The Passive Revolutionary Route to the Modern World: Italy and India in Comparative Perspective Author(S): Dylan J

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The Passive Revolutionary Route to the Modern World: Italy and India in Comparative Perspective Author(s): Dylan J. Riley and Manali Desai Source: Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 49, No. 4 (Oct., 2007), pp. 815-847 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4497708 . Accessed: 25/08/2013 23:50

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This content downloaded from 136.152.209.153 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 23:50:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ComparativeStudies in Societyand History2007;49(4):815-847. 0010-4175/07$15.00 ? 2007 Societyfor Comparative Study of Societyand History DOI: 10.1017/S0010417507000771

The PassiveRevolutionary Route to theModem World: Italy and India in ComparativePerspective DYLAN J. RILEY

Sociology,University of California, Berkeley

MANALI DESAI

Sociology,University of Kent

Hindostanis an Italyof Asiatic dimensions, the Himalayas for the Alps, the Plains of Bengalfor the Plains of Lombardy,the Deccan for the Apennines, and the Isle of Ceylonfor the Island of Sicily. --Karl Marx Ifwe wanteverything toremain as itis, everything must change. --Giuseppe Tomasidi Lampedusa

REVOLUTIONS AND CONSERVATIVE MODERNIZATION SinceBarrington Moore (1993: 438) famouslywrote, "the notion that a violent popularrevolution is somehownecessary in orderto sweep away 'feudal' obstaclesto industrializationis pure nonsense," conservative modernization has been theobject of considerableattention (McDaniel 1991: 5; Trimberger 1978:3). Revolutionfrom above (Trimberger 1978: 3), andautocratic modem- ization(McDaniel 1991:5), in particular,are now widely viewed as alternative pathsto "modern"(nationally integrated and industrialized)societies. While scholarsemphasize important differences among these routes, they share two mainfeatures. First, these forms of modernization leave intact much of the pre- existingclass and statestructure. Second, the main agent of transformationin thesecases is usuallyconsidered to be thecentral state. Thispaper conceptualizes and explains a specificform of conservative mod- ernizationwhich we term"passive revolution," in whicha masspolitical party

Acknowledgments:We would like to thankGiovanni Arrighi, Michael Burawoy, Rebecca Jean Emigh,and theanonymous reviewers from Comnparative Studies in Societyand Histor3for their helpfutlcomments on this paper. 815

This content downloaded from 136.152.209.153 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 23:50:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 816 DYLAN J. RILEY AND MANALI DESAI ratherthan the state promotes economic development and nationalintegration while leavingthe pre-existing social and politicalorder largely undisturbed (Gramsci1971: 106-20). We explainthe general conditions for this path to the modemworld and distinguishbetween two formsof it: violentpassive revolutionsexemplified by Italian fascism(1919-1938), and non-violent passiverevolutions exemplified by Indiannationalism (1919-1947). We con- cludeby placingpassive revolution in thecontext of otherconservative mod- ernizationprocess, and brieflydiscuss the possible consequences of thisroute to modemsociety.

PASSIVE REVOLUTIONS Politicaltheorists (Chatterjee 1986: 48-49), historians(Adamson 1980; Davis et al. 1979; Roosa 2001; Sarkar1983a), scholars of internationalrelations and of development(Abrahamsen 1997; Morton2003; Soederberg2001) have all usedthe term passive revolution. However it remains marginal to the lexicon of politicalsociology, in part because it has beenpoorly defined. In thissection of the essay we conceptualizepassive revolutionas a distinctive"route to the modemworld" (Moore 1993: 413-14).

Passive RevolutionDefined AntonioGramsci draws the concept of passive revolution from the Neapolitan politicalwriter Vincenzo Cuoco (1998: 326, 251), who uses the termto describehow youngermembers of the southernItalian aristocracy adopted Frenchrevolutionary ideas in the eighteenthcentury. Gramsci extends the conceptby suggestingthat revolutionary ideas and formsof organization can be pressedinto the serviceof reactionarypolitics. He definespassive revolutionsas "restoration-revolutions"(1971: 118). The alliance between the "moderates"(made up of mostlylanded aristocrats) around Cavour and Mazzini's radical democratsduring the Italian Risorgimentoand Italian fascismboth exemplify this process (Adamson 1980: 630; De Felice 1977: 198; Gramsci1971: 108-9). Distinctivelyin passive revolutions,a revolutionarymodel of political organizationand revolutionarypolitical techniquesare pressed into the serviceof a conservativemodernization project (De Felice 1977: 198-99; Gramsci1971: 118, 120). Specificto passive revolutionsis theparadoxical combinationof conservativeaims and revolutionarymeans. Passiverevolutions resemble social revolutions in the types of organizational actorsthat carry them out, but are similar to revolutions'from above' andauto- craticmodernization in theirconsequences. As in social revolutions,political organizationsrather than bureaucrats and notablesare the mainactors. Yet, likerevolutions from above and autocraticmodernization, passive revolutions leave intact,and mayeven strengthen,the social and politicalpower of pre- existing dominantclasses. Thus they do not issue in "rapid, basic

This content downloaded from 136.152.209.153 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 23:50:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ITALY AND INDIA IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE 817 transformationsof a society'sstate and class structures"(Skocpol 1979: 4). Distinctivelypassive revolutionsare instancesof the use of revolutionary meansof organization, rather than bureaucratic power, to achieveconservative modernization.

Passive RevolutionExplained How shouldpassive revolutionsbe explained?Many of the conditionsthat explainthem are commonto conservativemodernization in general.Most importantamong these is theabsence of a "bourgeoisrevolution," defined as theviolent elimination of thelanded elite accompanied by landredistribution. Butwithin this general type of path passive revolutions occur under two further conditions.The firstis theweakening of the agrarian old regimeby an external power.This condition is importantbecause it blocks the development of an alliance betweenagrarian and industrialelites and thestate typical of revolutions fromabove and autocraticmodernization. The secondcondition is theemergence of mass mobilizationamong the workingclass and the peasantry, whichconvinces an importantsector of theagrarians and industrialistsof the need for a new politicalorder. Passive revolutionsare thus intimately,if ratherparadoxically, connected to mass mobilizationor at least to theper- ceivedthreat of mass mobilization. These, we argue,are the generalconditions of passive revolutions.But passiverevolutions take different forms depending on thepolitical instruments availablefor dealing with working class andpeasant insurgency. Where formal nationalunification is achievedprior to mass mobilization,the agrarian- industrialelite has difficultyforming a nationalistalliance with the mobilized peasantry.'Thus in these cases agrariansand industrialistsface a double threat:mobilized peasants and workers.Alienated from the state, and unable to forma modernizingcoalition that includes the peasants,the social elite pursuea violentpassive revolution.We arguethat Italian fascism typifies thispath. In conditionsof true colonialism the elite has differentoptions. Mobilization fornational self-determination becomes a powerfulideological tool to incor- poratebroad sectors of the peasantry. Further, the colonial regime may repress mobilizationamong the workingclass at no politicalcost to agrariansand industrialists.A moreinclusive non-violent passive revolution then becomes possible.Indian nationalism typifies this path.

TWO TYPES OF PASSIVE REVOLUTION: ITALY AND INDIA Our analysisestablishes two key similaritiesthat explain the emergenceof a passiverevolutionary agent. First, in bothItaly and India externalpowers

We use "agrarians"and "industrialists,"or moregenerally "social elite,"to referto those groups who controlled land and industrialcapital. For a similar usage see McDaniel (1991: 9).

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destroyedthe agrarian old regimethrough military and diplomatic means. This condition,as we argue,cut offthe possibility of a conservativemodernizing alliancewith the bureaucracy, and forcedagrarians and industrialistsback on theirown organizationalresources. Second, both Italy and Indiaunderwent a periodof rapid peasant and working class mobilizationthat was a majorstimu- lus towardan alternativemodernization project. In Italythis occurred in a con- centratedperiod during the two years following World War I, whilein Indiait was a moreprotracted process during the thirties.In bothcases, however, popularinsurgency was a stimulusto eliteself-organization and was a keycon- ditionfor passive revolution. We thencontrast the two cases on thefactor of the timing of national unifica- tionrelative to the mobilization of the working class andthe peasantry showing thatin Italyformal national unification preceded working class and peasant insurgencyby overfifty years. In Indiathe coincidence of mobilizationfrom below and mobilizationagainst the colonial state allowed the social eliteto allywith a largesector of the middle peasantry. The alliancewas heldtogether withthe technique of non-violence. In Italy,in contrast,agrarians and industrialistswere much more politically isolated. Not onlywere they unable to ally withthe urbanworking class, theywere also unable to forma significant base of supportamong the peasantry.The passive revolutionin this case tookthe form of a violentreaction against mobilization from below.

Italy's Road to PassiveRevolution We dividethe analysis of theItalian path into three sections. In the firstwe discussthe process of nation-stateformation. Our key argumenthere is that the unifiedItalian state politically eliminated the old regimeswhile leaving theirsocial bases intact.The consequencewas a quasi-colonialrelationship withthe underlying society. The secondsection analyzes the post-World War I crisisthat led to therise of fascism,and arguesthat both the peasantry and theworking class mobilizedon a nationalscale forthe first time during the twoyears from 1919 to 1920.Fascism was a responseto a failedrevolutionary breakthroughunder these conditions. The thirdsection discusses the achieve- mentsof thepassive revolution in Italy. Unificationand Trasformismo.Italy failed to producea nationalstate of its own untilthe mid-nineteenthcentury. Prior to thisthe countryremained dividedamong different political regimes. After the defeatof Napoleon in 1815 seven main statesexisted. Piedmont in the Northwestcorner of the peninsulawas an autonomousprincipality ruled by the Savoyardmonarchy. To the East Lombardy-Venetiawas an Austrianprovince. Tuscany and Modena were Austrianarchduchies and Parma was given to Napoleon's secondwife Marie-Louise. The churchdirectly ruled the Papal Statesin the centerof thecountry (Lazio, Umbria,the Marches, and Romagna).South of Rome the largestpolitical unit on the peninsulawas the Kingdomof the

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Two Siciliesthat united Sicily with most of the southern peninsula (Holt 1970: 38-42). The nativepopulation controlled none of thesepolitical units except for Piedmont.Broadly speaking,Austrians controlled the northand the SpanishBourbons the south. Nineteenth-century Italy then was a geographical zone in whichpolitical divisions followed dynastic lines. The presenceof multiple foreign powers on Italiansoil meantthat diplomatic and militaryfactors shaped unification. The processbegan fromPiedmont, a smallbut autonomous kingdom that originally stretched from northern Italy to southernFrance. Given its small size, the Piedmontese could unify the peninsula only by maintainingadequate relations with the French,and discouraging Austrianintervention. These two diplomaticpriorities were incompatible with radicalsocial transformation. The conflictbetween them became clear with the Italiannationalist Giuseppe Garibaldi's expedition to the south in 1860.Garibaldi threatenedboth to arousethe rural masses, and to unseatthe papacy, outcomes unacceptableboth to the Frenchand the Austrians.In partto avoid foreign intervention,the main conservativearchitect of unification,Count Camillo Benso di Cavour,acted to checkthis project by marchingPiedmontese troops to thenorthern border of theKingdom of theTwo Sicilies,thereby blocking Garibaldi'sadvance to theNorth. Southern Italy was subsequentlyattached to the Italiankingdom through a plebiscite.A bloodycivil war (1861-1865) foughtagainst an allianceof ex-Bourbonretainers and thesouthern peasantry followedformal political unification (Seton-Watson 1967: 26). A militaryand diplomaticprocess in whichone smallstate rapidly extended its institutions to the peninsulaas a whole substitutedfor either popular or elitemobilization frombelow (Banti 1996: 52-53; Ragionieri1972: 44-53, 70; Seton-Watson 1967: 49). As a consequencea largesector of thepopulation especially in the southexperienced unification as occupation. Afterunification local controlshifted to a groupof powerful and unaccoun- table royallyappointed prefects who were mostlyPiedmontese (Ragionieri 1972: 26-27). Alongsidethis despotic local regime,parliament functioned as a deal-makingforum for elite interests. No politicalparties existed to aggre- gatethese at a nationallevel, and onlya narrowstratum could vote until 1912 when suffrageincreased from about 7 percentof the populationto about 20 percent(Farneti 1971: 228). The post-unificationstate, like colonial regimes,based itsrule on repressionand elitecooptation. The maintechnique of cooptationwas called trasformismo,in which great parliamentaryleaders formed governments in parliamentby strikingagree- mentswith various electoral cliques. Giovanni Giolitti, its most notorious prac- titioner,ruled indiscriminately with the support of theleft or right,but lacked his own partyorganization (Carocci 1971). This systemof controlworked well throughthe nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries. It was capable of effectivelymanaging the competingregional interests and conflictsbetween agriculturaland industry(Banti 1996: 168), and was relativelysuccessful

This content downloaded from 136.152.209.153 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 23:50:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 820 DYLAN J. RILEY AND MANALI DESAI at incorporatingpolitically some of the more privileged sectors of the northern industrialworking class (Carocci 1971: 84-85; De Cecco and Pedone 1995: 260; Roberts1979: 50-51). Despiteits fragilepolitical foundations, the post-unification state presided over rathersuccessful economic development from 1895-1913 (Federico 1996: 765, 768, 774; Zamagni1993: 93-95, 121, 147). Thisbenefited many agrarianand urban workers. Zamagni (1984: 198) showsa 44 percentincrease in industrialworkers' wages overthe years 1898 to 1913,and rapidlyrising incomesfrom 1913 to 1919 among agriculturalday laborers(braccianti) (Zamagni 1979-1980: 22). The last decade-and-a-halfof liberalItaly was, then,a periodof steadysocial progressand lesseninginequality. Thus unificationhad mixed results.Although the new state achieved impressiveeconomic growth, especially after the turn of the century, ithad little structuredsupport among the population. The socialelite lacked peninsula-wide politicalorganizations. As boththe domesticand internationalenvironments becamemore threatening in the period after 1911, the relations between liberal representativesand thosewhom they represented (primarily the agrarianand industrialelite) grew strained. As becameclear with the rise of fascism,they wouldcarry out a modernizationproject against the state.

ThePost-War Period and theRise ofFascism.The politicalcrisis following WorldWar I, called "the red two years,"or bienniorosso (1919-1920), revealedthe weakness of theItalian state. In the immediatepost-war period the prospectsfor social peace seemedrather promising since in early1919 theConfederazione generale del lavoro(CGL) andthe Confederazione Gener- ale dell'Industria(Confindustria) reached a wide-rangingagreement covering hours,wages, and rightsof representationwithin the factory (Maione 1970: 827). Yet thisaccord unraveled in a seriesof wildcatstrikes throughout the summerand fallof thatyear. The underlyingcause was probablysteep rises in thecost of livingdue to wartimeprice inflation (Cammett 1967: 65). The warhad also produceda largepopulation of returning recruits who had difficultyfinding employment, and mostlygravitated to the left.The largest veteran'sorganization, with 550,000 members,was linkedto the Catholic democraticpopular party (Gentile 1989: 515). Further,the safetyvalve of immigrationhad closed offafter 1913 when the UnitedStates and other countriesplaced new restrictionson migrants.The Italian SocialistParty (PSI) adoptedthe establishmentof a dictatorshipof the proletariatas an immediategoal, and won 32 percentof thevote in theNovember 1919 elec- tions.In 1919and 1920massive strikes broke out among telegraph and railroad workers,metallurgy workers, and automobile manufactures inthe city of Turin, andamong agricultural laborers in areasof north central Italy (Tasca 1950:26- 27). Table 1 showsthe increase in working class and peasant insurgency during thisperiod.

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TABLE1 Strikesin War-Timeand Post-WarItaly

Year Industry Agriculture Total 1916 Numberof Strikes 516 61 577 Numberof Strikers 123,616 14,892 138,508 Numberof StrikeDays 737,385 100,570 837,955 1917 Numberof Strikes 443 27 470 Numberof Strikers 188,626 6,191 194,817 Numberof StrikeDays 831,227 18,217 849,444 1918 Numberof Strikes 303 10 313 Numberof Strikers 158,036 675 158,711 Numberof StrikeDays 906,471 3,270 909,741 1919 Numberof Strikes 1,663 208 1,871 Numberof Strikers 1,049,438 505,128 1,554,566 Numberof StrikeDays 18,887,917 3,436,829 22,324,746 1920 Numberof Strikes 1,881 189 2,070 Numberof Strikers 1,267,953 1,045,732 2,313,685 Numberof StrikeDays 16,398,227 14,170,991 30,569,218 1921 Numberof Strikes 1,045 89 1,134 Numberof Strikers 644,564 79,298 723,862 Numberof StrikeDays 7,772,870 407,393 8,180,263

Source:Ministero dell'economia nazionale. Direzione generale della statistica. 1925. Annuario StatisticoItaliano. Anni 1919-1921. RomeProvveditorato generale dello stato,395, 398.

Thetable shows a dropin strikeactivity during the war years and a verysharp risein theimmediate post-war period. From a low of 303 strikesin 1918,the numberof strikesin industryspiked in 1919 to 1,663. A similarsurge is evidentin agriculturewhere the evidence records only 10 strikesfor 1918, but 208 for1919. This wave of industrialdisputes had a strongpolitical charge. In industry,many of thestrikes were in partstruggles over workers' control. In agriculturethey were closely linked to socialismand land seizures.The high pointof the red two yearsoccurred in the winterand earlyspring of 1920 duringthe occupation of the factories and the general strike of April of that year. The factoryoccupations began as a techniqueof laborprotest in responseto owners'lockouts. Instead of a conventionalwalk-out or sit-downstrike, workers organizedproduction (Tasca 1950: 117). The occupationswere planned in part to demonstratethat the working class couldorganize production by itself,and thattherefore private ownership had becometechnically superfluous. Further theywere often accompanied by thedemand that the company in question"be entrustedto the managementof the collectivityof workersbelonging to the

This content downloaded from 136.152.209.153 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 23:50:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 822 DYLAN J. RILEY AND MANALI DESAI company"(Maione 1972: 254). The techniquebegan amongworkers in the FederazioneImpiegati Operai Metallurgici (Fiom) at Genova,Piedmont, and Milan, and some factoriesin smallertowns in northcentral Italy (Cammett 1967: 112-13; De Felice 1995a [1965]:503). Thus,a verythreatening form of laborinsurgency swept across the most industrially developed zone of Italyin theperiod immediately following the war. Largelanded proprietors faced an evenmore serious threat. Proprietors suf- feredfrom unfavorable prices (industrial inputs were relativelymuch more expensivethan agricultural outputs), increased taxes, and excess laborcosts imposedby socialistleagues often in alliancewith socialist dominated munici- pal governments.The leaguesforced owners to bothpay workers more, and to hire unemployedbraccianti and small holders(Comer 1975: 89; Zamagni 1979-1980: 24). DuringFebruary and March of 1920 in the countryside aroundTurin peasants undertook a "systematicinvasion of the lands of the largeproprietors" (Maione 1972: 265), formeda red-guardorganization, and set houses on fire.In Tuscany500,000 sharecropperswent on strikeduring the summer(Snowden 1979: 163). Agrariansocialism in Italypromised a thoroughalternation of ruralclass relations,either through the redistribution of landor theestablishment of collectivelyrun farms. Workingclass, peasant, and day laborer insurgency took place inthe context of an increasinglyweak state. As thehead of Confindustriaput the point, "Our politicalparties are vile in theinfamy" (quoted in Maione 1972: 279). Giolitti, whohad returned to power in 1920,refused to deploy troops against the factory occupations.A naturalresult of bienniorosso, especially as a consequenceof theabsence of state action against workers and peasants, was an intensivewave of self-organizationboth among the industrialistsand the agrarians.In the periodfrom 1917 to 1920, locallybased elitesorganized strikebreaking, the provisioningof public services,and policingthroughout north and central Italy(Gentile 1989: 70). This was also theperiod when the major national organizationsof industry and agriculture were founded. These were highly sen- sitiveto the threatposed by mass agrariansocialism and the factoryoccupations.By 1920 theywere seekingalternatives. Biennio rosso produced a climateof fearamong Italian industrialists and agrarians.Already weakly committedto the Italianliberal state, by 1920 thesegroups were seekinga new formof politicalorganization. Thispolitical organization emerged, quite paradoxically, as a consequenceof processesinternal to the Italian far left. By theoutbreak of World War I a distinct nationalrevolutionary group had consolidated on the fringes of the socialist party. Thesemen became increasingly critical of socialism,not because it threatened theirclass interestsbut because it had repeatedlyfailed to showitself as a truly revolutionaryforce (Nello 1982: 1014). The formationof thisgroup occurred in twomain stages: in thestruggle over entry into the war, and in theaftermath of thedefeat of the post-war revolutionary wave describedabove.

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Some renegadesocialists had begunto embracenationalism during Italy's invasionof Libya in 1912. In partthis was due to theview thatthe industrial workingclass had been effectivelyco-opted by parliamentarytrasformismo. Thusthe socialists could be presentedas partof a parasiticalliance of northern classes againstsouthern Italy that appeared as a semi-colonialdependency (Roberts1979: 66, 107). But themainstream of theparty remained immune to nationalismup untilWorld War I. The war,however, set offa debate between "interventionists"(those pushing for Italian participation)and "neutralists"(those who arguedthat Italy had nothingto gain frominvolving itselfin theEuropean conflict) that deeply affected the party's leadership. Since 1887Italy had formedpart of the triple alliance linking it with Austria and Germany,against France. But Italianneutrality broke this connection and laythe foundations for a newpolitical position on thewar. Interventionism now could be linkedto supportfor the democratic powers of Franceand Britain. Thus Italy'sinitial neutrality opened a space for"left" or "democratic"inter- ventionismthat presented the conflict as a strugglebetween democratic powers and reactionaryempires (Austria and Germany)(Gentile 1982: 126; De Felice 1995a: 223; Milza 2000: 184-90). To theextent that the mainstream of thesocialist party supported neutrality, the socialiststhemselves could be presentedas supportersof thereactionary side in WorldWar I. This createda crisisof representation within the party as manyof its key leaders, and probably a significantportion of its membership,moved to the positionof left interventionism. Mussolini,who had been the key political leader of the socialist far left, was the mostdramatic representative of thispolitical migration, but it was much broader.De Felice (1995a: 283) statesthat the membershipof the socialist partydeclined from 41,974 personsin 1914 to 29,426 in 1915, suggesting thatmuch of this represented a defection to theposition of left interventionism (Gentile 1975: 36; Roberts1979: 117-19). The crisis of interventionism also touchedItaly's most famous Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci and its mostfamous post-war Italian Communist politician, Palmiro Togliatti. In the strugglesover interventionismboth defended Mussolini from the attacksof more conventionalsocialists such as Angelo Tasca. Gramsci,in particular, arguedthat an ententevictory would be muchmore favorable for socialists thana victoryof thecentral powers (Agosti 2003: 13). ThusItalian neutrality produceda nationalistleft, a positionthat had notexisted to any significant extentbefore World War I (Gentile1975: 113). The mainprogram of thenationalist left was to forma cross-classalliance betweenorganized workers and industrialists tocarry out a nationaldemocratic revolution.The hightide of this political tendency was theRepublic of Fiume: an illegalborder state created by the poet Gabriele D'Annunzio where many of thetechniques that would be characteristicoffascism were first developed. This politicalentity, which the nationalistright had initiallysupported, moved

This content downloaded from 136.152.209.153 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 23:50:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 824 DYLAN J. RILEY AND MANALI DESAI sharplyto theleft in 1920.Alceste d'Ambris, a radicalrevolutionary syndical- ist, drew up the Fiumeanconstitution called the Carta del Quarnaro,or "Charterof Carnaro,"which established a formof corporativerepresentation (De Felice 1995a: 553; Gentile1975: 181; Roberts1979: 180). Therewere even schemesto launcha leftistinsurrection using Fiume as a basis of oper- ations,and d'Ambrisworked hard to establishedlinks to the left.Early fascism(the movement was foundedin Marchof 1919) was verymuch part of thismilieu. Thus the bienniorosso in Italyappeared to be a periodof growingleft-wing nationalist strength. By 1920, however,the leftisttide beganto recede.D'Annunzio was drivenout of Fiumeand thefactory occu- pationsceased. The post-warsocial revolutionary situation had ceased to exist. Leftnationalism in Italywas a politicalfailure. The electionsof November 1919 underlinedthis fact by deliveringa crushingdefeat to thenascent fascist movement,and by revealinga generallyfragmented left nationalist milieu. In contrast,the socialist party appeared politically strong and disciplined (Gentile 1989: 61). By early 1920 the ex-socialistpolitical entrepreneurs who had attemptedto formulatea left nationalist alternative were facing what appeared tobe a deadend. During the same period both agrarians and industrialists began to feel"betrayed" by the Italian liberal state, as laborcosts rose, workers seized factories,and a pro-Sovietsocialist party demonstrated its electoralstrength. Evidently,the program of the nationalist left had littlehold over either peasants or workersin post-warItaly. This would leave theItalian agrarians and indus- trialistsincreasingly politically isolated, with important consequences for the specificform that passive revolution took. As we show in thenext section, thiswas a majordifference between the Italian and Indianpaths. Under these conditionsit is perhapsunsurprising that elements of the originalleft nationalist coalition, who had unsuccessfullysought to win the workingclass to theircause, turnedto the self-organizingindustrialists and agrariansin theirsearch for a morecongenial audience. Since manyof these menhad experience in parties of the left, this constituted an injectionof revolutionarypolitical techniques into reactionary politics. The interventionistleft brought a new styleto thepolitics of bourgeoisand agrarianself-organization. The variousself-defense organizations that had emergedin the period from 1917 to 1920were generally defensive. Their main functionwas to take over the operationof publicservices during a general strike(Gentile 1989: 76). Thisbegan to changewith the emergence of fascist squads fromthe winterof 1920. These organizationswere offensiverather thandefensive formations. Their basic activitywas the"punitive expedition," tripsin whicha groupof menfrom the city would drive into the countryside or small ruraltown on trucksand destroythe local socialistorganizations (ibid.: 159; Tasca 1950: 165-67). Most scholarshave identifiedtwo overlap- ping sourcesof thispolitical technique: the futurists, and the specialassault squads(or arditi) that developed during World War I tomake daring incursions

This content downloaded from 136.152.209.153 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 23:50:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ITALY AND INDIA IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE 825 behindenemy lines. The two groupswere closelyrelated because futurists oftenorganized associations of arditi,and theirconceptions of politicsthus enteredinto fascist paramilitary organization (Milza 2000: 260-61). The mostdistinctive feature of futurism was thatit was bothan aestheticand a politicalmovement. In Gentile'swords, the Futurists sought "to establisha cultof progress,speed, sport, physical force and courage,to modernizethe Italianway of life" (1982: 144). Althoughpolitically protean, the futurists sharedthe idea thattheir aesthetic conceptions should be connectedwith prac- ticein seekingto overcomethe separation between "life" and "art."More than a specificset of programs, the futurists brought a formof vanguardist politics to thepost-war political struggle. This futuristconception of politicswas crucial to theemergence of squadrismas a politicaltactic: a processthat occurred in Milan (the futuristcity par excellence)between January and Aprilof 1919. Its birthcan be identifiedwith two main events:the firstwas the protest againstthe right wing socialist Leonida Bissolati at theLa Scala operahouse in Januaryof 1919,and thesecond was theburning of the socialist newspaper Avantiin Aprilof 1919 (De Felice 1995a:480). The squadristtechnique spread rapidly in the years prior to thefascist seizure ofpower in 1922,as fascismmoved to theright and solidifiedan alliancewith big landholders(Elezar 1993; Tasca 1950: 163). Duringthe first six months of 1921, the fascistorganizations formed alliances, and sometimesfused withmany of the bourgeoisself-defense organizations described above. By 1921,then, the militia side of theparty-militia had developed.The migration of the left-wingnationalists to theright, a consequenceof the failureof the leftnationalist alternative, was keyto thedevelopment of fascistparamilitary politicaltactics. This was not,however, the only resource that the leftbrought to fascism. Squadrismwas an intrinsicallyanarchic form of politicaltactic because it was based on smallbands of armedmen. It is, then,unsurprising that early fascismfaced centrifugal tendencies (Gentile 1989: 252). At variouspoints in the movement'searly history this threatened to tearit apart.Mussolini's responsewas to transformthe militia movement into a trueparty organization, a policythat met with stiff resistance among the provincial leaders who thought theywere involved in an anti-partymovement (De Felice 1995b: 198; Gentile 1989: 253-54). A seriousstruggle took place withinfascism that was in part one betweenthe Milanese urban wing and the rural agrarian wing of the movement,but was also a struggleabout the nature of thepolitical movement itself (thatis, whetherit wouldbe a partyor a federationof local paramilitaries). The adoptionof theparty-form was centralto fascism'ssuccess. It allowed theinchoate movement to imposediscipline on itsvarious factions, it began the processof the development of somethinglike an ideology,and itgave thefas- cistsa decisivestrategic advantage in relationto theliberal state, which had to toleratethe paramilitary militias as longas theywere affiliated with the party

This content downloaded from 136.152.209.153 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 23:50:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 826 DYLAN J. RILEY AND MANALI DESAI organization.The driving force behind developing the movement as a partywas thegroup of ex-socialists in Milan in their struggle against the agrarian wing of fascism(Gentile 1984: 253). Thisis quiteunsurprising since many of the men whomade up thisMilanese group had a socialistpast. Thus the "party-form" of fascismcame fromsocialism, although in theseearly years the agrarians con- stituteda keypart of itssocial base. We havetried to showhow fascism emerged as a revolutionaryorganization thatpursued substantially conservative goals. This combination of conservative and revolutionaryelements was characteristicof the movement.The great doyenof Italiancontemporary history, Renzo De Felice (1995a: 661), elo- quentlyunderlines the importanceof it whenhe writes,"only fascism with its undeniablyideal chargeand its revolutionaryappearance, could ensure a trulyreactionary force, could guarantee an ideologicaland moral appearance to reaction."For De Felice, fascism's"revolutionary form" was an essential partof itssuccessful "reactionary content." But fascismwas a passiverevolu- tionnot only in itsorigins, but also as a regime. The Passive Revolutionin Power.The fascistseizure of power emerged froma social revolutionarysituation, but as we have argued,it did not issue in a social revolution.It led neitherto a rapidalteration of the class structurenor a rapidalteration in thestate. The fascistparty instead carved out some areas of control(such as theunion organizations, and thecorpora- tivebureaucracy), while pre-fascist elites maintained their dominance in most areas. Underthe fascist regime many of the gains of the Giolittian period, and par- ticularlyof thebiennio rosso, were reversed. First, braccianti incomes ceased to growrapidly. According to Zamagni, real incomes in these jobs in 1938were lowerthan had been in 1919 (1979-1980: 23). Fascismalso pursuedan extre- melysuccessful policy of wage compressionin industry.As De Graziaputs it, "Italywas the only industrializedcountry in whichwages fellcontinuously fromthe start of the 1920s throughthe outbreak of WorldWar II" (1992: 9). Of course,some have suggestedthat fascism constituted a social revolution of themiddle classes, and particularlystate employees. Yet surprisinglylittle evidencesupports this view. Stateemployment in Italygrew rather slowly overthe regime. Zamagni shows that state employees did do relativelywell especiallycompared to industrialworkers during the first half of thenineteen thirties,but thentheir incomes began to drop (1979-1980: 39). The real storyof incomedistribution under fascism lay elsewhere.Dividends on stock ownershipremained high, even through the darkest period of thedepression. Wages,in contrast,were easy to shiftdownward. Thus, as Zamagniputs it, "aftera egalitarianpush in theimmediate post-war period, [the income distri- bution]became progressively more unequal, with the rich becoming ever richer and the poor ever poorer"(ibid.: 41). In termsof the basic distributionof incomebetween social classes, it seems clear thatthe consequenceswere

This content downloaded from 136.152.209.153 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 23:50:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ITALY AND INDIA IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE 827 to reversethe trend toward greater social equalityduring the Giolittian period and particularlyin theimmediate post-war period. The Italianclass structure,itmust be emphasized,did notremain unaltered duringthe regime. For example,the fascists successfully reduced the number of bracciantithrough their agrarian policy. Further, women entered the labor marketin higher numbers than in the liberal period. Yet despite these reforms, fascismwas nota socialrevolutionary regime. It didnot threaten private propertyand muchof thepre-existing bureaucracy was maintained. Still,the regime did carry out important changes in the area of economic and socialpolicy. After a periodof orthodox economic policy aimed at strengthen- ing the lira,and cuttingstate expenditures, in the early 1930s Mussolini's regimetransformed itself into a dictatorshipof a new type.From late 1931 fascistorganizations (particularly the unions and theparty) expanded rapidly. Recenthistoriography, in partial revision of an earliertradition, has stressed the centralityof the partynot onlyto the seizureof power,but also to the regimethat emerged after 1926 (Gentile1989; Pombeni1984: 459; 1995: 109). The partyestablished a ramifiednetwork of organizationsfor youth, workers,women, and myriad professional groups. Membership in party organ- izationstended to expandthroughout the regime, until about 10 percentof the entirepopulation enrolled in one of itsorganizations (ibid.: 478). Thiskind of organizationwas unprecedentedin Italianhistory. No politicalforce, not even thesocialists and Catholics,had a permanentnational presence like the fascist party(Togliatti 1970: 171). The same expansioncan be tracedin theunion organizations,the after-workorganizations (dopolavoro), and the women's organizations(De Grazia 1981: 16). Asidefrom party and union developments, the fascist government developed an extremelyinterventionist policy of stateownership and statefinancing. Indeed,De Feliceargues that by 1934 Italyhad thehighest level of stateown- ershipof anyEuropean state outside of theSoviet Union (1996 [1974]: 179). By the 1930s a groupof key institutionsengaged in "massivedoses of insti- tutionalengineering planed in Rome" (De Cecco and Pedone 1995: 262- 63). Muchof thisapparatus developed as a directresult of Italian participation in thewar, but it was justifiedideologically in termsof theconcept of a "cor- porativeeconomy," representing a thirdway between "liberalism"and "socialism." Ex-leftistswere prominent in many of these organizational efforts. Edmondo Rossoni,head of the fascistsyndicates until 1928, was an ex-revolutionary syndicalistwho had organizedworkers at Modena and also dockworkersin New York(Roberts 1979: 14). Leftistideas seem to have been quite widespread throughoutthe leadership. According to an old unionorganizer, the fascist syn- dicalistsin theirnegotiations with the bosses "unsheatheda barricade-like languagethat would make not only Corridoni or AlcesteDe Ambrisenvious, but even the old anarchistErrico Malatesta" (Sarti 1972: 761). Bruno

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Buozzi,a reformistunion organizer who went into exile in 1926also notedthe presenceof "ex-revolutionaries"among the ranksof the fascistsyndicalists (1988: 111). Leftistswere also prominentin thefascist women's organizations. Regina Teruzzi,an ex-socialistwho gravitatedtoward fascism during the war, was a major force in organizingthe rural housewivesorganizations (Massaie rurali)that aimed to preventrural-to-urban migration by improvingmaterial conditionsin theagricultural population (De Grazia 1992: 99). As De Grazia argues,"The Mussolinianold guard... like theDuce himselfbrought to the organizationof the dictatorship important skills acquired in thesocialist movement"(ibid.: 32). ThusItaly's passive revolution was accomplishedby revolutionarypolitical techniques that had been brought into the fascist regime in part by ex-socialists. Conclusion.Italian fascism was a passive revolution.The agrarianand industrialelite, under pressure from an insurrectionarythreat, adopted a revolu- tionaryform of politicalorganization (the fascistparty-militia) instituting a patternof modernizationthat left in place muchof thepreceding structure of politicaland social power.We have arguedthat there were two main factors thatproduced this outcome. The firstwas thedestruction of the old regime in Italy.Unified by a diplomaticand militaryprocess, the agrarian and industrialelite in Italywas notwell incorporated into the liberal state. This condition madeimpossible the path of revolution from above or autocratic modernization in alliancewith the bureaucracy. Second, mass mobilizationamong workers and peasantspushed agrarians and industrialiststo self-organizeagainst the liberalstate. The Italianpassive revolution, however, took a specificform. Although the social elitemobilized against the state,it remainedpolitically isolated. The failureof left-nationalismin the periodafter World War I is indicativeof this.As we will arguemore fully in theIndian section, the timing of formal nationalunification relative to themobilization of workersand peasantswas decisive.Italy was unifiedfifty years before the threat from the left, and thus could not incorporatepeasants and workersthrough an appeal to a struggle againstforeign powers, as theIndian agrarian-industrial elite very effectively did. This politicalisolation was a key factor(although certainly not the only one) in explainingwhy the Italian passive revolution took a violentform. IndianNationalism and Post-ColonialPassive Revolution We nowturn to the Indian passive revolution. We begin by establishing some of thebasic structuralsimilarities between colonial India and Italyin the early nineteenthcentury. Like Italy,India was politicallyand sociallyfragmented priorto independence.The statewas cobbledtogether through the administra- tivestructures of British rule, yet the sub-continent remained linguistically and politicallyfractured. Besides the regions, the British had incorporatedseveral

This content downloaded from 136.152.209.153 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 23:50:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ITALY AND INDIA IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE 829 hundredprincely states indirectly into the empire, preserving princely supre- macy withoutmodernizing their social structures.In an effortto determine landtenure, The Britishidentified the existing local magnatesthrough whom the Mughals ruledas the real landowners.Yet, in manyregions of India therewas a largelypeasant proprietorship system of land tenure,which meantthere was no single,cohesive aristocratic class acrossthe subcontinent. "Hence,"as BarringtonMoore writes, "the empire was madeup of local des- potismsvarying greatly in size and degreeof independence,yet all owing revenueto the imperialcoffers" (Moore 1993: 326). As Bayly (1988: 13) notes,"empire" and "state"were always limitedpolitical entities in India, becausethere were so manyoverlapping layers of rightsand obligations. AlthoughBritish colonial penetration in thelate eighteenth and earlynine- teenthcenturies imposed a degreeof political uniformity and orderover these myriadpolities, this was only partial.Until 1857 the East India Company ruled as a militarydespot, waging a series of wars and defeatingthe alreadycrumbling principalities. The policy of subsidiaryalliances with variousrulers based on theirpayment of tributeto the Companyfailed by the mid-nineteenthcentury when the Companywent into debt (ibid.: 90). The few concertedattempts to resistBritish expansion, for example by the Marathasin westernIndia, failed,largely because of internalfactions that theBritish could easily exploit.Thus withpartial administrative moderniz- ationand itsconservative alliances, British rule essentially preserved the frag- mentationof theruling classes. The relationshipbetween the British colonial regimeand Indian society was notdissimilar from that between Piedmont and Italyin thenineteenth century. India, like Italy, unified as theresult of a militaryand diplomaticprocess, not an uprisingfrom domestically rooted social classes. India's Passive Revolution.In India the main organizationalforce of a passive revolutionwas the anti-colonialCongress Party. As in Italy,this organizationemerged following a periodof mass insurgency.In India this occurredprimarily from the mid- to late 1930s.But despite this similarity Con- gresswas a verydifferent type of organization from Italian fascism. This was an anti-colonialmass democraticparty, not a partymilitia (as we discussbelow, underGandhi's leadership it rejectedthe use of violence).Further, Congress enjoyedsignificant popular support in a way thatthe fascist party never did. The mainreason for this difference was the simultaneityof the strugglefor independenceand the struggleagainst the left.As a result,Congress could rely both on the Britishimperial administration to repressthe left,and presentnational unification as the preconditionfor all subsequentpolitical projects,including socialism, thereby incorporating radical elements. Many convincedsocialists thus supported the Congress Party not because they dis- coveredthe social eliteas an alternativerevolutionary agent, as occurredin Italy,but because they understood national unification as theprecondition for

This content downloaded from 136.152.209.153 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 23:50:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 830 DYLAN J. RILEY AND MANALI DESAI social transformation.This did notinvolve, as in Italy,a dramaticturn to the right,but rather a postponingof radicalends (Haithcox 1971: 240-44). Like the fascists,the CongressParty was a nationalistorganization that aimedat creatinga sense of politicalbelonging that cut acrosslocalism and regionalism.In the variousnon-cooperation campaigns of the 1920s the partysought to instilla sense of nationalidentity. As ChandraBose writes, "Uniformslogans were repeated everywhere, and a uniformpolicy and ideology gainedcurrency from one end of India to theother" (1964: 70). Italian fascismwas indeedan importantmodel for some leaders of theIndian nationalistmovement. There were several high-level contacts between Indian nationalistleaders and Italian fascists during the 1930s. Gandhi made an officialvisit to Italyin 1931,and was popularwith a segmentof the fascist elite around the notorioussquadrist leader Roberto Farinacci (De Felice 1987: 1314). The Italiansalso quicklytranslated the Mahatma's autobiography into Italian and furnishedit withan introductionby theofficial regime philosopher Giovanni Gentile(ibid.). Gandhi'sreflections on hisItalian trip are striking. Of Mussolini, he wroteto theFrench pacifist Romain Rolland, "his attentionfor the poor, his opposition to super-urbanization,his attemptto realizean accordbetween capital and labor,seem to me to demand special attention." Gandhi downplayed the signifi- canceof fascist violence as notspecifically fascist, and attributable to "Western society"(quoted in De Felice 1987: 1317).Other Indian nationalists were more directlyinfluenced by Italian fascism. Perhaps the most important of these con- tactswas withSubhas Chandra Bose, who was officiallyreceived by thesec- retaryof the Fascistparty Achille Staracein Rome in 1934 (ibid.: 1324). Bose argued for a synthesisbetween "fascism and communism"which wouldbe realizedby theIndian Nationalist movement (1964: 313-14). The Originsof theIndian National Congress. The formationof theIndian NationalCongress (INC) (laterreferred to as theCongress Party) in 1885 was the firstinstitutional step towardsshaping modem Indian democracy. Early nationalistsinthe INC werelargely professionals who sought a shareof political powerfrom the British, and attemptedto gainthis by petitioningthe colonial administrators.On theBritish side, the Act of 1883 allowedIndians to become eligiblefor administrative posts if they were "sufficiently qualified." Sympathetic Britishofficials like Allan Octavian Hume, who wanted some political represen- tationfor Indians, pressed for this measure. Conditions during the late nineteenth century,including famines, had broughtabout increasing peasant unrest, and growingresentment of a hostof staterepressive measures had "broughtIndia underLord Lytton within measurable distance of a revolutionaryoutbreak," as one commentatorput it (Sitaramayya1935: 16). Humeconceived of theINC as a "safetyvalve" for this unrest. Whenthe INC formedin 1885, it was a gatheringof less thana hundred English-speakinglawyers and otherprofessionals. For anotherthree decades

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theCongress Party retained a largelyurban outlook, distanced from the masses of ruralpeople and theirliving conditions. The crucialbreak with this elitist orientationcame withGandhi's intervention. He brokewith the leadership's largelyurban tactics of petitionsand meetings.In part,Gandhi and his fol- lowersdid this by using a popularidiom, in partby extendingCongress organ- izationto far-reachingvillages and districts.The CongressParty opened itself up to massmembership, and anyone who couldpay a membershipfee of four annas (5 cents)could becomea "primarymember."2 The Congresswas the onlyparty to developa masscharacter at thetime, with branches in everydis- trictof Indiaand a strongrural presence. This made it one ofthe strongest and earliestmass party formations in theworld (Huntington 1968: 84). Asidefrom district-levelCongress committees, state- and provincial-level committees were set up. The All India CongressCommittee (AICC) formedan umbrella organization. Centralto Gandhi'sprogram was non-violenceas a tactic.The Congress Partyunder his leadership,for example, tended to encouragepicketing and boycottsof Britishgoods, and later,civil disobedience and passiveresistance, ratherthan insurgency.Perhaps the most salientand famousexample of Gandhi'sdisdain for rebellion was his reactionafter tenants of thevillage of ChauriChaura in theUnited Provinces in 1921 rioted,burned down a police station,and killedseveral policemen. Gandhi saw thisas a politicalwrong, immoral,and an "infection"caused by thefailure of Congressorganization. Significantly,he called off the civil disobedience movement after the incident, claimingthat Chauri Chaura showed how imperfect the Congress organization was (Amin 1995: 50). This led to a serioussplit within the congress organization and the rise of distinctnationalist left wing opposingGandhi (Bose 1964:72-83). Althoughthe later 1920s was a periodof growing left nationalist strength,and many contacts were established between communists and nationalists,Gandhi's control over the movement was too entrenchedto breakat this point(Haithcox 1971: 88). The strategyof mass mobilizationadopted by the Congress Party leadershipwas a finebalance betweenrestraint and radicalismfollowing a 'compromise-struggle-compromise'strategy (Chandra 1986), wherebythe partyalternated round-table negotiations with phases of mass civil disobedience and streetprotest. After two large civil disobediencemovements duringthe 1920s,the Congress-led nationalist movement began to dissipate and membershipdeclined as theBritish imprisoned the leadership. In 1930, witha largenumber of leadersin jail, Gandhiattempted to de-politicizethe CongressParty and transformit intoan organizationof individualprotest

2 The"active" members, however, had a probationaryperiod of specified time during which they had to demonstratetheir ability to carryout appropriateobligations such as spinningcotton and social welfareactivities.

This content downloaded from 136.152.209.153 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 23:50:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 832 DYLAN J. RILEY AND MANALI DESAI and social uplift(Tomlinson 1976: 36). Gandhi'sdiscomfiture with mass, spontaneousunrest is well knownbut poorly understood. His deep concern forpoverty was combinedwith a resolutedisinterest in politicizingit in class terms,which won himthe wrath of manysocialists and communists. As historianSumit Sarkar observes, "The range,and the radicalismof popularactions was remarkable-butso was theirresistible tendency to keep on seekingshelter behind the Mahatma'sbanner" (1983a: 41). Spontaneous rebellionsnever quite challenged the Congress Party's organizational strength and monopolyover political expression during the 1920s.Until the advent of mass,radical parties of the left, there was no significantrhetorical or realchal- lengeto Gandhi'sparticular direction of thenationalist movement. Workerand Peasant Mobilization.Until the 1930s therewas no clear or unifiedradical threat to the CongressParty, either internal or external.The CommunistParty of India (CPI) was formedin 1924, but it maintaineda strongline of insurrectionand revolution,and morecrucially, political isola- tionism.Until 1935, when the party adopted a UnitedFront policy of joining forceswith "progressive" elements within the Congress Party (the Congress SocialistParty or CSP), theywere in no positionto challengeCongress' dominanceof thenationalist movement. During the 1930s thissituation began to changeas theGandhian leadership of Congress came under increasing pressure fromthe left. As Sarkarputs it, "By late 1930 or early1931, a processof sim- ultaneousdecline and radicalizationhad set in: a weakeningof formsof struggleassociated with business groups or peasant upper strata ... accompaniedby sporadicbut fairly widespread tendencies towards less man- ageableforms" (1983a: 47-48). Frommid-1930s, after the Great Depression, mass unemployment,hunger, and decliningwages producedpopular unrest. Even whileattempting to stakea claimto beingthe sole representativeparty of the masses,Congress leaders were ambivalenttoward these protests and growingradicalization because mobilizationthreatened to spill out of the boundariesof the nationalistmovement, partly through tactical expansion thatincluded political strikes, and no-rent movements that the Congress leader- shipcame to define as "violent."Communists in Bombay and Calcutta began to organizethe industrial working classes in those regions in 1928and 1929(ibid.: 55-56). Strikesincreased in number and frequency, especially in the years fol- lowing1934 when leftists within the Congress Party formed an internalfaction knownas theCongress Socialist Party (CSP). Followinga periodof setbacks in thelabor movement between 1930 and 1934as a directresult of British repression and theimprisonment of communisttrade union leaders, in 1934 strikes began to double the man-dayslost each year(Revri 1972: 185). Waves of large strikesin the textileand jute mills,most famouslyin Bombay and Calcutta,swept across the country from 1936 onwards. This wave of radicalismmet with resistance from both the British and the CongressParty. But thisresistance took different forms. The Britishcolonial

This content downloaded from 136.152.209.153 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 23:50:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ITALY AND INDIA IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE 833 regimedeployed a policyof repression. Paranoid about communist conspiracies thatcould shake the foundations of their empire, they undertook mass arrests of nationalistleaders, particularly communists, proscribed literature, and cracked down on communistcells. Withinthe CongressParty, the conservatives soughtto co-optthe leftists by prioritizingthe nationalist struggle in relationto theclass struggle.A keypart of their strategy here was to strictlydefine the tac- ticalterrain on whichthe anti-colonial struggle would be carriedout. These two responseswere intimatelyconnected. The non-violenceof the anti-colonial movementdepended on theviolence of theBritish colonial state. We beginthe analysishere with a discussionof repression.As Haithcox writes,"Faced witha challengeof unprecedentedmagnitude, the government of Indiawas compelledto makelarge scale arrests"(1971: 149). In 1931 the Britishaccused three communists of plottingto kill Britishofficials and sen- tencedthem to deathby hanging,in whatwas subsequentlyknown as the MeerutConspiracy Case. A secretfile on theproceedings stated: Theprogramme ofthe Communist International which the conspirators in India were followingis described in detail on pages13-16 ofthe High Court judgement and the Governmentof India would suggest that it is mostimportant that public opinion in Englandshould be fullyacquainted with that programme. The undisguised object of theCommunist International is the destruction ofGovernments ofthe type existing in Indiaby means of violent mass action. There can be no objectwhich a Government shouldbe expectedto resist more strongly and unhesitatingly thanthat which the Com- munistsset before themselves. And while in a countrylike England success in a pro- grammeof thiskind may be sucha remotecontingency that it neednot be taken seriouslyinto consideration, that is emphaticallynot the case in India.The activities ofthe Communists inother Eastern countries, whether successful as inChina or unsuc- cessfulas insome other places convey the clearest warning of the dangers.3 Althoughthe threecommunists were hangedin an effortto send a direct messageto would-beinsurgents, death by hangingwas employedmore spar- inglyas a techniqueof repression. Instead, the British relied on a well-trained and effectivepolice force-theCriminal Investigation Department or CID- fashionedafter the London Metropolitan Police's own CID. Therewas "very littlethat went on amongthe Communists that the CID did not learnabout sooner or later," accordingto Overstreetand Windmiller(1959: 63). Duringthe 1930s variousemissaries from the Comintern were arrested and deportedby the CID beforethey could gain influencein India (ibid.: 149). The relianceon police-workrather than the military was a politicaltechnique of colonialpower influenced by workingclass protestsand radicalismin the homecountries. However, the idea of relyingupon a largeand well-trained police forcewas stimulatedby thefear of suddenupsurges that could be pre- ventedthrough proper intelligence. Police crackdownsand mass arrests

3Extract from Weekly Report of the Director, Intelligence Bureau, Home Department, Govern- mentof India,"1933 (P&J (8) 59 (c)/28, IOR).

This content downloaded from 136.152.209.153 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 23:50:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 834 DYLAN J. RILEY AND MANALI DESAI disruptedcommunist mobilization, particularly during the 1930s while the partyattempted to gaina footholdwithin the mainstream of theanti-colonial movement. Whilethe British used forceagainst the left, the leadership of the Congress Partyshaped tactics. The Gandhi-ledCongress embraced non-violence, an aversionto strikes,land grabbing, burning of landrecords, and non-payment oftaxes (Haithcox 1971: 97; Sarkar1983a: 50). Guha(1997) and othershave pointedto the disciplinaryeffects of Gandhi'smoral injunctions, in which self-purificationand controlwere translated into a politicalgoal. Each time public protestturned violent, Gandhi asked whatthe correctiveatonement would be. In doing so, he channeledpolitical anger into peacefulmass activitiesin whichthere was to be "no assemblingin crowds,no rioting,no inflammatoryspeeches, no meetingsand hartals(strikes) on everyoccasion" (ibid.: 150). ThusGandhi's moral leadership made a cleardistinction between violentand non-violentgroups, thereby excluding many forms of directcol- lectiveaction, not necessarily involving bodily or physical violence, from the movementfor independence. Significantamong the marginalized radical protests were those led by lower- casteassociations that challenged the caste hierarchy, raising questions about thevery edifice of Hindusociety, as well as theupper-caste bias ofthe nationalistmovement led by theCongress Party (Ambedkar 1968 [1939]; O'Hanlon 1985; Omvedt1976). The fieryuntouchable activist B. R. Ambedkarlaunched bittercriticisms of theGandhian nationalist movement, as didJyotibao Phule, the social reformeramong the low-casteuntouchables in Maharashtra.Both pointedto themanner in whichthe Congress Party's privileging of political independencefrom the British had failedto considerthe "first" colonization of the untouchables;indeed, its uppercaste leadershipwas chargedwith a deliberatesubversion of theaims of lowercastes. Gandhiled a largelymoral campaign against untouchability, yet because he failedpolitically to integratethe caste issue into the core of Congress' agenda, mostCongressites at theground level eitherignored this campaign or inter- pretedit as an ideologyof benevolence and trusteeshiprather than a call radi- callyto democratizethe emerging shape of theIndian polity. This mayhave been becauseGandhi himself balked at callingfor the eradication of caste,as well as thefact that a morerevolutionary upheaval of the caste system would necessarilyhave to confrontthe propertyrelations that supportedcaste relations.In regionswhere caste associationswere particularlymilitant, developingoutside of or withinareas leftopen by weak local Congress Partyassociations, the confrontationsbetween castes were usuallyviolent. In Tamil Nadu, forexample, the low-casteDravidian leaders often turned violentagainst the Brahmins (Washbrook 1976). Likewise,in Sataradistrict of Maharashtra,the untouchablecaste Mahars led a rebellionin 1933 in several villages, attackinglandlords and raidingtheir lands. In both

This content downloaded from 136.152.209.153 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 23:50:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ITALY AND INDIA IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE 835 cases, theviolent challenge to thecaste hierarchy and segregationtook place outsidethe Congress Party-led nationalist movement. Followingthis period of leftistinsurgency, Indian industrialists in particular wereambivalent towards the Congress Party. Nehru's popularity with the rank and file and his socialistleanings infuriated big business(Markovits 1985: 108). Yet, his electionto theposition of Presidentof the CongressParty in 1933 had littleeffect on the programof the Congressas a whole,and the majoritydefeated his proposalto introducedirect affiliation of workersand peasants'organizations to the Party. The business community launched a vitrio- lic attackon Nehru,fearing that his 'extreme'ideas would find fertile ground in thecontext of economic misery across the country. Despite political differences amongthe industrialists,many signed a manifestoin 1933 thatconstituted a clearattempt to interferein Congresspolitics and demonstratedgrowing pol- iticalunity among them (ibid.). Internalrebellion reinforced this resistance withinthe right wing in theCongress Party, particularly from the Bombay Pre- sidencyand UnitedProvinces, where Nehru's espousal of socialismhad been the strongest.On 29 Junethe moderateswithin the partysent a collective letterof resignationto Nehru,withdrawing this threat only after Nehru prom- ised to ratchetdown his speeches.This defeatof Nehruand theleft could be attributedat leastindirectly to themanifesto circulated by big business,and itsmobilizing effect on thepropertied classes more generally, as wellas itssup- porterswithin the Congressparty (ibid.) By 1936 Indianbig businesswas closelyallied with the Congress Party, in opposition to theBritish government. Despitethe continued dominance of theright within Congress, the rise of a distinctleft wing had importantconsequences. Worker demands began to appear in Congressmanifestos and Sarkar(1983a: 59) notesan increasing use ofa "socialistidiom." Thus by the late 1930s the Congress Party embodied an organizationnot dissimilar from Italian fascism: a massparty dominated by propertiedinterests (ibid.: 66). The socialistcomponent of the movement found its way into the post-independencestate throughthe Congressleft and specificallythrough its Nehruwing. The new post-independenceeconomy was foundedon principlesthat represented the historical alternative to social revolutionby protectingprivate property rights, and optingfor a mixed economyof public and privateownership. The implementationof state planningas a way to organizethe post-independence economy was itselfthe productof strugglesbetween Nehru's socialist ideas and his fascinationwith Russia's developmentafter 1917, and theconcerns of right-leaningCongress members.The Britishgovernment itself weighed in withsupport for planning after1937, arguing that some redistribution of wealth would strengthen colonial rule.But in theend Nehrumuted the idea of planningas a techniqueof socialism,linking it insteadto the idea of nationalreconstruction. As Chakravorty(1992: 282) observes,Nehru thoughthe could establisha "'socialist economywithin a democraticstructure' without disrupting the

This content downloaded from 136.152.209.153 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 23:50:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 836 DYLAN J. RILEY AND MANALI DESAI existingsocial orderand multi-classCongress platform 'since [anyattempt to bringabout] a prematureconflict on class lineswould lead to chaos andpossi- bilityof prolongedinability to build anything."'Congress was thusable to incorporatesocialist elements by appealingto a logic of postponementin which nationalunification was presentedas the preconditionof social transformation. The mass mobilizingthreat in Indiadiffered from that in Italy.Rather than a concentratedinsurrectionary threat, the 1930s in India were markedby waves of mass mobilizationthat Gandhi and otherCongress leaders sought to harnessfor mass movementssuch as the civil disobediencemovements, and in 1942 the militantQuit India movement.As historianSumit Sarkar writes,"The years 1935, and particularly1936, saw the emergenceof a patternin Indianpolitics which would be repeatedoften, both before and afterIndependence. Outwardly, all thesigns were of a significantlurch to the Left:growing Socialist and Communistactivity (despite the 1934 ban on the CPI), numerouslabor and peasant struggles,the formationof several Left-ledall-India mass organizations... . Yet in the end the Rightwithin Congresswas able to skillfullyand effectivelyride and utilizethis storm ..." (1983b: 338). Duringthe whole period between 1920 and 1947 therewas a strugglebetween the more "spontaneous,"that is, directinitiatives by popularclasses, and theCongress Party leadership. Whywas theCongress Party able to co-optpopular mobilization? One ofthe mainreasons was thecentrality of the struggle for home rule. The partycould co-optthe left by presentingnational unification as theprecondition for social transformation.Thus Congress was able to tameand moderatesocialist influ- enceswithin the party, and co-optmore radical ones outsideit. In thistask it was assistedby theBritish who soughtto repressany signs of radicalactivity whose growthmight threaten a communistrevolution, much like theradical movementsthat had eruptedin thepost-Depression years across the world. Evenin thesefavorable conditions, however, it was essentialfor the movement to exercisestrict control over political tactics. Where the party lost control over suchtactics, the outcome was verydifferent. HistoricalAlternatives in India. One way of establishingthe importance of non-violenttactics to Congressdomination of thenationalist movement is to examinecases in whichCongress failed to establishsuch control. Two cases in particularpoint toward potential alternative trajectories for other parts of Indiabecause they succeeded in knittingtogether and surpassingthe localism and fragmentationofsubaltern resistance. First, in thesouthern state of Kerala, skillfulmaneuvering by communistswithin the nationalistmovement, and withinthe Congressparty, allowed variousforms of popularinsurgency to expandbeyond the margins of Congress nationalism as ittook shape elsewhere. Workingwithin the Congress Party, socialists (who later joined the communist party)expanded the repertoire of Congress protests from town-based picketing

This content downloaded from 136.152.209.153 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 23:50:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ITALY AND INDIA IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE 837 to workers'strikes, tenants' invasions of land,and, duringthe 1940s, often violentprotests in whichworkers burned bridges and blockadedroads. Duringthis period communists won hegemony of the nationalist movement, carryingthis forward to thefirst electoral victory of a leftparty (barring the communistsin San Marino,Italy) in thepost-independence era, in 1957. The communistsin Kerala implementeda social revolutionof sorts,carrying out massive land reforms,minimum wage bills, and an extensivenetwork of welfarepolicies that raised literacy and lifeexpectancy to thehighest levels in India(and in thedeveloping world more generally). In manyways Kerala representsa trajectory 'that might have been' had therebeen a strongerchal- lengeto thepassive revolution led by theCongress Party in otherregions of India. Anothercase in southernIndia, however, provides a differentsort of evi- denceof the political possibilities for a left-ledchallenge to passiverevolution. A strongchallenge to landlordsand thestate emerged through a largepeasant rebellionin thesouthern state of Andhra Pradesh, also knownas theTelengana Rebellionin 1946. The Telenganacase is particularlyinstructive because AndhraPradesh possessed an extremelyprimitive political order. The conditionsthat allowed Congressto flourishelsewhere were absenthere. The Sultanof Hyderabad,Nizam Mir UsmanAli Khan,exploited economically and dominatedpolitically an impoverishedpeasantry, and was one of the wealthiestindividuals in the world in the 1940s (Roosa 2001: 58). The Nizam initiallyresisted national unification, and repressedthe local Congress partyorganization. In thispolitical atmosphere the communists quickly rose to politicalprominence (ibid.: 61-66). Afterindependence the situation changed. In September1948 theIndian armyinvaded Hyderabad, in partin orderto use martiallaw againstthe Communistparty. During this period (1948-1949) organizedpeasants in the Telenganaarea followeda new line withinthe partyof a guerrilla war againstthe "fake independence"of the Nehrugovernment. By 1948, the Communistshad organized2,000 peasants into 100 armed guerrilla squads. In the largepeasant insurrection that followed between 1948 and 1951, peasantsquads created"liberation zones" and conducteda massive campaignof decimatinglandlords, seizing land and grainin village after village. Police forcescrushed and surroundedthem. In the aftermath,the CPI (CommunistParty of India) renouncedthe use of violenttactics, and "moderate"voices withinthe partycalling forthe adoptionof the parlia- mentarypath of peacefultransition to socialismemerged as the dominant strategicand tacticalstrand.4

4 Since then,the Maoist elementswithin the CPI have splinteredinto the CPML or CP (Marxist-Leninist)party. They waged smallerguerilla wars, notablywithin the communist- governedstate of WestBengal.

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The two cases of Kerala and the Telenganarebellion throw into dramatic reliefwhat could occurwhen Congress lost tactical control of thenationalist movement.In Kerala thealternative possibility was to some extentrealized. The resultwas the closest approximationto a welfarestate found in the developingworld, a setof policies that successive governments implemented, dramaticallyreducing social inequality,raising literacy rates, and lowering mortalityrates to levelsnot achieved in mostof thethird world. In Telengana a veryradical alteration in thestructure of class relationswas clearlya possibility,but it was suppressedby force. Conclusion.We have arguedthat the Indian path to modernityshared two crucialfactors with the Italian. First, as in Italy,India's agrarianold regime had been severelyweakened by colonial penetration.To an even greater extentthan in Italy,the colonial character of theregime cut off the option of revolutionfrom above or autocraticmodernization by fragmentingthe dominantclasses. Second, under pressure from increased peasant and worker mobilization,especially during the 1930s, the agrarian industrial elite felt the need for a new politicalorder, which lead themto mobilizea revolutionaryparty. But therewas a crucialdifference between India and Italy. The simultaneity ofthe threat from the left, and mass mobilization against colonialism, gave the Indiansocial elitegreater alliance possibilities especially with the peasantry. Further,the Congress right enjoyed the advantages that derived from colonial repressionagainst the organizedworking class, withouthaving to pay any politicalprice. The Congresswas thusa trulypopular and democratic organization,at leastduring some periods. The contrastwith the Italian case is com- pleteon thispoint. Italian agrarians and industrialistswere isolated, and the failureof the nationalist left after the war led themto thetactics of paramilitary violence,rather than non-violence as was thecase withCongress. The tacticof non-violencewas essentialto maintainingthe alliancewith the peasantry in India. Where Congress lost controlof these tactics (as in Kerala and Hyderabad)popular mobilizationquickly threatened the class and caste structureof Indiansociety.

CONCLUSION Letus brieflydraw together the threads of our analysis. This paper has aimedto conceptualizeand explain the passive revolutionary route to themodem world. We suggestedthat Italian fascism and Indiannationalism were passive revolu- tionsbecause in both a masspolitical party possessing a revolutionaryideology and politicalorganization modernized the country while preserving the basic distributionof propertyand muchof the pre-existingstate. Both the PNF and the INC were mass political parties. Both containedsubstantial "revolutionary"wings, and bothestablished the framework for industrial and nationallyintegrated societies but leftsignificant elements of the old order intact.While the generalconditions of passive revolutions(especially the

This content downloaded from 136.152.209.153 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 23:50:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ITALY AND INDIA IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE 839 absenceof a bourgeoisrevolution leading to landredistribution) are similarto otherforms of conservativemodernization, passive revolutionsare distin- guishedby theorganizational characteristics of themain revolutionary agent. Unlikerevolutions from above or autocraticmodernization, a mass political party,rather than a centralstate, is the primaryagent of modernizationin thesecases. Passive revolutionsthus use revolutionarymeans (thatis, the masspolitical party) for conservative ends. We explainedthis form of conservative modernization as theconsequence of twofactors: a weakold regimeand a periodof working class and peasant insur- gencythat prompted the social elite to seeknew political solutions. The process of unificationin Italy,and thatof colonial penetrationin India, both had destroyedmuch of thepolitical order of the landedaristocracy prior to the developmentof a significantindustrial group. The statesthat emerged from these processeswere weaklyrooted among social elites. One of the key pillarsof conservativemodernization and revolutionfrom above (a strong statewith close connectionsto thedominant class) was thusabsent in both cases. Peasantsand workersmobilized within this contextof overallpolitical weakness.The red two yearsin Italy(1919-1920) combinedan unprece- dentedlevel of mass mobilizationfrom below witha crisisof the liberal state.But by late 1920 thiswave of mobilizationhad peteredout and the propertiedclasses were beginninga counter-offensive.In India as well, mass strikesbroke out in the mid- to late 1930 thatwere partlyquelled by thecolonial regime, and partlyco-opted into the anti-colonial movement. Underpressure from below boththe Italianand Indianagrarian and industrialelites organized for the firsttime mass partiesthat pushed for a rapid modernizationof the politicaland economicorder, while agreeingto preserve the basic distributionof propertyand much of the politicalorder. We showedhow in Italythe fascistparty arose underthese circumstances in the 1920s while a similarprocess occurred with the Congressparty in India in the 1930s. While we have arguedthat Italian fascism and Indiannationalism were passiverevolutions, we have also arguedthat they represent two sub-varieties of thisgeneral type: a violentpassive revolution(Italy), and a non-violent passiverevolution (India). The maindifference between the two, we suggest, lay in thetiming of thethreat from the left relative to nationalunification. In Italy,unification was achievedin 1870, at a timewhen no seriousthreat frombelow was present.Further, the process was primarilydiplomatic and militaryand lackedanything corresponding to thelong period of anti-colonial mobilizationthat unfolded in India.A seriousthreat from below emerged only in theperiod from 1919 to 1920. Therewas no way to co-optthis threat into a nationalistunited front, as the failureof progressivenationalism in the post-WorldWar I periodshows.

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The Indiansocial elite,in contrast,faced the challenges of nationalunifi- cationand threatfrom the leftnot in discreteperiods, but togetherin the 1930s and 1940s. The CongressParty thus sought both to mobilizemass supportagainst the Britishoccupier, and to tame that mass support. Gandhi's tactics of non-violenceanswered remarkably well these twin needs. In any case, the Indianscould dependon the Britishto do much of theirdirty work in thisregard. The colonial administrationgave Indian middleclasses much more effectivepolitical instruments to deal withthe threatposed by the 1930s thanwere available to Italianagrarians and indus- trialistsin the early 1920s. The contrastis evidentin the highlyeffective police measuresthat the Britishwere able to use againstthe communists in the 1930s, as againstthe perceivedabdication of the Italianstate in the immediatepost-war period in Italy. We have arguedthat this difference was reflectedin thepolitical tactics that thepassive revolutionary alliance used. In Italy,violent tactics were fused with more specificallypolitical tactics in the formof a party-militia.In India a divisionof labor developedbetween the colonial stateand the Congress party.By establishingnon-violence as thefundamental tactic of anti-colonial struggle,and by definingstrikes and land occupationsas violence,Gandhi could simultaneouslyincorporate and controlmass protest. At thispoint it may be usefulto contrastpassive revolutions more explicitly withother forms of conservativemodernization. The firstquestion to pose is, "whatdoes conservativemodernization look like whereold regimesremain strong?"In thiscontext the Japanese path forms a usefulfoil to thepassive revolutionswe have analyzed.As BarringtonMoore pointsout, Japanese societyin the nineteenthcentury shared many similaritiesto othersemi- peripheralcapitalist societies: a powerfullanded elite, a state-dependentindus- trialbourgeoisie, and a highlyrestricted internal market. Yet Japan lacked that prolongedperiod of foreigndomination and politicalfragmentation that so weakenedthe old regimein bothItaly and India. Japanof the later nineteenth century faced domestic and political challenges similarto thoseItaly confronted in thesame period, and those India would face a generationlater. In thelate Tokugawa period the peasantry became progress- ivelymore dependent on themarket to purchase"manure and fertilizeras well as agriculturalinputs" (Norman 1940: 21). This drovemany agrarian direct producersinto the hands of local usurers.Norman suggests that the deterio- rationin peasant living standards"weakened the strengthof the feudal regimeso dangerouslythat they made possibleto a largeextent the victory of the political movementdirected against the Bakufu [the Tokugawa polity]"(ibid.: 24). The externalpressures were also enormousas theexamples of China,India, Egypt, and Turkeyshowed the threatof a colonialfuture. A groupof declassedfeudal retainers, the samurai,backed by theresources of key rice merchants,formed the social backboneof anti-Tokugawaforces

This content downloaded from 136.152.209.153 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 23:50:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ITALY AND INDIA IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE 841 thatwould eventuallydefeat the Bakufuin a seriesof decisivebattles, and returnthe imperial court to a positionof realpower. The Japanesecoalition of landed and commercial wealth, however, faced the twin challengesof a geopoliticalthreat and peasantrevolt with different resourcesfrom their Italian and Indiancounterparts. It is suggestivethat the emergenceof the modemstate in Japanoccurred as the Meiji restoration. Duringthe Tokugawa period the emperor had beenreduced to a symbolicfig- ureheadrelegated "to the obscurity of a cloisteredlife in Kyoto" (ibid.: 11). The breakwith this order took the formof a projectto re-establishan effective emperor.In buildingthe new state,the Meiji coulddraw on manyinstitutions, and men,from the Tokugawaperiod. The imperialcourt whose powerand influencewas enormousduring the entireperiod after 1868 constitutedone elementof thiscontinuity. The secondwas theheavy presence of samuraiat all levelsof thestate (ibid.: 83). This institutionaland personalcontinuity between the old regimeand Meiji statesets the Japanese pattern apart from both the Italian and Indian routes. For theJapanese social elite had no needto relyon therhetoric and organization of radicalismin theirsearch for an appropriateorganizational and ideological vehiclefor conservative modernization. In part,the key ideologicalrole of a massnationalist party was preemptedby the figure of the emperor as a national symbol(Moore 1993: 304). Thiswas backedup by a verystrong bureaucratic organizationthat both "snuffed out all signsof genuinedemocratic activity" and "blockedthe outright victory of fascistforces" (Norman 1940: 206). The Japanesecase maythus provide evidence, a contrario,of the importanceof a weakold regime,usually a consequenceof a longperiod of foreign domina- tion,in explainingpassive revolutions.Where an old regimecould be con- vertedinto an instrumentfor modernization, the social elite has tendedto rallyto it ratherthan flirt with unpredictable revolutionary forms of organization,even whereit faces a broadlycomparable domestic and international situation. Our secondmajor argument is thatpassive revolutions are closelylinked to insurrectionarymass mobilizationfrom below. Where such mobilization has notoccurred, we would suggestthat a passiverevolution is unlikelyeven in thecontext of a non-existentold regimeand a hostileinternational environ- ment.The reason for this is thatpassive revolutionsdepend on the self- organizationof the social elite,and thisis generallystimulated by pressure frombelow. The Populistdictatorships of GetulioVargas and JuanDomingo Per6nillustrate this point. Populistdictatorships inspired more or less directlyby Europeanfascism arose in both Brazil and Argentinain the 1930s and 1940s. They copied manyof the externaltrappings of fascistregimes, especially in the area of labororganization (Alexander 1962: 58-59). Butin neither country did the dic- tatorshipsemerge in responseto an incipientrevolutionary crisis (Carlos Torre

This content downloaded from 136.152.209.153 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 23:50:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 842 DYLAN J. RILEY AND MANALI DESAI andde Riz 1987: 73).5 Becauseof this, the social elite, and especially industrialists,provided only tepid support for these regimes. Indeed, one the great para- doxesof theLatin American populisms is thatunder the guise of a nationalist and deeplyanti-communist ideology, these regimes rested heavily on working class support.In Argentinathroughout the 1940s the numberof unions affiliatedto the CGT (ConfederacionGeneral del Trabajo) expandedfrom 356 to 969. Over the same period membershipgrew from441,000 to 528,000.Per6n was thedriving force behind much of this expansion. As histor- ian David Rockwrites, "Per6n's basic techniques were to enforcelabour legis- lationthat already existed, to supportwage increasesin sectorswhere unions were alreadyorganized and to promotenew unionswhere none existed" (1984: 65). Aftera strikingvictory at the polls, from1946 to 1955 Per6n launchedan ambitiousprogram of state-ledindustrialization (Carlos Torre and de Riz 1984: 81-82). By themid-1950s, Peronism was thedominant pol- iticalideology of workingclass Argentina.Getulio Vargas, who ruledBrazil from1930 to 1945,although less populist than Per6n, instituted a similar structureof laborrelations. He, too, placed unionsunder state control, and gave themsignificant social welfarefunctions (Alexander 1962: 58-61). These mushroomedunder his control. Populismwas, however,a dead end. These regimesdid not successfully break out of the cycle of economicdependence that characterized Latin Americafrom the nineteenthcentury on. As Miguel Centenoemphasizes, "LatinAmerican states have performedquite badly, even taking into account theresource constraints under which they operate" (2002: 3). Populismwas notso mucha "route"to themodem world as a holdingpattern that prevented modernization.One reasonfor this is thatVargas and Per6nfailed to rallythe social eliteto thetask of modernization, a process that has usuallyoccurred as theconsequence of a seriousthreat from below. Had thatelite felt threatened, as itsEuropean counterparts clearly did, a morevirulent, but perhaps also more vigorous,set of regimesmight have emerged.For thepurposes of thispaper, theVargas and Per6nexperiences underline the importance of workingclass and peasantinsurgency as a stimulantto passiverevolutions. It was precisely the absence of this insurrectionarythreat from below that explains the stuntednature of passiverevolution in thesecases. Thesetentative remarks are meantto concretizethe limits of theconcept of passive revolutionas we use it. Passive revolutions,to reiterate,should be understoodas a formof conservativemodernization occurring in thepresence

5 As CarlosTorre and de Riz putthe point, "In Per6n'svision, the function of these reforms was to preventthe radicalization of conflictsand thespread of Communism.But theArgentine bour- geoisiedid notfear an imminentsocial revolution,a fear that, at othertimes and in otherplaces, had facilitatedthe acceptance of similar reforms. As a result,they joined the anti-fascist front orga- nizedby themiddle class, imbuing political cleavages with a visibleclass bias" (1984: 73).

This content downloaded from 136.152.209.153 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 23:50:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ITALY AND INDIA IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE 843 ofmass mobilization from below, but in the absence of a strongold regime. It is underthis set of circumstances, we argue,that the social elite is likelyto throw itsweight behind a revolutionaryorganization to achieveconservative modem- ization.The projectof a "revolutionaryrestoration" thus emerges at theconflu- ence of popularmobilization and old regimeweakness. In closing,we wouldlike to suggesta way of extendingthe analysis devel- opedhere. We wouldargue that post-passive revolutionary politics tend, in the long run,to be highlyfavorable to the developmentof mass partiesof the radicalleft and rightin a way thatis nottrue of thepolitics of countriesthat have undergoneother forms of conservativemodernization. Although it would requirea separateanalysis fully to justifythis argument, we would underlineone pointof continuity between the passive revolutionary and conso- lidateddemocratic phases of Italianand Indianhistory. Just as theirpaths to modernizationdepended heavily on mass partyorganizations, powerful mass partiesdominated the political sphere in bothconsolidated democracies. This sharedfeature of Indianand Italianpolitics developed in differentways in the two cases. In Italythere was a sharpdiscontinuity between the period of one-partynationalist rule underfascism and the mass democracythat emergedin 1948. Yet manyscholars argue that fascism deeply influenced the style of politicalactivity even in post-fascistperiod. As PietroScoppola writes,"Only greatpopular movements profoundly rooted in the countryin the differentpopular cultures, could assumethe heritage of fascism"(1997: 103). Paolo Pombeni(1995: 114) arguesthat the model of partyas an altema- tivepath of politicalrepresentation linking the parliamentary group and local militantswas directlylinked to thefascist experience. The precisenature of theconnection between the party-form in the fascist and post-fascistperiods remainsto be specified,but thatthere was a close relationshipis widely accepted.In Indiathe connection is moredirect. The dominanceof theCon- gress Partywas carriedover into the post-independenceperiod. Thus we wouldsuggest that the use of politicalparties as theprimary method of mod- ernizationhas had importanteffects on thestructure of politics in post-passive revolutionarysocieties. Politics in thesesocieties is likelyto be dominatedby massparties rather than social movements or other non-party forms of political action.Although we cannotfully justify this argument given the scope of this paper,we wouldsuggest that it is an importantavenue for future research.

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