Ambivalence in Gramsci’s historiography of the Risorgimento

Although Gramsci developed his conceptual methodology out of concrete historical analysis, there is a significant tension between his account of the Risorgimento, which plays into a narrative of Italian exceptionalism, and concepts such as historical bloc, hegemony and passive revolution, which point towards European wide convergence in capitalist state dynamics after 1848. This article shows a de-alignment between Gramsci’s account of the Risorgimento and Marx’s analysis of the meaning of 1848 in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Napoleon Bonaparte. At the same time, Gramsci’s conceptual methodology both re-aligns his argument with Marx and significantly develops Marxist analysis of politics. However, Gramsci’s conceptualisation of the role of intellectuals, especially the problematic distinction between traditional and organic intellectuals, does provide support for the kind of exceptionalist argument he offers of the Risorgimento. Therefore, this article reconstructs Gramsci’s account of the intellectuals in order to integrate it better into his analysis of a historical bloc composed of both conservatism and liberalism.