Antonio Gramsci 1926
A study of the italian situation
Report to the 2-3 August 1926 meeting of the Party's Executive Commitee.
The first part was published in March 1928 in Stato Operaio, the second not untill 14 April 1967 (Rinascita).
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.
I
It is necessary to study three basic elements of the Italian political situation.
1. The positive revolutionary element, i.e. the progress
achieved by the united front tactic. The present situation in the
organization of the Committees of Proletarian Unity, and the tasks
of the communist factions in these committees.
2. The political element represented by the disintegration of
the fascist landowner/bourgeois bloc. Internal situation in the
ruling party, and significance of the crisis it is passing
through.
3. The political element represented by the tendency to
constitute a left democratic bloc, with its pivot in the
Republican Party, in that a republican stance is supposed to
provide the basis for this democratic coalition.
United Front Tactics
The study of the first point must have the aim of testing the
correctness of the political line fixed by the Third Congress. The
Third Congress of our party was characterized by the fact that it
has not merely posed, in a generic sense, the problem of the need
to realize the leadership of the Communist Party within the
working class, and of the working class within the working
population of Italy; but it has also sought to concretize, in a
practical way, the political elements through which this
leadership might be accomplished. In other words, it has sought to
identify those parties and associations through which bourgeois or
petty-bourgeois influence over the working classes is
disseminated, and which are open to the possibility of an
overturning, a reversal of class values. Thus it is necessary to
test, by results, the correctness of the organizational terrain
fixed by the party as that most appropriate for immediate
regroupment of the forces set in motion by the united front
tactic: i.e. the agitation committees.
On the positive side, one may say that our party has succeeded
in winning a clear position of political initiative among the
working masses. In this last period, all the journalistic organs
of the parties which control the mass of the Italian people have
been filled with polemics against the successful actions of our
party. All these parties are on the defensive against our actions;
in fact, they are indirectly led by us, since at least 60 per cent
of their activity is devoted to repelling our offensives, or is
devised to give their mass base some satisfaction that will free
it from our influence.
It is clear that in the conditions of oppression and control
represented by fascist politics, the results of our tactics cannot
be statistically measurable at the level of the broad
masses. However, it is undeniable that when specific elements of
democratic and social-democratic parties shift over, even in a
molecular fashion, towards the tactical terrain argued for by the
communists, this shift cannot be ascribed to chance or have a
purely individual significance. In practical terms, the question
can be posed as follows: in every party, and especially in the
democratic and social -democratic parties in which the
organizational apparatus is very loose, there exist three
strata. The very tiny top stratum, which is usually made up of
parliamentary deputies and intellectuals often closely linked to
the ruling class. The bottom stratum. made up of workers. peasants
and urban petty-bourgeois. which provides the mass of party
members or the mass of those influenced by the party. An
intermediate stratum, which in the present situation has an even
greater importance than it had in normal periods. insofar as it
often represents the only active and politically alive stratum in
these parties. It is this intermediate stratum which maintains the
link between the leading group at the top. and the mass of members
and those influenced by the party. It is on the solidity of this
middle stratum that the leading groups are counting. for a future
renewal of these various parties and their reconstruction on a
broad basis.
Now, it is precisely on a significant part of these middle
strata of the various popular parties that the influence of the
movement in favour of a united front is making itself felt. It is
in this middle stratum that there is occurring this molecular
phenomenon of disintegration of the old ideologies and old
political programmes, and that the beginnings of a new political
formation on the terrain of the united front can be seen. Old
reformist or maximalist workers who exercise a wide influence in
certain factories or certain urban neighbourhoods. Peasant
elements who in the villages or little provincial towns represent
the most advanced individuals in the rural world, to whom the
peasants of those villages or little towns regularly turn for
advice and practical directives. Petty intellectuals in the
cities, who as exponents of the left catholic movement radiate an
influence in the surrounding areas which cannot and must not be
measured by their modest stature, but must instead be measured by
the fact that outside the city they appear as a tendency of the
party which the peasants were accustomed to follow. These then are
the elements on which our party exercises a constantly growing
power of attraction, and whose political exponents are a sure
index of movements at the base that are often even more radical
than appears from these individual shifts.
Particular attention must be paid to the function fulfilled by
our youth in the activity for the united front. It is, therefore,
necessary to keep in mind the fact that a greater flexibility must
be allowed in the actions of the youth organization than is
allowed to the party. It is obvious that the party cannot go in
for fusion with other political groups, or for recruitment of new
members on the basis of the united front, whose purpose is to
create unity of action of the working class and the alliance
between workers and peasants, and which cannot be the basis for
party formations. For the young communists, on the other hand, the
question is posed differently. By their very nature, the young
communists represent the party's elementary, formative stage. In
order to join the "youth organization", candidates cannot be
required already to be communists in the complete sense of the
word, but simply to have the desire to struggle and to become a
communist. Hence this factor must serve as a general point of
reference, in order to define more clearly the tactics appropriate
for the communist youth.
One element which must always be taken into account, because
its historical significance is not negligible, is the
following. The fact that a maximalist, a reformist, a republican,
a member of the Popular party or the Sardinian movement, or a
democrat from the South should support the programme of the
proletarian united ;front and workers' and peasants' alliance is
certainly important. But the fact that a member of Catholic Action
as such should support such a programme is of far greater
importance. In fact, the opposition, parties, albeit in inadequate
and inchoate ways, tend to create and maintain a separation
between the popular masses and fascism. Catholic Action, on the
other hand, today represents an integral part of fascism. It tends
through religious ideology to give fascism the agreement of broad
masses of the people. And it is destined in a certain sense, in
the minds of a very strong tendency within the Fascist Party
(Federzoni, Rocco, etc.), to replace the Fascist Party itself in
its function as a mass party and organism for political control of
the population. Every success on our part, however limited, in the
Catholic Action field therefore means that we are succeeding in
preventing the accomplishment of fascist policy in a field which
seemed shut off from any kind of proletarian initiative.
To conclude on this point, we may assert that the political
line of the Third Congress has been verified as correct, and the
balance-sheet of our actions for the united front is extremely
positive.
It is necessary to include a special point on trade-union
activity - both in the sense of the position which we occupy today
in the class unions, and also in the sense of a real trade-union
activity to be carried out and in that of our position with
respect to the corporations.
The Two Tendencies of Fascism
On point 2, it is necessary to define with precision the
internal situation of the fascist bourgeois/agrarian bloc, and of
the fascist organization properly speaking. On the one hand, the
Federzoni, Rocco, Volpi, etc., tendency wants to draw the
conclusions from this whole period since the March on Rome. It
wants to liquidate the Fascist Party as a political organism, and
incorporate into the State apparatus the bourgeois position of
strength created by fascism in its struggles against all the other
parties. This tendency is working together with the Crown and the
general staff. It wants to incorporate into the central forces of
the State, on the one hand, Catholic Action, i.e. the Vatican,
putting an end de facto and possibly even formally to the
quarrel between the House of Savoy and the Vatican; and on the
other hand, the more moderate elements of the former Aventine
opposition. It is certain that while fascism in its nationalist
wing, given the past and the traditions of old Italian
nationalism, is working towards Catholic Action, on the other hand
the House of Savoy is once again trying to exploit its traditions
in order to draw into government spheres the members of the Di
Cesarò and Amendola groups.
The other tendency is officially represented by Farinacci. it
objectively represents two contradictions of fascism. 1. The
contradiction between landowners and capitalists, whose interests
clash in particular over tariffs. It is certain that the fascism
of today typically represents the clear predominance of finance
capital over the State: capital which seeks to enslave all the
country's productive forces. 2. The second contradiction, which is
far more important, is that between the petty bourgeoisie and
capitalism. The fascist petty bourgeoisie sees in the party the
instrument for its defence, its Parliament, its democracy, Through
the party, it seeks to put pressure on the government to prevent
it from being crushed by capitalism.
One element which must be kept in mind is the fact of the total
enslavement to America to which Italy has been subjected by the
fascist government. In the liquidation of its war debt to both
America and England, the fascist government did not take the
trouble to obtain any guarantee of the negotiability of Italian
obligations. The Italian stockmarket and exchequer are at all
times exposed to the political blackmail of the American and
English governments, who can at any moment release enormous
quantities of Italian currency onto the world market. Moreover,
the Morgan debt was incurred under even worse conditions. 223 Of
the hundred million dollars of this loan, the Italian government
has only 33 million at its disposal. The other 67 million, the
Italian government can only make use of with the generous personal
consent of Morgan, which means that Morgan is the real head of the
Italian government. These elements may cause the petty
bourgeoisie, in defending its interests through the Fascist Party
as such, to take on a nationalist intonation - against the old
nationalism and the present leadership of the party, which has
sacrificed the country's national sovereignty and political
independence to the interests of a small group of plutocrats. In
connection with this, one of our party's tasks must be that of
putting especial stress on the slogan of the United Soviet States
of Europe, as an instrument of political initiative among the
fascist rank-and-file.
In general, it can be said that the Farinacci tendency in the
Fascist Party lacks unity, organization, general principles. It is
more a diffuse state of mind than a tendency properly speaking. It
will not be very hard for the government to disintegrate its
constitutent nuclei. What is important, from our point of view, is
that this crisis, insofar as it represents the detachment of the
petty bourgeoisie from the fascist bourgeois/landowner coalition,
cannot fail to be an element of military weakness for fascism.
The general economic crisis is the fundamental element of the
political crisis. It is necessary to study the elements of this
crisis, because certain of them are inherent in the general
Italian situation and will operate negatively in the period of
proletarian dictatorship as well. These main elements can be
defined as follows: of the three elements which traditionally make
up the assets in the Italian balance of trade, two - remittances
from emigrants and the tourist industry - have collapsed. The
third element, exports, are going through a crisis. If to the two
negative factors (emigrants' remittances and tourist industry) and
to the third, partially negative factor (exports), one adds the
need for heavy imports of grain due to the failure of the harvest,
it is clear that the perspectives for the coming months look
catastrophic.
It is necessary to keep these four elements in mind, in order
to understand the impotence of the government and the ruling
class. Certainly, if the government can do nothing, or next to
nothing, to increase remittances from emigrants (take account of
the initiative proposed by signor Giuseppe Zuccoli, expected
successor to Volpi at the Ministry of Finance) or to make the
tourist industry prosper, it can nevertheless do something to
increase exports. At all events, a grand strategy is possible
here, which even if it did not heal the wound would at least tend
to cicatrize it. Some people are thinking in terms of the
possibility of a labour policy based on inflationism. Naturally
this possibility cannot be absolutely excluded, but: 1. even if it
came to pass, its results in the economic field would be
relatively minimal; 2. its results in the political field, on the
other hand, would be catastrophic.
In reality, it is necessary to keep the following elements in
mind. 1. Exports represent only a part of the credit side of the
Italian balance of trade, at most two-thirds. 2. To wipe out the
deficit, it would be necessary not only to obtain the maximum
yield from the existing productive base, but to enlarge the
productive base itself by buying new machinery abroad., which
would increase the trade deficit even further. 3. The raw
materials for Italian industry are imported from abroad, and must
be paid for in a hard currency. An increase of production on a
large scale would lead to the necessity for an enormous mass of
circulating capital for the acquisition of raw materials. 4. It
must be borne in mind that fascism as a general phenomenon has, in
Italy, reduced the wages and salaries of the working class to a
minimum. Inflation makes some sense in a country with high wages,
as an alternative to fascism, in order to lower the standard of
living of the working classes and thus restore freedom of
manoeuvre to the bourgeoisie. It makes no sense in Italy, where
the working class's standard of living is already at subsistence
level.
Among the elements of the economic crisis: the new organization
of joint-stock companies with preferential voting, which is one of
the elements of rupture between petty bourgeoisie and capitalism;
and the imbalance which has recently appeared between the gross
capital of the joint-stock companies, which is becoming
concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, and the gross national
savings. This imbalance shows that the sources of savings are
drying up, since current incomes are no longer sufficient for
needs.
The Democratic Coalition
On the third political element. It is clear that a certain
regroupment is taking place in the democratic field, of a more
radical character than in the past. Republican ideology is
becoming stronger, in the same sense as for the united front,
i.e. among the middle strata of the democratic parties, and in
this case also to a considerable degree among the higher
strata.
Old former Aventine leaders have refused the invitation to
resume contact with the monarchy. It is said that even Amendola
himself had become totally republican in the last period of his
life, and carried out personal propaganda along these lines. The
popolari have apparently become disposed to republicanism too,
etc. It is certain that great efforts are being made to bring
about a neo-democratic regroupment on the terrain of
republicanism: a regroupment designed to take power when fascism
collapses, and to instal a dictatorship aimed both against the
reactionary right and against the communist left. The most recent
European events, like the Pilsudski adventure in Poland and the
dying convulsions of the French cartel, have contributed to this
democratic republican reawakening. Our party must confront the
general problem of the country's political perspectives.
The elements can be established as follows. Though it is true
that, politically, fascism may be succeeded by a dictatorship of
the proletariat - since no intermediate party or coalition is
capable of giving even the most minimal satisfaction to the
economic requirements of the working classes, who will burst
violently onto the political scene the moment existing relations
are broken - it is nevertheless not certain, and not even
probable, that the passage from fascism to the dictatorship of the
proletariat will be a direct one. It is necessary to take account
of the fact that the existing armed forces, given their
composition, cannot at once be won over, and that they will be the
determining element in the situation.
Hypotheses may be made with a continually increasing degree of
verisimilitude. It is possible that the present government will
give way to a coalition government, in which men like Giolitti,
Orlando, Di Cesarò, De Gasperi will provide a greater
immediate flexibility. The most recent parliamentary events in
France show what flexibility bourgeois policy is capable of, in
order to postpone the revolutionary crisis, dislodge adversaries,
tire them out and disintegrate them. A sudden, unexpected economic
crisis, not improbable in a situation like the Italian one, could
bring the republican democratic coalition to power, since it would
present itself to the officers of the army, to a part of the
fascist militia itself, and to the state functionaries in general
(an element which has to be taken great account of in situations
such as the Italian one), as capable of checking the
revolution.
These hypotheses only serve us as a general perspective. They
serve to fix the following points. 1. We must, from today, reduce
to a minimum the influence and organization of the parties which
may constitute the left coalition, in order to make more and more
probable a revolutionary collapse of fascism, insofar as the
energetic and active elements of the population are on our ground
at the moment of the crisis. 2. In any case, we must strive to
make the democratic interlude as brief as possible, by beginning
from today to arrange the greatest number of favourable conditions
to our advantage.
It is from these elements that we must derive the guidelines
for our immediate, practical activity.
Intensification of the general activity of the united front and
the organization of more and more new agitation committees, in
order to centralize them at least on a regional and provincial
level. In the committees, our fractions must seek first of all to
obtain the maximum representation of the various left political
currents, systematically avoiding all party sectarianism. The
questions must be posed objectively by our fractions as an
expression of the interests of the working class and the
peasants.
Tactic towards the Maximalist party.
Need to pose the Southern problem more energetically. If our
party does not begin to work seriously in the South, the South
will be the strongest base for the left coalition.
Tactic towards the Sardinian Action Party, in view of its forthcoming congress.
For Southern Italy and the Islands, creation of regional work groups in the rest of Italy.
II
So far as the international situation is concerned, it seems to
me to be dominated especially by the question of the English
general strike, and the conclusions to be drawn from it. The
English strike has posed two fundamental problems for our
movement.
The first of these is the problem of general perspectives;
i.e. the problem of a precise assessment of the phase through
which the capitalist order is currently passing. Is the period of
so-called stabilization over? What point have we reached, with
respect to the capacity of the bourgeois order for resistance? It
is clear that not only from a theoretical and scientific point of
view, but also from a practical and immediate point of view, it is
interesting and necessary to verify precisely the exact point
which the capitalist crisis has reached. But it is also clear that
any new political orientation based on a different assessment of
the precise level of the capitalist crisis would be stupid, if
this different assessment is not immediately reflected in
genuinely different political and organizational directives.
The problem to be posed, it seems to me, is the following. In
the international field - and this, in practice, means two things:
1. in the field of the group of capitalist states which form the
keystone of the bourgeois system; 2. in the field of those states
which represent, as it were, the periphery of the capitalist world
- are we about to pass from the phase of political organization of
the proletarian forces, to the phase of technical organization of
the revolution? Or, on the other hand, are we about to pass from
the former of the phases mentioned to an intermediate phase, in
which a particular form of technical organization can accelerate
the political organization of the masses, and hence accelerate the
passage to the concluding phase of the conquest of power? These
problems in my view should be discussed. But it is obvious that it
is not possible to solve them at a purely theoretical level. They
can only be solved on the basis of concrete data, with respect to
the real effectiveness both of the revolutionary and of the
bourgeois forces.
A certain number of observations and criteria must form the
basis for this study. The first of these concerns the fact that in
the advanced capitalist countries, the ruling class possesses
political and organizational reserves which it did not possess,
for instance, in Russia. This means that even the most serious
economic crises do not have immediate repercussions in the
political sphere. Politics always lags behind economics, far
behind. The state apparatus is far more resistant than is often
possible to believe; and it succeeds, at moments of crisis, in
organizing greater forces loyal to the régime than the
depth of the crisis might lead one to suppose. This is especially
true of the more important capitalist states.
In the typical peripheral states, like Italy, Poland, Spain or
Portugal, the state forces are less efficient. But in these
countries., one finds a phenomenon of which the greatest account
must be taken. This phenomenon, in my view, consists in the
following. In these countries, a broad stratum of intermediate
classes stretches between the proletariat and capitalism: classes
which seek to carry on, and to a certain sense succeed in carrying
on, policies of their own, with ideologies which often influence
broad strata of the proletariat, but which particularly affect the
peasant masses. France too, although it occupies a prominent
position in the first group of capitalist States, belongs by
virtue of certain of its characteristics to the situation of the
peripheral states.
What seems to me to be characteristic of the present phase of
the capitalist crisis is the fact that, unlike in 1920-2, today
the political and military formations of the middle classes have a
left radical character, or at least they present themselves to the
masses as left radicals. The development of the Italian situation,
given its particular features, seems to me to be able, in a
certain sense, to serve as a model for the various phases
traversed by other countries. In 1919 and 1920, the military and
political formations of the middle classes were represented in our
country by primitive fascism and by D'Annunzio. It is well known
that in those years, the fascist movement and DAnnunzio's movement
alike were willing to ally themselves even with the revolutionary
proletarian forces in order to overthrow the Nitti government,
which appeared as American capital's go-between for the
enslavement of Italy (Nitti was the precursor of Dawes in
Europe). 226
The second phase of fascism - 1921 and 1922 - was clearly
reactionary. From 1923 on,, a molecular process began through
which the most active elements of the middle classes moved over
from the reactionary fascist camp to the camp of the Aventine
opposition. This process crystallized in a manner which might have
proved fatal to fascism in the period of the Matteotti
crisis. Because of the weakness of our movement, a weakness which
moreover was itself significant, the phenomenon was interrupted by
fascism and the middle classes were thrown back into a new state
of political pulverization. Today, the molecular phenomenon has
begun again, on a scale far greater than that which was started in
1923, and is accompanied by a parallel phenomenon of regroupment
of the revolutionary forces around our party, which ensures that a
new crisis of the Matteotti type could hardly culminate in a new 3
January. 227
These phases traversed by Italy, in a form which I would call
classical and exemplary, we find in all those countries which we
have called peripheral capitalist countries. The present phase in
Italy, i.e. a regroupment of the middle classes on the left, we
can find in Spain, Portugal, Poland and in the Balkans. Only in
two countries, Czechoslovakia and France, do we find a continuity
in the permanency of the left bloc - a fact which in my view
should be particularly closely studied.
The conclusion to be drawn from these observations, which of
course will have to be improved and set out in a systematic
manner, it seems to me might be the following. In reality, we are
entering a new phase in the development of the capitalist
crisis. This phase takes different forms, on the one hand in the
countries of the capitalist periphery, and on the other in the
advanced capitalist countries. Between these two series of states,
Czechoslovakia and France represent the two connecting links. In
the peripheral countries, the problem arises of the phase which I
have called intermediate between the political and the technical
preparation of the revolution. In the other countries, including
France and Czechoslovakia, it seems to me that the problem is
still one of political preparation. For all the capitalist
countries, a fundamental problem is posed - the problem of the
transition from the united front tactic, understood in a general
sense, to a specific tactic which confronts the concrete problems
of national life and operates on the basis of the popular forces
as they are historically determined.
From a technical point of view, the problem concerns the
appropriate slogans and forms of organization. If I did not have a
certain fear of hearing cries of Ordine Nuovo-ism, I
would say that today one of the most important problems we face,
especially in the major capitalist countries, is the problem of
factory councils and workers' control - as the basis for a new
regroupment of the proletarian class, which will permit a more
effective struggle against the trade-union bureaucracy and will
permit us to organize the immense masses of non-unionized workers,
not just in France, but also in Germany and in England.
In the case of England, it seems to me that in any case the
problem of regrouping the proletarian masses can even be posed on
the trade-union terrain itself. Our British party must have a
programme for the democratic reorganization of the Trade
Unions. Only insofar as local trade-union branches in England
begin to coordinate their activities like Our Chambers of Labour,
and give these Chambers of Labour adequate powers, will it be
possible: 1. to free the English workers from the influence of the
tradeunion bureaucracy; 2. to reduce the influence exercised
within the Labour Party by MacDonald's party (I.L.P.), which today
functions precisely as a local centralizing force in a context of
trade-union fragmentation; 3. to create a terrain upon which it is
possible for the organized forces of our party to exercise a
direct influence on the mass of English workers. 1 think that this
kind of reorganization of the trade unions, stimulated by our
party, would have the significance and importance of a veritable
soviet germinationprocess. Moreover, it would be in the line of
the historical traditions of the English working class, from
Chartism to the Action Committees of 1919.
The second fundamental problem posed by the English general
strike is . that of the Anglo-Russian Committee. 228 1 think that
despite the indecision, weakness and if you like betrayal of the
English left during the general strike, the Anglo-Russian
Committee should be maintained, because it is the best terrain to
revolutionize not only the English tradeunion world, but also the
Amsterdam unions. In only one event should there be a break
between the communists and the English left: if England was on the
eve of the proletarian revolution, and our party was strong enough
to lead the insurrection on its own.
Postscript. These notes have been written solely to prepare the
work of the leading Committee. They are far from being definitive,
but simply represent the draft for a first discussion.