Antonio Gramsci 1921
Socialists and fascists
Unsigned, L'Ordine Nuovo, 11 June 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.
The political position of fascism is determined by the following basic circumstances.
1. The fascists, in the six months of their militant activity,
have burdened themselves with an extremely heavy baggage of
criminal acts which will only remain unpunished as long as the
fascist organization is strong and feared.
2. The fascists have been able to carry on their activities
only because tens of thousands of functionaries of the State,
especially in the public security forces (police, royal guards,
carabinieri) and in the magistrature, have become their
moral and material accomplices. These functionaries know that
their impunity and their careers are closely linked to the
fortunes of the fascist organization, and they therefore have
every interest in supporting fascism in whatsoever attempt it may
make to consolidate its political position.
3. The fascists possess, spread throughout the national
territory, stocks of arms and ammunition in such quantities as to
be at least sufficient to create an army of half a million
men.
4. The fascists have organized a military-style hierarchical
system which finds its natural and organic apex in the general
staff.
It stands to reason that the fascists do not want to go to
prison, and that instead they want to use their strength - all the
strength which they have at their disposal - to remain unpunished
and to achieve the ultimate aim of every movement: to hold
political power.
What do the socialists and the leaders of the Confederation
intend to do to prevent the Italian people from being subjected to
the tyranny of the general staff, the great landowners and the
bankers? Have they fixed upon a plan? Do they have a programme? It
does not appear so. Might the socialists and the leaders of the
Confederation have fixed upon a 11 clandestine" plan? This would
be ineffective, because only an insurrection of the broad masses
can break a reactionary coup de force; and insurrections
of the broad masses, though they do need clandestine preparation,
also need legal, open propaganda to give them direction, orient
the spirit of the masses and prepare their consciousness.
The socialists have never seriously faced up to the possibility
of a coup d'état, or asked themselves what
provision they should make for defending themselves and going over
to the offensive. The socialists, accustomed as they are to
stupidly chewing over a few little pseudoMarxist formulae, reject
the idea of "voluntarist" revolutions, "hoping for miracles",
etc. etc. But if the insurrection of the proletariat were
imposed by the will of the reactionaries, who cannot have
"Marxist" scruples, how should the Socialist Party conduct itself
? Would it, without resistance, leave the victory to reaction? And
if the resistance was victorious, if the proletariat rose in arms
and defeated reaction, what slogan would the Socialist Party give:
to hand over their arms, or to carry the struggle through to the
end?
We believe that these questions, at this moment, are far from
being academic or abstract. It may be, it is true, that the
fascists, who are Italians, who have all the indecisiveness and
weakness of character of the Italian petty bourgeoisie, will
imitate the tactic followed by the socialists in the occupation of
the factories: that they will draw back and abandon to the
punitive justice of a government dedicated to the restoration of
legality those of their own who have committed crimes and their
accomplices. This may be the case. However, it is bad tactics to
put one's trust in the errors of one's enemies, and to imagine
one's enemies to be incapable and inept. Whoever has strength,
uses it. Whoever feels that he is in danger of going to prison,
will do the impossible to keep his freedom. A coup
d'état by the fascists, i.e. by the general staff, the
landowners and the bankers, is the menacing spectre which has hung
over this legislature from the start. The Communist Party has its
line: to launch the slogan of insurrection and lead the people in
arms to their freedom, guaranteed by the workers' State. What is
the slogan of the Socialist Party? How can the masses still trust
this party, which confines its political activity to groaning, and
proposes only to ensure that its deputies make "magnificent"
speeches in Parliament?