Antonio Gramsci 1924
Against pessimism
Unsigned, L'Ordine Nuovo, 15 March 1924.
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.
There can be no better way of commemorating the fifth
anniversary of the Communist International, of the great world
association of which we Italian revolutionaries feel ourselves
more than ever to be an active and integral part, than by carrying
out a self-examination: an examination of the little we have
achieved and of the immense amount that remains to be
accomplished. In this way we will help to clarify our
situation. In particular we will help to dissipate the dark
cloudbanks of heavy pessimism which are today oppressing even the
most experienced and responsible militants, and which represent a
great danger - perhaps the gravest at the present moment - because
of the political passivity, the intellectual torpor and the
scepticism towards the future which they produce.
This pessimism is closely linked to the general situation in
our country; the situation explains it, but of course does not
justify it. What difference would there be between us and the
Socialist Party, between our will and the tradition of that party,
if we too were only capable of working and were only actively
optimistic in the periods of the fat kine: when the situation is
propitious, when the working masses move spontaneously through
irresistible impulse, and when the proletarian parties can fall
comfortably back into the brilliant role of the coachfly? 122 What
would be the difference between us and the Socialist Party if we
too - even though for different reasons and with a different
viewpoint; and even though we had a greater sense of
responsibility, and showed that this was the case by our active
concern to prepare adequate organizational and material forces to
meet any eventuality - abandoned ourselves to fatalism? If we
cherished the sweet illusion that events cannot fail to unfold
according to a fixed line of development (the one foreseen by us),
in which they will inevitably find the system of dykes and canals
which we have prepared for them, be channelled by this system and
take historical form and power in it? This is the central knot of
the problem, which appears tangled in the most complicated way
because passivity has the outward appearance of brisk activity;
because there appears to be a line of development, a seam which
workers are meritoriously sweating and toiling away to
excavate.
The Communist International was founded on 5 March 1919, but
its ideological and organic formation occurred only at the Second
Congress, in July-August 1920, with approval of the Statutes and
with the 21 Conditions. It was after the Second Congress that the
campaign to restore the Socialist Party to health began in Italy -
began on a national scale that is, since it had already been
initiated in the previous March by the Turin section with the
resolution drawn up for the party's imminent National Council
meeting scheduled to be held precisely in Turin, but had produced
no significant repercussions. 121 (The Florence Conference of the
abstentionist faction, held in July 1920 before the Second World
Congress, rejected the proposal made by a representative of
L'Ordine Nuovo to enlarge the basis of the faction by
making it a communist one, without the abstentionist precondition
which in practice had lost much of its raison
d'être.) 124
The Livorno Congress, and the split which occurred there, were
related to the Second World Congress and its 21 Conditions. They
were presented as a necessary conclusion of the "formal"
proceedings of the Second Congress. This was an error, and today
we can appreciate its full extent by the consequences which it has
had. In reality, the proceedings of the Second World Congress were
a living interpretation of the Italian situation, as they were of
the world situation in general. But we, for a whole series of
reasons, did not determine our actions by what was happening in
Italy: by the Italian events which proved the Second Congress
correct; which were a part, and indeed one of the most important
parts, of the political reality which animated the decisions and
organizational measures taken by the Second Congress. Instead, we
limited ourselves to putting the emphasis on the formal questions,
those of pure logic and pure consistency. And we were defeated,
because the majority of the politically organized proletariat
disagreed with us and did not come with us - even though we had on
our side the authority and prestige of the International, which
were very great and on which we had relied.
We had not been capable of conducting a systematic campaign, of
a kind that could have reached all the nuclei and constitutive
elements of the Socialist Party and forced them to reflect. We had
not been capable of translating into language that could be
understood by every Italian worker and peasant, the significance
of each of the Italian events of the years 1919 and 1920. We were
not capable, after Livorno, of confronting the problem of why the
congress had had the outcome it did. We were not capable of
confronting the problem in practice, in such a way as to find the
solution; in such a way as to continue our specific mission, which
was to win the majority of the Italian people. We were - it must
be said - overtaken by events. Without wanting to be, we were an
aspect of the general dislocation of Italian society, which had
become a burning crucible in which all traditions, all historical
formations, all prevailing ideas were melted down, sometimes
leaving no trace. We had a consolation - which we embraced with
all our strength - in the thought that no one was escaping, but
that we could claim to have foreseen mathematically the cataclysm,
while the others were cherishing the most blissful and idiotic of
illusions.
After the Livorno split, we entered a state of necessity. This
is the only justification we can give to our attitudes and
activity after Livorno: the necessity which was crudely posed, in
the most intense way, in the dilemma of life or death. We had to
organize ourselves into a party in the flames of civil war,
cementing our sections with the blood of the most dedicated
militants. We had to transform our groups, in the very act of
their formation and recruitment, into detachments for guerrilla
war - for the most atrocious and difficult guerrilla war that a
working class has ever had to fight. Yet we succeeded: the party
was created and created strongly. It is a phalanx of steel, too
small certainly to go into battle against the forces of the enemy,
but enough to become the framework for a broader formation: for an
army which, to use Italian historical language, can ensure that
the battle on the Piave will follow the rout of Caporetto. 125
This is the problem which faces us today, inexorably: how to
form a great army for the forthcoming battles, based on the forces
which from Livorno to the present day have shown that they are
capable of resisting, without wavering or retreating, the attack
so violently unleashed by fascism. The development of the
Communist International since the Second Congress has provided us
with the appropriate terrain for this. It has interpreted once
again - with the proceedings of the Third and Fourth Congresses,
supplemented by those of the Enlarged Plenums of February and June
1922 and of June 1923 - the Italian situation and its needs. The
truth is that we, as a party, have already taken several steps
forward in this direction: it only remains for us to take note of
them and to proceed boldly.
What is the real significance of the events which have taken
place within the Socialist Party, first with the split from the
reformists, secondly with the expulsion of the Pagine
Rosse editorial group, and thirdly and finally with the
attempt to expel the entire third internationalist faction? They
have the following precise meaning. While our party as the Italian
section was forced to limit its activity to the physical struggle
of defence against fascism, and to the preservation of its
primordial structure, as an international party it was operating -
continuing to operate - to open new paths towards the future; to
enlarge the sphere of its political influence; and to shift a part
of the masses, who at first stood looking on indifferently or
hesitantly, from their position of neutrality. The activity of the
International was for a time the only activity which allowed our
party to have an effective contact with the broad masses, and
which preserved a ferment of discussion and the first stirrings of
movement in significant strata of the working class something
which it was impossible for us to achieve otherwise in the given
situation. It was undoubtedly a great success to have torn blocks
away from the Socialist Party matrix; and at the very moment when
the situation appeared worst to have managed to create nuclei,
from the amorphous socialist jelly, who declared that despite
everything they had faith in the world revolution: nuclei which,
in action if not in words (which are it seems more painful than
action), recognized that they had been wrong in 1920-21-22. This
was a defeat of fascism and reaction: it was, if we want to be
sincere, the only physical and ideological defeat of fascism and
reaction in the last three years of Italian history.
It is necessary to react forcefully against the pessimism of
certain groups within our party, including some of the most
responsible and experienced comrades. This represents the most
serious danger today, in the new situation which is emerging in
our country and which will find its sanction and clarification in
the first fascist legislature. Big struggles are
imminent,. perhaps yet more bloody and arduous than those of the
last years. The maximum of energy is therefore necessary on the
part of our leaders; the maximum degree of organization and
centralization of the mass of party members; a great spirit of
initiative and a very great swiftness of decision. Pessimism
mainly adopts the following refrain: we are going back to a
pre-Livorno situation; we shall have to carry out once again the
same work which we carried out before Livorno, and which we
thought was definitive. It is necessary to show every comrade how
incorrect this position is, both politically and
theoretically. Certainly, it will still be necessary to fight
hard. Certainly, the task of the basic nucleus of our party formed
at Livorno is not yet finished, and will not be for a while yet -
it will still be a vital and present task even after the victory
of the revolution. But we shall not find ourselves again in a
pre-Livorno situation, because the world and Italian situation in
1924 is not what it was in 1920; because we ourselves are no
longer what we were in 1920, and would not like ever again to
become so. Because the Italian working class has changed greatly,
and it will not again be the easiest thing in the world to get it
to reoccupy the factories with stovepipes for cannons, after
filling its ears and stirring its blood with the vile demagogy of
maximalist fair-grounds. Because our party exists, which is
something after all, which has proved that it is something, and in
which we have limitless faith as the best, healthiest, most
honourable part of the Italian proletariat.