The Prisms of Gramsci Historical Materialism Book Series Editorial Board Sébastien Budgen (Paris) Steve Edwards (London) Juan Grigera (London) Marcel van der Linden (Amsterdam) Peter Thomas (London) volume 103 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/hm The Prisms of Gramsci The Political Formula of the United Front By Marcos Del Roio Translation by Pedro Sette-Câmara leiden | boston Originally published in Portuguese by Xamã editora as “Os prismas de Gramsci: a formula política da frente única (1919–1926)”, São Paulo, 2005. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Del Roio, Marcos, author. [Prismas de Gramsci. English] The prisms of Gramsci : the political formula of the united front / by Marcos Del Roio ; translation by Pedro Sette-Camara. pages cm. – (Historical materialism book series, ISSN 1570-1522 ; 103) "Originally published in Portuguese by Xama editora as "Os prismas de Gramsci: a formula politica da frente unica (1919-1926)", Sao Paulo, 2005." Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-22582-4 (hardback : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-90-04-30418-5 (e-book) 1. Gramsci, Antonio, 1891-1937. 2. Communism–Italy–History. 3. Communism–History. I. Title. HX289.7.G73D4513 2015 320.53'20945–dc23 2015029493 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1570-1522 isbn 978-90-04-22582-4 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-30418-5 (e-book) Copyright 2016 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. 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The same ray of light passes through different prisms and yields different refractions of light: in order to have the same refraction, one must make a whole series of adjustments to the individual prisms. gramsci 1975, p. 33; 1992, p. 128 ∵ Contents Foreword: Identity and Diversity in Gramsci’s Thought ix Acronym List xiii Introduction 1 1 War, Revolution and the Communist Scission in Gramsci 12 1 Communist Scission and Communist Refoundation in Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg 12 2 Liberalism, Revisionism and the Problem of the Scission (or Cleavage) in Gramsci 22 3 The Organic Scission of the Workers’ Movement and the Foundation of the Communist Party in Italy 38 4 The Origins of the United Front Policy in the Communist International 50 2 The Paradox between Communist Scission and United Front 58 1 How the Communist Scission in Italy Consolidated Itself over the Dispute within the Communist International and the Fascist Offensive 58 2 The United Front Policy in the Communist International and in the ussr: Theoretical Weakness and Political Defeat 68 3 Gramsci in Moscow and the Solution to the Dispute between the PCd’I and the Communist International 77 4 Gramsci between the Communist Refoundation and the Theoretical Regression of Bolshevism 87 3 The Communist Refoundation and the United Front in Gramsci 104 1 The Influence of the Theoretical Regression on the Political Actions of the Communist International 104 2 Gramsci in Vienna and His Confluence with the Communist Refoundation 112 3 Gramsci in Rome: The United Front Policy and Anti-Fascism 121 4 On the Way to the Third Congress of the PCd’I 131 4 The Strategy of the Anti-Fascist United Front 140 1 The ‘Lyons Theses’ and the Theory of the Socialist Revolution in Italy 140 viii contents 2 The Third Congress and the New Lines of Division 150 3 Gramsci and the Russian Question 161 4 The Agrarian Question as a National Question, and the Problem of the Southern Intellectuals in the United Front 174 Conclusion 186 References 201 Index 205 foreword Identity and Diversity in Gramsci’s Thought* Marcos Del Roio provides us with a sober and careful analysis of Gramsci’s polit- ical and intellectual activities, but it is also forceful and determined, proposing a strong and radical thesis: namely, that there is a continuity between political action and philosophical thought throughout the whole of Gramsci. I recall a statement to this effect expressed in no unclear terms by Battista Santhià, the worker who was the leading figure of the biennio rosso [‘two red years’ of 1919– 20], when I carried out a long interview with him at his home in Turin in 1987, a few years before his passing. Santhià was not an intellectual by profession, even though his approach was that of the ‘organic intellectual’ as defined by Gram- sci in his speech to the Political Commission at the 1926 Congress of the Italian Communist Party [PCd’I] in Lyons. Disputing the preference given to intellec- tuals by Amadeo Bordiga’s extreme left, he said: ‘the intellectuals were the most politically and socially advanced elements, and were therefore destined to be the organisers of the working class. Today, in our view, the organisers of the working class must be the workers themselves’.1 It must be highlighted that, according to the language used in the Prison Notebooks, the term ‘organisers’ refers to intellectuals in a broad sense. At the time, Santhià’s words seemed to me to be filled with ‘triumphalism’. Yet as I reconsidered them, I saw that he was very much in the right. To insist upon the unity of Gramsci’s whole work does not imply underestimating the change, transformation, or even the ruptures that occurred in his brief but densely-layered existence. Conversely, today we know that it is impossible to study the Notebooks without using the analytical tools of a genetic and evolutionary method of research – and this does not mean wiping away their internal unity. As we read Gramsci, certain key ideas come forth, and they determine in unitary fashion the rhythm of his thought, at least from the time of the factory councils to the writing of the last notebooks (Gramsci himself points out the path of this continuity in a strategic note in the Notebooks).2 I am referring to the key ideas that constitute the identity of his thought, throughout and beyond the diversity of its manifestations, that identity which is the usual hallmark of all great thinkers. * This foreword was translated from Italian into Portuguese by Alvaro Bianchi. 1 Gramsci 1999a, p. 430. 2 Gramsci 1977, vol. 4, p. 328ff. x foreword Both the title and subtitle of Del Roio’s book remind us precisely of the coun- terpoint between identity and diversity, which Gramsci theorised in highly imaginative terms in Notebook 1, and which we can, perhaps with a little more audacity, apply to his own thought: The unitary elaboration of a collective consciousness requires manifold conditions and initiatives … The same ray of light passes through different prisms and yields different refractions of light … Finding the real identity underneath the apparent differentiation and contradiction and finding the substantial diversity underneath the apparent identity is the most essential quality of the critic of the ideas and of the historian of social development.3 The subtitle’s essential category, as well as the contents of Del Roio’s work – the ‘united front’ – direct us to an identical problem dealt with in Gramsci’s political action, namely that concerning the radical Leninism that guided him in his confrontation with Bordiga. Del Roio recalls the birth of this ‘political formula’ – in the Germany of 1921 – which was central to Lenin’s mature thought, shows the various ways in which it was interpreted, and analyses Gramsci’s cautious attitude. An important aspect of this latter is the fact that it is the practical necessity imposed by the united front strategy that explains the monumental prudence and flexibility Gramsci displayed towards Bordiga, both when Bordiga established the party line, and later, when Gramsci’s supremacy began to take shape. The metaphor-image of the ray and the prism allows us to approach the guiding thread that accompanies the transition from Gramsci’s final year at liberty to the genesis of the Notebooks. In this respect, Del Roio picks out some important elements, particularly from the incomplete and then-unpublished 1926 essay on the ‘Southern question’. However, it was both the political and theoretical elaborations of Gramsci in that year that broke the ground for the construction of his thought as it matured in prison. To recall the main stages, we have the Lyons Congress and the corresponding theses (21–26 January), his letter to Togliatti on the situation within the Bolshevik Party (October), and Some Aspects of the Southern Question (in the months before his arrest on 8 November). 3 Gramsci 1977, vol. 1, p. 33ff. In the second draft of this passage, in q24, §3 (the special notebook dedicated to journalism), the ‘unitary elaboration’ becomes ‘the national unitary elaboration’, and the ‘quality of the critic of ideas’ becomes ‘the more delicate gift, albeit misunderstood, but still essential, of the critic of ideas’, among other changes. identity and diversity in gramsci’s thought xi The Lyons Theses, written by Gramsci with Togliatti’s help, are probably the best and most complex document in all the theoretical and political history of the communist movement in Italy.