Political struggle resembles permanent conquest rather than finite military war.
Evidence
In military war, when the strategic aim—destruction of the enemy’s army and occupation of his territory—is achieved, peace comes. It should also be observed that for war to come to an end, it is enough that the strategic aim should simply be achieved potentially: it is enough in other words that there should be no doubt that an army is no longer able to fight, and that the victorious army “could” occupy the enemy’s territory. Political struggle is enormously more complex: in a certain sense, it can be compared to colonial wars or to old wars of conquest—in which the victorious army occupies, or proposes to occupy, permanently all or a part of the conquered territory. Then the defeated army is disarmed and dispersed, but the struggle continues on the terrain of politics and of military “preparation”. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 877
Categorization
Category: Definitional Content
- DEFINE: Defines the key distinction between ending a military war at its strategic aim versus the unending character of political struggle.