Gramsci Contested: Interpretations, Debates, and Polemics, 1922-2012 (Historical Materialism Book, 250)

401 Pages·2022·1.436 MB·English

by  Guido Liguori

GramsciContested
Historical Materialism
Book Series
EditorialBoard
LorenBalhorn(Berlin)
DavidBroder(Rome)
SebastianBudgen(Paris)
SteveEdwards(London)
JuanGrigera(London)
MarcelvanderLinden(Amsterdam)
PeterThomas(London)
volume 250
Thetitlespublishedinthisseriesarelistedatbrill.com/hm
Gramsci Contested
Interpretations,DebatesandPolemics,1922–2012
By
GuidoLiguori
Translatedby
RichardBraude
leiden | boston
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Names:Liguori,Guido,author.|Braude,Richard,translator.
Title:Gramscicontested:debatesandpolemics,1922-2012/byGuidoLiguori;
translatedbyRichardBraude.
Othertitles:Gramsciconteso.English
Description:Leiden;Boston:Brill,[2022]|Series:Historicalmaterialismbook
series,1570-1522;volume250|Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
Identifiers:lccn2021052528(print)|lccn2021052529(ebook)|
isbn9789004270169(hardback)|isbn9789004503342(ebook)
Subjects:lcsh:Gramsci,Antonio,1891-1937–Influence.|
Communism–Italy–History.|Socialism–Italy–History.
Classification:lcchx289.7.g73l54132022(print)|lcchx289.7.g73(ebook)|
ddc335.43–dc23/eng/20211028
lcrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2021052528
lcebookrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2021052529
TypefacefortheLatin,Greek,andCyrillicscripts:“Brill”.Seeanddownload:brill.com/brill‑typeface.
issn1570-1522
isbn978-90-04-27016-9(hardback)
isbn978-90-04-50334-2(e-book)
Copyright2022byKoninklijkeBrillnv,Leiden,TheNetherlands.
KoninklijkeBrillnvincorporatestheimprintsBrill,BrillNijhoff,BrillHotei,BrillSchöningh,BrillFink,
Brillmentis,Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht,BöhlauVerlagandV&RUnipress.
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,translated,storedinaretrievalsystem,
ortransmittedinanyformorbyanymeans,electronic,mechanical,photocopying,recordingorotherwise,
withoutpriorwrittenpermissionfromthepublisher.Requestsforre-useand/ortranslationsmustbe
addressedtoKoninklijkeBrillnvviabrill.comorcopyright.com.
Thisbookisprintedonacid-freepaperandproducedinasustainablemanner.
Contents
PrefacetotheSecondEdition ix
PrefacetotheFirstEdition xii
1 GramsciintheWritingsofHisContemporaries(1922–38) 1
1 TheLiberalHistoryofaSardinianCommunist 1
2 Offthe‘HighRoad’ 5
3 TheSentence 6
4 Prison 12
5 Death 15
6 ‘AntonioGramsci,LeaderoftheItalianWorkingClass’ 19
7 ‘AnIrreparableLoss’ 23
8 BetweenCarducciandPascoli 26
2 TheIdentityandTraditionoftheParty(1939–47) 30
1 GramsciandTogliatti 30
2 The‘NewParty’andtheIntellectuals 33
3 ‘Gramsci’sPolitics’ 40
4 PoliticsandCulture 49
5 BetweenCroceandMarx 52
3 DiamatandtheNotebooks(1948–55) 57
1 TheColdWarandthePrisonNotebooks 57
2 Gramsci’s‘Anti-Fascism’ 63
3 InterpretingtheNotebooks 65
4 DogmaticandNon-dogmaticMarxisms 70
5 Dissonances 75
6 TheHistoryoftheItalianCommunistParty 79
7 ALegendaryComrade 84
8 FirstEvaluationsandNewPerspectives 89
4 GramsciandtheItalianRoadtoSocialism(1956–59) 94
1 1956 94
2 ‘TooFewGramscians’ 99
3 Gramsci’sRelevance 104
4 GramsciandLeninism 107
5 TheRomeConference 110
6 The‘ReturntoMarx’ 116
vi contents
7 TheFutureCity 117
8 TheDebateonItalianUnification 121
5 Fromthe‘NewHistory’oftheCommunistPartytotheCrisisof
Historicism(1960–69) 124
1 TheLateTogliatti 124
2 The‘NewHistory’oftheItalianCommunistParty 129
3 ThreeBiographies 132
4 The‘GiovaneCritica’ 137
5 TheCrisisofHistoricism 141
6 GramsciandCivilSociety 148
7 The‘Historicisation’ofGramsci 152
8 WithintheInternationalCommunistMovement 155
9 HistoricismandtheCommunistParty 156
6 TheGoldenAge(1970–75) 162
1 GramsciBackonHisFeet 162
2 WorkerismandAmericanism 165
3 GramsciandtheSoviets 167
4 TheConceptofHegemony 168
5 ThePrimacyofthePolitical 172
6 Gramsci’sMarxism 175
7 GramsciandtheState 178
8 Gramsciandthe‘NewLeft’ 181
9 The‘GerratanaEdition’ 189
7 TheApogeeandCrisisofGramscianCulture(1976–77) 191
1 ThePluralismDebate 191
2 HegemonyandDemocracy 193
3 TheFrattocchieSeminar 198
4 TheFlorenceCongress 202
5 TheCrisis 206
8 TenYearsof‘Blackout’(1978–86) 209
1 TheCrisisofMarxism 209
2 Gramsciand‘Organicism’ 210
3 PredictionandPraxis 213
4 IntellectualsandPower 218
5 InterpretationsofHegemony 220
6 Inthe‘Factory’oftheNotebooks 223
7 Gramsci,Religion,Catholicism 226
contents vii
9 BetweenPoliticsandPhilology(1987–96) 233
1 GramsciandtheCommunistPartyin1987 233
2 GramsciintheWorld 236
3 TheFiftiethAnniversaryofa‘Classic’ 238
4 GramsciansandPost-Gramscians 242
5 BetweenPoliticsandHistory 246
6 APost-communistGramsci 248
7 Gramsci,Togliatti,Stalin 253
8 Gramsci,Tania,Sraffa 258
9 TowardsaNewEditionofGramsci’sWorks 260
10 LiberalDemocratorCriticalCommunist?(1997–2000) 266
1 NationalandInternational 266
2 TheReturnofCivilSociety 270
3 TaylorismandFordism 274
4 Gramsci’sMethod 277
5 TheStoryofaPrisoner 280
6 GramsciContestedattheEndoftheMillennium 283
11 GramsciintheTwenty-FirstCentury(2000–08) 288
1 ForGramsci 288
2 GramscianResearch 294
3 Gramsci’sTranslatability 301
4 RenewedInterest 306
5 GramsciandPolitics 311
12 Gramsci’sReturn(2009–12) 318
1 NewWorkingTools 318
2 Onthe‘PhilosophyofPraxis’ 326
3 Gramsci’s‘Fortune’ 334
4 CreativeUses 337
5 StoriesandHistories 341
6 ThePoliticalandTheoreticalJourneyofthePrisonYears 346
7 TheFutureGramsci 355
Bibliography 359
IndexofNames 376

Preface to the Second Edition
In1991theItalianCommunistParty,Gramsci’sparty,ceasedtoexist.Overthe
1990s,liberaldemocraticculturegainedapositionof hegemonicimportance,
including on the Italian left: liberal figures such as Ignazio Silone and Carlo
RosselliwonthedayandwereevencomparedtoAntonioGramsci,nottomen-
tionpeoplewhoseideaswereevenlesssimilar.Forseveralyearsitseemedthat
theSardiniancommunistriskeddisappearingfrompublicviewaltogether,so
muchsothatithasoftenbeennotedthatGramsciwasbeingstudiedfarmore
outsideofItalythaninhishomecountry.Intruththiswasonlypartlythecase.
Fallenfromgraceintheeyesof boththepoliticalclassandthemajorityof
intellectuals, Gramsci’s position in Italian culture could not have descended
muchfurther.Butinthefifteenyearsfollowingthesixtiethanniversaryofhis
deathin1997,around180volumes(bothbooksandmonographs)cameoutthat
wereeitherabouthimorpublishedhisworks,aroundonepermonth–includ-
ingmanylargepublications,especiallyinthefirstfewyearsofthetwenty-first
century.
Therearearangeof explanationsforthisphenomenon.Inthefirstplace,
it had been widely accepted that Gramsci represented a giant of twentieth-
centurythought,andhehadbecomethemoststudiedmodernItalianauthor
in the world. Gramsci’s fortunes outside of Italy from the 1980s and 1990s
increasedconsiderablynotonlyinplaceswheretheleftismorepresent(e.g.
South America), but also throughout the English-speaking world, in British
andAmericanuniversities,aswellasbeingdrawnuponbyAfrican-American
andBengaliintellectuals.ThisdiffusionofGramsciandtheglobalisationofhis
fame,naturallyhadapositiveeffectonhisfortunesinItalyitself.
AsecondreasonthatpreventedGramscifrombeingentirelydrownedout
inItalywasthedevelopmentofhistorical-philologicalstudiesinthe1990sthat
cameoutoftheGramsciFoundation’snationaleditionofhiswritings(theEdiz-
ionenazionaledegliscrittidiAntonioGramsci),whichutilisednewlyreleased
archivalmaterialinMoscowaswellasnewresearchrelatingtovariousfigures
inGramsci’slife.Italsodrewonresearchonthediachronicorganisationofthe
Notebooksandtheimpactof that‘greatandterribleworld’ontheircontents,
researchthathasgraduallyprovidedanewcontextfortheprisonworks.
Last but not least, a resistance was mounted to this dangerous removal of
Gramsci, conducted by groups, organisations, activists and individual teach-
ers–bothinandoutsideoftheacademy–whoopposedthisforgettingofthe
Sardinian Marxist. In this context, the establishment of the Italian Sessions
bytheItaliansectionof theInternationalGramsciSociety(igs)in1996was
x preface to the second edition
ofgreatimportance,contributingtotheorganisationofseminarsandconfer-
ences,thecollationof neweditionsand,beginningin2001,seminarsonthe
languageof the Notebooks,encouraginganewcollectiveprocessof studying
theprisonwritingsfreefromtheburdensof priorinterpretations,forminga
newgenerationofGramscischolars.
This book – now in its second edition (expanded to include studies from
1997to2012)–includesanaccountofthoseinterpretationsanddiscussionsof
GramsciwhichhavetakenplaceinItalyoverthesepastfifteenyears.
Thefirstninechaptersthatformedthefirsteditionin1996havebeenaltered
aslittleaspossible,withtheexceptionoftheninthsectionofChapter9,which
has been largely reworked, while the tenth section of the same chapter has
been removed. For the rest, some notes have been added or completed, and
corrections have been made to errors of printing and formatting. There are
alsoadditionsrelatingtosomeessaysthathavebeenunjustlyignored,anda
fewopinionshavebeenrevised.Ithinktheonlysignificantmodificationismy
re-evaluation of the previously under-estimated existence of a long distance
exchangebetweenGramsciinTuriandTogliattiinexile;inthepreviousedition,
IhadfavouredthehypothesisthatTogliattihadwantedtobreakoff relations
withGramsciin1926.
Three chapters have been added on the development of Gramsci studies
in the years following 1996. My reconstruction of the years 1996–2005 is the
result of work undertaken in collaboration with Chiara Meta in our jointly-
authored Gramsci: Guida alla lettura (Milan, Unicopoli 2005). Some of the
opinionsexpressedtherebeenpartlyrevisedinthenewchapters.Thisisalso
thecaseforthemanyreviewsandessaysthatIhavewrittenovertheyearsfor
variousjournals,aswellasforthewebsiteof theInternationalGramsciSoci-
ety.Thenewchaptersfollowthedesignofthefirstedition,inwhichwedecided
toprioritisecriticaldiscussionswhoseimpactiscentraltocurrentinterpreta-
tions.
Manyfriendshavereadwholechaptersorpartsofthem,providingprecious
adviceevenifIhavenotalwaysfollowedit.AsidefromChiaraMeta,Iextend
my deepest gratitude to Lea Durante, Eleanora Forenza, Fabio Frosini, Raul
Mordenti,GiuseppePrestipinoandPeterThomasfortheirindispensabledia-
logicalrole.Itisnotmerelyaformalitytosaythattheresponsibilityforthefinal
productisminealone.
Mythanksalsogoestotheparticipantsof theseminarsontheinterpreta-
tionoftheNotebooksorganisedbytheigsItalia,whosecollectiveworkIhave
drawnuponformanyyears.
ThisbookisdedicatedtoCarlosNelsonCoutinho,afriendwhoiswithus
no more. The intensification of his illness and his eventual passing away in