Caesarism and Bonapartism in Gramsci: Hegemony and the Crisis of Modernity

252 Pages·2020·0.93 MB·English

by  Francesca Antonini

CaesarismandBonapartisminGramsci
Historical Materialism
Book Series
EditorialBoard
LorenBalhorn(Berlin)
DavidBroder(Rome)
SebastianBudgen(Paris)
SteveEdwards(London)
JuanGrigera(London)
MarcelvanderLinden(Amsterdam)
PeterThomas(London)
volume 215
Thetitlespublishedinthisseriesarelistedatbrill.com/hm
Caesarism and Bonapartism
in Gramsci
HegemonyandtheCrisisof Modernity
By
FrancescaAntonini
LEIDEN | BOSTON
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Names:Antonini,Francesca,author.|BrillAcademicPublishers.
Title:CaesarismandBonapartisminGramsci:hegemonyandthecrisisof
modernity/byFrancescaAntonini.
Description:Boston:Brill,2021.|Series:Historicalmaterialismbookseries,
1570-1522;Volume215|Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.|
Identifiers:LCCN2020030410(print)|LCCN2020030411(ebook)|
ISBN9789004321670(Hardback:alk.paper)|ISBN9789004441828(eBook)
Subjects:LCSH:Caesarism.|Bonapartism.|Gramsci,Antonio,1891-1937.
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Contents
Preface:GramscionCaesarismandBonapartism ix
Acknowledgements xv
Abbreviations xvii
NoteontheText xix
1 TheConceptsofBonapartismandCaesarismfromMarxto
Gramsci 1
1 TheGenesisoftheCategorybetweenHistoriographyandPolitical
Polemics 1
2 Marx:FromTheEighteenthBrumairetoTheCivilWarinFrance 3
3 AcrosstheNineteenthandTwentiethCenturies 7
2 ThePre-prisonWritings 10
1 Two(Almost)NeglectedCategories 10
2 Marx,GramsciandtheMarxianSources 11
3 SocialismandRomanticism 15
1 AgainstMaximalismandReformism:ReckoningwithItalian
Socialism 15
1.1 CadornaandBonapartism 15
1.2 TradeUnionismandBonapartism 19
1.3 ParliamentaryCretinismandSocialistReformism 21
1.4 InMemoryofSerrati 25
2 The‘Romanticism’oftheItalianBourgeoisie 28
2.1 Marx,Gramsciandthefeuilleton 28
2.2 GiodaodelromanticismoandParaboladiscendente 29
2.3 Italy’sTragicFarce 33
4 CrisisandBalance:BetweenRevolutionandRestoration 36
1 Gramsci’sPoliticalTheory:CrisisandBalance 36
2 TheCatastrophicCrisisofCapitalism 37
2.1 GramsciandtheThirdInternational 37
2.2 ADecayandaGenesis 39
2.3 RevolutionandCrisisoftheBourgeois-CapitalistWorld 41
2.4 TheElectionsofNovember1919 43
2.5 AShortRevival 48
vi contents
3 TheBalanceMetaphor:TheOriginsofthe‘RelationsofForce’ 51
3.1 A‘Catastrophic’Balance 51
3.2 DictatorshipoftheBourgeoisieorDictatorshipofthe
Proletariat? 53
3.3 AnIlliberalOrder 57
5 Bonapartism,CaesarismandFascisminGramsci’sJournalistic
Works 61
1 TheCrisisoftheLiberalOrderandtheRiseofFascism 61
2 A(Critical)TheoryofStateandPolitics 62
3 Marx’sEighteenthBrumaire:AnalogiesandAnalyses 66
4 OntheGramsci-MarxRelationshipinthePre-prisonWritings 69
6 TowardsthePrisonNotebooks 73
1 ContinuityandNovelty 73
2 TheEditionsofMarx’sTexts 75
3 OverviewoftheOccurrences 76
7 TheMeaningsof‘Bonapartism’ 78
1 BonapartisminthePrisonNotebooks 78
2 MilitarismandWarofMovement 79
2.1 CadornismandBonapartism 79
2.2 TrotskyandtheWarofMovement 81
3 GramsciandtheSo-called‘DictatorshipsofDepretis,Crispiand
Giolitti’ 85
4 BonapartismandBureaucracy 89
4.1 AttheOriginoftheRelationship 89
4.2 BetweenMarxandtheSouthernQuestion 93
8 BetweenBonapartismandCaesarism 97
1 AnachronisticRevivalorUsefulAnalyticalTool? 97
2 Q13,§§23and27andTheirFirstDrafts 99
3 FurtherOccurrences 102
9 GramsciandtheTheoryofCaesarism 105
1 Michelsand‘CharismaticLeadership’ 105
1.1 Q2,§75 105
1.2 A‘Programmatic’Ambivalence 108
contents vii
2 ‘TheOldIsDyingandtheNewCannotBeBorn’ 110
2.1 TheBalanceFormulainthePrisonNotebooks 110
2.2 BalanceandCatastrophe 112
3 TheDreyfusAffairandthe‘Tendential’Characterofthe
CatastrophicCrisis 115
4 The‘Taxonomy’ofCaesarism 118
4.1 GreatPersonalitiesandHistoricalAnalogies 118
4.2 TheArticulationoftheCategory 120
4.3 An‘Incomplete’Scheme 124
10 CaesarismandHistoricalAnalysis 126
1 Gramscian‘Concerns’ 126
1.1 PracticalCriteriaofInterpretation 126
1.2 JuliusCaesarandCaesarism 129
2 TheHistorico-politicalFrameworkofthePrisonNotebooks 130
2.1 Gramsci’s‘PluralTemporalities’andtheCaseofFrance 130
2.2 The‘Waves’ofHistory 133
2.3 NapoleonIIIasArchetypeofCaesarism 135
3 CaesarismandPassiveRevolution 138
3.1 TheMeaningsofaCategory 138
3.2 Marx’s‘Canons’andtheIssueoftheMarginalForces 140
3.3 ‘EffectualReality’andNewInstrumentsofAnalysis 144
11 HegemonyandModernity 147
1 Twentieth-CenturyCaesarism 147
1.1 MacDonald,theLabourPartyandtheCoalition
Governments 147
1.2 Italyinthe1920s 150
1.3 FascismandCaesarism:AControversialMatch 151
2 CrisisofAuthorityandCaesarist-BonapartistSolutions 155
2.1 TheOrganicCrisis 155
2.2 The‘MassiveStructureoftheModernDemocracies’ 158
3 ANewFormofHegemony 160
3.1 APost-JacobinFramework 160
3.2 TheIssueofthe‘DarkPowers’ 161
3.3 Bureaucracy,MilitaryAssociations,Police 163
3.4 Bonapartism,CaesarismandFascism 165
viii contents
12 ContemporaryCaesarism(s) 167
1 TotalitarianTrends 167
1.1 WarofPosition,Siege,andConcentration 167
1.2 A‘Totalitarian’ConceptionoftheWorld 170
1.3 TheRoleoftheParty 172
2 BetweenMoscowandRome 176
2.1 ProgressiveorRegressiveAuthoritarianism? 176
2.2 FascistCorporatism 177
2.3 ‘Statolatry’andthe‘Return’oftheEconomic-Corporative
Phase 179
2.4 Trotsky,BonapartismandNapoleonism 183
3 ‘AlternativeModernities’ 187
3.1 BlackParliamentarism,CritiqueandSelf-critique 187
3.2 TheLegal-RealOppositionandtheImageofthe
Barometer 190
4 ‘CaesarismwithoutaCaesar’andtheIssueoftheModern
Prince 193
4.1 IndividualActionandCollectiveWill 193
4.2 CaesarismandtheModernPrince 195
4.3 The‘Party-Caesar’andtheRoleofCharismaticFigures 199
13 Caesarism,Bonapartismandthe‘ReturntoMarx’inthePrison
Writings 201
1 GramsciandtheMarxianLegacy 201
2 CaesarismandBonapartisminthePrisonNotebooks 202
Bibliography 207
NameIndex 223
SubjectIndex 228
Preface: Gramsci on Caesarism and Bonapartism
ThisbookanalysesAntonioGramsci’susageof theconceptsof Bonapartism
andCaesarism,bothinhispre-prisonwritingsandinthePrisonNotebooks.My
workaimstofillagapinthescholarshiponGramsci,byinvestigatingahitherto
neglectedaspectof histhought.However,thisinvestigationalsorepresentsa
contributiontothehistoryofpoliticalthoughtandtointellectualhistorymore
broadly,notablytothehistoryoftheconceptsofCaesarismandBonapartism.
While many scholars have referred to these categories in their interpreta-
tions of Gramsci’s work, they have not always engaged in serious analysis of
theirmeanings.1Ananalysisofthemcanbevaluablenotonlyingraspingspe-
cificaspectsofhisthought,butalsoinbetterunderstandingthewidersenseof
hisintellectualcommitment.
Inthepre-prisonarticles,thedeploymentofthecategoriesofCaesarismand
Bonapartism is linked predominantly to episodes of early twentieth-century
ItalianorEuropeanhistoryandtoGramsci’sownpoliticalactivity.Neverthe-
less,thesereferencesarealsorelevantonamoregenerallevel,sincetheycon-
tributetotheevolutionofhisunderstanding,forexample,oftheroleandthe
nature of political parties, of power relations among different social groups,
andofthetransformationofthestatewiththeadventofauthoritarianregimes.
InthePrisonNotebooks,Gramsci’sinvestigationofthecategoriesofCaesar-
ism and Bonapartism is more organic and articulated. On the one hand, the
Caesarist-Bonapartistpatterniscloselyconnectedtothehistoricaldimension
of Gramsci’sthoughtinprison.Thisisthecasebothwithsituationsfromthe
past (such as, for instance, the Second French Empire or the Italian Risor-
gimento) and, especially, with cases from recent times (‘modern’ ones, as he
says).ThismodelisessentialtoGramsci’sunderstandingoftheinterwarperiod
andofthe‘totalitarian’systemsthatcharacteriseit.However,Bonapartismand
Caesarismarealsovaluableonaccountof theirlocation‘atthecrossroads’of
different lines of research in the notebooks.These concepts are intertwined
withkeycategoriessuchas‘warofposition’,‘organiccrisis’,‘passiverevolution’
and‘modernprince’.Moregenerally,theCaesarist-Bonapartistmodelrelates
crucially to Gramsci’s reflections on ‘hegemony’ and on its transformations
in the passage from a nineteenth-century political scenario to a twentieth-
centuryone.
1 ForacriticaldiscussionofthesecondaryliteratureonthesecategoriesinGramsci’sthought
beforeandafterhisimprisonment,see,respectively,Chapter2(section1)andChapter6(sec-
tion1).
x preface: gramsci on caesarism and bonapartism
Approaching Gramsci’s writings from the point of view of Caesarism and
Bonapartism also helps to illuminate his attitude towards Marxism and the
Marxian legacy.This approach allows us not only to contextualise Gramsci’s
accountwithintheintellectualandpoliticalpanoramaofhistime,butalsoto
highlightthespecificityof his‘philosophyof praxis’andtheroleof hisreas-
sessment of Marx in this framework. Furthermore, it stresses the continuity
betweenthepre-prisontextsandtheNotebooks.
WithregardtoGramsci’srolewithinthehistoryofBonapartismandCaesar-
ism,hisaccountrepresentsanunavoidable(butoftenunderestimated)point
of referenceforthestudyof thecomplicateddevelopmentof theseconcepts
inthenineteenthandearlytwentiethcenturies.2Theseconcepts(whose‘life’
hasbeenrelativelyshortincomparisontootherpoliticalcategories,spanning
roughlytheperiodbetweenthemid-nineteenthcenturyandthemid-twentieth
century)3havehadalimitedsuccessamongintellectualhistoriansandhistori-
ansofpoliticalthought,especiallyinrecenttimes.Ifsomeinterestinthetopic
wasregisteredinthe1970sandinthe1980s,inthesubsequentdecadesonlya
few(albeitimportant)contributionsonthethemewerepublished.4Further-
more,theattentiondedicatedtothehistoryofCaesarismandBonapartismhas
beenveryunevenintermsof their‘focalisation’.Notonlyisacomprehensive
historyofthecategoriesstilllacking,butscholarshavemostlyfocusedonspe-
cificlinguisticareasandonspecificreadingsoftheconcepts.5
2 ScarceattentionhasbeenpaidtoGramsciinthesecondaryliteratureonCaesarismand
Bonapartism;thefewexceptionsarethecontributionsof LuisaMangoni(1976and1979)
andBenedettoFontana’schapterinBaehrandRichter2004.Seealsomycontributionson
thetopicinAntonini2013a,2016and2019b,whichanticipatetheresearchcontainedinthis
book.
3 Onthispoint,however,seeRichter2005,whichstressesthefactthatCaesarismandBona-
partismarepartofabroaderconceptualfamily,whichincludescategoriessuchastyranny,
despotismanddictatorship.
4 TheveryfirstcontributionsarebyGollwitzer1952andMomigliano1956.Asregardsthebiblio-
graphybetweenthe1970sandthe1980s,itincludesGriepenburgandTjaden1966,Abendroth
1967, Groh 1972, Kitchen 1973, Hanisch 1974, Botz 1976, Mangoni 1976 and 1979,Wistrich
1976,HammerandHartmann1977,Rapone1978,Bluche1980,Wippermann1981and1983(a
moretheoreticalapproachistheoneadoptedinPoulantzas1970).Morerecentpublications
include:Mackenbach1994,Cervelli1996,Baehr1998,Cassina2001,Ceretta2003,Baehrand
Richter2004,Richter2005,Riosa2007,McDaniel2016and2018.SeenowalsoPrutsch2019.
5 Oneofthemostinterestingfeaturesoftheseconceptsisthefactthattheyhavebeenadopted
byintellectualsfromdiversebackgroundsand,duetotheirintrinsiccomplexity,havebeen
employedtoanalysearangeofbackgrounds.Scholarshaveseldomacknowledgedthis‘trans-
ideological’character(aswellastheir‘transnational’use,i.e.theirapplicationinavarietyof
nationalcontexts).