chapter 22 Between Belonging and Originality: Norberto Bobbio’s Interpretation of Gramsci

Alessio Panichi

1 Introduction

In his Autobiografia,1 Norberto Bobbio reconstructs the main phases of his dia- logue with a number of Italian Marxist scholars. In doing so, Bobbio asserts that during the first half of the 1950s he regarded these scholars as interlocutors rather than adversaries, remarking that ‘the essays gathered in Politica e cul- tura’ were the outcome of this judgement.2 Actually, such an assertion does not exclusively concern that period of time or the topics tackled in these essays.The respectful and serene discussion, although it is not without polemical tones, characterises the whole history of the fifty year relationship between Bobbio and the Italian communists. This type of discussion reflects not only some of Bobbio’s peculiar personality traits,3 but also a clear historical and cultural awareness concerning the importance of the Marxist tradition within the con- text of political and intellectual history. In the last page of the essay entitled Libertà e potere, written in response to Palmiro Togliatti, Bobbio argues that

if we had not learned from to look at history from the point of view of oppressed people, getting a new and immense perspective on the human world, we would not have saved ourselves. Either we would have searched for shelter on the island of our inner being or we would have put ourselves at the service of the old rulers.4

These words are neither a mere formal homage, imposed by the circumstances of the debate with Togliatti, nor an attempt to flatter him. Indeed, they are undoubtedly sincere, as shown by the fact that Bobbio reaffirms them even after many years have passed. For instance, in his Autobiografia, Bobbio, after

1 Bobbio 1999. 2 Bobbio 1999, p. 104. 3 Ibid. 4 Bobbio 2005, p. 240.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004417694_024 392 panichi specifying that he has ‘never been’ and was ‘never thought to be’ a communist, acknowledges being aware that ‘communism was an agent of great changes’ as well as ‘of a true revolution in the classical sense of the term’.5 This awareness, which is frequent among the exponents of Italian liberal-,6 is coupled with occasional but long lasting interest in Marxian and Marxist thought, as shown by his several essays on Antonio Gramsci. As a matter of fact, Bobbio was one of the main protagonists of the debate concerning Gramsci’s ideas and their relationship to the Marxist tradition. After the publication of the Letters from Prison and the Prison Notebooks, Gram- sci’s theories not only influenced and culture in twentieth-century . They also became the topic of different and opposed interpretations that, as shown by Guido Liguori in his book Gramsci conteso,7 are helpful in throw- ing light on the history of Italian political culture. This is not the right place to reconstruct, even summarily, the root causes and consequences of this debate; instead, the important point is that it fosters and, at the same time, is fostered by Bobbio’s interest in Gramsci, an interest that is sincere and long lasting, rep- resenting a strong leitmotiv that runs for a long time. In the following pages, I will take into account the reasons for such an interest that, despite its sporadic nature, is continuous and manifests itself in several essays, quotations, and interviews. More specifically, I will focus on two of Bobbio’s writings, that is, Nota sulla dialettica di Gramsci and Gramsci e la concezione della società civile,8 which represent different but closely related features of his interpretation. As we shall see below, this interpretation stems from the belief that Gramsci fully belongs to the Marxist tradition, but in a rather peculiar way, which is rooted in his political commitment as well as in his organic connection with Italian history and culture. The analysis of those two writings will be flanked by the quotation and explanation of all of Gramsci’s passages or concepts that are singled out by Bobbio, in order to contextualise their contents. Most importantly, it will be carried out through a careful narrat- ive reading that aims to respect Gramsci’s warning not ‘to push the texts, that is, to make texts say more than they really say, just for the sake of supporting a thesis’.9

5 Bobbio 1999, p. 104; compare Bobbio 1974, p. 227. 6 Sbarberi 2005, p. xvi. See also Anderson 1988, and Greco 2000, pp. 112–15. 7 See Liguori 2012. 8 Published respectively in 1958 and 1969, see Bobbio 1958a (also Bobbio 1958b), and Bobbio 1969. 9 Gramsci 1975, Q6, §198, p. 838.