The PSI’s revolutionary rhetoric masked an absence of concrete revolutionary preparation

Evidence

After the event, commentators of every political persuasion were united in the view that the party had never at any moment seriously considered the problem of how to make the revolution, nor made any serious preparations for it. However, at the time, the verbal statements of its leaders and the party’s adhesion to the Third International created a very different impression. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 87

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth pursuing: Gramsci’s analysis of nominal maximalism as a substitute for practical revolution foreshadows later theories of symbolic insurgency versus material change.