Gramsci came to see fascism as unifier of the ruling class, not just terror

Evidence

Throughout 1925, the fascist regime intensified the dictatorial character of its rule. The P.C.L’s traditional view equating fascism and social-democracy was not abandoned, but it now began to be accompanied by a new awareness of fascism as a unifier of the ruling class and expression of its interests. “Fascism has given back to the bourgeoisie a class consciousness and class organisation”, wrote Gramsci in February; at about the same time he wrote to Julia in Moscow that it was no longer possible to expect “any very imminent end to fascism as a regime …”. But if anything the P.C.L moved farther to the left under the impact of the new repression. Gramsci continued to speak of the need to liquidate the P.S.I, and its hold over the masses, and it was with this aim that the party campaigned around the slogan of “Worker and peasant committees”. But now, in addition, Gramsci spoke of the need to “put on the agenda … the preparation for an insurrection. Recent political events mark the beginning of a phase in which insurrection has become the sole means for the masses to express their political will”. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 202

Categorization

• DEFINE: Gramsci’s evolving definition of fascism as restoring class consciousness to the bourgeoisie is a key shift from equating fascism with social-democracy.

Related

• Gramsci analyzed fascism through its social base rather than abstract class form (similarity 0.85)
• For the PCI Left, fascist repression merely confirmed the inevitability of revolution (similarity 0.83)
• Fascism’s essence was disputed among revolutionaries in 1926 (similarity 0.82)
• Gramsci’s 1926 theses rejected any stable post-fascist democratic phase (similarity 0.82)
• Gramsci’s leadership combined anti-sectarian party norms with mass responsiveness (similarity 0.82)
• Gramsci believed bourgeois state forces would migrate to the democratic opposition (similarity 0.81)
• Fascism originated in the petite and rural bourgeoisie then served capitalist class interests (similarity 0.81)
• Fascism’s 1926 consolidation rested on a repression more thorough than earlier reaction. (similarity 0.80)
• Comintern factions defined fascism as armed dictatorship of capitalist fractions (similarity 0.80)
• Fascism arrested class polarisation before the bourgeoisie formed its own party (similarity 0.80)
• Gramsci’s factory-council focus delayed but ultimately grounded his party work (similarity 0.80)
• The Italian Communist leadership gravely underestimated fascism’s significance for years (similarity 0.80)
• Regimes are analyzed through their social base, not as interchangeable forms (similarity 0.79)
• The early PCI leadership treated fascism as secondary to the social-democratic threat (similarity 0.79)
• Gramsci’s strategy rejected a post-fascist democratic phase as impossible and unstable (similarity 0.79)