The Ups and Downs of an Uncomfortable Legacy

• Published date: 01 September 2015
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X14549746
• Author: Raúl Burgos
• Date: 01 September 2015
• Subject Matter: Other Articles

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 204, Vol. 42 No. 5, September 2015, 169–185

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X14549746

© 2014 Latin American Perspectives

169

The Ups and Downs of an Uncomfortable Legacy

The Complicated Dialogue between Gramsci and

the Latin American Left

by

Raúl Burgos

Translated by Victoria J. Furio

The ideas originating in Antonio Gramsci’s politico-theoretical work, in a multifaceted

itinerary departing from a purely ethical matrix, have developed in Latin America into a

sophisticated theoretical formulation focused on the theory of hegemony. The emergence

of this formulation marks the beginning of a complex process of reformulation of the clas-

sic paradigms of the left, producing a drastic change in thinking about the logic of social

transformation in Latin America. With this shift the issues of strategic design and the

transformational process began to undergo thorough debate. The theoretical tasks pre-

sented by the current development of Gramscian thought toward the construction of a

comprehensive theory of hegemony include the classical political and cultural dimension

and the productive dimension of hegemonic actions.

Las ideas oriundas en la elaboración teórico-política de Antonio Gramsci, en un itiner-

ario multifacético a partir de una matriz puramente ética, desenvuelven su contenido

hasta ser expuestas en la forma de una formulación teórica sofisticada centrada en la teoría

de la hegemonía. La emergencia de este momento marca el inicio de un complejo proceso

de reelaboración de los paradigmas clásicos de la izquierda, constituyendo un cambio

severo en el modo de pensar la lógica de la transformación social en América Latina. En

este viraje las cuestiones del diseño estratégico y del sujeto del proceso transformador

serán puestos en discusión radical. Las tareas teóricas planteadas por el desarrollo actual

del pensamiento gramsciano hacia la construcción de una teoría integral incluyen las

clásicas dimensiones política y cultural y la dimensión productiva de acciones

hegemónicas.

Keywords: Gramsci, Left, Political culture, Social transformation, Political project

The aim of this article is to sketch, through a metaphorical or, rather, ludic

use of the expression in its Hegelian version, a kind of “phenomenology”of the

transmission of Gramsci’s thought that identifies the major politico-theoretical

matrices of its spread in Latin America. I will not attempt an exhaustive presen-

tation of each phase but rather briefly describe the journey of Gramscian

thought, concentrating on the last period in relation to the development of

thought in the political left.

Raúl Burgos is a professor at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil, and the author

of Los gramscianos argentinos (2005). An earlier version of this article was presented at the Fourth

International Conference on Gramscian Studies in Mexico City, November 29–30, 2007. Victoria J.

Furio is a translator in New York City.

549746LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X14549746Latin American PerspectivesBurgos / Gramsci and the Latin American Left

research-article2014

170 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

The metaphor of a “phenomenology” may be an exaggeration, but it helps

to describe what happened to Gramscian thought in Latin America. In contrast

to the Italian case, in which Gramsci’s thought as a hand-written document

underwent a tortuous path but Togliatti and the Italian Communist Party lead-

ers, aware of its content, used it for a specific purpose and published it with this

objective. It is no exaggeration to say that Gramsci arrived on our shores devoid

of theoretical content: a sort of initial monad brimming over ethically but lack-

ing theoretical content that, once launched, began to come out of itself, devel-

oping its internal capabilities and unfolding its politico-theoretical

determinations.

The FirsT “Figure,” The eThical MaTrix: The PoliTical

hero, The coMMunisT MarTyr

According to Aricó (1988: 191), “the first significant reference to Gramsci’s

path in Argentina . . . [and] probably the first Spanish-language commentary”

is an article by Ernesto Sábato (1947)1 containing an emotional commentary on

the publication of the Letters from Prison in Italy. In Portuguese, important men-

tions of Gramsci’s name had been recorded since the 1930s (Gorender, 1945;

Rosini, 1933), as is shown in studies of the reception of Gramsci’s ideas in Brazil

(basically, Simionatto, 2004 [1995], and Secco, 2002). It is odd that, in both

Argentina and Brazil, the first references came from outside communist cul-

ture: Sábato in the case of Argentina, Trotskyite activists in Brazil. In both cases,

the initial transmission occurred essentially through ethical codes.

In Spanish-speaking Latin America this ethical matrix of dissemination cen-

tered on the publication of the Letters from Prison. Considered a kind of “ethical

monument” by the Italian Communists, the Letters were first published in

Spanish by Lautaro, linked with the Partido Comunista de Argentina

(Communist Party of Argentina—PCA), in 1950. This ethical matrix was well

suited to postwar communism around the world: the heroic vision of the com-

munist as human will transcending all borders, the kind of ascetic summed up

in the figure of Pavel Korchagin, the main character in Nikolai Ostrovsky’s 1936

How the Steel Was Tempered. This outstanding novel of socialist realism was

considered within communist culture as a sort of “ethical manual” for the for-

mation of new generations of rank-and-file members. For the situation of

Argentine Communists, who were beginning their long and disastrous battle

with Peronism—which, not without reason, they considered philo-fascist in

origin—the Gramsci saga fit very well and was a reading authorized by the

Comintern. This coding may well have led them to accept the Gramscian pack-

age without knowing much about what was inside. They may have “bought”

the ethical figure without realizing that the critical thinker came with it.

Although this is an issue for historical research, it would be legitimate to doubt

that the Argentine Communist leaders, except for Héctor Agosti and a few oth-

ers, would have taken the time to read Gramsci in the Italian version. If they

had done so, they might have stopped the publication of his writings in the

Letters from Prison.

Nevertheless, this first distribution opened the way, under Agosti’s leader-

ship, for the first publication and distribution in Latin America of the Prison