ABSTRACT
Antonio Gramsci is the theorist of the failure in Italy of two revolutions: the first is that of the Risorgimento and the liberal state it produced, and the second is that of socialism. In Gramsci’s mind both revolutions, and both failures, are related (see Clark 1977 and Miller 1990). Italian liberalism created a weak Italian state, as well as a weak and desiccated political culture. State and society were backward and underdeveloped because, to Gramsci’s mind, they lacked the major defining element of modernity, a politically aware and active populace. The absence of a popular mass base produced a wide gulf between the state and its institutions and the life and everyday activity of large strata of society. It is this weakness that made possible both the rise of fascism and the defeat of socialism and democracy.
