A Newly Rediscovered Article by Antonio Gramsci on the Fascists’ March on Rome
When Benito Mussolini’s Italian Fascists pulled off their coup d’état in October 1922, Antonio Gramsci was in Moscow — and his first article responding to the events appeared in Russian. It was virtually lost for a century. We publish it in English for the first time.
Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci was in Petrograd for the fifth anniversary celebrations of the Russian Revolution, and first commented on the rise of fascism in Italy from Soviet Russia. (Laski Diffusion / Getty Images)
Article from Pravda, November 7, 1922:
The Fascists’ seizure of power reduces the Italian Communist Party’s activity to that of a purely conspiratorial movement. In Italy, a new period of history is beginning, which we can define in the following terms: Political power is probably passing from the hands of the capitalist bourgeoisie into the hands of the middling and big agrarian strata, under the ideological guidance of part of the urban petty bourgeoisie. The contradictions of Italian society, which had been latent since the creation of the unitary Kingdom which emerged from the wars for Italian reconstruction, became clearly manifest in these last two years, after the Socialist Party proved incapable of leading the proletariat to power.
The result has been the agrarian landowners’ victory over the proletariat and over the bourgeoisie, which has been enfeebled by the financial and industrial crisis. One can easily foresee an imminent period of fierce struggle in Italy, since even for the bourgeoisie it will be difficult to accept harsh, tyrannical domination by the landowners and the irresponsible demagogy of a mediocre adventurer like Mussolini. So, despite the gravity of the present situation, the future prospects for the proletariat and its party are not particularly negative. Over the last two years, the Communist Party has already found itself in a situation of illegality across three-quarters of the country. Despite this, the party, which counted 42,000 members in February 1921 after the split at the Livorno Congress, still had 35,000 members at the moment of the Fascist coup d’état, not including the around 20,000 young communists. The Socialist Party, which had 150,000 members after Livorno, has in the same period fallen to 32,000 members. They have resolved to join the Comintern, but in truth they are not sufficiently prepared for a situation of illegality.
If in this new phase the Communist Party’s Central Committee proves capable (as it probably will, taking into account the experience of the international communist movement) of developing a tactic adequate to the reality of Italian society and driving open the contradictions created by the Fascist coup d’état, the proletariat will, soon enough, again occupy its historic position, lost after the failure of the factory-occupation campaign in September 1920.
Gramsci (Italy)
Gramsci, the Communist Party and the March on Rome
In November 1922, Gramsci was in Soviet Russia, where he had arrived in early June together with Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Graziadei in order to take part in the Communist International’s Second Enlarged Executive plenum. He remained in Moscow as the PCd’I representative to the Executive and the Presidium of the Comintern, which the Communists of the time saw as a truly world party made up of “national sections.”
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