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The Dimensions of Passive Revolution  
 

Gianmarco Fifi7 
 

ABTRACT: Responding to the recent season of studies on 
Antonio Gramsci’s notion of passive revolution, the present 
paper will argue that this could fruitfully contribute to a non-
deterministic understanding of capitalist dynamics. However, 
this relevance should be based on a renewed understanding of 
the concept itself. Against contemporary conceptualisations 
that tend to understand passive revolution as an instrument in 
the hands of the ruling classes, the present paper argues that this 
is better understood as originating from the shortcomings of 
the so-called subaltern groups. The focus should thus be placed 
on the passivity of a potentially transformative agency rather 
than on processes of change that are per se out of reach for 
revolutionary movements. Coming back to Gramsci’s Prison 
Notebooks, three overlapping dialectical relations are identified 
as being key to understanding both passive revolution and the 
struggle against it: at the ideational level, the dialectic between 
common sense and good sense; at the institutional level, the 
dynamic between bureaucratic and democratic centralism; at 
the level of class struggles, the dynamic between corporatism 
and universalism. Interpreted through these categories, passive 
revolution becomes a valuable tool both to overcome the 
fallacies of contemporary critical theory as well as to understand 
the challenges faced by anti-capitalist movements today.  
 
KEYWORDS: Gramsci; passive revolution; hegemony; critical 
political economy; critical theory 
 

Introduction 
One of the main theoretical references that critical scholars have relied 

upon in the last few decades in order to provide a non-deterministic 

 
7 Gianmarco Fifi is a PhD candidate in the Department of Politics and International Studies 
at the University of Warwick.  

The Dimensions of Passive Revolution | 55



understanding of capitalist dynamics is the work of the Italian Marxist Antonio 
Gramsci. Since the translation of the Prison Notebooks into English and the 
publication of the complete critical edition edited by Valentino Gerratana, 
Gramsci’s thought has produced a polymorphous variety of interpretations and 
applications that testify both to the liveliness of his thought and to the 
contemporary value of investigating it. In particular, the present paper will 
consider the contemporary relevance of the concept of passive revolution, 
suggesting that this could be a fruitful tool to understanding changes and 
stabilities in the order of capital. The concept of passive revolution carries great 
political value. In fact, it tries to respond to a fundamental question: ‘if the 
proletariat had emerged in many European countries as a collective social and 
political actor in the wake of industrialisation, why had the deepest crisis of 
capitalism not led to a revolution, but rather to various forms of capitalist 
reorganisation?’ (Roccu, 2017, 538).  

Far from being an out-of-date problem, this is a crucial question today 
as the global financial crisis of 2007-8 has not been followed by any substantial 
paradigm shift. The relevance of the term, however, is far from being an original 
contribution of the present article. In fact, the notion of passive revolution is 
nowadays a constant point of reference not only for Gramscian scholarship but 
also for fields as diverse as historical sociology, ethnography and international 
relations (Allinson and Anievas, 2010; Bruff, 2010; McKay, 2010; Nash, 2013; 
Simon, 2010; Wanner, 2015). The variety and extension of the work provided on 
passive revolution in the last decade would in fact suggest a more conscious and 
parsimonious use (Callinicos, 2010). In what follows, I will argue that in order to 
conceive passive revolution as a relevant tool for understanding contemporary 
capitalism, we should firstly rethink its very connotation.  

According to Peter Thomas, passive revolution for Gramsci meant ‘a 
distinctive process of (political) modernization that lacked the meaningful 
participation of popular classes in undertaking and consolidating social 
transformation’ (Thomas, 2013, 23). Thomas argues that ‘[i]n a certain sense, the 
concept has almost become synonymous with modernity, which is now viewed as 
a melancholy tale in which the mass of humanity is reduced to a mere spectator 
of a history that progresses without its involvement’ (2006, 73). Coming back to 
the Prison Notebooks, I shall argue that in case we are to accept the former point 
– passive revolution as synonymous of modernity – we necessarily need to criticise 
the second one concerning the position of the so-called subaltern groups within 
the process. In this sense, responding to the recent season of studies on passive 

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revolution, the present paper will suggest that this can be seen as a synonym with 
modernity only so long as the passivity of the masses is not conceptualised as 
imposed by exogenous forces, but always-already incorporated in their everyday-
praxis. In particular, three main interrelated dialectical relations will be identified 
as being key to understanding both passive revolution and the struggle against it: 
at the ideational level, the dialectic between common sense and good sense; at the 
institutional level, the dynamic between bureaucratic and democratic centralism; 
at the level of class struggles, the dynamic between corporatism and universalism. 
A close investigation of these categories in Gramsci’s oeuvre is essential in order 
to see how the different dimensions of passivity are not merely imposed on 
subaltern groups, but rather represent the effect of their own shortcomings, that 
can always be turned into a revolutionary upheaval.  

The present paper will be structured as follows. Firstly, I will discuss 
current approaches to the concept of passive revolution, particularly focusing on 
its recent reception in studies in critical political economy. Secondly, I will provide 
a critique of current approaches to the term and, coming back to the Prison 
Notebooks, I will suggest an alternative reading revolving around the 
aforementioned categories. In particular, I shall argue that it is only by seeing the 
seeds of capital restructuring already at play in the every-day practice of the 
subaltern groups, that Gramsci is able to think their potential for emancipation. 
Ultimately, I will conclude by summarising the possible contribution of a renewed 
understanding of passive revolution for both studies in critical theory and for 
redefining the challenges of anti-capitalist movements today. 

 
Domination Without Hegemony? Passive Revolution in the Literature 

 
Recent scholarship touching upon the notion of passive revolution, 

particularly within critical political economy, has revolved around the issue of 
how far we can extend this concept and the extent to which this is an apt 
representation of how changes and stability work in contemporary capitalism. 
Three main interventions have been recently made in this regard. Firstly, Adam 
Morton suggests that passive revolution today is a ‘portmanteau concept that 
reveals the continuities and changes within the order of capital’ (2007, 68). In this 
sense, Morton agrees with Peter Thomas in arguing that passive revolution has 
become almost a synonym with modernity, and a particularly apt notion to 
explain both capitalist state formation and maintenance (Morton, 2010, 322; see 
also McKay, 2010).  

The Dimensions of Passive Revolution | 57



In critiquing such an approach, Alex Callinicos argues that this 
definition brings about an issue in terms of distinguishing different situations. In 
this sense, passive revolution would lose its own specificity thus becoming ‘a 
distinction without difference’ (2010, 505). Relying on Gramsci’s uses of the term, 
Callinicos argues that, for example, the analogy between Risorgimento and 
Fordism fails to recognise a crucial difference between the two processes. Only the 
former seems in fact to appear as a plausible representation of passive revolution 
inasmuch as ‘the ancien régime has given way to a society in the capitalist mode 
of production prevails’ (Ivi, 498). It is thus argued that the emphasis should be 
placed on the passage from one mode of production to another, not extending the 
use of passive revolution to transition within capitalism.  

In fact, Callinicos continues, neither fascism nor Fordism produced a 
systemic transformation and thus these are better seen as ‘counter-revolutionary 
projects that seek to manage the structural contradictions of the capitalist mode 
of production, not the accomplishment of socialist transformation by other 
means’ (Ibidem). Callinicos thus concludes that what we need is a more restricted 
understanding of passive revolution, in order not to make it interfere with other 
concepts such as that of counter-revolution. A third approach that tries to 
integrate the previous two interpretations is the one delineated by Roberto Roccu, 
who criticises Morton for the over-extension of its use of the term while at the 
same time contesting the idea that passive revolution somehow needs to produce 
a transition to a new mode of production, as in Callinicos. In particular, Roccu 
stresses the importance that the partial fulfilment of people’s demands has in what 
Gramsci defines as passive revolution – something that finds only limited echo in 
Morton’s formulation (Roccu, 2017, 549).   

Whilst such a discussion is certainly of theoretical relevance, I shall argue 
that the extension or limitations of passive revolution can only be rethought via a 
renewed understanding of Gramsci’s usage. Notwithstanding the differences 
highlighted in the previous conceptualisations, in fact, the three authors tend to 
agree in understanding the outcome of passive revolution as being ultimately in 
the hands of the ruling classes – something that seems in contrast with Gramsci’s 
treatment in the Prison Notebooks. The existing literature acknowledges that the 
phenomenon of passive revolution originates from the limits of bourgeois rule 
(Morton, 2013, 55). In this sense, the process is seen to represent a response to 
dynamics that ruling circles do not directly control. These dynamics can vary from 
crisis-induced contradictions amongst ruling class fractions in which its 
progressive force tends to deteriorate (Q1§44, 42), to external shifts in the 

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accumulation process forced by uneven tendencies in capitalist development 
(Morton, 2011, 36), or from subaltern challenges to the established hegemonic 
bloc. Nevertheless, the outcome of passive revolution is often seen as heavily 
dependent on ruling classes’ power.  

In his book on Mexico, Morton proposes two definitions of passive 
revolution: first, ‘a revolution without mass participation, or a “revolution from 
above,” involving elite engineered social and political reform that draws on 
foreign capital and associated ideas while lacking a national-popular base’ (Ivi, 
38); second, a situation in which ‘a revolutionary form of political transformation 
is pressed into a conservative project of restoration’ (Ivi, 39). Although, the two 
definitions are in some respects different, they both imply a top-down force that 
produces a conservative form of change, either by not including the subalterns in 
the process or by displacing their demands. This might be only a matter of 
emphasis. In fact, Morton acknowledges that in the process of passive revolution 
a significant role is played by the shortcomings of counter-hegemonic projects. 
For example, he argues that, 

 
[i]n the case of Italy, the “passive” aspect refers to the restrictive 
form of hegemony that emerged out of the Risorgimento 
because of the failure of potential ‘Jacobins’ in the Partito 
d’Azione to establish a program reflecting the demands of the 
popular masses and, significantly, the peasantry (Morton, 2013, 
52). 
 

In addition, many of Morton’s analyses of Gramsci’s texts as well as applications 
to concrete examples remark the importance of acknowledging the limits of 
movements of opposition vis-à-vis capital, and of not considering bourgeois rule 
as a ‘quasi-automatic’ process (2011, 46). This is shown, for example, by his 
sensitivity towards the backwardness of the Italian peripheral forces in Southern 
Italy before the Risorgimento (2007, 62), as well as towards the lack of a united 
front based on the alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry during the 
revolutionary upheaval in Mexico (2011, 45-6).  

Yet, Morton never theoretically elaborates on what the key features of 
such shortcomings are and on the extent to which these influence and facilitate 
capitalist restructuring itself. For this reason, passive revolution is ultimately seen 
as a process in the hands of the ruling bloc – that, although at times is forced to 
accommodate requests from below, it always does so within the existing social 

The Dimensions of Passive Revolution | 59



formation given its privileged position within the state (Ivi, 53; Sassoon 1987, 
207). In analysing the Italian Risorgimento, for example, whilst acknowledging 
the deficiencies of the Action Party, Morton ultimately sees passive revolution as 
representing ‘the inability of the ruling class to fully integrate the producer classes 
through conditions of hegemony’ (Morton 2007, 68). Given the absence of 
hegemony, he adds, the state becomes crucial in order to further capitalist 
dominance (Ivi: 102). Morton applies similar considerations to the process of 
capitalist developments in Mexico, where the peasants’ revolution ended up being 
offset by ‘Mexican populism’ that had ‘counterrevolutionary roots based on the 
domination and manipulation of the masses behind the façade of revolutionary 
rhetoric’ (Morton, 2011, 48). In this sense ‘passive revolution … is a revolution, 
marked by violent social upheaval, involving a relatively small state class engaging 
with “the acceptance of certain demands from below” in order to restrict class 
struggle, while insuring the creation of state power and an institutional framework 
consonant with capitalist property relations’ (Morton 2013: 54; original 
emphasis). In Morton’s account is implied something that we will see developed 
more clearly in Callinicos and Roccu: namely, a juxtaposition (rather an 
interrelation) of the revolutionary upheavals of the subaltern and the potential for 
the ruling classes to restructure order and hegemony. Rather than seeing the 
former as limiting (and potentially impeding) the possibility of the latter, Morton 
seems to argue that the more requests from below become pervasive the more the 
ruling classes’ privileged access to the state becomes crucial in order to restructure 
society. This point will be better explained by referring to the arguments made by 
Callinicos and Roccu.  
 
Postulating or Presupposing? The Antithetical Treatment of the Antithesis 

Roccu attempts to move beyond Morton’s interpretation, suggesting that 
the emphasis should be placed on the partial fulfilment of people’s demands 
which, he argues, is exactly the means that produces masses’ passivity. He 
acknowledges the ambivalence of Gramsci’s application of passive revolution, as 
in some occasions this ‘is presented as a residual strategy deployed to maintain 
power when hegemony is lacking (“dictatorship without hegemony”)’, whilst in 
other passages of the Prison Notebooks ‘passive revolution seems to occur under 
conditions of limited, fractured, hegemony, when a class or fraction thereof is 
hegemonic towards some others but not across society’ (2017, 546). Such a 
remark, however, does not result in a sceptical position as in Callinicos. In fact, 
Roccu is convinced that we can extrapolate a core from Gramsci’s multi-facet 

60 | Austerity and the Precarization of Everyday Life



engagement with passive revolution. This core is made of four elements, of which 
the first two are presuppositions, the third has to do with its specific method, and 
the fourth with its outcome.  
        The first element is linked to the international situation that in periods 
of structural changes requires ‘from specific state formations an attempt to 
developmental catch-up through transition, both from a non-capitalist to a 
capitalist mode of production…and between different regimes of capital 
accumulation’ (Ivi, 545). Secondly, Roccu refers to Gramsci’s use of Hegel’s 
categories in order to contend that passive revolution also presupposes a thesis 
that, despite its limitations, ‘develops to the full of its potential for struggle’ 
(Q15§11), while the antithesis is incapable of doing the same. Thirdly, in terms of 
method, Roccu argues that crucial for passive revolution is an heavy reliance on 
state power by the ruling classes in order ‘to weaken and defuse the political 
potential of subaltern classes’ (Roccu, 2017, 545). Lastly, as it pertains to the 
outcome, passive revolution combines a real transformation, ‘either towards or 
within capitalism’ (Ivi, 546), and, at the same time, the ‘partial fulfilment and 
displacement of the demands raised by the embryonic subaltern bloc’ (Ibidem).  

This attempt at extrapolating the core of passive revolution from Gramsci’s 
writings is certainly valuable if one wants to define the limits and potentiality of 
the term, perhaps moving beyond both Morton’s overextension and Callinicos’ 
excessive scepticism vis-à-vis its use. Yet, what is puzzling in Roccu’s formulation 
is that the weakness of the antithesis is emphasised as being both a presupposition 
and a result of the process. This already makes it difficult to understand what the 
contribution of passive revolution would be, if the passivity that this is supposed 
to impose on the subaltern bloc (Ivi, 550) is in fact there from the beginning. On 
the other hand, this basic presupposition is questioned by Roccu himself. In fact, 
when criticising Morton for under-appreciating the role played by the partial 
fulfilment of popular demands, he argues that much more emphasis should be 
placed on ‘the presence of a vigorous antithesis prior to a passive revolution’ 
(Ibidem; my emphasis). Also Callinicos (2010, 501) makes the same point, as he 
argues that actually the vigorous antithesis is a basic feature to a passive 
revolution. The justification for this idea is found in a quote from Notebook 15, 
where Gramsci (Q15§62, 1827) argues that ‘the conception [of passive revolution] 
remains a dialectical one – in other words, presupposes, and indeed postulates as 
necessary [presuppone, anzi postula come necessaria], a vigorous antithesis which 
can present intransigently all its potentiality for development.’ Callinicos seems to 
completely misread the meaning of this formulation, as he takes it to suggest that 

The Dimensions of Passive Revolution | 61



in order to have a passive revolution we need a strong antithesis. Gramsci’s 
position is actually the opposite: it is in order to avoid a passive revolution that the 
antithesis needs to develop to its full potential.  

This is clear already from the quoted note Q15§62, where Gramsci 
provides the aforementioned argument in order to prevent any ‘historical 
defeatism’ and ‘fatalism’ associated with the term passive revolution, particularly 
in reference to the Italian Risorgimento. In fact, he also adds that passive 
revolution is not to be understood as a political program, but rather as ‘criterion 
of interpretation in absence of other active elements in a dominant manner’ 
(Ibidem). This becomes even more evident when looking at Gramsci’s treatment 
of the Risorgimento and the relation between the Action Party and Cavour’s 
project of modernisation. Borrowing an expression of Vittorio Emanuele II, he 
argues that the Moderates had their opponents in their pockets, given the latter’s 
inability to form a real hegemonic alternative to Cavour’s leadership (Q1§44, 41-
2). In fact, ‘the Moderates represented a relatively homogenous class … whilst the 
Action Party was not based on any historical class and the oscillations that its 
governing bodies experienced ultimately followed the interests of the Moderates’ 
(Ivi, 40-1).  

 For Gramsci, the moderate bloc should be understood as being a 
dominant class in two manners: ‘it is leading [dirigente] of the allied classes and 
dominant [dominante] of the opposing classes’ (Ivi, 41). The distinction between 
leading and dominant is often understood as marking two opposite alternative 
forms of government, which would give the ruling classes the option to choose 
according to the specific situation to use coercive mechanisms in order to retain 
power when hegemony is absent. Nevertheless, Gramsci promptly remarks that a 
certain class must possess political hegemony before taking governmental power, 
and also once it has become dominant ‘it continues to be “leading”’ (Ibidem). The 
example of the Risorgimento proves exactly this. In fact, the Moderates ‘continued 
to lead [dirigere]’, and not merely to dominate, ‘the Action Party also after 1870.’ 
It is, thus, exactly thanks to this cultural and political subalternity of the antithesis 
that the ruling bloc is capable of using the state as a means to integrate also the 
sporadic active elements in the opposing forces (for example, through the 
phenomenon that Gramsci names trasformismo).  

The emphasis on the presupposition of a strong antithesis seems also to 
remove one of the two preconditions that Roccu argued were constituting the core 
of Gramsci’s concept: namely, a lacking antithesis. In this sense, passive revolution 
seems to describe two possible situations. On the one hand, a situation in which 

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both capitalist class and its opponents are weak; on the other hand, a condition in 
which they are both powerful at the same time. This schematic and abstract 
representation already shows something interesting regarding current approaches 
to the term: namely, the fact that thesis and antithesis are not dialectically related, 
but rather abstractly juxtaposed. The growing power of the antithesis does not per 
se reduce the potential for the thesis to respond, but rather surprisingly increases 
it. Conversely, the weakness of movements of opposition is not seen as necessarily 
implying a relative position of dominance for the ruling classes. The result is that 
passive revolution is invoked to represent a situation of relative equilibrium 
between opposing fractions, with the necessary clause that at the end the struggle 
is going to be solved by the favourable position of the ruling bloc within the state.8 
This is further proved by the fact that both in Callinicos and Roccu passive 
revolution is seen as opposed to counter-revolution and hegemony, two situations 
in which the capitalist class is thought as being relatively stronger than its 
opposition. Failure to link the lack of a strong antithesis to the empowerment of 
the dominant class, ultimately forces us to view passive revolution as ‘a backup 
strategy for a ruling class that fails to be hegemonic and thus relies on its control 
of state power and a favourable balance of political forces to perpetuate its own 
political dominance under new structural conditions’ (Roccu, 2017, 556; my 
emphasis). 
 
Hegemony and Passive Revolution: The Zero-Sum Game of Political Struggles 
        Degenerations of such an approach could be found, for example, in Ian 
Bruff’s account of Agenda 2010 in Germany, where passive revolution is explicitly 
contrapposed to hegemony (Bruff, 2010; see also Coutinho, 2007 and Losurdo, 
1997, 155). It is true that Gramsci himself refers to certain historical developments 
to be the result of a condition of ‘dictatorship without hegemony’ (Q15§59); yet, 
if taken literally, this formulation can be highly misleading. The reason for this 
can be exposed by looking at Gramsci’s treatment of the disaggregation and 
reconstruction of the hegemonic group after World War I. Gramsci’s line of 
thought is the following: 
 

 
8 This approach can be seen also in Roccu’s (2017, 555) treatment of the Tunisian 
restructuring after Ben Ali’s overthrowing, considered as exemplary of what Gramsci calls 
passive revolution. Roccu, in fact, seems not to consider the absence of a Jacobin moment 
in Tunisia as the primary reason for capitalist restructuring. 

The Dimensions of Passive Revolution | 63



First of all, why has it disaggregated? Perhaps because a strong 
collective and antagonistic political will has developed? If that 
was the case, the problem would have been solved in favour of 
this antagonistic force. It has disaggregated, rather, because of 
purely mechanic causes of different type: 1) because great 
masses, previously passive, started moving [sono entrate in 
movimento], but in a chaotic and disorganised movement, 
without direction, i.e.: without a precise collective political will; 
2) Because the middle classes that during the war had a position 
of leadership and command, have lost it during the time of 
peace … 3) Because the antagonistic forces resulted incapable 
of organising for their own advantage such disorder (Q7§80: 
912-3; author’s translation and emphasis).  
 

It is certainly true that there is a substantial difference between a purely a-critical 
mass of people that passively accepts the ruling order (thus fully accepting its 
position of leadership and command) and one that moves against it, though in a 
chaotic and un-organised manner. However, as it is clear from this passage, the 
absence of an organic collective will is the ultimate reason why oppositions do not 
manage to move beyond, and thus end up re-precipitating into, the previous 
hegemonic bloc. Here it is probably worth referring to what Ernesto Laclau and 
Chantal Mouffe, in a rather critical account of Gramscian understanding of 
hegemony, define as the ‘zero-sum game of political struggles […] where a failure 
in the hegemony of the working class can only be followed by a reconstitution of 
bourgeois hegemony’ (2014, 59).  This means that passive revolution, in Gramsci, 
should not be seen as opposed to hegemony; but rather as describing a situation 
in which failures to produce a creative moment force the subaltern to recapitulate, 
nolens volens, into the previous hegemonic bloc. 

As it has been argued in this section, current approaches to passive 
revolution not only are at times philologically inconsistent with Gramsci’s text but 
they also present at least three issues in the conceptualisation of movements of 
opposition and their relation vis-à-vis capitalist restructuring. Firstly, the great 
emphasis placed on the potential of the ruling bloc to use state power seems to 
undermine (both theoretically and practically) any potential for revolutionary 
politics. Secondly, and connected to the first point, the aforementioned 
approaches are unable to account for strengths and weaknesses of movements of 
resistance vis-à-vis capitalist restructuring, mainly because they do not see the two 

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realms as dialectically interrelated, and a strengthening of the former could always 
be repressed by impositions from the later. In fact, and this is the third point, the 
strong antithesis of the subaltern, even when emphasised, appears as being never 
enough when compared to capital’s ability to restructure the social order. In what 
follows, I will suggest that engaging with Gramsci’s notion of passive revolution 
could be useful to move beyond these fallacies. In particular, I shall argue that it is 
only by seeing the seeds of capitalist restructuring always-already at play in the 
every-day praxis of the subaltern classes, that Gramsci is able to conceptualise the 
potential for revolutionary politics.  
 
Passive Revolution in the Prison Notebooks: Passivity Revisited 

Given the aforementioned criticisms to current approaches to passive 
revolution, this section will argue that Antonio Gramsci’s conceptualisation of 
changes and stability within the capitalist society has the potential to re-establish 
a connection between struggles and socio-historical development. Against the 
general conceptualisation of current studies that think the Gramscian analyses of 
passive revolution as a process that is ultimately in the hands of the ruling classes, 
I suggest that this is better understood as being based on the passivity of a 
potentially transformative agency. The notion of passive revolution was firstly 
formulated by Vincenzo Cuoco, who employed it in order to understand the lack 
of involvement of the popular masses in the Neapolitan revolution of 1799.  
        Gramsci argues that whilst Cuoco meant it as a ‘warning to create a 
national mood of greater energy and popular revolutionary initiative’, the term 
was soon converted by the Moderates and the neo-Guelphs ‘into a positive 
conception, into a political programme’ that concealed ‘the determination to 
abdicate and capitulate at the first serious threat of an Italian revolution that 
would be profoundly popular, i.e.: radically national’ (1971, 59f, Q10§6, 1220). 
The idea of passive revolution as a process crucially dependent on the 
shortcomings of subaltern groups is well encapsulated in a note that Gramsci 
writes in Notebook 8, where he criticises the idea of mechanicism as explaining 
capitalist stability. Gramsci argues that: 
 

when the subaltern becomes diligent and responsible, 
mechanicism appears sooner or later as an imminent peril […] 
the limits and the dominance of the force of things are 
restricted, why? Because, at the end, whereas yesterday the 
subaltern was a thing, today he is not a thing anymore but a 

The Dimensions of Passive Revolution | 65



historical person; whereas yesterday he was irresponsible 
because he resisted an external will, today he is irresponsible 
because he does not resist, despite being an active agent. But has 
he ever been mere resistance, mere thing, mere irresponsibility? 
Certainly not, and that is why it is always necessary to 
demonstrate the futility of mechanic determinism (Q8§205, 
1064; author’s translation). 
 

Stability is thus not the product of external impositions, rather it is dependent on 
the passive role played by the subaltern groups that (actively) help in reproducing 
the current system of exploitation.9 In fact, Gramsci warns us that ‘it is never to 
be forgotten that historical development follows the laws of necessity only so long 
as the initiative has not decisively passed on the side of those forces that aim at the 
construction according to a plan, of pacific and sympathetic division of labour’ 
(Q14§68, 1729; author’s translation).  
        Passivity is thus related to the lack of political initiative of the subalterns. 
In this sense, Gramsci not only provides us with useful theoretical tools to criticise 
the vulgar materialism associated with Nikolai Bukharin that understands the 
subaltern classes as ontologically deprived of will. The Prison Notebooks conversely 
criticise the idea that the masses are always-already active. In fact, as he argues in 
a famous passage, ‘the philosophy of praxis […] is not an instrument of 
government of the dominant groups in order to gain the consent of and exercise 
hegemony over the subaltern classes; it is the expression of these subaltern classes 
who want to educate themselves in the art of government and who have an interest 
in knowing all truths, even the unpleasant ones, and in avoiding the (impossible) 
deceptions of the upper class and – even more – their own’ (Gramsci, 1995, 395-
6; Q10§41xii, 1320). Continuity in the order of capital is thus not rooted in 
external impositions or in the rationalisation of society operated by institutional 
apparatuses, but rather in the self-deception of potentially oppositional social 
groups. Therefore, a strong antithesis, rather than being the basic condition for a 
passive revolution, as Callinicos and Roccu would have it, is the primary antidote 
to it.  
        It thus becomes crucial to understand what is involved in the passage 
from a state of passivity to one of creative activity. Returning to the Prison 
Notebooks, three overlapping dialectical relations are identified as being key to 

 
9 For a similar argument see Finocchiaro, 1973.  

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Gramsci’s understanding of this relation: at the ideational level, the dialectic 
between common sense and good sense; at the institutional level, the dynamic 
between bureaucratic and democratic centralism; at the level of class struggles, the 
dynamic between corporatism and universalism. This analysis is not meant to 
suggest an abstract fragmentation of Gramsci’s holistic thought.  

As I will show, in concrete situations, these dimensions are indeed very 
much interrelated. The purpose of analysing them separately, however, can be 
seen as threefold. First, it will help me to emphasise Gramsci’s treatment of the 
manifold roots of popular passivity and its implication for rethinking popular 
agency. Secondly, I will be able to demonstrate that such passivity is not seen as 
being imposed on the subaltern through the backup strategies of the ruling class, 
but rather it is always part of dynamics internal to the subaltern themselves. 
Thirdly, I will argue that Gramsci takes such passivity as the main reason why the 
ruling class is capable of keeping and reinforcing its position of dominance. I will 
thus argue that it is on these levels that the Prison Notebooks identify the 
challenges faced by revolutionary projects, that do not limit themselves to accept 
the already established structures, but want to engage in the creation of a new 
state. For the reasons highlighted in the previous section, these dimensions can 
also be seen as different levels on which the ability of the subalterns to emancipate 
themselves from pre-established hegemonies – and thus create their own – is 
articulated. In turn, I will take into consideration both the role that they play in 
the perpetration of capitalist dominance as well as the political project that they 
point towards if one wants to overcome it.   
 
Common Sense and Good Sense  
        As anticipated, the struggle against passive revolution at the ideological 
level is identified with the dialectic between common sense and good sense. In 
Gramsci, this dichotomy is at the core of the relationship between intellectuals 
and people-nation. Whilst common sense is an incoherent stage of opinion 
formation, good sense is realised once people begin to think coherently and 
organically to their everyday life experience, thus producing their own 
intellectuals. In the Prison Notebooks good sense is thus the embodiment of 
philosophy in society. Gramsci significantly argues for a strict connection between 
philosophy and common sense, suggesting that we would need a history of 
common sense in order to investigate the genesis of the problems that are reflected 
only in a minimal part in the history of philosophy. This would ultimately ‘help 
to demonstrate their real value (if they still have one) or the significance that they 

The Dimensions of Passive Revolution | 67



have as overcome links of a chain and to individuate the new and actual problems 
or the actual stage of old problems’ (Q11§12, 1383; author’s translation).    
        The value which is alluded to here is that coming from the connection 
‘between intellectuals who “know” and the “people-nation” that merely “feels”’ 
(Fontana, 2015, 57). These two are strictly connected, as there is no ‘high culture’ 
that has not germinated from everyday-issues and, conversely, no philosophical 
speculation is meaningful if it is unable to speak to people’s problems. The Prison 
Notebooks thus recognise both the importance of and the necessity to overcome 
common sense, thought as both being the necessary point of departure of critical 
intellectual activity and, at the same time, as one of the main obstacles that keep 
the subalterns in their position of passivity and prevent them from becoming 
hegemonic.  

Therefore, not only is there a common ideological feature shared by both 
fragmented common sense and what Gramsci calls ‘high culture’ (alta cultura) – 
that proper to those intellectuals that construct a coherent philosophy detached 
from the masses and functional to socio-political domination. More radically, for 
Gramsci, these are two sides of the same coin: ‘high culture’ can be coherently 
articulated and used as a means of dominion only so long as common sense is 
fragmented and incoherent. The Prison Notebooks thus radically detach 
themselves from the physiological readings of ideology à la Bukharin, also 
developed by the idéologues. It is ultimately the recognition of the historical, thus 
potentially criticisable, nature of ideas to give the ‘philosophy of praxis’ its non-
deterministic character. Ideology, for Gramsci, is not a pre-constituted set of ideas 
that is to be merely installed by the dominant groups into the minds of the 
subaltern classes. This is ultimately far from a coherent monolith: ‘[s]ome 
participate in ideology because of their position in the world of production, others 
for their participation in disaggregated world of common sense; there are those 
that produce ideology from their position as great intellectuals and those that do 
so as simple “clerks of the dominant group”’ (Filippini, 2012, 94; author’s 
translation).  

This manifold manifestation of the ideological production points also to 
the fact that the incoherent rejection of the ruling class’ intellectual production, 
per se, does not imply a complete emancipation. An example can be found in 
Notebook 3, where Gramsci discusses the position of peasants in Southern Italy 
(defined as morti di fame, the ‘starvelings’) and their ‘generic’ hate for the so-called 
‘masters’ (Q3§46, 323) matured in conjunction with the highly uneven 
development of the Italian state since the beginning of the 19th century. The 

68 | Austerity and the Precarization of Everyday Life



polemic position of the peasantry, Gramsci argues, can be seen as a primary level 
of rejection of the constituted order; but at the same time it is insufficient to build 
‘class consciousness’ inasmuch as ‘not only does it not have an exact 
consciousness of its own historical personality, but it does not even have the 
consciousness of the historical personality and limits of its opponent’ (Ivi, 323-4). 
This also escalates into the collaboration of the most productive sections of the 
morti di fame (those that aspire to small municipal jobs or to positions of clerk in 
the city) with the local bourgeoisie against the peasantry. The backward praxis of 
peripheral groups is thus understood as giving rise to a vague ‘cosmopolitanism’ 
that proves inadequate to build a revolutionary position based on a thorough 
knowledge of the state and on an organic class consciousness. Gramsci ultimately 
attributes a stage on ‘non-activity’ (linked to the lack of ‘comprehension of one’s 
own role’) to the sporadic and subversive actions of the morti di fame, and argues 
that this needs to be linked to ‘“subversion” from above, thus … an arbitrary 
politics and of a personal or group clique [cricca personale o di gruppo]’ (Ivi, 326-
7; author’s translation).  

This makes clear that, in Gramsci, the leading position of restricted groups 
is always mirrored (and in some sense is the epiphenomenon of) the cultural 
passivity of the subalterns. Or, as Robert Jackson puts it, ‘the sedimented layers of 
the anachronistic tradition continue to be reproduced not simply from above, but 
by the very groups that stand to benefit from the negation of their influence’ 
(Jackson, 2016, 221). As it is clear from the example of the morti di fame, Gramsci 
connects the inconsistent intellectual production of subaltern groups both to the 
fragmentation of struggles and to the bureaucratisation of politics that leaves 
coercive power in the hands of a restricted group of people. These other 
dimensions on which passivity is articulated and reproduced will be analysed in 
the following sub-sections.  

 
Bureaucratic Centralism and Democratic Centralism 
 Gramsci defines bureaucratic centralism as the dominion of a part over 
the whole, whilst democratic centralism is ‘centralism in motion’ [centralismo in 
movimento], thus a continuous adjustment of the organization to the real 
historical development’ (Q9§68, 1139; author’s translation). Bureaucracy plays a 
crucial role in ensuring the continuity of capital as it is ‘the most dangerous 
habitual and conservative force’ (Q13§23, 1604; author’s translation). 
Institutional dynamics are therefore a primary example to be taken into 
consideration if we are to understand the ‘non-contemporaneity of the present’ 

The Dimensions of Passive Revolution | 69



(Thomas, 2009).  In this emphasis on the connection between bureaucracy and 
the continuation of capitalist dominance, Gramsci shares a concern that is 
common among contemporary critical studies – particularly those that highlight 
the role played by strong institutions in ensuring the endurance of capital’s laws 
(Bonefeld, 2015, 2017; Ryner, 2015).  
        Yet, the identification of the sources of such bureaucratic structure seem 
to be radically different in the two cases. Whilst the reference to strong institutions 
usually alludes to the displacement of an otherwise already democratic stance of 
change, for Gramsci bureaucracy is possible only in virtue of masses’ passivity. In 
fact, he argues that ‘it needs to be stressed that the unhealthy manifestations of 
bureaucratic centralism occurred because of a lack of initiative and responsibility 
at the bottom, in other words because of the political immaturity of the peripheral 
forces, even when these were homogeneous with the hegemonic territorial group’ 
(Gramsci, 1971, 189; Q9§68, 1139). In synthesis, it is only by seeing the seeds of 
bureaucracy in the everyday shortcomings of potentially transformative agency 
that Gramsci is able to conceive an overcoming of bureaucratic centralism. 
Against such static structures, in fact, 
 

democratic centralism offers an elastic formula, which can be 
embodied in many diverse forms; it comes alive in so far as it is 
interpreted and continually adapted to necessity. It consists in 
the critical pursuit of what is identical in seeming diversity of 
form and on the other hand of what is distinct and even 
opposed in apparent uniformity, in order to organise and 
interconnect closely that which is similar, but in such a way that 
the organising and the interconnecting appear to be a practical 
and ‘inductive’ necessity, experimental, and not the result of 
rationalistic, deductive, abstract process – i.e.: one typical of 
pure intellectuals (Gramsci, 1971, 189; Q13§36).  
 

Democratic centralism, therefore, can be seen as the truest realisation of the unity 
of theory and praxis, which involves an organic connection between the 
intellectual strata and the popular masses as well as between the rulers and the 
ruled (Gramsci, 1971, 190). Gramsci thus points towards the need to move beyond 
bureaucratic systems, beginning with the awareness of the main reasons that 
brought about bureaucracy in the first place and, therefore, identifying the aspects 
on which the subaltern can work to overcome it.  This will ultimately give 

70 | Austerity and the Precarization of Everyday Life



collective subjects, rather than isolated individuals, the possibility to produce real 
historical change (Filippini, 2017, 51). This critically shows the interrelations 
between the overcoming of bureaucratic centralism and the need to move both 
beyond occasional and fragmented opinion and beyond disaggregated forms of 
struggles, in order to create a collective subjectivity. This will be best understood 
by looking at the following sub-section. 
 
Corporatism and Universalism 
 
       In a note called Alcuni aspetti teorici e pratici dell’ ‘economicismo’, 
Gramsci argues that movements of resistance should not be solely studied via the 
lenses of economic activity, ‘as this affirms an immediate element of force, thus 
the availability of a certain financial supply direct or indirect… and that’s it. Too 
little. Also in this case, the analysis of the different degrees of relation [gradi di 
rapporto] of forces cannot but culminate in the sphere of hegemonic and of 
ethico-political relations’ (Q13§18, 1597; author’s translation). In fact, Gramsci’s 
understanding of revolutionary politics should be understood as articulated on 
three levels (see Frosini, 2010). Firstly, an organization based on an homogeneous 
social group linked to professional relations within a certain group. Here we have 
the mere corporatist phase typical of the organizzazioni di mestiere. Secondly, the 
group develops the consciousness of solidarity but still purely within the 
economic realm. Thirdly, we have a phase in which  
 

consciousness of one’s corporatist interests…overcome the 
corporatist realm of the economic circle, and can and should 
become the interests of other groups subordinated. This is the 
phase more explicitly political… determining beyond the 
economic unity and politics also the intellectual and cultural 
unity, not on a corporatist realm, but rather on a universal one, 
of hegemony (Q4§38, 457; author’s translation).   
 

Praxis par exellance in Gramsci is thus not that of economic activity, but rather 
the ethico-political production. It is only through the creation of a new hegemony 
that the ‘structure ceases to be an external force which crushes man, assimilates 
him to itself and makes him passive; and it is transformed into a means of 
freedom’ (Gramsci 1971, 367; Q10§6, 1244).  

The Dimensions of Passive Revolution | 71



       Such a dynamic was already emphasised in Gramsci’s polemic against 
trade unions for remaining still within the realm of economic competition, and in 
the comparison with the Factory Councils which were more apt to create a 
revolutionary alternative, based not only on the competition between classes, but 
on a new ethico-political system and on the self-government of the working class 
(Gramsci, 2016). In particular, whilst trade unions were acknowledged as being a 
positive organism to move beyond workers complete subalternity vis-à-vis capital, 
their action was necessarily also conservative as their very organisation made 
sense only within the borders of a capitalist system. In Gramsci’s (2000, 93) words, 
‘[t]he emergence of an industrial legality is a great victory for the working class, 
but it is not the ultimate and definitive victory.’ For this reason, Gramsci criticised 
the approach to unionism of organisations such as the Confederazione Generale 
del Lavoro (CGL) and its metal-mechanic affiliate, the Federazione Italiana Operai 
Metallurgici (FIOM). This is again a situation in which a purely passive and 
alienated mass of workers can be distinguished from forms of organisations, such 
as unions, that help in producing a critical consciousness of one’s position.  
        Yet, in both cases the antithesis tends to fall back into the previous 
hegemonic bloc, in as much as it does not create a hegemonic moment of its own. 
This idea in Gramsci is ripped of any form of determinism, as he argues that ‘[t]he 
trade union is not a predetermined phenomenon. It becomes a determinate 
institution, i.e. it takes on a definite historical form to the extent that the strength 
and will of the workers who are its members impress a policy and propose an aim 
that define it’ (Ivi, 92). Gramsci also adds that 
 

[i]f the trade-union officials regard industrial legality as a 
necessary, but not a permanently necessary compromise; if they 
deploy all the means at the union's disposal to improve the 
balance of forces in favour of the working class; and if they carry 
out all the spiritual and material preparatory work that will be 
needed if the working class is to launch at any particular 
moment a victorious offensive against capital and subject it to 
its law then the trade union is a tool of revolution, and union 
discipline, even when used to make the workers respect 
industrial legality, is revolutionary discipline (Ivi, 93). 
 

Ultimately, the success or failure of trade unionism to sublate itself and develop 
into a revolutionary movement is dependent on the capacity of hegemonic 

72 | Austerity and the Precarization of Everyday Life



production of the workers and people that compose it. In the same manner, the 
defeat of the Factory Councils in the 1920s proved that the absence of 
coordination of revolutionary forces makes it possible for moderates to 
incorporate them into a conservative project (Salvadori, 2018, 151-61).  
 
Conclusion 
        As previously remarked, in 1933 Gramsci suggested that passive 
revolution should not be confused for a political project, but it can guide praxis 
only to the extent that it ‘assumes, or postulates as necessary, a vigorous antithesis’ 
(Q15§62, 1827).10 In Gramsci, the historical subject is thus not shaped by pre-
existing structures but proves its autonomy in actively recomposing and 
overcoming given conditions, crucially emancipating itself ‘from  the fallacies of 
representation and perception of life that that subject, being subaltern, necessarily 
possesses in itself at the beginning’ (Finelli, 2011; author’s translation). Objective 
historical conditions are, therefore, never the ultimate explanatory tool to 
understand the failure of a revolutionary project, and conversely only a project 
capable of moving beyond immediate reality to produce a creative moment of its 
own can overcome passivity and become hegemonic. In fact, 
 

[m]ass action is not possible while the masses remain 
unconvinced of the purposes it is pursuing or the means to 
achieve them. If it is to become a governing class, the proletariat 
must rid itself of all the residue of corporatism, of every 
syndicalist prejudice. What does this mean? It means that not 
only must the divisions between different jobs be overcome, but 
that to achieve consensus and to win the trust of the peasants 
and some of the semi-proletarian urban masses some prejudices 
have to be addressed as well as elements of egotism which still 
persist among workers even when they have left behind craft 
particularisms. The metal worker, the carpenter, the building 
worker will need to learn to see themselves as members of a class 
that will lead the peasants and the intellectuals, a class that can 
only win and build socialism if it is supported and followed by 
the majority of society. If it does not achieve that […] it will give 

 
10 For accounts that consider passive revolution as a political project see e.g.: Callinicos, 
2010; Vianna, 1998. 

The Dimensions of Passive Revolution | 73



the state the possibility of crushing the rising tide of workers’ 
struggles and breaking the movement (quoted in Robaina, 
2006; my emphasis). 
 

The link is thus evident between the potential for the bourgeoisie to impose 
coercively its own control over society and the fallacies of subalterns’ attempt to 
become true organic subjectivity (Badaloni, 2014, 102). The coerciveness of 
capital restructuring would in fact not be possible if it was not for the ideological 
(common sense), organizational (bureaucratic centralism) and interest-based 
(corporatism) fragmentation of potentially revolutionary social groups. Gramsci 
seems to reverse the general insight of critical theorists according to whom we can 
understand the continuation of capitalist practices as the result of increasing 
rationalisation and coerciveness of the capitalist system.  

In this light, future studies should point not only to the significance of 
Gramsci in grappling with crucial theoretical concepts which allow us to 
overcome the fallacies of contemporary critical studies. At the same time, the 
Prison Notebooks could be a fruitful source to point in the direction of alternative 
lines of research that not only focus on how mechanisms of government tend to 
impose capitalist dynamics but also to how such logics are asserted, reproduced 
and can potentially be contested from the subalterns themselves. This challenges 
us to identify and perpetrate the forms of praxis that are capable of offsetting the 
dead mechanisms that seem to mechanically rule over our everyday life. Having 
this as an objective, the concept of passive revolution can be an important tool 
both to guide political praxis and to provide a coherent understanding of the 
connection between capitalist dominance and its potentially contested nature.  
 
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