Antonio Gramsci 1921
Elemental forces
Unsigned, L'Ordine Nuovo, 26 April 1921
Text from Antonio Gramsci "Selections from political writings (1921-1926)", translated and edited by Quintin Hoare (Lawrence and Wishart, London 1978). Transcribed to the www with the kind permission of Quintin Hoare.
In an interview with the Le Temps correspondent,
Hon. Giolitti has solemnly declared that he wants order to be
re-established at all costs. The government has summoned the
general who commands the carabinieri, the commander of
the royal guards, the chief of the general staff-, and all the
army corps commanders: the matter has been discussed, the
necessary measures will be taken. With what means? Within what
limits? Is it possible for the government, even if it wanted, to
take the necessary measures? The circulars and meetings of the
government are accompanied by orders, appeals and excommunications
from the fascist authorities, who are also seriously concerned by
the turn which events are taking and by the inevitable
counter-blows. But it does no-. seem that even these authorities,
highly "respected and feared" though they be, are succeeding in
winning much obedience from the rank and file of their
followers. Just as there does not exist a political State, just as
there no longer exist any cohesive bonds of morale or discipline
in the organisms and between the individuals who make up the State
machine, so there exist no cohesion or discipline in the fascist
"organization" either - in the unofficial State which today can at
will dispose of the lives and property of the Italian nation.
It has now become obvious that fascism can only be partially
interpreted as a class phenomenon, as a movement of political
forces conscious of a real aim. It has spread, it has broken every
possible organizational framework, it is above the wishes and
proposals of any central or regional Committee, it has become an
unchaining of elemental forces which cannot be restrained under
the bourgeois system of economic and political government. Fascism
is the name of the farreaching decomposition of Italian society,
which could not but accompany the decomposition of the State, and
which today can only be explained by reference to the low level of
civilization which the Italian nation had been able to attain in
these last sixty years of unitary administration.
Fascism has presented itself as the anti-party; has opened its
gates to all applicants; has with its promise of impunity enabled
a formless multitude to cover over the savage outpouring of
passions, hatreds and desires with a varnish of vague and nebulous
political ideals. Fascism has thus become a question of social
mores: it has become identified with the barbaric and anti-social
psychology of certain strata of the Italian people which have not
yet been modified by a new tradition, by education, by living
together in a well-ordered and well administered State. To
understand the full force of these assertions, it is enough to
recall: that Italy holds first place for murders and bloodshed;
that Italy is the country where mothers educate their infant
children by hitting them on the head with clogs - it is the
country where the younger generations are least respected and
protected; that in certain Italian regions it seemed natural until
a few years ago to put muzzles on grapepickers, so that they would
not eat the grapes; and that in certain regions the landowners
locked their labourers up in sheds when the workday was over, to
prevent meetings or attendance at evening classes.
The class struggle has always assumed an extremely harsh
character in Italy, as a result of this "human" immaturity of
certain strata of the population. Cruelty and the lack of
simpatia are two traits peculiar to the Italian people,
which passes from childish sentimentality to the most brutal and
bloody ferocity, from passionate anger to cold-blooded
contemplation of other people's ills. The State, though still
frail and uncertain in its most vital functions, was with
difficulty gradually succeeding in breaking up this semi-barbaric
terrain. Today, after the decomposition of the State, every kind
of miasma pullulates upon it. There is much truth in the assertion
of the fascist papers that not all those who call themselves
fascists and operate in the name of the fasci belong to the
organization. But what is to be said of an organization whose
symbol can be used to cover actions of the nature of those which
disgrace Italy daily? The assertion, moreover, endows these events
with a very much more serious and decisive character than those
who write in the bourgeois papers would like to accord them. Who
will be able to check them, if the State is incapable and the
private organizations are impotent?
Thus we can see that the communist thesis is
justified. Fascism, as a general phenomenon, as a scourge which
transcends the will and the disciplinary means of its exponents -
with its violence, with its monstrous and arbitrary actions, with
its destruction at once systematic and irrational - can be
extirpated only by a new State power, by a 11 restored" State in
the sense which the communists understand this term, in other
words by a State whose power is in the hands of the proletariat,
the only class capable of reorganizing production and therefore
all the social relations which depend on the relations of
production.