Italian Minds in Politics

The connection between Niccolò Machiavelli and Antonio Gramsci represents the coexistence of classical political theory and Marxist philosophy. This essay explores the influence that contributed to Gramsci's intellectual framework, particularly regarding the concept of masses, parties, and how Machiavelli's wisdom can be discovered again in the evolution of political thought.

Two Giants of Political Thought

Antonio Gramsci was an Italian Marxist philosopher born on January 22, 1891, in Ales and died on April 27, 1937, in Rome. He is very well-known for his works and theories on politics, and for being a founding member and one-time leader of the Italian Communist Party. He was among the politicians and political activists who criticized Benito Mussolini and Fascism all his life, and because of that, he was imprisoned in 1926 and remained in prison until his death.

Five centuries before Antonio Gramsci, one of the most important politicians in the history of Italy was born in May of 1469. Machiavelli was a Renaissance political philosopher who wrote his book "The Prince" which had an impressive impact on Gramsci's works and his theory, especially on Gramsci's book titled "The Prison Notebooks." Machiavelli was a forty-four-year-old diplomat facing ruin while he wrote his masterpiece called "The Prince."

Machiavelli's Florence

During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Italy was suffering from a complicated political crisis between the five states that were in power. At the time, Italy was divided into five different states: the kingdom of Naples, the Papal States, Florence, Venice, and Milan. All these five powers in the peninsula constantly competed for new territories they could get.

From outside the situation wasn't different. Turks conquered much of Italy's overseas empire, France was more powerful than before after its unification in the north of Italy and eventually invaded Italy in 1494. The Italian wars (1494-1559) were ongoing conflicts involving the most powerful European powers trying to get control over Italian territories.

"I love my country more than my soul."

— Niccolò Machiavelli, in a letter to Francesco Guicciardini

In Florence, from 1434 on, the Medicis—first Cosimo, then Piero, then Lorenzo—had been manipulating the electoral process so that they could be in power or bring up their friends to power. Although the Florentines still liked to boast that they were free citizens, by the mid-fifteenth century they were living in something very similar to a dictatorship. Machiavelli thus grew up in a society where the distance between how things were run and how they were described was enormous.

The Prince and Political Reality

Machiavelli was a politician who tried his whole life to observe and learn from these conflicts and compare them to the wars and challenges that Italy and other countries were struggling with throughout history. He reflected all his observations in his book "The Prince" in which he discusses the idea of how the reality of politics is rough and how the prince should behave regardless of moral considerations.

At the time, the church, especially the Pope, had a strong influence all over Italy, even in France. The Pazzi conspiracy had been backed by the Pope, Priests had been involved in the assassination attempt, and Lorenzo was excommunicated after it failed—in short, the religious edict was a political tool.

"These reflections prompt the question: is it better to be loved rather than feared, or vice versa? The answer is that one would prefer to be both but, since they don't go together easily, if you have to choose, it's much safer to be feared than loved. Fear means fear of punishment, and that's something people never forget."

— Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

Because of all these happenings and contradictions, he built his philosophy on the division of religion and morality with power. He believed that there were many occasions when winning and holding political power was possible only if a leader was ready to act outside the moral codes that applied to ordinary individuals.

The Concept of Virtù

For Machiavelli, "virtù" was any quality of character that enabled the prince to take political power or to hold on to it. A winning trait. It could be courage in battle, or strength of personality, or political cunning. The project obliged him to explain that there were many occasions when winning and holding political power was possible only if a leader was ready to act outside the moral codes that applied to ordinary individuals.

"He had no way of keeping the initial believers on board or forcing the skeptical to see the light. But any new ruler bringing in changes will have to deal with huge obstacles and dangers, mostly in the early stages, and must overcome them with his own abilities. Once he's done that and eliminated those who resented his achievements, so that people start to respect and admire him, then he can enjoy his power in safety."

— Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

Gramsci's Era: The Rise of Fascism

During Gramsci's lifetime, a huge range of events was happening. The most important one was the rise of fascism in Italy in 1922. Mussolini came to power at a time when Italy was suffering from political maneuvering, economic instability, and widespread social discontent. After the First World War, the whole of Europe was struggling with economic challenges, social problems, and high unemployment.

Mussolini and his party, the National Fascist Party, used this situation and became popular by presenting themselves as a solution to these problems that Italy was facing. Mussolini and his followers, with the help of the Blackshirts who were trying to create a scene of chaos and urgency, marched on Rome and demanded King Victor Emmanuel III to let him form the government.

The second important event of this period was the formation of The Soviet Union. In 1917, the Bolshevik revolution succeeded and led to the establishment of The Soviet Union, which had a profound impact on Marxist thought worldwide. However, Gramsci was critical of the Soviet model, particularly its emphasis on a centralized and bureaucratic party structure.

The Prison Notebooks

In 1926, Antonio Gramsci was imprisoned by the Italian Fascist Regime because of his political activities and ideology. Regardless of his imprisonment, he never gave up and tried to develop his ideas about his theories, so he wrote more than 30 notebooks and 3,000 pages of history and analysis, which were published under the name of "Prison Notebooks."

Gramsci's strategy to deceive the censors was to use Machiavelli's text as a reference for his writing, but his reflection on Machiavelli was more than an expedient. Gramsci was trying to update Machiavelli's idea of leadership that is closely linked to the popular classes and that creates a new state in accordance with their will and passion.

He considered Machiavelli an exception among the Italian intellectuals, who were usually cosmopolitan and quite distant from the masses: he was deeply concerned with the problems of the Italian situation and tried to imagine how the people could participate in political life.

Cultural Hegemony

Gramsci is very famous because of his theory of cultural hegemony. This theory describes how cultural institutions are being used by the bourgeoisie to keep their power in a capitalist society. His theory describes the bourgeoisie by using ideology to develop a hegemonic culture without a need for violence or economic force.

Hegemony—a conception of the world that has become the life and activity of the popular masses—is one of the most important concepts in Gramsci's works that has a strong connection to Machiavellian thought. Its main characteristic is precisely the unity of knowledge and action, and also people, that in their interaction forms a conscious subject that moves from particular to the universal.

The Modern Prince

Gramsci notes that before Machiavelli, political science appeared in utopian and scholastic forms, while the treatise "The Prince" was written in the form of a dramatic myth, combining political science and political ideology, influencing "a divided and dispersed people to awaken in them and organize the collective will" to create a new nation-state.

"The Modern Prince cannot be a real person. It can only be an organism, a complex element of society in which a collective will, which has already been recognized and has to some extent asserted itself in action, begins to take concrete form."

— Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks

The political party is the first cell in which there come together germs of a collective will tending to become universal and total. The most important rule of the modern prince is to create the terrain for subsequent development of the national-popular collective will towards the realization of a superior, total form of modern civilization.

Party as Educator

For Gramsci, the communist party (as a modern prince) must achieve an ambitious moral and intellectual reform of Italian society, while combining with an economic reform so that people can express a collective and national will. Another vital job is that the prince should act on the consciousness of the people—not in the totalitarian sense (that is, imposing his truth), but in a kind of educational role.

"The decisive element in every situation is the permanently organised and long-prepared force which can be put into the field when it is judged that a situation is favourable (and it can be favourable only in so far as such a force exists and is full of fighting spirit). Therefore the essential task is that of systematically and patiently ensuring that this force is formed, developed and rendered ever more homogeneous, compact, and self-aware."

— Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks

Gramsci's point is that the party must not be in opposition to the "spontaneous" feelings of the masses. Educating the "popular element" is the solution, not manipulating the masses. The communist party could not be a revolutionary vanguard imposing a line on its members, but a living organism and a collective actor.

Social Conformism

Regarding the new social conformism, modern states play a formative and educational role—that is, they promote a certain type of civilization. Different kinds of social conformism, not passively accepted but actively chosen, is one of the requirements for the creation of a different society and civilization.

"We are all conformists of some conformism or other, always man-in-the-mass or collective man. The question is this: of what historical type is the conformism, the mass humanity to which one belongs?"

— Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks

Conclusion

By analyzing the relationship between Antonio Gramsci's works, specifically his "Prison Notebooks" and the legacy of Niccolò Machiavelli's political ideas, we understand there is an important interplay between these two influential thinkers. Machiavelli's writings, particularly "The Prince" and "The Discourses," inspired Gramsci who was born in a period when fascism rose in Italy, as he sought to make sense of the complex political landscape.

The chaotic political conditions of Machiavelli's time made him a Renaissance political philosopher who observed and reflected upon these conditions and realized the harsh realities of political power. His separation of politics from morality and emphasis on pragmatism left a mark on Gramsci's intellectual framework.