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Journal of the History of Ideas
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GRAMSCI'S INTERPRETATION
OF FASCISM
BY WALTER L. ADAMSON*
* My thanks to Molly Nolan, Charles Maier, and Herbert A. Deane for thei
comments on and criticisms of an earlier version of this article.
1 For an example of this tendency, see A. James Gregor, Interpretations of Fas-
cism (Morristown, N.J., 1974).
2 For a summary review of some of this official literature, see John M. Cammett,
"Communist Theories of Fascism," Science and Society, 31: 2 (Spring 1967), 149-63.
615
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616 WALTER L. ADAMSON
3 Ernst Nolte and Roberto Vivarelli have each stressed this point; see the
former's Three Faces of Fascism (London, 1965), 3-9 and 167-77, and the latter's
"Italian Fascism," Historical Journal, 17: 3 (1974), 644.
4 On this point, see Federico Chabod, A History of Italian Fascism (London,
1963), 48, and Adrian Lyttleton, The Seizure of Power (London, 1973), 51-52.
5 Ibid., 430, n. 66.
6 Nicos Poulantzas, Fascism and Dictatorship (London, 1974).
7 All citations from Gramsci's work are taken from Socialismo efascismo (Turin,
1966), La Costruzione del partito comunista (Turin, 1971), Quaderni del Carcere, 4
vols. (Turin, 1975)-cf., Selections from the Prison Notebooks, eds. Q. Hoare and P.
Nowell Smith (New York, 1971), and cf., Selections from the Political Writings,
1910-1920, ed. Q. Hoare (New York, 1977); hereafter abbreviated S.F., C.P.C.,
Q.C., S.P.N., and S.P. W. respectively, the year of composition in parentheses.
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GRAMSCI'S INTERPRETATION OF FASCISM 617
8 S.P.W., 191, 352-53, 360 (1920). 9 S.P.W., 353 (1920), 372 (1921).
10 A good example is his January 11 article on "Fiume," used to discredit PSI
chairman Serrati; cf. S.F., 34-36 (1921).
11 S.F., 9-10, 55-56 (1921). The accuracy of Gramsci's analysis of the early petty
bourgeois character of fascism is now commonly acknowledged; cf. Lyttleton, o
cit., 55 and 106.
12 S.F., 76-79 (1921). 13 S.F., 297-99 (1921). 14 S.F., 172 (1921).
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618 WALTER L. ADAMSON
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GRAMSCI'S INTERPRETATION OF FASCISM 619
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620 WALTER L. ADAMSON
24 Ibid.; cf. also Angelo Tasca's discussion in his Rise of Italian Fascism
1922 (London, 1938), 134, where Mussolini is quoted as saying, "We must ab
collectivist state that the war forced on us, and return to the Mancheste
These perceptions tend to undercut those recent attempts by Gregor and
assimilate Mussolini's fascism to movements of "modernization." Cf. Grego
cit., and more recently "Fascism and Comparative Politics," Comparative
Studies 9: 2 (July 1976), 207-22. For a recent critique of this position whic
that Mussolini simply did not think in these terms, see Charles S. Maier
Recent Studies of Fascism," Journal of Modern History, 48: 3 (Sept. 1976
25 S.F., 494 (1922). 26 S.F., 528-30 (1922).
27 C.P.C., 488-513, 137-58 (1926); the latter ar
Athos Lisa, Memorie: In carcere con Gramsci (M
Notebooks, Gramsci goes back even further and
groups of petty bourgeoisie formed by the disin
those smaller cities of the northern Italian inter
of silence"; cf. S.P.N. 131 (1932).
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GRAMSCI'S INTERPRETATION OF FASCISM 621
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622 WALTER L. ADAMSON
30 For Gramsci's support of the arditi del popolo, see S.F., 542 (1921). A discu
sion of Gramsci's relation to Bordiga in this period and of the reasons behind t
changes in his strategic thinking from 1922-24 are included in my "Towards th
Prison Notebooks: The Evolution of Gramsci's Thinking on Political Organization
1918-1926," Polity (1979). Most of the documents relevant to the latter point ar
included in Palmiro Togliatti, La formazione del gruppo dirigente del partito co
unista italiano nel 1923-1924 (Rome, 1962).
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GRAMSCI'S INTERPRETATION OF FASCISM 623
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624 WALTER L. ADAMSON
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GRAMSCI'S INTERPRETATION OF FASCISM 625
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626 WALTER L. ADAMSON
43 C.P.C., 150-58 (1926). 44 C.P.C., 150 (1926). 45 See Lisa, op. cit., 90-103.
46 C.P.C., 139-40 (1926). 47Ibid., 140. 48Ibid., 158.
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GRAMSCI'S INTERPRETATION OF FASCISM 627
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628 WALTER L. ADAMSON
53 Ibid.
54 S.P.N., 228-29 (1930). A party which successfully fulfills this function is, in the
lexicon of the Notebooks, a "Jacobin" party.
55 S.P.N., 210 (1933).
56 S.P.N., 219-23 (1933). It seems likely that Gramsci chose the term Caesarism as
a way of speaking indirectly about fascism, for a parallel between Caesar and Musso-
lini was quite common in the Italy of this era; cf. Q.C., 1924 (1933).
57 S.P.N. That Caesarism is not necessarily tied to the great heroic figure and
sometimes uses the mass organizations of modern political life is one of the ways
Gramsci means to distinguish it from Bonapartism. The other, referred to above, is
that it results not so much from an equilibrium of rival class forces but from the defeat
of one and the intrinsic weakness of the other.
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GRAMSCI'S INTERPRETATION OF FASCISM 629
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630 WALTER L. ADAMSON
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GRAMSCI'S INTERPRETATION OF FASCISM 631
63 Cf. Friedrich Engels, "On the Origin of the State," in The Mar
ed. Robert Tucker (New York, 1972), 653-54.
64 S.P.N., 139-40 (1932).
65 The concept of a "law of tendency" is adapted from Antonio Labriola; cf.
S.P.N., 428.
66 No doubt Gramsci's move towards a Marxist political theory was influenced
well by his reading of more recent Italian writers like the elite theorists of Mosc
Pareto, and Michels. Though intensely critical of Michels, for example, he devot
considerable space to his views in the Notebooks; cf. Q.C., 239 (1930).
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632 WALTER L. ADAMSON
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GRAMSCI'S INTERPRETATION OF FASCISM 633
Emory University.
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