A Companion to Antonio Gramsci

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 Studies in
Critical Social Sciences

Series Editor
David Fasenfest (soas University of London)

Editorial Board
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (Duke University)
Chris Chase-Dunn (University of California-Riverside)
William Carroll (University of Victoria)
Raewyn Connell (University of Sydney)
Kimberle W. Crenshaw (University of California, LA, and
Columbia University)
Raju Das (York University)
Heidi Gottfried (Wayne State University)
Karin Gottschall (University of Bremen)
Alfredo Saad-Filho (King’s College London)
Chizuko Ueno (University of Tokyo)
Sylvia Walby (Lancaster University)

volume 164

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/scss

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 A Companion to
Antonio Gramsci
Essays on History and Theories of History,
Politics and Historiography

Edited by

Davide Cadeddu

leiden | boston

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Cover illustration: Sketch of Antonio Gramsci

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Cadeddu, Davide, editor.

Title: A companion to Antonio Gramsci : essays on history and theories of
history, politics and historiography / edited by Davide Cadeddu.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2020] | Series: Studies in critical
social sciences, 1573-4234 ; volume 164 | Includes bibliographical
references and index. | Summary: “In A Companion to Antonio Gramsci some
of the most important Italian scholars of Gramsci's thought realize an
intellectual account of the Gramscian historiography. The volume is
organized into five parts. In the first, an updated reconstruction of
his biographical events is offered. The second part provides three
different perspectives permitting an analysis of the ideas and theories
of history which emerge from Gramsci's writings. In the third section as
well as the fourth section, the most explicitly political themes are
considered. Finally, in the last part the timelines of twentieth century
historiography in Italy are traced and a picture is painted of the
reasons for the development of the principal problems surrounding the
international literary output on Gramsci. Contributors include: Alberto
Burgio, Davide Cadeddu, Giuseppe Cospito, Angelo d'Orsi, Michele
Filippini, Guido Liguori, Marcello Montanari, Vittorio Morfino, Stefano
Petrucciani, Michele Prospero, Leonardo Rapone, Giuseppe Vacca, and
Marzio Zanantoni”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020011347 | ISBN 9789004426504 (hardback) | ISBN
9789004426511 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Gramsci, Antonio, 1891-1937. | Communism. |
History--Philosophy. | Political science.
Classification: LCC HX289.7.G73 C6435 2020 | DDC 335.43--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020011347

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.

ISSN 1573-4234
ISBN 978-90-04-42650-4 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-42651-1 (e-book)

Copyright 2020 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi,
Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
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This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

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Contents

Preface VII
Acknowledgements X
Notes on Contributors XI

Part 1
History

1 Gramsci: From Socialism to Communism 3

Leonardo Rapone

2 Antonio Gramsci: the Prison Years 13

Angelo d’Orsi

Part 2
Theories of History

3 The Crisis of European Civilization in the Thought of Antonio

Gramsci 29
Giuseppe Vacca

4 Notes on Gramsci’s Theory of History 38

Marcello Montanari

5 The Layers of History and the Politics in Gramsci 47

Vittorio Morfino

Part 3
Communism

6 Gramsci’s Antidogmatic Reading of Marx 59

Stefano Petrucciani

7 Gramsci, the October Revolution and its “Translation” in the West 70

Guido Liguori

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vi Contents

8 On the Transition to Communism 79

Alberto Burgio

Part 4
Hegemony

9 Gramsci: Political Scientist 93

Michele Prospero

10 The “Prison Notebooks”: Hegemony and Civil Society 105

Giuseppe Cospito

11 On the Productive Use of Hegemony (Laclau, Hall, Chatterjee) 114

Michele Filippini

Part 5
Historiography

12 The Influence and Legacy of Antonio Gramsci in Twentieth-Century

Italy 127
Marzio Zanantoni

13 The International Historiography on Gramsci in the Twenty-First

Century 146
Davide Cadeddu

Bibliographic Abbreviations 155
Index 156

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Preface

Over the course of the twentieth century, Antonio Gramsci became an author
so often cited and so extensively studied at the international level that it now
sometimes seems his cultural origins have been overlooked. Thanks to transla-
tions of his writings into English (and many other languages), Gramsci’s
thought has acquired a truly global audience and inspired scholars in different
disciplinary areas by reaching beyond the original utterance in Italian. Almost
daily, new research is being carried out: articles and books are published com-
pletely neglecting the scientific literature produced in the language that he
himself spoke. This can be considered legitimate when Gramsci’s thought is –
more than anything else – an occasion and a stimulus with the aim of saying
something other than what he himself affirmed, but the difficulty of accessing
the primary sources of his political thought can sometimes produce an unin-
tentional misunderstanding and conceptual inaccuracy. Reflecting on the rela-
tionship between scholarly studies in Italian and in other languages may per-
haps lead us to speculate that while the first might be able to guarantee a
greater philological precision and hermeneutic penetration, the second may
demonstrate themselves to be more prone to developing the reformulation of
Gramscian categories in the areas of sociology and anthropology besides those
of historiography and politics.
On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of Gramsci’s premature death,
therefore, it was thought to organize a sort of intellectual account of the situa-
tion, including some of the most important Italian scholars of Gramsci’s
thought, and to arrange their musings around the relation between culture and
politics, history and historiography. The results of this work forms a type of
“companion” that is useful for a deep understanding of this author within an
international dialogue which must express itself, nowadays, in English.
The volume is organized into five parts. In the first two essays – entitled
Gramsci: From Socialism to Communism and Antonio Gramsci: the Prison
Years –, under the general heading of “History”, a concise and updated recon-
struction of his biographical events is offered. The second part, dedicated to
the “Theories of History”, provides three different perspectives – ­summarized
by the titles The Crisis of European Civilization in the Thought of Antonio Grams-
ci, Notes on Gramsci’s Theory of History and The Layers of History and Politics
in Gramsci – permitting an analysis of the ideas and theories of history which
emerge from Gramsci’s writings. In the third part, addressing the concept of
“Communism” – with the essays Gramsci and Marx: Notes and Reflections,
Gramsci, the October Revolution and its “Translation” in the West and On the

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viii Preface

Transition to Communism –, as well as the fourth part, dedicated to the cat-

egory of “hegemony” – with the articles Gramsci: Political Scientist, The “Prison
Notebooks”: Hegemony and Civil Society and On the Productive Use of Hegemony
(Laclau, Hall, Chatterjee) –, the most explicitly political themes are considered.
Finally, in the last part, dedicated to “Historiography” – with the essays The In-
fluence and Legacy of Antonio Gramsci in Twentieth-Century Italy and The Inter-
national Historiography on Gramsci in the Twenty-First Century –, the timelines
of twentieth century historiography in Italy are traced and a picture is painted
of the reasons for the development of the principal problems surrounding the
international literary output on Gramsci.
The collection of these essays exposes a view of the complex relationship
between Antonio Gramsci and the twentieth century, a century that for rea-
sons analyzed here in various ways showed itself to be very generous in
­conceding so much importance to one man amongst many men. This fact can-
not be taken for granted. Gramsci died in 1937, in a century that was densely
full of events and personalities. It is not a given that the twentieth century
would leave space for a man such as Gramsci: someone who was politically
defeated, physically disabled, (according to some) betrayed and who was also
certainly the expression of a particular tendency of a current of political
thought – ­Communism – considered by most (even well before the end of the
1900s) to be tragically flawed, in concrete political experience and therefore
also in its theoretical formulations. Gramsci expressed his thought, then, in a
country – I­taly –, that is not always at the center of international attention.
Thinking about the relation between Gramsci and the twentieth century or
Gramsci within the twentieth century, first of all means this: remembering
how the remnants of his experience and his political thought have surpassed
the date of his death, invading and permeating the Italian and international
political culture for the full duration of the twentieth century. Making the
point of Gramsci in the 1900s signifies underlining how this author, as mark-
edly different than others, became a century’s indisputable protagonist – both
for the infinite interpretations that he elicited as well as for the uses and abuses
of his thought and life story, with the purpose of quickly becoming one of most
translated and cited Italian authors of all time together with such illustrious
personalities as Dante Alighieri and Niccolò Machiavelli.
Considering this relationship between Gramsci and the twentieth century,
today, in the first quarter of the twenty-first century, also signifies something
more – clearly connecting with the international dimension acquired by this
author. The temporal reference, the twentieth century, therefore, also ­emerges
fully pregnant from the point of view of declaring its own primacy over the

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Preface ix

spatial dimension. Certainly, it is possible and it makes sense, for instance, to

think about the relevance of Gramsci’s influence on Brazilian culture or to re-
construct the debate between historians and political theorists in France or,
furthermore, to consider new sources emerging from some Russian archive. All
this is possible and makes sense. Still, the true relevance of this discourse is
revealed by the consideration that Antonio Gramsci is a global author. Like all
things pertaining to thought, principles and ideas, he can only be limited to
and contained by a historic view leaving aside geographical or geopolitical
confines. Through the categories of “before” and “after”, we can better pursue
the goals of valuing and understanding an intense and fecund historiographi-
cal dialogue that still leaves much to be said on Gramsci in the twenty-first
century while also leaving room to write about an author who has risen to the
position of an absolute classic of political thought.

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Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Professor Daniela Saresella, who had the idea of organizing
(and helped me to arrange) the conference devoted to Antonio Gramsci that
elicited many of these reflections, and Professor Antonino De Francesco, direc-
tor of the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Milan, which
financially supported the English translation. I would like also to thank
­Professors Marco Cuzzi and Irene Piazzoni, who supported me during the
above-mentioned conference that took place in Milan (Italy) on October 2017,
and Doctor Elia Zaru, who copy-edited the texts.

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Notes on Contributors

Alberto Burgio
is Full Professor of History of Philosophy at the University of Bologna. He is a
member of the Scientific Committee for the Italian National Edition of Anto-
nio Labriola’s works and the Scientific Committee for the Italian Edition of
Marx and Engels’ Complete Works. He is also member of the CeRC – Centre for
Governmentality and Disability Studies Robert Castel and of the Permanent
Seminar of Political Philosophy “Penser la transformation” at the Université
Paul-Valery – Montpellier 3. Since July 2011, he is a member of Accademia delle
Scienze dell’Istituto di Bologna (Italy). He has dealt with history of political
philosophy and philosophy of history, with studies on Rousseau, Kant, Hegel
and Marx, racism, nationalism and Italian Marxism. On Gramsci, he published
the monographs Gramsci storico. Una lettura dei “Quaderni del carcere” (Later-
za, 2003), Per Gramsci. Crisi e potenza del moderno (DeriveApprodi, 2007) and
Gramsci. Il sistema in movimento (DeriveApprodi, 2014).

Davide Cadeddu
is Associate Professor of History of Political Thought at the University of Milan
and Coordinator of the Scientific Committee of “Globus et Locus” association.
Executive Editor of Glocalism: Journal of Culture, Politics and Innovation, he is
member of the editorial board of “Il pensiero politico”, editor of the series Bib-
lioteca di cultura politica europea (Rubbettino) and Filologia e politica (Giappi-
chelli), and director of the “Permanent Seminar on the Classics of the Political
Thought” at Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Foundation. He collaborates with the
HuffPost (Italian edition). He has mainly studied the history of twentieth cen-
tury political thought, with emphasis on the problems of the relationship be-
tween politics and culture. He edited writings of Leo Strauss, Julien Benda and
Norberto Bobbio, and published the monographs Luigi Einaudi tra libertà e
autonomia (FrancoAngeli, 2018), Reimagining Democracy (Springer, 2012),
Adriano Olivetti Politico (Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2010).

Giuseppe Cospito
is Assistant Professor of History of Philosophy at the University of Pavia and
member of the Scientific Committee for the Italian National Edition of Anto-
nio Gramsci’s Writings. He is also member of the International Gramsci Soci-
ety and of the Scientific Committee of the Gramsciana: Rivista internazionale
di studi su Antonio Gramsci, the series Per Gramsci (Edizioni Unicopli), the
Ghilarza Summer School and the Fondazione Casa Museo Antonio Gramsci.

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xii Notes on Contributors

He edited (with G. Francioni and F. Frosini) A. Gramsci, Quaderni del carcere,

vol. 2, tomo 1 (Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2017); Gramsci tra filologia e
storiografia. Scritti per Gianni Francioni (Bibliopolis, 2010); (with G. Francioni)
A. Gramsci, Quaderni del carcere, vol. I (Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana,
2007). He published the monographs Introduzione a Gramsci (Il Melangolo,
2015) and Il ritmo del pensiero. Per una lettura diacronica dei “Quaderni del car-
cere” di Gramsci (Bibliopolis, 2011); En. tr. The Rhythm of Thought in Gramsci
(Brill, 2016).

Angelo d’Orsi
was Full Professor of History of Political Thought at the University of Turin and
is member of the Scientific Committee for the Italian National Edition of both
Antonio Gramsci’s Writings and Antonio Labriola’s Writings. He founded and
is editor of Gramsciana: Rivista internazionale di studi su Antonio Gramsci, His-
toria Magistra: Rivista di storia critica and also BGR. Bibliografia Gramsciana
Ragionata, composed of three volumes (published the first: 1922–1965, Viella,
2008). He founded “FestivalStoria” (Italy) and was president of the Scientific
Committee of Fondazione Luigi Salvatorelli. He has dealt with the history of
historiography, political ideas and intellectual groups. On Gramsci he pub-
lished Il nostro Gramsci. Antonio Gramsci a colloquio con i protagonisti della
storia d’Italia (Viella, 2013), Inchiesta su Gramsci. Quaderni scomparsi, abiure,
conversioni, tradimenti: leggende o verità (Accademia University Press, 2014),
Gramsciana. Saggi su Antonio Gramsci (Mucchi, 2015) and Gramsci. Una nuova
biografia (Feltrinelli, 2018).

Michele Filippini
is Assistant Professor of History of Political Thought at the University of Bolo-
gna and coordinator of the digital library Gramsciproject.org. He has mainly
studied the history of Marxism, the birth of sociology in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries as well as the forms of political legitimation and political
power. He is member of the editorial board of Scienza & Politica and Politics:
Rivista di studi politici. On Gramsci, he co-edited Gramsci e la sociologia, special
issue of Quaderni di Teoria Sociale (Morlacchi, 2013) and published the mono-
graphs Using Gramsci: A New Approach (PlutoPress, 2016), Una politica di mas-
sa. Antonio Gramsci e la rivoluzione della società (Carocci, 2015) and Gramsci
globale. Guida pratica alle interpretazioni di Gramsci nel mondo (Odoya, 2011).
He is also the author of Leaping Forward: Mario Tronti and the History of Politi-
cal Workerism (Jve-Crs, 2012) and co-editor of Mario Tronti, Il demone della po-
litica (il Mulino, 2017).

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Notes on Contributors xiii

Guido Liguori
is Associate Professor of History of Political Thought at the University of Cal-
abria, President of the International Gramsci Society Italia and Senior Editor
of Critica Marxista. On Gramsci, he organized, with F. Frosini, the IGS Seminar
on the “Prison Notebooks” and edited (with G. Baratta) Gramsci da un secolo
all’altro (Editori Riuniti, 1999); (with F. Frosini) Le parole di Gramsci (Carocci,
2004); (with C. Meta) Gramsci. Guida alla lettura (Unicopli, 2005); (with P.
Voza) Dizionario gramsciano 1926–1937 (Carocci, 2009); (with L. Durante)
Domande dal presente. Studi su Gramsci (Carocci, 2012); Gramsci e il populismo
(Unicopli, 2019); A. Gramsci, Masse e partito. Antologia 1920–1926 (Editori Ri-
uniti, 2017); A. Gramsci, Come alla volontà piace. Scritti sulla Rivoluzione russa
(Castelvecchi, 2017); and he published Sentieri gramsciani (Carocci, 2006; En.
tr. Gramsci’s Pathways (Brill, 2015); and Br. tr.) and Gramsci conteso. Interpre-
tazioni, dibattiti e polemiche 1922–2012 (Editori Riuniti, 2012).

Marcello Montanari
was Full Professor of History of Political Thought at the University of Bari and
is member of the advisory board of Il pensiero politico. He has dealt with the
history of Marxism and Italian political thought, publishing articles on Al-
thusser, Lenin, Vico, Croce and Gramsci. He edited A. Gramsci, Pensare la
democrazia. Antologia dai “Quaderni dal carcere” (Einaudi, 1997), and pub-
lished La liberta e il tempo. Osservazioni sulla democrazia tra Marx e Gramsci
(Editori Riuniti, 1991); Studi su Gramsci. Americanismo, Democrazia e Teoria
della Storia nei “Quaderni del Carcere” (Pensa, 2002); Politica e Storia. Saggi su
Vico, Croce e Gramsci (Publierre, 2007) and Il revisionismo di Gramsci. La filoso-
fia della prassi tra Marx e Croce (Biblion, 2016). His latest books are Cultura e
vita politica nell’Italia del Novecento (Liberaria, 2012); Studi su Vico (Pensa, 2013);
Pinocchio e le altre favole (Aracne, 2014); La storia non finisce (Aracne, 2015).

Vittorio Morfino
is Associate Professor of History of Philosophy at the University of Milano-Bi-
cocca, where he coordinates the Specialization Course in Critical Thoery of So-
ciety. He is Directeur de recherche at the Collège international de philosohie.
He is member of the editorial board of Quaderni materialisti and Décalages:
An Althusserian Journal. He was visiting professor at the Universidade de São
Paulo, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Université Bordeaux-Montaigne
and l’Universidad Nacional de Cordoba. He edited (with P.D. Thomas) The Gov-
ernment of Time: Theories of Plural Temporality in The Marxist Tradition (Hay-
market Books, 2018). His other works include Il tempo e l’occasione. L’incontro

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xiv Notes on Contributors

Spinoza Machiavelli (Led, 2002; Fr. tr. 2012); Incursioni spinoziste (Mimesis,
2002); Il tempo della moltitudine (Manifestolibri, 2005; Fr. tr. 2010; Sp. tr. 2013),
Plural Temporality. Transindividuality and the Aleatory between Spinoza and Al-
thusser (Brill, 2014); and Genealogia di un pregiudizio. L’immagine di Spinoza in
Germania da Leibniz a Marx (Olms, 2016).

Stefano Petrucciani
is Full Professor of Political Philosophy at the Sapienza University of Rome and
President of the Italian Society of Political Philosophy. He is member of the
editorial board of the journals La Cultura, Parole Chiave, Critica Marxista, and
of the scientific committee of Iride and Fenomenologia e Società. He is Editor-
in-Chief of Politica e Società, foreign correspondent of Actuel Marx and mem-
ber of the scientific committee of Fondazione Gramsci. The main subject of his
research was the critical theory of society of the Frankfurt School. Recent
works edited include Storia del marxismo (Carocci, 2015) and Il pensiero di Karl
Marx (Carocci, 2018). He is author of Introduzione a Habermas (Laterza, 2000),
Modelli di filosofia politica (Einaudi, 2003), Introduzione a Adorno (Laterza,
2007), Marx (Carocci, 2009), Democrazia (Einaudi, 2014), A lezione da Marx
(Manifestolibri, 2014), A lezione da Adorno (Manifestolibri, 2017), Marx critique
du libéralisme (Mimesis, 2018).

Michele Prospero
is Full Professor of Political Philosophy at the Sapienza University of Rome,
Executive Editor of Democrazia e diritto and member of the direction commit-
tee of the Centro per la riforma dello Stato (Centre for the Reform of the State).
His main interests are the Italian institutional system and the left-wing politi-
cal thought. On Gramsci, he edited A. Gramsci, Il Sindacato (Bordeaux, 2017)
and authored La scienza politica di Gramsci (Bordeaux, 2017). His works in-
clude Storia delle istituzioni in Italia (Editori Riuniti, 1999), La politica moderna
(Carocci, 2002), Politica e società globale (Laterza, 2004), Alle origini del laico
(FrancoAngeli, 2006), La costituzione tra populismo e leaderismo (FrancoAnge-
li, 2007), Filosofia del diritto di proprietà (FrancoAngeli, 2009), Hans Kelsen
(FrancoAngeli 2012), Il partito politico (Carocci, 2012), Il libro nero della società
civile (Editori Riuniti, 2013), Il nuovismo realizzato (Bordeaux, 2015), La ­ribellione
conservatrice (Edup, 2019).

Leonardo Rapone
is Full Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Tuscia and mem-
ber of the scientific committee of the Italian National Edition of Antonio
Gramsci’s Writings. He is executive editor of Studi Storici, member of the Scien-
tific Committee of Fondazione Gramsci and of the journal Annali della

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Notes on Contributors xv

­Fondazione Gramsci. He has dealt with the European left political tradition in
the twentieth century (socialist and social-democratic parties, Socialist Inter-
national, communist parties), the Italian antifascism and European integra-
tion. On Gramsci, he edited A. Gramsci, Scritti (1910–1926), vol. 2, 1917 (Istituto
della Enciclopedia italiana, 2015) and authored Cinque anni che paiono secoli.
Antonio Gramsci dal socialismo al comunismo (Carocci, 2011). He published also
Trotskij e il fascismo (Laterza, 1978), Da Turati a Nenni (FrancoAngeli, 1992); An-
tifascismo e società italiana 1926–1940 (Unicopli, 1999); La socialdemocrazia eu-
ropea tra le due guerre (Carocci, 1999); Storia dell’integrazione europea (Carocci,
2015).

Giuseppe Vacca
is President of Fondazione Gramsci and President of the Scientific Committee
of the Italian National Edition of Antonio Gramsci’s Writings. He was Full Pro-
fessor of History of Political Thought at the University of Bari. He dealt with
the first editions of Gramsci’s Letters from Prison and Prison Notebooks and
published Togliatti editore di Gramsci (Carocci, 2005). On Gramsci, he pub-
lished Gramsci e Togliatti (Editori Riuniti, 1991), Appuntamenti con Gramsci
(Carocci, 1999), (with C. Daniele) Gramsci a Roma, Togliatti a Mosca. Il carteg-
gio del 1926 (Einaudi, 1999), Vita e pensieri di Antonio Gramsci (1926–1937) (Ein-
audi, 2012) and Modernità alternative. Il Novecento di Antonio Gramsci (Einaudi,
2017). His works include Fra Italia ed Europa (FrancoAngeli, 1991), Pensare il
mondo nuovo (Edizioni San Paolo, 1994), Per una nuova costituente (Bompiani,
1996), Vent’anni dopo. La Sinistra fra mutamenti e revisioni (Einaudi, 1997), Da
un secolo all’altro (Bompiani, 1998) and Riformismo vecchio e nuovo (Einaudi,
2001).

Marzio Zanantoni
is Editorial Coordinator of Unicopli Editions in Milan. He has dealt with some
topics of philosophy and historiography in Italian culture during the nine-
teenth and twentieth century. He edited (with A. Vigorelli) La filosofia italiana
di fronte al fascismo (Unicopli, 2000); A. Labriola, Origine e natura delle passioni
secondo l’“Etica” di Spinoza (Ghibli, 2004), A. Labriola, Del socialismo e altri
scritti politici (Unicopli, 2004); (with A. Vigorelli) Gramsci oltre l’ideologia. Let-
ture e interpretazioni (1960–2010) (Unicopli, 2011), (with A. Vigorelli) F. F­ ergnani,
Antonio Gramsci. La filosofia della prassi nei “Quaderni del carcere” (Unicopli,
2011) and (with S. Mancini and A. Vigorelli) E. Agazzi, La filosofia di Piero Mar-
tinetti (Unicopli, 2016); and authored Anarchismo (Bibliografica, 1996), Grams-
ci e la storia della nazione italiana nei “Quaderni del carcere”, in Gramsci oltre
l’ideologia (Unicopli, 2011), Albe Steiner. Cambiare il libro per cambiare il mondo
(Unicopli, 2013), Positivismo (Bibliografica, 2016).

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Part 1
History

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 Chapter 1

Gramsci: From Socialism to Communism

Leonardo Rapone

To understand Gramsci’s journey from socialism to communism requires fo-

cused attention on the years between 1913–14 and 1919: the defining years of the
intellectual and political maturation of Gramsci’s personality. We do not know
exactly when the young student joined the Socialist Party, but it certainly was
sometime between the end of 1913 and the beginning of 1914 and thus this is
the starting point of the journey from socialism to communism. Already in 1919
we can say that Gramsci was in the gravitational field of international commu-
nism but he would reach the arrival point of his journey exactly in 1921: the
year the Communist Party of Italy was founded.1
It is wise to specify that there is no archival documentation on this period:
we can reconstruct it only using public documents and public proceedings
made by Gramsci – mostly in the form of newspaper articles. To this we can
add a few private letters. The only resource coming out of the archives are the
drafts that were sometimes kept from the censored articles, which were not
authorized for publication during the years of World War i.
At the beginning of this journey, Antonio Gramsci is a young student at the
Faculty of Literature of the University of Turin,2 and is passionate about glot-
tology and linguistics: a disciplinary field that will continue to keep his atten-
tion.3 His first public act dates back to October of 1914, when Benito Mussolini
communicated a political stance that was distant from socialist neutralism,
that is, from the position that rigorously refuted Italian participation in the
Great War that characterized the politics of the Socialist Party, and for this had
become the object of strong criticism from almost all the leaders of the Italian
Socialist Party. On this occasion, Gramsci puts pen to paper for the first time to
write about politics and publishes an article defending Mussolini from the
criticism and accusations that were begin levied by his party’s members.4 In
the eyes of a large part of the militant socialists in Turin, this first public act put
Gramsci in a bad light and for several months he was isolated and ­marginalized

1 Cf. Rapone 2011 for this part of the political and intellectual biography of Gramsci.
2 Cf. d’Orsi 1999.
3 Cf. Carlucci 2013.
4 Cf. ppw: 3–7 (Gramsci 1914).

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by the party. He resumed political activity only near the end of 1915, when he
began to work as a journalist, having been hired (once again in Turin) by the
editorial board of “Avanti!”.5 Here is the fundamental point – Gramsci became
a militant politician in the guise of a journalist. In the early years, his political
activism was exclusively expressed in his journalistic activity. Furthermore, the
articles he wrote were articles that were mainly inspired by the reality of the
daily life of Turin’s citizens – the events and happenings of life in Turin. More
weighty articles from the early years are rare, articles that address questions of
a more general relevance. Still, even in articles inspired by daily life in Turin
one can extract important elements that help to examine the inner workings
of his mind. In fact, commenting on the citizens’ doings – taking a cue from the
small episodes of daily life – Gramsci develops a series of considerations that
illuminate us as to the ideal premise of his socialism: his vision of the world
and his concept of moral life in particular. In this first phase, what is the politi-
cal profile that can be inferred from his interventions? These are the war years
and his political position is, above all, against the war. Gramsci leads a tireless
campaign through his articles against nationalist rhetoric, against the cultural
miseries of war propaganda and against the demagogic artifices to which Ital-
ian interventionists resort in order to excite public opinion.
Nationalism and patriotism act against some of the fundamental premises
of Gramsci’s socialist vision. From the outset, Gramsci thought of socialism as
the stimulus for humankind to exit from the constrained dimension of its
more immediate experiences, in order to consider itself part of a more vast
community. Thus, Gramsci’s socialism is from the beginning positioned in op-
position to any form of corporatism, be it in the form of a category, a village, a
neighborhood or a region. Nationalism is also a form of corporatism, to which
Gramsci opposes with a strong sense of belonging to humanity – each com-
munity belonging to all of all humanity. In the beginning, Gramsci’s interna-
tionalism is strongly inspired by the sentiments of the universality of mankind
and the rebuilding of humanity. Even when the internationalist projection of
Gramsci later on assumed a stronger classist coloring, the theme that could be
defined as the unity of the world – the unification of humanity – would remain
on its horizon, witnessing a plurality of ideal reasons not reducible only to
class solidarity. This, for Gramsci, motivated the need to supersede the nation-
state as a structurally inadequate space both for the development of cultural
life and civil progress and the development of the economic fundamentals of
associated life.

5 Cf. Martinelli 1972, Righi 2014.

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Gramsci: From Socialism to Communism 5

In second place, from Gramsci’s journalistic interventions, intransigence

emerges as a normative criterion of political action. Gramsci’s socialism is an
intransigent socialism even more than it is revolutionary. Intransigence is a
constitutive aspect, the principal animator of Gramsci’s socialism, seen by him
as a way of being, a philosophy of life to which one can inspire to even in poli-
tics. History for Gramsci proceeds thorough the clash of contrary positions;
this is the law of movement: action-reaction, thesis-antithesis – never synthe-
sis. His intransigent vision of socialism assumes this outlook: socialism should
tend coherently and determinately to its ultimate ends, without losing itself in
detours or without imagining being able to increase its force through commin-
gling and combining with other forces. Naturally, above everything, Gramsci’s
socialism bows to the anti-reformist and anti-Giolittian definition. The selec-
tive reformism of Giolitti, that gave privilege to only some parts of the country,
breaks the worker-farmer unity: the unity of the Italian people that Gramsci
saw perfectly hinged on the alliance between the workers of the North and the
farmers of the South. His vision was very influenced, initially, by the analysis of
Salvemini. Dialoguing and subordinating himself to Giolitti, reformist social-
ists cooperate with this project of fracturing and division: the decomposition
of the unity of the Italian people.
A new chapter of the intellectual and political biography of Gramsci opens
after the first half of 1917, not only under the pressure of the Russian events (I
will not dwell on this because it will be the subject of another specific inquiry)
but also because from that moment, Gramsci begins to consider from a new
perspective the war – that is going to be longer then expected. What comes to
the fore in Gramsci’s thinking about the function of war is that it acts as a fac-
tor mobilizing the masses and as the motor of a regime crisis. Later, he will use
an efficient expression to describe these transformations caused by war – both
structural and psychological. Gramsci will say, “War has enlarged society”.6
Through the prolongation of war, through the hardships and suffering that it
arouses, it awakens masses of men from a condition of social passivity – of
folding into the individual and local dimension – and it makes them sensitive
to what moves beyond the sphere of immediate perception. War projects them
into the larger dimension of society. Society then grows because new multi-
tudes enter into the space of sociability, exiting from a state of solitude and
isolation and becoming active subjects of history – they insert themselves into
history. The war is “Great” exactly because it makes society great. Therefore,
war is no longer a factor of inertia, acquiescence and social passivity; but on

6 Gramsci 1918a.

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the contrary it is an experience, which activates and mobilizes collective

energies.
A fundamental piece of information: in August 1917 Turin was the theatre of
the most vastly insurgent popular movement against the war that Europe had
known in those years (besides Russia obviously).7 A large part of the manage-
rial framework of Turin’s socialism was made subject to repressive measures,
and Gramsci found himself for the first time pushed to the frontline and forced
in some way to assume direct responsibility for the political direction. In par-
ticular, he becomes the de facto director of Turin’s socialist newspaper “Il Grido
del popolo”. Having a newspaper at his disposal, he uses it to undertake the
work of political education. We arrive at another formative aspect of ­Gramscian
socialism: the relationship between socialism and culture. From Gramsci’s
point of view, the acquisition of culture is considered a determining factor of
the political constitution of the subject and therefore of the development of a
revolutionary subjectivity. “Social conscience”, Gramsci observes, “was formed
not under the brutal goad of physiological necessity, but as a result of intelli-
gent reflection, at first by just a few people and later by a whole class”.8 Gramsci
does not believe in the socialism of “calloused hands”, that is, the socialism that
gushes naturally from the exploitative experience lived by the working class,
but considers necessary a connection with cultural stimuli and motives. The
criticism of the present, the projection into a different future, must be based
on a methodical exercise of thought. Socialist consciousness is not the imme-
diate reflex of the working condition: the feeling is not enough to trigger the
spark of socialism if the mediation of culture does not intervene. Gramsci
viewed culture as the antidote to the possibility of an oligarchic degeneration
of the political community and in specie of the mass political parties and of the
Socialist Party, as insisted upon by the analysis of Robert Michels. The spread-
ing of culture is insurance against the risk of the concentration of power inside
the Socialist Party – or in the future of a socialist society – in the hands of a
limited oligarchy.
It is interesting to note, however, that in the moment in which he takes on
political leadership functions of the socialist section in Turin (August-­
September 1917), the first initiative considering the post-war period where
Gramsci calls on the section to mobilize itself is an action against the return of
the Italian government to protectionist political practices. In that moment,
during the war, Gramsci thus proposes to mobilize the socialist organization in

7 Cf. Monticone 1972: 89–144, Spriano 1972: 416–431.

8 agr: 57–58 (Gramsci 1916).

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Gramsci: From Socialism to Communism 7

Turin in the struggle against customs protectionism.9 This tells us two things:
that in this moment, Gramsci was absolutely not yet thinking about the possi-
bility in Italy of an extension of the revolutionary process that had just started
in Russia – we are in the intermediate phase between the February Revolution
and the October Revolution; and that principle of international liberty in trade
had a place of utmost importance in the socialist vision of Gramsci. In his eyes,
protectionism is an agent of war, for the commercial revelry that it triggers.
Therefore, if peace is to be guaranteed once the carnage of world war is fin-
ished, striving against the raising of new trade barriers is needed. But above all,
protectionism for Gramsci appears to be anti-historical behavior, contrary to
the interest of capitalist development. For Gramsci, productive forces gener-
ated by the capitalist system do not adapt themselves to the frame of the
­nation-state and tend rather to interpenetrate, developing transnational bonds
of solidarity. At this moment, what is already hinted at is that contradiction
between the transnational dimension of the economic processes and the na-
tional organization of politics and institutions, which will be presented in the
Quaderni as the principal factor of twentieth-century social and political con-
vulsions. The war appears to Gramsci to be a distortion of the pure capitalistic
mechanism, contrary to the needs of development of this system and its com-
plex. This also means that Gramsci is very far from the idea of imperialism as a
superior phase of capitalist development. At the same time, free trade for him
has a strong anti-reformist valence because its opposite, protectionism, en-
globing sectors of the proletariat in the system of protected interest – is an
encouragement to the collaboration between the classes.
Only at the beginning of 1919, almost two years later, the theme of the actu-
ality of the revolution entered Gramsci’s view. In this moment what began to
dawn on him was the catastrophic vision of the post-war capitalist crisis of the
Bolsheviks and of the newly born Third International, which envisaged the de-
struction of capitalism as the only alternative to Europe’s regression towards
barbarism. Gramsci is strongly influenced by these first theorizations on the
general crisis of capitalism and was strengthened in the conviction of the revo-
lution’s maturity in the light of the spectacle showed in the countries just com-
ing out of the defeat of war, in which the default of state structures coincided
with the diffusion of revolutionary movements. Only those that he called “pro-
letarian revolutions of 1919”,10 referring to Germany, Bavaria, Hungary, and to
analogous movements in Austria, convinced him that it was a passage through

9 Cf. Gramsci 1917.

10 Gramsci 1919.

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a historical phase and that revolution could actually become a political pro-
gram for Western Europe.
Setting out the conclusion, I want to quickly consider the starting point –
socialism – and the arrival point – communism – of Gramsci’s intellectual and
political journey, which I outlined. The theoretical basis on which Gramsci
founded his loyalty to socialism is a conception of history in which the propul-
sive function of mankind encamps itself – a concept of humankind as a con-
scious and strong-willed entity, a creator of history and at the same time pro-
duced by history itself. The starting point is the tenacious will of humankind.
Gramsci operated within the context of a cultural climate marked by the anti-
positivistic reaction, by the rehabilitation of the subjective and spiritual side of
human experience and was strongly involved in it. The social-economic envi-
ronment, the material conditions of existence cannot determine the human
path without humankind’s intervention: a decisive possession of the space
that offers itself to human initiative. In this phase, there were two targets for
Gramsci’s criticism: on the one hand, transcendentalism and providentialism
in the catholic vision of the relationship between God and the world; on the
other hand, the positivization of socialism – the reduction of historical mate-
rialism to a deterministic conception of development and the claim that the
scientific nature of socialism consists of the representation of social processes
as natural processes, without regard for human initiative. We arrive at the
question of the influence that idealism had in the formation of Gramsci’s
thought, how Gramsci explicitly recognized later in his Quaderni del carcere
(“Prison Notebooks”) and in the letters that he would write from prison,11 ad-
mitting to being in 1917 substantially “rather a supporter of Croce”, without,
however, making reference to, as per self-censorship, the influence of Gentile.
In Gramsci’s vision, idealism had the merit of having redeemed humankind
from the mortgages – from the religious transcendentalism and positivistic de-
terminism; and the language of idealism was the one through which Gramsci
initially expressed his anti-providential and anti-naturalistic conception of the
history. Here arises the question: and Marx? What place does Marx have in the
conceptual universe of early Gramsci? Marx is hardly ever quoted; Gramsci
clearly reveals a certain initial difficulty in fully putting the vision of human-
kind as builder of history in relation to Marx’s doctrine. It’s almost as if Grams-
ci could not fully satisfy, remaining on the perimeter of Marxism, the need to
see the will and conscience placed at the center of the process of ­transformation.

11 Cf. fspn: 355 (Q 10i, § 11: 1233), letter to Tania Schucht, August 17, 1931.

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Gramsci: From Socialism to Communism 9

Here then, he uses the conceptual apparatus, and also the lexicon of idealism,
in order to express the volitional and activistic content of his vision of social-
ism. It is on this background that one needs to view one of Gramsci’s most
notable articles, which he wrote after the Bolsheviks take power. The article
bears the title La rivoluzione contro “Il Capitale” (“The Revolution Against ‘Capi-
tal’”) in “Avanti!”, December 22, 1917: the Bolsheviks did justice to the theories
of Marx, those that foresaw that socialism could only appear on the scene at
the end of a succession of historical phases that included a compulsory pas-
sage through capitalism. Now, though, my impression is that, beyond the title
(self-consciously paradoxical) this article signals the real beginning of Grams-
ci’s Marxism: the Bolsheviks did not overturn Marx, they overturned the deter-
ministic interpretation of Marx, the pretense of deducing a theory of necessary
succession of historical phases from historical materialism. This is the real be-
ginning of the relationship of Gramsci with Marx also for an immediately evi-
dent reason: the Bolsheviks declare themselves Marxists, and thus, in the mo-
ment in which Gramsci puts himself in solidarity with the Bolsheviks and fully
recognizes their political determination, he cannot avoid asking himself about
the problem of his relationship with Marx. Consequently, Gramsci progres-
sively persuades himself of the possibility of a non-naturalistic definition of
Marxism: a reading of Marxism that gives space to the function of human will.
Gramsci will understand Marxism as a philosophy that already contains the
principle of the determining function of the subject in the construction of re-
ality. The core truth of idealism – this becomes the fixed point of Gramsci’s
vision – that is the function of human will, is fully present in Marx’s theoretical
system so there is no more need for spurious grafts in order to found the poli-
tics of socialism on the principle of creative power of man.
As for the initial profile of Gramsci’s communism, one observes that, be-
yond the immediate solidarity with the revolutionary process in Russia, re-
flecting on the chains of events Gramsci persuaded himself that the “essential”
fact of the Bolshevik Revolution is the construction of a new type of State;12
therefore not only the overturning of the old ruling classes, but the construc-
tion of an “organized system of power”,13 radically different than the typical
one found in the liberal society of West: the Stato dei Consigli. Gramsci’s adher-
ence to communism is characterized by a strong underlining of the function
that the Stato dei Consigli assumes not only in Russia, but also later in the
“­Revolutions of 1919” that reiterate that aspect from the Russian example and

12 Cf. Gramsci 1919b.

13 Cf. Gramsci 1919c.

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are also being articulated in council movements. At that time – in the first
months of 1919 – Gramsci arrived at the conviction that the construction of the
Stato dei Consigli could be an equalizing factor for the revolutionary processes
in all of Europe: hence the commitment that, entering the orbit of commu-
nism, he put into the realization in Italy of that organizational model, through
the development and conversion of “commissioni interne” (internal union
commissions) into factory councils.14 It is necessary to add, though, that the
factory councils were conceived as a the cellular base of an institutional sys-
tem that should be characterized, at the same time, by a strong capacity for
control and command, by “a strong socialist State, that halts as much before
dissolution and indiscipline, giving back a concrete form to the social body,
defending the revolution from external aggressions and internal rebellions”
(Lo Stato e il socialismo, “L’Ordine nuovo”, June 28-July 5 1919). Gramsci’s new
state is at the same time Stato dei Consigli and State of Authority and Com-
mand: a State in which base units express direct participation by the masses to
organization of social activities and a State that exercises a disciplining func-
tion inside of the social body – democracy of the workers and dictatorship of
the proletariat. To the latter, Gramsci assigns a double function. On one hand
it has a repressive function – keeping counterrevolutionary forces in check,
consenting to the new dominant class to complete the revolutionary transfor-
mation; on the other hand it has a liberating function, because underneath the
protection of the dictatorship a new organization of power was consolidating
“into which the dictatorship, having accomplished its mission, will be
dissolved”.15 Authoritarianism and the exercising of force are conceived there-
fore as temporary characteristics of the new state under construction that then
must dissolve into a new system of liberty and democracy. With the assump-
tion of the theme of dictatorship, on Gramsci’s horizon enters the question of
the historical task of the minorities – of that “aristocracy of statesmen”: how he
defines the Bolshevik leadership,16 that through the exercising of state power,
interprets the will of the multitude and guides it to its maturity towards an
adequate awareness of their position and of their interests. It is from this mo-
ment that he began to consider the problem of building social consensus to-
wards the revolutionary project and the problem of the relationship between
different social groups mobilized or mobilizable in support of this project. This

14 Cf. Spriano 1971, Salvadori [1973] 2007.

15 agr: 50 (Gramsci 1918b).
16 Cf. Gramsci 1919c.

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Gramsci: From Socialism to Communism 11

is the starting point of one of the principal strands of Gramsci’s subsequent

elaboration of political theory.

Bibliography

Gramsci’s Works and Abbreviations

Gramsci, A. (1914), Neutralità attiva ed operante, in “Il Grido del popolo”, October 31.
Gramsci, A. (1916), Socialismo e cultura, in “Il Grido del popolo”, January 29.
Gramsci, A. (1917), I socialisti per la libertà doganale, in “Il Grido del popolo”,
October 20.
Gramsci, A. (1918a), Anche a Torino, in “Avanti!”, December 5.
Gramsci, A. (1918b), Utopia, in “Avanti!”, July 25.
Gramsci, A. (1919a), Vita politica internazionale [ii], in “L’Ordine nuovo”, May 15.
Gramsci, A. (1919b), Rodolfo Mondolfo: “leninismo e marxismo”, in “L’Ordine nuovo”,
May 15.
Gramsci, A. (1919c), La taglia della storia, in “L’Ordine nuovo”, June 7.
agr: Forgacs, D. (ed.) (2000), The Gramsci Reader. Selected Writings 1916–1935 (New
York: nyu Press).
fspn: Boothman, D. (ed.) (1995), Further Selections from the Prison Notebooks (Minne-
apolis: Minnesota University Press).
ppw: Bellamy, R. (ed.) (1994), Pre-Prison Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press).
Q: Gerratana, V. (ed.) (1975), Quaderni del carcere (Torino: Einaudi), 4 vols.

Other Works
Carlucci, A. (2013), Gramsci and languages: unification, diversity, hegemony (Boston,
Leiden: Brill).
d’Orsi, A. (1999), Lo studente che non divenne “dottore”. Gramsci all’università di Torino,
in “Studi Storici”, 1, pp. 39–75.
Martinelli, R. (1972), Una polemica del 1921 e l’esordio di Gramsci sull’“Avanti!” torinese, in
“Critica marxista”, 5, pp. 148–157.
Monticone, A. (1972), Gli italiani in uniforme 1915–1918. Intellettuali, borghesi e disertori
(Bari: Laterza, 1972).
Rapone, L. (2011), Cinque anni che paiono secoli. Antonio Gramsci dal socialismo al co-
munismo (1914–1919) (Roma: Carocci).
Righi, M.L. (2014), Gli esordi di Gramsci al “Grido del popolo” e all’ “Avanti!” (1915–1916), in
“Studi Storici”, 3, pp. 727–758.

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12 Rapone

Salvadori, M.L. [1973] (2007), Gramsci e il problema storico della democrazia (Roma:
Viella).
Spriano, P. (1971), L’Ordine nuovo e i consigli di fabbrica (Torino: Einaudi).
Spriano, P. (1972), Storia di Torino operaia e socialista. Da De Amicis a Gramsci (Torino:
Einaudi).

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 Chapter 2

Antonio Gramsci: the Prison Years

Angelo d’Orsi

1 Some Chronological and Methodological Clarifications

Gramsci spent time in several prisons (Regina Coeli in Rome, San Vittore in
Milan, Civitavecchia, Turi…) and in two clinics (Cusumano in Formia and Qui-
sisana in Rome). The task of reconstructing this long phase of Gramsci’s life
entails following two lines of study: (a) retelling the events in such a way that
the reconstruction serves to illuminate the psychology, choices and ideas de-
veloped by Gramsci; (b) concentrating on the ideas and putting into focus their
course while seeking to grasp elements of continuity and/or discontinuity.
During the period between his arrest and his death, there were six years
(between the spring of 1929 and the spring of 1935) of powerful theoretical
creativity starting from the moment in which he was allowed to write for a few
hours each day in his cell, keeping a limited quantity of necessary materials
(notebooks and volumes) for this allotted number of hours.
From the moment of his arrest (November, 1926) until the beginning of the
Quaderni del carcere (“Prison Notebooks”) (February 1929), Gramsci did not
remain inert: first of all, there are his letters and then there is evidence of study
that bears witness to the pedagogical-political work he developed during his
confinement in Ustica. With regard to the letters, it is immediately necessary to
specify (for me it is a reconfirmation) that they should not be understood as
private, emotional or affective, that is, the representation of Gramsci the man –
the medium through which he confided his hopes and pains, his illusions and
delusions – but as a body of work that can be considered along with the Quad-
erni del carcere (“Prison Notebooks”), providing important clues for their un-
derstanding. The Lettere dal carcere (“Letters from Prison”) help us not only to
correctly place the texts enclosed within the 33 Notebooks on the temporal
plane, but also to understand them. One must underline the fact that Grams-
ci’s letters are stuffed (almost to the point of redundancy) with bibliographic
notes, linguistic, philosophical, literary, theatrical, artistic and historical ideas
as well as historiographical indications. This implies the need for a parallel
reading of the two bodies of work, or even a blended reading that integrates
the letters with the notebooks and vice versa.

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14 d’Orsi

It is worthwhile to briefly summarize Antonio Gramsci’s life path after his

freedom was taken from him. The “prison years” need to be factually unpacked.
The expression “prison years”, at the same time both too wide-ranging and too
generic, is made up of at least four phases in which different situations are
determined:
a) first, the 15 days spent in Regina Coeli prison: the traumatic moment
immediately after his arrest. As Gramsci defined it: “the worst of my
detention”.1
b) Then, a sudden and unexpected forced trip to the island of Ustica follow-
ing a conviction with police internment. There is a certain amount of lit-
erature on this experience (testimonials, letters and even some films)
that needs to be investigated in depth for its future educational implica-
tions not only from the political but also from the social point of view in
relation to both his fellow inmates as well as the island population.
c) Then, the long period of incarceration in San Vittore from January 1927 to
May 1928 that in turn has become a recent object of investigation, but
with very conflicting results.
d) Subsequently, after a short time in Regina Coeli, the destination of the
“maxi trial” was looming for the convict in Turi – the prison par excel-
lence. Today, we have more knowledge about this time. The five years
spent at Turi, however, should be analyzed diachronically, considering
the whole period of time, since during the imprisonment there was a
worsening of the rules that regulated the inmate’s life and also because
Gramsci’s health conditions were progressively deteriorating.
e) After a couple of weeks at the infirmary of the Civitavecchia prison
Gramsci continued his recovery at the Cusumano clinic in Formia (No-
vember 1933). Initial high hopes were soon lost: while Gramsci was at the
clinic with its semi-detention conditions, he did not receive the medical
assistance that he and his family had had hoped for.
f) Finally, Gramsci was returned to Rome (August 1935), this time at the
Quisisana clinic, with a modest improvement in living conditions. This,
however, was not enough to enable the full recovery of the patient.
These scans are necessary in order to more precisely position the thoughts that
Gramsci entrusted to his notebooks. Still, philology and chronology must not
take the upper hand as it could lead to a shattering of the Quaderni del carcere
(“Prison Notebooks”). Even in their improvised and fragmentary form, the
Quaderni del carcere still constitute “a work” in a certain way. The same neces-
sary attention paid to the timeline – not only should stop us in front of the

1 Gramsci 1994a: 45, Gramsci to Tatiana, December 19th, 1926 (LC: 17; LT: 13; LC2: 14).

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Antonio Gramsci: The Prison Years 15

impossibility, no matter how many efforts are made, of dating every single note
of the 33 Notebooks – and should oblige us also to notice that in Gramsci’s
process emerges a desire to overcome or at least to limit the fragmentary na-
ture of the works (even though the thoughts are written in a dialogue format).
Thus, in a certain sense, the work is “fragmentary”. Otherwise, why at a certain
point did he feel the need to rewrite, to return to texts already written and even
to sketch essays (in the “special notebooks”)? In short, what is evident is his
will to go beyond the fragment and to give, with the passing of months and
years, a more systematic and organized character to his own reflection.
There is a nexus between the logistical situation (the physical and psycho-
logical condition) of the prisoner and his intellectual work. A serious parallel-
ism can be established between the degradation of the physical (the sickening
body) and theoretical elaboration, reflection and self-reflection, on his person-
al, private, emotional affairs; even the writer’s style is affected and this should
be subject to a more reasoned assessment. In general, however, the elaboration
of Gramsci’s thought is very strongly conditioned by the concrete situation in
which he finds himself living: the constriction, both physical and mental, that
he is subjected to by force; the acknowledgment of the blocked political situa-
tion and the observation of the historical course that does not adhere to the
vision held before his loss of freedom. Above all, the perception of defeat – the
central idea, the common thread of Gramsci’s thinking and feeling after No-
vember 8th, 1926 – is the fundamental evidence that the course of time led to
a rethinking of his own theories: a dialectic between continuity and disconti-
nuity which must be followed with maximum attention. Another dialectic, this
time human, must also be taken into account. Between serenity and prostra-
tion, between the desire to fight and the desire to abandon oneself, “like a peb-
ble in the current”. On November 20th, a few days after his arrest, he wrote to
his mother:

I am tranquil and serene. Morally I was prepared for everything. Physi-

cally too I will try to overcome the difficulties that may await me and to
keep my balance. You know my character and you know that at the bot-
tom of it there is always a quantum of cheerful humor: this will help me
live.2

That bit of humor, over the years, before the elimination of every possibility of
returning to freedom, would lessen into a gradually more tired dialectic, be-
tween the “principle of hope” and the “principle of desperation”.

2 Gramsci 1994a: 37, Gramsci to his mother, November 20th, 1926, (LC: 7; LC2: 6).

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16 d’Orsi

2 From Regina Coeli to San Vittore

A clear reconstruction of every detail of Gramsci’s arrest is, to date, almost

impossible, as is the dismissed hypothesis of a conspiracy within the Party to
lure its leader into the fascist trap. We know that the quarrel amongst scholars
is still ongoing (and not without bitterness) on the subsequent events after the
brief interlude at Ustica when Gramsci, leaving behind the anguishing discov-
ery of prison life in its most crude and brutal aspects at Regina Coeli, found a
form of freedom for a month and half. Freedom from dawn to dusk, in the
small enclosure of the island with strong limitation placed on his contact with
the islanders, but it was still the immense joy of being able to enjoy the open
air, seasoned with an even greater kind of pleasure: finding himself among
comrades, not only communists, but also socialists, and other militants of the
proletarian and anti-fascist movements. In Ustica, above all in tandem with
Amadeo Bordiga (the fellow-adversary inside the Communist Party) with
whom he shared his accommodation, Gramsci could apply his pedagogical in-
clinations, both with the “courses” he started in two disciplines (humanities
and sciences), and with the basic work done together with his prison compan-
ions who were in need of literacy.3
In those 44 days he changed his legal status: from confined inmate he be-
came a defendant in a series of serious crimes, for which a preliminary investi-
gation and a criminal proceeding were planned. He had reached Milan, in “or-
dinary translation”, where he was confined to the prison of San Vittore. The
long and arduous journey from Ustica to Milan (19 days), was described by
Gramsci in a famous letter, in which as well as showing his skill in writing nar-
rative, he demonstrates a noteworthy capacity for anthropologic observation,
but reveals also, almost flauntingly, his own capacity for endurance which at
the time (January 1927) was still robust. Telling his sister-in-law Tania about
that traumatizing experience, he was able to talk about it with the calm irony
of a wise old sage:

In general, the trip has been for me a very long cinematic event: I’ve come
to know and I’ve seen an infinity of types, from the most vulgar and re-
pugnant to the oddest replete with interesting traits. I’ve understood how
difficult is to know the true nature of men from outward signs.4

3 There are no specific studies on Gramsci’s stay in Ustica. Cf. the two interviews of islanders
(Stochino 2016) and a recent film documentary titled Gramsci 44, by Emiliano Barbucci
(2016).
4 Gramsci 1994a: 70, Gramsci to Tatiana and Giulia, February 12, 1927 (LT: 44)

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Antonio Gramsci: The Prison Years 17

He remained at San Vittore for almost a year and a half, a period during
which the judge, Enrico Macis was able, with subtle cunning, to make the ac-
cused into a sort of victim-accomplice: to render him, to a certain extent, to be
a collaborator in his own ruin.5 Macis’ lies did not only serve to worsen Grams-
ci’s legal position, but also caused doubts and suspicions to grow in his mind,
especially towards the Party, even though he was still leader. With the passing
of the years and the worsening of his physical and mental health, these doubts
and suspicions, would not have only not disappeared but would have flour-
ished, because of a syndrome provoked by the sensation of affective solitude,
isolation from the world and his tormented relationship with Giulia. Gramsci
died without having found out about the truth about his arrest, the failed ne-
gotiations for his release, and the heavy sentence that weighed him down until
the end of his life.
The case revolved around a letter that another important leader, Ruggero
Grieco, had addressed to Gramsci, but also, some nearly exact copies sent to
two other detained companions: Terracini and Scoccimarro.6 Rivers of ink
have been spilled on the subject of these letters, by the pressure of political and
journalistic controversy more than the desire for an accurate i­nterpretation –
sine ira et studio.7 Even if the hypothesis that it was a fake case constructed
ad hoc by the police is true – excluding the idea that Grieco was a spy of the
regime (excluding the fact that he wanted to harm his imprisoned partner) –
what remains is only to interpret it as a gesture of thoughtlessness with the
possible consequences not having being well calculated. Grieco probably had
aimed to probe the capacity of repressive apparatuses while still showing af-
fection and closeness to Gramsci and to the other two captive leaders. It was
the judge who imprinted an unwanted meaning on that letter and it actually
did not have that meaning in trial (according to the fact that the document was
not used in the court arguments). Falling into Macis’ trap, that letter became a
torment for Gramsci that accompanied him to his death, in the fear of having
been abandoned, if not betrayed by his Party outright, or at least by some-
one who made sure that he remained in prison. This someone, in Gramsci’s
mind, could have only been Togliatti, after the bitter exchange in the letter of
October 1926 (regarding the struggle within the Russian Communist Party) and
the consequent rupture of relations between the two. In reality, thanks to the
special role of Piero Sraffa, the link between Gramsci and the Party, including

5 Cf. Giacomini 2017, conflicting with the interpretation of Fabre 2015.

6 Other than Giacomini 2017 cf. also Vacca 2012; d’Orsi 2018.
7 For the controversy surrounding the letter and other inherent questions on the arrest and
imprisonment of Gramsci, refer to the d’Orsi 2014.

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18 d’Orsi

Togliatti, did not ever completely break, even if it sometimes unravelled to the
point of rupture.
At the San Vittore prison, Gramsci carried the burden of several accusations
that slowly worsened into a situation where he started to suffer ­abandonment –
by the Party, even after failed attempts for his liberation, and from Giulia –
­revealing his own weakness, and at the same time, his own strength. The dia-
lectic between these strengths and weaknesses would be the common thread
of Gramsci’s detention.
Not yet being a condemned inmate, but an inmate waiting for judgement,
Gramsci had the possibility to write even to people outside of his family circle.
The letter to Giuseppe Berti, his communist comrade, in which after having
declared that he could not work and that his condition was not “worse than it
was in the past years” and feigning tranquility: “I read a lot, but in a disorderly
way”, he added: “I possess a fairly happy capacity to find some interesting side
even in the most modest intellectual production, such as serial novels, for ex-
ample”. We are at the beginning of the theory, later put into focus, of the
“­national-popular”. In the same letter, he undertook a fast and efficient review
of Nello Rosselli’s book, Mazzini e Bakunin, proffering opinions of great inter-
est. As a political leader, he gave method lessons to young historians: “I do not
know Rosselli personally, but I would like to tell him that I do not understand
the acrid bitterness he puts in his book of history”. And then Gramsci descends
into the details of his analysis, arriving at the conclusion that with an apology
of “historical criticism”, and an invitation to liberate oneself from certain dia-
tribes of the past, perhaps even led by a mistaken point of view such as the one
Rosselli ends up adhering to: namely a use of Mazzini against Garibaldi…, but
generously acknowledging that the book “really fills a gap”.8 In this first period
he still did not renounce his role as a studious professor even when he fully felt
like a militant politician.
At San Vittore prison, Gramsci started to toughen himself, adopting rules for
survival: “If one wishes to remain strong and keep intact one’s power of resis-
tance one must subject oneself to a regime and follow it with an iron will”.9 He
found the force to tidy his cell, transforming it a small way into his “home”. He
gardened, planting seedlings, he raised animals such as sparrows, and he be-
came an attentive observer of their habits.10 At the same time, he made use
of  the prison’s library and bought newspapers and weekly magazines at the

8 Gramsci 1994a: 128, Gramsci to G. Berti, August 8, 1927 (LC2: 103).

9 Gramsci 1994a: 137, Gramsci to Tatiana, September 12, 1927 (LC: 122; LC2: 115; LT: 135).
10 Cf. Gramsci 1994a: 125–126, Gramsci to Tatiana, August 8, 1927 (LC: 108–110; LC2: 100–102;
LT: 125–127).

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Antonio Gramsci: The Prison Years 19

i­n-house reseller. He wanted to be involved the outside world, despite having

been relegated to its margins, and intended to follow the events of men, books
and countries.
Not having received permission to use paper and pen in his cell (except for
his two weekly letters) Gramsci resorted to the strategy (that he must have
thought up at the Turi prison) of inserting short book reviews, sketches of au-
thors, and references to historical and philosophical analyses into his personal
letters. Tatiana was the privileged recipient of these letters, who even with her
limitations, tried at least to be an attentive listener, not possessing the ability
to be a real interlocutor. The letters were a sort of anticipation of the Quaderni
del carcere (“Prison Notebooks”). In one letter, the prisoner made an account of
his typical day, punctuated by the prison timetable: besides the obligatory
morning stroll and meals, his time was spent reading, studying, meditating,
especially when at seven-thirty in the evening, the prisoners were forced to go
to their beds. This was the moment when Antonio reflected on his day, on the
time spent in prison, on his future prospects, on his wife Giulia and his chil-
dren and, most likely, on the political situation.
Waiting to finally write in his cell, he made work programs, which corre-
sponded on the one hand to an existential need, on the other to an intellectual
need:

I am obsessed […] by this idea: that I should do something für ewig […].
In short, in keeping with a preestablished program, I would like to con-
centrate intensely and systematically on some subject that would ab-
sorb and provide a center to my inner life. Up until now I’ve thought of
four subject […] and they are: (1) a study of the formation of the public
spirit in Italy during the past century […]. (2) A study of comparative
linguistics! Nothing less; but what could be more “disinterested” and für
ewig than this? […] (3) A study of Pirandello’s theatre and of the trans-
formation of Italian theatrical taste that Pirandello represented and
helped to form. […] (4) An essay on the serial novel and popular taste in
literature.11

This first program contained, in a nutshell, a part of the drama of the Quaderni
del carcere (“Prison Notebooks”). The “für ewig”, besides its translation (“forev-
er” or “disinterestedly”, such as was specified in another letter),12 should not be

11 Gramsci 1994a: 83–84, Gramsci to Tatiana, March 19, 1927 (LC: 60–66; LC2: 54–58; LT:
60–63).
12 Gramsci 1994b: 155–157, Gramsci to Giulia, March 28, 1932 (LC: 597–599; LC2: 552–554).

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20 d’Orsi

understood as a disengagement, but rather as a departure from the immediacy

of the struggle with politics, overcoming the journalistic polemic and a reposi-
tioning in (not succombing to) study. Gramsci took note of the situation in
which he found himself, and with the für ewig he seemed to announce the will
to resort to his own moral qualities, reasoning and writing with a spirt that was
“separated from contingent reality and from the political phenomena in
action”.13 The concept also seemed to indicated a double-sided will; the resil-
ience in the prison, more that the resistance to the prison; the determination to
go beyond the suffering, concentrating on his efforts, even in the absence of
interlocutors (that which he declared he always needed), without renouncing
the dimension of dialogue, that is the very form of Gramscian thought.

3 The Notebooks and the Letters: from Turi to Formia

Dubbed the “big trial”, with a conviction of more than twenty years, arriving at
Turi Gramsci is now an inmate with a definitive sentence, needing to strength-
en his determination in order to keep working and to survive: something that
was granted to him only in February of 1929. The already severe prison rules
became even more rigid with time, in a paradoxical parallelism with the wors-
ening state of the Gramsci’s health.
In such an uncomfortable situation, Tatiana’s proximity was providential
even if the pressures of his sister-in-law were often excessive and even wrong,
provoking contrariness in Antonio. The conclusion was always the same: who
is outside cannot understand what it means to be in prison. Giulia, his wife,
seemed to understand this least of all. Tatiana, on her part, does not only ap-
pear as an Antigone fighting against the tyrannical power that is killing Anto-
nio (she is not only the one who tries to give him the strength to go on, but she
is also a woman in love) and in a certain sense, reciprocated by the man who
continues to reject the attitudes of those who are trying to give him comfort:
“I  am not an afflicted person who must be consoled; I shall never become
one”.14 The man who continues to say that he has become insensitive: “in two
years”, he wrote in October 1928, “I have lost almost all of my sensitivity” and
“the conviction of not being understood, to the limits within I am obliged to
write, pushes me lower and lower into a state of passive and blissful indiffer-
ence, from which I can not get away”. A bitter paradox for one who a decade

13 Suppa 2016: 99.

14 Gramsci 1994a: 103–107, Gramsci to Tatiana, April 25, 1927 (LC: 82–85; LC2: 77–81; LT:
95–99).

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Antonio Gramsci: The Prison Years 21

before shouted his hatred of indifferent people. The conclusion was dramatic:
“I feel that I am sinking deeper and deeper”.15
In spite of this, he started work in February – first with translation exercises
(having important implications for content) introducing us to the grandiose
construction of the Quaderni del carcere (“Prison Notebooks”). Laid out roughly
following the plan enunciated in 1927, then re-worked two years later,16 but en-
larged according to different guidelines, between theatrical and literary criti-
cism, history and historiography, philosophy and political science, economics
and human and social sciences. A type of construction site that initially ap-
pears, for what one can reconstruct chronologically, really in progress, passing
from more impromptu and provisional notes to an attempt at organic organiza-
tion, within possible limits given the situation (lack of sources, censorship, con-
stant aggravation of his health, progressive psychological prostration…). The
letters are a snapshot of all this, but they are also a valuable tool for entering
Gramsci’s workshop and better understanding the innumerable implications.
In addition to the translation exercises, the drafting of the first notes of the
Prison Notebooks, between 1929 and 1931 coincide with the “turning point” in
the Comintern: the expulsion of Gramsci’s friend Tasca by the Italian Com-
munist Party and the expulsion of Trotsky from the Soviet Party – a moment
of serious crisis within the international communist movement. It was an op-
portunity for Gramsci to rethink history and the problems of the community
he feels a part of, with the distance of no longer being a political actor. He
continues to think politically, even when the method is historical, and the
disciplines that he practices are more varied. The Prison Notebooks propose
a progressive emergence of concepts that Gramsci extracts, like Machiavelli
(not by chance one his favorite authors) both from direct experience and from
study. A work strongly steeped in history, in truth it transcends history and
proposes an extraordinary repertoire of ideas in the working out of its themes.
Hence the importance of dating, but without yielding philological exaspera-
tion (a very strong risk today in Gramscian studies), the different notes from
the Prison Notebooks, taking into account that they have a sort of “reticular
structure” in which the author proceeds with “spiral writing”. Gramsci seems
to want to put order, changing topic and at the same time changing note-
book. This confirms the difference between the “miscellaneous” notebooks
and the “special” notebooks, that is, monographic, in which there is a strategy
of content ­characterization at the start of a new notebook. It is necessary to

15 Gramsci 1994a: 228–230, Gramsci to Tatiana, October 20, 1928 (LC2: 217–219; LT:
269–271).
16 Cf. Gramsci 1994a: 252, Gramsci to Giulia, March 11, 1929 (LC: 262; LC2: 244).

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22 d’Orsi

recognize Gramsci’s rules. With that in mind one can try to enter the labora-
tory of the 33 Quaderni del carcere (“Prison Notebooks”), giving priority not
to the mere chronology, but to the choice to reconstruct the lattice of themes
brought into focus by Gramsci, who proceeds by reviewing the texts of the
first draft (the “miscellaneous notebooks”), then adding and specifying and
sometimes introducing changes into his work.17
Fragmentation of the draft (partly unavoidable, partly determined by
choice, and thus the reference to “fragmentism”, which corresponds to the dia-
logic will of the author) and, often, allusive writing (for fear of censorship and
subject to self-censorship), do not prevent a result that, in the serious limits of
the given situation, can be permissibly considered “a work”. And despite the für
ewig, the fundamental intent of the Prison Notebooks is political: a painful
meditation on the defeat of the Party, the international movement to which it
belongs, and on personal defeat – both as a manager and as a militant. To this
is added the growing feeling of being vanquished as a man, husband and fa-
ther: “understanding the reasons for the defeat was for him […] the only way to
continue the work of the revolution”; not just because he could not have done
anything else while being in jail, but also because “from Marx he had learned
that this is the only attitude of the revolutionary who does not resign himself
to the subordinate part of the martyr”. The militiaman had to become a man of
science, without losing his militant spirit or renouncing the ultimate goal: the
liberation of the oppressed classes.18 We come across the term “defeat” 44
times in the Prison Notebooks, referring to historical situations, political events
and the events of individuals. As he said several times, he was prepared for the
eventuality: “since defeat in the struggle must always be envisaged, the prepa-
ration of one’s own successors is as important is as what one does for victory”.19
Some pages are obviously more political, even in encrypted form; others are
a mediated discussion that favors a historical approach while also being atten-
tive to the languages ​​of the humanities and social sciences. The notes dedi-
cated to the history of Italy are substantiated by politics, in which there is a
constant cross-reference between past and present. Gramsci searches for the
causes of defeat, but that means reflecting on the victors, i.e. the forces (Fas-
cism) that beat the international proletarian movement, but also American-
ism: in essence, the two faces of capitalism. Gramsci has an incredible ability
to penetrate that world with analysis that, for many, seems to anticipate the
analysis of the exponents of the “Frankfurt School”. In relation to the crisis of

17 Cf. Francioni 2009, 1984.

18 Gerratana 1997: 55.
19 spn: 153 (Q 14, § 70: 1734).

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Antonio Gramsci: The Prison Years 23

1929, a Gramscian reading challenges the stolid certainties of the Comintern

and reverses the interpretation that sees the advent of communism within
reach – with the certain and imminent collapse of capitalism. In any case,
Gramsci sees a necessary phase of transition with the recovery of democracy.
This is the meaning of the proposal of the “Costituente”: a group of anti-fascist
forces with a common orientation – a proposal which, in that historical-­
political climate, aroused strong opposition within the Party, creating difficul-
ties for Gramsci in his relations with his prison companions. It was not a ques-
tion of abandoning the socialist perspective or renouncing the option for
radical change: Gramsci draws a different profile of the revolution, using the
East-West (“Oriente”/“Occidente”) opposition as a comparison, categories that
are not merely geographical but economic, social, ideological and political. In
the West, the revolution can no longer correspond to the Bolshevik model: the
frontal assault on the Tsar’s Palace. More than an act, it must be built as a
­process to replace the bourgeois hegemony and domination with that of the
proletariat, working essentially in the fields of culture, thanks to the “organic”
intellectuals of the working class, the exploited class and the oppressed: a class
that can become dominant only if it is able to be hegemonic. Hence the impor-
tance of having one’s own intellectuals, whose task is precisely that of helping
the working class attain hegemony. Over time, Gramsci was beginning to see
the transformation of this class, while he started talking about “subalterns” in-
stead of “proletarians” or “working class”: one of the great innovations of his
intellectual work in prison, – alongside the concept of hegemony – seems to be
among the main explanations of today’s wealth of Gramscian thought, more
adequate than that of other great thinkers of the transformation of the social
and cultural characteristics of our time. But in the Gramscian reservoir, be-
tween 1929 and 1935, with a massive historical reconstruction, and a punctual,
although not always consistent theoretical treatment, came to be set down a
whole series of strong concepts: from passive revolution to hegemony, from
national-popular to subaltern groups, from historical bloc to Caesarism, and so
on – a reservoir on which today many disciplines draw on. Philosophy, histori-
ography, sociology, anthropology, political science, literary and theatrical criti-
cism, pedagogy and several social sciences are the varied landscape in which
the work of Gramsci is located. From Turi to Formia, meanwhile, however, the
inexorable degradation of his physical condition as well as his mental state
took its toll.
The transfer to Formia, in the first of the two clinics that admitted Grams-
ci, his condition was in some ways even worse than when he was in prison.
Having obtained semi-detention, in the establishment directed by Dr. Cu-
sumano, he was subjected to even more intense police control than in prison.

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24 d’Orsi

In theory, he could receive whom he wanted, had the possibility of going out,
moving away from the hospital perimeter, but the invasive police control
combined with his constantly worsening physical condition soon discour-
aged him. Probably, towards the end of the stay in Formia, at the height of
1935, Gramsci started to give up. The temptation to “disappear like a stone in
the ocean”,20 seems to prevail, from time to time coming to the fore, and this
explains the end of the drafting of the Quaderni (“Notebooks”), and the thin-
ning out of the letters; and lastly it explains the increasingly bitter the tone
and the progressive emergence of a sentiment that he rejected in the past,
self-pity: “this hell in which I am slowly dying”.21 He wrote in this way in 1933,
months after the serious crisis that had struck him in March. From this point,
though still managing to hold the pen in his hand, the following years were
an ordeal. His last notes are from May 1935. During this period, he only wrote
occasional letters to his family (with an increase of those to his children),
while the relationship with his wife worsened, even though he continued in
vain to urge her return to Italy. The transition to another clinic, the Quisisana
of Rome, did not have the desired effects. His body was too worn out; the
spirit had suffered too much. The period in Rome was inactive, in essence,
while his fears, anxieties and sense of failure increased, and Giulia’s expecta-
tion became self-deception.
Death arrived on April 27, 1937 and freed Gramsci from everything. As soon
as he heard the news, Piero Sraffa was right to say, that it was “a disgrace with-
out equal”22 – not only for his friends and companions and for the story of
world communism, but for the history of international culture.

Bibliography

Gramsci’s Works and Abbreviations

Gramsci, A. (1994a), Letters from Prison, Rosengarten, F. (ed.), vol. 1 (New York: Colum-
bia University Press).
Gramsci, A. (1994b), Letters from Prison, Rosengarten, F. (ed.), vol. 2 (New York: Colum-
bia University Press).
LC: Caprioglio, S., Fubini, E. (eds.) (1965), Lettere dal carcere (Torino: Einaudi).
LC2: Santucci, A. (ed.) (1996), Lettere dal carcere. 1926–1937 (Palermo: Sellerio).

20 Gramsci 1994b: 5, Gramsci to Giulia, January 13, 1931 (LC: 398; LC2: 387).
21 Gramsci 1994b: 308, Gramsci to Tania, July 6, 1933 (LC: 798; LT: 1320; LC2: 727).
22 Sraffa 1991: 180, Sraffa to Tatiana, April 27, 1937.

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Antonio Gramsci: The Prison Years 25

LT: Natoli, A., Daniele, C. (eds.) (1997), A. Gramsci, T. Schucht, Lettere. 1926–1935 (Tori-
no: Einaudi).
Q: Gerratana, V. (ed.) (1975), Quaderni del carcere (Torino: Einaudi), 4 vols.
spn: Hoare, Q., Nowell-Smith, G. (eds.) (1971), Selection from the Prison Notebooks (New
York: International Publishers).

Other Works
d’Orsi, A. (ed.) (2014), Inchiesta su Gramsci. Quaderni scomparsi, abiure, conversioni,
tradimenti: leggende o verità? (Torino: Accademia University Press).
d’Orsi, A. (2018), Gramsci. Una nuova biografia. Nuova edizione rivista e accresciuta (Mi-
lano: Feltrinelli).
Fabre, G. (2015), Lo scambio. Come Gramsci non fu liberato (Palermo: Sellerio).
Francioni, G. (1984), L’officina gramsciana. Ipotesi sulla struttura dei Quaderni del car-
cere (Napoli: Bibliopolis).
Francioni, G. (2009), Come lavorava Gramsci, in Francioni, G. (ed.), Quaderni del car-
cere. Edizione anastatica dei manoscritti (Roma-Cagliari: Biblioteca Treccani-
L’Unione Sarda).
Gerratana, V. (1997), Gramsci. Problemi di metodo (Roma: Editori Riuniti).
Giacomini, R. (2017), Gramsci e il giudice (Roma: Castelvecchi).
Sraffa, P. (1991), Lettere a Tania per Gramsci, Introduzione e cura di V. Gerratana (Roma:
Editori Riuniti).
Stochino, G. (2016), Gramsci al confino di Ustica: Due interviste raccolte da Giulia Sto-
chino, in “Gramsciana”, 3, pp. 151–167.
Suppa, S. (2016), Ordine e conflitto. Una trama per rileggere Gramsci (Torino:
Giappichelli).
Vacca, G. (2012), Vita e pensieri di Gramsci. 1926–1937 (Torino: Einaudi).

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 Part 2
Theories of History

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 Chapter 3

The Crisis of European Civilization in the Thought

of Antonio Gramsci

Giuseppe Vacca

The First World War influenced the whole development of Gramsci’s thought.
For him, the war was the culminating manifestation of a crisis in European
civilization that had been building since 1870. What distinguishes Gramsci
from other important thinkers of his time is not just his capacity to identify the
causes of Old Europe’s decline, but his ability to intuit the features of the na-
scent “New World”.
In describing the “world of yesterday” submerged by the war, Gramsci em-
phasizes the breakdown of the world market – something which to him seems
“irremediable”:
The war – he writes in “L’Ordine Nuovo” (The New Order) on November 8th,
1919 – has irretrievably broken the worldwide equilibrium of capitalistic pro-
duction. Before the war, a dense network of trade relations had been estab-
lished in the world. Economically speaking, the world had become like a living
organism with blood coursing through its veins. The capitalists had accom-
plished a huge amount: for decades, millions of individuals driven by the de-
sire for personal profit had worked in the world seeking relationships, foster-
ing them in order to sustain a healthy variety of venous and arterial blood
vessels (so to speak), through which the life of the world circulated with the
pulses of a multiplicity of “hearts”: the various large markets of production and
consumption.1
This grandiose process, triggered by the vocation of capitalist production to
unify the world, had happened “spontaneously” thanks to the economic ener-
gy of capitalism. The aim indicated by Gramsci in the Quaderni del carcere
(“Prison Notebooks”) was that of contributing to consciously creating the “con-
ditions of an economy according to a worldwide plan”. Along the way, his diag-
nosis of the crisis unfolds – leading from the analysis in real time of the war to
his personal reflections found in the Quaderni del carcere. The war had not
only destroyed the old checks and balances and the old civilization, it had also

1 Gramsci 1987: 303–304.

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30 Vacca

established a new world order: a hierarchy of power that immediately after the
peace of Versailles he considers “catastrophic”:

The myth of war – the unity of the world in the League of Nations – was
realized in ways and in the form that could be achieved under private and
national property: in the monopoly of the globe exercised and exploited
by the Anglo-Saxons. The economic and political life of the states is
strictly controlled by Anglo-American capitalism […]. It is the death of
the state, which is, as it is sovereign and independent. National capital-
ism is reduced to the condition of a vassal […]. The national state is dead:
becoming a sphere of influence, a monopoly in the hands of foreigners.
The world is “unified” in the sense that a world hierarchy has been creat-
ed that the whole world regulates and controls authoritatively.2

These blazing insights springing from the war will, ten years later, coalesce into
a true and proper theory of crises enunciated in a long note from February
1933,3 specifically dedicated to the global economic crises of 1929–1932. Grams-
ci asks himself: “When did the crisis begin?” And he responds: “since this is a
development and not an event, the issue is important. One can say that there
is not beginning date for the crisis as such, but only of some more clamorous
“manifestations” that are erroneously and tendentiously identified with the
crisis”. It is very significant that between the “tendentious” interpretations, he
points out those which isolate the crash of the New York Stock Exchange, since
they come from those that “want to find the origin and the cause of the crisis”
in “Americanism”. But we will return to this later. Here, it is worthwhile to dwell
on the connection between the (economic) crisis and the war:

All of the postwar period was a crisis, with attempts to prevent it, some-
times turning into good fortune in this or that country, but nothing else.
For some (and perhaps not wrongly) the war itself was a manifestation of
this crisis, indeed the first manifestation. The war was precisely the politi-
cal and organizational response of those responsible for it.

This way of analyzing the crisis does not separate economic processes from the
social antagonisms and political changes. The correlation between the crisis
and war and the consideration of both as more “complicated” “manifestations”
of historical processes linking the internal life of states to their position in

2 Gramsci 1987: 20.

3 fspn: 219–220 (Q 15, § 5: 1755–1756).

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i­ nternational relations. Analyzing the first point, Gramsci reaches a more pre-
cise periodization of the crisis, giving emphasis to “issues” that had been ac-
cumulating inside of states starting from 1870. In June 1933, he wrote: “Every-
body recognizes that the war of 1914–1918 represents an historical break, in the
sense that a whole series of questions which piled up individually before 1914
have precisely formed a ‘mound’, modifying the general structure of the previ-
ous process”. Gramsci enumerated these “questions” one by one, systematically
categorizing them as a “trade-union phenomenon”, and between them he un-
derlines the birth of the socialist movement, after which the progressive en-
trance of the subaltern classes into the life of the state had become a decisive
question.4 Returning then to the chain of events between the origin of the cri-
sis and that of the war, Gramsci’s annotation of February 1933 reaches a com-
plete formulation of the theory of these crises: the war, as much as the crisis,
had arisen from the “contradiction” between the cosmopolitanism of the econ-
omy and the “nationalism” of politics, intensifying during the “age of empires”
and culminating in the war:

One of the fundamental contradictions is this: that whereas economic

life has internationalism, or better still cosmopolitanism, as a necessary
premiss, state life has developed ever more in the direction of “national-
ism”, of “self-sufficiency” and so on. One of the most apparent features of
the “present crisis” is nothing other than the intensification of the nation-
alistic element (nationalistic state element) in the economy: quota sys-
tems, clearings, trading currency restrictions, balanced trading between
two single states etc.5

Clearly, Gramsci does not predict a necessarily “catastrophic” outcome for the
crisis6 and this constitutes its distinctive trait in the communism of the 1930s
(and not only). Above all, he indicates a way out with the condition that the
ruling class knows how to remove this asymmetry, creating new balances be-
tween the “space” of the economy and that of politics. Nevertheless, the ruling
classes are prevalently molded by national politics, and thus the leaders
are principally responsible for the war and economic crisis and are rendered

4 Cf. spn: 106 (Q 15, § 59: 1824).

5 fspn: 220 (Q 15, § 5: 1756).
6 “We might, then, say – and this would be more exact – that the ‘crisis’ is none other than the
quantitative intensification of certain elements, neither new nor original, but in particular
the intensification of certain phenomena, while others that were there before and operated
simultaneously with the first, sterilizing them, have now became inoperative or have com-
pletely disappeared” (ibid.)

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i­ ncreasingly more inept by the way in which the war and crisis impact the big-
gest creation of European modernity: the nation state. We must therefore look
at the way in which Gramsci comes back to the theme of the crisis of the state
in the Prison Notebooks.
The lexicon changes: he no longer speaks of “death” as he did in the 1920s,
but of the “crisis” of the State and he does not only inflect it in relation to the
exercise of sovereignty. Certainly, he is very attentive to new limitations of the
sovereignty of State that he considers particularly negative, such as in the case
of the Concordat,7 but he does not recognize the strength of the State in the
exercise of a (presumptuous) absolute territorial sovereignty, but rather in the
capacity to open up to supranationality.
Before analyzing the solutions, it is worthwhile pondering the vision of the
crisis of the State. Differently than the period immediately postwar when, as
we have seen, the “death of the State” was attributed to prevalently exogenous
factors, in the 1930s the emphasis falls on the “crisis of authority” of the tradi-
tional ruling classes, made even more serious by the incapacity of the subal-
tern classes to indicate a way out. In a note dating from December 1930, Grams-
ci calls attention to the changed behavior of important European intellectuals
before the nascent society of the masses. He affirms: “Today, a phenomenon
similar to that of the separation between the ‘spiritual’ and ‘temporal’ in the
Middle Ages has occurred in the modern world: a much more complex
­phenomenon – he adds – than that of the past, more complex than modern
life”. This has, as a consequence, the loss of a fundamental contribution to the
development of hegemony, as much as for the ruling classes as for the subal-
tern classes:

regressive and conservative social groupings are shrinking back more and
more to their initial economic-corporative phase, while progressive and
innovative groupings are still in their initial phase – which is, precisely,
the economic-corporative phase. The traditional intellectuals are detach-
ing themselves from the social grouping to which they have hitherto giv-
en the highest, most comprehensive form and hence the most extensive
and complete consciousness of the modern state. Their detachment is in
fact an act of incalculable historical significance; they are signaling and
sanctioning the crisis of the state in its decisive form.8

7 Cf. fspn: 60–70 (Q 16, § 11: 1865–1874).

8 PN3: 8–9 (Q 6, § 10: 690–691).

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The Crisis of European Civilization 33

The shot is aimed at Benedetto Croce, who in his speech given at the World
Congress of Philosophy at Oxford, had denounced “a certain weakening and
mental fading” caused by the war, heaping everything in to the same bundle:
futurism and neoclassicism, imperialism and nationalism, “Marxist socialism,
statism which heralds itself as ‘ethical’, the revival of the Catholic and clerical”
(the reference is to the Concordat).9 Gramsci urges: “Today, the ‘spiritual’ that
is detaching itself from the ‘temporal’ and setting itself apart is something dis-
organic, decentered, an unstable scattering of great cultural personalities,
‘without a Pope’ and without territory”.10
Croce, appeared to Gramsci to be moved by the intention of drawing up the
“political manifesto for an international union of the great intellectuals of all
countries, especially the Europeans”, and he intuited “that this might become
an important party and play a significant role”;11 thus, in the Quaderno 10
(“Notebook 10”) he defines Croce as the most effective “ideologist” of a “passive
revolution” aimed at stopping the rise of the popular classes in Europe.12 The
crisis of European civilization is summarized then by the “disintegration of the
modern State”, that placed on the historical-political field, could give rise to
different solutions, provided that old and new “social groupings” know how to
lay the base of a new civilization. These can emerge from the dialectic between
Europe and America that Gramsci considers very differently from ten years
before, from the creation of a “European union” and lastly from a new direction
of the international communist movement.
The rejection of anti-Americanism is widespread in the Prison Notebooks,
where Gramsci judges Taylorism and Fordism as the vehicles of a more ad-
vanced industrial capitalism than that of Europe – more democratic and above
all destined to accelerate the creation of “planned economy”.13 Arguing with
Luigi Pirandello, who had judged the spreading of “Americanism” as dissonant
against European custom “like the make-up on the face of an old prostitute”,
Gramsci asks himself

whether America, through the implacable weight of its economic pro-

duction (and therefore indirectly), will compel or is already compelling
Europe to overturn its excessively antiquated economic and social basis.

9 Gramsci was looking at the published text in the dossier of “La Critica” from November 20,
1930 with the title Antistoricismo (401–409).
10 PN3: 9 (Q 6, § 10: 691).
11 PN3: 8 (Q 6, § 10: 690).
12 Cf. spn: 118–120 (Q 10, § 9: 1227–1229). On the concept of passive revolution cf. Vacca 2017:
chapter ii.
13 spn: 279–280 (Q 22, § 1: 2139–2140).

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This would have happened anyway, though only slowly. In the immediate
perspective it is presented as a repercussion of American super-power. In
other words, whether we are undergoing a transformation of the material
bases of European civilization, which in the long run (though not all that
long, since in the contemporary period everything happens much faster
than in the pas ages) will bring about the overthrow of the existing forms
of civilization and the forced birth of a new.14

Naturally, the prediction does not represent a proclamation in favor of the

“Americanization” of Europe since Gramsci judges American civilization as
primitive and basic (“hegemony is born in the factory”, the “corporate-­
economic” prevails upon the “political-ethical”, in the development of hege-
mony intellectual groups in America have a residual or subaltern role). In fact,
Gramsci writes,

it is not from the social groups “condemned” by the new order that recon-
struction is to be expected, but from those on whom is imposed the bur-
den of creating with their own suffering the material bases of the new
order. It is they who “must” find for themselves an “original”, and not
Americanised, system of living to turn into “freedom” what today is
“necessity”.15

These statements take us back to the way in which Gramsci rethinks the future
prospects of Communism, once the myth of “worldwide revolution” fades.16 In
concrete terms, he advocates the reorientation of international communism
based on a realistic forecast of the possibilities that, driven by the unification
of the world, can prevail over the “crisis”. In this way he hopes for a “national-
ization” of the communist parties with the aim of contributing to the recon-
struction of a new world unity.17 Gramsci’s prediction is that the unification of

14 spn: 317 (Q 22, § 15: 2178–2179). Gramsci commented on the Pirandello text in an inter-
view with Corrado Alvaro published in “L’Italia letteraria”, April 14th, 1929.
15 Ibid.
16 A theme that I cannot deal with here. Cf. Vacca 2017: chapter i.
17 spn: 241 (Q 14, § 68: 1729): “A class that is international in character has – in as much as it
guides social strata which are narrowly national (intellectuals), and indeed frequently
even less than national: particularistic and municipalistic (the peasants) – to ‘nationalise’
itself in a certain sense. Moreover, this sense is not a very narrow one either, since before
the conditions can be created for an economy that follows a world plan, it is necessary to
pass through multiple phases in which the regional combinations (of groups of nations)
may be of various kind” (July 1933).

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The Crisis of European Civilization 35

the human race might move forward step by step through the “regionalization”
of the world economy; and his aim is that the Communist movement redefines
its mission, becoming the creator of a “type of modern cosmopolitanism”. Ac-
cording to Gramsci, the “regionalization” of the world economy is a solid out-
look and can make decisive strides in Europe:

There is today – he writes in March of 1931 – a European cultural con-

sciousness, and there exists a long list of public statements by intellectu-
als and politicians who maintain that a European union is necessary. It is
fair to say that the course of history is heading toward this union and that
there are many material forces that will only be able to develop within
this union. If this union were to come into existence in x years, the word
“nationalism” will have the same archaeological value as “municipalism”
today.18

For Gramsci, therefore, the concept of “internationalism” seems to be anachro-

nistic and misunderstood, in any case inappropriate to the Italian situation
where “internationalism” was traditionally confused with the “subversion” of
the subaltern classes.19 Turning the negative meaning previously attributed to
the term “cosmopolitanism” neatly on its head, he coins the concept of “a mod-
ern type of cosmopolitanism” in order to indicate in the working classes, the
power that can “help to rebuild the world economically in a unitarian mode”:

Modern expansion is of a finance-capitalist kind. At present in Italy the

element “man” is either “man-capital” or “man-labour”. Italian expansion
can only be that of “man-labour” and the intellectual who represents
“man-labour” is not the traditional intellectuals, swollen with rhetoric
and literary memories of the past. Traditional Italian cosmopolitanism
should become a modern type of cosmopolitanism, one that can assure
the best conditions for the development of Italian “man-labour” in what-
ever part of the world he happens to be. Not the citizen of the world as
civis romanus os as Catholic, but as producer of civilization. One can
therefore maintain that the Italian tradition is continued dialectically in
the working people and their intellectuals, not in the traditional citizen
and the traditional intellectual. The Italian people are the people with
the greatest “national” interest in a modern form of cosmopolitanism.
Not only the worker but also the peasant, especially the southern ­peasant.

18 spn: 60–61 (Q 6, § 78: 748).

19 PN2: 45–47 (Q 3, § 46: 325–327), June-July 1930.

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36 Vacca

It is in the tradition of Italian people and Italian history to collaborate in

rebuilding the world in an economically unified way not in order to dom-
inate it hegemonically and appropriate the fruit of others’ labour but to
exist and develop precisely as the Italian people.20

In the first draft of the quoted passage dated November 1932, Gramsci had used
the concept of “cosmopolitanism” and that of “internationalism” indifferent-
ly.21 In the next draft he abandons the second term definitively, opting for the
notion of “modern cosmopolitanism”. His analysis then culminates in propos-
ing the “nationalization” of the Italian Communist Party in order to “collabo-
rate in the economic rebuilding of the world in a unified way”. The remodeling
of the national function of the working classes into a neo-cosmopolitan per-
spective, passing through the foreseeable supranational stages, projects
Gramsci beyond the intellectual and political horizon of the 1930s.

Bibliography

Gramsci’s Works and Abbreviations

Gramsci, A. [1919] (1987), La settimana politica. Italia e Stati Uniti, (“L’Ordine Nuovo”,
November 8), in Gramsci, A., L’Ordine Nuovo 1919–1920, Gerratana, V., Santucci, A.A.
(eds.) (Torino: Einaudi).
CW: Forgacs, D., Nowell-Smith, G. (eds.) (1985), Selections from Cultural Writings (Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
fspn: Boothman, D. (ed.) (1995), Further Selections from the Prison Notebooks (Minne-
apolis: Minnesota University Press).
PN: Buttigieg, J.A. (ed.) (1992, 1996, 2007), Prison Notebooks (New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press), 3 vols.
Q: Gerratana, V. (ed.) (1975), Quaderni del carcere (Torino: Einaudi), 4 vols.

20 CW: 246–247 (Q 19, § 5: 1988). This reflection immediately precedes a note dedicated to
confuting the justification of the colonial politics of fascism that was searching for inter-
national legitimization citing overpopulation as cause of Italy’s inferiority. Gramsci re-
plied that the “relative poverty” of the Italian people was not derived from the demo-
graphic composition but from the unavailability of the “dominant economic class” to
rationalize the production of the “international wealth” (fspn: 237–239; Q 19, § 6:
1989–1991).
21 Cf. fspn: 238–239 (Q 19, § 6: 1990–1991).

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The Crisis of European Civilization 37

spn: Hoare, Q., Nowell-Smith, G. (eds.) (1971), Selection from the Prison Notebooks (New
York: International Publishers).

Other Works
Vacca, G. (2017), Modernità alternative. Il Novecento di Antonio Gramsci (Torino:
Einaudi).

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 Chapter 4

Notes on Gramsci’s Theory of History

Marcello Montanari

1 The Critique of Historical Time between the Two World Wars

In the work program that Gramsci outlined starting from March 1929, one of
the proposed aims was to add to the development of a theory of history and
historiography.1 His intention was to liberate Marxism from a theory of histori-
cal time that was rigid and dominated by the logic of “before-after”: a concept
of time as a homogenous and absolute reality which develops outside of us –
outside of our own will.
The need to reinvent the Marxist theory of history springs from the matur-
ing of cultural orientation (in the post-war period after wwi), which tried to
consider the discontinuity that the war had produced. The conviction that his-
tory proceeds “towards the best” begins to deteriorate. The war itself is a frac-
turing element of history: a dramatic interruption of Time that requires the
reworking of new interpretive categories. This is the negation of every notion
of linearity and rationality in history. It is the affirmation of a temporality with-
out direction – without sense – completely against Newton’s concept of “abso-
lute” time, measured by clocks.
Right in front of him, Gramsci has Croce and not the Croce of Teoria e storia
della storiografia (“Theory and History of Historiography”) where the presence
of “historical naturalism” is still strongly felt (a conception of history marked
by “before-after”), but the Croce that founded a transcendental theory (or eth-
ic) of freedom. He has Croce “the boss of revisionism” staring him in the face so
to speak, as well as being the inspiring force of Bernstein’s Marxism.2 This
obliges him to make a close comparison with the theory of value and, more
generally, with the concept of historical time.
Through Croce, Gramsci tackles, above all, the themes that European cul-
ture was facing in order to rework the interpretative categories of its own time.

1 Cf. Gramsci 1994: 256, Gramsci to Tatiana, 25 March 1929 (LT: 333).
2 That fact that Croce had influenced Bernstein’s research is documented in the letter written
by Sorel to Croce dated September 9, 1899, where he writes: “Bernstein has just written me,
that he indicated in ‘Neue Zeit’ n. 46 that he had been inspired, in a certain way, by your
work” (Sorel 1980: 86).

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Notes on Gramsci’s Theory of History 39

He confronts the culture of crisis (the finis Europae) that reflects on the decline
of the liberal age, its euro-centric and “Enlightenment” ideology. It is actually
difficult to isolate Gramsci from the debate that developed around the “Euro-
pean crisis of conscience” during the 1920s and 1930s. There are many paths
through which the European philosophical conscience notices that there is no
“history in movement”: a history that develops according to natural laws, that
history does not have its own “immanent logic” and that it is no longer possible
to follow a calm narration of the progressive historical becoming as was fol-
lowed by Ranke or the “early” Meinecke.
There are, however, two moments that explicitly illustrate the changing ho-
rizon of European culture. These are: (a) the debate between Cassirer and Hei-
degger regarding “Kant’s legacy” that took place in Davos in the spring of 1929
(we will return to this later); (b) the lessons held by Kojéve on Hegel’s Phänom-
enologie des Geistes (“Phenomenology of Spirit”), where the theme is the defi-
nition of freedom as the negation of historical determination and, thus, the
positivity of the negative. Gramsci ignores both the first and second moments,
but it is with this “culture of crisis” that he makes an account, when, through
the comment of the conference held by Croce at Oxford in September of 1930,
he describes the process that brings the intellectuals to the point of separating
from the national state in order to assume a supra-national function.3 He sees
all the drama of this separation of the “spiritual” from the “temporal”. And in
this he sees the “disintegration of the modern state” or, more precisely, that
type of administrative and monarchic state structured on the foundation of
political-military and economic control of a determined territory. It is, though,
that process of separation from the intellectuals “from the social grouping to
which they had previously given the highest and most comprehensive form”
that breaks the temporality of modern history and gives birth to the “culture of
crisis”: a culture now deprived of its foundations (the Homeland, the People,
Tradition).
To the necessity of overcoming the “Newtonian” concept of historical time –
the understanding of time as a progressive accumulation of knowledge, re-
sources and civil achievements – Gramsci arrives at another way: the analysis
of Americanism and Fordism.
In an annotation found in Quaderno 10 (“Notebook 10”), Gramsci tells us
that, in order to fight “the law of the falling rate of profit”, Ford “had to get out
of the strictly industrial field of production to organize the transportation and
distribution of his goods”.4 In this way, he changed the relationship between

3 Cf. PN3: 8–9 (Q 6, § 10: esp. 690–691).

4 fspn: 431 (Q 10ii, § 36: 1282).

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40 Montanari

the spheres of production and consumption. And it is starting from the change
of this relationship that a mass society is created, or more precisely, a democ-
racy of consumption: a society where access to consumption by the subaltern
classes becomes one of the principle criteria for the organization of society.
Inside such a social form, the conflictual participation of the working class in
the government of capitalistic development is plausible and fully justifiable.
But the most relevant fact (and that is why it is so important for the definition
of a theory of history) is that, with the changing relationship between produc-
tion and consumption, the characters of the principal social figures also
change. New and unexpected social figures are formed and grow in this new
environment. Productive activity incorporates and attracts increasingly more
refined forms of knowledge and the relationship between work time and free
time changes to the point that even “free time” (or non-work time) becomes
the moment of the total reproduction of values. The reductio ad unum of the
processing times of goods becomes very unlikely: their measurability accord-
ing to absolute time becomes improbable. It is the same as David Ricardo’s
idea of working time as a measure of the value of the goods to be considered.
Ricardo could imagine measuring the value of goods on the basis of the amount
of work time it took to create them, because it presupposed the existence of
absolute and continuous time. But the multiplication of different types of con-
crete work and the growing diversification of knowledge embedded in them
makes them hardly traceable only to the goods-labor force delivered in the last
phase of the production process. The productive abstract work of value identi-
fies with the entire system of knowledge and with work as together. On the
contrary, it is the different quality and types of knowledge incorporated in the
production process that enhances goods in a differentiated. The result is a de-
cline in the so-called “centrality of the working class” and its “revolutionary”
function.
Changing the relationship between production and consumption and exit-
ing “from the strictly industrial field of production”, one could say that Ford
re-unified capital and knowledge and reduced the role and social impact of
factory work. If the formula of the tendential decline of the rate of profit (pv/
c+v) says that profit decreases with the growth of constant capital, Ford found
the way to contextually devalue the variable capital, in way that the total value
of this formula would remain unchanged. The formula of “tendential decline”
presupposes that variable capital remain invariable with the growth of the
constant capital, but it is exactly this that does not occur because the incorpo-
ration of knowledge into production (establishing a stronger unity between
capital and knowledge or, between “bourgeois” and “intellectuals”) tends to
“devalue” the function of work in the final phase of production and, at the

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Notes on Gramsci’s Theory of History 41

same time, render the reproduction of the work force – in virtue of the over-
abundance of goods produced – less onerous for the capital.
What happens, then, is that with Fordism, the value of work time tends to
decrease. And with this decrease, the same centrality of the work time in the
underlining of social processes of accumulation of riches declines. The percep-
tion of the forms of becoming changes; both the perception and the concept of
time change. A new theory of historical becoming becomes indispensable. It is
not by chance that in Quaderno 10 (“Notebook 10”) Gramsci’s notes on Croce
intertwine with those on Ricardo and the notes on the theory of history with
the notes on the theory of value. Ricardo, in fact, is thought of more as a phi-
losopher than as an economist, because, in order to conceptualize work time
in new ways as a measure of labor means to conceptualize the same historical
time in a new way.
In European culture between the two World Wars, the image of absolute
time – homogenous and continuous – is broken (an idea that can be traced to
Ricardo and Newton). It is the sign of the decline of Europe’s faith in itself and
its own history lived and thought of as the journey of the human race towards a
world liberated from darkness – as a progressive “enlightening” or as an unstop-
pable process of the rationalization of human life. One must read Quaderno 10
(“Notebook 10” – the criticism of “the religion of freedom”) and Quaderno 11
(“Notebook 11” – the criticism of historical determinism-­naturalism) having
clearly in mind that in these are expressed the awareness that Americanism
had changed the structure of time and that after the Great War, such a struc-
tural change had been intertwined with the crisis of the European historical
conscience. At the center of a new theory of history, there must be then the
idea of a passage from absolute time to “relative” time: from the linearity and
progression of time to an image of time as discontinuous and inhomogeneous
form.
From this point, originates Bukharin’s criticism of “historical materialism”.
A criticism that has two focal points:
a) the concept of objective reality and therefore of the predictability of his-
torical becoming;
b) the idea of the translatability scientific languages.

2 Criticism of Bukharin. Objectivity and Translatability

From the pages that Gramsci dedicates to the criticism of Bukharin’s historical
materialism in Quaderno 11 (“Notebook 11”), clearly emerges that for him “ob-
jective” means humanly objective. “Man – he writes – knows objectively in so

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far as knowledge is real for the whole human race historically unified in a single
unitary cultural system. […] There exists therefore a struggle for objectivity […]
and this struggle is the same as the struggle for the cultural unification of the
uman race”.5 The objective knowledge of “reality” (that which is historical or
“natural” and is external to us) is connected to our subjectivity and to our ca-
pacity to communicate with others, through a formal and linguistic system,
which is our perception of reality; the very idea that an external world inde-
pendent from our capacity to formulate cognitive models (knowledge, inter-
pretations, languages) is negated. Objectivity exists in the possibility to com-
municate and therefore to translate logical-linguistic representations into
other languages (the paradigm or algorithm) of the “object of knowledge” that
we construct.
This concept of objectivity excludes the idea that human appropriation of
nature and historical becoming can be indicated by “natural laws” that are pre-
existent to human intentionality. These laws are none other than cognitive
models that enable us to give form and order to the world which surrounds us.
In any case, between our knowledge and our “inner reality” (between the “ob-
ject of knowledge” and the “object in oneself”) there is no difference. It follows
that the two terms of the man-nature relationship (or individual-historical
sphere) reciprocally imply each other. In this relationship, there is nothing that
transcends human intentionality: there is no “nature” or “historical movement”
that have their own temporality and existence beyond knowledge and human
creations. For this reason, one can say that there is nothing mechanical or au-
tomatic in historical becoming. There is nothing “in nature” conceivable as an
absolutely transcendent reality or as an elusive “in one self” with respect to the
practical-cognitive intentionality of humankind.
It is this particular vision of “objectivity” that brings us to the Davos debate
between Cassirer and Heidegger.6 Two different visions of philosophy (and of
the history of philosophy) clash in Davos. A difference that Heidegger makes
explicit, asking the question: “to what extent does philosophy have the task of
freeing ourselves from anguish? Or does it not have the task of radically deliv-
ering the man to it?”.7 The discussion is about Kant. But in the background is
the reading of the crisis of European consciousness. A crisis that, for Heidegger,
indicates the impossibility of man-entity to produce knowledge that per-
mits him to transcend his own finiteness and autonomously handle his own

5 spn: 445 (Q 11, § 17: 1416).

6 The debate is reported in an appendix to Heidegger 1981. Cf. also Cassirer, Heidegger 1990.
7 Heidegger 1981: 228.

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Notes on Gramsci’s Theory of History 43

­ istorical destiny. For Cassirer, it is a crisis that fails to discuss the fundamental
h
­principal of Western cultural tradition: the idea that human reason possesses
all the potential to produce knowledge and symbolic forms as well as to govern
his own existence and plan his own future.
What does Heidegger claim at Davos? He affirms that, in the passage from
the first to the second edition of Critique of Pure Reason, Kant theorizes in the
face of the finiteness of man and human knowledge and turns to more accept-
able questions for traditional metaphysics. For this reason, Kant would have
muted the theme of “transcendental imagination” (or “faculty of imagination”)
and would have accepted the finiteness of being and its imperfect capacities
for producing knowledge. He definitely would have accepted to subordinate
“being” to the unspeakable and absolute otherness of being. He would have
resized and closed “being” in its finiteness – in its “being in time”.
Against this interpretation, Cassirer negates Kant’s recession on more or-
thodox and traditional positions and instead affirms that in the Kantian reflec-
tion the “transcendental imagination” (the capacity to imagine and construct
objects of knowledge and/or to produce symbolic forms) assumes a central
function, signaling the passage – realized in the Kritik der praktischen Vernunft
(“Critique of Practical Reason”) – of the search for formal conditions for the
production of knowledge defined as “transcendental freedom” as the capacity
to imagine a “must be”. Cassirer deduces being to its finiteness (to its determi-
nation in space and time) and makes “transcendental freedom” the capacity to
break the determinations of “absolute time”; where Heidegger had reduced
freedom of “being” to the interrogation of the Being.
In Cassirer’s reading of Kant, the idea of objectivity as “humanly objective”
or of knowledge as imagination and as a construction of an “object of knowl-
edge” recurs. The criticism of every naturalism and/or historical determinism
also recurs. “Reality” (both historical and natural) is seen as constructed by our
transcendent faculty of imagining the object of knowledge, as well as by our
faculty of giving material existence to that “must be” that our transcenden-
tal imagination (or cognitive faculty) has allowed us to construct. According
to Cassirer, the fundamental problem of Kant is not the relationship between
Being and Time but between Being and Must Be. Fundamentally, if for Hei-
degger the constitutive element of being is Time (it is thrown into Time; over-­
determined by time, dominated and dissolved in absolute Time), for Cassirer
time is subordinate, articulated by our transcendental freedom; by our capac-
ity to construct symbolic forms (languages, knowledge, culture, institutions). In
this way, Heidegger appears to be a pure determinist: nothing happens unless
it was predetermined; nothing happens that was not already placed in abso-
lute, linear and homogeneous temporality that transcends and overwhelms

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e­ verything with an inescapable force. Cassirer, on the other hand, speaks of

the human capacity to invent unpredictable figures and relational systems.
These are two decidedly different readings of the crisis. One tells us: “put
your faith in the Being”. The other: “we need to affirm our transcendental free-
dom”. And, with these due differences, it is the latter which constitutes the
nucleus of the theoretical position that Croce expresses in Storia d’Europa
(“History of Europe”). Gramsci moves forward from this idea of transcendental
freedom, even if he highlights its limits. I would be tempted to say that Bukha-
rin (along with a substantial part of Western Marxism) is on Heidegger’s side.
He thinks the existence of a temporality external to us is regulated by its own
laws and mechanisms. He thinks that historical time is inescapable and that it
overwhelms us. Bukharin does not accept the passage that Kant performs from
determining judgement to reflective judgment and transcendental freedom.
For him, all is necessitated and determined by historical laws. But in this way,
history is an expression of transcendental freedom that is negated. The idea of
laws which determine historical becoming refers to an absolutization of time:
a temporality that, by canceling that transcendental freedom which allows one
to imagine the “must be”, in fact creates anti-historicism inasmuch as one ne-
gates the possibility of articulating time according to the political will and ini-
tiative of a determined subjectivity. Anti-historicism is created inasmuch as
one thinks that the eternal laws of story can lead automatically to the libera-
tion of humankind.
If Bukharin is on Heidegger’s side, we say that Gramsci is with Cassirer. In
my opinion, it is this which makes his critique of Croce’s “religion of freedom”
even more radical. For Cassirer, transcendental imagination is the source of
ethical life, as it consents to think the “must be”. The transition goes from “tran-
scendental imagination” to “transcendental freedom”, which considers the
“must be”. Gramsci’s historicism has its roots in this vision of freedom as the
capacity of the subject to imagine the “must be” and to base an ethic, or better
yet, a practical initiative on this “imagination”. It is this imagination, this ca-
pacity of practical initiative, which interrupts linear, homogenous, absolute
time.
On this foundation, Gramsci can critique Croce’s “religion of freedom” and
consider it as a limited religion for only the wise and intellectual élite. Croce of
the Storia d’Europa (“History of Europe”), in fact, while theorizing transcen-
dental freedom and thinking about the non-linearity of historical time, it not
able to think about the possibility of overcoming the division between leaders
and followers. It is not enough to say that freedom is the fundamental power of
history. One must add that this is the capacity to imagine and to create - on the
basis of the translatability of languages – a “system of communication” that

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Notes on Gramsci’s Theory of History 45

culturally reunifies humankind. And, failing to think of such a cultural reunifi-

cation, Croce’s principle of freedom can only appear to Gramsci as intrinsically
limited.

3 On the Morphological Prediction

The criticism of Bukharin’s determinism clarifies the Gramscian concept of

“morphological prediction”. Such criticism excludes that there can be an objec-
tive prediction based on “absolute time”. The nexus of imagination and tran-
scendental freedom, interrupting absolute and continuous time, does what
need to be done so that there can no longer be an immediate cause-effect or
before-after relationship. Time breaks away from freedom and history becomes
predictable only on the basis of an intentionality, or more exactly, when one
can predict only what one does. As Vico says, history is known and predicted
only because we ourselves create it. It is expected to the extent that it operates.
There is no purely objective prediction. “It is absurd – writes Gramsci – to think
of a purely ‘objective’ prediction. Anybody who makes a prediction has in fact
a ‘programme’ for whose victory he is working, and his prediction is precisely
an element contributing to that victory”.8 Historical reality and its predictabil-
ity are the products of our capacity to imagine and create the future. There is
no “history in movement” that is independent from our will. And, in fact, his-
torical determinism is linked to the absence of political initiative.
Within this frame, the theme of the relationship between causality and tele-
ology, a theme which the political culture of the Second International had de-
bated at length,9 can be set in the terms of the constitution of a new subjectiv-
ity. It is the formation of an active subjectivity able to put the historical process
in motion. There is no “history without actors”. In the present economic-social
formation, this subjectivity is the capital that incorporates knowledge and
leading functions and addresses social growth as a whole. The formation of a
different (“alternative”) subject requires the invention of new forms of com-
munication-relations between concrete works in a way that these “as a group”
can become the “managers of the economy”. This requires the creation of cul-
tural and political devices needed to develop the translatability of languages
and to promote their unification. This is the problem that, according to Grams-
ci, only the philosophy of praxis has placed in an organic way. The possibility
that such a new subjectivity can emerge is justified by the idea that history is

8 spn: 171 (Q 15, § 50: 1810).

9 On this debate see the remarkable observations of Racinaro 1976.

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46 Montanari

the history of freedom: history of that transcendental freedom, which is the

will to interrupt linearity of absolute, linear and homogenous time, and has the
ability to modify and reinvent the “symbolic forms” that order our life.

Bibliography

Gramsci’s Works and Abbreviations

Gramsci, A. (1994), Letters from prison, vol. 1, Rosengarten, F. (ed.) (New York: Columbia
University Press).
fspn: Boothman, D. (ed.) (1995), Further Selections from the Prison Notebooks (Minne-
apolis: Minnesota University Press).
LT: Natoli, A., Daniele, C. (eds.) (1997), A. Gramsci, T. Schucht, Lettere. 1926–1935 (Torino:
Einaudi).
PN: Buttigieg, J.A. (ed.) (1992, 1996, 2007), Prison Notebooks (New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press), 3 vols.
Q: Gerratana, V. (ed.) (1975), Quaderni del carcere (Torino: Einaudi), 4 vols.
spn: Hoare, Q., Nowell-Smith, G. (eds.) (1971), Selection from the Prison Notebooks (New
York: International Publishers).

Other Works
Cassirer, E., Heidegger, M. (1990), Disputa sull’eredità kantiana. Due documenti (1928 e
1931) (Milano: Unicopli).
Heidegger, M. (1981), Kant e il problema della metafisica (Bari: Laterza).
Racinaro, R. (1976), Introduzione, in Adler, M., Causalità e teleologia nella disputa sulla
scienza (Bari: De Donato).
Sorel, G. (1980), Lettere a Benedetto Croce (Bari: De Donato).

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 Chapter 5

The Layers of History and the Politics in Gramsci

Vittorio Morfino

To speak of “layers of history” in Gramsci, or, in the terms I have given to the
problem in recent years, of “plural temporality”, means confronting one of the
most powerful readings of Gramsci: Althusser’s reading in L’objet du “Capital”
(“The Object of ‘Capital’”), where Gramsci plays the paradigmatic role of abso-
lute historicism, whose fundamental error consists in allowing Marxist history
to lapse into an ideological concept of history that is dominated by the catego-
ries of continuity and contemporaneity, thus flattening the plurality of social
levels into a uniform and homogenous present.1 Of course, Althusser’s reading
of Gramsci has solicited numerous reactions. Among these, two worth remem-
bering are Portantiero’s Los usos de Gramsci,2 and Thomas’ The Gramscian
Moment,3 which have as a common denominator the centrality of the concept
of “conjuncture”. Their critique of Althusser is thus carried out by installing the
concept of “conjuncture” (understood as the intertwining of temporality) at
the heart of Gramscian thought. Whereas the contemporaneity of the present
is what for Althusser renders politics unthinkable as a necessary expression of
that present, it is precisely this intertwining of temporalities that opens onto a
conception of politics as intervention in the conjuncture. In both cases, how-
ever, the concept of “conjuncture” which is wielded as a response to Althusser’s
criticism is precisely an Althusserian one, albeit nuanced, in Portaniero’s case
by the reference to Marx’s 1857 Einleitung, and in Thomas’ by the reference to
Derrida’s Spectres de Marx (“Specters of Marx”). For both authors, “conjunc-
ture” does not signify a superficial variation of a fundamental structural invari-
ance, but rather articulation: a complex intertwining of temporality. On the
basis of these suggestions, it is necessary to return to Gramsci’s text in order to
measure the plausibility of a reading which poses the concept of a multiplicity
of temporality at the center of his thought.
First, however, it will be necessary to consider some passages of Gramscian
thought which explicitly move in the opposite direction, namely, in the direc-
tion of a unilinear, stagist, and progressive history. The influence of the 1859

1 Althusser 2015: 215–356.

2 Cf. Portantiero 1981.
3 Cf. Thomas 2009.

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48 Morfino

Vorwort (“Preface”) that Gramsci translated while in prison4 plays a key role in
these texts. This text is extremely important within Marx’s entire theoretical
output, setting out the fundamental concepts of historical materialism (pro-
ductive forces, relations of production, base, superstructure, revolution, and
mode of production) in an extremely concise way. Furthermore, Marx speaks
openly of “progressive Epochen”,5 miming en matérialiste the sequence of
Hegelian kingdoms of spirit. Just as it is in the Manifest der Kommunistischen
Partei (“The Communist Manifesto”) – another text whose first chapter Grams-
ci translated in prison – revolution is the effect of the contradiction between
productive forces and relations of production, and just like the Manifest, Marx
uses the metaphor of pregnancy in order to explain the formation of a society
within the one that precedes it.6 However, two clauses are added which have
the function of explaining the great defeats of 1848, which once again put the
idea of revolution on the agenda in the moment of an ebb:

no social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which
it is sufficient have been developed and new superior relations of produc-
tion never replace older ones before the material conditions for their ex-
istence have matured within the framework of the old society. Mankind
thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer
examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when
the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in
the course of formation.7

It is a passage in which the stageist, deterministic, and teleological character is

even accentuated.
In the Quaderni del carcere (“Prison Notebooks”), this passage is quoted
“several times, first by heart, and then on the basis of Gramsci’s own
translation”.8 The first occurrence at Q 4, § 38 shows the measure of the theo-
retical importance Gramsci attributes to it:

Relations between structure and superstructures. This is the crucial prob-

lem of historical materialism, in my view. Basics for finding one’s bearings:
1) the principle that “no society sets itself tasks for the a­ ccomplishment

4 Gramsci 2007: 747.

5 Marx 1974: 9.
6 Marx, Engels 1959: 467.
7 Marx 1974: 9.
8 Frosini 2009: 662.

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The Layers of History and THE Politics in Gramsci 49

of which the necessary and sufficient solutions do not yet e­ xist” […] and
2) that “no society perishes until it has first developed all the forms of life
implicit in its internal relations”.9

For Gramsci, Marx’s arguments become “the two principles of historical mate-
rialism” whose dialectical mediation resides in the concept of “permanent
revolution”.10 Not only that, but as Gramsci maintains in Q 15, § 17, the concept
of “passive revolution” is also derived from these principles:

the concept of passive revolution must be rigorously derived from the

two fundamental principles of political science: 1) that no social forma-
tion disappears as long as the productive forces which have developed
within it still find room for further forward movement; 2) that a society
does not set itself tasks for whose solution the necessary conditions have
not already been incubated, etc.11

It is here, however, that Gramsci adds a precautionary remark of fundamental

importance: “it goes without saying that these principles must first be devel-
oped critically in all their implications, and purged of every residue of mech-
anicism and fatalism”.12
According to Gramsci, “development” and “purification” must be under-
stood in the sense of reading these principles in tandem with the notion of the
relation of forces.
However, before taking the argument in this direction, it is useful to con-
sider a criticism Althusser addresses to Gramsci in a 1978 text, Que faire?, which
has at its center precisely the relation between the “two principles” of the 1859
Preface and the concept of passive revolution. According to Althusser, the pas-
sage from Marx that Gramsci synthesizes into two “principles” cannot be ex-
plained except as a “survival of a philosophy of history [survivance d’une phi-
losophie de l’histoire]”,13 which Gramsci would translate into a normative
philosophy of history, wherein the category of revolution would be bifurcated
into “normal” and “pathological” forms.

9 PN2: 177 (Q 4, § 38: 455). As Frosini notes, Gramsci recalls and cites this passage in several
other places in the Quaderni del carcere (“Prison Notebooks”): PN3: 158 (Q 7, § 4: 855); PN3:
171 (Q 7, § 20: 869); PN3: 346 (Q 8, § 195: 1057); spn: 367 (Q 10ii, § 6: 1244); spn: 432 (Q 11, §
22: 1422); spn: 177 (Q 13, § 17: 1579); spn: 106 (Q 15, § 17: 1774).
10 PN2: 178 (Q 4, § 38: 456–457).
11 spn: 106 (Q 15, § 17: 1774).
12 spn: 106–107 (Q 15, § 17: 1774).
13 Althusser 1978: 47.

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50 Morfino

Althusser’s critique allows us to sketch a limit-form of Gramsci’s thought

where economic determinism gives way to a concept of politics understood as
permanent revolution, whether active or passive. It is a philosophy of history
which forbids any reference to a plural temporality, precisely because it is con-
structed on a unique, simple time of which all other times would be nothing
but measurable variations on the normal-pathological axis. In this sense,
Gramsci’s own concept of “Caesarism” has an entire series of gradations, which
can be measured on this axis.
Now, precisely in opposition to this limit-form, it is a matter of allowing “an-
other” Gramsci to emerge. For this task, a fundamental passage is Q 11ii, § 12,
“Appunti per una introduzione e un avviamento allo studio della filosofia e
della storia della cultura” (“The Study of Philosophy”). The opening is famous,
with the claim that “all men are ‘philosophers’”,14 where the quotation marks
indicate that this statement is about “spontaneous philosophy”,

[this] is contained in: 1) in language itself, which is a totality of deter-

mined notions and concepts and not just of words grammatically devoid
of content; 2) “common sense” and “good sense”; 3) popular religion and,
therefore, also in the entire system of beliefs, superstitions, opinions,
ways of seeing things and of acting, which are collectively bundled to-
gether under the name of “folklore”.15

This “spontaneous philosophy” is philosophy insofar as it contains a concep-

tion of the world, but it is spontaneous insofar as it is “unconscious” or “un-
aware”. Actually, however – and here our question comes into play – the differ-
ence is not only on the level of awareness, since it is precisely the moment
Gramsci calls “critical awareness” which allows the fundamental character of
“spontaneous philosophy” to emerge, that is, “broken and occasional” being:

is it better to “think” without having critical awareness, in a disjointed

and episodic way? In other words, is it better to take part in a conception
of the world mechanically imposed by the external environment, i.e. by
one of the many social groups in which everyone is automatically in-
volved from the moment of his entry into the conscious world (and this
can be one’s village or province); it can have its origins in the parish and
the “intellectual activity” of the local priest or aging patriarch whose wis-
dom is law, or in the little old woman who has inherited the lore of the

14 spn: 323 (Q 11, § 12: 1375).

15 Ibid.

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The Layers of History and THE Politics in Gramsci 51

witches or the minor intellectual soured by his own stupidity and inabil-
ity to act)? Or, on the other hand, is it better to work out consciously and
critically one’s own conception of the world and thus […] take an active
part in the creation of the history of the world, be one’s own guide, refus-
ing to accept passively and supinely from outside the moulding of one’s
personality?16

The alternative between unconscious spontaneous philosophy and conscious

critical philosophy seems to be played out on the grounds of the limit-form of
Gramsci’s thought to which I alluded: activity or passivity with respect to a vi-
sion of world history whose path appears to be established. And yet, precisely
at this point there emerges a theoretical element that destroys this simple al-
ternative. The heteronomy is “mechanically imposed by an external environ-
ment”, but, far from being permeated by a homogenous present, this is actually
made up of a plurality of temporalities. In note I Gramsci adds:

In acquiring one’s conception of the world one always belongs to a par-

ticular grouping which is that of all the social elements which share the
same mode of thinking and acting. We are all conformists of some con-
formism or other, always man-in-the-mass or collective man. The ques-
tion is this: of what historical type is the conformism, the mass humanity
to which one belongs? When one’s conception of the world is not critical
and coherent but disjointed and episodic, one belongs simultaneously to
a multiplicity of mass human groups. The personality is strangely com-
posite: it contains Stone Age elements and principles of a more advanced
science, prejudices from all past phases of history at the local level and
intuitions of a future philosophy which will be that of a human race
­united the world over. To criticize one’s own conception of the world
means therefore to make it coherent unity and to raise it to the level
reached by the most advanced thought in the world. It therefore also
means criticism of all previous philosophy, in so far as this has left strati-
fied deposits in popular philosophy. The starting-point of critical elabora-
tion is the consciousness of what one really is, and is “knowing thyself” as
a product of the historical process to date which has deposited in you an
infinity of traces, without leaving an inventory.17

16 spn: 323–324 (Q11, § 12: 1375–1376).

17 spn: 324 (Q 11, § 12: 1376).

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52 Morfino

It is undeniable that in these passages there is a reference to the uniquely

progressive time of Weltgeschichte, where not only is the present phase fixed,
but also the one to come, that of the “globally unified humankind”. Yet what is
most interesting here is the plurality of temporalities that traverse individuals
and social groups: the simultaneity of a plurality of times – a simultaneity which
paradoxically means coexistence, but not co-presence. This plural temporality,
not present in person in Gramsci’s text, is indicated by a series of terms: “strati-
fication”, “anachronism”, “fossil”. A prime and privileged example is language:

If it is true that every language contains the elements of a conception of

the world and of a culture, it could also be true that from anyone’s lan-
guage one can assess the greater or lesser complexity of his conception of
the world. Someone who only speaks dialect, or understands the stan-
dard language incompletely, necessarily has an intuition of the world
which is more or less limited and provincial, which is fossilised and
anachronistic in relation to the major currents of thought which domi-
nate world history. His interests will be limited, more or less corporate or
economistic, not universal. While it is not always possible to learn a num-
ber of foreign languages in order to put oneself in contact with other cul-
tural lives, it is at the least necessary to learn the national language prop-
erly. A great culture can be translated into the language of another great
culture, that is to say a great national language with historic richness and
complexity, and it can translate any other great culture and can be a
world-wide means of expression. But a dialect cannot do this.18

A second example is furnished by philosophy: “what must next be explained is

how it happens that in all periods there co-exist many systems and currents of
philosophical thought, how these currents are born, how they are diffused, and
why in the process of diffusion they fracture along certain lines and in certain
directions”.19 A third example is constituted by religion:

every religion, even Catholicism […] is in reality a multiplicity of distinct

and often contradictory religions: there is one Catholicism for the peas-
ants, one for petits-bourgeois and town workers, one for women, and one
for intellectuals which is itself variegated and disconnected. But common
sense is influenced not only by the crudest and least elaborated forms of
these sundry Catholicisms as they exist today. Previous religions have also

18 spn: 325 (Q 11, § 12: 1377).

19 spn: 327 (Q 11, § 12: 1379).

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The Layers of History and THE Politics in Gramsci 53

had an influence and remain components of common sense to this day,

and the same is true of previous forms of present ­Catholicism-popular
heretical movements, scientific superstitions connected with past cults,
etc.20

In Q 27, we then find some interesting reflections on folklore that Gramsci pro-
poses to study as “a ‘conceptions of the world and life’ implicit to a large extent
in determinate (in time and space) strata of society and in opposition […] to
‘official’ conceptions of the world (or, in a broader sense, the conceptions of
the cultured parts of historically determinate societies) that have succeeded
one another in the in historical process”.21 He adds:

This conception of the world is not elaborated and systematic because,

by definition, the people (the sum total of the instrumental and subal-
tern classes of every form of society that has so far existed) cannot pos-
sess conceptions which are elaborated, systematic and politically orga-
nized and centralized in their albeit contradictory development. It is,
rather, many-sided – not only because it includes different and juxta-
posed elements, but also because it is stratified, from the more crude to
the less crude – if, indeed, one should not speak of a confused agglomer-
ate of fragments of all the conceptions of the world and of life that have
succeeded one another in history. In fact, it is only in folklore that one
finds surviving evidence, adulterated and mutilated, of the majority of
these conceptions.22

“Multiple” and “stratified”. The multiplicity and stratification of temporality is

not deposited in the masses as successive degrees of a history of spirit reca-
pitulated by a full present, but rather linked to a double materiality: the mate-
riality of the trace and the materiality of practice. In other words, bodies are
traced by this multiplicity of temporality through language, folklore, common
sense, religion, and philosophy, giving rise to “bizarre”, “incoherent”, “compos-
ite”, and “heteroclite” conceptions of the world. The trace, or better, traces, is
the name of plural temporality in Gramsci: traces of practices that produce
practices.
In his Esquisse du concept de temps historique (“Outline of a Concept of His-
torical Time”), Althusser claims that the conception of the Marxist social

20 spn: 420 (Q 11, § 13: 1397).

21 CW: 189 (Q 27, § 1: 2311).
22 Ibid.

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54 Morfino

whole is characterized by a relative autonomy of different singular levels, and

endowed with a differential temporality. Gramsci’s text gives us a further indi-
cation: not only must a contemporaneity which traverses all levels of society
be refused, but each single level is also non-contemporaneous. It is structurally
affected by a plurality of times, which is, so to speak, an originary given, or
what precedes any linearity or stagist aspect.
Of course, this Gramscian conception is linked closely to the rewriting of
Thesis vi as well as of the relation between structure and superstructure in
terms of economic, political, and military relations of force. In particular, in Q
13, § 17, after explaining the three degrees or moments of political relations of
force, Gramsci writes:

In real history these moments imply each other reciprocally horizontally

and vertically, so to speak – i.e. according to socioeconomic activity (hor-
izontally) and to country (vertically), combining and diverging in various
ways. Each of these combinations may be represented by its own orga-
nized economic and political expression. It is also necessary to take into
account the fact that international relations intertwine with these inter-
nal relations of nation-states, creating new, unique and historically con-
crete combinations. A particular ideology, for instance, born in a highly
developed country, is disseminated in less developed countries, imping-
ing on the local interplay of combinations. This relation between interna-
tional forces and national forces is further complicated by the existence
within every State of several structurally diverse territorial sectors, with
diverse relations of force at all levels.23

In the beginning, methodologically, there is plurality: the plurality of tempo-

rality, a plurality that of course also affects spatiality. However, this plurality is
not a disseminated plurality – it is not plurality understood in the postmodern
sense. Instead, it is a plurality in which the “combination” dominates, whose
“local game” is influenced by the international-national nexus. Far from plac-
ing social formations on a single and progressive timeline, where, as Marx says
in the Vorwort zur ersten Auflage of Das Kapital (“Preface to the first edition” of
“Capital”), advanced societies indicate “the image of their future”24 to others,

23 spn: 182 (Q 13, § 17: 1585).

24 With regard to the relationship between England and Germany, Marx writes the follow-
ing: “the most industrially developed country [entwickelter Land] only shows the least
developed one [minder entwickelten] the image of its future” (Marx 1962: 12).

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The Layers of History and THE Politics in Gramsci 55

Gramscian history consists of an original plurality of temporality, whatever the

level of observation we are facing: individual, social group, nation, internation-
al scene. A conception of temporality clearly linked to the Gramscian question
of the “molecular”.
But plurality is not Gramsci’s final word, because the concept of hegemony
is what allows us to bring this plurality back, if not to the unity of a “History”,
then at least to a process of unification, that is, of a complex and conflictual ar-
ticulation of a given plurality in which hegemonic apparatuses and intellectu-
als play a fundamental role. The Gramscian name of the result of these process-
es of unification is “historical bloc”. Unity and contemporaneity are therefore
always given as a temporary effect – relative and contingent – as a stabilization
of a relationship of forces that is constitutively open and traversed, traced by
other temporalities. And it seems to me that this is the sense of the Gramscian
interpretation of the Marxist concept of permanent revolution.

Bibliography

Gramsci’s Works and Abbreviations

Gramsci, A. (2007), Quaderni del carcere 1. Quaderni di traduzioni (1929–1932), Cospito,
G., Francioni, G. (eds.) (Roma: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana).
CW: Forgacs, D., Nowell-Smith, G. (eds.) (1985), Selections from Cultural Writings (Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
PN: Buttigieg, J.A. (ed.) (1992, 1996, 2007), Prison Notebooks (New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press), 3 vols.
Q: Gerratana, V. (ed.) (1975), Quaderni del carcere (Torino: Einaudi), 4 vols.
spn: Hoare, Q., Nowell-Smith, G. (eds.) (1971), Selection from the Prison Notebooks (New
York: International Publishers).

Other Works
Althusser, L. (1978), Que faire? (Unpublished mss – Imec archive, ALT2.
A26-05.06/07).
Althusser, L. (2015), The Object of Capital, in Althusser, L., Balibar, É., Establet, R., Mach-
erey, P., Rancière, J., Reading Capital: The Complete Edition (London: Verso),
pp. 215–356.
Frosini, F. (2009), Prefazione del ‘59, in Liguori, G., Voza, P., Dizionario gramsciano 1926–
1937 (Roma: Carocci).
Marx, K., Engels, F. (1959), Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei, in Marx, K., Engels, F.,
Werke (Berlin: Dietz), Bd. 4.

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56 Morfino

Marx, K. (1962), Das Kapital, in Marx, K., Engels, F., Werke (Berlin: Dietz), Bd. 23.
Marx, K. (1974), Vorwort, to Zur Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie, in Marx, K., Engels, F.,
Werke (Berlin: Dietz), Bd. 13.
Portantiero, J.C. (1981), Los usos de Gramsci (México D.F.: Folios Ediciones).
Thomas, P. (2009), The Gramscian Moment (Boston-Leiden: Brill).

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 Part 3
Communism

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 Chapter 6

Gramsci’s Antidogmatic Reading of Marx

Stefano Petrucciani

The connecting thread of this contribution is the following question: what are
the distinctive features of the way Gramsci discusses Marx’s thought? And in
which traits does his approach differ from the ones of the many thinkers and
political leaders that, in the twentieth century, accorded to Marx a central
place in their reflections?

1 Gramsci’s First Encounter with Marx’s Thought

The first point to consider, as it is crucial for retracing the development of

Gramsci’s relation with Marx’s thought, is the following: the Italian thinker al-
ways kept himself extremely far from the sanctification and dogmatization of
Marx, that, on the contrary, undermines much of the socialist and communist
readings of the German philosopher. Gramsci is fortunately immune from this
disease, as his philosophical education, so strongly centered on the study of
Italian idealism (Gentile and, above all, Croce), caused his first encounter with
Marx to be in the spirit of uncoerced intellectual freedom. The young Gramsci,
imbued with idealistic and anti-positivistic culture, did not hesitate to point
out what he saw as the limits and flaws of Marx’s thought in his famous essays
of 1917 and 1918 – La rivoluzione contro il Capitale (“The Revolution against Cap-
ital”), Il nostro Marx (“Our Marx”) and other writings of that same period. In his
text La rivoluzione contro il Capitale he stated, for example, that Marx’s per-
spective “was contaminated by positivist and naturalist incrustations”.1 None-
theless, even if Marx had a questionable tendency to end up on positivistic
ground (a tendency that Gramsci at the same time criticized and justified, as
Marx, he said, is not a professional philosopher and “sometimes even he
nods”2), his fundamental inspiration was radically different: for Gramsci, Marx,
as to his valuable and important findings, can be placed in the grand theoreti-
cal line of philosophical idealism, represented in Germany by Hegel and in It-
aly by Croce.

1 agr: 33 (SP1: 131).

2 hpc: 16–19 (NM: 348–351).

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60 Petrucciani

The criticisms Gramsci leveled at Marx – that in the fifties Togliatti deemed
as “frankly incorrect”3 – enabled nonetheless Gramsci to approach Marxism
with intellectual freedom: it was unproductive, he thought, to fuel sterile argu-
ments on what is or is not Marxism (“Marxists” and “Marxist” are terms that are
“worn as thin as coins that have passed through too many hands”)4 and in any
case, as he wrote in a famous passage, “Marx is not a Messiah who left a string
of parables laden with categorical imperatives and absolute, unquestionable
norms outside the categories of time and space”.5
Gramsci’s critique of the reduction of Marxism to a positivistic and deter-
ministic doctrine, however, is not only the expression of a heightened cultural
awareness, nourished by the best of the idealistic culture of the nineteenth
and twentieth century; it is also directly linked to political aims. Lenin’s revolu-
tion appeared as a hasty and utopist endeavor to the followers of evolutionary
Marxism, for whom history “non facit saltus” (“does not make jumps”) and the
actualization of communism could only happen through the prior passage
through the purgatory of capitalistic industrialization.
The criticism of the evolutionary corruption of historical materialism is not
pure philosophical analysis; on the contrary, it is also a clear statement of the
possibility and achievability of revolution. It is in considering the October Rev-
olution that Gramsci grasps the weakness of historical materialism when re-
duced to an evolutionary schema. The Marxian doctrine, as Gramsci writes in
an essay titled Utopia, teaches that, “political constitutions are necessarily de-
pendent on economic structure, on forms of production and exchange”.6 If we
take this statement in a mechanical way, then we can also maintain that, “Len-
in is a utopian”, and that, “the unfortunate Russian proletarians are prey to an
utterly utopian illusion, so that a terrible awakening implacably awaits them”.7
But this is not the case, Gramsci writes, and the doctrine must be understood
in a much more elaborate way.

The unraveling of the causation is a complex and involved process […];

history is not a mathematical calculation […]. It is not the economic
structure which directly determines political activity, but rather the
way in which that structure and the so-called laws which govern its

3 Cf. Togliatti 1958.

4 agr: 39 (SP1: 173).
5 agr: 36 (SP1: 170).
6 agr: 45 (SP1: 202).
7 Ibid.

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GRAMSCI’S ANTIDOGMATIC READING OF MARX 61

d­ evelopment are interpreted. These laws have nothing in common with

natural laws […].8

Those who try to harness history in their preconceived schemas do not under-
stand that history is a “free development – the birth and free integration of free
energies –, which is quite different from natural evolution, just as man and
human associations are different from molecules and molecular aggregates”.9
“Freedom is the inner force in history, exploding every pre-established
schema”.10 Gramsci, in stating these points, finds himself very close to Croce.
He is indeed in good company when criticizing those who use historical
materialism as a comprehensive explanatory schema. Engels had repeatedly
insisted on this point, and his views had later been radicalized by Croce, who
had claimed that the materialistic conception of history was neither a theory
nor a reservoir of predictions; rather, it was only a guideline for historians to
follow. Gramsci, however, did not only aim at understanding complicated his-
torical processes in a more flexible way; he also aimed at assigning a greater
importance to the role of free intellectual activity, to the men who act histori-
cally as “they have a mind, […] they suffer, understand, rejoice, desire and
reject”.11
In the later development of his thought, Gramsci will reconsider this em-
phasis on the creative role of free intellectual activity. Nonetheless, he will
keep himself faithful, over time, to some elements of this first encounter with
Marx: the refusal of dogmatizing Marx’s theories, the criticism of positivistic
degenerations (perhaps, later, attributed more to the followers of Marx than to
Marx himself), and the need to rethink historical materialism so as to over-
come the subordination of intellectual work, and of the active and creative
role of historical subjects, to economic and material forces.

2 Gramsci’s Discussion of Marx in the Prison Notebooks: the

Problem of Method

Although Marx is a constant reference all throughout Gramsci’s body of work,

it is in the Quaderni del carcere (“Prison Notebooks”) that Gramsci’s discussion
of the German philosopher’s thought is developed at its best. Before briefly

8 agr: 45–46 (SP1: 203).

9 agr: 50 (SP1: 207).
10 Ibid.
11 agr: 45–46 (SP1.: 203).

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62 Petrucciani

retracing this discussion, we need however to focus our attention on the ques-
tion of method, or, put more simply, on how Gramsci approaches, and thinks
one should approach, Marx’s texts. From this perspective, the enormous differ-
ence between Gramsci’s approach and fideistic or dogmatic Marxism becomes
immediately apparent.
Gramsci’s awareness of the need of a historically and philologically rigorous
method constitutes the first relevant difference between the two approaches.
This awareness was constitutively part of Gramsci’s intellectual formation, as
he had a strong academic background (although he did not complete his
degree).

If one wishes to study the birth of a conception of the world which has
never been systematically expounded by its founder, some preliminary
detailed philological work has to be done. This has to be carried out with
the most scrupulous accuracy, scientific honesty and intellectual loyalty
and without any preconceptions, apriorism or parti pris.12

It makes no sense, for Gramsci, to approach Marx’s writings without the ut-
most critical rigor: one must carefully distinguish between the works published
by the author himself, those which remained unpublished, and “those which
were published by a friend or disciple, but not without revisions, rewritings,
cuts, etc., or in other words not without the active intervention of a publisher
or editor. It is clear that the content of posthumous works has to be taken with
great discretion and caution”, as it cannot be excluded “the possibility that
these works, particularly if they have been a long time in the making and if the
author never decided to finish them, might have been repudiated or deemed
unsatisfactory in whole or in part by the author”.13
But this is not all. Besides the invitation, when reading Marx, to practice all
the philological rigor required for approaching the works of a great thinker,
Gramsci adds another fundamental methodological warning (which gets him
closer to the approach that will be typical of the so-called “Western Marxism”):
Marx and Engels cannot be considered as they were one and the same, because
“the second is not the first”. It is therefore problematic the fact that (since the
end of the nineteenth century) “[Engels’s] expositions, some of which are rela-
tively systematic”, for example the Antidühring, “have […] been given a ­position

12 spn: 382 (Q 16, § 2: 1840–1841).

13 spn: 384 (Q 16, § 2: 1842).

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GRAMSCI’S ANTIDOGMATIC READING OF MARX 63

in the front rank as an authentic source, and indeed as the only authentic
source”.14
There is also a second relevant aspect in the way Gramsci approaches Marx-
ism: he highlights how a thought whose aim is to transform the consciousness
and the way of thinking of the less cultured masses, easily ends up resorting to
simplified formulas that betray its authentic content. This was true for the
epigones of Marx, but also for Marx himself.
According to Gramsci, the metaphor according to which the economy con-
stitutes the “anatomy” of civil society is ultimately misleading, but the use of
this metaphor is justified by its ability to speak to those who would find philo-
sophical language inaccessible. However, “the philosophy of praxis, in setting
itself the task of the intellectual and moral reform of culturally backward so-
cial strata, has recourse to metaphors that at times are ‘crude and violent’ in
their popularity”,15 and therefore one needs to interpret it without being mis-
led by these rhetorically effective simplifications.
Simplifications of this kind can be found in Marx, but most of all in his epig-
ones, who show a tendency to “mythicize” the theoretical contents elaborated
by their master (a tendency also motivated by the need to invigorate combat-
iveness and commitment):

it should be noted how the deterministic, fatalistic and mechanistic ele-

ment has been a direct ideological “aroma” emanating from the philoso-
phy of praxis, rather like religion or drugs (in their stupefying effect). It
has been made necessary and justified historically by the “subaltern”
character of certain social strata […]. Real will takes on the garments of an
act of faith in a certain rationality of history and in a primitive and em-
pirical form of impassioned finalism which appears in the role of a substi-
tute for the Predestination or Providence of confessional religions.16

But we need to highlight a third aspect of the way Gramsci approaches Marx’s
works, also because this is a point on which many commentators still insist
today: Gramsci’s awareness of the fact that, in Marx, “theoretical and practical
activity are indissolubly intertwined”17 and that, for this reason, in reading his
works one must take into account the contingent political commitment
­motivating them (or the “conjuncture”, as today those who refer themselves to

14 spn: 386 (Q 16, § 2: 1844).

15 fspn: 315 (Q 11, § 50: 1474).
16 spn: 336 (Q 11 § 12: 1388).
17 spn: 383 (Q 16, § 2: 1841).

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64 Petrucciani

the thought of Althusser would say); Marx’s writings cannot be understood as

expressing some kind of absolute truth, valid sub specie aeternitatis.
Gramsci’s considerations about Marx, in my opinion, can also be applied to
Gramsci himself: for him, too, society can be transformed through organized
political and intellectual activity in a determined historical phase. This, of
course, also has repercussions on the way he addresses the major questions in
Marx’s thought, in particular those concerning historical materialism. The
close connection between thought and political action, between theory and
practice, is a double-edged sword: on the one hand, it prevents intellectual ac-
tivity from falling into academicism and sterility, on the other, however, threat-
ens to bend it towards the urgencies and priorities of politics, thereby diverting
it from the dispassionate rigor necessary for guiding action in a lucid way.

3 Historical Materialism according to Gramsci (and Croce)

In order to further elaborate on the contents of Gramsci’s interpretation of

Marx and to point out some of its most relevant elements, I think we should
first of all compare it with the one proposed by Croce. Croce’s reading of Marx
is one of the two conflicting views (the other one is Bukharin’s) that Gramsci
considers in the Quaderni del carcere (“Prison Notebooks”).
The main interpretive points that Croce outlines in the essays he wrote at
end of the century18 (which Gramsci almost counterposes to the later ones) are
the following:
a) historical materialism has nothing to do with “metaphysical” materialism;
b) Marxism is not a philosophy of history – this had been the topic of the
first friendly debate between Croce and Gentile;
c) historical materialism must be understood as nothing more than a fruit-
ful paradigm for interpreting history;
d) the theory of exploitation does not make sense from a purely economic
point of view (it makes sense only from a different perspective), and the
socialist option does not necessarily follow from the Marxist analysis of
society.
Here we will leave aside a further point, that is, the critique by Croce, that
Gramsci disputed, of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.
Gramsci’s interpretation of Marx, on a particular point, resonates with the
one proposed by Croce: he, too, radically separates Marx’s historical ma­
terialism from metaphysical materialism. Gramsci also shares one of Croce’s

18 Cf. Croce 2001. Cf. also Tuozzolo 2008.

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GRAMSCI’S ANTIDOGMATIC READING OF MARX 65

j­ ustifications for this stance by referring to F.A. Lange’s History of Materialism,

which rightly, as Croce had claimed, did not mention the philosophy of Marx.19
Always very harsh, moreover, is Gramsci’s critique against the reductions of
Marx’s thought to the old materialism, in particular the French one,20 as those
attempted by Plekhanov and Bukharin.
What to say on the theoretical status of historical materialism and the prob-
lems that, on this topic, had already arisen by the end of the nineteenth cen-
tury? How should we understand Marx’s words according to which “the mode
of production in material life determines (bedingt) the general character of the
social, political, and spiritual processes of life”?21
As is well known, Engels had tried, in some of his letters, to better clarify the
fundaments of historical materialism, and to dispute its deterministic and sim-
plistic readings. Croce, in turn, radicalized Engel’s definition (who had stated
that historical materialism is first of all “a guideline for study”),22 thereby re-
ducing Marx’s theory to a canon for interpreting history. And Gramsci?
Gramsci, first of all, highlights Engel’s famous statement according to which
the economic base is only “in the last instance the determining moment in
history”23 and agrees with him in maintaining that, although the structure re-
tains its primacy, the superstructure acts, in turn, on the base.
In relation to Croce, Gramsci’s position is more complex. He does not argue
frontally with Croce, who had substantially de-theoreticized historical materi-
alism by turning it into a mere guideline for historians. He just observes that
Croce arrives to this idea of the “canon of interpretation” by means of exclu-
sion (if historical materialism is not this nor that, then what is it?) and without,
furthermore, demonstrating his thesis in a conclusive way. The Croce of this

19 spn: 456 (Q 11, § 16: 1410).

20 spn: 162 (Q 13, § 18: 1592).
21 Marx 1913: 11.
22 “Unsere Geschichtsauffassung aber ist vor allem eine Anleitung beim Studium, kein Heb-
el der Konstruktion ä la Hegelianertum” (Letter to Conrad Schmidt, August 5th, 1890).
23 “Nach materialistischer Geschichtsauffassung ist das in letzter Instanz bestimmende Mo-
ment in der Geschichte die Produktion und Reproduktion des wirklichen Lebens. Mehr
hat weder Marx noch ich je behauptet. Wenn nun jemand das dahin verdreht, das ökono-
mische Moment sei das einzig bestimmende, so verwandelt er jenen Satz in eine nich-
tssagende, abstrakte, absurde Phrase” (Letter to J. Bloch, September 21st, 1890). In the
analysis that he devotes to the structure-superstructure problem, Giuseppe Cospito ob-
serves that, in reconsidering the Engelsian issue of the “last instance”, Gramsci gradually
tends to radicalize it. In the Quaderni del carcere (“Prison Notebooks”), a first formulation
in which Gramsci writes that according to Engels “the economy is ‘in the last instance’ the
motor of history” is rewritten as “the economy is only in the ‘last instance’ the incentive of
history” (my italics); cf. Cospito 2004: 227–246, 242.

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66 Petrucciani

phase, Gramsci writes, is problematic and “cautious”, very different from how
he will be when discussing Marx’s works in later writings. Moreover, in a sar-
castic but fairly sympathetic way, Gramsci overturns the idea of the interpre-
tive canon against Croce himself: first of all, he gives Croce the credit for having
“drawn attention to the study of the factors of culture and ideas as elements of
political domination, to the function of the great intellectuals in state life, to
the moment of hegemony and consent as the necessary form of the concrete
historical bloc”.24 After having sung him high praise, however, Gramsci turns
against Croce the idea of the “canon”, as he writes that, for the philosophy of
praxis, the ethical-political conception of history is “one of the canons of his-
torical interpretation that must always be borne in mind in the study and de-
tailed analysis of history as it unfolds, if the intention is to construct an integral
history rather than partial or extrinsic histories”.25
Hence, just as the first Croce gave credit to Marx for having highlighted the
economic moment, so Gramsci gives credit to Croce for having emphasized
the ethical-political and spiritual moment. To the later Croce, who according
to Gramsci had changed almost all his previous stances, the latter directs in-
stead a harsh critique: of having attributed to Marx, in order to demolish him,
a thesis that did not belong at all to the author of the Manifesto, namely that
superstructures would be “mere appearances and illusions”. This thesis was ab-
solutely extraneous to the young Croce, as well as being, from Gramsci’s point
of view, totally erroneous – since, for the latter, superstructures are an “objec-
tive and operating” reality. And such they were, according to Gramsci, also for
Marx; because it is through them – and here Gramsci broadens to the extreme
the meaning of a famous passage of the Vorwort (“Preface”) of 1859 to Zur Kritik
der politischen Öknomie (“A Contribution to the Critique of Political Econo-
my”) – that individuals and classes “become conscious of their own social be-
ing, their own strength, their own tasks, their own becoming”.26
Leaving aside, however, the emphatic anti-Marxist polemics characterizing,
among Croce’s writings, the ones chronologically closer to the Quaderni del
carcere (“Prison Notebooks”), we can say that Gramsci’s and Croce’s perspec-
tives are not so distant from each other; Gramsci himself goes to show this,
when he observes that the philosophy of praxis does not rule out an “ethico-
political history” at all, since it accords great importance to the moment of
hegemony and of cultural and moral leadership.27

24 fspn: 332 (Q 10i: 1211).

25 Ibid.
26 fspn: 548 (Q10ii, § 41: 1319).
27 fspn: 493–494 (Q 10i, § 7: 1224–1225).

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GRAMSCI’S ANTIDOGMATIC READING OF MARX 67

In conclusion, what of the debate on historical materialism? What can we

say, in the last instance (to paraphrase Engels), on the discussion concerning
the relation between structure and superstructure, which by Gramsci (and not
only by him) was seen as the crucial problem of historical materialism?28
If Engels claims the primacy of the structure, but with all possible correc-
tions and retroactions, and Croce maintains the primacy of the superstructure,
but with the acknowledgment that materialism also has a point, what is
Gramsci’s stance? With the premise that he always saw his considerations on
this theme as a work in progress, and even doubted to be able to arrive at a
univocal solution,29 we can try to draw some conclusions on this topic.
Differently from systemic or Hegelian theories, that interpret society as a
connection of circularly integrated functions, without hierarchical subordina-
tions (also Lukács will move in this direction when claiming, in Geschichte und
Klassenbewußtsein – “History and Class Consciousness”–, that the defining fea-
ture of Marxism is its notion of social totality), historical materialism sub-
scribes to an asymmetric vision of the social whole: from the synchronic point
of view, the sphere of production conditions the other spheres more than it is
itself conditioned by them; from the diachronic point of view, the sphere of
production transforms itself for endogenous reasons, while the other spheres
are transformed by it, instead of being generated through (as Gramsci himself
writes) “parthenogenesis”. Historical materialism stands or falls with these two
theses. Does Gramsci rethink or even reject them in the last phase of his theo-
retical itinerary? I do not believe that this question can be answered in a totally
univocal way. On the one hand, in many of his formulations, Gramsci holds
firm on the “classic” idea of a primacy of the structure. On the other hand,
however, he distances himself from this classic thesis and progressively leaves
it behind, the more he develops and refines his original perspective. As Cospito
writes, Gramsci on the one side tends to “question the identification of the
structure with the economy, by speaking of ‘politico-economic structure’30 or
‘cultural-economic structure’”,31 or by considering “the priority of the politico-
economic fact – that is, the ‘structure’ – as a point of reference and as a non­
mechanical dialectical ‘causation’ of the superstructures”.32
On the other hand, in Gramsci’s writings, there are many expressions
that can lead one to think, especially for what concerns the last phase of the

28 Cf. spn: 365–366 (Q 10ii, § 12: 1249–1250).

29 Gerratana 1975: xxvi.
30 spn: 93 (Q 19, § 26: 2037).
31 Cospito 2009: 821.
32 PN2: 231 (Q 4, § 56: 503).

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68 Petrucciani

­ hilosopher’s theoretical itinerary, that in the end he completely rejected the

p
architectonic metaphor33 characterizing historical materialism and its idea of
a hierarchy of spheres. For example, he writes that, speaking in terms of “his-
torical bloc”, “the material forces are the content and ideologies are the form.
This distinction between form and content is just heuristic, because material
forces would be historically inconceivable without form and ideologies would
be individual fantasies without material forces”.34 In conclusion, Gramsci
seems sometimes to assert a symmetric and reciprocal relation between struc-
ture and superstructure,35 but, at the same time, we cannot rule out from his
theoretical horizon two other possibilities: the persistence of a certain prima-
cy of the economic base, on the one hand, and, within the context of this pri-
macy, its redefinition in the terms of a “political-economic structure”, on the
other.

Bibliography

Gramsci’s Works and Abbreviations

agr: Forgacs, D. (ed.) (2000), The Gramsci Reader. Selected Writings 1916–1935 (New
York: nyu Press).
fspn: Boothman, D. (ed.) (1995), Further Selections from the Prison Notebooks (Minne-
apolis: Minnesota University Press).
hpc: Cavalcanti, P., Piccone, P. (eds.) (1975), History, Philosophy and Culture in the
Young Gramsci (St. Louis: Telos Press).
NM: Caprioglio, S. (ed.) (1984), Il nostro Marx (1918–1919) (Torino: Einaudi).
PN: Buttigieg, J.A. (ed.) (1992, 1996, 2007), Prison Notebooks (New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press), 3 vols.
Q: Gerratana, V. (ed.) (1975), Quaderni del carcere (Torino: Einaudi), 4 vols.
spi: Spriano, P. (ed.), (1973), Scritti politici (Roma: Editori Riuniti), 3 vols.
spn: Hoare, Q., Nowell-Smith, G. (eds.) (1971), Selection from the Prison Notebooks (New
York: International Publishers).

Other Works
Cospito, G. (2004), Struttura-superstruttura, in Frosini, F., Liguori, G. (eds.), Le parole di
Gramsci (Roma: Carocci).

33 Cf. Cospito 2004: 235.

34 PN3: 172 (Q 7, § 21: 869).
35 PN3: 340 (Q 8, § 182: 1051). Cf. also Voza 2009, Cospito 2009.

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GRAMSCI’S ANTIDOGMATIC READING OF MARX 69

Cospito, G. (2009), Struttura, in Liguori, G., Voza, P. (eds.), Dizionario gramsciano 1926–
1937 (Roma: Carocci).
Croce, B. (2001), Materialismo storico ed economia marxistica, in Rascaglia, M., Zoppi,
S. (eds.), Materialismo storico ed economia marxistica (Napoli: Bibliopolis).
Gerratana, V. (1975), Prefazione, in Quaderni del carcere (Torino: Einaudi), i vol.
Marx, K. (1913), A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (Chicago: Charles H.
Kerr and Company).
Togliatti, P. [1958] (1979), Gramsci and Leninism, in Sassoon, D. (ed.), On Gramsci and
Other Writings (London: Lawrence & Wishart).
Tuozzolo, C. (2008), “Marx possibile”. Benedetto Croce teorico marxista 1869–1897 (Mila-
no: Franco Angeli).
Voza, P. (2009), Blocco storico, in Liguori, G., Voza, P. (eds.), Dizionario gramsciano 1926–
1937 (Roma: Carocci).

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 Chapter 7

Gramsci, the October Revolution and its

“Translation” in the West

Guido Liguori

1 From Sardinia to Torino

To understand the way in which Antonio Gramsci related to the two Russian
revolutions of 1917, and in particular to the October Revolution, it is necessary
to keep in mind his very particular upbringing.
Already in Sardinia, Gramsci had started to read socialist newspapers and
pamphlets (above all thanks to the influence of his older brother Gennaro, who
was one of the directors of the workers’ union in Cagliari), books and articles
written by the revolutionary Georges Sorel (that influenced him deeply), by
people, like Salvemini, who belonged to the Left (even if he would soon leave
the Socialist Party) and by Antonio Labriola (the first real Italian Marxist).
From the years of his youth in Sardinia, Gramsci was also influenced, per-
haps above all, by the bourgeois culture (opposition to Giolitti and his ideas),
which was the particular field where he was formed. The so-called “Florentine
magazines” like “Il Leonardo” and “La Voce” of Papini and Prezzolini, philoso-
phies such as neo-idealism, pragmatism, and that of Bergson made up a cul-
ture that was almost completely focused on the re-evaluation of the “subject”
against that which had been the dominant philosophy of the second half of
the 1800s and had notably influenced even Marxism and the workers’ move-
ment, with its idea of “objectivism” (epistemological, historical and political):
a vision that still deeply influenced the main currents of the workers’ move-
ment at the beginning of the 1900s.
In 1911, Gramsci moved to Torino to begin his studies at the Faculty of Lit-
erature and Philosophy, thanks to a scholarship that was just enough to sur-
vive on.1 Even before the Great War, he joined the socialist party in Torino.
His Marxism at this time was very particular: because of his cultural forma-
tion, the Marxism of the young Gramsci was against the trend of the time. His
Marxism  was subjectivistic, anti-deterministic, anti-economistic, influenced
by neo-idealism and the philosophy of Bergson, mediated in part by Sorel. It

1 Cf. Gramsci 1994: 138, Gramsci to Carlo, September 12th, 1927 (LC2: 117).

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Gramsci, October Revolution and Its “Translation” in West 71

was an original but also immature Marxism, centered on (in more than one
passage) the absolute and idealistic supremacy of the will.
In these years, there was no scarcity of important writings with an anti-­
deterministic vision, even concerning revolutionary processes. In his 1916
­article, Socialismo e cultura (“Socialism and culture”) for example, he put for-
ward a definition of culture as the conquest and valuing of one’s own self and
thus a growth of his own subjectivity.2 It underlined the importance of aware-
ness and of ideas in the processes of change, in the great revolutions. Gramsci
writes:

every revolution has been preceded by an intense labour of criticism, by

the diffusion of culture and the spread of ideas […] The latest example,
the closest to us and hence least foreign to our own time, is that of the
French Revolution. The preceding cultural period, called the Enlighten-
ment […] was a magnificent revolution in itself.3

This anti-deterministic subjectivism melded with another closely connected

element: the importance of the will, that was also the desire to participate,
fleeing from passivity. It is the famous “I hate the indifferent”,4 the cry hurled
out by Gramsci in January 1917, just a few weeks before the February Revolu-
tion in Russia.

2 The Russian Revolution

Starting from the first comments of the February Revolution, Gramsci read the
events in Russia as the revenge of the socialists who had not betrayed the spirit
of the International and who saw a “proletarian revolution”5 in the events of
Petrograd.
He was not completely wrong, as at the beginning of the “first revolution” of
1917, the February Revolution, there had been a workers’ demonstration in
Petrograd as well as the women’s demonstration on March 8th, a day which
corresponded with February 24th in the Julian calendar that was then used in
Russia (14 days behind the Gregorian calendar, used in the West); and, also, the

2 Cf. agr: 58 (Gramsci 2016: 57).

3 Ibid.
4 hpc: 64–66 (Gramsci 2016: 73 ff.)
5 SPW-1: 28 (Gramsci 2017: 34).

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72 Liguori

switching of many soldiers to the side of the insurgents (armed peasants) who
instead of shooting rioters, fired at the Tsarist police.
What were the background characteristics of the event, for Gramsci? The
“Russian revolution” for him had “been innocent of Jacobinism”, that is, it “did
not have to crush the majority of the people by the use of violence”.6 (It is no-
table that until 1921 – when his opinion changed on the basis of the work of the
French historian Albert Mathiez, that positively underlines the similarities be-
tween Jacobins and Bolsheviks7 – Gramsci, influenced by Sorel, and ignoring
Lenin and even Marx, was decidedly anti-Jacobin).
For Gramsci, Jacobinism and the Jacobin revolution, were at that time (in
1917), a bourgeois phenomenon: of a minority that “served particular interests,
the interest of its own class”.8 On the other hand, the “Russian revolutionaries”
did not want to substitute one dictatorship for another and – he claimed – they
would have had, through universal suffrage, the support of a huge part of the
“Russian proletariat”, if only they could have expressed themselves freely.
It was a vision that we could say was naive in terms of the revolutionary
process, both for that concerning events in Russia – where the revolutionary
forces were in reality much more internally composite and divided than
Gramsci knew and understood at first –, and in the conviction that universal
suffrage was enough to guarantee the rise of the true will of the proletariat.
Here, Gramsci disregards – contrary to what he would do with great acuity
in his mature writings from prison, but also, partly, in the “Consigli di fabbica”
(factory workers’ councils) period of the journal “L’Ordine Nuovo” (“The New
Order”) and the “biennio rosso” (“Two Red Years”) – the prerequisites of de-
mocracy, from the basically egalitarian elements (in terms of culture, informa-
tion, awareness, freedom from need) that an electoral body should possess to
express themselves without “self-serving ends”.
After a few months, the young socialist will begin the analysis of the internal
distinctions within the great revolutionary event that had archived Tsarist
power, but not the war.
Gramsci’s attention was moving, though not without some understandable
oscillation given the scarcity of information, towards the Bolshevik compo-
nent (a term that was then translated in Italy as “Maximalist”, a category of the
Italian political panorama of the time), identified as the force that did not ac-
cept that the revolution would stop at its bourgeois-democratic stage, and ex-
pected it to continue until the conquest of a socialist society instead: “Lenin

6 Ibid.
7 Cf. Medici 2004: 113 ff.
8 SPW-1: 28 (Gramsci 2017: 35).

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Gramsci, October Revolution and Its “Translation” in West 73

[…] and his Bolshevik comrades – he wrote – are convinced that socialism can
be achieved at any time. They are nourished on Marxist thought. They are revo-
lutionaries, not evolutionists”.9
Here the polemic is evident against the evolutionism of Kautsky and the
Second International (social-democratic and reformist) represented in Italy by
the moderate socialism of people like Treves and Turati, in the name of that
revolutionary subjectivism that distinguished Gramsci during this period: in
Russia – he added – “the revolution continues”, so that men, all men can be
“the creators of their destiny”.

3 Kerensky and Lenin

In the meantime, even before the October Revolution, the enthusiasm for what
had happened in Russia was spreading across Italy and the rest of Europe. The
defeat of Caporetto (which took place in the same days as the capture of the
Winter Palace, between October 24th and November 9th) was just around
the corner, also caused by an increasing amount of criticism against the war
and the inhuman method – that of Cadorna and the other officials on either
side of the trenches – of using soldiers as meat to be slaughtered, with an ease
that also stemmed from a deep-rooted classist attitude.
This same impetus was one of the main causes of the revolution in Russia,
perhaps even the principle one. It is not surprising then, that “do as they do in
Russia” began to be the password that circulated among the popular and sub-
altern classes of a large part of Europe, where the name of “Lenin” was begin-
ning to be largely known and praised.
And Gramsci was no different: the choice is between Kerensky and Lenin,
he wrote in August,10 that is, between the new head of the Russian Provisional
Government formed on August 6th, and the revolutionary leader now being
hunted by the new government’s police and being forced to take refuge in Fin-
land. There he writes Государство и революция (“The State and Revolu-
tion”) in a few weeks until the moment when he must interrupt the draft to
enable his return to Russia to lead the revolution (instead of just theorizing it).
More than a month before the October Revolution, Gramsci warned that
the time was near to decide between liberal revolution and socialist revolu-
tion, measuring “what is the effective force of the socialist revolutionaries and

9 SPW-1: 32 (Gramsci 2017: 39).

10 Cf. Gramsci 2017: 44 ff.

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74 Liguori

what is that of the bourgeois revolutionaries”.11 Gaining freedom (from the

Tsarist autocracy), the revolution, for Gramsci, should continue forward,
reaching “final goals”: socialism, “the freedom to begin the concrete transfor-
mation of the economic and social world of the old Tsarist Russia. The com-
promise with the bourgeoisie is no longer useful, it is no longer necessary, it is
an obstacle”.12

4 A Revolution against “Capital”

Between October 24th and 25th according to the Russian calendar (between
November 7th and 8th in the Western calendar), the Winter Palace was occu-
pied and the Soviets (hegemonized by the Bolsheviks) took power.
Gramsci’s comment written at the end of November is famous. For the Sar-
dinian socialist, it was a “revolution against Capital”: Marx’s book, against those
who had given that book and Marxism an economistic and deterministic read-
ing that was “stadial”, in which no socialist revolution would have been possi-
ble in backwards Russia before an adequate development of the “capitalist
stage” of industry and therefore of the Russian working class. Now – wrote
Gramsci – “these maximalists have seized power and established their dicta-
torship, and are creating the socialist framework within which the revolution
will have to settle down”.13
The Marxism of the Bolsheviks was “constructed” by Gramsci in the image
and semblance of his ideas: a historicist Marxism, derived from Hegel and
freed from the slag of positivism. Once again, the will triumphs in Gramsci’s
vision: associated human beings can understand “economic facts, judging
them and adapting them to their will until this becomes the driving force of
the economy and moulds objective reality, which lives and moves and comes
to resemble a current of volcanic lava that can be channeled wherever and in
whatever way the will determines”.14
More than its provocative beginning (the “revolution against Capital” of
Marx), in reality, the article captured one of the deep motivations of the Octo-
ber Revolution: war had made an unprecedented and unexpected event pos-
sible. Marx had “foreseen the foreseeable”, stated the young socialist revolu-
tionary journalist (then only 26 years old), but he could not have foreseen the

11 Gramsci 2017: 46.

12 Gramsci 2017: 47.
13 agr: 32–33 (Gramsci 2017: 50).
14 agr: 33 (Gramsci 2017: 51).

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Gramsci, October Revolution and Its “Translation” in West 75

First World War and its unprecedented character, which “would have aroused
the will of the popular collective in Russia” much faster than normal (“this is
why, under normal conditions – Gramsci added – the canons of Marxist histori-
cal criticism grasp reality”15). He continues: “in Russia the war galvanized the
people’s will. As a result of the sufferings accumulated over three years, their
will became as one almost overnight. Famine was imminent, and hunger,
death from hunger, could claim anyone, could crush tens of millions of men at
one stroke. Mechanically at first, then actively and consciously agter the first
revolution, the people’s will became as one”.16
Today we can affirm that Russia went through its revolution because Lenin
had known how to read the “conjuncture”. He had known how to make “a con-
crete analysis of the concrete situation” (to quote a famous Leninist motto).
Historical events are always individual, politics and history are, for Lenin and
Gramsci, idiographic disciplines: every generalization is a mistake.

5 A Field of Possibilities

The more mature Gramsci would reformulate his vision of the revolutionary
process, arriving at defining it as a relationship of reciprocal influence and
equilibrium between “relationships of force” and revolutionary initiative. From
the October Revolution onwards, in fact, in Gramsci’s writing there begins to
be reasoning and considerations that are more coherent with the Marxist tra-
dition. Gramsci’s Marxism starts to free itself from its idealistic incrustations.
In the article, Il nostro Marx (“Our Marx”), published May 4th, 1918, on the eve
of the centenary of the birth of the German revolutionary, he states that before
Marx, “history was only the domain of ideas” while “with Marx, history contin-
ues to be the domain of the ideas, the spirit, and of the conscious activity of
single or associated individuals”. But, continues Gramsci, thanks to Marx, “the
ideas and the spirit substantiate themselves, losing their arbitrariness” and
“their substance is in economy, in practical activity, in the systems and rela-
tionships of production and exchange”. For this reason, “an idea realizes itself
[…] in that it finds the justification and the way to establish itself in economic
reality”. It follows that, in order to know “what the historical ends of a country,
a society” one must “know first of all what systems and relations of production
and exchange obtain in that country, that society”.17

15 agr: 34 (Gramsci 2017: 51).

16 Ibid.
17 agr: 37–38 (Gramsci 2016: 132–133).

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76 Liguori

The vision of the more mature Gramsci will not lose the importance given
to will and subjectivity, but the historical-social reality in the Quaderni del car-
cere (“Prison Notebooks”) will be a field of possibilities, that the objective condi-
tions offer to the subject within which will be determined a certain outcome
rather than another depending on the action and the capabilities of the sub-
ject himself.
Gramsci’s youthful hyper-subjectivism will be surpassed starting from the
new situation that the October Revolution had created and that also reposi-
tioned his vision on a new and more concrete terrain.
It was precisely from Gramsci’s adherence to the international political
movement that was born with the “second Russian revolution”, that his Marx-
ism began to free itself from the idealistic and spiritual incrustations that had
strongly conditioned him in the previous period.

6 A New Conception of the World

In the following years, Gramsci passes through difficult and crucial experienc-
es. First of all, the “biennio rosso” 1919–1920 (“Two Red Years”) when he became
one of the most unique and important representatives of the “consigli di fab-
brica” (factory workers’ councils) thought in Europe, taking on the leadership
of the movement of the factory councils in Turin and developing an original
concept of self-government for the working classes that was original and also
different from the soviet model in Russia.
The failure of the workers’ movement in Turin, however, opened his eyes to
the complexity and variety of the Italian situation, to the fact that not all of
Italy was like Turin – a modern industrial society, standardized and character-
ized by the “sturdy fortresses and emplacements”18 of “civil society”, as Gramsci
expressed in the Quaderni del carcere (“Prison Notebooks”); but also on the
limits of Italian socialist party that was revolutionary in word but immobile
and confused in reality.
The failure of the workers’ and socialist movement of the “Two Red Years”
also gave birth to the dramatic phase of the Fascist reaction and the historical
defeat suffered by the workers’ movement in Italy. These events provoked a
deep rethinking by Gramsci and induced him to accept Lenin’s teaching on the
conditions of the possibility of a revolution in the West, above all thanks to his
stay in the Soviet capital from June of 1922 until the end of 1923.

18 PN3: 169 (Q 7, § 17: 866).

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Gramsci, October Revolution and Its “Translation” in West 77

The lesson that came from Lenin was that of a crisis of capitalism that would
not necessarily immediately turn into a wave of revolution. It was under Len-
in’s influence that Gramsci developed the conviction that the West could not
“do like in Russia” because in the West the “political superstructures” created
by the development of capitalism and by mass society made every possible
revolutionary strategy slower and more complex. Already in 1924, Gramsci had
developed in nuce some of the themes that would be those central to the Quad-
erni del carcere19. The revolution of 1917 needed to be translated into the spe-
cific situation of developed capitalistic societies.
Gramsci therefore arrives at a complete rethinking of his youthful theoreti-
cal baggage. In mature Gramsci, the revolutionary will go side by side with the
most objective knowledge of the situation: a precise social and historical anal-
ysis of the field on which the struggle plays out. Gramsci in prison, arrives at
destroying the morphological difference between East and West, and conse-
quently between war of movement and war of position,20 and comes to the
conclusion that the Russian Revolution had been the last 18th century-style
revolution, the last insurrection-revolution, at least in Europe or in the devel-
oped world.21 In the West, the modern structure of mass society, the new inter-
penetration between state and civil society, the weight and importance of the
mechanisms of the formation of consensus are all factors that bring Gramsci to
a real revolution of the concept of revolution, not only regarding the subjectivis-
tic and idealistic vision of his youthful period, but also regarding the classic
and sometimes stereotyped conception of the Marxist and Leninist tradition.
It is not (as is sometimes argued) because Gramsci emerges from Marxism or
from the revolutionary tradition, with a classically reformist approach. The will
for change does not lose its anchoring in social class, its heart in the economic
world and in social relationships, but sees all the complexity of modern politi-
cal action. It refutes economic conceptions based on the relation between eco-
nomic crisis and revolution; it identifies as fundamental the public and private
structures that form a widespread common sense, and considers it essential to
launch the challenge of conquering the general consensus. In other words, it
underlines the importance of a cultural and ideological reflection that could
offer a new conception of the world and could form a new common sense of
the people.

19 Cf. Liguori 2015: 249.

20 As regards the main Gramscian categories to which reference is made here cf. Liguori,
Voza 2009.
21 Cf. PN3: 148 (Q 6, § 208: 845).

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78 Liguori

It is a conception that, by highlighting the decisive importance of consen-

sus, cultural reflection and widespread common sense, lays the foundation for
a democratic political struggle that is compatible with the strategy of the con-
quest of hegemony.

Bibliography

Gramsci’s Works and Abbreviations

Gramsci, A. (2016), Masse e partito. Antologia 1910–1926, G. Liguori (ed.) (Roma: Editori
Riuniti).
Gramsci, A. (2017), Come alla volontà piace. Scritti sulla Rivoluzione russa, Liguori, G.
(ed.) (Roma: Castelvecchi).
agr: Forgacs, D. (ed.) (2000), The Gramsci Reader. Selected Writings 1916–1935 (New
York: NYU Press).
hpc: Cavalcanti, P., Piccone, P. (eds.) (1975), History, Philosophy and Culture in the
Young Gramsci (St. Louis: Telos Press).
LC2: Santucci, A. (ed.) (1996), Lettere dal carcere. 1926–1937 (Palermo: Sellerio).
PN: Buttigieg, J.A. (ed.) (1992, 1996, 2007), Prison Notebooks (New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press), 3 vols.
Q: Gerratana, V. (ed.) (1975), Quaderni del carcere (Torino: Einaudi), 4 vols.
SPW-1: Hoare, Q., Nowell Smith, G. (eds.) (1977), Selections from Political Writings, 1910–
1920 (London: Lawrence & Wishart; New York: International Publisher).

Other Works
Liguori, G. (2015), Teoria e politica nel marxismo di Antonio Gramsci, in Petrucciani, S.
(ed.), Storia del marxismo, vol. 1, Socialdemocrazia, revisionismo, rivoluzione (Roma:
Carocci).
Liguori, G., Voza, P. (eds.) (2009), Dizionario gramsciano 1926–1937 (Roma: Carocci).
Medici, R. (2004), Giacobinismo, in Frosini, F., Liguori, G. (eds.), Le parole di Gramsci
(Roma: Carocci).

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 Chapter 8

On the Transition to Communism

Alberto Burgio

1 Between the Past and the Future

The question of the transition to Communism – in particular, the problem of

the structure of the process, given that on its chronological placement Gramsci
in the Quaderni del carcere (“Prison Notebooks”) does not venture to forecast
what concerns Western Europe and Italy – is the subject of several notes in the
Quaderni as well some other important texts written before his imprisonment.
As always with Gramsci, one must see whether the texts can be organized into
a coherent collection identifiable as a theory.
First, one must consider that this question shapes a specific case within the
framework of the general discourse on historical transitions, discourse that
Gramsci – as in general in revolutionary Marxism – conducts mostly along the
lines of the schema outlined by Marx in the Vorwort (“Preface”) of 1859. As it
is known, the Quaderni del carcere refers to the text of the Vorwort several
times, emphasizing its theoretical relevance (it contains fundamental “prin-
ciples of historical methodology”1) and developing the schema by integrating
it with a theory of periodization based on the polarity “lasting”/“constituting
an epoch”.2
But this schema does not fully exhaust Marx’s reflection on transitions. In
Marx there is also a specific theory of transition (and of revolution) that does
not consider the past, but the future (or, in the case of the Commune of Paris,
the present): not the transitions to feudalism and capitalism, but the end of
bourgeois modernity and the coming of the “new society” liberated from the
exploitation of man by man. In this regard, several works of Marx – all well
known to Gramsci – demonstrate a different model (actually, the opposite
model) with respects to that contemplated in the Vorwort of 1859. Already in
the Manifest (and little by little in Die Klassenkämpfe in Frankreich 1848
bis  1850  – “The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850” –, Der Bürgerkrieg in

1 spn: 432 (Q 11 § 22: 1422).

2 Cf. Burgio 2018: 434–8; on Gramsci’s idea of “constituting an epoch”, cf. Burgio 2014: Ch. 5; on
the role of Marx’s Vorwort in the complete view of Gramsci’s prison reflections, cf. Burgio
2003: 65–69. See these works also for other bibliographical references.

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­Frankreich – “The Civil War in France” – and Kritik des Gothaer Programms –
“Critique of the Gotha Program”) the sequence of process > event is over-
turned, in the way that Marx imagines political events which open the road to
the process of construction in the new social formation, a process which in-
volves “a period of political transition” where the command of the new state is
exercised as “the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat”.3

2 The Norm and the Exception

When Gramsci is reasoning like a critical historian of modernization, he uses

the schema of Marx’s Vorwort (“Preface”), while when he reflects on the politi-
cal urgency of the workers’ revolution (in other words, on the need to antici-
pate the sequence of processes accelerating the times) he instead uses these
other works by Marx. And, besides that, it goes without saying that he uses the
theoretical (and in primis practical) contribution by Lenin.
A universally known, and often fundamentally misunderstood, text from
the pre-prison period is the article that Grasmci published (first in “Avanti!” on
December 24, 1917, and then in “Grido del Popolo” on January 5, 1918) with the
title La rivoluzione contro il “Capitale” (“The Revolution Against the ‘Capital’”).
In this article he celebrates the “Bolshevik revolution” and the establishment
of a “dictatorship”, necessary for the developing of “the socialist framework
within which the revolution will have to settle down if it is to continue to de-
velop harmoniously”.4 It is important to notice the emphasis placed here by
Gramsci on the anomaly (with respect to the general schema of transitions)
represented by the October Revolution. If, “under normal conditions the two
classes of the capitalist world create history through an ever more intensified
class struggle”,5 in Russia the intertwining of the revolution with the World
War upset the situation. On the background of unspeakable suffering provoked
by war and famine, “the socialist propaganda forged the will of the Russian
­people” that now – denying both the Mensheviks and the evolved “Marxists”
theories – was about to burn the stages of history (Gramsci speaks of “immedi-
ate socialism”) generating “the conditions needed for the total achievement of
their [the revolutionaries’] goal”.6

3 mew 19: 28. Cf. mew 4: 481; mew 7: 89; mew 17: 338–339, 342, 349.
4 SPW-1: 34 (Gramsci 1982: 513).
5 SPW-1: 35 (Gramsci 1982: 514).
6 SPW-1: 36 (Gramsci 1982: 515–516).

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On the Transition to Communism 81

Naturally, La rivoluzione contro il “Capitale” was not the only pre-prison text
to deal with the structure of the revolutionary process. Gramsci returns to the
subject in two important articles in particular that appeared within two
months of each other in “Ordine Nuovo” in the summer of 1920. In these arti-
cles he defines the “political power” of the working class as “the defensive orga-
nization and condition of development for a given order in the relations of
production and distribution of wealth”7 (Due rivoluzioni – “Two Revolutions”)
and reiterates that the working class “will achieve its liberation only by passing
through a period of ‘dictatorship’, a period of restrictions, a period character-
ized as a workers’ State”8 (Che cosa intendiamo per “demagogia”? – “What do we
mean by ‘demagogy’?”).
And the mature Gramsci? The Gramsci of the Quaderni (“Prison Note-
books”)? Fashionable today is a vulgar revisionism that aims to rip Gramsci –
especially the imprisoned Gramsci – from the damaged history of 20th century
Communism in order to preserve him in the pantheon of the polite and palat-
able “classics”. A crucial junction in this operation is the pseudo-philology at
the service of the Italian national edition, poised to dismember the body of the
Prison Notebooks in order to inhibit an organic reading; to shatter it by drama-
tizing the question of internal chronology beyond reason (it is strange that the
work of an inmate segregated from the world can no longer be spoken of as a
unified text). But the question of the transition to communism is one that is
not easily tamed. This question is also, for the connections that link it to the
living history of the 20th century (before than to the texts of the top theorists
of revolutionary Marxism), one that ridicules any attempt to pass off the sweet-
ened image of Gramsci the “good democrat”.
The Prison Notebooks deliver a rigorous Leninist theory of the transition to
communism, connected (as is easy to understand) by a series of annotations in
which Gramsci expresses passionately favorable judgments towards the revo-
lutionary experience in progress in the Soviet Union. Let’s consider – with the
necessary speed – at least the principal texts of this theoretical and political
constellation.

3 The Construction of “Regulated Society”

The § 88 of Quaderno 6 (“Notebook 6”) contains a key passage with regards to

regulated society. The following is how Gramsci succinctly describes the

7 SPW-1: 305 (Gramsci 1987: 569–570).

8 SPW-1: 323 (Gramsci 1987: 643).

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­ rocess that (after the conquest of political power by the working class) leads
p
to the construction of a society free from rule:

It is possible to imagine the state-coercion element withering away grad-

ually, as the increasingly conspicuous elements of regulated society (or
ethical state or civil society) assert themselves. […] In the theory of state ➢
regulated society (from a phase in which state equals government to
a phase in which state is identified with civil society), there must be a
transition phase of state as night watchman, that is, of a coercive organi-
zation that will protect the development of those elements of regulated
society that are continually on the rise and, precisely because they are on
the rise, will gradually reduce the state’s authoritarian and coercive in-
terventions. This is not to say that one should think of a new “liberalism”,
even if the beginning of an era of organic freedom were at hand.9

The dynamic described consists of the gradual transformation of the State

into an organism that is increasingly free from constrictive elements (institu-
tions and practices), until its resolution in the collection of social-economic
relationships and administrative functions: until its complete metamorphosis
into a “regulated society”, center of self-government and of “organic freedom”
(non-individualistic, but collective and common); until its “gradual reduction”
(until its extinguishing) as a coercive apparatus above the social field (which
is why Gramsci speaks, shortly before, of the realization of a “state without a
state”).10
This, in short, is the heart of the argument. There are two remaining prob-
lems to resolve, however. One must understand, in this schema, what is meant
by the expressions “coercive state” and “night-watchman state”. One must also
identify the starting point of this process with certainty.
Let’s begin from here. As we have read, the beginning of this dynamic sees
the dual identity of the State as “Government” (a term that in the Quaderni
usually designates the institutional sphere in charge of political command)
and as “social society” (within the scope of private initiative). At first glance, it
is a situation that is difficult to understand (is not the institutional field by defi-
nition distinct from the social sphere?) and that Gramsci illustrates, though, in
the first part of the note where (just before the passage cited above) he refers

9 PN3: 75–76 (Q 6, § 88: 764).

10 Ibid.

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On the Transition to Communism 83

to “the ultimate stages of ‘economic-corporativism’” and an “economic-­

corporative form” characterized by “confusion between civil society and politi-
cal society”.11
One understands what Gramsci means by reading in synopsis a contempo-
rary page from Quaderno 8 (“Notebook 8”) (the §185, precisely entitled “The
economic-corporative phase of the state”12). Here, referring explicitly to the
founding of a “new type of state”, he clarifies what is inevitable (“no type of
state can avoid going through [it]”): a first (and primitive) phase characterized,
both by the inter-penetration between the institutional and social-economic
spheres as well as by the marked priority of economic politics. The “political he-
gemony of the new social group that has founded the new type of state must
be predominantly of an economic order”.13
If we look carefully, this happens for an intuitive reason: a reason already
underlying the Marxian texts previously mentioned. Dealing with the inaugu-
ral phase, the origin of the new “social formation”, it is necessary first of all to
consolidate the new structure: the new “relationships of production”. The ac-
tion of the “new social group” must therefore concentrate on the organization
and consolidation of structural dynamics. Conversely, this makes it inevitable
that cultural initiatives will be sacrificed. In this phase “the elements of the
superstructure” (operating in the area of that “civil society” evoked in § 88 of
Quaderno 6) “can only be weak”; “the cultural plan will be mostly negative: a
critique of the past aimed at destruction and erasure of memory. Constructive
policy will be still at the level of ‘broad outlines’, sketches”.14
The essential information remains: the conquest of power by the new ruling
class- in order to consolidate the successful outcome of the revolutionary
shock – will follow a phase characterized as markedly authoritarian. Gramsci
fully agrees with Lenin when he describes this phase as being inevitably long.
The theme of the long duration of the dictatorial phase is clearly described
in another page of Quaderno 6 (“Notebook 6”). In § 98, using his usual com-
parative mode, Gramsci observes that, in general, the type and breadth of du-
ties entrusted to “the law” (compulsory rules) of the establishment of a new
state power depends on the “different position occupied by the subaltern class-
es before becoming dominant”.15 Therefore, he points out that “certain subal-
tern classes, unlike others” (exactly because they did not previously occupy

11 PN3: 75 (Q 6, § 88: 763).

12 PN3: 342 (Q 8, §185: 1053).
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 PN3: 84 (Q 6, § 98: 773).

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positions of power) should have a “long period of juridical intervention that is

rigorous and then subdued”.16
The allusion to the “position” of the working class in the bourgeois “old soci-
ety” is transparent and allows us to draw the first conclusion. For the whole
first long phase, the success of the workers’ revolution (the consolidation of its
initial results) involves, in Gramsci’s view, the exercise of a strict coercive pow-
er, aimed essentially at defending the structural elements of the new social
order. The dictatorship of the proletariat remains the key moment of revolu-
tionary shock, the fundamental tool of the working class used for the construc-
tion of the “new society”. We now arrive at the second question still remaining,
which is closely connected to one just seen.

4 On the Extincion of the “Coercive State”

The initial situation is followed, in Gramsci’s schema, by the phase of the

“night-watchman state”, in which the “element of coercive state” “gradually”
reduces its own “authoritative and coercive interventions” (that is to say,
“exhausts” itself) as soon as – thanks to these interventions (the process is
dialectic) – on the contrary, energies and expressions of autonomy (“organic
freedom”) of “civil society” are developing: the “elements” of the new “regu-
lated society”.17 What does this mean? What, in particular, corresponds to the
concept of “night-watchman state” and “coercive state” and which relation-
ships connect these two entities?
In the light of what we have considered so far regarding the functions of the
workers’ dictatorship, we can say that, while “coercive state” designates the
state apparatus in that purely coercive organization (the “coercive state ele-
ment” identifies the functions of the state responsible for the material exercise
of “legal violence”: the military moment of political domination); Lassalle’s cat-
egory of “night-watchman state” instead highlights the (gradual) reduction of
“coercive measures” to protect the new economic dynamic, the new “mode of
production”.
Lassalle criticized the liberal theory of the “minimal” State, delegated only
to the protection of bourgeois economic liberties. Now Gramsci takes up this
idea again, certainly not to reevaluate the liberal schema (hence the warning
to not “think of a new liberalism”18) but with the aim of highlighting, according

16 Ibid.
17 PN3: 75–76 (Q 6, § 88: 764).
18 Ibid.

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On the Transition to Communism 85

to Lenin’s model, the process of reducing the repressive component of the

workers’ new power in charge of supervising (“protecting”) the results gradu-
ally achieved in the consolidation process (“continuous increase”) of the new
economic structure and the new system of social relationships.
As in Lenin,19 for Gramsci, the task of the workers’ State is twofold and am-
bivalent: it must on one hand protect the development of a “new society” and
in this way is a dictatorship, the power of the people, “democracy” in its real
sense, as Marx had provocatively written;20 and, on the other hand, at the same
time has to disappear, to become extinct as the “new society”, under its armed
protection, consolidates its own structures. Protect and extinguish; defend and
“gradually reduce” their own “authoritarian and coercive interventions”:21 this
is, both in the Quaderni del carcere (“Prison Notebooks”) and in Государство
и революция (“The State and Revolution”), the procedural function of the
workers’ state, the “dictatorship of the proletariat”.
This is the theoretical architecture from which Gramsci reflects on the tran-
sition to Communism in the Quaderni del carcere. It is expressed in pages that
form the ideal basis for focusing, in closing, the controversial question of
Gramsci’s judgment on the Soviet revolutionary experience, whose vicissi-
tudes he follows until the end with unchanged passion.

5 The “de facto Power” of the “Political Party”

From many pages of the Prison Notebooks emerges the fact that Gramsci’s
theoretical research on the transition to communism intertwines with the
reflection on what happens in these years in the Soviet Union. It is there-
fore worth asking what it represents, or more precisely, how it compares to
the model of the transition to “regulated society” outlined in the Quaderni
del carcere – the ussr between the end of the 1920s and the early 1930s, af-
ter the experience of the nep (New Economic Policy) and the launch of the
first five-year plan. To draft an answer to this question – which goes through
most of the recent critical discussions – it is necessary to study four annota-
tions found in Quaderno 5 (“Notebook 5”), § 127, Quaderno 7 (“Notebook 7”),
§ 43, Quaderno 8 (“Notebook 8”), § 185 and Quaderno 13 (“­Notebook  13”),

19 Cf. Lenin 1974: 407 ff., 412–413, 482–484.

20 mew 4: 481.
21 PN3: 75–76 (Q 6, § 88: 764).

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§ 30. Here we limit ourselves to summing up some results of this synoptic

reading.22
Even though Gramsci does not mention the Soviet Union in the first note (in
homage to the caution that induces him to frequently resort to allusions,
pseudonyms and paraphrases), it seems likely that this is the “new type of
state” in question. If this hypothesis hits the mark, it is very interesting the way
in which he values the “de facto power” which allows the “political party” (the
Bolshevik Communist Party) to exercise the functions of the “head of state”
(“the hegemonic function, and hence the function of balancing various
interests”23). This is exactly the situation we have encountered working on § 88
of Quaderno 6 (and on § 185 of Quaderno 8).
Gramsci writes that, “juridically” the “political party” in its operating as
“head of the State”, “neither rules nor governs”.24 But he immediately adds that,
however, “in the reality of some States”, it has “the de facto power” of reigning
and governing, and this precisely by virtue of the close connection between
“civil society” and “political society” that describes the first (and primitive)
phase of the transition.
This situation, this close interpenetration of the political and social-­
economic planes – certainly contrary to “traditional constitutional law”, but so
made to allow the “political party” to “exercise the hegemonic function and
thus balance different interests” – gives life (Gramsci writes) to a “reality which
is in continuous movement”; where “it is not possible to create a constitutional
law of the traditional type”, but only “a system of principles asserting that the
end of the state is its own end, its own disappearance: in other words, the reab-
sorption of political society into civil society”.25
Therefore – assuming that we are in a new and dynamic political-juridical
reality, ruled by a power that is not yet regulated – Gramsci records that the
party exercises a “hegemonic function” (of political leadership, not of brute
dominion), not only functional for the progressive extinction of the “state-­
coercion” but also recognized (and perhaps legitimized) by the “citizens” who
“feel” that the party acts as “the head of state”, as “the element that balances the
various interests struggling against the predominant but not absolutely exclu-
sivist interest”.26

22 For an analytical treatment cf. Burgio 2018: 474–484.

23 PN2: 382 (Q 5, § 127: 662).
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid.

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On the Transition to Communism 87

In the end, one could say that Gramsci sees in the Soviet Union at the early
stages (necessarily characterized by the protagonism of coercive power) a real-
ity “in continuous movement” which, precisely by virtue of the use of instru-
ments foreign to bourgeois constitutional law (beyond which, it goes without
saying, because of the inspiring finalities of the Bolshevik revolutionary expe-
rience), conforms to the model of the transition to a “new society” without
classes and free from domination.

6 The Birth of a “New Civilization”

Any remaining doubt in this regard is lost when we consider two other texts
that return to these same themes. Gramsci writes that the inaugural phase of
the revolutionary process, inevitably concentrated on the economic dynamic,
will only leave space for a meagre political culture, which will proceed by ne-
cessity with “‘broad outlines’, sketches that could (and should) be changed at
all times in order to be consistent with the structure as it takes shape”.27 Curi-
ously, he concludes:

This, however, did not happen during the period of the communes. In-
stead, culture remained the function of the church; its character was, in-
deed, antieconomic (against the nascent capitalist economy); and its
thrust was to prevent rather than enable the acquisition of hegemony by
the new class. Humanism and the Renaissance were thus reactionary;
they signaled the defeat of the new class, the negation of the economic
world characterized by the new class, etc.28

What do the municipalities, humanism and the Renaissance have to do with

the ussr? One understands reading this text in synopsis with the § 43 from
Quaderno 7 (“Notebook 7”), where Gramsci finally talks about the Soviet Union
apertis verbis (and – even if he tries differently to support the contrary – in
unambiguously commendatory terms).
Using one the many analogies that appear in the body of the Quaderni del
carcere29 (“Prison Notebooks”), Gramsci states that the “the process of the mo-
lecular formation of a new civilization currently under way may be compared

27 PN3: 342 (Q 8, §185: 1053).

28 Ibid.
29 On the importance of analogical reflection and comparative historical analysis in the
theoretical context of the Quaderni del carcere cf. Burgio 2018: ch. 11.

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88 Burgio

to the Reformation movement”.30 Just as the Lutheran movement overturned

the catholic concept of grace (fatalistic and a source of passivity) and infused
a fervent spirit of initiative and promoted “on a worldwide scale” a “real prac-
tice of resourcefulness and initiative […] that formed the ideology of a nascent
capitalism” (here is the obvious echo of Weber); in the same way, where the
“concept of historical materialism” (that “for many critics” should in principle
generate “fatalism and passivity”) becomes “reality”, it inspires a passionate ex-
perience of social cooperation and collective resourcefulness: “it gives rise to a
blossoming of initiatives and enterprises that astonish many observers”31
(Gramsci gives the name of Michael Farbman, author of a supplement to the
“Economist” on the first five-year plan).
There is no doubt that this note refers to the Soviet Union. The mention of
Farbman’s writing bears witness to the fact just as the explicit reference to “a
study of the Union”32 that should, in Gramsci’s view, start from this type of
comparative reflection. What he clearly argues here is that, in this way compa-
rable to the “Reformation movement”,33 the Soviet experiment is actually suc-
ceeding in its intent to transform the life of an entire people thanks to an ex-
traordinary “blossoming of initiatives and enterprises”.34 This is why it has to
do with – and in 1930–32 it is not a negligible definition – a “process of the
molecular formation of a new civilization”.35
Nothing less. Whether it has to do with evaluations that were wrong in the
early 1930s, now in hindsight, it is obvious. But anachronisms, instrumental
uses and hurried conclusions – which could not only preclude the understand-
ing of the texts, but also cause one to lose sight of the essential – must be
avoided.
Rather, it is necessary, in our opinion, to hold two points firmly. First, the
fact that, having been in prison for years, Gramsci knew very little about what
was happening in the Soviet Union. In particular, he ignores the violence that
accompanied the forced collectivization in the countryside, and knew nothing
of the tragedy of the kulak between 1929 and 1932. This means that there is no
sense in scrambling to prove the unprovable (that Gramsci looked at the Soviet
Union with increasing aversion), for the simple reason that nothing leads to
the revocation of the conviction that a “new civilization” was emerging in the
“Union”.

30 PN3: 193 (Q 7, §44: 892).

31 Ibid.
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid.
35 Ibid.

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On the Transition to Communism 89

Secondly, on methodological grounds, one must keep clearly in mind the

distance that in every context separates historical or political judgment from
theoretical discourse. What Gramsci writes, reasoning on the theory of histori-
cal transitions and in particular on the transition to Communism, does not
depend on his reflection on the Soviet experience even though undoubtedly
these reflections and the judgement that he formed on the “new type” of State
born of the Bolshevik revolution contribute to giving shape to the theoretical
elaboration. Indeed, what remains most important is the collection of con-
cepts and paradigms used to construct this theoretical elaboration: elements
that Gramsci took with full awareness from Marx and Lenin, not without re-
working them into an original theory, in harmony with the times.

Bibliography

Gramsci’s Works and Abbreviations

Gramsci, A. (1982), La città futura. 1917–1918, Caprioglio, S. (ed.) (Torino: Einaudi).
Gramsci, A. (1987), L’Ordine Nuovo. 1919–1920, Gerratana, V., Santucci, A.A. (eds.) (Tori-
no: Einaudi).
PN: Buttigieg, J.A. (ed.) (1992, 1996, 2007), Prison Notebooks (New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press), 3 vols.
Q: Gerratana, V. (ed.) (1975), Quaderni del carcere (Torino: Einaudi), 4 vols.
spn: Hoare, Q., Nowell-Smith, G. (eds.) (1971), Selection from the Prison Notebooks (New
York: International Publishers).
SPW-1: Hoare, Q., Nowell Smith, G. (eds.) (1977), Selections from Political Writings, 1910–
1920 (London: Lawrence & Wishart; New York: International Publisher).

Other Works
Burgio, A. (2003), Gramsci storico. Una lettura dei “Quaderni del carcere” (Roma-Bari:
Laterza).
Burgio, A. (2014), Gramsci. Il sistema in movimento (Roma: DeriveApprodi).
Burgio, A. (2018), Il sogno di una cosa. Per Marx (Roma: DeriveApprodi).
Lenin, V.I. (1974), Staat und Revolution, in Lenin, V.I., Werke, vol. 25 (Berlin: Dietz).
mew: Marx, K., Engels, F., Marx-Engels Werke, 44 vol. (Berlin: Dietz).

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 Part 4
Hegemony

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 Chapter 9

Gramsci: Political Scientist

Michele Prospero

Of central importance in Gramsci is the theoretical-interpretive grid based on

the moment of difference (State-society) and the moment of mediation (rep-
resentation, subjects, organizations). Modern politics, in which an abstract
and separate sphere from the State transcends the corporatism of micro-­
interests and bypasses the localism of small territories, cannot rest on the at-
omism of individuals who roam autonomously and without ties or processes
of mobilization. Recognizing a debt with Hegel, Gramsci substitutes the dyadic
relationship of abstract state/unrelated individual, with a more flexible scheme
that uses mediation as a connecting bridge between the general-­representative
sphere and the economic-particular sphere. This is the moment of representa-
tion that, from the social and its fractures, organizes subjectivities by equip-
ping them with collective expressions and projects them onto the field of po-
litical confrontation. Civil society does not coincide with the economy in a
separate space, and it is not the photography of individuals such as atoms
without interdependencies.
The unity of the state and civil society signifies that both manifestations of
this explicative couple are methodologically differentiated parts of a broader
system. This unity may have progressive forms, and eversion of ownership rela-
tions but also the face of conservation with the conferment to the State of the
minimum tasks of acting as custodian of the proprietary order. In a system
such as the modern one – which sees the unity of the State and of society –
both moments of public intervention in the economy as well as moments of
deregulation and liberalism are possible. These contingent politics do not
evoke the reabsorption of the separation of State and society that continue to
operate as the backbone of modernity. For Gramsci, within the framework of
the unity of the modern social system (which integrates abstract politics and
market economy), it is possible for analytical purposes to understand the con-
ceptual separation of State and society.
This combination of the unity of the social mechanism, expressed in the
differentiation of its functions, escapes from the principal theoretical currents.
The distinction between State and society then loses analytical rigor and be-
comes a mask of ideology. For the liberals, civil society means economic
­activity – private forces and the State propose itself as the rule of law. The

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94 Prospero

f­igure of the minimal State that monopolizes public goods is thus presented
and this minimal state entrusts the care of the particular interest to the mar-
ket. The moment of the public appears, warns Gramsci, as

a State whose functions are limited to the safeguarding of public order

and respect for the laws. The fact is glossed over that in this form of ré-
gime (which anyways has never existed except on paper, as a limiting
hypothesis) hegemony over its historical developments belongs to pri-
vate forces, to civil society – which is “State” too, indeed is the State
itself.1

The dilation of the distance between private and public, in the name of the
autonomy of the economic calculation, is also the result of a political decision
that designates a particular extension of the relationship between State and
society. Politics is the decision that shortens the gap between State and society
just like politics is also the decision that enlarges the distance between public
and private. Not only liberals, but also Catholics embody an ideological vision
of the relationship between State and society. “They would like to have the in-
terventionist state on their side; failing that, they want a neutral state because
an unfavorable state might support their enemies. In reality, the Catholics
want everything to be in their favor”.2 The State is indifferent or minimal to
others while it is clearly recognizable as a visible hand when it protects certain
interests and values.
Skeptical of the central-bureaucratic State, what is relevant in catholic
thought is the horizontal profile, the relationship supportive neighborhood,
and “the town council was traditionally considered civil society and not state”.3
Civil society becomes the place of exchange and a reticular leading role of as-
sociated worlds: the horizontal link of particularism that creates connections
in an interpenetration between economic-proprietary instances and the cult
of the periphery as a place of communitarian authenticity. A certain combina-
tion of Catholic culture and the exaltation of particularism, Gramsci notes,

it directs its attention toward the “particular”, toward the bourgeois as an

individual who develops within civil society and who has no conception
of political society outside his “particular” sphere. It is tied to Guelfism,

1 spn: 261 (Q 26, § 6: 2302). Cf. Poulantzas 1975; Buci-Glucksmann 1976; Carnoy 1984.
2 PN2: 328 (Q 5, § 69: 604). Cf. Bellamy, Schecter 1993.
3 PN1: 215 (Q 1, § 130: 118). Cf. Morera 1990.

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Gramsci: Political Scientist 95

which can be said to be a medieval theoretical syndicalism. It is federalist

without having a federal center.4

A manifestation of unresolved dualism is found in Catholic culture that sets

the periphery against the center, the world of community living against the
vertical rigidness of power.
Gramsci notices an affinity between the catholic views that magnify the for-
eignness of the peripheries from the center, and the socialist tendencies to op-
erate within the spaces of society’s real life against structure of the liberal
­regime. The Italian example is presented as a contraposition (high-low, power-
society) that proceeds due to the lack of subjects of mediation between the
élite and the people. For Gramsci, mediation is the construction of an efficient
connection between society and state that is indispensable for the governance
of modernization. The analysis of social conflicts and territorial fractures in
the history of the liberal state lead Gramsci to point out the limits of a political
élite that is incapable of conferring a social base to long term strategies and
thus is incapable of governing the recomposition of these spaces (which in-
clude interests, beliefs and faith). For Gramsci, the nationalization of the
­masses and territorial amalgamation pass through the politics of the élite ca-
pable of connecting interests, culture, and political-institutional planning. The
weight of the original fractures, on the other hand, imprint a sign of weakness,
based on support and capacity for integration, on the liberal regime that is
upset by the politicization of class conflict (communist unionism) and by the
organization of Catholics first in civil society (white syndicalism) and then in
the political (confessional party). The Gramscian scrutiny highlights the fail-
ure of the elite to set up mediation between state and society, confirmed as an
insurmountable condition for starting the processes of modernity.
Without the organized pluralism of a dense civil society, anti-political sug-
gestions proliferate which disorient a system that does not know how to proj-
ect itself beyond the findings of powerless transformism anchored to a static
parliamentary framework. For Gramsci, when the subjects of mediation fail, a
charismatic solution can prevail with the myth of the lightning decision that
suspends the rites of representation in the name of the achieved social homo-
geneity. As a mixture of interests and rules “political society and civil society
are a single entity”5 but this should not be understood in the sense of Gentile
for which the state or government-force is the whole. It is not possible to

4 PN2: 338 (Q 5, § 85: 614). Cf. De Rosa 1978; Bellamy 1994.

5 PN2: 182 (Q 4, § 38: 460). Cf. Bobbio 1978, 1990; Texier 1968; Haugaard, Lentner 2006; Martin
2015.

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96 Prospero

c­ onfirm the regained unity (substantial, ethical-political) of society and state

because the material assets continue to operate according to the logic of ac-
cumulation and the forms of power register exclusions of pluralism and coer-
cive measures that reveal the absence of any real recomposition. After having
formulated the request of enlargement beyond the dimension of the force to
grasp the link between the heterogeneous, Gramsci raises the contextual de-
mand for differentiation, for which we must distinguish within the concept of
State between “civil society and political society, between hegemony and
dictatorship”.6
The ambition to overcome parliamentarianism (caught in structural diffi-
culty before the tasks of social integration) with corporate grafts is destined for
failure in Gramsci’s view. Rather than on the institutional side, in which func-
tional representation cannot be considered as a solid alternative to individual-
istic representation, corporatism is interesting for its profile of economic poli-
cy oriented to forms of innovation from above with the ambition of stopping
conflict and absorbing the hardships for the purposes of conservation. Grams-
ci analyses the ideological intentions of corporatism to define with public le-
verage the indispensable material for a productive industrial bloc – to allocate
the use of savings in the direction of market growth and rising salaries. The
corporate challenge to Americanism (innovation, reduction of costs, efficient
management of complexity within companies, involvement of the union in
practices of subaltern approval) does not take off in Italy with efficiency and
coherence because fascism, in its effort to operate that strong institutional axis
to favor capitalistic modernization, rejects the face of the liberal state, free
competition, the autonomy of social subject and the instances of conflict.
The preservation of the structures of economic-social power is the trait of
the fascist experience, which thinks of interventions to use the savings for in-
vestment purposes but fails to give organic capacity to govern the novelty and
to relaunch the productive forces and with them the internal demand. More
than a public factor that plans development, Fascism appears as a controlling
body that fights unemployment by taking measures to contain social problems
with procedures that are only useful in the short term. For Gramsci, it is pre-
cisely in this role of authoritative control of discomfort that fascism takes the
form of a static regime aimed at the middle classes and at the maintenance of
threatened interests. The role of the state is thus reabsorbed into police func-
tions and not aimed at development, innovation, technical-business organiza-
tion, rationalization of costs and processes. Gramsci excluded the possibility

6 spn: 271 (Q 6, § 10: 691). Cf. Tamburrano 1963; Bonetti 1980; Belligni 1981; Martelli 1996; Bella-
my 2013; Rosengarten 2014.

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Gramsci: Political Scientist 97

that the corporate regime might in fact turn out to be a factor of real innova-
tion in the long term. While Americanism implicates the figures of the liberal
state, fascism assumes a closed social and institutional attitude, restrictive to
the point of harnessing competition in order to preserve an authoritarian so-
cial discipline, breaking some basic regularities that seem to pervade the mod-
ern experience.
In the regimes of the masses, the overcoming of the conceptual distinction
between state and society through the one-party government or “bureaucratic
solution” is apparent. For this, the moment of mediation and representation
remains open and not susceptible to mythical solutions. Both change and con-
servation raise the question of political mediation. There exists politics of
management/administration (“this question has to do with the rotation in gov-
ernmental power of different fractions from the same dominant group”) and
politics of change (“the foundation and organization of a new political society,
much less of a new type of civil society”7). Both of these manifestations of poli-
tics lead back to the story of representation and to the institutes of mediation
which seem destined to persist, with adaptations and grafts, until the distinc-
tion between public and private, society and state remains. In the context of a
certain defining oscillation in the use of the principal terms, Gramsci outlines
an open interpretative scheme with three relevant dimensions. The state,
which is not only the state-government that administers the governing force,
but also presents itself as a broad state or community – as a unity with the
characteristics of civil society.
In this sense, the state is not only government or a sanctioning apparatus
that “is commonly understood as the entire state”8 but is also life and society.
In civil society, Gramsci does not only see the signs of economic relationships
but also the typical dynamics of political-cultural character. In the time of the
mobilization of civil society with plural subjects, the State loses its “being for
itself”, which projects it as an abstract dimension of power. It presents an en-
larged political dimension that goes beyond the state. It is a broad layer of civil
society, which goes beyond the economic, to host an organized pluralism. Po-
litical society as state is the law, regulation and the coercive expression of dom-
ination. Civil society, on the other hand, is the way of existing and producing
the objective conditions of living where economic struggles and the conquest
of hegemony are found with the discoveries of politics and culture. Given this
intersection of public and social, Gramsci arrives at the hypothesis that in
statehood, we see actors different than the administration and forms (the

7 PN2: 183 (Q 4, § 38: 460–461).

8 PN3: 310 (Q 8, § 130: 1020).

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98 Prospero

­ arties) and in civil society we do not only trace the footsteps of the economy
p
but also the symbols of subjectivity (parties and unions). In some ways, the
parties introduce social profiles into the political system and impose public
determinations in the private sphere.
Gramsci alludes to a sphere that is larger than the State-administrator of
violence and postulates an opening to the complex superstructure of civil
society.

What we can do, for the moment, is to fix two major superstructural “lev-
els”: the one that can be called “civil society”, that is the ensemble of or-
ganisms commonly called “private”, and that of “political society” or “the
State”. These two levels correspond on the one hand to the function of
“hegemony” which the dominant group exercises throughout society and
on the other hand to that of “direct domination” or command exercised
through the State and “juridical” government.9

Considering the composition of civil society, which hosts material structures

but also collective organizations with general political projection, it is indis-
pensable for Gramsci to extend the idea of super-structural plans. On one hand,
civil society is made up of family, neighborhood and “social relationships”. On
the other hand, moments of collective pressure, customs, relational forms not
determined by sanction, ways of thinking and superstitions can emerge in civil
society. The ability to resist the system in the face of economic and social crisis
also depends on the construction of connecting networks and beliefs which
preserve the social order even without direct coercive intervention.
Not on the basis of the complete conceptual definition of terms, but on that
of reflection of historical-political issues, emerges a broad idea of state that
opens towards society (State-community) and expands into the world of orga-
nized subjects (political society). From Gramsci’s perspective, the conceptual
framework appears as “mediated by two types of social organization: (a) by
civil society, that is, by the ensemble of private organizations in society; (b) by
the State”.10 Civil society, more than a dimension made up of individuals, is a
structure of many organizations that relate to each other and the moment of
statehood. Civil society is also the individual, but taken is his role of socius who
associates in worldly experiences and organizes himself into a group. Without
a dense network of subjects of mediation placed between society and state, the
regimes of the masses do not consolidate and in consequence the i­ nstitutions

9 spn: 12 (Q 12, § 1: 1518–1519). Cf. Finocchiaro 1988.

10 PN2: 200 (Q 4, § 49: 476). Cf. Femia 2002; Haugaard, Lentner 2006; Coutinho 2012.

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Gramsci: Political Scientist 99

of government show themselves to be ephemeral entities without support and

exposed to destructive myths or charismatic seductions. Fascism was also a
problem born of land and class. While France managed the crisis with state
resources (the long duration of central power) with a richer panorama of par-
ties, with a more solid civic culture (the mobilizing power of the Marseillaise),
Italy struggled with the weakness of its state-party-civic system. In the coun-
tryside of Italy is seen the reemergence of master-servant polarity that pro-
voked panic in landowning areas threatened by revolt, strikes and occupations.
In France, widespread small farm landowners had instead averted the radical-
ization of the conflict thus depriving the populist right of a valuable base of
support among the agrarians.
For Gramsci, the term populism means the tendency to call on the people
assumed in its indeterminacy, or postulating mythical unity and absence of
conflicts within a fictitious community. This is found in the “exaltation of the
popular masses in general, with all their basic needs (food, clothing, shelter,
reproduction)”.11 An appeal to the people, and to certain “elementary critical
feelings” that the people invent as a homogeneous entity, is certainly an ideo-
logical tool to stop the proletariat as a factor that differentiates or imposes par-
titions. According to Gramsci, in populism (recognizable in Mazzini and Pi-
sacane, in French literature and in the myth of the simple) there is also a
hidden form of democracy – an instance of reaching a more substantial and
less formal organization of power as compared with liberal-constitutional one
because it is open to real sensibilities. Populism refers to the concept of the
people as a homogenous entity, matured before the organization of class. It
contains democracy as it was configured before 1848, when the people as a
presupposed unity passed to the difference of people segmented into classes.
For Gramsci, a people that is compact and unified is not a realistic fact. “Public
opinion is the political content of the public’s political will that can be
dissentient”.12 Conflict exists, not homogeneity. With these new dynamics of
conflict, economic data and the subjectivity of politics are fused, rendering the
unitarian concept of the people anachronistic. The political party of the mass-
es as organization that “efficiently” fuses groups and intellectual classes intro-
duces difference, and breaks the binomial state as the sole interpreter of poli-
tics and the people, described as a generic entity.13
A reality such as the political party, that is both civil society and political
society, introduces moments of connection between the subjects, which break

11 PN3: 118 (Q 6, § 157: 812).

12 PN3: 213 (Q 7, § 83: 915). Cf. Haugaard, Lentner 2006.
13 Cf. Paggi 1970.

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100 Prospero

the symbolism of populism. When the connection-differentiation between

­society and state breaks down, problems of subversion emerge. Even if not al-
ways in conceptually controlled forms (“if the state – even in its wider sense of
civil society”14), the scheme of the methodical distinction between State and
society, and with it the need for mediation, is crucial in Gramsci. In his recogni-
tion the State-society distinction as a rigid dual axis is overpassed by the huge
transformation that provides a hinging function, a function of intermediation
between parties (“the parties were precisely the organisms that not only devel-
oped political guidelines in civil society but also educated and presented men
supposed to be able to apply them”15). With the parties, it is also the structure
of representative institutions that assigns tasks of political-state direction of
general constitutional importance to organized subjects of society. In the par-
liamentary regime, the interest becomes state-centered,

because the parliamentary group of the strongest party became the “gov-
ernment” or led the government. The fact that, due to parliamentary dis-
integration, the parties have become incapable of carrying out this task
did not cancel the task itself nor did it show a new way towards a solu-
tion: the same thing applies to education and the enhancement of
personalities.16

The crisis of the parliamentary system and of traditional political parties de-
stroys the balancing mechanism of mediation. In the face of the erosion of
political forms, the nostalgic action of mourning the institutional balances
broken by irreversible processes is in vain.
With respect to other organized groups who operate in society and mobilize
themselves in the face of conflict, political parties organize themselves like or-
ganisms that, although established in the social sphere, carry out general tasks
and contribute in the management of the resources of power and coercion.
The ambiguous nature of the political party emerges in this way. As private
organizations, political parties are societies, as government apparatuses, they
are instead like the state or a political society. The party, although it exists in
society, develops public tasks and for this reason it appears to Gramsci as “the
mechanism that carries out in civil society the same function that the state

14 fspn: 64 (Q 16, § 11: 1869).

15 Q 15, § 48: 1809; untranslated in English. Cf. Mastellone, Sola 2001; von Beyme 2013; Martin
2015.
16 Ibid.

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Gramsci: Political Scientist 101

carries out, to a greater extent, in political society”.17 Thus, in its attributions,

the State is not different from the political society of which it is the principal
expression and the political party is a profile of civil society which tends, how-
ever, to extend itself in the plan of the state and as a depositary body of politi-
cal tasks of a more restricted degree shown to expand functions and tools. The
tendency is to reshape the directive centrality of the state as a coercive body of
political society and therefore to define a wider political society than the State
following the multiplication of social actors who perform political tasks.
The political party occupies formerly state functions and determines con-
nections between the social and the political.

In reality, in certain sense, the “head of state” – that is, the element that
balances the various interests struggling against the predominant but not
absolutely exclusivistic interest – is precisely the “political party”. With
the difference, however, that in terms of traditional constitutional law
the political party juridically neither rules nor governs. It has “de facto
power”, it exercises the hegemonic function, and hence the function of
balancing various interests, in “civil society”; however, “civil society” is in
fact so thoroughly intertwined with political society that all the citizens
fell instead that the party rules and governs.18

After the consolidation of the parties, the changes in the liberal state are not,
according to Gramsci, comprehensible with the traditional models of consti­
tutional law anchored in the public-private, legal-factual dualism. The three-­
dimensional explanatory diagram sees the interaction between the state
(­juridical form, the moment of sovereignty and of organized coercion in a mo-
nopolistic way) civil society (distinct within an area of economy, and in the
levels of action or molecular processes of associative life) and enlarged politi-
cal society (the moment of contention, the competition between many actors
that open channels of intersection between the social and the institutional).
Unions and political parties (that postulate “a strong center of political leader-
ship”) are the components of civil society where Gramsci places that distinc-
tive trait of modernity which separates the functional ambit and abstract from
the particular, while at the same time, demands the presence of the subjects of
pluralism – of actors in a conflict for hegemony that embraces values and in-
terests, economy and cultural politics.

17 PN2: 202 (Q 4, § 49: 477–478); Liguori 2019.

18 PN2: 382 (Q 5, § 127: 662).

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102 Prospero

With Americanism, capitalism throws down a challenge, transcending the

limits of its own economic doctrine that (from the classics to marginalize) ex-
clude the collective movement of workers as a disturbing factor and brings
back the high salaries to inflation and inevitable unemployment because of
dwindling profit and investment margins. The union (the collective subject),
absent from classic economic theory, becomes crucial for Gramsci in deter-
mining policies for growth. Unions (social action) and the political party (proj-
ects) should unite. The supremacy of the party in the complex definition of a
collective consciousness, conforming with the political tradition of Europe in
the 1900s, is accompanied by the recognition of the function of the union: in
the instances of social representation and in the rhythms of a struggle that
does not stop at the economic dimension. Class (fundamental social conflict)
and people (majority consensus) must be integrated. Gramsci sees the role of
political culture as a way to connect an analysis of class (diagnosis of modern
capitalism) and the political construction of a people with the resources of
hegemony (alliances, antagonistic social bloc). Primacy of the political (or he-
gemonic dimension) and autonomy of the social (conflict, even spontaneous
mobilization) seem to mark Gramsci’s reasoning, which goes in search of a
subjectivity articulated and endowed with a critical conscience. In this con-
text, the political party is central in proposing itself as a vehicle for culture,
organization and languages.

In reality, every political movement creates a language of its own, that is,
it participates in the general development of a distinct language, intro-
ducing new terms, enriching existing terms with a new content, creating
metaphors, using historical names to facilitate the comprehension and
the assessment of particular contemporary political situations.19

A political party of the masses does not rest solely on the economic element.
A project in harmony with an epochal change is needed, in the relationship
between the territory of politics (national) and the economic space (global).
Gramsci cautions the “greater autonomy of the national economies from the
economic relations of the world market”.20 This weakening of political sover-
eignty makes it difficult to stage a revolution in a single country, forced to live
with a world economy dominated by trade and by the regime of capital. But also
the fate of the war of position is consigned to a strategic asymmetry between
the profile of sovereignty (limited in the national dimension) and the degree of
interdependence imposed by the elusive dynamics of the world market.

19 PN1: 126 (Q 2, § 43: 31). Cf. Ives 2004; Boothman 2011; Carlucci 2013.
20 spn: 243 (Q 13, § 7: 1566). Cf. Cox 1993; Ayers 2008.

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Gramsci: Political Scientist 103

Bibliography

Gramsci’s Works and Abbreviations

fspn: Boothman, D. (ed.) (1995), Further Selections from the Prison Notebooks (Minne-
apolis: Minnesota University Press).
PN: Buttigieg, J.A. (ed.) (1992, 1996, 2007), Prison Notebooks (New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press), 3 vols.
Q: Gerratana, V. (ed.) (1975), Quaderni del carcere (Torino: Einaudi), 4 vols.
spn: Hoare, Q., Nowell-Smith, G. (eds.) (1971), Selection from the Prison Notebooks (New
York: International Publishers).

Other Works
Ayers, A.J. (ed.) (2008), Gramsci, Political Economy, and International Relations Theory
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan).
Bellamy, R. (1994), Introduction, in A. Gramsci, Pre-Prison Writings (New York: Cam-
bridge University Press).
Bellamy, R. (2013), Croce, Gramsci, Bobbio and the Italian Political Tradition (Lanham:
Rowman & Littlefield).
Bellamy, R., Schecter, D. (1993), Gramsci and the Italian State (Manchester: Manchester
University Press).
Belligni, S. (1981), Egemonia, in N. Bobbio, N. Matteucci (ed.) Dizionario di politica (To-
rino: Utet).
Bobbio, N. (1978), Stato, governo, società (Torino: Einaudi).
Bobbio, N. (1990), Saggi su Gramsci (Milano: Feltrinelli).
Bonetti, P. (1980), Gramsci e la società liberaldemocratica (Roma-Bari: Laterza).
Boothman, D. (2013), The Sources for Gramsci’s Concept of Hegemony, in Green, M.E.
(ed.), Rethinking Gramsci (London: Routledge).
Buci-Glucksmann, C. (1976), Gramsci e lo Stato (Roma: Editori Riuniti).
Carlucci, A. (2013), Gramsci and Languages (Boston-Leiden: Brill).
Carnoy, M. (1984), The State and Political Theory (Princeton: Princeton University
Press).
Coutinho, C.N. (2012), Gramsci’s Political Thought (Boston-Leiden: Brill).
Cox, R.W. (1993), Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations, in Gill, S. (ed.),
Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press).
De Rosa, G. (1978), Gramsci e la questione cattolica, in Ferri, F. (ed.), Politica e storia in
Gramsci (Roma: Editori Riuniti).
Femia, J.V. (2002), Hegemony and Consciousness in the Thought of Antonio Gramsci, in
Martin, J. (ed.), Gramsci. Critical Assessments of Leading Political Philosophers (Lon-
don: Routledge).

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Finocchiaro, M.A. (1988), Gramsci and the History of Dialectical Thought (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press).
Haugaard, M., Lentner, H.H. (2006), Hegemony and Power (Oxford: Lexington Books).
Ives, P. (2004), Gramsci’s Politics of Language (Toronto: University of Toronto Press).
Liguori, G. (2019), Gramsci e il populismo (Milano: Unicopli).
Martelli, M. (1996), Gramsci filosofo della politica (Milano: Unicopli).
Martin, J. (2015), Morbid Symptoms: Gramsci and the Crisis of Liberalism, in McNally, M.,
Antonio Gramsci (London: Palgrave MacMillan).
Mastellone, S., Sola, G. (eds.) (2001), Gramsci: il partito politico nei “Quaderni” (Firenze:
CET).
Morera, E. (1990), Gramsci’s Historicism. A Realist Interpretation (London: Routledge).
Paggi, L. (1970), Gramsci e il moderno principe (Roma: Editori Riuniti).
Poulantzas, N. (1975), Potere politico e classi sociali (Roma: Editori Riuniti).
Rosengarten, F. (2014), The Revolutionary Marxism of Antonio Gramsci (Boston-Leiden:
Brill).
Tamburrano, G. (1963), Antonio Gramsci (Manduria: Lacaita Editore).
Texier, J. (1968), Gramsci teorico delle sovrastrutture e il concetto di società civile, in “Crit-
ica marxista”, 3, pp. 71–99.
von Beyme, K. (2013), Sozialismus (Berlin: Springer).

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 Chapter 10

The “Prison Notebooks”: Hegemony and

Civil Society

Giuseppe Cospito

Before addressing the main theme of my presentation, a methodological intro-

duction is necessary: the following pages are placed in the furrow of the recent
additions to Gramscian historiography and philology. They have two points of
departure: on one side, the substantial continuity – both within a constantly
evolving framework and also in relation to the dramatic national and interna-
tional historical developments – of Gramsci’s reflection before and during his
incarceration; and on the other side the possibility and the necessity to follow
this evolution even within a short period of time (1929–1935): the time of his
reflections in prison.1
As highlighted in the most recent literature,2 Gramsci’s reflection on hege-
mony resumes in prison after having being forcibly interrupted at the end of
1926 when he (then Secretary of the Communist Party of Italy) was arrested
even while being formally protected by parliamentary immunity as a member
of Parliament. A few weeks earlier, Gramsci had written a letter – destined to
become famous – to the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Communist Par-
ty where he maintained, in conflict with the narrow concept of political power
that united both the Stalinist majority and the Trotskyist minority, that “the
proletariat cannot become the dominant class” except through the “sacrifice
of corporate interests […], it cannot maintain its hegemony and its dictator-
ship if, even becoming dominant, it does not sacrifice these immediate inter-
ests for the general and permanent interests of the class”.3 This acceptance of
hegemony reestablished the Leninist formula that Gramsci had adopted be-
ginning in March 1924, when he commemorated the recently deceased leader,
affirming:

Bolshevism is the first, in the international history of class struggle, to

have developed the idea of hegemony of the proletariat and to have

1 Cf. Cospito 2016 and the critical literature discussed within.

2 Cf. Vacca 2017: Chapter i.
3 Gramsci 1971: 129–130.

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106 Cospito

­ ractically placed the principal revolutionary problems that Marx and

p
Engels had presented theoretically. The idea of the hegemony of the pro-
letariat, exactly because it is understood historically and concretely, has
brought with it the necessity for the working class to find an ally. Bolshe-
vism found this ally in the masses of poor peasants. […] The peasant can-
not conquer the land without the help of the worker; the worker cannot
overthrow capitalism without the help of the peasant. Politically, the
worker is stronger and more capable than the peasant. He lives in the city,
is concentrated in large numbers in the factories, and is able to not only
overthrow capitalism but also to impede (by socializing industry) the re-
turn of capitalism. This is why revolution presents itself practically as a
hegemony of the proletariat that guides its ally – the peasants.4

Going back even further, if not the term hegemony, that in the writings preced-
ing his stay in Moscow (May 1922-November 1923) appears exclusively as in the
then currently accepted meaning of supremacy, the concept is at least implic-
itly present from the period of the “Ordine Nuovo” (“New Order”). Gramsci re-
calls the concept in the essay on the Quistione meridionale (“Southern ques-
tion”) left unpublished at the time of his arrest, writing that:

The Turin communists had concretely posed the question of the “hege-
mony of the proletariat”, that is, the question of the social base of the
proletarian dictatorship and the workers’ state. The proletariat can be-
come the ruling class and dominant in the way in which it manages to
create a system of class alliances that allows it to mobilize the majority of
the working population against capitalism and the bourgeois state, which
means, in the existing class relations in Italy, to the extent that it is able to
obtain the consent of the large peasant masses.5

Gramsci would resume his theoretical writings more than two years later, at
the end of a long judicial procedure (arrest, confinement, preventive incar-
ceration, prosecution and conviction of more than 20 years in prison, request
to obtain the permission to write while imprisoned). The Quaderno 1 (“Note-
book 1”) bears the date of February 8th, 1929, but for a whole year the prisoner
merely formulates some work plans and drafts a handful of annotations of bib-
liographical nature, dedicating the rest of his time to reading and above all,

4 Gramsci: 1924, pp. 2–4.

5 Gramsci 1971: 139–140.

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translating hundreds of pages from German and Russian.6 It is only between

February and March of 1930 that what can be defined as an “explosion” occurs
in Gramsci’s theoretical-political reflections, placing hegemony again at the
center of his thoughts where he had left it at the end of 1926. In § 44 of Note-
book 1, significantly entitled Direzione politica di classe prima e dopo l’andata al
governo (“Political Class leadership before and after assuming government
power”), we read that:

The politico-historical criterion on which our own inquiries must be

grounded is this: that a class is dominant in two ways, namely it is “lead-
ing” and “dominant”. It leads the allied classes, it dominates the opposing
classes. Therefore, a class can (and must) “lead” even before assuming
power; when it is in power it becomes dominant, but it also continues to
“lead”. […] There can and there must be a “political hegemony” even be-
fore assuming government power, and in order to exercise political lead-
ership or hegemony one must not count solely on the power and material
force that is given by government.7

This formulation, and others similar to it, on one hand, sometimes take on al-
most literal expressions used by Gramsci in the last phase of his active political
militancy and in particular in the essay on the Quistione meridionale (“South-
ern question”), while on the other hand introduces a series of innovations des-
tined to connote the prison reflections in a different way. First of all, consistent
with the forcefully für ewig character of Gramsi’s writing in those years, what
was a political strategy in a certain phase, later becomes a political-historical
criterion; consequently, it is not only the question of the hegemony of the pro-
letariat that is at stake here, but of any social class – in the second draft of the
Notebook 19, § 24, Gramsci will say social group – that tries to conquer and
conserve power. Furthermore, already at this point there is an apparent oscil-
lation between a narrow sense of hegemony intended as rule based on consen-
sus and a broader definition: hegemony understood as rule and domination –
consent that is not opposed to force. That which seems to be one of the

6 Cf. Genesi e svolgimento del lavoro in carcere in Cospito, Frosini 2017: xx et seq.
7 PN1: 136–137 (Q 1, § 44: 41). Since the new critical edition of Gramsci’s Quaderni (Prison Note-
books) referred to in the previous note, is still in the finishing stages, from now on the refer-
ence to the prison manuscripts will be in the order of the notebooks and paragraphs pro-
posed in V. Gerratana (ed.) (1975), Quaderni del carcere (Turin: Einaudi) even where this does
not correspond to that of the new edition. For the dates of single prison notes cf. Cospito 2011:
896–904.

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numerous Gramscian antimonies,8 can only be explained if we keep in mind

the distinction, proposed by Gramsci in § 48 of Notebook 1, between “the ‘nor-
mal’ exercise of hegemony on the now classic terrain of the parliamentary re-
gime”, which appears to be “characterized by a combination of force and con-
sent which balance each other so that force does not overwhelm consent but
rather appears to be backed by the consent of the majority, expressed by the
so-called organs of public opinion”, and situations in which “the hegemonic
apparatus cracks and the exercise of hegemony becomes ever more difficult.
The phenomenon is presented and discussed in various terms and from differ-
ent points of view. The most common are ‘crisis of the principle of authority’,
‘dissolution of the parliamentary regime’”.9 Gramsci writes an analogous dis-
course in § 61 for those political structures (like in the United States) that find
themselves still in “the phase of psycho-physical adaptation to the new indus-
trial structure”, where “there has not yet been (except sporadically, perhaps)
any ‘superstructural’ blossoming; therefore, the fundamental question of hege-
mony has not yet been posed”.10 In § 185 of Quaderno 8 (“Notebook 8”, Decem-
ber 1931), these considerations are extended to each state entity, past present
and future (with clear reference also to the nascent Soviet socialist state) where
Gramsci speaks of the “economic-corporative phase of the state. If it is true that
no type of state can avoid passing through a phase of economic-corporative
primitivism, one can deduce that the content of the political hegemony of the
new social group that has founded the new type of state must be predomi-
nantly of an economic order. This would entail the reorganization of the struc-
ture and of the real relations between people and the sphere of the economy
or of production”.11
Gramsci’s reflection on the concept of civil society begins between February
and March 1930. Unlike hegemony, this term does not belong to the lexicon of
Gramsci’s writings preceding his imprisonment. In fact, it only appears two
times: in an article from 1918, paraphrasing a text by the physiocrat Le Trosne12
and in an article from the “Ordine Nuovo” of May 1921, in which the goal of
the nascent fascist movement is identified in the destruction of the minimal
civil society present in Italy, in order to promote the aims of the national and

8 The reference is obviously to Anderson 2017 which confirms the thesis of the first edition
of the essay (1976), despite the theoretical and philological refutation in the second part
of Francioni 1984.
9 PN1: 155–156 (Q 1, § 48: 59).
10 PN1: 169 (Q 1, § 61: 72).
11 PN3: 342 (Q 8, § 185: 1053).
12 NM: 172.

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­international capital.13 In this second occurrence, the connection between he-

gemony and civil society appears in a nutshell that would only be developed
during the course of his reflections in prison. The term appears here for the
first time in § 130 of Quaderno 1 (“Notebook 1”, February-March 1930), in rela-
tion to the way in which Italian Catholics used the term in the first decades of
the unified national state, from the breach of Porta Pia to non expedit:

Real Italy and legal Italy. The formula contrived by the clericals after 1870
to direct attention to the national political uneasiness: contradiction
­between legal Italy and real Italy. […] Generally speaking, it is felicitous
because there existed a clear disjunction between the state (legality) and
civil society (reality) – but did this civil society exist completely and exclu-
sively within “clericalism”? Meanwhile, this same civil society was some-
thing shapeless and chaotic and remained so for many decades; it was
therefore possible for the state to dominate it, overcoming each time the
contradictions that presented themselves in a sporadic, localized form,
without any national nexus.14

The development of Gramsci’s prison reflections would result in negating the

real character of this contradiction, deepening the meaning of the expression
civil society. This is, however, affirmed with difficulty in Gramsci’s own vocabu-
lary, as seen in the translations he made of Marx’s texts (in Notebook 7, begin-
ning in May 1930 and continuing through 1931) where the 22 ­occurrences of
bürgerliche Gesellschaft are translated as società borghese (bourgeois society)
and in only two cases later corrected to read società civile (civil society); both
recurring in a passage of the preface of 1859 to Zur Kritik der politischen Ökono-
mie (“A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy”), that Gramsci
translates: “both juridical relationships as well as state forms […] are rooted in
the material relationships of life, that Hegel, following the English and French
of the 18th century, embraced with the name ‘civil society’; but […] the anato-
my of civil society is to be found in political economy”.15 This last idea would be
revisited by Gramsci in the first note especially dedicated to the subject in § 24
of Notebook 6:

Encyclopedic notions. Civil society. One must distinguish civil society as

Hegel understands it and in the sense it is often [our italics] used in these

13 SPW-1: 44–45 (Gramsci 1967: 167–169).

14 PN1: 214 (Q 1, § 130: 117).
15 Gramsci 2007: 745.

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110 Cospito

notes (that is, in the sense of the political and cultural hegemony of a
social group over the whole society; as the ethical content fo the state)
from the sense given to it by Catholics, for whom civil society is, instead,
political society or the state, as opposed to the society of the family and
of the church.16

This and other notes from Notebook 6, spanning from the end of 1930 until the
summer of 1931, represent the first point of arrival of a reflection that began
in Notebook 3 and 5, but most of all in Notebook 4, both in the first series of
“Philosophical Notes” (with particular regard to the notes on the relationships
between structure and superstructure) and in the miscellaneous notes on the
intellectuals (destined to converge in Notebook 12). In these notes, Gramsci out-
lined in particular the connection between hegemony and civil society, con-
sistent in the fact that the second constitutes the privileged battleground and
therefore is the exercise of the first. This connection appears implicitly starting
from § 47 of Notebook 1, where Gramsci discusses from “Hegel’s doctrine of par-
ties and associations as the ‘private’ fabric of the state” that presuppose a “gov-
ernment by consent of the governed, but an organized consent, not the vague
and generic kind which is declared at the time of elections: the state has and de-
mands consent, but it also ‘educates’ this consent through political and trade-
union associations which, however, are private organisms, left to the private
initiative of the ruling class”.17 The link between the two concepts is made ex-
plicit in § 81 of Notebook 6 – Hegemony (civil society) and separation of ­powers –
where there appears a reference to “the hegemonic apparatus” which also re-
calls the material character of the exercise of hegemony.
In § 52 of Quaderno 8 (“Notebook 8”, February 1932), dedicated to the Mod-
erno Principe (“the Modern Prince”), recurs the expression (that constitutes a
hapax legomenon in Gramsci’s work) of “civil hegemony”, presented as a com-
position and surmounting of the concept of “permanent revolution”, that in
turn is assimilated into the strategy of the war of movement, that according to
Gramsci will become obsolete in the modern world, at least in the West. Vice
versa, “in politics, the war of position is the concept of hegemony that can only
come into existence after certain things are already in place, namely, the
large  popular organizations of the modern type that represent, as it were,
the ‘trenches’ and the permanent fortifications of the war of position”.18 The
­military metaphor – that continuously permeates the Marxist tradition (from

16 PN3: 20–21 (Q 6, § 24: 703).

17 PN1: 153 (Q 1, § 47: 56).
18 PN3: 267 (Q 8, § 52: 973).

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The “Prison Notebooks”: Hegemony and Civil Society 111

Engels to Lenin) – has the merit of underlining the conflictual character of

hegemonic relations, over which Gramsci’s culturalist interpretation of hege-
mony flies, widespread above all in the Anglo-Saxon world and based on a par-
tial (or second hand) reading of the Quaderni del carcere (“Prison Notebooks”).
What is more, there is still no comprehensive and complete translation of the
Quaderni del carcere into the English language.19 The cultural plane is actually
only one of the many levels where the struggle to attain and conserve hege-
mony expresses itself; and this struggle does not exclude – but in fact it some-
times involves – the use of force, in a relationship that is always reciprocal and
changing. Indeed, to use the same expression that Gramsci employs in § 38 of
Notebook 4 about the relationship between civil society and political society
within a state understood in an extremely broad sense, “[this] distinction is
purely methodological and not organic” because it does not find actual confir-
mation “in concrete historical life”.20 An example of this intertwining appears
in § 83 of Notebook 7, December 1931, where Gramsci, speaking of “what is
called ‘public opinion’” (among whose “organs” he indicates newspapers, par-
ties and Parliament), writes that this “is tightly connected to political hege-
mony, in other words, it is the point of contact between ‘civil society’ and ‘po-
litical society’, between consent and force”,21 thus overcoming the previous
identification between hegemony and civil society. The next developments
move toward a deepening of hegemony as a connecting element between civil
society and political society within the state and therefore between the mo-
ment of consent and the moment of force, between ruling and dominance.
Even before Marx (where the concept of hegemony does not appear apertis
verbis), according to Gramsci, the merit of having first understood this nexus,
as read in § 48 and § 86 of Notebook 8, February-March 1932), is attributed to
Machiavelli whose book Il Principe (“The Prince”) had been considered in the
preceding § 21 as a model of a political science that was not abstractly rational-
istic, but conceived as “a living book”.
In § 191 of Notebook 8, December 1931, Gramsci posed the crucial problem,
exemplified by the title of the note, Egemonia e democrazia (“Hegemony and
Democracy”),22 writing that

among the many meanings of democracy, the most realistic anc concrete
one, in my view, is that which can brought into relief through the

19 An exhaustive and balanced presentation of the problem is found in Pala 2014.

20 PN2: 182 (Q 4, § 38: 460).
21 PN3: 213 (Q 7, § 83: 914).
22 Cf. Vacca 2017: Chapter iv.

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112 Cospito

c­ onnection between democracy and the concept of hegemony. In the he-

gemonic system, there is democracy between the leading group and the
groups that are led to the extent that the development of the economy
and the legislation which is an expression of that development favors the
molecular transition from the groups that are led to the leading group.23

The reflections of the following years up until the abrupt interruption because
of Gramsci’s failing psychological and physical conditions towards the middle
of 1935, are dedicated to, on one hand, the reorganization of at least a part of
the material gathered until this point (with the introduction of significant revi-
sions, especially at the beginning) and on the other hand, the drafting of new
miscellaneous notes in Notebooks 9, 14, 15 and 17. For what regards our specific
theme, we must again examine the dynamism of the hegemony/civil society
nexus in relation to, above all, a series of events that contribute to Gramsci’s
rethinking of the Marxist doctrine – taken from the orthodoxy of the Third
International as a type of fideistic dogma – in terms of philosophy of praxis: on
one hand the first signs of regression in Stalinist ussr, and on the other the
strengthening of Western capitalist regimes, both of the liberal-democratic
type – exemplified by Roosevelt’s New Deal in the usa – and the authoritarian
type – fascism elected as “Europe’s ideological representation” of the “passive
revolution” (Notebook 10, §9, April-May 1932)24 and Hitlerism with its “manifes-
tation of brutality and monstrous ignominy” (Notebook 28, § 1, first months of
1935).25 These are all themes that require separate and individual treatment.
For obvious reasons of space, we cannot dwell upon each of them here.

Bibliography

Gramsci’s Works and Abbreviations

Gramsci, A. (1924), Vladimiro Ilic Ulianof, in “L’Ordine Nuovo”, 1.
Gramsci, A. (1967), Socialismo e fascismo. L’Ordine Nuovo 1921–22 (Torino: Einaudi).
Gramsci, A. (1971), La costruzione del partito comunista (Torino: Einaudi).
Gramsci, A. (2007), Quaderni del carcere 1. Quaderni di traduzioni (1929–1932), Cospito,
G., Francioni, G. (eds.) (Roma: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana).
NM: Caprioglio, S. (ed.) (1984), Il nostro Marx (1918–1919) (Torino: Einaudi).

23 PN3: 345 (Q 8, § 191: 1056).

24 spn: 120 (Q 10i, § 9: 1229).
25 Q 28, § 1: 2326.

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The “Prison Notebooks”: Hegemony and Civil Society 113

PN: Buttigieg, J.A. (ed.) (1992, 1996, 2007), Prison Notebooks (New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press), 3 vols.
Q: Gerratana, V. (ed.) (1975), Quaderni del carcere (Torino: Einaudi), 4 vols.
spn: Hoare, Q., Nowell-Smith, G. (eds.) (1971), Selection from the Prison Notebooks (New
York: International Publishers).
SPW-1: Hoare, Q., Nowell Smith, G. (eds.) (1977), Selections from Political Writings, 1910–
1920 (London: Lawrence & Wishart; New York: International Publisher).

Other Works
Anderson, P. (2017), The Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci (London: Verso).
Cospito, G. (2011), Verso l’edizione critica e integrale dei “Quaderni del carcere”, in “Studi
Storici”, 4, pp. 881–904.
Cospito, G. (2016), The Rhythm of Thought in Gramsci: A Diachronic Interpretation of
Prison Notebooks (Boston, Leiden: Brill).
Cospito, G., Frosini, F. (2017), Introduzione, in Gramsci, A., Quaderni del carcere, critical
edition directed by Francioni, G., vol. 2, Quaderni miscellanei (1929–1935) (Roma: Is-
tituto della Enciclopedia Italiana).
Francioni, G. (1984), L’officina gramsciana. Ipotesi sulla struttura dei “Quaderni del car-
cere” (Napoli: Bibliopolis).
Pala, M. (ed.) (2014), Narrazioni egemoniche. Gramsci, letteratura e società civile (Bolo-
gna: il Mulino).
Vacca, G. (2017), Modernità alternative. Il Novecento di Antonio Gramsci (Torino:
Einaudi).

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 Chapter 11

On the Productive Use of Hegemony (Laclau, Hall,

Chatterjee)

Michele Filippini

1 Gramsci Provincialized

Among the many Gramscian concepts – either coined by or substantially rede-

fined by Gramsci himself – hegemony is probably the most widespread and in-
ternationally recognized.1 The purpose of this contribution is to ­demonstrate –
through three different modes of appropriation of this concept – the variety
and, above all, the political and theoretical productivity of this diffusion. The
work of the authors taken into consideration – Ernesto Laclau, Stuart Hall and
Partha Chatterjee – also demonstrates, in my opinion, a more general thesis
encompassing the entire Gramscian legacy. The thesis is the following: the
multiplication of the uses of Gramsci2 and the plurality of interpretations
that it has generated express the specific character of its provincialization (to
use a popular expression of Dipesh Chakrabarty). But what does it mean to
provincialize Gramsci?3 The original attempt, that of Provincializing Europe,4
consisted of relativizing the thought on European modernity in relation to the
plurality of political and social forms that the world had always produced. Ac-
cording to Chakrabarty, in order to follow this path, two classical assumptions
of modern European political thought needed to be rejected: “the first is that
the human exists in a frame of a single and secular historical time that envel-
ops other kinds of time […]. The second […] is that the human is ontologically
singular”.5 To provincialize – that is, pluralizing the forms of historical time
and de-substantiating concepts such as the social or the political – was, in this
case, not so much a way of rejecting Western modern thought (on which the

1 Given the amount of references it is impossible to present a short bibliography on the suc-
cess of this concept. Please refer to the Gramscian bibliography online (http://bg.fondazi-
onegramsci.org/biblio-gramsci), where one can search by theme or by the language of the
contribution.
2 Cf. Filippini 2016.
3 Cf. Mezzadra, Capuzzo 2012.
4 Cf. Chakrabarty 2000.
5 Chakrabarty 2000: 16.

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On the Productive Use of Hegemony (Laclau, Hall, Chatterjee) 115

structure of Chakrabarty’s book itself is based), but a way to revive it within

contexts and traditions of different ways of thinking that are increasingly at
the center of global processes. Chakrabarty writes:

European thought is at once both indispensable and inadequate in help-

ing us to think through the experiences of political modernity in non-
Western nations, and provincializing Europe becomes the task of explor-
ing how this thought – which is now everybody’s heritage and which
affects us all – may be renewed from and for the margins.6

From this perspective, the provincialization of Gramsci happened through an

explosion of the use of Gramscian concepts, categories or simple terms in
what we could call “global critical theory”, offering proof of a substantially suc-
cessful experiment. As we will see in the series of displacements of the concept
of hegemony, the provincialization of Gramsci was, in fact, a harbinger of po-
litical and theoretical innovation and continues to be so today.
Before reconstructing this situation, I would like to propose an interpreta-
tion that explains why some Gramscian concepts – not only hegemony but
also subaltern groups, passive revolution, historical bloc, civil society and po-
litical society, war of position and war of manoeuvre, traditional and organic
­intellectuals – are currently at the center of debates in several postcolonial
contexts. Why Gramsci? And why now? We need to observe how these con-
cepts are forged, or better, how they are taken from other authors and are given
a new meaning in the context of the Quaderni del carcere (“Prison ­Notebooks”) –
to analyze the history of Italian politics. Italy (even before 1861, with the unifi-
cation of all the peoples and institutions that inhabited the Italian peninsula)
has always found itself in a unique position: that of being fully integrated into
Western modernity – in Europe with the triumph of the bourgeoisie and the
affirmation of liberal and democratic ideas – while still keeping its particular
backwardness. In this place, at the same time both central and peripheral, each
innovation had always presented itself as spurious, mediated and “corrupt”
compared to an ideal (and idealized) model of development. This backward-
ness was in turn the result of an inequality paradoxically due to the earliness of
some acquisitions – economic development, the history of municipalities –
that eliminated the chances of a classic political development like the French
or English. This delay/anticipation conditioned all of history just like the po-
litical theory of the peninsula, providing a particular field of application of
concepts that are inside the line of modern development, but are also in some

6 Ibid.

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116 Filippini

way uncentered with respect to its principle axis. The figure of Niccolò Machia-
velli for example, in being the first modern thinker in a country without any of
the political conditions of modernity, represents this eccentricity well, indi-
cated by Gramsci himself.7
Gramscian thought is a full-fledged part of this eccentric theoretical pro-
duction. How else could we define his reflection on the peasantry – the central
element of every backward country – but within the context of a West armored
by the “fortresses and emplacements” of a modern civil society?8 How could
we not consider oxymoronic the concepts of passive revolution or revolution/
restoration, used to account for modern transformations but guided from
above by conservative forces? And why should we try to logically compose the
contradiction between the State as a “political society + civil society”9 and the
State as the sole “political society”10 opposed to civil society, when it precisely
expresses the two sides of a spurious condition that today is more globally
widespread that ever?11
The list could continue. What interests me is to show how the Gramsci’s
legacy is fully part of the modern political conceptualization developed on a
spurious, secondary and peripheral track, but still within European modernity,
and how it lends itself in a particular mode to the appropriation of different
contexts, an appropriation that never configures itself in the terms of faithful
translation or emulation, but always in that of appropriation and reuse.

2 The First Displacement: Ernesto Laclau

The journey that the concept completed in this first displacement has as its
starting point Gramsci’s Italy of the 1930s, makes a stop at the Peronist move-
ment in Argentina in the 1960s and 1970s, only to return to the other side of the
Atlantic in the second decade of the 21st century, in particular in the countries

7 “It is impossible to understand Machiavelli without taking into account the fact that with
the European (international, for his times) experience he went beyond the Italian experi-
ence; without the European experience, his ‘will’ would have been utopian” (PN3: 72; Q 6,
§ 86: 760). Cf. also Althusser 1999.
8 PN3: 169 (Q 7, § 16: 866). Cf. ppw: 313–337 (SP3: 243–265).
9 PN3: 75 (Q 6, § 88: 764).
10 spn: 12 (Q 12, § 1: 1518).
11 This is one of the ambivalences that leads Perry Anderson to see Gramsci’s position as
inconsistent and incoherent; not realizing that this ambivalence is actually constitutive
of the hegemonic reality of many social and state formations (cf. Anderson 1976). For a
different critique of Anderson’s thesis, cf. Thomas 2009: 93–95.

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On the Productive Use of Hegemony (Laclau, Hall, Chatterjee) 117

of southern Europe. Ernesto Laclau, the Argentine post-Marxist philosopher, is

the carrier of this migration, and his development of the concept of hegemony
is found in large part in the 1985 book written together with Chantalle Mouffe,
Hegemony and Socialist Strategy.12 Here, the emersion of the concept from the
semantic field of European Marxism is read as a signal of the passing from a
theory of political action characterized by economic determinism to one dis-
tinguished by political strategy based on contingency.13 Gramsci is considered
the final point of this evolution (in Marxism), which goes in the direction of
abandoning the notion of historical necessity. The stages of this journey are:
(a) Russian social democracy that opens the dislocation between actors and
historical tasks because it finds itself with the task to conquer political free-
dom, a task that should instead be taken up by the bourgeoisie; (b) Lenin, with
the idea of “uneven and combined development” making such a dislocation no
longer temporary, as it was for social democracy, but structurally linked to im-
perialist politics; (c) and finally Gramsci, where “this hegemonic dimension
was made constitutive of the subjectivity of historical actors”.14 Gramsci’s he-
gemony thus expresses the logic of contingency in the formation of historical
subjects, even if it still presents a limit:

For Gramsci, even though the diverse social elements have a merely
­relational identity – achieved through articulatory practices – there must
always be a single unifying principle in every hegemonic formation, and
this can only be a fundamental class […]. This is the inner essentialist
core which continues to be present in Gramsci’s thought, setting a limit
to the deconstructive logic of hegemony.15

Laclau intends to break down this last limit, formulating a theory of hegemony
that expunges every residue of necessity that is fully contingent and discur-
sively structured.16 Recovering the arsenal of Gramscian concepts listed above
is rightfully a part of this operation which permits Laclau to recover all the
richness of a Marxist theory formulated under exceptional conditions, decen-
tralized, and thus more suited to the politics of contingent articulations. It is
therefore starting from Gramsci, in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, that a
hegemonic-discoursive theory is constructed that will support all of Laclau’s

12 Laclau, Mouffe 2001.

13 Cf. Laclau, Mouffe 2011: 7–91.
14 Laclau, Mouffe 2001: xii.
15 Laclau, Mouffe 2001: 69.
16 On the idea of discourse in Laclau which is specific and not limited to simple verbal acts,
cf. Laclau 1990: 100–103.

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subsequent works where the theme of hegemony works side by side with
(partly overlying and partly substituting) the theme of populism as in On Popu-
list Reason.17 This book has had an undeniable impact in Europe, particularly
on the political strategy of emerging leftist forces that are alternatives to social-
ist parties (Podemos in Spain, Syriza in Greece, La France Insoumise in France
and also the Labour in England). The Italian anomaly that, reformulated on the
margins through populist (Peronist) Argentinian categories, comes back to Eu-
rope as the ideological base of the new Left, is an explanatory image of a suc-
cessful provincialization.

3 The Second Displacement: Stuart Hall

After this voyage through Italy-Argentina-Europe, let’s take another direction

and set a new route: from Jamaica to England. Stuart Hall was one of the prom-
inent figures in British cultural studies, founder of the New Left Review and pro-
tagonist of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies of Birmingham
(cccs). His Jamaican origins are not only a personal fact (just like Laclau is
Argentinian), but are strongly linked to his studies on popular culture, race and
ethnicity. Hall even uses Gramsci’s concept of hegemony as a starting point for
his research. In particular, such a concept is used to interpret Margaret Thatch-
er’s construction of the conservative historical bloc in the 1980s – a bloc that
was successful in appropriating several slogans that were the property of popu-
lar culture and the Left: “the process we are looking at here [Thatcherism] is
very similar to that which Gramsci once described as transformism: the neu-
tralization of some elements in an ideological formation and their absorption
and passive appropriation into a new political configuration”.18 Thatcherism is
therefore framed as a political phenomenon as much as a cultural one: “the
Thatcherites know that they must ‘win’ in civil society as well as in the state.
They understand, as the left generally does not, the consequences of the gen-
eralization of the social struggle to new arenas and the need to have a strategy
for them too”.19
The great moving right show20 – the evocative title of a famous essay by
Hall  – was not chosen by chance, but was, on the contrary, conceived, con-
structed and put into practice as a reaction to the decay of the historical

17 Laclau 2005. Cf. Laclau 1990; Laclau 1996; Laclau 2014.

18 Hall 1988: 49.
19 Hall 1988: 154.
20 Hall 1979.

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On the Productive Use of Hegemony (Laclau, Hall, Chatterjee) 119

­compromise between workers and capital, that from the 1940s in England had
been tacitly accepted by all governments. Thatcherism, therefore, should not
be understood as a pathology of the British political system, but as one of the
best bets ever wagered inside of it. Not by chance, Thatcherism has a history of
hard struggle within its political field, in order to impose itself on the other
rightwing factions of the Conservative Party. Thatcher’s masterpiece was to
build an autonomous and hegemonic narration and to have understood the
political nature of the cultural framework.
In this context, Hall uses the reference to Gramscian concepts like theoreti-
cal picklock – allowing him to overcome the impasse of the English “left” in the
face of changes that they do not seem to fully understand. The problem of
ideology returns to the centre stage of the discourse in the sense of “the lan-
guages, the concepts, categories, imagery of thought, and the systems of
representation”.21 In this case, Gramsci is important because:

he altogether refuses any idea of a pregiven unified ideological subject

[…]. He recognizes the “plurality” of selves or identities of which the so-
called “subject” of thought and ideas is composed. He argues that this
multifaceted nature of consciousness is not an individual but a collective
phenomenon.22

Compared to the Left, Thatcherism first understood the multifaceted and he-
gemonic nature of contemporary society. Against class reductionism, Gramsci
thus becomes useful once again with his concepts of hegemony, historical bloc
or war of position, which manage to extract from the core of Marxist thought a
mediated concept of determination, not formulated in a economic manner
but instead based on “relations of force”.23
To stress once again the role played by Gramsci as a link, it is interesting to
note how Laclau, coming from a Marxist background, puts himself beyond
Gramsci criticizing his essentialist residuals, and how Hall, on the contrary,
coming from a structuralist background, thinks of Gramsci like an embank-
ment on the opposing front: “Gramsci is where I stopped in the headlong rush
into structuralism and theoreticism. At a certain point I stumbled over Grams-
ci, and I said, ‘Here and no further!’”24

21 Hall 1986: 29.

22 Hall 1986: 22.
23 Cf. Hall 1986: 14–15.
24 Hall 1988: 69.

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120 Filippini

4 The Third Displacement: Partha Chatterjee

The last voyage departs from the old continent bringing the concept to India,
and then returns home, as is usual, enriched with the nuances and innovations
that make Gramsci’s provincialization a political-theoretical weapon. Partha
Chatterjee, an Indian intellectual who is a member of the second generation of
the subaltern studies group, wrote two books of interest: Nationalist Thought
and the Colonial World and The Politics of the Governed.
The first book reconstructs the history of Indian nationalism by retracing
three different phases. In the first phase, nationalism is the pre-conceived
knowledge that colonial domination imposes on local elites. It is a “theoretical
tool” that is derived from the experiences, the concepts, and the history of the
colonizers. This nationalism, writes Chatterjee, is at the same time “imitative
and hostile to the models it imitates”.25 This ambiguity is first cause responsi-
ble for the separation between elite and subalterns in India. It is here that the
Gramscian “toolbox” comes into play:

Gramsci’s writings provide another line of enquiry which becomes useful

in the understanding of such apparently deviant, but historically numer-
ous, cases of the formation of capitalist nation-states. […] In situations
where an emergent bourgeoisie lacks the social conditions for establish-
ing complete hegemony over the new nation, it resorts to a “passive revo-
lution” […] [with] a partial appropriation of the popular masses, in order
first to create a state as the necessary precondition for the establishment
of capitalism as the dominant mode of production.26

The creation of an independent state should therefore precede the building of

a relationship with the subalterns. In the face of a poor organization of the
popular masses during the Italian Risorgimento, Gramsci had focused his at-
tention on the role of Piedmont: “a State replaces the local social groups in
leading a struggle of renewal. It is one of the cases in which these groups have
the function of ‘domination’ without that of ‘leadership’: dictatorship without
hege mony”27 (and this is the origin of Guha’s Dominance without Hegemony28).
The second and third phases of Indian nationalism are therefore characterized
by Gandhi’s activation of the popular masses and by the passive closing of this
movement by the emerging leadership of the Indian state headed by Nehru.

25 Chatterjee 1986: 2.
26 Chatterjee 1986: 29–30.
27 spn: 105–106 (Q 15, § 59: 1823).
28 Cf. Guha 1997.

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On the Productive Use of Hegemony (Laclau, Hall, Chatterjee) 121

Here Chatterjee suggests the parallelism with the history of the Italian Risorgi-
mento just as Gramsci had suggested it through the concept of passive revolu-
tion: as Gandhi is to Mazzini and Garibaldi, so Nehru is to Cavour.
The failure to include subalterns, or more precisely, the lack of the “classical”
forms of their inclusion into the national state, remains a defining characteris-
tic of the Indian state even in its postcolonial history. The Politics of the Gov-
erned begins exactly from this dyscrasia between the liberal-constitutional
discourse (according to which all citizens are equal bearer of rights) and the
Indian reality (where these principles are actually more nuanced – they de-
pend on the context and form an overall tenuous belonging to civil society).
Through a compelling reconstruction of the political battles of the inhabitants
of an informal settlement in Calcutta, Chatterjee tells us how a large sector of
the population finds themselves outside of the rational and “geometrical”
structure of the rule of law, but how not for this reason should its presence be
considered irrelevant. The external nature of this population and the impossi-
bility of its complete internalization make it an internal problem of the state.
Relations that are established between state power and these “populations” are
therefore of a governmental nature, based on bargaining and fighting, objec-
tively outside the frame of liberal-democratic citizenship.
Chatterjee chooses a Gramscian concept – that of political society – to iden-
tify this place of conflict, negotiation and production of subjectivity that be-
comes a space of action for the subalterns. The groups that make up this politi-
cal society operate through an informal yet dense network of relations often
using the vote as a bargaining chip or political activism as a weapon of black-
mail. Through these instrumental uses of the classic channels of democratic
participation, the dimensions of citizenship and governmentality intersect.
What Chatterjee says concerning the concept of political society therefore
is that there exists a political nature that expresses itself outside of the classical
coordinates of the constitutional state and that its exponential growth repre-
sents one of the major challenges for the state. It is superfluous to note how
such externality/internality and such an unrecognized but active political na-
ture, such decomposition and pluralization of forms of citizenship, investigat-
ed in the slums of Calcutta, in reality tells us a lot about our contemporary
developments in “the West”.

5 Conclusion

For a partial conclusion of this brief overview of the uses of Gramsci’s concept
of hegemony it is perhaps appropriate to go back and ask how much this spe-
cific provincialization has to do with Gramsci himself: if not with his personal

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122 Filippini

history then at least with the political inheritance of his legacy. On this front,
there are many opinions that tend to define their eccentric uses as simple
wordplay or forced interpretations. I believe instead that these productive read-
ings of the concept of hegemony support at least two fundamental character-
istics of Gramsci’s work. On one hand, the attempt to learn conceptually and to
politically propose a way out of the Marxian thesis of the increasing simplifica-
tion (polarization and proletarianization) of capitalist society; on the other
hand, to politically pose the problem of how one builds the strength of eman-
cipation given the different types of work, forms of life and social identities.
Tracing this type of continuity, however, also responds to another Gramscian
statement: that of reconstructing a theoretical tradition of the oppressed that
ensures that the “history of subaltern social groups” will no longer be “neces-
sarily fragmented and episodic”.29

Bibliography

Gramsci’s Works and Abbreviations

PN: Buttigieg, J.A. (ed.) (1992, 1996, 2007), Prison Notebooks (New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press), 3 vols.
ppw: Bellamy, R. (ed.) (1994), Pre-Prison Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press).
Q: Gerratana, V. (ed.) (1975), Quaderni del carcere (Torino: Einaudi), 4 vols.
spi: Spriano, P. (ed.), (1973), Scritti politici (Roma: Editori Riuniti), 3 vols.
spn: Hoare, Q., Nowell-Smith, G. (eds.) (1971), Selection from the Prison Notebooks (New
York: International Publishers).

Other Works
Althusser, L. (1999), Machiavelli and us (London: Verso).
Anderson, P. (1976), The Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci, in “New Left Review”, 100,
pp. 12–34.
Chakrabarty, D. (2000), Provincializing Europe. Postcolonial Thought and Historical Dif-
ference (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
Chatterjee, P. (1986), Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse
(London: Zed Books).
Filippini, M. (2016), Using Gramsci. A New Approach (London: Pluto Press).
Guha, R. (1997), Dominance without Hegemony: History and Power in Colonial India
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).

29 spn: 54–55 (Q 25, § 2: 2283).

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On the Productive Use of Hegemony (Laclau, Hall, Chatterjee) 123

Hall, S. (1979), The Great Moving Right Show, in “Marxism Today”, January.
Hall, S. (1986), Gramsci’s Relevance for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, in “Journal of
Communication Inquiry”, 10, pp. 5–27.
Hall, S. (1986), The Problem of Ideology: Marxism without Guarantees, in “Journal of
Communication Inquiry”, 10, pp. 28–44.
Hall, S. (1988), The Hard Road to Renewal. Thatcherism and the Crisis of the Left (Lon-
don: Verso).
Hall, S. (1988), The Toad in the Garden: Thatcherism among the Theorists, in Nelson, C.,
Grossberg, L. (eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (Champaign: Univer-
sity of Illinois Press).
Laclau, E. (1990), New Reflections on the Revolution of our Time (London: Verso).
Laclau, E. (1996), Emancipation(s) (London: Verso).
Laclau, E. (2005), On Populist Reason (London: Verso).
Laclau, E. (2014), The Rhetorical Foundations of Society (London: Verso).
Laclau, E., Mouffe, C. [1985] (2001), Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical
Democratic Politics (London: Verso).
Mezzadra, S., Capuzzo, P. (2012), Provincializing the Italian Reading of Gramsci, in Bhat-
tacharya, B., Srivastava, N. (eds.), The Postcolonial Gramsci (London: Routledge),
pp. 34–54.
Thomas, P. (2009), The Gramscian Moment: Philosophy, Hegemony, and Marxism
(Leiden, Boston: Brill).

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 Part 5
Historiography

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 Chapter 12

The Influence and Legacy of Antonio Gramsci in

Twentieth-Century Italy

Marzio Zanantoni

The interpretations, debates and polemics that concern the figure of Antonio
Gramsci and his intellectual output in Italy (starting from his incarceration in
November of 1926) have been reconstructed several times and in various ways.
Throughout the succession of its various editions, Guido Liguori’s Gramsci
conteso,1 has been and still is for all, an essential point of reference for those
who want to travel through the story of the interpretations and discussions
had about Gramsci over the last three decades in Italy.
I will therefore try to follow a different path, one which puts historiographi-
cal aim on the diversified influences and legacy of Gramsci in Italian culture,
more than on the “dispute” between opposing and incompatible interpreta-
tions. In short, I will focus more on the conscious or unconscious use (both not
so political and not only political) of the Gramscian lesson, than on the judg-
ments (instrumental or not) of opposing factions.
Immediately after Gramsci’s death on April 27th, 1937, the imminent and
emerging problem in a large part of the writings, articles and testimonies that
the Italian and international press dedicated to the Sardinian politician, was
that of placing Gramsci in the history of Italy – within the events of the work-
ers’ movement and in political struggle. In some ways it was the moment of the
first “dispute” concerning the figure of Gramsci by the differing ideologies and
forces, despite them being in this moment essentially unanimous in the cele-
bration of a “martyr” of the fascist prisons and “one of the best leaders, one of
the most loyal fighters for the cause of the liberation of humanity”, according
to the converging words of Ercoli and Dimitrov, Nenni and Buozzi, as well as
Carlo Rosselli and Camillo Berneri.
As it is noted, in Italy it was Palmiro Togliatti, the man who more than any-
one else was able to claim to have shared such a closely shared path with
Gramsci, who shaped the contours of Gramsci’s image. For 37 years, from 1927
to 1964, through 14 writings and speeches, Togliatti gives shape to the profile, or
better said, to the profiles of his friend and companion, keeping in mind that

1 Cf. Liguori 1996, 2012; Liguori, Meta 2005.

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128 Zanantoni

in each one of these texts, he was responding either implicitly or explicitly to

something or someone and by doing so thus modified the features.
At the beginning of 1927, with Antonio Gramsci, un capo della classe operaia2
(“Antonio Gramsci, a working-class leader”), the title would be changed to An-
tonio Gramsci capo della classe operaia italiana3 (“Antonio Gramsci, a leader of
the Italian working-class”) after the death of Gramsci ten years later, and from
1949 significantly re-edited with the title Il capo della classe operaia italiana.4
In those early texts, Togliatti set the profile of his party companion that would
constitute the most prominent image for at least another decade. Gramsci,
“the first true, complete and coherent Marxist”5 (the implicit undervaluation
of Antonio Labriola would be modified later on) in the history of the workers’
movement, in the history of Italian culture and thought; Gramsci the man of
the Party,6 political militant and revolutionary organizer, “the first Italian
Bolshevik”,7 Gramsci the internationalist but first of all (here introduced an
essential feature of his profile), “a true son of our people”.8 In short, he was re-
ferring to Gramsci as a politician, to distinguish him – almost taking him away
from the chorus, from the company – from those who in the homages and
commemorations after his death, underlined the image of the intellectual, the
scholar, the writer after having fought him in life.9
In Togliatti’s first writings in the decade between 1937 and 1947, the first per-
manent and defining feature of Gramsci’s personality and of his legacy begins
to form: “Gramsci’s thought in a nutshell, the most new and original aspect”10 –
his Italianness. This Italianness was a characteristic that included a collection
of facets: his “proudly Sardinian” spirit,11 his national vision of social renewal,
“his socialist thought appropriate to the economic, political and social reality
of our country”,12 his reflections from prison, that Togliatti begins to anticipate,13
“the fruit of years and years of meditations and studies on fate, on the history
of our country”,14 the rooting of the national and idealistic culture in the

2 Togliatti 2014a: 959.

3 Togliatti 2014a: 963.
4 Togliatti 1949: 9–71.
5 Togliatti 2014a: 967.
6 Togliatti 2014a: 968.
7 Togliatti 2014a: 990.
8 Togliatti 2014a: 991.
9 Togliatti 2014a: 967–968.
10 Togliatti 2014a: 1036.
11 Togliatti 2014a: 1034.
12 Togliatti 2014a: 1012.
13 Togliatti 2014a: 1018.
14 Togliatti 2014a: 1004.

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The Influence and Legacy of Antonio Gramsci 129

humus (fertile ground) necessary for the overthrow of an abstract dialectic for
a realistic and materialistic vision of reality, conflict and class struggle in I­ taly.15
It is also relevant to note that Togliatti’s preoccupation with reminding “us
Communists” of Gramsci’s Italianness so that “we do not believe that the pat-
rimony of Antonio Gramsci is only ours […] this patrimony belongs to all Sar-
dinians, all Italians, all workers who fight for their emancipation, whether it be
for their religious faith or their political beliefs […] he thought for all of us, he
spoke for all of us, he suffered for all of us”.16 Thus, Gramsci’s image changes
and grows over the course of one decade: it is molded with moral, intellectual
and political features, whose alignments change significantly by being condi-
tioned by two disputes – on one side with the composite constellation of so-
cialists, liberals and catholics that thought of Gramsci increasingly as a politi-
cian and nothing more than one of the many anti-fascist intellectuals17 and on
the other side, with the resistance of the Communist world, reluctant to imag-
ine the Sardinian thinker as a “national” man and not only as the “leader” of the
international working class. What are evident here are the solicitations dictat-
ed by the current political struggle: from the initial development of a national
way of constructing democracy in our country, to the need for a strategy of
moral and intellectual alliances designed to give definite closure to the fascist
experience. The last features that Togliatti wanted to model, have a reference
from behind the scenes that was then unknown but would become public
knowledge shortly thereafter: Gramsci’s writings from prison. While Togliatti
recalled the strong image of Gramsci’s Italianness from the balcony of the Pala-
zzo Civico of Cagliari on April 27th, 1947, in those same days bookstores were
receiving printed copies of Lettere dal carcere (“Letters from Prison”).18 The im-
pact of Gramsci’s Letters is enormous and the dispute surrounding the most
correct interpretation of those written and the image to offer in the form of a
political and intellectual legacy in reality occurs several months earlier and in
a place that was certainly not neutral: Elio Vittorini’s “Il Politecnico”.19 Publish-
ing “courtesy of the Casa Editrice Einaudi (Einaudi publishing house)”, a group
of 13 letters written by Gramsci at the Turi prison between 1928 and 1932 and
addressed to his wife, his sister-in-law and his son Delio, Vittorini outlined
explicitly in his brief introduction, in certain passages extrapolated from the

15 Togliatti 2014a: 1014.

16 Togliatti 2014a: 1040.
17 Cf. for example Berlinguer 1945: 27–31.
18 Cf. Mangoni 1999: 333.
19 Gramsci 1946: 5–11, with an introduction signed “E.V”. Working at the Einaudi publishing
house, Vittorini probably could have read the Lettere in its entirety and would have there-
fore made a selection that was not random.

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130 Zanantoni

c­ ontext and isolated as quotations. “His Gramsci”, was certainly very different
than Togliatti’s description. Vittorini writes, Gramsci:

appears to us today like a man of politics that could be more sharply po-
litical thanks to his capacity to find the cultural reasons for every issue.
[…] He claimed the importance of the aesthetic evaluation of art along-
side the historical evaluation, more than any other great revolutionary.
[…] For us, in any case, in many problems the last word belongs to him,
for the Communists and for all the Italian intellectuals.20

Vittorini adds a distinctive passage, causing not only tensions within the
communist movement, but uses Gramsci in the same issue of the magazine
in which the famous text of Togliatti is published,21 reinforcing his struggle
with the problem of the relations between politics and culture, configuring
the image of the Sardinian thinker as a Marxist politician whose quality of
his Marxist political being was the intellectual capacity to recognize the aes-
thetic autonomy of the artistic fact (art, poetry, art literature) “alongside his-
torical evaluation”. This is a use of Gramsci that will permeate the left-wing
intellectual.
The debate surrounding the figure of Gramsci exploded when he was award-
ed the Viareggio Prize in August 1947. Meanwhile, it should be noted that Togli-
atti’s idea of publishing the Lettere dal carcere (“Letters from Prison”) before
the Quaderni del carcere (“Prison Notebooks”)22 in which Gramsci’s thought
was most widely expressed, represented a significant anomaly in the Commu-
nist tradition.23 In the history of the workers’ movement, letter correspon-
dence had a certain importance, but usually consisted of political and ideo-
logical letters – very rarely personal letters. Just think of the correspondence of
Marx and Engels with various exponents of the German Social Democrats such
as Bernstein, Bebel and Kautsky. Correspondence was essential both as a tool
and as useful documents for understanding the theoretical structuring of both
sender and recipient. In the case of Gramsci, the Lettere dal carcere (“Letters
from Prison”), published before the contemporaneously written and more the-
oretical Prison Notebooks, still posed a problem for the Communist community
that was negatively sensitive to intrusions of the “private” into the presentation

20 Gramsci 1946: 5. About this Gramscian reading of “Politecnico” cf. Liguori 2012: 81–82,
Luperini 1971: 124–125.
21 Togliatti 1946: 3–4.
22 Cf. Daniele 2005: 76, letter from Felice Platone to Giulio Einaudi, November 4, 1946.
23 Cf. several references in Hobsbawm 1978: 367.

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The Influence and Legacy of Antonio Gramsci 131

of a public figure of absolute moral intransigence who was also leader of the
party. To the consciously defined features that Togliatti gradually outlined, the
Lettere added another extraordinarily effective feature to the figure of Gramsci
even with the possibility of a risky reception: “the world of feelings and the
most fundamental affections”.24
Here is the sentimental key that could predispose the hearts and souls of
Italian intellectuals and militants alike to the reception of Gramsci not only as
leader of the working class, anti-fascist intellectual, “scholar” and the “writer”
but also as an intellectual and militant revolutionary whose letters reveal to all
his “vast and profound humanity”.25 Togliatti’s “reading” of Gramsci was so de-
cisive that, from the reasons for the Viareggio award read by Leonida Repaci
the evening of August 16th to the numerous reviews and comments that fol-
lowed, it was Gramsci’s humanity that was emphasized as one of his most clas-
sic traits. The Communist community and the varied constellation of Italian
culture seemed to have overcome their perplexities and divergences in order
to unanimously recognize the figure of the Sardinian politician as a “man, rev-
olutionary, thinker, husband and father through and through”,26 discovering
the Lettere dal carcere (“Letters from Prison”) as a “monument of life and of
indestructible moral teaching” and “Gramsci the narrator and artist as equal to
the moralist, philosopher and historian”.27 As Calvino wrote: “an exemplary fig-
ure of the modern Italian” who “knew how to graft to the trunk of the most
rigorously traditional Italian culture, the biting historicity of dialectic
materialism”.28 Some voices were displeased, uttered with a mix of envy and
political irritation29 against that “simple follower of Croce” – as written for ex-
ample by Alberto Savinio to his editor Bompiani commenting on that “almost
idiotic and immoral thing” of the Viareggio Prize,30 in relation to the dispute
surrounding the Gramscian legacy to appropriate that body and mind which
for ten years had suffered and worked in fascist prisons and which had written
celebrated pages, such as those on Benedetto Croce. In reality, these were some
of the most equivocal words, with those references (often evoked in ways that

24 “Avvertenza” (written by Felice Platone but not signed), in Gramsci 1947: 7.

25 in Gramsci 1947: 5.
26 Repaci in Santarelli 1991: 275.
27 Santarelli 1991: 276.
28 Calvino 1947.
29 Cf. Albertini 1947, also in Santarelli 1991: 285. For the controversy surrounding the Viareg-
gio prize cf. Chiarotto 2011: 23–39.
30 In D’Ina, Zaccaria 2007: 508–509.

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were not exact)31 to the Lettere dal carcere (“Letters from Prison”), which would
belong “even to one who is of another or opposing political party”,32 because,
“as a thinker, Gramsci, was one of us, one of those who in the first decades of
the 20th century in Italy formed a philosophical and historical mind able to
deal with the problems of the present”33 – a group in which Croce naturally
included himself. In fact, Croce’s review of the Lettere is just another opportu-
nity to talk more about himself than about the reviewed book and to attack the
most orthodox Marxist doctrine – attributed to Togliatti and the Italian Com-
munists “armed with a philosophical catechism written by Stalin” – through
the example of Gramsci and his presumed difference. Croce emphasized the
Gramscian ability to interpret the specificity of literary and poetic phenomena
“for their aesthetic values alone and not to love them for their ideological
content”34 – with an implicit reference to what Vittorini had observed (with
quite a different intent) and the attempt to bring the Communist doctrine to
the stature and tradition of the great Italian philosophers: from Bruno to Cam-
panella to Vico. An interpretation that would soon turn out to be instrumental
when shortly thereafter the first volume of the Quaderni del carcere (“Prison
Notebooks”) would be published and dedicated the philosophy of Benedetto
Croce. This time, the review35 would have another tone, when the philosopher
from Abruzzo realized how much Gramsci’s “philosophy of praxis” was strong-
ly characterized by its profound critical autonomy and philosophical original-
ity and to what heights of elaboration Gramsci had achieved while in prison.
Certainly, the Viareggio Prize and the almost unanimous chorus of praise that
arrived above all from the liberal and actionist area, that maybe had too conve-
niently interpreted “Gramsci is for all”, could not help but arouse some con-
cerns within the Communist community. Carlo Muscetta hastened to warn
against Croce’s subtle game of an illegitimate appropriation, almost an “ideo-
logical kidnapping” of Gramsci and to reject (with the pen of Lucio Lombardo
Radice), the efforts of the “traditional culture to liquidate Gramsci by
assimilation”.36
In the context of the readings and interpretations of these months between
1947 and 1948, the position of another actionist, Luigi Russo (who was then the

31 Cf. for example the memorial speech given by Giorgio Napolitano to the Camera dei Dep-
utati on April 27th, 2017 (Napolitano 2017).
32 Croce 1947: 86–88. Croce’s review was anticipated on July 6th by four newspapers (see
D’Anna 1988: 289).
33 Croce 1947: 86.
34 Croce 1947: 87.
35 Croce 1948: 78–79.
36 Cf. Ajello 1979: 109–112. For Radice’s position on Gramsci cf. Ragazzini 2002: 122–155.

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director of the Scuola Normale of Pisa), stands out. It was at this school (the
Scuola Normale of Pisa) on April 27th, 1947, on the occasion of the 10th anni-
versary of Gramsci’s death, as requested by Togliatti, that Russo gave an impor-
tant speech taking into account not only Gramsci’s recently published Lettere
dal carcere (“Letters from Prison”), but also a manuscript copy of the Quaderni
del carcere (“Prison Notebooks”) before their publication37 made available to
him with keen foresight by Togliatti. The profile of Gramsci that Russo outlined
was one that, at least in those first moments, was better able to give back to
that name, to that memory, the face of a man: a complete moral and intellec-
tual physiognomy in a sufficiently determined place in history. His profile, de-
scribed with non-rhetorical38 words, seemed like that of a rediscovered friend,
but even more that of “our brother in work”39 who from the depths of a prison
“was so close to us and remembered all of our writings in a friendly way and
with genuine warmth”.40 Included in that “us” were names and books that first
Russo, and soon after the entire Italian culture discovered with stupefied admi-
ration: “Croce, De Ruggiero Omodeo, Salvatorelli, Matteo Bartoli, Umberto
Cosmo”. They discovered the subjects that Gramsci studied in prison: from the
Risorgimento to grammar; from Machiavelli to literature; from Dante to Piran-
dello, demonstrating a “vast culture, knowledge of foreign languages and liter-
atures, an encyclopedic interest in literature and history, critique, linguistics
and finally political thought”.41 It was as though Russo could not wait to write
to Togliatti the day after the memorial at the Scuola Normale, “for me, Gramsci
was a revelation”.42 But one wonders, “And Gramsci the politician?”. Russo, as
he himself point out to Togliatti, is “not a Communist but not anti-Communist”43
and it is in this view that he interprets Gramsci in whose writings “after 1921
one rarely finds the words dictatorship of the proletariat, instead he talks about
democratic conquest and democratic education of the proletariat”.44 In this
way, where Communism appears to him like “a starting point for democratic
education”,45 for the first time, Russo emphatically and decisively underlines
the role of the intellectual as educator on the political path towards d­ emocracy.

37 Cf. Chiarotto 2011: 52–53; D’Anna 1988: 301–302; Togliatti 2014b: 95–97.
38 Russo 1947: 395–411 (later reprinted with the title Scoperta di Antonio Gramsci, cf. Santar-
elli 1991: 225–240).
39 Santarelli 1991: 228.
40 Ibid.
41 Santarelli 1991: 229.
42 Togliatti 2014b: 95.
43 Ibid.
44 Santarelli 1991: 231.
45 Togliatti 2014b: 90.

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We are still in 1947, where the role of the proletariat, even from its perspective
of “non-anticommunist and sincere and loyal democratic” is fundamental.
Togliatti can only rejoice: the director of the Scuola Normale knew how to of-
fer, so to speak, the “correct understanding” of Gramsci. He is no longer just a
politician and scholar “impregnated with the Western spirit” and “essentially
rooted in the Italian tradition”,46 but a “fighting partner” that progressive men
of culture feel close to, by having indicated (as no one else did before now) the
problem of the education of intellectuals as necessary allies of workers and
peasants instead of lofty, unreachable teachers. Luigi Russo’s interpretation of
the organic intellectual was the most lucid and conscious, and, through deci-
sive Gramscian guidance, undoubtedly shifted the commitment of democratic
men of culture.
Russo had outlined the most empathetic image of Gramsci, one that was
heartfelt and not just intellectualized by men of culture of the time. In con-
trast, Giacomo Debenedetti (another literary critic) developed the most inno-
vative and penetrating reading of Lettere dal carcere (“Letters from Prison”)
that had been written up until those first months of 1947. From that moment,
this reading traced a profile of Gramsci that would become indelible: the clas-
sicism of Gramsci. Debenedetti, who had personally known Gramsci in Torino
in the 1920s, joined the pci (the Italian Communist Party) in 1944 and was also
a member of the jury for the Viareggio Prize. Close to the time of publication
of Gramsci’s Lettere, he wrote few dozen pages of notes that remained unedit-
ed until 1972 and were then gathered by Ottavio Cecchi with the title Il metodo
umano di Antonio Gramsci, appunti del 1947 per un saggio sulle “Lettere dal car-
cere” (“The human method of Antonio Gramsci, notes from 1947 for an essay
on the Letters from Prison”)47 as well as an article-review published on May
22nd, 1947 in the Roman edition of “l’Unità” and on June 1st, 1947 in the Mila-
nese edition48 with the title Gramsci, uomo classico (Gramsci: classical man).
There is an obvious connection between the notes and the article appearing in

46 Santarelli 1991: 235.

47 Debenedetti 1972: 15–20.
48 Debenedetti 1947a: 3, 1947b: 3 (without the comma in the title). The two articles are also
printed in Vicario 1984: 158–161 and in Santarelli 1991: 263–268, which instead includes the
article from the Roman edition. For the editorial and philological details of Debenedetti’s
articles in “l’Unità” see Pane 2017: 1–34 (part. p. 20). In my opinion, the author erroneously
maintains that the “contamination” of the parts of the two articles for “l’Unità” are derived
from the “Appunti” (“notes”) later reported by Ottavio Cecchi in the issue of “Rinascita” in
1972 cited above (note 47). In reality, the “Appunti” (“notes”) of Debenedetti, presumably
from March-April 1947, constitute the draft copy of an unfinished essay. Debenedetti then
uses parts of these notes for Gramsci’s “portrait” intended for “l’Unità”.

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the Communist newspaper. In the latter, almost all the complexity of Debene-
detti’s considerations and his ingenious path towards a penetrating view of
Gramsci’s thought disappears. Even more brilliant if we think that such a read-
ing came about for Debenedetti without having the complete edition of the
Lettere at his disposition (among these, the dramatic letter to Tania of March 6,
1933, not included in the 1947 edition) and without having read in the Quaderni
those problematically and temporally connected “Note autobiografiche” (“au-
tobiographical notes”) included in Quaderno 15 (“Notebook 15”) (a text that was
also excluded from the first edition of the Quaderni del carcere).49 The reading
of Lettere dal carcere (“Letters from Prison”) that Debenedetti offers is in fact
thought of as a kind of exploration of Gramsci’s self-analysis and revolves
around a conclusion that turns out to be “between the words that most fre-
quently recur, […] those of molecule, molecular”.50 Availing of the complicity
of Leopardi and De Sanctis, the critic from Turin reads the Lettere like a “story
of a soul”,51 an “autobiography of Gramsci’s last ten years”,52 where plots are
outlined, in the literary form of storytelling and diary – “a human method”.53
Closed in a prison cell, writes Debenedetti, conscious of his physical and psy-
chological changes, time was the only direction in which Gramsci could still
move. “But it is exactly that, through which man proceeds to discover and ana-
lyze himself”.54 It is a procession of memories, emotions and sentiments. To
arrive at an understanding of things in their “entirety” and complexity, Grams-
ci carries out an analysis of time lived, memories, “sensazioni molecolari”
(“molecular sensations”) through that which Debenedetti identifies as “meto-
do umano” (“human method”). “The human method that Gramsci proposes is
nothing else but philological method, spread across the whole experience of
living”. It is philology applied to oneself. According to Debenedetti’s reading,
Gramsci seems to say, “Nothing that is human is foreign to me”. This expresses
“the classical ideal of man”,55 where every factor on the intimate and individual
plane must be taken into account. I cannot allow myself to go on about all the

49 On the close link, both problematic and temporal, between the letter to Tania and the
paragraph in Quaderno 15 (“Notebook 15”) cf. in particular Gerratana 1990: 189–202. Re-
garding the editorial details surrounding Tania’s letter and the publication of Gramsci’s
“Note autobiografiche” (“Autobiographical notes”) and the political implications of De-
benedetti’s reading cf. Forenza 2013, pp. 123–136.
50 Debenedetti 1972: 16. The same theme is also taken up in the article for “l’Unità”, in Santar-
elli 1991: 265.
51 Santarelli 1991: 264.
52 Ibid.
53 Ibid.
54 Santarelli 1991: 265.
55 Santarelli 1991: 267.

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implications of mental character linked to the theory of personality which De-

benedetti reflects on in his ample notes, bringing to light with extraordinary
foresight the Gramsci-Freud rapport, implications that even Gramsci consid-
ers56 and on which he himself reflects upon in several specific paragraphs in
the Quaderni (paragraphs that not by chance will be published for the first
time by Debenedetti in 196257). Perhaps because it was so evocative, the Grams-
cian reading of the critic from Turin was not followed up or explored after-
wards. More than a decade had to pass, but Debenedetti’s irreducible attention
to Gramsci as “the classical man” would continue to produce unexpected re-
sults in the Mondadori edition of 2000 pagine di Gramsci (“2000 pages of
Gramsci”),58 edited by Giansiro Ferrata and Nicolò Gallo along with an under-
standing with Giacomo Debenedetti and published by Mondadori, not with-
out consequences on Einaudi, in the spring of 1964. Togliatti will be the one to
highlight these brilliant considerations of Denendetti and this centrality of the
autobiographical character of the Quaderni del carcere (“Prison Notebooks”),
by reviewing the book 2000 pagine di Gramsci (published by Mondadori), in a
famous article in “Paese sera”59 making scholars and militants note that out of
those 2000 pages, something new was coming out of Gramsci: “something that
requires a more profound reflection than that we have usually dedicated to his
life”.60 It was the “person” of Antonio Gramsci that needed to be placed “in a
more vivid light, transcending the historic events of our party”.61 It was the
extraordinary indication of a new key to a new interpretation of an unprece-
dented view of the friend and companion. From “leader of the working class”
to the man who becomes a person through a “molecular transformation” that
is not a simple expression of an internal drama, of his suffering as a prisoner,
but “a conscious criticism of a hundred years of history in our country”.62
If, therefore, the intellectual debate surrounding the Lettere dal carcere
(“Letters from Prison”) had first of all considered the figure, the role and the
personality of Gramsci the “prisoner”, it would be with the publication of
the Quaderni that the interpretation and use of Gramscian thought would

56 Cf. especially the two texts already cited by Gerratana and Ragazzini.
57 Cf. Gramsci 1962. Following Gramsci’s texts is Dibattito per un’antologia di Gramsci, in-
cluding selections by Mario Alicata, Giacomo Debenedetti, Giansiro Ferrata, Franco Ferri,
Niccolò Gallo, Giancarlo Vigorelli, Gramsci 1962: 14–30 (cf. in particular Forenza 2013:
131–132).
58 Gramsci 1964.
59 Togliatti 1964 (cf. it also in Togliatti 2014a: 1186–1189).
60 Togliatti 1964: 1187.
61 Togliatti 1964: 1187–1188.
62 Togliatti 1964: 1189.

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The Influence and Legacy of Antonio Gramsci 137

i­ntensify, developing on its three main fronts: the history of intellectuals and
literary criticism, the history of Italy and the anti-Croce philosophical project.
Even in the field of philosophical studies, Togliatti’s elaboration was deci-
sive in defining the traits of Gramsci’s legacy. His interpretation was focused, as
it is known, on two central aspects: the affirmation of the absolute historicity
of social and political reality and therefore the definition of Marxism as “abso-
lute historicism”63 and on the other side, the value of Italian cultural tradition,
an underscoring that also involved a reflection on the relationship between
Gramsci and the tradition of idealism.64 It was Eugenio Garin who best and
most profoundly delved into this work. In Cronache di filosofia italiana (“Chron-
icles of Italian Philosophy”) conceived and published between 1951 and 1953
and then gathered in to a volume in 1955,65 Garin represents a moment of rup-
ture and contention in the historiographical debate, precisely in reference to
the Gramscian lesson. The Cronache, conceived around the same time as the
publication of the thematic edition of the Quaderni, had Gramsci’s thought at
their center, read in terms of “historicism” and “national tradition”, integrating
themselves in those same years with Tolgliatti’s formulation. But what Garin
highlighted in his research was the attempt to write, in line with Gramsci’s
­direction, a history of Italian philosophy that was the history of Italian
­intellectuals – an expression of their era and not the story of a purely specula-
tive vision of events and ideas. Following Gramsci’s formula, he reconfirmed
the historical task of Italian culture: the construction of Anti-Croce as a con-
struction of another type of hegemony – a task that, in his opinion, had not yet
been completed. Together with 1956 and his political-cultural reflections, even
the reading of Gramsci lived through disputes and defenses. The migration of
Communist intellectuals into other fields, and the modification of interpretive
categories created a strong discontinuity regarding substantial aspects of “his-
toricism” and the idea of translating Marxism into nationalist terms. In light of
this, the collective editorial operation of La città futura (“The City of the Fu-
ture”), the anthology of essays published by Feltrinelli66 seems almost specular
in comparison to Garin’s Cronache. La città futura aims at a reading of Grams-
cian thought that is completely opposed to Togliatti’s line of thought and con-
firms that of Eugenio Garin. In this anthology, two authors take up Gramscian
thought in a philosophical scope: Mario Tronti and Emilio Agazzi, intellectuals

63 Togliatti 2014: 1131.

64 Cf. especially Mustè 2017: 9–29.
65 Garin 1975. In Mustè 2017 the author lingers on Garin’s reading of Gramsci.
66 Caracciolo, Scalia 1959.

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that were in different ways outside of and distant from the militant nature of
the pci (Italian Communist Party) and of “official Marxism”.
Through Gramsci, read and used in different ways by the historicist culture
prevalent in the pci, these two presented a theoretical program having as a
goal the elaboration of an Italian Marxism described as the philosophy of the
praxis and scientific methodology of political action. Their principal thesis
was that before the establishment of Marxism in Italy could take place, the
ideology of Benedetto Croce (an anti-Marxist cultural hegemony) had to be
demolished.
At the same time, such an establishment of Italian Marxism could not do
without the energizing sap of the one who, towards Croce, had begun the work
of demolition, that is, Antonio Gramsci and his conception of Marxism as a
philosophy of praxis. The establishment of Italian Marxism during the 1960s,
however, needed to demolish Croce’s thought in a way that was different from
Gramsci’s and to liberate itself from every influence of Gentile. It could occur
only through a more “genuine” re-reading of Marx’s teachings. It was the con-
sequence of this line that exactly 20 years later, another collective volume
(even this an expression of a “new Left” more radically opposed to the official
Left) resumed a reading of Gramsci that was in many ways analogous to the
theses of La città futura, analogous even in the interpreters of the time, with
the philosopher Emilio Agazzi who in the new anthology Gramsci. Una eredità
contrastata, published in 1979,67 in underlining what was “acceptable” about
Gramsci’s legacy, confirmed and highlighted its point of view regarding Grams-
ci’s unfinished Anti-Croce operation and the necessity to finish it through a
rethinking of Marx that was indispensable in order to overcome that “specula-
tive residue” of Gramsci and to reconnect that “dialectical melding of theory
and praxis in the structural moment of the economy that is the central point of
Marxim”.68
If, as we have previously seen, the Cronache of Garin constituted (in the
light of a convinced adhesion to Gramcian thought) the attempt of a history of
Italian intellectuals from the point of view of a history of philosophy, Alberto
Asor Rosa represents, in my opinion, one who like no other, successfully at-
tempted in the same timeframe, to write an analogous history of Italian intel-
lectuals in the view of literary culture. While in fact maintaining some of the
negative criticisms of Gramsci’s thought expressed in his famous 1965 book,
Scrittori e popolo69 (“Writers and People”), – an illusory ideology of progress, an

67 Agazzi et al. 1979.

68 Agazzi et al. 1979: 60.
69 Asor Rosa 1965.

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overvaluing of the intellectual function, a substantial immobility masquerad-

ing as a “philosophy of praxis”, during the 1970s Asor Rosa, modifying his inter-
pretative perspective,70 offers with the volume Storia d’Italia Einaudi (“History
of Italy Einaudi”) dedicated to contemporary culture,71 the most ambitious
and stimulating contribution of Marxist historiography to the analysis of unit-
ed Italian culture according to an original interpretation of a Gramscian mod-
el. His analysis of Italian intellectuals from the Risorgimento to the unification
of Italy is also rigorously Gramscian.72 But even before the Einaudi volume of
the Storia d’Italia (“History of Italy”), the Gramscian model is visible in the in-
novative Sintesi di storia della letteratura italiana that Asor Rosa completes in
1972 for a scholarly work,73 a summary in which every literary period (from the
origins to the 1960s) is preceded by a paragraph specifically dedicated to I grup-
pi intellettuali (“The intellectual groups”) for the first time. The volume edited
by Einaudi on Culture thus leads to a development of the Gramscian mark on
the history of intellectuals that unravels into threads and themes strongly pres-
ent in Gramsci’s Quaderni del carcere (“Prison Notebooks”). Here are a few of
them: a hostility towards Leftist radicals and those democratic bourgeois intel-
lectuals, the expression of a reforming mediation of an uncertain and abstract
moral position; the attack against the abstract democratic Jacobinism and
against the sectarian and masonic tradition of Italian intellectuals; the positive
evaluation of Turati’s democratic socialism that had permitted many young
bourgeois intellectuals to view the working class as a class available to realize a
program of profound moral renewal. And again: the vision of Croce as a na-
tional intellectual, creator of a high-class bourgeois operation to present as an
intellectual above the political parties, according to the Gramsican reading
traceable in the pages dedicated to the “southern question”. The best of Grams-
ci’s legacy in terms of the history of intellectuals appears fully deployed in the
pages written by Asor Rosa: the idea of a “profound difference between the
potential of culture and the real, historical world”74 and the non-mechanical
application of “the relationship between structure and superstructure that is
the classical canon of all cultural histories of Marxist inspiration”.75 To me it
seems like the Asor Rosa of Storia d’Italia, unlike the Asor Rosa of Scrittori e
popolo, over the decades from the Risorgimento until the 1960s, develops the
types of analysis and ideas that decidedly Gramscian authors such as Natalino

70 Cf. Liguori 2012: 240.

71 Asor Rosa 1976.
72 Cf. Diaz 1980: 181–207.
73 Asor Rosa 1972.
74 Asor Rosa 1978: 263.
75 Asor Rosa 1978: 260.

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Sapegno and Giuseppe Petronio76 had elaborated either partially or succinctly

regarding the Italian literary system. In other words, Asor Rosa realized the
analytical reconstruction of a Gramscian model of the history of culture and
education of Italian intellectuals, in which the personality of the writer is
rightfully valued and that includes, without ever isolating or over-valuing
them, also literary facts and tracing them back to their historical roots.77 This
is the desired situation, expressed in the Quaderni (“Prison Notebooks”), of a
fusion of political and ideological judgement that includes the historical refer-
ence to the object of study, and the critical judgment on the profound histori-
cal features of the literary text. In this way, literature ceases to be self-sufficient
because it belongs to and is influenced by a procedural totality, which is its
ideological humus. Against this view there is, just to mention some examples,
the anti-Gramscism of Fortini or Romano Luperini, which is both focused on
considering the aesthetic value as a part of political struggle and underlining
the structural base of the aesthetic production, pursuing the melding of the
structural method into Marxism.78
Another field where Gramsci’s legacy was debated but also strongly valued
was historical studies. In 1973, the journal “Rinascita”79 conducted a survey of
historians regarding the Marxist historical research in Italy. One of the histori-
ans interviewed, Ernesto Ragionieri, declared that, “without considering
Gramsci, it is not possible to produce serious works of historical culture in
Italy”.80 Such considerations of Gramsci’s legacy began in the historiographical
field in the middle of the 1950s, soon after the publication of the Quaderni
(“Prison Notebooks”). From this point of view, one should not forget that the
first “scientific” representation of Gramsci’s prison writings that Togliatti ex-
pressed on the basis of meager indications he knew about just a few months
after the death of the prisoner, was that of “a materialistic representation of
the history of Italy”.81 The historian Giorgio Candeloro was one of the first to
realize a similar representation in his essential Storia dell’Italia moderna dal
1700 al 1950,82 published in 1956. The mention of Gramsci as the one who “had

76 For the “revolutionary” discovery of Gramsci by Giuseppe Petronio cf. Paladini Musitelli
2003: 76.
77 Cf. Gatto 2016: 81–83. Gatto’s book constitutes one of the few recent positive additions to
the field of contemporary Gramscian criticism (and not only in the literary field) noted
for its wealth of analysis and information.
78 Gatto 2016: 162–164.
79 Cecchi 1974.
80 Ragionieri, in Cecchi 1974: 58.
81 Togliatti, in Daniele 2005: 17.
82 Candeloro 1956–1986.

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The Influence and Legacy of Antonio Gramsci 141

strongly c­ ontributed to stimulating the need for re-thinking”, providing “the

essential lines of a new interpretation of the history of modern Italy” was made
explicit from the Preface83 and showed the basis of Marxist teachings: “do not
stop at the cultural-political aspect of historical facts […], to interpret the past
in the light of the problems of the present and to clearly identify the positive
elements, which are always a part of the system of forces and ideologies tend-
ing to stimulate the general progress of society in a concrete way and with this
criteria judge men and facts”.84 Concluding exactly 30 years later, the grandiose
work of Candeloro had intersected in 1976 with the other masterful work on
Gramsci that provided the frame of Italian history from the unification to the
end of the 1960s: the volume of Ernesto Ragionieri, has like that of Asor Rosa’s,
Storia d’Italia Einaudi85 as its starting point. Ragionieri’s work (unfortunately
left unfinished because of the author’s sudden death) still remains the most
important analysis (in the light of Gramsci’s historiographical stimuli) regard-
ing the process of formation of the modern Italian state and its ruling class.
The in-depth analysis of Gramscian themes that took place during the 1960s
and 1970s developed (even with strong ideological differences) around issues
that had significant political and historiographical impact. The problem of the
relationship between urban and rural “reiterated with great energy in Quader-
ni del carcere (‘Prison Notebooks’)86 with regards to the contemporary culture
of Italy”; identifying worldwide phenomena and their specific relevance for
Italy; the rapprochement to fascism as a complex and contradictory reality but
certainly not a provincial one; the relationship between Europe and America
in terms of the initiatives of the popular and working classes; the problem of
organizing and controlling the popular masses as a determining factor the
modification of the organization of capitalism, themes suggested from notes
on Americanismo e fordismo (“Americanism and Fordism”);87 the formation of
the industrial-agricultural bloc in Italy; the process of formation of our nation-
al market in relation to the specificities of capitalist accumulation in our coun-
try, problems that Gramsci described as “central to our Risorgimento and post-
Risorgimento history”.88 The historian Emilio Sereni, in particular, delved into
these themes in detail in a continuous “interview” with Gramsci, transforming
into research (among the most productive of Marxist historians) the principle
themes of Gramscian elaboration while seeing them without bias of potential

83 Cf. Candeloro 1956: 9.

84 Candeloro 1956: 10.
85 Ragionieri 1976.
86 Ragionieri, in Cecchi 1974: 62.
87 De Felice, in Cecchi 1974: 115–116.
88 Sereni 1962: 586.

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or limits.89 These limits were more strongly highlighted by those who intended
to re-read Italian history from the point of view of the working class. Such was
the case of historian Stefano Merli who, albeit very critical towards the tradi-
tion of Gramscian historiography, nevertheless in his introduction to his un-
surpassed and weighty volume on the formation of the industrial proletariat in
the last two decades of the 1800s,90 warned against the Manichean vision of
history that a working class reading produced. That type of reading that had
produced its own paradigmatic text: Proletari senza rivoluzione (“Proletariats
Without Revolution”) by Renzo Del Carria, edited in 1966 and well known be-
tween 1968 and the early 1970s. Del Carria, who put a group of Gramsci’s writ-
ings in the final Bibliography, recalled the Sardinian thinker, in a line of conti-
nuity from Marx and Lenin, as a discoverer of the study of the autonomous
protest of the subaltern classes and of their becoming revolutionary classes.91
Del Carria was the most ideologically extreme manifestation of a certain read-
ing of Gramsci: the Gramsci who in the political battles of 1968 and in the ex-
pressions of the “new Left” of those years, became the only theorist and orga-
nizer of factory councils, the journalist of the new order, the revolutionary that
changed the perspective from party to class, the theorist of hegemony of the
war of position read as a search for dominion and for the violent and revolu-
tionary act, the young Gramsci against the imprisoned Gramsci, expression of
Togliatti’s opportunism and of the revisionism and reformism of the pci.
The convention in Florence in December 1977 was the last moment for a
lively debate surrounding Gramsci’s legacy: a debate in which the political and
cultural polemics between the supporters of the pci and its opposers found
(through Gramsci and his use) the reasons for a bitter confrontation. But the
convention also brought deeper theoretical and political understanding.
The last two decades of the 1900s (especially the 1980s) were the years of
Gramsci’s oblivion, or better, of a debate surrounding the Sardinian thinker,
especially in Italy. On the one hand, they were years of expansion in the world
of Gramsci’s thought and on the other hand, a time of pointing out the herme-
neutics as well as the terminological and conceptual clarification of Gramsci’s
work produced during his time in prison. This operation, which had and has in
Gianni Francioni one of the most constant scholars of Gramscian philology,
however, was the indispensable premise, together with the discovery and ac-
quisition of new documentation, to add to that innovative season of Grams-
cian studies that had definitively overpassed – as Giuseppe Vacca wrote well,

89 Cf. Sereni 1962.: 599–600, Sereni 1972: 136–140.

90 Merli 1972–73.
91 Del Carria 1970: 25.

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“the most serious distortion of both recent and past Gramscian studies: the
dissociation of his life from his thought”.92 The two works of scholars that are
decidedly different are the 2012 volume written by Vacca93 and the new biogra-
phy of Gramsci by Angelo d’Orsi:94 the most recent expressions albeit in differ-
ent languages and with different intentions.
The national edition of the writings and letters of Antonio Gramsci, now in
progress, will surely offer new perspective and stimuli. It will be up to the new
generations of researchers to understand how to grasp them. But this is the
history of the future.

Bibliography

Gramsci’s Works
Gramsci, A. (1946), Lettere dal carcere, in “Il Politecnico”, 33–34, September–December.
Gramsci, A. (1962), Carte inedite di Antonio Gramsci, in “L’Europa Letteraria”, ii, 13–14,
February–April.
Gramsci, A. (1964), 2000 pagine di Gramsci, (Milano: Il Saggiatore).
Gramsci, A. (1947), Lettere dal carcere (Torino: Einaudi).

Other Works
Agazzi, E. et al. (1979), Gramsci. Un’eredità contrastata. La nuova sinistra rilegge Grams-
ci (Milano: Ed. Ottiaviano).
Ajello, N. (1979), Intellettuali e PCI. 1944–1958 (Bari: Laterza).
Albertini, M. (1947), Un Gramsci edificante, in “Lo Stato moderno”, 17, September 5th.
Asor Rosa, A. (1965), Scrittori e popolo. Saggio sulla letteratura populista in Italia (Roma:
Samonà e Savelli).
Asor Rosa, A. (1976), Storia d’Italia. Dall’Unità ad oggi, iv/2 (Torino: Einaudi).
Asor Rosa, A. (1972), Sintesi di storia della letteratura italiana (Firenze: La Nuova Italia).
Asor Rosa, A. (1978), Una risposta, in Macry, P., Palermo, A. (eds.), Società e cultura
dell’Italia unita (Napoli: Guida).
Berlinguer, M. (1945), in “Mercurio”, 11, July, pp. 27–31.
Calvino, I. (1947), Antonio Gramsci. Lettere dal carcere, in “L’Amico del popolo”, May 1st.
Candeloro, G. (1956–1986), Storia dell’Italia moderna (Milano: Feltrinelli).
Caracciolo, A., Scalia, G. (eds.) (1959), La città futura. Saggi sulla figura e il pensiero di
Antonio Gramsci (Milano: Feltrinelli).

92 Vacca 2017: 4.
93 Vacca 2012.
94 d’Orsi 2017.

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144 Zanantoni

Cecchi, O. (ed.) (1974), La ricerca storica marxista in Italia (Roma: Editori Riuniti).
Chiarotto, F. (2011), Operazione Gramsci. Alla conquista degli intellettuali nell’Italia del
dopoguerra (Milano: Mondadori).
Croce, B. (1947), Lettere dal carcere di Antonio Gramsci, in “Quaderni della Critica”, iii, 8.
Croce, B. (1948), Il materialismo storico e la filosofia di Benedetto Croce, in “Quaderni
della Critica”, iv, 10.
D’Anna, G. (1988), La “scoperta” di Antonio Gramsci. Le “Lettere” e i “Quaderni del car-
cere” nel dibattito italiano 1944–1952, in “Italia contemporanea”, 211.
D’Ina, G., Zaccaria, G. (eds.) (2007), Caro Bompiani. Lettere con l’editore (Milano:
Bompiani).
d’Orsi, A. (2017), Gramsci. Una nuova biografia (Milano: Feltrinelli).
Daniele, C. (ed.) (2005), Togliatti editore di Gramsci (Roma: Carocci).
Debenedetti, G. (1947a), Gramsci, uomo classico, in “l’Unità” (Roma), May 22.
Debenedetti, G. (1947b), Gramsci uomo classico, in “l’Unità” (Milano), June 1.
Debenedetti, G. (1972), Il metodo umano di Antonio Gramsci. Appunti del 1947 per un
saggio sulle “Lettere dal carcere”, in “Rinascita”, 39.
Del Carria, R. [1966] (1970), Proletari senza rivoluzione. Storia delle classi subalterne ital-
iane dal 1860 al 1950 (Milano: Oriente).
Diaz, F. (1980), Gli intellettuali dall’Unità alla Grande Guerra, in Tranfaglia, N. (ed.),
L’Italia unita nella storiografia del secondo dopoguerra (Milano: Feltrinelli).
Forenza, E. (2013), Il Gramsci “molecolare” di Giacomo Debenedetti: il problema politico
dell’autobiografia, in “Historia Magistra”, 13.
Garin, E. (1975), Cronache di filosofia italiana 1900–1943 (Roma-Bari: Laterza).
Gatto, M. (2016), Nonostante Gramsci. Marxismo e critica letteraria nell’Italia del
Novecento (Macerata: Quodlibet).
Gerratana, V. (1990), Unità della persona e dissoluzione del soggetto, in Muscatello, B.
(ed.), Gramsci e il marxismo contemporaneo (Roma: Editori Riuniti).
Hobsbawm, E.J. (1978), La fortuna delle edizioni di Marx ed Engels, in AA.VV. Storia del
marxismo, 1, Il marxismo ai tempi di Marx (Torino: Einaudi).
Liguori, G. (1996), Gramsci conteso. Storia di un dibattito 1922–1996 (Roma: Editori
Riuniti).
Liguori, G. (2012), Gramsci conteso. Interpretazioni, dibattiti e polemiche 1922–2012
(Roma: Editori Riuniti).
Liguori, G., Meta, C. (2005), Gramsci. Guida alla lettura (Milano: Unicopli).
Luperini, R. (1971), Gli intellettuali di sinistra e l’ideologia della ricostruzione nel dopogu-
erra (ii), in “Ideologie”, 15.
Mangoni, L. (1999), Pensare i libri. La casa editrice Einaudi dagli anni trenta agli anni
settanta (Torino: Bollati Boringhieri).
Merli, S. (1972–1973), Proletariato di fabbrica e capitalismo industriale. Il caso italiano:
1880–1900, 2 vol. (Firenze: La Nuova Italia).

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The Influence and Legacy of Antonio Gramsci 145

Mustè, M. (2017), La presenza di Gramsci nella storiografia filosofica e nella storia della
cultura, in “Filosofia Italiana”, special issue L’influenza di Gramsci in Italia e nel mon-
do, 2.
Napolitano, G. (2017), Memorial speech for Gramsci, in “l’Unità”, 28th April.
Paladini Musitelli, M. (2003), Ricordo di Giuseppe Petronio, in “Critica Marxista”, 1.
Pane, A. (2017), Debenedetti e “l’Unità”: la ‘Verticale’ del 1946–47, in “Prassi Ecdotiche
della Modernità letteraria”, 2.
Ragazzini, D. (2002), Leonardo nella società di massa. Teoria della personalità in Grams-
ci (Bergamo: Moretti Honegger).
Ragionieri, E. (1976), La storia politica e sociale, in Storia d’Italia. Dall’Unità ad oggi, iv/3
(Torino: Einaudi).
Russo, L. (1947), Antonio Gramsci e l’educazione democratica in Italia, in “Belfagor”, 4.
Santarelli, E. (1991), Gramsci ritrovato 1937–1947 (Catanzaro: Abramo).
Sereni, E. (1962), Mercato nazionale e accumulazione capitalistica nell’unità italiana, in
Problemi dell’Unità d’Italia (Roma: Editori Riuniti).
Sereni, E. (1972), Agricoltura e mondo rurale, in “I caratteri originali”, Storia d’Italia,
vol. i, (Torino: Einaudi).
Togliatti, P. (1946), Politica e cultura. Una lettera di Palmiro Togliatti, in “Il Politecnico”.
Togliatti, P. (1949), Gramsci (Milano: Milano-sera Editrice).
Togliatti, P. (1964), Gramsci, un uomo, in “Paese sera”, June 19th.
Togliatti, P. (2014a), La politica nel pensiero e nell’azione. Scritti e discorsi 1917–1964, Cili-
berto, M., Vacca, G. (eds.) (Milano: Bompiani).
Togliatti, P. (2014b), La guerra di posizione in Italia. Epistolario 1944–1964 (Torino:
Einaudi).
Vacca, G. (2012), Vita e pensieri di Antonio Gramsci 1926–1937 (Torino: Einaudi).
Vacca, G. (2017), Modernità alternative. Il Novecento di Antonio Gramsci (Torino:
Einaudi).
Vicario, G. (ed.) (1984), Gli scrittori e l’Unità. Antologia di racconti 1945–1980 (Roma:
l’Unità).

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 Chapter 13

The International Historiography on Gramsci in the

Twenty-First Century

Davide Cadeddu

Serious attention to the thought of Antonio Gramsci was solidly established at

the international level by 1977, forty years after his death. Many conferences
and scientific initiatives were promoted on the occasion of this anniversary in
a political context that was showing interest in the so-called “historical com-
promise” and “Eurocommunism”.1
Another important reason for this growing interest in Gramsci was un-
doubtedly due to the publication of several anthologies in English (mainly is-
sued in the early seventies),2 and the work of several Latin American intellec-
tuals who recognized a democratic version of Marxism in Gramsci’s writings.3
Later, other authors, such as Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall in Great Brit-
ain, Edward Said in the United States and Ranajit Guha in India, helped to di-
rect attention to Gramsci’s thought by drawing hermeneutical paradigms ca-
pable of explaining current events.4
One other factor that most certainly aided in the international dissemina-
tion of Gramsci’s thought was the publication of the Quaderni del carcere
(“Prison Notebooks”) edited by Valentino Gerratana and promoted by the Isti-
tuto Gramsci (Gramsci Institute),5 which in turn launched a new cycle of
translations.6 Today, Gramsci’s writings have been translated into more than
forty languages and approximately half of the literature produced yearly that is
dedicated to him is written in languages other than Italian.7
Fascination with Gramsci grew in the aftermath of the fall of European
Communism over the course of 1989–1991. At the conference “Gramsci nel

1 Cf. Ferri 1977; in specific, for the English context, cf. Showstack Sassoon 1980.
2 Cf. spn, Gramsci 1973, SPW-1, SPW-2.
3 Cf, for example, Aricó 1988.
4 Cf. Williams 1980; Hall 1987, Said 1993; Guha 1983.
5 Cf. Q.
6 Cf. Gramsci 1978–1996; Gramsci 1981; Gramsci 1981–2000; Gramsci 1999–2002; Gramsci 1991–
2002; Gramsci 1992–2011.
7 For the most recently updated description see Bibliografia gramsciana: http://bg.fondazion
egramsci.org/biblio-gramsci.

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The International Historiography on Gramsci 147

mondo” (“Gramsci in the World”) in 1989, the dissemination of Gramsci’s

thought at a global level was highlighted8 and it was on this occasion that the
constitution of the International Gramsci Society was both debated and an-
nounced. The Society held its first public meeting in New York in April of 1991.9
Paradoxically, Gramsci’s growing international fame was countered by a
progressive decline of interest in Italy where, in various ways and at various
times, a reinterpretation of his thought was taken as a way to discredit both its
cultural legacy and political frame of reference. Nevertheless, the international
diffusion of Gramsci increased and was newly energized in 1997 (on the sixty
year anniversary of his death) by the organization of two conferences promot-
ed by the Fondazione Istituto Gramsci (Gramsci Foundation Institute) and the
International Gramsci Society, both attended by scholars of many different
nationalities.10
In 2007, a renewed interest in Gramscian studies coincided with the first
volume of the “Edizione nazionale degli scritti di Antonio Gramsci” (National
Edition of the Writings of Antonio Gramsci) promoted by the Gramsci Foun-
dation Institute and published by the “Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana”
(The Institute of the Italian Encyclopedia) that provided a work plan com-
posed of “Scritti 1910–1926” (Writings 1910–1926), “Quaderni del Carcere. 1929–
1935” (Prison Notebooks. 1929–1935) and “Epistolario. 1906–1937” (Epistolary.
1906–1937).11 A collective work of particular importance and usefulness, the
Dizionario gramsciano 1926–1937 (“Gramscian Dictionary 1926–1937”)12 was
published just two years later.
There are several works that give a clear view of the situation in terms of
international historiography: the series “Studi gramsciani nel mondo” (World-
wide Studies on Gramsci) directed by Giuseppe Vacca and promoted by the
Fondazione Istituto Gramsci (Gramsci Foundation Institute); the republica-
tion of the volume Gramsci conteso (“Gramsci Contested”) duly updated in
2012 by Guido Liguori; the periodical “Gramsciana. Rivista internazionale di
studi su Antonio Gramsci” (Gramsciana. International Journal of Studies on
Antonio Gramsci), directed by Angelo d’Orsi; the “International Gramsci Jour-
nal”, directed by Derek Boothman; the Bibliografia gramsciana (“Gramscian
Bibliography”) published online by the Fondazione Gramsci onlus (Gramsci
Foundation non-profit), founded by John M. Cammett and now curated by

8 Cf. Righi 1995.

9 Cf. Buttigieg 1992.
10 Fondazione Istituto Gramsci Onlus 1999; International Gramsci Society 1999.
11 Gramsci 2007.
12 Liguori, Voza 2009.

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Francesco Giasi and Maria Luisa Righi with the collaboration of the Interna-
tional Gramsci Society.13
Once we find our bearings inside of a cultural production whose value is as
vast as it is inhomogeneous, we can identify which works deserve to be in-
cluded in a general historiographical analysis and which others have little to do
with historiography (being more appropriately placed in the area of political
and social theory or directly in the arena of political and cultural struggle with
its consequent ideological uses). From the historiographical point of view, An-
tonio Gramsci clearly emerges as a completely complex and rare case, precise-
ly in relation to his worldwide diffusion and to his “global” being in almost all
the meanings this adjective could assume. The complexity of the situation fac-
ing us therefore suggests that we must identify some categories and, without
being overwhelmed by an infinite mass of information, bring ourselves to be
able to discern.
First of all, we must have a clear idea of what we mean by historiography. If
everything is history, “nothing else but history”,14 certainly not everything is
historiographical production, at least not in its narrow, specialized and scien-
tific meaning. Historiographical analysis involves the historical reconstruction
of past events or the historicized interpretation of an expression of human
creativity, which in our case could be either political thought or the general
thought of an author. The production of political theories or other various
theories certainly does not belong to historiography, because they draw liber-
ally on suggestions offered by the past, with the scope of interpreting (with
some well-defined or less well-defined categories, more or less adherent to the
original formulation) questions and realities that are contemporary to us or at
least not contemporary to the original formulation of that thought and those
categories. We were taught that historiography always springs from a present
interest,15 but must avoid the danger of falling into the temptation of allowing
a commingling of past and present, with the possible consequence of an
anachronistic reading of both past and present.16
The international fame of Antonio Gramsci, as evidenced by the production
of the historiography of international relations, subaltern studies and cultural

13 Fondazione Istituto Gramsci 2007-; Liguori 2012; Bibliografia gramsciana: http://

bg.fondazionegramsci.org/biblio-gramsci/. For the Italian context see also “bgr. Biblio-
grafia Gramsciana Ragionata”, which catalogues with concise entries all titles appearing
in the Italian language (even translations from other languages) starting from 1922. At
present only the first volume (1922–1965) has been published (cf. d’Orsi 2008).
14 Galasso 2000.
15 Croce 2011; en. tr. Ainslie 1960.
16 For a general view, see Iggers 2012; Galasso 2016; Iggers, Wang, Mukherjee 2017.

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The International Historiography on Gramsci 149

studies, depends on the influence of Gramscian categories, but it is completely

evident that it is one thing to reason on the historiography produced around
the life and intellectual output of Gramsci and quite another thing to reflect on
the cultural influence that Gramsci had on the historiographical production of
other areas of study. As emerged in 2007 at a conference in Rome promoted by
the Fondazione Istituto Gramsci and the International Gramsci Society on
“Gramsci, le culture e il mondo” (Gramsci, the cultures and the world), the
main problem that needs cultural management regards the use of Gramsci
(more than the interpretation of Gramsci) in subaltern studies, British cultural
studies, American postcolonial studies and in the Arab world.17
In order to avoid making mistakes, we must therefore first distinguish, at the
heart of the literature on Gramsci, at least three types of intellectual interests
and, inside of these, some predominant thematic areas: (1) historiographic
production and its close link with philological analysis; (2) elaboration of vari-
ous formulations of social, cultural and political theory; (3) ideological usage
for purposes of contingent political struggle. The most relevant thematic areas,
instead, seem to be articulated according to specific focus on the categories of
“civil society”, “hegemony”, “intellectuals”, “passive revolution”, “subaltern” and
“philosophy of praxis”, that while being of a political mold, still circulate be-
cause of their heuristic value even in other cultural areas. With this, we cer-
tainly do not want to create a measure of values (putting the historiography of
political thought at the top and the other philosophical-theoretical approach-
es somewhere further down) but it is clear that it is one thing to reason, for
example, how much of Labriola, Croce or Gentile can be found in Gramsci and
it is quite another thing to reflect on his theory of intellectuals comparing it to
that of Zygmunt Bauman in reference to today’s society. This difference needs
to be clearly present and held firm. A global author such as Antonio Gramsci,
however, raises a second difficulty in the consideration of the international
historiography produced around him: this exemplifies a discourse that could
be interesting even for other subjects with a global profile in the upcoming
years. Historiography exists regardless of the capacity that it possesses to dia-
logue inside of itself. The noble Italian, European and therefore Western tradi-
tion has taught us, however, that the relevant part of the pregnant significance
of historiographical production engaging inside of culture, awareness and
identity of a society is given exactly from its capacity to develop an intimate
dialogue within itself. Now, in the case of Antonio Gramsci, we find ourselves

17 See Schirru 2009. For a concise view, see Vacca, Capuzzo, Schirru 2008 and Manduchi,
Marchi, Vacca 2017. See also Filippini 2017.

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150 Cadeddu

f­acing two obstacles directly connected to his global being and to the effects
that globalization has produced around him as a subject of study.18
Undoubtedly, the first obstacle impeding historiographic dialogue is of a
quantitative type. Scanning the aforementioned Bibliografia gramsciana, one
understands the material impossibility of a single human being able cope
with the overflowing mass of essays and volumes published every year. This
problem is certainly a characteristic of our times where with the ease of self-
publishing, there is a greater certainty of making one’s own writing public (at
least on the web page of a private blog) and a smaller chance of actually being
read. The sheer quantity of words that hit each of us every day is simply too
overwhelming.
As if anything more was needed, the second obstacle, making a complete
historiographical mastery of our theme impossible is of a linguistic type. As
already mentioned, talking about it in positive terms, the fact that translations
of Gramsci’s writings exist in more than forty languages and that about half of
the literature dedicated to him, produced every year, is written in languages
other than Italian.19 Clearly, this aspect also constitutes a limit to the circula-
tion of ideas and to the complexity and completeness of the historiographical
debate.
Even in recently published works by authoritative scholars, the references
to studies by authors not belonging to the world of linguistics in bibliographies
(or in footnotes) is relatively scarce, when compared to the richness of inter-
national production.20 Certainly, the relevance is often connected to the place
and modality of cultural expression (publishing house, journal and diffusion
of the language used), but we also are well aware that this is not always the case
and illuminating passages may also be found in the so-called minor scientific
literature. What is beginning to be seen as true in many historiographic areas is
even macroscopic in Gramsci. International historiography in the 21st century
seems to be almost devoid of dialogue or, more precisely, this historiographi-
cal dialogue seems to be very limited, even despite the continuous and Pro-
methean efforts of both the Fondazione Gramsci onlus (Gramsci F­ oundation

18 For a “more balanced history of political thought”, from a global view, see Babb 2018,
where the goal is “to identify the key political thinkers throughout world history”, who
“have had influence, substance and relevance”. On this theme in general, see Middell,
Hadler 2007.
19 Cf. Lussana, Pissarello 2008.
20 Cf., for instance, the recent study by Grelle (2017), which mentions only studies in
English.

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non-profit) and the International Gramsci Society.21 As a historiographic sub-

ject, Antonio Gramsci has generated a phenomenology of absolute originality
and relevance, exactly because of the problems that his global success poses.
These problems cause us to reflect on the ad libitum generation of interpreta-
tions of interpretations.
The historical source and the philological attention given to the source (the
original text), however, is what permits qualified historiographic production to
flourish, completely mastering the linguistic data with absolute competence
and sensibility, in our case written in the Italian language.22 The fact that schol-
ars still continue their philological excavations is therefore full of merit –
­producing critical editions of the Quaderni del carcere (“Prison Notebooks”),
publishing Gramscian writings and promoting a national edition of Gramscian
writings – because, as was demonstrated in the past, the renewed attention to
the sources prompted new waves of interpretations of the thought and work of
Antonio Gramsci.23
Perhaps more than in the past, alongside this renewed attention, is another
concern very necessary for the purpose of feeding the historiographical debate
that arises for contingent material reasons, too often left to fortuitous circum-
stances or to personal knowledge that one has of some authors. Certainly at-
tention should be addressed to the problem of translation, with particular
philological attention, both to Gramscian writings in other languages, as well
as to the most relevant writings on Gramsci at least in Italian and English.24
This could certainly be a privileged path for the development of dialogue and
international historiographical reflection as a form of respect towards Anto-
nio Gramsci, who, as is noted, had the most profound respect for the art of
translation.25

21 See https://www.fondazionegramsci.org and http://www.internationalgramscisociety.org.

22 For example, see Thomas 2008, who won the third edition of the International Prize
“Giuseppe Somani” (promoted by the Fondazione Istituto piemontese Antonio Gramsci),
for the best study of Gramsci in the world between 2007–2011. For an overview of the
historiographical production in Italy, see Vacca 2017: 3–19.
23 See anastatica edition of the manuscripts of the Quaderni del carcere, edited by Francioni
(2009) and, in particular, the “Edizione nazionale degli scritti di Antonio Gramsci”, pro-
moted by the Fondazione Istituto Gramsci (2007–…). An original and philological reading
of Quaderni del carcere was realized by Cospito (2016).
24 Cf., for example, Coutinho 1999; Italian translation 2006; English version 2013.
25 More generally, on the role of linguistics in Gramscian thought, see Carlucci 2013. On the
life of Gramsci, see the biographies of Davidson [1976] (2018); Frétigné 2017; and, above
all, d’Orsi 2018.

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152 Cadeddu

Bibliography

Gramsci’s Works and Abbreviations

Gramsci, A. (1973), Letters from Prison, ed. by L. Lawner (New York: Harper & Row).
Gramsci, A. (2007), Quaderni del carcere 1. Quaderni di traduzioni (1929–1932), Cospito,
G., Francioni, G. (eds.) (Roma: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana).
Q: Gerratana, V. (ed.) (1975), Quaderni del carcere (Torino: Einaudi), 4 vol.
spn: Hoare, Q., Nowell-Smith, G. (eds.) (1971), Selection from the Prison Notebooks (New
York: International Publishers).
SPW-1: Hoare, Q., Nowell Smith, G. (eds.) (1977), Selections from Political Writings, 1910–
1920 (London: Lawrence & Wishart; New York: International Publisher).
SPW-2: Hoare, Q. (ed.) (1978), Selections from Political Writings (1921–1926) (New York:
International Publishers; London: Lawrence and Wishart).

Translations of the Quaderni del carcere

Gramsci, A. (1978–1996), Cahiers de prison, Paris, R. (ed.) (Paris: Gallimard), 5 vols.
Gramsci, A. (1981), Gokuchû nôto 1, Guramushi, A. (ed.) (Tokyo: Ôtsuki Shoten).
Gramsci, A. (1981–2000), Cuadernos de la carcel (Mexico: Editiones Era – Universidad
Autónoma de Puebla), 6 vols.
Gramsci, A. (1999–2002), Cuadernos do cárcere, Coutinho, C.N., Henriques, L.S.,
Nogueira, M.A. (eds.) (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira), 6 vols.
Gramsci, A. (1991–2002), Gefängnishefte: kritische Gesamtausgabe, Bochmann, K., Graf,
R., Haug, W.F., Jehle, P., Kuck, G. (eds.), Haug, W.F. (introduction by) (Hamburg: Ar-
gument Verlag), 10 vols.
Gramsci, A. (1992–2011), Prison Notebooks, Buttigieg, J.A. (ed.) (New York: Columbia
University Press).

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Aricó, J. (1988), La cola del diablo. Itinerario de Gramsci en America Latina (Buenos Ai-
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Babb, J. (2018), A World History of Political Thought (Cheltenham, UK-Northampton,
usa: Edward Elgar).
Buttigieg, J.A. (1992), Editorial, in “International Gramsci Society Newsletter”, 1, http://
www.internationalgramscisociety.org/igsn/index.html.
Carlucci, A. (2013), Gramsci and Languages. Unification, Diversity, Hegemony (Leiden-
Boston: Brill).
Cospito, G. (2016), The Rhythm of Thought in Gramsci. A Diachronic Interpretation of
Prison Notebooks (Leiden-Boston: Brill).
Coutinho, C.N. (1999), Gramsci: Um estudo sobre seu pensamento político (Rio de Ja-
neiro: Civilização Brasileira); Italian version (2006), Il pensiero politico di Gramsci

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(Milano: Unicopli); English version (2013) Gramsci’s Political Thought (Chicago:

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Croce, B. (2011), Teoria e storia della storiografia, Galasso, G. (ed.) (Milano: Adelphi); en.
tr. (1960) History. Its Theory and Practice, Ainslie, D. (ed.) (New York: Harcourt, Brace
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d’Orsi, A. (ed.) (2008), Bibliografia gramsciana ragionata 1922–1965, vol. 1 (Roma:
Viella).
d’Orsi, A. (2018), Gramsci. Una nuova biografia. Nuova edizione rivista e accresciuta (Mi-
lano: Feltrinelli).
Davidson, A. [1976] (2018), Antonio Gramsci: Towards an Intellectual Biography (Chica-
go: Haymarket Books).
Ferri, F. (ed.) (1977), Politica e storia in Gramsci. Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi
gramsciani. Firenze, 9–11 dicembre 1977 (Roma: Editori Riuniti-Istituto Gramsci),
2 vols.
Filippini, M. (2017), Using Gramsci: A New Approach (London: Pluto Press).
Fondazione Istituto Gramsci (2007-), Studi gramsciani nel mondo, G. Vacca (directed
by) (Bologna: il Mulino).
Fondazione Istituto Gramsci Onlus (1999), Gramsci e il Novecento [Proceedings from
the international conference, Cagliari 15–18 April 1997], Vacca, G. (ed.), Litri, M. (in
collaboration with) (Roma: Carocci), 2 vols.
Frétigné, J.-Y. (2017), Antonio Gramsci. Vivre, c’est résister (Paris: Dunod).
Galasso, G. (2000), Nient’altro che storia. Saggi di teoria e metodologia della storia (Bolo-
gna: Il Mulino).
Galasso, G. (2016), Storiografia e storici europei del Novecento (Roma: Salerno).
Grelle, B. (2017), Antonio Gramsci and the Question of Religion. Ideology, Ethics, and He-
gemony (London-New York: Routledge).
Guha, R. (1983), Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India (Delhi:
Oxford University Press).
Hall, S. (1987), Gramsci and Us, in “Marxism Today”, pp. 16–21.
Iggers, G.G. (2012), Historiography in the Twentieth Century. From Scientific Objectivity to
the Postmodern Challenge. With a New Epilogue by the Author (Middletown, CT:
Wesleyan University Press).
Iggers, G.G., Wang, Q.E., Mukherjee, S. (2017), A Global History of Modern Historiogra-
phy. Second Edition (London-New York, NY: Routledge).
International Gramsci Society (1999), Gramsci da un secolo all’altro, Baratta, G., Liguori,
G. (eds.) (Roma: Editori Riuniti).
Liguori, G. (2012), Gramsci conteso. Interpretazioni, dibattiti e polemiche. 1922–2012
(Roma: Editori Riuniti University Press).
Liguori, G., Voza, P. (eds.) (2009), Dizionario gramsciano 1926–1937 (Roma: Carocci).

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154 Cadeddu

Lussana, F., Pissarello, G. (eds.) (2008), La lingua/le lingue di Gramsci e delle sue opere.
Scrittura, riscritture, letture in Italia e nel mondo. Atti del Convegno internazionale di
studi, Sassari, 24–26 ottobre 2007, with an introductory essay by Vacca, G. (Soveria
Mannelli: Rubbettino).
Manduchi, P., Marchi, A., Vacca, G. (eds.) (2017), Studi gramsciani nel mondo. Gramsci
nel mondo arabo (Bologna: il Mulino).
Middell, M., Hadler, F. (2007), Challenges to the History of Historiography in an Age
of  Globalization, in Wang, Q.E., Fillafer, F.L. (eds.), The Many Faces of Clio. Cross-­
Cultural Approaches to Historiography. Essays in Honor of Georg G. Iggers (New York-
Oxford: Berghahn Books), pp. 293–306.
Righi, M.L. (1995), Gramsci nel mondo. Atti del convegno internazionale di studi grams-
ciani (Formia, 25–28 ottobre 1989) (Roma: Editori Riuniti-Fondazione Istituto
Gramsci).
Said, E. (1993), Culture and Imperialism (New York: Knopf).
Schirru, G. (ed.) (2009), Gramsci, le culture e il mondo (Roma: Viella).
Showstack Sassoon, A. (1980), The “Gramsci Boom”: A Reflection on the Present Crisis?, in
“Politics & Power”, 1, pp. 203–211.
Thomas, P.D. (2008), The Gramscian Moment: Philosophy, Hegemony and Marxism
(Leiden: Brill).
Vacca, G. (2017), Introduzione. Gli studi gramsciani oggi in Italia, in Vacca, G., Modernità
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Vacca, G., Capuzzo, P., Schirru, G. (eds.) (2008), Studi gramsciani nel mondo. Gli studi
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Williams, R. (1980), Problems in Materialism and Culture: Selected Essays (London:
Verso).

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Bibliographic Abbreviations

agr: Forgacs, D. (ed.) (2000), The Gramsci Reader. Selected Writings 1916–1935 (New
York: NYU Press).
CW: Forgacs, D., Nowell-Smith, G. (eds.) (1985), Selections from Cultural Writings (Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
fspn: Boothman, D. (ed.) (1995), Further Selections from the Prison Notebooks (Minne-
apolis: Minnesota University Press).
hpc: Cavalcanti, P., Piccone, P. (eds.) (1975), History, Philosophy and Culture in the
Young Gramsci (St. Louis: Telos Press).
LC: Caprioglio, S., Fubini, E. (eds.) (1965), Lettere dal carcere (Torino: Einaudi).
LC2: Santucci, A. (ed.) (1996), Lettere dal carcere. 1926–1937 (Palermo: Sellerio).
LT: Natoli, A., Daniele, C. (eds.) (1997), A. Gramsci, T. Schucht, Lettere. 1926–1935 (Tori-
no: Einaudi).
NM: Capioglio, S. (ed.) (1984), Il nostro Marx (1918–1919) (Torino: Einaudi).
PN: Buttigieg, J.A. (ed.) (1992, 1996, 2007), Prison Notebooks (New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press), 3 vols.
ppw: Bellamy, R. (ed.) (1994), Pre-Prison Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press).
Q: Gerratana, V. (ed.) (1975), Quaderni del carcere (Torino: Einaudi), 4 vols.
spi: Spriano, P. (ed.), (1973), Scritti politici (Roma: Editori Riuniti), 3 vols.
spn: Hoare, Q., Nowell-Smith, G. (eds.) (1971), Selection from the Prison Notebooks (New
York: International Publishers).
SPW-1: Hoare, Q., Nowell Smith, G. (eds.) (1977), Selections from Political Writings, 1910–
1920 (London: Lawrence & Wishart; New York: International Publisher).
SPW-2: Hoare, Q. (ed.) (1978), Selections from Political Writings (1921–1926) (New York:
International Publishers; London: Lawrence and Wishart).

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Index

Adler, Max 46 Cadorna, Luigi 73

Agazzi, Emilio 137, 138, 143 Caesarism 23, 50
Ajello, Nello 132n36, 143 Calvino, Italo 131, 143
Albertini, Mario 131n29, 143 Cammett, John M. 147
Alighieri, Dante viii Campanella, Tommaso 132
Althusser, Louis 47, 49, 50, 53, 55, 64, Candeloro, Giorgio 140, 141, 143
116n7, 122 Caprioglio Caprioglio, Sergio 24, 68, 89,
Americanism 22, 30, 33, 39, 41, 96, 97, 112, 155
102, 141 Caracciolo, Alberto 137n66, 143
Americanization 34 Carlucci, Alessandro 3n3, 11, 102n19,
Anderson, Perry 108n8, 113, 116n11, 122 103, 151n25, 152
anti-fascist movements 16 Carnoy, Martin 94n1, 103
Aricó, Jose María 146n3, 152 Cassirer, Ernst 39, 42–44, 46
Asor Rosa, Alberto 138–140, 143 Cavalcanti, Paul 68, 78, 155
Avanti! 4, 9, 11, 80 Cavour, Camillo Benso conte di 121
Ayers, Alison J. 102n20, 103 Cecchi, Ottavio 134, 140n79–80, 141n86–87,
144
Babb, James 150n18, 152 Chakrabarty, Dipesh 114, 115, 122
Balibar, Étienne 55 Chatterjee, Partha 114, 120–122
Bartoli, Matteo 133 Chiarotto, Francesca 131n29, 134n37, 144
Bauman, Zygmunt 149 civil society 63, 76, 77, 82–84, 86, 93–101, 105,
Bebel, August 130 108–113, 115, 116, 118, 121, 149
Bellamy, Richard 11, 94n2, 95n4, 96n6, political society 83, 86, 94–101, 110, 111,
103, 122, 155 115, 116, 121
Belligni, Silvano 96n6, 103 civilization 29, 33, 34, 35, 87, 88
Bergson, Henri 70 classes 7, 9, 22, 31–33, 35, 36, 40, 53, 66, 73,
Berlinguer, Mario 129n17, 143 76, 80, 83, 87, 96, 99, 107, 141, 142
Berneri, Camillo 127 exploited class 23
Bernstein, Eduard 38, 130 farmers 5
Berti, Giuseppe 18 ruling classes 9, 31, 32
biennio rosso 72, 76 workers 5, 10, 52, 70, 72, 76, 80, 81, 84, 85,
Bobbio, Norberto 95n5, 103 102, 106, 127–130, 134
Bochmann, Klaus 152 working class 6, 23, 35, 36, 40, 74, 76, 81,
Bolsheviks 7, 9, 10, 23, 72–74, 128 82, 84, 106, 128, 129, 131, 136, 139, 141, 142
Bonetti, Paolo 96n6, 103 comintern 21, 23
Boothman, Derek 11, 36, 46, 68, 102n19, communism 3, 5, 7–10, 23, 24, 31, 34, 60, 79,
103, 147, 155 81, 83, 85, 87, 89, 133, 146
Bordiga, Amedeo 16 international communism 3, 34
Bruno, Giordano 132 international communist movement 21,
Buci-Glucksmann, Christine 94n1, 103 33
Bukharin, Nikolaj Ivanovič 41, 44, 45, 64, 65 international proletarian movement 22
Buozzi, Bruno 127 Communist Party 3, 16, 17, 21, 36, 86, 105, 134
Burgio, Alberto 79n2, 86n22, 87n29, 89 Italian communist party 21, 36, 134, 138
Buttigieg, Joseph Anthony 36, 46, 55, 68, 78, Russian communist party 17
89, 103, 113, 122, 147n9, 152, 155 Soviet party 21

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conjuncture 47, 63, 75 Finocchiaro, Maurice A. 98n9, 104

corporatism 4, 93, 96 Ford, Henry 39–41
Cosmo, Umberto 133 Fordism 33, 39, 41, 141
cosmopolitanism 31, 35, 36 Forenza, Eleonora 135n49, 136n57, 144
Cospito, Giuseppe 55, 65n23, 67–69, 105n1, Forgacs, David 11, 36, 55, 68, 78, 155
107n6, 112, 113, 151, 152 Fortini, Franco 140
Coutinho, Carlos Nelson 98n10, 103, Francioni, Gianni 22n17, 25, 55, 108n8,
151n24, 152 112, 113, 142, 151n23, 152
Cox, Robert W. 102n20, 103 Frétigné, Jean-Yves 151n25, 153
crisis 5, 7, 21, 22, 24, 29–35, 39, 41–44, 77, Freud, Sigmund 136
98–100, 104, 123 Frosini, Fabio 48n8, 49n9, 55, 68, 78,
crisis in European civilization 29 107n6, 113
crisis of 1929 23 Fubini, Elsa 24, 155
culture of crisis 39
economic crisis 30, 31, 77 Galasso, Giuseppe 148n14, 153
Croce, Benedetto 8, 33, 38, 39, 41, 44–46, 59, Gallo, Nicolò 136
61, 64–67, 69, 131–133, 137–139, 144, Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand 120, 121
148n15, 149, 153 Garibaldi, Giuseppe 18, 121
Garin, Eugenio 137, 138, 144
D’Anna, Giovanni 132n32, 133n37, 144 Gatto, Marco 140n77–78, 144
D’Ina, Gabriella 131n30, 144 Gentile, Giovanni 8, 59, 64, 95, 138, 149
d’Orsi, Angelo 3n2, 11, 17n6, 25, 143, 144, 147, Gerratana, Valentino 11, 22n18, 25, 36, 46,
148n13, 151n25, 153 55, 67, 68, 69, 78, 89, 103, 107n7, 113, 122,
Daniele, Chiara 25, 46, 130n22, 140n81, 144 135n49, 136n56, 144, 146, 152, 155
Davidson, Alastair 151n25, 153 Giacomini, Ruggero 17n5–6, 25
De Rosa, Gabriele 95n4, 103 Giasi, Francesco 148
De Ruggiero, Guido 133 Giolitti, Giovanni 5, 70
De Sanctis, Francesco Saverio 135 Graf, Ruedi 152
Del Carria, Renzo 142, 144 Gramsci, Delio 129
Debenedetti, Giacomo 134–136, 144, 145 Gramsci, Gennaro 70
Derrida, Jacques 47 Grelle, Bruce 150n20, 153
Diaz, Furio 139n72, 144 Grieco, Ruggero 17
dictatorship of the proletariat 10, 80, 84, Guha, Ranajiit 120, 122, 146, 153
85, 133 Guramushi, Alighiero 152
Dimitrov, Georgi 127
Hadler, Frank 150, 154
Engels, Friedrich 48n6, 55, 56, 61, 62, 65, 67, Hall, Stuart 114, 118, 119, 123, 146, 153
89, 106, 111, 130, 144 Haug, Wolfgang Fritz 152
Ercoli, Ercole 127 Haugaard, Mark 95n5, 98n10, 99n12, 104
Establet, Roger 55 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 39, 48, 59,
74, 93, 109, 110
Fabre, Giorgio 17n5, 25 hegemony 23, 32, 34, 55, 66, 78, 83, 87, 94,
Farbman, Michael 88 96–98, 101–115, 117–123, 137, 138, 142,
fascism 22, 36n20, 96, 97, 99, 112, 141 149, 152–154
Femia, Jospeh 98n10, 103 Heidegger, Martin 39, 42–44, 46
Ferrata, Giansiro 136 Henriques, Luiz Sérgio 152
Ferri, Franco 103, 136n57, 146n1, 153 historical bloc 23, 55, 66, 68, 115, 118, 119
Filippini, Michele 114n2, 122, 149n17, 153 historical materialism 8, 9, 41, 48, 49, 60, 61,
Fillafer, Franz L. 154 64, 65, 67, 68, 88, 103

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158 Index

base 48, 65, 68, 140 Liguori, Guido 55, 68, 69, 77n19, 78, 104, 127,
mode of production 48, 65, 84, 120 130n20, 139n70, 144, 147, 148n13, 153
relations of production 48, 75, 81 Litri, Marina 153
structure 48, 54, 60, 65, 67, 68, 77, 79, 83, Lukács, György 67
85, 87, 98, 108, 110, 139 Luperini, Romano 130n20, 140, 144
superstructure 48, 54, 65–68, 77, 83, 98, Lussana, Fiamma 150n19, 154
110, 139
historicism 44, 47, 104, 137 Macherey, Pierre 55
absolute historicism 47, 137 Machiavelli, Niccolò , viii 21, 111, 116,
anti-historicism 44 122, 133
Hoare, Quintin 25, 37, 46, 55, 68, 78, 89, 103, Macis, Enrico 17
113, 122, 152, 155 Manduchi, Patrizia 149n17, 154
Hobsbawm, Eric John Ernest 130n23, 144 Mangoni, Luisa 129n18, 144
Marchi, Alessandra 149n17, 154
idealism 8, 9, 59, 70, 137 Martelli, Michele 96n6, 104
neo-idealism 70 Martin, James 95n5, 100n15, 103, 104
ideology 39, 54, 88, 93, 119, 123, 138, 153 Martinelli, Renzo 4n5, 11
Igger, Georg 148n16, 153, 154 Marx, Karl 8, 9, 22, 47–49, 53–56, 59–81,
Il Grido del popolo 6, 11 83, 85, 89, 106, 109, 111, 130, 138, 142,
imperialism 7, 33, 154 144, 155
intellectuals 23, 32, 33, 34n17, 35, 39, 40, 52, Marxism 8, 9, 38, 44, 60, 62, 63, 64, 67, 70, 71,
55, 66, 110, 115, 129, 130, 131, 134, 137–140, 74–77, 81, 117, 137, 138, 140, 146
146, 149 Mastellone, Salvo 100n15, 104
organic intellectuals 23, 115, 134 Mathiez, Albert 72
internationalism 4, 31, 35, 36 Mazzini, Giuseppe 18, 99, 121
Ives, Peter 102n19, 104 McNally, Mark 104
Medici, Rita 72n7, 78
Jacobinism 72, 139 Mensheviks 80
Jacobin revolution 72 Merli, Stefano 142, 144
Jacobins 72 Mezzadra, Sandro 114n3, 123
Jehle, Peter 152 Michels, Robert 6
Middell, Matthias 150n18, 154
Kant, Immanuel 39, 42, 43, 44, 46 Monticone, Alberto 6n7, 11
Kautsky, Karl 73, 130 Morera, Esteve 94n3, 104
Kerenskij, Aleksandr Fëdorovič 73 Mouffe, Chantal 117, 123
Kojéve, Alexandre 39 Mukherjee, Supriya 148n16, 153
Kuck, Gerhard 152 Muscetta, Carlo 132
Mussolini, Benito 3
L’Ordine Nuovo 10–12, 29, 36, 72, 89, 112 Musté, Marcello 137n64–65, 145
Labriola, Antonio 70, 128, 149
Laclau, Ernesto 114–119, 121, 123 Napolitano, Giorgio 132n31, 145
Lange, Friedrich-Albert Lange 65 nation-state 7, 54, 120
Lassalle, Ferdinand 84 central-bureaucratic state 94
Le Trosne, Guillaume 108 coercive state 82, 84
Lenin, Vladimir Il’ič 60, 72, 73, 75–77, 80, night-watchman state 82, 84
83, 85, 89, 111, 117, 142 national-popular 18, 23
Lentner, Howard H. 95n5, 98n10, 99n12, 104 nationalism 4, 31, 33, 35, 120
Leopardi, Giacomo 135 Natoli, Aldo 25, 46, 155

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Index 159

Nehru, Jawaharlal 120, 121 Bolshevik revolution 9, 80, 87, 89

Nenni, Pietro 127 February revolution 7, 71
Newton, Isaac 38, 41 October revolution 7, 60, 70, 71, 73–77,
Nogueira, Marco Aurélio 152 80
Nowell Smith, Geoffrey 25, 36, 37, 46, 55, 68, passive revolution 23, 33, 49, 112, 115, 116,
78, 89, 103, 113, 122, 152, 155 120, 121, 149
permanent revolution 49, 50, 55, 110
oligarchy 6 proletarian revolution 7, 71
Omodeo, Adolfo 133 revolutions of 1919 7, 9
Russian revolution 70, 72, 76, 77
Pala, Mauro 111n19, 113 socialist revolution 73, 74
Paladini Musitelli, Marina 140n76, 145 Ricardo, David 40, 41
Pane, Antonio 134n48, 145 Righi, Maria Luisa 4n5, 11, 147n8, 148, 154
Papini, Giovanni 70 Rosengarten, Frank 24, 46, 96n6, 104
Paris, Robert 152 Rosselli, Carlo 127
parliamentarianism 96 Rosselli, Nello 18
patriotism 4 Russo, Luigi 132–134, 145
Petronio, Giuseppe 140, 145
philosophy of praxis 45, 63, 66, 112, 132, Said, Edward 146, 154
138, 149 Salvadori, Massimo 10n14, 12
Piccone, Pedro 68, 78, 155 Salvatorelli, Luigi 133
Pirandello, Luigi 19, 33, 34n14, 133 Salvemini, Gaetano 5, 70
Pisacane, Carlo 99 Santarelli, Enzo 131n26–27–29, 133n38–39–
Pissarello, Giulia 150n19, 154 41–44, 134n46–48, 135n50–51–54–55,
Plechanov, Georgij Valentinovič 65 145
Portantiero, Juan Carlos 47, 56 Santucci, Antonio 24, 36, 78, 89, 155
Poulantzas, Nicos 94n1, 104 Sapegno, Natalino 140
pragmatism 70 Savinio, Alberto 131
Prezzolini, Giuseppe 70 Scalia, Gianni 137n66, 143
prison years 13, 14 Schirru, Giancarlo 149n17, 154
Formia 13, 14, 20, 23, 24, 154 Schucht, Giulia 16n4, 17–21, 24, 25
Regina Coeli 13, 14, 16 Schucht, Tania 8n11, 16, 24n21, 25, 46, 135
San Vittore 13, 14, 16–18 Scoccimarro, Mauro 17
Turi 13, 14, 19, 20, 23, 129 Second International 45, 73
productive forces 7, 48, 49, 96 Sereni, Emilio 141, 142n89, 145
proletarians 23, 60 Showstack Sassoon, Anne 146n1, 154
protectionism 7 socialism 3–11, 33, 71, 73, 74, 80, 139
socialist movement 31, 76
Racinaro, Roberto 45n9, 46 socialist party 3, 6, 70
Ragazzini, Dario 132n36, 136n56, Italian socialist party 3, 76
145 Sola, Giorgio 100n15, 104
Ragionieri, Ernesto 140, 141, 145 Sorel, George 38n2, 46, 70, 72
Rancière, Jacques 55 southern question 106, 107, 139
Rapone, Leonardo 3n1, 11 sovereignty 32, 101, 102
regulated society 81, 82, 84, 85 Soviet Union 81, 85–88
Repaci, Leonida 131 Spriano, Paolo 6n7, 10n14, 12, 68, 122, 155
revolution 7–10, 22, 23, 33, 34, 48–50, 55, 60, Sraffa, Piero 17, 24, 25
70–77, 79–81, 83–85, 89, 102, 106, 116, 142 Stochino, Giulia 16n3, 25

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160 Index

subalterns 23, 120, 121 Ustica 13, 14, 16, 25

subaltern groups 23, 115
Suppa, Silvio 20n13, 25 Vacca, Giuseppe 17n6, 25, 33n12, 34n16, 37,
105n2, 111n22, 113, 142, 143, 145, 147,
Tamburrano, Giuseppe 96n6, 104 149n17, 151n22, 153, 154
Tasca, Angelo 21 Vicario, Guido 134n48, 145
Taylorism 33 Vico, Giambattista 45, 132
temporality 38, 39, 42–44, 47, 50, 52–55 Vittorini, Elio 129, 130, 132
plural temporality 47, 50, 52, 53 von Beyme, Klaus 100n15, 104
Terracini, Umberto 17 Voza, Pasquale 55, 68n35, 69, 77n20, 78,
Texier, Jacques 95n5, 104 147n12, 153
Thatcher, Margaret 118, 119
Third international 7, 112 Wang, Edward Q. 148n16, 153, 154
Thomas, Peter 47, 56, 116n11, 123, 151n22, 154 war of movement 77, 110
Togliatti, Palmiro 17, 18, 60, 69, 127–134, 136, war of position 77, 102, 110, 115, 119, 142
137, 140, 142, 145 Williams, Raymond 146, 154
Tranfaglia, Nicola 144 world market 29, 102
translatability 41, 44, 45 World War 3, 7, 29, 75, 80
Treves, Claudio 73 great war 3, 41, 70
Tronti, Mario 137 First World War 29, 75
Trotsky, Lev 21, 105
Tuozzolo, Claudio 64n18, 69 Zaccaria, Giuseppe 131n30, 144
Turati, Filippo 73, 139
Turin 3, 4, 6, 7, 76, 106, 135, 136

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