Antonio Gramsci 1921
The agrarian struggle in italy
Unsigned, L'Ordine Nuovo, 31 August 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.
As the policy being pursued by the landowners in Italy becomes
more and more clearly defined, its significance for the workers
grows accordingly. The landowners are not just arbiters of the
situation in the countryside; indeed, this precisely serves them
for other purposes, which are less well known, but far more
important from the point of view of their class interests. It is a
fact that the landowners today own the banks. To own the banks
means, in a word, to hold in one's hands also the destiny of
industry. This is how the working class is directly tied to the
peasant class, and why the city proletariat must follow
attentively all that happens among the workers on the land. The
landowners, crushing the peasantry, aim also to obtain the
subjugation of the city workers.
In this sense, when speaking of the rural fascism which is
centred on the Bologna region, we have always maintained that the
workers cannot be indifferent to the way in which the crisis of
fascism is resolved. If the peasants continue to be terrorized in
the countryside, the workers in their turn will feel the effects
of this state of affairs. On the other hand, it is not just
violence in the countryside which determines the crisis in the
cities. Industry will only be able to take on a normal
development, when it is freed from the influence of these
adventurers from the land who have become captains of industry,
without any specific merit of their own. Can this take place
through an evolution of the State's internal policies,
i.e. without causing violent clashes and conflicts? The attempt of
the Popular Party to modify the relations between peasants and
landowners, by seeking to associate labour with capital, can only
be doomed to failure. The affair of the cancelled agricultural
contracts too shows the impotence of the Popular Party - and of
any other party which may follow in its tracks.
In comparison with the popolari, the landowner
deputies only represent a small minority. But the effective
strength of the landowner deputies in the actual spheres of
government surpasses that of the popolari. This is not
the place to speak again of the weakness of parliamentary
institutions. It is enough to demonstrate that what counts today
is not the number of deputies one may have, but the organized
strength which one possesses in the country. The landowners are,
in this respect, far stronger than the popolari. Does the
Treviso episode not tell us that the popolari are
prisoners of the landowners or, if not prisoners, impotent in the
face of their activity? In Treviso, a Popular newspaper was
destroyed; the actual headquarters of the Popular organizations
were stormed and sacked. But the popolari, although they
have several ministers in what is supposed to be the cabinet,
including to cap it all, the minister of justice, did not dare
take even the usual measures that are adopted for the most
ordinary crimes. Thus the popolari can only defend the
interests of the peasants up to a certain point. They can do so
only transitorily, i.e. until they come up against the interests
of the landowners. This is precisely the case with the
cancellations.
Minister Micheli has granted a postponement. This postponement
is also supported by the socialists. The attitude of the
landowners may drive the two parties - Popular and Socialist - to
adopt a clearer position in the sphere of parliamentary
collaboration. But this will not stop the landowners from having a
preponderant weight in determining the direction of domestic
policies. The landowners have direct means at their own disposal
for organizing their defence against the working class. They have
given proof of this with the organization of fascism in the
countryside. They can thus still impose their will upon the
peasantry when they want to, even when this means opposing
government decisions. Socialists and popolari may, for
electoral purposes, show that they are very concerned for the
welfare of the peasants. But they do not realize they cannot point
to any concrete way of preventing the landowners from carrying
through their plans.
The problem of the land is now coming back on to the agenda of
Italian politics. Everywhere, the peasant classes are in
ferment. A revolutionary party alone (and in Italy that means only
the Communist Party) can today understand this problem and fight
for a solution to it.
The problem of the land is the problem of revolution, which in
Italy is only possible if it coincides with the interests of the
peasants and workers. This coincidence is present today. As in
April 1920, today once more workers and peasants are united by a
common interest in the struggle against exploitation by the
employers. The problem of the Italian revolution, therefore, is
one of worker and peasant unity. It is essential that this
important aspect of the revolution in Italy should not escape the
communists.