The Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci by Perry Anderson

Author:Perry Anderson
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Verso Books

Here the real opposition between Russia and the West emerges clearly and unambiguously: feudal autocracy against bourgeois democracy. The accuracy of Bordiga’s formulation allowed him to grasp the essential twin character of the capitalist state: it was stronger than the Tsarist state, because it rested not only on the consent of the masses, but also on a superior repressive apparatus. In other words, it is not the mere ‘extent’ of the state that defines its location in the structure of power (what Gramsci elsewhere called ‘statolatry’), but also its efficacy. The repressive apparatus of any modern capitalist state is inherently superior to that of Tsarism, for two reasons. Firstly, because the Western social formations are much more industrially advanced, and this technology is reflected in the apparatus of violence itself. Secondly, because the masses typically consent to this state in the belief that they exercise government over it. It therefore possesses a popular legitimacy of a far more reliable character for the exercise of this repression than did Tsarism in its decline, reflected in the greater discipline and loyalty of its troops and police—juridically the servants, not of an irresponsible autocrat, but of an elected assembly. The keys to the power of the capitalist state in the West lie in this conjoined superiority.

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