Military influence masks the class origin of its officer stratum
Evidence
In a whole series of countries, therefore, military influence in national life means not only the influence and weight of the military in the technical sense, but the influence and weight of the social stratum from which the latter (especially the junior officers) mostly derives its origin. This series of observations is indispensable for any really profound analysis of the specific political form usually termed Caesarism or Bonapartism—to distinguish it from other forms in which the technical military element as such predominates, in conformations perhaps still more visible and exclusive. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 844
Categorization
Category: Definitional Content
- DEFINE: Clarifies Gramsci’s distinction between Caesarism/Bonapartism (where the military’s class origin matters) and purely technical military predominance — a key analytical distinction.
- QUESTION: Worth chasing how Caesarism/Bonapartism analysis gets deployed in later scholarship on postcolonial or fascist political forms.
Related
- A military class can permeate and partly occupy the state apparatus (similarity 0.81)
- A weakly-developed bourgeoisie shapes a country’s political-military structure. (similarity 0.81)
- Military character can operate through civilians without open army participation (similarity 0.79)
- Caesarist military regimes differ by whether the countryside is passive or uncoordinated (similarity 0.79)