this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2025
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Soooo...Caesarism and Bonapartism and...uhhhh (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 6 months ago by King_Simp@lemmygrad.ml to c/genzhou@lemmygrad.ml
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Basically, I was reading Gramsci's work again and reread his thing on caesarism/bonapartism. He places Julius Caesar and Bonaparte the actually competent as progressive caesarist/bonapartist, and then places Napoleon the stupid and...Bismark(?) as regressive caesarist/bonapartists.

If I'm understanding him correctly, the idea is that two forces, progressive classes (such as the proletariat now and Bourgeoisie then) and regressive classes (landowners then and the Bourgeoisie now) essentially don't have the ability to overthrow each other or to end the conflict, so a Bonapartist enters the scene and gives the slight nudge needed to either side to tip the balance and resolve the conflict.

I...do have a couple questions I can't figure out myself.

1.Did Caesar succeed or fail? What were the progressive classes at the time? The small landowners? The proletarii? Did the roman economic system change between before he came to power and after he came to power? If he did fail, what would have success look like? How did the roman class system survive for several hundred years after him, if the class system didn't change?

2.Did Napoleon help reestablish the Bourgeois dictatorship in France over the Feudal manoralists, or did he simply "solidify" the victory after taking control from the thermidorians? Would it have mattered if he did or did not?

3.Bismark? I don't really get this one.

(P.S, is Putin a modern bonapartist or no? If so, reactionary or progressive?)

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[–] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

This is from Class Struggle by Domenico Losurdo, chapter After revolution, the ambigueties of class struggle

In a situation characterized by a permanent state of emergency, and a lack of clear ideas about the concrete shape of the new political and social order, communist parties in power and their leaders ended up establishing a relationship with the proletariat and popular masses that recalls the one established with the bourgeoisie by Louis Bonaparte. That is, paraphrasing Marx, ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat by the sabre’ turned into the ‘dictatorship of the sabre over civil society’ and over the proletariat itself. However, albeit slender and twisted, a thread continued to connect Louis Napoleon with the bourgeoisie behind the counter-revolution, just as a thread continues to connect communist leaders in power with the proletariat and popular masses who were the protagonists of the revolution. Bonapartism or Caesarism is one of the ways that the process of autonomiziation of ideological, political, and military castes occurs. Gramsci’s distinction between regressive Caesarism and progressive Caesarism remains valid; and it also remains the case that in different historical situations the progressive or regressive character of Cesarism proves more or less pronounced.

Desperate times call for drastic measures, which themselves can be for a progressive or reactionary cause. The DPRK comes to mind as a recent progressive bonapartism immediately after the arduous march albeit not that much anymore. Same with Syria under Assad, and now they found themselves under a reactionary bonapartism under the fundamentalists.