Pessimism of the Intellect, Optimism of the Will: Gramsci’s Political Thought in the Last Miscellaneous Notebooks

In the Prison Notebooks, Gramsci combines a "pessimistic" analysis of the growing authoritarian trends of the 1930s with an "optimistic" commitment to the potential for socialist transformation and the elaboration of an effective strategy for the workers' movement. By discussing key texts from his miscellaneous notebooks 14, 15, and 17, this essay investigates the way in which, in the last phase of his work in prison, Gramsci interpreted the changing political and social dynamics that characterized Western countries of his time (and that are also central, mutatis mutandis, in present-day politics). In particular, the essay focuses on the complex conceptual cluster elaborated by Gramsci (with the categories of "bureaucracy," "police," "discipline," and "political party") as he explored the transformations of the mechanisms of political participation, identified the new "totalitarian" forms of political engagement of his times, and thought about possible solutions.