Date: Tue, 19 May 1998 18:57:11 -0500 From: vacirca-AT-charm.net (robert brown) Subject: AUT: prison notebooks >X-Authentication-Warning: lists.village.Virginia.EDU: domo set sender to >owner-aut-op-sy-AT-localhost using -f >X-Sender: vacirca-AT-smtp.charm.net >Mime-Version: 1.0 >Date: Tue, 19 May 1998 02:59:22 -0500 >To: aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU >From: vacirca-AT-charm.net (robert brown) >Subject: AUT: prison notebooks >Cc: llopez-AT-unm.edu, fiocco-AT-ccuws4.unical.it, JShearer.1-AT-aol.com >Sender: owner-aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU >Precedence: bulk >Reply-To: aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU > > "The proletarian revolution cannot but be a total revolution. It >consists in the foundation of new modes of labor, new modes of production >and distribution that are peculiar to the working class in its historical >determination in the course of the capitalist process. This revolution also >presupposes the formation of a new set of standards, a new psychology, new >ways of feeling, thinking and living that must be specific to the working >class, that must be created by it, that will become 'dominant' when the >working class becomes the dominant class. The proletarian revolution is >essentially the liberation of the productive forces already existing within >bourgeois society. These forces can be identified in the economic and >political fields; but is it possible to start identifying the latent >elements that will lead to the creation of a proletarian civiliza=E7tion or >culture? Do elements for an art, philosophy and morality (standards) >specific to the working class already exist? The question must be raised >and it must be answered. Together with the problem of gaining political and >economic power, the proletariat must also face the problem of winning >intellectual power. Just as it has thought to organize itself politically >and economically, it must also think about organizing itself culturally..." > > Antonio Gramsci - QUESTIONS OF CULTURE JUNE 14, 1920, AVANTI > > > EVERYTHING (MOSTLY) YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT GRAMSCI BUT =E7WERE >AFRAID TO ASK > > NOTE TO READERS: > The following is my attempt to get an overview of the Prison Notes. >I wanted to summarize the main political ideas of the Notebooks before >trying to write in any detail about them. I'm fairly confident that I'm >right about the main political intent of the notebooks. No one, to my >knowledge, has come up with a summary outline of the notebooks that looks >like this. I'm not even sure a summary outline even exists. At this point >I'm leaning toward doing a "Gramsci for Beginners". Anyway (sigh) here >goes... > > > PROLOGUE > > THE SOUTHERN QUESTION AND CROCE - A REVOLUTIONARY STRATEGY > > When Antonio Gramsci, the head of the Italian Communist Party, was >arrested by the fascists in November 1926 he was working on a long article >outlining his revolutionary strategy for defeating fascism. On the basis of >a detailed class analysis of northern and southern Italy he concluded that >the overthrow of fascism was impossible without a peasant uprising in the >semi-colonial south. > > The article, "Some aspects of the Southern Question" is, I believe, >one of the keys to a political understanding of Gramsci's Prison Notebooks. >By a close examination of this essay and the main ideas of the prison >notes I hope to show that the notes were in effect a vast research project >that flowed directly from the political strategy outlined in this article. >If this is true then this essay can be seen as a general political >introduction to the notebooks and a very useful guide to reading them. > > Gramsci's strategy, which called for a revolutionary alliance of >northern factory workers and impoverished southern peasants, turned on >winning the mass support of radical petty bougeois intellectuals in the >south to help the Party organize a peasant insurrection. Gramsci argued >that the poorest southern peasants, while in a perpetual state of >semi-revolt, were disorganized and leaderless, and lacked independent >revolutionary organizations of their own. They took political direction >from southern intellectuals from the medium and small landowning >bourgeoisie; the lawyers, doctors, notaries, elected officials, petty >bureaucrats and priests of the rural villages and towns. > > Catholic priests were an especially important group of southern >rural intellectuals. The biggest and most powerful single landlord in >Southern Italy in the 1920s was the Catholic church. As economic agents of >the church, southern priests collected rents from peasant sharecroppers >(mezzadri) on church lands, loaned peasants money at extremely usurious >rates and as Gramsci put it: "manipulate<d> the religious element in order >to make certain of collecting his rent or interest". > > Gramsci also observed with great interest that southern rural >intellectuals made up more than 60% of the Italian State's bureaucracy. All >these southern intellectuals were tied to the big landowners and helped >keep the peasants politically subordinated to them. > > These southern "medium intellectuals" were in turn, ideologically >dominated by "great intellectuals", individual southern intellectuals of >great learning and culture, often landowning aristocrats themselves. >Gramsci identified Giustino Fortunato and Benedetto Croce (liberal >neapolitan philosopher,historian and big landowner) as the leading great >intellectuals of the South who kept southern intellectuals (and therefore >poor southern peasants also), ideologically tied to the big landowners and >capitalism. Croce and Fortunato were the biggest ideological enemies of >peasant revolution in the South and therefore, as Gramsci put it: "the two >major figures of italian reaction". > > The political and economic subordination of the poor peasants to >the big landowners and the Church through the medium of the rural >intellectuals led by Croce and Fortunato was what Gramsci called "a >monstrous Agrarian bloc". THis agrarian bloc, along with the urban middle >class, was the main social base of fascism. It was the landlords and rural >petty bourgeoisie of the agrarian bloc( with some strategic assistance from >horthern indutrialists as well) who supplied the bulk of the finances, >arms, leadership and personnel for the fascist terror squads that defeated >the working class revolt of 1919-20. > > Gramsci's strategy for breaking up this agrarian bloc and >overthrowing fascism depended therefore on winning a mass strata of >southern rural intellectuals away from Croce. As gramsci put it : > >"Over and above the Agrarian Bloc, there functions in the South an >intellectual bloc which in practice has so far served to prevent the cracks >in the Agrarian Bloc becoming too dangerous and causing a landslide. >Giustino Fortunato and Benedetto Croce are the exponents of this >intellectual bloc, and they can thus be considered as the most active >reactionaries in the whole peninsula." > > But defeating Croce was no easy matter. Croce, as Gramsci pointed >out, had dominated Italian culture between 1900 and 1920, shaping the >thinking of a whole generation of intellectuals. Much of the intellectual >leadership for both the fascist, socialist and communist movements that >arose in Italy between 1900 and 1920 came from a young generation of >radical southern petty bourgeois intellectuals( Gramsci for one). Croce >gave philosophical leadership to these disaffected young intellectuals, >calling for a secularization and modernization of italian culture and >society. > Gramsci himself began his intellectual life as a Crocean, >attracted by Croce's call for moral and intellectual reform of backward, >church-ridden Italy. > Two great social, moral and political questions faced the 40 >year-old neophyte italian nation in 1900; the "Southern question" and the >"Social question". > The first was how to integrate the impoverished, rebellious, >agriculturally and minerally rich South of Italy (including Sardinia and >Sicily) into the Italian nation. As economic and political colony of the >more industrialized North, the South had powered italian capitalist >development but reaped none of its benefits. Southern peasants were the >most oppressed but least organized class in Italy. And southern >intellectuals as members of a semi-colonial petty bourgeoisy were a >=E7potentially explosive revolutionary force. > The second question facing Italy was how to relieve the misery of >impoverished, powerless industrial factory workers in the North. The >northern working class trade union movement had developed along economist, >reformist racist anti-southern lines, a labor aristocracy emerged which >developed a political and economic alliance with northern Capital. Middle >class nationalist and many leading syndicalist intellectuals pushed for >imperialist expansion of Italy into North Africa and the middle East. >Gramsci and other radical southern intellectuals proposed a revolutionary >alliance between northern factory workers and poor northern and southern >peasants as an alternative to the pro-imperialist reformists, >nationalists, and syndicalists. Croce as a member of the southern >landowner class had a direct interest in sabotaging such a dangerous >alliance. > > Gramsci goes on to describe the critical role Croce and Fortunato >played in keeping the South from becoming revolutionary: > > "....The Southerners who have sought to leave the agrarian bloc >and pose the Southern question in a radical form have found hospitality in, >and grouped themselves around, reviews printed outside the South. Indeed >one might say that all the cultural initiatives by medium intellectuals >which have taken place in this century in Central and Northern Italy have >been characterized by Southernism, because they have been strongly >influenced by Southern intellectuals: all the journals of the Florentine >intellectuals, like Voce and Unita; the journals of the Christian >democrats, like Azione in Cesena; the journals of the young Emilian and >Milanese liberals published by G. Borelli, such as Patria in Bologna or >Azione in Milan; and lastly, Gobetti's Rivoluzione Liberale. > Well, the supreme political and intellectual rulers of all these >initiatives have been Giustino Fortunato and Benedetto Croce. In a broader >sphere than the stifling agrarian bloc, they have seen to it that the >problems of the South would be posed in a way which did not go beyond >certain limits; did not become revolutionary. Men of the highest culture >and intelligence, who arose on the traditional terrain of the South but >were linked to European and hence world culture, they had all the necessary >gifts to satisfy the intellectual needs of the most sincere representatives >of the cultured youth in the South; to comfort their restless impulses to >revolt against existing conditions; to steer them along a middle way of >classical serenity in thought and action. The so-called neo-protestants or >Calvinists have failed to understand that in Italy, since modern conditions >of civilization rendered impossible any mass religious reform, the only >historically possible reformation has taken place with Benedetto Croce's >philosophy. The direction and method of thought have been changed and a new >conception of the world has been constructed, transcending catholicism and >every other mythological religion. In this sense, Benedetto Croce has >fulfilled an extremely important "national" function. He has detached the >radical intellectuals of the South from the peasant masses, forcing them to >take part in national and European culture; and through this culture, he >has secured their absorption by the national bourgeoisie and hence by the >agrarian bloc." > > For a brief period in the 1890's Croce flirted with legal Marxism, >becoming a leader of revisionism. But as mass working class socialist >movements grew in Italy, France, Germany, Russia and middle class >nationalist hostility to socialism intensified Croce became increasingly >hostile to Marxism . He strongly supported Italy's participation in World >War I, violently denouncing the Socialist party for its pacifism and lack >of patriotism. He bitterly opposed the rise of the Soviet Union and the >communist movement in Italy. He supported Fascism in its first years as a >stabilizing and modernizing force that could block a more radical working >class communist revolution. > However as Fascism violently consolidated its dictatorship over >bourgeois liberals like himself as well as socialist workers and peasants >he went into passive "philosophical" opposition to the regime. However, he >refused to support any mass political action against fascism and remained a >member of the fascist-controlled Italian Senate and respected public >intellectual figure. He continued to speak and write openly through out the >22 years fascism was in power without any reprisals from fascist >authorities. > In both his prison letters and prison notes Gramsci made clear that >he considered Croce to be an invaluable ally of fascism despite his formal >liberal philosophical opposition. His political passivity, his >anti-communist, anti-working class, elitist upper class politics and >philosophy helped to keep southern intellectuals politically passive and >hostile to the masses. By remaining in the Fascist Senate as a formal > "Solidarity is running the same risks." - Che Guevara --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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