The two fascisms (1921)
Antonio Gramsci
First published: Ordine Nuovo, 25 August 1921;
Translated: for MIA by Ben W.
Gramsci
is best known for his theory of cultural hegemony, which describes how the
state and ruling capitalist class – the bourgeoisie – use cultural institutions
to maintain power in capitalist societies.
The
crisis of fascism, about whose origins and causes so much is now being written,
can easily be explained by a serious examination of the evolution of the
fascist movement itself.
The
Fasci di combattimento were born in the aftermath of the war. They were imbued
with the petit-bourgeois character of the various veterans associations which
arose at that time.
Due
to their trenchant opposition to the socialist movement they obtained the
support of the capitalists and the authorities. This aspect of the Fasci was
inherited in part from the conflict between the Socialist Party and the
‘interventionist’ associations during the war years.
They
emerged during the same period when the rural landowners were feeling the need
to create a White Guard to tackle the growing workers’ organizations. The gangs
that were already organized and armed by the big landowners soon adopted the
label Fasci for themselves too. With their subsequent development, these gangs
would acquire their own distinct character – as a White Guard of capitalism
against the class organs of the proletariat.
Fascism
still conserves this trait of its origins. But until very recently, the fervour
of the armed offensive kept a lid on the tensions between the urban cadre – who
are predominantly petit-bourgeois, orientated on parliament, and
‘collaborationist’ – and the rural cadre, which consist of the big and medium
landowners and their tenant farmers.
These
rural groups are engaged in a fight against the poor peasants and their
organisations. They are acutely anti-union and reactionary. And they have far
more faith in direct armed action than in the authority of the state and the
efficacy of parliament.
In
the agricultural regions (Emilia, Toscana, Veneto and Umbria) fascism has
achieved its greatest development. There, with the financial support of the
capitalists and the protection of the civil and military authorities, it has
attained a power without limits.
The
ruthless offensive against the class organs of the proletariat has served the
capitalists well. In the course of a year they've seen all the apparatus of the
socialist unions smashed and rendered impotent.
However,
this offensive has also had another effect. It is clear that the escalating
violence has provoked a widespread hostility towards fascism among the middle
and working classes.
The
episodes in Sarzana, Treviso, Viterbo and Roccastrada profoundly shook the
fascist cadre in the cities – personified in Mussolini – who began to see a
danger in the exclusively negative tactics of the Fasci in the agricultural
regions.
However,
it is also true that these tactics have already borne excellent fruit –
dragging the Socialist Party on to a terrain of compromise and making them
favourable to collaboration in the country and in Parliament.
From
this point on, the latent tensions [between the rural and urban fascist cadre]
began to manifest themselves in full force.
The
urban, collaborationist cadre believed they had now reached their objective.
They felt the Socialist Party had abandoned ‘class intransigence’, and now
these cadre hurried to make their victory official with the pacification pact.
But
the agrarian capitalists could not renounce the sole tactic that assured them
the ‘free’ exploitation of the peasant class – the tactic that was ridding them
of the inconvenience of strikes and workers’ organisations.
All
the arguments currently raging in the fascist camp, between those who are for
and those who are against the pacification pact, come down to this fundamental
rift. Its origins are rooted in those of the fascist movement itself.
The
claims of the Italian socialists to have provoked the split in the fascists’
ranks with their skilful politics of compromise merely serve to confirm the
socialists’ demagogy.
In
reality the ‘crisis’ of fascism is not new. It has always existed. Once the
contingent reasons that maintained the unity of these anti-proletarian groups
ceased, it was inevitable that their latent disagreements would quickly flare
up. The crisis, therefore, is nothing other than the clarification of
pre-existing tendencies.
This
crisis will provoke a split among the fascists. The parliamentary faction,
headed by Mussolini, and based on the middle classes (white-collar workers,
shopkeepers and small manufacturers) will attempt to organise these milieux
politically. It will of necessity move towards a collaboration with the
socialists and the ‘popolari’.
The
intransigent [rural] faction, that expresses the need for the direct and armed defense
of the agrarian capitalists’ interests, will continue to carry out their
characteristic anti-proletarian actions. For this faction (the most important
in regard to the working class) the ‘truce’ acclaimed as a victory by the
socialists will be worthless.
The
‘crisis’ will only signal the departure from the movement of a petit-bourgeois
faction that has tried in vain to justify fascism with a general political
‘party’ program. But fascism – the genuine article that the peasants and
workers of Emilia, Veneto and Tuscany know through their own painful
experiences of the last two years of white terror – will continue, although
perhaps under a different name.
There
is now a lull in hostilities, due to the discord within the fascist camp. The
task of revolutionary workers and peasants is to take advantage of this pause
to instill in the oppressed and defenseless masses a clear understanding of the
true state of the class struggle – and the means necessary to defeat the
swaggering capitalist reaction.
//EOM//
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