Right Left and Classic Approaches to Gramsci

• Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) represents a unique case in modern political and intellectual history.

• His life and writings appeal to the Left, the Right, and political theorists who avoid practical involvement.

• His ideas also resonate with common people seeking political enlightenment or inspiration.

• Gramsci is hailed as the “Patron Saint of the Left” by cultural icons like the London Times Literary Supplement.

• Recently, he has also become an anti-hero of the Right, attracting attention from figures like Rush Limbaugh.

• James Joll, a British historian, calls him a “true intellectual hero of our time.”

• The reasons for his appeal vary across different political and ideological perspectives.

• The diversity of appeal suggests that Gramsci is a modern classic.

Rush Limbaugh’s Gramsci: Anti-Hero of the Right

• The geopolitical collapse of communism and the end of the Cold War are among the most significant events of our time.

• Following Socrates’ dictum that the unexamined life is not worth living, one cannot lead an intelligent life without examining the demise of communism.

• A key question that arises is: Who won the Cold War?

• Many believe the United States won, but if this is true, why are many ideas behind communism still popular in the West?

• Rush Limbaugh offers an explanation, claiming that while the U.S. won the Cold War economically and geopolitically, leftist ideas won the cultural war.

• Limbaugh argues that leftist thinkers better understand the importance of culture in social change and have formulated a theory of cultural struggle.

• Limbaugh credits Antonio Gramsci with creating the theory of cultural struggle.

• Gramsci theorized that socialism and relativism would triumph through a “long march through the institutions” by capturing key cultural institutions like the arts, press, entertainment, universities, and libraries.

• According to Gramsci, by controlling these institutions, cultural values would change, traditional morals would break down, and the stage would be set for the fall of Western political and economic power.

• Limbaugh asserts that Gramsci’s ideas have helped the Left dominate U.S. cultural institutions and that conservatives should join the cultural struggle.

• Limbaugh’s viewpoint reflects a Gramscian thesis: understanding one’s opponents is crucial, and those who understand their opponents have a decisive advantage.

• A key implication of Limbaugh’s argument is that conservatives and right-wingers should study Gramsci to learn how to engage in the cultural struggle effectively.

• Gramsci’s work can be studied by both sides of the cultural struggle, which supports the objectivity and scientific validity of his theory.

• Michael Novak, a conservative, also critiques Gramsci, warning that Gramscism (cultural Marxism) is the next challenge after the failure of economic Marxism.

• Novak distinguishes Gramscism from traditional Marxism, noting that it uses peaceful, cultural means such as education, communication, and persuasion.

• Novak also acknowledges Gramsci’s influence on American academia and advises academics to study the American system.

• There is irony in Novak’s advice, as Gramsci himself studied the failures of socialist revolutions in Western Europe and focused on Americanism and Fordism in his later years.

• Gramsci’s ideal, even in his early revolutionary zeal, bears a resemblance to James Madison’s pragmatic views on the human condition.

• Gramsci’s concept of life as always revolutionary aligns with Novak’s appeal for realism and anti-utopianism.

• Despite their different conclusions, both Gramsci and Novak emphasize the importance of studying the realities of political systems.

• Gramsci was not strictly a Gramscist, as his views evolved, and the term “Gramscism” was largely a creation of Palmiro Togliatti, leader of the Italian Communist Party.

• The myth of Gramscism has been constructed, but it is based on real aspects of Gramsci’s life and thought.

• James Joll describes Gramsci as a “true intellectual hero of our time”, admired for the depth and originality of his ideas and his independence from material limitations.

Sardinian, Hunchback, Outcast: “True Intellectual Hero”

• Gramsci was born in 1891 on the Italian island of Sardinia and lived there for the first twenty years of his life.

• Sardinia, the second-largest island in the Mediterranean, was backward and isolated during his time, with a dialect that was incomprehensible to other Italians.

• The island’s distinct cultural, historical, and geographical factors led to a separatist movement for independence, though it never gained widespread support.

• Gramsci always saw himself as a Sardinian, an ethnic minority in Italy, which had suffered many disadvantages.

• At the age of three or four, Gramsci suffered an accident that left him handicapped with a humpback and below-average height.

• His health remained poor, and he suffered from a variety of ailments such as nervous breakdowns, tuberculosis, high blood pressure, and hernias.

• Gramsci’s family was middle class, but his father was imprisoned for bureaucratic crimes, which caused a significant psychological trauma for Gramsci.

• Gramsci had to work at a government office from age twelve to support his family after his father’s imprisonment, earning enough to buy one kilogram of bread a day.

• Despite the hardships, Gramsci’s academic achievements were remarkable, and his parents encouraged him to pursue his studies.

• In 1911, Gramsci attended the University of Turin on a scholarship, initially studying linguistics, literature, history, and philosophy.

• However, he abandoned his formal studies in 1915 and became more focused on social, political, and cultural problems, contributing to socialist newspapers and magazines.

• Turin, a contrast to Sardinia, was an industrial hub with the Fiat automobile works and a major university, making it a center for intellectual development.

• In 1915, World War I began, and Italy joined the Allied Powers against the Central Powers, leading to mass casualties and significant social and economic changes.

• The Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 further influenced Gramsci’s political development, as the global struggle between communism and capitalism escalated.

• Between 1915-1920, Gramsci wrote extensively, engaging with socialist ideas and criticizing other socialists, while organizing laborers in Turin’s factories.

• Gramsci advocated for the factory council movement in 1919-1920, which sought to advance both democratic ideals and labor interests.

• The failure of the factory council movement led him to support the formation of a communist party in January 1921.

• Gramsci continued his journalistic work while becoming more involved in politics and political organizing.

• He joined the new communist party’s central committee and led the Ordine Nuovo group in Turin, which also published a weekly journal.

• In 1922, Gramsci represented the communist party at the Comintern in Moscow, and in the same year, the Fascists gained control of the Italian government.

• While in Russia, Gramsci married a Russian woman, with whom he had two sons, and he was saved from arrest due to his stay in Moscow.

• In November 1923, the Third International sent Gramsci to Vienna to be closer to Italy and more effective in helping to run the Italian Communist Party, which was being persecuted by the Fascists.

• During the six months in Vienna, Gramsci took the lead in reorganization of the party through correspondence, advocating for a more democratic structure.

• He favored expanding the party’s base to include peasants as well as industrial workers, increasing party responsiveness to the general membership, and encouraging more freedom and openness in party discussions.

• His approach aligned with the Third International’s policies in Moscow at the time.

• In April 1924, Gramsci was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in Italy during the general elections, despite the Fascists controlling the government. His parliamentary immunity allowed him to return to Italy.

• By August 1924, Gramsci became the general secretary of the Communist Party and worked on its reorganization.

• A party congress was held in Lyons, France, due to the escalating Fascist persecution in Italy, where Gramsci’s proposed policies were endorsed by 91 percent of delegates.

• The Fascists had murdered Giacomo Matteotti, a socialist member of Parliament, in 1924, leading to a crisis.

• The Communist Party initially joined other opposition parties in boycotting Parliament, but later returned to support an opposition stance when other parties favored more legalistic approaches.

• Gramsci’s Communist Party, as the only opposition party returning to Parliament, helped the Fascists overcome the Matteotti crisis and consolidate power.

• In fall 1926, after a failed attempt to assassinate Mussolini, the Fascists expelled all non-attending deputies, including the Communists, despite their return to Parliament.

• Special laws were enacted, and the Special Tribunal for the Defense of the State was created to deal with opposition.

• Gramsci and other Communist leaders were arrested, with Gramsci remaining in Italy despite the dangers.

• From November 1926, Gramsci endured various imprisonments, including one on the island of Ustica.

• While imprisoned in Rome, Gramsci wrote to his landlady asking for three books: a German grammar, a linguistics textbook, and Dante’s Divine Comedy.

• After a month, Gramsci was transferred to Milan, where he underwent interrogations and pretrial depositions. The authorities sought to produce incriminating evidence through informants.

• During his Milan imprisonment, Gramsci wrote a famous letter to his sister-in-law, stating his intention to begin a research project on historical, philosophical, and political matters, seeking to work “from the point of view of eternity.”

• His sister-in-law, Tatiana Schucht, became his main source of comfort, moving to towns where he was held.

• In May 1928, Gramsci was moved to Rome for trial, where the outcome was predetermined by the Special Tribunal.

• He was found guilty and sentenced to twenty years in prison. Due to his ill health, he was sent to a special prison in Turi, southern Italy, in July 1928.

• In prison, Gramsci was allowed to read and write, filling thirty-three notebooks with his work.

• His prison sentence was reduced by eight years in November 1932, but his health deteriorated, leading to his collapse in March 1933.

• International support for his release grew, with figures such as Romain Rolland, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Mahatma Gandhi advocating for him.

• Gramsci refused to apply for a pardon, which would require an admission of guilt.

• In December 1933, Gramsci was moved to a private clinic in Formia, but his health continued to worsen.

• In October 1934, Gramsci’s parole was granted on the grounds of ill health, though he was not released until August 1935, when he moved to a clinic in Rome.

• By this time, he had stopped writing in his notebooks, and his health had severely declined.

• Gramsci’s parole ended on April 25, 1937, but he died two days later on April 27, 1937, from a cerebral hemorrhage.

• He was buried in the English Cemetery in Rome.

The Gramsci Myth: “Patron Saint of the Left”

• Palmiro Togliatti, Gramsci’s college classmate and successor as leader of the Italian Communist Party, popularized the most widespread interpretation of Gramsci’s life and thought after the fall of Fascism and World War II.

• Togliatti edited Gramsci’s writings and interpreted them as supporting the “Italian road to socialism”, a strategy for achieving traditional Marxist goals through cultural means like education and persuasion.

• This strategy involved conquering social and cultural institutions first, which would lead to changes in economic and political institutions, contrasting with Bolshevism, which prioritized seizing political power first.

• Gramsci argued that in the East, the state dominated, while in the West, civil society had a stronger structure, and when the state trembled, a sturdy civil society emerged.

• Togliatti’s interpretation was successful for about thirty years, leading to growth in the Communist Party and the popularity of Gramsci’s ideas, which spread beyond Italy.

• However, starting in the late seventies, Gramscism began to decline, influenced by Gorbachev’s leadership, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the end of the Cold War.

• A critical edition of Gramsci’s Notebooks was published in 1975, leading to a reassessment of Togliatti’s interpretation.

• The author suggests an alternative interpretation of Gramsci’s life and thought, beginning with his 1917 article where he welcomed the Bolshevik Revolution as a “revolution against Capital”, challenging the deterministic view of Marx’s Capital and supporting the possibility of radical transformation of social institutions.

• Gramsci’s involvement in the Red Biennium (1919-1920) and the workers’ occupation of factories highlighted the failure of the Italian Socialist Party to provide proper leadership, leading Gramsci to favor the creation of a new political party, the Italian Communist Party.

• The Communist Party, despite its formation, was unsuccessful, and in 1922, the Fascists gained control through the March on Rome, arresting party leaders.

• Gramsci, who had escaped arrest due to his presence in the Soviet Union, focused on democratic reforms for the party after the 1924 parliamentary elections, seeking to make it more inclusive, especially for peasants.

• The Communist Party had to operate semi-clandestinely due to the Fascists’ rule, and Gramsci later realized other difficulties, especially after his own arrest.

• During his imprisonment, Gramsci filled thirty-three notebooks, with notes reflecting on the causes of his setbacks and the nature of communism, though the notebooks remained largely unedited.

• A key question in analyzing Gramsci’s thoughts is whether, during his imprisonment, he revised his ideas not just on means, but also on the ends of his earlier Marxist beliefs.

• The concept of the “educator who must be educated” holds democratic implications, suggesting that Gramsci’s imprisonment allowed him intellectual freedom to examine his beliefs more objectively, or “from the point of view of eternity.”

Gramsci as a Political Theorist: Back to Mosca

• Most works on Gramsci focus heavily on the details of his life before prison and give limited attention to his thinking as recorded in the Prison Notebooks.

• This focus arises partly from the difficulty in interpreting the Prison Notebooks and the tendency to interpret Gramsci in terms like communist revolutionary, socialist radical, and left-wing ideologue (the Gramsci myth).

• According to this interpretation, Gramsci’s prison writings are seen as a continuation of his earlier activities and ideologies.

• The author believes that Gramsci’s theoretical legacy from prison is what makes him relevant and of interest to a broader audience, not just to specialists in Marxism, communism, and socialism, or to social and political activists pursuing those aims.

• Before the geopolitical dissolution of communism, this judgment was controversial, but it is now easier to accept in light of current events.

• The author suggests that those interested in Gramsci should primarily focus on the Prison Notebooks, viewing his life as a journey toward the ideas expressed there.

• The Prison Notebooks reveal a keen, inquiring mind, focused on improving the plight of the underprivileged, disadvantaged, and oppressed.

• Gramsci’s terminology, conceptual structure, methodology, and doctrines transcend the usual categories of communism, socialism, and Marxism.

• The author plans to test the hypothesis that Gramsci’s political theory is a constructive critique or critical development of that of Gaetano Mosca (1858-1941).

• The key common element between the two theories is democratic elitism, which the author will explore as an interesting, important, and viable idea.

• The first step in this exploration is to make several preliminary clarifications regarding the hypothesis.

Interpreting Gramsci’s Political Theory

• The democratic-elitist interpretation of Gramsci is a new approach, building on previous work by the author, who earlier focused on the philosophical aspects of Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks and now emphasizes their scientific content related to political and social science.

• This interpretation aligns with the classic approach to Gramsci, which is in line with emerging traditions in his study.

• The treatment of Gramsci as a political theorist is not unprecedented, as demonstrated by Joseph V. Femia’s work, which focused on hegemony and revolution, whereas the current work centers on elites and democracy.

• Sue Golding‘s book, Gramsci’s Democratic Theory: Contributions to Post-Liberal Democracy, also focuses on democracy but is too Marxist-oriented and obscure, and ignores the crucial connection between Gramsci and Mosca.

• Mosca’s political theory is not the same as the one many scholars have attributed to him, such as the Mosca-Pareto pair or his association with proto-fascism, nor does the author agree with interpretations of him as a follower of the antidemocratic collective psychology of writers like Gabriel Tarde, Gustave LeBon, or Scipio Sighele.

• The author views Mosca in the tradition of democratic elitism, which has not been sufficiently elaborated or evaluated by others.

• The hypothesis that Gramsci’s political theory is in large part derived from Mosca is not absolute, as Gramsci’s theory also draws from Croce and Marx.

• Political theory in this context refers to Gramsci’s views on classes, forces, crises, revolutions, governments, parties, states, elites, hegemony, and democracy, and not to his philosophical or historical ideas.

• The distinction between political theory, philosophy, and historical interpretations of Gramsci’s work is necessary to avoid confusion, even though these areas are interrelated.

• Gramsci stated that everything is political, but it is crucial to distinguish between political theory, political science, and practical political activity.

• Gramsci’s thought should not be reduced solely to the influence of other theorists like Mosca, Croce, or Marx; it is also shaped by his practical political involvements as a labor union, socialist party, and communist party organizer.

• The study of Gramsci’s thought must also consider his life and the history of his time, which includes the mythologization of his life and thought by fellow party members after his death.

• The Gramsci myth became integral to his legacy, and it is important to acknowledge this in the study of his thought.

• It would be reductionist to focus only on Gramsci’s active political life (especially from 1921-1926) when interpreting his political theory, as much of his earlier work was done without serious reflection, and his prison writings are more reflective and coherent.

• Gramsci’s own words suggest that the relationship between theory and practice is reciprocal, with no logical or epistemological priority of practice over theory.

• Palmiro Togliatti, in his later years, suggested that Gramsci should be interpreted in a way that transcends the history of communism, which can be done through a critical comparison of Mosca’s and Gramsci’s thought.

• The interpretation to be explored in this work posits that an important part of Gramsci’s political theory is intellectually traceable to Mosca’s political theory, particularly when Mosca’s theory is interpreted as an example of democratic elitism.

The Mosca-Gramsci Connection

• The relation between Mosca and Gramsci has been largely neglected, with only a few articles (about ten) discussing this topic in the Gramscian bibliography, and none providing a systematic analysis.

• Most discussions on the relationship between Gramsci and the elitist school include figures like Pareto and Michels, but they rarely address Mosca directly.

• Mosca scholars tend to mention the connection to Gramsci incidentally, admitting the correctness of Gramsci’s criticism of Mosca’s concept of the political class, but do not focus on it.

• The neglect of the Mosca-Gramsci connection is somewhat understandable, as Mosca is often seen as a conservative, anti-Marxist, antisocialist, and anticommunist, while Gramsci is associated with revolutionism, Marxism, socialism, and communism.

• This initial view of Mosca as a classic exponent of the Right makes it difficult to think of him in relation to Gramsci, as Mosca does not lend himself to the mythologization that Gramsci does.

• Despite these associations, the neglect of the Mosca-Gramsci connection is unjustified, and the investigation aims to demonstrate the promise and fruitfulness of exploring this link.

• The initial plausibility of a connection or critical comparison between Gramsci and Mosca lies in the fact that Mosca was the most relevant and influential political theorist in Italy during Gramsci’s life.

• Mosca, as the author of Elements of Political Science, is regarded as the founder of political science in Italy, and it can be asserted that the Prison Notebooks contain a project for a science of politics, making the critical examination of Mosca’s doctrines by Gramsci a natural task.

• Gramsci’s intellectual development was largely polemical, and he often placed himself from a dialectical or dialogical point of view, which would naturally lead him to engage with Mosca’s ideas.

• While the Prison Notebooks contain many important projects and elements, one of Gramsci’s key involvements is the art of politics, which Mosca’s work also touches upon in an ideological sense.

• Mosca’s work can be seen as containing an ideological dimension, which some scholars like Norberto Bobbio, Paolo Frascani, and Eugenio Ripepe have pointed out, labeling it as a science of antirevolution, a mythology of the middle class, and an apology for the intelligentsia.

• More practically, Mosca’s political doctrines have both a normative dimension and practical function, not just theoretical abstraction, which aligns with Gramsci’s own engagement in political theory.

• Gramsci recognized that Mosca’s political theory was not a value-free science of politics, just as his own theory was not.

• Both Gramsci and Mosca are engaged in political theory, which combines both interpretive analysis and normative evaluation, making the comparison between the two more promising than it may initially appear.