A political vanguard can begin on vague enthusiasm before finding a slogan

Evidence

Gramsci, a year later, when the Ordine Nuovo had become something very different, wrote critically of their original intentions: “When, in April 1919, three, or four, or five of us decided to begin publishing this review Ordine Nuovo , none of us (perhaps) had any thought of changing the face of the world or of opening a new historical era. None of us (perhaps: some had fantasies of 6,000 subscribers in a few months) had any rosy illusions about the possible success of the project. Who were we? What did we represent? What slogan did we have to offer? Alas! The only sentiment which united us, in our meetings of that period, was based on a vague enthusiasm for a vague proletarian culture; we wanted to act, to act, to act, we felt trapped, without perspective, amid the feverish life of those months following the armistice, when the cataclysm of Italian society seemed imminent.” — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 89

Categorization

• XREF: Gramsci’s retrospective retelling shows how a formation only discovers its concrete program — the Factory Councils as Italian Soviets — after launching; useful compare-point for how movements/ideas crystallize slogans, resonance with the ‘click’ moments in other theory texts.