 8 25 957)

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While Cuoco provides Gramsci with an analytical instrument regarding the entire Risorgimento, Quinet’s contribution enables broader and deeper elaboration. Cuoco emphasizes the aspect of the passive revolution resulting from external impacts and Quinet enables a discussion on the revolution-restoration as a phase of the bourgeois revolution understood as a long-term process. The revolution-restoration also suffers backlash from the international situation, but it is nourished and driven by internal social forces. However, if the political-historical formula of the permanent revolution” serves as a dialectical mediation for the understanding of this historical phenomenon, this also means that the passive revolution can be seen as a phase of the permanent revolution. (Gramsci 1975: 13 17 1582)

Gramsci then understands the concept of the passive revolution being capable of apprehending a phenomenon of “revolution without revolution”, produced by an external impact or a phenomenon that highlights a phase of a longer revolution process. The Risorgimento, in Gramsci’s understanding of this theoretical elaboration, is a passive revolution, as it results from a far-reaching external impact, not only a military invasion, as Cuoco understands it, but one with a lasting cultural political impact. It is also a passive revolution since it was a revolution without a revolution. In any case, it is still a bourgeois revolution and likewise the historical period for the construction and consolidation of capitalism and nation-states in Europe. The passive revolution category is also linked to Jacobinism. In prison, Gramsci rebuilds his understanding of Jacobinism precisely due to his studies regarding the bourgeois revolution epoch. Through Sorel’s influence, Gramsci had perceived Jacobinism as a form of political and intellectual action detached from the masses, when it does not occur through the masses. Now he began to see the French Jacobins as the expression of a conscious direction for collective will, with Macchiavelli as a brilliant precursor. Jacobinism, for Gramsci, was then “an exemplification of how a collective will was concretely formed and operated, which in at least some aspects was ex-novo, original creation” (Gramsci 1975: 13 1 1559). The bourgeois revolution in Italy was manifested as a passive revolution precisely because it did not form an expression of collective will. The impulse for the establishment of a national state did not have an

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indispensable popular substrate nor an intellectual political group capable of leading the masses. In Italy, moderatism and the passive revolution prevailed as a program. Transformism, defined as the transition of entire intellectual groups to the side of the dominant classes reinforcing their hegemony, was the predominant movement, thus preserving the subordination of the popular masses. It is quite clear how Marx contributed to Gramsci’s understanding of the French Revolution, especially with the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. However, the notions of Bonapartism and Caesarism were already present in Cuoco. In Gramsci’s reflection, these concepts also overlap with the category of passive revolution, as they do in Cuoco. Caesarism in Gramsci’s assessment has a very broad meaning, referring to quite different historical contexts, including Caesar himself or Cromwell, or even the times of Mussolini, for example (Antonini 2020). But at the time of the bourgeois revolution in continental Europe, there was a case of progressive Caesarism, with Napoleon Bonaparte and his attempt to create a continental bourgeois empire centered on France, which also aimed to include Italy. The case of Napoleon III’s Caesarism can also be considered progressive as it guaranteed the unity of the ruling classes in a period when the new subaltern layers presented their antagonism, even though “there was no transition from one type of state to another, but only an ‘evolution’ within the same type, along an ‘unbroken’ line” (Gramsci 1975: 13 27 1622). In 1870, the epoch of the bourgeois revolution was completed. The defeat of the Paris Commune guaranteed the political power and hegemony of the French bourgeoisie, but it also completed the bourgeois revolution in Germany and Italy, all passive revolutions that created new national states. Gramsci then says that the Political concept of the so-called “permanent revolution”, which emerged before the 1848 revolution, as a scientifically elaborated expression of the Jacobin experiences from 1789 until Thermidor. The formula characterizes a historical period in which the great mass parties and the great economic unions did not yet exist and society was still, so to speak, in a state of fluidity in many aspects: greater backwardness of the countryside and almost complete monopoly of the state efficiency in a few cities or even in just one (Paris for France), relatively undeveloped state apparatus and greater autonomy of civil society vis-à-vis state activity, a certain system of military forces and national weaponry, greater autonomy of national economies, the economic relations of the international market, etc. After

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1870 with European colonial expansion all of these elements change, the internal and international organizational relations of the State become more complex and massive, and the “permanent revolution” formula is elaborated and surpassed in political science by the “civil hegemony” formula. The same thing happens in the art of politics as well as in the art of the military: the war of movement becomes more of a war of position; [...]. (Gramsci 1975: 137 1566)

Passive Revolution and War of Position Until now, the passive revolution concept in Gramsci’s categorical universe is coupled with the permanent revolution concept, Jacobinism and the war of movement, as a mode of political action at the time of the bourgeois revolution and establishment of the national state. The passive revolution takes place in the areas of greater impact and passive absorption of the bourgeois revolution or as a stage of development of the permanent revolution, when the transposition of the bourgeois revolution itself is scrutinized. Does not the formula of civil hegemony, by overcoming the formula of permanent revolution, also overcome the necessity/possibility of a passive revolution in effectively constituted bourgeois national states, possible only in the periphery or in the colonial world, as well as the permanent revolution? The answer to this question required greater complexity in Gramsci’s reasoning. The imperialist war in 1914 triggered a serious crisis among bourgeois liberal hegemony. The areas most affected, however, were those with the most recently capitalist contamination, such as Russia and Austria-Hungary, and the nation-states that had been established through passive revolution, such as Germany and Italy. The outbreak of the international socialist revolution in Russia and its spread towards the West generated a movement that was analogous to the movement generated by the French Revolution: a war of movement, a Jacobin political action, a permanent revolution. The international socialist revolution that began in March 1917 in Russia and which had spread to Austria-Hungary, Germany and Italy in March 1921 was already defeated and isolated in Russia. Why was the socialist revolution contained in such a short time without having reached the original bourgeois revolution states (England, USA, France)? While the bourgeois revolution had spread over feudal-absolutist states, relying on weapons and ideas to generate a passive, if not Jacobin revolution, the

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outbreak of the socialist revolution occurred precisely upon the final crisis of the feudal-absolutist state, having to confront the consolidated bourgeois liberal hegemony of the West’s core. It was a clash with different temporalities. Despite the crisis, the material presence of bourgeois liberal hegemony was the crucial difference between both great revolutionary events in the contemporary era. In the Russian empire, the war of movement, Jacobinism and the permanent revolution were enough to defeat the feudal-absolutist political power and the weak bourgeoisie, preventing a passive revolution unfolding from Germany. However, it unable to spread the socialist revolution into the heart of the bourgeois hegemony in the West. Gramsci synthetically pointed out this difference: in the East the State was everything and civil society was primordial and gelatinous; in the West between the State and civil society there was a fair relationship, and when the State failed one could immediately notice a robust civil society structure. The State was just an advanced trench, with a robust chain of fortresses and bunkers supporting it. (Gramsci 1975: 7 16 866)

Despite Lenin’s indications, the Communist International remained tied to a Jacobin conception of the permanence of the revolutionary crisis, having failed to develop the full potential contained in the political formula of the united front. Gramsci held on to the vision on the permanence of the revolution until the moment of his arrest, even though he notably deepened the united front formula (Del Roio 2017). The capitalist crisis from 1929 to 1933 was crucial for Gramsci’s thoughts on the historical significance of the first post-war period and the specificities of the Russian revolution. Implicitly, in his prison reflections, Gramsci observes the misconception of the communist movement in their prevailing stance of direct confrontation with the bourgeoisie and its allies, based on the belief that the economic-social crisis had already condemned capitalism. Gramsci observes that the political struggle had to take place as a war of position, at least in imperialist states, “where civil society has become a very complex structure that is resistant to the catastrophic ‘irruptions’ of the immediate economic element (crises, depressions, etc.); [….]” (Gramsci 1975: 13 24 1613–1614). Since the war of movement failed to split the European historic bloc, restrained by its bunkers, the war of position became inevitable. Under

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these conditions, the ruling classes perceive the need for an offensive against workers, through the nationalization of part of the private hegemony apparatus, and through the expansion and strengthening of the coercive apparatus and reorganization of the productive process. This represents An unprecedented concentration of hegemony and, therefore, a more ‘interventionist’ government which is more blatant in its attacks towards opponents and permanently organizes the ‘impossibility’ of internal disintegration: all kinds of control, political, administrative, etc. (Gramsci 1975: 6 138 802)

Therefore, one may say that there was a hegemony crisis everywhere resulting from the war, which used elements of dictatorship. Gramsci suggests the reasons that determined what he would later call a new passive revolution, although he considered this a specific phenomenon unfolding from the French Revolution: 1) because large masses, previously passive, began to enter a state of movement, a chaotic and disordered movement, directionless, without a precise collective political will; 2) because the middle classes, which in the war had command over and roles of responsibility, became unoccupied in a scenario of peace, soon after learning to be in command, etc.; 3) because the antagonistic forces were unable to organize this disorder to their advantage. (Gramsci 1975: 780 912–913)

Fascism as a Passive Revolution Gramsci was already thinking of coupling Benedetto Croce’s critique towards historicism with the concept of passive revolution through an analogy between the moderate liberalism of the nineteenth century and fascism. So, in relation to fascism The passive revolution would occur as a transformation of the economy in a “reformist” manner, from an individualist stance towards an economy based on a plan (directed economy) and the advent of an “intermediate economy” in between a pure individualist model and one with a complete plan, enabling a transition to more advanced political and cultural cataclysms without devastatingly radical and destructive cataclysms. “Corporativism” could be – or, as it grows, could become – this form of

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intermediate economy that has a “passive” character. (Gramsci 1975: 8 236 1089)

This paragraph was later rewritten in greater detail, promoting a broadening of the passive revolution category, and in the summary of the study, he intended to develop on Croce’s work, Gramsci questioned: Is there a ’current’ meaning the passive revolution concept? Are we in a ’restoration-revolution’ period that will be permanent, ideologically organized, lyrically exalted? Would Italy have the same relationship with the USSR as the Germany (and Europe) of Kant-Hegel with the France of Robespierre-Napoleon? (Gramsci 1975: 10; Sommario 1209)

The question about whether Italy, facing the socialist revolution, would react with a passive revolution is a key factor for Gramsci to interpret that all of Croce’s historiographical work represented a positive ideological vision of the passive revolution of the nineteenth century, in such a way that the problem is whether this Crocean elaboration, even in its biased form, has a current and immediate reference, or if its aim is to create an ideological movement corresponding to the period presented by Croce, a restoration-revolution, [...]. (Gramsci 1975: 10 9 1227)

Soon after, to confirm this view, he questions: “But under current conditions, would not the movement corresponding to the moderate and conservative liberalism be more precisely the fascist movement?” (Gramsci 1975: 10 9 1227). In this hypothesis, the Croatian ideological perspective would be presented as follows: There would be a passive revolution in the fact that through the legislative intervention of the State and through corporate organization, more or less profound changes would be introduced in the country’s economic structure to accentuate the “production plan”, thus accentuating the socialization and cooperation of production without, therefore, impacting (or limiting itself only to regulating and controlling) the individual and group appropriation of profit. In the concrete framework of Italian social relations, this could be the only solution to develop the productive forces of industry under the direction of the traditional ruling classes competing

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with the most advanced industrial structures of countries that monopolize raw materials and accumulated impressive capital. (Gramsci 1975: 10 9 1228)

Concretely, the efficiency of this design matters less, what matters most is that this scheme Has the virtue of being willing to create a period of expectation and hope, especially among certain Italian social groups, such as the great mass of urban and rural petty bourgeoisie, and thus maintain the hegemonic system and forces of military and civil coercion available to traditional ruling classes. (Gramsci 1975: 10 9 1228)

This Crocean ideology would then be considered a war of position in the economic field and a passive revolution in the political field. In fact, At present, the war of movement took place politically between March 1917 and March 1921 and is followed by a war of position whose representative, in addition to being practical (for Italy) and ideological for Europe, is fascism. (Gramsci 1975: 10 9 1229)

It so happens that fascism is a passive revolution, as it represents the reaction of the traditional ruling classes in Italy to the impact of the international socialist revolution and pressure of national subordinate classes. The passive revolution is an expression of a war of position conducted by the ruling class against subaltern classes and for a more favorable position in the international context. Unable to be victorious in the war of movement, the working class is forced to conduct the war of position. With the permanent revolution blocked, the revolution becomes a revolution-restoration of ruling classes, a passive revolution. However, Gramsci wonders: Is there an absolute identity between the war of position and a passive revolution? Or may one perceive it as an entire historical period in which both concepts must be identified, to the point where the war of position returns to being a maneuvered war? It is a ‘dynamic’ judgment regarding the ‘Restorations’, which would be a ‘cunning of providence’ in the Vichian sense. (Gramsci 1975: 15 11 1766–1767)

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In this question, the problem that Gramsci proposes is implicit: what would be the historical role of fascism in the long-term process of the socialist revolution and how should antagonistic forces act to attenuate the restoration elements? How should one act upon the war of position so that the war of movement could be reactivated? How in the anti-fascist struggle could anti-capitalist elements prevail? Gramsci uses the example, once again, of political struggle in the Risorgimento to assess the dynamics of passive revolution. If Mazzini had been more conscious of the fact that in the ongoing passive revolution resulting from the weakness of antagonistic or Jacobin forces, the war of position would inevitably have to take place in order to gain space to reverse the conditions of struggle for a new war of movement, the defeat would have been avoidable. The war of position is an imposition of the ruling classes in their offensive against antagonistic forces, which, in turn, must fight in this field to lessen the effects of the defeat, until enough strength is accumulated to reverse the struggle into a war of movement and permanent revolution, revolution against restoration. The criticism towards Mazzini and Trotsky was the same (and against the strand of the Communist International from 1929 to 1933): that they didn’t realize that in a time of passive revolution, fighting a war of movement with frontal attacks, implies defeat, intensifying the element of restoration. In an extremely important passage, while referring to Marx’s book The Poverty of Philosophy, Gramsci clarifies the theoretical difference between a “real” revolution and passive revolution. The dialectic of revolution demands that the antagonistic force be aware that each member of the dialectical opposition must try to dedicate all their political and moral “resources” towards the struggle, and this is therefore the only means for truly overcoming. This was not understood by Proudhon or Mazzini. Perhaps this was not event understood by Gioberti and the theorists of passive revolution and "revolution-restoration", but this matter changes: among these the theoretical “misunderstanding” was the practical expression of the need for the “thesis” to develop to the point where it could incorporate part of its own antithesis, not allowing its defeat, and thus, within the dialectical opposition the thesis in itself actually develops possibilities for struggle until it reaches the so-called representatives of the antithesis: this is exactly what the passive revolution or restoration revolution consists of. (Gramsci 1975: 15 11 1768)

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The USSR and the Passive Revolution The socialist revolution in Russia avoided revolution without revolution as a possible result of external impacts arising from the passive revolution in Germany, almost a weaker and delayed wave from the historical upheaval which began with the Jacobin revolution. But by failing to spread the socialist revolution, the revolutionary outbreak initiated in East-Russia could not contain the revolution-restoration through the conflict of internal social forces. Therefore, just as the long-term French Revolution went through phases of revolution-restoration, of passive revolution, would it not be necessary to question whether the experience of the USSR was also the experience of the New Political Economy (NEP) or the Stalinian dictatorship, would it not represent a variation of the passive revolution? In Russian is New Political Economy and in English? New Economic Policy or as Russian? The NEP was the possible reaction from the USSR towards the exhaustion of the maneuvered war. The defeat of the international socialist revolution forced revolutionary Russia to fight the war of position. This, however, was a very clear situation, at least for Lenin. The passive revolution that was realized in Russia consciously restored various aspects of capitalism, but the socialist revolution program was still predominant. The NEP should remain as a passive revolution in which progressive elements were frankly predominant until the international socialist revolution was reactivated and could regain the form of a war of movement and permanent revolution. The united front would be the political formula that would lead to the success of this war of position. Shortly before his arrest, in a letter sent to Togliatti to present the position of the Italian Communist Party (ICP) on the fierce internal debate that was eroding the leadership of the Party and the Soviet state, Gramsci drew attention to the loss in consciousness regarding the fact that there was a war of position occurring: It seems that the violent passion for Russian affairs makes one lose sight of the international aspects of Russian affairs and forget one’s duties as Russian militant can and must be fulfilled only in the framework of the interests of international proletariat. (Gramsci 1992: 459)

In addition to the dissociation between the national and international issue of the debate, Gramsci recalled that the opposition by Trotsky and

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Zinoviev incurred a serious corporate error as it defended the individualist interests of working class, which should instead make concessions to the allies as a ruling class that aims promote human emancipation. Gramsci considered, The proletariat cannot become the dominant class if it does not overcome this contradiction by sacrificing corporate interests, it cannot maintain its hegemony and dictatorship if, even upon becoming dominant, it does not sacrifice these immediate interests for the general and permanent interests of the class. (Gramsci 1992: 460)

The exhaustion of the NEP as a war of position and a conscious passive revolution (that is, a defensive maneuver) implied a transition once again to the war of movement within the USSR and in the international communist movement, with serious and negative implications. The united front that manifested a workers-peasant alliance suffered a rupture, followed by a new form of passive revolution, that was less conscious since it ideologically believed that it was effectively building integral socialism and that the working class and communist movement were on the eve of a frontal offensive phase, emerging from the capitalist crisis and a probable imperialist war. The passive revolution that then unfolded had aspects of restoration of feudal absolutism, such as Caesarean power and servile work, although one can imagine Gramsci’s limited knowledge of this process, as he was incarcerated. In the international dimension, the offensive phase resulted in the strengthening of fascism. It goes without saying that this passive revolution was also able to fulfill the mission of promoting industrialization in Russia, as if it was a bourgeois revolution without the bourgeoisie. Gramsci demonstrated signs of disagreement with the new orientation of the Comintern defined in the 10th Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI), held on July 1929, but also demonstrated that the economic-social plan implemented in the USSR was a necessary commendable measure. Indeed, in a generalist observation, that could be fairly suitable to the Soviet situation, Gramsci says: If it is true that no type of State can fail to go through a phase of economic-corporate primitivism, we may deduce that the content of the political hegemony in the new social group establishing the new type

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of State must be an economic order reorganizing the structure and real relations between men and the economic or production world. The superstructure elements can no longer be scarce and its characteristics will be a prediction and struggle, however, the elements of this “plan” are still scarce: the cultural plan will be above all negative, criticizing the past, tending to make us forget and destroy: the construction lines will still be “broad lines” or sketches, which could (and should) be changed at every moment, as long as they are coherent with the new structure under development. (Gramsci 1975: 8 185 1053)

Still regarding the conditions of the Russian revolution, a permanent revolution, Gramsci considered that In this reality in continuous movement, creating a constitutional law is impossible in its traditional forms, but only a system of principles that consider the end of the State as an end in itself, its disappearance, which would represent the reabsorption of political society into civil society. (Gramsci 1975: 8 185 1053)

In a phase of economic-corporate primitivism, the USSR could only face a war of position and carry out a passive revolution with very advanced methods, as a relatively lasting moment of permanent revolution, but it would not be able to move on to a war of movement with the capitalist crisis of 1929. In fact, the 1929 crisis and the war of movement unleashed by the communists promoted the spread and intensification of the passive revolution that emerged in Italy as a reaction to the war of movement and permanent revolution unleashed between 1917 and 1921. Furthermore, fascism spread to Germany and gained a much stronger, more visible international profile. Corporatism, the economiclegal expression of fascism, spread as an inspiration to Eastern, Balkan and Mediterranean Europe and to Latin America. The impact of the Russian revolution shook the dominant power in Italy and Germany, provoking passive revolutions in consolidated capitalist states. It also provoked passive revolutions in embryonic capitalist states, through the process of a bourgeois revolution, but it did not affect France and England. Why? Italy and Germany had been established as capitalist national states through a passive revolution that unfolded from the French Revolution. The surviving elements of the power of nobility and the Church were significant, as was the weakness of the bourgeois hegemony. They were,

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in fact, the weak links in the imperialist chain. Fascism tried to reconcile, with state corporatism, aspects of the socialist plan and the new labor process conceived in America, and thus, there are aspects of progress in this passive revolution, even though the restorative element is largely predominant. Although England and France suffered from the war and some impacts of the Russian revolution, it’s hard to affirm that from then on, they reacted with a passive revolution. Gramsci observes that in France, “bourgeois hegemony is very strong and has many reservations. Intellectuals are very focused, […]”. Furthermore: “the military and civil bureaucracy is traditional and has achieved a high degree of active homogeneity”. Thus, through exacerbated nationalism, “the war did not weaken, but instead it reinforced hegemony; there was no time to think: the state went to war and almost immediately the territory was invaded” (Gramsci 1975: 13 37 1640).

Americanism as a Passive Revolution The fact that they were states offspring’s of the original bourgeois revolution with solid hegemony, made it difficult for the socialist revolution which had emerged in a country as backward as Russia, to provoke a passive revolution in those countries, just as the outbreak of a socialist revolution unleashed by workers’ autonomy had been even more difficult. The passive revolution in these countries would come resulting from another movement, another shift in the international scenario, which was growing in America. As early as 1926, in his text on Europe and America, Trotsky had realized that the tendency would be for America to overtake Europe (and the USSR itself) if the socialist revolution did not recover its energy in a relatively short period. The way to spread Americanism in Europe would be—always according to Trotsky—through social democracy, since it would be the social and political force to incorporate Fordism and educate workers for the resumption of capitalist accumulation (Trotsky 1926 [1971]). Gramsci had certainly read and meditated on this text by Trotsky, so much so that in his Prison Notebooks, he discusses some of the arguments written a decade earlier by the Russian author. Since his first attempts to establish a syllabus for his time in prison, Gramsci had considered the importance and need to dedicate himself to clarify the meaning of

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Americanism for universal history. The discussion on this topic appears in the First Notebook, but later it becomes diluted. There is a fundamental revival in Notebook 22, a special Notebook, in which the notes on Americanism and Fordism are resumed. In this Notebook, Gramsci reflects on the multiplicity of the passive revolution, that is, of how one came to live in an era of passive revolutions that competed and fed off each other. In fact, there was a new expansion and redefinition of the passive revolution category. The main question Gramsci asked himself—aware of the political implications of an answer to the problem—was If Americanism can establish a historical ‘epoch’, could it determine a gradual evolution of the same type as the “passive revolution” examined elsewhere, or whether on the other hand it does not simply represent the molecular accumulation of elements destined to produce an “explosion”, that is, an upheaval on the French pattern. (Gramsci 1975: 22 1 2140)

Gramsci understands that Americanism and Fordism, as well as fascism, due to the crisis of liberalism and the pressure of the labor movement, result from the immanent need to achieve programmatic economics and the various problems examined should be the links in the chain that precisely mark the transition from old economic individualism to programmatic economics. (Gramsci 1975: 22 1 2139)

The problems and difficulties present in civil society and in the state to reach socialism as a fully programmatic economy determine a passive revolution, which progressively could be the initiative of one class or another. In the USSR, it was the working class’s initiative in circumstances of great difficulty, but in America, the initiative came from an innovative group of the bourgeoisie. As a general rule, what Gramsci had already noted about the Risorgimento, the subaltern forces, which should be ‘manipulated’ and rationalized according to the new purposes, necessarily resist. But some sectors of the dominant forces also resist, or are at least allies of the dominant forces. (Gramsci 1975: 22 1 2139)

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Within the ruling class there would have been the “replacement of the current plutocratic structure by a new mechanism of accumulation and distribution of financial capital based immediately on industrial production” (Gransci 1975: 22 1 2139). While, on the other hand, It was relatively easy to rationalize production and work, skillfully combining force (destruction of territorially based labor syndicalism) with persuasion (high wages, diverse social benefits, a very clever ideological and political propaganda), managing to base the entire life of the country upon production. Hegemony is born through the factory and needs no more than a minimal amount of professional political and ideological intermediaries. (Gramsci 1975: 22 2 2145–2146)

Gramsci stated that in America, rationalization determined the need to elaborate a new type of human, in accordance to the new type of labor and the production process: this elaboration so far is only in its initial phase and therefore (apparently) it is idyllic. (Gramsci 1975: 22 2 2146)

Americanism was thus a conscious effort, an initiative with a clear purpose of explaining religiosity, morals, the fight against alcoholism, etc. Objectively, in Gramsci’s analysis, rescuing Puritanism could be the “greatest collective effort verified so far to create, with unprecedented speed and awareness of the ultimate purpose, so much that it has never been seen in history, a new type of worker and man”. The implication in this work is that “a forced selection will inevitably occur and part of the old working class will mercilessly leave the labor front and perhaps the tout court world” (Gramsci 1975: 22 11 2165). Would Americanism thus be a variation of the passive revolution? Upon verifying a certain ideological rescue of the Puritan past as America’s identity, the reordering of the ruling classes and concession to some demands of the subaltern classes (regarding salaries and rights) undergoing a recreational process, the answer may be positive. Americanism-Fordism would be a revolution-restoration. But passive revolutions were also responses, reactions, a war of position, against an effectively revolutionary international context. What is the external impact of Americanism-Fordism? Gramsci does not address this problem, but a set of phenomena can be considered as fulfilling the role of the French Revolution in the nineteenth century: the

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mass migration of poor white workers towards America from the end of the nineteenth century on, the imperialist war and the Russian revolution. These phenomena may have boosted Americanism-Fordism, but the fact is that internal social forces were the decisive element in this process. As for America, “it is an organic extension and intensification of the European civilization, which has only taken on a new epidermis in the American climate” (Gramsci 1975: 22 15 2180). The fundamental difference is that America did not have a feudal past and resistant social stratum, which explains its capacity for innovation. In the end, without a complete answer to the proposed question about the meaning of Americanism, the strongest evidence is that Gramsci understood this historical phenomenon as a variation of the passive revolution, in which the working class would have been destroyed and recomposed by capital, according to its specific demands, thus reversing the tendency of a drop in the accumulation rate. It would be a passive revolution with strong innovative and expansive capacity, capable of great advances in the war of position and hegemonic consolidation. If both the USSR and Americanism were continuous passive revolution experiences, the category that originated in Cuoco’s understanding of the Neapolitan revolution in the late eighteenth century would have undergone an enormous expansion, passing through the interpretation of the Risorgimento and fascism. In fact, the imperialist war and containment of the international socialist revolution as a war of movement and permanent revolution unleashed a war of position and a series of passive revolutions that competed in the international scenario politically and ideologically. In the 1920s, as we have already recalled, following Trotsky, Gramsci enunciated the hypothesis that Americanism would overwhelm Europe with the subservient support of social-democratic reformism. Gramsci and the Italian communists worked with the possibility of the power of capital being preserved in Italy (and Europe) alternating between reformism and fascism, without any of these variables capable of breaking the ties with English financial capital and with the growing imposition from America. Only the resumption of the socialist revolution could change this. Gramsci’s reflection in prison provides clear continuity to this theoretical-political problem and a comparison between fascism and Americanism was necessary. The tendency towards the predominance of Americanism was already clear at least 10 years prior. Now

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The problem is as follows: if America, with the relentless weight of its economic production (indirectly) will constrict or is constricting Europe to a reversion of its too old-fashioned economic-social axis, which would occur somehow at slower pace, immediately presenting itself instead as a counter attack of American “prepotency”, if, that is to say, a transformation of the material bases of the European civilization is taking place, which in the long term (and not very long, because in the current period everything moves faster than in past) will lead to the trampling of existing civilization and will force the birth of a new civilization. (Gramsci 1975: 22 15 2178– 2179)

Then the process in which a passive revolution established by Fordist Americanism decisively impacts Europe, a continent where other variations of passive revolution were in progress, whether fascism or state socialism. This impact could subordinate Europe, but it would also generate new conditions for the resumption of the socialist revolution and movement to create a “new civilization”. Advancing this reasoning, Gramsci indicates that a transformation in the material bases of European economies could well be induced by Fordism and Taylorism, but Americanism itself demands the existence of a liberal state and an adequate intellectual group (which did not exist in fascist Italy): Americanization requires a given environment, a specific social structure (or the determined will to create it) and a certain type of state. This State is the liberal State, not in the sense of customs of liberalism or effective political freedom, but in the most fundamental sense of free initiative and economic individualism that comes with its own means, as “civil society”, due to its historical development and industrial concentration and monopoly regime. (Gramsci 1975: 22 6 2157)

Thus, the Americanization of Europe, in Gramsci’s view, would encounter difficulties, but, in any case, whether in America or Europe, this would not come from social groups that are ‘condemned’ by the new order that has its reconstruction expected, but from those who are creating, through impositions and their own suffering, the material bases of this new order: these ‘must’ find the ‘original’ system of life ‘and not an American brand, to make what is now a ‘necessity’ become ‘freedom’. (Gramsci 1975: 22 15 2179)

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Gramsci considered that the bearers of the future were the new subaltern social groups that were forged by the victorious action of capital in the cycle of passive revolutions that followed the defeat of the socialist revolution from 1917 to 1921. That working class, professionally qualified and organized in a factory and territorial basis, had been defeated in Italy and America, in Germany and even, to a certain extent, in Russia. The new (Fordist) working class for the time being was just a subordinate social group that had been shaped by capital. In order to become the working class that is building a new state and civilization, a lot still had to be done until the materialization of hegemony could actually be possible.

The Epoch of National Passive Revolutions In his notes written in prison, Gramsci now clearly saw that after the defeat of the international socialist revolution and the political movement of the working class overall, an epoch of passive revolutions and a war of position had begun. The defeat of the working class in Europe and America, as well as at the peripheries of imperialism, left Soviet Russia isolated and constricted in material and cultural backwardness. In this scenario, the class struggle returned to national levels, more suited to the development of passive revolutions which competed for hegemony in the international context, also necessary to organize subordinate classes. The first form of passive revolution affected states which had already undergone a passive revolution at around the 60s of the previous century, in their process of bourgeois revolution, and which now appeared to be weak links in the imperialist chain: Italy, Germany and Japan. The impact of the socialist revolution in Russia and the relative weakness of bourgeois hegemony—under pressure from subaltern classes—forced these states to launch a passive revolution. The affirmation of the nation-state and construction of social consensus at all costs guided this form of passive revolution. In addition to police, propaganda and military action for war and for labor, the distinguishing element in this form is the imposition (with different levels of success) of corporatism, as a means of nationalizing civil society. This passive revolution form was defeated militarily in 1945, and then dismantled and recomposed in a different form, which to some extent, was imposed by the victor. Corporatism, regardless of its fascist aspects, served as an inspiration in many areas on the periphery of imperialism, where internal contradictions

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made it possible to use contradictions present in the imperialist center to trigger bourgeois revolutions through passive revolutions. This was the case with extreme eastern and western European countries such as Hungary, Austria, Poland, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Portugal and Spain. But it was also the case in Brazil, Argentina and Mexico. In some of these cases, the contribution of Catholic-inspired corporatism was important, as well as the intellectual weight of the clerical institution itself, accentuating the restoration aspect of the passive revolution. In others, it could be included the positivism as important ideology. Very important is to remember the India case, which passive revolution preserved the castes order. In Eastern Europe, this passive revolution experience was also impacted and dismantled by war and was replaced by the state socialism variation after the short break of popular democracy (1945–1947). In Spain and Portugal, however, this regime survived until the 1970s, while in Latin America, it survived at the expense of a convenient hybridism with conservative liberal forms. Liberalism served the ruling classes well, while the working class was monitored by state corporatism. The defeat of the socialist revolution forced Russia to redefine itself as a (pluri) national state to wage a long-lasting international war of position at a time of passive revolutions. The possible path was irrevocably what Lenin identified as a state monopoly capitalism, under the leadership of the workers’ party. Certainly, as had already been recalled, it was a passive revolution insofar as it partially restored capitalism, but nonetheless it was a profound revolution as it sought workers’ hegemony and a socialist transition. Its characteristic was the search for consensus in the social base of the state, the relative autonomy of civil society with the implicit recognition of contradictions and conflicts between organized social instances and the state. The contradictions that emerged in the development of state monopoly capitalism in the USSR—aggravated by isolation and errors in political conduct—coupled with the global crisis of capitalism which erupted in 1929, induced a shift for passive revolution in that country. The complete nationalization of civil society ended the existing relative autonomy, which was fundamental to the socialist transition, as it exposed and brought to light the contradictions between class and state, breaking the shaky social consensus. The new passive revolution eliminated the agrarian bourgeoisie and the small communal peasantry, restoring conditions of feudal serfdom, concentrating labor force in preparation for mechanization to produce a

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surplus to be used in industrialization. While industrialization occurred and a new proletariat was created, on a new level, the absolutist state and feudal serfdom seem restored. The absence of private property and the distributive action of the state guaranteed the socialist aspect of the state, but an absolutist state, according to the historical particularity of the Russian Orient. The military victory against fascism made it possible for this passive revolution variant, which can be called state socialism, to spread across Eastern Europe in the late 1940s. It is true that Gramsci could not deepen the analysis of this passive revolution variant, but his writings enable such an interpretation. Strictly—as can be noticed—passive revolution was a category formulated to contribute to the explanation of specific processes in Italian history, whether the Risorgimento or fascism. This category was expanded in such a way that Gramsci allowed himself to use it while explaining Americanism-Fordism, but almost as an analogy. Perhaps not so much with the passive revolution conceived by Cuoco, but much more with the revolution-restoration conceived by Quinet. But the fact is that Americanism turned out to be the most solid twentieth-century passive revolution variation. Its strength was already significantly evident in the 20s–30s, but it became irresistible after driving the reordering of the capitalist world after fascism was defeated. Americanism overcame fascism and survived corporatism, reordering economies and states, spreading and inducing passive revolutions. Fordism and Taylorism became the organizational pattern and basis of bourgeois hegemony in the capitalist accumulation process. Finally, Trotsky’s prediction in the 1920s, reaffirmed by Gramsci a decade later, that America would overtake Europe through the consensus built by Social Democracy (and Christian Democracy), seemed to come true. France and England had to accept the new leadership from the original core of capitalism, where hegemony was more solid, but for Federal Germany and Italy (as well as Japan) there was nothing left but to accept the induction of a new passive revolution. The competition between Americanism and its broad spectrum of allies with the passive revolution variation manifested in state socialism was also characterized by the valorization of the nation-state, the search for stability and controlled changes, international consensus and security, balance and containment. Particularly in Europe, the advance of rights and social assistance was remarkable, as well as the strengthening of political representation through parties. The spread of Americanism

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as an imperial power also contributed to dismantle the archaic European colonial empires, which recomposed themselves in the mimetic form of national states, most often submissive to the new economic and imposed military force. The stability of this vast peripheral zone was guaranteed by the imposition of military dictatorships or democracy representations. However, the scenario of competition between passive revolutions and their various shades opened gaps in the periphery of the imperialism conflict, which enabled popular national revolutions endowed with a socialist transition agenda. These were the outstanding cases of Yugoslavia, China, Vietnam and Cuba, in addition to others that soon retreated. By the mid-1970s, however, it was already clear that these passive revolution variations were reaching exhaustion. The era of passive revolutions that Gramsci considered to have begun in 1921 was over. A persistent fiscal and financial crisis in the US served as the backdrop for a chronic political crisis fueled by strong sociocultural claims, coming from different social groups that proved to be incapable of uniting. The energy crisis and the military defeat in the Indochina War indicated a serious weakening of the leading power of the imperialist West. This resulted in a relative strengthening of Federal Germany and Japan, that assimilated the passive revolution quite well, induced by Americanism through massive investments. The capital and fiscal crisis of the state, also in these countries, prevented them from occupying a leading role in the imperial chain, as the fractured social consensus and the expansion of political and cultural dimensions in the labor movement made the increased pressure on capital possible. Mainly in Western Europe, the Fordist working class had reached a degree of organization and combativity, confronting capitalist accumulation upon conquering important territories in the war of position, even though it did not represent an antagonistic and international social alternative, established among the subaltern classes. In Brazil and Poland at the end of the 70s, the Fordist working class made its last eruption as an organized political force, even though it was always limited by economic-corporative outlines. In different forms and levels of intensity, institutions in the USA, England, France, Italy, Germany and Japan were affected by political crisis and faced the situation with extensive use of secret services and extralegal methods against armed struggle, indicating a crisis of hegemony

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among the ruling classes. As a reaction, these began to seek a new realignment, gathering around more conservative social sectors, which adopted neo-liberalist ideology as a unifying element. The economic-political growth of some subaltern national states, such as Brazil and India, and emergence of an anti-imperialist and revolutionary socialist perspective contributed to a growing fear of instability in international relations as a whole and required a general restructuring of the Western empire. This was based, not only on a socio-political realignment, but on a renegotiation between economic-political power extremes, a necessary step towards a minimal agenda towards the victorious offensive against socialist East and against the world of organized labor, a condition for capital’s hegemony to be reorganized. Initially, Japan was the main relative beneficiary, as it had a working class with a very low degree of antagonism, an early victim of post-Fordist forms of labor management, and because it was not directly involved in the military defense of the imperial order. Germany, also relieved of this burden, had however, a worker’s movement with a social-democratic tradition, aware of the rights conquered, while the USA, although not having to face a nationally articulated workers movement, was burdened with the self-imposed task of defending the empire, with a fiscal crisis worsening, as well as having to face a persistent political crisis arising from the internal contestation of the colonial Indochina war. In the mid-1970s, the hegemony crisis among the ruling layer of state socialism was irreversible, and therefore, much more serious than the crisis of the ruling classes of capitalist imperialism. Starting at the periphery, where it was more fragile and recent, the crisis materialized with the emergence of an autonomous civil society supported by the mercantile economy and traditional social institutions, with an emphasis on the Catholic Church, especially in Poland. The socialist state economy, incapable of incorporating productivity into social work, began to invest more than ever in cutting-edge military technology, highlighting the militarization of the empire and its expansion, manifested in Africa and Afghanistan. At the same time, servile labor camps were reactivated, crowded with “crazy”, “drunkard” and “dissident” individuals to try to offset the lack of values in use.

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Globalization as an International Passive Revolution? The exhaustion of the era of passive revolutions that began after the defeat of the international socialist revolution from 1917 to 1921 could be succeeded by the resumption of the socialist revolution at a much higher level, offered by capitalist development itself and by passive revolutions that reached exhaustion, or begin a new wave of passive revolutions. The attempts to resume the socialist revolutionary project proved to be insufficient in all quadrants in the globe, even though between 1968 and 1975 they seemed feasible and effectively pressured the power of capital. The problem that arises is whether the theoretical passive revolution category, developed by Gramsci, is pertinent for this new phase of capital accumulation and international politics, in both senses: if the use of this category is applicable when analyzing this reality, according to its meaning and whether the elements in this phase effectively outline a passive revolution. For the crisis of capital, strategic options in the second half of the 70s were the recognition of a multipolar world (which encompassed emerging powers), an equal ordering around the triad (USA, Germany, Japan), or a resumption of imperial and unipolar trends. The choice regarding these possibilities had its own implications. The possibility of a multipolar reorganization of relations between states was made unfeasible due to the risks it brought of expanding democratic spaces not only in relations between states, but also especially within states, increasing pressure upon workers, which were already nearing their tolerable limit. The intermediate option, considering a condominium of a few imperial powers, would imply an emphasis on regionalization, but the difficulties that Japan and Germany also came to encounter with economic stagnation trends made this variant more difficult. The unipolar imperial option carried the implication of being the most openly conservative and reactionary, as it sought to reorganize the dominant layers around their most conservative groups and those with greater economic power, demanding open confrontation and liquidation of state socialism. Similarly, the need to unleash an action that would be capable of disintegrating workers’ antagonism was implicit. This, however, was the option imposed. After some variations, the solution found to handle threats to increased capital accumulation was unleashing a new global passive revolution, apparently facilitated by the unipolar imperial strategy, granting a new

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density to the liberal-bourgeois hegemony increasing capital accumulation to a new level, changing its own materiality. The requirement was then strengthening the financial sector, achieved by the exponential resumption of speculation, in order to obtain a large mass of accumulated money-capital, which then could be partially geared towards promoting a technical-scientific revolution immediately applicable to the production process, based on automation and computerization. Financial capital, which was already the main hub of capital accumulation, becomes a matrix that generates a mass of knowledge by guaranteeing the control and management of scientific production, considering knowledge and intelligence as its main raw materials. But the information monopoly itself allows financial capital to radicalize its speculative nature, transferring money-capital from one point to another on the globe, promoting a movement of valorization that is beyond the productive process, accentuating the detachment of the expanded reproduction of social wealth. Under the guise of “cognitive capital”, financial capital also invests in production by implementing a system with flexible and intelligent electronic machines that replace the rigid and repetitive machines of mass production, thus mitigating the importance of direct ownership of the media production and projecting knowledge ownership as a decisive element of capitalist accumulation. The mechanical activity of the Taylorized factory impoverishes the performance of work but provides bonds of worker solidarity derived from similarity in living conditions, which gains organizational and cultural expression in the union and in the mass party. The so-called informational revolution (Lojkine 1995), in turn, breaks worker’s solidarity, becoming fragmented into small-sectored corporatism in the market, dissolving latent social antagonism, since in the automated and socially expanded factory, the worker is isolated and his contact with other workers who fulfill different functions occurs through management of the work and production process, which concentrates power in the company. This individualization of labor, connected to new technologies and new forms of labor organization and management, represents extended expropriation of workers’ subjectivity, since it also makes their minds submissive in addition to manual work. While the Taylorized factory work loses value, the technological revolution raises social productivity of labor, providing technical-scientific knowledge to a limited portion of the workforce by linking productive work to scientific knowledge,

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thus establishing a new version of “workers’ aristocracy”. However, on the other hand, this creates a growing number of workers in a situation of increased precariousness, occupied part-time, expropriated of their accumulated knowledge, a huge mass of individuals expelled from the productive process who are at their limit, expropriated from the use of their labor force. With the fragmentation, destruction or displacement of the working class forged in the previous wave of passive revolutions through a war of position in production, a new unfolding and fragmentation of subordinate social groups are perpetrated, which allows capital to launch the offensive against social and labor rights. Having established the objective of (re) privatizing the public sphere to provide solutions for the state’s fiscal crisis, while conspiring for a part of the labor force that remains useful to capital to be reduced to a new form of corporatism (analogous to feudal serfdom) from the moment when their labor position and social guarantees rely directly on tentacular private enterprise. Thus, not even the increase in productivity generated by new technologies and new qualifications can halt the decline in workers’ living conditions. In reality what occurs is a transference of property and political power to large capitalist corporations, and as a result there is an exhaustion of the decision-making capacity and sovereignty of the national state towards new supranational bureaucratic institutions and localist institutions, practically immune to any democratic control. The result is that liberal-democratic institutions, which were created and strengthened in the national state, tend to lose decision-making power in favor of international and private bureaucratic bodies, more or less connected directly to the interests of large businesses and capital. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), to a large extent, determine the financial policies that redefine dimensions of accumulation, overriding state sovereignty, which is increasingly limited. The representative government has its effectiveness questioned, which end up imposing forms of plebiscitary democracy (or Caesarism), that is facilitated by the crisis of the mass union and party and the entire socialist culture. Limited by its private accumulation characteristics and hierarchical organization of production and political power, although capital is committed to the establishment of the imperium mundi of large corporations, it cannot dispense the state as a protection for its power. In

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fact, there is a production decentralization process, with the centralization of capital and political power, which in the international scenario becomes the American state. What occurs is the privatization and transfer of responsibilities to civil society bodies, which may be companies or social organizations. The state is always more important, seeking to contain the accumulation crisis, striving to guarantee market shares and sources of natural resources, changing its functions according to capital globalization needs. The militarist dynamic, intrinsic to imperialism, does not cease, but expands, and this is indispensable for guaranteeing the colonization of internal markets in peripheral states if financial pressure is not enough. Therefore, the weakening of the state is differentiated and even relative. In fact, the peripheral national States should be weakened since they suffer a colonialist offensive that affects their natural resources, the organization of production and their markets. The myth of the sovereignty of state power ends. The initiatives aimed at restoring the productivity of capitalist accumulation were implemented in full force in the 1980s, supported by a broad cultural and ideological offensive, which guaranteed the “end of work”, the “end of subjects”, the “end of History”, the “end of the class struggle”. This was the beginning of the “post-modern era”, a time of extreme fragmentation and individualism, an ahistorical time with the prevalence of machines over man. This generalized offensive by capital had its initial objectives achieved in a short timeframe: the weakening of the workers’ movement, its institutions and ideologies was achieved, but overthrowing state socialism was decisive in dismantling the resistance of workers as collective subjects. Unlike the original private accumulation of capital that forced institutional spaces to be opened in the absolutist state, joining feudal nobility, in the feudal-socialist state of the East-state socialism—due to its anticapitalist stance, private accumulation could only advance through the irruption of an underground bourgeoisie. This was a bourgeoisie without any cultural or legal parameters to restrict its activity in the market forged through contravention, which immediately associated itself with great imperialist capital, becoming compromised to the colonization of the new market. Reactivating socialist democratization became unfeasible and growing concessions to imperialist pressure and, finally, capitulation and disintegration, resulted in the virtual inevitable colonization of Eastern Europe.

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The disintegration of state socialism confirmed that the unipolar imperial world under the complete control of capital was about to become a reality. The globalization of the capital circuit and the configuration of the empire were within reach of the sinister hands of the transnational financial oligarchy. The re-dimensioning of spaces was also underway, through resources being restrained in the Middle East, through the war in Iraq and the war destroying Yugoslavia. The core of the unipolar empire is the USA, was exercising its mandate on behalf of large transnational capitalist corporations, particularly those whose interests are defined on American soil. After the rupture in 1989–1991, when state socialism concluded its parable, passive revolution attempts occurred in several states and regions, merging nationalism and neoliberalism (as in Japan). The end of state socialism provided a new impetus to the most reactionary forces in the worldwide scenario, with the emergence of forces endowed with regressive religious ideologies. In 2001, there was a new turn in world politics suggested by the spectacular attacks perpetrated in the USA, coinciding with symptoms of exhaustion in the economic growth based on financialization. From then on, imperial aggressiveness reached its peak with wars of conquest and outrageous economic and diplomatic pressures. The need to guarantee energetic resources at any price signaled that the unipolar imperial power managed by the big capitalist companies was facing major problems. These are noticeable through the enormous difficulty to restore rates of capitalist accumulation, even with the increase in productivity for living labor, and the growing reliance on this accumulation based on financial speculation and production of weapons (according to Lenin’s old assessment). The managerial power of the imperium mundi, insofar as its economy is weakened and increasingly dependent on financial capital transactions and the military industry, pari-passu increases its aggressiveness and its hegemonic capacity drops. The empire of capital built with the strength of the American state begins to see this instrument weaken as a force of hegemonic concentration, which only stimulates chaos in international relations, and thus, the UN, especially since it served as an instrument for American hegemony, is completely uncapable of managing multiple existing and potential conflicts. The other great difficulty is in closing the gap that opened in the 70’s crisis when a few states acquired a leap of economic growth, creating even

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more problems for capitalist domination than actual solutions. Such as South Korea (which greatly bothers Japan), India and some other Asian countries. Can one consider the hypothesis of passive national revolutions amidst capitalist globalization? This issue requires careful studies on national and regional specificities. And yet another question, can one consider the existence of passive revolutions generated within states that underwent a Jacobin revolution? China is a particularly important case, as it appears as an enormous challenge, not towards the empire of capital for instance, but towards the unipolarity of imperial power. The new political economy implemented in China since the 1980s has promoted profound social relations and political power that may suggest that the passive revolution notion could be explanatory. Furthermore, it is a lot more complicated to accept the hypothesis of understanding the current capital crisis period as a passive revolution with global characteristics.

Or an Organic Capital Crisis? At this point, as a provisional conclusion, one may question the rigor in qualifying the last forty years of the history of imperialism as a global passive revolution. Apparently, the crisis in the 70s and the exhaustion of a cycle of passive revolutions projected Americanism as a variation capable of overcoming all others and creating a universal empire. The exhaustion in Fordism could be overcome by incorporating the Japanese variation of organizing the work process—called toyotism—within a context of strong technological innovation and open markets. This upheaval in the material bases of capitalist production would be the foundation for a passive revolution that would restore the productivity of capital. The neo-liberalist ideology enveloped this fantastical scenario. As discussed by Gramsci, a passive revolution suggests an external revolutionary impact and strong pressure from the subaltern classes on current national power. The external impact could be identified, with some flexibility over the concept, as an imperial offensive—with a clearly restorative characteristic—unleashed by the USA in all quadrants, and the pressure of the subaltern classes could be seen mainly as the strength of the European worker’s movement and revolutionary movements in the peripheries. But a passive revolution reorders all the ruling classes, incorporating new elements, attracting part of their leadership and dismantling their antagonistic force. The intention was to articulate the set of owners, to spread

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and generalize the notion of property as an inseparable aspect of freedom (albeit by force), even as an ideological instrument for the disintegration of social antagonism. A passive revolution also unleashes a war of position, and in order to be victorious, capital and all ruling classes must partially absorb the demands of subaltern social groups and attract their intellectual leadership, so that civil hegemony may be recomposed. But if there was (as I believe this was the case) a will and an underlying initiative to trigger a passive revolution, a revolution-restoration, which in addition to rescuing capital productivity, would reorganize the capacity that capitalist bourgeoisie had to manage their empire over the world as a hegemony based on alienated egoic-proprietary aspects, then that initiative failed. It failed and it could not be otherwise, as the insurmountable difficulties to overcome the fiscal crisis and the productivity crisis demanded increased trampling of the workforce, expropriated to a large extent even from its homo faber conditions. Furthermore, capitalist production becomes increasingly destructive for goods in order to force the permanent creation of new items for trade. In this process, the use of natural resources that generate energy is constantly increased leading the natural and humanized environment to an unprecedented catastrophe, even jeopardizing the survival of the human species. The historical processes analyzed by Gramsci which could be qualified as passive revolutions also brought with them a civilizing potential, which could create more adequate conditions for the socialist revolution. Gramsci pointed out that passive revolutions “accept some part of popular demands” and nurture “expectations and hopes” (Gramsci 1975: 10 9 1228). In the revolution-restoration dialectic of the current phase of imperialism called the globalization of capital, the revolution aspect is limited to new technologies, but it has not been able to solve capital problems, because the tendency to devastate the workforce and dispense it in an accumulation process is an incurable contradiction of capital itself. The restoration aspect, in turn, cannot contemplate the dimension of civil hegemony, and instead promotes conflict within subaltern social groups, inducing permanent civil war with variable levels of intensity. The matter presented by Gramsci was how to emerge victoriously from a national passive revolution, how to transform it into part of an international socialist revolution, how to culminate a war of position with a war of movement that would overthrow the power of capital and its institutions. Today the question is much more radical and urgent: how

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to prevent technological barbarism and the environmental catastrophe induced by the crisis of capital, if not through an international socialist revolution? How can one speak of a passive revolution when there are regressive symptoms in the humanization process of man? Thus, the matter that distressed Gramsci in his analysis of Americanism, and whether this was really a historical process that could qualify a passive revolution or “just a molecular accumulation of elements destined to produce a French-type upheaval” (Gramsci 1975: 22 1 2140), may haunt us at present. The return to a new level with many of the characteristics of primitive capital accumulation (which were never absent or surpassed) in this late phase of imperialism, as varied forms of serfdom and slavery, especially but not only in the peripheries, highlights the feasibility of this question. The deepening of contradictions in the capital process, the elements of entropy in social processes and international relations, the diversification and fragmentation of cultural political manifestations of subaltern social groups, including elements of strong religious or racist backlash, indicate a new relevance for distinguished socialism or barbarism. At a time when hegemony is proposed only as an accentuation of proprietary individualism and as ideological manipulation, reaching an ever smaller number of individuals and groups, one must consider, if instead of a passive revolution through the globalization of capital, it is more likely that we are facing the organic crisis of the historical bloc established under the control and dynamics of capital, which in its inexorable decline points to a growing social and technical barbarism. When describing the organic crisis, on a page that recalls Vico’s barbarism, Gramsci suggested that If the ruling class has lost its consensus, it means that it no longer “rules”, and is merely “dominant”, holding pure coercive force. This means that the great masses have detached themselves from traditional ideologies, they no longer believe in what they used to create, etc. The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying but the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear. (Gramsci 1975: 3 34 311)

Then, in more detail, he said that:

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There is a crisis that sometimes lasts for dozens of years. This exceptional duration means that insurmountable contradictions in the structure have been revealed (reaching maturity) and that the political forces that act positively to conserve and defend the structure itself strive to remedy them within certain limits and overcome them. These incessant and persevering efforts (since no social form will ever confess that it has been overcome) establish the “occasional” foundation in which the antagonistic forces that tend to demonstrate (a demonstration that ultimately only succeeds and is “true” if it becomes a new reality, if antagonistic forces triumph, but which is immediately explicit in a series of ideological, religious, philosophical, political, legal, etc. polemics, whose concrete characteristic can be assessed by the extent to which they become convincing and displace the pre-existing alignment of social forces) that the necessary and sufficient conditions already exist for certain tasks to be necessarily solved historically (they must, since the non-fulfillment of this historical duty increases the necessary disorder and prepares for more severe catastrophes). (Gramsci 1975: 13 17 1579–1580)

Socialism, or better, the communist revolution to overcome the organic crisis can only be achieved through a broad global alliance of subaltern social groups placed in antagonism to the process of capital accumulation and imperial domination and everything related to it: labor exploitation, women’s submission, racialization and environmental devastation. Thus, with the mediation of the national dimension, a new working class must be established, one that is more concerned with the existing contradictions than their own identity, facing the challenge of human emancipation and creation of a nuova civiltà (a new civilization). Gramsci’s relevance in current times is noticeable though his critical radicalism, his dialectical and dialogical thinking, and through a philosophy of praxis that highlights the scission spirit towards capital and its various forms of political power, which emphasize autonomy, selforganization and social antagonism. His work is undeniably contemporary as it considers a much larger and concrete dimension and the need to forge a united front of social and political forces that shape the embryo of the new historical bloc based on associated and emancipated labor.

The Particularity of the Passive Revolution in Brazil: Translating Gramsci

Reciprocal Translation of Languages and the Philosophy of Praxis Gramsci elaborated the notion of translation or translatability based on the idea that for a text produced in a certain language and cultural environment to be understood in another language and cultural environment it should be translated considering implicit change in the act of translation, preserving its content and message although in another historical and cultural context. Translation implies the transition of a text produced in a historical specificity to one that has similar characteristics, preserving and expanding its universality. The problems proposed by Gramsci included the possibility of translating scientific, philosophical and political languages from one specific culture to another within the same universality, in time and space. Gramsci considered that “it thus seems that one can say that only in the philosophy of praxis is “translation” organic and profound, while from other points of view it is often a simple game of generic “schemes” (Gramsci 1975: 11, 47, 1468). In fact, the issue of reciprocal translation originated in the perceived relationship between the French Revolution and German classical philosophy. This perception was already present with young Hegel and later rescued by Marx, who suggested that French political language and © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Del Roio, Gramsci and the Emancipation of the Subaltern Classes, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90777-8_8

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German philosophical language were interchangeable. Gramsci then adds how it is possible to reciprocally translate “the legal-political language of France and the philosophical, doctrinal, theoretical language in Germany. The historian considered that these civilizations were actually reciprocally translatable, reducible to each other” (Gramsci 1975: 11, 48, 1470). This is the perception Gramsci had when he sought to translate Lenin into the national reality of Italy and Machiavelli into present times: translating space and time with a focus on praxis. It was of utmost importance to grasp the Italian social particularities, the development of capitalism and the state, precisely so that the socialist revolution strategy could be determined. Lenin had pointed out the particularities of Russian capitalism with bourgeoisie weaknesses, as they depended on the state and were attached to feudal nobility, as well as the dissolution of feudal remnants and the agrarian commune due to the spread of commercial relations on the field. Thus, he observed the political theoretical mistakes of Menshevism and Neo-Narodiniks, even though he was aligned with the left sector of the latter so that the worker-peasant alliance could be consolidated and the radicalized bourgeois democratic revolution could take place, led by the working class and geared towards a socialist transition. Lenin noticed that the Mensheviks incorporated the theoretical concept of Majority Social Democracy, without it adhering to Russian reality, and the Narodiniks assumed that, given the fragile aspect of Russian capitalism, the peasantry would play a central role in the struggle against the state. Gramsci considered that, by translating Lenin, it would be necessary to observe the particularity of Italian bourgeois revolution and capitalism, within the universal context of the development of capitalism and international socialist revolution. This problem followed Gramsci from the outbreak of the international socialist revolution in Russia in 1917, in the notorious article he wrote called “Revolution against Capital”, throughout his entire Prison work. Despite Italy’s very long civilizational history, it only managed to develop capitalism in a late and reflexive manner. Gramsci analyzed the obstacles for the development of capitalism in Italy, considering the historical stratifications left by the Roman Empire and feudalism, with an emphasis on the Catholic Church. The failed attempts to establish a territorial state in the Renaissance and the persistent predominance of ecclesial power—an impediment to a religious, intellectual and moral reform—were fatal.

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When the bourgeois revolution broke out at the end of the eighteenth century, with the specific manifestations of industrialism in England, Jacobinism in France and idealist philosophy in Germany, Italy was left to its entry into the so-called Risorgimento. This historical phase of imprecise and controversial periodization is confused with the particularity of the bourgeois revolution and the development of capitalism in Italy. From the Theses in the III ICP Congress (January 1926) all the way to Notebook 19, specifically on the Risorgimento, Gramsci deepens his understanding of Italian particularity in the bourgeois revolution context in the nineteenth century and the socialist revolution in the twentieth century. The Risorgimento resulted from altered power relations in the Italian peninsula and Europe, with the rise of Prussia—which breaks the diarchy between France and Austria—, the decline of the Church and strengthening of Piedmont. The French Revolution acts powerfully in this scenario, accentuating contradictions and strongly contributing to unleash the revolution in the Kingdom of Naples. Then, particularly in Naples, a reflexive revolution takes place, resulting from the impacts of the French Revolution. Vincenzo Cuoco—intellectual and important political reference in this process—identified the Neapolitan revolution as a passive revolution, in other words, resulting from inconsistent pressure from the Neapolitan masses and French Revolution impacts, therefore a reflexive revolution. Gramsci extended the notion presented by Cuoco to the entire Risorgimento and considered the interpretation of the French Revolution as a long-term process which took place from 1789 to 1870. Thus, the entire Risorgimento appears to be a passive revolution, as a reflection of the French Revolution, but as a process devoid of Jacobinism. Jacobinism does not occur because intellectuals, the political group that intended to represent the people/nation, could not establish the directive and programmatic nexus in practical terms, especially regarding the agrarian problem. Intellectuals and political groups that decided to lead the people/nation without an organic bond were left to surrender, as in transformism, to the moderate group that restored the power of the ruling classes by uniting the peninsula in the Risorgimento. Therefore,

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the so-called ‘transformism’ is not more than the parliamentary expression of the fact that the Partito d’Azione was incorporated molecularly by the moderates and the popular masses were beheaded and not absorbed within the scope of the new state. (Gramsci 1975: 19, 26, 2042)

The revolution/restoration that prevailed updated the southern question in Italy, which began to indicate the Italian particularity in the agrarian problem. Finally, the bourgeois revolution in nineteenth century Italy appeared as a revolution that was marked by the territorial expansion of the Kingdom of Piedmont, which represented the annexation of the South by the North, and the alliance of the industrial bourgeoisie with the southern agrarian oligarchies, keeping the group of dispossessed and working classes in subalternity. The form and content of the bourgeois revolution with its passive revolution characteristics indicated its incompleteness, as well as the fragility and peripheral situation of bourgeois domination. The revolution in twentieth century Italy for Gramsci would have a Jacobin democratic aspect in the national scenario and in the international context it would have socialist revolution aspect. The Jacobin aspect would be assured only if the northern working class were able to establish a solid alliance with the meridional peasant masses. In order to achieve this, the presence of a political group leading the working class with an organic bond with the capacity to attract intellectuals capable of providing a revolutionary approach to the agrarian and meridional question would be essential. The scission towards bourgeois social order and the united front of the subaltern classes would enable the beginning of an effective intellectual and moral reform and conditions for the socialist transition, which requires material conditions and the establishment of a collective will, “understood as operative awareness of historical necessity, as protagonist of a real and effective historical drama” (Gramsci 1975: 1, 13, 1559). The reciprocal translatability regarding Lenin and the Russian revolution is quite evident, but there is still the translation/updating of problems that developed in another time or space, such as Machiavelli’s Italy and Robespierre’s France. Thus, the revolutionary party, the Jacobin group, the Modern Prince is the theoretical/practical result of a series of spatial/temporal translations and ideas circulating. The issue that arises then is the possibility of translating Gramsci for Brazil. This is a problem that unfolds into two others, if we want to maintain minimum rigor with Gramscian work: first, the interpretation

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of Brazilian reality, the bourgeois revolution and its specific path for capitalist development; and secondly the possibility of translating Gramsci for the current praxis of subaltern class movements in Brazil (and why not, in Latin America). In fact, this problem could also be posed differently, but that would shift the main focus of the discussion, which would be to question more broadly, whether Gramsci, Lenin and Lukács could be translated for Brazil and if so, how.

Passive Revolution as a Historical Interpretation Cannon The question, in short, is whether the passive revolution category—elaborated by Gramsci and based on Cuoco’s notes—can be translated into the Brazilian social historical process. The answer can be affirmative as long as it is attached to researching the particularity of bourgeois revolution in Brazil. It is completely beyond the scope of this text to enter the debate found in specialized literature on the existence of the bourgeois revolution in Brazil or its period. I simply assume that the bourgeois revolution in Brazil is a process that takes place in the late 1920s, when the irreversible crisis of the pattern of agro-mercantile accumulation of capital, and drags on until the late 1970s, when Brazil could be considered fully capitalist. The passive revolution category developed by Gramsci can be used in Brazil through the specific meaning of the bourgeois revolution forms and capitalist development path. It is important to establish this idea, given that Gramsci used the same category in the analysis of other specific historical moments, such as fascism and Americanism.1 Remember that the bourgeois revolution in Italy is intertwined with the period that dominant ideology calls the Risorgimento. This process is identified with the impact of the French Revolution on the Italian peninsula and the heteronymous set of popular demonstrations, which, although incapable of a Jacobin-style revolution, it pressured the ruling class forcing them to reorganize and restore their power by making concessions and co-opting intellectual and political leadership, until they achieved unity in the peninsula.

1 Among the authors who first risked using the passive revolution category for Brazil are Luiz Werneck Vianna (1976) and Carlos Nelson Coutinho (1990).

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Passive revolution is therefore a reflexive revolution, with external impacts representing a premise. In Brazil, the external impact that acted strongly on internal social forces was undoubtedly US imperialism, or better, American-Fordism, also treated by Gramsci as a specific passive revolution phenomenon. The USA quickly rose to the position of the new nucleus of capitalist imperialism and became a model for bourgeoisies in different parts of the world, including Brazil and Italy. Brazilian industrial bourgeoisie developed its own aspects precisely during the 1920s, assimilating the impulse of Americanism and Fordism in its own way. Brazil then was fertile territory, suitable for entrepreneurial individuals, who would dare immediately to use advanced methods for labor exploitation, with the guarantees offered by the guardian state. The bourgeoisie could even aspire to direct the historical process insofar as it contributed to shaping a civil society centered on industry. This world of dreams was shattered as soon as Brazil was understood to still be an immense agrarian ocean, where imperialism would not grant industrialism to the young bourgeoisie and the subaltern classes that also had their subjectivity. The world of liberal-bourgeois freedom was unfeasible… Although weak and more distant, the Russian revolution also sent its signals, which activated the industrial proletariat being developed, motivated its struggles, and offered lessons. The perspective of the Jacobin democratic revolution matured in sectors of the labor movement, especially those guided by the Communist Party. The effervescence of the subaltern classes in the city and the field was very sensitive, but the projected democratic revolution did not impose itself upon an adverse reality, which is now impossible to describe. There were external impacts, as well as a social effervescence, but the Jacobin democratic revolution did not prove to be possible: the passive revolution or revolution-restoration remained. The core of this process is the reorganization of the ruling classes, which took place under the aegis of the Gaucho oligarchy (from the state of Rio Grande do Sul in the south of Brazil), with the industrialist perspective widely incorporated and the agrarian interests preserved, establishing an agrarian-industrial bloc. This implied state action, which sealed a redefinition of the so-called Northeast problem, a specificity of the agrarian and peasant problem in Brazil. The Northeast, designated to preserve the latifundium, had begun providing the workforce for industrial expansion in the Southeast since

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the end of the 20’s. It is noteworthy that Brazil, like Russia, in this reciprocal translation perspective, had an agricultural frontier, while in Italy the problem appeared to be emigration. The state, in fact, tended to become generalized, largely reversing the ultra-federalism that prevailed until 1930. This state, in addition to overcoming feudal localism, encouraged industry, and thus carried out the gradual structuring process for industrial bourgeoisie as a dominant fraction. Within the state, the Army promoted industrialization, making it a matter of national defense and security. The bourgeoisie accepted the new state that was being established, as it defended its interests of a strong imperialist presence, and applied pressure over the subaltern classes. The state that led passive revolution in Brazil was organized as a liberal-corporate hybrid, with the predominance of one or another aspect according to the correlation between social forces. Corporatism was a means for European bourgeoisies with weak hegemony whose power originated from passive revolutions to face the crisis that followed the international socialist revolution. The initial example was precisely Italy. Corporatism was also established as an institutional option for peripheral countries such as Brazil, which were now facing the process of bourgeois revolution, thus defining a new passive revolution variation: while Americanism-Fordism and the Jacobin democratic revolution with a socialist orientation were impossible, corporatism suggested a passive revolution, disseminating languages that were reciprocally translatable. Liberalism watches over the countryside through leaving private property untouched, but also as an envelope for social relations involving personal dependence which guaranteed the survival of the feudal latifundium and the oppression of the landless peasantry. The bourgeoisie was part of the corporate channels offered by the state, but it was also legally authorized to organize itself autonomously. Corporatism, through the nationalization of unions, began weighing upon the working class, submitted to the bourgeois state under construction, with the purpose of organizing it for capital exploitation, having thus lost its autonomy and antagonistic position. Many union leaders and intellectuals close to the labor movement committed to create state corporate syndicalism, a clear transformational manifestation (as took place in Italy). These co-opted intellectuals (such as Evaristo de Moraes or Joaquim Pimenta) surrendered to the ideological complex elaborated by intellectuals who decidedly provided a direction to the ongoing passive

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revolution process, such as Oliveira Vianna, Gilberto Freire and Azevedo Amaral. The work of these intellectuals is referenced by the science originated in German culture and this clearly justifies the colonial bond, the subalternity of entire social groups and the role of the state as an educator and builder of the people/nation. Finally, the authoritarian, conservative and corporate ideology (with a Catholic enclosure) predominated throughout the passive revolution period in Brazil, decisively leading the permanent reorganization of dominant social layers and fragmentation of subaltern classes. Nationalism and developmentalism were the clear bourgeois aspects of this ideological complex, although there were more links in state machinery than in the bourgeois class itself, prone to a Prussian-style liberalism. Subaltern classes, even though fragmented, always appear as part of passive revolution. Peasantry dispersed across the large estates are manifested through messianic movements and rural banditry, but also with efforts to establish leagues and unions, in addition to armed conflicts defending land ownership. These demonstrations by rural workers were regularly repressed by state forces or paramilitary forces directly linked to large landowners. The possibility of migration to cities in the Southeast or to the economic frontier in the Amazon further weakened the possibilities for peasant struggle. An even more serious factor was that the action of the state practically made it impossible to establish an alliance between rural and urban workers. The industrial proletariat burst into Brazilian history demanding social and citizenship rights between 1917 and 1920. It was a small and dispersed proletariat, with more significant concentration in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, where the immigrant presence was quite accentuated. The unleashing of the passive revolution caused historical discontinuity in the labor movement, when new waves of workers were recruited among those coming from internal migration, bringing workers from the Northeastern countryside to the cities in the Southeast. This displacement of the working population extended through the entire phase of the passive revolution, until the 1970s. Submitted to state corporate syndicalism, the rural proletariat understood that wage-earning and a few social rights granted by the state with the purpose of co-opting and expanding its social base represented a form of social ascension. In fact, part of the proletariat became a fulcrum for the ongoing passive revolution, organized in the union and the Brazilian Labor Party.

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But this submission of the working class was not (and could not be) complete. The pressure for a democratic reversal of the bourgeois revolution was always present as a threat: in 1934–1935, in 1945, in 1961–1964. On all these occasions the working class moved towards the recovery of its autonomy and the Communist Party was an important reference. The immense difficulties in articulating the political alliance between rural and urban workers on several occasions, displaced the communists to the option of supporting bourgeoisie in an industrialist policy, in the vain hope that this would contribute to the solution of the agrarian problem and national issues, basically, that it would adopt an anti-imperialist and anti-landownership stance. This policy´s failure was evident after 1964, with the radicalization and complementation of the revolution-restoration. The limits of the Jacobin democratic strand—that is, the communists—were theoretical, organizational and programmatic. The massive military component—with its positivist heritage—in one way or another pushed the party towards the state rather than towards the autonomous organization of civil society and class antagonism. Finally, by the end of the 70s, the industrial bourgeoisie had already claimed to be the ruling social fraction of social life. Now Brazil was a fully capitalist and significantly industrialized country and, perhaps, AmericanFordism would find a more suitable foundation for deployment. On the other hand, to support this hypothesis, a strong working class with a Fordist profile emerged through the struggle for autonomy from the state and for the workforce’s full freedom to organize and sell. This was still an economic-corporate level, in the sense that Gramsci indicates it to be a degree of consciousness that does not go beyond bourgeois liberalism. Here consciousness is reached of the solidarity of interests among all the members of a social class-but still in the purely economic field. At that moment, the question of the State was already posed, but only to achieve political-legal equality towards dominant groups, since they claimed the right to participate in legislation and administration and even to modify it. (Gramsci 1975: 13, 17, 1584)

At this level of awareness and corporate organization, there is great difficulty in establishing social alliances. This new labor movement emerged at a time when internal migration had ceased and a certain

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stability of conditions and social practices had been imposed—the urban condition was already predominant. Both the bourgeoisie and the industrial proletariat sought to establish class struggle in civil society and in the market, until the moment when new constitutional text is completed in 1988. At this stage, the crisis of the dominant social bloc was perceptible and there was significant political advance from the subaltern classes through syndicalism and popular movements. In fact, it was in the 1980s that the Workers’ Party (PT), the Unified Workers’ Center or Workers’ Unique Central?? (CUT) and the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) were established. Thus, there were various forms of resistance from different origins. The state bureaucracy and other capital fractions, especially financial banking, were reluctant to renounce their predominance, and the crisis of the Fordist pattern of accumulation made that unfeasible for the bourgeois revolution: would it have been a passive revolution that developed under the action of the Corporate state, and concluded in Americanism-Fordism? The strong offensive by capital in crisis on the international scene led by the American state also considerably contributed to making that unfeasible. Thus, the passive revolution is complete with the full realization of capitalism and liberal-democratic institutionalism, leaving the agrarian and national questions unresolved neither overcoming liberal-corporate hybridism which gained even more complexity. In fact, the phase that began when a new institutional form was developing amidst the reestablishment of the predominance of banking/financial capital fractions, is what defined the new pattern of accumulation guided by the imperialist centers, especially the USA. The result of this bourgeois revolution representing a revolution-restoration could only be a major offensive against the subaltern classes, their autonomous forms of organization and their antagonism towards full bourgeois order introducing itself.

Translating Gramsci for Brazil: The Issue of Praxis If Gramsci can be useful in interpreting the Brazilian reality, specifically related to the unique objectification of capitalism, one must question whether he can be translated for Brazil, considering current times and praxis. Thus, the problem posed is how to make a people/nation project emerge from the contradictions in civil society. However, we must quickly

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clarify the meaning of these categories in Gramsci’s proposed interpretation. Civil society is the moment of class conflict in which the fundamental contradiction between capital and labor manifests itself, from the productive process of material life to the material production of antagonistic subjectivities. From this ongoing contradiction, it is possible for the subaltern classes, based on their accumulation of experiences and struggles, to organize themselves as a people/nation, into a civil society that becomes a state. In the concrete Brazilian case, given that the bourgeois revolution took place as a passive revolution, the agrarian issues, and of national autonomy and democracy had yet to be defined. However, in the current context of total imperialism and the organic crisis of capital, these goals can only occur in the initial conditions of the international socialist transition, one that implies transformational processes articulated in the continent. Finally, this was how Gramsci conceived the Italian revolution: it was a national popular revolution, which solved the problems posed by democratic Jacobinism as part of the international socialist revolution. That is why one must have a clear understanding about land tenure, territoriality and the environment, nationalities and self-organization of democracy, amidst ongoing political processes in Latin America, for which solutions can only be found through a socialist transition horizon, given the ever present risk of regression. But what is needed to make this project a reality? How did Gramsci conceive this process? Gramsci certainly considered that this would be an extremely complex and difficult process. The initial requirement is to become aware of the history of the subaltern classes, their culture and social practices, a possible “scission spirit” against the dominant classes, a latent rebellion. Then one must observe how critical and antagonistic consciousness develops and is organized in a world created by the dynamics of capital and this implies the problem of how to enable the subaltern classes generate their intellectuals and how intellectuals progress among masses. Gramsci considers that the organic intellectuals of the working class emerge from their own participation in the productive process, from the moment when work processes and knowledge materialize in the transformation of the natural or artificial world. But this is only the foundation, since the intellectual group under development also organizes the class through various autonomous bodies, as well as the union and party. In

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the union and party, resulting from the organized class, intellectual conditions are raised and a transformational praxis takes place. In this process, the Modern Prince should emerge, per the metaphor used by Gramsci, translating Machiavelli and Lenin at the same time, to refer to “a complex element of society in which the fulfillment of a collective will, recognized and partially structured around action, has already begun” (Gramsci 1975: 1, 13, 1558). The Modern Prince is the instrument to unite subaltern classes towards a cultural and political upheaval, searching for a socialist transition as a new historical bloc based on the process of labor emancipation. But is there a language in Brazil and Latin America that can somehow be translated reciprocally? The works by Peruvian José Carlos Mariátegui come to mind, but we will not approach this suggestive clue at this point in time. The topic at hand is contemporaneity. The outbreak of mass strikes, syndicalism, the establishment of the Workers’ Party (PT), the Unified Workers’ Central (CUT) and the Landless Workers Movement (MST) between 1978 and 1984, appeared as very promising moments for the organization of the subordinate classes in Brazil, but their horizon, with a few exceptions, did not go beyond Americanism-Fordism and liberal-democracy: workers and peasants also wanted to be considered citizens in the Republic. In Gramsci’s understanding, even the most advanced sector of syndicalism, despite having the state’s perception, mentioning socialism in an abstract, remained in the corporate sphere of the class, which indicates a praxis that was still subordinate, since it was a liberal-bourgeois market-centered element of civil society. This was certainly a historic moment for the intellectual and cultural expression of subaltern classes, with a significant capacity to attract intellectuals forged in other social layers with different worldviews: many Marxists from different strands, liberals and Catholics. Faced with the organic crisis of the communist movement, Marxist intellectuality was diluted and unable to lead collective intellectual progress, especially since Lenin or Gramsci had not been actually translated—based on the translation perspective indicated by Gramsci himself, of course. However, explaining these events far exceeds the scope of this chapter and will have to be set aside. Nonetheless, it is noteworthy that a process was not effectively established for the unification of subaltern classes and their antagonistic cultural

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rise against the order of capital in which the new proposition of hegemony, or the socialist revolution, did not take place. In fact, the union and party were well positioned within the structured order of capital in liberal-democracy. These institutions generated by the working class were left in their comfort zones and their main objective was to govern the order of capital, implementing sectors of functional aristocracy into the bloc of the ruling classes. The conclusion is that the weak bourgeois hegemony that was forged in the passive revolution process found a fleeting moment of strength which was soon followed by the crisis. Until 2016 in Brazil, the institutional scenario prevailed in the political struggle, a liberal-democracy characteristic. A democracy, however, that was no more than an expression of the real power of an enlarged oligarchy, but it entered a serious crisis. The levels of organized social antagonism are very small and fragmented, with feeble presence in syndicalism and political parties with very low representation. The prominence in the class struggle is evident in popular movements and one must recognize that Brazil is far behind other areas of Latin America. In Brazil, there are considerable political and cultural movements among proletariat youth from the peripheries with movements focused specifically on ensuring the rights of women, black and Indigenous people, movements struggling to have access to land and territoriality. Civil society, the political economy of labor, is fragile and far from envisioning hegemony. In this difficult situation, is it even possible to translate Gramsci for Brazil, in a transition through time and space? Firstly, one must question the nature of popular movements and how they are conceived. If movements are conceived as collective action with specific goals that are exhaustive or self-resolved, we will be in the field of corporatism, a collective action in the bourgeois civil society context of the “democratic” bourgeois hegemony. But if the movements are perceived as a means for the construction of the people/nation, uniting subaltern classes, carrying out a moral and intellectual reform fueled by the “scission spirit” of a new hegemony that is based on the construction of a new state, then Gramsci’s translation is materialized through praxis. However, thinking/acting in these conditions demands a united and permanent political action focused on the establishment of a united front of subaltern classes in Brazil, including diversified proletariat, employees and small landowners. This united front of the subaltern classes must immediately be antagonistic to the empire of capital and develop as a selfgoverning structure of the masses. Certainly, this development reaches

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its peak with the centralization and constrain of the political power of capital, in production and in the state: this is when the “Prince” becomes a new state, where the body that developed as an antagonistic opposition to capital and the united front of the subaltern classes becomes the state and expresses new hegemony. The Prince, therefore, is much more than a revolutionary party in its strict sense, it is a new form of sociability that develops and becomes totality. But this process, which is revolutionary but lasts over time, requires intellectual and moral reform that can only be undertaken by a mass of organic intellectuals from the labor world. These are slowly created by the efforts of workers who organize themselves in a union, party or movement. This happens, however, tediously and slowly, as capital is overly limiting. A fringe of intellectuals with petty-bourgeois social origins may also organically join the class that produces more value, in addition to the fact that the actual demands of capital today open spaces for cultural education—albeit very restricted—among workers´ children. Gramsci suggested that the working class had major challenges in preparing its intellectuals, but that this possibility did not even exist among peasants. The socialist revolution in Italy would depend on the cultural rise of the masses and the ability to attract traditional intellectual sectors to the left. But amidst the globalization of capital, wouldn’t it be necessary to question if there are still traditional intellectuals, or, strictly speaking, wouldn’t they all be organically linked to the reproduction of capital, only in different places and degrees? In any case, the conditions for the union and party to be a school for intellectualized leaders are quite limited. Finally, in Brazil today, we may consider that the experiences that stand out the most are the Homeless Workers Movement (MTST) and the Landless Workers Movement (MST), in addition to other regional peasant organizations. The pioneering experiences of schools organized by the MST in southern Brazil, neither private nor state-owned, offer a very positive example of self-organization. Furthermore, the Florestan Fernandes National School stands out, a strong sign that critical intellectuals can contribute to the self-education of rural (and urban) workers and to development of organic intellectuals from the subaltern classes. It is also noteworthy that this intellectual training takes place without breaking the manual and solidary work bonds. It seems that the “worker-peasant alliance” starts to be structured from the countryside to the city, passing through the peripheries.

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Through self-organization, self-education, and antagonistic social struggles unite the subaltern classes, the emancipation horizon and the Modern Prince are established. However, this tortuous process of self-education and self-organization of the masses, went through different moments after the end of the passive revolution regarding the full implementation of capitalism. In the 1990s, with capital’s offensive to internalize imperialism through socalled neoliberal political economic methods, the political and trade union leaderships of the labor movement chose to be part of the bourgeois state entirely and remain tied to the corporate economic conscience. This perspective was maintained when they reached government positions in the beginning of the twenty-first century, focused on preserving the interests of the ruling classes by implementing policies favoring dispossessed sectors. This policy carried out by PT governments was feasible while the speculative bubble was bearing fruits in global capitalism. The problems appeared when the 2008 crisis—a particularly serious outbreak in the historical process of the organic crisis of capital—aggravated the state’s fiscal crisis. The institutional coup in 2016 was the beginning of an open war against the working masses, against their rights, living conditions, social and political institutions. As the crisis worsened, the ruling classes decided to enact a clearly reactionary government with a Caesarist tendency, striving to deepen all the reactionary traditions of the ruling classes. The coronavirus pandemic brought Brazil closer to catastrophe and barbarism involving all of humanity. More than ever, the struggle for a united front of the subaltern classes is essential to survive the barbarism and generate an alternative way out of capitalism.

Education and Hegemony

Gramsci and Educating the Educator

Introduction The creation of the L’Ordine Nuovo journal took place in a turbulent transition that shook Europe and Italy at the end of the imperialist war of 1914–1918. Established in a humanist literary culture, with emphasis on Benedetto Croce’s influence, the journal’s founders—with Gramsci’s lead—perceived the need to participate in the revolutionary process taking place in the continent. This new scenario, which began with the outbreak of the international socialist revolution in Russia, changed the actual conditions for thinking (and acting) on the problems related to organizing education and culture. The journal began, however, with the aim of “promoting the birth of freely constituted groups within the socialist and proletarian movement to study and disclose problems in the communist revolution” (Gramsci 1954n: 451). Until then, Gramsci’s reflection was focused on criticizing the Italian school system, which emphasized technical education aimed at workers searching for employment or humanist education aimed at the petty bourgeoisie, with the purpose of establishing various levels of public administration in the liberal-bourgeois state. The challenge was envisioning a unique socialist school to articulate technical-scientific education with humanist knowledge. This would be key for workers to pursue their autonomy and develop a new culture, antagonistic to the bourgeoisie. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Del Roio, Gramsci and the Emancipation of the Subaltern Classes, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90777-8_9

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The worker’s struggle to guarantee and expand culture and appropriate knowledge would enable the effort and commitment to guarantee autonomy towards intellectuals and their despotic power. Intellectuals are important elements in the establishment of a hierarchy of dominance over workers which can only be broken through workers’ reflection on culture. Hence Gramsci’s emphasis on the proposal to create a Culture Association. Thus, in Turin, given the environment and maturity of the proletariat, the first center for cultural organization with clearly socialist and class-based aspects should emerge, along with the party and Confederation of Labor, the third entity in the Italian working class struggle. (Gramsci 1973l: 143)

The ruling classes and their intellectuals are the unidentified enemies. Against them, a new culture and educational process must be created. The influence of Sorel’s ideals is remarkable, considering the defense of the autonomy of the working world and antagonism towards capital, whose subjectivity should be manifested materially. The presence of the “scission spirit” is immediately present in the refusal of the state and Church school. Gramsci struggled, however, with the impotency of the working-class institutions (the union and the party, above all) to operate this emancipatory education, organizing the self-education of workers, because, in his view, the proletariat are less complicated than they might seem. A spiritual and intellectual hierarchy was formed spontaneously and interchangeable education operates where the actions of writers and propagandists cannot reach. In the circles, in the bundles, in the conversations in workshops, socialist criticism is broken down and propagated, rendered ductile and plastic to all minds, to all cultures. (Gramsci 1973m: 189)

Even after the outbreak of the Russian revolution and the enormous cultural effervescence that took over factories and public space, with the creation of many study groups and small publications, the solution to the autonomous labor education problem was still undefined. So much so that L’Ordine Nuovo began its activities as a socialist culture journal, transmitting an accumulated but subordinate culture.

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Self-Education and Freedom The shift towards praxis took place in late June 1919. It had become clear that the self-education of workers, education for freedom, did not, or to a lesser extent, depend on the union and party but was much more reliant on workers themselves. Within the productive process of social wealth, factory workers were already endowed with specific professional knowledge. Technically qualified and productive work should be linked to broader knowledge of scientific and humanist culture, not only to manage the productive process, but also for public administration of a new workers’ and socialist state. This is how the workers in their own self-education process would generate their intellectuals and educators, thus educating the union and party. The fundamental body for workers’ democracy—as the socialist revolution in Russia and Hungary had demonstrated—was the council. In Italy, in Turin, the Petrograd Council of Workers and Soldiers could be translated into the factory’s internal commissions, which would be the school for the leadership and administration of the manufacturing process, but also for the political-cultural education of the working class endowed with a “scission spirit”. The great advantage of workers’ democracy at the base and the internal factory commission institution was its essential public aspect which contrasted with the union and party and bourgeois state institutions established privately. The worker’s freedom should start at the factory where their universal role as social wealth producers is fulfilled. Freedom should emerge from where the shackles of capital were most intensely felt. The party and union are voluntary associations with a contractual nature provided for by bourgeois law. Thus, Gramsci considered that freedom is established upon shattering the ties that bind men’s activity as a producer to the interests of capital. Particularly from his activity as a producer endowed with technical knowledge capable of controlling the production process in the modern factory. Freedom is achieved through expanding public spaces and if the union and party do not submit to public space control generated by the emancipatory activity of the workers—serving as educational institutions as well—they can in fact be transformed into a private bureaucratic apparatus within the order of capital and agents of bourgeois domination. The intellectuals developed by the class can turn against it at any moment!

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More attention is needed, however. The self-education movement of the masses and predominance of public space are characteristics of revolutionary moments. In fact, the council movement that was breaking out in Turin was an international socialist revolution front. It is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine that L’Ordine Nuovo would enable the organization and education of the working masses outside a revolutionary context. In another situation, amidst indisputable bourgeois domination, it is more likely that it would remain a socialist culture review. The shift in the journal’s editorial and political orientation resulted from the education provided by the working class to its educators. Their virtue was the immediate assimilation of the lesson and complete engagement in their self-assigned task. Cultural commissions established around L’Ordine Nuovo were guided by the idea of a proletarian soviet culture, whose enthusiasts were to a large extent young socialists. But the essential nucleus of this activity aiming towards the construction of associative free labor is the factory council, since the foundation for self-education and self-emancipation of work is within the productive process itself. The class movement should educate the educators, as Gramsci says, so far, the Italian Communists have been groping in the dark. The Italian proletarian masses, like all proletarian masses in the world, understood that the revolution’s “machine” is the council system, they understood that the revolution’s development process is marked by the emergence of Councils, coordination and systematization of Councils: they understood that the process for the revolution’s development is marked by the fact that the popular masses consider the council system to be a governing body of the masses and the industrial and agricultural production and determine, with their indifference, from their transition from political psychology, the atrophy of current political forms, the historic death of bourgeois democracy. (Gramsci 1954o: 388)

The council must be the basis and foundation for the workers’ socialist states and its social institutions. Thus, the school in the transition state must be an emancipatory labor school, a school that builds and organizes associated free work. In this school disciplined labor is combined to technical knowledge, science and vast humanist culture. The method and pedagogical principle are based on the industrial, collective and solidary productive process.

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The school organized by L’Ordine Nuovo began operating in the late 1920s, when the factory council movement was beginning to decline, victim of converging attacks from the state, new fascist groups and criminal indifference of the union reformists (the General Confederation of labor) and the party (Italian Socialist Party). L’Ordine Nuovo’s labor school was not intended to prepare workers for an alienated world. The idea was to reinforce the principle of solidarity and specific know-how for their daily lives as producers, so they could incorporate what they had already learned public space generated by strikes, rallies and debates. The first step is to accept that the educator allows himself to be educated. The method, discipline and solidarity that are typical in the factory world should be the basis for the labor school. However, the aim of the labor school was to educate proletariat for self-management of production and public administration, understood as self-governance. At the labor school, intellectuals developed by the working class itself would also be worked on to create a new culture, distinct and opposed to the bourgeois culture and even reformist intellectuals. Therefore, the labor school’s methods and foundations are based on the actions of producers, but their objective is to contribute to the construction of the communist man, the freely associated worker. Thus, the control of production and work instruments is essential implying technical and scientific knowledge.

Educate the Educator The defeat of the factory council movement implied the end of the L’Ordine Nuovo phase and the experience of the political group that nurtured it. The revolutionary moment from 1919 to 1920 was a rich experiment for self-education and educator education by workers. The closure of the union and the workers’ party revealed the inadequacy of this educational political action. Now, amidst the defeat, the focus was facing capital’s offensive, and in order to achieve this, a new political instrument that would lead workers to resistance would be built enabling them to reorganize forces for a possible counterattack. The union and workers’ party had faithfully played their role as private and contractual bodies within the bourgeois state. They had negotiated with the employers and the state at the expense of the factory councils; they had worked towards stabilizing social and political order; they

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had come out in defense of parliamentary democracy and opposed workers’ democracy with the councils. But their price had to be paid, and it was high. In January 1921, the ISP underwent its first organic scission marking the beginning of the fragmentation of the working class’ social institutions its unorganized retreat amidst the concentrated attack of rising fascism. The Italian Communist Party emerged, as there was a vacuum for the establishment of a new instrument of struggle in defense of workers’ autonomy. At the end of the revolutionary epoch—although this was not the understanding shared by strands converging to create the ICP—the apprehension of the lessons from the workers’ spontaneity became even more difficult. The associated labor school would go through a profound dismantling process, as the offensive of capital, whose instrument was fascism, would have consequences in the industrial production process itself. “Americanism”, which Gramsci considered the school of inventiveness, industriousness and self-discipline, was absorbed by fascism as a rigid discipline of the labor process. This defeat demonstrated, among many other things, that the working class was not prepared to become a state: there was a lack of cadres to manage the productive process as well as public administration. But the working class, even if defeated, had sufficient forces and cadres create a revolutionary party, completing the organic scission with the reformists. However, a serious problem was also presented by the new Communist Party’s composition. Most of its adherents were followers of the political group that had formed around the Neapolitan newspaper Il soviet, where Amadeo Bordiga’s leadership prevailed, reinforced by elements that came from “massimalist” sectors of the ISP. Bordiga’s scientific and naturalist training predisposed him to conceive the working class as a developing organism, endowed with a specific body that would concentrate the science of the class: the revolutionary party. This body should organize the class and spread scientific knowledge. There would be no room for working-class spontaneity, just as there is no room for social alliances with other layers of pre-capitalist extraction workers, such as peasants. So much so that this fraction tended to view the councils’ movement with suspicion, identifying “syndicalistrevolutionary” biases. The revolution is confused with a long-term process, during which the action of capital transforms broad masses into proletariat while the party organizes and educates these same masses to seize political power to build a new state.

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The work by the L’Ordine Nuovo group would now be to educate the educator. The ICP should be taught the lesson learned from the spontaneity of the masses, the concrete experience of factory councils as the embryo of a workers’ state. Gramsci considered that “the establishment of the Communist Party creates the conditions to intensify and deepen our work”, since “we will be able to dedicate ourselves entirely to positive work, to the expansion of our program for the renewal, organization, re-awakening of consciences and of wills”. He also highlighted that “our movement’s program is not concerned with majorities unless they create the conditions to organize, educate, spread convictions and coordinate wills and actions” (Gramsci 1954 p: 492). Upon occupying the premises of the Avanti of Turin (the ISP newspaper) in January 1921, L’Ordine Nuovo became a daily publication. Its focus is resisting the offensive of capital which instrumentalizes the fascist movement. The emergence of the ICP occurs amidst serious troubles, because in addition to the need to create conditions to resist the advance of fascism—and understanding it became necessary—disputing the leadership of the workers’ movement became essential, in order to have support from the majority of the class. This implies decisive educational action, farreaching revolutionary political education. But would the educating party itself be sufficiently prepared for such a task? Gramsci and the L’Ordine Nuovo group were clearly a minority within the new political organism, and the problems were too many. Understanding and confronting fascism was not an easy task, just as it was not easy to achieve a majority in the defeated working class. Furthermore, the ISP maintained a close link with Communist International, which intended to promote a merger between both organizations, leaving out the social-reformist strand only. With so many threats and difficulties faced by the ICP, Gramsci preferred to submit to the majority of the party, which followed Bordiga’s lead, and emphasize, once again, the problem of the organic and political-cultural scission with the socialists, instead of initiating another effort to control and lead the party. This task would be slower; it would have a wider range and would not make as much noise.

The Educator’s Learning Process A crucial moment for Gramsci’s theoretical and intellectual development began when he was sent to the USSR in May 1922, before fascism took over the state Government. Gramsci had the opportunity there to observe

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the workers’ state efforts to build a labor school and participate in debates on “Americanism” and the organization of the labor process, according to Taylorist and Fordist experiences. Meeting Bolshevist leaders and Lenin was fundamental, since the translation of the international socialist revolution for Italy had occurred through the lens of the antagonistic culture of Western Europe. Gramsci now returned to the role of a student since the impact of the work performed by Lenin and other Bolsheviks would be indelible from then on for his own theoretical-practical work. However, creativity and criticism would be the main lessons learned. While arming himself with the theoretical tools offered by Bolshevism, Gramsci realized noticed the need to struggle for Italian communist conduct, confronting Bordiga’s concepts as well as Tasca’s interpretations. Both brought aspects of submission to the Italian socialist tradition, which should be overcome and synthesized by the concept of the relationship between intellectuals and the mass, the prominence between instances of existence and movement. In political practice, Gramsci defined his position by contrasting Bordiga’s and Tasca’s attempts. Bordiga favored creating an international left strand that was against the united front policy defended by Comintern and against the merger or even alliance with socialists, while Tasca defended the united front policy that addressed the alliance and merger with socialists. Gramsci, in turn, defended keeping bonds with the Comintern leading group, incorporating elements of the socialist left into the ICP, as well as the united front policy, but not with socialists, as both the ISP and the CGL were, in fact, institutions integrated to the bourgeois state. He further understood that the political formula of the united front should unite the working class and confirm a fundamental alliance with agricultural proletariat and peasantry, to which the meridional liberal intellectuals should decisively contribute. However, it was not a matter of making the former L’Ordine Nuovo group predominate in the ICP, but rather of building a new leadership group capable of creating a new “educational system” suited to current conditions. This leading group should educate itself to its full extent overcoming the group spirit and, at the same time, be able to assimilate the best expression of culture and political action generated within the working class itself. Besides self-educating, the educator should continue to be educated by students. This would be the only way to overcome the regressive cultural and political risks present among different stances defended by Bordiga and Tasca, in a new theoretical synthesis.

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The political stance defended by Gramsci benefited from fascist repression, which dramatically affected the original ruling group of the ICP and Bordiga’s insistence in opposing Comintern guidelines, handing over the party leadership to the Tasca strand. On the other hand, the defeat of the ISP Fusionists ended up pushing only the most leftist part of this association into the ICP. Still in Moscow, the decision was taken to create a mass organ which would be called L’Unità, aimed at spreading the united front policy and the slogan of the workers’-peasant government. The newspaper, as well as all party politics according to Gramsci, should especially value the meridional question, in which the problem of relations between workers and peasants emerges not only as a class relation problem, but especially as a territorial problem, one of the aspects of the national question. (Gramsci 1992: 130)

After being sent to Vienna by Comintern leadership, Gramsci matured his ideas regarding educational relations between intellectuals and the masses, which should be united and focused on the intellectual progress of the masses as an essential substrate to conceive a revolutionary party idea and a socialist revolution. Besides L’Unità, Gramsci decided to create a bimonthly journal that would recover the L’Ordine Nuovo name and would thus be a third series. This publication would be, to some extent, focused on “educating the most qualified and responsible comrades to determine a movement of sympathy towards our party in certain intellectual environments” (Gramsci 1992: 147). Gramsci’s suggestion for the journal’s presentation was that L’Ordine Nuovo proposes to arouse a revolutionary vanguard spirit among the masses of workers and peasants, capable of creating the State of the workers’ and peasants’ councils, providing the conditions for the creation and stability of the communist society. (Gramsci 1992c: 169)

In addition to L’Unità, a newspaper aimed at the masses, and L’Ordine Nuovo, a journal aimed at educating and selecting the working-class vanguard, Gramsci also suggested the elaboration of a working-class yearbook and publication of a library with fundamental texts, which would be the instrument for a party school. Due to the difficult conditions imposed by fascism, it could become a correspondence school.

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Gramsci also thought about creating another journal, with a more strictly intellectual profile, which could be called Crítica Proletária with the purpose of criticizing dominant culture. As this large project demanded organization and resources, Gramsci was only partially able to achieve the proposed objectives. In the context of political dispute within the ICP, Gramsci considered that L’Ordine Nuovo would have a decisive role to play. It should not only demonstrate the need for workers’ and peasants’ government under national conditions, but also indicate the problems related to factory organization. The journal’s support should be closely linked to raising resources for “a correspondence course for party organizers and propagandists”. Gramsci considered that, the correspondence course should become the first phase of a movement to create small party schools, working to create Bolshevik organizers and propagandists -- not massimalists -- who have brains as well as lungs and throats. (Gramsci 1978h: 23)

Gramsci avoided utopian manifestations and realized that the first step to be taken towards the workers’ spiritual emancipation would be the establishment of these small schools. The older and more experienced militants should share their experiences with small groups of about a dozen new militants. Well-trained political cadres were indispensable to guide most of the working class and to disorganize the ISP—always considered an institution incorporated into the bourgeois order. The educational material used in the party school should consist of pamphlets presenting elementary questions about Marxism, the explanation on the need for a worker-peasant government based on concrete conditions in Italy, and a propagandist’s manual containing information on Italy’s economic and political reality. The idea was also to publish an edition of the Communist Manifesto, as well as passages from other works by Marx and Engels.

Vanguard Education This project for the simultaneous vanguard education of workers and the masses began to be undertaken as soon as Gramsci returned to Italy, now as a parliament member and main leader of the ICP. The newspaper and journal were significantly successful, despite the immense difficulties

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posed by fascist repression. The school took more time to get started, but it would no doubt be an additional element to prepare militants for the debates at the III Congress of the ICP, held at the beginning of 1926. Gramsci accurately notes that experiences of the proletarian school were never successful or resulted from isolated initiatives of a few who could not “combat and overcome the aridity and infertility of the restricted bourgeois ’cultural” movements’. This is due to the “absence of connections between the ’schools’ designed and an objective movement” (Gramsci 1978i: 49). In fact, the relative success of the L’Ordine Nuovo school in 1920 is explained by the connection between the movement and educational process, whose strongest implication is the possibility of the educator being educated by the movement, a joint attempt for self-education of the masses and collective intellectual progress. The limit of that experience was the fact that only a few were involved instead of the entire movement and party, which weakened the capacity for collective theoretical elaboration. Gramsci’s new undertaking to organize a school for militants of the proletariat was confronted with the fascist initiative, which had just come to power, in the field of education and school reform. The Gentile reform, by the minister of education in the fascist government, accentuated and demonstrated the duality of the Italian educational system by reserving a classical-humanist approach for the ruling classes—to which access would be prohibited for “the weak and incapable”—and another approach with a professionalizing base aimed at the masses which collided with the preliminary specialization of the workforce. The cultural and educational challenge that Gramsci set out to face was enormous, but it could only be effectively resolved when the working class began educating its own intellectuals. The challenge was now increased by the fact that there was no labor movement with favorable conditions to create and develop its own institutions. While opposing the bourgeois concept of education, Gramsci suggested that “neither an ‘objective study’, nor a ‘uninterested culture’ can have room in our groups: […]”. Gramsci also said, while referring to the party, we are a struggle organization, and in our groups, we study to add, to fine-tune each individual’s capacity struggle as well as that of the whole organization, to better understand what the enemy’s positions and ours are,

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in order to better adapt our actions each day. Study and culture represent the theoretical awareness of our immediate and ultimate goals, and the way we can manage to translate them into action. (Gramsci 1978i: 49–50)

It was of paramount importance to educate a leading group of the working class in the ebbing and terrifying experience of reality, and this leading group should be prepared to lead the revolutionary process. Such a leading group was also important to manage the proletarian state and educate the growing masses of workers towards emancipation, without these falling back under the influence of old ideologies. Thus, the task of preparing to lead the revolution and manage the proletarian state should be tackled from then on. A capable leading group was also essential because “the resumption of the revolutionary process and especially its victory creates many new elements for its ranks”, when the problem with “preventing the central core of the party from being submerged and disintegrated by the impetus of the new wave”, arrives without due preparation (Gramsci 1978j: 52). The concrete drama to be faced was educating the vanguard under tremendously unfavorable conditions of lawlessness and persecution. A serious aggravating factor to be considered was the fact that Marxism had never been the object of a more serious and systematic study by the leadership of the workers movement, remaining in the sphere of reflection of bourgeois intellectuals, with Antonio Labriola representing a noteworthy exception despite not participating in Italian socialism. The practical solution that seemed to be the only one possible under the circumstances was to suggest a correspondence school. Finally implemented in April 1925, the course was designed to be developed with three series of lessons, with the theory of historical materialism as the first lesson, based on Bukharin’s Treatise of Historical Materialism. (This book would be severely criticized by Gramsci years later, in Prison Notebooks.) The second part of the course would be centered on general politics and would cover notions of political economy, structure and development of capitalism, history of the labor movement, war and capitalist crisis, Russian revolution, transition, etc. The third part would be devoted to specific ICP issues, such as doctrine, program and revolutionary organization, based on guidance from the Communist International. As support and complementary material, monthly issues would be published on specific themes, such as the union and peasant issues among others (Maltese 2018).

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An initial assessment of the course indicated problems related to the level of exposure that were overwhelmingly absolute and emphatic. The general plan should be more restricted, with specific topics and an elementary approach. The main risk would be conveying to students the idea that the notions shared were acquired and indisputable truths and not “what should still be elaborated, demonstrated, [which] should still be the object of examination and discussion” (Gramsci 1978k: 58). Many of the problems pointed out were based on working-class conditions for existence and were difficult to solve, aggravated by the fact that the school operated through a correspondence format. This type of school could not appropriately consider the diversity of students regarding age, origin, previous education and social experience, which required considering an abstract average type of student to start with. The result is that the lessons were mechanical and absolutist. Thus, Gramsci said: “The best type of school is, no doubt, the spoken school, not the correspondence school”. In the spoken school format, the teacher can aim to “make the school live collectively so that each individual’s continuous development may occur and that such development is ongoing and systematic” (Gramsci 1978k: 58). However, education precedes school. The most important initiative is self-education, self-teaching, since “the school accelerates training, it is the Taylor system of education, it provides a method and teaches individuals how to study, preparing them for an intellectual discipline, [but] it cannot replace the initiative spirit in the field of knowledge” (Gramsci 1978k: 59). The relationship between school and life experience, however, is very different according to social class. As bourgeoisie youth belongs to the ruling class, the school serves to train them, to adapt them, to show them how to behave as dominant. The class school of the bourgeoisie—which in Italy was the high school—university sequence—must work to develop the ruling class and its possible failure to do so represents class failure. On the other hand, “for the working class, the bourgeois state has organized a specific type of school: the popular school and the professional school that is aimed at maintaining class division, making the worker’s son also a worker” (Gramsci 1978k: 60). Scientific knowledge, under the conditions established under bourgeois rule, is beyond reach for working class, subjected to fragments of knowledge, derived from professional practice and low self-esteem, characteristics of the dominated groups. Hence the need for this class to create

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its own institutions that organize knowledge. Whether this is the union or the party or a school itself, but it always “completes and clarifies the concrete experiences of life, providing a direction, prepares individuals to generalize, to have better and quicker reasoning” (Gramsci 1978k: 59). This is when the enormous challenge in achieving an organic labor school, a unique school format, is perceived. The correspondence school for the education of the working-class avant-garde could not be more than a small seed with uncertain germination possibilities, with the aim of creating an organic group of intellectuals from the working class.

Developing Working-Class Intellectuals The greatest urgency for the strategic design that Gramsci had been working on was to develop a solid majority in the forthcoming Third Congress of the ICP. Indeed, the correspondence school and Gramsci’s travels to accompany local and regional party gatherings had their effect. With the support of a large party majority, Gramsci and his closest collaborators managed to determine a strategy for the socialist revolution in Italy, and its starting point would be the unification of the working class and alliance with agricultural proletariat and poor peasantry. This united front of the subaltern classes should produce a new sociability and a new culture to oppose fascism and liberalism, and thus, the anti-fascist revolution would also be an anti-capitalist revolution. This context brings to light the need to educate and prepare the educator of the masses, the revolutionary party. In order to structure the united front, the party should subtract the influence of the socialists among working class, weakening this organism, which would require the organic capacity in the factory and union, that is, its intellectual and organizational capacity. The mechanical and positivist vision of the bourgeoisie, which pervaded the working class, should be overcome. Thus, a growing mass of organic intellectuals in the working class would be needed, with a closer link to the labor process, as it would be up to them to conduct the necessary social control of production, the foundation of the revolutionary objective. Furthermore, an alliance must be sealed with the peasantry, subjected to the power of the latifundium and religious ideology. The influence of the Popular Party (Catholic) and other political associations had been losing steam in the south of the country, due to the consolidation of

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fascism and its link with the Catholic Church. This was the problem Gramsci had been considering in the months leading up to his arrest. In the sketch that was known as Some Aspects of the Meridional Question, Gramsci sought to identify the means and instruments that kept rural workers under the grip of brutal submission. The solid survival of feudal characteristics forced Gramsci to shift his analysis to the political state and intellectual dimension. He realizes that there is a relative autonomy among great intellectuals who transcend national borders with their cosmopolitanism. One of the greatest examples of this is Benedetto Croce. However, what matters is the existence of a small mass of intellectuals linked to the rural bourgeoisie that make up the state bureaucracy and clergy. This type of intellectual “who also locally exercises, in the village and in the rural areas, an intermediate role between peasants and the overall administration” (Gramsci 1996: 175). To achieve the objective of establishing a united front of the working class with the peasantry, the strategy defined by Gramsci indicated that the presence of the revolutionary party between agricultural proletariat and peasantry was essential, with cultural elevation and incorporation of militants into its ranks from these social groups. More importantly, at least initially, was sealing the alliance with the southern liberal-revolutionary intellectuals, who perceived and recognized the national importance of the working class and the role it could play in the struggle for emancipation of the southern peasant masses. Here we observe the dialectic between students and educators in Gramsci’s reflection, always safeguarding labor as the foundation for man’s emancipated sociability that constantly gains new dimensions. Gramsci bases his work on the labor school, in which self-education prevails, but also provides for broad learning experiences among those who intend to be educators, as the path to labor emancipation is set here. In any case, this path is already the revolution in action. When the revolution is defeated, one must find ways to educate the workers’ vanguard, especially where this vanguard had a debatable concept of the revolutionary process. At that time, the willingness to learn from the experience of the Bolsheviks was very pertinent. Once developed, albeit embryonically, this vanguard, the dialectic of the educator and the masses geared towards intellectual progress, not only enriches and organizes the working class, but develops its intellectuals. This vanguard, these intellectuals, must be trained to manage the productive process and workers’ state, but must also establish relationships with allies, as

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without them the united front of the subaltern classes in the anti-fascist and anti-capitalist struggle will not be complete and a new culture for the organization of free-associated labor would not be created.

Education as Reproduction of Hegemony and Its Antihesis

School, Intellectuals and Class Dominance Gramsci’s was concerned with culture and school from an early age, while he was still in Sardinia. Classical studies and the cultural tradition in the hometown occupied much of young Gramsci’s time, although his relationship with the school was very conflictual and difficult, as it was quite poor and backward and that smothered the development of his taste for natural sciences and arts and crafts. This book intends to present elements that prove how the school, education and culture topics were permanent elements for Gramsci’s social and political theory development. On his way to the University in Turin in 1911, Gramsci was devoted to studying Linguistics and Philosophy. He soon became a militant intellectual, nourished on the one hand by Benedetto Croce’s neo-idealist conception and on the other by socialism, which he had been attracted to given his permanent sympathy for workers, the exploited and subjected. Thus, the central problems of his reflection on topics such as culture, school and intellectuals were present from the beginning of his intellectual and militant development and were the actual reason for his political and cultural action. Gramsci strongly disliked Catholicism and especially the Jesuit school, given its imposed discipline and hierarchy. Somehow this form of knowledge organization was reproduced at the State University, and on several © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Del Roio, Gramsci and the Emancipation of the Subaltern Classes, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90777-8_10

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occasions, Gramsci addressed his contempt and irony, so much so that he did not complete the university course either for that reason or because of personal financial or health difficulties. In fact, Gramsci found that organization of culture and school only reproduced the social divisions between the dominant and the dominated, and it was therefore essential that the oppressed become aware of their situation and humankind’s fundamental equality. And this would only be possible through their own initiative, with the labor and the school of life, since “it is through the critique of capitalist civilization that the individual consciousness of the proletariat is developed, and critique means culture and not a spontaneous and naturalistic evolution” (Gramsci 1973b: 70). Against schools that made culture a privilege, Gramsci claimed that The proletariat needs a school that does not have its own interests. A school where the child may have access to education to become a man. To acquire the general criteria supporting character development. A humanist school as understood by the ancient and most recent references of the Renaissance. A school that does not mortgage the child’s future constraining his will, his intelligence, his emerging consciousness to move along a pre-set track and station. (Gramsci 1973c: 83)

Gramsci lamented the failure of the Turin experiment with the Popular University and its philanthropic concept, but he always thought that an autonomous organization for popular culture, self-education and intellectual progress for the masses was essential. Thus, Gramsci was sympathetic to the proposal of a Culture Association, which always emerged in Turin, at the end of 1917. He considered that this association should be clearly socialist, and class-based complementing the existing union and party and the political and economic organizations of the proletariat. In this association, philosophical and moral questions would be discussed, aiming at questioning ingrained customs and values. He understood that this proposal would suggest a stance for the party’s intellectuals and that “by carrying out this cultural initiative, the socialists would clearly attack the dogmatic and intolerant mentality of Catholic and Jesuit education” (Gramsci 1973l: 142). During years of war suffering from the initial impacts of the Russian revolution, Gramsci clearly understood the need for the working class to organize and educate itself in an autonomous and antagonistic way visà-vis the state and capital. The existing school reproduced the existing

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order, but the bourgeoisie itself did not fulfill the educator role, leaving this function to the state bureaucracy and Church (its intellectuals). Gramsci, considering Sorel’s suggestion, believed that intellectuals and politicians would all be representatives of the order of capital reproducing its class dominance. These topics, which would later be developed in Prison Notebooks, were therefore already in Gramsci’s universe of concerns.

The Labor School and New Intellectuals The truly spectacular experience of working-class self-education, autonomy, and antagonism, involving revolutionary intellectuals like Gramsci organically, took place with the factory council movement from 1919 to 1920. This time, intellectuals and workers educated each other. The L’Ordine Nuovo journal, founded by Gramsci and other young socialist intellectuals (how we see before), endeavored to endow the movement with culture, theory and conscious directions, while they themselves learned from the labor school. The political actions in this group were guided by the concept that the process of creating a new order that was antagonistic to capital was based on the productive process of capital itself. The reorganization of the production process, self-management and workers’ control are the foundation to build a new state and culture. In a revolution exclusively, the problem of educating the educator by the class preparing to take office can arise, because in this situation despite its many limitations, the class develops its intellectuals and leaders, who are added to the intellectuals that stand alongside those exploited in uprisings and contribute to their cultural elevation and to the emancipation of work. The workers’ council is seen as the foundation for the new state, as it organizes production and culture and manages the public space and control of its own intellectuals. So, this school is only possible as an element of the transition state headed towards a new order as an element that can establish and consolidate the associated free workers. Gramsci identified the essential problem of bourgeois education in his time as the separation between teaching for manual work and humanist culture education and suggested that a possible solution for this would be a process of knowledge acquisition uniting knowledge and control of the natural world with cultural elevation and morality possible through philosophy, language and arts. The cultural school created by L’Ordine

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Nuovo’s group in November 1919 was created according to this concept of an integral unified school. The Russian experience with proletarian culture and labor schools influenced Gramsci’s elaborations, but such influence most likely became more intense after the decisive experience in 1923, when he went to Russia as a representative of the ICP along with the governing bodies of Communist International. There he could see, following Lenin and the Bolsheviks’ guidance, how technical and scientific education for labor could not be separated from general cultural education. Lenin identified the need for a cultural revolution, without which Russia could not face its material backwardness. Without enormous and decisive cultural growth, any efforts for the economic and social development of the new state would be doomed to failure. In the same year, the newly inaugurated Fascist government with Minister Giovanni Gentile implemented an educational reform in Italy. Contrary to what had been observed in the USSR, Gramsci guaranteed that this fascist reform highlighted the traditional distinction between education for manual work and education for intellectual work. The technical schools sent their graduates to the factory and the classical schools sent their graduates to the state, to perform political and administrative activities, reproducing the social labor divisions. In fact, the scope intended to assimilate Americanism in a disciplinary and imposing version. Gramsci also realized how Italian intellectuals, depending on the region they were in, had a different orientation: in the South, education was idealistic, humanistic, classical, but manual workers had no access to it; in the North, scientific and positivist education already predominated, but youth from the petty bourgeoisie and worker sectors could attend technical schools. The establishment of fascism and new labor classifications meant a profound defeat of the labor movement. The experience of the “red biennium” showed how the working class had not yet been able to create its own intellectuals, such as the union and party had, as contractual institutions proper to bourgeois democracy which turned against the class, and this same working class was not able to spread the movement of councils to other cities and other social strata, especially among peasantry.

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The Party Resulting from the Self-Education of the Masses The situation at the beginning of 1921 demanded that the long-delayed demand for a complete scission towards reformism and creation of a revolutionary party. The establishment of the communist party implied the creation of an instrument to unite the better, more disciplined and conscientious part of the working class. The immediate objective was to face the offensive of capital under crisis; however, it should become a decisive political instrument for labor emancipation. Thus, the party should develop its role as an educator of the masses. It was reasonable, however, to question if this new party was already sufficiently prepared to take on this role of being an educator of it hadn’t been educated yet. The Turin working class and its experience of the factory councils had been defeated, and the vanguard intellectuals that had been developed and joined the L’Ordine Nuovo group were a minority in the new party. Ensuring the actual scission with reformism was essential initially, which is probably why Gramsci decided to support Amadeo Bordiga’s leadership in the new party under establishment. However, when Comintern pressure began favoring an approximation with the ISP, or even a merger, risking a possible intervention approved by its members, such as Ângelo Tasca, who welcomed the merger of both organizations, Gramsci while in Moscow decided to oppose this. Gramsci, against Bordiga, accepted the united front policy suggested by Comintern, but he performed a new interpretation that kept the scission theme against socialist reformism strong, thus opposing Tasca. It was now necessary to develop a political group that would make this the entire party’s stance. It was then a matter of educating the educating party. In Vienna through letters, Gramsci added an initial group and matured the educational proposal that would be carried out through different publications: L’Ordine Nuovo, as a journal would contribute to the education of the theoretically qualified staff, the L’Unità newspaper would disseminate the party’s political orientation centered on the united front and on the worker-peasant alliance and the Critica Proletária journal would be concerned with cultural criticism and the ideological struggle. This set of publications would also be completed with a yearbook with explanatory texts aimed at the working class. When Gramsci returned to Italy in May 1924, now a parliament member and main leader of the ICP, he tried to put this educational plan

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into practice amidst difficulties, and the decisive component he identified to achieve this was a political training correspondence course. In any case, Gramsci never lost sight of the fact that education precedes school and that on-site education is fundamental. But the most important initiative is always self-education, self-learning, since “the school accelerates training, it is the Taylor system of education, it provides a method, teaches individuals how to study, makes them used to intellectual discipline, but it cannot replace the initiative spirit in the knowledge field” (Gramsci 1978k: 59). During the period when he was the highest leader of the ICP and a parliament member, Gramsci developed his concept regarding the party as an educator of the masses, opposing the previously imprinted orientation by Bordiga, who understood that political organization should be the brain of the class, which, formed by revolutionary intellectuals, would be dedicated to disciplining, organizing and transmitting Marxist science to workers. Gramsci thought that the party should emerge from the best part of the class, most disciplined and intellectualized and dedicated to picking up on the spontaneous rebellious impulses of the class in order to offer it a strategic direction towards emancipation, thus requiring an autonomous scientific and cultural education. Insofar as the class educates the party and the party educates the class in a huge organizational and cultural process, the class becomes the party and prepares to become the state. The mediation elements in this process are based on the political formula of the united front, the alliance with peasantry, and the issue on creating a new intellectual and political group to face the cultural organization of the bourgeois order. The emancipatory pedagogical principle is thus based upon work, it is cultural, political and profoundly dialectical. The school, in this case, could not be entirely free of interests, as Gramsci once thought.

The Organic Intellectuals of the Bourgeoisie In Prison Notebooks, even though he maintained a non-systematized form, which was a unique characteristic of his thought process, Gramsci resumed and re-discussed the questions on culture, education and intellectuals. One may say that these issues are present in all of Gramsci’s prison work. Schooling is a product of the bourgeois revolution. For the bourgeois hegemony to be strong and present in all aspects of social life, it requires the dissemination of schooling and expansion of intellectual life.

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However, the public and secular school results from a certain form of bourgeois revolution, a Jacobin approach. In places like Italy, where the bourgeois revolution took on a passive revolution form, school also had to coexist with religious school organization and the bureaucratic management of the school system, and this had implications for the schooling of the subaltern layers as well as hegemony bourgeois. Gramsci recognizes the progressive role of the school and importance of the social group of intellectuals, the main individuals responsible for this hegemony: The enormous development including school activity and organization (in a broader sense) in societies that emerged from the medieval world indicates the importance that intellectual categories and roles occupy in the modern world: as an attempt to deepen and expand the ‘intellectuality’ of each individual as well as multiply specializations and refine them. This results from different educational institutions, even organizations promoting the so-called ‘high culture’, in each field of science and technology (the school is the instrument for preparing intellectuals from various degrees). The complexity of the role of intellectuals in different States can be objectively measured by the number of specialized schools and their hierarchy; the greater the ‘area’ and more abundant the ‘vertical’ ‘degrees’ are, the more complex becomes the cultural world and the civility, of a given State. (Gramsci 1975: 12 1 1517)

Thus, the schooling promoted by the bourgeois period contributed greatly to fighting folklore and superstition and disseminating the notion of work linked to the control of the forces of nature through science. But the school is certainly focused on the reproduction of social relations, the reproduction of the social division of labor that generates antagonistic social classes. In other words, the school contributes to the division between manual labor and intellectual labor, between the simple and cultured, between subordinates and rulers, between the dominated and the dominant powers. The school becomes an important element in the establishment of social conformism, the hegemony of one class over another, or political and economic domination, to be more explicit. So, in Gramsci’s perspective, school and education represent politics and culture at the same time. In fact, the school is just an apparatus specialized in education and developing intellectuals, but this educational role reproducing the domination and hegemony is fulfilled by a series of institutions that make up

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the cultural hegemony apparatus. Several of these institutions are listed in the Prison Notebooks, which include, in addition to the school, libraries, clubs, unions, church, newspapers, books, magazines, bookstores, theater, museums, art galleries, zoo, army, architecture, street nomenclature, etc., everything that affects cultural organization, shaping the production, processes and labor management. This means—as Sorel had already suggested—that there is a whole layer of intellectuals who are concerned with the reproduction of the social world to make it suitable for capital accumulation. This intellectual layer expresses itself as a political and cultural representation of the class rule of the bourgeoisie. Therefore, it is impossible to split education and politics given that both are essential parts of the hegemony and are superstructure of civil society, based on the productive process for expanded capital, which should be highlighted. But capital uses intellectuals emerging from the depths of feudal times, starting with clerics who later become artists, teachers, philosophers, writers, scientists, and others. But “as these various categories of traditional intellectuals feel their uninterrupted historical continuity and ‘qualification’ with their ‘bodily spirit’, they position themselves as autonomous and independent from the dominant social group; [...]”. (Gramsci 1975: 12 1 1515)

Placing themselves above the interests of antagonistic social groups, in fact, these intellectuals contribute to the reproduction of order and its naturalization end up submitting to organic intellectuals. Gramsci says: Each social group, born on the original terrain of an essential function in the world of economic production, creates organically, one or more layers of intellectuals that give it homogeneity and awareness of its own role, not only in the economic field, but also in the social and political fields. (Gramsci 1975: 12 1 1513)

The organic intellectual of capital is above all the capitalist entrepreneur, but other specialists are needed, such as economists, administrators, engineers, urban planners, new jurists, journalists, etc. Thus, by starting from the productive process of capital, it is noticeable how the need to organize sociability requires schooling and the development of organically linked intellectuals. However,

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the relationship between intellectuals and the world of production is not immediate, as is the case with fundamental social groups, but it is ‘mediated’, to varying degrees, by the entire social fabric, by the complex of superstructures, which intellectuals precisely work for. (Gramsci 1975: 12 1 1518)

Gramsci suggests that the organic intellectuals of capital are initially found in civil society, “in the group of organisms commonly called private”, and then in “political society or the State”, and care for the consensus and domination (Gramsci 1975: 12 1 1518). Thus, there is a huge expansion of the concept of the intellectual: the organizers of a sports club, the militants of a political party and all of public administration are, through this perspective, considered intellectuals. As a result, the contradiction inherent to capital, which centralizes the dialectical movement in civil society, is reproduced in all instances of sociability and political class domain, thus shaping the historical capitalist bloc and the bourgeois state.

The Intellectual and Moral Reform Program With the strength of bourgeois hegemony and its capacity for reproduction through education providing social shaping but also raising a mass of intellectuals that are organic to order, Gramsci asked himself how to transform the world of men and how to envision human emancipation, and thus achieve unity among humankind. The suggested answer was the need for far-reaching intellectual and moral reform. Certainly, this reform would be based on the radical reorganization of the productive labor forces, since the new hegemony based on labor undergoing emancipation would have to become material through the productive process, but it would only be completed with the intellectual progress of the masses and spread of the philosophy of praxis as a new common sense. To think about intellectual and moral reform through this outline, Gramsci used a metaphor with the notions of the Renaissance and Reformation, concrete-historical events representing the beginning of the bourgeois world. The Renaissance had great cultural and artistic standards, but it was not capable of creating popular culture or even supporting the creation of a united Italian state. This is intellectuals remained tied to nobility and the ecclesial institution. In other words, the Renaissance was not able to surpass the feudal world. On the other

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hand, the Lutheran and Calvinist Reformation created popular culture that contributed to the establishment of national states and capitalism itself, even though it took a long time to create high culture, such as classic German philosophy from Kant to Hegel. The defeat of Machiavelli’s project of making the peasant masses the historical protagonists in the process to unite Italy strongly contributed to defining the Renaissance as a phenomenon of the dominant social strata, apart from the people. Machiavelli was an early example of what would be a Jacobin, but he lacked the support of a popular mass based on popular national collective will. The effective moral and intellectual reform that gave rise to the bourgeois world was the Enlightenment materialized in the French Revolution and linked to classical German philosophy. Thus, it was only at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century that the equation that gave rise to the bourgeois world was fully set. In Gramsci’s words: The Lutheran Reformation and Calvinism created popular culture and high culture only in successive periods; the Italian reformers lacked great historical successes. Modern philosophy continues the Renaissance and Reformation in its superior phase, but with the methods of the Renaissance, without the popular incubation of the Reformation, which created solid modern state foundations in Protestant nations. (Gramsci 1975: 4 3 423)

This reflection suggests the profile that should define the moral and intellectual reform aimed at the unilateral human development that would involve the entire humankind. Renaissance could create a complete man, suggested in the image of Leonardo Da Vinci, added to a philosopher such as the Reformation generated through classical German philosophy, which reached its peak with Hegel. This was all consecrated by a great mass base, as in the dawn of the Reformation. The philosophy of praxis criticized and surpassed this social and cultural ensemble, which gave life to the bourgeois world and its hegemony. Therefore, the philosophy of praxis should be the fundamental instrument for the realization of the intellectual and moral reform that would overcome bourgeois hegemony and capitalism, the divided world of men. The philosophy of praxis is a philosophy that becomes politics, but also education and hence economics. A intellectual and moral

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reform with these proportions demands continuous political and educational action in social life as a whole. The fundamental question arises, finally, in the relationship between intellectuals and the masses. The Italian Renaissance was not able to reach the masses, the Protestant Reformation reached the masses, but it did not generate a high culture until much later, dissociated from popular culture. The link between intellectuals and the masses was expressed only through French Jacobinism, at the most radical moment of the bourgeois revolution. However, this was not a matter of carrying out a moral and intellectual reform that would surpass the bourgeois world, requiring political and educational action. The intellectual and moral reform in action would be the Modern Prince, a totalizing organism that learns from the spontaneous action of the masses, and educates and organizes them at the same time, providing a conscious direction. The revolutionary party develops and organizes the intellectuals generated by the workers’ struggle and in its political and educational action develops intellectual and moral reform. So, the Modern Prince must be a complex element of society in which the realization of a collective will, recognized and partially affirmed through action, has already begun. This body already exists through its historical development and is the political party, the first cell in which the seeds of a collective will that tend to be universal and complete are resumed. (Gramsci 1975: 13 1 1558)

Gramsci bases his reflection on several essential assumptions for the realization of intellectual and moral reform that makes the emancipated man concrete: the human species is fundamentally the same, therefore, all individuals are workers and intellectuals simultaneously. The social division of labor and the division between leaders and those led is a historical phenomenon (and thus politics itself as a practice of domination), which can and must be overcome. The problem however, from the historical and political point of view has major dimensions, as it involves facing and overcoming high bourgeois culture as well as promoting immense intellectual progress among the masses. Following the reasoning by Rosa Luxemburg and Sorel, Gramsci tries to explain the defeat of the socialist revolution and suggests that

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Marxism had two tasks: confronting modern ideologies in their finest forms and educating the popular masses, whose culture was medieval. This second task was fundamental and absorbed all forces, not only ‘quantitatively’ but ‘qualitatively’; for ‘educational’ reasons, Marxism was confused with a form of culture that was above the popular mentality, but inadequate to confront other ideologies of the educated classes, while original Marxism was in fact overcoming the highest cultural manifestation of its time, classical German philosophy. (Gramsci 1975: 4 3 422–423)

This made it impossible to carry out a Renaissance and Reformation at the same time. At first, we must consider the fact that there was widespread vulgar Marxism among popular sectors, which barely surpassed common sense—just like in the Reformation when it originated—and there was also the Marxism present among intellectuals and leaders, in turn subjected to various influences from high bourgeois culture, such as neo-Kantism and positivism. In fact, Gramsci considered that the mass cultural flourishing would only occur when the Modern Prince expanded to such an extent that it would anticipate a new hegemony and taken overpower. The workers’ state, a transitional state, would be the expression of a new historical bloc, driven by the hegemony of labor which would create a new culture, a new cultural organization and mass intellectual progress, surrounded by the philosophy of praxis with the intention to create omnilateral and fully emancipated man. Overcoming the social division of labor and any hierarchy would be the very condition to achieve an ethical–political state. When imagining this political ethical state we must consider communism, the means for human sociability in which ethics and the pure administration of things are predominant and there is no longer a political state as an expression of sociability with the dominant and the dominated.

School and Transition State An essential element for intellectual and moral reform and for the socialist revolution was the spread of the philosophy of praxis as a new worldview that would overcome religious excrescences as well as the ideological vision of the sciences developed that would favor capital accumulation. Even though education precedes and involves the school and educational institutions, it must occupy an enormously prominent position in the

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transition state, as it is also linked to the problem of intellectuals and new cultural organizations for the construction and consolidation of workers’ hegemony. In his reflections, Gramsci considers several educational experiences that were developed in various European countries, such as Germany or England, but an effective counterpoint is made between the school organization in Italy and the Soviet experience, without leaving aside Americanism which stands out precisely for producing intellectuals linked to the remarkable industrial base of the USA. The traditional Italian experience dedicated elementary school to future manual workers, middle school for technical training of the petty bourgeoisie and the classical school to train intellectuals from the ruling classes. The fascist reform of the school preserved the organization of the school aimed at reproducing the labor force for capital purposes and training ruling-class intellectuals. Thus, the school preserves its role as an institution that reproduces bourgeois hegemony. Gramsci strongly criticized this school standard. Unless the school is entirely autonomous from the state and capital, it cannot escape its role of reproducing bourgeois hegemony. It can at best be a terrain upon which class society critique germinates. Or instead, the school should be a public institution of a new state, against capital and the social division of labor. Gramsci asks: “Can a cultural reform occur, that is, the civil elevation of society’s depressed strata, without a previous economic reform and mutation in social positions and the economic world?” (Gramsci 1975: 4 3 422–423). When Gramsci proposes a unitary school or an integral school, it is an outline for a school organization geared towards a possible transitional period that would follow fascism. A unitary or general culture school must prepare youth for social life and, therefore, it must be effectively public, with expenses covered by the state, including extensive infrastructure. In the initial school years, “the first notions of the state and society should be acquired, as primordial elements of a new worldview against the notions provided in different traditional social environments, that is, of the concepts that can be called folkloric” (Gramsci 1975: 12 1 1535). In the course of unitary school, the values of intellectual self-discipline and moral autonomy would be developed in a collective and active life environment. Thus, it is fundamental that

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the advent of the unitary school represents the beginning of new relationships between intellectual work and industrial work not only in school, but in forms of social life. The unitary principle will therefore be reflected in all cultural bodies, transforming and giving them new content. (Gramsci 1975: 12 1 1538)

Gramsci considered that the unification of cultural organizations existing in Italy would integrate academic work and collective life with the production and labor worlds. However, the Gramscian principle that all men are workers and also intellectuals suggest a horizon for human emancipation, personality development, overcoming the separation between manual and intellectual work. The full conquest of material forces by the collective man requires that it be overcome. This long process overcoming the scission between intellectual workers and manual workers must begin at school but should unfold in the productive process and in labor organization. Intellectual self-discipline, moral autonomy, creative activity must facilitate the organization of production in scientific terms under workers’ control. Work and culture complement each other at school and become one. School and social life tend to get mixed up in the creation of new, emancipated human sociability, in which the philosophy of praxis is spread as a new common sense. This is how workers’ hegemony is built and it assimilates “Americanism” no longer as a form of capitalist exploitation but as a balance that “can be absorbed if proposed by the worker himself and not imposed by external elements, as a new form of society, with appropriate and original means” (Gramsci 1975: 22 11 2166).

Gramsci and Labor as a Foundation for Hegemony

Hegemony and Civil Society: Diffused Concepts The hegemony category is one of the keys to entering the complex universe that Gramsci builds in Prison Notebooks, although not the only one. In fact, the increased concern with this category only became more intense in the 70s, when the “Eurocommunist” strategy of disputing the state through bourgeois democracy was anticipated and the so-called critical edition of Prison Notebooks was being prepared. At the same time, there was significant discussion on the concept of civil society in Prison Notebooks, a problem that cannot be dissociated from the previous one which is why it is considered an alternative key. The understanding that became predominant that reached common sense was presented by Norberto Bobbio in 1967 at the scientific meeting organized by Istituto Gramsci when has a decisive milestone in this debate the thesis that considered the civil society, from Gramsci’s perspective, was an element of superstructures (Bobbio 1969: 75–100). In this case, the struggle for hegemony would only be relevant in the dimension of the superstructure in the field of politics and culture, attached to the topics of democracy and intellectual and moral reform. The “hegemony in civil society” notion, thus defined and dear to common sense, was a betrayal of Gramsci’s theoretical journey as this interpretation’s implications caused Gramsci’s scission with Marx and © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Del Roio, Gramsci and the Emancipation of the Subaltern Classes, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90777-8_11

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Lenin. Marx perceived civil society as an essential dimension organized from the social relations of capital production. The anatomy of civil society (of social totality) should be sought in the process of capital accumulation, but it is certain that anatomy does not exhaust the totality of the social being. So, the reductionist understanding of hegemony and civil society clearly served to define the limits of politics and culture within the framework of liberal-bourgeois institutionalism and to hide its deeper meaning when Gramsci’s work refers to revolution and class struggle. And this was done by hiding the dimension of labor exploitation and the struggle for social emancipation. What was left behind was the basic principle of Gramscian writings that civil society and hegemony represent social totality in a contradictory process, based on the production of material life carried out through social man’s work. Gramsci’s main concern with this subjective moment was confused with subjectivism, culturalism or politicism.

The United Front and Hegemony Since the experience of the Turin Factory Councils from 1919 to 1920, and the publication of L’Ordine Nuovo, Gramsci’s commitment to directly attach economics, politics and culture was quite evident. Self-management of the production process would be possible through knowledge of technical processes, but the management of public affairs and the new state that should emerge from the councils would require cultural qualification and a profound change in entire social life. Interest in the new work processes that emerged in the USA, which were intended to be used in the USSR, the so-called Taylorism, was already present at that time and remained throughout life, highlighted in Prison Notebook 22. Thus, the continuity of Gramsci’s theoretical elaboration can be noted, from the period of L’Ordine Nuovo to the end of Prison Notebooks concerning social work as the ultimate material foundation of hegemony. Although a theoretical accumulation inherited from Sorel, Rosa Luxemburg and the German councilors was already present, the fact is that Gramsci effectively begins to construct the concept of hegemony as an unfolding of the reflection developed on the theoretical-political formula of the united front. Although the questions related to this theoretical approach were already present in Rosa Luxemburg’s elaboration,

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the greatest inspiration came from Lenin especially from the reflection on the period following the defeat of the international socialist revolution and the beginning of the united front policy in Communist International and NEP—New Economic Policy in the USSR (Del Roio 2017). The notion of hegemony began in ancient Greece referring to the supremacy of a polis in the sociocultural complex. Within Russian Marxism the same notion emerged at the end of the nineteenth century, providing meaning to the supremacy of a social and political group. Lenin used the concept while analyzing the specificity of the bourgeoisdemocratic revolution in 1905. At the time, Lenin thought of a bourgeois revolution under the leadership of the working class supported by the peasant mass and the urban petty bourgeoisie. In this case, hegemony mainly means political hegemony, the capacity to direct social movements, but it must also be an ideological and programmatic elaboration capacity. Hegemony is a form of movement in the process of conquest of political power (Thomas 2009; Boothman 2015; Cospito 2021). The historical situation that Lenin faced from 1921 onwards provided analogies for this previous reflection, only with the enormous difference that he was now in power. The real problem was how to build the hegemony of the working class within a state with a productive base that was devastated, and a vast majority of the labor force were in rural areas. The socialist transition problem was based on backwardness and through state monopoly capitalism led by the workers’ party. A maximum consensus was essential for the revolutionary transformation of the social relations and advances among productive forces. Developing a new working class with high technical qualifications, cultured and convinced of the socialist project was essential, as well as educating the peasant masses not only for the use of scientific planting methods, but also the use of machines, in addition to promoting the cultural elevation of great masses. The worker-peasant alliance is the socialist transition presupposition under maximum consensus and is the starting point for the hegemony of the socialist working class. The link between social work, education and hegemony is very clear. The demand that links the production process and technical-scientific education is evident, as it was a central element for public life in the USSR throughout the 1920s. The close relationship between economy and culture was at the heart of the hegemony under development, as well as the socialist transition process. Taylorism generated in the most advanced capitalist state (which was the USA) should be adapted to the socialist transition: its labor exploitation purpose should

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lead to the emergence of a disciplined working class aware of social labor objectives. Gramsci was in Moscow in 1923 to represent the ICP along with Communist International. This was when he became closely acquainted with the theoretical elaborations by Lenin and other Bolsheviks (we can say Krupskaya, Pistrak, Bogdanov) and could closely observe the effort that was being made to rebuild the devastated Russian economy. He noted the importance given to education as an essential part of this gigantic endeavor and how significant the debates on socialist education in revolutionary Russia were. The reflections and activities of the school created in the unfolding movement of the factory councils in Turin were also noteworthy. From the fierce debates that involved the Italian communists with Comintern, due to its political orientation contrasting with the general political strand established after the III Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) in June 1923, Gramsci began his own reflections on the united front policy. Gramsci’s elaboration reached a depth that no other Comintern reference or body could achieve. He maintained the perspective of the scission with the order of capital and antagonism in the social struggle that he brought from his heterogeneous previous political influences, Sorel, Rosa and Bordiga, however, with Lenin he achieved a significant theoretical leap. Gramsci considered that the united front was not and could not be a mere temporary gathering of political forces aimed at a common short-term objective. The united front should contain the embryo of the new order; it should unite the working class towards the struggle against capital and simultaneously establish the foundations for a new social life. Furthermore, the united front should be extended to the entire mass of workers, to the agricultural proletariat and peasantry, especially concerning Italy. In the united front, a new hegemony was under construction, and this demanded the development of a new culture, and thus, the united front would mostly develop political activities and economic, cultural and philosophical activities, as it would transform the world. This elaboration made considerable progress between 1923 and 1926 when Gramsci was at the head of the party, reaching a point of relative maturity with the III Congress of the ICP, held in January 1926 and above all, with the unfinished text analyzing the meridional question. In fact, Gramsci was engaged in studying the existing Italian perspectives on

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the meridional question when he was illegally detained on November 8, 1926, before the essay was complete. In this essay, Gramsci assesses the role of intellectuals in the reproduction of the meridional agrarian bloc and how some of these intellectuals could move to the united front and attract peasantry along with them. It is true that even within the united front, political and cultural hegemony would be in dispute, as it was in Russia between Marxists and Narodiniks. In this text, Gramsci states that since 1920, “the Torino communists had concretely posed the question of the ‘hegemony of the proletariat’, of the social basis of the proletarian dictatorship and the workers’ state”. This would indicate the practical awareness that the proletariat can become the ruling and dominant class insofar as it manages to create a system of class alliances that allows it to mobilize most of the working population against capitalism and the bourgeois state, representing the real class relations existing in Italy, insofar as it manages to obtain the consensus of the broad peasant masses. (Gramsci 1995: 158) Classe dirigente > who conduct, who drive the social life. Ruling seems no good. Could be driving??

The issue regarding the construction of a new power was posed, but for it to be consolidated the proletariat, to be capable of governing as a class, must strip itself of all corporate residue, prejudice, or syndicalist encrustation. What does this mean? Not only must the distinctions existing between the professions be overcome, but in order to gain the confidence and consensus of the peasants and some semi-proletarian categories in the city, it would be necessary to overcome some forms of prejudice and selfishness subsisting among the working class, even when the specificities of the profession disappear within it. (Gramsci 1995: 166)

Additionally, they must think like workers, members of a class that tends to lead the peasants and intellectuals, of a class that can only win and build socialism if it is supported and followed by the vast majority in these social strata. (Gramsci 1995: 166)

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Thus, Gramsci proposed the united front issue and the construction of a new hegemony. The incidence of Lenin’s thinking and the experience of the Soviet NEP was clear. But as occurs in his entire categorical universe, in Prison Notebooks meanings are expanded and re-elaborated.

Lenin and Hegemony as a Theoretical Category In Notebook 10 in which Benedetto Croce’s philosophy is discussed, Gramsci clearly presents his Leninian inspiration regarding the use of the hegemony category by confronting the accusation that the philosophy of praxis would be restricted to the economic moment and would not consider the ethical–political moment. Gramsci states, surely recalling the NEP experience and united front strategy, one may consider that not only does the philosophy of praxis not exclude ethical-political history, but in fact, its most recent phase of development consists in claiming the hegemony moment as essential for the State conception, appreciating the cultural element, of cultural activity, the cultural front as necessary along with the merely economic and political aspects. (Gramsci 1975: 10 7 1224)

A little further on, Gramsci recognizes that Croce’s great virtue lay precisely in highlighting the importance of cultural facts at the “moment of hegemony and consensus as a necessary form in the concrete historical bloc”. The importance of Croce’s nomination is made evident by the fact that, coincidentally, the greatest modern theorist of the philosophy of praxis [Lenin], in the field of struggle and political organization, with political terminology, opposing various ‘economist’ tendencies, reassessed the cultural struggle front and built the doctrine of hegemony complementing the theory of the State-power and as the current doctrine of 1848 of the ‘permanent revolution’. (Gramsci 1975: 10 12 1235)

Thus, Gramsci recognized that the hegemony issue was initially considered a political problem, but this was simply due to the reality Lenin was involved in which demanded such, since hegemony, when complete refers to the entire historical bloc, social totality in movement. He remembered that

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In this regard, the thought expressed by [Rosa] Luxemburg on the impossibility of facing certain issues related to the philosophy of praxis is still useful and fruitful while they have not yet become applicable to the course of general history or a given social group. The economic-corporate phase, the struggle for hegemony in civil society, and the state phase represented certain intellectual activities that cannot be arbitrarily improvised or anticipated. In the struggle for hegemony, the science of politics is developed; in the state phase all superstructures must develop, under penalty of state dissolution. (Gramsci 1975: 11 65 1493)

Hegemony must therefore be determined since a definition or conceptualization of the term is not enough. This is why there are many observed meanings for hegemony which are sometimes distinct in the Prison Notebooks. It is a fact that most of Lenin’s elaboration considered that hegemony meant political hegemony, the capacity to organize and direct political struggle. In the construction phase for the new state, however, hegemony would have to embrace the social totality, the organization of production, civil relations, culture and ethics and even international relations. Therefore, every hegemony relation is necessarily educational and is perceived not only within a nation between its various forces, but in the entire international and worldwide field, between complexes of national and continental civilizations. (Gramsci 1975: 10 43 1331)

It is certain however that hegemony is ultimately based upon the production process of the material life, as well as the labor relations that establish the historical bloc. But the productive process is organized by intellectuals organically linked to a particular class, who persuade workers to transport production with their vital force, by force or through consensus. Engineers, economists and administrators are part of a body of intellectuals linked more directly to the bourgeoisie, but every hegemony has a variety of intellectual roles established through a series of mediations that permeate the complex of superstructures in the civil society and state, ultimately organizing the production process of the historic block and shaping its workforce. There are, therefore, different organic levels in the intellectual connection with the hegemonic class, from the direct and immediate production organizer to the traditional intellectual who joined the historical bloc and reproduces political ethics that embraces hegemony. This cultural

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and institutional fabric fulfills the role of educating the masses for a specific type of productive apparatus, seeking to instill adequate customs and moral values. The logical consequence of this assessment is that the working class, in order to conquer hegemony, must be able to generate a mass of organic intellectuals who act against the existing historical bloc and organize production through collective and associated work.

Bourgeois Hegemony and Passive Revolution: The Italian Reality Gramsci introduces the categories of hegemony through a temporal and geopolitical context, opposing the permanent revolution concept. The French Revolution from 1789 to 1799 would have provided the substrate for the theoretical elaboration of the permanent revolution in practical terms, such as conceived by Marx. This concept prevailed until the revolutionary events from 1848 to 1849 and was marked by a struggle that can be identified as the war of movement and the Jacobin ideology. This struggle and ideology only ended definitively in 1870–71, when the Paris Commune was defeated and Germany and Italy were united. In this phase, elements of fluidity prevailed in social relations, however after 1870, with the European colonial expansion all these elements changed, the organizational and international relations of the state become more complex and massive, and the “permanent revolution” formula is elaborated and surpassed in political science as the “civil hegemony " formula. (Gramsci 1975: 13 7 1566)

Gramsci considered that in states entering the imperialist phase the class struggle transitioned into the dispute for civil hegemony, when the war of movement turns into a war of position. This means that capitalist development and bourgeois civil society gained significant complexity, generating complex superstructures resulting from management needs in large companies and the class struggle organization, implying changes in social conflict. The permanent revolution, however, would still be valid for regions in which bourgeois civil society was still in its initial phases, just as it had been in the French Revolution up to 1848 and even in Russia in 1917.

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Bourgeois hegemony arises, of course, from bourgeois revolutions. Gramsci considered that the most solid example of hegemony is expressed in Jacobinism with the French revolution. The Jacobins were the expression of secular intellectual and moral reform, the expression of popular demands, thus establishing a deep bond between intellectuals and the masses, indispensable for the development of hegemony. The problem Gramsci presented was about the reasons that prevented a Jacobin-type bourgeois revolution in Italy, that is, why a Jacobin hegemony was not established in the revolutionary process in the peninsula, instead of the “moderate” hegemony which took place. The hegemony category herein can only be understood insofar as it unfolds and implies other categories. Jacobin hegemony is directly associated with permanent revolution and the war of movement, through the development of a national-popular historical expression. The counterpart in this process is the passive revolution, which the Risorgimento expressed. The Risorgimento was possible due to an important geopolitical change in Europe in the middle of the eighteenth century, with the rise of Prussia as a power that broke the bipolarity established between Austria and France. Then, because of the French Revolution, Italy was invaded, provoking different reactions among the peninsular ruling classes, but almost an indifference among the popular masses. Following a suggestion by Vincenzo Cuoco, Gramsci perceived this process as a passive revolution, but he extended the meaning of this category to the entire period that followed until after Italy was unified. Through the analysis of this process precisely, Gramsci brings to light the hegemony of the moderate political group. He then noted that The moderates represented a relatively homogeneous social group, which explains why their leadership suffered relatively limited variations (in any case along an organically progressive line of development), while the socalled Partito d’Azione did not rely specifically on any historical class and the variations that its governing bodies suffered were ultimately set according to the interests of the moderates: that is to say that the Partito d’Azione was guided by the moderates. (Gramsci 1975: 19 24 2010)

The hegemonic action of the moderates—intellectual, moral and political—managed to attract to their field an ever-greater number of intellectual and political elements that emerged from within the allies and even opponents, in a process that could be designated as “transformism”.

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While the Partito d’Azione failed to connect with the popular masses, especially the peasants, and define a concrete program, the material foundation of moderate hegemony was tangible through the real identity between those represented and the representatives, ie, the moderates were a real, organic vanguard of the upper classes, because they belonged economically to the upper classes: they were intellectuals and political organizers and at the same time heads of companies, large farmers or property administrators, commercial and industrial entrepreneurs, etc. (Gramsci 1975: 19 24 2012)

Through this analysis, Gramsci extracts the following methodological criterion, which points to the theoretical foundation of hegemony: the supremacy of a social group manifests itself in two ways, as a form of “dominance” and as a “intellectual and moral direction”. A social group dominates the opposing groups which they tend to “liquidate” or submit with the use of armed force even, leading the allied and related groups. (Gramsci 1975: 19 24 2010)

This methodological criterion is completed with another that is stated as follows: there is no independent class of intellectuals, but each social group has its own intellectual group or tends to establish one; however, the intellectuals of the historically (and realistically) progressive class, under the given conditions, exercise a power of attraction that ultimately subordinates intellectuals from other social groups and thus creates a system of solidarity among intellectuals with psychological (vanity, etc.) as well as caste (technical-legal, corporate, etc.) connections. (Gramsci 1975: 19 24 2012)

However, hegemony is only such when it is established upon the materiality defined in the production process. Hegemony is expressed in economy and culture, under political mediation which organizes social life as a whole.

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Hegemony and Passive Revolution: Italian Fascism and American-Fordism The impact of the imperialist war and international socialist revolution, with the organic crisis of the dominant political power in Italy, brought about a new passive revolution that developed into fascism, commonly considered a “revolution-restoration”. Gramsci assesses that fascism reestablishes bourgeois hegemony in Italy—generating contradictions and limits—despite significant weaknesses. In Notebook 22 especially, this assessment is made while opposing the so-called Americanism-Fordism, which would be a possible passive revolution full of potentials. Fascism’s weakness as a passive revolution that reestablishes a bourgeois hegemony had clearly discernible historical reasons that could be sought through a sequence of historical and social strata originated, strictly speaking, from Roman antiquity, passing through the long and still unsurpassed domain of Church. The arrest of medieval communes in the economic-corporate phase and the defeat of the project designed by Machiavelli to establish an absolute monarchy in Renaissance Italy implied a long period of feudal regression, which was only partially overcome by the Risorgimento. Partly because the bourgeois revolution took place, as previously mentioned, as a passive revolution with moderate hegemony. The persistent historical problem was the dissociation between intellectuals and popular masses, between high culture and workers. Liberal hegemony was fragile, as it depended heavily on the great meridional intellectuals and on the mass of intellectuals in public administration, as well as the clergy. The materiality of hegemony was also fragile due to the survival of cities that did not have an industrial-based economic production, resulting in the survival and reproduction of parasitic social layers. Fascism arose from the defeat of the Italian workers’ movement with the objective of reestablishing bourgeois hegemony, but in Gramsci’s understanding, this took place as a new passive revolution, as a regressive Caesarism aimed at defending the interests of the parasitic layers. In this passive revolution form, the reestablishment of hegemony required the presence of a strong state apparatus, with broad legal and police spheres, in addition to the contribution of traditional conservative institutions such as the Church. Coercive superstructures were indispensable elements in this passive revolution variant and the reestablishment of hegemony.

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In addition to the reestablishment of bourgeois hegemony nationally, following the defeat of the international socialist revolution, the problem concerning international hegemony also existed. In this scenario, the relationship between Europe and America was established and the importance resulting from an accurate understanding of Americanism-Fordism. Gramsci considered that Americanism-Fordism was a major undertaking, “the greatest collective effort seen so far to create, with unprecedented speed and an awareness of the purpose that has never been seen in history, a new type of worker and man” (Gramsci 1975: 22 11 2165). The strength of Americanism was present above all in the rational demographic composition, which gave no space for significant presence of parasitic social strata. In America “there are no numerous classes without an essential function in the productive world, i.e., absolutely parasitic classes” (Gramsci 1975: 22 2 2141). Furthermore, America did not have an ingrained cultural tradition creating a superstructure that protected parasitic groups. Gramsci concluded: Since these preliminary conditions existed and had already been rationalized by historical development, it was relatively easy to rationalize production and work, skillfully combining force (destruction of territorially based labor syndicalism) and persuasion (high wages, diverse social benefits, very skillful ideological and political propaganda) and managing to base the entire life of the country upon production. Hegemony is born in the factory and in order to be implemented it does not need more than a minimal amount of professional political and ideological intermediaries. (Gramsci 1975: 22 2 2145–2146)

The specificity herein suggested that “in America, rationalization determined the need to develop a new human type, according to the new type of work and production process”, but this new human type, this new worker, is still undergoing an adaptation phase, psychophysics, which would not have made it possible to approach “the fundamental question of hegemony”. In America there was not yet a working class, as its forms of struggle were corporate-based, and they had not experienced the political and economic developments of the French Revolution (Gramsci 1975: 22 2 2146–47). Gramsci noted that efforts to introduce the Taylor method of organizing work in Europe, particularly in Italy, would tend to aggravate

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existing contradictions, as Fordist-style Americanization was very difficult. This is due to the fact that Americanization requires a given environment, a specific social structure (or the determined will to create it) and a certain type of state. The state is a liberal state, not in the sense of customs liberalism, but in the most fundamental sense of free enterprise and economic individualism that comes with its own means, as ‘civil society’, through the same historical development, to the regime of industrial concentration and monopoly. (Gramsci 1975: 22 6 2157)

Gramsci was very skeptical about the possibility of Americanism overtaking Europe through fascism, even if Fovel’s theoretical reflection were to gain material strength, if the hypothesis of productive rationalization through corporatism were to succeed. There was a contradiction between Fascism and Americanism, just as there were contradictions within each of these historical experiences. In America, through high wages and other measures, workers endured the process of psychophysical adaptation to new forms of production with great difficulty. But, in Gramsci’s analysis, high wages were characteristics of the deployment phase and would tend to fall later when the labor adaptive period had been completed. On the other hand, the worker who is part of the apparatus would have more time to think and eventually develop his subjectivity to the point of posing the problem of hegemony. Whether through the hegemony of capital, most likely, or the opposite, with the workers’ hegemony , the crucial problem was certainly noticing if America, with the relentless weight of its economic production (that is, indirectly) will constrict or is constricting Europe to a reversion of its highly old-fashioned economic-social axis, which would happen, but at a slower pace and would immediately represent an attack from American ‘prepotency’, that is, if there is a transformation of the material bases of European civilization taking place, in the long term (and not very long, because in the current period everything is faster than in past periods) it will drag on the existing form of civilization and forced birth of a new civilization. (Gramsci 1975: 22 15 2278–2279)

Gramsci considered that American-Fordism was a form of imperialism that would override Europe and especially fascism, aggravating social contradictions in America itself and in Europe. On the other

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hand, Americanism-Fordism would materialize a new workforce capable of endowing itself with antagonistic subjectivity. In other words, Americanism-Fordism caused a geopolitical. shift in hegemony and at the same time created the material conditions for a new working class undergoing definition to establish hegemony and build a new socialist civilization.

From One Hegemony to Another: Labor and Culture Mediated by Politics Gramsci considered syndicalist economism an ideology and means to conceive the organization and social struggle of a working class in subaltern conditions. It is the hegemonic expression of liberalism reflected in workers’ organization and ideology as it conceives civil society and state, economy and politics as organically distinct elements. The result is that liberal economism is an ideology that preserves the interests of the ruling classes, but the opposite occurs when referring to a subaltern group, which, through this theory, is prevented from becoming dominant, developing beyond the economiccorporate stage to rise to the ethical-political hegemony stage in civil society and dominant in the State. (Gramsci 1975: 13 18 1590)

Gramsci’s research is focused on the analysis of specific forms of bourgeois hegemony with the clear purpose of finding the pathway to build workers’ hegemony. Hence his interest in the culture and history of the subaltern classes, not to praise them, but to find in them fragments of rebellion and antagonism to the established political-economic power and to incorporate this experience into the anti-capitalist united front. The starting point for the construction of this new hegemony should be the “spontaneous” rebellion of the masses, but the transition from one extreme to the other—from the oppression that underlies the rebellion to the new workers’ and socialist hegemony—requires a long process and many mediations. Gramsci identifies three moments of homogeneity, self-awareness and organization of the social groups towards hegemony. Among these, “the first and most elementary is the economic-corporate” moment, which results in the worker’s professional union. Then, Gramsci suggests that

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a second moment is the one in which awareness of the solidarity of interests among all members of the social group is achieved, but only in the economic field. The question of the State is already being raised, but only related to achieving political and legal equality towards dominant groups, since the right to participate in legislation and administration is claimed, as well as performing modifications and reforms, but within the existing fundamental frameworks. (Gramsci 1975: 13 17 1583–1584)

Spontaneous rebellion results in the defense of particularistic interests and an organized reformist conscience can be achieved, with the economic-corporate vision still prevailing, the economic union ideology. Finally, A third moment is when there is an awareness towards corporate interests themselves, in their current and future development, which can surpass the corporate cycle, of a merely economic group, and can and should become the interests of other subordinate groups. This is the most strictly political phase, which marks the clear transition from the structure to the sphere of complex superstructures; it is the phase in which the previously generated ideologies become a ‘party’, (...), determining not only the unity of economic and political objectives, but the intellectual and moral unity as well (...), thus creating the hegemony of a social group over a series of subordinate groups. (Gramsci 1975: 13 17 1584)

The construction of a new hegemony in social life based upon productive work presupposes a broad and profound intellectual and moral reform, the self-transformation of the social man. However, an intellectual and moral reform cannot but be linked to an economic reform program; more precisely, the economic reform program is precisely the concrete way in which all intellectual and moral reform is presented. (Gramsci 1975: 13 1 1561)

Thus, the construction of hegemony is intertwined with a broad pedagogical process, which primarily demands the development of organic intellectuals from the social group leading the new order under construction. The agent of this transformation is—in the Gramscian metaphor— the Modern Prince, “the first cell in which seeds of collective will tend to become universal and complete” (Gramsci 1975: 13 1 1558).

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The modern Prince emerges as a workers’ party, as a labor party, but insofar as it transferred from production to complex superstructures, it transforms the productive base, culture and itself. As an organizer of the anti-capitalist united front, the modern Prince transforms social life, the material base and social relations, tending to be confused with the united front and to become a state, although supremacy remains for a long time in the hands of productive work, since this is the basis and foundation of hegemony. Politics appears as a mediation between productive work and intellectual work, while the superstructure of labor hegemony is still indistinct. Thus, every policy must be economic and cultural at the same time, aimed at the intellectual progress of the masses and overcoming any domination relationship, with the reabsorption of the state by civil society.

The Construction of Praxis

Class and Party in Gramsci

Introduction The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate Gramsci’s perception on the relationship between class and party. He believed it to be determined by a dialectical movement radically different from predominant conceptions from the socialist labor movement at his time, with a strong scientism approach. The particularity of Gramsci’s perceptions on this problem can be observed by the crucial importance he dedicates to the question of subjectivity. Gramsci’s elaboration on the class/party relationship is significantly marked by suggestions contained in the work by Georges Sorel and Rosa Luxemburg. These contributions remain active until the prison writings, when they are revised and enriched after influences from Machiavelli and Lenin. Finally, I hope Gramsci’s political theory is still highly relevant, even with the profound changes that have taken place in the historical conditions of capitalism more than eighty years after his death even though the philosophy of praxis is only understood limitedly by contemporary politicians. In fact, the poor understanding or even distortion of Gramsci’s conceptions despite the number of skilled scholars and interpreters on his work is

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Del Roio, Gramsci and the Emancipation of the Subaltern Classes, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90777-8_12

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relatively significant. Therefore, I preferred to provide an immanent interpretation of his writings in this book, to once again allow Gramsci himself to speak.

Gramsci and the Italian Socialist Party Gramsci was in Turin since 1911 and probably joined the Italian Socialist Party in 1913. Due to his intellectual background resulting from the southernism and neo-idealism from Benedetto Croce, Gramsci had little adherence to the predominant ideology in the ISP, socialism with clear positivist characteristics. He became closer to ISP much more through contact with the workers than through the party ideology, to which he was always opposed. The ISP had two main strands from the same positivist approach. The reformists understood that Italy was a backward country from the perspective of capitalist development and that is why only social reforms would be possible, at least until capitalism was fully established. The maximalists agreed with this but they disagreed with the political procedure and understood that defending a maximum program—the implementation of socialism—should lead daily practice, so that workers could be ready when the time was right for the revolution. The positivist side of Italian socialism, which through “mechanisms” paralyzed theoretical reflection and willingness to act, was fought precisely by encouraging the will to fight, the will to do otherwise, autonomously, without submitting to bourgeois culture and its social and state institutions. Gramsci’s stance was expressed in the party press but was followed only by a small group of students and workers with whom he had close relations. Although he was a firm socialist and anti-positivist, Gramsci’s theoretical background still owed much to Croce, Sorel and Bergson. Faced with the problem of linking theory and political struggle—the philosophical question of praxis, of organized collective will, which implies the party issue—Gramsci felt the need to study Marx carefully, perhaps already supported by the texts from Labriola. But Croce’s philosophy was present throughout this initial phase with Gramsci as a socialist activist. The young Sardinian shared Croce’s idea that in modern times the only plausible religion would be the religion of freedom and there would be no room for mythological, revealed religious or even scientific conceptions. On the contrary, Gramsci sought to exacerbate subjectivity, individual actions and organized collective will.

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This would be a way of contesting emphasis on the theme of more or less developed productive forces presented by the “Marxism” that was predominant in Socialist International (and also in the ISP). Gramsci tended to accept Croce’s idea that producing philosophy and culture entailed politics. In fact, young Gramsci as a university student, defended democratic liberal philosophy such as the possible secular reform (Frosini 2010: 21–43). Georges Sorel was an important participant in the debate on the “crisis” or “revision” of late nineteenth-century Marxism that took place at the end of the nineteenth century. This discussion was intertwined with the problem of intellectual and moral reform proposed by Ernst Renan right after the experience of the Paris Commune. Renan called for a Catholic reform suited to the new times. Croce and Sorel understood differently that this reform would have to be secular. Both authors remained within the scope of liberalism, above all because they insisted on the separation between economics and politics. In an extremely summarized manner, one may say that Gramsci did not agree with the stance defended by Croce and Sorel regarding the impossibility of historical predictions and their contempt towards political parties. The dialogue established by Gramsci and these two authors (as well as others) indicates dialectics as a mindset. The criticism and incorporation of the authors’ propositions made Gramsci’s own thoughts develop and reestablish themselves, without any signs of opportunism. In fact, Gramsci considered that these authors could finally suggest the route to the refoundation of a Marxism free from positivist incrustations. However, Sorel was the most important author, as the intellectual dialogue with the French writer was directly concerned with the transformative actions in social life. Gramsci considered the “scission spirit” notion as essential. The devastation caused by the war exposed the barbarism of the bourgeois civilization in crisis, and amidst this, workers should withdraw to structure a new order, which should be based on emancipated labor. The path to this new civilization would require a profound intellectual and moral reform that would overcome the evils of the bourgeois order: the political and ideological power of the state, the bourgeoisie, political parties, intellectuals and churches. The working class should preserve its autonomy, organize itself, educate itself and strengthen itself considering the “general strike”, which would be the mobilizing myth for the struggle against capital (Paggi 1970: 124).

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Still considering Sorel’s elaboration in Prison Notebooks, Gramsci would develop the historical bloc concept, whose origin may lie in Sorel’s understanding of Vico which meant verifying how a worldview understood and organized reality and expressed it through language. Thus, we must insist that Sorel was Gramsci’s permanent correspondent. Sorel, as much as Croce, helped Gramsci identify the inseparable link between socialism and culture. Of course, Gramsci’s most notable difference when compared to these authors is in the issue of politics as real transformational action and the worker’s party as a means to perform revolutionary class politics. Gramsci was also concerned with demolishing the myths sustained by bourgeois civilization, which considered liberalism an essential element. One of the myths of the bourgeois order denounced by Gramsci is democracy. Democracy would be a myth, an image that cannot be fulfilled within capitalism. In other words, democracy is only feasible through socialism. Another bourgeois myth criticized by Gramsci, closely influenced by Sorel, is Jacobinism. Both authors considered that Jacobinism would be the expression of a political group that leads the masses towards revolution, but then turns away defending its own interests, representing thus the new oppressors (Rappone 2011: 352–362). Faced with the outbreak of the socialist revolution in Russia, the ISP— which had already defended Italy’s nonintervention in the war—decides to support the revolutionary movement and expresses its sympathy. Italy’s own social situation began to worsen from mid-1917, with the country already involved in the war. From that moment on, Gramsci began dealing more with issues related to politics and to express himself more about the ISP, its meaning and duty. Until then, but also beyond it, Gramsci’s concern was focused on spreading socialist culture and ethics. In fact, in Gramsci’s work, culture is organized proletariat politics. They are inseparable elements, just as economics and politics cannot be seen separately. Only in August 1917 with the workers’ rebellion in the city of Turin, did Gramsci finally admit a leading role for the first time, when he was a member of the socialist committee (consisting of 12 people) which tried to coordinate the struggling workers’ movement. In September 1917 during a controversy with Claudio Treves, parliament member from the reformist strand of the ISP, Gramsci anticipated the concept he would develop about the dialectical relationship between class and party. He then went on to say, in same pages of the Il Grido del Popolo:

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The proletariat is not an army; [...]. [...] It is a body with a will undergoing continuous transformation. [...]. Socialists [...] are a part of the proletariat itself, perhaps they are its conscience. [...] They are united; and they do not command, but instead live with the proletariat. [...]. They live in the proletariat; and their strength lies in the strength of the proletariat, the power lies in this perfect adherence. (Gramsci 1973n: 124)

Despite limited information, this perspective helped Gramsci comprehend what was happening with the Russian revolution in progress. The Bolsheviks would be the direct expression of the raging masses. As with the class, at a certain point in its development, by creating a party, it also created other social organization institutes. In Italy after the cooperative, the union and the party, the time came for the creation of a Cultural Association, with a clear class purpose, a place where a specific task could be offered to socialist intellectuals. Gramsci certainly thought of a place for the battle against positivist socialism that was prevalent in the ISP. Faced with Claudio Treves’ criticism in the important journal Crítica Sociale to the so-called young socialist generation, Gramsci demonstrates he really sought to approach Marx’s thought by refuting: “The new generation, it seems, wants to return to the genuine doctrine presented by Marx, according to which man and reality, instruments of work and will, are not separate from each other, but identify with the historical act (Gramsci 1973o: 145)”. Gramsci gets involved in the internal ISP debates, growing closer to the so-called intransigent (or maximalist) strand against the relativists (or reformists). He clarifies his stance in a lengthy paper responding to the liberal organization La Stampa. Identified as a “socialist dissent” that would express itself through purely “cultural” papers, Gramsci refutes and identifies criticism as an aid to the stance presented by relativists. However, he takes the opportunity to expose his theoretical political stances, beginning with the meaning of the state: “The State is the economic-political organization of the bourgeois class. The State is the bourgeois class and its real, concrete strength” (Gramsci 1973o: 180). To Gramsci, the state unites the bourgeoisie, but it is also in the state that the dispute between class segments to define the directions for state action takes place. Unlike bourgeois parties, The Socialist Party is not a segment organization, but a class organization: it is morphologically different from any other party. Only in the State,

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which expresses the bourgeois class as a whole can it recognize its antagonist of equal size. It cannot compete for the conquest of the State, either directly or indirectly, without committing suicide, without becoming a pure political segment, alienated from the historical activity of the proletariat and without becoming a swarm of carriage flies searching for a white custard bowl that they will be trapped in and die ingloriously. (Gramsci 1973p: 180)

Gramsci continues: “The Socialist Party does not conquer the State, but rather replaces it; it replaces the regime, abolishes the government of parties, replaces free competition with the organization of production and exchanges (Gramsci 1973o: 180)”. This is how the Socialist Party is the executive body of the proletariat, which cannot be allied to any bourgeois segment or compete for the conquest of state government. In fact, the Italian state is not even a bourgeois state, but still a feudal, militaristic and despotic state. The young bourgeoisie has the mission of transforming this state into an effectively democratic bourgeois state. It is up to the proletariat to fight the state, whichever it may be, and prepare to replace it. But it must also recognize the priority of eliminating what remains in feudal institutions. It is important to bear in mind that Gramsci understood that free exchange was a progressive detergent for feudal despotism, but also towards economic protectionism or any form of state socialism (certainly a false socialism). Gramsci considers that there is a process for the bourgeois democratization of the state, which is leveraged by the antagonistic force of the proletariat, but it cannot oppose the state, becoming an anti-state force. When the war ends and exception laws are suspended, Gramsci understands that the socialists “must become the most powerful party in the nation, relatively and absolutely, becoming the anti-State force prepared to replace the bourgeoisie in all its social functions as ruling class (Gramsci 1973q: 223)”. From the onset of the Russian revolution, Gramsci was more concerned with studying Marx and following the revolutionary process and the political action of the Bolsheviks, constantly intending to develop the perspective of the Italian proletariat. In the first half of 1919, the process for the international socialist revolution reached its peak and this was when Gramsci and some colleagues from his university days decided

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to launch a socialist culture journal, which was the best way they found to reach the proletariat class with politics. The inaugural issue of L’Ordine Nuovo came out on the first of May, 1919. Concerning Gramsci’s participation in the first editions, his understanding of the Russian revolution was an important aspect. Now with more information, Gramsci speaks of the state of the Soviets and leadership of the Bolshevik Party, but this is the text published in n. 7 of this journal where it is possible to understand with greater clarity how Gramsci’s thought process worked. In this text, which is in fact a manifesto, Gramsci calls on all socialists to invest their energy into solving the problem posed by the release of new social forces as an effect of war. This task implies “the sense of historical responsibility that falls upon the working class and the Party that represents the critical and operational conscience of this class’ mission” (Gramsci 1954a: 11).

Gramsci and the Factory Councils However, Gramsci’s objective is much broader. It goes far beyond the Party and Union which have the role of representing the interests of workers and being their conscience, but these instances cannot encompass the class as a whole, they cannot express the overall activity and creativity of workers, who build various social institutions of their own. At a time when the factory councils are being established in Turin, still within the context of the international socialist revolution that began in Russia and considered the council to be the foundation of an effective public power, Gramsci had his attention shifted from the party and union to the experience of the councils. One must question whether the very notion of the party was becoming broader and would tend to identify itself with a labor civil society, alternative and antagonistic to the order of capital. This hypothesis, however, becomes clearer in Prison Notebooks. Gramsci seems to be aware that the party and union are institutions created by the workers who represent them within the order of capital, based on a contractual logic, with market competition and in institutions, not through a logic of cooperation. Despite their importance from a strategic point of view, these social and political institutes from the labor movement are insufficient and can even become obstacles to the revolutionary process, as “they do not immediately identify with the proletarian state” (Gramsci 1954a: 11).

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Thus, Gramsci considered that it would be necessary to nurture the scission spirit and recognize that the socialist state potentially already exists in the social life institutes that characterize the exploited working class. To articulate these institutions with one another, to coordinate and subordinate them according to a hierarchy of skills and powers, to centralize them strongly means to create a true working democracy as of now, efficiently and actively opposing the bourgeois State, prepared from now on to replace the bourgeois state in all its essential management roles and national heritage domain. (Gramsci 1954a: 10)

However, in order to achieve this, It is necessary to turn the proletarian and semi-proletarian class into an organized society that educates itself, that obtains experience and acquires a responsible awareness of the duties that the classes reaching state power must have. (Gramsci 1954a: 11)

Thus, party and union are primarily defensive institutes of the class that operate in a subordinate condition within the bourgeois order, but they can also contribute to the organization and education of the masses. In other words, their role is to mediate the bourgeois state and the potential antagonistic proletarian state, and this situation can change according to how the forces relate in the class struggle. What Gramsci calls the anti-state or socialist state can also be called the dictatorship of the proletariat. Gramsci then goes on to explain The proletariat dictatorship is the establishment of a new State, typically proletarian, in which the institutional experiences of the oppressed class converge, in which the social life of the working and peasant class becomes a widespread and strongly organized system. (Gramsci 1954a: 13)

It is thus noteworthy how the party and union are almost diluted in a much greater complexity of the social life of the proletariat, an autonomous social life that must be organized in an antagonistic manner towards the state and lifestyle of the dominant and ruling classes. In fact, Gramsci says that the socialists, upon gathering the proletariat around themselves, allowed themselves to be ratified in the bourgeois order and “they forgot that their position should remain essentially critical, an

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antithesis. They allowed themselves to be absorbed by reality, they did not dominate it” (Gramsci 1954e: 16). Gramsci’s stance is very clear regarding the understanding that the centrality belongs to the class itself and not to the party, which, on the contrary, becomes eclipsed. Regarding the concept that the party should work towards the conquest of the state, Gramsci says: The “conquest of the State” formula must be understood in the following sense: creation of a new type of State, generated by the associative experience of the proletarian class, a State that must replace the parliamentary democratic State. (Gramsci 1954f: 17)

Both party and union are defensive institutes of the working class within the bourgeois order, institutes that must still subsist in the socialist state, but new institutions must be created to fulfill the autonomy of the producer in the factory, institutions capable of occupying the leading power in all roles that are inherent to the complex system of production and exchange relations that connect the divisions of a factory between them, establishing the elementary economic unit, linking various activities in the agricultural industry, which through horizontal and vertical plans must create the harmonious structure of the national and international economy, free from the heavy parasitic tyranny of private owners. (Gramsci 1954f: 18)

The party, due this characteristic presented by Gramsci, should not abstain from participating in electoral processes. This would be the means, ultimately, to send a political representative of the working class into the parliament of the bourgeois state. Until the network of workers’ associative bodies was not strong enough to stand as a candidate to replace the bourgeois state and suppress the parliament, participation in elections would be an important political act. It is essential, once again, to note that Gramsci understood the state as an apparatus of political power and an apparatus for production and exchange. In other words, the state is considered as the set of social relations between production and political power. However, “as a political power principle, the state will dissolve itself as fast as the workers are able

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to socially organize themselves in a solidly and with discipline and merge into labor association groups, […] (Gramsci 1973 IIa: 27).1 The dissolution of political power is then linked to the decline of wage work and the development of associated work, organized through councils. In the debate throughout Europe about the role of the councils and their relationship with union, party and parliament, Gramsci’s stance reinforces the thesis that councils must be the basis of the proletarian dictatorship and that union and party must change their roles to lead the proletarian dictatorship, the advanced class consciousness. Gramsci notes how in fact the union has shown a strong tendency towards reformism under capitalism, hence the need for factory organization to remain in the hands of the councils. However, while bourgeois democracy is still in force, the Party must also seek alongside its elected representatives, a “parliament action, aimed at paralyzing parliament, to tear off the democratic mask from the equivocal mask of the bourgeois dictatorship, demonstrating its disgusting horror and ugliness (Gramsci 1954i: 308)”. Accepting electoral participation is a way of gathering the class around the party, albeit primarily, a contribution to “guarantee the success of the effort directed towards establishing the proletarian dictatorship embodied in the council system, outside and against Parliament” (Gramsci 1954i: 309). Through this perspective set by Gramsci we can of course notice the influence of Sorel towards the necessary “scission spirit”, but also with the elaborations at Neu Links in Germany. Although the experience of workers’ councils arose in Russia, it was widespread in Europe with different characteristics. From Rosa Luxemburg, it seems that Gramsci reflected the concepts of spontaneity and mass strike, but not only that, as he also thought of self-education of the masses and a new state that would emerge through the productive process managed by the working class. It is worth remembering that Rosa Luxemburg’s pamphlet, The Mass Strike, the Political Party and the Trade Unions was published in Italy in 1919. Karl Korsch’s suggestion about building an “industrial democracy” followed the same direction (Dubla 1986).

1 Unsigned, this article does not appear in the 1954 edition of L’Ordine Nuovo, which gathers Gramsci’s texts written in 1919 and 1920, but appears in the 1973 edition, vol. II, of Scritti Politici organized by Paolo Spriano.

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Through this reflection, we can notice that the institution capable of establishing a new state is the council. Gramsci considers that the proletarian revolution is the process of development of the proletariat as a socioeconomic force, which at some point finds itself obstructed by the institutions of the bourgeois ruling class. The replacement of the bourgeois state by another that guarantees the continuity of the proletariat’s development as a productive force of social wealth is in itself the revolutionary act. In this process, the party and union as the embodied doctrine that interprets the revolutionary process and predicts its development (within certain limits of historical probability), recognized by the great masses as their representations and embryonic government apparatus, are currently and will always be the most direct and responsible agents for successive liberation acts performed by the entire working class in the course of the revolutionary process. (Gramsci 1954b: 123–124)

The Party seems to follow the impulse of the revolutionary masses and merely conducts and organizes demands that have already been implemented in practice. The limit of the Party and union is that “they neither embrace nor can embrace all of the revolutionary forces that capitalism unleashes in its relentless purpose as a machine of exploitation and oppression” (Gramsci 1954b: 124). Thus, Gramsci considered that the party and union are contractual institutions, born in the field of bourgeois democracy, representing mediation efforts within the contradictions that drive capitalism. By denying such an order, the revolution can only be made by the working class organized in new institutes that represent the embryos of a new state, among which the factory council stands out, but the party and union roles preserve their importance as class government instances.

Gramsci and ISP Critique It turns out that Gramsci quickly realized that the ISP was not exactly what he expected: the party would need to change a lot to effectively unite and educate the class and conduct the revolutionary process. In 1920, it becomes increasingly clear that the CGL and ISP leaders were very reticent and even opposed the experience of the factory councils occurring in Turin. A year after the launch of L’Ordine Nuovo, the factory

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council movement was virtually defeated and, to a large extent, this was due to a lack of support from the CGL and ISP. Furthermore, the movement remained limited to the Turin working class, which also failed to establish the necessary alliance with the peasantry. More than six months had passed since the ISP congress when full support towards the Russian revolution was declared and the intention to join Communist International had been proclaimed, and yet, according to Gramsci, this body of the Italian working class had done little to come closer to revolutionary power. Before talking about splitting the ISP, Gramsci initially invested in renewing the party so it could accept Bolshevik organizational methods. Gramsci reminded the ISP that “its mission is to organize the poor workers and peasants into the ruling class, to study and promote favorable conditions for the advent of proletarian democracy” (Gramsci 1954q: 389). This is how the party must organize, discipline and educate the class. On the other hand, however, the class must create a party, where “the organized masses must become masters of their own struggling bodies, they must ‘organize themselves into a ruling class’, above all, in their own institutions: they must merge with the Socialist Party” (Gramsci 1954q: 392). But the party leadership did not follow Gramsci’s suggestion. In May 1920, Gramsci made a final attempt to make the ISP transition into a revolutionary practice, according to guidance from Communist International, an organization he was part of. The situation indicated that the issue regarding the ownership of the means of production was on the agenda. Due to this “industrialists and landowners achieved maximum concentration of discipline and class power” (Gramsci 1954r: 117). Gramsci, who for a moment seemed to disdain the party, now clearly understands the need for the party as an instrument to coordinate and centralize the revolutionary political action of the working class and popular masses. He understands that the indispensable workers’ party must organize and struggle to replace the state and bourgeois power. Without this party, the experience of the councils as the foundation of the new state would not survive. The ISP had become an impediment to the revolutionary process. In fact,

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The political party of the working class is only justified while it strongly concentrates and coordinates proletarian action, as it contrasts actual revolutionary power with the legal power of the bourgeois State and limits the State’s freedom for initiatives and maneuvers. (Gramsci 1954r: 119)

Now he accused the ISP leadership of inertia, not complying with what had been decided in October 1919, at the XVI Congress in Bologna, which had confirmed adhesion to Communist International. In the current revolutionary situation, Gramsci insisted that the existence of a cohesive and strongly disciplined Communist Party, which through its factory, union, cooperative nuclei coordinate and centralizes all the proletariat’s revolutionary action in its Central Executive Committee, is the fundamental and indispensable condition for attempting any Soviet experiment. [...]. (Gramsci 1954r: 121–122)

But we cannot forget that the councils are essential for the production management, and that The Party and unions must not stand as tutors or superstructures already established in this new institution, in which the historical process of the revolution takes on a tangible form, but must stand as agents that are aware of the liberation of the councils from the shackles concentrated in the bourgeois state [...]. (Gramsci 1954r: 127)

Party and union in Italy became harsh and persistent critics of the councils, having played a role that was quite different from what Gramsci had expected of them. Due to this, Gramsci once again emphasized the role and meaning of the councils, while the idea of the need to establish a new workers’ party, the Communist Party, gradually matured. The conclusion he had finally reached was that “this poor Socialist Party, which proclaims itself as a leader of the working class, is but a hindrance to the advance of the proletarian army” (Gramsci 1954k: 162). Hence, the essential mission to be carried out is the organization of a new workers’ party to anticipate the foundation of the new society, “when the dialectic of class struggle will be internalized and the new man will have to struggle, within his singular conscience, in each of his acts, against the “bourgeois” trapped in him” (Gramsci 1954k: 156). This process indicates that

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the characteristic features of the proletarian revolution can only be found in a working-class party, the Communist Party, which exists and develops insofar as it is the disciplined organization of the will to establish a state and to provide a proletarian organization to existing physical forces and to lay the foundations for popular freedom. (Gramsci 1954k: 156)

What happens then is “the historical paradox that, in Italy, the masses drive and “educate” the Party of the working class, instead of the party guiding and educating the masses” (Gramsci 1954k: 159).

Gramsci and the Foundation of the ICP On January 21, 1921, the split of the ISP took place, as an organization that had a mandate from the working class but failed to bring it to a situation that would at least block the offensive of capital. Three main strands were presented to the socialist congress in the beginning of the new decade, which were not very homogeneous. The reformist strand was intimidated and risked being expelled; the unitary communist strand was the majority and the outcome of the congress depended on it; the pure communist strand (sic) was quite significant, but it depended on the Unitarians to assess its next steps. At the end of the day, everything should be decided according to the conditions imposed by Communist International regarding accepting member parties. It is true that for the Comintern, the best result would be the convergence between both groups known as communists and the exclusion of the reformists, as that would lead to a strong and large party. At least that was what the situation looked like. However, the “Unitarians” chose to defend the unity of the party rather than the idea of a communist party. Thus, with the refusal of the Unitarians to expel the reformists, pure communists were left with no other choice but to establish a communist party with a smaller and more leftist approach than what Communist International desired. The new party emerged as an initiative with about 1/3 of the delegates of the ISP congress. But the ICP was also born considering some essential commitments. The large majority group, led by Amadeo Bordiga, who already had a national organization, renounced the principle of abstention, while the small group articulated around the Turin L’Ordine Nuovo journal pledged not to insist on the centrality of factory councils as an organizational method for the class. Another small group from Milan with

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a maximalist origin, appeared as another component of the new workers’ party, having played an important mediating role within the general agreement. At the beginning of the ICP, Gramsci’s presence was quite secondary, and in compliance with party discipline, he submitted to the political orientation of the majority. The fundamental differences towards the prevailing concept of the party only came to light in 1923 when Gramsci was in Moscow, where he had been sent to represent the Italian Communists at the Comintern IV Congress (November/December 1922) and later at the Executive Committee. Since the foundation of the ICP, concurrently with the imminent defeat of the international socialist revolution, Comintern sought to define a new struggle tactic that would defend the workers’ movement from the capitalist offensive and contribute to strengthening the communists. This tactic emerged in Germany and was supplemented in Russia with the so-called NEP—New Economic Policy and was completed at Communist International. The general concept was to unite the social and political forces of the labor movement and its allies in a united front. The resistance and difficulties were enormous everywhere due to different reasons. The communist parties had, to a large extent, originated from the splitting processes within Social Democracy (or revolutionary syndicalism), which made it difficult for them to gather in a single struggle front. A united front was more plausible and a front with other social groups only seemed possible in countries where the agrarian sector had significant importance. In fact, the ICP only incorporated (with restrictions) the tactic of the united front since Bordiga’s theoretical and political conception was in serious disagreement with the policy developed by Comintern, even though this was vague enough to enable necessary national adjustments. Bordiga understood that only the working class would be able to carry out the socialist revolution, but in order to achieve it, a significant social force or even an educated and organized majority within the party would be necessary. The union and party should be the institutions capable of disciplining the class for the revolution and from this point of view, any ideas related to social alliances with other groups, such as the peasants or even the party, with the ISP, would be ruled out, as these had been integrated with bourgeois state. This concept was complemented by a specific revolutionary party theory, which indicated that the party was the organization

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endowed with the knowledge of science/conscience of history and the educator of the working class so that it could fulfill its determined revolutionary role. For the party, it would be important to have cadres qualified theoretically and scientifically, regardless of their social origin. In some ways, this was a forced understanding of Lenin’s theory of the revolutionary party and intellectual, especially in the element most influenced by Kautsky, regarding the consciousness generated from the intellectuals and taken to the working class. This also explains Bordiga’s opposition to the factory council movement, seen as spontaneous and anarcho-syndicalist, as well as the abstentionist principle. The lack of dialectic in this reflection makes it possible to consider that Bordiga was part of a specific strand of positivist scientism that was widespread in the Italian socialist labor movement (Del Roio 2017). During this initial period of the ICP, Gramsci remained in the shadows, faithful to the party strand that defended the crucial importance of the communist party, fighting against the ISP and defending the united front union, which is a workers united front structured by unions. His criticism was strongly directed mainly against the union leadership and socialist party. Gramsci had already recognized a while back that the union itself could not be capable of overcoming capitalism. In fact, The union, objectively, is nothing more than a strictly capitalist commercial society, which seeks to obtain in the interest of the proletarian, the highest possible price for the labor commodity, as well as to monopolize this commodity nationally and internationally. (Gramsci 1974d: 382)

The political crisis was significantly more serious, and the possibility of a coup d’état was real. Gramsci wondered: Who does the coup d’état serve? It can only serve these others, that is, the corrupt, the prevaricators, the poltrons, the parasites. Very often (almost always in fact), the coup d’état is no more than an instrument of the state scum to preserve their occupied positions that have become deadly for society. These people have no scruples, they do not value an oath and honor, they hate all workers and, even more than the others, they hate those who work in their own divisions and are the living condemnation of their dishonesty and parasitism. (Gramsci 1974e: 393–394)

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Although Gramsci’s writings had different targets, they were all expressions of the crisis of the state and of feudal bourgeois domination: state bureaucracy, the judiciary and the union bureaucracy. The imminent risk in this scenario was not fascism, but a socialist/popular (Catholic) coalition government, which could turn to some variation of the “social democratic state” in an effort to reestablish the Italian state and domination class. Hence, for Gramsci, “The struggle against Social Democracy, against the traitorous Socialist Party, is identified with the struggle for the liberation of the Italian proletariat from any form of slavery” (Gramsci 1974f: 455). But, in the end, the failure to structure a coalition government with this content, largely due to the lack of strategic orientation pointing to a rural democracy (free trade, uniting the internal market), gave room to fascism.

Gramsci and the ICP’s Theoretical and Strategic Reorganization Gramsci’s critique, however, could not settle with Bordiga’s vision for a revolutionary party and strategy. The critical view towards the ISP was headed in another direction, precisely the implicit despisal for the “spontaneous” initiative of the class and southern peasantry, despite its large number of rural voters. The defeat against fascism weakened the party organization and its insistence on maintaining the adopted political direction also tended to isolate the ICP even within Comintern. Even due to the establishment of fascism in October 1922, as a corollary of the political crisis that had been dragging on in a crescent since the end of the war, Comintern increased the pressure for the ICP and ISP to merge and exclude reformists (the same stance taken at the 1921 congress, which split the socialists). The period that Gramsci spent in the USSR and Austria, from October 1922 to April 1924, was extremely important for the development of his political theory. Not to mention the decisive step away from Croce because of his position of tolerance towards fascism and radical anti-Bolshevism, due to an interest aroused by Machiavelli’s work and especially the theory and practice of the Bolsheviks, highlighting Lenin. During this period, Gramsci also prepared to replace Bordiga in the leadership of the ICP by conceiving the need for a new ruling group, with a new party conception and revolutionary strategy.

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Gramsci managed to block Comintern’s intention of proceeding with the ISP merger, accepting only the individual entry of socialists into the ICP. Overall, the merger proposal was rejected by both parties. Gramsci’s action, which accepted the Comintern united front political orientation, but partially refused the merger, surpassed Bordiga’s stance rejecting both propositions and also Angelo Tasca’s, with the unconditional acceptance of the Comintern proposal for Italy. The III plenary session of the ECCI—Executive Committee of Comintern (June 1923) was highly important for the labor movement in Italy. On that occasion, since the first leadership of the ICP was dismantled by the police, another body was appointed with Gramsci and Togliatti present, a Bordiguist and two from the right strand that defended the merger. Gramsci thus became the main leader of the ICP, appointed by Comintern. During the tough process discussing the Italian situation, Gramsci realizes that the dispute with the ISP for the leadership of the working class should take place on another level, as he now understands that the strength the ISP acquired in 1919–1920 represented the working class’s quest for its unity, however, its disintegration implied the disintegration of the working class and fascism’s victory. In practical terms, the effort to attract part of the socialists to the united front policy—the group articulated around Serrati—the proposal represented the reorganization of the L’Ordine Nuovo journal, precisely as an expression not only of the ICP, but of all anti-fascists and anti-capitalists. During the period Gramsci spent in Vienna, his greatest concern was the party’s organization, understanding that the solution to this problem was political. He knew that it depended on a well-defined political orientation that would educate the party and thus offer an action horizon to the working masses and resist fascism and the revolutionary struggle. Gramsci made several proposals for publications and was emphatic when demanding that comrades contribute with resources and texts. He worked non-stop to clarify and bring together a group of trusted comrades to define a stance that could unite and strengthen the party’s action. In a letter written to Leonetti, Gramsci summarized the problem as follows :

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Apparently, at least today, these issues embody the party’s organization problems. Apparently, because in fact the problem is always the same: that of the relations between the Party leaders and the mass of those registered on the one hand, and between the Party and working classes on the other. (Gramsci 1992: 20-01-1924 221)

In Gramsci’s understanding, it would be essential for the Party to be aligned with the general policy defined by Communist International, since without it, it would be difficult for the ICP to survive. Thus, at first, defeating Bordiga’s political orientation was decisive as it tended to confront Comintern and conceived the party as a leading center of disciplined militants, a party that was self-sufficient, with no activities that could risk bureaucratic centralism, having reached the limit of being against the development of factory councils. In another letter, shared among some members of the former L’Ordine Nuovo group, Gramsci insists that The Party was not conceived as the result of a dialectical process in which the spontaneous movement of the revolutionary masses and the organizing and ruling will of the center converge, but only as something loose in the air, which develops for and through itself, which the masses will reach when the situation is favorable and the crest of the revolutionary wave has reached its maximum peak, or when the center of the Party considers that it must launch an offensive and descend to the masses to encourage and lead them into action. (Gramsci 1992: 09-02-1924 231)

In organizational terms, Gramsci conceived the development of a central control commission and, above all, an organization and propaganda commission with specialized cadres. The Party should also organize in urban neighborhoods and rural districts, in addition to factories. The issue concerning the political education of communists was essential to enable the dispute with the PSI for the leadership of the working class. A well-defined speech and action program were needed to gain the confidence of the masses and attract the working-class base of the ISP. Gramsci considered that a mere ideological dispute with the socialists involving only the party leaderships was useless. However, it was necessary to resolve the internal question concerning the Party’s leadership. Gramsci defended that the group that sought such articulation should establish and alliance with the right wing of the Party, as it defended the Comintern orientation of the united front policy and

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struggle for the workers’ and peasants’ government. This alliance would confront Bordiga’s political orientation, which risked leading the Party to a disastrous rupture with Comintern and becoming isolated from the Italian working class. Afterwards, however, it would be necessary to attract the right strand represented by Tasca to partner in the party leadership and exclude the part that did not adapt to the efforts to strengthen the ICP. With countless difficulties, Gramsci managed to achieve all these goals, in addition to attracting the socialist group led by Serrati which sympathized with Comintern, until he became the most important and prestigious Communist leader in Italy and perhaps in Europe.

Gramsci in the ICP Leadership In fact, in 1924, Gramsci returned to Italy as an ICP leader and elected deputy, thus being able to devote himself and be dedicated to educating the Party. Publishing information media that encouraged political debate, emphasizing the need to understand the national reality and all its aspects, thus rescuing the militant spirit of the working class that was decaying ever since the defeat in 1921–1922. Gramsci’s initiative of creating a correspondence school was significant and these contents would be assimilated, debated and reproduced locally. This intense work intended to establish an ideologically defined party with a clear strategy, although small for the time being, “but we must consider our current organization, with the conditions for its existence and development, as an element destined to lay the foundations for a great mass party” (Gramsci 1978h: 22). However, it is also necessary to consider that the most favorable situations can be reversed due to the weakness/of the cadres in the revolutionary party. The mottoes only provide a general guidance to the great masses and place them to act; but all will be lost if the responsible party does not take care of the practical organization of the masses and create a structure that disciplines them and makes them permanently powerful. (Gramsci 1978h: 24)

On the same night as the inauguration of the new parliament on June 11, the reformist socialist parliament member Giacomo Matteotti was assassinated, which generated intense worker and popular action against fascism and a major political crisis. Opposition parties withdrew from

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parliament, mostly hoping the King Vittorio Emanuele III would fire Mussolini. Gramsci proposed the idea of an anti-parliament that would create a duality of powers, but since this perspective was not accepted, the anti-fascist opposition tended to weaken, and the communists returned to the parliament with a large fascist majority to report fascism and capitalism. In September, Gramsci made a very positive assessment of the ICP’s national conference held in the city of Como in May 1924, and the political action of the party in the past months. The group that gathered around him was able to establish a majority in the Central Committee, even though it had not yet fully convinced the intermediate leaders. However, the problem of building a mass party fighting for the hegemony of the proletariat is already posed: We must become a large party, we must try to attract as many revolutionary workers and peasants as possible into our organization and educate them for the struggle, developing mass organizers and leaders and elevate them politically. (Gramsci 1978b: 38)

Rescuing struggle-based and mass syndicalism was very important for a revolutionary journey against fascism, but to achieve this, the communist organization in the factory was essential, as well as the creation of communist cells in the city and countryside, establishing workers’ and peasants’ committees as the embryo of a real power duality. But one aspect that is enlightening in this document is the passage in which Gramsci criticizes the “conquest of the State” notion, which at the time was used by fascism. Gramsci clarifies that In Italy, as in all capitalist countries, conquering the State means primarily conquering the factory, it means having the capacity to surpass capitalists in governing the productive forces of the country. This can be done by the working class [...]. (Gramsci 1978b: 34)

Is this passage still current? It seems so, even if today’s factory is extended and the working class also have a very different and diversified profile. In any case, the ultimate foundation in this analysis is the class and how it becomes a party, as the author of new hegemony based on labor. In May 1925, Gramsci returned to the problem related to the education of the revolutionary vanguard by discussing the educational role of

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the party in a time with open reaction and repression. Gramsci says then that in order to lessen political error risks It is the Party’s duty to be concerned and develop a certain activity that especially tends to improve its organization, to raise the intellectual level of the members who are in its ranks in the period of white terror, who are destined to become the central nucleus and more resistant to any test and sacrifice in the Party that will guide the revolution and administer the proletarian state. (Gramsci 1973IIIa: 118)2

Thus, it is noteworthy how organize and educate, educate and organize, are key words in Gramsci’s reflection on the revolutionary party necessary in that historic phase of a defeat towards fascism and retreat when facing capital’s offensive. The party must incorporate the best elements of the class formed more or less spontaneously and educate them to organize and educate new elements of the class, until the Party creates an identity with the class, the class becomes a party, an organized and cultured class. In this dialectical process, the class creates its own intellectuals, and the party becomes a collective intellectual. In January 1926 at the ICP’s fifth anniversary at the III National Congress, Gramsci managed to set up an effective leading group, an interpretation of the Italian reality and the necessary ideological homogeneity providing a clear tactical and strategic definition. Only Bordiga and a minority group continued to oppose him now. The most important question posed to the Party at that time was the task of adapting the organization to the format suggested by Comintern at the 5th World Congress held in 1924. This action became known as Bolshevization and ultimately meant that communist parties should organize themselves primarily from workplaces and structure themselves according to a democratic centralism where factions would not be admitted. The document written by Gramsci (with Togliatti’s contribution) about the political problem of the organization: “The organization of the Party must be based on production and, therefore, on the workplace. This principle is essential for the creation of a “Bolshevik” party” (Gramsci 1978l: 504). 2 Necissità di una preparazione ideológica di massa. This article was written in May 1925, published in Lo Stato operaio March–April 1931. It is also publicized in La costruzione del Partito Comunista with the title Introduzione al primo Corso della scuola di partito, p. 50.

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The party—defined as the working class party—should have a theoretical and ideological orientation fundamentally inspired by Marx and Lenin, and studies on these references would be mandatory for every militant and disseminated by the Party school. Strictly speaking, what was assimilated was the ideology established at Comintern, but at the same time it reaffirmed that The practice of the factory movement (1919-20) demonstrated that only an organization adhering to the production place and system makes it possible to establish contact between the upper and lower layers of the working mass (skilled, unskilled, and manual), creating bonds of solidarity that remove the basis for any “workers’ aristocracy” phenomenon. (Gramsci 1978l: 505)

In the factory and in the union, where there was a workers’ organization, a communist faction should be present, always with the objective of directing the struggle movement and uniting the workers’ forces while seeking to attract new cadres with theoretical and practical critique towards other proletarian organizations. That was how the united front tactic unfolded in everyday life. In fact, The “united front” of the anti-fascist and anti-capitalist struggle, which the communists strive to create, must be an organized united front with bodies that gather and unite the masses. (Gramsci 1978l: 511)

From its social base, in the daily struggle, the united front was shaped with the primary objective of establishing workers’ and peasants’ committees, “[…] a formula that synthesizes all of the Party’s action, as it intends to create a united front with the organized working class”. The motto of a “peasant and workers’ government” should be understood as a formula for political action, but not as a real historical development phase. In fact, it was a way of referring to a proletarian dictatorship. This “peasant and workers’ government” should emerge from a “Republican Assembly of Workers and Peasants councils” (Gramsci 1978l: 511–513). Finally, we can state that Gramsci envisioned a centralized party which would include the best emerging elements of the working class, qualified by theory and practice, capable of educating and being educated by the class itself, with whom it should maintain close contact even in extremely adverse situations. This party would have to be capable of becoming a

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mass party, which would encompass an ever-increasing part of the class until they became one. The revolutionary political party is thus intrinsically a cultural organization, which prepares a new ruling class for a new state.

Gramsci and the Modern Prince Gramsci was arrested by the fascist regime in November 1926. After several incidents involving the lawsuit at the Court of Exception, Gramsci was condemned and sent to the Turi prison in the Puglia region. He was authorized to write and receive books, although they were always controlled by prison censorship. Between 1929 and 1935, Gramsci continued his extensive theoretical research, which was limited by prison circumstances and his fragile health conditions. This work was presented in 33 school-format Notebooks, 29 of which were first published more than ten years after the author’s death, albeit incompletely. In this prison work, which was never fully complete, Gramsci greatly expanded and deepened his concept of the political party of the working class. Although this reflection in one way or another permeates the set of Prison Notebooks, Notebook 13 is where Gramsci suggests an expanded understanding of the revolutionary party notion. There is some debate in literature as to whether Gramsci referred to the modern political party in general or the revolutionary party in the strict sense, which would be limiting (D’Orsi 2017: 336). Gramsci’s reflection begins with the idea that Machiavelli’s proposition towards the need for a Prince who would lead collective will towards a willingness to unite the Italian people could be understood as a myth capable of condensing, educating and mobilizing popular masses, just as Sorel had proposed a general strike. Thus, in the twentieth century, the demands made by Machiavelli for the development of an Italian state capable of expressing the collective national popular will remained valid. The obstacles continued to be the clerical power and the regional division of the country, presented as the southern question. However, in the historical conditions of the twentieth century, the bourgeois era, there was claim for a Modern Prince. Gramsci’s elaboration seeks to solve the problem raised by Italy, but in such a degree of abstraction and sophistication that it embraces an entire historical period concerning how to move towards overcoming the bourgeois era.

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The question is how to organize collective will in order to overcome and build an alternative society, based on labor and freedom. The collective will that organizes itself and reflects itself on the Modern Prince, a metaphor of the working-class party. In a decisive passage, Gramsci states: The modern prince, the prince myth, cannot be a real person, a concrete individual, it can only be a body; a complex element of society in which the realization of a recognized collective will has already begun and is partially affirmed through action. This body is already provided by historical development and is the political party, the first cell in which collective will seeds are synthesized and tend to become universal and complete. (Gramsci 1975: 13 1 1558)

It is clear here that Gramsci follows concepts elaborated by Marx and Rosa Luxemburg. In the historical development of capitalism and its ongoing contradiction, the proletariat becomes a class and party. This is how the class struggle develops a collective will that expresses itself in the party. The party is precisely the original cell that synthesizes collective will that expands and grows until it establishes a new universality and social totality, a new hegemony within a historical bloc. The “prince myth” is necessary while the collective will is in the process of construction, as the prince/political party signals the rising hegemony. It should be understood that the myth is indispensable insofar as the working class is educated, organized, mobilized in the struggle against capital and the state. The new hegemony is a construction of the modern prince insofar as it promotes a moral and intellectual reform, which implies a new worldview based on the philosophy of praxis. Thus, religious concepts and idealistic philosophies will no longer have room, since the praxis, man’s relationship as a social historical being, will generate sociability and a relationship with nature through scientific apprehension and a production organization that undertakes human labor freedom. Understanding this historical prediction/program requires yet another explanation. Gramsci notes that bourgeois hegemony is only effectively consolidated after the defeat of the Paris Commune. Although the specific case dealt with is France, this observation applies to the group of states with the most advanced capitalism, which was preparing to enter the phase of imperialism. Bourgeois hegemony was established with the control and organization of the productive process of capital, but the organization of the ruling class was expressed in private bodies in diverse

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fields—economic, political, cultural—and had the support of organic intellectuals who defended and reproduced hegemony in civil society and in the state. Gramsci then stated that “the war of movement increasingly becomes a war of position” (Gramsci 1975: 13 1 1566). What does this statement mean? There are different interpretations, but it is very reasonable to consider that Gramsci noticed the virtual impossibility of a workers’ uprising against this newly established social order. Rather, it would be necessary to build another civil society, antagonistic to the bourgeoisie, that could nurture a “scission spirit” and a collective will that could create its own institutes, such as a circle of mutual assistance, cultural circles, cooperatives, unions, political parties and factory councils. In short, the “power duality” could be a creation and long-lasting situation and not an almost fulminating creation and resolution movement as occurred in Russia in 1917. The strength of bourgeois hegemony even incorporated some of these institutions into its state through syndicalist and reformist ideologies, which means victorious action in the war of position from the bourgeoisie and the preservation of the subordinate status of the workers. Ultimately, the passive revolution would also be a way of reestablishing bourgeois hegemony within a war of position. The labor civil society is at its limit, the political party that establishes the modern prince and new hegemony. The prince myth dissolves as the political party can identify with the totality of the class, as the class and the new civil society it has created become universal. This scope presumes that the modern prince takes on the power of the state so that he can include it in the labor civil society. This is the image that Gramsci offers for the clash that involves the historical bloc at that time, which is still current nowadays. An image shaped as fantasy and art, as Machiavelli’s text envisions. Gramsci realized that the working class that had brought about the socialist revolution between 1917 and 1921 in the Russian East and Europe had been defeated, which included the Italian proletariat and experience of the factory councils. A new phase of struggles began in 1921 and the new individual representing the class and party would be the Fordist factory worker. It was clear that a new labor civil society would rise to hegemony in the short term. A long war of position was beginning from a very unfavorable starting point. The new forms of labor organization induced by capital such as Taylorism and Fordism would undergo

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an ascending phase ahead and were accompanied by a cultural blossom process which could be considered remarkable within liberal freedom. Fordism and Americanism had enormous hegemonic strength and dissemination capacity as well. This prediction by Gramsci proved to be correct, but the expectation that this new working class would develop a new civil society capable of overcoming the bourgeois order did not prove to be feasible. The Fordist working class failed to generate a new hegemony and even when it began to condition capitalist production, due to the relative strength of the union and party, the offensive of capital against workers was unleashed in large proportions since the end of the 70s in the twentieth century.

What Could Be the Myth for a New Collective Will? Gramsci witnessed the defeat of the working class that undertook the international socialist revolution from 1917–1921, but the working class with a Fordist profile that was peaking in the 60s–70s of the twentieth century, was also defeated without even coming close to a revolutionary position. The long war of position ended in complete defeat in the 1980s. The mobilizing “myths” at that time no longer exist (Del Roio 1998, cap. 5). Capital disorganized the working class and its social institutes and once again induced a new format for the subaltern classes, and today it is difficult to state to which extent the working mass is a “class that becomes a party”. Does this mean, then, that Gramsci is an author who is no longer current from a revolutionary politics perspective? That he is an author to be studied, but only through a past perspective that time has irretrievably surpassed, or from the point of view of someone who can only be greatly useful for cultural studies, for example? The mere fact that we see the eclipse or concealment of Gramsci’s history as the communist revolutionary he was is a sign that we are experiencing a historical phase of catastrophic defeat in labor forces. The organic crisis of capital, manifested since the late 1970s, takes on striking characteristics: technical and scientific revolution with great proportions (computerization, new processes for labor organization and management), withdrawal of labor rights, ideological predominance of neoliberalism and postmodernism, increased state and parastatal violence

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against subaltern classes and growing restrictions in democratic spaces, among others. Information and communication technologies play a decisive role in controlling knowledge, controlling political opposition and manipulating opinions. The emptying of the so-called liberal bourgeois democracy and cultural regression is a current characteristic in the world, and the most obvious implication in this situation is the crisis and dismantling of the labor civil society generated between 1880 and 1980, noticeable mainly through weaking the union and workers’ party. The ideological crisis that pervaded this labor civil society enabled the almost extirpation of the socalled Marxism in cultural institutes in bourgeois civil society, such as schools and universities. Resistance against exploitation occurs today through “social movements”, which value identity matters. Unquestionably important issues, such as the environmental crisis, sexism, racism all gain strength in emancipatory struggles, however these movements are within the ideological domain of the bourgeoisie, precisely since they value singularity. Even movements that have resulted in parties, especially in the European experience, are far from a theoretical elaboration focused on overcoming the existing social order and thus, they cannot overcome the subordinate situation and the intention of only modernizing social democracy, which is the case with Podemos in Spain or Syriza in Greece. The “myth” of Europe (of capital), the “myth” of globalization is fragmented and reactionary particularism has been advancing. The fragmentation of the labor world induced by capital in crisis is so significant that the development of a collective will, establishing a new self-conscious proletariat seeking to be a class and party seems to be an illusion of times passed. However, it is still a historical need so that the generalization of technological barbarism does not occur. Negative myths such as “progress”, which is older, and “technological innovation”, more recent, must all be defeated. These myths (bourgeois ideologies, in fact) lead to the production of knowledge for specific class interests, interests that aim to rescue the accumulation of capital, even if its costs risking the very survival of the human species. The school, University and Research Centers are thus directed to develop an elite of researchers and a mass capable of consuming mass technological goods. This is when there is a need to create and spread a universal humanistic culture and that the production of scientific knowledge is transferred to the hands of workers, the true producers of social

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wealth. New forms of struggle that adhere to the productive process are needed, new forms of struggle that unite the new proletariat generated by capital in crisis, that unite the “general intellect” (Marx 2011) which automatism enables. There is still a need for a “myth” that feeds the collective will so that it may become a party, an alternative civil society and a hegemony focused on building a human community, as Antonio Gramsci predicted and planned for. A myth that makes what is hidden obvious, that removes Gramsci from the shadows and places him once again as the indispensable architect of the order of men and women equally free.

Gramsci and the Emancipation of the Subaltern Classes

Introduction A large number of categories (re) elaborated by Gramsci in his Prison Notebooks, in recent decades in one way or another, have fallen into common use inside and outside the academy, despite having very different meanings than those used by the Sardinian revolutionary intellectual. Thus, it is not so simple to understand the meaning of topics related to hegemony and civil society when reading related references, for example. Whether due to the work in progress characteristic of Gramsci’s work, or due to its fragmentation or enormous complexity, his work was made available for many purposes. This characteristic indicates a richness and possible permanence in time, but it also leads to it being appropriated or decomposed by other cultural and political trends which Gramsci could not recognize himself. Certainly, the appropriation or interpretation with greatest political and cultural impacts took place through the civil society concept. A wellknown and influential text by Norberto Bobbio, from 1967, presented an interpretation of the civil society notion presented by Gramsci as if it were just a part of the superstructures, and that there would be a fundamental difference regarding the use of the same term by Hegel and mainly Marx, who considered that civil society would be identified as

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Del Roio, Gramsci and the Emancipation of the Subaltern Classes, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90777-8_13

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infrastructure. This interpretation, strictly speaking, places Gramsci in the theoretical field of liberalism, which also explains the major repercussions in the hegemonic dispute, contributing to making the Marxist theorist an almost innocuous author from this perspective. Indeed, Bobbio was an important author, inducing the so-called crisis of Marxism in Italy from the late 1970s to 1980s (Bobbio 1969: 75–100). Another Gramscian expression popularly used in political and social sciences groups is subaltern classes and social groups, which became influential trends in scientific literature. Since the 1950s, when Prison Notebooks were first published, Anthropology or Science of Folklore, as it was called, referenced Gramsci to advance with the studies and popular culture interpretation. E. De Martino began a journey of studies on the subaltern classes and folklore, particularly from southern Italy, which fueled the debate on this point until the 1970s (Angeli 1995: 53–58). Gramsci’s work spread throughout the Anglo-American world at a time when the influence of his thoughts in Italy was low and the political and cultural movement that criticized capitalist political economy was fragmented, which the labor movement seemed to embody, enabling the reappropriation and reorganization of Gramsci according to a strong culturalist perspective. One of these approaches, linked to the so-called cultural studies, tends to observe culture as a determining element, while another—which does not exclude the first—with a clear post-modern inspiration, tends to view the fragmentation of subaltern classes as a methodological presupposition and historical identity marked by positivity (Buttigieg 1999: 193–194). Many of these studies refer to the theoretical perspective presented along with Foucault or Derridà’s elaborations. Important authors who have broadened the field of studies on subordinate social groups are Raymond Williams and Edward Thompson, and more recently Edward Said and Stuart Hall. We should highlight the creation of a group of subaltern studies by Indian intellectuals such as Ranajit Guha and Gayatri Spivak. More than discussing the difference between these authors or assessing each contribution, it is worth pointing out how the use of the “subaltern” category has expanded enormously. Gramsci is used as a starting point with the meridional peasantry used as a premise, but then moves forward with the colonial and post-colonial world, including migrants and refugees (Curti 2006: 17–26).

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Gramsci’s universalizing perspective clearly suggests an expansion and diversification of the subaltern category, even for contemporary capitalism, as we will discuss ahead. After all, the subaltern, from an etymological point of view, only means someone who is inferior or interiorized. But what is noteworthy for now is that a significant part of these studies stem from theoretical-methodological assumptions that are positioned quite distant from Gramsci, coming from very different, if not antagonistic, assumptions. Gramsci considered that the essential determination is within the material foundations of reality in a contradictory movement. To say that culture or politics are everywhere in social life, including economics, is not the same as denying the ultimate determination of the reproduction of material life within the complex of determinations that establish totality. The fragmented life of the subaltern classes subjected to exploitation and oppression was seen by Gramsci as a characteristic of the social situation these groups. But this condition must be historically overcome, because as these classes cease to be subordinate and begin to dispute hegemony, they gain organicity and a perspective of totality. The difference between the conservative vision of culturalism and postmodernism that is limited to defending identity and civil rights, and Gramsci’s revolutionary vision is clear. Of course, Gramsci couldn’t have foreseen the use of the subaltern classes category which does not solve the question as to why Gramsci began to use it, apparently to the detriment of more established notions within Marxism, such as proletariat, working class and peasantry. Certainly, the hypothesis that it would intend to circumvent any problems with prison censorship is not a reasonable explanation. Perhaps it is even more tempting to confirm that this was a development in his elaboration, which began with the specificity of the workers’ question towards ever higher levels of complexity and generality, constantly searching for an explanation towards the materiality of an antagonistic subjective sphere throughout History. While searching for the elements that could establish a new anti-capitalist civil society, the vagueness and fluidity suggested by the subaltern class or group expression may enrich the discussion.

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From One Meridionalism to Another, with the Mediation of the Working Class The experience of the factory councils was at the peak of an intense experience for Gramsci in “Worker and Socialist Turin”. The workers’ struggle for better living conditions and their efforts to develop self-education and cultural education, an insubordination towards bourgeoisie, involved Gramsci at the depth of his being. The theoretical reflection that unfolded from the experience of the councils, especially through the L’Ordine Nuovo content, encouraged Gramsci to imagine a revolution born through the autonomy and self-organization of the manufacturing process by an initiative of the workers, where the councils would become the foundations for a workers’ democracy. The influence of Sorel, Karl Korsch and Rosa Luxemburg towards the emphasis Gramsci placed on worker self-organization and the centrality of the factory in a political and social struggle is evident. In Turin, the last chapter of the international socialist revolution was unfolding, which had begun in Russia during the time of the tsars and spread through the so-called central empires (Germany and Austria-Hungary). The defeat of the international socialist revolution brought national diversity to the forefront, as Lenin had highlighted early in 1920 (Lenin 2020). Gradually from 1923 onwards, Gramsci began to seek (and he did until the end of his life) the reasons for the defeat of the biennio rosso and the new paths for the socialist revolution in Italy and around the world. Gramsci always intended to expand his perspectives to face newer and more complex problems, and he never failed to conceive the centrality of labor for the reproduction of social life and the factory reproducing capital, although some of the author’s interpreters claim the opposite. As early as 1919, from a perspective that was strongly marked by war and the international socialist revolution, Gramsci noted that the peasantry was becoming a driving force in socialist revolution in Russia and Italy. It was thus possible to note that four years of trenches and blood exploitation radically changed the psychological conditions of the peasants. This change took place mainly in Russia and is one of the essential conditions in the revolution. What industrialism did not determine through its normal development process was produced by war. (Gramsci 1954s: 24)

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Gramsci’s Marxism develops alongside this new meridional question. While preserving awareness on the importance of the peasant issue, Gramsci surrenders to the experience of factory councils, defending the centrality of the factory and industrial labor for revolutionary transformation as much as possible, considering it the main niche of labor exploitation and capital reproduction. The workers’ defeat and the circumstances for the foundation of the ICP, amidst the advance of fascism, made Gramsci’s submission to Amadeo Bordiga’s theoretical perspective unavoidable. Bordiga somehow followed the socialist tradition of despising the peasantry issue, insisting on the exclusivity of the working class as a revolutionary force. Although originally from Napoli, Bordiga understood that the socialist revolution would precisely result from the work of a revolutionary party endowed with scientific historical knowledge, spreading it among the working class to fulfill its task of overthrowing capitalism. As for peasantry, it should be transformed as quickly as possible into the proletariat, and thus, there would only be the capitalism issue in Italy, but not a southern question as a specificity of the agrarian and peasant issue. It was after 1923 that the encounter with Lenin’s political theory finally took place, when Gramsci began confronting Bordiga for ICP leadership due to difficulties in confronting fascism, mainly because of the huge problems the Italian communists faced in their relationship with Communist International. Gramsci’s original meridional question greatly facilitated the understanding and translation of Lenin’s thought into the concrete circumstances of Italy. Furthermore, the united front policy suggested by Comintern and the motto of the “workers-peasant government” provided Gramsci with a new understanding of the meridional question and the relationship between the working class and peasantry. At the end of 1923, once the rupture with Bordiga had been completed, Gramsci clearly understood the importance of the southern issue as a national matter and its connections with the united front policy that Communist International had been trying to develop since 1921, albeit hesitantly. He regretted the fact that: We do not know Italy. And worse is that we lack the adequate elements to get to know Italy as it turely is, and thus it is impossible to make predictions, to find our way, and to establish courses of action that are likely to be accurate. There is no history of the Italian working class. There is no history of the peasant class. (Gramsci 1964: 268–269)

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Without knowledge of the history of the specific class struggle that shaped Italian capitalism, the establishment of an anti-fascist and anticapitalist united front and the elaboration of a revolutionary project centered on the working class and worker-peasant alliance would be impossible. The relative ignorance of the historical process was aggravated by the ideological envelope imposed by the Italian ruling classes, which fully reached the industrial working class in the North through positivist sociological concepts, particularly conservative and discriminatory towards the peasantry. The meridional peasantry itself, in turn, was held in submission through the Catholic religion and clerical rule. However, during the period in which he was the political leader in the Italian (and international) labor movement, Gramsci could only get to know the Italian working class through its political and cultural action, and at a very specific historical moment of the revolutionary outbreak followed by a historic fall with severe proportions. The factory council’s movement ended in serious defeat and was followed by the triumphant march of fascism. The phase of resistance to fascism consolidated as a regime was marked by the effort to separate the working class from the cultural and political tradition of Italian socialism, as this represented its subordination within the ideological field of the bourgeoisie and had been responsible, to some extent, for the recent defeat. One of the matrices of Gramsci’s cultural background is the meridional question, a diffused and multifaceted political-cultural conception, which considered Gaetano Salvemini a cutting-edge reference. Salvemini was a socialist with a thought process very different from what prevailed at the ISP, precisely because he saw a potential for social transformation among southern peasants. However, like Croce, Salvemini was enthusiastic about supporting Italy’s participation in the war, which distanced Gramsci. In the post-war period through young intellectuals who encountered the working world, a new southern phenomenon began with revolutionary characteristics, suggesting a social force among southern peasants driving indispensable changes. As a communist parliament member and the main leader of the ICP, Gramsci committed to design the strategy for a united front in Italy, which through the workers-peasant alliance should establish the nucleus for a socialist revolution. The united front’s political formula was key for Gramsci not only to translate Lenin to the specificities in Italy, but also to find a new place for the peasantry in the revolutionary strategy. This revolutionary individual, as important as the economic and demographic

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significance provided, was later—in Prison Notebooks —placed in a group classified as “subaltern classes”. In the unfinished essay in 1926, an in-depth analysis of the theses in the III ICP Congress held in Lyon at the beginning of that same year, Gramsci approaches the meridional question as a specificity of the Italian agrarian issue, a national issue, following the Leninian method and therefore translating him. Published in Paris in the early 1930s—as Some Themes of the Meridional Question—the text was in fact aimed at attracting the new meridional phenomenon, with intellectuals who perceived that the southern peasantry represented a decisive driving force for revolution with national and democratic characteristics, despite considering the importance of the northern working class in this process as well (Gramsci [1926] 1995). Gramsci already presented the problem of uniting the subaltern classes in Italy as contributing to the unification of the humanity. The meridional question is therefore an international matter. Gramsci’s reflection specifies/nationalizes the meridional Italian question while also internationalizing it. The unification of the subaltern classes in Italy, however, must unite the working class within a political-cultural perspective that recognizes the need for an alliance with the peasantry, in an international context of contemporary socialist revolution. A set of systematized ideological fragments representing reformism was keeping the working class from uniting through a perspective advocated by Gramsci, harming the worker-peasant alliance. On the other hand, channeling the peasant rebellion towards political action towards the transformation of their social conditions could only occur if there was a fracture in state bureaucracy and intellectual bloc that supported that social order. Hence, the necessary critique of the great southern intellectuals who developed bourgeois hegemony in Italy, with Croce in first place. In fact, the debate between Gramsci and the Quarto Stato journal was not only a struggle for the establishment of a united front and workerpeasant alliance, but also a dispute for hegemony within the coalition of revolutionary forces where intellectuals and culture would play an essential role. There is a clear analogy of this dispute between allies with the dispute that took place in the Russian revolutionary process between the Bolshevik Marxists and the neo-Narodiniks. This problem gained even greater prominence in Gramsci’s reflection as it involved traditional intellectuals, conservative southerners, who

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preserved the agrarian bloc, and with it the domain of Northern industrialists and bankers. Thus, thanks to the mediation of a conservative intellectual bloc “the Mezzogiorno can be defined as a great social disintegration; the peasants, who represent the vast majority of its population, have no cohesion among them” (Gramsci 1995: 174). The possibility of a peasant revolution, due to the inability this stratum had to generate organic intellectuals, lay in the establishment of an alliance with the working class through the revolutionary liberal southern intellectuals from Piero Gobbetti or Guido Dorso’s lineage, which would—along with the communists—be responsible for splitting the southern intellectual bloc and fighting against capitalism, creating an alliance between peasantry and working class.

From the Worker-Peasant Alliance to the Subaltern Classes Gramsci developed a new form of meridionalism, he who only knew well his native Sardinia in the Mezzogiorno region, only became aware of the enormous cultural diversity of southern Italy while in prison, its pre-political rebellion characteristic and how real the “social disintegration” was and how many mediations were present. In a letter sent back in 1926, from the prison in Ústica, Gramsci told Tânia about the possibility of “performing unique psychological and folklore observations”. He said that “four fundamental divisions exist: the northern division, central division, southern (with Sicily) division and the Sardinians”. He noted that the Sardinians lived apart from other groups, that the northerners did not organize, while the Romans organized themselves well, and “the meridionals are extremely organized, as popularly known, but among them there are subdivisions: the Neapolitan state, the Pugliese state, the Sicilian state” (Gramsci 1996: 19-12-1926 19). Now Gramsci is already beginning to notice important mediations in the “social breakdown” of the subalterns, particularly in the Mezzogiorno region. There were cultural and value differences that distinguished the different regions of origin to the segregated ones, which would be an impediment to placing all of meridional Italy within the same framework. Gramsci’s remarks continued and even classified political prisoners: “The calmest, most serene and moderate are the peasants, then the

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workers, then the artisans, finally the intellectuals, among which unpredictable outbursts of absurd and childish madness occur” (Gramsci 1996: 07-01-1927 32). Later, going deeper into his observations, Gramsci wrote that there were four marginal southern states, adding the Calabrian state to the three mentioned above. But this time, almost as if it were a new finding, he narrated that “the Sicilians are a unique case; there are more similarities between a Calabrian and a Piedmontese than between a Calabrian and a Sicilian” (Gramsci 1996: 70). It was the beginning of his life as a prisoner where that experience provoked renewed interest in topics that occupied his mind as a university student in Turin, such as those linked to linguistic anthropology, folklore, Italian culture. The “ethnographic” observations made in prison also offered quite rich empirical material for understanding the complexity of subaltern groups in Italy. We can thus conclude that this forced field research—where political prisoners from different origins were mixed with marginals from different origins—suggested to Gramsci that the subaltern classes were a very large and complex universe. This realization was essential to elaborate a revolutionary policy capable of uniting these groups and culturally elevating them to a higher level of critical consciousness. The observations that Gramsci identified as “Byzantine” activities certainly contributed to developing the research project he intended to carry out while in prison. Thus, his first study plan aimed to “research on Italian intellectuals”, “comparative linguistics”, “the transformation of Italian theatrical preferences” and “appendix novels and popular preferences in literature”. The focus of the entire enterprise would be the search for degrees and stages of development of the “popular creative spirit” (Gramsci 1996: 15-03-1927 56). What is the relationship between his beginning of prison life, with the sufferings and observations and reflections it generated, with the study plan drawn up including work on the southern question written 4 months earlier? Between a political critique and ideological polemic text like this one and the almost academic paper presented in the study plan? There is, in fact, a relationship of continuity. In the work on the meridional question, the immediate political objective was evident, defending the need for critical intellectuals, whether they are Marxists or liberal revolutionaries, to break the conservative meridional intellectual bloc and thus enable peasantry’s organization and alliance with the working class.

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Although the plan now requires greater reach and depth, it is still the same. It is about getting to know Italy, getting to know popular culture, more precisely folklore or the common sense of the subaltern classes (although this expression does not appear yet). Additionally understanding how this common sense is articulated with the intellectuals’ conception and how both can be transformed. Could the “popular creative spirit” that drives and unites research be the search for creativity and elements of popular rebellion towards different forms of domination? Would folklore be a means for subaltern classes to interpret the systematized vision from dominant social groups and their intellectuals and transform oppression and submission into a bearable condition? Or could they also mimic forms of refusal and rebellion? Wouldn’t Gramsci be looking for elements of spontaneous rebellion already present in the social life of the masses, particularly the peasantry, and would the revolutionary intellectuals be responsible for rationalizing and channeling the collective will? Despite many modifications in the prisoner’s study plan, it does not seem that Gramsci strayed far from this original stance and questions. In Prison Notebooks, however, Gramsci no longer used the “popular creative spirit” expression, possibly to avoid falling into a trap with an idealist claim.1 On the other hand, in Prison Notebooks, Gramsci always used the expressions “subaltern class” and “subaltern group”, possibly expanding this analytical field. Are there any theoretical-methodological implications for this change? Is there any political implication? In the First Notebook and in Notebook 2, some notes by Gramsci suggested expanding the meridione notion to the entire Mediterranean, within the national/international dialectic of subalternity imposed by colonialism. Notebook 3, written in 1930 and considered a miscellany, begins with notes mainly on intellectuals and Americanism, crucial themes in Gramsci’s research. Almost unexpectedly, a short note (number 14), entitled History of the ruling class and history of subaltern classes, brings an essential observation with a methodological aspect. In this extraordinarily synthetic note, two decisive observations stand out to elucidate Gramsci’s reasoning:

1 This specific passage, but the whole text is due to the stimulating dialogue with Giorgio Baratta, of which its starting point can be found in BARATTA, Giorgio. Le rose e i quaderni: il pensiero dialógico di Antonio Gramsci. Roma: Carocci, 2003, pp. 32–35.

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1- “the history of the subaltern classes is necessarily disaggregated and episodic”; 2- “in the activity of these classes there is a tendency towards unification, even if temporarily, but this is the least visible part, which is only demonstrated through victory”. (Gramsci 1975: 3 14 299–300)

The first statement is general and indicates the historical situation of the subaltern classes, which “suffer from the initiatives of the ruling class, even when rebelling; they are in a state of alarmed defense”. The second observation, with implications undeveloped in this passage, suggests that the subaltern classes, by “autonomous initiative”, tend towards unification and, in this condition, towards overcoming subalternity, towards hegemony. Subaltern classes unify around an autonomous perspective proposing a new hegemony and social order (Gramsci 1975: 3 14 299–300). These observations once again highlight Gramsci’s continuity and permanent dialogue with his almost presumed interlocutors, who were present in his theoretical-political conception, developed from the days when the factory councils in Turin existed. Explicit references to Sorel and Rosa Luxemburg were never frequent in Gramsci’s work, not even in the revolutionary period from 1917 to 1921, or in Prison Notebooks, which does not mean that common concerns and ideas were not present in his thought process. As is well-known, Sorel was an important theoretical reference for revolutionary syndicalism and Rosa Luxemburg was a notorious personality at the Neue Linke of the SPD—Social Democratic Party of Germany and later became the founder of the KPD—Communist Party of Germany. Despite many differences between these authors, Gramsci was concerned with the self-activity, self-organization and self-government of the masses. In short, with a “scission spirit” present in the activity of the subaltern classes. The problem becomes the “autonomous initiative” of the masses and how the “tendency towards unification” should or could take place. Gramsci does not indicate the how and why of this trend exists, but a possible assumption is found in the Marxian proposition of the dynamics of capital as an agent of the unification of the working class. But this alone, as Marx also knew, is insufficient if there is not an organized and active collective will with this scope, a collective will that must also drag intermediate or even pre-capitalist social strata, it means all the subaltern classes.

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Anyway, Gramsci begins with this common substratum, this common concern, with Sorel and Rosa, of the spontaneous initiative of the masses, of what we might call “scission spirit” or “popular creative spirit”. He criticizes Sorel’s view on liberalism’s permanence in cultural subalternity, maintaining the scission between economic and political forces. The theoretical conception that the organization of workers strictly in the economic field, educated around the myth of the general strike against capital and the political state, was insufficient to create a new hegemony, precisely because it denied politics and revolutionary intellectual activity (Gramsci 1975: 13 1 1536–1537). As to the economism present in Sorel’s elaboration, Gramsci also criticized it in Rosa Luxemburg’s work, especially regarding the Russian Revolution of 1905. According to Gramsci’s argument, Rosa also has an economist tendency to suggest that economic crises could spontaneously generate revolutionary situations (Gramsci 1975: 13 24 1613). The evidence seems to indicate that Gramsci considers that any type of economism represent a variant of theoretical subalternity. But this statement has an even more incisive meaning: the emancipation of the subaltern presupposes that unification also involves cultural emancipation, the perception that the economic and political (and the philosophical) forces are expressions of the same reality in action: the emancipation of the subaltern necessitates the construction of a new historical bloc, a new form of hegemony and, as part of this process, a moral and intellectual reform (a cultural revolution generated through the self-education of the masses). This is the reason for the great importance of studying folklore, religiosity, common sense, forms of organization of the subaltern classes. It is the Socratic “know thyself” as a condition of transformation.

Subaltern Classes and Intellectuals Dissociated passages from different Notebooks may suggest that the expression “subaltern class” leads to a degree of abstraction and generality, thus making it sterile from an analytical or even political point of view.2 Why then does Gramsci use it, other than to go even further with

2 We can say the same about the “passive revolution” category which is not included in this chapter’s objectives.

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the use of “subaltern groups”? The possible answer can point to two different and complementary directions. The first direction is the possibility of extending the analytical field in time and space. The clear indication of this is in subsequent paragraphs of Notebook 3, in which Gramsci reflects on the subaltern classes of the Italian communes of medieval times (Gramsci 1975: 3 16) and ancient Rome (Gramsci 1975: 3 18). With these questions in mind, the diverse cultural layers that make up Italian folklore and common sense, particularly of the peasantry, can be searched for. Based on this logic, the origin and establishment of the working class can (should) be studied, as an essential feature of the modern world. This category of subaltern classes or groups also allows the analytical field to expand to colonial zones, as has been suggested, exactly as Gramsci understood the conditions in meridional Italy itself to be, or even in Latin America, as suggested in paragraph 5, also of Notebook 3. In other words, the generality of the “subaltern classes” or “subaltern groups” terms allows for an accurate analysis of the most diverse particularities within a general tendency towards the unification of the humanity. But wouldn’t this expansion of an analytical perspective also bring practical and political uncertainty as an implication? This answer cannot go beyond the hypothetical field, unless much more accurate research is carried out. The importance that Gramsci gave to Americanism and Fordism as a research theme proves how the centrality of factory work persisted in his critique of capitalist modernity, which points in the opposite direction to a possible dilution of the working class within undefined and fragmented “subaltern groups”. Maintaining the workers’ centrality in the construction of a new hegemony contrary to capital domination, the subaltern classes in the capitalist era have a stronger backbone, by which they can gain organicity and can proceed towards unification and hegemony. The problem would then become that of distinguishing, socially and culturally, which would be the possible allies of the working class among the subaltern groups. Would these only be the peasantry? Or would the peasantry be so diverse culturally and either in their folklore, that neither analytically nor politically could they be seen as a precisely homogeneous entity, especially since they are a transitional class, a class that from precapitalism should contribute towards the socialist transition, as Lenin’s elaboration had shown? From a broader perspective, shouldn’t we question how many particularities there would be in different peasant strata

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inherited from the feudal era in Europe or if the so-called peasantry of the vast colonial areas would not have enormous diversity as well? The historical theory that Gramsci developed in Prison Notebooks was certainly not schematic or linear, nor was his social class concept. The subaltern notion may seem too elastic, but it is a fact that the meridional Italian question was already gaining a new level of complexity, just as the actual notion of the meridional question was extended to the colonial zone of imperialism. The question of the unification of the Italian subaltern classes is a national question, but at the same time it involves the unification of the subaltern classes all over the world, the unification of the humanity. This interpretation is only possible, however, upon reading many other passages from Prison Notebooks, especially Notebook 13, in which Gramsci analyzes how the subaltern classes can overcome their condition. In fact, in Notebook 13, a so-called special Notebook, in which he revisits notes from previous Notebooks, Gramsci deals particularly with the situation of the working class, from a methodological point of view, its establishment as a class capable of directing a set of alliances with a group of subaltern classes against bourgeois domination. The problem of the worker-peasant alliance and the united front remains, therefore, outlined in the period immediately preceding his imprisonment, especially in Some Aspects of the Meridional Question. Gramsci asks himself about how a collective will is formed, that is, how subaltern classes become united. Or, from another perspective, how the culture of the subaltern classes breaks down and becomes a collective culture and will that is antagonistic to the culture of the dominant classes, thus rupturing subalternity. This problem is crucial not only in Prison Notebooks, but in the formation of the entire Marxist political culture. An emancipation movement can only begin through the self-activity of the masses, their autonomy and their scission with the ruling class. Gramsci interprets Machiavelli’s Prince through Sorel’s lenses, precisely to highlight this imaginary characteristic as the representation of the autonomous collective will that self-organizes itself in opposition to the current status quo, generating a scission that confronts subalternity. This demands, however, an intellectual and moral reform, a cultural transformation with a great historical scope, which overcomes and replaces the culture of the old ruling class.

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However, these lenses are not enough to demonstrate that the radical denial of order is not enough. It is also necessary to simultaneously materialize the new subjectivity, organizing material and cultural life on new foundations. The denial of the old order also means the theoreticalpractical elaboration of a new life project. Not an abstract project, but one that is constructed according to the possible conduct of the movement of reality which begins with “the agreement reached through the associated wills” (Gramsci 1975: 13 1 1537). The new subjectivity, critical and in denial of the condition of subalternity, necessarily begins with the existing real conditions, with the contradictions of what is real, the fragments that are part of the subaltern ideology, with the rebellious impulses of the dominated (one could almost say “of the ‘creative popular spirit’”). The reestablishment of cultural and ideological fragments that are immersed in the rebellion of the dominated, in the perspective of the denial of subalternity, necessarily demands a far-reaching intellectual and moral reform, in the sense of restoring the entirety of material and cultural life. This historical movement only becomes possible insofar as the subaltern classes generate a group of organic intellectuals. Organic, because they emerge from within their own class and because they act historically on behalf of the interests of the class they originated from. As they become organized, they become the modern Prince, an organism that is “an element of a complex society in which the fulfillment of a collective will, recognized and partially affirmed through action, has already begun” (Gramsci 1975: 13 1 1558). If so, it is evident that the subalternity condition and the struggle for its emancipation cannot be thought of as separate from intellectual groups. Gramsci considered that the history of folklore, religiosity, the common sense etc. of the subaltern classes, in short, cannot be dissociated from the forms of domination that are imposed on it with a decisive contribution from intellectual groups. Likewise, the denial/overcoming of the condition of subalternity cannot bypass the establishment of an autonomous intellectual group forged by the subaltern classes themselves struggling against their condition. We can notice how Notebook 12, that concerns the history of intellectuals, and Notebook 27, that concerns the history of the subaltern classes, are part of the same research. In the Notebook 12, Gramsci affirms:

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Each social group, born through the original terrain of an essential function in the world of economic production, jointly and organically create one or more layers of intellectuals that give it homogeneity and awareness of its own role, not only in the economic field, but also in the social and political fields.

Then, he expands the question to intellectuals originated in the feudal period and concludes: “The category of ecclesiastics can be considered the intellectual category organically linked to the landed aristocracy” (Gramsci 1975: 12 1 1513–1514). The explanation as to why a collective will was not established to unite the peninsula as an absolute monarchy in sixteenth century Italy, Gramsci finds by considering the cosmopolitan characteristics of the intellectuals, whose origins date back to the Roman Empire, but which were preserved and developed by the Roman Church. The Renaissance was a cultural undertaking with high quality and value, but it was also an initiative involving fractions of nobility that placed artists and intellectuals under its aegis, not allowing them to become a mass phenomenon that could reach the subaltern social strata. The religious Reformation, on the contrary, meant a far-reaching moral and intellectual reform, not only through the secularization trend for life on earth, with the valorization of work and accumulation of wealth, but also through the denial of the universalism of the Roman Church. The believer’s immediate contact with their god, mediated by a pastor, broke the Catholic hierarchy and regionalized the religious organization, thus contributing to the establishment of territorial states. In certain regions (such as Germany), the reform reinforced the local power of nobility, but in others it contributed to the embryo of the bourgeois revolution (such as the Netherlands, England and United States). In any case, the Reformation was very far from reaching a cultural standard that would be anywhere near the Renaissance. This means that the Reformation played a contradictory role, but it also contributed to the outbreak of Jacobinism in the French revolution. Jacobinism is understood as an intellectual group that expresses the national-popular collective will. Thus, Gramsci considered that Machiavelli was a precursor of Jacobinism, as someone who, upon perceiving the universalism of the Roman Church as the enemy to be beaten so that

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a collective will, represented by the Prince, could prevail; which is how the subordinate classes would become the protagonists in the establishment of a territorial state through which the Renaissance would spread as a mass phenomenon. The spread of the Renaissance as a mass phenomenon could then generate a civilization of universal men, as Gramsci considered Leonardo da Vinci to be. Sorel considered the intellectuals and politicians of the ruling classes as part of the same historical bloc, but he cautioned the class of producers about the generation of intellectuals or leaders who could come to benefit from other forms of domination. Hence his anti-Jacobinism, his spirit of scission stance towards the political and intellectual life of the dominants and his denial of the political party. Gramsci, who during his youth had a vision that was quite similar to this one, in the Prison Notebooks began considering Jacobinism to precisely represent the action of a leading group generated and organically linked to the subaltern classes, albeit in different degrees and measures. In his dialogue with Sorel (mediated by Machiavelli), Gramsci conceives the revolutionary party, a collective organic intellectual, as a concrete instrument capable of channeling the rebellion of subalterns, of recovering the ideological fragments of the refusal of order, promoting an intellectual and moral reform that denies subalternity through a new social life project. The spontaneous rebellion of the subaltern classes is conducted as a hegemony project, not left to spontaneity, as defended by Sorel. While continuing the dialogue with Sorel, also in Notebook 13, Gramsci always discusses how various forms of syndicalism and corporatism preserve the subaltern condition of the working class, precisely because it does not present the hegemony problem, which is essential for the foundation of a new order, a new state. The theoretical limit of corporate syndicalism, even in the Sorelian revolutionary strand, is economism, above all because it reproduces the perspective of social life that is a characteristic of liberalism and the ideology of the ruling class, which splits economy and politics. In fact, by considering all politics as an instance of class domination through power, the revolutionary syndicalism perceives as real the false dichotomy between the economic and political forces, between civil society and the state. Therefore, syndicalism is a variant of Economism, it is the ideology of a class that continues to be subaltern. Theoretical syndicalism “as it refers to a subaltern group, which through this theory

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prevents itself from ever becoming dominant, from developing beyond the economic-corporate phase to rise to the ethical–political hegemony phase in civil society and the dominant phase in the State” (Gramsci 1975: 13 18 1590). In theory and in political action “the struggle can and must be conducted by developing the concept of hegemony, (…)” (Gramsci 1975: 13 18 1595–1596), a condition for the working class to emancipate itself from the situation of subalternity. What can this statement mean? That the subalternity condition can only be overcome insofar as the working class assumes the perspective of totality and is reestablished through it as an emancipated humanity. Thus, taking on the totality perspective considers two reasonable meanings, which complement each other. First, that the working class considers the perspective of the interest of subaltern classes as a whole in the process of denying subalternity, that is, in the process of emancipation from exploitation and oppression, implying a program, a project, a moment of construction. The second would be that it should be endowed with an adequate cultural and theoretical perspective, which methodologically begins with the premise that “economy” and “politics”, civil society and the state are one and the same reality, which can be approached from different points; this totality perspective could not differ from what is offered by the philosophy of praxis. Of course, the subaltern classes are not only the working class and peasantry, even when the argument revolves around the critique of capitalism, although it greatly depends on the development stage of a particular nation or people. Artisans are also survivors of the feudal or other orders, as are the strata of merchants or traditional intellectuals. All of these social groups are subordinate and tend to suffer bourgeois hegemony, “the initiative of the ruling class”. This is also the case with the working class, the industrial proletariat, except for one decisive point: the working class produces surplus value, upon which capital feeds, and is capable, albeit with enormous difficulties, of also producing organic intellectuals and a critical culture. On the other hand, “the mass of peasants, despite playing an essential role in the world of production, does not elaborate its own ‘organic’ intellectuals and does not assimilate any layer of ‘traditional’ intellectuals, (…)” (Gramsci 1975: 12 1 1514). It would then be up to the working class, a particular subaltern class, to group together the joint subaltern classes for the struggle against capitalism and towards a new social order. To achieve this, it would be

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essential to know/transform their specific and fragmented cultures that were expressed as folklore, as religion, as common sense and through an “intellectual progress of the masses” generate a new culture, embracing a new hegemony and historical bloc. Thus, the development of a layer of organic intellectuals would be essential to achieve all this. What Gramsci ultimately does is deepen and develop the political formula of the united front and worker-peasant alliance, upon which he was working on at the time of his arrest. Only a coalition of the subaltern classes as a whole, guided by the working class and its organic intellectuals—the modern Prince—could establish an antagonistic and alternative force to capitalism. Thus, the joint subaltern classes, denying their condition through an intellectual and moral reform, with their association of wills, would be transformed into a new civil society (and a new state), embodying a new hegemony. When he mentions a new civil society and a new state, Gramsci imagines the workers’ state, the socialist state. This state is a result of the joint efforts of social groups that have emancipated themselves from subalternity and reached the status of builders of a new civilization.

Gramsci in Formia A strong indication of this interpretation is found precisely in the development of Gramsci’s work after being transferred from the prison in Turi to the clinic in Formia. There he resumes, in Notebook 22, his critical reflection on Americanism and Fordism, which seemed to have been left behind, going back to insisting and demonstrating the crucial importance of the working class in the modern world. If in Notebooks 25 and 27, Gramsci deals with the history and culture of the subaltern groups that survive, then in Notebook 22 he focuses on the brand-new phenomenon produced by capitalism: Fordist Americanism. Gramsci considered Fordist Americanism an attempt to nullify the law of the downward trend of capitalist profit, which implies the fact that “subaltern classes, which would have to be ‘manipulated’ and rationalized according to the new goals, necessarily resist” (Gramsci 1975: 22 1 213). Here, the ruling class’s initiative is underscored and “rationalization determined the need to develop a new human type, suited to the new type of work and production process” (Gramsci 1975: 22 2 2146).

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The Fordist working class is still being established by the bourgeoisie’s hegemonic initiative and has not yet shown itself capable of creating class superstructures that would lead to discussing the hegemony issue. In fact, under the conditions of Fordism being deployed, “hegemony is born from the factory and only requires a minimum number of professional intermediaries in politics and ideology to be effective” (Gramsci 1975: 22 2 2146). Currently, the brand-new working class is still under construction and is still far from being a class that can question the hegemony under dispute. For the time being it is still a subaltern group, a subaltern class unable to unite itself, much less be the nucleus of a set of alliances enabling a united front of the subaltern classes. On the one hand, it is much more advanced than the Russian working class that made the socialist revolution or the Italian working class that put into practice the remarkable experience of the factory councils, but on the other it is only a potential and very embryonic cultural political force. The capitalist rationalization of production—in Taylor and Fordist models—with the advance of machinery and automatism, generates a contradiction, intensifying alienation and creating conditions for workers’ to deny their subalternity. It creates the condition for individual workers to partially master the productive technique but isolates and fragments them as a working class. In Notebook 25, Gramsci collects the notes previously made, with a few changes, and calls this special Notebook, On the margins of history. History of subaltern social groups. The invitation to work is immensely significant and Gramsci offers only a few clues, but the direction of the research is clear and defined. In a way, it is a counterpoint to the theme in Notebook 22. In Notebook 25, paragraph 14 of Notebook 3 is transcribed with modifications. First of all, the title takes on its Methodological Criterion. The “subaltern classes” expression is replaced by “subaltern groups”, but it does not disappear from the text. Now Gramsci makes it clear that the tendency to unite these groups is continually disrupted by the initiative of dominant groups, and therefore, this tendency will only be visible if it is successful. Gramsci enunciates in Notebook 25 the modified passage from Notebook 3:

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The history of subaltern social groups is necessarily disaggregated and episodic (…). Subaltern groups always suffer with dominant group initiatives, even when they rebel and rise up: only ‘permanent’ victory ruptures subordination, and this is not immediate. Even when they appear to be triumphant, subaltern groups are only in an alarmed state of defense. (Gramsci 1975: 25 2 2283–2284)

This passage is more explicit and at the same time broader and deeper. The “subaltern groups” expression also refers to social strata that cannot be defined as a class itself, such as the intellectual groups or even classes that have not yet been established as such. On the other hand, Gramsci emphasizes the difficulty to rupture subaltern conditions and the risk of the illusion of victory. It seems that here Gramsci is echoing the difficulties and problems unfolding in the USSR.3 Gramsci deepens his methodological observations, fully demonstrating the impossibility of developing the history (and of making politics) of the subaltern classes if they are dissociated from social totality, expressed through the state and the ruling classes. In fact, Gramsci says: “The historical unity of the ruling classes takes place in the State and their history is essentially the history of States and groups of States”. Therefore,

the fundamental historical unit, due to its concreteness, is the result of the organic relations between the State or political society and “civil society”. Subaltern classes, by definition, are not united and cannot unite until they cannot become the “State”: their history, therefore, is intertwined with that of civil society, it is a “disaggregated” and discontinuous function of the history of civil society and, thus, the history of States and groups of States. (Gramsci 1975: 25 5 2288)

3 Bear in mind that an isolated quotation is not representative of much, but if we observe other lines of the Notebooks in which Gramsci suggests that the USSR is in the “economic-corporative” stage, one perceives how he understands subalternity has not been effectively won in those countries.

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Subaltern classes can establish a new state, a new totality, precisely from the moment they deny subalternity and emancipate themselves. Knowledge and transformation are aspects and moments of the philosophy of praxis, the science of history and politics. That is why Gramsci enunciates essential research points for those who dare develop the history of the subaltern classes focused on their emancipation. A historian in this sense is not only a specialist that studies past events, but an organic intellectual who makes history together with the subaltern classes, from a praxis perspective. Understanding the origin and development of subaltern social groups is necessary, as well as their degree of adherence to the existing order, their ability to impose their own demands, the emergence of structures of ruling groups aimed at maintaining subalternity, the emergence of subaltern groups stating their interests within the order or struggling against subalternity. Finally, Gramsci insists on the problem posed in 1923 about the need to understand Italy in order to transform it. However, now his perspective broader and more universal. He continues his dialogue with Sorel. Overall, Gramsci considered that: “the historian must note and justify development towards full autonomy, from the most primitive phases with each manifestation of the Sorelian ‘scission spirit’. However, the difficulties for the historian who projects history are immense, not only because of the fragmentation of subaltern groups, but also because of the “repercussions of much more effective activities, as they arise from the State, from the dominant groups upon those subalterns and their parties” (Gramsci 1975: 25 5 2288–2289). Gramsci begins Notebook 25 with the exact suggestion for a monographic research work. It addresses the social–historical phenomenon of Davide Lazzaretti (1834–1878), a rebel leader emerging from the subaltern layers of Tuscany. A mystical prophet, Lazzaretti also preached against monarchy, as the Church presented it. Gramsci criticizes the existing bibliography about the event, identifying the tendency to isolate the fact, in order to attribute a pathological aspect to the central character of the plot, since “for a social elite, the elements of subaltern groups always have some barbaric and pathological characteristics” (Gramsci 1975: 25 1 2279). Thus, the existing literature by contemplating the interests of the ruling classes, sought

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to hide the causes of the general malaise that existed in Italy after 70, giving each of the episodes of this malaise outburst some restrictive, individual, folkloristic, pathological explanations, etc. The same thing happened to a greater extent for the meridional ‘brigantaggio’ and the islands. (Gramsci 1975: 25 1 2280)

Gramsci’s interest in this specific episode lies precisely in the manifestation of “popularity and spontaneity”, as well as what subversive-popular-elementary tendency could be born among peasants following clerical political abstentionism and the fact that the rural masses, in the absence of regular parties, sought local leaders who emerged from the masses themselves, mixing religion and fanaticism to the set of claims that fermented in the fields in an elementary manner. (Gramsci 1975: 25 1 2280)

In this Notebook, Gramsci discusses aspects of the history of subaltern groups in ancient Rome and feudal times and emphasizes that “in the ancient and medieval states, centralization, be it political-territorial or social (and one is not more than a function of the other) was minimal”. In this context “subaltern groups had a life of their own, their own institutions, etc., and sometimes these institutions had state functions, which made the state a federation of social groups with diverse non-subordinate functions (…)”. In contrast, “The modern state replaces the mechanical bloc of social groups by subordination to the active hegemony of the ruling or driving?? and dominant group, to abolish some autonomies, which are reborn differently, as parties, unions, or cultural associations”.When referring to fascism, Gramsci also notes that “contemporary dictatorships also legally abolish these new forms of autonomy and strive to incorporate them into state life: the legal centralization of all national life in the hands of the dominant group becomes ‘totalitarian’” (Gramsci 1975: 25 4 2287). Gramsci then assesses how the subaltern groups in classical antiquity and medieval times were coupled with the dominant group but still had their own life, cultural norms, and standards. If the documental difficulty was solved, the history of these groups would not be difficult to develop. In the bourgeois epoch, the state tends to centralize the activity of the ruling class, coordinate the hegemony over the working class and set of subaltern groups. These, in turn, manifest their autonomy through economic, political, and cultural organizations. The commitment of the

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state and the ruling class is to submit this autonomy and block the eventual development of the “scission spirit”, a path to the denial of subalternity, establishing hegemony. Notebook 27 follows this same reflection, with only a few pages covering Observations on “Folklore”. Gramsci observes how existing literature, as a constant expression of the “science” of the ruling classes, conceives the Science of Folklore only as a collection of picturesque information that can manifest itself as classical knowledge. Gramsci, however, considered that Folklore should be studied as certain currents of Anthropology understand, as culture, more specifically as popular culture. On Folklore, Gramsci says: Instead, one should study it as a “conception of the world and of life”, implicit to a large extent, for certain strata (determined in time and space) in society, in contrast (also in the most implicit, mechanical, objective) with the “official” conceptions of the world (or in a broader sense of the historically determined cultured parts of society) that have succeeded each other in historical development. (Thus the close relationship between folklore and “common sense which is philosophical folklore.) The conception of the world is not only not elaborated and systematic, because the people (that is, the set of subordinate and instrumental classes in each form of society that has existed until now) by definition cannot have elaborated, systematic and politically organized and centralized conceptions in their contradictory development, which are multiple in fact – not only in a diverse sense, with overlaps, but also as a stratification from the coarsest to the least coarse - or perhaps even an indigestible crowding of fragments of all conceptions of the world and life that took place in history, most of which, that is, only in folklore, are documental survivals that have been changed and contaminated. (Gramsci 1975: 27 1 2311–2312)

This long and unclear passage calls for a comment. Strictly speaking, Gramsci considered Folklore to be the conception of the world and life of the subaltern classes. But this conception of the world and of life is also opposed to the vision of the world and life of the ruling groups and, more specifically, of their intellectuals. This opposition generally occurs through a fragmented reinterpretation of the culture of the ruling groups in a historical succession. Furthermore, the conception of the world and life of the subaltern classes is multiple, stratified, overlapping and mixed, since these social strata, due to their condition, cannot rely on a systematic and elaborated vision of the world and life as Philosophy.

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The “common sense” is the superior sediment of folklore, as it is the folklorization of the Philosophy of the ruling classes. Thus, modern Philosophy and Science always offer new elements that can become common sense, such as folklore. It seems that what Gramsci calls “Lorianism”4 is precisely a form of science folklore. So folklore can be understood merely as a reflection of the cultural living conditions of the people, although certain typical folklore conditions continue even after the conditions are (or seem) modified or give way to bizarre combinations. (Gramsci 1975: 27 1 2312)

Religion is another element that is connected to folklore (and with common sense), especially since it establishes a morality. Note that in Catholicism and in the orthodox branch of Christianity there is a significant difference between the popular religion (of the simple people) and the religion of the intellectuals. In this field of religious morality, the different cultural strata must also be discerned: those fossilized that mirror past life conditions and, therefore, are conservative and reactionary, and those that represent a series of innovations, often creative and progressive, spontaneously determined through life forms and conditions in the process of development, in contradiction, or simply deferring from the morality of the ruling strata. (Gramsci 1975: 27 1 2313)

It is noteworthy how Gramsci’s reflection has elements that seem to enrich and diversify the concept and understanding of folklore. Far from being a fixed and sterile universe, folklore is presented as a universe of ideological representations in which religion, morals, science and philosophy are stratified and mixed, gaining diverse and mobile forms of domination and subaltern reinforcements. But Gramsci does not fail to notice the presence of the “popular creative spirit” in folklore, of spontaneous cultural creations that can be elements of subalternity denial. In folklore, moments of autonomy and antagonism of subaltern social groups spontaneously appear.

4 The reference is Achille Loria, his former professor at the University of Turin and who was also an interlocutor of Engels.

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Gramsci also suggests that, when faced with the philosophy of praxis, the entire religion and the philosophy of the ruling classes and their intellectuals can be seen as folklore, as cultural layers of a time that must pass. In fact, the philosophy of praxis itself can find aspects of folklore in its development and process of dissemination. Only by deepening this critical perspective will it be possible to induce the birth of a new culture among the great popular masses, that is, the emphasis between modern culture and popular culture or folklore will disappear. An activity of this kind, carried out in depth, would represent in the intellectual layer, what the Reformation represented in Protestant countries. (Gramsci 1975: 27 1 2314)

Final Remarks Some very tentative conclusions can be advanced at the end of this book. Firstly, one may consider that there is a significant continuity of the concerns in Gramsci’s work as a whole. From a very young age, Gramsci was focused on his cultural political action towards the problem of emancipation, and the freedom issue. Starting from a relatively undefined awareness of the oppressive situation Sardinia experienced, Gramsci develops an analysis that considers the entire southern region of Italy as a colonial zone, making the peasantry a particularly subjugated social layer. However, it was his experience with the working class in Turin that educated Gramsci towards capitalist contradiction and exploitation, thus maturing his conviction of the need to develop a ‘scission spirit’ as a fundamental condition for the emancipation of work (or labor?). Thus, from his reflections on factory councils, in 1919–1920, to the study on Americanism-Fordism in Notebook 22, in 1934, Gramsci was immersed in the issue of the emancipation of the working class. In fact, even before—when he was writing news articles on cultural, literary and artistic criticism—Gramsci’s reflection kept this objective and he was soon able to understand that emancipation could never be limited to a pure and simple change in material or legal conditions and that even these would require self-organization, self-education and autonomy of the masses, exercising and developing the “popular creative spirit”. We can consider that even before the establishment of the Communist Party in 1921, Gramsci’s cultural and theoretical background already

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contained the elements that enabled his subsequent theoretical development which reached its peak in Prison Notebooks. In his period as a leader at the ICP, Gramsci pursued the objective of emancipating the working class from the positivist reformist ideology that guaranteed workers’ subalternity and contributed strongly to preserving the condition of oppression where peasants were not valued. At first (still alongside Bordiga) he was concerned with the unification of the working class, but later his perspective became broader and was more focused on the issue of the worker-peasant alliance, the problem of the unification of the exploited and oppressed classes in capitalism. This was when he had a split with Bordiga and translated Lenin into the Italian reality within a capitalist context. Gramsci was already aware of how socialist intellectuals were subordinate to the ruling classes and how they served as intermediaries to keep the working class in a powerless situation. He reflected with greater precision on the role of intellectuals maintaining Mezzogiorno’s backward situation. Without the working class developing its own intellectuals and without disorganization of the southern intellectual bloc, the emancipation of the workers would not be possible. Right before his arrest, Gramsci had already conceived a strategy for the anti-fascist and anticapitalist revolution, synthesized in the political formula of the united front and worker-peasant alliance. In prison, Gramsci deepened and broadened this line of reflection and research. He realized the enormous diversity of the peasant world, its cultural richness, the manifestations of the “popular creative spirit”, constantly searching for antagonistic potentialities of the peasantry and popular culture that could enrich the alliance with the working class, as he defended. Similarly, Gramsci also broadened his perspective, scrutinizing the meridional Italian question, which included an immense and diversified colonial region. Thus, the cultural and political importance in studying linguistics, folklore and other subjects he decided to study in his life as a prisoner of fascism. Gramsci also noted that the working class itself had a unique historical and social construction. It was not the same in Russia, Germany, Italy or the USA. As self-evident as this statement may seem, a very important methodological question is implicit, with very serious political implications. Assessing the social and historical origin, the previous experience of struggle and popular culture are important elements in the process for

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the working class to develop, as well as its capacity to culturally elevate itself and propose a new hegemony, overcoming subalternity. It seems that while Gramsci was in prison, he noticed that the working class in Europe, in all its diversity, had been defeated in 1921 and that the “passive revolution phase” that had begun, among other things, tended to reshape the profile of the working class, as an “initiative of the dominant groups”. This was the case with Fordist Americanism with its universalizing potential within the capitalist context. The working class had undergone serious historical defeat and was beginning to be restructured according to the Fordist-Taylorist pattern of capitalist production, and the USSR itself was at an “economic-corporate” stage, that is, at a very early stage in the socialist transition. Wouldn’t it be necessary to broaden and deepen the analytical perspectives of the working class, the peasantry, the intelligentsia and all social groups undergoing transformations and experiencing different historical times, with the use of a broader, more comprehensive concept, such as subaltern classes or subaltern social groups? The theoretical-practical problem remained the same, he was now only aware of the immense complexity: how to shape a united front of the subaltern classes focused on their emancipation from the exploitation and oppression of capital, based on their diversity and fluidity and the production of new forms of folklore, which became known as mass culture. Fixed and unchangeable concepts would contribute minimally at most towards the construction of this historical duty. It is true that Gramsci’s method, his radical historicism, created conditions for his work to be misunderstood or manipulated, as well as the categories he used, which were later adopted for other uses that in no way matched the Sardinian author’s objectives. But, on the other hand, the fluidity of subaltern groups perceived by Gramsci at the time he was writing had significant similarities with the contemporary world, when so much is said about the crisis of the labor movement, the labor society, Fordism and when the very existence of a working class is questioned. The fluidity of social struggle, the existence of a variety of actions from subaltern groups, both local or global, allow for Gramsci to live in the twenty-first century and pose the challenge of unveiling a brand-new reality, which may (or may not) lead to the creation of a united front of subaltern classes in the globalized empire of capitalism. But a condition for this to occur is that the philosophy of praxis itself is not classified as some form of folklore (Monal 2003: 189–200).

Organic Crisis, Neoliberalism and Barbarism

Organic Crisis and Neoliberal Ideology This beginning of the 20s is a milestone in human history. It is a milestone because of the pandemic that devastates the human planet, but even more because of a profound worsening in the structural crisis of capital (Meszaros 2005). If Mèszàros was correct in his analyses, shared with some important nuances by Chesnais (1997) and Harvey (1984, 2005), capitalism, and capital in general, entered a historical phase of structural crisis since the 1970s in the last century. The crisis is structural when there is no possibility of overcoming it within its own framework and the result can be a transition to a new structure, a new historical bloc (Gramsci 1975) or sociocultural disintegration and regression: something like socialism or barbarism. The structural crisis is not a historical phase with a predictable duration. The structural crisis of the ancient Euro-Mediterranean can only be considered overcome in the ninth century. The structural crisis that befell feudal Europe in the fourteenth century was overcome with profound changes, such as the creation of centralized states, religious reforms and a great expansion of mercantile capital, but it did not completely transpose the feudal world. In fact, feudalism survived for centuries, but in its surroundings and gaps, the elements that would lead to its slow (almost) extinction would be developed. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Del Roio, Gramsci and the Emancipation of the Subaltern Classes, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90777-8_14

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If it is true that since the mid-70s last century, capitalism and capital itself have entered a period of structural crisis, some characteristics must be identified. The bibliography, which is already quite vast, indicates an enormous and rapid scientific advance, the permanent technological innovation in several sectors, in other words, an immense development of the productive forces, which does not seem to be a typical characteristic in a structural crisis. It turns out, however, that this development is aimed at confronting a tendency of decline in the rate of capital accumulation, for which more live labor incorporated into machines (computers or robots, whatever) is not enough. One of the characteristics of the organic crisis phases is the multiplication of the war phenomenon and in the contemporary context, precisely due to the high technological standards, leading to an unprecedented destructive capacity capable of affecting the survival of the human species. Capital must also reproduce itself, as fictitious or speculative capital, managed by the transnational financial oligarchy. Hence the need for an open world market, without customs and borders or protection policies. Information networks are important instruments for capital globalization to be complete and merge with the structural crisis. The restructuring of the proletariat was a victorious action by capital insofar as it disorganized the class by changing its profile, especially by using new technologies to establish new relationships and new ways of managing the work process, as demonstrated through the successful experience with Toyotism. The changing profile of the class generated a great differentiation and stratification among workers, thus breaking many of the social bonds of solidarity and labor ideology. The mass of workers today is less white and has a larger female population. As a result, the main social institutes created by the labor movement, such as the union and party, have been considerably weakened. The result was that the defenses of the working class were broken, and the social and labor rights conquered in the previous phase began to be withdrawn, constantly claiming recovery in productivity, private initiative, and the free market. It turns out that all these measures were not able to reverse the declining trend in the rate of accumulation. In fact, the economic-political offensive of capital against workers and against the autonomy of the people was embraced ideologically by neoliberalism. In fact, neoliberalism was able to spread a worldview that is very much in line with capital in crisis, which, above all, sought to establish a return to the liberal freedom in the beginning of the historical bourgeois

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bloc. But the truth is that it is an ideology that, by exacerbating individualism and spreading the fetish of technology, fragments the working class and maximizes exploitation. The widespread corporate logic and technological fetish are powerful tools (Dardot and Laval 2016). The crisis of capital with its neoliberal scope brought other related phenomena with the major implication of a weakening bourgeois liberal democracy and clear cultural regression. The long-term conservative wave also began in the late 1970s and soon spread through the imperialist centers (Britain, USA, Japan, West Germany). Along with conservative neoliberalism, frankly conservative or even reactionary religiosities also spread (in Judaism, Catholic and Protestant Christianity, Sunni Islam and Hinduism).1

The Contradictions in the Organic Crisis Period There is a debate on how to characterize this historical phase through theoretical categories elaborated by Gramsci, obviously considering other concrete realities.2 The idea of a passive revolution is based on the understanding that a great development of the productive forces coexists with a recovery of the political power of capital and bourgeois hegemony. The counter-reform hypothesis seems to be more centered on the issue of the withdrawal of social rights and the democracy shrinkage. The last suggestion is close to Mèszàros’ elaboration and emphasizes the global interpretation of the crisis, the gradual disintegration of the order of capital, due to the failure in the effort to rescue capital accumulation rates, through the accentuation of the fundamental capitalist contradiction (capital × labor) amidst technological innovation, ongoing war, and outburst in the contradiction between the natural environment and predatory humans. The contradiction between the productive forces and relations and the private appropriation of socially produced wealth seems to be at its limit as well. Concretely, the risk is the exacerbated advance

1 A lot has been said about a certain rebirth of populism, referring to political leaders that call on the people disregarding the existing institutions. I believe this to be a category with not much explanatory importance, as populism could be anything that does not fit into the liberal paradigm. 2 In the Convegno Gramsciano de Cagliari/Ghilarza (2007), for example, there were those defended a global passive revolution (Pasquale Voza), a counter-reformation (Carlos Nelson Coutinho), an organic crisis (myself).

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of Artificial Intelligence, without social relations advancing as a “general intellect”. This disparity breeds barbarism. Of course, this is the general trend that evolves in an unequal and combined way, within which there are countries and groups of countries that have their particularities. As a working hypothesis, it can then be suggested that this organic crisis period has experienced three moments so far. The moment with the deployment of conservative neoliberalism in the imperialist center (we must not disregard the Chilean pilot experience), from the end of the 70s to the beginning of the 90s, with the disintegration of state socialism in Eastern Europe and the USSR. The second phase of consolidation in the imperialist center, which lasted until 2008, was a period that also witnessed the rise of China and spaces of resistance in Latin America. The third phase began with the very serious fiscal crisis in 2008, which hit big banks hard, and unfolded throughout 2011, with a renewed imperialist offensive against workers and peoples. The second decade of the new century intensified and radicalized the neoconservative and neoliberal ideology of the ruling classes in a very large part of the world. The very few exceptions are countries that maintain a socialist project or simply develop state capitalism (which can have different characteristics and ideologies). One (one more) attempt by imperialism to face the worsening crisis was to seize natural resources and strategic geopolitical positions that could block China’s rise and prevent the consolidation of the Asian connection with Russia (and Iran). This attempt had its epicenter in the Middle East (extended), with wars of state destruction (Libya, Syria, Yemen) and coups d’etat (Ukraine). There was also a series of coups d’état without visible institutional ruptures, especially in Latin America (Honduras, Paraguay, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil). The displacement of populations from Africa and the Middle East to Europe has expanded dramatically, as has the migration of Central American populations to the USA (only some of the main flows). Initially, the migratory flow is useful to European and American capitalism, as this labor force arrives without any guaranteed rights and operates as an “industrial reserve army”, that is, they work in the most precarious sectors among possible labor occupations. The open doors for imperialist capital on the periphery recreate working conditions that resume worker servitude and even slavery (Dusster 2006). But as structural unemployment advances with technological innovation and social stratification among workers, the loss of rights tends

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to generalize and categories become closed in their niches, resulting in greater class fragmentation and an even a stronger spread of racism. The state increasingly appears to be repressive and disciplining machine, as the permanent fiscal crisis is no longer capable of providing generalized (or almost) quality social services. The crisis of the liberal-democratic regime (or bourgeois democracy) is inevitable, a crisis that is an expression of the crisis of bourgeois hegemony. A more important question arises here, which is identifying whether neoliberalism is an ideological shell that establishes or redefines bourgeois hegemony and if so, we must understand whether a solid hegemony is possible during an organic crisis (a societal crisis). Would it be possible for a permanent state of exception to express an ongoing situation of bourgeois hegemony? The answer to this dilemma is important because it has implications for the political practice of individuals who are antagonistic to the order of capital. The growing resistance of workers to the withdrawal of rights is another aspect of this crisis. This situation is complete in the vast peripheral zone of the empire of capital, where social rights are more restricted or almost non-existent. The withdrawal of rights and the economic recession generate a growing social catastrophe: it gets worse in every way—social assistance, health, education and welfare. Neoliberalism has also generated nonantagonistic forms of resistance in some countries, especially in Latin America, such as Venezuela and Bolivia, as well as other even more tenuous forms, such as Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina. Popular movements, which provided major visibility to the demands of indigenous peoples and women, must also be very considered. Since the 2008 crisis, there was no recovery, except for China. There was a small relief in the USA and Germany, but other countries in the imperialist core continued to be on the brink of stagnation. This was also the situation in the most important peripheral countries. From 2018 onwards, the signs of a worsening capitalist crisis have been getting stronger and stronger, with implications now even for China. The trade and diplomatic conflict between the USA and China has worsened the trend towards a slowdown in international trade. The USA hopes to bring trans nationalized companies back home, and China tends to make a large inward investment to raise living conditions in the countryside and unburden big cities. Centrifugal forces seriously endanger the very survival of the European Union. These are mostly reactionary forces that

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take over governments in the former socialist area of Europe and grow a lot in the West, among subaltern strata as well. The imperialist offensive since 2011, therefore, has not been able to contribute to controlling the structural crisis, but it has enhanced the crisis of bourgeois democracy—with the constitutive crisis of representation in political parties—and widespread regressive Caesarian powers all over the planet. Gramsci’s suggestion is that regressive Caesarism possibly resulted from a weak hegemony or crisis of hegemony. Modern Caesarism does not originate from the internal conflicts of the ruling class, but from the radical conflict between capital and labor. Gramsci explains how Caesarism does not necessarily arise from a catastrophic balance, but it ‘always’ has marginal possibilities for further development and organizational systematization and can especially count on the relative weakness of the antagonistic progressive force, due to its nature and peculiar existence, a weakness that is maintained: that is why modern Caesarism is considered to be more of a police force than an actual military attempt. (Gramsci 1975: 13 27 1622)

Caesarism—Gramsci still recalls—can exist without abolishing the party system and liberal institutes and this is what many of the existing Cesarean tendencies demonstrate as they are still leveraged by the pandemic situation.

Organic Crisis, Pandemic and Barbarism The acute capital crisis, as a financial crisis, was showing signs in 2019. The solutions intended through the radicalization of economic policy dictated by neoliberalism simply encouraged idiotic concentration of wealth and massive pauperization. The reaction of the threatened or helpless working masses began to erupt in different regions of the globe: India, Turkey, Iraq, Chile, Argentina, Colombia and France. In different ways and with different ideological motivations, yet rarely in the anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist sense, the masses gathered in large numbers. Evidently, along with regressive Caesarism, another characteristic at present, is the confusion and ideological diversity. There is no philosophy or ideology capable of guiding the masses towards an exit from the crisis of capital towards a historical bloc that implies the emancipation of humanity from the heavy fetters that hold it: poverty, ignorance,

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disease, oppression racism, everything that the neoliberal ideology that sustains capital currently potentializes. The consciousness of the popular masses of the world is of course quite different, but the majority must be at the level of spontaneous common sense, a portion is at the older or more modern corporate economic level (which includes identity struggles) and a very small and heterogeneous fraction lies at the revolutionary political level. The growth of revolutionary consciousness can also be boosted by a worsening in the environmental/health/economic/political crisis. The denial of the order of capital is the actual condition for a civilizing solution to the organic crisis and new barbarism in force. If we disregard the fact that we live in a period with a structural crisis or organic crisis of capital and that this implies a crisis of hegemony, which includes the emergence of regressive cesarean power as one of its expressions, we must question which contradictions the crisis potentiates and where they can be addressed. This is the only way to answer the difficult question of what to do. The organic crisis of capitalism (and capital) and the crisis of bourgeois hegemony have potentialized an environmental crisis of massive proportions. The destruction generated by capturing and using fossil energy sources, the accumulation of nonrecyclable waste, pollution in cities and the devastation of forests worsen and contribute to the climate change in process due to the natural movement of the planet. The climate change that is taking place will in itself require a major change in the way social wealth is produced due to the need to shift energy sources. It will also require displacement of populations, new forms of housing, use of water and farming land. This issue was emerging strongly in the ideological debate, just as the rebellion of women proved to increasingly gain force and potential. Whether directly related to the environmental or laboratory creation crisis, in the end of 2019, the most serious pandemic in the last hundred years began in China. This is another important feature of the destructive historical phase humanity is in, which would be called barbarism by Vico. The COVID-19 pandemic point towards the enormous insufficiencies of the health sector in most countries, worsened by the privatization of conditions for prevention and health preservation. Poverty added to health care weakness greatly intensifies the pandemic. The financial crisis that had started showing us its ugly face tends to be explosive. The reduction in the production of goods is the last element

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to point towards the devastating crisis of capital. With the pandemic, transportation was greatly affected, especially in aviation. With the limitation in transportation and displacements, tourism collapses, as well as the entire service area, such as hotels, bars and restaurants. state intervention to try to create an equation between restricting the number of deaths and avoiding a situation of coma for trading goods becomes inevitable. But in the meantime, big capital does not rest, mergers and the acquisitions/sales of companies continue to head towards an even greater concentration of socially produced wealth. The popular masses perceive the importance of public services clearly and governments cannot stop intervening, in one way or another, in the economy and health sector. Some type of planning must occur. These are elements that are in the opposite direction of neoliberal catechism. The duration of the pandemic and action of governments to fight it, as well as the reaction of popular masses, may indicate elements for what will come ahead. In China, where the pandemic was originated, it seems that actions from social and political institutions were quick and efficient. Vietnam is also a clear example of this. South Korea and Japan also reacted quickly. Speed to adopt social isolation measures was a favorable factor as well as the presence of a reasonable and public health infrastructure. The pandemic has already brought changes that may be long-lasting, such as restrictions on displacements and transportation, a new emphasis on remote contact, separation and isolation of workers, with more professionals fulfilling their work obligations at home or in small facilities. Appropriate technologies will be created and deployed. The circulation of goods by delivery methods should continue to expand. The result will be an even greater fragmentation and control of work, but millions of new machines/merchandises will be built and distributed in the market. The exacerbation of neoliberal policies, with the deepening of privatism in health and education, as well as in the production and storage of knowledge, water, and energy sources will continue to increase the mass of destitute and unemployed, or partially employed, individuals. The intermittent rebellion of these masses will increase the nightmares of the powerful, but it could also contribute to a greater strengthening of the police state and even a war context. The invasion of private life, and individuality, will also reach a new level with social isolation. The occupations in private life begin are accumulated with the social work occupations. There is a profound change in social spatiality: public and private spheres share the same territory;

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the architecture of the house must change. There will thus be a drastic change in Education: remote contact, distance learning, robots, to reduce the importance and role of the teacher, which will thus have an accentuated precarious employment situation. Cultural regression must also be accentuated. The pandemic accentuates and speeds up the prevailing trend of a very serious capitalist crisis, a financial crisis (in the banks), a fiscal crisis in the state, an industry crisis (which does not find consumers). From a capital perspective, overcoming the crisis involves greater technological innovation and greater labor subordination. Here, the question above about the possibility of governing bourgeois hegemony with a neoliberal shell can be answered. And the most reasonable conclusion is that in the organic crisis of capital the tendency is the disintegration of the historical bloc of bourgeoisie and its hegemony, from which it appears that its predominant ideology, neoliberalism, showed strength to delay the crisis, but not to reorganize hegemony as a more advanced and democratic bourgeois civilization. On the contrary, it led to the crisis of bourgeois democracy and made barbarism advance (where the so-called post-modern ideologies are present). This means that we live in an organic crisis era, with barbarism, that is, the disintegration of a certain societal format, of the production relations, political structures, values and predominant ideology. In the history of Europe, we have examples of the crises in the third and fourteenth centuries, as moments of crisis with disintegration, and the crisis in the seventeenth century is an example of a creative crisis, creative barbarism, which, from England, would enable capitalism and the historical bourgeois bloc. The current crisis is, therefore, a destructive barbarism, which awaits a possible creative phase.

From One Barbarism to Another This is a reflection clearly inspired by Vico (1744), an author who is part of the Italian historicist tradition and who strongly influenced Gramsci, two centuries later. Vico considered that the age of men is guided by intelligence and reason, but also by the social conflict between men who believe themselves to be noble and men who are seen as bestial. However, the plebeians are the ones who bring about historical changes. When the pressure of the plebeians is insufficient to change the state, the age of men enters barbarism, because reflection (among intellectuals of the

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ruling class), with the distortion of common sense, loses its fantasy, and the notion of productive work depreciates itself in lust, greed and deceit. Perhaps this would be the lowest circle in hell (Vico 1744, 2006: 1106 665, Paragraph/page). In fact, the technological barbarism of the beginning of the century can very well be seen in Vico’s vision, just as it can be seen in Gramsci’s suggestion of the organic crisis. Both authors contribute to understanding our time and the direction in which we must develop political action. We are thus in a deep hegemony crisis, which tends to look for a way out in Caesarian powers, with the reinforcement of the police state. It is difficult to propose a democratic solution to the crisis of hegemony that is now deepening with the overlapping of a sanitary and environmental crisis as well as the political economic crisis that has been developing for some time. Although the correlation of forces is extremely unfavorable and a democratic rupture lowering or even significantly limiting capitalist power is not on the horizon, elements of self-organization and self-education of the masses can be seen in the pandemic context as well as the consequent worsening of the socioeconomic crisis. The lack of public health care is even more visible, as is the result of the privatization actions in health. The concern that government has to preserve capital gains against human lives under strong viral attack is also more visible. The popular reaction occurs through strikes, with the establishment of self-defense commands in neighborhoods and cities, in solidarity to those affected by the virus or unemployment. The greater importance upon goods for personal use and common use good is perceived. The notion of the importance of social planning gains momentum and governments— more or less—are noticeably worried about the risks that scorching gains in big capital are subject to, while small and medium commerce withers. This and much more happens, but in a situation where disaggregation predominates, where the ideological decline in capital is noticeable but it is still largely predominant. The harmonious articulation between economic liberalism and political liberalism that seemed to work well in the 1980s and 1990s of the last century, now clearly demonstrates that economic liberalism has taken to the extreme calls for a Caesarean power, which brings back the memory of fascism in the twentieth century. Not to mention ideological outbreaks without any scientific basis which are even anti-scientific, outbreaks of clearly reactionary religious ideologies, a melting pot that contributes to the maintenance of capital’s class power.

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Not only trade, but also the virus has contributed to unite humanity, and both allow us to realize that humanity is very unequal, as not everyone is affected in the same way, not everyone can face the tribulations and threats in the same way, with the same force. The dominant groups do not lack resources and reserves, there is no lack in medical assistance, but for the enormous contingents that make up subaltern social groups, poverty and disease are less than a step away. Finally, this is the scenario of barbarism which is increasingly evident to a greater number of people. An epoch that can be long-lasting and even threaten the survival of the human species. Homo differentiated itself as a genus when it became a predator of other species and the natural environment. When man erected culture as second nature, the contradiction between these two “natures” developed, pushed to the limit with capitalism. Today, however, the biosphere has reached its limit and humanity is facing an unprecedented challenge and must face a very large leap, which is not being a predator anymore. For man, this mutation, of course, has a cultural characteristic. It takes a moment of catharsis, of awareness towards the tragedy that the environmental crisis and pandemic lead to. Catharsis implies the purification of the spirit amidst tragedy’s impact. It means going beyond the certainties of the past and preparing for a new mobilizing myth, a collective knowledge (general intellect) capable of building a new world. Until the advance of knowledge, collectively appropriated, dissolves the myth and establishes the new historical bloc guided by the philosophy of praxis (which is strictly a non-philosophy). Gramsci considered this creative and innovative myth to be the Modern Prince, “a complex element of society in which the fulfillment of a collective will is recognized and partially affirmed through action has already begun” (Gramsci 1975: 13 1 1558). This element, in Gramsci’s view, is the process in which the working mass becomes a class and a party, in the course of the class struggle. However, today, amidst the organic crisis of capital, and full barbarism, this complex element is much more complex and the fulfillment of a collective, national, regional, or global will only exists through dispersed cells. The demand will be that humanity in the process of unification, begins managing the planet, replacing what it takes, manufacturing the necessary goods for use and nothing else. Planning will be essential for the conversion of the production process. Public authorities must consider education, health, transport, and clean and renewable energy as essential

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elements. Reducing the large urban areas and ensuring that agricultural production considers and protects biodiversity, with the help of vegetarian and regionally adapted food habits. Finally, let a new story begin.

Gramsci’s Edition in Italian

1. Gramsci’s Letters Gramsci, Santucci, Gramsci, Santucci,

Antonio 1992, Lettere (1908–1926), edited by Antonio A. Turim: Einaudi. Antonio 1996, Lettere dal carcere, edited by Antonio A. 2vols., Palermo: Sellerio.

2. Gramsci’s Pre-Prison Writings Gramsci, Antonio 1973, Scritti politici 3 v., edited by Paolo Spriano, Toma: Riuniti. Gramsci, Antonio 1982, La Città futura, edited by Sergio Caprioglio, Turin: Einaudi. Gramsci, Antonio 1971, La costruzione del partito comunista. 1923– 1926, edited by Elsa Fubini, Turin: Einaudi. Gramsci, Antonio 1980, Cronache torinesi, edited by Sergio Caprioglio, Turin: Einaudi. Gramsci, Antonio 1984, Il nostro Marx, edited by Sergio Caprioglio, Turin: Einaudi. Gramsci, Antonio 1987, L’Ordine Nuovo. 1919–1920, edited by Sergio Caprioglio and Antonio A. Santucci, Turin: Einaudi. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Del Roio, Gramsci and the Emancipation of the Subaltern Classes, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90777-8

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Gramsci, Antonio 1974, Per la verità. Scritti 1913–1926, edited by Renzo Martinelli, Rome: Editori Riuniti. Gramsci, Antonio 1971, Socialismo e fascismo. L’Ordine Nuovo. 1921– 1922, Turin: Editori Einaudi. Gramsci, Antonio 2015–, Scritti. 1910–1926, 2. 1917. Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, edited by Leonardo Rapone, with the collaboration of Maria Luisa Righi and the contribute of Benedetta Garzarelli. Gramsci, Antonio 2019, Scritti (1910–1926) 1 1910–1916, edited by Giuseppe Guida e Maria Luisa Righi, Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana. 3. Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks Gramsci, Antonio 1975, Quaderni del carcere, edited by Valentino Gerratana, 4 vols., Turin: Einaudi. Gramsci, Antonio 2007–, Quaderni del carcere, Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana (published so far: 1. Quaderni di traduzioni (1929– 1932), edited by Giuseppe Cospito and Gianni Francioni, 2 vols., Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana 2007. 2. Quaderni miscellanei (1929–1935), edited by Giuseppe Cospito, Gianni Francioni and Fabio Frosini, vol. 1, Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana 2017.

Gramsci’s Editions in English

1. Gramsci’s Pre-Prison Writings Gramsci, Antonio 1975, History, Philosophy and Culture in the Young Gramsci, edited and translated by Pedro Cavalcanti and Paul Piccone, St. Louis: Telos Press. Gramsci, Antonio 1994, Pre-Prison Writings, edited by Richard Bellamy, translated by Virginia Cox, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gramsci, Antonio 1977, Selections from Political Writings, 1910– 1920, edited and translated by Quintin Hoare and John Mathews, London/Minneapolis: Lawrence and Wishart/University of Minnesota Press. Gramsci, Antonio 1978, Selections from Political Writings, 1921–1926, edited and translated by Quintin Hoare, London/Minneapolis: Lawrence and Wishart/University of Minnesota Press. 2. Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks Gramsci, Antonio 1995, Further Selections from the Prison Notebooks, edited and translated by Derek Boothman, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Del Roio, Gramsci and the Emancipation of the Subaltern Classes, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90777-8

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Gramsci, Antonio 1992–, Prison Notebooks, edited by Joseph A. Buttigieg, translated by Joseph A. Buttigieg and Antonio Callari, New York: Columbia University Press. Gramsci, Antonio 1971, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, edited and translated by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, New York: International Publishers. ∗ ∗ ∗ I – Antonio Gramsci’s references in this book. 1. Scritti Politici (1910–1926). Roma: editori Riuniti, 3 v., 1973 (a cura di Paolo Spriano) Volume I a. Neutralità attiva ed operante. Il Grido del Popolo, 31-10-1914. b. Socialismo e cultura. Il Grido del Popolo, 29-01-1916. c. Uuomini o machine? Avanti, 24-12-1916. d. Carattere. Il Grido del Popolo, 03-03-1917. e. Notte sula rivoluzione russa. Il Grido del Popolo, 29-04-1917. f. I massimalisti russi. Il Grido del Popolo, 28-07-1917. g. La rivoluzione contro “Il capitale”. Il Grido del Popolo, 05-011918. h. Costituente e soviet. Il Grido del Popolo, 26-01-1918. i. Utopia. Avanti, 25-07-1918. j. L’opera di Lenin. Il Grido del Popolo, 14-09-1918. k. L’organizzazione econômica e il socialismo. Il Grido del Popolo, 12-01-1918. l. Per um’associazione di cultura. Avanti, 12-12-1917. m. Cultura e lotta di classe. Il Grido del Popolo, 25-05-1918. n. Analogie e metafore. Il Grido del Popolo, 15-09-1917. o. La critica critica. Il Grido del Popolo, 12-01-1918. p. La intransigenza di classe e la storia italiana. Il Grido del Popolo, 18-05-1918. q. Il dovere di essere forti. Avanti. 25-11-1918. Volume II a. Socialisti e anarchici. L’Ordine Nuovo, 20 e 27-09-1919.

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Volume III a. Necissità di una preparazione ideológica di massa (scritto nel maggio del 1925, pubblicato in Lo Stato operaio del marzo-aprile 1931. 2. L’Ordine Nuovo (1919–1920). Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 1954. a. Democrazia operaia. ON, 21-06-1919, I, n. 07. b. Il consiglio di fabrica. ON, 05-06-1920, II, n. 04. c. Cronache xxxv. ON, 09-10-1920, II, n. 17. d. L’Internazionale Comunista. ON, 24-05-1919, I, 03. e. La Germania e la pace. ON, 21-06-1919, I. n. 07. f. La conquista dello Stato, ON, 26-07-1919, I, n. 11. g. Dopo la vittoria dei mettalurgici, Avanti, 29-09-1919, xxiii n. 269. h. Sindacalismo e consigli. ON, 08-09-1919, I, n. 25. i. I rivoluzionari e le elezioni, ON, 15-11-1919, I, n. 26. j. La relazione Tasca e il congresso camerale di Torino, ON, 0506-1920, II, n. 04. k. Il Partito Comunista. ON, 04-09-1920, II, n. 15 e ON, 09-101920, II, n. 17. l. Lo Stato e il socialismo. ON, 28-06-1919/05-07-1919, I, n. 05. m. Cronache xxxii. ON, 21-08-1920, II, n. 13. n. Cronache viii. ON, 16-08-1919, I, n. 14. o. Il rivoluzionario qualificato. ON. 20-12-1919, I, n. 30. p. Cronache xxxvii. ON. 4-12-20, II, n. 21. q. Primo: rinovare il partito ON 24 e 31-01-1920, II, n. 35. r. Per un rinnovamento del partito socialista. ON. 08-05-1920, II, n. 01. s. Operai e contadini. ON. 02-08-1919, I, n. 12. 3. Socialismo e Fascismo (1921–1922). Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 1974. a. “Bergsoniano”. ON. 02-01-1920, I, n. 02. b. Un monito. ON. 15-01-1921, I, n. 15. c. La rivoluzione in Germania. ON 30-03-1921, I, n. 89. d. Le masse a i capi ON 30-10-1921, I, n. 302. e. Il sostegno dello Stato, ON 13-11-1921, I, n. 306. f. La sostanza della crisi. ON 05-02-1922, II, n. 36.

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4. La costruzione del Partito comunista (1923–1926). Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 1978. a. Intervento al Comitato Centrale, l’Unità 17-07-1924. I, n. 133. b. La crisi italiana ON 01-09-1924, sIII, I, n. 05. c. La volontà delle masse L’Unità, 14-06-1925, II, 144. d. Origini e scopi dela legge sulle associazioni secrete. L’Unitá 2305-1925, II, n. 177. e. Ancora delle capacitá organiche della classe operaia. L’Unità 0110-1926, III, n. 233. f. Capo ON marzo 1924, sIII, I, n. 01. g. Dopo la conferenza di Como. Lo Stato operaio. 05-05-1924, II, n. 19. h. Il programa del “L’Ordine Nuovo”. ON. 01 a 15-04-1924., sIII, n. 3e4. i. La scuola di partito. ON, 01-04-1925, sIII, II, n. 02. j. Introduzione al primo Corso della scuola interna del Partito (documento interno, aprile-maggio 1925). k. La vitta della scuola. (documento interno, luglio 1925). l. Il congresso di Lione (documento interno, gennaio 1926). 5. Per la verità: scritti (1913–1926) (a cura di R. Martinelli). Roma: Riuniti, 1964. 6. Disgregazione sociale e rivoluzione: scritti sul Mezzogiorno (a cura di Francesco Biscione). Napoli: Liguori, 1995. 7. Lettere (1908–1926), edited by Antonio A. Santucci, Turim: Einaudi, Gramsci, 1992. 8. Lettere del carcere. Palermo: Sallerio editore, 2v., 1996. 9. Quaderni del carcere. Torino: Einaudi editore, 4 t, 1975 (a cura di Valentino Gerratana). ∗ ∗ ∗ Luxemburg, Rosa. Scritti politici (a cura di Lelio Basso). Roma: Editori Riuniti, 1976. a. Riforma o rivoluzione. b. Problemi di organizzazione della socildemocrazia russa. c. Sciopero di massa, partito e sindacato. d. La rivoluzione russa.

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e. Discorso sul programma. f. La crisi della socialdemocrazia. Luxemburg, Rosa. Scritti scelte (a cura di Luciano Amodio). Roma: Edizioni Avanti, 1963. a. Ristagno e progresso nel marxismo.

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Index

A abstentionist principle, 56, 248 agrarian bourgeoisie, 154 agrarian-industrial bloc, 172 Americanism, 148–152, 155, 156, 171, 192, 214, 227, 272, 290 Americanism-Fordism, 150, 151, 155, 173, 176, 178, 225, 226, 228, 288 antagonism, 8, 14–16, 19–21, 24–27, 31, 35, 40, 43, 54, 66, 74, 138, 164, 175, 186, 228, 287 anti-parliament, 253 anti-state, 238, 240 aristocracy, 30, 93, 160, 179, 255, 278 Artificial Intelligence, 294 autocracy, 71, 112 automation, 159 autonomy, 8, 9, 14–16, 19, 20, 26, 31, 34, 44, 51, 54, 66, 110, 113, 154, 173, 186, 199, 214, 266, 285, 287, 292

B barbarism, 41, 49, 88–90, 133, 165, 181, 294, 297, 299, 301 biosphere, 301 Bolshevik, 16, 24, 45, 46, 53, 58, 59, 69, 72, 73, 76, 79, 113, 199, 238, 269 Bolshevik Party, 72, 124, 239 Bolshevism, 52, 70, 71, 78, 123, 192, 249 Bourbon restoration, 136 bourgeois civil society, 179, 222, 260 bourgeois culture, 15, 18, 61, 63, 86, 111, 189, 211, 212, 234 bourgeois democracy, 18, 20, 52, 188, 204, 215, 242, 243, 260, 295, 296, 299 bourgeois hegemony, 9, 28, 32, 39, 48, 101, 117, 140, 147, 148, 153, 155, 159, 179, 206, 213, 223, 225, 257, 299 bourgeois revolution, 9, 15, 20, 30, 44, 71, 77, 95, 112, 116, 117,

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Del Roio, Gramsci and the Emancipation of the Subaltern Classes, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90777-8

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318

INDEX

135, 137–139, 148, 169–171, 175, 207, 223, 278 bourgeois state, 25, 27, 28, 30, 40, 42, 48, 50–52, 111, 181, 189, 209, 238, 241, 247 British Communist Party, 2, 3 bureaucracy, 20, 58, 76, 111, 148, 176, 203, 269

C Caesarean power, 146, 300 Caesarism, 138, 225, 296 capitalist contradiction, 288, 293 catharsis , 64, 125, 301 Catholic ideology, 110 centrality of labor, 266 civil hegemony, 37, 84, 139, 164, 222 civilization, 34, 35, 82, 89, 133, 152, 202, 227, 235, 299 civil society, 85, 101, 103, 138, 140, 149, 152–154, 157, 161, 176, 178, 209, 215, 221, 222, 230, 263, 280 class and party, 133, 233, 236, 257, 258, 260 class consciousness, 66, 73, 78, 242 class government, 243 cognitive capital, 159 collective intellectual, 123, 178, 195, 254 collective national/popular will, 117, 256 collective will, 21, 82, 104, 106, 107, 121, 122, 125–127, 137, 210, 229, 256–258, 273, 301 colonial zone, 275, 276, 288 colonization, 161 common sense, 5, 87–91, 93, 94, 97, 98, 102, 108, 214, 277, 286, 297, 300 communication technologies, 260

Communist International (Comintern), 7, 30, 32, 49, 50, 58, 65, 70, 75, 79, 192, 205, 218, 247, 249, 250, 252, 267 communist refoundation, 15, 16, 26, 38 computerization, 132, 159, 259 condition of subalternity, 277 conscious direction, 64, 98, 137, 211 Constituent Assembly, 24, 45, 46, 52, 72, 113 contractual institutions, 204, 243 Corporate state, 176 correspondence course, 194, 206 correspondence school, 193, 196–198, 252 councils, 24–26, 47, 48, 50, 67, 110, 190, 216, 239, 245, 266, 288 counter-reform, 293 covid-19 pandemic, 297 crisis of capital, 9, 14, 134, 158, 165, 181, 291, 293, 296, 301 crisis of hegemony, 156, 296, 297, 300 crisis of representation, 296 cultural reform, 100, 213 cultural regression, 260, 293, 299 cultural revolution, 82, 204, 274 Cultural Studies , 4 custom, 43, 44, 88, 99, 202, 227, 292

D debate on revisionism, 8, 94 democracy, 18, 21, 24, 27, 46, 66, 102, 160, 236 democracy of producers, 50 democratic centralization, 22 democratic republic, 23, 24, 96, 122 developmentalism, 174 direct democracy, 51

INDEX

E ecclesial power, 168 economic-corporate phase, 225, 280 economic-corporate vision, 229 economic-corporative, 156 economic determinism, 64, 65, 105 economic reform, 85, 107, 213, 229 economism, 45, 65, 274, 279 educating party, 191, 205 education, 9 education of the masses, 18, 34, 38, 42, 47, 195, 198, 205, 206, 240, 242, 274, 300 empire of capital, 133, 162, 163, 179, 295 environmental catastrophe, 165 environmental devastation, 166 environmentalism, 131 ethical-political history, 83, 220 Eurocommunist, 215 European historic bloc, 140

F factory council, 27, 29, 31, 49, 51, 53–56, 73, 96, 110, 114, 188, 189, 203, 218, 239, 243, 248, 258, 268, 288 fascism, 65, 76, 141, 147, 151 feminism, 131 feudal regression, 110, 118, 123, 225 feudal serfdom, 120, 154, 155, 160 financial capital, 53, 150, 151, 159, 176 financialization, 132, 162 folklore, 99, 264, 270, 272, 274, 275, 277, 286, 287, 290 Fordism, 76, 148–150, 282, 290 Fordist Americanism, 152, 281, 290 Fordist working class, 156, 259, 282 French Jacobinism, 106, 107, 110, 116, 211

319

French Revolution, 8, 37, 82, 91, 93, 101, 116, 123, 135, 136, 141, 150, 169, 171, 210, 278

G general intellect, 261, 294, 301 general strike, 19, 21, 50, 64, 94, 106, 111, 126, 256, 274 German classical philosophy, 81, 82, 106, 167 German philosophy, 63, 72, 81, 210, 212 globalization, 3, 14, 131, 158, 180, 292 Gramsci, Antonio, 4, 170

H hegemony, 1, 29, 30, 59, 80, 83, 101, 118, 127, 155, 179, 208, 220, 221, 226, 282 hegemony crisis, 141, 157, 300 hegemony of the proletariat, 219, 253 historical bloc, 88, 90, 91, 102, 103, 106, 165, 212, 221, 236, 257, 279, 296, 301 historicism, 87, 91, 118, 141 human emancipation, 146, 166, 209, 214 humanist education, 185 human sociability, 132, 212, 214

I immigrant, 174 imperial capital, 133 imperialism, 7, 14, 32, 34, 40, 73, 132, 134, 156, 163, 172 imperialist war, 16, 24, 39, 139, 146, 151, 185, 225 industrial power, 53 industrial reserve army, 294

320

INDEX

informational revolution, 159 integral school, 213 intellectual and moral reform, 8, 38, 82, 83, 85, 87, 88, 90, 91, 93, 95, 101, 104, 168, 215, 229, 277, 281 intellectual progress of the masses, 202, 209, 281 intransigent, 237 Italian Communist Party, 3, 56, 58, 69, 75, 114, 145, 190

J Jacobinism, 6, 8, 43, 71, 116, 123, 236, 278 Jacobinism-Blanquism, 66 jusnaturalism, 118

L labor civil society, 239, 258, 260 labor school, 51, 188, 189, 192, 198, 199, 204 Leninism, 70 liberal economism, 228 liberal intellectuals, 192 liberalism, 15, 20, 29, 66, 93, 100, 101, 110, 149, 198, 300 liberal state, 122, 152, 227 living philology, 34, 103 L’Ordine Nuovo, 26, 49, 73, 75, 114, 115, 185, 186, 188, 189, 193, 203, 205, 243, 251 Lorianism, 287

M maneuvered war, 37, 65, 84, 143, 145 Marxism, 4, 7, 34, 35, 60, 61, 105, 212 Marx, Karl, 7

mass education, 40 Massimalists, 71 mass intellectual progress, 38, 99, 105, 212 mass migration, 151 mass party, 159, 252, 253, 256 mass strike, 20–22, 26, 63, 242 mechanistic materialism, 36 medieval communes, 225 mercantile bourgeoisie, 120 meridional agrarian bloc, 219 meridional intellectual bloc, 271 meridionalism, 71, 270 meridional issue, 92 meridional peasantry, 264, 268 meridional problem, 78 meridional question, 97, 170, 193, 267–269, 271 migration, 174, 175, 294 military industry, 162 moderates, 117, 170, 223 modern industrial society, 55, 115 modernity, 93, 118, 275 Modern Prince, 83, 104, 107, 108, 123, 124, 127, 181, 256, 257, 301 mondialization, 131 myth, 8, 89, 94, 104, 107, 111, 124–126, 236, 256, 258, 260, 301 N national autonomy, 177 nationalism, 93, 148, 162, 174 nationalist ideology, 39, 41 national-popular, 70, 223, 278 Neapolitan revolution, 91, 135, 151, 169 neo-idealism, 41, 71, 234 neo-Kantianism, 18, 61, 111 new civilization, 35, 38, 152, 166, 227, 281

INDEX

new culture, 60, 96, 111, 112, 185, 186, 189, 198, 200, 212, 218, 281, 288 New Economic Policy (NEP), 57, 79, 84, 145, 217, 220, 247 new hegemony, 30, 38, 85, 98, 102, 104, 106, 107, 179, 180, 209, 212, 218, 253, 257, 273, 281, 290 new human type, 226, 281 New Left Review, 3 New Political Economy (NPE), 80, 163 new state, 27, 30, 33, 50, 53, 86, 110, 111, 114, 121, 123, 170, 203, 221, 243, 279, 284 new subjectivity, 277 O objectivity, 125, 126 one meridionalism, 266 opportunism, 18, 235 organic crisis, 9, 132, 134, 165, 259, 297, 299 organic crisis of capital, 177, 181, 297, 299, 301 organic intellectuals, 177, 208, 229, 258, 277, 280, 284 organic scission, 23, 54, 56, 74, 190 P parasitic classes, 226 parasitic social strata, 226 parliamentary democracy, 190 party school, 193, 194, 255 passive global revolution, 132 passive revolution, 9, 85, 91, 101, 116, 118, 123, 134, 135, 137–139, 141–143, 145, 147, 150, 153, 155, 158, 164, 171, 207, 223

321

Past and Present , 2 Peace of Lodi, 119 peasant revolution, 270 people/nation, 122, 169, 176 peripheries, 153, 163, 165, 179, 180 permanent revolution, 34, 84, 85, 117, 134, 136, 137, 139, 143, 147, 151, 222, 223 philosophy of praxis, 7, 36, 38, 62, 63, 80, 82, 83, 102, 104, 108, 166, 167, 210, 214, 220, 284, 290, 301 political ethical moment, 64 political ethical state, 212 political hegemony, 217, 221, 228, 280 political praxis, 77, 123 popular creative spirit, 98, 108, 271, 272, 274, 287–289 popular culture, 3, 62, 90, 99, 202, 209, 211, 264, 272, 286, 288 popular movements, 176, 179, 295 popular national, 2, 84, 107, 156, 210 popular school, 197 positivism, 61, 93, 154, 212 positivist education, 204 post-modern condition, 132 power duality, 23, 253, 258 Prince, 82, 83 Prison Notebooks, 2, 148, 196, 208 producer’s autonomy, 26 professional union, 27, 50, 228 programmatic economics, 149 proletarian civilization, 55 proletarian democracy, 33, 244 proletarian dictatorship, 46, 51, 59, 242, 255 proletarian school, 195 proletarian state, 49, 196, 254 Protestant Reformation, 100, 211

322

INDEX

public administration, 185, 187, 189, 190, 209, 225 public services, 298 Puritanism, 150

R racialization, 166 racism, 260, 295, 297 radical historicism, 290 reflexive revolution, 169, 172 Reformation, 106, 209, 212, 288 reformism, 18, 19, 23, 34, 57, 59, 151, 205, 269 reformist theory, 15 regressive Caesarism, 225, 296 relativists, 237 religion of freedom, 234 religiosity, 150, 274, 277 religious reform, 95, 120, 291 renaissance, 93, 100, 168, 209 Republican Assembly of Workers and Peasants councils, 255 revolutionary party, 15, 24, 29, 32, 47, 73, 78, 107, 114, 115, 170, 190, 199, 247, 252, 267, 279 revolutionary process, 25, 27, 37, 40, 44, 47, 52, 56, 71, 85, 185, 199, 239, 243, 269 revolutionary syndicalism, 19, 20, 22, 247, 279 revolution-restoration, 136, 137, 143–145, 164, 170, 172, 225 Risorgimento, 91, 95, 101, 110, 116, 118, 123, 135–137, 149, 169, 223, 225 Roman antiquity, 225 ruling, 219 Russian Revolution, 8, 20, 22–24, 29, 46, 65, 71, 86, 111, 114, 147, 172 Russian revolution of 1917, 43

S school, 9, 188, 195, 197, 202, 207, 213, 256, 260 scission spirit , 32, 33, 43, 52, 54, 56, 66, 78, 96, 166, 258, 273 self-activity of the masses, 19, 20, 32, 276 self-education, 9, 38, 94, 181, 187, 188, 202, 206, 274 self-education of the workers, 51 self-emancipation, 188 self-governance, 14, 26, 27, 29, 189 social consensus, 82, 153, 154, 156 social democracy, 21, 24, 54, 56, 148, 155, 249, 260 social democratic state, 249 socialism, 2, 18, 46, 58, 93, 106, 127, 154, 178, 236 socialist revolution, 9, 16, 18, 20, 23–25, 33, 34, 58, 116, 152, 169, 193, 258, 282 socialist transition, 79, 80, 83, 84, 154, 156, 170, 178, 217, 290 Soviet, 46, 49, 70, 73, 124 Spartakus League, 49 spontaneity, 43, 47, 64, 126, 190, 279, 285 spontaneity, theory of, 64 state bureaucracy, 199, 203, 249, 269 state monopoly capitalism, 154, 217 State of exception, 295 state’s fiscal crisis, 160, 181 state socialism, 4, 48, 154, 157, 161, 162, 294 structural crisis, 291, 292, 297 structural crisis of capital, 133 structural unemployment, 294 subaltern classes, 3, 64, 99, 117, 123, 153, 163, 173, 176, 178, 179, 181, 260, 265, 270, 272, 273, 277, 283, 290 subaltern class ideology, 63, 100, 104

INDEX

subaltern groups, 80, 271, 275, 281–285, 290 subjectivity, 9, 29, 120, 125, 126, 172, 228, 233, 277 superstructure of civil society, 208 syndicalist economism, 228 T Taylor method, 226 Taylor system, 197, 206 technical-scientific education, 185, 217 technical-scientific revolution, 159 technological barbarism, 165, 260, 300 technological innovation, 163, 260, 292–294, 299 territorial states, 119, 278 total imperialism, 177 toyotism, 163, 292 trade unions, 37 traditional intellectuals, 180, 221, 269, 280 transition state, 188, 203, 212, 213 translatability, 5, 6, 167, 170 translating languages, 77, 167 transnational corporations, 131 "translation" problem, 82 U Unified Workers’ Center, 176 unipolar empire, 162

323

unitary school, 83, 213, 214 united front, 31, 77, 84, 140, 218, 247 V vanguard education, 194 vivant philology, 87 W war of maneuver, 65 war of movement, 84, 85, 136, 139, 140, 144, 145, 147, 222, 258 war of position, 23, 84, 139, 143, 156, 222, 258, 259 worker councils, 47 worker-peasant alliance, 30, 58, 77, 79, 97, 168, 180, 205, 217, 268–270, 276, 281, 289 workers, 30 workers’ and peasants’ committees, 253, 255 workers’ autonomy, 148, 190 workers’ democracy, 27, 50, 187, 190, 266 workers’ hegemony, 154, 213, 214, 227, 228 workers’ party, 28, 29, 48, 53, 56, 57, 111, 176, 230, 245, 260 working class, 9, 17, 27, 29, 32, 54, 63, 97, 123, 143, 175, 190, 198, 217, 240, 248, 257, 269, 279, 293