Antonio Gramsci and the Heritage of Marxism

Abstract

More than fifty years have passed since the tragic death of Antonio Gramsci in Mussolini's Italy in 1937. It is, however, this death that has crowned him with glory, since in detention he wrote his magnum opus , the Prison Notebooks , a work that has given post-war Marxism a real facelift. Indeed, this posthumous recognition has placed Gramsci on a high pedestal; but the repository of his ideas has also been the target of intense attack and criticism simultaneously from the far Right and the extreme Left. While the Right alleges that Gramsci was a staunch Leninist, an exponent of the cult of the party and, therefore, no sympathizer of democracy, the charge levelled by the Left is that of reformism. Gramsci, the latter argues, twisted Marxism to the Right, advocated class compromise and virtually set the theoretical foundations of Eurocommunism. The Gramsci phenomenon becomes more complex if some other factors are taken into consideration. In the first place, Gramsci continues to be left out of the discussions of revolutionary strategy in the international communist movement in the sense that in the programmatic documents of the communist and workers' parties his name is scrupulously avoided. On the other hand, the advocates of Western Marxism greet his name with enthusiasm and appreciation. Gramsci, thus, turns out to be essentially an intellectual and not a political figure. Secondly, several shifts have taken place within the Italian Communist party (PCI) in regard to the evaluation of Gramsci. At one time, Togliatti described him as an ardent Leninist.