Date: Fri, 29 Nov 1996 09:46:55 -0500 (EST)
From: louisgodena-AT-ids.net (Louis R Godena)
Subject: M-I: Re: note re gramsci


        
Scott;

Thanks for the citations.    I was aware of Perry Anderson's article,  but
had not seen it.    I am innocent of the Hungarian volume.    Is it still in
print?    Maybe Widener has it.

I am intrigued by this question of "hegemony" and how it relates to this
question of the revolutionary potential of production workers.     Gramsci's
call for (in effect) a second Risorgimento to unite and incorporate all the
anti-fascist forces in Italy under the PCI (with the proletariat at its
head) was the practical result of this concept,  as was his larger ambition
of "national moral supremacy" over the Italian people ("for the proletariat
to become the ruling,  the dominant class,  it must succeed in creating a
system of class alliances that allow it to mobilize the majority of the
working population against capitalism and the bourgeois State").     This
was a frank and purposive appeal to both the peasantry and to the petite
bourgeoisie against the influence of the Church and liberal thinkers (like
Croce),  and a tacit admission on the part of the PCI leadership that,  even
in the developed North,  the industrial working class lacked the wherewithal
to come to power *as a class*.

There are a number of ancillory issues as well (e.g., the working class as
seen by both the Left and Right  -- fascism and Italian communism share,
intellectually,  common ancestors),  but this will be my main focus.

I hope I don't fuck it up.


Louis (G)




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