Risorgimento, americanismo e fordismo: o conceito de revolução passiva como categoria interpretativa da modernização no mundo da produção capitalista

Abstract

This dissertation is a study of Risorgimento, Americanism and fascism in the light of the concepts of the italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci (1891 – 1937). In this research it was investigated how these events interconnect with all intellectual frameworks developed by the philosopher, mainly, with the concepts of hegemony and passive revolution. For this purpose, the methodology used was bibliographic and documentary research, as well as books by researchers and articles. Within these limits, we focus on research, works written before and after the period in which the author was imprisoned (1926 – 1937), being the main sources: “Political Writings” and Prison Notebooks. Gramsci characterizes Risorgimento, Americanism and fascism, in the interpretive concept known as passive revolution. Although distinct, the phenomena are interconnected based on the historical-political criterion of analyses. Likewise, the concept of passive revolution is interconnected with of hegemony, war of position, transformation and subordination. Thus, it is correct to say that the Risorgimento was the answer given by the traditional italian ruling classes, under the hegemony of the Moderates, in the quest to unify Italy, without major shakes in the class structure, heirs of feudal residues. The Moderates, under the influence of Cavour (1810 – 1861), led the unification of the peninsula, as well as the application of bourgeois relations in the italian economic structure, without going through an active revolution, such as the one unleashed in France, under the radical tutelage of the Jacobins. On the other hand, in different circumstances, Americanism and fascism are responses to the revolutionary process started with the Bolshevik Revolution (1917), as well as to the “organic crises” opened by World War I. In this context, the hegemony of the ruling classes was fragmented, with the two social forces, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, disputing the economic-cultural in the Western World. However, the race for hegemony was uneven, where the ruling classes had inexhaustible mechanisms for maintaining their domination; on the other land, the dominated classes should unify themselves in order to conquer productive hegemony, thus burying the capitalist mode of production together with their class relations. Therefore, in these conditions, the ruling classes used passive revolutions to reinforce the weakened leadership, resuming consensus, and dismantling the subordinate classes in the process of social upheaval. Thus, this study presents the central concept of Gramsci’s analysis, intending to understand the real causes that led to Risorgimento, as, decades later, to the other two bourgeois events – Americanism and fascism –, which changed the face of the struggles of Western classes to ever.